What’s left to hate?

(HT: LewRockwell.com blog)

“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.

Henry Clay on War and the Constitution

“A declaration of war is the highest and most awful exercise of sovereignty. The convention which framed our Federal constitution had learned from the pages of history that it had been often and greatly abused. It had seen that war had often been commenced upon the most trifling pretexts; that it had been frequently waged to establish or exclude a dynasty; to snatch a crown from the head of one potentate and place it upon the head of another; that it had often been prosecuted to promote alien and other interests than those of the nation whose chief had proclaimed it, as in the case of English wars for Hanoverian interests; and, in short, that such a vast and tremendous power ought not to be confined to the perilous exercise of one single man. The convention therefore resolved to guard the war-making power against those great abuses, of which, in the hands of a monarch, it was so susceptible. And the security against those abuses which its wisdom devised was to vest the war-making power in the congress of the united States, being the immediate representatives of the people and the States. So apprehensive and jealous was the convention of its abuse in any State in the Union without the consent of Congress. Congress, then in our system of government, is the sole depository of that tremendous power.”

~ Speech in Lexington, KY, November 13, 1847, in the context of the Mexican-American War  and as quoted by Senator Robert LaFollette, Sr. in “Free Speech and the Power to Declare War”, October 6, 1917

For more on the subject of War and the Constitution, see the following posts at Borg Blog:

• How Recent and Would-Be American Presidents Would Deal With a Hornet Nest
• In Response to Jonah Goldberg: On Ron Paul and His Foreign Policy
• Is the Iraq War Constitutional?
• Iraq: Are “We” Now Morally Compelled to Stay?
• On the War on Terror, Imperialism, and American Monarchy
• The Path To 9/11 or The Path Since 9/11: Which is Worse?
• Terrorism and Bin Laden Expert Has a Lesson for Giuliani

Also, it may be well worth your time to read the debate and my further elaboration of my views on war and the Constitution that took place in the comments thread of this post.  See esp. my comments at March 6, 2009 11:18 AM , March 6, 2009 11:57 AM , March 6, 2009 12:22 PM , March 6, 2009 02:58 PM , March 6, 2009 03:08 PM , March 6, 2009 04:08 PM , and my concluding remarks at March 11, 2009 01:47 AM .

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