Robert Reich’s Religion Problem
Ramesh Ponnuru writes today about Robert Reich’s latest column in The American Prospect. I would link to Reich’s article, but they want $14.95 to read it in toto, so instead I’ll give you their email address so you can tell them what they can do with whatever is it that they do it with. Instead you’ll have to read Ponurro’s article on NRO. Ponurru elucidates Reich’s “liberal religion-bashing” –
He [Reich] says that “the problem” with “religious zealots” is that “they confuse politics with private morality.”
The problem is really the reverse. Liberals, in an effort to take God out of every aspect of public life and stigmatize those who practice it zealously, even if only in “private” life, want to make moral issues simply issues of political opinion. Hillary Clinton speaking about the “common good” is just as obtuse.
Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
Apparently income redistribution serves the common good but passing just laws that keep four thousand babies from being killed each day does not. More from Reich’s article –
The great conflict of the 21st century will not be between the West and terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. The true battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernists; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority; between those who give priority to life in this world and those who believe that human life is mere preparation for an existence beyond life; between those who believe in science, reason, and logic and those who believe that truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma. Terrorism will disrupt and destroy lives. But terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face.
Apart from advances in medicine and technology. what has modernity really given us? Do we have a more perfect ethics than the previous centuries, a greater and more widespread understanding of natural law, a more civil society, or more peace? I hate to break it to him, but we’re back fighting a similar fight to that of Socrates who stood up to the Sophists. We live in an age, as Socrates did, where knowledge has only utility, truth is relative, and the only thing that matters is success and fame. Call me an anti-modernist any day. Incidently, Reich proves the old adage, “Scratch a liberal, find a fascist.” Perhaps he should know about Pascal’s wager as well. Or the logical proofs for the existence of God even. How would he explain the finitude of things or persons? Ultimately they can only be explained by the existence of an infinite being. Don’t buy what the neo-Sophists are selling, Mr. Reich. And don’t pull the un-PC PC routine on people of faith. The rotten fruits of the Enlightenment are communism, nazism, facism, aetheism, secularism, abortion-on-demand, and what else? Modern liberalism. The so-called “Dark Ages” were the height of Medieval philosophy and Christian evangelization. That’s not something you hear from Reich-types who think all people did for centuries was boil stones for soup.
