Time for the soap and water

I just spent the afternoon listening to two Phillips Seminary professors tell Democrats how to outdo the Republicans at using religion to get votes.

Now I feel dirty.

Based on what I heard at this little event, the Democratic Party is headed for disaster. Everything I heard at this event confirmed all the criticisms leveled against the Left by the contributors to the HBL and TIA Daily.

The worst part is that these people absolutely refuse to understand what's really going on in the Republican Party. They're stuck in this fantasy of the GOP as being pro-free-market, pro-individualism and anti-government. While that may have been somewhat true at one time, it certainly is not anymore. The Republican Party of today is committed to neo-conservatism and that means more power, not less - which means more government, not less. Want proof? All you have to do is look at what has happened to the size of the federal government since Bush took office. There's your proof.

Of course I could also mention Ed Gillespie's remark that the Republican Party didn't stand for smaller government anymore. But the final seal for me is the letter to President Bush sent on January 18th by a coalition of religious conservatives calling itself the Arlington Group. In the letter, they told Bush that he had better get behind the anti-Gay-marriage amendment or they will withhold their support for privatizing Social Security. If these people are willing to throw away the best chance we have to reduce the size of the federal government just so they can oppress a few of this country's citizens, they can no longer claim to have any genuine interest in freedom whatsoever.

But try telling that to liberal activists. Of course, part of the problem is that they never had any interest in freedom in the first place. They're all about "community" and how we're all "responsible" for each other and their fantasy that there's no Human Being who's capable of living his life without them. Which is where religion comes in, since that's where they got that idea in the first place ("we are our brothers' keeper").

So if, as Robert Tracinski maintains, the Democratic Party is on its way out, I just didn't have the heart to speak up when the question was asked: could any non-believing candidate get elected these days?

I could have said "Yes, he could." But I didn't: because the non-believing candidate who got elected is Arnold Schwarzenegger - who is an atheist.

And, well, he is a Republican, you know. Not that it says anything good about the Republican Party, but I just couldn't rub it in.

All of which is just more confirmation for me that politics is an effect, not a cause.