Archives for : Socialism

The deadly hypocrisy of Black Lives Matter

Posted by :webmaster On : June 19, 2020
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Category: Culture Wars, Humanism, Marriage, Socialism, Truth

“To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.”[1]

The above quote is from one of the twentieth century’s greatest truth tellers—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008). Born in Russia, Solzhenitsyn studied mathematics, philosophy, literature, and history at the university level. He was thrice decorated for personal heroism as a Russian Army Officer during the fight against the Nazis in World War II. In 1945 he was arrested for criticizing Stalin in private correspondence and sentenced to an eight-year term in a labor camp. From that experience he wrote One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which was published in 1962, the first of many books. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1974, he was stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the Soviet Union whereupon he moved to Vermont with his wife and four sons.[2]

I have taken time to briefly describe Solzhenitsyn’s background because his experiences and quiet words in defense of truth from such a man speaks far louder than the din of lies shouted by Black Lives Matter and their toadies including spineless politicians, the corrupt media, universities in name only, complicit mega-corporation billionaires, ranting Hollywood leftists, self-proclaimed “intellectuals,” and many corrupt voices/false teachers in the Church. Such lies cannot long stand against the timeless truth of which God is the author and finisher.

Regardless of their self-professed good intentions, the devil-doing of those leading and promoting Black Lives Matter is exposed by its own words on BLM’s official website[3] with regard to its beliefs and true objectives.

Black Lives Matter Beliefs and Goals

A thoughtful examination of just three of BLM’s goals gives a clear and frightening understanding of the damage that is being done in the war against the soul of American life and liberty including the culture at large and the average American family, black or white.

1. “We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.”

BLM wishes to dismantle cisgender privilege. The term “cisgender” means “of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.”[4] Although the word may be unfamiliar to many, the concept that the two sexes equate to two genders is obvious to the vast majority of Americans and needs no label to explain it unless one is of the “woke” crowd.

Carla A. Pfeffer expands on Merriam Webster’s definition: “I grew up in a family with a cisgender and heterosexually identified mother and father of the same race (White) who had 2 children when they were well into their late 20s and early 30s and after they legally married with the full support of both their families.”[5]

For BLM, cisgender privilege has been transformed to be equivalent to white privilege. Such privilege cannot be eliminated without suppressing the carriers of this disease (privilege) by denigrating their belief systems. Therefore, the supposed evil that adherents to BLM ideology desire to dismantle are the dominant Judeo-Christian beliefs in the nuclear family, heterosexuality, marriage, and monogamy from which “white privilege” supposedly arises. However, the fatal flaw of BLM’s ideology regarding cisgender families is that the very nature of these beliefs is color-blind. To the contrary, the strength of cisgender families (of whatever color) rests on the universal truth of the values, beliefs, and structure of Judeo-Christian families.

2. “We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”

Now we come to “trans” by which is meant transgender and defined as “of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity differs from the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.”[6] And trans does not mean just male and female but a whole alphabet of identities such as LGBTQ+. However, deny it as they might, it is one’s biological sex that determines gender, and there are just two. BLM calls this belief being in the “tight grip of heteronormative thinking.”

3. “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”

BLM wishes to disrupt (disorder, upset) the nuclear family structure by supporting (replacing) it with extended families and “villages” (also infamously promoted by Hillary Clinton). This group care for children promises to limit such care “to the degree that mothers, parents, and children (what about fathers?) are comfortable.” Tell that to parents who have unsuccessfully objected to the things taught in their child’s classroom that made them uncomfortable (e.g., transgenderism).

History reveals the fatal flaw of BLM ideology with regard to the nuclear family, marriage, monogamy, and heterosexuality.

1. Nuclear family, marriage, and monogamy

Daniel Patrick Moynihan retired from the United States Senate (Democratic Senator from New York) in 2000. Near the beginning of his career he was an assistant Secretary of Labor in Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. At the time of his retirement, the senator was asked to describe the biggest change he had seen in his forty years of government service. Articulate and intellectual, the distinguished public servant, having served both Democratic and Republican presidents, replied, “The biggest change, in my judgment, is that the family structure has come apart all over the North Atlantic world” and had occurred in “an historical instant. Something that was not imaginable forty years ago had happened.” Author of the 1965 Moynihan Report officially known as “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action”, Moynihan knew that of which he spoke.[7]

Enormously controversial at the time of its release, the report continues to be a topic of debate in the twenty-first century. The report characterized the instability of the black families in America and the importance of the family unit in providing that stability.

At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro Family. It is the fundamental source of the weakness of the Negro community at the present time…The role of the family in shaping character and ability is so pervasive as to be easily overlooked. The family is the basic social unit of American life; it is the basic socializing unit. By and large, adult conduct in society is learned as a child…the child learns a way of looking at life in his early years through which all later experience is viewed and which profoundly shapes his adult conduct.[8]

Writing shortly after Moynihan’s perceptive summation of the condition of the family structure, William Bennett noted the deep concern of Americans with regard to the family. Bennett pointed to the general instability of the American family and the contributing factors such as the decline in the status and centrality of marriage in society, substantially greater percentage of out-of-wedlock births, and the significant increase in co-habitation. With the decline of social perception and necessity of matrimony, children are less valued, more neglected, more vulnerable to non-family influences, and have less resources devoted for their care and benefit. Bennett wrote that, “Public attitudes toward marriage, sexual ethics, and child-rearing have radically altered for the worse. In Sum, the family has suffered a blow that has no historical precedent—and one that has enormous ramifications for American society.”[9]

Two decades have elapsed since Moynihan’s diagnosis of the disintegration of the family unit as the major modern affliction of the Western world and Bennett’s reporting of Americans’ purported concern for the survival of the family. It is no longer the problem of the black population. The deterioration of the family unit is pervasive and crosses all ethnic, socio-economic, and religious lines although the poor and disadvantaged bear a greater portion of the misery. Yet, there has been no public hue and cry to reverse the decline, no urgency or sense of crisis in dealing with the problem, no new series of government studies explaining the situation, and no investigative reporting or meaningful media attention regarding the most profound change in society that has had no historical precedent. Why is this so? The answer is that the solutions to reverse the decline and devastation of marriage and the family unit stand as polar opposites of the prevailing and pervasive humanistic worldview of which Black Lives Matter is the current purveyor of this cultural carnage. Its own website condemns it.

2. Heterosexuality

Heterosexual marriage is the central organizing concept in society. By contrast, homosexuality is a disorganizing concept with regard to human relationships and ultimately disorganizing in building stable, enduring societies. Heterosexual marriage orders the soul whereas sexual intimacy outside of marriage, co-habitation, divorce (apart from infidelity and willful desertion), and homosexuality (with or without benefit of a civil union) are inherently disorderly and destructive. History and human nature attest to these assertions for according to researchers, heterosexual married life as opposed to all other similar social arrangements provides greater financial security, better health and sex, and a longer and better life.[10]

Bennett called marital love that rests upon a foundation of unconditional commitment as “…safer, more enduring, and more empowering that any sentiment yet discovered or any human arrangement yet invented.” He credits these attributes to the basic heterosexual complementarity of man and woman joined together as one in marital love. The complementariness of the relationship is based on the differences, not just the physical but also the emotional and psychological. As the physical differences make sexual union possible, so too do the emotional and psychological differences of the marriage partners complement and complete each other.[11] The union becomes stronger than its parts.

In the longer term, homosexuality and same-sex marriage undermine society. The central cultural vision upon on which the nation was founded was based on biblical Christianity and its understanding of the nature of man and his origins. The truth of the Christian worldview of marriage as being between a man and woman is supported by the fact that it is a cultural universal imprinted on human nature and common to all people groups, all cultures, and all ages in history. Heterosexual marriage is the well-spring of civilization, and its centrality in the human experience is indisputable. Humans have fashioned numerous methods by which to organize their societies, but the common link to all is the family unit—a father, a mother, and children living together in bonds of committed caring.

God created heterosexual marriage as a cultural universal, and the strength and unity provided by this universal is the foundation of a strong and enduring society. Where traditional marriage is in broad disarray, as it is in most Western societies, it does not disprove the truth of the heterosexual marriage universal but rather speaks of the ravages caused by the ascending humanist worldview. Where traditional marriage declines, so do those societies decline that allow it to occur.
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During the turmoil in America of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Russell Kirk wrote The Roots of the American Order, a book of exceptional scope and insight into the origins of America. Summarizing the words of Simone Weil, Kirk states that “…order is the path we follow, or the pattern by which we live with purpose and meaning. Above food and shelter, she continues, we must have order. The human condition is insufferable unless we perceive a harmony, an order in existence.” Kirk identified two roots of this order: the order of the soul (moral order) and the order of the republic (social order), and they are intricately linked and dependent on each other. Disorder of one leads to disorder of the other.[12]

The American order that was established by the founders was not an “ideology” nor a “thing” created for the moment. Rather, the American order is a living culture whose roots have grown over millennia and were watered by the sound principles of moral and civil social order arising from eternal truths and the revelation of God to the Hebrews and the first century Christians. America was established on these eternal truths and the revelation in which the Founders believed, and upon these pillars they built the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Kirk’s roots of order are the same roots of which Solzhenitsyn spoke in the quote given at the beginning of this article. BLM is attempting to sever those roots along with America’s cultural norms, traditions, beliefs, and even our history and that of Western civilization. Those severed roots are to be replaced with a humanistic cultural Marxist society whose citizens will be subject to machinations of an autonomous socialistic state and its evil overseers. Such a society will be devoid of the three essential elements of the good society: divine order, justice, and freedom.

Do not fool yourselves by blithely dismissing the challenge of BLM. Our present struggle is an existential war of the highest magnitude between good and evil, and the conflict is spreading around the world. What must Americans to do who love this nation and its history? For the answer we look once again to the wisdom of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in which he gives us both the diagnosis of our plight and a prescription for preserving America’s Judeo-Christian cultural heritage and its attendant freedom.

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it (evil) will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers . . . we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”[13]

“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.”[14]

Larry G. Johnson
June 19, 2020

[1] “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,” AZQuotes, https://www.azquotes.com/author/13869-Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn (accessed June 18, 2020).
[2] “Biography,” The Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center, https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/his-life-overview/biography (accessed June 18, 2020).
[3] “What We Believe,” Black Lives Matter, https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ (accessed June 18, 2020).
[4] “Cisgender,” Merriam Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cisgender (accessed June 18, 2020).
[5] Ibid.
[6] “Transgender,” Merriam Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transgender (accessed June 18, 2020).
[7] William J. Bennett, The Broken Hearth, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 2, 85.
[8] Lee Rainwater and William L. Yancey, The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy, (Cambridge Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1967), p. 3.
[9] Bennett, pp. 1-2.
[10] Ibid., pp. 14-188.
[11] Ibid., pp. 186-187
[12] Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, (Washington D. C.: Regnery-Gateway, 1991), pp. 3-5.
[13] Solzhenitsyn, AZ Quotes.
[14] Ibid.

“Please, may I…?” – Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : June 9, 2017
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Category: Archives, Capitalism, Constitution, Government, Socialism

In The Permission Society, Timothy Sandefur wrote that there are two ways for government to regulate the actions of people. The first is the nuisance system which states that people have a right to freely act however they choose unless it will harm someone else. This includes one’s free choice as what to do with their property unless it harms his neighbor. The drawback of this system is that it is reactive. On occasion the danger of harm may be of great magnitude, either immediately or cumulative over time. Under these circumstances, the nuisance system does not preemptively protect a neighbor. On these occasions it may not be possible for the harmed neighbor to be adequately and/or timely compensated for his loss.[1] Where the potential for this type of harm is present, the deficiency in a reactive nuisance system can be mitigated through prudent but infrequent intervention and prior restraint.

The second system to regulate actions of people is the permit system which forbids people from doing anything with his property unless approved by the appropriate authorities. The permit or “prior restraint” system is proactive and does not allow a person to act until he meets the requirements dictated by the governing authorities.[2] Sandefur lists six destructive consequences of the permit system.

1. “Rent-seeking” – Even under a permit system, the laws of supply and demand continue to operate. Permits become valuable because everyone cannot have one, and in a business environment time and money are spent to acquire and preserve the coveted permit. Since the 1930s, the power of government to redistribute wealth or opportunities has grown exponentially “either by transferring money from some people to others or by granting licenses to do profitable things that are otherwise illegal.” Payments to government in whatever form they take (fees, concessions, etc.) are a form of rent charged for the privileges dispensed by government, i.e., rent-seeking. The government uses these rents for purposes that may or may not be worthwhile, but it is the government that decides what those purposes will be, right or wrong, without consultation with the electorate. And the rent received by the government will ultimately be paid by the citizens themselves.[3]

2. Knowledge problem – The permit system is based on the faulty assumption that government officials and bureaucrats in charge of granting permits have the knowledge and information necessary to make the right choices when deciding what should and should not be permitted. If the regulators/permit issuers make wrong choices, they are seldom held accountable.[4]

3. Enforcement by unelected bureaucrats – Once issued, the privileges granted by permits must be monitored and their limitations enforced. Permit issuance decisions based on vague or confusing laws or criteria effectively delegate power to administrators and judges to enforce the terms of the permits even though their decisions may be arbitrary, irrational, unfair, and pose a conflict of interest. It is difficult and extremely expensive to challenge the decisions of unelected bureaucrats and their self-created fiefdoms which have become a hostile fourth branch of government unaccountable to the electorate and certainly not envisioned by the Constitution.[5]

4. Corruption and forced concessions – Officials with power to issue permits and regulate the execution of the services granted by those permits are in the position to demand something in return. The first amounts to blatant corruption when government officials solicit and receive innumerable forms of personal gain or favor in exchange for permits or regulatory approvals. The second type is the demand by government for concessions to the government to advance or accomplish some governmentally-determined general social need, e.g., the surrender of a portion of one’s property in exchange for permission to sell or develop the rest.[6]

5. Violation of illegal requirements – Some permit requirements may be illegal in themselves. When a permit holder violates the terms of the permit, he is considered to have violated the law. Yet, the terms violated may themselves be a violation of the law. Effectively, it is difficult for the permit holder to defend himself against violating the terms of the permit by challenging the illegality of those requirements.[7] In other words, the permit holder cannot get beyond being judged guilty of violating the illegal conditions of the permit.

6. Innovation is stifled – Sandefur believes that the most troubling aspect of the permit system is that it stifles innovation. He calls innovation a fragile and elusive quality, a potential, a chance for the future. It can’t be quantified, measured, qualified, or justified. Innovation is vital to a growing and robust society. But the permit system often wants people who want to “start a new business to prove to the satisfaction of the government regulators that there is a ‘public need’ for the business before the person may set up shop.”[8]

If the citizens of a society value their freedom above all else, then the drawbacks of a pervasive permit system are fatal to freedom and the survival of a society. Article V of the Bill of Rights states that men should not “…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

This concern for the inalienable right of property is not just an academic exercise. The loss of this inalienable right impacts virtually every individual citizen in ways that are often lost in the daily information overload amidst the fast-paced buzz of life. The following example is just one of many well-intended actions of social engineers that erode the fundamental freedoms associated with one’s property and possessions.

Tulsa’s governmental fix for food deserts

A Tulsa City Counselor proposed that the City of Tulsa impose a moratorium on new grocery stores in council districts with food deserts, an area deemed to be deficient in full-service grocery stores. Counselor Vanessa Hall-Harper believes that a moratorium would solve what is believed to a problem of too many small grocery stores which prevent developers and larger full-service grocery stores from building in areas of the city considered to be food deserts. She claims that a lack of full-service stores is contributing to the decline of general health conditions in these areas.[9]

Hall-Harper cites one example in which a few of her constituents protested the issuance of a permit for a new Dollar General store in North Tulsa which they feel is inadequate. She believes this type of store discourages the building of full-service stores in so-called food deserts.[10] It would appear that for Hall-Harper and the protesters, investment of private funds in the City of Tulsa are to be dictated by political concerns and agendas as opposed to free-market forces.

But this is not government over-reach according to Hall-Harper. She says that the moratorium would be temporary and that it wouldn’t target any specific store or chains. “In my opinion, developers should work with communities.”[11]

The larger concern is that proposals of this nature have become typical of the thinking of elected government officials and especially bureaucrats who have become virtually independent and unanswerable to the electorate. Instead of a free society, we have become a “Please, may I…?” society. In a free society, a mom-and-pop grocer or a Dollar General are free to survey an area, determine if there is a need, and find an economically viable way to meet that need. These entrepreneurs must still consult local authorities about zoning matters, building permits, and the like. But, in a “Please, may I…?” society, they must also consult the local social engineers to determine if the individual or business owners’ plans fit in with the social agenda for the betterment of the community (as determined by the permission givers), even if the supposed betterment infringes on the rights and bank accounts of certain classes of citizens.

Who will be hurt by the City of Tulsa social planners’ scheme to address the lack of supermarkets in certain parts of Tulsa? The real victims will be the mom-and-pop grocers who have dreams of owning their own business, a grocery store that may one day grow into supermarket. Another victim will be the Dollar Generals of the world who research an area and determine that there are sufficient potential customers who desire what they have to offer. The local community will suffer because it will be deprived of another business to supply them with what they want and need and who will also benefit from jobs created for the area’s residents. The land owner who wants to sell his property to Dollar General will suffer because he will lose the proceeds from the sale of his land, and the contractor who would have built or remodeled the building for Dollar General will suffer of a loss of revenue because the project is prohibited.

Such arbitrary actions of government (city, state, and federal) stand in opposition to the inalienable right of property which transcends even the Constitution’s documentation of those rights. These actions have a chilling effect on developers who may be disinclined to begin future projects for fear of payments that will be extracted by government officials in the form of concessions and fees to meet some unrelated social need identified by social planners in exchange for permission to do business. This is little more than a legalized form of extortion, i.e., protection money paid to government. But the greatest damage among both the populace and government officials is the loss of the simple concept of freedom upon which the nation was founded.
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This article has very briefly dealt with matters pertaining to the loss of freedom to do what one wishes with one’s property and possessions. This loss of freedom has occurred because the emergent permission society is dominated by a government and its bureaucracies that have intruded into the private and business affairs of the citizenry.

As discussed in Part I, the permission society began with the massive intrusion of government into the lives of its citizens during the 1930s under new, liberalized interpretations of the general welfare clause of the Constitution. Concurrently, government expansion began in Roosevelt’s New Deal years and accelerated with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society of the 1960s. However, the exponential growth of government intrusion into the minutest details of the daily lives of American citizens has become suffocating over the last two decades.

Perhaps the best summation of the outcome of massive governmental intrusion comes from Alexis De Tocqueville in his 1835 Democracy in America. He had a prophet’s foresight into the reasons for America’s loss of freedom as it slides into the permission society whose destination is socialism and inevitably totalitarianism.

We forget that it is, above all, in the details that we run the risk of enslaving men…Subjection in the minor things of life is obvious every day and is experienced indiscriminately by all citizens. It does not cause them to lose hope but it constantly irks them until they give up the exercise of their will. It gradually blots out their mind and enfeebles their spirit …

I may add that they will soon lose the capacity to exercise the great and only privilege open to them. The democratic nations which introduced freedom into politics at the same time that they were increasing despotism in the administrative sphere have been led into the strangest paradoxes. Faced with the need to manage small affairs where common sense can be enough, they reckon citizens are incompetent. When it comes to governing the whole state, they give these citizens immense prerogatives. They turn them by degrees into playthings of the ruler or his masters, higher than kings or lower than men. Having exhausted all the various electoral systems without finding one which suited them, they look surprised and continue to search, as if the effects they see had far more to do with the country’s constitution than with that of the electorate.[12] [emphasis added]

As noted in Part I, the intent of the Founders in proposing the addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution was to foster greater trust in government by adding language to limit or restrict the ability of government to abuse its powers by infringing on the inalienable rights of its citizens. But the leaders of American government over the last century have so eroded the meaning of the Constitution and the intent of the Founders that trust in government is at an all time low. Once we trusted in God from whom those inalienable rights flow. We are now told that we must trust in the leaders of the permission society from whom all privileges are dispensed to the greatest number for the greatest good.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Timothy Sandefur, The Permission Society, (New York, London: Encounter Books, 2016), pp. 28-29.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., p. 29.
[4[ Ibid., p. 30-31.
[5] Ibid., p. 32-34.
[6] Ibid., pp. 34-35.
[7] Ibid., p. 35.
[8] Ibid., p 36.
[9] Jarrel Wade, “Grocery store proposal on tap,” Tulsa World, May 9, 2017, A-1
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 807-808.

“Please, may I…?” – Part I

Posted by :webmaster On : June 2, 2017
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Category: Archives, Capitalism, Constitution, Government, Socialism

The word inalienable (a.k.a. unalienable) has numerous synonyms: unchallengeable, absolute, immutable, unassailable, incontrovertible, indisputable, and undeniable are just a few. This is the word Thomas Jefferson chose to describe the rights of all mankind in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Because this phrase has become so familiar to many of us who have read and revered these truths for a lifetime, they tend to become somewhat of a cliché devoid of the rich meaning and implications that are still applicable in measuring the degree to which modern government accomplishes its purpose. First, men have certain rights which are absolute. Second, these absolute rights are not bestowed by government but endowed by their Creator. Third, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are just three among other inalienable rights. And fourth, these inalienable rights are incapable of being alienated, surrendered, transferred, or altered.

In 1789, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution of the new republic memorialized several of these inalienable rights. The purpose of the Bill of Rights (the Amendments) is found in its Preamble. Congress wished to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers by proposing a Bill of Rights that would add “further declaratory and restrictive clauses” to the Constitution to improve public confidence in government. In other words, the Congress was asking the various states to ratify these Amendments to further restrict governmental abuse and thereby increase confidence in government. The Amendments described several of these rights and their associated freedoms.

Freedom or privilege?

Timothy Sandefur’s book The Permission Society describes how the ruling class has turned America’s constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms into privileges. Sandefur says that to be free means that one is able to make his own decisions, but Sandefur emphasized that such freedom did not mean that one had a right to do whatever he pleases regardless of the harm caused others. Rather, freedom meant that a person was able to follow his own will and choices with regard to his person, actions, possessions, and property without having to obey the arbitrary and rapacious will of others.[1]

To the degree that we must ask someone else to let us act, we do not have rights but privileges – licenses that are granted, on limited term, from someone who stands above us.[2] [emphasis added]

When the citizens of a free society reach a point (or a degree) that their right to act according to their own will and choices is outweighed by the privileges granted by their government and its complicit bureaucracies, then it is no longer a free society but a permission society. In such a society the citizen no longer boldly proclaims “I will…” but with hat in hand and eyes downcast, he shuffles up to his betters and mumbles “Please, may I…?”

This change of condition does not happen all at once in a free society. Rather, it occurs much the same way as a cancer attacks the body. The symptoms are minor at first but grow to the point of consciousness that something is not right in the body. In the early stages of moving from a free society to a permission society, the social planners provide soothing promises and placebos to soften the minor discomforts and inconveniences of life in a permission society. But in time as a society surrenders ever greater amounts of its freedom, the will to act by citizens holding the cherished but distant memory of freedom becomes too weak to resist their ever growing bondage to the rulers of the permission society. A free society can be saved only by radical surgery to remove the spreading cancer of the social planners and their bag of privileges to be bestowed to the inmates of the permission society.

Government fails when it does not accomplish the purpose for which it was instituted—to secure the inalienable rights of its citizens. In this two part series, we shall look at how the American government over the last century has eroded this confidence in government by not only failing to secure these inalienable rights but which has aggressively abused those rights for its own purposes. Specifically, we shall look at those inalienable rights associated with property which have been greatly abused by a heavy-handed, oppressive government and its supporting bureaucracy.

The inalienable right of property

We begin with a quote from an address by Abraham Lincoln to the New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association.

Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence…I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.[3]

Lincoln’s short homily on the value of property as a positive good and an encourager to industry and enterprise is important. Lincoln’s words regarding property are admirable but utilitarian by nature. Those words do not rise to the status of an inalienable right as defined by the Constitution. The inalienable right to have and use one’s property as he desires is more than something with a calculable valuable that can be weighed in the balances against some competing thing.

Richard M. Weaver wrote that, “Almost every trend of the day points to an identification of right with the purpose of the state and that, in turn, with the utilitarian greatest material happiness for the greatest number.” Weaver argues that private property is the last metaphysical right remaining because it does not depend on some measure of social usefulness that can be bent to the greatest good for the greatest number. State control of the material elements of a society positions it to allow the denial of freedom, but private property and personal income stand as a bulwark and provides a “…sanctuary against pagan statism.”[4] The biblical worldview which was the foundation of Western civilization led to boundaries on the power of the state. As a result the power of government to dictate or interfere with private transactions was limited which supported and encouraged economic freedom.[5]

Beginning of the permission society

Prior to 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court held that:

The preservation of property…is a primary object of the social compact…The legislature, therefore, had no authority to make an act divesting one citizen of his freehold, and vesting it in another, without a just compensation. It is inconsistent with the principles of reason, justice and moral rectitude; it is incompatible with the comfort, peace and happiness of mankind; it is contrary to the principles of social alliance in every free government; and lastly, it is contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution.[6]

Beginning in 1936, the Supreme Court’s liberal interpretations of the “general welfare” clause of the Constitution have dramatically enlarged the powers of the federal government and encroached on fundamental property rights through its welfare programs.[7] This liberal interpretation significantly expanded what the legislature could do with regard to providing for the “general welfare” of the United States.

The debate as to the meaning of the “general welfare” clause began with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and continues until the present day. Rather than continue the argument, let us evaluate the outcome of the distortion of the meaning of the “general welfare” clause which began in the 1930s. The results of this new liberal interpretation have caused an unprecedented assault on right of private property through:

• Eminent domain laws
• Diminution of the right of contract and obligations thereunder
• Oppressive income and property tax systems
• Onerous limitations on the possession and use of property through regulation[8]

It is in this last area of limitations on the possession and use of private property that the “Please, may I…?” society has evolved and replaced freedom with privileges. This assault on private property occurs through excessive governmental regulation which is fostered by a pervasive humanistic worldview. Humanism is intrinsically socialistic. A socialistic government allows its humanist elite to level society by their attempts to parcel out the greatest material happiness for the greatest number. This is accomplished through an onerous regulatory process which is the skeletal structure of all socialistic governments.[9] One example of this monolithic regulatory umbrella is found in Humanist Manifesto II as it proposes to create an international authority to control the environment and population growth.

…the door is open to alternative economic systems…The world community must engage in cooperative planning concerning the use of rapidly depleting resources. The planet earth must be considered a single ecosystem. Ecological damage, resource depletion, and excessive population growth must be checked by international concord.[10] [emphasis in original]

Yet, at the same time, the Manifesto self-righteously states that, “…bureaucratic structures should be held to a minimum. People are more important than…regulations.” In spite of these platitudes, calls for minimal regulations are disingenuous for humanists know that cooperative planning is code for regulation, and socialistically-oriented societies require massive amounts of regulation.[11]

In both Part I and II of these articles, our discussion is limited to loss of the inalienable right of private property through regulation in which one’s ownership and use of his or her property is no longer an inalienable right but a privilege to be dispensed by government. Such regulation has allowed unjust confiscation of private property without due compensation, limitations on the use of one’s property (which is in effect a taking of private property), and devaluation of private property through regulatory excesses. In Part II, we shall look at the two principal means by which government may regulate the actions of people and the consequences of each. One supports freedom and the other champions privilege.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1]Timothy Sandefur, The Permission Society, (New York, London: Encounter Books, 2016), p. ix.
[2] Ibid.
[3] W. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap, (www.nccs.net: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1981), p. 173.
[4] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 131, 134-135.
[5] M. Stanton Evans, The Theme Is Freedom, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1994), pp. 299-300.
[6] Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap, pp. 173-176.
[7] Ibid., p. 173.
[8] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism & Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 249.
[9] Ibid., p. 254.
[10] Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I & II, (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 21.
[11] Johnson, Ye shall be as gods, p. 255.

Helicopter government – Part V – Overprogramming

Posted by :webmaster On : June 26, 2015
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Category: Archives, Government, Socialism

This series of articles describes helicopter parenting and helicopter governing, the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture. A helicopter government is one that exhibits characteristics similar to those of helicopter parenting which are expressed in four types of behavior: overprotection, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. In Part V we shall examine our helicopter government’s overprogramming of the lives of its citizens through excessive and burdensome rules and regulations on individuals and culture at large and the pathologies and consequences thereof.

Overprogramming

One of the great tragedies of modern life over the last several decades is the loss of childhood in America. Perhaps a better word is “condensation” of childhood. Dr. David Elkind described this phenomenon in his 1981 book The Hurried Child.

…it is important to see childhood as a stage of life, not just as the anteroom to life. Hurrying children into adulthood violates the sanctity of life by giving one period priority over another. But if we really value human life, we will value each period equally and give unto each stage of life what is appropriate to that stage…In the end, a childhood is the most basic human right of children.[1]

Helicopter parents overprogram the lives of their children through obsessive scheduling, micromanaging, and monitoring. In such a regimented world the child becomes a pawn of the clock and calendar rather than a child of the moment or season. We see well-meaning parents over schedule their children’s lives with play-dates, organized sports, extra-curricular school activities, and the like with virtually no down time for just being a kid. The cell phone has become a child’s wireless umbilical cord by which parents micromanage and monitor the minutest actions and decisions of their children. One of the signs of an overprogrammed child is a frequent complaint of boredom (which means they have found themselves with an unfilled gap in their schedule). But whatever happened to good old-fashioned play? By “old-fashioned” play is meant unstructured, voluntary, no goals, curiosity unplugged, and fun. In other words, when does a child have his own personal and private downtime?

For many serious psychologists, sociologists, and education professionals, old-fashioned unstructured, purposeless play is as outmoded as yesterday’s bell-bottoms, a waste of time and energy, and non-productive. Yet, researchers have discovered the enormous benefits of unstructured play. It stimulates the brain; thrives on complexity, uncertainty, and possibility; makes us mentally quick; teaches social and survival skills; and stretches us as we grow toward adulthood. Effectively, play is practice for adulthood.[2] But in our children’s overprogrammed lives, play is now work and its activities (sports, music, camp, and other such activities) are now competitive and professionalized.[3] Children are now treated as miniature adults.

The governmental equivalent to parental overprogramming is a pervasive governmental interference in the lives of its citizens. Socialism is the practical application of the tenets of humanism which are being infused into society. The essence of a life overprogrammed by a humanistic helicopter government is a loss of freedom, a freedom by which is meant the absence of coercion as opposed to humanism’s new freedom which is not freedom at all. The new freedom is merely another name for leveling society through an equal distribution of wealth and circumstance. Rather than expanding the range of choice, leveling results in greater limitations on choice, and those limitations, which by definition is a loss of freedom, are the ultimate outcome of all socialistic systems.[4]

Leveling society requires omnipresent rules—petty, complicated, convoluted, uniform, voluminous, tedious, wearisome rules which dulls the mind, weakens the spirit, saps energy, crushes creativity, and opposes initiative. To give an inkling of the size of the overprogrammization of American life, Title 27 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations is the U.S. Tax Code which contains 16,845 pages including the part written by Congress. It is available for purchase from the U.S. Government Printing office for $1,153. However, the U.S. Tax Code is just one of 50 titles found in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, each of which contains one or more individual volumes, which are updated once each calendar year, on a staggered basis.[5] To these we add a multitude of state, county, city, and other regulatory entities’ rules and regulations. These have become the official handbook for living life. Who needs freedom when the government has all the answers?

Overprogramming life, whether the catalyst is a helicopter parent or a helicopter government, robs child and adult alike of perspective as to the important things in life. As we travel through various seasons of life, perspectives change but the things of importance never do. As we enter adulthood, the appointment book fills and the “to do” list lengthens. That is a normal part of life, but such things are temporal and appear much less important in life’s rear view mirror. It is the moments and seasons we savor, store in our memory banks, and protect for they cannot be recreated or rescheduled.

Who hasn’t smiled at the joy and wonder of a four-year-old boy focusing on the fascinating complexities of a dandelion or gazing at the playful wanderings of a butterfly on a sunny spring afternoon all the while oblivious to yells from parents and coaches as the soccer ball rolls past him?

How many of us adults are secret Walter Mitty types who have on occasion snatched a moment from our childhood to ride with the Commander as he pilots the Navy hydroplane through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying…or stand beside Captain Mitty as we strap on our Webley-Vickers 50.80 automatics and prepare to fly forty miles through hell while the cannonading shells from the box barrage crash around the dugout…[6] We all deserve a childhood, and if we are fortunate, a little bit of our childhood’s innocence, wonder, and adventure will survive in us and act as a respite if not a reprieve from our helicopter government’s overprogrammed world.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] David Elkind, Ph.D., The hurried child – growing up too fast too soon, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2007), p. 221.
[2] Hara Estroff Marano, A Nation of Wimps, (New York: Broadway Books, 2009), pp. 86-87.
[3] Elkind, p. 214.
[4] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 243.
[5] “What is the Real Size of the U.S. Federal Tax Code,” Isaac Brock Society, February 12, 2012.
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/02/12/what-is-the-real-size-of-the-u-s-federal-tax-code/ (accessed April 9, 2014).
[6] James Thurber, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” Introduction to Literature, 4th Edition, (eds., Louis G. Locke, William M. Gibson, and George Arms, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), p. 418-421.

Helicopter government – Part IV – Overindulging

Posted by :webmaster On : June 19, 2015
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Category: Archives, Government, Humanism, Socialism

This series of articles describes helicopter parenting and helicopter governing, the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture. A helicopter government is one that exhibits characteristics similar to those of helicopter parenting which are expressed in four types of behavior: overprotection, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. In Part IV we shall examine our helicopter government’s ruinous overindulgence and the pathologies and consequences thereof to individuals and culture at large.

Overindulging

Life is one of limitations. In every facet of life we face restrictions, either natural (e.g., gravity) or man-made (e.g., laws, codes of conduct, regulations, rules). Children must learn at an early age that those limitations include both actions and material things. A child who is always given whatever they want or allowed to do anything they want will have difficulty relating actions with consequences, developing a work ethic, understanding the relationship between effort and reward, and appreciating the concept of delayed gratification. Many parents have ignored these lessons when training their children, and their overindulged children have grown up to be overindulged adults with a sense of entitlement. Richard Weaver compared those with an entitlement mentality to a spoiled child. He wrote, “The spoiled child has not been made to see the relationship between effort and reward. He wants things, but regards payment as an imposition or as an expression of malice by those who withhold for it. His solution…is to abuse those who do not gratify him.”[1]

The Boomer generation (born between the end of World War II and the end of 1964) was the first to wear the badge of entitlement. Boomers grew up in an era of unbridled economic optimism, abundance, and prosperity which they assumed would last forever. In 1965, the first year after the Boomer generation officially ended, Charles Reich wrote, “Society today is built around entitlement.” In other words, there was a firm popular expectation that some specific or general outcome will occur, whether or not it is formally embodied in law. These expectations include professional licenses, executive contracts, stock options, social security pensions, and education, and most of the more important entitlements flow in some form or fashion from government. But, whether private or from government, “…to the recipients they (entitlements) are essentials, fully deserved, and in no sense a form of charity.”[2]

The growth of the Boomers’ embryonic entitlement mentality would be dramatically boosted during the last birth year of their generational cohort. In his 1964 State of the Union address, President Johnson proposed a massive legislative assault that would move an already “…rich society…upward to the Great Society.” This was the beginning of the war on poverty built on a massive array of new federal programs designed to aid the poor. However, over the next two decades, federal legislation and social policy engineers and architects would “…re-enslave many poor and minorities into a web of government dependency.” One of the most damaging programs was the Aid for Dependent Children whose qualifying requirements were changed to include any household with no male family head present, that is, it became more lucrative to not be married than to be married. The effects of these policies were devastating to the family and traditional marriage. In 1950, families comprising a husband and wife in a traditional marriage were represented by 88 percent of white families and 78 percent of black families. With the modification of AFDC guidelines by Johnson and Congress, the black family structure began a rapid decline in 1967. By the late 1970s, intact black families had declined to 59 percent compared to 85 percent for white families.[3]

The entitlement society is a derivative of humanism as can be seen in the Humanist Manifesto. If an individual cannot contribute to their own betterment, “…then society should provide means to satisfy their basic economic, health, and cultural needs, including whatever resources make possible, a minimum guaranteed annual income.”[4]

As the humanistic worldview has ascended in America, the nation has moved toward economic bondage in both government and private sectors as socialism and its entitlement mentality have become ingrained in the American consciousness.[5] An entitlement society ultimately fails because it is based on a false understanding of human nature. The fatal flaw of an entitlement society is utopianism, “…its presumption that we are inexorably on our way toward a perfect society.”[6] This is humanism’s faith in the utopian concept of human perfectibility known as progressivism which denies the fallen, corruptible nature of man.

It is right and proper to distinguish between what is government’s responsibility and what is private (individual or institution) responsibility. However in this division of responsibility, Americans have forgotten that they are the government and that the government has and always will have limited resources. The political system now dances to the music of the entitled who have the loudest and/or largest band. With an entitlement mentality, we attempt to fix unlimited numbers of problems with limited resources rather than reasonably allocate available resources to the most pressing problems while providing a safety net for the poor but not a chaise lounge.

In 2006 Leonard Steinhorn published The Greater Generation-In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy. He makes an exceptionally revealing statement about the general mindset and attitude of the Boomers—that of entitlement—which had become pervasive by the end of the twentieth century. He wrote, “The problem is that the reality of Greatest Generation America fell far short of the ideal—the America that Boomers beheld wasn’t even close to the America they were promised.”[7] (emphasis added) What generation was ever promised anything? Each generation receives the cultural heritage of all that have gone before. Each generation is given the opportunity to do great and good things, and they should do better for they stand on the shoulders of their ancestors. Each generation is given an opportunity, not a promise nor an entitlement.[8]

America has become the land of entitlements whose national anthem is now “We deserve”, and for three generations there has been little memory of the historical relationship between actions and consequences, effort and reward, a work ethic, and delayed gratification. Americans’ concept of the role of government has changed dramatically in the last eighty-five years. To illustrate the transition from an independent, self-reliant people to an overindulged entitlement generation, I retell the story of an incident my long-deceased grandmother told to me many years ago and about which I’ve written before.

My father’s family was considered poor even by the standards of the Great Depression. During that time, my father’s mother, my grandmother, cared for a sick husband and five children, cleaned people’s houses, and did laundry and sewing for others. When she was in her eighties, she told me of an incident that she experienced during the Depression. There was no food to feed her family. So she went to the back door of a little restaurant at closing time in the small rural town of Collinsville, Oklahoma, where they lived. She asked for any leftover soup. It was some fifty years later, but she still called it the worst day of her life. Her attitude may seem strange to a twenty-first century citizen with a typical entitlement mentality prevalent in United States today, but such were the people of the Greatest Generation and their ancestors.[9]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 113.
[2] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 3. Quoted material from: Robert J. Samuelson, The Good Life and Its Discontents, (New York: Vintage Books, 1995, 1997), pp. 46-47.
[3] Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States,” (New York: Sentinel, 2004), pp. 687-688.
[4] Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 20.
[5] Johnson, p. 406.
[6] Samuelson, p. 218.
[7] Leonard Steinhorn, The Greater Generation – In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy, (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2006), p. 69.
[8] Johnson, p. 41.
[9] Ibid., p. 3.

Helicopter government – Part II – Overprotecting

Posted by :webmaster On : June 5, 2015
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Category: Archives, Government, Socialism

This series of articles describes helicopter governing and its similarities with helicopter parenting, the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture. A helicopter government is one that exhibits characteristics similar to those of helicopter parenting which are expressed in four types of behavior: overprotection, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. In Part I we observed that a helicopter government is rooted in socialism which is the required and eventual end of government under a humanistic worldview. A humanistic worldview is flawed because if fails to reflect truth as to the purpose and nature of man and therefore cannot give answers to the basic questions of life for which man continually seeks in developing his worldview. In Part II we shall examine the origins of our helicopter government’s propensity to overprotect and the pathologies and consequences thereof to individuals and culture at large.

Overprotecting

First we must ask why helicopter parents are overprotective of their children. A short, vague, and somewhat unsatisfying answer is that parents are a product of their overprotective culture. And much of that culture has been shaped and defined by the radical element (about 25%) of the Boomer generation (born between the end of World War II and the end of 1964) which has ascended to positions of leadership in the institutions of American life. That leadership has embraced the humanistic worldview and imposed and implemented laws, regulations, policies, and practices consistent with the tenets of humanism. In essence, we can say that over time the rise of helicopter parents are a derivative of an overprotective government. And from the overprotectiveness of parents and government arose both individual and cultural pathologies. In support of this view we again contrast the perceptions of the two worldviews regarding the purpose and nature of man.

Purpose of Man

For the Christian, the ultimate purpose of man is to know God and dwell with Him as His child for eternity. Therefore, relationship is the focus and end purpose of man and implies a right relationship not only with God but one’s fellowman. According to renowned humanist Paul Kurtz, the ultimate purpose of man is happiness and is further refined as “…the greatest-happiness-for-the-greatest-number…”[1] In other words, the focus is on the individual but only in the larger context of the common good. Under the humanistic worldview, government has become the judge and guarantor of happiness for the individual. However, humanism judges economic systems by whether or not they “…increase economic well-being for all individuals and groups, minimize poverty and hardship, increase the sum of human satisfaction, and enhance the quality of life…and judge it by its responsiveness to human needs, testing results in terms of the common good .”[2]

In his influential book The Philosophy of Humanism, Corliss Lamont agrees with Kurtz.

On the whole, however, a society in which most individuals, regardless of the personal sacrifices that may be entailed, are devoted to the collective well-being, will attain greater happiness and make more progress than one in which private self-interest and advancement are the prime motivators.[3]

Again, we see the humanists’ supremacy of the common good over the individual. But how is the humanist’s “common good” different from the Christian’s emphasis on relationship? It is different because the Christian’s concern for his fellow man is based on the eternal and unchangeable laws of God through an act of his or her freewill as opposed to the humanist’s required group adherence to state-defined interpretations of an ephemeral “common good” which is susceptible to revision with each change of leadership.

And it is here we see humanism’s overprotective government collide with man’s freewill and consequent desire for freedom. The tenets and assumptions of the humanistic worldview are inherently collectivist and are a direct contradiction to the independence, self-reliance, and pioneer spirit demonstrated by Americans in the colonial era and first 150 years of the nation’s history. And with this brief understanding of the humanist worldview with regard to the purpose of man, we begin to see the rise of a helicopter government that breeds dependency of the populace on a government that will be the provider and guarantor of happiness as opposed to merely making possible the pursuit thereof.

It is not that the Christian worldview is opposed to the happiness of the individual. Rather, it is the source of a Christian’s happiness that is different. A recent op-ed piece by Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, made some very shrewd observations which hit at the heart of what it means to be happy. He pointed out that personal moral transformation was the most important factor in social justice. Using information from the 2010 General Social Survey, the nation’s best sociological database, he made the following observations as to what makes people happy.

Take the example of two men, identical in age, education, race, and income. The first is religious. He’s married with two kids. He also works more and participates in his community more than 90 percent of the rest of the country. The other man meets none of these qualifications. The first man is nearly 400 percent more likely to be happy…real social justice must encourage people to participate in faith, family, and community. Their chances of happiness—and success—are inextricably linked with these moral institutions.[4]

In other words the true happiness is a collateral result of focusing on right relationships with God, spouse, family, and community.

Nature of Man

Contrary to humanist belief that man is basically good, the Founders held a biblical understanding of the corruptible nature of man and a belief that government was untrustworthy due to man’s corruptibility and therefore should be limited. Traditional ideas of limited government prevailed until the Great Depression and World War II in the first half of the twentieth century. Americans still distrusted government, but as a result of the growing influence of the humanistic worldview, they saw government as a mechanism for dealing with a multitude of societal problems. Politicians happily acquiesced and more and more “problems” were discovered that required governmental answers or intervention. Because man was basically good according to the humanists, social problems arose not because man was fallen but because of corrupt social systems. Thus, a growing number of social and political solutions by government social engineers in the name of the general welfare of its citizenry became the catalyst for a monolithic and overprotective government.[5]

However, funding government and the growing list of wants, wishes, and synthetic rights of the populous has become difficult if not impossible because government cannot do everything for everybody. Samuelson calls this “the politics of overpromise…the systematic and routine tendency of government to make more commitments than can reasonably be fulfilled. First, government resources are not adequate and never can be. People (and institutions) must do some things for themselves. A second problem arises when a helicopter government can’t fix the problems of the day; it is perceived as a failure and leads to less trust in government and growing disunity.[6]

The falseness and failures of the humanistic worldview become evident when one examines the pathologies of an overprotective helicopter government that is based on a wrong understanding of the purpose and nature of man. These pathologies are evident in much of America’s citizenry and include self-centeredness, disunity, petulance, lack of discipline, inability to function well in organized endeavors, aimlessness or lack of purpose, inability to cope (addictions), codependency, poor problem-solving skills, and a false sense of entitlement. These labels apply in varying degrees to both children who have experienced helicopter parenting and adults conditioned by a helicopter government.

The application of the overprotective policies and practices of the humanistic worldview in all institutions of American life (particularly in government and education) has resulted in a pervasive victim mentality. The consequences of this mindset have led to cultural carnage including institutionalization of poverty through multiple generations of welfare recipients; broken families without the presence of a father to be the role model of a responsible provider in lieu of various welfare agencies and social workers; and an obsession with “rights” as opposed to fulfilling one’s responsibilities, duties, and obligations to family, clan, community, and country.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Paul Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1983), p. 68.
[2] Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 20.
[3] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, 8th Edition, Revised, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1997), p. 272.
[4] Arthur Brooks, “The right must reclaim social justice,” Tulsa World, April 1, 2014, A-14.
[5] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 252-253.
[6] Robert J. Samuelson, The Good Life and Its Discontents, (New York: Vintage Books, 1995, 1997), p. 141-142.

Helicopter government – Part I – A Nation of Wimps

Posted by :webmaster On : May 29, 2015
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Category: Archives, Government, Socialism

Back in the late 1980s the term helicopter parenting came into vogue to describe a style of parenting in which overprotective parents discourage a child’s independence by being too involved with the child’s life. In other words, a helicopter parent hovers over a child like a helicopter, ready to swoop in at the first sign that their child may face a challenge or discomfort.[1] According to Dr. Robert Hudson, a clinical professor of pediatrics and co-director of the Center for Resilience at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, there are four ways helicopter parenting manifests itself: overprotecting, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming. Each of these types of parenting has serious consequences for the child.[2]

A nation of wimps

Bad things happen to everyone in life, and children must learn through experience including bad experiences while growing up. Psychology Today’s Editor-at-Large Hara Estroff Marano described the consequences resulting from parents who overprotect their children from experiencing failure and discomfort: inability to adapt to the difficulties of life, psychologically fragile (depression and anxiety), risk-averse, loss of identity, loss of meaning and a sense of accomplishment, lack of self-control, and lack of perseverance. These consequences can last into adulthood. Quoting one child psychologist, “Kids need to feel badly sometimes. We learn through experience, and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn to cope.” According to Marano, “Whether we want to or not, we are on our way to creating a nation of wimps.”[3] As these overprotected children move into adulthood, American government and its bureaucracies have willingly assumed the role of surrogate parents of this nation of wimps.

It appears that unhealthy consequences of helicopter parenting for children are strikingly similar to the pathologies resulting from a nanny-state government increasingly involved in its citizens’ lives and which we might also label helicopter governing by a helicopter government. Government involvement with the details and intricacies of the lives of American citizens has grown dramatically commencing with Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Judiciary’s exceptionally expansive re-interpretation of the Constitution’s general welfare clause in the 1930s. This involvement was greatly exacerbated by the Great Society programs of the 1960s and continues under the socialistic policies of the current Obama administration.

Under modern judicial, legislative, and executive branch interpretations, the general welfare of American citizens has come to mean far more than those fiercely independent and self-reliant Founders ever imagined. In the twenty-first century, America’s helicopter government stands ready to swoop down and fix, mend, change, smooth-out, correct, adjust, or repair any problem, difficulty, or perceived injustice that may arise. No aspect of its citizens’ general welfare is too large or too small to escape our helicopter government’s attention and involvement, be it the size of our sugary soft drinks or the kind of cars we are permitted to drive.

Before we examine the consequences of a helicopter government, we must understand the driving forces behind it and how these forces have changed America over the last 75 years. America has changed because the worldview of much of the leadership of the institutions of American life and the organizations they represent have changed. A worldview is a person’s belief about things, an overall perspective or perception of reality or truth from which one sees, understands, and interprets the universe and humanity’s relation to it and that directs his or her decisions and actions.

The collective worldviews of a nation’s citizens becomes its central cultural vision, and in America there are two worldviews contending for dominance in its central cultural vision. One is the Christian worldview which reflects the central cultural vision of the colonial Americans, the Founders, and the nation for 150 years following its founding. The Christian worldview rests on the universals reflected in God’s creation and the biblical revelation to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians. Humanism is the competing worldview that contends that Nature is all there is and that man is a product of a long, developmentally progressive period of evolution. For humanists, there is no God or life after death, and all truth is negotiable and determined by the current needs of society.

The best way to contrast the two worldviews is to look at two fundamental differences that stand at the heart of the conflict. The first centers on the purpose for which man was created. For Christians, the fundamental purposes of life center on an eternal relationship with God and earthly relationships with his fellowman. For the humanist, the ultimate purpose is happiness through the exaltation of self. From these basic differences flow a whole myriad of conflicts which we call the culture wars.

The second major point of divergence relates to the nature of man. Christians view man as having been created by God but subsequently having a fallen nature because of his disobedience that resulted in a broken relationship with God. Consequently, man is in need of redemption. Humanists believe that man is basically good and therefore not fallen nor in need of redemption. Hence, humans are masters of their own destiny, and reason and science alone point the way to an ever-progressive improvement of mankind.

Because the humanistic worldview does not present a true picture of reality (truth) as it relates to the purpose and nature of man, the tenets of its faith are flawed and from this flawed perception of truth we see pathologies develop as humanism fails to adequately address the basic questions of life.

America’s helicopter government is the product of a humanistic worldview that has gained ascendency in America during the last seventy-five years. The required method of organizing society under a humanistic worldview is socialism. As the humanistic worldview has advanced, so has America’s tendency toward socialism of which a helicopter government is its heart and soul.

In this series of articles we shall examine the four types of helicopter governing (overprotecting, overpraising, overindulging, and overprogramming), the pathologies associated with each, and the impact on American culture.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] “helicopter parenting,” Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/helicopter+parenting (accessed March 24, 2014).
[2] Jason Ashley Wright, “Nurturing in Excess,” Tulsa World, March 24, 2014, D1.
[3] Hara Estroff Marano, “A Nation of Wimps,” Psychology Today, November 1, 2004. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200411/nation-wimps (accessed March 31, 2014).

Liberalism explained

Posted by :webmaster On : May 2, 2014
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Category: Archives, Government, Progressivism, Socialism

To understand the origins of the pervasive humanism and secularization that blankets modern America, particularly as it affects government, we must examine the rise of liberalism. Liberalism is the political legacy of the Enlightenment, a skeptical and revolutionary cultural tradition that emanated from eighteenth century Western Europe and “…promoted the belief that critical and autonomous human reason held the power to discover the truth about life and the world, and to progressively liberate humanity from the ignorance and injustices of the past.” [1]

This new understanding of what freedom meant and how it was to be achieved was more practical than idealistic and resulted in a major paradigm shift. The new freedom proposed that man should be happy on this earth, a new concept invented in the eighteenth century. However, the emphasis on this new freedom unhooked from tradition became an attack on the Church and then religion itself. [2] The fundamental difference between liberalism spawned by the Enlightenment and the Judeo-Christian ethic revolves around a disagreement on the end purpose of man. The Enlightenment’s humanism says, “The end of all being is the happiness of man.” But Christianity says, ‘The end of all being is the glory of God.” [3]

Before we proceed, we must distinguish between what Robert George calls “old-fashioned liberalism” of the American Founding and the Constitution as opposed to “contemporary liberalism.” Liberalism of the Founding era was one “…of religious freedom, political equality, constitutional democracy, the rule of law, limited government, private property, the market economy, and human rights.” [4] Contemporary liberalism and liberals are of a wholly opposite variety which

…defend large-scale government-run health, education, and welfare programs. They support redistributive taxation policies. They favor affirmative action programs for women and minorities and call for the revision of civil rights laws to prohibit discrimination based on “sexual orientation.” They may support the legal redefinition of marriage to include same-sex relationships. They certainly support legalized abortion and the government funding of abortions for indigent women. They oppose the death penalty. [5]

Professor George’s “old-fashioned liberalism” is one and the same as F. A. Hayek’s “true liberalism” in the original nineteenth century sense and the opposite of the contemporary liberalism in which “…liberal has come to mean the advocacy of almost every kind of government control.” As a result, many old-fashioned liberals began describing themselves as conservatives. [6] Conservatism will be examined in the next article. For our purposes, when we speak of liberalism we refer to a contemporary understanding of liberalism which emphasizes extensive state control in all aspects of society.

As the powerful forces of Enlightenment liberalism rolled across the Atlantic from Western Europe during the nineteenth century, the Protestant establishment and the nation experienced significant inroads of secularization between 1870 and 1930. Out of that struggle a tenuous compromise occurred between evangelical Protestant Christianity and Enlightenment liberalism. The American Christian church, already divided by denomination, region, race, ethnicity, and class, would split again into fundamentalists and modernists between the late nineteenth century and the mid-1920s. Amid the rising skepticism, positivism, and Darwinism emanating from Enlightenment liberalism, the new liberal and modernists Protestant leaders chose survival through accommodation with the adversary and their doctrines of Science, Progress, Reason, and Liberation. But this compromise would only forestall the approaching “…final dominance of Enlightenment moral order in the public square and the relegation of Christian and other religious concerns to private life” that has gained increasing momentum since the 1930s. [7]

By the 1930s, liberalism’s eventual domination of the moral order was assured. As the nation wallowed in the depths of the Great Depression, liberalism used the economic crisis to advance its political agenda. Beginning in 1936, the Supreme Court’s liberal interpretations of the “general welfare” clause of the Constitution have dramatically enlarged the powers of the federal government, diminished the rights of states, and encroached on fundamental property rights through its welfare programs. [8] This liberal interpretation significantly expanded what the legislature could do with regard to providing for the “general welfare” of the United States. The results of the liberal interpretation of the “general welfare” clause is an unprecedented assault on right of private property through imminent domain laws, a diminution of the right of contract and obligations thereunder, an oppressive income tax system, and the onerous limitations on the possession and use of property through regulation. [9]

To give a clearer understanding of liberalism’s secular political ideology, we must examine its signature postulates.

Progress – The liberal mantra is progress, ever onward and upward to a better society, perhaps even a utopia. Man is not fallen but basically good and therefore perfectible. Progress also implies movement, change, and challenge to the status quo. Yet, as the liberal marches boldly into the future, he has become a prisoner of time, perhaps more precisely a prisoner of the moment. Truth becomes relative. Search for an enduring order fails as one’s worldview constantly changes bringing disquiet to the soul and society. Progress, being oriented to time, fails to apprehend those timeless truths that bring order to the soul. [10]

Change – The liberal’s chant for change is a matter of principle and reflects a doctrinaire hatred for permanence. But what is the liberal’s answer as change upon change only compounds the lack of rootedness? Change requires movement, but movement doesn’t always mean progression. The promises of progress ring hollow in light of rising social disorder. [11]

Individual – Liberalism exalts the individual with a resulting self-centeredness; hence, selfishness becomes virtue. For the liberal, community is secondary to a pervasive individualism where individual, personal rights are supreme. Duty and obligation to clan and community are consigned to the dustbin of a foolish and irrelevant past. Yet, there appears a fundamental conflict in the statements of humanists with regard to the individual and the larger society, and such conflict cannot be hidden by fuzzy and euphemistic definitions extolling the dignity of the man and the cherishing of the individual. Under the humanist philosophy it is evident that the individual must be subordinate to the good of all humanity, and it is the leaders of the state that determine the definition of what is good. This subordination of the individual is confirmed by terms such as “greater good of all humanity”, “obligation to humanity as a whole”, and “contribute to the welfare of the community.” Ultimately the designated elite of society rule as they see fit and do so without regard to the individual. [12]

Liberty – Liberalism’s new freedom centers on the individual and is superior to the other two requirements of a civil society—Justice and Order. As to the individual, humanists promise a freedom from the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past by which humanity has achieved a measure of civilization. The freedom espoused by the humanist is a freedom that gives unbridled control to the self and senses and ultimately leads to bondage. However, for all of man’s time on this earth this personal license has been the path toward disaster. To believe that such personal freedom will lead to the greater good of mankind is folly for man is a fallen creature, and he cannot lift himself by pulling at his own bootstraps. [13]

Liberalism is the child of humanism, and the inevitable destination of liberalism is socialism. Socialism breeds disharmony and erodes the foundations of a civil society. Socialism leads to a leveling of society with resulting declines in quality of life, standards of living, a loss of trust in government and its institutions, and ultimately a loss of freedom.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Christian Smith, The Secular Revolution, (Berkeley, California: The University of California Press, 2003), pp. 53-54.

[2] J. M. Roberts, The New History of the World, (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 693.

[3] Paris Reidhead, “Ten Shekels and a Shirt,” Remnant Resource Network. http://remnantradio.org/Archives/articles/Ten%20Shekels/tenshekels.htm (accessed December 18, 2010).

[4] Robert P. George, The Clash of Orthodoxies, (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2001), p. 232.

[5] Ibid.

[6] F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom – Text and Documents, ed. Bruce Caldwell, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1944, 2007), p. 45.

[7] Smith, pp. 52-55, 58, 66-67; Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 213-214.

[8] W. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap, (www.nccs.net: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1981), p. 175; Johnson, Ye shall be as gods, p. 249.

[9] Johnson, Ye shall be as gods, p. 249.

[10] Russell Kirk, The Essential Russell Kirk – Selected Essays, ed. George A. Panichas, (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, p. 26; Johnson, Ye shall be as gods, pp. 215-216.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

Capitalism, Socialism, and Income Equality – Part III

Posted by :webmaster On : April 18, 2014
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Category: Archives, Capitalism, Christianity, Equality, Socialism

In Parts I and II we have examined capitalism and socialism’s definitions and the battle of words and worldviews surrounding the adversaries. In Part III we shall look at the heart of the conflict that ultimately revolves around the status of private property and personal income.

The imposition of income equality inevitably leads to loss of property rights and loss of freedom. Therefore, to understand the demands for income equality in light of these losses, we first must contrast the status of private property in socialistic and capitalistic societies. In Part I we learned that communists consider private property as theft. Specifically, Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto written in 1848 states: “The theory of Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: The abolition of private property.” [Schmidt, p. 203.] The opposing views of property and private income are well illustrated by the words of several Founders.

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as scared as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. [John Adams quoted by Skousen, p. 174.]

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort…[It] is not a just government where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. [James Madison quoted by Skousen, p. 175.]

The man who truly understands the political economy best…will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or to sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome. [Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers regarding taxation, Rossiter, pp. 212-213.]

Three-quarters of a century later, President Abraham Lincoln confirmed the beliefs of the Founders when he spoke to the New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association regarding property, wealth, and the wealthy.

Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence…I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. [Skousen, p. 173.]

How is it that the socialistic quest for income equality has risen to new heights of power and respectability in American society given the opposing beliefs of the Founders and most Americans to the mid-twentieth century? The answer has its roots in a new interpretation of the general welfare provision of the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, which states that, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imports and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States…” Some at the time of its writing interpreted this clause as granting to Congress broad powers that exceeded those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution. But James Madison, one of the Constitution’s drafters and regarded as the father of the Constitution, did not agree with the more liberal interpretation and claimed that such a reading was inconsistent with the concept of limited government. Additionally, imputing broad powers to the general welfare provision renders the enumerated powers redundant. [Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History.] However, the Supreme Court in 1936 dramatically distorted the interpretation of the clause that was held for 150 years. Unleashed by the new meaning, Congress was permitted to distribute “…federal bounties as a demonstration of ‘concern’ for the poor and needy.” [Skousen, p. 175.]

It was relatively easy for liberals in and out of government to portray their “concern” for the poor and needy as a matter of justice. The pursuit of the humanistic definition of justice began in the 1970s with American academics that broke with previous political philosophers from the ancient Greeks to the American Founding fathers with regard to the purpose of the state. The academics now argue that the fundamental task of the state is to end inequality which rests on the core belief that inequality is intrinsically bad and even intolerable and that government should do something about it. [Ryan, p. 76.]

This Enlightenment concept of human equality flows from the humanistic assumption of the perfectibility of man. Under this concept, what men are comes from experience. Therefore, men are equal at birth, and differences and inequalities arise due to environment. The goal of humanists was to achieve an egalitarian society (and thus eliminate inequalities due to environment) through political means in which man, achieving perfect equality in their political rights, would at the same time be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. When humanists failed to achieve equality of outcome through political equality, the levelers demanded economic democracy, a new and expanded humanist definition of equality. However, economic democracy still means an equality of condition as opposed to equality of opportunity and is to be achieved through recognition of invented or synthetic rights coupled with broad but non-specific egalitarian ideals. However, as society is leveled with guarantees of certain outcomes to its citizens, political equality suffers. [Johnson, p. 395.]

In order for government to accomplish its newly defined purpose of eliminating all inequality, it is necessary to impose a socialistic system. Therefore, capitalism had to go, and the typical means to trash capitalism is to portray capitalism as unjust, unfair, lacking concern for the poor, greedy, and dishonest. Think of the Occupy Wall Street protests of recent times. The essence of their protests and arguments is that justice is not possible under a capitalistic system…and the state must do something about it. Under assault from government, academia, and other spheres of American life, many in America consider “capitalism” to be a dirty word. But the majority of those that hold this view have little memory of the negative effects of alternative approaches used to organize society. And the vast majority of American universities are filled with professors who embrace the humanistic worldview (and its inherent socialism) and have little interest in presenting historical truth. Rather, for humanists and others of the Enlightenment crowd, their Nirvana will ultimately be achieved as humanity moves ever upward and onward in its continual quest for perfection through the disappearance of the individual soul into universal equality.

The humanistic meaning of this pervasive equality is clearly stated in Humanist Manifesto II’s eleventh common principal, “The principle of moral equality must be furthered…This means equality of opportunity…” But, the meaning of “equal opportunity” is immediately and drastically corrupted to mean an equality of outcome by humanist requirements. To further clarify the intent of the signors of the Manifesto, the document states that, “If unable, society should provide means to satisfy their basic economic, health, and cultural needs, including whatever resources make possible, a minimum guaranteed annual income.” [Kurtz, p. 20.]

Through its citizenry’s ignorance of the nation’s founding principles, decades of deconstruction of Constitutional safeguards by liberal judges, and the domination of the institutions and leadership of American life by those holding a humanistic worldview, income inequality is the bogey-man used by the liberals to advance the socialist agenda and destroy capitalism. Emotions are aroused by appeals to class consciousness, envy, and hatred that damages cultural unity and push the nation along the road to disintegration.

The founding Americans relied on order that rested upon a respect for prescriptive rights and customs as opposed to the egalitarian notions of French philosophers which fed the bonfires of the French Revolution. This difference was made clear by John Adams’ definition of equality which strikes at the heart of what it really means—a moral and political equality only—by which is meant equality before God and before the law. This definition does not teach that all men are born to equal powers, mental abilities, influence in society, property, and other advantages. Rather, all men are born to equal rights before God and the law and by implication equal opportunity. [Kirk, p. 83.]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World,” (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), p. 203.

W. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap – The 28 Great Ideas That Changed the World, (www.nccs.net: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 2006), pp. 173-175.

Clinton Rossiter, ed., The Federalist Papers, (New York: Signet Classic, 1961), pp. 212-213.

Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History, “General Welfare Clause,” Answers.com. http://www.answers.com/topic/general-welfare-clause (accessed February 10, 2014).

Ryan T. Anderson, “The Morality of Democratic Capitalism-How to Help the Poor,” The City, Houston Baptist University, Spring 2012, p. 76. (Book review of Wealth and Justice: The morality of Democratic Capitalism, Peter Wehner and Arthur Brooks, AEI Press, 2010.)

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 395.

Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 20.

Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, (bnpublishing.com: BN Publishing, 2008), p. 83.

Capitalism, Socialism, and Income Equality – Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : April 11, 2014
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Category: Archives, Capitalism, Christianity, Equality, Socialism

Capitalism is synonymous with free enterprise and free markets while socialism is associated with planned economies and state control. As noted in Part I, the out-workings of these concepts revolve around the definition of freedom to which both claim allegiance. However, socialism cannot be separated from its parent and patron—humanism. Humanism requires socialism as socialism is the chain-mail glove into which the hand of humanism fits and uses to enforce its vision of societal order.

The humanist definition of freedom presumes to loose man from the bondage of mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. However, the humanists’ definition of freedom, which co-joins the maximization of individual autonomy with the humanist-created primacy of the greatest good for the greatest number, is a false freedom. A society organized around the tenets of humanism cannot remain free as it will be pushed to one end or the other of the anarchy-totalitarian continuum of government. In reality, such humanistic concepts of freedom coerce the individual through the requirement of a general commonality of thought and action which is forced downward from the state to the individual. However, the central cultural vision of any society must command unity for it to exist and prosper in ordered harmony. Such unity must filter up from individuals, not be coerced or forced down on society. Without such unity filtering up from individuals, there can be no order of the soul or society, and without such order society deteriorates over time and eventually disintegrates. [Johnson, p. 393.]

By contrast, although there is an affinity between capitalism and Christianity, Christianity does not require capitalism nor does capitalism require Christianity. The affinity lies in freedom defined as lack of coercion. A free market (capitalism) “…is not ‘Christian in and by itself; it is merely to say that capitalism is a material by-product of the Mosaic law.’ In other words, capitalism is a by-product of Christianity’s value of freedom applied to economic life and activities.” [emphasis added] [Schmidt, p. 207.]

That Christianity values freedom should be no surprise. God valued freedom so much that he gave freewill to man, the pinnacle of His creation. God wishes to share his love and eternity with His creation, but He does not coerce or compel man in the spiritual realm nor does he wish man to be coerced in the economic realm on this earth as does fascism, socialism, and communism. [Schmidt, p. 205.]

Capitalism is the most successful when it is the most moral. It is not coincidence that the greatest freedom and economic prosperity occur in countries where Christianity is and continues to be the dominant worldview. Capitalism that arose during the period of industrialization was often wild and reckless as a new-born colt that thrashes about until it steadies itself. It was the moral suasion of Christianity that helped steady capitalism and correct its excesses. [Schmidt, p. 207.]

How is it then that socialism has a growing following around the world and even in wildly successful capitalistic countries such as the United States? Writing seventy years ago amidst humanity caught up in a conflagration of death and destruction during World War II, F. A. Hayek gave insight into the answer.

The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they, or at least the best among them, have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before…And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning…Few traits of totalitarian regimes…are characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed. The worst sufferer in this respect is, of course, the word “liberty” (freedom). [Hayek, p. 174.]

The trashing of capitalism began in earnest by the mid-nineteenth century when Karl Marx, atheist and communist, wrote Das Kapital (Capital) in which he saw labor as both distinct from and an antithesis to capitalism. Thus began collectivist’s propaganda efforts at replacing capitalism’s definition as being free markets and free enterprise to that of a merciless evil preying on the proletariat. [Schmidt, p. 206.]

In answer to capitalism’s critics, the late Pope John Paul II framed the issue well in 1996 when he asked whether the failed communist states in Eastern Europe should opt for capitalism. In reply to his own rhetorical question he stated,

If by ‘capitalism’ is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative. [Schmidt, pp. 206-107.]

However, less than two decades later, Pope Francis would attempt to dignify leftist denigration of capitalism in his 224 page Evangelii Gadium (Joy of the Gospel) that attacked capitalism as a form of tyranny and called on church and political leaders to address the needs of the poor. [Gettys]

53. …Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. [emphasis added]

54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system… [emphasis added]

56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control… [emphasis added] [Evangelii Gadium]

One must ask which man has experienced socialistic totalitarianism and therefore has a better insight into its horrors as compared to the worthiness of capitalism. Certainly it is the Polish Pope John Paul II whose leadership along with that of Ronald Reagan resulted in the downfall of communism and the liberation of millions.

Pope John Paul II’s intransigence against socialism was evident from the beginning of his papal reign when he disciplined Latin American liberationist priests within the church who had incorporated a Marxist orientation as one of the pillars of liberation theology. In the late 1960s this rebellious sociology had developed rapidly in Latin America which regarded the underdevelopment of the continent as a consequence of the capitalist market system. As a result, undeveloped countries were exhorted to reject the capitalist market system in favor of a socialist economy. As this new sociology was absorbed by the church, liberation theology emerged from its wake. But John Paul’s message to the Latin American Catholic church was that Marxism cannot be regarded as an instrument of sociological analysis, being a wrong vision of the human person and the product of a biased scientific methodology. Rather, liberation theology must be centered on Christ the Redeemer. [Inside the Vatican] Although Pope Francis did not and does not adhere to nor promote the Marxist variant of liberation theology, nevertheless, his beliefs have been heavily influenced by and are a product of the highly socialistic orientation of most liberation theologies prevalent in South America. The extent of Pope Francis’s socialistic orientation becomes abundantly evident when reading Evangelii Gadium quoted above.

In Parts I and II we have examined capitalism and socialism’s definitions and the battle of words and worldviews surrounding the adversaries. In Part III we shall look at the battle as it focuses on income equality and property.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 393.

Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 205-207.

F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Ed. Bruce Caldwell, 1944, 2007), p. 174.

Travis Gettys, “Pope Francis rips capitalism and trickle-down economics to shreds in new policy statement,” The Raw Story, November 26, 2013. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/26/pope-francis-rips-capitalism-and-trickle-down-economics-to-shreds-in-new-policy-statement/ (accessed 2-5-2014).

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gadium (Joy of the Gospel), November 24, 2013. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html#Some_cultural_challenges (accessed February 5, 2014).

“Liberation Theology Interview with Professor Rocco Buttiglione,” Inside the Vatican, June/July 2013. https://insidethevatican.com/back-issues/june-july-2013/liberation-theology-interview-professor-rocco-buttiglione (accessed February 5, 2014).