If you’re just joining us, I’ve been writing some posts to establish starting points from which the topics on this blog can evolve (previous entries: church and theology). I need to spend some time reflecting on why I can’t blog without a plan, but instead I’m writing this planned post about where I find myself politically.
I call myself a liberal, but I think I’d more accurately be described as a half-baked communitarian with a nougaty civil libertarian center and a savory, skeptical crust of agnosticism. Clearly, I am befuddled—and probably not very tasty or nutritious. My jumbled ideas are partly my own problem, but are also a result, I think, of the political climate of our times.
I feel as if the two major U.S. political parties exist in a hall of mirrors, where they are twisted into grotesque reflections of themselves and of each other. I don’t think Edmund Burke, credited by many for the founding of American conservatism (though he was a Mick—go figure), would recognize the agenda of today’s political Right as much resembling the conservative philosophy he espoused. (I think he would, however, be a fanboy of Ron Paul, who is apparently the only current Republican elected official to remember what “conservative” actually means. Side note: Who else thought it was a bizarre carnival funhouse experience watching the eye rolling from the other candidates every time Dr. P opened his mouth during last year’s primary debates? I kept thinking, Your contempt is so misplaced, suckas. Do your assigned reading and repent of your neocon blasphemy!) I don’t understand how the party that bills itself as the preservationists of our most cherished institutions (among which, presumably, most would count the Constitution and the Bill of Rights) have morphed into the chief defenders of the Patriot Act and preemptive war. And don’t even get me started on “harsh interrogation techniques” (not to mention this). It’s called the rule of law, boys. Look it up.
The Left is just as fracked (any BSG fans up in the hizouse?). I really do hope President Obama is a different breed of statesman—I’m not completely disillusioned yet, but I won’t hold my breath—than his reckless, spendthrift liberal colleagues, many of whom seem to believe that funding poorly run social programs with money we don’t have is the magical key to reelection (which is, it appears, the bottom line). I hate that “civil service” has become, for a large segment of the “progressive” Left, a race to amass, consolidate and hold on to power (and a sick obsession with demonizing and obliterating the competition), rather than … oh, I don’t know … service. It bothers me that principles seem to have taken a back seat to sloganeering and ideology (on both sides), and that the quickest route to ostracization and political obsolescence is a courageous refusal to toe the party line. Damn the (moral) torpedoes; full speed ahead.
Oh, man. This is much more of a rant than I intended.
I think government is important. (I so admire the ideas of M. Ellul, but the pragmatic 3.2% of me thinks that most people are wired for structure, not anarchy.) I think civic involvement is important. But thoughtful, responsible citizenship is hard work, and I’m saddened by how much harder it has become in our age of rhetoric over substance, personality over character, issues over ideas, tribalism over community, and fear over freedom.
Our politics is broke.
Coming soon: Debbie Downer takes a day off and I wax hopeful about broken things made whole.
Filed under: politics | Tagged: Christian anarchy, civil libertarian, communitarian, conservative, Jacques Ellul, liberal
You’ve got American Scene and Atlantic in your politics links. Are you by any chance a Douthat/Salam reader?
I finished their book recently, and thought they made a good, if noticeably restrained argument, that I will not summarize here, because I’d have to remember it, and that would be hard.
If you’re interested, I’d lend it to you.
A good assessment of the current political state. Nice BSG nod, by the way. :)
I think I have to start reading more to be able to contribute here. But if you’ve ever listened to KPFK and get a dose of Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” you’ll find the bemoanings of a fairly failed two-party system all over that medium.
Let me know how Partial Preterism converges with Politics, and I’ll start coming up with some ideas!
Doug – Yes, I am interested! You’re talking about Grand New Party, right? We should meet up for drinks anyway, so name the day. There’s a great little soul food tapas bar in Ventura that I suspect you would enjoy.
Steve – Can this season get any more epic?? Methinks yes.
Rich, AKA “The Goulie Kid” – Thanks for the tip! Maybe Goodman has a podcast I can check out. As to partial preterism and politics, I have in mind to explore here at some point the impact of various theologies on political ideas, so I’m sure you’ll have some wise words to add to those conversations!
Charline’s is awesome. I think we’ve eaten their whole menu by now.
As far as politics goes, I’m more pessimistic than ever. I’ve always been cynical about pols, but more and more I think a profound cultural change is the necessary preliminary to any improvement in American politics. And I think there’s absolutely no chance of such a change occurring, which is why I think Buckley’s vision of conservatism standing athwart history, yelling Stop, is as much as can be done. Probably ever, until the world is renewed.
I can’t get enough of the fried green tomatoes and the sweet tea martinis, though the lining of my stomach hates me about 4 hours later. I don’t think the human body is designed to metabolize that much lard and vodka.
I’m not ready to call hope for political renewal quits for the same reason I’m not ready to call hope for any kind of renewal quits (Rich, this is where the partial preterism might come in): God is hard at work renewing people, and their renewal can be brought to bear on all kinds of human endeavor. Even a system as fracked as American politics is no match for the sneaky, relentless Spirit of God.
I envy your . . . hope.
In my opinion, Ron Paul was the only candidate of either party who had a chance of meeting these challenges.
I agree that government is necessary, but I ask, what should be the role of government?
I agree that government is necessary, but I ask, what should be the role of government?
My unlikely hybrid of ideas makes that a difficult question to answer in an easy-to-remember one-liner. The half-baked communitarian side of me sees government as a (but not the) vehicle through which individuals contribute to the success and stability of their community. Deciding which policies should be enacted to do so—whether educational opportunities, access to healthcare, preservation of common resources, etc.—is an important function of representative democracy.
My gooey civil libertarian center sees government as the arbiter of conflicts between positive and negative rights. For instance, I believe that education is a right, but also that the positive right to education should not infringe on the negative right to free speech—e.g., parents’ right to homeschool their children or to protest the public school’s science curriculum. Negotiating the tensions that inevitably arise can, I think, only be done in the public square.
As much as I respect Ron Paul, he and I obviously have some differences about the role government should play in its citizens’ lives. I don’t think gov’t is a necessary evil; I think it can be an arena in which good is done by and for the people it represents.
People sometimes think I’m anti-government. I tell them that I’m pro-government, I just favor a tightly constrained federal government, in order to allow local solutions to produce better results more efficiently.
I do this mostly because I’m preparing a catalog of blank looks, and I gotta catch ‘em all!
I agree that the more local, the better (in most cases) for two main reasons: (1) Ginormous, centralized government is prone to inefficiency and mindless self-perpetuation the more bloated and powerful it gets, and (2) local communities have unique problems and unique resources to deal with them.
I think the federal gov’t can function effectively as a forum to debate, negotiate and arbitrate the impact of individuals and communities on each other’s rights and freedoms. We’re none of us alone on this bus, and we need an arena where we can work out how to keep it on the road and in good repair.
[...] discussion thread on yesterday’s post, and a thought that surfaces again and again is that my politics are deeply entwined with my theology — so much so that sometimes I’m not sure which is [...]