8. The Essential Lie of Progressive Liberalism

The essential lie of modern progressive liberalism, the lie at the very heart of Mr. Obama's political philosophy, and the lie I once believed but can no longer is this:  The poor and disenfranchised in our society are where they are because of powerful forces that have put them there and conspire to keep them down for economic gain.  It is too much freedom, the greed and the operation of unfettered capitalism, that results in poverty and political disenfranchisement.  In Mr. Marx's terms, the rich are rich because they extract surplus value from the noble and deserving poor, value that the rich do not rightfully lay claim to.  Or alternatively, as Mr. Obama says, we've tried the market and it hasn't worked.  Because the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.  These are the internal contradictions of capitalism that will eventually lead to its destruction.  If only we could find a leader, young, handsome, perhaps even post-racial, that had the vision. 

The only way to redress this fundamental inequity is to redistribute wealth and opportunity by limiting the property rights and freedom of the haves and transferring their stuff to the have nots.  The agent for this redistribution is necessarily the government.  This redistribution is accomplished in the name of the people, specifically the oppressed, through the threat and if necessary, the execution of legitimate violence.  The constitution is an outdated and restrictive document because, as Mr. Obama himself points out, while it declares what government cannot do to you, it does not define what the government should do on your behalf.  Providing you are one of the oppressed, of course.  GM bond holders need not apply.  They don't need property rights.  After all, they've made enough money.

When I believed these things, I found them delicious.  I had a great cause to give my life meaning.  I also had an enemy that I could, if not hate, dislike very intensely.  I had bad guys.  And if I could turn Jesus into a proto-Marxist a la Gustavo Gutierrez, so much the better.  Life was simple and theoretically elegant.  And, oh yes, I was smarter than everybody else because I had penetrated the veneer and spied the dark forces of economic oppression behind the curtain - the dominant paradigm.  I was the vanguard of the proletariat.  I was...well, special. 

I recently took a trip to Seattle where I saw the Occupy movement breaking out windows in the Wells Fargo bank.  Although there are a relatively few that act out thus, this is the animating spirit of anger and righteous indignation that motivates contemporary progressive liberalism.  Whether it is illegitimate violence in the Seattle streets or legitimate violence imposed from Washington, it is violence in  support of the great redistribution nonetheless.

If you truly believe in your heart of hearts that the inner city poor are where they are because Wells Fargo is exploitative and corrupt, I suppose that anger is justified.  You should definitely vote Obama in 2012 and support him in putting his boot on the throat of whatever corporate industry or sector or ethnicity or class is causing all this mischief.  You need to take their stuff and get it in the hands of the needy, pronto.  We have tried the market and it doesn't work.  Now we need a philosopher king.  The experiment in liberty has failed.  We need violence or the threat thereof.  We need command.  We need control.  We need a visionary to show us the way and shepherd us to the promised land.  A free people cannot be counted on to define their own vision, to heal their own neighbors, to negotiate their own relationships fairly.

If you are a constitutional conservative, on the other hand, that kind of attitude and behavior strikes you as and adolescent, incongruous with your daily experience, and...well...creepy.  You will find more constructive things to do with your time.  Read a book.  Hug your child.  Or do something for the least of your brothers.  Not break a window.  Not take some rich guy's money away.

7. The Central Truth of Constitutional Conservatism

These initial reflections in posts 1-6 have lead me to confront a central truth and a central lie and the political/moral implications that flow therefrom.  Judge for yourself whether or not you agree with me.

The essential truth at the heart of constitutional conservatism is that imperfect and inequitable though it might be, our society provides abundant opportunity for anyone to enjoy a satisfying lifestyle assuming that they make reasonable decisions and are of sound mind and body.  The reason this opportunity exists is because we have a system of political economy that emphasizes the dignity, autonomy, liberty, and property of the individual.  By jealously guarding these principles, we have unleashed individual creativity and initiative on an historically unprecedented scale.  This is how abundance is created.  This is how economies grow.  In fact, it is the only way.

In this view, the primary moral obligation of the government is to continually protect these God-bestowed rights, the day-by-day execution of which by a functional citizenry produces this abundance and opportunity.  Conversely, the primary moral obligation of the citizenry is -- after having established a sound personal scaffolding for themselves by studying hard, working hard, marrying well, and saving money -- to use their personal abundance  in order to provide for individuals who truly cannot provide for themselves (the safety net) and to teach those who are missing out on an abundant life because of a skills deficit (mentorship).  As Bill Bennett once said succinctly:  learn, earn, serve.

If I were to interview 1,000 individuals who truly were the downtrodden, the least of my brothers, I believe I would discover two tribes.  Tribe one would consist of people who were in their situations because they were part of the tragic tenth -- the mentally or physically wounded individuals who cannot fend for themselves -- or the temporarily unlucky.  This is the safety net tribe.  It is the tribe that the functional and fortunate 90% are capable and happy to take care of from their abundance.  But then, I would also discover another tribe.  A tribe equally in need of support and compassion, but a tribe that need not be.  A tribe that can grow large enough to overwhelm the functional, productive members of society.  This is the tribe that exists because its members have made poor decisions.  Not evil decisions.  Not intentionally self-destructive decisions.  But poor decisions, consistently, throughout the course of their lives. 

Moreover, I would find that in most cases, they made poor decisions because they simply had not been given the cultural wherewithal to make good ones.  I would find that overwhelmingly the culprit lay with their families of origin.  I would find that they had parents who did not see parenting as their primary moral responsibility, who did not themselves possess the skills to pass on to their children no matter how much they loved them, or both.  I would encounter a tragic litany of the dispossessed:

• I would see adult children who had grown up in homes without a functional mother and father who loved them and each other  
• I would see adult children who grew up in homes where their parents were not professionally successfully, who did not know how to develop professional skills, did not possess a work ethic, did not know how to find a job, to keep a job, to relate to their coworkers, to impress their bosses, and to move up the economic ladder  

• I would find adult children who grew up in homes where their parents knew nothing about money: about its importance, how to save it, how to invest it, how to budget, how to make wise purchasing decisions. 

• I would find adult children who grew up in homes where their parents did not know how to deal with intense human emotions like anger, fear, disappointment, and sadness; who did not know how to manage human appetites for food, for mood and mind altering substances, for romance and sexuality 
• I would find adult children who grew up in homes where their parents did not value and know how to achieve education,  how to study, how to savor ideas and their expression, how to cultivate the life of the mind, how to apply for college and financial assistance, how to exploit the tremendous resources that colleges provide
• I would find children who grew up in homes where their parents did not  know how to maturely love and cherish other people, where a mother and father did not look at each other with an abiding love in their eyes, where a mother and father did not convey to their children that those children were a source of delight and that their parents, along with the universe, was glad to have their company

In short, I would find a wounded tribe that was forever beyond the reach of government succor and largesse.  It is a tribe whose pain Bill Clinton cannot possibly feel, let alone redress.  And given that Mr. Clinton was many times the politician that Mr. Obama ever will be, it is certainly a pain that our community organizer cannot heal. 

It is, however, precisely the kind of pain and need that poses the core questions at the heart of all the world's great religions.  It is the tribe that, in the Christian faith, Jesus died for and whose pain he did feel as his life dwindled on the cross.  And in feeling that pain, he did not seek to organize them.  He died for them.  And he expected his followers to care for them.  It is the tribe whose pain that only a just and good community of 300 million or so free and functional people - whatever their faith - might just be able to do something about.  If they retain the liberty to do so.