Rules for Patriots?

"What is the rationality of those who expect to trick

people into freedom, cheat them into justice, fool

them into progress, con them into preserving their

rights, and while indoctrinating them with statism,

put one over on them and let them wake up in a perfect

capitalist society one morning? --Ayn Rand*

*Rand, Ayn (1967). Conservatism: An Obituary. In Ayn Rand (Ed.), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (Centennial Edition). New York: Signet Books, p. 216.

I'm not a conservative. There are conservatives who have lately tried to convince me that this is what I am, and 'liberals' who have ended friendships with me because that is what they think I am. But I am not a conservative. And, like many libertarian thinkers, doubtless, I will have to write the obligatory essay entitled "Why I Am Not a Conservative." Someday. Until then I will refer you to those self-same essays by F.A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, and David Boaz. You can find the rest through those intellectual giants upon whose shoulders I stand.

In the meantime, take my word for it. I am not a conservative.

In the patriot communities that I have been frequenting lately, however, I run into a lot of conservatives, blue-dog Democrats, and Republicans who have found that their party left them just as the Democrats left my libertarian-minded parents back in 1968. I have also run into a lot of Constitutionalists--but they have known for a long while that the major parties are unprincipled. Many of the newly awakened, on the other hand, are not sure of that yet.

Many of these people are just waking up to the fact that in the past 10 years the pace of the US move into democratic socialism, majority mob rule, and a weird liberal fascist statism has increased from a walk to an outright run. They have been living their lives, as good liberty-minded people tend to do, and they find themselves surprised by the tactics of the Progressives (dressed as Teddy Roosevelt Republicans, as well as Wilson Democrats), who have been working toward this time for nigh unto a hundred years. (See American Progressivism: A Reader by R.J. Pestritto for background).

As these good folks rub the sleep out their eyes, and stretch, they pick up bits of the Progressive agenda in a variety of places, and sooner or later they hear about Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, a Marxist from Chicago. And they notice that Alinsky's tactics (taught to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, among others), have been achieving results. Thus it is that I have heard it suggested in two different forums that the patriot community should re-write Rules for Radicals, calling it Rules for Conservatives or Rules for Patriots. Hey, it works!

This is a very bad idea.

The moral core of the organizing principles in Rules for Radicals is relativism, and Alinsky's overt statement is that the ends justify whatever means are necessary to achieve the desired goal. This is moral utilitarianism, in which the moral worth of an action is weighed according to its outcome. In general, although certain of Alinsky's tactics are good for organizing any group to do anything, his philosophy is based on lies and deceit. His object is to win at all costs, and thus his heroes are Machiavelli and Lucifer.

I have the 1971 copy of Rules. I don't remember how I came by it--but I read it for a political science class at Illiniois in 1980 (taught by an avowed Marxist in love beads, tie-dye and sandals, no socks or coat in the midst of a record breaking cold Illiniois winter. His name was Joel K. His outfit made me think that Marxism was not only dead since Stalin, but also hopelessly impractical). In the preface of the 1971 edition, I read:

"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history . . . the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer." -- Saul Alinsky*

Alinsky, Saul. (1971). Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. New York: Random House.

I remember thinking about what this implied. Although I am a Jew, and I do not believe in the Christian Satan--human beings are well able able to choose between good and evil for themselves-- but I do understand that Alinsky is here implying that winning the kingdom is to be done by appealing to the least honorable of human desires, that of gain through trickery and deceit. In Milton, Lucifer tricks Adam and Eve by implying that knowledge of good and evil leads to life eternal without the necessity of work and struggle. That should they eat the fruit of the tree of such knowledge, they will be as gods, who have no need to earn their living, but can remain perpetual children in Paradise, their living provided to them for free.

Digression: In the Jewish Midrash, knowledge of good and evil is a metaphor for growing up and becoming creative and productive human beings in the image of G-d, who clearly engaged in creative work. Thus Chavah is not vilified as Eve was by the Church. Earning one's living is considered honorable, and work is as important as rest. Thus Jews do not consider money, the symbol of productive work, as evil--it is a tool that can be used for good or evil as a person chooses.

In the part of his book on the ethics of Marxist revolution, Alinsky clearly lays out his relativism and utilitarianism. All of it adds up to the idea that the ends justifies the means in one way or another. In particular, his ethics state that the morality of an action is directly related to whether the act takes place in a situation of victory or defeat, that it is relative to whomever is judging it, and that a radical should do whatever is deemed necessary and make moral arguments for it later.

Thus could Stalin starve millions off their land and make the argument that good came out of it.

This man, a Marxist with very questionable ethics and no objective principles, is not a good model for Patriots who are working to restore the Constitution of the United States. Our founding principles are based on the concept that the very nature of the human being requires liberty, and that all human beings are endowed with unalienable rights not subject to the whims of a king or the mad desires of the mob. Liberty requires that individuals make choices based on objective principles, and that they respect the rights of others. Certainly, Lucifer can trick a man or a woman into slavery, appealing to unrealistic desires that violate the Laws of Thermodynamics. But Franklin and Jefferson could not trick a people into Liberty. And neither can we restore the Republic through lies and deceit.

To quote Rand again:
"The world crisis today is a moral crisis--and nothing less than a moral revolution can resolve it: a moral revolution to sanction and complete the political achievement of the American Revolution . . .[The Patriot] must fight for capitalism, not as a "practical" issue, not as an economic issue, but with the most righteous pride, as a moral issue. That is what capitalism deserves, and nothing less will save it." Ibid. p. 225, (originally in Rand's For the New Intellectual).

Fortunately, we do not need to model ourselves after Lucifer the Deceiver Saul Alinsky.

We have those honest and forthright heroes, the original Radicals for Liberty, our Founders. Their methods of organizing the Revolution are as useful today as they were in 1775. We can use Committees of Correspondence, but our technology is the keyboard and the internet instead of the quill pen and pony post. Our Committees of Safety can prepare our communities for the crisis by riding into town in an F-150 instead of a horse and wagon. Our Continental Congress will meet by electric light instead of candlelight, and can deliberate in the comfort provided by modern HVAC systems. These are cosmetic differences.

But the methods are the same. The Committees of Correspondence will provide people with information, not Alinsky's glittering generalities. The Committees of Safety will provide our communities with real strategies to be self-reliant, not to surrender their liberties for Alinsky's imagined security. The Continental Congress will deliberate the civil disobedience of citizens, not Alinsky's desired surrender of slaves.

We do not need Alinsky, nor should we desire to emulate his empty rhetoric. We have Jefferson and Franklin, Adams and Patrick Henry.

May they inspire us to the righteousness and liberty!