Obviously this is a sad and hurtful story, especially for his family.  As I speak of this, I want to make it clear that my focus is not on Mark Souder as a sinner, for that is certainly not new. Politics (and every other human endeavor) is full of sinners. The human heart is desperately wicked and unfaithfulness of every type runs through the veins of unrestrained sons of Adam. But Mark Souder is also a public man in the matters of moral issues.  He’s taken some decisive political stands and made decisions on behalf of others–he certainly isn’t just a private person who has sinned. So, we must reject the way one of his staffers in another article dismissed this by saying Souder is “only human” and “people fall all the time”. People do fall all the time, but we still expect some degree of consistency from people who set themselves into positions to legislate their moral views.

To some, Souder words were always suspect, because he was saying them in the context of what for the most part constitutes somewhat of a thuggish turf war (sorry, not exactly a flattering description of the current political scene, but it probably isn’t far from accurate). Somehow the message that “I am committed to preserving traditional marriage” Sauder still has on his website doesn’t ring so true anymore. Was that a deeply felt commitment to the institution of marriage or was that the political posturing in an attempt to wage a political turf war?  (sort of like a “graffiti tag” or a “gang tatoo”). Maybe its just one of those things you have to say to keep the party spirit going? Whether you actually subscribe to it down deep may not even matter?

It feels horribly mean to ask those questions, but I don’t think we should avoid them–since they are the question that comes down to the root of why so many people are instinctively suspicious of social conservatism. If social conservatives are going to be taken seriously, there needs to be some thought (and maybe action on this). Why is it that so many of its leaders are falling?  Mark Souder’s actions are a shame, and it is consequently no surprise that the masses will not listen to the “family values” and “traditional marriage” jingle. Especially when so many of its advocates–one by one–are doing their part to tear marriages and families apart.

The incredulity of this is capture well by Gene Edward Veith in a blog post, where he asks the piercing question “Is it any wonder that Christians are losing their credibility?” and also astutely observes: “That these two, both of whom are married, started their cheating while exercising their religiosity at a Christian radio station and while making videos on Christian sexual morality is just too much”.

Of course no movement will be perfect, but as–one by one–respected leaders fall, one must start thinking about what is wrong.

In Vanity Fair an article tells of how the author’s father (who was involved in the CDC and STD-work) was confronted by Souder over the issue of teens and abstinence and sex outside of marriage.  For what it’s worth (probably not much), the article has an interesting conclusion. It ends with a pithy, but rather weighty,  “If Souder was my dad, I’d be very confused.”

It wasn’t too long ago that Souder called upon Larry Craig to resign for his lewd activities. Now Souder gets to  step down.  But the damage is done. This merely reinforces my instinctive suspicion of highly politicized social conservatism (although I am a conservative Christian in my worldview). The strongest support for “family values” will be strong marriages and families that have parents who love each other and are faithful to each other. This can be done even in a state where the idea of marriage has gone out the window.  A practical individual-level commitment to marriage does what going around and chanting “I support traditional marriage” could never do.  But it’s hard work (and, it doesn’t get you elected! you need slogans for that) In the current climate, the “family values” movement has minimal credibility. How many more of these incidents will it take? Its hard to imagine that much of the posturing is more than an insignia in a political turf war.  But even if the movement did have a high level of credibility,  there is probably not much evidence that it’s actually doing anything to preserve marriages and families in practice.

Anyways, I don’t want to be some sort of controversy-blogger who gets all riled up by the latest scandal, but I just felt this merited some comment.

“In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today’s anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don’t own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.

In those days, I recall my uncle, President Kennedy, standing erect as he rode a toboggan in his top coat, never faltering until he slid into the boxwood at the bottom of the hill. Once, my father, Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, brought a delegation of visiting Eskimos home from the Justice Department for lunch at our house. They spent the afternoon building a great igloo in the deep snow in our backyard. My brothers and sisters played in the structure for several weeks before it began to melt. On weekend afternoons, we commonly joined hundreds of Georgetown residents for ice skating on Washington’s C&O Canal, which these days rarely freezes enough to safely skate.”

– Robert F. Kennedy in Palin’s Big Oil infatuation (Sept.24 2008)

However, there is another aspect to his thought, specifically relating to politicial issues. Was he a libertarian? George Marsden, The Freeman, and other sources believe so!

Historian George Marsden called him “radically libertarian” and stated that he “opposed almost any extension of state power and took stands on a variety of issues. Like most libertarians, his stances violated usual categories of liberal or conservative.”

Daniel Walker said the following of him: “Machen is one of many prominent American defenders of political liberty and economic freedom who have been largely forgotten by a people intent on abandoning its heritage of freedom.”

Machen opposed the military draft during World War I and also opposed prohibition, two stances that might not seem to jive with the common caricature of how a theologically conservative Christian would think, especially in the early 1900’s.

Here are a few quotes right from Machen:

“Personality can only be developed in the realm of individual choice. And that realm, in the modern state, is being slowly but steadily eradicated.”

“Everywhere there rises before our eyes the specter of a society where security, if it is attained at all, will be attained at the expense of freedom, where the security that is attained will be the security of fed beasts in a stable, and where all the high aspirations of humanity will have been crushed by an all-powerful state.”

On education, he said “If you give the bureaucrats the children, you might as well give them everything else as well.” He also said: “Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist.”

The title of a U.S. Libertarian Party article captures the disbelief: Libertarians suggest Nobel announcements should be moved to April Fool’s Day.

Norman Horne of LibertarianChristian.com, also chimes in with his piece A Peace Prize for a War Hawk. He concludes with a good summation of the backwardness of recent Nobel Prize selections: “We live in a bizarro world, folks, when you can get an Economics Prize for supporting the destruction of an economy (Paul Krugman), a Peace Prize for frightening people (Al Gore), and now a Peace Prize for supporting war (Obama)”.

My thoughts are that Obama mainly got this on the basis of (a) not being George Bush, (b) having some ideas that people liked (but never really putting them into practice), (c) being an “inspiring” figure, and (d) not being George Bush.

Maybe I should enter the Mr. America body building contest this year. I’m starting to think I might have a chance.

As an Eric Margolis points out in The Ghosts of Vietnam Haunt Washington (September 22, 2009), mission Afghanistan is continuing to be a disaster for the U.S. He makes a comparisons to the old British imperialist failure in Afghanistan, except with the telling assesment that “[t]he British imperialists did it much, much better and with a lot more style”.

Margolis points out how American general Stanley McChrystal is “warning that the US risks being beaten by lightly armed Taliban tribesmen in spite of his 107,000 western soliders, B1 heavy bombers, F-15’s, F-16’s, F-18’s, Apache and A-130 gunships, heavy artillery, tanks, radars, killer drones, cluster bombs, white phosphorus, rockets, and space surveillence.” The U.S. has spent $250 billion (that’s approximately the cost of 10,000 F-15s!) in Afghanistan since 2001. And each wave has caused an increase of resistance and more power for the Taliban.

After 8 years and $250 billion, the Taliban still controls 55% of the country. And get this, the commanders are still asking for 40,000 troops, even after Obama has tripled the presence there. Margolis does a fine job of exposing the sheer lunacy of what is going on over there.

And all of this is not even getting into things he brings up in other columns, such as the illegitimacy of the “elections” that the U.S. has implemented in Afghanistan–stage managed votes with canadidates hand-picked beforehand. All parties were banned, only individuals were allowed to run. It has been said that even the Soviets allowed parties to run in the elections they imposed on Afghanistan in 1986 and 1987. In the U.S.-run election, only candidates who favored continued U.S. and NATO occupation were allowed to stand. Foreign observers reported extensive fraud and vote-rigging. As Margolis has said elsewhere, “Compared to this pre-determined vote, Iran’s recent elections almost look Swiss by comparison”. Is this the democracy being exported?

This is not merely a crazed empire, this is a crazed empire on a self-destruct mission.

May some day God bless the U.S.A. with a leader or leaders that will be capable of ending this non-sense. May God spare the people of Afghanistan and us Westerners from the present and future chaos that this is causing.

Nathaniel attended a Baptist church and was an intimate friend of figures such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Randolph.  It should be noted that Jefferson’s famous quote about truth in advertising originated from a letter to Macon. He is known for having stood up against a Alien and Sedition acts, among other things and quite consistently stood against the expansion of federal power.

In the memoir written by Weldon Nathaniel Edwards, it is said that

“Of his political creed, it is scarcely necessary to speak. His unchequered consistency–the frank and manly avowal of his opinion on all proper occasions….Adopting to the fullest extent, the doctrine which allowed to men the capacity for, and the right of self-government…and never would consent–however strongly the law of circumstances, the common plea of tyrants, might demand it–to exercise doubtful powers.”

John Randolph commented about Nathaniel: “He is the wisest, the purest, and the best man that I ever knew”.  He leaves a legacy of republicanism (with a small ‘r’) and has had a handful of towns and counties are named after him.

Here are a few exerpts from an article by Clyde N. Wilson on Macon:

“…an important Founding Father almost unknown these days.  Comparing Macon with the politicians of today gives us a benchmark as to how dreadfully far America has degenerated from the principles on which it was founded…Macon was admired because he never changed from the principles with which he began.  What were these principles?  The federal government should be tightly bound by the Constitution.  It should not tax the people and spend money any more than was absolutely necessary for the things it was entitled to do, nor go into debt, which was just a way to make the taxpayers pay interest to the rich.  Eternal vigilance was the price of liberty.  Power was always stealing from the many to the few.  Office-holders were to be watched closely and kept as directly responsible to the citizens as possible.   A few words from Macon in Congress often stopped bills that proposed supposedly attractive measures…As time went on, Macon realised more and more that preserving true republican principles was a losing cause, but in the company of John Randolph and John Taylor he never wavered…But Macon, like Washington and Jefferson, was not important and respected because he was elected to office.  He was elected to office because he was important and respected.  He never campaigned for an office.  He never attended a party caucus.  He never promised anyone patronage to support him.  Macon was elected over and over and revered because of what he was….Macon was more Jeffersonian than Jefferson himself.”

No doubt Macon, along with many other founding fathers, kept slaves and had a troubling and despicable view on the slavery question. And many of these politicians and other later highly lauded politicians, including the often revered Abraham Lincoln, had very racist ideas. But nonetheless, there is much to be learned here about principles of politics and nobility in politics by looking into the history of these men.  Macon, for all his warts, is an example of a early zealous “Dr No”, so to speak.  In a few different ways, he should be an inspiration to those who would boldly against statism.

“The snooty point of it all is that to most of the intellectuals who have entered politics, Americans are a rather dumb lot who, without the help of the elite, would squander their resources, wreck their families, litter the streets, be impolite to their neighbors, lynch everyone is sight, burn the books, break the violins, sack the museums, spit on the pavement, smell, eat garlic, drink beer, belch in public, be unkind to dogs, use abstract paintings as designs in their kitchen linoleum, watch baseball, go to movies with happy endings, scratch themselves, dress unstylishly, and otherwise be helpless clods.

I have found little difference in this attitude between intellectuals who call themselves conservative and those who call themselves liberal. On the other hand, it is not true that all intellectuals feel this way. On the contrary, the people who have most effectively criticized such intellectuals are, not surprisingly, other intellectuals who, although they work with their heads instead of their hands, understand that they are working, that they have a lot in common with, and are not superior to or separate from, people who do other kinds of work. A physicist or a historian is, of course, more likely to be a better physicist or historian than a welder but that may be precisely where the ‘better’ argument starts and should stop– not forgetting that the welder may be a better welder and that, very probably, they’ll all be quite equal in virtually every other skill of living, honesty, decency, regard for others, and so forth.”

Karl Hess in Dear America, 1975, p114-115