The full circle
Working around the left-right paradigm.
With the demise of Joe Biden as a candidate, whether he withdraws his re-election bid or not, one of the talking points the pro-tyranny crowd is Democrats are trying to employ to prop up support is to scare people about the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. (Technically, Project 2025 is the website, the book - all 922 pages of it - is called Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.) Without reading and studying the book itself, the idea has frightened the statists among us into thinking we would descend into a theocracy worthy of The Handmaid’s Tale.
But I’m actually not here to discuss the book and its merits. Instead, I want to bounce off something I read on a statist-leaning local discussion board where fascism was (as usual) incorrectly lumped in with the Right, as that is one of the statists’ favorite comparisons these days. While it’s true that fascism is nowhere near conservatism - but is used as an insult to conservatives regardless - awhile back I stopped thinking in a left-right political paradigm because I thought of a better analogy: politics is a circle that exists on a plateau, the butte representing the rule of law and morality and bringing it off the surrounding ground. However, the circle is not centered, as I’ll explain.
To me, there is a point of maximum liberty on the circle and a point of maximum tyranny. Where I like to exist on that circle is the place where maximum liberty occurs, with the circle firmly anchored to the heights with the rule of law and morality in full effect, represented by the Constitution and Judeo-Christian values.
If you were to begin moving politically left from that point, you walk your way through a batch of “ism”s: socialism, fascism, communism, and so forth. What they have in common is centralization of power in a body that may (in the case of socialism) or may not (fascism and communism) be elected. As we stroll further away from that optimum point, we lose the power to elect our leaders and work our way into dictatorships like those of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, and the like. When it gets to that point, the circle leaves the underlying high ground and the dictator - a person who may believe he is a god - becomes the source of both morality and rule of law as the space below the circle descends to the earth. Eventually we get to one person who rules over all, with no morals or rules besides what he decrees. Those he favors as minions may have a better life than most, but if they step out of line they are “disappeared” without a trace.
Going the other way, though, we work our way through the various strains of libertarianism into anarchism. We have more and more freedom, but the circle may recede off the precipice at times. Let’s say for this example I am the ruler of all I survey, which is a small bit of Delaware. I may be firmly on the table of Rule of Law and morality, but, like many of the minor kingdoms and fiefdoms in Europe during the Middle Ages, my domain could be swept into a more powerful kingdom. In that case, the circle isn’t necessarily on the high ground anymore, and without the underlying table of Rule of Law and morality, in order for someone to gain power they have to forcibly take it from someone else. Eventually you would have just one person who has all the power, the boss of all bosses.
In looking at that picture, surely one could argue it’s an indictment of modern religion as God would be the King. However, His is a kingdom that is based, as a simple way of explanation, on the Rule of Law (as in the Golden Rule, or as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount) and morality (like the Ten Commandments.) It’s firmly placed with that table beneath it.
Our lives are constantly in tension between absolute liberty (“if it feels good, do it”) and restraint. Yet a rule of law is necessary for society to have order and predictability, which is helpful for prosperity to occur. (As the late economist Walter E. Williams used to explain, how would you like to play a poker game with “living” rules? Suddenly his pair of deuces beats your royal flush.) The issue with absolute liberty is that rules can be arbitrary and capricious depending on the mood of the ruler that day - after all, a fearful ruler once decreed all children under the age of two should be executed, such as King Herod in Matthew 2.
Thus, the point I’m looking for in the circle is the spot where I can have the maximum amount of liberty with just enough rules that my minority views aren’t run over roughshod by the majority, but can coexist. When done correctly, America is a great example: 300 million citizens are under one federal government, but it can be loose and limited enough to allow 50 states and thousands of counties and local jurisdictions to have their own rules and interpretations that local people can have input on.
As I often say, it’s a lot easier to fight for right in Dover than it is in Washington, D.C. To use the abortion question as an example, the best thing about the Dobbs decision is that it shifted the field of play from having some old white guys misread the Constitution to legislative fights in every state. Just give me back the pre-2017 Delaware law (abortion only allowed in the cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother) and I can accept it as a compromise in lieu of a total ban. It’s not absolute but it’s certainly an improvement over what we now have - some liberty, but well-anchored to the table of both Rule of Law (as determined by our representative elected legislative body and compliant with the Constitution, as interpreted by Dobbs) and morality, as it perhaps serves as a deterrent to unplanned pregnancy.
At this point I would say our nation has wandered well away from where we should be on that circle, with the ground underneath eroding quickly. It’s time to scramble back to where we belong, with a firm foundation underpinning the liberty we deserve.
Until next time, remember you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.
Choices.