Marco Rubio, Social Democrat

Marco Rubio, whom I once regarded as potential presidential material, has popped up as the author of an editorial in Compact magazine, whose about page openly claims as a virtue that:

Our editorial choices are shaped by our desire for a strong social-democratic state that defends community -- local and national, familial and religious -- against a libertine left and a libertarian right.

This outfit admits publishing pieces from authors with whom it disagrees, but even the most cursory look will show that Rubio's piece isn't one of them.

His piece, disappointingly -- but not surprisingly given how easily its author crumbled and capitulated under Donald Trump's nickname of Little Marco -- fits right into this theocratic vision.

The piece isn't notable for any originality: Theocrats have package-dealt hedonism and liberty (in caricature here as the "libertine left" and the "libertarian right") together for ages.

What is notable to me is its timing, ahead of a presidential election all but set to offer Americans the dispiriting "choice" of four more years of one of its last two awful, unpopular Presidents.

I have no idea whether Rubio sees his piece as a donation-in-kind to the Trump campaign, as groundwork for a political resurrection in 2028, or both. Whatever the case, it is, in reality, his intellectual obituary.

In case his title ("Against Progressive Pseudo-Religion") isn't enough, his closing says it all:

Those of us who belong to a historic faith must defend ourselves in legislatures around the country, never conceding that our rights are mere privileges. But we must also live out our faith in our local communities. When we do so, it will be all the more obvious that left-wing pseudo-religion is unequal to the real thing.

Common sense, social science, and other objective criteria agree: America needs traditional religion, not the religion of wokeness. Those who are afraid or ashamed to stand by that claim do little justice to themselves, and even less to their nation. God help us if, when the dust settles, all the United States is left with is an "In This House" yard sign and a communal John Lennon-singalong. [bold added]

Insinuations of Christian persecution in a nation that guarantees freedom to practice religion, so long as one does not violate the rights of others. Check. A false dichotomy between Christianity and a meaningless life. Check. Running with the obvious resemblance between leftism (which shares its moral base) and Christianity to imply that the former is a mere shadow of truth. Check. Skipping over the whole problem of the nature of faith -- accepting something as true in the absence of proof or any relationship to reality. Check.

I completely disagree with Rubio: The last thing America needs is even more religion.

To call any religion false is too high a compliment, and to imply that any religion is true is absurd, and would be greeted with gales of laughter in a better, more rational culture.

Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff have both made better cases than I ever will for a rational foundation for the values that make America possible and great. Accordingly, I will mention two of their works, for the benefit of anyone sincerely interested in an alternative to Rubio's thin gruel. I shall start with Ayn Rand's response to a question about religion in a 1964 interview:

PLAYBOY Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?

RAND Qua religion, no -- in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very -- how should I say it? -- dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith.

Whatever good religion, the primitive precursor to philosophy, might sometimes have to offer, it is far outweighed by the threat its method poses to America, as elaborated by Leonard Peikoff in his lecture, "Religion Versus America," which is embedded in this post, and whose transcript can be found here.

-- CAV