The freedom of the press is a significant feature of western democracies. With this freedom comes the inevitable result of powerful media outlets arising. With the emergence of the internet as a convenient tool for accessing news, the internet itself is becoming a new medium for the press. The emergence of the internet as a medium for the press has also ushered in the growing popularity of the blogosphere, where anyone can write about anything they so choose, without qualifications, and get their message out to a large audience. Despite the attempts of the mainstream media to portray themselves as benign, almost uninterested actors in American society, it is evident that the press has a far reaching influence on society. As such, the blogosphere seems to be continually growing and will ultimately become a facet of the American press, which will in fact influence American society at large.

    My purpose is to think through some of the unfortunate effects the blogosphere will have on American society. However, I do understand that writing a blog largely dedicated to discredit blogs in general will at many times almost urge the reader to stop reading and find another source for the topic, however, since I am speaking in general terms about the blogosphere, the reader can hope that I am an exception to the general rule. Furthermore I must say that I am not prescribing what should be done about some of the more undesirable results from the blogosphere, merely describing what I think will happen when blogs become a widely accessed source for news and opinion.

    First we must realize that the blogosphere is a young market right now, but will ultimately mature like other media markets, such as print and television. As bloggers become more popular the result is that a blogger who posts on a certain web site will be able to attract a certain number of viewers. Viewers or web site hits will develop a market value. Some are already realizing this and making money off of the advertising dollars it can attract. At some point in the course of these events some of the more popular bloggers will realize they could be making money blogging and will require monetary compensation for their work. (Interestingly enough Ashley M. Herer of the AP has done reporting on “left-leaning” bloggers trying to establish a labor union.) Sooner rather than later it seems that we will see the rise of “professional bloggers.” Ultimately the blogosphere will become an industry where people will write for monetary compensation.

    Now since there are no qualifications to be a blogger and the willingness of people to blog for free it is unlikely that many will get paid for blogging and the ones that do will probably get unsubstantial rewards for their efforts and very likely will have popularized their name through other media outlets such as radio, television or print press. The thing to keep in mind is not precisely how the market will develop but that there is money to be made and with that affirmation the blogosphere is likely to grow and garner a wider influence.

    You must be wondering what my problem with the development of the blogosphere into an industry is? In short the problem with the blogosphere as it gains recognition as a viable media outlet is that it makes it much easier to spread libelous, slanderous and untrue information a lot faster to large groups of people and does so without any of the repercussions the traditional media would have to avoid. At present this is not as big of an issue as it could become. Right now blogs tend to discredit themselves internally, simply by being a blog. But as the influence grows people very well could start to quote blogs as they would any other media. If blogs or bloggers become a reliable source even colloquially we will have an influential part of the press that has absolutely no standards of fact checking nor any concern for libel or slander. What then is there to prevent a blogger with considerable influence from fabricating a story about a fellow citizen with the intent of discrediting him, and destroying his reputation? In our climate of unconstrained speech anywhere at any time and the difficulties in regulating the internet I find it hard to believe the government would be of any help. So what are we left with to protect the public from abuses from the press, the integrity of web site administrators, the public perception (which is malleable) that blogs are not reliable sources?

    One blogger in Herer’s article contended that as soon as bloggers get paid it will “increase the level of professionalism.” But why? People choose blogs over the plethora of newspaper websites that are already professional. So, why do people read blogs? Well many of them offer commentary about news stories, or at least concocted news stories and there defining mark is unprofessionalism such as swear words and spelling errors. They are written in colloquial language and they play on popular stereotypes and prejudices. It seems to me that if you “professionalized” the blogosphere you would eliminate the very reasons people participate in it in the first place, and they would opt to go back to print media and/or newspaper websites.

    With this in mind we might at least be apprehensive about the effects of the blogosphere on our younger more influential generations. As the industry grows and people are courted by pop-up ads and other advertising devices, the younger generations (who are more likely to receive news via the internet at the outset) will be directed to go to web sites that have no standards for quality, with writers who have no qualification for even the minimal requirements to be a journalist. And these sites are going to be the ones who inform people about news and current events? Add to this that public school systems are becoming less and less interested in teaching children how to discern truth and falsehood and you have a problem.

    For a real life example of what is happening go over to www.dailykos.com and you will see what I am talking about. American public figures are routinely slandered, conspiracy theories are given access to the recommended diary section and people quote Wikipedia to back up their opinions. In short they regularly break laws that the press in this country wouldn’t think of breaking. Furthermore if you read long enough it becomes clear that after subjecting themselves to this type of literature the subscribers of the DailyKos have a dwindling grip on reality. People have dismissed them as left-wing fanatics or wackos (and this is not a completely invalid criticism) but more accurately they are just incoherent, having no discernible political philosophy or worldview. The diaries posted are by and large inane and pointless and it is clear that technological sophistication has surpassed their knowledge of government, philosophy and religion. But none of this has stopped their influence from reaching to the highest levels of the Democratic Party. It seems as though they have gained what Rodney Stark called a critical mass in society, or a group of people, even a minority who are mobilized and influencing society at a rapid pace.

    In summation, as stated earlier I have no recommendations to counteract this phenomenon. It is merely a sad observation of our society that people have degraded themselves to this level, when true knowledge is so readily accessible, and is bypassed for emotionalism and fanaticism. What can be said if looking for recommendations is that as the blogosphere grows participants as well as administrators ought to be careful about what they post, or what they allow to posted on the internet, in a system where the only check is the integrity of the web site itself.

    To begin, Moore and Friedman agree on one thing: the U.S healthcare system is inefficient and is in dire need of reform. Despite significant advances in technology, which in markets are generally indicative of a decrease in cost, U.S healthcare spending has risen to extremely high levels as a percentage of GDP. Friedman demonstrates this by citing that the percentage of national income spent on healthcare was 3% in 1919, 4.5% in 1946 and by 1997 17% of the national income was spent on healthcare, measured as a percentage of national income the U.S spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world.

    I must interject here to describe Moore’s position, as far as I can understand it. Moore’s proposal has three points, as follows, 1) Every resident of the United States must have free, universal health care for life 2) All health insurance companies should be abolished 3) Pharmaceutical companies must be strictly regulated like a public utility. It is evident that Moore’s proposal is far from comprehensive and not fully explained, therefore in order to analyze his argument I am forced in some instances to fill in the gaps of Moore’s proposal, as I believe he would. A difficult task but I will try to do it fairly.

    With the above qualification another point of commonality between Friedman and Moore is that they both find third-parties as the culprit for the huge increase in cost of healthcare. Moore’s position however is aimed at employer insurance benefits while he does not understand the government to account for a third party. Friedman on the other hand attributes third party status to both the employee insurance programs as well as the government, under Medicare and Medicaid. In essence for Friedman any organization that separates the consumer from the merchant constitutes a third party and increases the costs by usurping the choices of the consumer and giving the consumer good cause to spend more on health insurance (that is provided by the employer and subsidized by the government) than they would if the money spent on health insurance was done directly from the after-tax income of the consumer. Friedman also explains how Medicare and Medicaid have increased the costs. Once the costs are set to zero the demand will always go up to an infinite level which in turn forces a rationing system to conserve the supply. Friedman sees the healthcare market, not as evidence of capitalism run amuck like Moore but rather as heading “toward complete socialized medicine-and if we take indirect tax subsidies into account we’re already halfway there.”

    Moore does pay lip service to “the need to eliminate the middleman” but his understanding of whom the middleman is, is questionable. As Friedman demonstrates the government is fully capable of acting as a middleman, in fact it very much is in the circumstances of Medicare and Medicaid. In effect a middleman is an insulator of competition, giving all control over to the government would effectively create a monopoly, and reduce the insulated competition as the system is now to a level of no competition. This system in place does not necessarily reduce healthcare costs. This would put us in a system like the one described above in which the demand is infinite and the cost of healthcare is as low as the administrative rationing system chooses it to be. Another downside of this policy would be to retard or freeze altogether the ability of technological advancements in the healthcare industry. Instead of companies reinvesting their profits to maintain an advantage in their respective markets there would be no profits to speak of. Therefore all medical advances would come only as legislator’s allocated funds to research. As this system offers no real model for reducing healthcare costs the likelihood is that legislative attention would be paid to keeping costs down at the expense of technological advancement.

    It would be a matter of course that under Moore’s proposal there would be no health insurance companies. If healthcare costs zero of consumers after tax income why would consumers spend after tax income to insure themselves of something that was already free in terms of after tax income? Obviously insurance is a critical part of any free market health care proposal. Friedman explains the oddity that is health insurance by comparing it to other insurance markets. Friedman states that the large subsidies found in employee insurance programs have created a situation where insurance claims or co-pays are enacted over rather trivial expenses. He says that we do not make automobile insurance claims when we purchase gas or homeowner’s insurance claims when we cut the grass. Rather we insure the “catastrophic” and unforeseen expenditures. Friedman notes that complete privatization of healthcare is not a likely political strategy (which would require abolishing Medicare, Medicaid and government subsidies of employer benefits) but as a step forward Friedman recommends employers and/or the government to purchase “catastrophic” insurance policies as a way of reducing the monthly premium, while increasing the deductible and then starting medical savings accounts on the behalf of employees/constituents that would allow them to choose their medical provider for minor expenses incurred for healthcare visits.

    More could be said on both of the positions but I think a general description of both advocated systems has been achieved. There is no question that I would prefer to follow the general guidelines of Friedman’s proposal, but the reader can choose which system he prefers based on the above discussion. I would now like to address the debate itself. Moore would have us believe the debate over healthcare is exclusively an ethical debate, and in his formulations he places a universal right to healthcare over all other considerations. This is both dishonest and unfair to the debate. Moore makes it sound as if there would be no deleterious effects from his proposed plan but the reader should know better than that. It has been shown by economic principles that Moore’s proposal would perpetuate relatively highly levels of GDP spending on healthcare and limit the advancement of medical technology, which could in turn reduce healthcare prices in the future. If economic principles are not enough proof we can turn to the comparative examples of Great Britain and Canada which have single-payer universal systems and have experienced the predicted negative effects of their systems, also include high dissatisfaction and long waiting lists to receive healthcare (one may also take note of the U.S governments aptitude in running the entire public school system). Furthermore, I wonder what Moore has to say about the ethics of this situation. As we watch countries with politically stable situations and efficient markets decapitate their ability to advance and grow technologically in the healthcare market what country will show the way forward? It is evident that technological advances (which even our current system is conducive to) in the future will fall heavily on the shoulders of countries that have not frozen their ability to advance technologically.

    As Moore likes to frame this debate in terms of ethics as opposed to economics (also with a heavy propensity for passion and emotion) he is responsible for taking unintended consequences for granted. What is likely to happen during the course and after a proposal is implemented is a question of economics in the case of the healthcare market, whether or not the likely consequences are ethical, is the ethical debate. Moore is likely to be as unqualified to participate in an ethical debate as he was in the economic one, but that would be unlikely to stop him.

    Professor Lawrence was a favorite among the students in Colorado State University’s political science department. Perhaps it was because he did not act nor talk like professors usually do. He had the presence of an “average guy”, some would say. I encountered Dr. Lawrence in a foreign policy class and as fate would have it we were both in our last semesters. I was graduating and he was retiring. On one of the last days of class, after constant student pestering, regarding his political convictions, Dr. Lawrence described himself as “a committed socialist, gravitating towards communism.” (As you can probably surmise Dr. Lawrence’s desire to disguise himself as “middle-class” was, as usual, the miserable attempt of an “elite” to identify with the proletariat.) This was the man whom first taught me about the “new political tactic” called swift-boating.

    I put the words ‘new political tactic’ because swift-boating is a term used now to denote character defamation while showing that you are politically trendy. Furthermore character defamation is a decidedly old political tactic and has been used for centuries if not millennia. In the case of Dr. Lawrence one of two things was happening. Either he did not know, or did not have the moral capacity to see that both sides of most political debate engage in character defamation at some time, or he, himself was practicing a political tactic known as projecting. Since it would be hard in the first scenario to imagine that a professor of 30 years could be that ignorant of political history, even at the lowly Colorado State University, my judgment tends to lead in the direction of the latter scenario, especially after the documentation of political tactics used by communists. Projecting is done by groups to deflect criticism of themselves onto another group in order to diminish their culpability for the very act of which they are accusing the other group. By doing this the projector implies that he/she finds, in this instance, defamation a deplorable act, which he/she would never dream of partaking in. There is also a certain amount of distraction that is involved in projection.

    Among other reasons (exposing blatant partisanship, on the part of a professor inside a college class room, somebody I enjoy criticizing, at best blind hypocrisy on the part of a tenured college professor, to name a few) I bring up Dr. Lawrence to demonstrate that conservatives are being branded as the party of defamation, a title that should, at best be shared by liberals, if not entirely owned. Perhaps a comparison would shed some light on the political ideology that owns character defamation.

    First, we can look at the swift-boat incident. The swift boat group was a group of men who served with John Kerry (this much can be documented) and in their experience with Kerry the group came to the conclusion that Kerry was a man of low character and questionable morality. In their view the deficiency found within Kerry reached the level where they thought it would be irresponsible for them to withhold their experiences with Kerry from the public, and certainly irresponsible for the nation to elect him President. (Save the conspiracy theories of President Bush or Republicans in general backing the swift boat veterans. If there is enough evidence to warrant this I am sure that a law enforcement official would be happy to hear about it.) The swift boat veterans were kind enough to document their experience with Kerry in a book entitled Unfit for Command. In this book the swift boat veterans make historical claims and anyone who was so inclined was free to assess the validity of their historical claims and either accept or reject them. While some choose to call the swift boat veterans defamers they were trying to warn the public from making what was in their view, an egregious mistake. As patriots, and veterans to do not do so would be disloyal to the country they had served.

    Finally I am getting to the main character in this story and the central purpose of this blog; to defend Ann Coulter. Before I give my take it is helpful to watch what Coulter actually said, found on Breitbart here. Even on Fox News I saw the scroll on the bottom reading something to the effect that Ann Coulter had said she hopes John Edwards dies in a terrorist attack. If you watched the video you can tell that the media severely misrepresented what Coulter had said. In this situation we see the media intentionally misquoting Coulter and reproducing their imposed interpretation of what she said to the whole world. Coulter is left with little chance of defending a statement that she did not ever make, nor intend to imply, furthermore it can be easily documented that Coulter did not make the statements attributed to her, but that is not what the message conveyed to the public is.

    This is not a new phenomenon with Coulter. It seems as if every week she is being widely slandered. In fairness Coulter is less tactful and more provocative than most pundits, but in my opinion this is because she refuses to apologize for her conservative political commitment. The question is why do they hate Coulter, and why is the left wing so set on discrediting Coulter’s political opinions? Some may answer this by saying because she is so far right wing, but if the left’s primary enemy is the far right there are plenty of targets (just as public) that they would be better off in choosing (i.e Michael Savage, Don Levine…). My proposition is that the left wing of the media chooses its enemies based primarily on two criteria; 1) influence and 2) aptitude. Mr. Rush Limbaugh is enemy #1 because he is widely influential and has the ability and the understanding to describe the motives, worldview and goals of both the political left and right in America. Coulter, while lacking mildly in influence shares the political understanding and ability to articulate politics coherently with Mr. Limbaugh. As evidence I would put forth her books Treason and Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Treason (which I might add would not have had to been written if public educators were doing their fair and balanced job) describes the intimate connection the American political left has with communism, while Godless coherently explains that the American left is just as religious as the cultural right, only that they subscribe to the dogma of Atheism. If there was a list entitled top ten things liberals don’t want the mass public to know about liberalism these would be #1 and #2 on the list, and Coulter wrote entire books about it.

    In summation, this is a big deal. Defaming Coulter is not to degrade her character but rather to diminish the impact her ideas may have upon society. When stripped away the tactics used by the media are done in order to suppress the speech of Coulter. Put another way, the end goal is not to damage Coulter personally but rather to degrade the message of true conservatism that she preaches. This is legal and those who wish to do so should certainly be allowed to, but conservatives must answer back. So far, as Coulter mentions in the interview the conservative answer has been to distance themselves from Coulter, thereby allowing the message of conservatism to be marginalized. This does a disservice both to conservatism and to Coulter. I might add that perhaps due to the success of free market suppression liberals have grown bolder and are now looking to suppress free speech by legislation through the fairness doctrine. Always remember that conservatism is intuitive to most free men/women, furthermore it corresponds to reality, therefore we do not have to hide the principles of conservatism like our opposition, a fact that Coulter learned long ago.

Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason deals with some of the same themes this blog does, however, Gore does it in a very different way than I do. For once I agree with Gore, reason is slowly being diminished in America. Surprisingly though, Gore does not mention post-modern thought, atheism as an avenue to rejecting moral absolutes nor does he mention the fad of non-judgmentalism in society as possible explanations for the decline of rationalism. Rather the perpetrators of the “assault on reason” are the Bush administration, others who reject the hard “science” of global warming, and insofar as I can follow, the American public in general. The excerpt from the book that I read was littered with rhetoric like “reason, logic and truth play a sharply diminished role in society”, and other popular expressions taken from the revolution and ratification era in America’s history. This is hilarious, because if there are two things the cultural left in general, and Al Gore for certain does not understand it is 1) reason and 2) the political thought of the founding fathers.

For starters, to understand what Gore is saying we have to define his terms, unfortunately the reader has to do this because he does not. Two important points must be understood, what is ‘reason’ in Gore’s mind and 2) who is perpetrating the ‘assault’ on reason and how are they doing it. Gore claims that the Bush administration was being irrational when they relied on “falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary.” This is certainly historically inaccurate but put that aside for a moment. Gore is implying that the Bush administration lied and/or had ulterior motives for going into Iraq. What he is describing is not a break down in the reasoning abilities of anyone, but something altogether different from reason; he is trying to describe the motives of the Bush administration. Unfortunately he commits a logical fallacy in doing so, assuming that because untruthfulness of the Bush administration is a possible explanation for there being no WMD’s that it is the only possible explanation. Gore then goes on to give examples of how our citizenry is no longer “well-informed”, then claims that our system was designed and dependent on a well-informed citizenry. Once again, this is not even in the realm of logic or reason. I suppose I would agree that a “well-informed” citizenry would be nice, but you are dealing with knowledge, or lack thereof, not the reasoning abilities of American culture at large. As for the contention that our democracy “relies on the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry”, this is simply untrue, our system was set up by men who were fully aware of the effect uneducated masses could have on a country. One of their greatest fears was of Demagogues and how quickly they could turn a democracy into a dictatorship. In turn they set up plenty of protections to guard against these sorts of things (i.e. Electoral College, representative democracy…). Gore then goes on to bash contemporary media outlets such as television and radio. There have been quite a few studies on the relationship between the decline of modern thought and the television set, and in some circumstances they are persuasive, but what Television really represents is a preference for emotion over rationality, not necessarily the decline of rationality. Two naked reasons why Gore hates Television and exhorts America to start reading newspapers; 1) “when the controversy over my sighs in the first debate with George W. Bush created an impression on television that for many viewers outweighed whatever positive benefits I might have otherwise gained in the verbal combat of ideas and substance.” Oh poor Gore, if only Americans were able to look past charisma and articulation and focus on his so-called substance and ideas he would have certainly defeated Bush, probably by a landslide. I love George W, but come on Gore if you couldn’t come off as smarter than Bush II in the 2000 election, you got to be an idiot. Second reason that Gore wants people to read more newspapers; radio and television are dominated by conservatives, who portray Gore as an idiot, to the print media Gore has become their favorite environmental, and now only has good things to say about him.

So apparently television and the Bush administration are huge obstacles for American society to regain its ability to reason. If these seem too simplistic or maybe even dumb, that is because they are. But most of the time when you try to disguise a political diatribe as an intellectual/scholarly/philosophical work, it is dumb. Thanks for the input honorary philosopher/meteorologist/scientist/professor Gore, but you are about ten years to late explaining to people that modernity and emphasis on reason are in decline among western thinkers at large, and thus on western culture. Unfortunately your book is not going to contribute anything to the conversation that has not already been touched on by others, and either rejected or expanded on, in more lucid discourse. I know next to nothing about science, so I kept my mouth shut when Gore put out an Inconvenient Truth, but as Gore ventures into philosophy and government, I finally understand why the outcry amongst the scholarly community was so strong, when he put out An Inconvenient Truth. To describe Gore as an amateur in these fields would be generous, and in sum, some of the strongest evidence I have seen that America’s reason is declining is the very fact that Gore has a following.

Gore can’t help but show his true colors and writes that, “In order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of our public forum… We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth.” Isn’t that just scary? So much for the so-called marketplace of ideas that Gore praises earlier in his book. Gore does not want academic discourse or debate; he wants to suppress any ideas that conflict with global warming. Gore was wrong about the internet, he didn’t invent, but he may have reclaimed his engineering stripe for me, he has almost single-handedly invented global warming.

As far as the lip service he gives to the history of this country and the fathers of our democracy an analogy is appropriate. Sometimes when you take an idea or thought out of its original context and move it to a separate society the insanity of it, shows itself. I would love to see Al Gore explain to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison or Alexander Hamilton how it was necessary for the government to restrict its citizens from driving vehicles, force them to take public transportation, restrict the commerce of America by restricting where they could drill for oil, how long they could keep their factories running and forcing them to cost inflating industry techniques. When the founding fathers (pretty hard core libertarians I might add) asked, “why is all this necessary”, Al Gore would look at them and say “because if we don’t the polar ice caps are going to melt and then the entire earth will flood killing all humanity in the process, if humans don’t just overheat and explode before that.” This does not exactly sound like someone who should be the spokesman for reason, does it?

    Within the sphere of politics our debate usually gravitates towards disagreements over specific policy issues, without recognizing the philosophical commitments that lead to policy conclusions. It is for this reason I feel it is necessary to address worldviews in this blog. A worldview is a set of philosophical commitments concerning three disciplines in particular; metaphysics (the nature of reality), epistemology (the study of knowing, i.e how we know what we know) and ethics (praxis/how we should act). Everybody has a worldview whether they realize it or not. Therefore political philosophy is not immune to worldviews. In other words, conservatives and liberals alike distill their policy objectives from their worldview. In our contemporary setting we see conservatives and liberals drifting further and further away from each other on stated policy objectives. Conservatives and liberals alike are befuddled as to why the political scene has become so polarized. The reason for this polarization is in large part due to the differences between the worldviews of conservatives and liberals. For this reason I will try to explain the contemporary liberal worldview and point out how their worldview is influencing their political philosophy.

    When speaking in terms of worldviews it is helpful to begin with metaphysics. Unfortunately this requires generalizations. To further explain, not all liberals would affirm the statements I will make about the liberal worldview, however I wish to explain the most consistent liberal worldview, and how this affects their political philosophy. If for example, a liberal says, “While I agree with the ethics of liberalism, but not the metaphysics,” they are really just admitting that they do not hold a coherent worldview. It is outside of the scope of this paper to defend liberal incoherence, rather I wish to expound, what I feel, is the most prevalent and coherent form of the liberal worldview. So without further ado I will get started. Coherent liberalism believes that evolution is a metaphysical reality. In short, they do not believe in God. They are naturalists. The most significant aspect of this, in terms of their political philosophy, is what this affirmation implies about the human condition. Recently there has been some debate over the concepts of good and evil. These concepts have been described, by liberals as “antiquated notions”, meaning that they are outdated. The reason the concept of good and evil is out of date, as they would have it, is because they are inherently religious concepts that can only be had in accordance with the acceptance of the fact that there is a God, who in some way has defined what is good and evil. To further explain, what a higher power or God represents is a higher moral order. Or more clearly stated, to act in conformity with whatever higher power that is accepted, is by definition good. Deviating from said higher power would then be evil. So when a philosophy discards God as a reality, they also discard a higher moral order. All that is left is not what is good or evil, but rather what is natural. Therefore human beings no longer have the ability to make moral decisions (because there is no such thing); rather they are only able to make decisions that are brought upon them by natural impulses. This is most visible in their policy of the wholesale acceptance of homosexuality. So then, if a man is born who has a ‘natural’ inclination to sleep with another man, he should do so because he has no risk of violating a higher moral order (because there is none), and not acting on natural inclinations is just a suppression of said natural inclinations. In sum, contemporary liberalism strips man of the ability to make moral choices.

    The concept of replacing what is good and evil with what is natural also has other ramifications, in that it removes human culpability for deviant actions. Humans no longer make moral choices between good and evil, rather they react naturally to a given set of circumstances. Therefore an affluent white male who does well in school, goes to college, gets a good job and has a comfortable life is able to do all of these things because of a natural reaction to a positive set of circumstances. Likewise any deviant action is the cause of a negative set of circumstances that confronts an individual. This is the mechanism by which America is blamed for all of the world’s problems. This concept is illustrated perfectly in the new movie Blood Diamond. In the movie there is a lot of suffering that happens in Africa because of the diamond trade. The villain of the movie is the corporation who is buying the diamonds from Africa. The movie does not offer judgment on the government that is unable to keep the peace and ensure the safety of its citizens, nor does it offer judgment about the rebel armies who are going around killing and enslaving people to get the diamonds, or government officials in other countries turning a blind eye to the illegal smuggling and exportation of the diamonds. Rather it is the corporation who created a situation in which the natural human response to that situation was to kill, enslave and maim. On a tangent, this is why the corporation has become an enemy of liberalism; because it is an institution that inherently creates situations in the world that result in suffering. So the natural liberal response is not to try and curb the abuses of individual corporations, but rather to abolish the multi-national corporation as an institution. This is evidenced throughout liberalism in the assertion that America/corporations/the church (insert any institution that is an enemy of the liberal) create terrorists, gang members, poverty, oppression, unwanted pregnancies and sickness. Another effect of this is to remove any reason for retributive justice and replace it with rehabilitation. In sum, humans are no longer culpable for moral actions, but rather react naturally, and then it becomes society’s job to provide situations that humans will react to, in a manner that will reduce suffering.

    Now onto the liberal ethic, although it seems that once you have disregarded notions of good and evil, then there is really no reason, or possibility of having an ethic, but this is not the case. However the liberal ethic is aimed at meeting something drastically different than what is traditionally understood as ethics. Traditionally, society understands ethics, as trying to conform itself to a higher principle of morality. Conversely liberal ethics stem from the existential awareness that a situation of suffering is less desirable than a comfortable situation. Therefore the goal of the liberal ethic is not to conform itself to a higher principle of morality but rather to reduce, if not eradicate suffering from the earth. This has many implications for their policy objectives. The first is that any action that does not result in the suffering of others is deemed as a liberty of an individual. Take for example drug use. On the surface drug use does not adversely affect other members of a society, therefore it is permissible. On the topic of abortion, no suffering to the unborn child is apparent and therefore is deemed permissible (I should note that questions over the humanity/ensoulment or state of said soul are understood as superfluous, predicated on their naturalistic conception of metaphysical reality) . Furthermore any adverse affect, to the woman’s psyche or body, is justified in that they no longer have to deal with the prolonged suffering of raising a child. The individual then can make the choice of levels of suffering, and given such a choice an individual will choose to minimize suffering. Here we also find the rationale behind their support of euthanasia. We also must consider this in relation to their societal ethics. If a human is moderately comfortable it serves two purposes 1) the human is not in a state of suffering and 2) a human not in a state of suffering is less likely to react in a way that would cause suffering to others. Therefore there is no reason that one human should be in an elevated state of comfort and others should be in a state of suffering. Rather if we reduce both individuals to the lowest common denominator of comfort, than the goal of liberalism is achieved. Here we find the rationale behind socialized healthcare and welfare. We can then get a glimpse into their idea of a utopia. If a level of comfort is reached globally and the situations that cause the human to react in a way that increases suffering are eradicated than we no longer have to worry about humans causing suffering unto them, and a utopia has been created. Obviously then, this is achieved through massive governmental programs of wealth redistribution, but it also entails the abolition of institutions such as the Church and the corporation and ideological commitments that once held compel an individual to act in a way that increases suffering, which includes but is not limited to religious convictions and patriotism/nationalism.

    By glimpsing into the liberal worldview, it is clear that we are no longer dealing with differences over policy, but rather, they are proposing an entirely new and foreign concept to understanding the world and the human condition. We have to realize that our government is founded on a more accurate understanding of the human condition. Recently, historians have questioned whether or not our founding fathers were true Christians, but what is clear is that the creation of America was under girded by the assumption that man is able to acting morally, and man will do evil given a choice. That is why they created institutions such as checks and balances, the judicial branch and the U.S armed forces to protect its citizens from both internal and external threats. Now I do not want to point out all the circumstances in which our founding fathers recognized evil for what it was, so suffice it to say that the government they created, that has run properly for 200 years, can only be done so when recognition of evil is in place, and steps are taken to mitigate that evil.

    Now then, the question is raised to me all the time, given my circumstances (Seminary student) - Can a Christian be a liberal? Simply put, not coherently. In essence the affirmation that there is a God excludes one from fully embracing the liberal worldview. To be sure, there are ethics, liberals’ advocate that are appealing to Christians. Such as social welfare policies, healthcare policies and there is even a new Christian contingent in the environmental debate that sides with liberals. Furthermore the pacifistic ideals of liberals appeal to certain denominations within the Christian tradition. That being said, it is important for Christians to realize that just because some ethics, conceivably match up with the Christian ethic (I should say that in most cases they don’t, but are perceived to because Christians are often immature in both their faith and politics), that they are not distilled from the same place (metaphysical commitments), nor are they intended to achieve the same goals. As I stated earlier a goal of liberalism is to abolish both the Church and zealous religious commitments and that should be understood when Christians decide to side with liberals on social issues. When one supports liberal causes they must do so with the understanding that they are not just supporting one specific policy issue but lending credence, and helping to establish the goals of the entire liberal movement. So for example, a Christian may help elect a liberal and enjoy their policies toward the so-called poor, but they probably don’t like the scaling back of religious liberties or the expansion of abortion ‘rights.’ Furthermore if as I posit, liberals wish to marginalize, or eradicate any influence religion has on society, then Christians are actively participating in marginalizing their impact on society by supporting liberals and/or their causes.

    Abraham Lincoln said that “we must have faith that right equals might.” It is with this credo that we must engage and try to change the liberal worldview that is leading so many people, so far from an accurate depiction of reality. And as Lincoln says we must have faith that holding ourselves and society to a higher moral order (right), will cause us to triumph in the end.