There is an interesting collection of articles in the current issue of The New American magazine. Taken together, they tall a tale that emphasizes an issue that I have dealt with just recently in these pages, that is, of the threats to human ‘essential liberty’ - as spiritual beings having a human experience - from both the far Left and the far Right of politics - to say, from both overuse of government and underuse of it.
To take the latter ‘course’ first. It is from an article in the issue titled ‘The Case for Moral Libertarianism,’ which is essentially a review of a new book out, titled ‘Against The Left: A Rothbardian Libertarianism’ which deals with a number of the subjects ‘up’ in today’s world. On the one hand, the book extols the principle of private property rights, but almost to a fault; whereby, if left strictly to themselves, ‘capitalists’ could well descend into unfettered/rampant capitalism - capitalism, like Nature, red in tooth and claw. Nothing and nobody matters but me, and my bottom line. The ‘moral’ aspect that the article refers to is the restraining nature of some such capitalists/libertarians having a religion; but their fundamental position and belief - ‘code’ that they live by - is a “resolute commitment to property rights”. But there is, indeed, a larger picture involved in this matter of what we are a part of in life; one that would aid us in seeing, and acting upon, the idea - the principle - of living our lives in cooperation with Nature; not warring against it, with a sense of dominating it. (Which many Christians believe that they are entitled to, by verses in the Bible’s book of Genesis. So, so much for the religion of some of them.)(1)
But on the other hand, the book makes an extremely valid point regarding the stultifying, distorting, ’heavy hand’ of Big Government in people’s lives. An example that the author - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - gives is regarding ‘the Family’. The author of the article (Laurence M. Vance. An “associated scholar of the Mises Institute,” a leading libertarian think tank) says that “(Rockwell) believes that ‘the fundamental threat to liberty comes from leftist programs to promote absolute equality’.” What he is talking about - in my words - is that the far Left wants to get women out of the home and into the workforce in order to break down the family unit - a la Marxist theoretics - so that the State can take over the raising of the children. It is not really about ‘equality’ per se. It’s about “chiseling away at the foundation of society” - as referred to in one of the articles on the ERA in this same issue of that magazine.
And another interesting article in the issue, involved in this same ‘discussion,’ has to do with the matter of ’religion’ itself being part of the problem. That article is on the recent murder of a whistleblower from the Department of Homeland Security, named Philip Haney, “who exposed the Obama administration’s interference with tracking and arresting jihadists” and who “was found dead just before a new book [of his] was due out”.(2) Whose death, not so incidentally, was at first described as due to “a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound,” but under pressure by very skeptical members of his family and the public and alt media journalists - many of whom knew him personally and knew that he had no reason to do such a thing, and that there was every reason, given his plans to very shortly have his new book published and go on a speaking tour about it - a correcting press release came out from the County Sheriff’s office (in central California) after the weekend of the event, stating hat the FBI would be asked to assist in the “investigation”.(3)
Now, what am I saying here, exactly. I am saying that both radical Islamists - the built-in danger of some religions, with their fanatical true believers - and the Obama administration authorities who blocked Haney’s investigation into jihadist activity in this country, need to be investigated, and dug out of their dark holes, to face justice.
And thus, that government does, indeed, have a role to play in our lives. As long as it is kept - as George Washington observed, presciently - a servant.
And not a master.
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footnotes:
(1) The (missing) sense of ‘having dominion over’ Nature could at least bring in a modicum of responsibility into the matter, that is missing from today’s - obvious - comprehension and interpretation of that idea. ‘The bottom line’ being almost the only thing that matters in our, largely capitalist, society. Hence ‘planned obsolescence,’ and ‘the throwaway society,’ and so forth.
(2) His first book, published in 2016, was titled ‘See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad’.
(3) And given the role of the FBI in the phony charges against Pres. Trump, which led to his very partisan ‘impeachment’ by the House Democrats, that is not a very helpful sign to anyone who would like to see all these allied things going on these days uncovered to their full truth of the matter.
A terrible, terrible shame. On us all. By not insisting better. To be governed by
Truth.
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