Founding Principles of the Governance of the United States

Founding Principles of the Governance of the United States

Thomas Allen

Discussed below are some of the founding principles of the United States. They are the relationship of church and state and the destructiveness of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Separation of Church and State

In “Religious Liberty and the Genius of the American Founding,” Imprimis (December 2024 | Volume 53, Number 12), Glenn Ellmers argues that America’s founders solved the problem of establishing the sacredness of the law while avoiding religious conflict and persecution. They combined human reason and divine revelation to establish religious liberty. (First, today, the country lacks reason. Second, whose religion is used to establish the sacredness of the law? Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all claim to be descended from Abraham’s religion. Yet, they are incompatible with each other. Further, Hinduism, which is growing rapidly in the United States, is even more incompatible.)

The Founding Fathers recognized that people “are born into both a physical and moral world that” they did not create. American politics was built on this foundation. (Unfortunately, many American political, religious, academic, business, and other leaders have been diligently working to destroy this foundation.)

Next, Ellmers discusses the problems that the Founding Fathers solved. “First, they solved the split between piety and citizenship by supplying a common ground for morality.”  With reasoning, people can understand the difference between virtue and vice. Thus, “the law can enforce moral precepts that are acknowledged by both political and ecclesiastical authorities.” (What about vices that some religious authorities recognize as vice, but political authorities do not? Gambling is an example that some religious authorities condemn, but many political authorities do not. Through State-sponsored lotteries, some States use gambling as a source of revenue. This action prevents them from considering gambling as immoral, although some religious authorities do.)

“Second, this common ground of morality makes it possible to delineate in a clear way the political and religious realms.” Thus, “the separation of church and state becomes possible.” The Declaration of Independence’s “teaching about the laws of nature and nature’s God establishes a kind of political theology, a non-sectarian ground of legitimacy that makes the laws ‘sacred’ without getting the government involved in theological disputes about the Trinity, faith versus works, etc.” 

“Third, the Founders solved the problem of religious persecution. Because the government and the churches can agree on a moral code that is compatible with both reason and revelation, each can operate in its proper realm without intruding on the other.” Consequently, a religious test for office was prohibited. (Although no government today requires a religious test for office, some States in the early years of the United States did.)

(What happens if the law is used to protect immorality instead of prohibiting it? Abortion and sexual immorality, such as homosexual acts and miscegenation, are examples. Abortion and abortionists are protected in many States. Likewise, homosexual marriages and miscegenation are protected in all States. Yet, traditional Christianity condemns them as sins that should be legally prohibited. When the political realm [reason] conflicts with the religious realm [revelation], the political realm prevails, at least in this world, because it wields the rifles.

In spite of the separation of church and state, today, the political realm has chosen the religion of secular humanism as the state religion. When it conflicts with the other religions, the political realm [the government] nearly always sides with secular humanism.)

The Fourteenth Amendment

The  Fourteenth Amendment is unconstitutional because it is incongruent with fundamental principles of the Constitution that it amended. Not only was it ratified unlawfully and illegally, but it also violates at least three basic principles underlying the Constitution. 

(1) The Fourteenth Amendment usurped the sovereignty of the people of each State and gave it to the oligarchs who controlled the federal government. Before the Fourteenth Amendment, the States were independent nations that were members of a federation. The federal government was their agent that attended to foreign affairs and a few domestic issues. It had no sovereignty. Accordingly, the Constitution of 1788 was a contract between independent sovereign republics, which created an agent, the federal government, to carry out specific and limited activities. The Fourteenth Amendment voided that contract and usurped all the sovereignty and powers of the States, the parties to the contract, and placed them in the federal government. Now, the States have only those powers that the federal government condescends to grant them. Thus, the Fourteenth Amendment changed the United States from a federation of sovereign republican States to an empire.

(2) It changed the fundamental principle of citizenship. Before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, individuals were considered citizens of the United States by being citizens of a State. After the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, individuals became citizens of a State by being citizens of the United States.

(3) (This one will really anger most people, especially conservatives and libertarians.) The Constitution was written by Whites, for Whites, and only for Whites. The Fourteenth Amendment changed the Constitution from being monoracial to being multiracial by making Negroes citizens. Consequently, it changed the United States from a White country for Whites only to a multiracial country (and all today's problems with nonwhite immigration). 

Consequently, because the Fourteenth Amendment is incompatible with the underlying principles of the Constitution and is, therefore, unconstitutional, courts should ignore it until it is repealed.

Before Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, the States were independent sovereign republics. After Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, the States lost their independence, sovereignty, and republican form of government and became little more than administrative districts in a consolidated empire.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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King on Pilgrimage to Nonviolence

King on Pilgrimage to Nonviolence

Thomas Allen

In “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963, 2010), pages 155–164, Martin Luther King, Jr. discusses liberal theology, neo-orthodoxy, existentialism, social gospel, Gandhi’s nonviolent tactics, and the influence that they had on him. The following is a critical review of King’s essay.

King remarks that he was raised in a strict fundamental tradition. However, the theological seminary changed him. He states, “Liberalism provided me with an intellectual satisfaction that I had never found in fundamentalism.” (P. 155.) Thus, he fell in love with liberalism. He writes, “I was absolutely convinced of the natural goodness of man and the natural power of human reason.” (P. 155.)

Later, however, he began to question some theories associated with liberal theology. Nevertheless, the “contribution of liberalism to the philological-historical criticism of biblical literature has been of immeasurable value and should be defended with religious and scientific passion.” (P. 156.)

King “began to question the liberal doctrine of man.” (P. 156.) He “came to recognize the complexity of man’s social involvement and the glaring reality of collective evil.” (P. 156.) (Collective evil rises from the sinful nature of individuals.)

Another problem that King found with liberal theology was that it “overlooked the fact that reason is darkened by sin.” (P. 156.) He discovered that “sin encourages us to rationalize our actions.” (P. 156.) “Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.” (P. 156.) (Thus, King understood the flaws of liberal theology concerning human nature and its underrating sin.)

Although King “rejected some aspects of liberalism, . . . [he] never came to an all-out acceptance of neo-orthodoxy.” (P. 156.) He found liberalism to be too optimistic about human nature and neo-orthodoxy to be too pessimistic. A major problem with neo-orthodoxy is that it “went to the extreme of stressing a God who was hidden, unknown, and ‘wholly other.’” (P. 157.) Moreover, it “fell into a mood of antirationalism and semi-fundamentalism, stressing a narrow uncritical Biblicism.” (P. 157.)

For King, neither liberal theology nor neo-orthodoxy satisfactorily described the nature of man. “A large segment of Protestant liberalism defined man only in terms of his essential nature, his capacity for good; neo-orthodoxy tended to define man only in terms of his existential nature, his capacity for evil.” (P. 157.) King found the truth in a synthesis of the two “that reconciles the truths of both.” (P. 157.)

Then, King discusses his “appreciation for the philosophy of existentialism.” (P. 157.) He was “convinced that existentialism . . . had grasped certain basic truths about man and his condition. . . .” (P. 157.) Existentialism gave King an “understanding of the ‘finite freedom’ of man.” (P. 157.) Also, it gave him an understanding “of the anxiety and conflict produced in man’s personal and social life by the perilous and ambiguous structure of existence.” (P. 157.)

Continuing, King remarks that after entering the theological seminary, he began  “a serious intellectual quest for a method that would eliminate social evil.” (P. 158.) (That is, granting Negroes special privileges and benefits and discriminating against Whites.) He “was immediately influenced by the social gospel.” (P. 158.) (That is preaching socialism and communism instead of the gospel of Jesus and worshiping the state instead of the Father of Jesus.)

Then, King writes, “The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but also his body, not only his spiritual well-being but also his material well-being.” (P. 159.) He chastises religions that express concern for the soul but little concern “about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them.” (P. 159.) These religions are spiritually moribund. (Today, most denominations have followed King’s advice and have focused on man’s economic and social conditions at the expense of focusing on the salvation of his soul and morality. As a result, they have become spiritually moribund.)

Next, King discusses his encounter with the teachings of Gandhi, which taught him about nonviolent resistance. (King was a poor student because nearly everywhere he went, he left a trail of blood and destruction. Basically, his nonviolent tactic was to create a situation that would cause a violent reaction from his opponent. Despite his denial, such a tactic is not nonviolent.) He concludes “that the Christian doctrine of love, operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence, is one of the most potent weapons available to an oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.” (P. 159.) (Contrary to his assertions, King failed at merging love with nonviolence. Never did he show any love for segregationists and seldom for Southerners. Moreover, many of his protests were filled with violence. Most of the others threatened violence if Whites did not surrender unconditionally to King’s demands.)

Although the Montgomery protest was violent, King claimed that it convinced him of the power of nonviolence. (As most of his later protests were violent or threatened violence, he must have been convinced that nonviolence would not achieve his goals. His preaching of nonviolence was for propaganda purposes.) He declares, “Nonviolence became more than a method to which I gave intellectual assent; it became a commitment to a way of life.” (P. 160.) (Based on his action, King gave nonviolence only intellectual assent, but he never committed to it as a way of life — except in words.)

Next, King comments on his pilgrimage to India. He witnessed “the amazing results of a nonviolent struggle to achieve independence. The aftermath of hatred and bitterness that usually follows a violent campaign was found nowhere in India.” (P. 160.) Great Britain and India remained friendly within the British Commonwealth. (First, politically, the British left India. Although King may have wanted many Whites to have no political voice in the United States, he wanted to increase the political voice of Negroes. If India is an analogy for the United States, the Whites, who are the majority, would be the Indians, and the minority Negroes would be the British and, therefore, leave the country or at least eliminate their political influence. Second, King proved that his protests were violent because their aftermath left hatred and bitterness. Only the victors hated and were bitter. Even decades after the Negroes won everything that King fought for and more, the destructiveness of the “peaceful” demonstrations of Black Lives Matter revealed the hatred and bitterness that the victors had for the defeated.)

Then, King notes that following the Montgomery protest, many Southerners were bitter toward the Negro leaders “even though these leaders have sought to follow a way of love and nonviolence.” (P. 161.) (First, the Montgomery protest was violent. King and his followers had created a situation that they knew would result in violence. Second, many Southerners correctly saw that King had initiated a war to destroy the South and its society and culture and eventually to genocide Southerners. Love does not cause people to seek the destruction and genocide of an ethnicity. Since King sought to destroy the South, love did not guide him.)

Continuing, King asserts that the nonviolent approach gives people who are committed to it “new self-respect. It calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had.” (P. 161.) Moreover, “it so stirs the conscience of the opponent that reconciliation becomes a reality.” (P. 161.) (Reconciliation never became a reality. King and other civil rights leaders forced Southerners and later the remainder of American Whites to surrender unconditionally.)

Next, King discusses using “the method of nonviolence in international relations.” (P. 161.) Once, he believed that war “might be preferable to surrender to a totalitarian system.” (P. 161.) However, he later changed his mind because of “the potential destructiveness of modern weapons.” (P. 161.) (How much did his Communist advisors have to do with King changing his mind? Further, when his association with Communists and his Communist training are considered, one must wonder if his definition of peace was a lack of violence or a lack of resisting Communism. Judging from his actions, one must conclude that he meant the latter.) Correctly, he asserts that “we must find an alternative to war and destruction.” (P. 161.) (Unfortunately, King did not find an alternative to war. He and his followers warred against the South and then the rest of the country. Moreover, King’s followers have continued to war against Whites long after Whites had surrendered unconditionally to the Negroes — as Black Lives Matter protests and riots illustrate.)

Correctly, King states that he is no doctrinarian pacifist. (He proved that he was not with his war against the South.) He contends that the church “must call for an end to the arms race.” (P. 161.)

Then, King discusses his sufferings and the lessons that they taught him. Instead of reacting with bitterness, he sought “to transform the suffering into a creative force.” (P. 162.) His suffering drew him closer to God. (Whether his God is Yahweh, the Father of Jesus, is debatable.) 

In closing, King rejoices in his coming victory. However, he errs when he writes, “Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away; new systems of justice and equality are being born.” (P. 163.) (Unfortunately, the old system of exploitation and oppression was replaced by a new system of exploitation and oppression. Nevertheless, more equality exists today than when he wrote. However, since equality requires exploitation and oppression, more exploitation and oppression exist today than then. As a result, less justice exists today — for example, sending innocent Whites, such as  Derek Chauvin, to prison. Nevertheless, King would have little objection to today’s exploitation and oppression because Negroes are exploiting and oppressing Whites.)

King has a good understanding of some of the flaws of liberal theology. With a good degree of accuracy, he discusses flaws of both liberal theology and neo-orthodoxy and how each fails to describe correctly the nature of man. Further, he discusses how existentialism influenced him and his journey down the road of the social gospel. Also, he discusses his use of Gandhi’s technique. However, he fails to discuss his Communist training, such as the training that he received at the Highlander Folk School run by Marxist Myles Horton.

Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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King on The Answer to a Perplexing Question

King on The Answer to a Perplexing Question

Thomas Allen

In "The Answer to a Perplexing Question," Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963, 2010), pages 133–143, Martin Luther King, Jr. discusses evil and faith. The following is a critical review of King’s essay.

Beginning, King writes, “Human life through the centuries has been characterized by man’s persistent efforts to remove evil from the earth.” (P. 133.) Throughout this essay, he discusses evil. Most people seldom adjust to evil. No matter how much they may relish evil, their conscience lets them know that they are wrong. (This statement is not true for people who have been indoctrinated in wokeism. Much of what they perceive as evil is not evil, and much of what they perceive as not evil is evil. Also, psychopaths, who often occupy high-ranking positions in governments, businesses, and other institutions, have no conscience and, therefore, do not consider their evil actions as evil.)

However, man cannot “conquer evil by his own power.” (P. 134.) He needs the Divine to conquer evil — which is true.

Then, King proceeds to discuss how evil can be cast out. The first way “calls upon man to remove evil through his own power and ingenuity in the strange conviction that by thinking, inventing, and governing, he will at last conquer the nagging forces of evil.” (P. 134.) If people are given “a fair chance and a decent education,” (p. 134) they can save themselves. In the modern world, this approach is the most common. (Contrary to what King would claim, this approach is what he used to overcome segregation. He used the earthly approach of raw, naked force of governments.) Continuing, he discusses how man has used this approach to solve his problems. “Armed with this growing faith in the capability of reason and science, modern man set out to change the world.” (P. 135.)

After describing how science has greatly improved people’s lives, King notes that “in spite of these astounding new scientific developments, the old evils continue and the age of reason has been transformed into an age of terror.” (P. 138.) Despite expanding educational opportunities and enacting more legislative social policies, selfishness and hatred still exist. (First, being sinners, people will never rid themselves of hatred and selfishness. King did not. Second, the public schools and universities indoctrinate their students to hate Whites. Further, selfishness is the primary force behind most legislation – forcibly taking from some and giving to others.) Then, King answers why man has failed: “Man by his own power can never cast evil from the world.” (P. 136.) Correctly, he states the reason that the secular humanist’s approach has failed: It places “too great an optimism concerning the inherent goodness of human nature.” (P. 136.) It has failed because it has forgotten “about man’s capacity for sin.” (P. 136.)

Next, King discusses the second approach to removing evil from the world. “The second idea for removing evil from the world stipulates that if man waits submissively upon the Lord, in his own good time God alone will redeem the world.” (P. 137.) (When it came to replacing segregation with integration, King could not wait on the Lord. He took the humanist approach of violent protest, which he called nonviolent [just as the violent protests of Black Lives Matter were called peaceful protests], and the violent force of governments.) The second approach is based on “a pessimistic doctrine of human nature, this idea, which eliminates completely the capability of sinful man to do anything.” (P. 137.) This approach “was prominent in the Reformation, that great spiritual movement that gave birth to the Protestant concern for moral and spiritual freedom and served as a necessary corrective for a corrupt and stagnant medieval church.” (P. 137.) While the Reformation overstressed the corruption of man, the Renaissance was too optimistic. The Renaissance “so concentrated on the goodness of man that it overlooked his capacity for evil . . . [whereas the Reformation] so concentrated on the wickedness of man that it overlooked his capacity for goodness.”

King condemns a theology that emphasizes “a purely otherworldly religion, which stresses the utter hopelessness of this world and calls upon the individual to concentrate on preparing his soul for the world to come.” (P. 137.) Such theology ignores the need for social reform and divorces religion from the mainstream of human life. (It seems that the more a Christian denomination focuses on social reform, the more that denomination fades into irrelevance.)

According to King, religion should deal with both body and soul. That is, “the church must seek to transform both individual lives and the social situation that brings to many people anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.” (P. 138.)

Then, King writes, “The idea that man expects God to do everything leads inevitably to a callous misuse of prayer.” (P. 138.) (Thus, King justifies his violent nonviolent tactics.) He does not believe that Negroes should wait for God to answer their prayers for integration; they should protest. (That God would answer their prayers for integration is doubtful since God is a segregationist. Consequently, King is correct when he asserts that Negroes need to protest for integration instead of waiting for God.)

For King, prayer is supplemental to his struggle for social justice for his people. (In other words, God is to play a minor role in the civil rights movement so that King could get most, if not all, the credit and glory.) Negroes must not depend on God to bring them social justice. (Social justice means special benefits and privileges for Negroes and discrimination against Whites.) 

Although they should pray, Negroes must organize themselves into violent nonviolent action and employ all their resources to obtain social justice. Likewise, Negroes need to take the same action for economic justice, i.e., a better distribution of wealth, both nationally and globally.

King is convinced that God will not remove evil from the earth even if people do nothing. (His thinking is contrary to the Bible. Evil, sin, remains until Jesus returns and establishes his kingdom. These actions of Jesus depend on God’s will regardless and independent of man’s actions. One of King’s theological problems is that he believes that people are inherently good, especially nonwhites, instead of being inherently sinners — except Southerners and segregationists, who are inherently evil.)

However, King is correct when he writes that “man is neither totally depraved, nor is God an almighty dictator.” (P. 139.) Then, he writes, “How can evil be cast out of our individual and collective lives?” (P. 140.) The answer is that “both man and God, made one in a marvelous unity of purpose through an overflowing love as the free gift of himself on the part of God and by perfect obedience and receptivity on the part of man, can transform the old into the new and drive out the deadly cancer of sin.” (P. 140.) Thus, God works through people in faith. (To accomplish this goal, man would have to become like Jesus, which he cannot do as long as he possesses a sinful nature. Further, it will not work for King’s idea of social justice because his idea is contrary to God’s.)

Then, King describes two types of faith. “One may be called the mind’s faith, wherein the intellect assents to a belief that God exists. The other may be referred to as the heart’s faith, whereby the whole man is involved in a trusting act of self-surrender.” (P. 141.) For King, heart faith is much more important than head faith. (Heart faith is emotional; it is how one feels. Emotions come and go; therefore, heart faith is fickle. Head faith, intellect, is much more stable and changes slowly if at all.)

Continuing, King states, “Racial justice, a genuine possibility in our nation and in the world, will come neither by our frail and often misguided efforts nor by God imposing his will on wayward men but when enough people open their lives to God and allow him to pour his triumphant, divine energy into their souls.” (P. 141.) (From King’s perspective, social justice arrived not long after he died. Except for a guaranteed income, Negroes have received more benefits and privileges than King advocated. Further, God must hate Whites because Albusphobia now fills the planet. Thus, according to King, when God fills a person and that person opens his life by faith in God, the result is overflowing Negrophilia and Albusphobia — at least, that is the result of what he preached.)

Then, King applies his discussion of faith to personal lives. (Based on his womanizing and marriage infidelity, King failed to follow his advice. Did he fail because he tried to eliminate his evil habits on his own without God’s help? Or, did he fail because he expected God to eliminate his evil habits? Perhaps, he did not consider womanizing and marriage infidelity sins, and, therefore, he had no evil habits to eliminate.)

Concluding, King remarks, “Evil can be cast out, not by man alone nor by a dictatorial God who invades our lives but when we open the door and invite God through Christ to enter.” (P. 143.)

In this essay, King discusses evil and faith. However, he gives sinful man too much credit for his ability to eradicate evil from the world. Evil will remain until Christ’s return and the final judgments take place. Furthermore, what King considers good, racial integration, is what God considers sin.

Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Principled Conservatism

Principled Conservatism

Thomas Allen

Conservatism is a tone or attitude; it is not a set of principles. This attitude rests on the wisdom of the ages and is highly skeptical of utopian schemes, such as socialism in all its forms. Thus, the wisdom of the ages, the accumulated wisdom of generations, tradition, guides conservatism instead of abstract speculation. Nevertheless, conservatism does not eschew principles.

What conservatives seek to conserve is not what happened a few years ago or even decades ago. They seek to conserve the consensus of their civilization over the centuries since it reflects the truth derived from its being.

Moreover, conservatives reject universality. They affirm selectivity and particularism; thus, they are tribal. Also, conservatives think in terms of individual men instead of in terms of mankind or humanity as do liberals and neoconservatives.

The following describes a principled conservative, also known as a traditional American conservative. Among the principled conservatives are Jeffersonian-Calhounians, paleoconservatives, traditional Southern conservatives, fusionists, and the Old Right. Principled conservatives should not be confused with neoconservatives, establishment conservatives, or enlightened conservatives. (Establishment conservatives are conservatives who are not neoconservatives, enlightened conservatives, or principled conservatives; they include Hamiltonian-Lincolnians, big-government conservatives, the typical Republican politicians, and Buckleyites. Enlightened conservatives are the New Conservatives of the 1950s represented by Russell Kirk and who subordinate the individual to society, subordinate freedom to virtue [for them, virtue is freedom] and rights to duty, subordinate reason to undifferentiated tradition to the point of rejecting reasoning, scorn reason and principle, reduce virtue to prudence, and depend heavily on Providence.)

What follows is a description of the typical principled conservative. The typical principled conservative:

– opposes designs for the perfecting human nature and society;

– scorns uniformity, egalitarianism, utilitarianism, materialism, pragmatism, scientism, and positivism;

– prefers the familiar to the unknown, the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, and the convenient to the perfect;

– is partial to the present;

– is disinclined toward doctrine or creed and, therefore, objects to the notion that the United States are a creedal nation;

– eschews the abstract;

– rejects Rationalism and Universalism but does not reject rationality and universality as such;

– cherishes both individuality and plurality;

– believes in absolute truths and absolute values;

– believes that truth is objective and eternal;

– is not a reactionary seeking an unrecoverable lost past;

– rejects the notions of the perfect life of man, the illimitable progress of society, and materialistic determination;

– has an affection for the proliferation of variety and the mystery of human existence;

– dismisses the notion of man as a manipulable, mutable being whom social engineers can shape;

– affirms that utopia degrades man;

– believes, unlike collectivist liberals, that man is more than a tool-bearing gregarious animal whose end is material welfare;

– maintains that moral and spiritual virtues are the true end of man;

– sees man as an imperfect being, who cannot be molded into perfection (besides, perfection is subjective, and what one modeler sees as perfection, another sees as imperfection);

– believes that all people are (or should be) equal before the law (and even this equality is a chimera because of the differences in judges, jurors, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and law enforcers) but objects to universal egalitarianism (the equality of all people in all respects, e.g., all people are equal in intelligence, ability, and potentiality);

– maintains that the individual is the locus of virtue in the social order and this virtue is based on the moral and intellectual order that has been passed from generation to generation; 

– accepts the historical idea that man is a rational, volitional, autonomous individual, a free being who lives between good and evil, truth and error, and who fulfills his destiny in the choices that he makes;

– understands that innate freedom is the essence of man’s being — and upon this axiom is his (the principled conservatives) political thoughts founded;

– is a proponent of tradition and prefers the traditional to the pragmatic when the two conflict;

– holds that principles should be derived mostly by convection and compromise and tested by long experience;

– favors an epistemology rooted in tradition and morality of particularity;

– distinguishes, unlike enlightened conservatives, between the good and evil traditions — using reasoning to distinguish among the possibilities;

– protects the tradition and applies it to new situations;

– does not avert change per se but does avert rapid change;

– is hesitative about change and innovation and is selective about which changes and innovations to accept;

– believes that change should be a slow and natural alteration and not some present infatuation;

– believes that change should come because of a need generally felt, not inspired by abstractions;

– prefers innovations that approximate natural growth, that is, they are intimate in the situation, and are no merely imposed;

– thus, favors change that responds to a specific defect while opposing change that is primarily designed to improve the conditions of human circumstances;

– favors change that is small and limited while opposing change that is large and indefinite;

– opposes radical change and innovation;

– cautions against change not because he opposes change but because of the severe limitation of an individual’s knowledge;

– opposes change for the sake of change, i.e., the lust for change;

– believes that tradition needs to guide reason;

– objects to the Rationalist’s idea of reason divorced from tradition, custom, and habit;

– opposes rationalist ideologies derived solely by reasoning in part because they are inflexible;

– accepts using reason operating within the bounds of tradition but opposes abstract reasoning;

– acknowledges that knowledge is a form of tradition because it passes from one generation to another;

– holds that the knowledge of any individual or group of individuals is insignificant compared with the knowledge of the nations and ages;

– conceives of knowledge as the search for and the acceptance of truth and not as the acquisition of power to control and manipulate man and nature;

– asserts that moral knowledge is gained from tradition;

– objects to the Rationalist’s notion of moral knowledge being abstract and universal, but does not reject moral universality because the development and exercise of universal moral truths depend on tradition;

– believes that morality is tradition-specific and depends on a particular time, place, and relationship (morality or moral doctrines include individualism, pluralism, natural rights, human rights, the principle of utility, categorical imperative, and social contract);

– accepts morality as consisting of principles and ideals that are universal and acknowledges that they are abstractions construed from tradition but rejects the Rationalist’s notion that they are timeless, transcultural, and tradition-neutral; that is, these principles and ideals arrive from tradition and do not beget tradition;

– places the absolute moral values of Western civilization above relativism, which he loathes;

– opposes the notion that society can be compelled with a plan of supratemporal ideals;

– maintains that rights are settled by convention and are not universal abstractions; 

– holds that freedom is the first criterion of political order;

– acknowledges that freedom is essential to the nature of man and is neutral to virtue and vice, yet man has the duty to seek virtue;

– argues that rights are inherently derived from the nature of man; rights are not derived from society or the state;

– asserts that every individual has the right to live uncoerced by force or fraud in possession of his life, liberty, and property;

– asserts that each person has the duty to obey moral laws by which he respects the rights of others to their lives, liberties, and property — failure to do so results in the forfeiture of his rights and freedoms;

– promotes the freedom to choose, free will; therefore, man cannot be forced to be free;

– contends that although man may be forced to act virtuously, he cannot be forced to be virtuous — only when an individual is free to choose virtue or vice can he be virtuous;

– advocates freedom from and opposes freedom for, which is not freedom at all but a set of conceived ends;

– demands the right to bear arms (thus, condemning all forms of gun control) and all the other inalienable rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights;

– objects to political correction, speech codes, counterculture, cancel culture, sensitivity training, and other similar absurdities;

– values loyalty and sees patriotism as a virtue and not a vice;

– maintains that the United States are a European country and a White or Aryan country and, therefore, their people are a European people;

– believes that the United States are an integral part of European civilization, i.e., Western civilization;

– believes in racial preservation (or at least, use to be but now, regrettably, is most likely a racial nihilist who practices the new morality of sacrificing the races on the altar of humanity);

– opposes miscegenation and policies, such as integration, that lead to miscegenation (unfortunately, those who have become racial nihilists have abandoned this opposition);

– opposes immigration of nonwhites (unfortunately, those who have become racial nihilists have abandoned this opposition);

– supports the traditional family, which is the basic unit of human society, and, therefore, opposes weakening the family by encouraging sexual licentiousness, homosexuality, and miscegenation, and subverting the authority of the parents;

– is pro-life and, therefore, opposes abortion;

– opposes inheritance and estate taxes (they are antifamily taxes) and the  progressive income tax;

– maintains that the United States are a Christian country and, therefore, opposes attempts to deny or weaken this Christian heritage;

– opposes governmental efforts to deny people their rights of religious expression and worship;

– believes in traditional education controlled by the parents instead of the government and, therefore, disapproves of the government acquiring the job of educating children (public education);

– supports teaching traditional virtues and how to think instead of what to think and, therefore, opposes using schools to indoctrinate students with propaganda to tear down traditional values and loyalties;

– asserts that the function of schools and colleges is to train the mind and to transmit the culture and tradition of the civilization to the young; thus, opposes training students for life adjustment through life experience via free activity where the teacher imposes nothing and where current prejudices are taught instead of values, which leads to value nihilism and political collectiveness, which are the basis of the current educational system;

–  argues that society and state were made for man and man is not made for them — unlike socialists in all their forms, who believe that man is secondary to society and state;

– rejects the notion that society is a real entity, a living organism, with a life, rights, and moral duties of its own and, therefore, does not consider society an organism morally superior to people, nor is it a being with a corporate personality that has rights;

– considers the individual as the essential moral entity and society as merely a set of relations between persons;

– believes in a transcendental order, a body of natural laws, that rule society and conscience;

– maintains that civilize society requires orders and classes;

– opposes people who attempt or want to reconstruct society on an abstract design;

– favors a society based on noninstrumental rules of conduct, i.e., rules that do not specify a practice or routine to promote or hinder the achievement of some substantive purpose but prescribes how to live harmoniously;

– promotes a society where citizens are regarded as individuals who may severally or collectively engage in many self-chosen activities;

– maintains that all value resides in the individual and that all social institutions derive their value from individuals;

– holds that social institutions are justified only when they serve the needs of individuals;

– defines the state as a definite group of people, distinct and separate from other people, who possess a monopoly of legal coercive force; it is not an organism or being with a life of its own independent of the people who comprise it; moreover, it is not one with the citizens whom it governs in a holistic unity;

– declares that the purpose of the state is to ensure the peaceful coexistence among citizens holding diverse and disparate ideas of moral truths instead of promoting or imposing moral truth;

– identifies two natural functions of the state: (1) to protect the rights of citizens against violent or fraudulent assaults, which includes protecting citizens from assaults by foreign forces and (2) to judge conflicts of rights with rights;

– treats the state (government) as a civil association, i.e., people associating solely in their obligations to observe the law (people are not told what to do but how to do whatever they choose to do);

– maintains that the government of a state is not a manager but is an umpire, the custodian of the rules;

– affirms that the state ought to be limited to its proper function of preserving order;

– opposed the state (government) being used to bring about some specific goal or ideal;

– holds that the state has the duty to respect the rights and freedoms of individuals and to guarantee these rights and freedoms by restraining those who trespass against the lives, liberties, and property of others;

– abhors the notion of using the state (government) to create and impose a utopia;

– sees the state as necessary to maintain social order, which is necessary for a harmonious society;

– supports small, limited government;

– asserts that the sole purpose of government is to rule; therefore, objects to the government being used to impose beliefs and activities on the people, to educate them, to make them better or happier, or to direct them to undertake specific activities;

– holds that governing is specific and limited to providing general rules of conduct to enable people to pursue activities of their own choice instead of imposing substantive activity and, therefore, opposes the government enacting positive laws directing people how to live;

– prefers the constitution that the founding fathers gave the United States to the one that Lincoln gave them, which is the one under which they now operate;

– maintains that the United States consists of 50 sovereign nations or bodies politics, States, as set out in the original Constitution and founding documents (Regrettably, most likely has abandoned the Constitution that the founding fathers gave the country in favor of the Constitution that Lincoln and the Radical Republicans gave it; thus, he claims that the United States is a sovereign nation.)

– adheres to the doctrine of States’ rights;

– remonstrates all treaties, agreements, conventions, alliances, international organizations, etc. that impinge on the sovereignty and independence of the United States or any State;

– opposes the Supreme Court and other federal courts revising the Constitution and rewriting federal and State statutes;

– condemns bureaucrats issuing and enforcing administrative decrees (regulations) that interfere with personal liberty and dignity, private property, and the sanctity of the family;

– favors the dispersal and decentralization of political and economic power and abhors the concentration and centralization of political and economic power;

– advocates a free-market, free-enterprise economy;

– ardently supports private ownership of property and the right of the owner to control his property;

– advocates an economy that is independent of the state (government) and, therefore, loathes governmental economic planning no matter the form;

– opposes Marxism in all its forms (communism, fascism, national socialism, democratic socialism, etc.) and Keynesianism and related economic systems (such as the current economic system of the United States) — thus, opposing all economic systems designed to control the economy;

– loathes the notion that bureaucrats can better invest capital than capitalists can;

– abhors the notion that bureaucrats know better how consumers should spend their money than consumers do;

– opposes governmental control of credit and interest rates either directly or indirectly through its central bank;

– opposes the redistribution of wealth including the redistribution of wealth through punitive taxation or inflation;

– rejects egalitarianism and accepts unequal acquisition of property, wealth, influence, honor, etc. and the right to pass them to the heirs of the holder; the only equality that he supports is the equal right of all men to be free from coercion against their life, liberty, and property;

– opposes greed and the drive to exploit and prefers to enjoy rather than to exploit;

– has the propensity to use and enjoy what is available instead of longing for something else;

– favors a foreign policy that places the interest of the United States first;

– prefers peace to war;

– believes that the United States armed forces should only be used to defend the territory of the United States;

– opposes meddling in the affairs of other countries and an interventionist foreign policy;

– views welfarism, the welfare state, with disfavor;

– disapproves of the government providing insurance against the hazards of life;

– prefers voluntary aid associations and programs to governmental welfare programs;

– supports protecting the environment;

Thus, a principled conservative esteems tradition, is cautious about change, and is devoted to the preservation, maintenance, and extension of the tradition of freedom and virtue. He uses tradition as a guide for reasoning and reason to distinguish between desirable traditions and undesirable traditions.

Further, the essential principles of the principled conservative are virtue and liberty, the freedom of the individual. Virtue depends on freedom, and virtue should be the goal of freedom. (This goal requires the government to be limited to providing general rules of conduct to maintain the social order by protecting the rights of citizens against violent or fraudulent assaults, which includes protecting citizens from assaults by foreign forces, and judging conflicts of rights with rights; however, it should never be used to impose beliefs and activities.)

A principled conservative is skeptical of collectivism and statism as they move toward totalitarianism. He favors the primacy of the individual, which requires the division of power, that is, limited government and a free economy.

Moreover, a principled conservative abhors attempts to establish a utopia and the notion that society and mankind are perfectible, yet he strives to improve human institutions and conditions. Thus, he trusts the free function of free individuals either individually or in voluntary cooperation.

Some principled conservatives may deviate from several of the above items. However, most principled conservatives adhere to nearly all, if not all, of these items.

Reference

Francis, Samuel. “Statement of Principles [of the Council of the Conservative Citizens].” 2005.

Gottfried, Paul Edward. Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right. New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007.

Kerwick, Misguided Guardians: The Conservative Case against Neoconservatives. Las Vegas, Nevada: Stairway Press, 2016.

Meyer, Frank S. In Defense of Freedom and Related Essays. Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1996.

Personal observations and other articles.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Neoconservatives

Neoconservatives

Thomas Allen

Neoconservatism grew out of Jewish conservatism but primarily out of Jewish liberalism and anticommunism (mainly Jewish anticommunism). What follows is a description of the typical neoconservative. The typical neoconservative:

– is an egalitarian, a statist, and a rationalist;

– inclines toward pragmatism;

– is forever future-oriented;

– is a social justice conservative and compassionate conservative;

– promotes equality and antiracism;

– is an anticommunist, but does not oppose the Communist organized and controlled civil rights movement;

– despises Russians, who are second only to Southerners as the cause of America’s problems;

– is an ardent Zionist, who promotes an Israel-first foreign policy for the Middle East;

– opposes any country that presents a threat to the American and especially Israeli imperialism — even too wanting to attack militarily such a country — although he cannot conceive of the United States or Israel as imperialistic;

– although he condemns segregation and discrimination, supports Israel’s segregation of and discrimination against Palestinians, who deserve no rights;

— often acts as though most Americans, especially Blacks, who discriminate against Jews are antisemitic;

– is convinced that Jews can do no wrong and do not control anything, especially the presstitute media, Hollywood, medicine, banking, and finances, even though the CEOs and other high ranking corporate officials are often Jews, and vehemently condemns anyone who claims otherwise as an antisemite (if a perpetrator or corporate official is a Jew, his Jewishness is ignored or concealed);

– believes or claims to believe the official governmental conspiracy theory of 9-11;

– most likely, admires, reveres, and supports the American Empire that the Yankees built although he probably rejects the notion that it is an empire;

– favors power politics and prefers war to peace;

– believes that America was built on the proposition that all men are created equal instead of being built on race and consanguinity, and unlike other nations is not a genetic nation;

– believes in political equality (democracy — except Palestinians should not be allowed to vote in Israel) and social equality (integration, amalgamation, miscegenation), but opposes economic equality (socialism);

– adheres to the notion that the United States is (their verb, instead of “are,” the correct verb) a propositional (creedal) country dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal” and it has been foreordained by God to force this concept on the rest of the world, that is, America is an exceptional nation that is divinely destined to impose equality and democracy on the rest of the world (except the Palestinians);

– claims that equality is universal and the premier God-given unalienable right of all humanity;

– asserts that patriotism is an affirmation that the principle of equality is the core of America’s founding and that race and ethnicity, which historically has defined  patriotism, are irrelevant;

– considers traditional patriotism of loyalty to one’s country (territory), race, people (ethnicity), family, and traditions as evil and a vice and not a virtue; thus, defining patriotism as loyalty to the abstract doctrine of American exceptionalism, America’s form of government (liberal democracy), and equality of natural rights;

– places universalism, i.e., giving equal consideration to all people whom an action may affect (although unreconstructed Southerners and Palestinians seem to be exceptions) above patriotism;

– opposes a foreign policy based on isolationism, liberal internationalism (multinationalism), or realism (interest in terms of power);

– seeks to destroy the Soviet Union (now replaced by a desire to destroy Russia);

– believes in the Puritan idea that the United States is the “City upon a Hill” and, therefore, is destined to bring universal peace and harmony to the world by establishing a benevolent global hegemony (all this is accomplished when everyone in the world becomes the image of the Puritan Yankee);

– favors the government intervening to promote unalienable natural rights (described below) domestically and internationally — even using force when necessary to impose them;

– like the Yankee and Progressive, is inclined toward utopian ideals;

– prefers homogeneity to plurality;

– like the liberal, favors a designed order over a spontaneously evolved order;

– prefers the motto of the French Revolution, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” to the motto of the American Revolution, “Life, Liberty, and Property (Pursuit of Happiness)”;

– construes morality as abstract universal principles that are self-evident and existed before and independently of all traditions; thus, believes in universal moral truths that depend on reason and not on tradition;

– favors family values and is disturbed by rising illegitimacy, single parenthood, divorce, and crime and opposes homosexual activity and marriages although beginning to accept the homosexual and queer agenda;

– prefers to discourage abortion rather than its elimination;

– disdains the counterculture, cancel culture, and political correctness;

– believes that the government should encourage religion and opposes a strict separation between church and state;

– adheres to the universal principle of natural rights (describe in next section) and opposes the notions of positive rights (governmentally granted rights) and historical and traditional rights of the nation;

– believes in the natural rights of men, which are unalienable rights endowed by God and are independent of culture and transcend time and place (existed before and independent of any culture or civilization) and are self-evident truths discovered by reflection and reason and can be expressed as principles of abstract ideas (in reality, natural rights are based on personal preferences or sentience of the speaker), and rejects the notion that liberty varies with time and circumstances and that conventions and traditions determine rights;

– despises most customs and traditions and subordinates particulars and traditions to the universality of abstract principles, values, and ideas;

– believes that the Union predated the States and the Union created the States instead of the States creating the Union;

– considers the United States to be one undivided independent country instead of a federation of sovereign States and that it was founded as one undivided independent country instead of a federation of sovereign States;

– ostensibly advocates interpreting the US Constitution the way that the drafters and ratifiers intended it to be understood (original intent) while praising and supporting the Racial Republicans’ radical transformation of it (the living document theory);

– generally, supports a powerful central government (unless it promotes something with which he disagrees) and opposes of States’ rights (unless a State opposes a federal action with which he disagrees), yet is often skeptical of governmental solutions to problems;

– favors Lincoln’s understanding of government (the Hobbesian concept of man as a solitary being) to Jefferson’s understanding of government (the Aristotlean concept of man as a communal being); 

– supports nationalism and opposes sectionalism, federalism, and localism;

– prefers the concentration and centralization of political power to decentralization and dispersal of political power;

– prefers the commercial-financial empire that Lincoln and the Republicans created to the union of sovereign States that the founding fathers created;

– although opposing socialism, seldom objects to the Yankee’s version of fascism, a.k.a. business-government partnership, the military-industrial complex, crony capitalism, corporate welfare, or corporatocracy;

– a proponent of regulated capitalism but not overly regulated;

– condemns Progressivism while advocating most of its social positions and many of its political positions;

– approves of most of the social welfare programs of the welfare state, such as social security, Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and family assistance, but wants to reform them to make them more economical and humane (less dehumanization); however, opposes the redistribution of income;

– supports bureaucrats overriding the market (private business decisions) for social purposes, such as the promotion of Black privileges, yet opposes affirmative action and quotas; 

– is racial nihilists and practitioner of the new morality and, therefore, does not oppose the destruction of the races through amalgamation and miscegenation; thus, has little concern about breeding the American Negro out of existence;

– despises racial segregation and separation by any race even if it is voluntary and even if Blacks are advocating racial segregation and separation;

– promotes inclusiveness, especially racial inclusiveness, but his inclusiveness does not include Southerners (especially unreconstructed Southerners), antisemites (anyone who is not a Zionist or believes that Palestinians should have a say in what happens to them), racial supremacists (especially White supremacists), racial preservationists (especially White preservationists), anyone who is labeled “racist,” most Moslems, isolationists, and principled conservatives (or traditional American conservatives, which includes Jeffersonian-Calhounians, paleoconservatives, traditional Southern conservatives, and Old Right);

– panders to Blacks as a racial group, but never openly appeals to Whites;

– claims that Martin Luther King is an archconservative, perhaps the greatest conservative ever, and a racial nihilist although King was a racial supremacist (a Negro supremacists) and a practitioner of the old morality;

– conceives Lincoln to be the greatest or second greatest president and praises him for saving the Union (although he changed the Union from one of consent as established in 1787 to one of coercion and converted that union into an empire) and, more important, freeing the slaves, which he claims was the primary reason for Lincoln’s War;

– although highly praising Jefferson, rejects nearly everything that Jefferson supported and accepts nearly everything that Jefferson opposed;

– is most likely a Republican;

– seeks to salvage and enhance the reputation of the Republican Party by declaring it to be the party of civil rights and racial equality, the leading opponent of (White) racial supremacy, and the force of everything good in America since its founding in 1854:

– sees the Democratic Party as the party of racists, White supremacists, and Black oppressors and everything evil in America at least since the beginning of Andrew Jackson’s administration; 

– is a Confederaphobe and Dixiephobe;

– treats the Southerner, especially the unreconstructed Southerner, as he treats the Palestinian: like a nonperson and subhuman only worthy of genocide although using euphemisms instead of being so blunt;

– believes that everything coming out of the South is bad except one phrase in the Declaration of Independents: “all men are created equal”;

– blames the South for nearly all of America’s problems;

– prefers the Yankee culture to the Southern culture;

– laments that the failure of Radical Republicans, whom he praises, to reconstruct the Southerner into the image of the Yankee;

In short, the key characteristics of a neoconservative are that he is an anticommunist, an anti-Southerner (especially anti-Confederate), a Zionist, a racial nihilist, and a Republican. Moreover, like the progressive, the neoconservative is rationalist and universalist, and he is a proponent of the natural rights of men. Furthermore, he promotes integration, equality, democracy, and foreign intervention. He reveres and sanctifies Lincoln and King, even defying them, especially King. Also, like the liberal, the neoconservative believes that the Constitution should be understood as Lincoln understood it and not as Jefferson understood it. Perhaps most important, he maintains that the United States are an exceptional country and a proportional nation whose purpose is to spread the American ideals of democracy, equality, and natural rights of men across the planet by force if necessary.

Some neoconservatives may deviate from several of the items on this list. However, most neoconservatives adhere to nearly all, if not all, of these items. Moreover, many neoconservatives often show signs of schizophrenia or other mental disorders.

For the most part, establishment conservatives agree with neoconservatives; the two are often indistinguishable. (Establishment conservatives are conservatives who are not neoconservatives, enlightened conservatives, or principled conservatives; they include Hamiltonian-Lincolnians, big-government conservatives, the typical Republican politicians, and Buckleyites. Enlightened conservatives are the New Conservatives of the 1950s represented by Russell Kirk and who subordinate the individual to society, subordinate freedom to virtue [for them, virtue is freedom] and rights to duty, subordinate reason to undifferentiated tradition to the point of rejecting reasoning, scorns reason and principle, reduces virtue to prudence, and depends heavily on Providence.) Moreover, except for some economic issues, neoconservatives generally agree with liberals and progressives. Thus, distinguishing between neoconservatives and liberals and progressives, especially on social issues, is often difficult.

The following are some neoconservatives: Kenneth Abelman, Elliot Abram, Larry Arnn, Steve Balch, Glenn Beck, Adam Bellow, William Bennett, Peter Berger, Alan Bloom, Max Boot, Eric Briendel, David Brooks, Mona Chares, Lynne  Chenney, Eliot Cohen, Matthew  Continetti, Ann Coulter, Dinesh  D'Souza, John Davisdson, Lucy  Dawidowicz, Midge Decter, Rostow Eugene, Douglas Faith, Don Feder, David Frum, David Gelernter, Nathan Glazer, Erwin Glinkes, Jonah Goldberg, Newt Gringerich, Allen Guelzo, Nikki Haley, Sean Hanity, Victor Hanson, Kay Heimowitz, Mark Helprin, Will Herbert, Gertrude Himmelfarb, John Hood, Sidney Hook, David Horowitz, Irving Howe, Brit Hume, Laura Ingraham, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Jeff Jacoby, Harry Jaffa, Michael Joyce, Robert Kagan, Max Kampelman, Leon R.  Kass, Jack Kemp, Charles Kesler, Jeane Kilpatrick, David Klinghoffer, Allan Kors, Bruce Kovner, Neil Kozodoy, Hilton Kramer, Charles  Krauthammer, Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol, David Lapin, Michael  Ledeen, Max Lerner, Mark Levin,  S.M. Lipset, Seth Lipsky, Herbert London, Frank Luntz, Myron Magnet, Joshua Marvchik, Michael Medered, Adam Meyerson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Joshva Muravchik, Rupert Murdoch, Forrest Nabors, Richard Neuhaus, David Novak, Michael Novak, Robert Nozick, Bill O’Reilly, Dinash O’Souza, Rauesh Pennuru, Martin Peretz, Richard Perle, Nathan Perlmutter, Daniel Pipes, John Podhoretz, Norman Podhoretz, David Prager, Ronald Radosh, Karl Rove, Jennifer Rubin, Rick Santorum, Lisa Schiffern, Wendy Shallir, Ben Shapiro, Leo Strauss, Diana Trilling, Lionel Trilling, Ben Wattenberg, George Weigel, Paul Weyrich, George Will, James Wilson, Albert Wohlstetter, Paul Wolfowitz, and Adam Wolfton.

References

Friedman, Murray. The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Gottfried, Paul Edward. Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right. New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007.

Kerwick, Jack. Misguided Guardians: The Conservative Case against Neoconservatives. Las Vegas, Nevada: Stairway Press, 2016.

Personal observations and other articles.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.