This is a touchy subject for a lot of people and before I leap into the lion’s den, allow me to say that I am doing my best to treat it with the care that it deserves.  Nonetheless, should you feel the need, flame away; I am thoroughly Nomex-covered.    

Many people here in the RS community and throughout the general population feel what I think is an instinctual conservatism.  This is something akin to a political “conscience” if you will.  When confronted with a decision between growing the power of the federal government or shrinking it, many people just “know” that shrinking it is the better choice.  Let me give you another example: why do some people rise for the national anthem before a ball-game and others don’t?  Many conservatives instinctively “get” that you rise out of respect for our nation and its history as embodied in our national anthem.  By and large, I think that this is a good thing.  I believe that it is why genuinely conservative candidates win elections, over and over again.  This phenomenon strikes me as a kind of conservative political “fideism.”  I mean by this, a kind of real faith in conservatism that both defies reason and has no basis in reason, simply because no such basis is needed. 

Let me try to explain this tricky concept by using the analogy of religion.  As Erick’s recent very moving diary on faith and the role of God’s plan in our daily lives shows only too clearly, there is a sense in which people just believe.  They need no convincing, no long-winded theology or rational explanation for God’s presence; they just “get it.”  This is a fine thing, after all did not Christ say that the faith of the little child is the most perfect? (Mark 10:15, Luke 18:17)  Certainly those whose faith in God is unquestioned are in good company: this is the kind of faith that Kierkegaard, Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, and Karl Barth are talking about.  God is certainly there, waiting with open arms, for this kind of irrational faith, but its value in converting others is limited at best. 

In political terms, the fideist conservative, he who needs no reason to believe in conservatism is a genuine asset to the conservative movement as a whole.  He fires up the base and he provides a good example of how to live a conservative life.  I include Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and George W. Bush in this category.  They are authentic conservatives, albeit of different stripes, and they have good conservative instincts.  The problem comes in depending on such people to address the questions of government and the foundations of conservatism in the political arena.  They “know” what a conservative is and what a conservative should believe, but they cannot articulate it.  They have had no moment of “doubt” that shakes their faith in conservatism.  In other words, because they have never not had “faith” in conservatism, they do not understand the predicament of the conservative-leaning independent or the lapsed conservative. 

Herein lies the issue of political evangelization.  I do not have any problems with fideist conservatives anymore than I have a problem with fideist Christians, Jews, etc.  Such people are not especially good at defending their beliefs or swaying audiences simply because they themselves have never needed to re-affirm those beliefs.  That is to say that they have never had to search for reasons to believe.  I think that this is part of the reason that Ronald Reagan was such an effective defender of conservatism: he was a “convert.”  Reagan had a nuanced, reason-based conservative faith.  He understood the principles of conservatism and the arguments that can be used to convince an observer of conservatism’s essential “rightness.”  This is what seems lacking in so many of the modern Republican party’s leaders today.  They either embrace a fideist conservatism or they are wishy-washy moderates who are more interested in political advancement than political principles (Olympia Snowe are you listening?).  The party can certainly continue to survive, though possibly not thrive, by continuing to play to the base and those who are gut-instinct conservatives.  In order to really take back our nation, however, we need apostles to the independents.  We need to evangelize.  This is something that requires a conservatism based in reason; you aren’t going to convince a non-conservative to become a conservative without appealing to his or her reason. 

I realize that apologetics are not for everyone.  One has to understand the arguments for and against one’s own beliefs and be very confident that the arguments for are the stronger.  Additionally, aspiring apostles need to be willing to face a WHOLE LOT of abuse; try wrestling with the denizens of Kos or DU or HuffPo, you’ll soon discover the limits of your own patience and tolerance for the views of others.  Remember though that for every 10 flames you get for a post on such sites, there is probably at least one person who might be, however imperceptibly, nodding their head in agreement with you.  I heartily recommend that anyone interested in this kind of work get involved with your state Republican Party.  Attend debates and town-hall meetings.  Read up on real conservative philosophy – no, I don’t mean Hannity, Levin, or Coulter, I mean Locke, Burke, and, if you really want a challenge, Aquinas.  When your liberal opponents attack your views, you need to know how to respond.  The arguments for American conservatism are stronger than those for socialism or leftism of any type; you just have to learn them and know how to articulate them.  Only with this kind of strong effort to really recapture the heart and minds of the American people can things like Obamacare and the radical agenda of the contemporary Democratic Party be defeated. 

RS readers are uniquely equipped for this kind of work: we have daily doses of solid conservative arguments against leftism provided to us by experienced, dedicated conservative activists.  The ball, as they say, is in our court.  We either get to work and learn about what conservatism is and how it is a better, more rational, and more coherent idea than leftism or we give-up and let the Dems run our lives for us.  It’s our choice and with every passing moment of inaction, the repairing of our nation becomes just a little bit harder.  I’m going to hit the trail now, head on out into the big bad world of leftism and try to find a few honest men with open minds to join me.  Plenty of room on the trail for company; I hope you’ll join me. 

First of all, apologies for my prolonged absence from RS.  Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging. ”The best laid schems o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley” as Burns said.   On a more interesting note, however, in the wake of the so-called “Climategate” scandal, let’s check in on our friends from international terrorist eco-fascist organization Greenpeace:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1019

It seems that the upcoming Climate Change Conference has really motivated the best and brightest at Greenpeace.  Sadly, and rather unsurprisingly, this drivel is the best that they can come up with.  I find it quite interesting to note, however, what this particular message betrays about the underlying philosophy behind Greenpeace (embraced by so, so many eco-fascists).  I am not so terribly interested in the main text of the ad, the “I’m Sorry…” part, but rather in the “Copenhagen 2009 – Act Now Change the Future” slogan.  This handy little slogan contains several premises which the viewer is likely not aware of, but implicitly accepts if he/she supports the overall message of the advertisement.

Premise 1:  the notion of the inevitable movement of history toward progress.  This is the old historicist philosophy (or anti-philosophy to be entirely accurate)  that Hegel authored.  Essentially this is the root of “progressivism,” which also claims that its adherents are moving “forward” and will make everything “better.”  Or, in our current political vernacular, this is ”hope” and “change.”  I have yet to meet a leftist that did not subscribe to this idea.  That the eco-fascists at Greenpeace have quite openly advertised their embrace of historicism is unsurprising given that they, like most of the environmentalist movement groups, are more interested in leftist ideology than in actual stewardship of the Earth.  It is quite foolish to dismiss historicism as a bizarre 19th century leftist philosophy, however, as it has a certain appeal to audiences of any era.  After all, who doesn’t want to be considered “with the times” or “progressive” or “forward-looking?”  This was part of Hegel’s appeal to young students.  Karl Marx, Hegel’s most famous student, developed a particular take on historicism, historical materialism, that forms the basis for his political system which we are all-too-familiar with. 

Greenpeace’s embrace of this historicist nonsense very much takes the form of Marx’s historical materialism in that they are interested in driving us into the next stage of history by altering our economic relationships.  Specifically, they would like to utterly uproot our energy and food production systems and replace them with faux-scientific “green” methods.  Unfortunately for the Marxists at Greenpeace, historical materialism is not, in fact, scientific as Karl Popper, among others, pointed out.  Like the science behind Global Warming, the data used to advance historical materialism can and has been “cooked” to produce the results desired by the authors.   Historicism is ultimately a failed philosophy that, for one reason or another, continues to appeal to gullible leftists.  For a recent example of this, see the work of historicist philosopher and Obama cheerleader Francis Fukuyama.

Premise 2: the viewer can change the future of the Earth itself.  How much more messianic can we get, folks? This is an even greater temptation than historicism.  Essentially what Greenpeace is doing here is spreading the idea that each person who becomes a member of their cult is somehow joining in a revolutionary gestalt, for lack of a better term, that can alter the course of human history.  Several flaws in this thinking immediately come to mind.  First, the environmentalist movement, for the most part, is, as I have already noted, more committed to Marxist economics than to the environment.  Despite the occasional “mother Earth,” “Gaia,” “goddess worship,” “feminist economics,” blather that erupts from the eco-fascist camp, there really is no acknowledgement of the essentially spiritual nature of the human person.  This is a side-effect of adopting Marx’s philosophical anthropology (which is a kind of dead Darwinism, in my humble opinion).  So rather than accept that human beings have a real, spiritual link to the Earth – and this could happily take the form of either man created Imago Dei serving as the friend and steward of God’s creation (Judeo-Christian) or man as God’s slaves tending to his creation (Islamic) or man as in balance with nature and thus needing to maintain nature to maintain the balance in his own soul (very loosely Taoist) – the Greenpeace cultists choose to create an atheist, materialist, messianic ideology (environmentalism) as the idol for all “forward-looking” people to embrace.  Linked to this is the idea that those who join the eco-fascist movement are entitled to some secret knowledge (possibly the knowledge of the key to salvation itself?) that eco-skeptics will never have.  This is out-and-out Gnosticism of a very old kind that has simply been resurrected and given a marketing make-over.  The same people who are buying into Greenpeace’s messianic ideology are devouring copies of The Gospel of Judas and The Da Vinci Code.   

In light of the fact that Greenpeace has betrayed the secret of its own ideology so openly, opponents of the organization have a real opportunity to counter its claims to “truth” and “science” by pointing out the fact that Greenpeace has embraced an anti-truth and anti-science ideology.  Historicism is little more than an excuse for moral relativism (in the Hegelian sense) or revolutionary violence (in the Marxist, historical materialism sense).  Gnosticism, of course, is an old joke and a very bad one that continues to sucker in the gullible – see, for example, the success of the Scientology cult which is blatantly Gnostic.  Both of these dangerous ideas are little more than revivals of ancient heresies which Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers successfully battled in ages long past.  As science, they fail as shown by, among others, Karl Popper.  As theology, they fail as shown by C.S. Lewis and Søren Kierkegaard.  As philosophy, they fail as shown by Leo Strauss and Immanuel Kant. 

Clearly, the notion that environmentalism is a religion without a god contains more than a kernel of truth.  Certainly it has its own prophets – need we really name them? – and its own holy scriptures.  I suggest then that those of us who are eco-skeptics - and thus denied the joy of the sacred knowledge that only true eco-fascists are privy to - open a new front in the war against Greenpeace and its ilk.  Certainly honest scientists, economists, statisticians, etc., are finally making progress against the faux “science” of Global Warming; it is long past time that the rest of us start challenging the Global Warming fanatics on philosophical and, if need be, theological grounds given that they are as much members of a religion as any Christian, Taoist, Jew, or Hindu.  The age-old battle against heresy continues my friends. I invite you to join-up with St. Paul, St. Iranaeus, Tertullian, St. Augustine, Rabbi Akiva, Maimonides, Ibn Rushd, Lewis, Kant, and many others who have fought the battle of ideas against the heretics (and honestly, does not one see Communism as the great Judeo-Christian heresy of the modern age?).  To use the analogy of a forest fire, Greenpeace and the eco-fascists are a brush fire that threatens to consume the entire forest and “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

I appreciate the many comments and recommendations from RS readers for my first diary in this series. I seem to have set the bar rather high on the first entry; I only hope that I live up to your expectations for the remaining entries.

Read More →

Recently, I have had the opportunity to joust with a few of our lefty lurker friends. Some of them have been quite courteous and seemed genuinely interested in what RS has to offer. Others have been – well, not so courteous. During the course of interacting with one of the less polite fellows, bs suggested that I expand my response describing conservatism and countering liberalism into a diary. Given the recent outstanding posts on this topic by JackSavage, E Pluribus Unum, gamecock, and SwampYankee, I am not really sure how much I can add to the debate.

Read More →

Never in my life have I had the urge to do harm to the United States of America or its duly elected government. Never have I felt anything but pride for my nation. Never a day has gone by that I did not earnestly hope and pray for the success of my nation as the greatest country that God has ever given man. Within the next three months, however, all of that pride, hope, and sense of civic duty may come suddenly and terribly crashing down forever.

Read More →

A true American patriot and hero passed from this world a week ago. Colonel John Ripley, also known as the Hero of Dong Ha, died peacefully at his home in Annapolis on October 28, 2008. Colonel Ripley represented the very best that America has to offer, physically (he was a graduate of the US Army Ranger School, Airborne School, US Marine Corps recon school, and the Royal Marine Commandos school), mentally (a graduate of the United States Naval Academy), and spiritually (a faithful Catholic committed to the defense of the American family). Colonel Ripley was a hero both in war and peace. He passionately opposed the admission of homosexuals into the military and championed the idea that women should not be sent into combat zones. On both issues he testified before hostile audiences, first in Congress and then before one of President Clinton’s PC police Presidential Commissions. Colonel Ripley and the values that he stood for will be sorely missed.

Some links to articles discussing Colonel Ripley’s life and career (worth reading):

Washington Post obit

Colonel Ripley’s wiki entry

A very nice write up of Colonel Ripley as a person

Given the general mood of concern paired with optimism for the future, I felt that it would be productive – and possibly morale boosting – to start assembling our hit list for January when His Holiness, the President-Elect formally assumes office. Doing those of us on the Right a fairly big favor, the President-Elect has named Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his new Chief of Staff. I say big favor, because Emanuel will enter into his new role with lots and lots of baggage, making for a much easier target than an unknown or little known figure like a campaign staffer (Plouffe or Axelrod). Having said all of that, then, let’s take a solid aim at our first target of the season: Rahm Emanuel.

Read More →

Today, August 15, is a very special date on the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar: it is a holy day, the Feast of the Assumption. Today and this entire weekend is also special to the Eastern Orthodox Church; they will be celebrating the Dormition of the Theotokos (literally the falling asleep in God of Mary, the Mother of God). While the two churches view the event differently, they are both celebrating the same thing: the spiritual triumph of Mary, the Virgin Mother of God and her ascension into heaven.

Read More →

Justin Ewers of US Snooze & World Report published this interesting bit of selective fact finding/editorializing regarding the surprising shift of self-identified religious voters toward Barack Obama. Here’s the link to the original article.

Read More →