All politics is local

In the final weeks of a presidential campaign, it is easy to overlook
the importance of the thousands of local, state, and congressional
elections that will also be decided on Nov. 7th. But the fabric of our
liberty is woven, or frayed, by our decisions in these elections as
well. This has always been the case, of course. But there is
particular reason in our time to think that the outcome of local
political contests may become increasingly important.

Whichever way our national political struggles fare, it seems clear
enough that both technological and cultural trends are diminishing the
capacity of centralized government to form the lives of citizens for
good or ill. The exponential increase of information exchange and
economic opportunity afforded by the Internet in the hands of free
people is perhaps the most telling current example of the tide against
which the Nanny State must contend.

Although it is tempting sometimes to spend much energy fretting about
the long arm of the federal government, we would be well advised to
divert some of that energy to the task of building communities of
American principle locally. We just might find ourselves surprised at
how much good work can be done while the national politicians debate
their blunt instruments. I would be the last one, of course, to
discount the importance of what remains of our national political
discourse. But it is not the whole of our political life — we must
govern ourselves in our states and communities as well.

Success for conservatives in national and local elections next month
will come to candidates who successfully point out to voters the danger
posed by the Clinton legacy to the distinguishing public good of
American life, which is liberty. To win, we must remind citizens that
the purpose of American politics is not money, but defending the claim
of ordinary men and women to responsibly to shape the destiny of their
communities. We are a people who have brought the dream of freedom to
life by turning it from an abstract hope into a living reality. To win,
and to deserve to win, conservatives must remind their fellow citizens
of what makes liberty possible — even in the sometimes-mundane context
of local politics.

It is clear what made it possible in America. Our founders
understood the essential principle of liberty and enshrined it in the
founding document of American life, our Declaration of Independence.
America was born free because we professed that the basis for human
justice, dignity and rights is the will and authority of our Creator,
God. This principle has been our national bulwark against the abuse of
human power. As long as it has been professed in America, we have been
able to be confident that we, the people, would not ultimately acquiesce
in the suppression of human dignity. We have been confident that, as a
people, we are still resolved to seek and accomplish the justice that
the Creator of our liberty ordained as the purpose of political life.

As long as America has been devoted to its founding principles of
justice, Americans have been resistant to the many siren songs of
tyranny — particularly because we believed ourselves able and willing
to accomplish justice on our own, without the coercive push of
government. The liberal plan for government to run our families,
schools and communities has fallen mostly on deaf ears as long as we
have trusted in our own resolve to manage those precious institutions,
to care for one another out of our own decent motivations and in
fulfillment of our God-given mandate to seek justice and the common
good.

Indeed, the liberal effort to establish government domination of
these tasks has almost always had its success outside the communities of
those voting to support it. They have convinced us that people in other
communities, other states, other “socioeconomic categories,” need to
have their schools and families run for them. Seldom have they
convinced us that we need that help in our own neighborhood. For the
most part, even today, we know better.

In our local communities, our resolve to maintain our liberty will be
strong so long as we believe that we will use that liberty responsibly
to accomplish justice. If we come to believe that, as a people, we are
no longer committed to the path of justice, then we will acknowledge
that we need a government to take over for us because we are incompetent
to take care of ourselves. And the corrupting pushers of addictive
federal therapy will always be eager to “help” us abandon the task.

This is the real significance of the liberal claim that everybody in
America is like Bill Clinton. Liberals want us to think that the
typical American will usually choose to satisfy his selfishness rather
than discipline himself for the sake of real goods of conscience. And
if they convince us that we are as selfish as Bill Clinton, then they
will have convinced us that we are as unfit to be free as he is unfit to
be president of the United States. The power of local politics for
conservatives is that we can refute the liberal claim most convincingly
among those who know us best. Winning local elections on the basis of
the claim that we still have what it takes to be free can be, in itself,
a liberation for our communities. A local government that seeks to
catalyze a people’s confidence that they can take care of themselves
with dignity is defending the sovereignty of the local community in the
best way — building the bulwark of moral self-confidence in the people.

This election is about whether we have been convinced that we are
unable to govern ourselves — and need to ask the government to help.
The frightening thing is that we look more like a people unable to
govern ourselves all the time.

Why do I say that? Because there is a big question mark today behind
the capacity and principle of our people to take on this task. And that
question mark applies not merely to our nation’s citizens as a whole,
but to the people we see around us every day, right here in River City.
After all, why shouldn’t someone believe that, even in our own town, we
will ignore the cries of the poor, harden our hearts against the needs
of our neighbors and not care for the requirements of our aging parents
and friends since we are so willing to callously disregard the voiceless
cries of our helpless future in the womb?

It boils down to that in the end. Either our rights are here by the
will of God or not a single one of us is safe in our claim to rights and
freedoms. Deny it to the innocents in the womb and we have denied it,
in principle, to ourselves. People who are unwilling to care for unborn
children cannot convincingly and reliably claim to care for the born
ones. When their passions and private interests make it convenient to
withdraw their care from other “categories” of persons, they will do so.

We live today in what might be called the aftermath of principled
civility. Civility is a fading fashion among some of us, toward some of
us — and we all know it. And we are all wondering who will next follow
the abortionists in deciding that there are more satisfying ways to
conduct our affairs than by being civil. It is not idle to wonder how
long disputes about property taxes, zoning, and educational jurisdiction
can be resolved bloodlessly within the institutions of civil government
under such circumstances. Eventually, a new fashion will arise. Or,
rather, a fashion as old as the bloodstained history of man — might
makes right, to the victor go the spoils. America was supposed to mark
the end of that brutal fashion for good.

If we are going to remove the question mark behind our capacity for
self-government, then we must first restore our respect for the moral
principles that guarantee us against the abuse of rights — the first of
which is the principle that our rights come from God, not from any human
choice. Then we must reclaim those responsibilities and rights that
allow us to govern our families, our schools, and our communities. By
restoring our moral foundations, by reclaiming our rightful sovereignty
and discipline as a people, we can put this Republic back on the path of
self-government.

The tyrannical imposition of federalized abortion-on-demand by the
Supreme Court has, in some ways, made the issue of abortion difficult to
re-introduce into local and state politics. Is it not, we may fairly be
asked, irrevocably a federal issue now? Indeed, it is. And we will
settle it as a people or cease to be one. But one of its poisonous
effects is the impossibility of permanent civility under a regime of
abortion. We must propose instead the contrasting certitude of civility
in any community which dedicates itself to justice and mutual respect
for our equality under God. Such a proposal is always relevant — for
civility is ultimately the issue of the possibility of self-government,
an issue that is faced at every meeting of school board or town council.

Conservatives can not only win elections at every level, but they can
do so in the right way and for the right reasons if they invite voters
to join them in the task of vindicating the possibility of
self-government at every level. It will require tact, courage, and real
human wisdom. But a political movement devoted to a national
re-examination of the prerequisites of civility — which are respect for
the divinely authored principle of human equality and the self-mastery
implied by that principle — can rely on deep roots in the souls of our
fellow citizens.

Many of the candidates running in local elections are trying, more or
less, to play their part in such a political movement. It’s a hard job
and conservative voters can be hard to please. So uphold our standards
— but don’t be too hard on your local conservative. If he has a heart
for the real work of restoring principled civility to our public life,
then help get him into office. Much depends on electing men and women
at all levels who will at least recognize what moral obligation is and
who can, if only by example, help remind a confused citizenry of the
inescapable connection between morality and freedom — even right here
in River City.