Step 1 was our identity crisis. From the beginning through the Civil War we sought to clarify our system of government, leaving the Articles of Confederation and moving onto the more centralized Constitution. We ended our bout with slavery and secured rights. We secured the hemisphere from European expansion and the threat it posed.
Step 2 was the First Corruption. From Grant to Hoover we gathered together into government a collection of the new corporate manipulaors.
Step 3 was the beginning of the American Empire. Whether it was our unique style of economic colonialism or (especially) the Wilsonian attempt to influence on other national identities, or today’s neoconservative treatment of democracy as a commodity to be exported, our disintegration is now quite serious.
Empire is empire. The Caesar ignored the Senate. The Pelosi dismisses the Constitution. The Frank admittedly does not question jurisdiction. (We will only briefly mention his relationship with illegal substances and homosexual prostitution.) The Obama inserts admitted communists into governmentand promotes limitation on media that criticize him (specifically Fox News and by implication, Clear Channel Communications via the media diversity, media justice movement).
Can the U.S. survive itself? Some days I wonder. While I think the classic liberal position holds great hope for the world, today’s Marxists leave no hope for a free society to survive.
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November 12th, 2009 | 12:26 am | #1
Collin,
I like your rhetoric. Seriously. I do. You call a spade a spade. In today’s climate calling a spade a spade qualifies for a medal of honor.
November 12th, 2009 | 1:03 pm | #2
Collin, your strong words are on-target (and my guess is those uncertain whether such forcefulness is justified need only wait and pay attention to the abuses of power).
I do not believe, however, that classical liberalism merits our hope, founded on individualistic and ultimately false Enlightenment anthropologies as it is. By aiming towards the cultivation of Autonomous Man and stripping him of his fundamental relationality and embeddedness in communities prior to the modern State, such anthropologies open the door to dependence on the only legitimate “community” in liberalism (whether progressive or classical): the State, which is legitimate above all because it has Power to control and manage autonomous individuals by imposing its supposedly non-moral “pragmatic” designs.
But you likely have a different understanding of classical liberalism than I.
A better, trinitarian approach, in my view, would be a true conservatism–rather than a classical, i.e. conservative liberalism–which recognizes a prior relational order in creation in which man participates not as a creature that primarily Wills or Reasons, but as a creature that fundamentally Loves.
November 12th, 2009 | 7:34 pm | #3
Albert,
While classic liberalism really does not exist any longer, nor can it ever come back to life, the princple of personal economic and moral responsibility remains as its high post, ala Adam Smith. Yes, many of the classic position are contrary to Christian theology, but (imnsho) Christianity is not a governmental solution and can survive nicely under any system.
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