Last Thursday, Maggie Gallagher pronounced that the trouble with social conservatives is that they “have had bad models for political action” and that they “lack institutions that can defeat our enemies and directly assist our friends.”

Gallagher’s analysis is interesting and insightful.  But for whatever shortcomings social conservatives have politically, Gallagher’s point masques the true problem with the social conservative alliance with the Republican Party.  Fundamentally, it is an uneasy union, for the principles driving the major wings of the Republican party–the libertarians and economic conservatives–are undercutting the social conservative case in the public squre.

The social conservative position on controversial issues like abortion, stem cell research, and homosexual marriage has largely been driven by Catholic natural law theorists like Robert George, Francis Beckwith, and others.  Whatever persuasiveness one thinks these have–and I find them very persuasive–it’s impossible to deny that their effect is muted in a legistlative system with a metaphysic that assumes the individual, and not the family, is the basic unit of governance.  When preserving the autonomy of the individual is the  criterion for whether legistlation in a given area is appropriate or not, the reasoning for conservative positions on issues like abortion, stem cell research, and homosexual marriage must necessarily adapt, or falter.  Arguments against homosexual marriage on grounds that such marriages are intrinsically incapable of producing children will necessarily fail.  A government that governs individuals, and not families, will have no incentive to promote a traditional family.

What’s more, when the basic duty of the government is to protect the autonomy of the individual, then in a liberal democracy, the government ought not legistlate on matters on which significant moral disagreement exists.  Here the case is set against social conservatives:  by virtue of the theory of governance, moral argumets in themselves will not suffice to legistlate a particular position.  Additionally, to establish a moral case against a behavior, social conservatives must demonstrate that the given behavior harms another or somehow restricts their autonomy.

All this is problematic for social conservatives, since it means that to establish their case in the public square might entail changing the rules by which the conversation is conducted away from an unrestrained individual autonomy.  While possible, such an ideological shift is highly unlikely, especially when social conservatives main political allies would be foes in the fight.

This is the irony of the Republican alliance: the very principles that undercut the social conservative position drive the economic conservatives and libertarians.  As such, any alliance will be uneasy at best.  The philosophical principle that the government is supposed to get out of both business and individuals’s way cuts against the social conservative notion that the government has a positive role in promoting a certain social order.  Or frame it negatively, if you must:  if the (natural) family is the basis for governance, then the government has an obligation to protect the natural family from social decay.  Either way, social conservatives will likely be sympathetic to a more expansive view of government than economic conservatives or libertarians would like, which explains the success of Mike Huckabee, an individual with economic policies that most economic conservatives find distasteful.

None of this is to say that the social conservative view of the state is correct.  It is simply to point out that while it is fine to say that politically social conservatives are behind the times, the analysis does not go far enough.  Because social conservatives have been rejected by the Democratic party, we must make friends with people who philosophically are our enemies.  We must defend the individual against the state on economic matters, while critiquing unrestrained individual autonomy on ethical matters.  While political institutions would help, then, our best weapon is to break the alliance with economic conservatives, which a European style Christian Democrat party would do.  Intuitively, social conservatives have understood this, which is why Dobson et. al. are so routinely threatening to do precisely that.

What’s more, Republican power brokers need to realize that such a party would be welcome by most young pro-lifers.  While it may be easy to accuse young people of deep inconsistencies–I have done so myself–the ascent of the pro-life position and leftist economic policies among America’s young people reveals, I think, an ideological core that is more unified than most Republicans would be willing to admit.  Institutional Republicans shun those like Huckabee (or Douthat) who are comfortable with a neo-compassionate conservatism to their own detriment.

While I am an economic conservative, my ties to the Republican Party are built on political expedience alone:  if the Democrats were to ever nominate a viable pro-life candidate to the Supreme Court, I would in good conscience consider voting for him.  In this, I know I am not alone.

On Memorial Day, we remember the dead. 

It is an uncomfortable holiday.  There are few moments in our culture that prompt thoughtful, considered reflection about the meaning of our lives.  Memorial Day-to the serious observer-is one, for on it we are confronted by mortality.  As we remember those who too early journeyed to the undiscovered country, we acknowledge that we too shall someday be united with them. 

But on this day we do not simply remember the dead, but honor their sacrifice, for these dead gave themselves in service to our country.  And so we are confronted not simply by death, but by a particular sort of death, and so a particular sort of life.  It takes a peculiar virtue to lay down one’s life for another.  “No greater love,” it has been said, “than when a man lay down his life for his friends.” 

It is for this reason that the proper observance of Memorial Day is so essential to American culture, for it demands we recognize the tragedies of war and the importance of liberty, and that we display as heroes those who demonstrated the virtue of self-sacrifice.  Few ideals are so crucial to the promotion of the public good, or so dissonant with the surrounding culture.

But the memory of the faithful fallen also poses to us a question:  would we, when confronted by terms that involve life and death, have the strength of character and of will to lay down our own lives for the good of another?  Or would we shrink back to seek our own comfort, security, and safety? 

In the shadow of this question, we discover ourselves.  Death is our final and greatest test, and it is the capstone and culmination of our lives.  We either prepare to die well, or not.  But in that final test, our true character is made known.  For the Christian, this is most clear in the story of the Cross:  only through the sacrificial death of One is Death defeated and the identity of God made known. 

In remembering, then, those who died in service of America, we are reminded that now is our opportunity to shape our character, to cultivate virtue, to pursue honor, so that if called we will have the courage to respond as they. 

On Memorial Day, we remember the dead, and so seek to bring to life the virtues that made them honorable.  They have died to make our country great; let us live to make it greater.

I haven’t had many blog-length thoughts of late, but here are a few of the things I’ve read recently and found interesting: 

The Ten Most Pressing Issues For Evangelical Theology Today.  Click through to see the order.  While I agree with the bulk of Jensen’s list, I would argue that a few of his items don’t quite belong (election?  apologetics?).  Additionally, Jensen misses the doctrine of sanctification and the spiritual disciplines, which evangelicals are starting to recover after long neglecting them.  

The End of Conservatism?  Yes, just like the last time conservatism ended.

How David Beats Goliath:  Malcolm Gladwell doing his Malcolm Gladwell thing–finding unities out of seemingly unrelated stories and fields.

Thoughts on Thoughts on Machiavelli:  The Inconvenient Truth of Modernity.  I’ve re-read this twice, and I still only understand 25% of it.  But what I do understand is very, very good.

Continuing from our previous thoughts:  the question of technology and our modern understanding of it is a question of whether the pursuit of scientific reasoning is to be bounded by any limits in nature.  And, of course, whether generalizations about the distinctions between ancient and modern are accurate or helpful.

On this issue, Robert Cheeks at Pomo Conservative found this by Robert Walsh:  

“In his discussion of the idea that while we love technology and its benefits [Walsh writes that] we steadfastly refuse “to submit to the demands of rigorous efficiency. Nostalgia for the old, monuments of spiritual aspiration, the worldwide revival of ancient religious forms, the power of orgiastic political movements of destruction, and the protest impulse that has driven artistic expression for more that a century all testify to the profound ambivalence with which the success of instrumental rationality has been greeted.”

Walsh adds, “The problem, is that we seem to have struck a Faustian bargain. We have been able to obtain this vast technical prowess only because we have been willing to override all presumptive limits.”