Wilfred McClay offers his thoughts on the nature of the George W. Bush administration:
What I want to look at is, specifically, how the administration of George W. Bush seems to have marked a sea change in the evolution of Republican politics, in conservatism, in the present and future alignment of our political parties and ideologies, and the role of religion in our public discourse and public action. In addition, however, I want to talk about the ways that, taking a longer-range historical view, what looks like a sea change may in fact merely be the process of this administration and the political party it leads rejoining itself, consciously or not, to certain longer traditions of American political and social reform. And I will also want to ask, in the end, whether these changes or reorientations are entirely a good thing, or whether there are aspects of them that should give pause to Americans in general, and to conservative Americans and evangelical Americans in particular.
I would encourage you to read the entire article as well as William F. Buckley, Jr.’s commentary on it.
[Open full post]I highly recommend reading Don’s latest post for some important context to the following (hopefully) succinct post.
As Don argues, radical secularism can be viewed as its own sort of religion whereby the “state” replaces the religious function and, despite claims otherwise, also assumes the role of the “higher power” [God]. It can be safely assumed that most secularists are on the political left and have a tendency toward moral relativism, which is the belief that we all live by our own moral code and “whose to say one is better than the other.” However, in truth, secularists do belief in a set of moral truths: those that they determine.
Without getting too far into the weeds, even secularists realize there must be some kind of basic moral ruleset by which society must be governed. However, they have no room for religiously informed morality within government and purposefully have read the “separation of church and state” to mean the “separation of religion and state.” To them, because religion is a private matter, it is improper for a state to derive its morality from religion (especially Judeo-Christian, I might add). However, secularists, some might say arrogantly, believe that men, usually highly educated intellectual such as themselves, are perfectly able to arrive at moral truths through rational reasoning. Once “discovered,” these moral truths are best enforced by being codified into the rule of law. Thus, if its legal, it is moral.
On the face of it, it seems to hold that morality and legality are equivalent, but this is not necessarily true. For instance, most would agree that murder is both illegal and immoral. However, persuasive arguments have been made that both abortion and the death penalty are legalized murder: they may be legal, but they are immoral. So, while it is obvious that there are some gray areas, it gets even worse when reinterpreting seemingly obvious laws (or even terms, like “marriage”) is deemed appropriate and necessary to reflect society’s “proper” morality.
Ideally, lawmaking would be done through majoritarian political machinations. If most people agreed with a proposed law, it would be passed and would become the law of the land. However, to a secularist, if that is not possible, then relativistic reinterpretations of past laws are perfectly legitimate (so long as the reinterpretations mirror their “reasoned” morality). Therefore, it is important that people with a proper ideological view get placed within the ranks of those who can dictate and reinterpret law: the judiciary. Thus, a secularist’s religion is government (especially the judiciary), his dogma is the rule of law (“properly” interpreted), and his high priests are judges.
Previous postings have addressed the Misguided Incentives that are structurally present in the public sector and how this leads naturally to Pigs at the Public Trough. These observations make Lawrence Reed’s Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy an insightful read.
Why does this all matter? Here is another story that illustrates why:
Robert Novak has written an editorial about new U. S. Senator Tom Coburn and what happens to people who challenge the status quo:
This posting continues a periodic series on Rhode Island politics and taxation, building on fifteen previous postings (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV).
It also builds on several previous postings on educational issues: There are well-known deep performance problems with public education in America. Yet, receiving a quality education can be the transforming event that allows many Americans to have a fair shot at living the American Dream. It is well know that the teachers’ unions and the public education bureaucracy actively resist the very change necessary to improve public education. On a more granular level, postings IV and XIV above address contract negotiation issues in East Greenwich.
Tom Coyne of RI Policy Analysis has published a powerful editorial in today’s Projo entitled “R. I. Schools: Big Bucks Have Not Brought Good Results”, where he provides third-party data showing how residents overpay for underperformance by Rhode Island public schools. That begs a bigger question of what to do about this serious problem. Here are some of his observations:
Nota Bene: This post is an experiment. I thought I’d try providing a bunch of different links to different web posts, articles, stories etc. that I found interesting. The goal is to point to some articles that may be of general interest to conservative readers with enough of a
One of the more interesting informational black holes has always been the forced payment of dues by union members and exactly what those funds were then spent on by the union.
Thanks to some new reporting requirements that kick in this summer, we are about to get the first real glimpse into what is going on with the millions and millions of dollars paid in union dues.
The overall economic cost structure of the American airline industry is pathetically unsustainable. This is not news; the elephant has been sitting in the room for years now but most everyone has refused to acknowledge its presence.
[Open full post]Carroll Andrew Morse has a terrific, focused posting entitled First They Came for the Radio Talk Show Hosts… that gets to the heart of the latest fallout from campaign finance reform here in Rhode Island. Once again, we have an example of how legislation has unintended consequences that, in this case, affect our freedom of speech.
Dating back to the post-Watergate reforms in the 1970’s, I continue to be amazed at how people think it is possible to construct ways to limit the flow of money into politics. And so we have concepts such as hard money, soft money, donation limits by individuals, donation limits by corporate entities, political action committees, 527’s, etc.
Like water flowing downhill, money simply finds new ways to flow into politics after each such “reform.” Does any rational person really think all these limitations have reduced the influence of money on politics? Surely not. Have all these limitations changed behavioral incentives for people or organizations with money? Quite clearly, as the 527’s showed in the 2004 elections. But all we have done is made the flow of money more convoluted and frequently more difficult to trace. Are we better off for all the changes? Hardly. And, the adverse and unintended consequences will only continue into the future.
Carroll Andrew Morse has a terrific, focused posting entitled First They Came for the Radio Talk Show Hosts… that gets to the heart of the latest fallout from campaign finance reform here in Rhode Island. Once again, we have an example of how legislation has unintended consequences that, in this case, affect our freedom of speech.
Dating back to the post-Watergate reforms in the 1970’s, I continue to be amazed at how people think it is possible to construct ways to limit the flow of money into politics. And so we have concepts such as hard money, soft money, donation limits by individuals, donation limits by corporate entities, political action committees, 527’s, etc.
Like water flowing downhill, money simply finds new ways to flow into politics after each such “reform.” Does any rational person really think all these limitations have reduced the influence of money on politics? Surely not. Have all these limitations changed behavioral incentives for people or organizations with money? Quite clearly, as the 527’s showed in the 2004 elections. But all we have done is made the flow of money more convoluted and frequently more difficult to trace. Are we better off for all the changes? Hardly. And, the adverse and unintended consequences will only continue into the future.