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Townhall...
Battling
Bigger Government
by Ed
Feulner
Mar 03,
2012
The
archbishop of Philadelphia. The president of Southwestern Baptist
Theological
Seminary. The head of the Union for Traditional Judaism.
What do
these three eminent religious leaders have in common? They’re among
more than
300 distinguished individuals who have signed a statement by the Becket
Fund
for Religious Liberty protesting the Obama administration’s infamous
“contraception mandate.”
Their
beliefs fall from one end of the theological spectrum to the other. But
all
agree that government has no business forcing every health insurance
plan to
provide “free” abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization.
In reality,
of course, these things aren’t free. The costs will be passed on to
employers,
including those who have moral objections to them. Apparently they’re
expected
to just check their First Amendment rights at the door. Welcome to the
land of
the not-so-free.
The White
House tried to sell a promised “accommodation” of the objections lodged
by
religious groups at an unspecified later date. But the Becket Fund
group, among
others, wasn’t fooled.
“This is a
grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand,” the group
wrote. “It is
an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern
Orthodox
Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to
imagine
that they will accept an assault on their religious liberty if only it
is
covered up by a cheap accounting trick.”
The true
importance of this issue goes deeper than many people realize. Anyone
who
thinks this is merely a scuffle over religion should think again.
Atheists
should be just as alarmed as the most devout Catholics, Protestants,
Jews or
Muslims. That’s because this fight really amounts to the latest
skirmish in a
larger battle over how free we Americans are today.
We’re
living in the age of Unelected Bureaucrats. They can run our lives in
minute
detail, from the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we go
to bed at
night. In the name of “progress,” no area of our lives, no aspect of
society is
left untouched.
“All is
subject to government control, regulatory dictate and administrative
whim,”
writes Matthew Spalding, vice president of American Studies at The
Heritage
Foundation. “Nothing will be allowed outside of the new regulatory
scheme: no
independent state programs, no individuals or businesses permitted not
to
participate, no true private market alternatives.”
Today, it’s
clear that one of the sharpest distinctions between conservatives and
progressives lies in our contrasting attitudes to civil society.
Conservatives,
following Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville, see hope and renewal
coming
from families, churches and civic groups. Progressives see them as
fomenting
prejudice and ignorance.
For
conservatives, social justice is best pursued by restoring community,
familial
love, self-respect and responsibility, all products of a robust civil
society.
Progressives, by contrast, believe that social justice means
redistributing
material wealth.
Today the
“clash of visions” between conservatives and progressives over civil
society is
most apparent in their contrasting responses to the Tea Party movement.
For
conservatives, the Tea Party movement is a classic example of Edmund
Burke’s
“little platoons” springing into action.
Ordinary
Americans, appalled by the sudden, massive expansion of Big Government,
and by
the equally sudden, explosive growth of the national debt, have
spontaneously organized
into associations demanding change. Were Burke alive today, he surely
would
cite the rise of the Tea Party movement as vital to the health and
well-being
of democracy.
It’s
obvious, though, that progressives are unwilling to give up yet.
They’re still
trying to mold society in their image. But can they succeed by
alienating every
major religious group in the country?
When Barack
Obama ran for president in 2008, he said he wanted to be a “uniter.” It
looks
as if he finally got his wish.
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