Short Sasse Sabbatical

I’m taking a break from the weekly blog posts for today to focus on some other things—including reading the latest book from the ubiquitous Senator Ben Sasse:

THEM: Why We Hate Each Other—And How to Heal

Hot off the presses from just last week—I’ve not yet had a chance to get through it. But what I’ve read so far is the sort of solid conservative yet non-abrasive message Sasse is famous for. In Them, Sasse argues that our current political crisis isn’t about politics but about something much deeper: alienation, loneliness, and the loss of communities that brought a hometown-gym-on-a-Friday-night feeling.

In the era of Trump tweets, it’s comforting to know we still have leaders out there who are willing to talk to us about the challenges we face like grown adults.

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Resistance is NOT Futile – Part 4 (There’s No Place Like Home)

“Conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.” Russell Kirk – Ten Conservative Principles

I recall an old joke about two Russian neighbors living in the Soviet Union that lacked in humor what is made up for in insight:

The first Russian asks his neighbor, “Comrade, if you had two million rubles, would you give me one million?” His neighbor responds, “Of course I would.” “And,” continued the first Russian, “if you had two trucks, would you allow me to use one?” His neighbor replied, “Comrade, why do you ask such things? You know we have all things in common. Of course, I would give you other truck.” Then he asks, “If you had two chickens would you give me one?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Because I have two chickens.”

Greedy Russians

The Soviet Union had faithfully put into practice the ultimate collectivist experiment. In accordance with Karl Marx’s philosophy, here all things would be held in common so that the people would no longer be exploited by their landlords and those who owned capital. Capitalism was decried as vulgar and greedy and a totalitarian, central authority would ensure at last that each individual would pay his fair share. And yet, the results of such an ambitious experiment were more than disappointing.

“Where are social injustices greatest?” Asked economist Milton Friedman back when communism gripped most of the world, “Social injustices are clearly greatest where you have central control…where do you have the greatest degree of inequality? In the socialist states of the world.” The old joke about the two Russians depicted the sad reality of the collectivist experiment: those living under communist rule were not less greedy and selfish. In fact, they had become more so.

Why was that? Was it because Russians were inherently greedier than their Western counterparts? Surely not. Friedman argues this is simply “ignorance and misunderstanding of the relationship between moral values and economic systems…The problem is that moral values are individual. They are not collective. Moral values have to do with what each of us separately believes and holds true. Capitalism, socialism, central planning are means, not ends. They, in and of themselves, are neither moral nor immoral, humane nor inhumane. We have to ask ‘what are their results?’ We have to look at the consequences of adopting one or another system of organization.”

The results of the Soviet experiment was starvation, mass killings, genocides, wars, and sever economic stagnation that led to the death of sixty million people during Stalin’s reign alone. I don’t want to sound like I’m cherry-picking the worse-case-scenario to illustrate the problem with collectivism, but it can be helpful to examine the most extreme cases to understand why collectivism poses a problem: because collectivism severs the individual’s affections and sense of responsibility to their community.

In fact, this is usually the most lasting damage inflicted by collectivist efforts; the very fabric of communities are so severely strained that families, neighborhoods, churches and the like may never fully recover. Much like the Russian who didn’t want to give his neighbor his chicken, those who live under collectivist rule stop looking to their neighbors, friends, and family as people deserving of their love, protection, and devotion. Why should they? That’s what the state’s for.

What About the Experts?

As we covered in Part 2, there is a proper role for the state in some collective efforts for public benefit. The state may be able to act where individual actions are unlikely to result in benefits to the whole society. What’s more, the state may be able to pool from a select group of experts with specialized skills, knowledge, and experience on a wide array of complex topics.

I am not at all unsympathetic to the view that certain individuals are better educated, equipped, or experienced to guide the masses in certain matters. It makes sense, at some level, why we might benefit from our meals being planned by an army of bureaucrats with expertise in nutrition, agriculture, economics, and distribution. While the free market provides the most cost-effective products to the consumer, the question may be asked should these cost-effective products be consumed at all?

If we advance down this line of thinking further, we might soon find justification for removing from the masses the burden of making nearly any decision on what they’re allowed to consume. How could we expect the average person to have adequate knowledge of what products are safe or environmentally-friendly or unlikely to lead to the destruction of some valuable industry?

But no matter how well-intentioned, well-educated, or gifted central planners may be, the very fact they are making plans for us on our behalf means we are less likely to reach our full potential as human beings. Humans are not cogs in a well-regulated machine. Humans are spiritual beings with a highly sophisticated need for association within a community where they may experience a sense of belonging. Absent strong ties to a community, we don’t get an opportunity to cultivate the personal responsibility or other virtues that can only come by participation within genuine community.

While central planners may be up to the task of devising the perfect scheme for ending poverty or obesity, their schemes will fall short the moment they’re taken from the sterile laboratory of social science and applied to actual human beings. Humans can’t be tricked into behaving virtuously, and virtuous behavior is all the more unlikely to occur if genuine communities—those incubators of virtue—are replaced by a passionless collective.

Exercising Those Duty and Affection Muscles

My perceived duty to society or my love for country will never exceed my affections for those within my closest associations. If there is no one—no family member, no religious or political affiliation, no God or gods—at the most local level that I feel some sense of belonging to, it would be unreasonable to expect me to manufacture some artificial sense of duty to a distant, artificial association created by strangers who claim they have my best interest in mind.

Communities provide us with roots. Collectives do not. When I paid my income taxes earlier this year I didn’t reflect on how nice it was that my tax burden was making an imperceptivity tiny contribution to a host of governmental programs designed to alleviate poverty. I might have reflected on the good my voluntary donation to a local charity would do within the community. But even then, my duty and affection muscles didn’t even break a sweat.

Where I truly had to exercise those muscles was in giving a friend a lift when his car broke down, or when a small group from our church helped someone move from their apartment into a house, or when I had to give up a busy social schedule to care for a chronically ill loved one. It was there, embedded within the communities I’ve freely chosen to associate with, that true character is develops first.

A Nation is No Greater Than the Sum of Its Communities

Without genuine, vibrant, strong communities we do not reach our full potential. We struggle with a profound sense of alienation, let alone the ability to cultivate the deeper virtues of charity, duty, prudence, and efficiency. “Men cannot exist without proper community, as Aristotle knew; and when they have been denied community of spirit, they turn unreasoningly to community of goods,” warned Russell Kirk.

The ambitious collectivist experiments of the twentieth century were not advancements of the human race, but a sort of pre-modern retreat: “It is quite true that joint ownership, by community or family, is older than private ownership of land. But this only demonstrates that private proprietorship is a part of progress.”

“Release man from the contexts of community and you get not freedom and rights but intolerable aloneness and subjection to demoniac fears and passions,” wrote sociologist Dr. Robert Nisbet. It is precisely within the confines of our closest communities where we learn first how to practice love and respect. Those affections may expand outward to meet the needs of those outside of our communities or to come together in time of national crisis; but those affections must first be rooted somewhere.

Efforts at collective projects from encouraging people to eat healthier to feeding the hungry to alleviating poverty to fighting a war are only successful if the people participating in those efforts behave virtuously, courageously, and energetically. And those virtues don’t fully develop unless individuals are free to associate with genuine, vibrant communities. Just as the whole is no greater than the sum of its parts, a nation is no greater or stronger than the tiny communities of which it is comprised.

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Episode 17 - Where do Conservatives Belong?

Beyond expressing and defending conservative values, part of Saving Elephant’s mission is to call out to those conservatives who no longer know where they belong. In a world where those on the Right are often characterized as populist Trumplicans against the Deep State, it can be challenging to know where you fit if you still believe in traditional conservatism.

So, where does the conservative fit? What’s wrong with populism? What’s wrong with establishmentarianism? How do we rekindle that spirit of inquiry in a free republic? How do we take back the cultural heritage of debating ideas instead of mindlessly focusing on winning and juvenile social media posts?

Bob Burch joins the podcast once more to delve into these issues and offer some practical solutions. Ultimately, if conservatives are going to recover the cultural heritage we’ve lost by pulling the debate away from warring populist and establishmentarian mentalities and instead focus on ideas and values, it’s going to take a lot of work. But that work can be rewarding and enriching.

The most important thing we can do at an individual level is engage and encourage conversations that invite civic debate rather than run from it. To do that we must first leave the comfort of our political echo chambers and risk engaging with those who may not agree with what we have to say.

If that sounds hollow because it’s “just talk” then I want to challenge you to think differently. Part of what it means to live in a free society is that we have not only the freedom, but the duty to talk things out. Part of what gives the United States its uniqueness and its purpose are the stories we tell ourselves. This isn’t feel-good psychology, this is civics 101. It does change things when we talk, because we’re forced to interact with our neighbors and reach either consensus or at least a workable compromise.

Shouting at one another on social media isn’t talking. Donating cash and time to elect people who have little interest in what we have to say or believe isn’t talking. But working through our differences one by one, first at a local level between friends and neighbors, is precisely what makes our nation exceptional. Do you want to make America great again? It’s not going to happen because you elected the right person. It’s only going to happen when the people begin talking through what’s right.

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Resistance is NOT Futile – Part 3 (Involuntary Assimilation)

“Conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.” Russell Kirk – Ten Conservative Principles

Conservatives are promoters of the rights of the individual while also recognizing a higher moral order such as Judeo-Christian teachings or some philosophical understanding of moral law. The individual is not supreme in the conservative’s worldview, but the rights of the individual are superior to the whims and desires of any group of individuals.

But that does not mean conservatives see individualism as somehow opposed to community. “Individualism is not the opposite of community, it is in fact a principal for organizing community,” noted the blog Philosophical Conservatism, “It dictates that human community is to be freely chosen by the individual. It favors the organic communities of family, neighborhood, and local organization over distant political institutions.” As we saw in Part 2, the ability of individuals to freely chose their associations is paramount to genuine community.

It’s about Dignity

Both community and collectives are ways in which groups of individuals may form; but their similarities end there. Collectivism—the practice of giving a group priority over each individual within the group—ultimately destroys both community and individuality. The collectivist approach harms genuine community by removing each individual’s voluntary decision to participate within the group. But collectivism further harms our individuality by robbing us of human dignity.

In recognizing a higher moral order, the conservative knows that human dignity is anchored in either a religious belief that human beings are sacred or certain Western philosophical teachings (such as Lockean liberalism) that arrives at nearly the same conclusion through natural means. Both paths firmly hold that human life is deserving of the rights to life, liberty, and property beyond the perceived desires of any group, sect, or government.

The conservative’s view of humanity is that humans possess inherent worth, regardless of their usefulness to any larger cause or group. This stands in stark contrast to the collectivist impulse, which sees individuals as valuable to the extent they may contribute to some greater good for the group as a whole. The dignity of the individual is sacrificed for the utility of the individual. The measure of a person’s worth is the degree to which that person may contribute to the goals of the collective.

If the collectivist is right—if we are nothing more than cogs in a machine—then even the most heinous genocide could be said to be morally justifiable if it could be demonstrated it served the greater good of the group. If the conservative’s understanding of human nature is right, then collectivism not only robs us of our dignity, it robs us of our very humanity.

The Allure of the Collective

Why then would anyone prefer a collective over a community? I believe there are two primary reasons. First, collectivism may be enticing to those who believe some central authority could do much good if only they could direct all of our actions simultaneously. This belief is manifested in modern calls for socialism to vanquish the perceived evils of a free market. This is something I addressed in Part 2, so I won’t belabor the point here.

Second, in a society with crumbling communities, collectives will naturally emerge to fill the gap. As churches, families, and other forms of traditional institutions deteriorate, we will naturally turn to something to provide us with a greater sense of purpose. Purpose, belonging, and meaning are natural desires that have historically been met by the communities we’ve formed. In their absence new associations emerge.

We millennials pride ourselves on attaining a level of inclusivity greater than previous generations of Americans and, likely, unimaginable to most civilizations throughout human history. No other civilization has achieved the level of equality, inclusion, and tolerance across a wide variety of groups from race to gender to age to religion to sexuality. British philosophy Roger Scruton observed this in his book How to be a Conservative, “In place of the old beliefs based on godliness, judgement, and historical attachment, young people are given the new beliefs based on equality and inclusion, and are told that the judgement of other lifestyles is a crime.”

Why are these new beliefs “in place of” the old? The Left has successfully promulgated the message among America’s youth that much of our bigotry, misogyny, and hatred has its roots in traditional Western institutions, particularly the church and the family. And, while it is true shameful examples of extreme prejudice can be traced to elements or teachings of wayward churches or authoritarian families, it does not serve us well to restrict our vision to that of a radicalized ideology. For instance, we might find fault with Western institutions because they enabled slavery (and well we should). But we should also be mindful of the fact that, while all civilizations had slaves, Western civilization was the only civilization to abolish slavery.

Meth for Breakfast

Clearly a defense of Western institutions is a big topic and I don’t want to get lost in that digression—I have written more about it here, if the reader’s interested. The point is that the Left has found fault—some justifiable and some fallacious—with Western institutions of church and family and has successfully convinced a great many young Americans that those institutions are to blame for the sort of bigotry young Americans stand against. As such, many young Americans have abandoned the church and traditional family models in search of a more inclusive path.

But this is an alienating and dehumanizing choice. “If the purpose were merely to substitute one belief system for another it would be open to rational debate,” continues Scruton, “But the purpose is to substitute one community for another…However, there is no such thing as a community based in repudiation. The assault on the old cultural inheritance leads to no new form of membership, but only to a kind of alienation.” The substitution of communities rooted in traditional Western institutions isn’t like picking Kellogg's brand of breakfast cereals over General Mills. It’s like substituting breakfast for meth.

And even where seemingly viable alternatives exist, it may be impossible for an individual to recreate a sort of ad hoc community by their lonesome. We might find solace in likeminded people who find fault with the same communities we were raised in. But, unless those likeminded people are also capable of providing us with a new community, it is doubtful these surface-level relationships are going to provide for our need to belong.

Multi-Purpose Goals

In Part 2 we acknowledged there are times when collectivist efforts are ideal. When the group, society, or entire nation is focused on a single-purpose goal, collectivism may be useful. The United States won World War 2 thanks, in large part, to the collectivism mandated by the Federal government that oversaw everything from economic output to production to enlisting fighters to the Manhattan Project. But there are many who draw the wrong lessons from America’s successful group endeavor and conclude the same collectivist force could be used to solve an enormous array of societal ills from poverty to obesity to bigotry.

They are forgetting that the collectivist impulse ultimately destroys both community and individuality because it doesn’t fit with human nature. Humans aren’t cogs in a machine. Humans are spiritual animals with individual needs and desires. Collectivism might help a nation win a war (a single-purpose goal), but it is an ineffective tool for directing an entire economy where decisions ranging from where to invest to what hand soap to buy are better left in the capable hands of each individual’s needs and desires. No collective, no matter how benevolent or intelligent, can speak for us all in every way.

G. K. Chesterton brilliantly remarked on the dangers of this line of thinking:

“A correspondent has written me an able and interesting letter in the matter of some allusions of mine to the subject of communal kitchens. He defends communal kitchens very lucidly from the standpoint of the calculating collectivist; but, like many of his school, he cannot apparently grasp that there is another test of the whole matter, with which such calculation has nothing at all to do. He knows it would be cheaper if a number of us ate at the same time, so as to use the same table. So it would be. It would also be cheaper if a number of us slept at different times, so as to use the same pair of trousers. But the question is not how cheap are we buying a thing, but what are we buying? It is cheap to own a slave. And it is cheaper still to be a slave.”

Ultimately, collectivism makes slaves of us all. What begins as an innocent enough desire to rid the world of poverty, or warfare, or products that harm the environment, may only be achieved by forcing individuals to behave differently than they would if left to their own devices. That doesn’t mean that conservatives don’t have a great deal to say on the subject of how individuals ought to behave. But behavioral changes must come about by the free choices individuals are making apart from some central authority robbing them of their right to make such a choice.

Collectivism destroys communities, human dignity, and individual liberty. But there is one more affliction collectivism brings: it destroys the responsibility that individuals within a community have to one another. And that is where we’ll pick up in our fourth and final part to the series.

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Resistance is NOT Futile – Part 2 (Welcome to the Collective)

“Conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism.” Russell Kirk – Ten Conservative Principles

Genuine community emerges locally and voluntarily.

A community may include some local political bodies, private associations, guilds, or families that enforce certain rules. A community may have members who don’t necessarily agree with every aspect of those rules yet, nevertheless, willingly submit to them out of a belief that they’re better off following rules they don’t particularly approve of than creating their own “rules” and risk alienation from the community. A child may not be particularly fond of the bedtime his parents have set for him, but that hardly means he’d willingly leave the community of his family. In a healthy, genuine community there is a strong sense of voluntary association among the members. Community—genuine community—must be two things: 1) local and 2) voluntary.

Opposite of community stands collectivism—the practice of giving a group priority over each individual within the group. Community and collectivism are both ways in which we can arrange a group of people. But while community is limited in size and must be upheld voluntarily, collectivism is—theoretically—not bound by limitations of the size of the group or the geographical disbursement of the group, and it certainly isn’t limited by the willingness of those within the group to participate in the demands of the collective.

Government may or may not be part of a community. But government is key to collectivism. In particular, a government of central authority where all power vests in a small group of overseers is highly suggestive of a collectivist spirit. A community is a group in which the uniqueness and dignity of each individual is respected and maintained. Collectivism prizes the group as a whole over the individuals within the group.

An Imperfect Dichotomy

The dichotomy between community and collectivism is similar to the difference between capitalism and socialism. Conservatives—generally speaking—support community/capitalism and oppose collectivism/socialism. Yet these are not tangible things as they only exist in some perfect form in some mythical world. There has never been a purely capitalist society; even ours has always had elements of state intervention. Nor has there ever been a purely socialist society; even the Communist countries of Asia and Eastern Europe that worked to abolish the free market could never rid itself of thriving black markets from within.

In much the same way there does not exist a group of people that perfectly embodies either the conservative concept of community or the sort of collectivism propagated by the radical Left and Right. It’s well and good to say that a community is marked by the local, voluntary participation of its members, but how far might we stretch that understanding? How local is local enough? What if part of what holds members to a community is fear of what might happen if they left? Wouldn’t that invalidate the voluntary nature of that community? And who’s to say whether we participate in the communities to which we belong purely out of a sense of love or loyalty or guilt or fear or misplaced identity? No community is perfectly voluntary.

Nor would it be fair to say that collectivism is completely involuntary, undesirable, or evil. The conservative isn’t seeking abstract perfection but practical optimization. While there are many things the conservative disdains about collectivism—which we’ll unpackage throughout this series—it should be noted there are times when collectivism is sensible and desirable. As economist Thomas Sowell explained in Basic Economics, “There are things that government can do more effectively than individuals because external costs or external benefits make individual decisions, based on individual interests, a less effective way of weighing costs and benefits to the whole society.”

Mud Flaps

Sowell uses the lowly mud flap to illustrate his point: “Even if everyone agrees that the benefits of mud flaps greatly exceed their costs, there is no feasible way of buying these benefits in a free market, since you receive no benefits from the mud flaps that you buy and put on your own car, but only from mud flaps that other people buy and put on their cars and trucks…it is possible to obtain collectively through government what cannot be obtained individually through the marketplace, simply by having laws passed requiring all cars and trucks to have mud flaps on them.”

Doubtless, ten thousand other applications of collectivism may spring to mind. We might recognize a benefit in getting the government involved in regulating the environment, since we all benefit from a clean environment, but some have an economic incentive to behave in a manner that harms the environment. We might argue that certain professions should be licensed by the government. Take my profession, for example: as a CPA I have a responsibility to the public to report fraud when I find it. Shouldn’t the state be able to delicense those who abuse that prerogative? We might see a need for the government to regulate agriculture, pharmaceuticals, construction, even soft drinks in the name of public safety or the public good. And we might suspect that certain minorities are being unfairly discriminated against and insist the government enforce our notions of equality.

And, since these ideas of community and collectivism don’t exist in an absolute sense, conservatives have recognized that reasonable arguments, based on our understanding of human nature and circumstance, can be made for governmental collectivism in a wide variety of areas. But we should always be mindful of the trade-offs and unintended consequences of collectivism. “While externalities are a serious consideration in determining the role of government, they do not simply provide a blanket justification or a magic word which automatically allows economics to be ignored and politically attractive goals to be pursued without further ado.” Sowell warns. “Both the incentives of the market and the incentives of politics must be weighed when choosing between them on any particular issue.”

The aim of the conservative then isn’t to simply oppose collectivism absolutely, but to be mindful of its harmful effects and reconcile our natural tendency to demand more collectivism when strengthening the reach of our existing communities would provide for more lasting and healthy solutions. And what are those harmful effects of collectivism? I’m going to address some of them later in the series, but, for now, let’s turn our attention back to socialism—one of the most obvious applications of collectivism.

Socialistic Collectivism

Karl Marx, the father of communism, is credited with the famous phrase, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” What would a world that fully embraced this sentiment look like? We could only imagine. But it would doubtlessly be a better world than the one we have now. If everyone used their abilities to minister to the needs of others, we might achieve as near a heaven on earth as would be possible in this life.

And, to an extent, the marking of a healthy, vibrant community is one that boasts of those members of the community cheerfully giving to those within the community who are in need. We might think of a loving family as a sort of micro-community. The family is comprised of multiple members with varying abilities. The able-bodied adults—who are most likely in a position to earn a living wage and protect their loved ones from harm—willingly give to the rest of the family who are too young, or too old, or too handicapped to otherwise provide for themselves.

Or we might expand this scope outward into the neighborhood, or the local church, or a small town where friends graciously and charitably minister to the needs of one another. Some Christian monasteries or even entire sects abide by a from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs model of communal living as an expression of love and self-sacrifice.

But the phrase from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs—as it is understood in its modern sense—is referring to a very different kind of “community”; which is not a community at all, but a sort of forced synchronization. Socialism is the recommended remedy for all that is wrong with this world. By vesting the means of production, profits, economic output, and every other material aspect of our lives into the hands of a benevolent central authority, the state will ensure that the people are equitably distributed the collective wealth of the group. No one will go without because everyone will be provided for—just as everyone will be compelled to give all that they have.

Mandated Volunteering

But this form of “community” is an oxymoron, just as socialism itself is a contradictory idea; for it imagines a community without the voluntary consent of those within the community. A genuine community implies that those who belong to the community are ultimately members by choice. When a genuine community provides for the needs of those within the community, they are doing so because they freely chose to do so.

The sort of collectivism prescribed by socialism may mimic a genuine community’s generosity. But this is merely a grotesque mischaracterization of the raw deal. You can forcibly take from one person and give to another. You cannot force someone to freely give to another for if it was forced, it cannot be freely chosen. Community—genuine, vibrant, healthy, wholesome, enduring, meaningful community—cannot be forced into existence.

This is the primary failing of collectivism: it seeks to forcibly produce the sort of benefits that emerge naturally from healthy communities—generosity, affection, responsibility, protection, and a sense of belonging—without recognizing the necessity of the freedom, self-sacrifice, and hard work that is required to obtain these benefits. It seeks a shortcut to the benefits of community without having to deal with all the toil of actually building and maintaining a community. It seeks to enforce from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs by forcibly taking from those who “have” and giving to those who have been arbitrarily identified as the “have nots”.

Should We Force People to be Better People?

There’s an infinite gap between the fine sentimentality of socialism and the actual practice. We might say gee…wouldn’t the world be a better place if people were kinder? Of course it would. But that doesn’t imply it would be a better place if we had Kindness Police ready to punish anyone they caught who was petulant, irritable, or rude. The real question isn’t whether we’d be better off if people were better, but whether we’d be better off if people were forced to be better.

And even if we were to allow that forced charity is still preferable to freely chosen greed, that begs a litany of follow-up questions, such as how do we agree upon what “better off” actually means? How do we know when we’ve achieved it? Who gets to decide these things? Who gets the power to enforce preferred behavior? How do we prevent them from abusing that power? How much enforcement or confiscation of wealth is “enough”? You can’t enforce what you can’t define.

Socialism—even outright communism—has made a stunning resurgence among Millennials in particular. And it is true that many who advocate socialistic policies have laudable goals of helping those in need. But it is not laudable to suggest the enforcement of any one person’s version of what constitutes an ethical community. If people are willing to give up their personal possessions and hold all things in common, they may do so. But that is not what’s being advocated. What’s being advocated is that the people be compelled—willing or not—to give up their personal possessions so that others may decide, on their behalf, who is in need of them.

If we hold on to any utopian vision for long we must ultimately decide whether our vision is more important than extending liberty to our fellow citizens to behave in ways that are contrary to our vision. Collectivism is necessary to bend the will of the individual to the perceived good of the group. But conservatives are doubtful about our ability to reach consensus on what constitutes the group’s good and are even more skeptical of the claim the good of the group outweighs the rights of the individual.

Collectivism is a tool often used to achieve dangerously ill-defined ends. By seeking to force community, it inadvertently destroys the freedom that allows for communities to exist. But more than the community, it ultimately destroys what it means to be an individual. And that is where we’ll pick up in Part 3.

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Episode 16 - Prolife Matters with Kerry Baldwin - Part 2

Continuing our discussion with Kerry Baldwin, we cover a wide array of prolife issues such as: how does poverty play a role in the abortion debate, and what might we do to reduce the death toll through better economics? Does a woman have a right to an abortion? Are personhood laws the answer the prolife movement has been looking for? And what can you practically do to impact the prevalence of abortions?

The abortion debate is one that often evokes knee-jerk reactions. For some, it is THE issue that defines their political biases. It’s paradoxically of the utmost importance but extremely difficult to have an in-depth, frank discussion about a matter that excites such passions and deep convictions. As both a protégé and critic of the modern prolife movement, Kerry Baldwin brings a unique perspective to the debate.

Kerry is an independent researcher and writer with a B.A. in Philosophy from Arizona State University. Kerry grew up closely with the prolife movement and was a strong activist in prolife causes. However, dissatisfaction with the political realities of the abortion debate and life circumstances made her question the movement’s methods and goals and led to a decade in which she did not participate in prolife rallies or causes.

Earlier this year, Kerry broke her silence when prolife activist Jeff Durbin joined those calling for women who have abortions to be charged with first-degree murder. You can get a sense of Durbin’s stance in this interview he did of Vice President of National Right to Life Tony Lauinger.

Though she continues to be staunchly prolife, Kerry believes the efforts of many in the prolife movement are counterproductive in ending abortions and ultimately destructive to the women who seek abortions. She offers an alternative path forward that she believes holds the hope of saving lives of not only the unborn, but those among us who are neglected, abused, and desperate.

Kerry’s website, MereLiberty.com, boasts of two podcasts: Dare to Think and Flashes of Liberty (coming soon). She is also a regular contributor at the Libertarian Christian Institute. Her writing focuses on libertarian philosophy and reformed theology, aimed at the educated layperson; challenging readers to rethink prevailing paradigms in politics, theology, and culture.

Kerry is a single, homeschooling mother of three. She is the librarian for her congregation. She enjoys outdoor activities in the Jemez mountains near her home, and stereotypically introverted hobbies such as puzzles and brain teasers, reading, and learning more about herbal and nutritional medicine. She enjoys studying Reformational Philosophy by way of Roy Clouser, and appreciates the theology of Meredith Kline, Lee Irons, and Aimee Byrd.

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