Thursday, January 19, 2012

Freedom Under God And Evangelical Capitalism

I've often wondered why evangelical christians tend to have libertarian views of capitalism. This article describes the history in which christianity and libertarian capitalism were joined at the hip. It started with a campaign by business leaders against FDR and the "New Deal". They reasoned that the clergy would be a good instrument for selling their ideas to its congregations. The concepts of "freedom under God" and " one nation under God" became a rallying cry against the New Deal. It was reinvented during the cold war. God and libertarian capitalism were united to fight against communism and atheism. That is still going on today. Communism has collapsed, without the help of evangelicals, but liberalism has been substituted in the minds of the faithful for communism. Libertarian christianity and libertarian capitalism are at war with non-believers who flaunt "family values" and are not militant enough in their defense of the American way of life. This is a good way to describe the GOP nomination campaign speeches that are being delivered by the aspirants for the presidency of the "Real America". Mitt Romney has been claiming that we are one nation under God and that those, like our liberal president, who want to end tax breaks for the super rich are engaged in class warfare. Apparently ending tax breaks for the super rich is class warfare, and changing tax policy to benefit the super rich, by shifting the tax burden to ordinary Americans, is not class warfare. He continues with a long tradition that began in reaction to the New Deal, and has been reinvented to fight against the great society, and a progressive view of capitalism and government.

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