In this newest [convoluted] edition of “Concepts” from the Country Journal (which I was very happy to see included the entire Declaration for the 4th) Jon van Huizum tries to make connections from the Bible to modern politics that are not there… from Genesis to Republican/Democrat regulating power. This sweeping span from the beginning of mankind’s history to the modern American political scene shows a couple of things, and I wish to point out I am not a psychologist so one can take what I say with the same grain of salt they may take Mr. Huizum’s articles with. First, it shows an unhealthy obsession with trying to create straw-man positions of theology, connecting them with one party or position, and then tearing down this false premise, or straw-man, so called. One either does this to ingratiate himself with a certain segment of readers, trying to sound knowledgeable, but really making sweeping non-sequitur statements. Secondly, and more importantly I think, John is displaying at the heart of his being a rejection of all things religious (really a conservative standing on Judeo-Christian foundations) in order to create a worldview that comports to what John van Huizum wants. A great example comes from Charles Darwin himself, and why he rejected Christianity and chose his naturalistic view of life. Key: Darwin didn’t reject Christianity for or on scientific reasons, he rejected it because of theological issues. As Darwin himself noted:
“This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically, but I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars or that a cat should play with mice….”
~ Charles Darwin, Letter to Asa Gray (22 May 1860)
Darwin rejected Christianity based on the problem of evil, this is the same basis that modern “scientists” reject faith as well. Which is a philosophical/theological issue, not scientific. (Here I highly recommend the book, Darwin’s God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil, by Cornelius G. Hunter.) I have noticed, in similar fashion, that when John talks about certain issues — like the Bible or faith, it is rejected for false reasoning (straw-men and non-sequiturs); or, it is derided for issues John believes to be other than theological, but in fact are. This is the issue in the first 2/3rds of the article by John. He mentions scientific ages of the universe apparently right after mentioning a religious text and book (Genesis), and then asks a theological question: “Apparently God trusted…” This position does not take the growing revelation through history of God nor the inclusion of man’s nature according to the same text (which we learned a bit about how progressives views last week), which, if asking a theological question needs to be theologically considered. The Founders did. For instance, in a wonderful review of a powerful book on the greatness of Christianity by Dinesh D’Souza, reviewer Ken Hagerty mentions the following:
The Theological Understanding of the American Founders
At a time when America’s founding principles are under attack as never before, Dinesh D’Souza explains that Jesus’ separation of what is owed to Caesar from that owed to God is the embryo of the idea of limited government. “This idea derives from the Christian notion that the ruler’s realm is circumscribed and there are limits beyond which he simply must not go. But “If the domain of government is to be limited in this manner, so is the domain of the church. As Christ put it, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’…In the new framework of Christian universalism, the same God rules over the whole universe, but each country retains its own laws and its own culture.”
He uncovers the theological and philosophical roots of the fundamental debate over the nature of man that continues to divide American politics and the modern world. The Enlightenment’s assertion that human nature is inherently good, and whatever flaws an individual may carry can be educated-away by government, comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1754), who got it in turn from Plato (428-347 BC). “For Plato, the problem of evil was a problem of knowledge. People do wrong because they do not know what is right. If they knew what was right, obviously, they would do it.”
But D’Souza explains that the American founders turned instead to the Apostle Paul for their understanding of human nature. In Romans 7:19 Paul famously says “For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.” D’Souza says “Here Paul in a single phrase repudiates an entire tradition of classical philosophy founded in Plato… Why? Because the human will is corrupt. The problem of evil is not a problem of knowledge, but a problem of will.”
This Christian understanding of human nature as both mixed and immutable led the American founders to blend the commercial and cultural institutions of free enterprise into their system of government. They did so for two reasons: first, because capitalism is the economic system that arises naturally where there is freedom; and second, because capitalism is the economic system that satisfies the Christian demand for an institution that channels selfish human desire toward the betterment of society.
D’Souza then offers a wonderful comparison that perfectly captures the beneficial role of the free enterprise system: “Some critics accuse capitalism of being a selfish system, but the selfishness is not in capitalism—it is in human nature… One may say that capitalism civilizes greed in much the same way that marriage civilizes lust. Both institutions seek to domesticate wayward or fallen human impulses in socially beneficial ways.”
This is all to point out that John van Huizum deals with these topics very flippantly. This flippancy, however, is how many prefer to approach these important subjects. So the first two paragraph’s could easily be a separate topic, due mainly to its non-connectivity to the last paragraph. The third paragraph really is a hodgepodge of topics and history with leading questions, which the first two partly answer: “Unless and until we can regulate and keep control of ourselves while living in this power-crazy world, we may not advance toward a civil society.” To which Walter Lippmann says, “At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply.” In other words, conservative political philosophy accepts the view that government will never be able to — due to man’s nature — regulate and keep control of man. [And this is the rub… unbeknownst to John, paragraph 1 of his article and of the Bible does in fact answer his paragraph three.]
The rest is really not worth dealing with outside of the nugget to build off of for the history buff that John mentions, which is this: “Occasionally a new party is formed, but loses power fairly quickly.” Here is a good little response to some of the thinking in Johns packed sentence:
2. NO, THE REPUBLICANS NEVER CONSTITUTED A THIRD PARTY
Whenever I take the time on the radio to discuss the obvious and inevitable futility of minor party campaigns, some smug caller will try to play “gotcha” by reminding me that my own beloved GOP began its political life as a minor party, and managed to elect an underdog nominee named Lincoln in the fateful election pf 1860. It makes for a good story, and I know it allows misled minions to feel better to believe that it’s true, but the Republicans never operated as a third party. By the time of the first Republican County Convention (in Ripon, Wisconsin, on March 20, 1854) the Whig Party had already collapsed and shattered, hopelessly divided between its Northern anti-slavery branch and the Southern “Cotton Whigs.” Refugees (including numerous Congresmen, Senators and others) from the Whig debacle determined to fill the vacuum and, joined by a few anti-slavery Democrats and former Free Soilers, they launched their new national organization.
The first time candidates ever appeared on ballots with the designation of the new Republican Party came with the Congressional elections of 1854 and the fresh organization won stunning success from the very beginning. That very first year the Republicans won the largest share of the House of Representatives (108 seats, compared to 83 for the Democrats, along with fifteen Senate seats (including the majority of those contested in that election). In other words, the Republicans began their existence not as a third party, or even a second party, but as the instantly dominant party on the ballot. The future “Grand Old Party” showed itself a Grand Young Party not only with its Congressional candidates, but with its first-ever Presidential nominee – John C. Fremont – in 1856. Rather than making the traditional, pointless and masturbatory third party gesture and winning 2% or 10%, Fremont made a real race of it against the Democrat James Buchanan: losing the popular vote 45% to 33%, and the electoral vote, 174 to 118. The real third party candidate was former President Fillmore, whose anti-immigrant Know Nothing campaign drew a few remnants of the Whigs and took just enough votes away from Fremont in New Jersey and Pennsylvania to give Buchanan narrow victories and the electoral majority. By the time they nominated Lincoln four years later, Republicans commanded clear majorities in nearly all the northern states and fully expected to sweep more than enough of those states (especially in light of Democratic divisions) to put him in the White House.
In the pre-Civil War election of 1860, the Republicans hardly represented an upstart third party effort: they won a clear majority of 59% of the electoral vote and a comfortable plurality (40%) of the popular vote. The real “third party” in this election involved the Southern Democrats who abandoned their national nominee, Stephen A. Douglas, and campaigned for Vice President (and future Confederate general) John C. Breckinridge, winning 18% of the popular vote and 72 electoral votes. Meanwhile, former Cotton Whigs and pro-union Democrats from border states launched a fourth party campaign, winning 13% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes for their man.
In other words, the one election in which the traditional two-party system broke down, and the Untied States most resembled a European multi-party system (with four different parties drawing substantial support and electoral votes) happened to be the one election that provoked the bloodiest war in US history.
In short, the election of 1860 hardly offers proof of the positive value of third (and fourth) parties, but rather illustrates their dangers. The four-way competition in the Presidential race contributed to the splitting of the union and the explosion of the national party consensus that had previously kept a divided assemblage of very different states from flying apart.
(A Michael Medved article, as well as part of a chapter from his book, see page 195)