An Agrarian Political Philosophy

An Alternitive View

The political principles that undergird the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution go back to the English philosopher John Locke. According to Locke and his spiritual heirs such as Thomas Jefferson, the function of government is to secure the liberty of individual citizens. Freed from the burdens of indentured servitude and the depravation of life, citizens mature and then enter into the kind of industry best suited to result in Prosperity and Virtue ending in abundance, hospitality, and generosity. This belief, that the purpose of government is to secure the liberty of its citizens, necessarily entails limited government. Limited government alows opportunities for more self-government, improved representation, and choice in the political process.

Today a massive centralized government has grown too big and too corrupt to allow for any meaningful representation or self-government. Furthermore, the government's goal is to grasp as much political control for itself and for corprate concernse by promoting a culture of fear. By means of a crippling tax burden, obligitory buracratic regulations, and the systematic limitation of individual rights the government is slowly erroding the personal integrety, independence, and liberty of their people.

Since it is the nature of governments to seek greater power and control through tyrany, political philosophers have been very suspicious of polititions. Therefore the principles upon which this nation was founded sought to limit the power of government. That is why the United States Constitution did not perscribe a limited number of people's rights. Instead it deliniated clear boundaries and limits as to what government could and could not do leaving most of the power and rights in the hands of the people.

Clark Carlton, in his letter, writes, "The equation is quite simple: the bigger the government is, the more it tries to do, the less freedom is available to its citizens. The purpose of government within the American tradition, then, is neither to make its citizens righteous nor to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, but to protect their God-given liberty." This is the political philosophy known as "political liberalism."

The kind of government we have now at all levels bears little resemblance to the principles upon which our Republic was founded. All three branches of the federal government – branches that were created precisely as checks on each other’s power – systematically ignore the limits imposed upon the federal government by the Constitution. The Congress passes all manner of legislation not authorized by the Constitution, limiting the freedom of the public through an ever-increasing network of laws and taxes, while at the same time almost completely abdicating its constitutional duties in regard to foreign policy and war. Presidents, for their part, routinely abdicate their duty to veto unconstitutional legislation and act as a check on congressional spending and instead have taken to themselves the almost monarchical power to promulgate their own laws (Executive Orders) and to wage war without a congressional declaration. (The last time Congress declared war was 1941.) And rather than keep the other two branches of government in line with the Constitution, the judicial branch instead rewrites legislation or invents new laws simply by fiat.

If the traditional society was envisioned as helping people live virtuous lives, now the purpose of society is to keep people from suffering. Where as the first goal aims at removing impediments to virtue it left open the possibility of suffering. In fact it thought of suffering as something that could sometimes build character. The end result is a nation of mature, productive, strongly independent, and liberally generous people. The second goal aims at removing opportunity for suffering by limiting individual rights and "protecting" people from themselves. The end result is a nation of immature, lazy, and strongly dependent people with an entitlement attitude "cared for" by a state that encompasses all of life within its total grasp.

Neither of the contemporary mainline political parties have shown us a way out of this totalitarian morass. The conservative party has dis-integrated into the morally impotent religious right on the one side and impious corporate imperialism on the other. The liberal party has likewise collapsed under the weight of its own triumphal welfare-ism and decadent top-heavy legislation of laziness. Both represent a totalizing jihad against liberty.

Today, threats to the good life abound: over consumption, industrial farming, ignorance, hubris, greed, the industrialization of life, feudalism, chauvinism, irreverence, cowardice, erosion, deforestation, and foreign conquest. The West is under the yoke of an American Imperialism: a policy of perpetual warfare, resource absorption, and economic mercantilism. Combined with a libertine moral anti-culture this warfare does violence not just over seas but at home against everything that is good and right. It is evident that this violence and anti-culture affect every area of life, even the much praised "privet life" that was exemplified so famously in the flawed yet passionate Dr. Zhivago. He experienced first hand how intolerant statist regimes can be against any lasting joy or any sign of personal indulgence or privet family life. Ultimately nothing will escape the totalizing grasp of political apotheosis.

We attempt to answer the call to fight these dangers with the traditional principles of "Political Liberalism" combined with the Agrarian virtues such as courage, simplicity, fidelity, husbandry, frugality, & reverence. We see these essays and manifestos as an extended conversation on the pleasures of good work, good food, family, laughter, psalm singing, connection to place, gardening, & sacramental eucharistic living. This is a vision of life as a miracle so great it breaks free of reductionistic imperialism. This is a vision of life as a gift to be received gratefully, carefully, and with skill. Lastly it is a political philosophy that would limit the power of despotic governments, giving liberty and opportunity to all to pursue virtuous lives and in so doing become a gift to his fellow man.

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Ryan D. Close
Springfield, Missouri
Friday, April 10, 2009

Revised: Ryan D. Close / Springfield, Missouri / Tuesday, April 21, 2009