Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

How to advance a statist agenda

The (modern) conservative believes that our nation was founded upon some very simple principles and that those principles happen to be the same principles that (modern) conservatism is based upon. (Modern) conservatives revere the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. A (modern) conservative believes that these documents promulgate and are based upon the concepts of individual liberty and limited government.

I can’t presume to tell you what the (modern) liberal believes. In doing so all I would really be doing is propping up a straw man to knock it down. Anything I as a (modern) conservative have to say about their motivations would be purely speculation. What I can tell you about (modern) liberals is the direction they have been taking our nation.

I use the word “modern” in parentheses when I am talking about liberals and conservatives in the above paragraphs because the meaning we give to those words today is somewhat different from what it was sometime in the past. It used to be that believe in individual liberty and the inalienable rights of man was a liberal viewpoint. Back in the 1930s today’s liberals would have been called “progressives”. Mark Levin calls them “statists”. I think these two terms are much more accurate ways to describe the (apparent) motives and actual actions of (modern) liberals.

One of the principal differences between liberals and conservatives these days is centered around the role of government in our lives. The liberal (apparently) sees government as the answer to the problems that beset our society and the conservative sees government as a necessary means to preserving ordered liberty. The conservative believes that individual ingenuity and industry can overcome the problems we face – provided that unnecessary roadblocks to innovation aren’t put in our way.

As I have said before, the conservative believes in the unalienable rights of the individual. The conservative believes that these rights come from his creator – and not merely from the mind of man. The Declaration of Independence declares that it is the purpose of government to secure these rights – Life, Liberty, the pursuit of Happiness, and that governments are established among men for that purpose. Clearly the founders believed that those rights exist outside of government – and not as something that comes as a consequence of being governed.

Today’s liberal seems to view the rights of the individual as a problem rather than as a gift from our creator. The (liberal) environmentalist appears to believe that the “crushing” numbers of people are destroying our environment – and there is some evidence that in certain areas this is indeed the case. Go to a national park today and observe the structures you’ll find there. If there are old farmhouses preserved in the parks, take a walk through – and tell me what you find. I’m willing to bet that just about anywhere you go you’ll find evidence of some thoughtless individual “leaving his mark” – whether it be in graffiti drawn with a marker or spray can; or a name and date carved into picnic tables or the walls of ancient buildings; or simply fast food wrappers tossed into a corner. Obviously such defacing of public property is a criminal act deserving of punishment – and yet even in the face of stiff fines it continues to this day.

Faced with this the liberal seems to seek more government regulation – not just with regard to our national parks – but with regard to all of the environment – even parts that he cannot enjoy without trespassing on someone else’s property. Private property rights must be abridged in the name of preserving the environment (ask me about King County Washington’s “Critical Areas Ordinance” sometime if you don’t believe me).

Ah, but the founders considered property and liberty to be of one cloth. John Locke reasoned in his “Second Treatise of Government” that men left the “state of nature” to form civil societies in part to protect their property and liberty from the depredations of others. For the (liberal) environmentalist to have his way the rights of the individual must be suborned by the government. This certainly doesn’t sit well with conservatives. Recall again (I can’t stress it enough) the notion that our unalienable right to liberty (and according to Locke therefore our right to property or those things which we take from the “commons” and make our own by our labor) comes from our creator, and not from our government. To weaken that argument the statist must attack the very notion of a creator – and repudiate the words of our founders.

Let’s consider an example – the first amendment to our constitution. Let’s read it shall we?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This amendment is, on the face of it, a restriction upon the power of Congress. It says “Congress shall make no law… respecting an establishment… or prohibiting … or abridging”. In plain English, Congress cannot establish a government sponsored religion. Just as Congress cannot establish a religion, neither can it make a law that prohibits the free exercise of religion. This is a conservative viewpoint of the first part of this amendment.

A “liberal” viewpoint of this part of the first amendment is quite different though. Do you see anywhere in the text of the first amendment (quoted in it’s entirety and in it’s original language above) any mention of “a wall of separation” between “church and state”? And yet, this is what I am told by some liberals that the first amendment means. Today the first amendment is used to prohibit people from praying in a public venue – surely a prohibition on the “free exercise” of religion.

Much is made of the “wall of separation” that Thomas Jefferson described in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, and yet it is plain to see from their own words that the founders believed that for liberty to survive the people needed to attend to their relationship with their creator – who gave them their unalienable rights in the first place. They believed that without moral convictions and virtue the people would easily be led astray and that corruption would eventually overtake the government to the ruination of everyone’s liberty.

Faith in a creator and the belief that one is accountable to Him that made us puts constraints upon individual behavior. Whether those constraints come from fear of punishment or from a desire to please the creator they still exist. Such faith constrains us to take a moral course in our lives, to hate corruption and to deal honestly with one another. It inspires us to work hard to solve the problems we are faced with. It also re-affirms our faith in the gifts that He has given us – especially our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Unbelief removes those moral constraints on our behavior. Whether the unbelief is because of open hostility toward the idea of moral accountability or from ignorance is immaterial. Without a belief in the creator how then is there a need for moral behavior – except where the fear of society’s censure and punishment impells it? Without a belief in the creator how then can our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness be any such thing as gifts from Him? Why surely without a creator they must be inventions of mankind and therefore not unalienable.

Statists, or progressives, or socialists, or today’s (modern) liberals have always sought bigger government at the expense of the individual. In order to advance a statist agenda, the liberal must overcome resistance to it from many areas. Since the statist agenda typically involves restrictions on individual liberties the notion that those liberties are fundamental to our nature must be repudiated. This requires the erosion of faith – accomplished by pushing it out of the public square. This is also achieved by re-defining individual rights “in terms of a changing and growing social order” as Franklin D. Roosevelt put it in the 1930s.

Since the statist agenda inevitably involves increased government oversight over our lives Constitutional restrictions on what the government may do must be overcome. When Roosevelt was unable to advance his agenda he overcame his opposition by threatening to pack the courts with Judges who would interpret the Constitution as a “living” document holding whatever meaning he wished it to have.

It is no wonder that liberals portray conservatives as mere obstructionists. In terms of the statist agenda we have to be. We must because that agenda attacks all that we believe in at it’s most fundamental level. Unless and until we wake up to this fact and can demonstrate it to the public liberals will succeed in demonizing conservatives and conservatism. The liberal talks of “getting things done” in government. Often the conservative must “get things undone” if we are to retain our freedoms.

They’ve taken the language from us – changing the meaning of so many things – including the terms conservative and liberal. It’s time we took it back. It’s time we “got a few things done” like protecting our liberties.

If you want to really know a conservative point of view – simply ask when any topic comes up - “how will this affect individual liberties, especially in terms of our unalienable rights”. If it will affect them adversely then it’s not a part of a conservative agenda.

Originally published on another web site that I am no longer affiliated with.