“The Reluctant Anarchist”, the Constitution, and the Great Commission

LewRockwell.com links today to a 2002 article by the great Joseph Sobran, in which the former National Review senior editor and syndicated columnist describes his journey to philosophical anarchism. If you aren’t afraid of being challenged by brilliant argument, of having to re-think things you once considered concluded, then this is a must read.  I truly believe you will be better for having read it, whether or not you come to share Sobran’s conclusion, today or at some future date in your own philosophic journey.

I should say that few people have had as great an influence on me as Sobran.  I can’t call him a friend, as we don’t know each other well enough, but I’m sure within a few words he would remember me, should we run into each other again.  In my days at Accuracy in Academia, Sobran was one of the more regular speakers at the conferences we held on college campuses (you can get small taste of what we did — and of Sobran himself – through the transcripts and audio of lectures featured here, and from these two Campus Report articles of mine, here and here).  We featured a whole spectrum of conservatives at these programs, from arch-traditionalists to libertarians to neo-conservatives.  But none were as lucid, kind-natured, and humorous (despite a clear political pessimism) as he — nor as fundamentally challenging and convincing, to this mind at least.  I count among my greatest influences in political philosophy men like Leonard Read, Frederic Bastiat, Albert J. Nock, Henry Hazlitt, and James Madison.  I have had privilege of meeting Ron Paul once, another huge influence, especially over last few years.  But the rest I just engaged through their writings.  Sobran I met often in person, and the force of his spoken reason and authentic presence on me was powerful.

In this article of his, “The Reluctant Anarchist” –  not too long and very readable, as his clear, engaging style always make his writings, regardless of subject –  Sobran takes us through his evolution as a political thinker, citing his influences and touching upon the “a ha!” moments that sparked each leap in his philosophical transformation.  And I must declare that I agree with almost every one of his conclusions – save becoming an anarchist myself.  (I also hold a more favorable view of Reagan’s presidency than he.)

The reason for my final disagreement is as practical as his reason for being an anarchist.  No restraint, no constitution, will ever contain the inherently corrupt nature of the State to ever expand its power and scope of control over its citizens’ lives, almost always to our considerable detriment.  I agree.  And while I also agree that the State does not have to always and ever exist as part of a divine decree, it is also true that some large portion of men in their fallen, corrupt nature will always seek dominion over other men and will attempt to take by force what is not theirs, and maintain and expand their dominion by claiming a monopoly of force as the State.  As well, others will seek to defend themselves by banding together, and that even if this can exist for a minute period of time as a voluntary arrangement, the State will emerge in one form or another this way also.  Our enemy is the State, as Nock rightfully argued, but it is also very often our fellow man.  The key, given the reality that the State will always exist this side of Glory, is to erect checks against the abuse of power, to arrange power against power so that the tug-of-war in government prevents a monopoly of power among one faction or one branch of government.  Power must be as de-centralized as much as possible, delegated from lower levels only as absolutely necessary to higher levels.  And there must be a lodestar for appeal, to call into check abuses of powers not given — as a law etched in stone against rulers and in defense of our natural rights. 

The U.S. Constitution — while not perfect, as admitted by its framers – provides for these things.  It is an existing lodestar to which we are blessed with the ability to appeal — right now.  It is also, as Sobran points out, a dead letter.  It is functionally non-existent in America today, and that was just as true under President George W. Bush a year ago as it is now under President Barack Obama.  The Republic has fallen, replaced by an increasingly hideous Empire.  But that doesn’t stop me from being a constitutionalist (even as I am both a minarchist — believing government should be dramatically limited in its scope to doing the bare minimum to protect life, liberty, and property — and a radical federalist — believing that while almost nothing should be entrusted to the national government, the competition between the several united states helps mitigate their power, and the right of self-determination of actual communities of individuals makes almost any arrangement through local government permissible, if not always wise).  God has a way of resurrecting things, and I believe a resurrected Constitution is our only political hope for America.

Sobran nears the conclusion of his article with the following statement:

“Since the conversion of Rome, most Western rulers have been more or less inhibited by Christian morality (though, often enough, not so’s you’d notice), and even warfare became somewhat civilized for centuries; and this has bred the assumption that the state isn’t necessarily an evil at all. But as that morality loses its cultural grip, as it is rapidly doing, this confusion will dissipate. More and more we can expect the state to show its nature nakedly.”

As Americans, has this ever been more clear than it is now?  Sobran takes from this a final political hope in anarchism (if you will permit me the oxymoron).  Though as a realist, he is necessarily pessimistic.  I share his pessimism, at least in the short run.  I believe part of what God will use to revive our Republic is to allow us to nearly destroy ourselves, at least economically.  May He have mercy and may His discipline prove light.

I also take from this that the Great Commission has political and cultural ramifications.  Even the non-believers among America’s Founders, and especially the many more who were devout, understood that the Republic would exist only as long as we could keep it; that a free government only becomes a virtuous and religious society.  That is NOT a call to establishing an ecclesiocracy — we’ve seen how well that worked for England and Spain anyway.  But it is a call to evangelism, and to engaging the culture in our physical local communities.  Theorectical engagement through politics alone is a form of Gnosticism.  The real action is on the ground in flesh and blood relationships, as we love and serve others, modeling Christ to the world around us.  We are to be salt and light to the culture.  This means we don’t abandon politics and involvement with government, but our task there should be focused on reducing and diffusing power, in part by demanding integrity of the Oath to uphold the Constitution, and by not attempting to use State power for our own ends, only to see those powers then used against us.  We must seek to limit and roll-back coercive power in Washington (and then in our state capitals) so that our non-coercive power as ambassadors of Christ in our actual neighborhoods can yield greater fruit: first in saved lives for the Great Harvest and second in liberty and peace for the here and now.

Higher Education Shackles

“Go to college” is the American mantra.  The Sirens call of higher education is one of our most unforgiving idols.  They promise you a future of milk and honey, even as they ask you to sacrifice that future — and they threaten you with harsh calamity if you should fail to bow your knee to in the temples of the Ivory Tower.

Pardon me, but this college alumnus (Penn State — over portions of nearly six years) hears the haunting lyrics of Ronnie James Dio:

…in the land of no tomorrow where you pray just to end each day
And your life just slowly melts away
Each day you hear the sand as it moves and whispers come and sail on my golden sea
Maybe one day you’ll be just like me and that’s free but still your chains are on

Anthony Bradley captures the situation well in his blog post, “Condemned to Debt,” found over over at World On The Web.  “For college students today the wages of college is debt, and most college education is not worth the debt.” 

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“The Last Hymn”

For whatever reason, I have always been a sucker for seafaring stories, songs, and sonnets.  In song, I think of Wooden Ships, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and Downeaster Alexa.  Movies like Master and Commander and The Perfect Storm thrill me.   I am captivated by novels lie Moby Dick, and engrossed by the harrowing real-life rescues depicted in Coming Back Alive.

Perhaps it was my summer vacations to Long Beach Island, NJ, that triggered my lifelong interest.  Or maybe it comes from reading The Odyssey as a teenager, or watching Sinbad the Sailor and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.  Whatever it is, I love a salty yarn.  And if it includes the Gospel, chances are I will be especially touched.  Hence, I was thrilled to find the following poem tonight from The Best Loved Poems of the American People, as I read to my wife and children, sitting around the dinner table:

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Self-Quiz: Are You For Freedom or Statism?

Every few years I stumble across this handy-dandy little quiz in my treks across cyberspace.  Designed by the Advocates for Self-Government, “The World’s Smallest Political Quiz” is obviously simple, but I don’t think overly simplistic.  

I must have been in the middle of my college years when I first learned of and took this quiz.  I have found it interesting to consider where I have fallen on the chart over the years, and how my political views have changed some over the years.  In general, I have always floated in the top most “libertarian” sector, always shaded to the right, and at one time at least was straddling the border between “libertarian” and “conservative.”  This graphic here shows the results of my most recent test.

Long story short, I have gone from being a Rush Limbaugh-type conservative to a near-Rothbardian libertarian and then finally grew up and would now consider myself a paleo-conservative (if I have to be labeled). Or maybe I am a paleo-libertarian — or a blend of the two.  Or perhaps I shouldn’t be labeled!  (Though I certainly labeled myself here at this blog as “a Theologically Reformed, Covenantally Catholic, Culturally Trinitarian, Politically Constitutionalist.”)

Basically, this means that my political views are very libertarian in function, believing that government should be minimalist and that the markets for labor and capital should both be as free of regulation and coercion as possible.  It means that I am a strong federalist, favoring the devolution of power to the state and local levels, but that I favor the Constitution and the rule of law over raw ideology, and that the role of tradition — and especially a robust and healthy Christian church — is essential and is the foundation of the free society.  In this I view myself very much in line with Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, James Madison, Frederic Bastiat, Lord Acton, Abraham Kuyper, C.S. Lewis, Leonard Read, Wilhelm Roepke, Friedrich von Hayek, Russell Kirk, Joseph Sobran, and M. Stanton Evans.

I encourage you to take the quiz for yourself.  Even if you have before, do so again.  At the very least, it is fun.  And it may just help open your eyes to new ways of politico-economic thinking, as it has mine over the years.

The Ferris Wheel!

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Borg Baby Nomenclature

Why have we named our children as we have?  This question is one of the most common we receive after each of our babies are born and introduced to this world.  People want to know if the names are mere preference or bear some greater significance to us.  These are good questions, and they allow me the oppoortunity to share the significance of our children’s names here.

First, the following are some of the criteria Bonnie and I have considered when naming our children:

• Less common, but not bizarre — We’ve tried to come up with names that are not so omni-present in the population.  So, if a name is on current top ten lists, that would be a mark against it.  But originality is not the highest goal.  Therefore, weird, untraditional names or alternative spellings are not our cup of tea, either.
• Timeless — I mean this in two senses.  First, it should be a name that is likely to be acceptable to the surrounding culture across the centuries.  Certain names have a definite fad nature to them; others may not always be the top names, but will find many bearers throughout all time.  Traditional names certainly have that quality, and fit the bill for each of these first two bullets.  Second, we like names that are not too “heavy” for a child to bear, nor childish for an adult to be saddled with.  Why scar a child with a joke-friendly name, or hinder an adult with an unprofessional name?
• Avoid bad acronyms — such as: MAL, PAL, OIL, EEL, LOL, etc.
• Avoid names that can easily be altered and mocked, or which have corresponding nicknames we strongly dislike
• Honors family — family names are preferred, for at least the middle name
• Honors God — biblical names and the names of saints are by definition traditional and tend to be timeless.  Some, though, are “bizarre” to our current culture, such as Zechariah, Malachi, Ezekiel, Jehoshaphat, etc.
• Works well with our last name

Anyway, that is at least some of the thought process we have engaged in when considering possible names during each of Bonnie’s pregnancies.

So, here is what we have so far:

Samuel Fraser Langborgh — Samuel (not to be shortened to “Sam” or Sammy;” though “Samwise,” as in “Samwise Gamgee” of Lord of the Rings fame, is acceptable!) has long been a favorite name of both Bonnie’s and mine.  Samuel is my favorite Old Testament prophet.  And with Fraser, Samuel shares his middle name with both me and my father.  Bonnie and I settled on this name as the lone boy option almost as soon as we learned she was pregnant.  Samuel will be 4 years old on August 2.

Margaret Lynn Langborgh — Margaret (or “Maggie”) is the first name of both my paternal grandmother and Bonnie’s maternal grandmother.  It is traditional and less common, but will never “go out of style.”  In nickname it is a cute girl’s name, though we are sure to call Maggie by her proper name at least a quarter of the time, because we love the name Margaret and do not want it to sound odd in association with her person to Maggie’s own ears or our ears, either.  And it will be a strong name for when she enters adulthood.  With Lynn, Maggie shares her middle name with Bonnie’s sister Karen.  The first name came pretty quickly to us, though the middle took a bit more discussion.  Still, it was a pretty easy decision.  Margaret is 2.5 years old and was born November 19, 2003.

Rachel Marie Langborgh — Rachel is a biblical name and also the name of a long-time friend of Bonnie’s.  Marie is a derivative of Mary, the name of the God-bearer, the virgin mother.  There is no family connection here, but we chose Rachel Marie because, to us, it sings.  It took us longer to settle on this name (and the name we had picked out if we had a boy, too) since we had a few other strong contenders right up to the last month or so.  What were these other names?  They are a secret.  ;)   Rachel was born last week, July 5.

Borg Bio Bits: “Suburbans, Lemons, and ANT 728″

I learned to drive in my Mom’s Chevy Suburban Silverado.  It was huge, black with tinted windows, and four wheel drive.  And it was what we needed, given that I was the oldest of five boys and we would often have at least one dog in the truck with us.

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Borg Bio Bits: Concert Log: ‘Take a Ride on the Wild Side’

As a teenager and young adult, I was very much into hard rock. As such, I went to numerous concerts. Since then, my tastes have (largely, though not completely) changed. I’ve been to only a couple concerts of any sort since the mid ’90s, with the most notable being Clint Black/Patty Lovelace at Wolftrap in Northern Virginia about four or five years ago with my beautiful wife. And that was a very, very good concert. As you will see, it was also a far cry from what I used to attend:

• First concert — 1989 or ‘90: MÃ?¶tley CrÃ?¼e “Dr. Feelgood” tour — I forget where, but it was an outdoor concert in rural New York. Some really crappy band opened and then Tesla (”The Great Radio Controversy”) came on.
  I used to be really into MÃ?¶tley CrÃ?¼e, until they booted Vince Neil. I owned all their albums and listened to them almost religiously — and very regrettably so.
• 1991: QueensrÃ?¿che “Empire” tour - Saw this at Buffalo’s War Memorial stadium (I think) with my step dad Jerry and his hunting buddy Jeff Miller. I don’t remember who opened, but I must not have been impressed. But QueensrÃ?¿che played the whole of their “Operation: Mindcrime” album straight through, which was fantastic, esp. since I knew almost every word on the album by heart. I still remember much of it.
  (AnÃ?¿one nÃ?¶ticing a trend here with all these bands that have fÃ?¼nny little sÃ?¿mbols Ã?¶ver the letters in their names?)
  “Mindcrime” had a very anti-catholic and anti-capitalist theme (which did not resonate with me then, nor do I care for today, so I am not in anyway endorsing or associating mÃ?¿self with their views), but the story was super intriguing and well done, if ultimately despairing for the main character in the albÃ?¼m’s story. Still, the music is absolutely amazing and at least offers some good by demonstrating the futility and self-destructiveness of the evil anarchists.
• 1991: George Thorogood and the Destroyers “Boogie People” tour — indoors at Alfred University, New York. Great mÃ?¼sic, but this one was especially odd because I went with my best friend and my girlfriend at the time, who less than a year before was my best friend’s girlfriend. WÃ?¶rd to the wise: don’t do it!
• 1993: Van Halen “Right Here, Right Now” tour — Outdoor concert at Darien Lake, outside Buffalo. Great guitar and bass solos. Sammy Hagar in the lead. I was never a big Van Halen fan, bÃ?¼t the concert was very good. Van Halen surprised me how good they were, but shouldn’t have. Very, very talented band.
  Poison (”Native Tongue”) opened, in their first “post-CC Deville” tour. They weren’t very good at all.
• 1995: The Eagles “Hell Freezes Over” tour — Outside at Hershey, PA with some buds from college. Awesome. Plain awesome. Esp. when they played solo hits from Joe Walsh. They plaÃ?¿ed for over two hours and I knew nearly all the sÃ?¶ngs more or less by heart.

I think that is it, at least for major “arena” cÃ?¶ncerts. :)

Borg Bio Bits: “Fish, Dogs, and Hoppy Things”

Growing up, my brothers and I always had pets of one sort or another.

My Dad always had fish tanks. Dinner at Dad’s was neat because of the huge fish tank that sat on the counter, helping to divide the kitchen from the dining area and living room. The four of us Langborgh boys would sit on the stools at the counter facing the fish tank — and our names carved out of blocks of wood, indicating our designated chow areas. My favorite fish were the iridescent sharks. Not only were they cool looking fish, but they would sometimes kill the smaller ones — and boy, could they get big! I used to fantasize about filling a tank with these sharks and the famed fighter fish, the bettas. Alas, it was never to be.

A couple times we had rabbits, but they always died pretty quickly, even when no one was pregnant. I remember one got away and we thought we would see it from time to time in the yard. One summer we found a rabbit skeleton down the hill, but I don’t know if that was one that died and we buried, or the one that got away. The lesson: Whether in a cage or in the woods, rabbits … always … die.

My first dog was an Airedale Terrier, named Megan, I think. I remember almost exactly where we buried her after she died, and I know I was sad at her passing.

My stepdad Jerry had an English Setter for many, many years named Kelly, or, more usually, K.D. (for “Kelly Dog”). He was very pretty (mostly white with light brown-to-orange splotches) and was a great hunting dog, esp. for pheasant. Before he died we got another Setter that we named Sadie (she was white and black), but she was nuts and would always take off, eventually taking off for good. I believe she was killed by a car.

After the Setters, my Mom and Jerry raised Chocolate Labs. Abigail Rose (”Abby”) was/is the property of my youngest brother, Tyler Martin. She was beautiful, fantastically well-mannered (once we beat her into submission, that is — several expensive golf shoes and pieces of furniture, including a whole couch, later!). She is very old now with bad heart problems, degenerative hips, deafness, and dementia. She really needs to be put down (like three years ago) but Jerry can’t let go yet. She has outlived many of her puppies that we sold. In her time she was a great duck dog. We had another Chocolate Lab, a male this time named Booker T (my brother Adam’s), and a Black Lab female named Lexus (my brother Jon’s). Both we eventually gave away (Lexus to a relative who needed the company and Booker to a family friend better able to take care of him) since most of us boys were off to college or beyond, but not until after many good years with them.

With all our dogs we would let them run around the golf course where we worked (Wellsville Country Club) with us in the early mornings while we changed cups on the greens or watered. They loved running with the carts! (I worked at WCC during my summers from the time I was 13 until just before coming to the DC area at the age of 24. Jerry was the Superintendent of WCC, though now he takes wonderful care of the grounds at Conewango Valley Country Club) .

My Mom and Jerry now have a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon — another great hunting dog — named Gracie, who they give to a fellow Griffon named George everyone once in a while for breeding duties. Gracie is the first dog in our family to have her own website, George and Gracie’s Griffon’s (Bonnie created it for my Mom). Samuel and his cousins Christian and Victoria love Gracie and her puppies.

My Dad and Barb have Spock, a Basenji and a very logical choice, for sure. The kids enjoy chasing and being chased by Spock whenever we visit, and we understand that he is quite the shipmate out on my Dad’s boat.

Bonnie had two cats that she loved until a year or so ago. But we finally broke down and took Patches and then Bodi, both quite old by then, to the shelter, to alleviate me of the allergies and to spare Bonnie the constant cleaning of fur balls. Bodi was especially funny in how he would like to walk around the room with a paper lunch bag on his head.