Culture – Page 40

A Quick Critique Of Movement Libertarianism

“Why is an alliance between conservatives and libertarians inconceivable? Why, indeed, would such articles of confederation undo whatever gains conservatives have made in this United States? Because genuine libertarians are mad — metaphysically mad. Lunacy repels, and political lunacy especially. I do not mean that they are dangerous; they are repellent merely, like certain unfortunate inmates of ‘mental homes.’

– Russell Kirk,
Author of The Conservative Mind

Often there is confusion in the Christian community that Christianity is Libertarian. Now, certainly it is understandable why people might think this since for the past 150 years in this country the Church has had to contend against a State that is increasingly intent on becoming god walking on the earth. As such, the Church has had to make arguments insisting that the 1st commandment should be taken seriously by God’s people and in doing so it has made some of the same kind of negative arguments against the all encompassing desired omnipotence of the State that Movement Libertarians make. However, Biblical Christianity has no more in common with movement Libertarianism then it has with Movement Marxism.

Like the Movement Libertarians the Church articulates a message that no institution is absolutized in it sovereignty. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church insists that absolute sovereignty belongs to God and not to the individual man. Like the Movement Libertarians the Church inveighs against a State that has forgotten its place. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church believes that the State has a place in God’s order. That place in God’s order is to bring God’s justice upon those who, because of their sin nature, can not restrain themselves. Like the Movement Libertarians the Church articulates a message that insists that the individual as individual must be respected and that the individual is not merely some kind of cog to fit in a machine crafted by the State. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church articulates a message that insists that men find their identity not in their abstracted individuality, but rather men find their identity it terms of distinct covenantal corporate relationships — relationships defined by God — that include family, Church, Community, Guilds, and yes, even the Magistrate. Like the Movement Libertarian the Church articulates a message of Liberty for the individual. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church insists that Liberty is not absolutized and only finds it meaning in the context of a God ordained Transcendent Moral order. Like the Movement Libertarians the Church articulates a message of love of self. Unlike the Movement Libertarians the Church also articulates a message of self denial for a greater good ordained by God.

Likewise Christianity teaches, unlike Movement Libertarianism, that man is fallen. Most versions of Movement Libertarianism, like most versions of Marxism, believes in the inherent goodness of man. Christianity teaches that what God’s people on earth are to seek to live out has some connectivity, and ought to be something of a reflection of the Transcendent Moral Order that exists independently of man’s existence. Movement Libertarianism, with its atomized and absolutized self is concerned very little with the idea of a Transcendent Moral Order that has men praying, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Christianity teaches that social order analysis must begin, where all other analysis must begin and that is from above — with God and His scriptural revelation. Libertarianism does its social order analysis from below — from the needs of the sovereign individual, from the concern of the immanent. Christianity teaches the inescapable reality that all social orders are organized Theocratically. Even Democratic social order is a social order where “vox populi vox dei rules from on high. Movement Libertarianism seems to believe that it is possible to have a social order that is religiously neutral and is not shaped by the God(s). Christianity teaches that in every social order one God is preeminent. Libertarianism seems to teach that social orders can be had where all the gods are preeminent or, alternately, where no gods are preeminent, and they hold this quite without realizing that this view requires a preeminent god to insure that no gods are preeminent.

As an aside, it is interesting to note, that as looked at through Christian lenses, it sometimes seems that some Movement Libertarians are as desirous of putting off Christian morality as Marxists are. How many Libertarians can be counted among the the dopers? How many Libertarians embrace the “non-aggression principle” right up to the point of legalizing Prostitution, Sodomy, and any number of other perversions? For many Libertarians, morality, not being absolute or transcendent, is person variable and as such social orders should be pursued that allow for morality to be person variable.

Ironically, what Movement Libertarianism creates is the Totalitarian State just as what the Totalitarian State creates is the press towards Anarchism. Only Biblical Christianity with its doctrine of the Eternal One and the Many, as that reverberates through the Created One and the Many, provides answers that eclipse the “push me, pull you,” found in the dysfunctional but real relationship between Marxism and Libertarianism. Christians can learn from Libertarians and especially so when most Christians seemingly are completely blithe to the 1st commandment. As such, reading men like Henry Lewis Mencken, Albert J. Nock, Lysander Spooner, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig Von Mises can be profitable but those who dine with the devil are always well advised to dine with a long spoon. So, we can dine in order to plunder the Egyptians but let us dine in such a way that we don’t become ensnared by the Egyptians.

At the end of the conversation, Libertarianism as a social order motif can only work as any given people share the propensity of self-government consistent with a common worldview. It is hard to envision how Movement Libertarianism could exist in a genuinely multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-ethnic setting where notions of ethics are as diverse as the balkanized worldviews represented by the varied and sundry multi-meanings that occur as a result of all the multi-dynamics.

McAtee Contra VanDrunen On Religious Commitment & Social Orders

‎”…what sort of religious commitment, if any, should be promoted or required within the social order? The answer, I suggest, is none. A crucial consideration is the fact that God made the Noahic covenant with “you [Noah and his sons] and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you” (9:9-10). The human race generally (along with the animal kingdom) is God’s covenant partner. Not a single distinction is made between believers and unbelievers, but God promises to preserve them in their common social life.”

~ Dr. David Van Drunen, 2012 lecture

How thoughtful of Dr. Van Drunen to give us so clearly and to so passionately advocate his religious commitment for the social order. Dr. VD’s religious commitment for the social order that he is advocating is that the social order should be animated by the religious commitment of no religious commitment. Another way to label his religious commitment for the social order is ” Social Order Atheism. Interestingly enough this is the exact same social order theory advocated by Marxists of all hues and stripes.

Now, some desire to answer Dr. Van Drunen by insisting that the religious commitment of the social order should be all religious commitments. In this thinking the social order should be animated by all religious commitments. This is sometimes called pluralism but I prefer to label it as Social Order Polytheism. Interestingly enough this is the social order advocated by all anarchists.

The main problem with Dr. Van Drunen’s thinking is that it presupposes that man can cease being Homo Adorans (man the worshiper) in his common realm. For Dr. Van Drunen man is no longer a worshiper as he lives and moves and has is being in the social order, and not being a worshiper man can create a social order that is not reflective of any ultimate religious commitment to a god or god concept. Such a thinking puts a severe strain on ones desire to be a irenic.

In both situations of social order Atheism or social order polytheism, even though they each being with seemingly opposite religious commitments for the social order, they end up in the same place. If the social order is to be Atheistic then it will be the autonomous man deified as the State that will create the social order and the citizenry will be required to have religious commitments to the state. If the social order is to be polytheistic then it will require some institution to set the limits on how these competing religious commitments will interact in the social order. That institutions will likely be the State. Both of these positions lead us to the outcome that in the State we will live and move and have or being for the social order.

This Place Is Going To Blow

This clip is from the Christian College I graduated from.

I’m not sure what modern female college graduates learn outside of the hard sciences, engineering and flat-backing disciplines. I’m guessing, given the performance linked above, a preponderance of it is jejune cultural-Marxist torpidity, which probably is helpful for brain dead social climbers and future Church pew sitters. However, I do not think such banality is a sign of refined taste anymore then I think cannibalism is a sign of epicurean high taste. The ability to master cultural Marxist “knowledge” and the “dance” steps that go with it is more of a sign of the emptiness of the soul and bloodless apathy than refined taste. I’d guess that assortative mating between modern Christian college graduates will produce an upper middle class of emotionally, psychologically and culturally stunted credulous imbeciles who embrace modern neo-Marxist culture as the milk of Western Civilization. That seems more worrisome then what we currently call “dance.”

Wandering Thoughts On Obama & His Trayvon Martin Son

1.) We have to understand what Obama was doing with his statement, “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon.”

B. Hussein Obama was playing racial politics. If there ever was a “dog whistle” for racial identification that statement was it. Obama can’t be explicit and say “I’m down with you on the race struggle,” for that would be too blatant and would cost votes, but he can shore up his base by saying “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon,” because by doing so he implies, by identifying directly with the most integral building block of race (the family) that he is down with them in the struggle against Whitey.

Obama, by that statement, is playing racial politics. Further, by that statement Obama is saying, “I hate whites,” “I hate the current social order,” and “I am working to overthrow all of whiteys privilege.” Remember all of the Martin case is driven by the cultural Marxist narrative that insists that Black people are oppressed by evil White people and unwarranted white privilege. Obama, with his seemingly strange statement about Trayvon and being a son, is supporting that narrative. This is the same narrative that Obama supported when he embraced Derrick Bell and required the reading of his works. This is the same narrative so eloquently and repeatedly preached by James Cone disciple, Jeremiah Wright, under which Obama sat for twenty years. This is the same narrative Obama learned and taught while he was a community organizer in the Saul Alinsky school of thought.

Obama has revealed himself on this score already as President. He supported this cultural Marxist narrative when he fired, way to early, both barrels in the Cambridge cop routine. He reveals it in his Presidency as his administration refuses to prosecute the New Black Panthers for their clear violation of civil rights laws when they intimidated white people at the voting booth.

Obama is a Cultural Marxists and he is down for the struggle. All of his actions reveal this at every step of the way. This is what animates this man.

2.) Remember the Obama Democratic establishment has given up on the Reagan Democrats (White working class) as part of the coalition they want to put together for victory.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067223/President-Obamas-2012-campaign-abandons-white-working-class-voters-favor-minorities-educated.html

Obama’s statement “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon,” thus serves to galvanize the coalition that he is trying to build in opposition to those voters he has written off as being his opposition. (After all, they realize that if they are to write off those voters therefore those voters will vote for someone else, and so be his opposition.) Obama’s identifying with the black community with his statement thus is about 2012 election politics as it much as it is about anything else. Obama gains the black vote for obvious reasons with such a statement and he also curries the White educated vote because educated people are stupid, having been propagandized against their own self interest by the Cultural Marxist ruling elite in the Universities.

The only question in this gambit by Obama is whether or not he will offend another minority community that he needs in his coalition — the Hispanic vote. Remember, George Zimmerman, is not white but is Hispanic. There is a long antipathy between the black special interest constituents in the Democratic Party and the Hispanic special interest constituents. Obama risks losing the Hispanic vote if the Hispanic community ever begins to identify with George Zimmerman in this circus.

3.) Another angle that is possible in this Presidential attempt to whip up racial frenzy is the desire to foment such racial conflict that a declaration of Martial law would be required. Obama knows that this nation is sitting on a racial tinderbox. Obama, also knows, being a Marxist, that the creation of intense conflict of interest always serves the end of the State. If enough strife was whipped up by the policy of divide and conquer then Obama could be seen as legitimately declaring Martial law and so would be able to be even better situated to manipulate the results of the 2012 election (should an election occur) and quite possibly collect weaponry from the citizenry.

Sharpening What We Have Become

What does it mean that a nation founded on the sacred ideas of personal liberty and individual responsibility and where the Government, as a controlling agency, was severely restricted in what it could control, has now become a nation where the citizenry is forced, by the Government, to fund pharmaceutical abortifacients for licentious, irresponsible but sacred whoredom, where the Government, by way of policy, holds minorities as sacred to the point where they can only be the victims of White oppression and never the victims of their own desultory and self-immolating behavior, and where the Government worships at the shrine of perversion, forcing the citizenry to embrace, as a culture, the embrace of sacred sodomy?

What does it mean when a Nation, who once believed that Justice was blind — thus suggesting that Lady Justice was sacred precisely because she saw neither status, condition, or skin, when applying the law, — is now a nation which has advanced a woman to the Supreme Court who could defy the founding sentiment of a blind Lady Justice with the words, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life?” What does it mean when a Nation who ruled that Dred Scott had no rights as a citizen is now a nation where a son of Dred Scott’s people will not prosecute the New Black Panthers for denying citizens the right to vote? What does it mean when a Nation, which once extended sympathy to Khazars because of oppression against them is now a nation that can not criticize the Kahazars because of their oppression of us?

What does it mean when a Nation was so literate that its farmers could easily follow “The Federalists Papers” as they came out as a series of Newspaper articles but now is so illiterate that newspapers are written for a 7th grade reading level? What does it meant when rural America could listen to the Lincoln vs. Douglas debates go for hours and follow every nuance of freewheeling unmediated debate yet today has a hard time understanding sound bite campaign tripe? What does it mean that we have gone from Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Davies and Archibald Alexander to Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, and Tim Keller?