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Further Observations On RJR & Libertarianism

April 25, 2012 in Reading Rushdoony, Uncategorized with 2 Comments

I don’t have a problem with RJR quoting the Libertarians or even with him making common cause with them as co-belligerents on certain issues. I acknowledge that RJR often was in bed with the Libertarians. I will even say that I can see RJR supporting a Ron Paul candidacy for President. (Does anyone know if RJR said anything regarding the Paul Libertarian Presidential Candidacy in 1988?)

However, what I object to, as coming from American Vision, is that they want to thump that Libertarian side of RJR completely and then turn around and disavow all the Kinist quotes from RJR as if that side of RJR never existed. The Kinist side of RJR is the balance and tension that is needed for all his Libertarian statements. It is true that RJR was a Libertarian as that concept finds meaning in the context of God’s Law word, but it is equally true that RJR was a Kinist as that concept finds meaning in the context of God’s law word. The fact that RJR would have embraced both Libertarian strains and Kinist strains fits perfectly with his understanding of, “The One and The Many,” and the fact that organizations invoking the name of RJR finds problems with either of these necessary strains is telling. Is it possible to be loyal to RJR and recognize his Libertarian strains while denouncing those who also recognize his Kinist strains or would such lopsidedness communicate that such a organization is leaning to far in a non God’s law word conditioned Libertarianism?

But AV doesn’t want the kinist RJR. They only want the Libertarian RJR. Meanwhile the Daniel Richies, Stephen Hallbrooks, and John Loftons don’t want either the Libertarian nor the Kinist RJR. The Theonomy of those people is highly suspect.

Rush was no Libertarian in the Rothbard or Rand sense of the word but He was smart enough to use them to advance His agenda, which had a libertarian side as that Libertarianism was conditioned by a Christian Theonomic Reconstructionist worldview.

I think what we might be seeing now is the unraveling of the coalition that RJR built. RJR was able to bring together a coalitiion of Libertarians, Kinists, soft covenanters, agrarians, and southern sympathizers but it seems that coalition is becoming undone.

George Washington … Deist or Christian?

February 6, 2012 in History, Reading Rushdoony with 0 Comments

“Washington’s own religious pronouncements as president were basically unitarian with deistic overtones and in keeping with civil religion beliefs. The Rev. Dr. James Abercrombie, rector of St. Peter’s Church in Philadelphia where Washington often worshipped when the seat of government was located there, went so far as to affirm that the chief executive was a deist and lax in his attention to the Eucharist. To be sure, Washington was not disrespectful toward the church, but according to testimony from both Abercrombie and Rev. William White, the first Episcopal bishop of Pennsylvania, Washington was not a zealous churchgoer nor was he in the habit of partaking of the sacrament. Moreover, he was notorious for not kneeling to pray in public worship. At the church in Philadelphia, he often attended the pulpit service but left before the observance of the Eucharist, usually leaving the more devout Mrs. Washington behind with the other communicants. When Dr. Abercrombie in a sermon scolded those in places of public trust who set bad examples by turning their backs on the sacrament, Washington was so irked that he never appeared at St. Peter’s on Communion Sunday again. This ambivalence towards orthodoxy characterized Washington’s church-going habits and this attitude toward organized religion in general during his years as president. He attended sporadically, listened courteously, but participated little in the life of the local church. He never spoke of any personal belief in Christ but rather reserved his affirmations of faith in the Supreme Ruler of the Nations for his personal letters or civil religion occasions of the government such as the presidential inaugural.”

Pierard & Linder
“Civil Religion & the Presidency”

Letter from R. J. Rushdoony to Cornelius Van Til,

Dear Dr. Van Til,

This is a hasty note in respect to George Washington. What the history books have to say about him and his biographers is no more trusted than what James Daane has to say about you.

George Washington grew up into the 18th century Rationalism. A basically conservative, land loving man, a part of his conservatism was to accept, without great question, the rationalism of his day. However, the events of the war, led to a somewhat altered perspective, and then the French Revolution, during his presidency, altered his outlook markedly. He strongly opposed the French Revolution. He emphatically affirmed infallibility as the bedrock of the Christian faith as against rationalism. Previously a Mason, he supported Rev. Jeddidiah Morse, leading orthodox Calvinist of the day, in his attack on free-masonry and wrote at least two letters to Morse to underscore with his own testimony the validity of Morse’ attack. It is in terms of this that his 1796 quote is to be understood.

I shared the lecture platform, in Houston Texas recently, with Gregg Singer, who rightfully called attention to the strongly Christian thought in the Constitutional convention by men such as Rutledge, Dickinson, John Jay and others. Certainly, Patrick Henry, nominally, like Washington a Anglican represented, as Singer stated the Reformed faith with intensity. Henry was in his day a “Traveling Monk” in the eyes of some, because of his habit of carrying Reformed literature in his saddle bags to distribute to other lawyers. Even on his death bed, Henry witnessed to the faith to his agnostic Doctor.

Such aspects of American history are anathema to our historians, who, from the early 1800′s, when the Unitarians began to write our history, to the present when relativists have taken over, have worked more systematically to re-make the history and the founding fathers after their own image. In those days, it was necessary to affirm infallibility and the trinity to vote, and what many people forget is that the deistic writings of Franklin and Jefferson were not published in their day but privately written. Jefferson’s unbelief was widely suspected, but he avoided public profession of it.

We are too little aware of how Christian the laws were in all the states. As late as 1912, on state constitution still required that one be a Christian to hold citizenship and vote. Only last Summer did the New Jersey Supreme court strike down an old statute, once universal in all the states, denying the right of atheists to be witnesses in a court of law because of their inability to take the oath honestly and because they lacked citizenship.

Cordially,

R. J. Rushdoony

Hat Tip — Mickey Bolwerk