 Welcome to Free Thoughts from Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute. I'm Aaron Ross Powell, editor of Libertarianism.org and a research fellow here at the Cato Institute. And I'm Trevor Burrus, a research fellow at the Cato Institute Center for Constitutional Studies. Our guest today is Doug Bandau, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, an author of the book Beyond Good Intentions, A Biblical View of Politics. A lot of the times when Trevor and I post questions on, say, our Facebook page saying, listeners, do you have any questions for us or questions about libertarianism? One that comes up pretty frequently is something along the lines of do you need to be an atheist to be a libertarian or are all libertarians atheists? And well, obviously the answer to that is no because there are religious libertarians. There still is something to it, something they're picking up on. So what's, I mean, what's going on here? Is there something about, say, Christianity that makes it less likely that one's going to be a libertarian? Is there something about libertarianism that makes it less likely that one's going to be religious? Or is this, is it not an accurate picture? I think there are a lot of issues that people pick up on, one of which is if you look at the current political constellation, you know, people who are identified, say, as religious right, they speak in religious and Christian terms. They tend to be conservative. They're not libertarian. There are libertarian positions which a lot of religious people initially, I think, might find off putting because they really react on a moral nature, say of drug use or something, which they don't like for moral reasons. They don't really think through the issue of whether this is something for the state to be involved in. I think part of it is libertarians have long been in many ways nonconformists, non-traditionalists, rebelling against authority. I think part of it is, you know, kind of Anne Rand and the Objectivist movement, which plays into kind of the freedom kind of movement. People see that and they kind of take that as overall libertarianism. So there's a lot going on, but I think it's incorrect and I think it's very unfortunate because to my mind, you know, Christianity is very important as a life philosophy, but it doesn't tell you a lot about politics and indeed there's stuff to pick up from Christianity that I think advances a libertarian philosophy. And maybe there's something about anti-authoritarianism in there to some extent. Libertarians are often anti-authority, so maybe that ties in with being anti-religious authority. Well, yeah, I think there's a danger of being against all authority, which is I'm very much against untrammeled state authority. That doesn't believe that I don't believe there are in fact proper authorities. I mean, within a firm, within a family, within a society, and I think you're right that some folks may perceive as take that too far. They just don't like any authority or, you know, some religious folks believe that the state should back up their authority so they don't like anybody attacking, say, state authority. And there's also skepticism. That's the one that I think is very tied into just being skeptical about nearly everything, maybe lends itself to being libertarian and not being Christian or religious. Well, I think that one should essentially be skeptical in any case. That is one shouldn't take beliefs for granted. One should obviously think them through and believe them and have reason to believe them as opposed to simply take them from on high. So maybe walk us through then some of these. I mean, you said that there's not a lot. Christianity doesn't give us a lot about politics, but there's some. So how can we move for, say, as a Christian libertarian, are the Christianity and libertarianism totally distinct or, for the most part, distinct? Like, there's separate arguments for each of them that don't really have much to do to each other. But you've argued, I mean, in your book, you argue there's actually reasons why a Christian ought to also embrace libertarianism. Can you walk us through what those look like? I would argue that Christianity is a transcendent view of the world. That is consistent with a number of political philosophies. That is, I believe you could be a conservative. You can be a liberal. You can be a libertarian. You can be a populist and be a Christian. That it's some very basic level Christianity speaks to something very different. That is your relationship with God with other people. So it's not something fundamentally a political philosophy. Now, there are Christians who I think get that wrong and they want to take Christianity and run off and act as if it is a political philosophy, but I don't think it is. So to me, that's the important starting point, which is there's a foundation there and your foundation can be many things. And that could be non-belief. It could be humanism. It could be skepticism, any number of things as well as Christianity. So that's my starting point, that Christianity provides a foundation. The question is where do you go from there? And as I read Christian scripture, it doesn't say a lot about politics. It says an awful lot about kind of people's obligations, duties to one another, how you order a society, how you deal with God. But you start kind of going through, I mean, when I wrote my book, I read through the entire Bible, front to back, Old and New Testament. And you really don't find very much in there saying government should do acts. There's a lot of stuff saying take care of your neighbor. I mean, you kind of the famous Sermon on the Mount and the question of are you basically the line of the sheep or the line of the goats and it's when you cared for the poor, when you took care of those who were hungry, it wasn't when you called in the state. The famous Samaritan, it wasn't that you come along and oh, there's a person who's hurt. Let me find the local government agency. It's you take the person and care for them. So to me, that's the critical point is that Christianity speaks to all this other stuff and the stuff on politics isn't an awful lot there. And to my mind then it really makes it consistent with libertarianism. But isn't that how say progressive Christians would embrace that and say, yes, it does tell us we should take care of our neighbors but the way that we do that now is via the state and so therefore not embracing say welfare programs or transfer payments or whatever else is in effect turning away from our neighbors and not helping. Or what the Catholic Church has recently said to the Pope has recently said many times, same thing. I think what's critical is to, you know, there's a duty there. The question is how do you take care of the duty? And I think that suddenly moves us into prudential ground where we're very good. That is, you know, I think the progressives are simply wrong. And what I think there's some themes from Christianity that are very important that we can pull up. For example, the value of life and human dignity. Well, it is a welfare system promote human dignity. I mean, if it makes you dependent upon the state, you know, if it kind of breaks up families, if it breaks up communities like Charles Murray and others have shown how a welfare system did, I would argue that certainly would seem to run against, you know, kind of Christian theology. The notion I think ultimately of every human being is made in the image of God and is valuable and has an eternal soul, suggests every individual is more important than the state. I mean, you can't simply say, well, the collective is more important, the government's more important than the state. No, the point is there's an eternal value that Christianity puts in every individual. And that to me is a very powerful basis for human rights, for individual liberty to say you simply can't do that. You know, you've been made as an image of God and kind of the notion of ultimate Christian judgment is you as an individual stand before God. It's not some collective. Moral, you know, kind of the moral decision making is in the individual's hand. There are a lot of responsibilities out there. You're told things you should take into account, care for the poor. But ultimately, you stand alone in terms of having kind of lived up to God's expectations. Again, to me, that's not a collective judgment. That's very much an individual judgment. And you get into issues of how do you care for the poor? Well, what works? In fact, it strikes me libertarians have a very powerful case. You know, progressives want to help the poor. That's very nice, but do these programs help the poor? And I think we can point out how they don't. That in fact, private charity kind of outside the state not only is better for caring for the poor, but for example, it speaks to the whole person. It doesn't treat you as a number, make you dependent on the government instead of the notion of affirming you, your dignity, making you independent, you and your family. So I think all of that fits better. So I would argue libertarianism fits better with Christian theology, but I wouldn't say it's the only answer to Christian theology. This seems like there also might be some skepticism to collectives. There might be Christianity. Is Christianity methodologically individualism? What would you say in some way? It only deals with individual moral choices. What I would say is that Christianity places the ultimate moral decision process on the individual, but it affirms how important community is. That is we all exist within our society as communities. I mean, every libertarian I know grows up in a collective. That is the family. So the point is Christianity recognizes you live out your life in community with others and you have responsibilities to those people, but ultimately only the individual can make those judgments and only the individual be held accountable for whether or not they live up to their responsibilities. So I think that's the critical thing. And sometimes I think that brings up when we talked earlier, why do some people think you can't be a Christian and be a libertarian? Well, libertarians hate community. Christianity requires all these communities. And I think that's wrong. Christianity affirms the importance of community. But frankly, libertarians also do. I mean, the society that we all imagine living in is community. It's just a different ultimate political community in the role of coercion. And I see nothing in Christianity that suggests you have coercive community, that you turn these most important duties of education of your children, of caring for your neighbors. Where do you turn that over to the state? We don't have a national love God administration which measures whether or not you love God or your neighbor. It also seems like trying to find lessons about the state in the Bible might be a little bit difficult because there isn't a modern nation state in the Bible. There's no theory of political obligation that they're trying to wrestle through. You've been conquered and now you have to serve them, which is why we do see render under Caesar type of thing with the Jews. Of course, I've always had a strange relationship with the state that they lived in. So maybe there are not a lot of lessons there just about trying to be moral within a system that may be immoral or amoral itself. Absolutely. Again, I think that this Christian scripture speaks primarily to do our relationship with God and with our neighbors. And a lot of that is because of the context in which the scripture arose. The Old Testament Israel, I mean, it was a geographic nation bounded and kind of tied to God and then it was overtaken by all these empires. In the New Testament world, of course, it's the Roman Empire, you're kind of bloody and ugly and nasty, but you're not going to be able to throw it out with the next rebellion. So it wasn't trying to come up with what is a democratic society like. What kind of a political system should we create? That was not the essence of what Christianity was and what its thought was. And maybe that's something that Christians, older Christians, persecuted Christians and Jews can teach about trying to stay out of the politics because they were constantly getting oppressed for their views whereas someone who lives in this world, a libertarian, for example, who might be practicing different moral views, may feel similar and so you persevere despite the forces on top of you that are trying to make you do bad things. Yeah. To sum it up, you're looking long-term that the answer may not come tomorrow, but that's right. The perseverance kind of keeping faith is something that I think both libertarians and Christians can look at. Let me flip it and talk about the – we're talking about progressive Christians and why this focus on the individual says we shouldn't think about so much about the collective. But on the other side, the conservative Christians who want much more state involvement than a libertarian would, their argument seems to be more Christianity identifies certain behaviors as sinful and therefore, and sin is dangerous and we have lots of instances in the Bible of sin being shown to be dangerous, not just to the individual but to the community in general if the community is sufficiently sinful. Sodom and Gomorrah for example. And so therefore the role of the state is to stamp out sin. And this seems particularly troubling from a libertarian perspective because many of the things that get identified as sinful and stamped out are things that we think people ought to be free to do. No, I think that's right. I think that's especially kind of the impulse on the religious right. And I think that the problem there is they conflate what might be good moral standards as well as perhaps good standards for a society with what the state should do. I think it's a fairly common mistake but I do think it's a very serious one. I mean what's interesting is if you look at, again, Christian scripture, I mean the kind of Old Testament, Israel was a very unique thing. If you look at Christ's teachings, you look at Paul's writings, you don't find that same emphasis. I mean there's the letter to the Corinthians, Paul. Basically there's immorality going on in the congregation. He goes down through this list of the swindlers and the this and the that and he says, look, I'm not saying we should worry about judging them. I mean they're in the world, throw them out of the congregation. I mean the point is those outside the congregation, they'll be judged by God. They're not your problem. Within the congregation, maintain purity and if they're doing these things, throw them out of the congregation, don't eat with them. So his focus is on the purity of the faithful and he says nothing about outside. It's like, no, God will take care of them. And I think that when you look at charitable giving, for example, I mean the progressives, I mean I'm kind of going back to progressives as opposed to conservatives, but we have to have a welfare state. But you look at Paul, Paul talks about God loves a cheerful giver. He says, I mean he puts a real guilt trip on these people. I'm going to come. I want to raise money for the faithful in Jerusalem. They have a famine. I'm going to, and I'll be embarrassed. I've told them how wonderful you are. I mean he's a great kind of preacher going out there saying, give, give, pass the plate. But nowhere does he suggest that it's mandatory. And you don't find that on anything else. I mean the scripture says nothing about drugs. You know, that you shouldn't be drunk. I mean there's alcohol that's served. It says nothing about any other kind of drugs. So there's, you can argue that scripture would suggest you shouldn't be too inebriated in terms of drugs as well. But there's nothing there that would suggest the state should stamp that out. I mean there's nothing there that talks about what should the state do in terms of marriage, in terms of sex, in terms of homosexuality. You know, it sets a moral standard. But nowhere is there anything in there that says, ah, and the state should enforce this. And that's where I think conservatives get it wrong. You know, the moral standards are going to survive not because of the state behind them. They survive if people believe in them. And I think what we've seen today is those moral standards have changed. That people have very different beliefs. Well then the state's not going to be able to protect them. I mean, you know, the game is over and there's nothing in Christianity that suggests run off to Caesar and try to get him on your side. That's just not there. It's preaching out there. It's living by example, which has really emphasized many times in the New Testament. But it seems like a strategic move that makes some sense and may be immoral for different reasons. But if you say, I don't want the state encouraging this behavior and even making it legal is a form of encouragement. So the Christian conservative argument is community is paramount, family is paramount and the state passes policies or allows things that constantly are predate on it. So why isn't it totally in the interest to keep that from happening? I mean, is there a political theory there that says the state isn't allowed to touch certain moral behaviors or is this just saying, we need a community. We need the government to enforce community because God is above the state. Well, you certainly can understand why people feel fearful, for example, drugs with my kids. How do I save my kids from drugs? And they think, oh, well, we'll have the government ban it. Of course, we can point out in practice. I mean, that's a prudential argument. In practice, the current system makes it more likely kids are going to get it. You create a vast black market. You put a lot of money into the criminal's hands. They're going to go out and try to get kids. What you're trying to achieve, you're not achieving. I mean, I argue with conservatives. I say first that virtue requires their right to say yes. I mean, virtue, to be virtuous, you have to be able to say yes or no. Of course, virtue is not really virtue. And if you create this system where you turn moral issues over to the state, you have no reason to think you're always going to win. I mean, you really can't get upset if progressives take control and decide to push their agenda. You know, and it's very important, I think, to separate the notion of law and kind of approval, signaling, moral sanctions. I get that occasionally. Oh, my, if you legalize drugs, it shows society is approving them. My answer is no. I mean, the role of government and the role of law is not to set an approval mechanism. I mean, if that's really it, let's have Congress vote and just have a list what we approve of, what we don't approve of. It's not a reason to have the criminal law. And I think the point that's very important is to say, I believe morality is important for law, but it's the kind of morality. That is the morality of us, you know, kind of interpersonal morality. My affecting you, yeah, the government steps in. I can't murder you. I can't steal. I can't fraud. That's, those are very important moral issues, but soul molding. Why would conservatives want to turn soul molding over to government? Of all people, they tell me it screws up the economy. It messes all this stuff up. It can't do anything right. But I have a great idea. The government, you know, Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton and kind of just fill in the blank of all these guys are all going to go out there. They're going to fix morality in America. I mean, a beggar's belief that that could work. It also seems like, as you said, if you put it into the state, you could lose that battle, right? As soon as you say the government has an interest in regulating what people put into their bodies, and I hope that we as Christians can win the battle and make sure that the bad things are not allowed. But of course, the very next turn is to have big gulps. You know, it's hard to make a principal division between marijuana and banning big gulps. And then the other side wins the battle. And now everyone's just fighting over what you get to put in your body. And that doesn't seem like a good way to live a moral life. Exactly. If you're concerned about moral education, do you want, I never understood, you know, Christians, for example, who believe prayer in school. I mean, then the real issue there, of course, is public schools. And if we had private education, it wouldn't matter. You could, you know, whatever education you wanted your children to have, they could have. You wouldn't be offended because somebody else is imposing their views. But I've never understood why Christians want a non-believing teacher to lead their children in a non-denominational prayer at the beginning of school, when in fact they should lead their kids at home before they go to school. I mean, it makes no sense to me. I think a lot of it's symbolic. Some of these issues, I think, get argued about when it comes down to you're feeling pushed out, you think you're losing the cultural battle, so you try to find something to fight. But I think a lot of these things are, they're not helpful in many of them, I think are harmful. You don't turn these issues over to the state. And to the extent people believe it's the state's job, you lose the power of, you know, the church. You lose the power of families. Morality shouldn't come from the state. It comes from society. It comes from institutions within society. You don't turn that over because you weaken those institutions that are so important for creating a moral climate. Non-Christians, those seem to think that if we, that the problem is not so much the state is too powerful and is pushing things out, but that religion remains, if we don't have the state involved, then religion will become too powerful. So the recent Hobby Lobby decision, the kind of backlash against it from progressive directions was this would allow people with extreme religious views to force their views upon huge numbers of people who disagree with them, and there's the arguments against, say, private education, which is that if we turn it over and we allow religious parents, then they'll teach their kids things that the rest of us either don't think are true or think are harmful or whatever. So there's this kind of back and forth about the religious people feeling like the state's pushing them out and the progressive thing is not pushing them out enough. Well, of course, the problem of liberty always is some people use their liberty in ways you don't like. I mean, I'm always struck by the idea that, oh, we can't let you decide how to, you know, teach your kids because somebody out there might do something bad. No doubt. 330 million Americans, somebody out there is going to do something bad. But does that mean you turn this all over to the state? I mean, the rise of public education was kind of a civil religion Protestantism that wanted to dominate and make sure nobody else could get in there. So the whole rise of public education was an attempt by a certain theological view to impose that upon everybody. So the idea that, oh, my goodness, if we didn't have this, you know, this would be terrible. Somebody, you know, this local school would do bad things. The moment you do this, you turn power over to a group that can impose it on everybody. I mean, the Hobby Lobby case, I mean, the simple point is the government shouldn't be deciding who provides contraceptives. I mean, 95% of health plans today have this. Why does the government have to go out there and decide exactly what goes in there? I mean, that's the imposition to me. That's the problem is if government's going to reach out, excuse me, and I just wrote my latest Forbes online column arguing one of the challenges on this ish area now is that government takes over so much of life. That in the early Americas, I mean, government didn't matter a lot. I mean, the federal government didn't do much. And states did more, but they didn't do it a lot. So when you talked about kind of keeping religion out of government, it was easy because, I mean, what was government doing? Not much. But today, government wants to take over education. Government wants to take over health care. Government takes over social welfare. Government takes over social services. So as you do that, suddenly all these people are saying, wait a minute. I mean, these are areas I want to kind of live my faith and now government's expanding. And that's what Hobby Lobby is, where suddenly government shows up and says, we're going to tell you what you have to fund in plans, even if you happen to think it's an abortifation, which is the issue in Hobby Lobby. They actually, their plan had contraceptives. There were like four of them that they viewed as an abortifation and they were unwilling to do. I mean, the imposition is the government's showing up and telling you there are 20 things that have to go in your plan. There's no necessity for that. I mean, that expansion, their government is imposing. And that's where I think progressives get on very dangerous ground. I think there's an element that they really want to impose this. It's well beyond everybody should have access, but they want those people, because they don't like those views. You should be forced to do that. To my mind, Hobby Lobby was a very narrow decision, but a very important one, because it said at some point, no, the state can't go everywhere. We've got to set some limits there. Does it seem like a certain type of Christian is needed to be a libertarian? What I mean by that is you'd have to be somewhat pluralistic, because there's other Christians, and this might just be a Christian doctrinal debate, but who literally think it should be maybe illegal to be other religions or want to make other practices illegal or other types of... That was, of course, historically true. It seems like you would need to be a reasonably pluralistic Christian who lets sort of live and let live to keep the state out of there who's not trying to enforce Christian morality. I'm not aware of many Christians today who would make it illegal to be a different faith. I do think that... Thankfully, that really is gone. And at some level, I mean, that's kind of a reformation. It's a Vatican to its stuff that's happened that, to my mind, I mean, in a sense that's a problem that Islam has to deal with. That Islam needs that same kind of process. I mean, there are a lot of Muslims who don't believe this either, but a lot of the activists and the ones who are problems, they haven't gone through that struggle to be able to say, no, you can't kind of impose this on everybody else. I do think the real problem comes in, and it's interesting. You get kind of where, at some level, you get progressives who want to take some of the economic strictures. I mean, Jubilee laws in the Old Testament or something. And then you get conservatives who want to take moral laws. It's not that you can't be a non-Christian, but you have to live by Christian rules. And that, I think, is still out there. They typically don't put it in terms of you have to live by a Christian rule, but it's kind of, this is a rule that I think is just, and therefore I want to impose it upon you. And both sides do that. That, I think, is problematic. So I think it has to be a recognition that they live in a society which is very diverse. I mean, even the American, early American America, the American colonies were diverse. I mean, this was not just one group. A lot of dissenters fled the Anglican church, but the Anglicans were there. Rhode Island was noted for its dissenters. A lot of Catholics in Massachusetts, there were Jews in early America. So even the early American, I think that's the first amendment, the genius of the first amendment, was to say no establishment. I mean, you can't have government creating and supporting religion at the same time protecting practice with the idea you didn't want to let anybody grab control of the state and use it either to promote their sectarian views or to suppress sectarian views they don't like. That's often the most dangerous. It's not kind of religious people against non-religious. It's religious people against the religious people they really don't like. And that's where you get the conflict. If you had, there's an old quote, I can't remember which founding father, but if you had one religion, it would have been despotism. If you had two, they would have been each other's throats, but we have 30 and everyone lives in peace because kind of you get a mutual agreement to lead on your arms if there are so many religions around you and you might lose in the face. But the problem with that, of course, is that the Jerry Falwells or the Pat Roberts, the people who think that Hurricane Katrina happens because of sin, it seems like it'd be pretty much impossible to make them into a libertarian. But they're just wrong about doctrine perhaps. But to my mind, we don't have to make them into a libertarian. I mean, there are always going to be people out there with some rather strange theological views and they're going to come up with some strange applications. I mean, and these people, obviously, think that I have strange views and strange applications. I mean, any pluralistic society will have that and that's going to be across the spectrum. That will go from Christians to Jews to Muslims to Hindus to free thinkers to anyone. The critical thing, I think, is to make sure the state is kind of walled off and limitations are there so none of these groups can grab control and use it against everybody else. And that, to me, is the real danger. And that comes out. I mean, the great Catholic thinker, Lord Act, you know, about power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I mean, that, you know, and to me, that's a wonderful aphorism that fits with the Christian notion of original sin. I mean, I asked my Christian friends, you believe mankind is inherently sinful? Yes. And you want to turn power of the state over to them? You want to give them untrammeled state authority? You want to let them remake our souls? Come on. Christian public choice economics. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. That's right. I'm curious about the role of religion in policymaking in the sense that, you know, if you're a voter or your policymaker acting upon religious motivations, driving your sense of what's just or not from religious beliefs, because this seems to be something that, you know, non-religious people and a lot of political theorists find troubling in the sense that religious beliefs, you know, you talked about, like, prudence is a reason for not having the drug war. So whether we think drugs is sinful or bad for you or whatever, when we look to the evidence, we can make these arguments that it simply doesn't work or it makes the problems worse. But if a lot of religious motivations are based on reasoning that's not, I guess, open to all, like those arguments assume, you know, truths that this person, that the religious person believes, but other people don't. So the arguments, like the arguments about what works or doesn't, to some extent, can't get off the ground. Is that a problem? Is that something that, is the answer to that to just kind of scale government back so that we're not even arguing about those sorts of things in the first place? I'm not sure if that's an argument about religion or about humanity. I mean, it's not clear to me that a Marxist is terribly open and interested in evidence. I mean, if you're, you know, a secular animal rights activist and believe animals, rights, do you care about evidence? I mean, it strikes me, it's a problem almost any group can come up with. And my guess is that any libertarian has come into that with a lot of different people who basically have a moral vision of some sort, whether it's theistic, whether it's humanist. I mean, there are a lot of different bases one can come. I mean, you know, imagine a Nazi. I mean, you know, what evidence would dissuade them from these horrid, horrid views? I think that basically when you come into the political process, you're entitled to have whatever worldview you have. We just have to accept that. We can't sit down and say some worldviews are okay and some aren't, and we have to accept that. What's critical is that, I mean, an open political process, they will be judged. And I tell Christian friends, if you want to convince non-Christians, don't quote scripture. I mean, right, you walk into the office of a secular Jewish congressman and you're going to quote scripture. I mean, do you think they care? I mean, you know, this is going to hurt you rather than help you. And if you can't make those arguments, it's just not enough to come in and say, God has told me X. Well, that's very nice. Thank you very much. I think that's one of the advantages of having a fairly large and diverse political process and electorate is it's hard to imagine there are enough people out there with one of these views that feel I'm absolutely committed this is directing me that they can take control of the process. But I think it's, again, it's a reason you want to have constraints within the political process. You create a system of checks and balances. You create a system, you have different levels. You have different institutions because you always want to make sure there's something there that can gum up the works. And it frustrates a lot of people today but it makes it very hard for, you know, fill in the blank of the religious leader to show up, get his followers to march on Washington to get something done. You know, even if you get it through one congressional committee, well, we'll get through the next one and we'll get through the other house. That's my concern. It's real. But I think it's far broader than religion. The left loves to publish those stories on Think Progress blog, for example, of like one state senator in Arkansas proposing a really crazy law. Which I'm not surprised that there's a state senator in Arkansas or anywhere who's absolutely nuts, but at least they're walled off from actually being able to pass that law. Turning the tables on the other side, so what can libertarians learn from Christians? It seems there might be something that maybe libertarians aren't listening to Christians enough, probably maybe just deriding them as members of the moral majority or something. Maybe there's something libertarians learn from Christians. One is that I think virtue and values matter. That if you want a libertarian in a free society, it helps to have people who are virtuous. And I mean that in a broad sense. That is the less people steal, the less they commit fraud, the less they are inclined to assault you, the easier it is to have freedom. You don't have to have a big state of coercive institutions at many jails. So there's something there that matters. I mean the more that people have a solid family structure, the less demand you have for welfare, the less question of poverty. The most important factors in terms of stopping poverty, it's having an intact marriage, it's having education. I mean there are fairly practical things there so there's value in that. So I think that libertarians want to kind of take that into account in terms of policies and particularly in terms of argument. And I think the other is to recognize that a lot of people put huge emphasis on community in the way they think. I don't think libertarians are anti-community but sometimes their means of argument comes across as anti-community. No, I mean libertarians believe in free community. We don't want the state showing up messing it all up. We don't believe you turn this kind of intimate relationships over to government. It's not enough within a family to decide what's just, what's fair, kids are always saying it's unfair, you're treating them better than me. Well, you turn any of this stuff over to the state, how can they fix any of this stuff? So I think libertarians want to take that into account and realize how they're perceived. I think a lot of it's simply perception, not reality but that matters because if you show up and they look at you like this, then suddenly you lose. And I think it's also things like drugs. I don't advocate drug use. I'm crazy and stupid to throw people in jail for it. I mean, I have a family member who's had a real problem on these issues but the point is prohibition has not helped. I mean, they've been in jail. I mean, they've lots of stuff out of this so I think what libertarians want to get across is to be libertarian isn't necessarily a libertine. The one is not necessarily advocating things. You're simply pointing out we're all in this together. We want a better society. What policies work? And you're advocating things that make it worse. My book was entitled Beyond Good Intentions because everybody says they have good intentions. Libertarians I think can call people to account on that and say we have good intentions too but are you giving it a fact? It doesn't help just to have good intentions if your policies don't work. We can give you kind of policies that work and we can critique your policies but we have to take into account where they're coming from in their world view. I think that your point about community and family is valuable because there is definitely libertarians many that I know who tend to differentiate themselves from the Christian conservative side seem to anytime someone says family they get a knee jerk reaction of being like well you're just bringing up religious and so like that and that way they're more like the left and the growing secularization of society. They just said oh he just said family values don't even listen to that guy anymore which I think is a bad attitude. I mean if you're in favor of gay marriage you're in favor of community. That say conservative Christians would normally be thinking of but it is a concern about community and family. So I think it's got to be put in those terms that anyway people today think family values is a whole set of issues they think of and that's a problem I think on the religious right because they lose points and they lose argument on that but it's still there's something underneath that that libertarians I think can reach out and use. How does the notion I mean Christianity places a large emphasis on what happens after we die and you know where we end up is based on what we've done during our life and so it seems like someone could respond to your prudential arguments like the war on drugs causes all this suffering here by simply saying well yeah I mean the drug users may end up in jail and they may not like that but in the greater scheme of things in the infinite you know that we have of this life plus the one that they believe comes next that's a small price to pay. That's assuming you can stop them from using drugs in prison which may be a more difficult problem. Laws that prevent people from engaging in what these Christians see as sinful acts is going to pay off in spades and that seems like we can't really argue about that that would shut down the prudential arguments right there. I don't know many Christians care how bad it gets today ultimately I'll be in paradise because everybody's living today and the question though I suppose you could argue even if they go through the pain of being in jail if it forces them and causes them to make a turn towards righteousness we've gained but it's very hard to see where that happens I mean the point is the drugs are prevalent in prison and we all know I mean prisons turn into kind of hot houses of crime if you look at scripture you read you read Paul you read others I mean there is a real concern for the here and now I mean a lot of discussion for example of taking care of the present community I mean there's a discussion in the New Testament about we want to make sure that we're not so busy evangelizing that we aren't taking care of the needy so there's a whole discussion about we have to appoint some people and make sure this is taken care of there's discussion of kind of reciprocal responsibilities within which we're going to take care of these folks what are they doing within the community James has a passage he talks about you say you want to do good but you don't pay attention I mean what good is it I mean it's not enough to verbalize this stuff what's important is to actually achieve results I mean there's a point where he says if you want wisdom ask God for it the idea is to use wisdom to make things better I mean it's not just a kind of do this stuff paradise will happen there's very much a sense of the here and now it's the notion of Christ teaching about being salt and light that kind of the way you show people the way is by being good to them and showing them love you don't go out there I mean the notion of kind of the way you show loves to throw them in jail it's just kind of wait I mean come on I mean there's nothing I think there and kind of the Christian message that would lend it that way I mean so again if you get some folks out there who have a very strong I mean it's a problem you get on jihadism right I mean I want to go to paradise with all the virgin they're going to kill people today you ain't going to change their views that's a very small percentage you have to deal with them in that context but I think there's a much larger group that in fact are open to the arguments you're actually going to make it worse for the drugie you're going to put them in prison then they come out they have no job opportunities what are they going to I mean you kind of run through that argument say prudence matters if you actually care about them that you can't go without consequence so you made some excellent points which only raises the question what happened to the Catholic Church or what happened to the Pope who recently in many of they ran an anti-libertarian conference here at the state at the Capitol building in Washington DC and I've been saying many times that free markets and Christianity are actually inimical to each other in a way that you said you know maybe Catholics of course have a long history of maybe not being so into free markets so is there any what's going on there you mentioned I don't believe it was a papal conference I think part of the challenge here is for example the current Pope you know I mean ministered in a society of state capitalism of basic kleptocracy of crony capitalism so a lot of folks I mean I once was at a conference on kind of religion and economics and I had somebody say what do you mean about capitalism I mean what about Marcos of the Philippines I had to explain that's not I mean this is not capitalism this is somebody kind of loots the system so somebody like that I think has a very different vision of what capitalism is and I mean it's interesting I think the Pope John Paul II who was very different in some of his Gentisimus on us and some of his other teachings I mean this is a man who had grown up under both Nazism and Communism and he had concerns about capitalism but you saw a very different sense in the way he talked about this he talked about you know the business economy was a good thing and there are a lot of activists out there I mean I think of Robert Cerrico at the Acton Institute I mean the whole originally the scholastics going way back within Catholicism there's always been some strains there you know it's unfortunate and I think a big part of the problem I've run into when you talk to especially kind of professional clerics I don't mean that in a negative sense it's just if you're the Pope I mean your career is in theology and in kind of ministering it's not economics is you don't know much about these issues I mean you pick up some of these documents and you read them and you say where are they coming from a group called evangelicals for social action at one point I know the person who runs and he'd sent me some of their material they sent me an article they did on housing I think it was housing that didn't mention zoning you can't talk about housing prices and access to the poor without mentioning the fact that government determines how dense your housing is and how costly it is so you have people there who are kind of see capitalism isn't working because poor people don't have homes but this intermediate step what's the government that actually determines how the expense so you people make these really kind of crazy pronouncements and it shows we still have a lot of work to do I'm curious about the history then we have work to do but there's been a lot of work that's been done in the past and so I'm curious about the overlap between Christianity and movements for liberty I mean we I know that a lot of histories of the libertarian movement tend to begin with struggles for religious freedom but but just in that scope I mean what how has Christianity have Christians been involved in the broader movement for liberty I mean certainly historically again I go back to the notion that if you if you present a theology that says there's something uniquely valuable morally about a human person every human person that in and of itself sets up a very important foundation for creating checks on government and checks on politicians and I think if you look historically kind of two things worked in tandem I mean you had a struggle between kind of church and state and you think of say you know Great Britain for example and disestablishing the Catholic church and creating the Anglican church and yes you're getting a struggle there and then at the same time within the political structure you know monarchy versus parliament that you're seeing things break apart and you're especially after the reformation where you see a break suddenly where there's no longer a monolithic church but suddenly now there's kind of a competitive environment even for religion all of that was very important I mean that's coming out of an age of absolute power it's coming out of an age where lots of tyranny but I think together they worked very powerfully I think what you see today you know clerics or it's more likely to be on particular issues I mean there is a lot of religious involvement against the Vietnam War there was religious involvement on pro-civil rights and against Jim Crow and segregation you see religious people today kind of speaking I think in prophetically in many ways on say war and while some of them get it wrong I mean progressives who want the welfare state there's some value I think in talking about we do need to care for people and the question is how do you do it so they're involved you don't really have kind of a Christian libertarian movement of great political significance and in certain ways I suppose that's okay that is I get nervous the moment somebody comes out I have this theology and that tells me what the politics is supposed to be I feel much better if you come and say well there are these values that are inherent to it and if I look at how government works this is how I bring it together because we've had scorecards put out by religious people on both left and right they have just silly stuff in terms of SDI and space based defense on earth does Christian theology have to say about this I don't know but they move forward and say they do but I think there's a real role there and I think that libertarians want to engage people of faith because it's not so much the leaderships you know kind of what the leaders of the central office of the Methodist church thing it's people in the pews it's people who do care about fundamental values but I think are very open they live in this world and they see how government messes up I mean so I think they're very open to those practical arguments where we can affirm their ultimate objective we want a better society but what they're advocating will get us there and that's the big question then what can Christians learn from libertarians and maybe going forward as libertarians seem poised to at least try to take over the Republican party or at least garner a significant amount of it the Christians in the Republican party might be the biggest block to putting more libertarian-ish people into office so what can Christians learn from libertarians well one of it is this kind of practical outcome of original sin that is power tends to corrupt that we seek how government acts and so many of the things that Christians and especially Christians the Republican party complain about government's done so the notion there that somehow there's this corrupt society and all you have to do is get government to fix it no I mean so much the corruption has come from government I mean what does government do in terms of welfare in terms of taxation taking resources I mean you think of Hobby Lobby I mean who should be out there providing health care and in some ways I mean what you've seen is a very bad dynamic where churches have been willing to kind of turn those responsibilities over that Bill Clinton said at the time that if every congregation in America adopted a poor person we could eliminate poverty you know there are problems with that I mean the concentrations of poverty obviously are in particular areas so how that would work out isn't quite so clear but I thought still it was kind of an important thing for a president to say that there are other institutions out there that can deal with this and the head of the National Council of Churches at the time said we're not going to kind of take over government's responsibility from it and I thought how wrong can you get this I mean if there's a responsibility for the church it is to care for those in need it's to minister to the whole person I mean includes economic need as well as spiritual need so there's been this temptation governments very imperialistic and pushes forward and churches have kind of fallen back and I think you know religious folks need to recognize that government will seize everything and the notion that these progressive politicians are in their camp I mean they're out for power and I feel the same way on the right Christians are very easily bamboozled politicians come up they know some of the lingo they know a few words to say and wave their arms and people say oh wonderful this is one of us and then these people get elected and off they go they serve their own interests and very little gets done that really advances the very humane kind of interests of people themselves and what about issues that they feel particularly embattled on such as gay marriage that one is really drawing pretty stark lines I think what's really important for Christians today and this is an area where I think libertarians and Christians can work together is to make sure that you know being a Christian doesn't result in you being forced to do things that really do a frontier moral views that and I think the idea you know do you have to recognize gay marriage I mean all we got in some of these cases in terms of photos of gay marriage I mean I think those are very important issues that what you want to affirm though is that essentially look the notion of government affirming this relationship creating kind of the legal system for it does not mean everything else and I think the Christians need to recognize it's important how they speak about these issues it's important that what they don't propound the notion we want to go out and discriminate against people we hate these people but it has to be much more of certain moral values are important to us you may not like it you may not understand it but it really is part of us and government shouldn't come in there and kind of seek to kind of change that and I think that's one where certainly Christians and libertarians have something where they can come together on and Christians need to recognize that the moment you go to the state I mean should marriage even be a government issue I mean to some degree why should that be a government issue I mean the government issue is having some legal framework within which you know you have a partnership you know who takes care of your partner if there's a health needs etc but marriage really should be outside the state anyway so in fact there's an area to tell Christians the real issue is well beyond what you're talking about government shouldn't determine marriage government should determine kind of these legal relationships and that really shouldn't matter whether it's gay or heterosexual our conversation so far has come at this from the direction of kind of justifying libertarianism to Christians and also saying to libertarians that Christianity especially of Christians think about this stuff properly isn't a threat but I wanted to ask a question from a different direction which is there has been especially the last decade or so this rising secular movement in this country and a very strong atheism I mean specifically like the new atheist movement which I mean my reading of their work when they talk about politics to lean fairly progressive and left most of the main people behind it are fairly leftist but it certainly is a movement that seems to have also been embraced by a large number of libertarians and I guess so my question is do you see a threat from that movement to liberty like this really anti-religious movement is that cause for concern from the perspective of someone who wants to advance liberty more broadly well there's no particular reason to believe that an atheist per se should be against liberty so I don't I think the danger is sometimes people start using politics to shadow box over other things that you're really mad at Christians so you want to try to find mechanisms that you use the state against them so suddenly I mean it's a question of does the photographer have to take photos at the gay wedding I mean if you're gay is getting married why would you want a photographer there who doesn't believe in the ceremony strikes me the obvious way to handle this but you do get I think a militant sense of no we are going to make you do this and there I think it may be more kind of a cultural antagonism by which the law has become the weapon especially if you don't have any particular philosophical objection to government well why not why shouldn't it be bigger and that I think might be a danger and I think that is worrisome because neither left nor right and neither Christian nor skeptic nor free thinker whoever Muslim Hindu you know should use the state as a weapon and I worry about that with the kind of militancy and part of that I suspect is you know you've grown up in a culture that in certain ways is saturated by God talk and imagery in America as you compare Europe for example I mean there are lots of cathedrals there but they're empty I mean the state churches there are dead it's you know America it's a much more vibrant religious climate that you can see why if you're a skeptic you had to get tired of it all everybody always wants to say the blessing and this and the public affirmations and the symbolism and I understand that but the proper response is not to grab the state and shove it down their throats it's to say hey guys we both benefit if we pull this out of politics and if we shrink this public square in which we come into conflict to me that's why public private education it's so important the more you privatize education you pull that out of this conflicted realm you don't have to argue about it you don't have to get mad at each other no you know is that you know the Pledge of Allegiance or this or that no I mean take it out of that political realm it doesn't have to be fought over to the more government expands all the stuff suddenly gets fought over becomes big issues so perhaps it seems like there's something for libertarians to learn from Christians and something for Christians to learn from libertarians and maybe a little bit more friends that can be made there particularly about value something you mentioned I think resonates very strongly here valuing every person is important I mean as a Christian I believe that there is an ultimate value to every human being it doesn't matter where you live what society you come from what your ethnic background is what your sex is every human person is made in the image of God and to me what resonates very powerfully with me is that means your life should be protected your dignity should be respected and that means respected by and protected from government from the state and it really I think shows you know that if you care about human beings that they make moral choices and the individual stands against the empire I mean it's no longer the empire in the grandeur of Rome or whatever that individual standing there is somebody of internal moral value I think that's a very important touchstone for libertarians and making their arguments as well as Christians and I think where libertarians really get it is just the dangers of the state Christians who believe in original sin people are sinful and do bad things well libertarians point out how the state is the most dangerous institution I mean Lord Acton a devout Catholic power tends to corrupt absolute power corrupts absolutely you don't put sinful human beings into powerful institutions give them opportunities to victimize others no Christians should want that Christians of all people should recognize the dangers of that and want to have constraints and limitations and recognize most of these issues and especially answering kind of for your your life it's God it's not the state it's not other people ultimately it's God you know Jesus at one point said you know those issues go to God I mean there's so much there that should not be state it goes beyond and Christians I think should recognize that and libertarians and Christians think can come together on some of these issues because I think the philosophy and the theology are some very important ways thank you for listening to Free Thoughts if you have any 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