Posted on 09/10/2005 10:22:43 AM PDT by RWR8189
The first issue of this magazine appeared in September 1995, part way through the Clinton administration, and less than a year after the Republican victory in the congressional elections of 1994. The pressing foreign policy issue of the day was Bosnia. The world seems a very different place today. To mark our 10th anniversary, we invited several of our valued contributors to reflect on the decade past and, at least indirectly, on the years ahead. More specifically, we asked them to address this question:
"On what issue or issues (if any!) have you changed your mind in the last 10 years- and why?" Their responses follow.
POLITICS IS EVIL. Ten years ago I thought politics was misguided. But the events of the past decade--indeed, of the past 10 or a dozen decades--have proven me wrong. The sum and substance of politics was expressed in the 1860s by Nicholas Chernyshevskii, a prescient Russian radical: "Man is god to man." And politics violates the other nine commandments as well. Politics could hardly function without bearing false witness. Likewise, without taking the Lord's name in vain. This is especially true given that, in politics, the Lord who is so loosely sworn by is Mankind. In the modern era politics has taken the place of mere tyranny. The result has been more killing in one century than in all the preceding centuries combined. Covetousness and stealing define redistributive politics. Without redistribution politics would have no political support. Graven image is as good a name as any for the fiat money by which politics operates. Politics' insistence upon involvement in every human activity, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is more anti-Sabbatarian than golf. The Social Security system is no way to honor thy father and thy mother. And as for adultery, there was, and there may be still, Bill Clinton.
To claim that one's political activities are the will of God is to worship Beelzebub, as Osama bin Laden has demonstrated. To loudly call for separation of church and state is to miss the point. Why is there never a call for separation of state and coven?
Even to be "politically informed and engaged" is probably to be of the devil's party. Tune in to that most politically informed and engaged network, NPR, and listen to the evident relish with which its newscasts and current events programs recount misfortune, inequity, and suffering worldwide. The unspoken gleeful message is, "More occasions for more politics!"
Conservatism is not without its own delight in misery. Witness our enjoyment of the junior senator from New York. Of course we cannot walk away from politics any more than we can take a hike from original sin. But the most important action of political conservatism is not to politic but to conserve--to save things, in particular people, to preserve them from evil, which is to say politics.
God has made us free men, sovereigns of our own affairs, and sole experts on minding our own business. We are endowed with an individual capacity to improve our understanding, better our circumstances, and laugh at Howard Dean. The purpose of conservatism is to guard the sovereignty and get out of the capacity's way.
Observe our national politics. Observe politics around the world. Observe politics through the ages. Does it look like God's handiwork? When it comes to having a role in politics, that would be the Other Fellow.
P.J. O'Rourke is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and author, most recently, of Peace Kills (Atlantic Monthly Press).
Good write up and I agree. If man had not fallen, we wouldn't need government. Government is nothing more than various degrees of managing evil for the common good.
I suppose it could be said that local governments know just who they're dealing with and can handle problems on a small and human scale. Federal and state goverments have to do things on a large scale, with very little attention to individual character and circumstances. I would feel better about someone I personally know working with people that I personally know to achieve ends that I've personally approved of, than sending money to distant bureaucrats to distribute to faceless masses in programs I haven't approved of.
There are a few problems, though. What if the problems really are too big? What if someone can get around regulations by putting a big polluting plant just outside my community's boundaries? What if my local government prefers members of one group to members of others? What if it actively persecutes some group that a national government would have to recognize as voters, citizens, and taxpayers? And (from the libertarian side for a change) if we really know people locally and understand their needs and desires, do we really need a government to perform certain services or can we rely on voluntary and private action by business firms or non-governmental non-profit agencies?
I particularly like this:
"Without redistribution, politics would have no political support"
It's why I think we should do away with most taxes.
According to my understanding of the modern meaning of the word "liberal," no, left leaning politics are not any more palatable on the local level. They do less harm because of the smaller scale, true. But it is still harm. Charity ought to be voluntary, otherwise government, even local government, has too much power, IMO.
I guess the problem in NOLA is an example of a problem that is too big for local government, but only because the local leadership refused to address the problem meaningfully before it occurred. However, IMO, the federal role ought still to be limited to Constitutional bounds. IMO, using the military to restore order and for SAR falls within those bounds as long as national security is a concern, which it is in this case.
However, massive federal interference in the rebuilding effort, which I'm sure we'll see, is likely to result multiple and major fubars. Probably ones with lasting negative effects. It ought to be avoided as much as possible, but wishing for that is pretty much a lost cause.
Excellent points, x, all of them. I wish I had the answer. I believe the feds are necessary for national security, crime investigation, roads/highways ... people want and need some form of government, but, like you I don't like some bureaucrat in Washington making decisions that affect me personally. Poverty, schools, the homeless, etc. can best be handled at the local level, and I believe private charity and business can best address and resolve these problems. I'll need to give this issue more thought.
PJ is a national treasure.
Still, politics is the activity free men engage in to decide how they ought order their lives and we ought not avoid it; and far less ought we condemn it; and thereby condemn ourselves and our children.
The captious cretins who have captured the conservatives in the trap of despising what is, by its nature, a virtue, the action of men living in liberty, only worsens the situation. Talk about the triumph of evil.
Make fun of politicians, yes; ridicule and denounce them with verve and venom. But, don't leave politics to the enemy. He is Legion.
Politics don't corrupt Christians. Christians are the leaven in politics.
"liberal at the local level."
Absolutely not. The only level at which it is appropriate to be liberal is within one's family.
Surely not even there. Liberals teach:
That people should not be expected to take responsibility for their own actions
That America is not worth defending, and the primary source of evil in the world
That sloth and whining should be rewarded, and initiative and productivity punished
And a whole host of other noxious things that have no business in the value system of a decent family.
Stupid and counterproductive mental masturbation from P.J.
Conservatives MUST get their hands dirty in the politics he childishly calls "evil." To call politics evil is the same as to call sex evil, or food, or music, or any fundamentally constitutive human activity that can be abused.
It amounts to a call for conservatives to abandon politics to the Rats. Yes, he says we have to say engaged, but everything else he says here points against that.
He's full of pschitt.
Unfortunately, and it shouldn't happen this way, but I believe the reverse is more frequently true. I've seen it at the top levels of too many churches. And if it happens there, you can be sure that it happens to Christians involved in secular politics.
Man help us!!!
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