The Divide Between Evangelicals And Libertarians

EVER SINCE the beginning of the modern American conservative movement there has been a tension between traditional conservatives and libertarians. For traditional conservatives the greatest good is virtue. For libertarians the greatest good is liberty.

Now comes Ryan H. Sager, columnist at The New York Post, worrying again about a split between conservatives and libertarians in the Republican Party. He has a book about it: The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.

Ryan�s critique centers around the widely shared idea that the Republican Party abandoned its principles shortly after it gained control of Congress in 1994. Instead of cutting spending it took fright in the budget showdown of 1995 and caved in to the spenders. Now Republicans are in favor of big government as long as conservatives are in charge of it. Except that libertarians aren�t going to take it any more.

It is frustrating. We all know that big government is leading us down a road to national and moral bankruptcy. But try telling that to the beneficiaries of government programs and to the special interests that browse on government spending.

The complainers, I believe, do not give Bush and Rove enough credit. The cornerstone of the Bush/Rove politics is the building of an Ownership Society. They are slowly trying to move the federal government�s posture away from benefit programs and to build societal structures that empower people and expand choice.

Presumably their strategy is guided by a view that conservatives cannot expect to wean people away from government dependence until they have made them independent of government, or at least developed a clear path to independence. In this way the reduction in tax rates and the development of a network of individual choice initiatives like Roth IRAs, Health Savings Accounts, and school vouchers are all works in progress towards the ultimate goal: a society criss-crossed with safety nets built and maintained by the people not by government and its experts.

Libertarians should take care about pushing their side of the argument too far. If the divide is between evangelicals and libertarians then it may be in fact a divide between women conservatives and men conservatives.

Modern Christian believers are said to be about 70 percent women. This is certainly true in the more enthusiastic sects like the Pentecostals and the Chinese house churches. Libertarianism has always been a rather muscular male thing.

Let us not open a divide in the conservative community between more community-minded women and more agent-minded men. It isn�t worth it.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Class War

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status... Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher... The academics lost their power and prestige and... have been gloomy ever since.
Freeman Dyson, “The Scientist as Rebel”

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

Conservatism's Holy Grail

What distinguishes true Conservatism from the rest, and from the Blair project, is the belief in more personal freedom and more market freedom, along with less state intervention... The true Third Way is the Holy Grail of Tory politics today - compassion and community without compulsion.
Minette Marrin, The Daily Telegraph

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Drang nach Osten

There was nothing new about the Frankish drive to the east... [let] us recall that the continuance of their rule depended upon regular, successful, predatory warfare.
Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

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