Everybody believes something.
The following blog post is for the curious reader of this odd little website who wants to know more about me. Rather than provide you with my biography (although I may do that in a future post), I’ll simply provide a list of statements and self-descriptions, and let you make of it what you will. Okay. Here goes.
What do I believe? I believe everybody believes something. Even nihilists. (That must be exhausting!)
I think the secret of happiness is not taking yourself too seriously.
I am an optimist. I believe life is a gift and the world is a source of awe and delight.
I do sometimes joke that it’s better to be a pessimist, because then you are always either right or pleasantly surprised.
Politically, I describe myself as a ‘decentralist,’ rather than using a more familiar label like ‘liberal,’ ‘conservative,’ 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’m skeptical of hierarchy and caste. I believe in the divine wrong of kings.
I believe in equal opportunity for all, special privileges for none — a government of laws and not of men.
I’m not a radical. I don’t want to see the world torn down to the studs. Rather, I want to see it improved, mended, made more peaceful and livable, on the basis of common sense and the time-tested principles that work for everyone — principles that work not just for celebrities and billionaires but also for truck drivers and waitresses.
I am not a utopian, but I do believe happiness is possible, because virtue is possible. (Happiness is good habits.)
I think freedom is essentially negative — not being interfered with — but I agree with John Adams that true freedom consists not in doing whatever you like but in having the right to do what you ought.
I believe progress is possible, but I am not a progressive. I don’t assume the present is better than the past, or that the future will be better than the present, or that the people of the past were benighted. They have a lot to teach us. Chronological snobbery is among the sillier sins.
More fundamentally, I reject progressivism because, while principles can be wrong, they can’t evolve. Historical and moral relativism are bunk. Objective truth is real, and it doesn’t care about our feelings.
I am a traditionalist, but I don’t believe tradition is ‘a better guide than reason.’
Being a democrat doesn’t mean you have to believe that ‘the solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy.’ Whoever said that was nuts. Too much democracy gets you tyranny.
I am not a socialist because I can read history and because I believe in property rights. (My shorthand definition of socialism is ‘disregard of property rights.’) Without property, you and I can never be safe or live our best lives. Without property rights, we can kiss our freedom goodbye, and democracy too. Democratic socialism is an oxymoron. The person who said ‘In the future you’ll own nothing and be happy’ clearly never tried it.
I believe government does not exist to meet our needs. It exists to secure our natural rights and to prevent and punish those who violate them. That’s it.
I accept the need for safety nets, but clearly too much of a dole is a bad thing. As Franklin put it, ‘The best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but in leading or driving them out of it.’ And not putting obstacles in their path.
I confess I’m drawn to self-reliance and rugged individualism. Yeah, I know it’s corny. And I’ll even confess to being partial to that old 1950s ‘American’s Creed’ from Reader’s Digest: ‘I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any earthly master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid. This is what it means to be an American.’ Exactly.
I regard the rights of conscience as sacred, although to be clear, your rights end where my nose begins.
I think we should be tolerant and open-minded, but not so open our brains fall out.
I view religion as beneficial, more beneficial than not, and I think the separation of church and state is best for everyone. I worship my creator, but I think you should be free not to (although it strikes me as ungrateful).
By the way, I think the idea of a creator of some sort can never be disproved because there has to be an uncaused cause. And if the cosmos is finite, we can’t rule out the possibility it’s a handiwork.
But getting back to policy. I strongly support civil rights, understood as individual, not group rights. I’m grateful our Constitution is color-blind.
I would have worn blue in the War of Southern Aggression. The Constitution, Emancipation, the new birth of freedom — those are worth celebrating. I’m grateful my ancestors thought them worth fighting and dying for. (But I confess I find the song “Dixie” a guilty pleasure.)
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. That said, I do think American-style federalism — the extended republic — is one of the great discoveries. And I’d love to see it tried in my lifetime.
What are the marks of a free country? Free speech, free elections, and free emigration. The right to criticize the bums, to replace the bums, and if necessary, to flee the bums — all without loss of life, liberty, or property.
I agree with the great statesman who said, ‘Freedom is never more than one generation from extinction.’ You have to keep restocking it.
I oppose the death penalty, not because it’s inherently unjust, but because I don’t trust the government. Any government.
On immigration, my view is we should welcome the stranger, but don’t go overboard.
On economics, I proudly plant my flag with free markets and private enterprise. It’s the worst system except for all the others.
I hate corruption, but I’m not naive. The best way to minimize corruption is to make sure everyone has to please his customers.
I think the answer to the question, What would it take to make America America again? is to put the principles of the American Founding back at the center of our national life. We already have the user’s manual for national happiness, we just have to follow it. And how do we do that, exactly? I’m glad you asked!
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.’ (I have overcome my inordinate fear of tariffs, but I am not a protectionist.) As for government money-printing, it’s a polite word for theft. And gold is God’s answer to the question, What is money?
I believe ideas have consequences, and that most of us get ours from ‘defunct economists.’ I’m indebted to a few of those myself. For starters, to E.F. Schumacher and Orestes Brownson, admittedly odd ducks, who have forced me to wrestle with some hard questions. And to Harry Jaffa, who has helped me to sharpen my thinking and turn my better instincts into convictions. And to a trio of English Christians with initials for first names — C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien — who’ve lifted the roof of my imagination and offered me a glimpse of Christendom.
If I were shipwrecked on a desert island, I’d want four books with me: 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.
The last of these four has persuaded me that faith and science are two sides of a coin, two ways to search for the single, indivisible truth of reality. Father Jaki persuasively argues (persuasive to me, anyway) that modern natural science is a product of the Christian worldview. And it turns out, so are human rights, liberal democracy, and free-market economics. We owe a lot to Christianity!
What do I believe? I believe the pessimists are wrong.
I believe there’s always hope.
I believe life’s an adventure, each new day is an opportunity, and every person is a miracle, even the annoying ones.
I choose to be cheerful because the world is a gift. Each of us is a gift. You are a gift, astronomically unlikely, unique and unrepeatable. The natural response to a gift is not pessimism or glumness. It’s gratitude, humility, joy.
Like the old psalmist, ‘I will be glad in the Lord.’