A few months ago I read an article by a well-known columnist in a well-known publication. I found the writer's point a perfect clarification of what republican and so-called conservative philosophy to be about. Using my own words rather than the writer's superb prose, I believe the most basic and fundamental motivation underneath this collection of political positions is, simply, I got mine and screw you.
I started my political journey as a libertarian. I read Ayn Rand's novels and accepted the premise that I have a right to be selfish and I have a right to ignore the needs of everyone else around me. I am, after all, a self-made man. I had no benefit of family wealth or social status. I had no means of obtaining a college education. My parents gave me nothing, not even emotional support or encouragement. My birth was not part of their plan. They already had their two sons and another boy with a mouth to fill and a brain to nourish was nothing but a bother. Thus, at age 18, I found the front door of the family home open and my father's boot coming up rapidly towards my ass.
Despite the sad story that is my childhood, I learned to do things to make myself successful. I worked very hard and taught myself some very useful and marketable skills. Whatever I possessed and whatever position in life I achieved was entirely something of my own creation. I was the very definition of a self-made man. So it made sense that I would tend to be a little selfish with whatever small amount of wealth I had accumulated.
In my 20's I felt very much like the main character of an Ayn Rand novel. I was successful because of my own hard work and self-dedication. I scorned the self-entitled and the vast numbers of dependents that blamed their parents, their bosses, their brothers and sisters and pretty much anyone else they encountered that were unwilling to provide for them. These people had simply not learned the most fundamental of life's hard lessons - that nobody owes them a damn thing.
My own son was a perfect example of that when in one of countless angry diatribes he looked at me with a most furious expression and said "Well, I didn't ask to be born". The implication of this I took to mean that having been born as a result of a conscious decision on the part of his mother and father, he was therefore entitled to have the road of his life cleared of all obstacles large and small.
Later on in life he informed me that his childhood had been hell and that growing up and taking on adult responsibility had been especially hard for him as a result of my failure as a father. Apparently, he had expected me to fix the damage to his life caused by his on poor judgement.
Oddly enough my son is a deeply committed Republican full of anger towards all those takers and their liberal conspirators, which unfortunately for him, I have become.
Having spent my younger years embracing the whole spectrum of self-reliant and self-dependent libertarian philosophy, life's experiences and a spiritual awakening nurtured the rooting and growth of a completely different perspective. A realization that the human race succeeded not as a result of rugged individualism but of community, interdependence and generosity.
At the dawn of the human assent to the top of the food chain, it wasn't the strength of greatest warrior or the success of the greatest hunter that propelled us upward. It was, in fact, the willingness of the great warrior to protect the weaker and the generosity of the great hunter to share his bounty with his tribe.
Spiritually, I found that the words of Jesus did not say that the strongest and most successful should stand above all others, but that the all of us should care for the least of us. To truly walk the path of Jesus Christ is to care for the weak, the poor, the sick, and the suffering. To share one's wealth and bounty so that all may benefit and not just the few who are endowed with the most strength or the greatest skill. Jesus did not say this once or to some select group. He said it often and to all His followers. His life was dedicated to the service of the least of us.
Nothing more clearly contradicts the principles of Ayn Rand and the so-called conservatism of the right than the fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ and the very means by which human-kind has succeeded. If it were not for generosity, compassion and selflessness we would be just another animal thrashing out a means of survival a midst the trees and upon the grasslands.
Civilization itself is the result of its constituent members learning to cooperate with one another. To share the bounty of the hunt, to protect the weak and care for the sick. It exists because at the dawn of civilization's first day there where those that possessed compassion and a sense of generosity towards their brothers and sisters. We could not then and cannot now succeed without these qualities.
Today, we find that these attributes of character viewed as weakness. Today, we look upon wealth as the primary indicator of success. As Mitt Romney said, standing in front of a pretentious mansion, an enormous and conspicuous monument to one man's success, "we want everyone to have this kind of success". To Mitt Romney and his followers success is only measured in material wealth; in the size and quantity of your houses and cars or the height of your political position.
Despite the apparent link between the so-called conservatives and those claiming to be devout Christians, there is clearly a complete disconnect, a divorcement from the most fundamental teachings of the Man upon whom they seek to define themselves.
There is nothing wrong with being self-reliant. Nor is independence of means something of evil. Unless these things are obtained at the expense of others. The man in a thousand dollar suit getting into his 100,000 dollar Mercedes who shouts "Get a job!" at the beggar in tattered cloths shivering in the cold has no heart and, by any religion's definition, has placed his soul in jeopardy.
The so-called conservatives are all about keeping more and giving less. They place themselves above the least of us and demand that we follow their rules. What they say is so dishonestly contrary to what they do. They say they are not about creating classes while defending their own special class with mountains of cash and thousands of lies. They want to be in charge, not so they can raise up the least of us, but so they can give themselves more.
When distilled to its very minimum, the creed of the so-called conservatives is simple greed and nothing else. Greed for power and wealth is as old as civilization itself. And there has always been a group of people for whom nothing else exists - there is only being powerful and being wealthy. For all of human history these people have existed and in balance there have been those who have opposed them.
Those that defend the weak, the poor, the sick, and the old; those that take the coats off their own backs and place them over the shoulders of the shivering beggar; those that bring food to the hungry and kindness to the forgotten and guidance to the lost; those that find joy and reward in giving and helping; those that see that our success, the success of all of us and the least of us, is the only success that matters. Those people - they are the rest of us. Those for whom shrinking the government, reducing spending and the deficit, simplifying the law that constrains material growth, reducing the entitlements that the others claim is so damaging to the masses are merely words and concepts compared to the realness of those in need.
If we are a Christian nation then perhaps we need to remind ourselves of the true meaning of Christ's life. If we choose His way, we choose to care about all God's children equally. To see all as our brothers and sisters for whom we spare no expense and for whom we always have the time to help.
From the dawn of time we have been successful as a species only because we share our bounty. In 100,000 years this fundamental truth has not changed.
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