Unity - Today’s Most Needed Trait
Posted by: Blue Collar Muse in America First, Blogroll, Common Sense, Conservative, Economics, Elephant Bites, GOP, Individual Responsibility, PoliticsIn-fighting is part of politics. There are fierce battles for position and conflict over who gets the credit and who the blame.
Usually it’s kept from public view. But not always. The very public spat between Ron Paul supporters and the rest of the Right is a good example of a “not always” moment. So is Mike Huckabee’s lambasting of Libertarians. And Christians are being scape-goated for the GOP’s declining brand popularity due to strongly held views on social issues and Creationism.
Unchecked, the Right may succeed in disemboweling itself. Staunching the bleeding is hard as restricting faith to the heart prevents mental use of biblical warnings about divided houses. Worse, successful “kills” deplete the Right’s strength. We agree on more than we disagree. There are some very real differences and these will need to be worked out. But using exclusion as a tool in this working out is precisely the wrong approach.
Coexisting is not the same as embracing. Social Conservatives can work with Libertarians without embracing the legalization of all drugs and eradication of all borders. Libertarians can reciprocate without “walking an aisle” or surrendering any presumed intellectual superiority. This strengthens us all at little cost. Intentionally devouring one another, on the other hand, not only thins the ranks physically, it depletes stores of philosophical and principle based strength as well.
Consider the Christians. What is to be gained and what lost if we politically excommunicate them?
No more sheep bleating about abortion and the sanctity of marriage. No more accusations of ignorance over Creationism or Intelligent Design. If that is all that’s lost, perhaps it’s a good thing to give believers the “Left Foot of Fellowship” as they exit the building. But what else do we lose?
We lose the stature and strength Christianity has to speak truth to power. From Nathan to King David and John the Baptist to Herod to William Wilberforce to Slavers and today’s Pro-Lifers, Christianity has been the platform from which many a naked emperor’s exposure has been exposed.
We lose the foundation from which to fight the relativism of the Left. The culture we enjoy did not simply arise from nothing. Christianity provides instruction to those who value it. Imperfectly built structure? Absolutely. But a valuable structure, nonetheless. 16th Century Europe birthed two influences on developing Western Civilization. The Renaissance, steeped in “Man is the measure of all things”, gave us Humanism and the French Revolution with its horrors. The Reformation, steeped in “God is the measure of all things”, gave us the means to judge the behavior of all men, even Kings, and the American Revolution with its Freedoms and Rights.
Evangelicals who would force Libertarians from the ranks produce a similar drain. The works of Hayek, Rand and von Mises may not be theological masterpieces in the Christian sense. But their impact on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness cannot be overestimated. We need people who champion their beliefs as we need those who champion Christian faith.
Those with their minds made up will accept no argument to the contrary. To them I offer a hearty Godspeed and Fair Winds. You are going where I cannot and dare not follow. But for those who agree, and more importantly to those who are unsure, I offer a welcome to the Don’t Go Movement. Based on the premise that which unites us is more important than that which divides us, DGM is a community dedicated to working together despite differences. The New Testament word for “unity” is “symphonia”. The unity of the disparate instruments in a modern symphony is not all sounding the same. Rather it is all sounding together, at the proper time and with their individual contributions.
At DGM you’ll find a broad range of philosophies and principles. While all are Right of Center, not all who are Right of Center hold them. It makes for spirited debate. It makes for a learning experience. And serving in unity makes us a near unstoppable force when we turn, as one, to focus on that which we both hold dear.
Join us won’t you? Woodwind or brass, percussion or string, we’ve got a chair with your name on it. Come lend your passion to the pieces we play. You won’t be sorry!
Popularity: 24% [?]
Tags: #Don't Go Movement, Christianity, Christians and the Right, Economic Theory, Fiscal Conservatives, Libertarians, Social Conservatives, Unity
Entries (RSS)
November 28th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
The Horrors of the French Revolution came from the enlightenment? LOL! What self serving arrogant rubbish! If you want real horrors then look just a bit earlier to the Christian on Christian Christian world war called the reformation. Enitre villages slaughtered because people crossed themselves in the wrong direction. Millions of Christians killed by Christians.
You guys speak truth to power? Your only test for truth is “Does it make us look better”. Pure vanity, that is your truth. You guys have wrecked the right, and haven’t the humility to see that, or any other unflatering truth.
November 28th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
@Econ Amateur -
You have an agenda and you twisted my words to advance it. I did not say the Enlightenment was the cause. I said emphasis on “man is the measure of all things” was the cause.
I didn’t even say it myself but sourced a quite scholarly work on the matter.
Interestingly, your very disagreement proves my point. I did not claim perfection of execution for Christian values. But the very fact that you can point to some of the things done in the name of Christ as “wrong” means there is an external authority from which you derive your power to declare it so. That authority is “God is the measure of all things”. If we were living under the tender mercies of the result of “Man as measure” then those with might would be right with no appeal. Your idea of what is right would be just as valid as mine. Thus the need for forcing ones values on another seen in totalitarian regimes.
I cut out the portion of the post that introduced the idea of Christian foundations being valuable with something like “It is so pervasive we almost don’t notice it, but it’s there nonetheless.” Perhaps I should have left it in to give you pause.
I appreciate your comment but it is evident you are more interested in scoring cheap points with no attribution than engaging in serious discussion. I covered that too … the part about those with made up minds accepting no contrary views.
I leave you to your personal version of history. Godspeed and Fair Winds …
November 30th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I think a lot of folks on the right are exaggerating the factional conflicts taking place. There’s a difference between trimming away bad images in a party and kicking out entire sections of voters.
Take, for instance, Ron Paul. He has a very devoted constituency, but said constituency is also very small. And Paulites are hardly going to be any luckier when they bump into the general population - folks who like the idea of reverting to the gold standard and wiping out huge portions of the federal government sort of gravitate towards the Republican and Libertarian parties. So, if the Republican Party realized that Paulites were a strong enough force to distort the new image that it needs to build (which is an unlikely scenario), it would make perfect, political sense to show them the door.
More importantly, there would be a major difference in kicking Paul to the curve and getting rid of libertarians as a whole - there are a lot of libertarians who would choose to stick with the elephants, rather than stand out in the cold. Likewise, there’s a difference in cutting loose extreme social conservatives and getting rid of Christians in the GOP.
And, moreover, people ought to realize that politically refocusing a party doesn’t look like Stalin’s purges. No one would suddenly announce, say, “We are no longer friendly to extreme social conservatives!” They would just slowly stop courting their leaders’ support, stop focusing on their issues, and turn their issues into ones that don’t define the party nearly as much.
Really, this is a lesson that the Dems have already learned, on the whole. We know to be embarrassed by the nuts who make us look bad, even when their extremism strikes a chord for us. There’s a reason why Ron Paul developed a fanatical base while no one even noticed when Kucinich and Gravel dropped out.
That being said - and I realize that, as a liberal Democrat, any political advice I give will likely be placed under suspicion of reverse psychology - I’d love to see Republicans double-down on the far-right of the social conservative wing. I’d love to see an extreme Paulite or extreme libertarian wing develop, though that’s not at all likely to happen. That would ensure a nice, long string of Democratic victories, on the national stage.