Michael Gerson on Jesus
Jun 2nd, 2008 by Micah Tillman | Start the Discussion |
On Friday, Michael Gerson, a former Bush administration person, wrote an article entitled, “The Libertarian Jesus” for the Washington Post. It is, strangely, a defense of compassionate conservatism.
I say “strangely,” because no one believes in compassionate conservatism anymore. (I love making general statements like that.) Except Mike Huckabee, and you know what I think about him (see here and here).
Gerson labels “fiscal conservatives” adversaries of compassionate conservatism. And he’s right (though it’s a strange way to try to make his position look like a victim, in the midst of the government’s budget problems):
People who want small government usually want the government to, over all, spend less, not more. And that means, among other things, not adding “compassionate” programs to the government’s endeavors.
Then he says:
For others, it [compassionate conservatism] is a violation of their vision of limited government — the state’s only valid purpose is to uphold markets and protect individual liberty.
Wha? “Limited government” means “uphold[ing] markets”? Limited government means getting government out of the markets. Limited government people call for “deregulation,” not “upholding markets.”
Gerson continues:
But by drawing these limits so narrowly, such critics would relegate conservatism to the realm of rejected ideologies: untainted, uncomplicated and ignored.
What kind of argument is that? (And wouldn’t the same argument rule out compassionate conservatism?) Pragmatism is to be taken as our primary principle? What is right and wrong should be put to a vote? Democracy as morality: there’s an approach for you.
And by leaving great social needs unmet, they would grant liberalism an open field and invite genuine statism.
Amazing. If government were limited, “great social needs” would be “unmet.” Because government is our only organ.
This is a “conservative” talking. A Christian conservative (who thinks churches, volunteers, and charity workers meet no “great social needs”?).
Then Gerson cites an article by Senator Tom Coburn as “restating a fairly common view: that compassion is a private virtue, not a public one, and that religious conscience concerns the former and not the latter.” He then claims that Coburn’s view is based on a “flawed” “theology.”
He then goes on to cite Mosaic Theocracy, Paul’s view of government and taxes (presumably he means this), and those Christians who have struggled for justice on the issues of “slavery, infanticide and the debasement of women,” child labor, the treatment of mental patients, and occupational safety.
How he gets from these to “compassionate conservatism” is a mystery. We’re not the Chosen People, and don’t live in a theocracy. Paul’s view of government is exactly what a limited government conservative would believe: government is there to punish criminals, and should be supported by paying your taxes.
And each of the issues he mentions has to do with the physical safety of citizens from infringement by other people (which is what limited government conservatives think government should be looking after).
He then goes on to passingly tip his hat to the “tremendous advantages to the commitment and sacrificial love of volunteers,” and to make some reasonable statements about the primacy of nongovernmental “compassion.” But then he says this:
But the scale of these needs is sometimes overwhelming.
To whom?
Private compassion cannot replace Medicaid or provide AIDS drugs to millions of people in Africa for the rest of their lives.
It can’t? What is it about people in government that makes them able to do what people outside government can’t?
In these cases, a role for government is necessary and compassionate . . .
Why necessary? What is it about people in government that makes them different from people in any other group? What is their special power exactly? What kind of power is it? What is the source of that power?
. . . the expression of conservative commitments to the general welfare and the value of every human life.
And here we have the GIMOO/GMI Myth once again. Since conservatives have “commitments to the general welfare and the value of every human life,” they can let people in government take care of those commitments for them.
Gerson finishes his article with this:
And just as Jesus the leftist revolutionary is a distortion, so is Jesus the libertarian.
But Jesus was a compassionate conservative?
