Dr. Lively talks about adopting the name “Constitutionalist” as an alternative to “Conservative” (hat tip to Cherie Z,) and pledges to do so consistently in the future and to encourage others to do the same. He reads his short essay on the subject during this free form video — asking people to weigh in on whether they prefer this style to the teleprompter style of scripted commentaries. During filming his granddaughters Camille and Sophie (and Mom Kelly –Sam’s wife) came out to the campfire and were introduced.
As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but it’s not the intention that condemns you, it’s thinking you can produce any good by turning away from God and toward Hell in the pursuit of your goal. The poster boy for that truism is Karl Marx.
His good intention was to help the poor by getting the super-rich to share their wealth. The impulse was as noble as the excesses of the European monarchies were obscene, and the plight of the poor was heartbreaking.
His fatal error was rejecting the effectual guidance of the Bible in favor of his own godless system of state confiscation and forced redistribution of private property. That hell-bound ideology has produced more death and misery than any other human invention.
But does Marxism’s evil negate Marx’s original good intention or justify the defense of the super-rich who greedily hoard their vast wealth for themselves?
Remember, there are more than two choices, here. We can reject the false choice of capitalism vs socialism and follow the Biblical model instead, where good intentions are always fulfilled by following Jesus Christ. He set the example of charity and laid out clear ethical guidelines for shaping our actions and character to be more like Him.
Yesterday, a man characterized my approval of Marx’s good intention as “Communism,” making the common mistake of equating criticism of selfish hoarding with rejection of private property rights. The Marxists equate those ideas to recruit Socialist foot-soldiers. The predatory corporatists and greedy super-rich equate those ideas to recruit unthinking serfs to defend their castles.
But Biblically “woke” Christians recognize that God gives us both private property rights AND the ethical duty to voluntarily bless others with what we have.
The more we blindly polarize as Socialists vs Capitalists, aligning with either the armies of “social justice” zealots or the oligarchy of the super-rich, the faster they drive our constitutional republic down the road to hell.
Motivated by the Biblical worldview, America’s Founders envisioned a nation that furthered the advance of “civilization” by pursuing God’s goodness in public policy. They set our path toward that Shining City on a Hill. If we break free from the enfeebling Marxist nomenclature of “capitalists” and “conservatives” and start thinking and acting like Constitutionalists, we can take back the steering wheel, pull a U-turn, and get back to pursuing the Founders’ inspiring vision.
