Limited Government is the Answer; Modern-day Liberalism is Not

About a century ago, the word ‘liberal’ generally referred to attitudes and ideas promotive of political and economic freedom. To be liberal was therefore right in step with American patriotism—with a pride borne of genuine reverence for the freedom-honoring Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States of America.

But over the last hundred years or so, the concept of what is ‘liberal’ has shifted dramatically. Whittaker Chambers was an American-born Communist who spied for the Soviet Union and famously later rejected Communism and turned witness against Alger Hiss in the 1950’s. Chambers understood communism’s oppression of freedom and its effect on the human spirit, and zeroed in on the error that corrupted the idea of liberalism: the mistake of believing the definition and promotion of political and economic freedom is the province of man to the exclusion of God.

In describing the argument of the communist, Chambers wrote: "if man's mind is the decisive force in the world, what need is there for God?" He correctly noted that the core struggle between communism and the free world was a struggle between "those who reject and those who worship God." This conflict is not new to mankind. St. Paul had already spotted this type of thinking and rebuked it, calling it the ‘carnal mind’ that is ‘enmity against God’. But as this thought of man as supreme over God has subtly but persistently and forcefully spread, its effect is to argue that human government, alias ‘man’s mind’, can be the substitute for God. It encourages man’s faith to be in government and men rather than God, and to inject human opinion to supplant God’s laws of righteousness and moral living. __________________

Let’s take a look at the sub-prime mortgage crisis to see just how human-government-as-god thinking works—and then remember that this crisis and this thinking is at the core of the worldwide financial meltdown.

Lending and borrowing isn’t new, and the right way to use it to create value and progress isn’t either. The lender’s need to know and trust the borrower, his purposes and promises, is fundamental; the borrower’s need to show the work ethic, integrity, and commitment to return the money in order to earn the lender’s trust is also fundamental. (Jesus’ parable of the talents comes to mind). But the US government, led by ‘liberal’politicians who tend to think they are smarter than God, decided they could sidestep the fundamentals.

Human-government-as-god thinking looked at low-income people and decided that low income is an indication of an unfair society rather than any sort of barometer of individual work ethic, integrity, morality, education, or faith. Virtually dismissive of the concept of individual freedom and responsibility under God, human-government-as-god decided that home loans should be essentially given to low-income people—i.e., instead of banks requiring a 20% down payment (which could only be accumulated through hard work and/or family support); human-government-as-god decided no down payment should be required and ordered banks to make loans covering 100% of the purchase price. Instead of requiring proof of a steady job and steady income, human-government-as-god decided that welfare payments could be viewed as proof of sufficient income to obtain a 100% loan. Instead of normal proof of citizenship and tax-paying status, human-government-as-god decided not even social security numbers should be required—and the Department of Housing estimated that 5 million persons not legally entitled to even be in the US hold sub-prime mortgage loans on US housing.

Now, people may scoff at the notion that anything so sinister as human-government-as-god is implicated in a debate about public policy regarding home ownership. But scoffing in this way is what causes people to totally misunderstand the sub-prime crisis: the fact that the loans were made was not primarily a matter of greed or dishonesty—it was a matter of banks obeying the laws enacted by human government! The fact that there has been widespread default among borrowers who took 100% loans but without an ability to repay them is anything but shocking.

The whole situation was a train wreck waiting to happen, and many people saw it coming and tried to get the government to stop it or at least minimize it. But Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were major campaign contributors to politicians who favored giving 100% loans to low-income people, and any corrective action by government was effectively blocked by these politicians. All of this is a matter of public record.

Greed and dishonesty certainly describes the proven falsification of accounting records by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives as they frantically set out to book and buy up and package as many mortgage loans as they could (their compensation bonuses were based on loan totals), but this was greed and dishonesty directly facilitated by the human-government-as-god policy to require that sub-prime loans be made. Greed and dishonesty certainly describes the actions of politicians who took contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and then refused to take action when warnings were sounded concerning the very obvious and systemic risks that were being created by all this government-mandated ‘lending’ that was really just handing out money. Greed and dishonesty may also describe some of the borrowers who knew they could not repay the loans but took them anyway. But focusing on greed and dishonesty as the cause of this crisis is a distraction. The profound and deeply Christian and American notions of individual freedom and responsibility under God were turned upside down by an aggressive assertion of modern-day liberalism: human-government-as-god.

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Why does all this matter? Because human-government-as-god rejects God as God, and treats man as the vassal of the state, without individual freedom and with responsibility to the state, not to God. It is a crushing of the idea of man’s birthright as the child of God, and a crushing of the spirit of America’s foundational ideals: man endowed by his Creator with rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are inalienable by man or human government.

The sub-prime crisis is a vivid illustration of the disasters that follow modern-day liberalism. But the good news is we can avoid such disasters in the future—by recognizing the fallacy of modern-day liberalism and turning from it, and turning back to America’s founding ideal: individual freedom and responsibility under God.

Paul Gable

Posted January 12, 2009