Today’s article begins with an excerpt from an email I recently received, together with my reply, which I thought would be of interest to my readers. From a reader:
I am 33 years old and I am a conservative. I am a youth pastor at an African American church. I love my church but the majority, if not all vote for Obama and the liberal agenda. I am a white man so when they hear me speak of my values I know what they think because they are very vocal about it, and I hear what they say. My question to you is how do I share with the members at my church the importance of the conservatives’ values? Most of them look at conservatives as racist. Just the other day I mentioned your name and Dr. Thomas Sowell and how inspired I am by you and his work. The only thing I heard from this person was the same rhetoric. “Oh, he’s a racist.” I just shook my head because I felt sorry for the person…
I would also like to know your thoughts on Dr. Ben Carson? Do you believe he is someone worth backing? He sounds like he was and is inspired by you. I am researching him and I am really inspired by him as well. I am considering backing him for president.
My reply:
Before I can answer your question about conservative values I need first to convey some sense of what those words mean. In the first place, ‘conservative’ refers to being prepared and ready to preserve something from harm, to protect and defend it. But if we are to seek and apply such knowledge, we must first understand what we’re talking about, i.e., what is being conserved; what it is that we defend. In this regard, every contribution I have tried and try to make to political life in the United States draws upon the self-evident truths set forth in the American Declaration of Independence, and in particular upon the famous words that, more than any others, shaped the identity of the American people before we began our present steep decline.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
It’s important to note that these words speak of us simply as beings endowed by our Creator’s will certain attributes. Because they are inseparable from our existence as such (this is the meaning of the word ‘unalienable’) these attributes define our nature, i.e., what makes us what we are (human beings) as distinct from other creations of God.
The only “race” referred to in the Declaration’s words is the human race. In respect of God’s non-human creations, I suppose this makes the Declaration a “racist” document. But in respect of creation as a whole, what would become of it without respect for the attributes that distinguish one thing from another? The answer is, as the ancient put it: Nothing comes from nothing. There would be no trees, no stars, no stones or animals, no natural wonders, and above all no human understanding, and nothing humanly understood.
The capacity for deliberate choice is one of the most distinctive fruits of human understanding. Our sense of right and wrong has to do with the way the choices we make affect us, in fact and self-perception, with whether our way of being in the world is enhanced or damaged by their consequences. But in some respects, our way of being is not something we choose. It is a given, something that reflects the way we are made, and without respect for which we cease to be what we are supposed to be. When some action we take corresponds to our essential nature in this way, it is not just right, it is an exercise of unalienable right. It is an activity that reflects our conformity to the will of God for our continued existence, such as we are.
By this train of thought we come to what I believe is the key to explaining to American Christians the conservative views I espouse, no matter what their race or ethnic background. The fundamental purpose of government, as stated in the Declaration of Independence, is to secure (preserve, keep safe, defend — which is to say conserve) the humanity we have in common, as it is endowed by our Creator. In Christian terms, this means being prepared and committed to doing right- for ourselves and those whom God naturally entrusts to our care (our families); and for human communities in which, in concert with others who share our commitment to doing right, we agree to establish governments intended to stand for (represent) us, in organizing and carrying out activities required for that purpose.
Every aspect of conservative thought and policy, as I see and espouse it, can be explained by reasoning done in light of this understanding of government. It explains, for example, why and in what measure governments are commissioned to use force against wrongdoers. It explains what is meant by justly “limited government,” which is to say, government limited by respect for God-endowed unalienable right. It explains why government’s first obligation is to preserve, respect and/or defend the choices and activities people are obliged to make or undertake on account of God-endowed unalienable right.
In light of this understanding of government, we can easily see that just governments exist to do some good, but not at all to do every good. There are some activities human beings are obliged to do (such as caring for and raising their children) in respect of which government is obliged to give way to the primacy of individual responsibility. There are some institutions (like the natural family) with authority from God government cannot justly disparage or disregard. And so forth.
For the past several years I’ve maintained a blog on which I post articles on a wide variety of topics, mostly related to politics and government. Almost all of them involve explicating and applying this view. Though it is not based on race, there is no doubt that my heritage as a black American, descended in part from people once held as slaves in the very state in which I live, was the occasion used by God to impel me toward the work of understanding and applying America’s principles, beginning with the premise that God’s will governs the meaning of right and justice in human affairs.
As for Ben Carson, I have no choice but to speak plainly. He purports to stand for principle, but has in fact made plain in writing and action that he is an unprincipled so-called “pragmatist,” who believes in getting things done by means that aid and abet the ongoing abandonment of right and reason that is destroying the United States. In my most recent article at WND.com, I make it clear that this prevents me from believing his rhetoric about being a “principled” candidate. I dealt with this in greater detail in an article I posted on my blog in May, 2014, and another posted last September.