In the aftermath of the
re-election of President Barack Obama, conservatives searched the heavens and
the earth for answers. Some suggested that Mitt Romney lost because Republicans
didn't reach out more to Latino voters; some suggested that Romney lost because
his "get out the vote" system fell apart on Election Day. Romney himself said
that he lost because President Obama separated voting groups with particularly
calibrated "gifts" designed to curry their favor.
In truth, Mitt Romney lost for the same reason that traditional
marriage lost on Election Day:
America is becoming a less religious
country. And that bodes ill for the future of the United
States.
It's not that religious voters didn't turn out for Romney. They did
in droves. Fully 26 percent of voters -- 3 percent more than in 2004 -- were
white evangelicals who supported Romney 79 to 21. Fifty-three percent of the
electorate identified as Protestant; another 25 percent identified as
Catholic.
But a full 40 percent of voters attended church or synagogue rarely;
17 percent of voters never attended church or synagogue at all. Indeed, 12
percent of the voting base didn't report a religious affiliation at all. That
adds up to 69 percent of the population. And this population broke for Barack
Obama.
This isn't to argue that secular people can't be good, hard-working
Americans; the vast majority of them are. It isn't to argue, either, that they
don't vote Republican; many of them do. But the increasing secularization of
America means the increasing importance of the state in American life. For
generations, the religious community looked to two sources for inspiration and
support in times of crisis: God and fellow members of the community. The secular
community looks to one source: the state. Where the religious believer
understands that it is immoral to deprive someone else of their property by
force, even when such stealing is given legal cover by the state, the secularist
believes that the morality of redistributionism takes precedence over the
morality of respect for the rights of others. The same folks who voted for gay
marriage and abortion voted for a broad expansion of the state and for higher
tax rates.
That's not because Republicans are pro-life and pro-traditional
marriage; even if Republicans ignored the issues -- as, indeed, Mitt Romney
tried to do -- secularists would still link a larger state with a pro-abortion,
pro-same sex marriage position. That's because the same position that rejects
the sanctity of unborn life tends to reject the sanctity of private property;
both are based on the John Locke-ian premise that man is special in the
universe, and that the product of his labor is an extension of his special place
in the universe. Ignore man's Godly origins and his property becomes a
dispensable commodity rather than a fulfillment of a divine
mission.
More than that, the religious society rests on two fundamental
principles: personal responsibility and belief in responsibility to future
generations. Secularism rejects both principles. Personal responsibility becomes
societal responsibility in the secular view; we are all shaped by our genetics
and our environment, both of which are out of our control. How, then, can we be
held responsible for our actions? As for responsibility to future generations,
the prophet of modern day leftist economics, John Maynard Keynes, summed it up
best: "In the long run, we are all dead." Tap out the public treasury now, and
grab your redistributionist cash for there is no kingdom of heaven -- and you
won't be around to reap the consequences of your decisions.
Perhaps libertarianism is a solution. But historically, it hasn't
been. Every godless society has turned radically to the left. There are
religious societies that turn to the left, too -- Islamic societies tend toward
Marxist economic schemes -- but the traditional Judeo-Christian philosophy has
forwarded capitalism.
So, can American society survive its turn to secularism? It can, but
only in a different form -- a more European form. The best hope for a return to
fundamental American principles is a return to the fundamental American
philosophy embodied on our coinage: E Pluribus Unum on one side, In God We
Trust on the other.
---
Ben Shapiro, 28, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, a
radio host on KRLA 870 Los Angeles, and Editor-At-Large for Breitbart News. He
is the four-time bestselling author of "Primetime
Propaganda."
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