Religion & Law

Michael posted, here, two paragraphs from a recent article by Mark Lilla, on the "Tea Party Jacobins."  Lilla wrote:

"We are experiencing just one more aftershock from the libertarian eruption that we all, whatever our partisan leanings, have willed into being. For half a century now Americans have been rebelling in the name of individual freedom. Some wanted a more tolerant society with greater private autonomy, and now we have it, which is a good thing?though it also brought us more out-of-wedlock births, a soft pornographic popular culture, and a drug trade that serves casual users while destroying poor American neighborhoods and destabilizing foreign nations. Others wanted to be free from taxes and regulations so they could get rich fast, and they have?and it?s left the more vulnerable among us in financial ruin, holding precarious jobs, and scrambling to find health care for their children. We wanted our two revolutions. Well, we have had them.

Now an angry group of Americans wants to be freer still?free from government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well-being; free from problems and policies too difficult to understand; free from parties and coalitions; free from experts who think they know better than they do; free from politicians who don?t talk or look like they do (and Barack Obama certainly doesn?t). They want to say what they have to say without fear of contradiction, and then hear someone on television tell them they?re right. They don?t want the rule of the people, though that?s what they say. They want to be people without rules?and, who knows, they may succeed. This is America, where wishes come true. And where no one remembers the adage 'Beware what you wish for.'?

These paragraphs, Michael suggested, offer "food for thought."  And indeed they do.  My thoughts about the first paragraph are:  "Prof. Lilla is right, and he makes a point that we here at MOJ -- echoing, of course, Pope John Paul II's Christian humanism, and frequent emphasis on authentic, as opposed to ersatz, freedom -- have made often."  My thoughts on the second paragraph are:  "Too bad.  After making a good point, Prof. Lilla descends immediately into unfair and simplistic partisan sniping."  Here's hoping MOJ will always be a place that more resembles Lilla's first paragraph than his second.