A Road to Serfdom

“I grew up on Ayn Rand,” Ryan said at a Washington, D.C., gathering seven years ago honoring Rand. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 12 August 2012

Today Mr. Ryan wants to distance himself from Ayn Rand. In an interview with the über-conservative National Review Online, he said it was an “urban legend” that Ayn Rand was a special obsession of his.

Unfortunately, for Mr. Ryan, his affection for Ayn Rand’s philosophy is well documented. It has been declared in conservative publications promoting Mr. Ryan’s fitness for office. In a 2005 speech to the Atlas Society Mr. Ryan stated that Ms. Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was required reading for all his office interns and staff. In 2009 Mr. Ryan produced campaign videos in which he emphatically praises the morality of Atlas Shrugged. Videos are still available on YouTube of both events. Randism undergirds his budget proposals. Mr. Ryan’s brother Tobin has stated, “Paul can still quote every verse out of Ayn Rand.”

There are no verse numbers in Ms. Rand’s writings. It is not surprising, however, that cult members refer to them as if they are sacred scripture.

Mr. Ryan was motivated to denounce Randism by recent criticism of his budget proposals by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others who see nothing compatible between the doctrines of Ms. Rand and Jesus Christ. (See blog archive for October 23, 2010, “The Threat.” It begins, “The election of President Barack Obama aroused a truly un-American, anti-democratic, virulently un-Christian ideology in our country.”) Mr. Ryan’s recent elevation to national prominence makes his denials all the more urgent. Conservative publications, in a fit of collective willful amnesia, are busy burnishing Mr. Ryan’s claims to Catholicism. As understandable as these attempts at subterfuge are, we should not be fooled. He is a Randian. The only question is, what is Atlas Shrugged?

The Plume quality paperback Centennial Edition of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is a monster of 1,168 pages of abused English. Ms. Rand’s characters are not believable. They act illogically and speak unnaturally. The situations depicted are inconceivable outside the pages of a very bad book. Nevertheless, this is Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, the full statement of her worldview, her diagnosis of what is wrong with the world and prescription for the cure. In what follows it may appear that too much is attributed to characters of what is merely a work of fiction. Ms. Rand intended Atlas Shrugged to be more than a mere work of fiction. The cult that follows her – which includes Mr. Ryan and every Tea Party protester with a “Who is John Galt?” sign – have received Atlas Shrugged as fact, not fiction.

Atlas Shrugged is a dystopia that presents the United States as a collapsing republic surrounded by socialistic “People’s States.” Most commentaries focus on two types of characters Ms. Rand presents.

Foremost are the “men of the mind.” These are the individualists, the creators, the people who live by reason. They are presented to us in various states of egoism. The progress of the novel in part is to follow these individuals as they grow to appreciate the importance of selfishness. Their selfish pursuits create things and uphold the world. They are the Titans. Ms. Rand spares no superlative as she describes these “giants of productive energy” who are “equals” in pursuit of “higher and still higher achievements of their own” (p. 453). These supermen do not owe anyone anything. They are self-made, self-directed, and serve only themselves.

The second type of character is the looters. They are parasites who live off the achievements of the “men of the mind.” Included here are government officials. All government officials, from the bureaucrats to judges, are corrupt, foolish, and incompetent. Civic responsibility in Ms. Rand’s world is just an excuse the looters use to take from the creators. Included among the looters are aesthetes, intellectuals, writers, and family members. Family relationships are the worst. There is not one family relationship that is not dysfunctional. That includes mother-son and husband-wife. All the siblings are rivals.

Rand describes the looters as “…whining rotters who never rouse themselves to any effort, who do not possess the ability of a filing clerk, but demand the income of a company president, who drift from failure to failure and expect [the producers] to pay their bill” (p. 453). There is more but it does not get any more reasonable.

Between the “men of the mind” and the looters is another category of citizen that populates the America of Ayn Rand that is not noticed by the commentators. These citizens are far from being the equals of the “men of the mind.” However, they have a certain Randian “moral integrity.” They are the “serfs” (p. 11). Because of their intellectual deficiencies the “serfs” can “never invent” anything but they “do their best, work … live by their own effort, and … give a moment’s silent thanks to the [producer] who gave them more than they could give him” (p. 453).

This is the America of Ayn Rand and Randians like Mr. Paul Ryan. It is an America where the superlative “men of the mind” deserve all the honor, glory, and money they can lay their hands on. It is an America where only looters impose taxes or government regulations on producers. It is an America where most people should be content to be serfs.

This is a brief description of a long book. It is fair. It is accurate. The three types of characters are Ms. Rand’s, not mine. Every effort has been made to describe these three types of characters in the very terms that she either did use or would use. If the idea of an America where serfs live in worshipful gratitude to their moneyed overlords is offensive, blame Ms. Rand. It is her book that is faithfully described here. This is her worldview and that of those who follow her.

F. A. Hayek published The Road to Serfdom in 1944. In it Mr. Hayek warned that “… the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy” (from the dust jacket of The University of Chicago Press Definitive Edition). Mr. Hayek went on to win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991. Despite his rumored admiration for Ayn Rand, I hold Mr. Hayek as a philosopher and economist to be respected.

Nevertheless, he was wrong in The Road to Serfdom. The New Deal and the progressive economic programs that followed, for all their faults, did not lead to fascism in America. Most importantly, he was wrong not to recognize that there is more than one road to serfdom. Government certainly is not the answer to all of society’s ills, and Mr. Hayek’s warning is helpful. However, the unbridled “Capitalism” of Ayn Rand leads us down another path to serfdom every bit as dire.

All commentators regard Mr. Paul Ryan as an intelligent man. He is an intelligent man despite the fact that he fails to recognize that Atlas Shrugged is poorly written rubbish. He is an intelligent man despite the fact that he failed to recognize that the morality of Atlas Shrugged is a complete contradiction of Christian morality. He is an intelligent man despite the fact that he thinks citizens will not recognize his ignorance and duplicity.

The Republican presidential ticket of Willard Mitt Romney and Paul Davis Ryan presents this nation with the temptation to trust that there are indeed moneyed overlords who will create jobs as long as they are not taxed or their enterprises regulated. It is a temptation to go down a road to serfdom.

Senator Ron Johnson and The American Jobs Act

Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson recently replied to President Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress. In email sent to Wisconsin voters, Senator Johnson called The American Jobs Act “the definition of insanity” because, to the Senator’s way of thinking, it merely repeats American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Actually, Mr. Johnson could not bring himself to use the proper titles of either the ARRA or the President’s proposed legislation. The latter is simply the “latest government stimulus program.” Neither could Mr. Johnson address any of the specifics of the proposed legislation.

Mr. Johnson did begin with ad hominem.

“As I sat listening carefully to our President, it was painfully clear that his remarks were merely a campaign speech. His proposals were designed to assist in his reelection campaign, rather than a serious attempt to forge alliances, address our massive debt, strengthen our economy and create jobs.”

It has been difficult for Republicans to deal with a president who is arguably the best communicator to occupy the Oval Office since President Ronald Reagan. It is particularly grating as this president follows eight years of Mr. George W. Bush, who was the master of malapropisms. President Obama, however, repeatedly spoke to the concerns of both Republicans and opponents in his own party. He appealed for their support in terms of their own goals. Mr. Johnson’s claim that Mr. Obama’s address was only a campaign speech is inaccurate and unfair.

Certainly Mr. Obama’s speech cheered his supporters and annoyed his opponents. It is undeniable that Mr. Obama is running for a second term and the speech did not hurt that effort. That there was a political aspect to the speech is unsurprising to any mature observer of our government. Characterizing the detailed proposal the President set before the joint session of Congress as merely a campaign speech, however, only reveals the weakness of Mr. Johnson’s position.

That weakness is manifest as Mr. Johnson sputters on in his email.

“Even worse, the overall substance of his proposals were nothing more than a rehashing and repackaging of the same big government, ideological agenda that our President has already tried – driven our debt up another $4 Trillion - and have failed miserably. These ideas would simply double down on that failure.”

Mr. Johnson needs a grammarian. Verbs are supposed to agree with the subject of a sentence. “Substance” is singular and requires the singular “was” not “were.” He should have chosen “rehashing” or “repackaging.” Using both is redundant. The accusation that the President’s “ideological agenda” drove up the debt “another $4 Trillion” calls for another sentence and should not have been smashed into this one. (Trillion should not be capitalized.)

Mr. Johnson ignores the niceties of grammar and the specifics of the President’s speech because all he has is Tea Party boilerplate. Mr. Johnson rants about “big government” but says nothing about the President’s expressed goal of jolting the private sector back to life. He ignores the President’s proposals to help small business. He makes no mention of the President’s tax cuts for middle class consumers. He is oblivious of the need to help the long-term unemployed.

In sum, Mr. Johnson’s complaint does not touch upon anything the President actually said, but merely repeats the talking points of the House radical Republicans. By ignoring the proposed American Jobs Recovery Act, he fails to prove that it is merely a repackaging of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The most significant falsehood of Mr. Johnson’s missive is his assertion that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was a failure.

“Since his inauguration, during admittedly tough economic conditions, President Obama has taken America 180 degrees in the wrong direction. His failed $800 billion stimulus, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and the explosion of his Administration's other job killing regulations have combined to put a stranglehold on our economy.”

Mr. Johnson’s only concession to the President is that he took office “during admittedly tough economic conditions.” This is a gross understatement. The President took office after decades of deregulation of the financial market initiated by Republican President Ronald Reagan and fostered by Randian Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Republican policies resulted in the 1980s Savings and Loan Crisis, the 2001 Internet Stock Bubble and finally, beginning in 2007, greatest financial meltdown since the Depression.

Mr. Johnson conveniently ignores the details so that he can continue to rail against government regulations. He specifies no regulations that kill jobs. It is he, not the President, who fails to learn from history.

(Note: Inside Job (2010), the Academy Award-winning documentary film about the late-2000s financial crisis directed by Charles H. Ferguson and narrated by Matt Damon is one-sided, and, I believe, unfair to President Obama. Its subject is complicated. Nevertheless, it is a good introduction to all the facts that Republicans would have us ignore.)

The Republicans have blocked the full implementation of the Dodd-Frank bill, so it is impossible to attribute anything good or ill to it. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – which Mr. Johnson calls “Obamacare”—will not be fully implemented until 2014. That leaves only the so-called “failed $800 billion stimulus,” ARRA, as a possible “stranglehold on our economy.”

Did the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 fail to increase employment? Mr. Johnson and his fellow Republicans have repeatedly said that it did. The economy is still in recession. Unemployment is still high. The ARRA did fail to meet with the administration’s projections. All of this, together with the fact that many citizens cannot distinguish GDP from GPS, makes the Republicans’ simple declarative statement, “The stimulus failed,” persuasive.

Repeat a falsehood long enough and you will convince the masses. This is particularly true with a subject as complicated as the economy.

On September 27, 2010, the independent FactCheck.org posted, “The economic stimulus package is a favorite target of Republican candidates and groups, but more than a few ads falsely claim it did not create or save any jobs. … The truth is that the stimulus increased employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million people, compared with what employment would have been otherwise.” (FactCheck.org, “Did the Stimulus Created Jobs?”) 

The Richmond Times-Dispatch PolitiFact.com examined Republican Eric Cantor’s May 26^th, 2011, statement, “They (Democrats) passed a nearly $1 trillion stimulus bill which failed to get people back to work.” The Virginia publication rated Mr. Cantor’s statement false after consulting experts from both the right and the left.

Both of these publications based their conclusions in part on the 2010 report of the Congressional Budget Office, which stated: “… CBO estimates that ARRA’s policies had the following effects in the second quarter of calendar year 2010:

•    They raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent,
•    Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points,
•    Increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million, and
•    Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 2.0 million to 4.8 million compared with what would have occurred otherwise …” ( http://www.cbo.gov )

If Senator Ron Johnson had been doing his job, he would have known about the CBO report.

What animates Mr. Johnson, however, is not concern for the unemployed or the challenges of a global economy in recession. Mr. Johnson, as I pointed out in October of 2009, is an advocate of the Atheistic Capitalism of Ayn Rand. He is a true believer in an ideology that holds that government involvement in the economy, in any way, at any time, is wrong. From health care, to stimulus, to regulation, the government can only kill jobs.

Mr. Johnson writes, “President Obama simply and sadly does not understand the basic economic truth that expansion and job creation must come from the private sector, not government.”

One hopes that President Obama understands that in difficult economic times, remedies must be sought from both the private and public sectors. Progressives hope he understands that the history of this country is in part the history of a mixed economy, with the government playing a positive role in protecting the country from the excesses of capitalism. Mr. Johnson and his ilk hanker for a pure capitalism that has never existed and is every bit as false as Marxist-Leninist millennialism.

It is the insupportable small government advocacy of Mr. Johnson and his Republican colleagues that will take us in the wrong direction, as the August unemployment figures indicate.

“On September 2nd the government reported no net jobs were created in August. To be precise, private firms created 17,000 jobs while governments trimmed payrolls by the same amount. Adjusting for striking mobile-phone company workers, underlying private job growth was actually more like 60,000, consistent with an economy still growing; but barely.” (The Economist, “A Choice of Medicines,” September 10, 2011.)

The Economist does not say so, but I suspect the “governments” that trimmed their payrolls are the state governments run by Republican governors, like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker. Among the jobs trimmed are those of school teachers. President Obama’s American Jobs Act calls for the hiring of teachers to train students to be competitive in an increasingly global job market. This is just one small detail that shows that President Obama is the one working for America’s future, not Mr. Johnson and his small-government colleagues.

President Obama’s American Jobs Act is not all that progressives wanted. It is more than they expected. It is not a magic bullet. It will not immediately reverse the global recession. Mr. Johnson may choose to ignore it. The Congress should pass it and press on to strengthen both the private and public sectors of the economy.

Is the Opposition Loyal? Part Two

Tonight we will not hear the President of the United States address a joint session of Congress regarding the dire economic condition of the nation. It was Mr. Obama’s intention to begin this new session of Congress by addressing the issues about which the whole country is concerned. As is well known, Speaker John Boehner has informed the President that the United States House of Representatives will be otherwise engaged.

“ ‘As the majority leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, Sept. 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening,’ the speaker wrote. ‘ With the significant amount of time, typically more than three hours, that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House chamber before receiving a president, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.’ ” (“Obama Moves Jobs Speech After Skirmish With Boehner,” The New York Times, August 31, 2011)

Mr. Boehner’s unprecedented refusal to grant the President’s request has been reported, reviewed, and, from the very beginning, denounced as just another petty political squabble. Blame has been cast on both the Speaker and the President.

“ ‘If the objective of the White House and Speaker Boehner was to demonstrate to the American people that they have gotten the message from the markets and from voters that our economic straits are so dire that it is time to set petty politics aside, they have failed before they started,’ said David Rothkopf, a former Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration. ‘This childish gamesmanship regarding timing reconfirms to the world that Washington is a sandbox full of petulant children who don’t play well together.' He called Wednesday’s antics 'late-summer silliness.’ ” (The New York Times, same article as above)

Despite the fact that Mr. Boehner is the first member of Congress to deny a president permission to speak to a joint session of Congress, it is the President who has received the most criticism. He is accused of playing politics.

“The real story, of course, was that the White House had high-handedly announced its preferred time for the speech, which just happened to conflict with a long-planned GOP presidential candidates’ debate at the Reagan library.” (The Weekly Standard, “The Scrapbook: Dissing Boehner,” September 12, 2011)

Even before Mr. Boehner took his stand against the President’s supposedly political proposal, talk radio condemned the idea. How could the President dare to upstage a Republican Party candidate debate? It is only reasonable to conclude that Mr. Boehner’s motive to deny the President’s proposal is to thwart Mr. Obama’s alleged political gambit and please the likes of Mr. Limbaugh. His stated reason is lame. The House has no business this evening that cannot be postponed.

Other aspects to this story have been reported, mostly from anonymous sources. Most of what has been reported is irrelevant. It remains that Mr. Boehner has done what has never been done before. In this, he has shown that, despite the fact that the Republican Party likes to wrap itself in the Constitution and boast its fidelity to the intentions of the Founding Fathers, it knows and cares little for either.

Let us grant the Republican contention that Mr. Obama scheduled his address to Congress to upstage Republican candidate debate. I do not know that this is so. It is, however, the best reason the Republicans have to deny the President’s request. So let it stand.

The activities of any political party should not interfere with the work of the elected government. A single debate, this early, is of negligible importance, particularly when compared to an official address by the sitting president.

The Republicans are far from selecting a candidate for the coming election. They have held one straw poll, in which Mrs. Bachman was selected. The Iowa straw poll historically has had little positive effect on selecting the eventual Republican candidate and even less on the results of the national election. Mrs. Bachmann’s victory was quickly eclipsed by Texas Governor Rick Perry’s mere announcement of his candidacy.

Even with Mr. Perry’s announcement, there is dissatisfaction among Republicans with the candidates vying for the ticket. Despite the fact time is growing short, there are calls for Representative Paul Ryan, Governor Chris Christie and even Mrs. Sarah Palin to enter the race.

The Republican contention that tonight’s debate should take precedence over a president's speech to Congress is nothing less than hubris.

The Constitution established three branches of government, the legislative, executive, and judicial. There is no mention of political parties. Political parties have no official standing in the work of government. In fact, the Founding Fathers disliked the idea of political parties and hoped that the nation could do without them.

The Republicans should know this if they knew the Constitution and its history as they claim. James Madison penned Federalist 10 as a warning against political parties, which he called “factions.” The Founding Fathers hope of politics without political parties did not survive their lifetime, and even Mr. Madison became a member of a political party. Nevertheless, the Founding Fathers would be appalled to see this day when a single party’s candidate debate interferes with the work of the elected government.

Perhaps some would question the wisdom of Mr. Obama using his office to upstage a single debate of the opposing party’s candidate debate. Let them. There is no reason that any sitting president should take into consideration the internal work of the opposing party in the rightful execution of his duties. More importantly, there is no reason the opposing party should expect such consideration.

The Constitution established three branches of government. Mr. Boehner won a majority of the votes of the 8^th congressional district of Ohio to become a member of the lower chamber of the legislative branch. The majority of that lower chamber elected Mr. Boehner Speaker of the House of Representatives. Mr. Boehner thus represents both the 8^th congressional district and one half of the bicameral legislature.

The President of the United States is elected by the whole nation, albeit indirectly through the Electoral College. Mr. Obama won the office of President of the United States by a clear majority of the popular vote and the Electoral College – without the assistance of a decision of the Supreme Court. He represents not a district, or even a state. He is President of the whole country and for the whole country.

To be sure, the president is not a dictator. There are constitutional limits to his authority. The Constitution provides checks and balances so that no single branch of government has power beyond what is necessary to exercise its duties to the country.

However, the Republicans have taken the legislature beyond anything the Founding Fathers imagined. Republican senators, by the mere threat of filibuster, have turn back presidential appointments. The single disqualifying mark of an appointee is that the appointment came from Mr. Obama.

“Speaking with National Journal magazine about Republican Party priorities for the 2008-2010 Congress, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained that ‘the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.’ ” (Wikipedia, Mitch McConnell)

Senator McConnell has expressed clearly that the single priority of the Republican Party is not the welfare of the country, but the augmentation of the power of the Republican Party. In keeping with this priority, the Republican Party perpetrated the unnecessary debt-ceiling crisis. In keeping with this priority, Mr. Boehner denied the President of the United States a joint session of Congress. In these and several other instances the Republican Party has demonstrated that it has no respect for the constitutionally established office of the executive as long as Mr. Obama occupies it – the vote of the people be damned.

This is not the governance the Founding Fathers envisioned. This is the factionalism that James Madison abhorred.

In September 2009, the President addressed a joint session of Congress. It was there that Representative Joe Wilson set the true precedent for Mr. Boehner’s action this month. Mr. Wilson broke with tradition and shouted at the President. On September 11, 2009, I asked the question, “Is the Opposition Loyal?” on this blog (see archive). This question stands.

[Works consulted for this essay: The Debate on the Constitution, Part One, Library of America, 1993; James Madison, Writings, Library of America, 1999; Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution, Richard Beeman, Random House, 2009; The Oxford Companion to United States History, edited by Paul S. Boyer, Oxford University Press, 2001.]

This Gun Smokes

       I wish you would ever write me a Letter half as long as I write you; and tell me if you may where your Fleet are gone? What sort of Defence Virginia can make against our common Enemy? Whether it is so situated as to make an able Defence? Are not the Gentry Lords and the common people vassals, are they not like the uncivilized Natives Brittain represents us to be? …

      I am willing to allow the Colony great merrit for having produced a Washington but they have been shamefully duped by a Dunmore.

     I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for Liberty cannot be Equally Strong in the Breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow Creatures of theirs. Of this I am certain that it is not founded upon that generous and christian principal of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us.—Abigal Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776

Mrs. Adams was an amazing lady. In the above citation, taken from her prescient “Remember the Ladies” epistle to husband and future United States president, John Adams, she hits at the contradiction of the ideals of the Founding Fathers and their practice.

She is a bit chagrinned that Lord Dunmore has caught them out.

In 1775 Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, declared martial law and promised freedom for slaves who would desert their patriot masters and join the British in stopping the revolution. His proclamation was somewhat successful, and at the end of the war, the British evacuated some 20,000 freedmen from their former colonies.

Mrs. Adams in the midst of all this blames the Virginian slaveholding patriots. They talk liberty, and “deprive their fellow Creatures of theirs.” This is not right. More importantly, for Mrs. Adams, this is not Christian.

The founding of the United States of America was a wonderful, multifaceted event that bequeathed both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was the promise of liberty for all. The curse was the denial of liberty – the continuation of slavery, particularly in the southern states like Virginia, the home of slaveholders George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Even James Madison, who played a major role in the drafting and ratification of the Constitution and later in the appending of the Bill of Rights, owned over 100 slaves to do the work on his Montpelier plantation.

This year marks the 150^th anniversary of beginning the Civil War. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln called upon the country to “recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals…” The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s further addressed the “faults and crimes” which issued from the curse of slavery. With the election of Barack Hussein Obama in 2008, America’s first African-American president, one would like to think that this country had finally consigned the curse to history.

The birther movement, however, squelches such optimism.

The birthers claim that Mr. Obama is not legally president of the United States of America because – they contend – he was not born in America. Mr. Obama’s birth in Hawaii was never questioned before his election. He fought a vigorous campaign first against his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton and then against the formidable Senator John McCain. Both opponents were capable of raising the question of his origin and did not. It was only after the election that the movement gained a following.

The blogosphere was the medium and the message resonated with everyone who believed that a man with a name like Barack Hussein Obama, and a skin of a different hue from their own, could not possibly be the legitimate president of their country. This was despite the facts that both elected and bureaucratic officials of Hawaii vouched for his birth in their state, and contemporary news accounts in the local papers witnessed to the birth. Even the publication of a copy birth certificate suitable for the issuing of a United States passport did not satisfy them.

Still the birthers claim fraud. Recently the state of Arizona has taken up the lost cause by requiring presidential candidates to supply documentation proving birth in the United States. The law does not stand a snowball’s chance on a summer day in that sunny state of surviving a court challenge. It will contribute to the state’s growing reputation as the most xenophobic state in the nation.

The connection between birtherism and racism I must admit has been tenuous. No birther has appeared on Fox News in a white robe with a peaked white hat – the only confirmation that would satisfy some on the right.

Still, in the light of the supplied documentation and government testimony little else explains the irrationality of the birther. I suggested as much in an exchange on Facebook and was taken to task. It was awkward, because while many indications of racism are present in birtherism, it is never explicit.

Then this came up on my Google news page, without a search. It is an Associated Press report, not the New York Times or some other biasedly liberal source.

An Orange County Republican Party official is under fire after sending an email with an altered photo depicting President Barack Obama as an ape.

The email, sent Friday afternoon by party central committee member Marilyn Davenport, depicts a family portrait-style image of apes with Obama's face superimposed on one of them. The photo is accompanied by text that reads, "Now you know why no birth certificate."

Now in all fairness this needs to be added:

Scott Baugh, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, has called on Davenport to resign and said the party's ethics panel will hold a hearing into the incident if she does not do so. The panel will make findings, and a majority vote of the entire 73-member committee can oust her.

"It's just highly inappropriate, it's a despicable message, it drips with racism and I think she should step down from the committee," Baugh said. "It undermines everything we are doing to reach out to ethnic communities."

Kudos to Mr. Baugh. The Republicans of Orange County are not at fault here. This connection of birtherism to racism should not be blown out of proportion. Not all Orange County Republicans are racist. Let us go further and say not all birthers are racist. All that being granted, the irrational birther movement owes much to racism. That much is established by the Orange County Republican Party official’s email.

This is Palm Sunday. Christian churches begin the most holy week of the church year by stripping the liturgy of the lesser Gloria and responses. The Lenten liturgical austerity bespeaks a heightened emphasis on repentance.

This is the 150^th anniversary year of the beginning of the Civil War. When the war ended, the life of President Abraham Lincoln ended on Good Friday, April 15, 1865.

Now, we have our first African American president. Love him or hate him, he is the President and Christians are admonished by the Apostolic Scriptures to pray for those who rule over them.

The confluence of things suggests a time for conservative Christians to examine their hearts. It is a time to denounce what is false and rejoice in what is true, but most of all, to know the difference.
_______________
Monday April 18, 2011


When I wrote this the Arizona legislature had passed a bill requiring Mr. Obama and all other candidates to provide proof of their birth as United States citizens. I should have waited before making the broad judgement above.


This just in from AP:

[Governor] Brewer said in her veto letter that she was troubled that the bill empowered Arizona's secretary of state to judge the qualifications of all candidates when they file to run for office.

"I do not support designating one person as the gatekeeper to the ballot for a candidate, which could lead to arbitrary or politically motivated decisions," said Brewer, who was secretary of state until she became governor in 2009.

"In addition, I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for president of the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth to submit their 'early baptismal circumcision certificates' among other records to the Arizona secretary of state," she said. "This is a bridge too far."

The certificates are among the documents a candidate could submit in place of a birth certificate. 


So, two cheers for Arizona. Their governor has pulled the state back from the brink. On the other hand, the reported details of the bill raise serious questions about their lawmakers. Nevertheless, two hearty cheers for Arizona.

Caveat Emptor

Because I am an unabashed Liberal – capital letter and all – some might be surprised to learn that I am a charter subscriber to The Weekly Standard, the formerly neo-conservative political journal.

In its first numbers The Weekly Standard was an interesting center-right counter balance to center-left The New Republic. The reputed father of neo-conservatism is the late Irving Kristol, the actual father of William Kristol, founding editor of The Weekly Standard. It was Kristol the Elder who defined a neo-conservative as "a liberal who has been mugged by reality." The Standard's executive editor, Fred Barnes, was formerly an editor for The New Republic. Charles Krauthammer remains a contributing editor of The New Republic, while also holding that title for The Weekly Standard, though by my recollection it has been years since anything by Mr. Krauthammer has appeared in The New Republic.

I have read The New Republic since high school. Much later, I came to admire the work of Mr. Barnes and Mr. Krauthammer. It was from reading them in The New Republic that I came to be a subscriber to The Weekly Standard. I cannot boast to be a charter subscriber to The New Republic, for the simple reason that it is ninety-six years old today.

For years, The Weekly Standard was a reasonable conservative response to what one read in The New Republic. There have been several editorial changes and several journalistic scandals at The New Republic over the years. There have been times that I found myself preferring The Weekly Standard over The New Republic. If memory serves, in the early numbers The Weekly Standard even ventured to criticize the anti-government philosophy of Ronald Reagan.

That all changed with the election of Barack Obama. Since Mr. Obama's election The Weekly Standard has turned sharply to the right, unwilling to criticize any extremism from the Tea Party movement, blindly endorsing the nonsense that comes from Sarah Palin, and giving a wink to the radical capitalism of Ayn Rand.

The Weekly Standard is neo-conservative no longer. Perhaps there no longer is any neo-conservatism. From the little I know, it does not seem possible that the urbane Kristol the Elder would find anything amusing in the vitriol that currently spews on the pages of Kristol the Younger's magazine. It seems questionable that the liberals who had been mugged by reality would endorse the radical unregulated capitalism of Randism.

These, however, are larger issues that require research.

However, the proposition that free-market capitalism cannot be left completely free, that some government oversight is needed for the protection of consumers, can be defended easily, and from nothing less than the pages of the formerly neo-conservative Weekly Standard.

For the last few months, many times opposite an article that staunchly defends free-market capitalism, The Weekly Standard has run a full-page color advertisement for "The Holy Bible In Its Original Order." This new edition of the Bible is unique for two reasons: the order of the books and the "new translation."

The first claim is the most important.

This advertisement claims this Bible to be "the only complete Bible ever published … that accurately follows the original canonical or manuscript order as recognized by most scholars." Furthermore, it is claimed, "With this restoration to the 1^st century 'manuscript' order, a purposeful design, symmetry and story flow order of the Bible become more readily apparent."

How is it that after two millennia of the Christian faith this is the first and only Bible of its kind?

"It is a little known historical fact that the original manuscript order of both the Old and New Testament books was altered by early church fathers," the publisher claims.

The history of what has come to be the Christian Bible is complicated. This history runs from the second century B.C. until the sixteenth-century Roman Catholic Council of Trent – at the very least. The "little known historical fact" promoted by this advertisement is pure rubbish. No "early church fathers" altered the order of any "1^st century 'manuscript' order" because there never was a first-century manuscript order.

Consider first the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures, or Old Testament. The late Jaroslav Pelikan, theologian and former professor of History at Yale University, wrote, "The Holy Scripture for Jesus and the early Christians was the Hebrew Bible of the Jewish community, but no list of books it included exists" (The Melody of Theology, p. 28). Pelikan goes on to explain that from all the books competing to be part of what came to be the Old Testament for Christians, there have come to be "…three canons, one each for Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy" (p. 31).

If this appears complicated, it is. Any standard Bible encyclopedia will introduce the interested reader to the subject. What can be said for certain, however, is that there was no single first-century canon of the Old Testament.

The Bible publisher's claim as it pertains to the New Testament is even more glaringly false. Every first-year seminary student knows that there was no first-century manuscript order or canon because the New Testament was written in the first century. The first canon, or list of New Testament books, extant is the second-century Marcion canon. The problem with this is that Marcion was a heretic and his canon, although interesting from an historical perspective, is deficient for current orthodox Christians.

We could go on to discuss the heresy of Montanism, and the significance of Eusebius' categorization of books as either homologoumena or antilogomena, but the point has been made.

The first-century manuscript order Bible being peddled here is completely the invention of a twenty-first-century Bible publisher. The publisher's claims for this Bible are false and indefensible. The publisher claims the authority of "most scholars," but conveniently names no scholar.

No court of law will prosecute this publisher, but every penny that this publisher takes for the $119.50 Deluxe Lambskin edition, or the $99.50 Black Faux Calfskin edition, or the $99.50 Paper Edition with carrying case, is an act of theft. No court is going to adjudicate rival claims of ecclesial history. No court will defend the pious but ignorant consumers of this rubbish. Caveat emptor.

What we have here is the Bernie Madoff of Bible publishers.

Perhaps under a liberal free market society that allows the free flow of information, such creatures need to be tolerated. Perhaps we should allow Grandmother Schultz to be defrauded of a hundred bucks, or left to hope her pastor can defend her.

What about her retirement fund, or mortgage, or life insurance, or health insurance? There comes a point when the free market needs some regulation to protect it from its own excesses. There comes a point when the government needs to protect citizens from the fraudulent claims of the unscrupulous entrepreneur.

President Barack Obama is not a socialist. He is, when he is at his best, a Liberal. Like the Liberal Franklin D. Roosevelt before him, he has tried to protect capitalism from its own excesses.

The editors of The Weekly Standard have failed to recognize this. They have also failed to scrutinize the advertisements they accept for publication.

The Threat

The election of President Barack Obama aroused a truly un-American, anti-democratic, virulently un-Christian ideology in our country.

This ideology promotes vice as virtue, and evil as good. This ideology has long been in plain sight but, until recently, was never taken seriously. Powerful persons in the government have subscribed to this ideology. They have done real damage to our country and have not been held accountable. Elected officials have adopted this philosophy and have made plans accordingly for the future of the nation.

If this ideology succeeds in seducing the republic, it will not only radically change our government, it will subvert the Judeo-Christian ethos that guides our public discourse. This ideology, awakened by the election of Mr. Obama, threatens this country in much the same way as Nazism threatened the Weimar Republic.

Forget Mr. Obama portrayed with Hitler's mustache.

This threat is not from the Left.

It is from the Right.

The ideology is Randism – the pseudo-philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Ms. Rand preferred to call her philosophy Objectivism and opposed naming it after herself. We refuse to put lipstick on this pig. It is Randism – an ugly, vile ideology that nourishes everything that is ungodly in the fallen human soul. There is nothing "objective" about it.

When Rand declared selfishness a virtue there was no mitigating irony. Rand was Nietzsche without the humor. The freedoms she promoted are for the few, the elite, the producers, the creators. She held nothing but contempt for the masses – they were the looters, the parasites. The capitalism she promoted would result in cruel plutocracy where money is god. Your stock portfolio would be the measure of your moral worth. If you had a stock portfolio.

Rand's capitalism is capitalism with a demon's face.

Alan Greenspan, the Ronald Reagan-appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, was an unabashed acolyte of Ayn Rand. Her ardent capitalism was his. His faith in the false god of self-correcting financial markets brought on the financial meltdown of 2008.

This was Randism at its best.

Unfortunately, it is not the last of this ungodly ideology.

Paul Ryan, Wisconsin representative to the U.S. House, is a Randian who reportedly gives copies of Atlas Shrugged to all staff members. He is one of the young guns promoted by the formerly neo-conservative Weekly Standard for his obtuse Roadmap for America. According to his Web page, Representative Ryan is a Roman Catholic.

Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican candidate for the Senate, is a Lutheran who espouses the views of Rand, according to the Weekly Standard. Johnson is running against maverick Democratic Senator Russ Feingold.

The list of Randians could go on. Rand Paul, Glenn Beck, Libertarians, Lutheran college professors, and more are all going Galt on the Obama administration.

A few concluding observations.

First, to Paul Ryan's priest and Ron Johnson's pastor – wake up. You have parishioners whose souls are in danger.

No one can be a Christian and subscribe to the vile teachings of Ayn Rand. Do not take my word for it. She abused William Buckley for his Catholic faith. Rand hated any form of "altruism," which was her code word for any form of faith, Christian most of all. She was ardently opposed to Christianity and there is nothing in the Gospels that squares with Randism.

Secondly, Randism is not conservatism. It is a perversion of conservatism. William Buckley would have nothing to do with Rand. Barry Goldwater shunned her. Whittaker Chambers eviscerated Atlas Shrugged in Buckley's National Review. The recent promotion of Randism in The Weekly Standard and National Review presents us with nothing less than the corruption of conservatism.

Lastly, the United States of America is not the Weimar Republic. We have a wonderful Bill of Rights appended to the Constitution. We have a longstanding tradition of making full use of the right to free speech. We know how to argue like no other republic on the face of the earth.

So God Bless America.

And God keep America.

We have much to fear from plutocracy, oligarchy, and the fallen nature of man. It is the latter that feeds all the rest. Randism preaches selfishness. The old fallen nature says Amen.

Lord help us.