Publius Returns

Paul Tillich

PARADIGMS

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." --Adolf Hitler


During the formative years of my formal education in philosophy and theology, I approached life, society, religion, and the search for a “rebirth of wonder” under the veil of a penniless depression. It was also during that pitiful sojourn that I discovered my savior, a first order autodidact. He, his wife, and two young sons became my family at the end of each day at the university. He attached plywood and tar paper to the outside of a humble gazebo behind his house, installed one light, a tiny bed, and a small desk. The remaining space was barely large enough to turn around. There was no heat. I often returned from the university at one in the morning, simply to spend less time in the near zero temperatures. I remember, having finally gotten to sleep, that when I moved, the sheets next to my body were fiercely cold, and I would awake with a start. They provided coffee, two meals a day, and with the few pennies I scraped together, I bought a cigarette rolling machine, paper, and two large tins of Prince Albert tobacco. I was a faithful but somewhat belligerent student until I ran into Carl Paul Reinhold Neibuhr, the author of the serenity prayer and a prince of American Protestant theology. While it was he who brought about my downfall, it was Paul Tillich (pictured above) who set me free:

“If faith is understood as belief that something is true, doubt is incompatible with the act of faith. If faith is understood as being ultimately concerned, doubt is a necessary element in it.”

My benefactor and I spent long hours discussing philosophy, religion, politics, economics, and history. He still haunts my space some 40 years hence, writing in a website The World According to Me. He remains a genius, seeming to gain more brain cells and knowledge with each passing year.

One such discussion centered around the concept of paradigms: A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, particularly in an intellectual discipline. And to this definition we apply the traditional American premise: Capitalistic economics, the fundamentals of individual liberty, and ecclesiastical piety together with those icons supporting a clear presence of Judeo-Christian public faith. To adjudicate them required the notion of governance and government. Yet the American paradigm is undergoing a shift, carrying us in a direction alien to the traditional values, mores, and moral ground upon which this country was found.

As of this writing, there is much furor over the Health Care Bill, the pros and cons of it, and the apparent anger of many who attend the town hall meetings. There are strong feelings on both sides about a bill that is both incomprehensible and gargantuan. Is health care reform needed? Is this bill the answer if it is? A young man recently told me that “big business is second only to government in corruption, greed, and dishonesty.” I suspect that is true. However, it appears that government now has power over business. Sometimes one does not see the forest for the trees. The fundamental argument is not with the Health Care Bill, although like any symptom, it might be good to eliminate it. The much deeper crisis is the expansion and direction of government. People whine over the prospect of the taxpayer having to pay back 54 trillion dollars of government spending. They will never have to pay it back. Common sense is often a prize possession. The crisis is not in the paying back in any case, it is in the power it gives government. The bailout and stimulus packages expand the government’s authority over business and the people employed by it. The appointment of Czars over many facets of American social interaction, economics, health, religion, and the environment expand not only government but its power, its authority, and its control over every citizen. The rule of law that forms the essence of our Republic is being adulterated and manipulated to please factions whose ideology is foreign to America’s founding principles.

That corruption, greed, and dishonesty are part and parcel of a capitalist economic system did not escape our founding fathers. Nor were they unaware of government collusion, alien to the rule of law and the documents they developed to curtail it.

That is not to say that people should not fear the Health Care Bill and Cap & Trade, for surely they should. The bigger fear is the cause: the government’s ever-increasing encroachment on the private sector and the people. Indeed, is it not naïve to believe that the government is the people and that our appointed representatives work for us? Certainly it is naïve, and it is so because the term “people” has no remaining meaning without being defined by the traditional paradigm. By, For, and Of the people is not simply a struggling paradigm, it has flown like so many leaves upon the wind, carried away by those who do not appreciate or understand its meaning, its relevance, or the consequences of its loss.

Not only is the government obese beyond comprehension, it struggles every day to inflate its size and exert its power over individual liberty. Be ever Vigilant is a phrase that has never been more necessary nor more poignant. Fight not the sore with band aids; fight with conviction its cause.

I invite you to read, once again, the quote at the beginning of this diatribe. While it appears caring and its promise noble, it was the precursor to one of the most evil and dominating powers the world has ever known. It was the “people” of the Reich who became as we, undefined, and with an ideology they did not comprehend.

May I remind you again that: All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. So, without further discourse, say baaa! to those sheep you find steadfastly chained by denial.