Reviews, Interviews, News, Commentaries, Excerpts, My Top 5 Books, Wilson's Bookmarks, Book AwardsPolarizing Politics by Defending the Declaration
The Declaration's insistence upon self-evident truths and rights derived from God, not government, has given social conservatism its philosophical grounding and a prolonged staying power in American political life. "What divides social conservatives from social liberals," writes Bell, "is this: Most—not all—social conservatives believe the words in [the Declaration] are literally true. Most—not all—opponents of social conservatism do not believe those words are literally true."
According to Bell, this basic difference underlies the "polarization" to which the title of his book alludes. The advancement of social liberalism, Bell notes, comes without exception from legal maneuvering. Social liberals, largely disagreeing with the proposition that rights come from God, pressure the judiciary to invent new "rights"—for instance, a right to "privacy," encompassing the decision to kill one's unborn child, or a right to "marry" a partner of the same sex. Social conservatives, as the natural heirs to America's conservative founding, look to defend a treasured inheritance from such incursions.
For this, they are often attacked as paternalistic chauvinists or divisive bigots. But if they, and not their opponents, lay the strongest claim to the American founding, then we need to rethink the commonplace observation that social conservatives are aggressors in the culture wars. Social liberals are the real revolutionaries, harnessing government power to radically redefine society's values. But social conservatives—far from being intolerant "theocrats"—seek merely to preserve the religious heritage articulated, however imperfectly, by the Declaration of Independence.
'… To Be Self-Evident'
According to Bell, then, "social conservatism is more accurately seen as the application of natural law to politics—the self-evident truths of the Declaration—rather than as a political manifestation of religious revelation."
"Natural law" claims that certain truths are, in the Declaration's wording, "self-evident"—that is, accessible through human reason, without the aid of external revelation. Bell references Russell Kirk, the father of traditionalist conservatism, who understood there to be a moral order woven into the very fabric of existence, against which all manmade laws must be judged. According to Kirk and natural law theory, societies flourish most when universal principles are acknowledged and obeyed.
Star Trek Into Darkness
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Keith Head
It has been my experience that Right & Wrong are not hard to discern. When we do right we are free from sin, when we do wrong we are the slave of sin. Pretty simple stuff. Jesus said you shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free. How can we possibly wink at homosexual behavior or adultery and expect to be a free people. It is past time that we as Americans embrace the wisdom of our forefathers and let the principles of HOLY SCRIPTURE guide our laws and insist that our judges do the same. If that means polarizing politics so be it. Freedom is never easy!
James Cowles
The "polarization" that concerns me most is not the polarization that the reviewer refers to, but the polarization between the European / British Enlightenment principles of the Declaration, on the one hand, and the deeply antithetical principles of the Christian right, on the other. Among the former principles is the belief that (1) fundamental rights are "self-evident", and the corollary (2) that these "self-evident" rights are evident to unaided human Reason (essentially what "self-evident" means). Conservative Protestant Christianity, OTOH, is essentially Augustinian in outlook ... which means, among other things, that the human intellect is so corrupted by sin that human Reason -- Augustinians would say "mere" human Reason -- is not competent to the task of discerning these rights, which the Declaration says are "self-evident". There is a fundamental incompatibility between the Declaration of Independence and Reformed / Augustinian Protestantism that has gained a prominent voice
Citizen Anon
Sorry, but there are conflicts in your theory that a literal interpretation of the Declaration drives social conservatism. The liberty & pursuit of happiness clause is a better argument for gay marriage & abortion than the liberals' own arguments. "Life" makes abortion hard to justify. But social conservatives also generally seem all too eager to gun down anybody in the world who has resources we want. I don't think the founding fathers meant only that the British men then occupying the American colonies (and their descendants) were endowed with inalienable rights. Homosexuality is a sin, as is all sex outside of marriage-- the Bible rarely mentions one without the other. Yet social conservatives are virtually silent on adultery. They don't protest it on the streets, don't hold their leaders accountable. Politicans & voters of every political leaning are guilty. But those of us who profess Christ need to hold ourselves to the highest standards, not think we have immunity.