NOTE: All quotes in this paper, unless otherwise indicated, come from Sean Hannity's bestselling first book, Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism. Page numbers refer to the paperback edition.
Preface
This is the second installment of a planned series of papers devoted to outlining the possibility of religious dictatorship in America. My first essay, Rush Limbaugh: Voice of the Religious Threat in America, mostly surveyed the religious threat's core political beliefs—as articulated in Limbaugh's first book, The Way Things Ought To Be. This paper builds off the first and examines some of the tactics used by religious conservatives to spread their threatening ideas throughout the culture.
Also know that I wrote this mostly for an Objectivist audience. Therefore, this paper does not detail the reasons why Objectivism is a good alternative to the religious threat. Nor do I pay serious attention to refuting the faith-based opposition. My primary aim with these papers is simply to point my finger at a gathering danger and attempt to describe it more clearly for my fellow students of Objectivism. To those who are unfamiliar with Objectivism and its secular, rationally selfish, pro-individual moral system, I emphatically recommend reading the philosophical works of Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff.
Conservatives and the Media War
Armed with a religious ideology firmly rooted in faith in God and the Bible, many conservative leaders have been relentlessly attacking liberals and Democrats since at least 1988, when Rush Limbaugh's radio program went national. Their ultimate goal is the common mission of ideological movements throughout history: to reshape the cultural landscape through the use of social and political tools such as the legislature, educational institutions, and the media.
Conservatives are numerous and influential in many key sectors of our society. However, I will presently highlight only their success in the media, because the main subject of this paper is, in fact, a famous media pundit, and I plan to address the religious threat in other areas of society in my future writings.
In this era of Rush Limbaugh and his many followers, it's no secret that religious conservatives dominate political talk radio—locally and nationally. Through this medium alone, their propaganda reaches nearly every corner of America—from apartments in Manhattan to Honda Accords in Los Angeles.
Radio is everywhere—in homes, workplaces, automobiles, etc. And today, this means that Limbaugh-style religious conservatism is everywhere, too.
Having conquered radio, conservatives now do battle in the television trenches. They have already achieved notable progress in the TV news industry. "Liberal" network news services have been losing viewers (and respect) for years. Now, FOX News Channel, the newer "conservative" cable network, has taken the lead in the ratings.
In addition to radio and television success, many religious conservatives, including Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, have also written bestselling political books.
Nearly everywhere you look in the popular media, you'll find conservatives close to or at the top of their political game and reputation, and you'll see liberals on the decline—or struggling to compete, as witnessed by the fledgling Air America radio network and the declining ratings for ABC, NBC, and CBS news programs.
Liberals do hold some ground, of course. There are still many popular left-leaning newspapers, for example. But even in this industry, it is the more conservative Wall Street Journal that garners widespread respect. And I suspect that as conservatives take over more of academia they will soon also conquer the print media, which is heavily supplied by university-level talent.
In general, I think it is fair to say that God-fearing conservatives are on offense in the national media war. They have the full weight of religious morality behind their drive to the top. And by preaching and advancing their religion-based political agenda, every last one of them threatens the remaining freedoms of secular Americans.
One of the faithful, however, can be singled out as a greater danger than most. After Limbaugh, there is one other conservative voice, one other Republican face, one other religious mind that has achieved terrible success in radio, television, and books.
That foe is Sean Hannity.
A Living Testament
Sean Hannity is a warrior. "I was born combative," he writes on the first page of his first book, Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism. For him every day is a struggle—an ideological battle. As his book's subtitle indicates, he is presently embroiled in the epic fight against liberalism.
Hannity is an angry warrior. In 1987 he watched the Iran-Contra hearings, and they made him mad:
I was appalled at the unbelievably vicious liberal attacks on honorable and patriotic men like Lt. Col. Ollie North ...
I found myself getting furious ... The more I watched and listened, the angrier I got. (pp. 42-3)
It wasn't long before Hannity started phoning radio shows to "defend" Ollie North and "beat up" on liberals. That was the year, he says, that he "found [his] calling in life." (p. 43)
Hannity is also a religious conservative warrior. In the long wake of Limbaugh's success, his own radio show went national on the day before 9/11. To toast the occasion he discussed several "conservative" issues during that day's broadcast:
... cutting taxes, reforming education, strengthening the military, and defending the Judeo-Christian values too often being driven out of our schools. (p. 3) [emphasis mine]
The Sean Hannity Show now airs on over four hundred radio stations throughout America. His audience is in the neighborhood of 14 million people, second only to Limbaugh's.
In addition to his popular radio program, Hannity also co-hosts the number one cable TV debate show, Hannity & Colmes.
Virtually every day, he takes on liberal challengers in the public "war of ideas," passionately waving his banner for the religious Right. Only God knows when he found time to write two New York Times bestselling political books.
His face may be famous, and his voice may be recognized throughout the nation, but Hannity the Catholic (p. 1) remains humble when it comes to his professional accomplishments. He acknowledges the fact that his media glory was made possible in part by the phenomenon of Rush Limbaugh:
Rush's commercial and financial success ... spawn[ed] an entire industry of new talk radio stations and hosts, the vast majority of which [came] from a conservative or evangelical Christian worldview ...
I'm a living testament to the talk radio tsunami Rush set into motion. (pp. 261-2)
Tsunami: A giant destructive wave.
Hannity is living proof that Limbaugh's tsunamic following, if not stopped, threatens to wash away our secular lives and leave behind a thick layer of "evangelical" silt.
[NOTE: The above paragraph was written before the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. It and future tsunami references in this paper are not intended to reference any real life disaster—other than the disaster of religious conservatism. This note will be removed once the author is confident that it is unnecessary.]
Hannitizing America
From the crest of Limbaugh's tidal wave, Hannity wages a strategic campaign. After the release of a second bestselling book, his 2004 "Hannitization of America" tour splashed across the nation. He traveled throughout the country, meeting like-minded fans, autographing books, and giving speeches—all in pursuit of his "patriotic" dream for the future:
The conservative vision is that America return to its founding principles—because these principles are the pillars of freedom. (p. 3)
At first, Hannity's "conservative vision" sounds pretty nice. But what exactly does he think are the "founding principles" of America?
In this context, Hannity sometimes writes (and speaks) of things like "limited government, individual liberty, and the rule of law." (p. 249) But one wonders what these abstract "principles" really mean to him, when he more passionately advocates concrete initiatives such as putting or keeping God, Judeo-Christian values, and prayer in public schools and government institutions (pp. 113-41)—which would increase the state's size and involvement in the moral direction of this nation—and banning abortion (pp. 170-86)—which would violate the rights of women for the sake of religious morality. Hannity, like Limbaugh, appears to be for "the rule of law" only when it's in line with his faith-based value system.
Objectivists are familiar with this kind of empty conservative rhetoric about "limited government" and "individual liberty." So I won't further argue the point. However, I want to emphasize the fact that, to religious conservatives, the most important, motivating political issue is not taxes or the rights of the already-born. It's actually the controversy over abortion. "There is no more important issue," Hannity admits. (p. 179) And more disturbing, he believes that the Constitution is on his side:
The Constitution stands for neither slavery nor abortion. (p. 173)
In presenting their case against a woman's right to her own body, religious conservatives frequently (and fallaciously) invoke America's Founding Fathers, our founding documents, and the unpleasant image of slavery:
Like the Founders of our country, I believe in certain absolute and "self-evident" moral truths. I believe in a God who created each one of us in His image ... And I believe that life begins at conception[.] (p. 172)
[J]ust as the color of one's skin doesn't make someone a nonperson, neither does the inability of a baby to survive outside the mother's womb. (p. 173)
Woa! Hold on a second ... Is Hannity honestly comparing a slave to a fetus? And why the double negatives? Lots of things don't make someone a nonperson.
The real question is: What does make someone a person—a human person? And Hannity's answer to this question is that "life begins at conception." Which, to him, means: a person begins at conception. And his justification for that answer is his blind faith in God. He believes that we shouldn't "deny certain human beings—whatever their physical appearance or stage in life—their God-given right to life." (p. 173) After all, if a figment of his imagination can be a person, why can't a fetus?
Hannity's rhetoric about God, the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and slavery, all of that is—excuse my language—pure bullshit, used to cleverly conceal the fact that he has abandoned reason and reality on this issue.
Within his emotional, myth-based context, he irrationally proclaims abortion to be a "modern-day atrocity" and "the most unconscionable and immoral mistreatment of human life since slavery." (p. 173)
When I think about that number—forty-two million unborn children killed by abortion over the past thirty years—it truly angers me. The fact that it is accepted by so many in society truly saddens me. (p. 174)
When God-fearing Hannity looks at America, his primary concern isn't the reduction of government taxes and spending, or promoting capitalism. No, he looks at this nation and first sees a cesspool of abortions—millions of tiny, innocent babies being savagely murdered by Adam's sinful descendants. It seems that, to him, we are a bunch of dirty, immoral Americans who need to be sanitized by a cleansing wave of Christian conservatism. Clearly he must think that we need religious values and laws imposed upon us. It's not difficult to guess his waking thought each morning: this filthy country requires a good and thorough "Hannitizing":
As we seek to change the law, we need to pray for a moral and spiritual awakening to end abortion in America. (p. 185)
Let's quickly remind ourselves that this guy I'm quoting is Sean Hannity—poster boy for the modern conservative movement. I'm not talking about some far Right religious extremist wacko here. I'm talking about Sean Hannity—arguably the most popular conservative figure in the media today. He is an inspiration to millions of followers who dream of a born-again America, where abortions, along with various other Christian vices, are banned from the land.
Like Limbaugh, Hannity wants to see God and religion prevail in America. He is against the separation of church and state. He wants to outlaw assisted suicides. He wants faith-based democratic government to rule the land. He obviously wants to change the laws to reflect Judeo-Christian values. To further argue that ideologically Hannity is virtually a cardboard cutout of Limbaugh would be a waste of space. If you require further elaboration on Hannity's truly evil nature, critically listen to what he says on his radio and TV shows.
The question I want to address now is: How the heck are Hannity and friends convincing this nation to accept religious conservatism? What specific tactics are they using to carry out their crusade?
Marketing the Message
If there's one thing I've learned in my time in radio and television, it's this: It makes no difference how good your product or service is if you don't effectively market it. (p. 228)
The importance of marketing a product, in this case a set of beliefs, is not lost on Hannity. He knows that to reach his political objectives in a democratic state he must, at some level, appeal to the masses and sell the conservative package to them. He, along with others like him, must persuade the voting population that conservatism is good—or at least better than the alternatives.
Conservatism, however, is a bad ideology—based on mysticism, faith, and altruism. Objectivists, and others, understand how it leads to pain and suffering in the world. Sellers of such an ideology thus face a difficult marketing problem: How on earth do you convince people to buy a product that doesn't work and results in misery?
Appealing to Emotion
Hannity knows that he must market his message to the millions of "I feel your pain" Clinton Democrats who've been "exposed" to years and years of "liberal fearmongering and falsely characterizing Republicans." (p. 251) He knows that conservatism needs a more broadly appealing image:
That's precisely why Bush defined himself early on in his [first] presidential campaign as a "compassionate conservative." (p. 251)
Compassion: Deep sympathy for and desire to relieve another's suffering.
It's clear—at least to me—that at some point the religious Right figured out that conservatism has trouble selling itself. Appeals to reality or to people's reason don't work in this case, because conservatism is far, far removed from such things. Conservatism makes sense only in the land of fantasy.
I believe that smarter conservatives have wised up to the lessons of Christianity and Bill Clinton. They have learned that, to advance their unrealistic, irrational agenda, they need to appeal to something other than the real world and common sense. They need to appeal, for example, to emotion:
The message: true conservatives actually are every bit as compassionate as liberals believe themselves to be. (p. 251)
The real message: Compassion is good. Conservatives are compassionate. Therefore, conservatism is good.
Now, if an Objectivist, or anyone else, points out the fallacies in this whole "compassion" shtick, I'm fairly certain that many conservatives will agree that having a heart doesn't make one's political agenda correct. But, I'm also fairly certain that the conservative propaganda machine isn't aimed at logical types.
Consider, for example, one of Hannity's ostensibly better positions: his support for "cutting taxes." Even on this apparently rational view, his rhetoric is colored with appeals to compassion:
[T]he tax burden on American families is at a record high ... The tax code is more complicated, convoluted, and corrupt than ever. Working families are paying four times more in taxes today than they did in the 1950s. Many are struggling just to make ends meet. (p. 206)
The cold truth is that the American taxpayer is being abused and plundered by his own government. (p. 219)
Yes, it does appear that Hannity is currently in favor of some sort of tax cutting. More importantly, however, he is nowhere near being against involuntary taxation. He's not really against forced taxation at all. What he's actually against is causing too much abuse or suffering upon the taxpayer through "overtaxation." (p. 206) Who cares whether you have a right to your own property and money! Only when you are clearly being "abused" will the compassionate conservatives come to your rescue—until, of course, they need massive funding for their own agenda.
It shouldn't be surprising to us that conservatives have sunk to the same dishonest level of emotion-based rhetoric that we typically see to the left of the political spectrum. After all, conservatives and liberals, for the most part, are cut from the same irrational cloth. Also, it's not as if liberals invented the art of appealing to emotion. This fallacy has been around probably since the dawn of verbal fisticuffs.
Using emotion to persuade people is a method of the irrational. The more a person gives up on reality and reason, the more he has to depend on non-rational "sources" of knowledge, such as emotion, to guide his actions and convince others. This is an inescapable fact. The irrational must use irrational tactics in order to spread their irrational beliefs. They must use tempting fallacies, because their ideas simply are not in accordance with the facts.
Hannity and friends want to argue for cutting taxes, but they cannot do so on rational grounds, because they start with the premise that involuntary taxation is okay. They cannot argue for your absolute right to your own property. They don't believe in such a right. They believe in God and self-sacrifice. They cannot follow the facts of reality, so they follow the whims of fallacy.
From the White House to the church down the block, we are witnessing a massive reliance on irrational, often emotion-based, rhetorical tactics. In fact, modern conservatives depend so heavily and so fundamentally on appeals to emotion that they have now made compassion a "defining" element of their ideological message.
One might now ask: Why compassion? Why not appeal to something else?
Well, what else defines conservatism? This reason-challenged political system increases the amount of suffering in the world. Thus, it makes perfect sense for conservatives to appeal more and more to that which they cause by identifying themselves with compassion. To what else can they appeal? Joy? Sure, they can promise joy—in the distant future or the next life, but not today, not now. What about reality? Sure, but not this one. Can they appeal to reason? Of course they can, but not your reason. True wisdom, you see, comes from faith in God and the Bible.
Despite their fantastic ability to evade reality, religious conservatives must attend, in some way, to earthly suffering. If they ignore it, they take the risk of being righteously blamed for causing it by the more rational and influential minds.
Exactly how conservatives approach the issue of suffering, whether positively or negatively, is, I think, an entirely different matter—one that's dependent upon current and local cultural conditions. Conservatives may want to alleviate the taxpayer's suffering now, but what about later—when rising taxes are primarily propping up the forces of religion?
I believe that, currently, conservatives often present their agenda as the cure to suffering, because that is what most voters today still want to hear. However, once they manage to reverse the American public's generally positive sense of life, once the Western world reverts back to a deeply mystical and God-fearing lifestyle, I think conservatives will thoroughly embrace widespread suffering, deeming it fallen man's proper lot on earth. After all, isn't that what the Bible teaches us sinners to believe?
Appealing to Christ
Also, note that the concept of compassion perfectly suits a Christian-dominated movement. Readers of the Bible know that "compassion" is precisely what Christ felt for and demands of humankind. Jesus, Christians believe, suffered the ultimate Passion on Calvary, where he was beaten and crucified. His compassion was so great that he sacrificed his own mortal life for the sins of every man, woman, and child.
Notice Hannity's appeal to Christian compassion in the context of the abortion debate. He likes, for example, to tell the story of Norma McCorvey (AKA Jane Roe), whose 1973 lawsuit Roe v. Wade made abortions legal in America. For years some "loving" folk from Operation Rescue tried to convert McCorvey to Christianity. They eventually succeeded, and now McCorvey is asking the Supreme Court to reverse its decision in her original case and make abortion illegal again. Prior to her recent plea to the high court, but after her religious conversion, Hannity discussed McCorvey in his first book:
It is Norma McCorvey's story that gives me hope.
It gives me hope that we can make a difference through dialogue, compassion, and prayer. It shows me that lost, hurting women can find God and that He can transform them. It gives me confidence that peaceful pro-life activism can work—by changing one heart at a time. (p. 186)
Hannity holds up compassion as a key method for "making a difference" regarding the spread of anti-abortionism. With compassion, conservatives are able to put on a gentler, caring face while they prey on "lost, hurting women," attempting to convert the suffering to religious dogma and prayer and influence their political decisions.
Again, it is important to notice that Hannity does not approach the suffering through a rational argument from individual rights, but from the emotional appeal to their pain and his Christian compassion.
This single, defining concept of compassion markets conservative positions not only to the emotion-driven element of man, but also to the numberless Christ-inspired sheep, who spend their ration of intelligence bleating to the heavens and feeling guilty for their "sins."
What would Jesus do? He'd become a compassionate religious conservative.
Contrasting the Product
In addition to appealing to a given market, another aspect of selling a product, such as conservatism, is ensuring that it is easily distinguishable from other, similar merchandise, such as liberalism. This helps consumers conceptualize your product, remember it, spot it on the shelf later, and take it, rather than the similar item, to the sales counter for purchase.
Hannity understands the importance of differentiating products, and thus he urges his fellow conservatives to debate the competition:
We must engage the Left, expose its positions, contrast its positions with our own, and make our case to the American people. (p. 254)
In the competitive world of American politics, this is a great tactic for marketing an ideology. Unfortunately for conservatives, the real contrast between liberalism and conservatism amounts to little more than different brands of collectivism—secular versus religious. Politically, the Left clings to secular welfare statism, demanding sacrifice on behalf of the "public good," while the Right pushes religious "democracy" and insists on sacrifice for the sake of "God's laws."
To the extent that conservatives separate their trash from liberal garbage, many dishonest strategies are employed. However, I want to focus on only one such strategy, which I believe religious conservatives use with a large degree of effectiveness.
Demonizing the Competition
The pattern goes something like this:
a) First, religious conservatives attempt to attack liberal
collectivist beliefs and policies.
b) But, in the end, this effort fails, because once the debate
reaches the underlying moral issue of altruism, upon which
both liberalism and conservatism rest, the Right must accept
the ethical validity of the liberal's altruistic cause.
c) Faced with this ideological problem, religious conservatives,
not able to admit fully to their own collectivist beliefs, evade the
reality of their politics, turn instead to God and faith, and begin
launching fallacious attacks against the political competition.
Ultimately, religious conservatives like Hannity choose the evasive route, seemingly because following the truth would lead away from political success—in the current environment. Thus, rather than witnessing a raging debate over religious versus secular collectivism, we are privy to the tiring spectacle of modern, conservative character assassinations. Consider this passage, in which Hannity tries to mortally wound the reputation of liberals:
[I]t's time for those who disparage and dismiss the importance of faith, family, and the flag in our lives to be held to account. Liberals preach that there is nothing wrong with American education that more money and social engineering, fewer standards, and less competition can't solve. They teach our children multiculturalism rather than American culture, revisionist history rather than American history, the thinly disguised religion of secular humanism and extreme environmentalism rather than capitalism. They train our young to criticize America, not celebrate it. They welcome condoms into the classroom but ban God and the Ten Commandments. They encourage tolerance for the teachings of the Koran but not for the teachings of Jesus Christ. They oppose the Pledge of Allegiance, tell us that "God is dead," that "Christianity is for losers," and that evangelical and Catholic conservatives are more dangerous than radical Islamic militants. They tell us that fuel-burning SUVs are bad for America, but flag-burning SOBs aren't.
But they are wrong. And it is time to ask: Why, particularly in time of war should we entrust the education of our children to people who loathe and ravage so many of our core values and traditions? (pp. 8-9)
Now, I'm not going to pick apart this long quote to expose all of its hypocrisy and misrepresentations. I'll let liberals like Al Franken defend themselves against the conservative rhetoric. But I do want to address a couple things.
First, a small point: Notice how Hannity rightly accuses liberals of revising history, yet he, of course, fails to mention that conservatives also rewrite history. Not only do they want schoolchildren to learn "history" from the Bible, but they falsely teach that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values (p. 6) and the principles of the Ten Commandments. (p. 118) Apparently, turning fantasy into history is okay when you are a religious conservative.
The Anti-Christian Demon
A second, and more important, point to note is the ideological meat of Hannity's argument—that liberals are anti-Christians. Obviously, it's true that some liberals are rabidly anti-Christian, just like some conservatives are rabidly anti-infidel. But anti-Christianism does not define liberalism, just as anti-infidelism does not define conservatism—at least not yet.
Nevertheless, Hannity attempts to contrast conservatism and liberalism in regard to religion. He wants his audience to believe, and often reminds them, that conservatives are Christians, and liberals are anti-Christians. And in a heavily Christian society, promoting this sort of mantra can work miracles for the spread of conservatism. Repeat after me:
[Liberals] tell us that "God is dead," that "Christianity is for losers[.]" (p. 9)
They want "In God We Trust" erased from our coins. They want the Ten Commandments ripped off the walls of public buildings. (p. 118)
The Left seeks to extinguish virtually all references to God, Judeo-Christian beliefs, and the Bible in our public schools. (p. 142)
Repeat that ten times ...
Is everyone left of center an anti-Christian yet? They will be if Hannity has his way.
Some of my readers, at this point, may be wondering whether Hannity and friends do this on purpose. Are they really out to brainwash people with falsehoods and dishonestly portray the Left as a pack of anti-Christian demons? I don't know. But when I look at what both sides actually do and say, their basic tactics seem very much the same to me. Only their implementations are slightly different. The Left tends to use the "race" and "class" cards to demonize the Right, while the Right scores points with the "religion" card, routinely accusing the Left of being anti-Christian.
Could it be that conservatives are simply modifying a classic strategy that we've seen throughout the history of irrational propaganda? Aren't they basically saying that the Left hates and discriminates against Christianity, therefore vote conservative Republican?
It looks that way to me.
The Anti-American Demon
Another popular strategy of the Right is to suggest that they are God-loving patriots who would gladly sacrifice for the flag, while liberals are traitorous hellhounds who would sell America to Osama bin Laden. Some voters, I'm sure, decide to support conservative Republicans due to this kind of propaganda. However, I'm only addressing this issue in passing, because I don't consider marking liberals as anti-American to be a strategy of fundamental importance. I believe that most people are motivated by ideas more basic than patriotism—ideas such as religion and philosophy.
The Compassion-less Demon
Before moving on to the next major tactic, I'd like to briefly revisit the issue of compassion—in this specific context of contrasting the Left and the Right. I want to point out the fact that conservatives appeal to compassion not only to pump up their own image with the religious and emotional types, as I described earlier, but also to further demonize liberals and Democrats:
The Democrats talk a great game of compassion but can never explain what is compassionate about increasing government dependency and eroding our liberties. (p. 229)
The obvious implication here is that, when it comes to compassion, Democrats talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. So, according to Hannity, in addition to the Leftist demon's hatred for Christians, he also doesn't really care about other people's earthly suffering. In stark contrast, conservative crusaders are truly compassionate Christians—the real deal.
Forcing Consumption
Not everyone, of course, succumbs to conservative propaganda—specifically the numerous, mind-numbing appeals to God, Christianity, and the emotion of compassion. Liberals, of course, have their own (often irrational) excuses for hating conservatives. Some citizens, for varying reasons, simply don't care about politics. Many observant, interested folk sense that conservatives are wrong, even though they don't exactly know why. And then there are those who actually identify and reject the Right's irrational rhetoric.
As we have seen, conservatism cannot sell itself. It must rely on irrational tactics to survive in the marketplace of ideas and to spread throughout society. This means that, to prevail in the end, conservatives must rely on the ultimate irrational tactic—initiating force.
Defrauding Americans
Fraud: A subtle deceit done to acquire an undeserved value.
I suspect that many religious conservatives are presently engaged in a special, probably non-prosecutable kind of fraud—not as part of a grand political conspiracy, but, for the most part, on an individual basis. This is a difficult to impossible thing to prove, but I think it's worth bringing up in this context.
Fraud is an indirect usage of force. Basically, it's when something is gained through deception, then kept by force. As Ayn Rand puts it in her essay The Nature of Government: "[Fraud] consists of obtaining material values without their owner's consent, under false pretenses or false promises."
Some of the values that conservatives acquire from Americans are volunteer help, monetary contributions, votes, and ultimately government power. Much of these values, however, are handed over under the false pretense that conservatives are capitalists who respect and protect individual rights, and also in response to the seemingly dishonest promise that conservatives will cut taxes, reduce spending, and limit government to the powers laid out in the Constitution.
At all costs, conservatives must evade or conceal the annoying fact that politically they are actually collectivists—not principled individualists and capitalists. I think that the most vocal and religious among them flat-out lie about their true intentions—that many of them want to sacrifice your rights for the sake of religious values and Christian culture. They don't really want to cut taxes. All they want to do is make the tax system "fair" and "equal." (p. 226) They also don't want to cut spending. They are mostly concerned with spending more money on religious education (pp. 8-9) and school vouchers (p. 169), for example, and reducing funding for abortion clinics and stem cell research. They have little to no interest in ending welfare programs. They, especially the evangelical conservatives, merely want to redirect government handouts, so that more religious organizations, and less secular ones, receive government funding for their social programs. At heart, on principle, most conservatives aren't against the welfare state. Consider also the fact that one reason Hannity supports the "flat tax" idea is because he believes it, by bringing in more revenue, will help "strengthen Medicare and save Social Security." (p. 226) Does this sound like a man who's really against the welfare state? To me it sounds like a compassionate Christian who simply wants to increase the government's spending power.
Religious conservatives, such as Hannity, are clearly in favor of collectivism, as long as it's stamped with the Lord's blessing. Yet, these same people claim to be individualists and capitalists. For this reason I suspect them of fraud. They lie about their politics. They gain political power partially through deception, and I have no doubt that, if they succeed in thoroughly taking over the government, they will then try to keep that tremendously important and powerful value by means of more aggressive force. At that point, it would be silly to attempt to prosecute our own government for fraud. Our only means of retribution would be some kind of self-defensive revolutionary action.
Legalizing the Rights-Violating Agenda
I realize that Hannity would not agree with my take on conservatism and conservatives in general. And I wouldn't expect him to agree. After all, he would probably insist that banning abortion is not a violation of anyone's life and liberty. He would probably tell you that faith-based initiatives are not violations of anyone's property. And he would definitely have a problem with the notion that religious conservatives are a threat to our individual rights. Why should I expect a mind like this to be honest when it comes to describing its own positions and actions?
Even though I seriously doubt Hannity's honesty, I guess there's a minute possibility that he truly believes in the garbage he's selling. However, fraud or not, he's still a threat to freedom-loving people. He still advocates democratically imposing a faith-based, rights-violating agenda on America. As a popular spokesman for his dangerous ideology, he persuades many conservatives to step from the church to the voting booth with motivational messages like this one:
[P]olitics is not just some fascinating abstract subject that we pundits and commentators talk about for amusement—though it sure can be fun at times. It is not a spectator sport. Politics matters in very concrete ways.
Ultimately politics will determine who our leaders are because politics drives campaigns and campaigns decide elections. And—don't let the cynics steal your optimism—it matters who our leaders are. There are very real differences in the philosophies of the two parties. It matters what policies they advance because those policies will play a role in our quality of life, our prosperity, our relationships with other nations—and, most important, our freedoms ...
Don't let naysayers convince you that your individual participation in politics is meaningless. That's not the case. Even your individual vote matters, as we saw in spades during the 2000 presidential election, culminating in the battle for every single hanging chad in Florida. (p. 273)
The final mission of the religious Right is to rally public support and democratically elect people who will make their agenda the law of the land. Hannity knows that once this is accomplished conservative policies "will play a role in our freedoms." But does he, and the rest of his flock, fully understand the rights-violating nature of that "role?" Do they know what kinds of force-based actions they are supporting, and what their personal votes are purchasing? To them, does the "conservative vision" look like a religious dictatorship? Does it look like a Christian Democracy? Is this tyranny of the religious majority really the dream of millions of Americans?
I don't know. What would Lord Jesus want?
Fighting the Religious Right
So far, in these first two essays, I have written about Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, seemingly the most popular conservative figures in media today. I cited and commented upon their bestselling political books in order to reasonably communicate their core beliefs. Using them as prime examples of religious conservatism, I have summarized the enemy ideology and examined some of the tactics being used to effectively spread and implement it. Finally, with these papers, I have provided some evidence for why I believe that conservatism seriously threatens America with the horror of Christian Democracy, or another form of religious dictatorship.
My primary purpose in starting this series was, as I have said, to further illustrate the threat of American dictatorship. I hope to continue doing that by temporarily leaving the realm of politics and focusing my next installment on a second axis of the more general threat: Christian fundamentalism. My next paper will confront the published ideology of Billy Graham—the world-renowned Christian evangelist, who, according to his bio, "has delivered the gospel message to more people face-to-face than anyone in history."
In writing this series, I also hope to encourage others to participate in the intellectual fight against the religious Right. In that spirit, I will now conclude this paper by briefly describing two very basic rhetorical tactics that I think everyone can use, right now, to rationally combat our conservative foes.
Spotlight the Enemy
First, I think we need to clearly identify and name the religious threat and tell others about it. We should shine a spotlight on the ideological enemy—the brighter the spotlight the better.
This simple idea has the same clarity and value of declaring formal war on an enemy country. By pointing at and announcing the foe's presence, we aid others, including our closest friends, in seeing the enemy's nature with their own eyes. Even if others don't immediately agree with us, the contrast between ourselves and our enemy will have been made. Lines in the sand will have been drawn.
Furthermore, by declaring our intention to fight for reason and defend ourselves from force, we could, by example, encourage other rational minds to join us. I suspect that doing this may be essential to winning any war of any kind—especially when the enemy is larger and more organized than us. We could definitely use more friends and allies.
In identifying the enemy, I believe we need to provide Americans with an up-to-date conception of the religious threat to our freedoms. We need to give people current examples—concretes that they can see for themselves. We need to reasonably tie these concretes to the political danger. I have tried to do this by linking Limbaugh's ideology and Hannity's tactics to the potential nightmarish rise of a religious dictatorship—a Christian Democracy, in my estimation.
Also, once we have described the threat, let's not forget to accurately name it. I tend to call the enemy "religious conservatives," because I think this term fits them nicely—for now. But others may have a different name for these same people, such as "social conservatives," "the religious Right," or just plain "conservatives." Whatever we call them, however, the concept of the threat should be clear. If a fuzzy or confusing idea is allowed to dominate the debates, we may not achieve a common understanding of the enemy until it is too late to do much about it.
Claim Your Concepts
My second and last suggestion is this: Once the enemy is spotlighted, demand that they surrender that which is rightfully yours. In the case of religious conservatives, I'm talking about demanding the return of certain political concepts, such as "freedom" and "capitalism," which rightfully belong to us, not them. For, they have repeatedly proven themselves, in words and deeds, to be unworthy of these concepts.
I believe that religious conservatives need to be confronted specifically on their collectivistic and anti-capitalist beliefs and policies. They need to be interrogated and taught to tremble before the reason of true individualists.
At the very least, we might raise more eyebrows at their attempts to religionize and emotionalize the principle of capitalism. I'm aware, for example, of at least two books called Compassionate Capitalism. I haven't read them yet. But if one review is correct, and the idea behind these books is to "meld Judeo-Christian ethical percepts with those of capitalism," then I think this represents a couple more steps backward on the path toward laissez faire capitalism.
To defeat the religious Right, I believe we must act now. We, of course, must uphold wherever possible the positive Objectivist positions on reality and reason, selfishness and capitalism. But I think we also need to boldly point at and identify this religious threat, expose their illogic, challenge their honesty, and deprive them of concepts to which they have no rightful claim. Ultimately, I believe we must bankrupt their faith-based ideology, leaving them nothing with which to continue the intellectual fight.
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