Yesterday’s NYT Magazine contained a lengthy article about American conservatives and Hungary which focuses largely on our old friend Rod Dreher. The article was interesting and somewhat revealing, but the author really didn’t ask Dreher the essential, bottom line questions about the relationship between his ideology and liberal democracy. I will do it for him, and provide what I think Dreher’s responses would be:
C: Is any government that consistently violates scripture, at least as you understand it, legitimate?
D: No.
C: Even if it enjoys the support of a clear majority of the population?
D: Correct. Government comes from God, not the people, and exists to enforce his will.
C: What is the remedy for dealing with an illegitimate government?
D: It must be checked and replaced by any means necessary.
C: There are a variety of religions, and innumerable different interpretations of scripture. What gives you the right to stand in for God?
D: It isn’t me as an individual; I stand for two thousand years of Western civilization and religious thought. What do you have to beat that?
Two things to note in this. First, I have Dreher using the Thomas More argument to support his position, which was a lot more compelling in the 1530s than it is today. More didn’t have to deal with the Enlightenment and its impact on the American political system, which has been the status quo here for centuries. Dreher is not a conservative in the literal sense of the word; he is a reactionary who longs to recreate a bygone age. Second, the dialogue shows that most fundamental political questions are really religious questions in disguise.