Thoughts on the collectivists’ attempts to split the Tea Party. Count me as an agnostic libertarian who has no problem with evangelical Christians, or church charity.
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Thoughts on the collectivists’ attempts to split the Tea Party. Count me as an agnostic libertarian who has no problem with evangelical Christians, or church charity.
Comments are closed.
Ah, the freedom to choose in this area would be so sweet that I can’t even imagine it. Just like politics, charity is local and has a much more lasting impact when it happens face to face. We have been inured to think that it is proper for the government to take care of all of our needs.
I was in Houston after Katrina and saw an incredibly depressing sight outside the Astrodome. People were moved to bring what they had to share with others and brought truckloads of food and clothes. But the ‘rules’ wouldn’t allow home-cooked food to be served(I’m sure due to liability concerns and contracts with Sysco if I remember right). So there were piles of donations left in the parking lots around the stadium.
It doesn’t have to be this way, but it will be if the government is the only one allowed to dispense charity.
The government’s approach to charity is that 80% of the funding goes to overhead to pay the salaries of the bureaucrats. They hate the competition from real charities because it doesn’t further their empire building.
There’s faith and then there’s superstition. I anticipate that the next half-century will see a slow realignment towards one or the other. Especially as people have to turn back to core spiritual values when the dollar collapse (probably will happen) leads to the end of shopping malls and a return to 12-hour day factory jobs.
Christianity, Deism, secularism, and new-ageism all have room for one or the other: faith or superstition.
I define them like so:
Superstition = the desire or belief that reality can somehow be ignored.
Faith = the desire or belief that the forces pertaining to the realm of the unknown, that transcend known reality, may somehow work in our favor.
So, a superstitious person feels entitled. They demand material product while insisting that they do not have to think.
A person of faith is satisfied to take what they can earn, and act where they can make a difference, regardless of the outcomes of those forces outside of their control, and with the perceived ultimate purpose of their endeavors left to derive its meaning from the realm of hope.
These are spiritual principles, not religious principles.
In that spirit, I predict a left-wing retreat back into a more evangelical but nevertheless open (though reality denying) religious mentality. Lefties aren’t religious nowadays because of a smug intellectual tribalism. Tear down their world (austerity, university hedge fund crash, ‘higher-ed bubble’, the failure of academic economics, and the general economic calamity facing everyone, including civil unrest and the death of the ‘peace’ facade), and they’ll flock to supernaturalism.
I also predict more right-wing agnostics coming over to a level of comfort with an introspetive deism. The religious right that does not join the left (or isn’t marginalized), will transform their faith into a more Deistic, fundamentals based religion. “Going Galt” for Christians is what I’m getting at: less concern with social policy, more concern with getting off the pop culture grid and living decently onesself. This inward-oriented religion will make Deism the predominant political paradigm, if not personal. Hence, natural rights as a rallying point for a common social order. Deism, I say, and not ‘the depravity of man’. The difference is between admitting that God created man to pursue his self-interest on Earth, if not above, or insisting that Biblical lore implies that man’s natural state is depraved and to therefore always be seen with contemptuous skepticism (err on the side of control vs. freedom).
In essence: in 50 years people will be amazed that religion was a political and social issue that divided people today. In 50 years, your politics alone will define you in society.
I favor this, because it means that the ignorers-of-reality will no longer have that accusation to levy against their right-wing opponents. Loud and unruly religious fervor will be a leftist phenomenon. Religion on the right: quiet, personal, moderated, thoughtful, reflective – in a word – spiritual.
Count me as an agnostic libertarian who has no problem with evangelical Christians, or church charity.
Me too. I believe in tolerance, and atheists and agnostics who sneer at religion and regard themselves as intellectually superior to religious believers piss me off no end. They give all atheists/agnostics a bad name, much like smokers who flick their butts out the car window instead of using the ashtray.
Karl Denninger at the Market Ticker posted on this a couple of months ago. He urged the Tea Party to focus like a laser on limited government and fiscal responsibility. He regards social issues as “wedge issues” that are guaranteed to repel as many voters as they attract, no matter which side you’re on.
(For some reason I can’t link to the specific post. Here is the URL: http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=165544. It’s a great read.)
More recently, American Thinker had the post Change Tea Party Goals? It covers similar ground to Dana Loesch’s article. It was heartening to see the vast majority of the commenters agree.
Huh. That’s funny. Denninger’s post didn’t show up in the preview window, making me think that I couldn’t link it.
ZSorenson:
That’s an outstanding comment.
As I said above, I’m an agnostic and have been for my whole adult life. But I had a rudimentary Christian upbringing, and as I get older I’m finding that I’m starting to drift back in that direction. I’m not there yet, though.