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I watched some of the speechifying from the Tea Party convention this weekend (as much as I could stomach) which showed that it is the new home (and probably only the temporary one) of the ‘moral majority’ types from the Republican party. You know, the big C Conservatives, who are mostly Christian evangelicals, mostly white and very sure that their way of life is the way that everyone should live.
I wonder if they know how their insistent talk of God in the poltical sphere, replete with quotes from the Bible, sounds to those of us who are not very religious or, heaven forbid, atheist? It makes them sound like exclusionary zealots – in case you don’t know. What I find most galling is the implicit message that somehow or another, Chritianity had some necessary role in being free, that somehow we wouldn’t have developed into the free superpower we are without Christianity.
The ignorance of the broader sweep of history that this position demands is nothing short of breathtaking. Let’s look at the most obvious of them, in no particular order:
1.Many immigrants to America came here because of religious persecution by various forms of Christianity in the first place.
2. Our founders were very careful to separate church and state in the formation of this country – they put it in writing. While many of them were very religious, they were not by any means looking to build a “Christian Country.” They didn’t write anything about being “God-fearing” into the Declaration of Independence or Constitution – and I think this is intentional.
3. More central is the fact that the entire idea of individual sovereignty – you know the whole idea of what it means to be free, to own oneself – was a convulsion against the very Christian idea that one is a subject of his King and God. Before this radical thought – which only came to life some 500 years ago, a person was the property of his king, tribal leader or other tyrant, as well as his God. There was no end to the depredations one or all could heap upon its people before this idea of individual sovereignty took hold. The entire line of reasoning that leads to the assertion of man’s natural rights was born of reason rather than faith, was found in philosopher’s writings not in the bible, and requires no belief in God to subscribe to it.
The truly pathetic aspect of this attitude is that whatever credence the Tea Party was gaining as an alternative to the religious fundamentalists in the Republican party, it now has lost. They should look at the polls. 59% of Americans identify themselves as Fiscally Conservative and Socially liberal. These ‘Moral Majority’ types are only about 20% of the voting public and they will never be a majority, so their only home is in the Republican party.
In case people don’t understand my anger at them, these are the same people who gave us George Bush – I didn’t like them then, and I like them even less now. How ’bout you?
Oh my gosh, people believe in God! The horror! Re-read the constitution. There is nothing about seperation of Church and State. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” You have freedom of religion, not freedom FROM religion. You got millions of americans finally ready to do what ti takes to shrink government down to something more reasonable and you reject them entirely because some, repeat some, of them are religious. You are not a libertarian, you are an ideolouge.
I don’t reject them, I say that their rhetoric is indistinguishable from what has been coming from the christian and neo-con right for years. As for your ridiculous assertion that the constitution doesn’t free me from religion, well, you are as parsimonious with the truth as Bill Clinton was when he tried to re-define the word “is”.
Our founders came from lands where the state imposed religion on its subjects. They clearly set out to form a society in which religion wasn’t imposed on anyone. In the 1797 treaty with Libya, the document emphatically states that the United States isn’t a Christian country. There is no mention of god at all in the constitution – only the declaration of independence, why do you think that is? Many of our founders were Deists and publicly opposed Christianity and religiosity. Yes, many were Christian’s too, but so what? It was suggested by the organizers of the constitutional convention that the proceedings be opened with a prayer, but that motion was quashed.
I have no argument with your practice of religion or your belief in a god that chooses to make its existence a mystery. My point is keep it out of politics and government – it has no place there. You won’t find it in any libertarian discussions of policy. Our principles are based on individual sovereignty in which, from a governing perspective, the entire issue of god and religion is irrelevant.
In the past, i threw in with Republicans and conservative and when they governed, they did things like, say, John Ashcroft having prayer meetings in his office once a week, in the morning, at the DOJ. The assumed moral superiority of the Christian Neo-con makes him/her to be unable to see what real liberty is, you know the kind where you own yourself and can do as you please with yourself as long as you aren’t impinging on another’s natural rights.
Of course I’m a libertarian. The real ideologues are those like Farha of World Net Daily who just about frothed at the mouth during his prime time speech at the Tea Party convention while he quoted bible verse. No self-respecting libertarian would ever throw in with such a vile creature, and if you do so, well have at it, but know that I oppose you, him and all your ilk with every breath I have, just as much as I oppose the progressives. And there is no way that you could call yourself a libertarian.
Hi Don,
Thanks for weighing in. Yeah, I had great hopes too. One point that I don’t agree on is that being in favor of liberty (and I mean the kind of liberty where your gay neighbors sit on their porch making out while they do bong hits) has anything to do with being conservative. It seems to me that libertarianism inherits the classical liberal agenda, not the conservative one. Of course, the problem is that these words have been used and abused for so long that they’ve lost their original meaning.
I think part of what we want to do as libertarians is clean up the language and to reassert principles as our guide, not party or even ideology, which I view as different from principles.Ideology’ seems to rely on some ‘revealed truth’, whether it’s Marxism or even some of the claims of classical economists or the Austrian economists. I don’t care if being free works better or not – if we are poorer because of it, I’m fine with it. I don’t think we will be, but that isn’t my reason for wanting to be free.
I had real hopes for the Tea Party, at first it appeared that we might have a powerfull group dedicated to fiscal responsibility and personal freedoms. how wrong I was. It now has turned in to a Republican election rally.
You have real conservatives, and Republican conservatives, it is clear which group the Tea Party aligns with.
Libertarians are the only group of True Conservatives.