US Politics: Is This the Year of the (Christian) Libertarian? (Haddigan)

After years of operating on the margins of intellectual debate, the "libertarian" movement, with its philosophy of limited government and free markets, is the potential "breakthrough kid" of American politics. The two most hotly-contested Senate elections this November will involve candidates with a genuine libertarian ideology, as Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada hold narrow leads over their Democratic rivals.

The resurgence in the popularity of libertarian ideas should not be too surprising, perhaps,especially if you view politics as a perpetually repeating cycle. The last sustained interest in the ideology of individual freedom --- Ronald Reagan’s Presidential popularity was more the consequence of more economic than moral concerns --- occurred in the early 1960s.

Consider these parallels between then and now. The enthusiasm for the campaign of Barry Goldwater (read Tea Party or Sarah Palin) campaign to be president was stimulated by the reforming policies of President Kennedy (Obama). Kennedy succeeded a liberal Republican, President Eisenhower (Bush), who had alienated the more conservative members of the right-wing by his failure to balance the federal budget or cut taxes. Libertarians in the early 1960s (Tea Party) were especially frustrated at Eisenhower’s (Bush’s) refusal to attempt to overturn the liberal gains --- expanded federal government, was then as now the major concern --- of the previous dynamic Democratic administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Truman (Clinton).

Some other convergences to note: Both Kennedy and Obama received votes from electors who did not support their policies, but voted for them to assuage their conscience that they were not prejudiced. Some Protestants voted for Kennedy to avoid the charge of anti-Catholicism; some whites voted for Barack Obama to assure themselves they were not racists. And Palin’s slow march to the Republican presidential nomination for 2012 resembles that of Goldwater’s in the 1960s.

Paul and Angle’s opposition to the overbearing role of the federal government in an individual’s lif, and in the economy could be taken straight from a libertarian publication of the 1950s and early 60s. (See, for instance, the articles in the January 1962 edition of The Freeman.) And almost daily, media outlets are distributing analysis of their positions on such "arcane" issues as the unconstitutionality or immorality of the Federal Reserve, Social Security, and the Department of Education.

Most of the attention paid to Paul and Angle has been less than complimentary. Michael Wolff argued in a recent article for Vanity Fair Online that they are not just clones of Sarah Palin, or opportunists playing to the fears of the Tea Party movement. They “aren’t [even] people pandering to the base”. Unlike Sarah Palin, Paul and Angle “haven’t sold out to expediency.” That is a worrying commitment to principles that for Wolff can only lead to one conclusion: “These are genuine nutcases –-- or innocents.”

Wolff is employing the dismissive tactics Democrats used to defeat the Goldwater campaign in 1964; a strategy that will probably be as effective this time. But, for the sake of the historical record, it should be noted that while Paul and Angle may be "innocents", they are certainly not ‘nutcases.’ The libertarian ideology they espouse has not changed in 60 years and is based on traditional American beliefs that pre-date the American Revolution. It possesses an internal logic and validity that, even if you disagree vehemently with it, deserves the respect of a discerning observer of American politics.

If you take an "originalist" interpretation and read the Constitution as the Founding Fathers wrote it, there are compelling arguments that the Federal Reserve and a federal Department of Education are unconstitutional. But what also deserves recognition is the moral philosophy that underlies the libertarian viewpoint. One of the most damning characterizations of believers in the free market is that they are nothing more than greedy, rapacious apologists for big business. Undoubtedly a few are,  but the vast majority opposes government regulation of the economy, and society, for much more important reasons.

Central to their criticism of Big Government, at least for libertarians such as Paul, Angle, and Goldwater before them, is that it interferes in the relationship between God and His Creation.

At the heart of libertarian belief is the conviction that individual freedom from government restraints is merely the means to achieve a much more important end. Where the Christian libertarian differs from the atheiestliberatarian atheist with the same political persuasion is what to do with that freedom of choice. For the Christian libertarian, individual freedom of choice (the means) allows him or her to lead the moral life (the end) that Jesus preached in the Scriptures. God granted mankind the choice whether or not to believe in Him, and by extension gave us the option to practice our individual responsibility in line with the message of the New Testament. Jesus did not tell his followers that they must donate some of their goods to charity; He merely stated that it would be pleasing to God and Him if they did so.

This is why the Christian libertarian objects to Social Security, with the unbending adherence to principles that writes like Wolff cannot comprehend. When governments tax an individual to provide for welfare programs, it is a form of coercion that not even Jesus mandated. To live a moral Christian life, the individual must voluntarily decide to support charitable causes. In other words, government (even with the best of intentions) must not act on behalf of an individual in providing charity, even if 99.9% of citizens approve of Social Security legislation. For the Christian libertarian the coercive power of government to tax an individual to provide charity is as immoral, in theory, as the Biblical injunction not to steal.

It is a belief that leads to a central philosophical tenet of Christian libertarianism. God gave us the freedom of choice as the means to develop our unique personality in accord with the path to salvation suggested in the Bible. Government, by contrast, attempts to subsume the individual into the mass, telling the individual what they must learn. Hence, the dislike for federal agencies like the Department of Education. Education of a child is the responsibility of the family, or a community of like-minded families, and not the province of bureaucrats who have no authority, and no especial competency, to determine what a child is taught.

In this view, money, like free will, is only the means to accomplish the ends of living a virtuous life. Both can be used for good or ill, depending on the character of the individual. All the Christian libertarian wants is the latitude to use their freedom, or their money, in ways that will glorify the word of God and build a society based on moral values.

Paul and Angle may yet lose their elections, but their campaigns will leave this historical question: to what extent does the one claim of the US to "exceptionalism", its traditional reverence for the Judeo-Christian foundations of a free society, still hold sway in a rapidly diversifying country?