The book: Somebody’s Gotta Say It, by Neal Boortz, New York: HarperCollins, 2007, 322 pages, $25.95 (USA). This is a colorful, pithy, provocative, and highly readable book—--much like Boortz’s monologues on his syndicated weekday morning talk-show. It is divided into 41 chapters, averaging two to four pages each.

A few of those chapters give insights into Boortz’s own history and experiences, and the nature of his present job as a talk-show host. But in each of the rest of the chapters, Boortz attacks—-mainly from the libertarian viewpoint-—an aspect of contemporary life in America that he believes is being screwed up badly by the religious right and/or the secular left.

He heaps scorn upon his chosen opponents, seizing upon egregious errors that some of them have made, to nail those entire categories colorfully to the cross. Sometimes these errors reflect the true motivations and typical actions of the group Boortz is putting down, sometimes not. But in any event, I would recommend the book to the subscribers of this (Georgia Heritage Council) website, even though Boortz himself obviously is no friend of ours.

A valid book-review would analyze how well the book has paid off both its title and its initial specific promises to inform and educate the reader about the subjects that it claims to cover. My essay does not do that. Instead, the primary purpose of this piece is to identify the major difference between libertarianism and Southern conservatism that Mr. Boortz’s book identifies. But before we get into that, let’s review very briefly the campaign platform that Mr. Boortz says (in Chapter 40, “No Way in Hell”) that he would try to implement if he were elected president of the U.S. (a post for which he says he does not intend to campaign).

Boortz says that if he were president, he would repeal the 16th Amendment and adopt the Fair Tax in place of an income tax; repeal the 17th Amendment (thereby restoring states’ rights); appoint a Tenth Amendment commission (to cut back the powers of the federal government); eliminate the Department of Education; give the broadcast media the same First Amendment rights that the newspapers enjoy; introduce free-enterprise competition into socialized medicine; get states to end their professional-licensing requirements (which deliberately limit competition); enact a loser-pays requirement for federal lawsuits; end the war on drugs; expedite executions of murderers; create a crash program for US energy-independence; implement term limits for elected officials; replace the electoral system with a parliamentary model; put restrictions on voting; make the co-sponsors of spending bills sign a statement of necessity; restrict eminent domain; end the seizure of property without due process; get the US out of the UN and instead form a competing organization consisting only of countries with freely-elected governments; privatize Social Security; strengthen our border protections; and replace welfare with camps on abandoned military bases to provide emergency care to those Americans who can’t or won’t take care of themselves.

Many if not most Southern conservatives who subscribe to this website would probably approve enthusiastically of many (though not all) of Boortz’s proposed initiatives. So what’s the problem here? I see several problems with Boortz’s book, thus with libertarianism—--but always bearing in mind that his book was obviously not intended to be a complete and comprehensive explanation of Boortz’s beliefs, philosophy, and views. However, here I will deal with only the most important one: Boortz’s (and usually the libertarians’) refusal to acknowledge the vital importance to the survival and growth of the U.S. of Protestant Christianity as the dominant religion which has shaped our nation’s laws and its common culture

Of course, the specific views on the relationship of religion to government will vary with each individual libertarian and conservative. Boortz mentions in passing that he believes in God and is a Christian. But with only one exception, his mentions of Christianity in Somebody’s Gotta Say It constitute all-out attacks on the people he calls “Christian fundamentalists” for their excesses in incorporating specific types of compulsory public-worship into the laws of the land. For example, that is the theme of Chapter 5 “Because She’s Earned It,” Chapter 6 “I’m never Going To Listen to You Again,” Chapter 8 “Evolution Versus Creation,”, Chapter 10 “The Ninth Circuit and the Pledge of Allegiance,” and Chapter 11 “Prayer in the Schools.”

Although Boortz is careful to attack only those specific examples of Christian practices (in schools, etc.) imposed by government upon the public that would be difficult (and in some cases, impossible) to defend constitutionally, the clear message sent by Boortz’s overall approach is that there is no place for religion (and particularly not for Protestant Christianity) in the U.S. government. To him, government must be strictly secular, and religion is purely a private matter, which must be observed privately. Elsewhere in his book, Boortz says that he understands what the United States is really all about, but-—given his approach to religion in relation to government in the U.S.—-I’m not certain that he really does.

In my opinion, Boortz and most libertarians suffer from precisely the same fatal blind-spot as the liberals: they view the society as consisting solely of the government and the individual; so they deal only with the responsibilities of the government toward the individual, and of the individual toward the government. Neither group acknowledges the responsibilities of the individual toward the community per se, or of the community toward the individual. Both the libertarians and the liberals dismiss the community as simply being the individual writ large. In their eyes, man is not basically a social animal, but instead the perennial loner, and they—-both the libertarians and the liberals—-tailor their beliefs, values, and laws around that concept.

One historian of philosophy traces this monstrous blind-spot back to an early saint of liberalism—-Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679), he of the Leviathan, whose fertile brain conjured up some of the bases of our own philosophy of government, but also conjured up some dangerous nonsense back in those days of absolute rule by monarch and Pope. As a part of the nonsense, Hobbes drew up a code of morals, and then insisted that every other intelligent man in the realm, setting himself the same task, would have come up with precisely the same set of morals. Thus, to Hobbes, the needs and obligations of the society as a whole are precisely the same as those of the (intelligent) individual, and therefore need not be considered separately. Only the relationship between the individual and his government need be addressed. The French Enlightenment crowd, (Rousseau, et al) adopted that basic viewpoint, even though socialism demands perfect social and economic equality among all citizens—-which means that Marx and all of the other socialists thereafter have done the same. But alas, so too have the libertarians.

However, the Founding Fathers of the United States did not make that mistake. And we need to remember that in their day they were undertaking a truly radical experiment in government, with not much to guide them. To underscore that point, until then, most successful revolutions had been undertaken so that a potential monarch or tyrant could wrest the power away from the reigning monarch or tyrant. As a rock group called "The Who" sang back in the 1970s: “Meet the new boss/ Same as the old boss….” For centuries, one ruler at a time arbitrarily made (or approved) all of the laws governing the people of his country; thus he could at least make the laws consistent. Most of British common law had originally derived from one-man rule, being modified only gradually over the centuries by the increasing demands of the public to share some of the rule-making power.

But now the Founding Fathers were preparing to hand all of the rule-making power abruptly over to the people (through their elected representatives, via a republican form of government) at one fell swoop. What sort of government framework (i.e. charter) would best support that novel approach?

Did the Founding Fathers seek to cater solely to the individual—-as some of us choose to believe today? If so, there would have been no basis for common standards in the land, other than by government decree. The inevitable result would have been anarchy. The only way to avoid anarchy under those circumstances would have been to create the United States as a police state, with a police constable on every corner, standing instantly ready to arrest the certain horde of lawbreakers.

No. What the Founding Fathers sought, and did their best to achieve, was a cohesive nation-—a people with shared beliefs and values, in which most would be willing to agree upon a shared way of life and philosophy of government; and community standards would play a major role in shaping that way of life and philosophy. That would eliminate a lot of the potential fussing and fighting right from the start. Also, the Founding Fathers sought to create a nation in which the vast majority of the people would want to abide by the mutually-agreed laws of the land—a moral nation.

No secular philosophy has ever been able to instill a shared morality in a people the way religion can. And of all the religions, Christianity was best-suited to the needs of the emergent U.S., because of its prioritized loyalties: to God, then family, then state. For example: Matthew 22:21: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”

Christianity was particularly valuable for furnishing the belief system for governing the U.S., because the Bible is such a practical vehicle. It catalogs the permanent flaws in human nature which have persisted over thousands of years, flaws that cripple man the social animal regardless of the rulers and governments and sets of rules that have come along; and the Bible is very careful to take them into account while recommending the best social-conduct for its believers. Thus, unlike the liberals, the Christians believe that mankind is not perfectible; and that one of man’s greatest failings is (as Lord Acton put it) that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Thus, the best that man can do is to put his trust in God and pray for the strength to deal fairly with his fellow man. Man is simply not equipped to rule wisely over mankind (his faulty ego invariably gets in the way); so the less government the better, and the more-local and thus accountable the government, the better. But some government is absolutely necessary.

"It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." ----James Madison, from Federalist #51