Never has there been so little diversity within America’s upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America’s upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and “bureaucrat” was a dirty word for all. So was “social engineering.” Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday’s upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.
Today’s ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters — speaking the “in” language — serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.
The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century’s Northerners and Southerners — nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, “prayed to the same God.” By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God “who created and doth sustain us,” our ruling class prays to itself as “saviors of the planet” and improvers of humanity. Our classes’ clash is over “whose country” America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark’s Gospel: “if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”
[…]
Professional prominence or position will not secure a place in the class any more than mere money. In fact, it is possible to be an official of a major corporation or a member of the U.S. Supreme Court (just ask Justice Clarence Thomas), or even president (Ronald Reagan), and not be taken seriously by the ruling class. Like a fraternity, this class requires above all comity — being in with the right people, giving the required signs that one is on the right side, and joining in despising the Outs. Once an official or professional shows that he shares the manners, the tastes, the interests of the class, gives lip service to its ideals and shibboleths, and is willing to accommodate the interests of its senior members, he can move profitably among our establishment’s parts.
Via Instapundit. This is an important essay, read the rest here and send the link on to your friends.
Pelosi is a perfect example. Never held a real private sector job among real people in her life, but through wealth and political contacts reached a point where she rules over the “little people for their own good”.
The root of the problem actually goes a little deeper than that. Mencious over at Unqualified Reservations goes into a LOT more detail, (if he was paid by the word, he’d be rich!)
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-letter-to-open-minded-progressives.html
I am currently wading through William L. Shirer’s book about the collapse of the the Third French Republic (the one that surrendered to the invading Germa.., oops Nazis, in June 1940). In the 1930s, France was a country divided politically and economically. Few had the good of France in mind and those that did were ineffective because the factional forces arrayed against them were too strong and too entrenched. These divisions left France ripe for collapse when the tanks and Stukas came.
It struck me the other day as I was reading about 1930s France that America seems similarly divided today. The US faces different threats than France did in 1940 but if Americans cannot find a way to bridge their differences, the outcome will be the same.
Time for ordinary folks to do a little whupping up side the heads of the ohhhhh sooooo progressive class.
Lampreys & leeches provide a more useful role than our ruling classes.
Start with the universities . . choke off the funding to the useless faculties & departments, fire the useless professors – train them to flip burgers and then go after the public broadcasters & publicly funded arts communities.
fred – none of your suggestions, frankly, is feasible. And remember, that the key Ivy League universities in the US are privately funded not government funded.
We need more public discussion of these issues; constant discussion. FOX news is great for that. So are blogs. We need more papers, more public voices. In Canada, we are bereft of such – the CBC, CTV, Global etc..all speak the same sophistry.
It is important, I think, to realize that the fight between collectivism and individualism is never-ending. That’s because our species functions both within a collective or group basis and also, as an individual. We operate within both systems.
Our knowledge base is always collective; we don’t learn how to grow corn or invent a car every ten years. But our capacity to adapt and our own experience is based within the individual. It’s a difficult collaboration. Lean too far to one side and you get anarchy; lean to the other and you get totalitarian socialism.
It is strange that these elites always forget that every so often the rabble revolt and take them all out and hang them in a court yard …. then start over.
Good point ET.
for there to be a design there must be a designer….
Paul in calgary
With regard to the reality of an elite Set of mandarins who function as a closed Ruling Class – this is the ancient socialist ideology. It sets up an elite class, Plato’s Philosopher-Kings, who rule over the unequal, the ignorant, the masses. Both groups are essentially hereditary.
It’s found in all two-class societal structures and is disastrous in a society with multimillion populations and a need for innovation and adaptive flexibility. In large populations, the elite ruling class must move into repressive totalitarianism to subdue the people..and the system loses all flexible capacity to adapt. It can’t deal with sudden crises, can’t deal with new problems.
In many instances, this Ruling Set will even speak a different language than the masses – such as Latin or French in the medieval period. And it is vicious in its rejection of any intruder, eg, the elite Set’s attacks on Sarah Palin. And how about our own situation in Canada where 80% of the population is barred from high govt service because they are not bilingual?
The tactic to break up this two-class system is the appearance of the Middle Class. The Middle Class is made up of individuals who advance by merit. And fall by lack of merit. The US Constitution, the very birth of the US, was based within the middle class – that ‘power of the people’.
What we see now in the US, is an elitist set attempting to destroy this Middle Class. Notice Obama’s contempt for Congress, which is the home of the middle class, the elected by the electors. Notice how he’s filled his administration with appointees rather than elected members. How, when he has to deal with Congress, it’s via bribes, backroom deals, threats, extortion.
Obama is quite willing to throw this current Congress ‘under the bus’; he can then, if the Republicans take over, vilify Congress as ‘anti-progress’ and even, racist. He’ll be appealing to his base (blacks, hispanics, far left).
Notice how he’s attempting to destroy the power of the Middle Class by defining any criticism by them as racist, as politically biased, as based on their own ignorance.
What a superb essay by Angelo M. Codevilla. Do email it.
My grandfather-
If you can believe it,
was born in 1870.
In 1927 he was 57 years old when he married his second wife,
my grandmother, she was 18.
I know, I know.
An Old fart marrying a child.
But he was a blacksmith, strong,
in excellent health for his age, she looked like she was 30.
He looked 20 years younger than he was and lived to be 98.
1917-World War 1- not many men around,
go figure.
Anyway…
He always said
“Son someday you can grow up and become President.”
Well grandpa I can tell you that is now bullshit.
Today you have to have millions of dollars or kiss someones arse that does.
George Soros comes to mind.
He also said,
“Once in a while we had to hang some crook/criminal from a telephone pole to keep the others honest.”
If his generation were alive today you would need a cell phone, our telegraph poles would be strung with dead bodies.
At 9:11 ET said ” And remember, that the key Ivy League universities in the US are privately funded not government funded.”
Wrong. Grants and research funding from government coffers far outweigh the begging income. A few month ago, there were several articles written about alumni revolts at a bunch of the Ivy league institutions. As well, a majority of the tuition funding is from student loans directly from the government, (formerly just guaranteed by government.)
The ruling elites are mathematically-challenged.
> This is an important essay, read the rest here
You almost sound as that’s going to change something.
Not to mention the artistic elite.
Also it is de rigueur for 95% of comics (especially in Canada) to make fun of the United States and anyone who is conservative.
You can google this tune “Little Boxes”:
1. Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
2. And the people in the houses
All go to the university,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
And there’s doctors and there’s lawyers
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same. 3. And they all play on the golf-course,
And drink their Martini dry,
And they all have pretty children,
And the children go to school.
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
And they all get put in boxes
And they all come out the same.
4. And the boys go into business,
And marry, and raise a family,
And they all get put in boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
From the article: “… some two-thirds of Americans — a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents — lack a vehicle in electoral politics.”
Yes.
Same goes double for Canada. Maybe squared.
Posted by: eastern paul at July 17, 2010 12:29 PM
Far as I can recall, that song was a critique of the meaningless existence of a suburban lifestyle.
The real people, or those who live on the edge like artists or ruling elites, apparently were much more interesting..
WOW, I was about to put a readers tip up on this.
Read it last nite and early this morning before logging on. Absolutely top drawer. A superb essay. SUPERB. How in gawd’s name did a Boston U prof know this!!??
It will help congeal a lot of those inchoate feelings you have about “stuff not being quite right” and solve those mysteries about how when “our guys” get it, nothing changes.
Kate is right. A very important essay. If you haven’t read the whole thing, stop typing, READ it.
Aaron said: “You almost sound as that’s going to change something.”
Aaron, you can’t hit what you can’t see. By talking about these things we slowly dig through the BS to find the target. That’s 95% of the work. Once you can name a name, defeating them is pretty easy.
These people who run the country can only continue to do so from obscurity. Once the general population knows that a vote for the Liberals is a vote for Mo Strong and the Teachers Union, they won’t vote Liberal any more.
I’m very interested to know whose best interests are being served by the CPC these days, because except in certain narrow instances, they aren’t mine.
We keep political parties honest through FEAR, and only through fear. Bureaucracies by contrast cannot be kept honest by any means yet discovered. Therefore I’m voting for anybody that will reduce the federal and provincial bureaucracy in the country. Not who says they will, but who actually -does- it.
CPC take note.
lots of talk about the second civil war amongst independant american voters,Up here the talk of civil war comes from embeded liberal elites like the polster goof the CBC always hires.
Impeccable timing by Lord Ignatieff in coming to rule we faux Brittanica commoner rabble from the colonies, what ho!
what’s shaping up is the massive bottom of the pile – the entitlement class, paying no taxes, having wealth transferred to them and the elite’s who can hire lawyers & accountants to protect their money.
The middle class are the suckers now . . . having to pay for everything and not having the political clout to change the system.
The result, as the title of the thread says, means Tea brewing.
Government for the elite, of the elite, but by the people.
Never before, have so many, given so much, to so few.
I agree, Me No Dhimmi, and all others here—thanks, Kate—about the importance of this essay. (I read some of it last night, via American Spectator—earmarked by Jonah Goldberg at NRO—then copied it, and sent it to myself. I was really pleased to see it here this morning.)
I’ll send the essay to a few people. The problem is—as God, literally, knows—people can stand only so much truth. Most have no stomach for it at all.
I’ve been involved, big time, in the culture war we’re in, for nearly three decades. I’ve lost, or have been alienated from, a lot of friends and potential friends as a result of not toeing the PC party line. I used to think that presenting the truth and facts, in an honest manner, was the key to turning around the PC juggernaut. Hmmm . . . two millennia ago, here’s what Timothy had to say:
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead . . : preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)
Besides the scandalous truth of the essay, I believe that most of those who have either taken the Kool-Aid, or are ignoring its deadly effects (too many good folks), have neither the patience nor the integrity to bother with the time to either read this essay or take it seriously. The “frivolousness” (is there such a word? Yes!) and “fiddle while Rome burns” mentality of far too many people is discouraging to a huge degree.
So, to whom do I send this essay? If doing so closes the recipients’ hearts and ears to me altogether, what’s the point? Isn’t it discouraging that “pearls before swine” seems to be the order of our day? (I don’t disagree with Timothy, but I think I need to tread, most circumspectly, re “convinc[ing], rebuk[ing], and exhort[ing]” the ignorant and/or skeptical in my orbit.)
Kyrie eleison, and good Lord, deliver us!
An excellent saturday morning read. thanks Kate.
somewhat related?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39848.html#ixzz0treXjiPm
Fred,
Neutering the middle class is what is going on.
Your comment is bang on!
And i would include the indexed pension snivel servants in the elite.
CJunk, yes; of the elite, by the elite, for the elite
Iggy, Obumbles, etc. QED
I notice that Angelo M. Codevilla, the author of this very enlightening essay, is professor EMERITUS of international relations at Boston University, which means that he is now retired. I suspect that if he were still an active professor he might not have felt sufficiently bold as to make the astute observations he does. I could be wrong but this is my suspicion.
I’m gratified to see that he’s tackled an issue that I and a few others have pressed many times – and that is the necessity of the ruling classes, the chattering classes, to devalue, ridicule, and persecute individuals of religious faith in order to forward their agenda. In fact, Codevilla makes the point that the ruling class’s hostility towards and contempt for Judeo-Christianity is a necessary strategy in their success:
[begin quote]
… The ruling class is keener to reform the American people’s family and spiritual lives than their economic and civic ones. In no other areas is the ruling class’s self-definition so definite, its contempt for opposition so patent, its Kulturkampf so open. It believes that the Christian family (and the Orthodox Jewish one too) is rooted in and perpetuates the ignorance commonly called religion, divisive social prejudices, and repressive gender roles, that it is the greatest barrier to human progress because it looks to its very particular interest — often defined as mere coherence against outsiders who most often know better. Thus the family prevents its members from playing their proper roles in social reform. Worst of all, it reproduces itself.
Since marriage is the family’s fertile seed, government at all levels, along with “mainstream” academics and media, have waged war on it. They legislate, regulate, and exhort in support not of “the family” — meaning married parents raising children — but rather of “families,” meaning mostly households based on something other than marriage. The institution of no-fault divorce diminished the distinction between cohabitation and marriage — except that husbands are held financially responsible for the children they father, while out-of-wedlock fathers are not. The tax code penalizes marriage and forces those married couples who raise their own children to subsidize “child care” for those who do not.
… This dismissal of the American people’s intellectual, spiritual, and moral substance is the very heart of what our ruling class is about. Its principal article of faith, its claim to the right to decide for others, is precisely that it knows things and operates by standards beyond others’ comprehension.
… By identifying science and reason with themselves, our rulers delegitimize opposition. Though they cannot prevent Americans from worshiping God, they can make it as socially disabling as smoking — to be done furtively and with a bad social conscience.
… The ruling class’s manifold efforts to discredit and drive worship of God out of public life — not even the Soviet Union arrested students for wearing crosses or praying, or reading the Bible on school property, as some U.S. localities have done in response to Supreme Court rulings — convinced many among the vast majority of Americans who believe and pray that today’s regime is hostile to the most important things of all. Every December, they are reminded that the ruling class deems the very word “Christmas” to be offensive. Every time they try to manifest their religious identity in public affairs, they are deluged by accusations of being “American Taliban” trying to set up a “theocracy.” Let members of the country class object to anything the ruling class says or does, and likely as not their objection will be characterized as “religious,” that is to say irrational, that is to say not to be considered on a par with the “science” of which the ruling class is the sole legitimate interpreter. Because aggressive, intolerant secularism is the moral and intellectual basis of the ruling class’s claim to rule, resistance to that rule, whether to the immorality of economic subsidies and privileges, or to the violation of the principle of equal treatment under equal law, or to its seizure of children’s education, must deal with secularism’s intellectual and moral core. …
[end quote]
hi lookout, great to have you back!
I used to think that presenting the truth and facts, in an honest manner, was the key to turning around the PC juggernaut..
Me too. My epiphany came a few years back when I sent a Bush-Lied-People-Died friend 35 quotes from A-List Dems expressing their fears over Saddam’s alleged WMD. I really, honestly thought that this data would close the case. Nope.
Great quote from Timothy. I gotta read the Bible!
Great posts ET and lookout.
lookout, some people do pay attention and understand what is happening, but not enough. I know not many follow the good book anymore, but it does have many timeless truths that we ignore at our peril and it appears that is exactly what is happening. Some days I am sorry for having brought children into this world and fear for my grandchildren with the likes of Jack Layton,Hedy Fry, Libby Davis, Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, et al having their hands on the levers of power. Maybe even worse are the so-called conservatives that act like lefties when they get into power.
Neutering the middle class is exactly what is going on, as the left-wing of either the fascist or communist type
The Massachusetts people thought that they were voting for change and it appears they got a liberal Republican. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/25472
As for Mr. Codevilla’s statement that “not even the Soviet Union arrested students for wearing crosses or praying, or reading the Bible on school property, as some U.S. localities have done in response to Supreme Court rulings”:
No, but the Communists destroyed tens of thousands of churches, they executed numerous bishops and priests, and sent millions of Orthodox Christians to the gulag where many of them perished. They undertook an extensive education and propaganda campaign to convince people, especially the children and youth, to abandon religious beliefs (does this sound at all familiar in Canada since Trudeau?) and in order to altogether eliminate religion from the public square, in addition to propagating atheism in the schools, they confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, and harassed believers.
It seems to me that there’s a cautionary tale or two here …
Me No Dhimmi, many thanks. And reading the Bible is a very fine idea!
Ken, it’s the middle class—and the natural family: you know, that mom and dad, who make every living soul, and, as batb points out, Judeo-Christianity—that the progressives want to eradicate. They’re being very successful: electing Obama accelerated their agenda, as if the accelerator got stuck at 100 mph.
Stopping this cultural collapse will be very difficult, let alone turning it around. Considering the proliferation of godless, ignorant, hedonistic clones being churned out by our public schools—the very individuals who voted in the abomination that is the POTUS—some battles may be won, but, IMO, winning the war will be a miracle. (’Good thing I believe in miracles!)
While I found myself agreeing with large parts of the essay, the scorn with which the comments about any form of secular thought are written give me pause.
Is it so easy to express disdain for the advancements that those freethinkers of generations past made possible? The roots of many things taken for granted these days, from women’s rights to abolition, do not lead to passages in the bible, at least not according the “consensus” biblical interpretation of the day.
If you wish to believe, that’s fine and certainly your decision and none of my business, but your cause will not be well served by alienating the growing portion of the population that finds no comfort in belief.
Does that make me part of the “aggressive, intolerant secularism” crowd? Then why do I agree with the most of the other points in the essay?
Thanks for the link Kate; something to think about for the rest of the day.
One of the large problems that I see is is that the political class is a relatively homogeneous block in contrast to the “country class” which is very diverse. This diversity is a good thing in many ways but it also means that we can’t agree on who to support politically and a lot of us just want to be left alone and free from government interference. I personally don’t have much use for religion, but I do like my guns and freedom.
Trying to change this situation through the political process is to attack the enemy where it is the strongest; the political class excels in this area. What is needed instead is unconventional warfare against the political class which will probably start off as ever increasing civil disobedience. The weak point of the political class is that they generally don’t actually do anything that involves direct interaction with mundane physical reality; they have other people grow their food for them, fix their plumbing, repair their houses, etc. They are highly specialized parasites that depend on a steady flow of cash from the dumb unenlightened country hicks that also do all the work for them. I’ve toyed with the idea of refusing to provide medical care to members of the political class but should probably have a lawyer check this idea out first.
When TSHTF, the political class will be helpless as all they can do is legislate and that doesn’t do them much good if the economy has crashed. In the US, using the military to intervene is likely to cause mass desertions as the majority of the US military has ideals opposed to those of the political class. I noticed the proliferation of people dependent on government handouts in Vancouver about 10 years ago and at that point started the process to leave Vancouver and move to a small town where there are very few people who are on welfare. Where I live now has a much smaller proportion of political class members and lots of people who are far more self-sufficient than people in Vancouver. People I know in Vancouver can’t seem to understand why I made this move and I’ve been asked how I can stand living around rednecks or I’ve been labeled a nutty survivalist type but, when the economy really tanks, Vancouver (or any large city) is the last place I’d want to be.
I agree with loki and mitchell. The article is great but it leans a bit too far towards the Christian conservative perspective. Like it or not, conservatives and libertarians need to work together to defeat progressives. Libertarians are hoping to dismantle the power of the state but are concerned that C-conservatives seem more interested in replacing progressive commandments with their own set of Thou Shalt/Shalt Not list. C-Conservatives (like progressives) often show contempt for libertarians and all others who refuse to submit to their version of the way it should be.
I fully agree with the author’s main point that the political class (R or D, CPC or LPC) consider themselves superior humans who have the right and the responsibility to rule and control all aspects of our lives. Without an genuine change back to classic liberalism and smaller government the chasm between the ruling class, the dependent class and the country class will widen and lead to a confrontation of some sort. Mainstream political parties and elections are inadequate when it comes to representing voters. Voters vote based on A,B,C election promises which are usually ignored after election day. Meanwhile agenda D…Z is foisted upon them before they have a chance to boot out the bums in the next election. So government power grows and grows no matter who you vote for.
Mitchel44 writes, “The roots of many things taken for granted these days, from women’s rights to abolition, do not lead to passages in the bible”. Is that so?
(I may be quite mistaken, but I wonder how much Mitchel actually knows about the Bible—or history. As one of sda’s past commenters used to ask, “Is Mitchel a young person, perchance?” As batb has noted here, young people are not taught the truth in our public schools’ history classes, which are now disseminators of anti-Christian, anti-European propaganda.)
Actually, Mitchel, it is the very idea of equality in the sight of God, a revelation to the Jews, carried forward into Christianity—Jesus had many female followers, who were treated with respect and, in many ways, as equals—that was the seed for the further emancipation of women. NB—Note Bene: it is in the Christian societies of the West that woman have been accorded the most rights and have achieved equality in every which way. Why do you think this has not happened in non-Christian countries? Could you give an example of a non-Christian—Christian, as in formed by the Judeo-Christian dispensation—society today where women have as many rights as do women of the Christian West? (The exception, I believe, is Israel: no surprise there!)
Re abolition: has Mitchel, perchance, heard of William Wilberforce? From the BBC (hardly a cheerleader for Christianity):
[Summary]: “Wilberforce was a deeply religious English member of parliament and social reformer who was very influential in the abolition of the slave trade and eventually slavery itself in the British empire. . . .”
“His dissolute lifestyle changed completely when he became an evangelical Christian. . . His Christian faith prompted him to become interested in social reform, particularly the improvement of factory conditions in Britain.”
Wilberforce was a prime mover in the struggle to end slavery—BECAUSE he was a Christian.
So, Mitchel’s suggestion that women’s rights and abolition sprang, fully formed, out of secularism or some such, is ludicrous—and all too typical of the poppycock that passes for knowledge in this benighted age.
so we all agree the worker bees are getting screwed….but isn’t this insight almost a commonplace …folks just keep eating it and eating it until one day there’s a revolt against the ennablers and running dogs who support and maintain it…
man only reacts to crisis…a crisis in the mind of course…supported by the recognition of hitherto avoidable deleterious economic crises..
have we in the new whirld arrived at that exalted station yet?
i think not…but they appear to have a glim of the not too distant future in east dudley today…and it don’t look like anything wordsworth wrote…
quoth ET: “Notice how [Obama]’s filled his administration with appointees”
To be fair, this is the norm. There are literally thousands of positions for which each President has to appoint people, ranging from the administrator of NASA to Secretary of State to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and on and on and on.
LC Bennet writes, “Libertarians are hoping to dismantle the power of the state but are concerned that C-conservatives seem more interested in replacing progressive commandments with their own set of Thou Shalt/Shalt Not list. C-Conservatives (like progressives) often show contempt for libertarians and all others who refuse to submit to their version of the way it should be.”
I’d appreciate some concrete examples of this statement, please.
(LCB, have you noticed the very long list of coercive “Thou shalt/Thou shalt nots” imposed on all of us by the left over the past three decades? C/conservatives want SMALLER government. Please do not make some kind of moral/political equivalency between Christian conservatives and secular humanist socialists. Or, if you still want to, please document your assertion.)
mitchel44: “If you wish to believe, that’s fine and certainly your decision and none of my business, but your cause will not be well served by alienating the growing portion of the population that finds no comfort in belief. Does that make me part of the ‘aggressive, intolerant secularism’ crowd?”
Where’s that quote from, Mitchel44? I certainly don’t think that secularists who aren’t persons of faith are, necessarily, aggressive or intolerant — though many are and Codevilla makes the point that aggression and intolerance towards Christians by the ruling class is a problem. As a person of faith, myself, I’ve had to deal with put-downs and contemptuous attitudes on the part of secularists who’ve accused me of being irrational and, in between the lines, an imbecile.
How is it, exactly, that persons of faith are “alienating the growing portion of the population that finds no comfort in belief”?
The point I’m trying to make, which Codevilla puts so eloquently, is that the Achilles Heel of the West — and the reason too many are susceptible to being shoved around by the “ruling class” — IS exactly the rejection of the faith of our fathers and mothers. I rejected my childhood Christian faith for 15 years, and was quite happy to sneer at Christians who, I thought, were squares, boring (ha!), and not with it. I’d bought the zeitgeist and was encouraged at every turn to put Christians down.
I’d like to suggest that if people decide on secularism — and that’s their G*d-given right! — they not put Christians in the what-a-bunch-of-unthinking-idiots box. Judeo-Christianity has been a civilizing and strengthening force in the West for over 2000 years, and as we experience its decline — and not only the encouragement of this decline but aggressive hostility towards Christianity by secularist opportunists in all of our public institutions — we’re noticing a commensurate lack of civility in the West and an environment in which “might/power is right” and the bullies are winning.
Christians, with our root in Judaism, have always been lookouts on the watchtowers. There are fewer of us now, and when we do signal danger, we’re ridiculed and told to shut up. Does that observation “alienat[e] the growing portion of the population that finds no comfort in belief”?
If so, how?
Hey Phantom.
“Same goes double for Canada. Maybe squared.”
Your math is a little off.
Double two thirds and you’ve got four thirds or 133%.
Square two thirds and you’ve got four ninths or 37%.
I’m not crazy about his nomenclature: Ruling Class vs. Country Class. “Country” class evokes the rural-urban divide which caused a mini cat-fight between Kate and Kathy. A better term is needed. For ruling class I like Morton’s “Court Party”.
[The Charter Revolution and the Court Party [Paperback] F.L. Morton]
I found the essay tied it nicely with Albert Jay Nock’s Our Enemy, the State, which, borrowing from Openheimer, divided people according to whether they made their living throught the economic means or the political means — production or predation. The State, he brilliantly observed, is the “organization of the political means”. Nock’s book is truly a life-changing read.
Finally, the author is professor emeritus. That means retired, right? It would be interesting to check out his writings while he was still a working academic.
What batb has just said: DITTO!
The Second Great Commandment of Christianity: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Mitchel44 and LCB, did you know that?)
I’ve been in public schools for over 50 years: as Western societies have moved further away from their Christian roots, the more crass and barbaric the behaviour has become.
In politics, note the very secular left’s propensity to lie, cheat, and bully. It’s not Christian conservatives who want a theocracy: it’s the Marxists who are headed in that direction, at an astonishing speed, under Obama.
When Libertarians conflate the behaviour of the secular left with the conservative right, Houston, we have a problem. (Please don’t do it. It’s unbecoming and not accurate.)
If I as a Christian discomfit the comfortable then I have done may job. The fact is the secular religion which is now the orthodoxy of Western society accepts no authority higher than itself. Nowhere is this more evident than in the scientific/academic journals where everything is peer reviewed. As a Christian I put my faith in the One who designed the thing because I know He didn’t make junk, rather than those who gather thousands of peers to agree that the thing is falling apart. Christian faith is that which allows we humans to look beyond our present thus we are not swept up in all the panics so prevalent in the modern secular world. I say that in the full knowledge that all to often weak Christians have been swept away in panics induced by those who misapplied Christianity to the present circumstance. However the panic always comes to those who believe their present is greater than their Originator.
Now who was that little bald headed Jew who said “Thinking themselves wise they became fools”?
Me No Dhimmi, I like your tip of the hat to Morton’s “The Court Party”. Well said!
(And if I won the lottery, I’d be saying many things publicly that I can’t now. Why? Because the secular left’s jackboots would crush me and take away my livelihood. Please, libertarians, who don’t seem to like Christian conservatives, consider your misperceptions. Remember when Canada’s government was mainly comprised of Christians—at least in name—how repressive was the government? It’s the non-Christian Marxists who want total control over all of us. Why treat Christians as the enemy and misrepresent our motives and aims? We’re part of the solution.)
Lookout, my statement was talking more about the perception of libertarians, proof of which can be found by reading any the comments at places like Reason Magazine or other libertarian publications.
As for a list of conflicting areas, well I’m too busy/lazy to do a post including specifics and references at the moment but I think areas of law and order, drugs, abortion, porn, community responsibility, divorce, women in certain careers (ex.the armed forces), two-income parenting, improper language, music, clothing, right down to blog manners and politeness would be just the start of that list.
BTW, for the inevitable comment that I am an atheist, I’m not. Atheists are obsessed with religion. I find religion interesting in a historical sense, Christianity in particular, but find that most religions are prone to the same problems as any other top-down institution – corruption, abuse, being led astray, being taken over by activists. See the Church of England, for example.
The reason I vote conservative is because I realize that progressives are more dangerous to individual liberty and natural rights. C-Cons are allies but they can be, well, annoying at times.
To be sure, the leftists hate the VALUES of the Tea Party. But what they hate the most is that the Tea Party is using THEIR tactics.
Protests, marches, rallies, sit-ins, strikes, getting in people’s faces is THEIR method of operation. They own the copyright on it. Torches and pitchforks are their domain.
The Tea Party is rubbing their rhubarb. That’s why Pelosi, a political pill who never held a real job in her life much less a minimum wage job, called them “astroturf.”
Unions are PAYING people to picket. Liberal groups are PAYING people to stand on street corners to raise money and get petitions signed.
And Pelosi thinks that a movement that probably started amongst a small group of friends and spread like wildfire across the country is phony grass roots.
Liberal minds are 180 degrees from reality.
ET,
“Notice Obama’s contempt for Congress, which is the home of the middle class, the elected by the electors. Notice how he’s filled his administration with appointees rather than elected members. How, when he has to deal with Congress, it’s via bribes, backroom deals, threats, extortion.”
Sounds pretty par for the course under virtually every presidency in the 20th and 21st century. Care to name an exception?
Excellent article. Glad I read it .
Lookout
Your right. Just look at teenage pregnancy. All the money since the sixties to stop the rate climbing. All they have done has been to bring a sexualized classroom with increased per-marital sex by 2000%. Of course now as the article says even grade school girl can get abortions without letting the family know. It could be said for every program of the left. I don’t think its coincidence, that when the left takes over secular institutions they make the problems worse with their idea of human nature.
Its more for Power. The more Chaos the more opportunity.
We all know how this is going to end in the States. No one wants to admit it though.
They still believe an election will come in 2012.
JMO
I wondered why my membership card was late,
I used to love at the U of Winnipeg where some who unlike you are part of the elite would boast about finding new words that are not politically correct, I just found out you can’t say __________________.
and be happy,….