Beyond Good Intentions
Bandow, Doug
unapologetically that of reformed Pro- not subject to the vagaries of the testantism. In addition to his rejection historical moment but are rooted in the of the reigning humanist consensus, he...
...tan, but that's just the guise in which But Bandow doesn't identify this the Reformed faith was originally theologically based notion of the state mediated to the new world...
...Actually he uses the term Puri- them...
...Bandow is frank to show this state must oppose abortion, in his view, tension in the preface as he pays tribute because human life is at stake, but there to Ed Crane, the president of Cato, is no reason for the state to meddle in while speaking openly of their difsuch activities as drug abuse and ferences on spiritual matters...
...Bandow's third major state, in order to bring about justice, American Spectator and many other writers who work this field, however, assumption is that ethical principles are must rule in accordance with those fixed publications...
...necessarily going to posit a sovereign A lot of Bandow's work has been in presence above the individual...
...they come from the authorihas no sympathy with the disdain for ty of God and are transmitted to us political life that comes from the principally in the Bible...
...Not that this is an I'm happy to see that the Cato Institute, easy matter to deal with...
...To expect govern- the group which shares his theology...
...But pressive combination of mental acuity and mature judgment...
...Rather, we should recognize foreigners living on the land with that there are many forms of gover- justice and respect...
...His point of view is THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1988 51 principles of moral reasoning that are which drug abuse and infidelity are two enshrined in the ancient Hebrew and major causes...
...As I write, for religion have been taken for a wild ride example, the Wall Street Journal arrives these last ten years...
...tian...
...But Bandow has not given us a theoretical aren't libertarians social atomists, sus- treatise...
...The society, and so on...
...People interested in the tent on giving their favorite leeches relationship between politics and something to batten on...
...First, he with the rule of the church, nor does insists that the state cannot bring he countenance special privileges for heaven on earth...
...Unlike most of the government...
...I would have thought would not countenance...
...You read ing to square the circle...
...In addition to his rejection historical moment but are rooted in the of the reigning humanist consensus, he creation...
...A state by its nature dove's limited libertarianism, and it's exercises compulsion and it does so easy to imagine Rushdoony doing a legitimately even in the midst of the in- slow burn of his own at Bandow's sepevitable disagreements over its policies...
...through the citation of numerous pas-And none for the occasional attempts sages that the Hebrew and Christian by the Roman hierarchy to wield scriptures envision the state as the en-both the spiritual and temporal tity that brings to us the blessings of sword...
...And he is completenance...
...ments to solve all problems, wipe away Justice is blind and cannot discern the all tears, and bring in the millennium religious convictions of the citizens...
...Yes, yes, and his short pieces and do a slow burn at maybe...
...Beyond Good Intentions makes an important contribution to the contemD andow has been least successful porary debate...
...Herbert Schlossberg is the author of Surprisingly for so young a man, Idols for Destruction (Thomas Nelson...
...For a generation or with a Bandow article describing the so court decisions had the effect of efforts of Uncle Sap to prop up the erecting into a constitutional principle maritime industry with operating and an offhand remark about a "wall of construction differential subsidies, separation" between church and state guarantees on mortgages and other in a letter of Jefferson's...
...is to transform them into idols...
...Such agine a more dubious interpretation of writing is interesting and necessary, but the First Amendment...
...welfare reform or military strategy, and Furthermore, since it has its roots in the at the same time have allowed them- Enlightenment vision of the eighteenth selves to be drawn away from accomp- century, it is fundamentally anti-Chrislishing their real mission...
...ment it on the other...
...tute writer of the same name who ex- we've had a burst of interest in the too often take to be the sole source of Nevertheless, in Bandow's vision the pounds on libertarian themes in The church-state issue...
...The the pale...
...He also has some sharp words church officers to stay out of the for classical liberalism (which, as far as prudential decisions that implement I can tell, is indistinguishable from fiber-them...
...He reading the title of this book: Doug scene and there was an uproar...
...Bandow has it...
...Nope: same man...
...Because the Washington's premier libertarian think libertarian ethic still has something of tank, is supporting Bandow in these efa hold on him, he cuts the Gordian knot forts as well as in his more obviously in a way that many reformed thinkers libertarian work...
...The individual exercising self- ly without sympathy for some of the Readers familiar with Bandow's in the late 1970s conservative Christian control is one, and so are the family, shibboleths of the religious right—work could become disoriented groups began speaking to the political the school, the church, the debating prayer in the schools, for example...
...Second, Bandow makes much of the Old Testa-government must not be equated with ment requirement that Israel treat the the state...
...or, as some would put it, in the natural As you would expect, this book is law...
...52 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1988...
...legitimate governance in its own sphere, life of an ecclesiastical establishment of a different fellow from the Cato Insti- As a result of the unsettled situation, as does the civil government that we any stripe...
...And what I think of as the Edgar Kennedy mustn't that mean that Bandow is try- school of political analysis...
...Each exercises regards as a calamity the rule over civic Bandow and a biblical view?—must be double-standard persists to this day...
...And justice is not defined in terms that would appeal to the "social justice" curia, with its penchant for Bandow's three major assumptions redistribution and quasi-pacifism...
...He does it first by drawing a conservatives are as fully in tune with sharp distinction between the two...
...Establishment figures seldom cal processes, an analyst needs an imcomplained about such practices...
...Bandow doesn't poor, respect for the individual, the re- believe that they display any more moral jection of the state as idol, the protec- rectitude than the left...
...Bandow asserts that modern make...
...How is that to be done This difficulty is thrown into sharp in a land in which people disagree on relief by the many citations in the book the relevance of those texts, and on from the works of R. J. Rushdoony...
...Yet Fred How does Bandow connect the re- Barnes's remark on the back cover that quirements of divine law with the prat- both left and right will wince at it is not tical decisions that governments must misplaced...
...aration of the requirements of God's The question is whether its ends and its law from the "prudential" reasoning means really are just, and the answer to that goes into the actual formulation of that question lies in the divine mandate policy...
...Christian texts...
...Rather he speaks to those in picious of overarching structures that his own theological camp and interlimit the absolute sovereignty of the in- prets for them their proper role in the dividual...
...Bandow's efforts help us Li in making the connections be- see how the biblical heritage can be tween the divine law on the one hand brought back to public life while oband the prudential decisions that imple- viating fears of rule by church officials...
...And that adultery, because there are no victims...
...almost everything else besides...
...He thinks this point of view made fools of themselves in advocating has a value-free sterility and fails to this or that policy with respect to, say, recognize communal responsibilities...
...conservatives just feed a difof human life, responsibility for the ferent set of parasites...
...And he is critical tion of the family, and the obligation of the apparent lack of compassion in to strive for peace...
...That is The salutary anti-state-as-idol approach a problem for Bandow, but it is no less of the theonomist Rushdoony lends a problem for every other theorist who itself only in a superficial way to Ban-is not an anarchist...
...The the envy-driven transfer society as the big principles are justice, the protection opposition...
...justice...
...especially hard on the left...
...Hard to im- loans, and cargo preference laws...
...For Bandow establishes Orthodox and Lutheran experience...
...the incredible boondoggles perpetrated This book couldn't have come at a against the citizenry by politicians inbetter time...
...suggests that we'll do better to look Yet it could be argued that much of the closely at what Bandow says than to pathology in American social life comes worry too much about how it fits liberfrom the breakdown of the family, of tarian doctrine...
...To the left wing of the mainline churches, understand the broader meanings of which nonchalantly and effectively political life, above all the interaction continued their lobbying operations in of the underlying ontological and Washington on behalf of their favorite ethical issues with the mundane politicauses...
...Anabaptist reformation (and until The third assumption will cause the recently was also characteristic of greatest difficulty to conservatives of fundamentalism), nor with the pas- a more secular bent, but it is the best sive subservience to the state that safeguard to retain the integrity of the has characterized much of the Eastern first two...
...It come from the Reformed think- centers instead on the protection of life ing that animates so much of this and property from those who threaten book...
...The victims are legion...
...He believes the conservative ranks that has made it easy churches have a responsibility to stress for the left to pose as the party of comthese principles...
...For example, he that emphasizing an ontologically based retains the notion of "victimless crimes" moral law would put him outside which the state is obliged to ignore...
...But he wants the passion...
...This didn't faze it isn't intellectually demanding...
...He thinks the hierarchies have tarianism...
...And isn't a biblical view nation's political life...
Vol. 21 • December 1988 • No. 12
