A New Right Coming?

Fr. Dwight Longenecker is telling his readers to “Prepare for the Rise of the Right.” To be frank, I don’t know what to make of it. By describing a potential trajectory of ascent for a political leader of the Right, is Longenecker merely making a positive analysis or is he longing for such a figure himself? He wants his readers to “watch and be alert,” though not for the purposes of resisting the Right. In fact, the only warning Longenecker gives runs as follows:

Libertarian, Or Not

Joe Carter, writing on the Acton Institute Power Blogexpresses skepticism toward the results of a recent Pew survey which purportedly reveals that approximately one-in-ten Americans describe themselves as libertarian. That would be frightening if true, but thankfully it isn’t — or so says Carter. Carter’s rightful concern is that a significant portion of those surveyed hold views which are contrary to libertarian orthodoxy, such as “say[ing] that government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest” or holding that public assistance to the poor “does more good than harm because people can’t get out of poverty until their basic needs are met.” Carter believes that this is proof that most people don’t understand the political labels they apply to themselves. Maybe. Or maybe it’s because political reality, like economic reality, is a bit messier than some would like and not all of the world can be packaged into an ideological box; sometimes experience and reflection interfere with ideological purity.

A Free Market for Religion

I have been accused before of being uncharitable and harsh toward the Acton Institute and all of its works. Some claim I am distorting what they are “really doing” while unduly demonizing them when I should be praising their pro-market, pro-freedom agenda. Then I read thing like Dylan Pahman’s “Consumerism, Service, and Religion” over at the Acton Power Blog and quickly remember why I, a professing Catholic, cannot flatter Acton’s troubling worldview. Pahman, an ex-Calvinist Orthodox Christian, isn’t happy with Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s recent piece on “The Spoiling of America.” Why? Well, for one thing Longenecker’s anti-consumerist ethos doesn’t jibe with Pahman’s free-market religion, which includes lauding a free market for religion. Using Alexander Hamilton’s somewhat famous observation that “it is . . . absurd to make [religious] proselytes by fire and sword,” Pahman concludes that markets are the better — perhaps only? — alternative. On this point I’ll let the man speak for himself. Pardon the extended block quote.