Everybody believes something.
Everybody believes something. Even nihilists and philosophical pessimists.
(Being one of those sounds like hard work.)
Me, I’m more of your philosophical optimist. I tend to see life as a gift and the world as a source of awe and delight. I feel sad for the person who is sad to be alive or who goes around angry all the time because the world’s not to his liking.
That said, I do sometimes joke that it’s better to be a pessimist, because then you are always either right or pleasantly surprised.
What do I believe?
I believe ‘ideas have consequences.’ And I worry about things like the ‘abolition of man’ and the erosion of Magna Carta and the decline and fall of the Roman empire (yes, I often think about that).
Jesting aside, that’s why I’m writing this: so readers can make some sense of how I come by my peculiar opinions on seemingly trivial and disparate matters like taxes and trial by jury, and about entitlement reform and the disposition of federal territories. Ideas have consequences in the most unexpected places.
In political terms, I describe myself as a ‘decentralist,’ rather than using a more familiar label like ‘conservative,’ ‘liberal,’ or ‘libertarian’ — terms that have lost their usefulness through overextension.
I am a small-d democrat and a small-r republican. I oppose monopoly, and I side with the little guy and common sense. I am skeptical of hierarchy and caste. But I am not a populist or wild-eyed radical. I don’t want to see the world torn down to the studs. I want to see it mended on the basis of sound, solid principles that work for everyone, not just for celebrities and billionaires but also for truck drivers and waitresses.
I think whoever said, ‘The solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy’ was naive or blind. The solution to the problems of democracy is sensible checks on democracy. Good laws and mixed government. Too much democracy gets you tyranny.
I don’t assume the past is all bad and the future is all good. That’s silly. Historical relativism is bunk. I agree with C.S. Lewis about the folly of ‘chronological snobbery’ and with G.K. Chesterton about tradition being ‘the democracy of the dead.’
While I think progress is possible, I am not a progressive. Principles can be wrong, but they cannot evolve.
As for moral relativism, it makes me shudder. Objective truth is real, and it doesn’t care about our feelings.
I believe in equal opportunity for all, special privileges for none — a government of laws and not of men.
I hate corruption, but I’m not naive. The best we can do is manage it. And the best way to manage it is through healthy competition and having to please your customers.
I am not a utopian, but I do believe that virtue is possible, and thus happiness.
I think we can never be truly happy without personal and local self-government. ‘Small is beautiful.’ The world would be better off with two thousand countries instead of two hundred.
I am not a socialist, because men are selfish by nature, and have natural rights, and because I can read history. I define ‘socialism’ as ‘disregard of property rights.’ Without property, we can never be truly safe. Without security in our property rights, we can kiss our freedom goodbye, and with it a good deal of our dignity and happiness. Indeed, socialism is the enemy of all these things — safety, freedom, dignity, happiness — things that make life sweet. All sensible people either resist it or flee it. Socialism is the antithesis of democracy. ‘Democratic socialism’ is an oxymoron.
To be sure, I believe government is necessary, but it must be very small and tightly limited. Government does not exist to meet our needs. It exists to secure our natural rights and to prevent and punish those who violate them, and that’s it. Big government is a bane, not a boon.
We need public safety nets, to be sure. But they should be small and sensible, humane and personal. They should not be faceless and should never take the place of family, friends, and fellow congregants. And yes, with respect to the able-bodied, safety nets should discriminate against the lazy. As Ben Franklin said, ‘the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty but leading or driving them out of it.’
It may seem quaint, but I’m drawn to those old-fashioned ideals of self-reliance and rugged individualism, and I’m partial to the quintessentially American creed that proclaims: ‘I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon if I can. I seek opportunity, not security. I want to take the calculated risk, to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.‘
I regard the rights of conscience as sacred, although, to be sure, your rights end where my nose begins.
I think people should be tolerant and open-minded, but not so open their brains fall out.
I strongly support civil rights, understood as individual rights, not group rights. I’m grateful our Constitution is color-blind.
I think freedom is essentially negative — not being interfered with. But I agree with John Adams that freedom consists not in doing whatever we like but in having the right to do what we ought.
I think the three essentials of a free community are free speech, free elections, and free emigration — the freedom to flay the bums, fire the bums, and flee the bums, without risking anyone’s life, liberty, or property.
I oppose the death penalty, not because it’s inherently unjust, but because we can never trust the government not to kill innocent men, whether accidentally or on purpose.
As for religion, I view it as more beneficial than not, and the separation of church and state as best for everyone. I’m personally inclined to worship my creator, but I think you should be free not to. (Although it strikes me as ungrateful.)
It seems to me the idea of a creator of some sort can never be disproved because there has to be an uncaused cause. And until science can prove beyond all doubt that the universe is infinite in both space and time, I think reasonable people can be forgiven for assuming it is finite and thus view it as someone’s handiwork. I do.
On economic matters, I support what I half-jokingly call McKinleynomics, the traditional and highly successful policy mix of balanced budgets, honest money, and no income tax. I regard the income tax as the ‘root of all evil’ and government money-printing as a polite word for theft.
These views, and my passion for reform, have led me to compile what I somewhat pretentiously call my ‘American renewal plan.’ It’s not a plan, really. It’s more of a thought experiment, one that constitutes my personal answer to the question, What would it take to make America America again? — I mean America in her best and noblest sense. For me, the short answer is to put the principles of the American founding back at the center of our national life, the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution. We already have the guide book for national happiness, we just have to follow it.
Speaking of ideas having consequences, I think we’re all influenced by the ideas of ‘defunct economists,’ and for me that includes a pair of peculiar thinkers, E.F. Schumacher and Orestes Brownson. While I don’t agree with everything they say, they have forced me to wrestle with hard questions about the law, economics, politics, and society. And a trio of English Christians with initials for first names — C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien — have lifted the roof of my imagination and offered me a glimpse of Christendom.
I find myself going back to four books, in particular: Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, Lewis’s Abolition of Man, Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos, and Jaki’s The Road of Science and the Ways to God. Those, and Augustine and Aquinas, top my reading list for when I’m shipwrecked on a desert island.
At the end of the day, I think the happiest kind of life is the one in which you forget yourself in the service of others, pursue justice without fear, and let yourself be moved by wonder and beauty.
My favorite Bible verse is ‘I will be glad in the Lord.’
What do I believe? Well, for starters, I believe the philosophical pessimists are wrong.
There’s always hope. Life’s an adventure. Each new day is an opportunity. And every person is a miracle — even the annoying ones.