If Gov. Palin Were Only a Man
Many within my own constituency are finally starting to speak out against the GOP, but being the single-issue type, they're majoring on minors, viz. their only critique is that Sarah Palin is a woman, and the Scriptures specify that a woman's place is in the home--she is not permitted to serve as a civil magistrate.Let's not talk about unjust, unconstitutional acts of war. Let's not talk about the raping of U.S. economy. Let's not talk about the growing tyranny of illegal wiretapping, increased surveillance, or the draconian Patriot Act. Let's not talk about Habeas Corpus. Let's not talk about the criminality of the Federal Reserve System. Let's not talk about the overwhelming amounts of corruption, lies, homosexuality, and pedophilia amongst the Conservatives. No, let's talk about the fact that Gov. Palin is a woman and her place is in the home.
So, if Palin was a male, what exactly would we be discussing? Not much. He/She would fit the bill to draw sufficient support from the Religious Right and help McCain shore up his liabilities with mainstream Christianity. But because Palin is a woman, our most astute theological commentators are positioning her candidacy along gender lines. The end result? Their audiences continue along the path to "Conservative" statism and tyranny because their readers cannot see the forest for the trees. They think the entire political issue is resolved once they settle on the candidate. In the meantime, statism goes without critique, because to the Religious Right, it's not statism if it's run by Republicans.
The entire American system is at its worst, and Christian Conservatives have little to say. Maverick McCain promised to reduce government, and if after his election he were to shut down some pork barrel welfare program, Christians would fawn over him thinking that revival had broken out in America. All the while more tax-payer dollars will be used to bail out Wall Street.
The problem is that Christian Conservatives have no mental category for "corporate welfare," and they believe any salvaging of Wall Street with tax dollars is free market economics. This is because they do not understand fascism. To them, communism is tyranny, because communism overtly levels the class system. Mussolini, in a stroke of brilliance, embraced the class system while instituting Soviet-like authoritarianism under the guise of a free society. Rushdoony states this in terms easy to understand:
Mussolini lacked a radical commitment to anything other than himself. He recognized this same trait in other men. He knew that an either-or commitment is what men flatter themselves into believing they hold, but he knew that in truth he and other men wanted to eat their cake and to have it too. Men were practical atheists while practicing churchmen. They defended the free market while seeking socialistic subsidies. They championed freedom while asking for a benevolent slavery. They wanted socialism with freedom, religion without the responsibilities of faith, and private property with all the imagined benefits of socialism. The meaning of such a desire is fascism.Like the Pharisees, Conservative Christians gag on gnats while swallowing camels. What should be an issue, isn't, while non-issues are made paramount. The ruse is that political criminality and rising statism is done under the cover of the Republican Party. Therefore, the sin goes unnoticed. "Just give us a Christian vice-president!" And if she's a woman, "We'll show you where the Bible says this is wrong!" Never mind the mess that is now the American system. Just give us a candidate we can feel good about. Remember, fascism is primarily a Right-wing form of authoritarianism.
If at this point you're asking yourself, "So, Chris, do you think a woman can be a civil magistrate?," you have missed my point. The important issues regarding saving the American system have little do with the gender of a vice-presidential candidate. We have much bigger fish to fry, and if we spend too much time harping on what the Bible says women can do, the less our constituencies will hear and understand about the threat of statism.
It's appropriate to remind Christian readers about the Biblical doctrines of the family in light of our present political situation. My problem is that this becomes the central issue. My other problem is that I've heard little from these Christian pundits during the last eight years of national tribulation. Now that a woman is a candidate, they're finally speaking out. That makes them a little too late and a bit too irrelevant.
