The Great Hypocrisy Conservatives Must Face

I will not lay claim to prophetic powers, but this was originally published in 2008. It has been edited in minor ways to bring it up to date.

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It was that conservatives suffered a great defeat in this [2008] election. I strongly disagree: this country has not seen a genuine conservative candidate in the major parties for several decades (no, not even Reagan in practice). The problem is this: at the heart of all political decisions lies a great compromise with the nastiest of moral enemies: covetousness and theft. These sins permeate every human heart, and they cross every political boundary. If the commandments of God Himself do not slow their spread into human choices (read: votes), then no stated principles of a political party will have much effect either.

The truth is hard to face, but here it is: both major political parties are practically socialist.1 Even if either or both deny it overtly in their platforms, socialistic principles are fundamental to their practices and policies. Both believe in the creation of wealth via fiat money (created out of nothing by the Federal Reserve) and the control of the vast majority of these created reserves by government decision (Trump is no exception: he has literally been begging and demanding the Fed to create more “easing” and “stimulus”). Even when the people oppose such creation of more money—and it is a rare event to get a near-unanimous voice as we did [with the “bailouts”]—the parties do not. Both Senate and House ignored the flood of calls and emails of vast and vehement opposition to the 2008 “bailout” (later re-dubbed “rescue”), and they voted it through. This was a fundamental failure of democracy (and yet Obama had the nerve to praise the “power of democracy” in his victory speech, after he himself voted for the bailout against the democratic voice). Both parties were partners in crime in this disaster and this was only one of many. Consider deficits, the national debt, farm bailouts, tariffs, corporate bailouts, and so much more.

Conservative Christians oppose liberals in general. We pretend we have the moral high ground. We oppose abortion, the homosexual lobby, and other obvious moral aspects which create clear distinctions with liberals. Yet Christians accept, almost across the board, socialist wealth-redistribution schemes. We accept, and through our practices and choices approve, the principle that money can be taken from someone else by force in order to pay for a cause we believe is good.

The most glaring example of this is education. Christians, almost to the person, accept and fight for the institution of public education funded by other people’s wealth. Christians will employ every intellectual artifice imaginable in order to justify public education. And yet, what is government education based on except a wealth-redistribution scheme? Even Christians leaders and Founders who make such a show of opposing “social justice” and wealth redistribution schemes nevertheless keep silent here, either out of full complicity of fear of revolt among their followers. If they do voice their opposition, in most cases, it is not much more than a whisper among selective audiences.

Likewise, what is Social Security except a gargantuan behemoth of a wealth-redistribution scheme? What is the authorization of billions to prosecute unnecessary war except a wealth redistribution scheme? Christians will fight to the end for these things as morally right, and yet the funding for these things is based on institutionalized theft. Oh hear the justifications and rationalizations roll in against this claim! But there is no good rebuttal. Face it: most Christians believe in theft under the cover of a majority vote. Face it: most Christians (and most conservatives in general) are practical Socialists. Christians and conservatives condemned Obama for wanting to “spread the wealth around,” and yet most base their lives and their children’s lives on the same principle.

Since, therefore, Socialism is the accepted practical norm across the two major parties, it is not conservatives but really liberals and progressives who have the moral high ground. With the exception of abortion and gay rights, conservatives cannot claim moral high ground on the most widely pressing issues. Liberals claim to believe in taking care of the poor, caring for the elderly, caring for the oppressed, caring for medical expenses, care, care, care, care, care. Granted, there are many practical problems with the implementation of liberal programs, but details are largely irrelevant to public motivations. As long as our government is going to print trillions and then distribute that cash around, why not send it down to the most needy, why not subsidize health care, instead of funneling the hoards of cash solely to the biggest of banks (who had a great hand in causing the financial problems), big international business, and foreign destruction and reconstruction projects (given to big-companies without any public bid)? Why not? Why not, please tell me, if we are going to accept the principle of Socialism anyway, why not have the fiat money go to our kids, our health, and our grandmas instead of bankers and bombs? Instead of cliques and cartels? Why not distribute the money evenly to all for common needs instead of selectively?

There is no good answer.

The fact that government welfare and socialism are the accepted terms of the debate, the status quo, the accepted means to the end, eliminates the moral high ground for anyone who dares not to promise “care” in some form or another. Until we stand opposed to fiat money and wealth-redistribution consistently, we legitimize the liberals’ method and we keep empowering them to win in the long run under the guise of a political contest of principles.

Christians, you give up your claim to the moral high ground in this debate when you accept public education. You send your children to learn about socialism, from socialists, on a socialized buck. You are teaching your kids that you are socialists, they will be too, and socialism is morally acceptable. Don’t complain when the liberals push for more consistent socialism: you have complied with it, practiced it, and fought for it thus far. The same is true for caring for the elderly, insurance, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, etc.

If the next two years [make that twelve now] involve a steam-rolling of the socialistic legislation through this nation, we will be justified in calling it the judgment of God that we have brought on ourselves.

Until conservatives grow a moral backbone and deny the federal treasury’s right to demand created trillions, deny the principle that government should care for the people, deny that it is acceptable to vote based on the cash benefits and services government can provide, and in general, promote individual responsibility and accountability, America will keep digging a hole. It will become the tyranny we conservatives say we fear most, yet have brought on through our own institutionalized covetousness and theft.

Until we remove the wickedness at the core of the system, we Christians can preach all we want, but we will prove that we have no better answers to covetousness and theft than the secular world around us. Set up the alternatives first, then start talking.