On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?
And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."
So said Barry Goldwater on the floor of the United States Senate in 1981.
The issue of religion seems to be in the news just now. Bernie Sanders has decided to clarify his personal beliefs, and the apparently still relevant Mike Huckabee has sought to remind voters that he is the god-fearingest candidate you could want. It seems that religion is still, despite our legal secularism and despite Senator Goldwater’s warning, among the most important features of a candidate in the eyes of the electorate.
But my interests today lie in a slightly different area: the bizarre and irrational behavior of people on the far-right and their tendency to believe things that seem, to outsiders, stark raving mad. In particular, I would point out the believes of “voodoo economics” as it was memorably termed by George H.W. Bush in his primary race against Ronald Reagan, the total denial of the success of the Affordable Care Act, and the actions of the Oregon militiamen and other “sovereign citizens” and domestic terrorists. Looking at these in light of Senator Goldwater’s words, the similarities are striking. Conservatism, I argue, has become a religious worldview immune from rational examination or reform in light of new evidence.
Look at the economic policy proposals of the GOP candidates. Every one is based on the idea that tax cuts are the one true path to economic prosperity. We have seen how well that works at a national level under Reagan and Bush the Younger and at the state level in Brownback’s Kansas as compared to California. Yet people like Grover Norquist continue to demand candidates stick to the orthodox message. The high priests of the Republican religion have indoctrinated their flock, and they demand rigid conformity from politicians. Evidence doesn't matter, just faith.
Paul Krugman, among others, has documented the complete denial of objective reality in the GOP around the Affordable Care Act. It is accepted dogma of the Republican religion that it is a horrible, no-good, very bad thing that hasn't done any good for anybody anywhere. In fact, in the linked piece Krugman points to a survey showing that to 81% of Iowa Republicans Ben Carson's (remember him?) statement that Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery made him more attractive as a candidate. Once again, evidence doesn't matter. Anyone who questions the doctrine is a heretic.
The belief in the efficacy of tax cuts and in the failure of Obamacare are bad, but it is in the actions and beliefs of the Oregon occupiers still, even after the capture of their leader (priest?) that we see the potential for beliefs to cause serious harm. The occupiers believe, as far as I understand it, that the federal government as it currently exists is essentially illegitimate. They also believe that they, as citizens, are empowered to take virtually any action they please to challenge the government and as they see it restore their liberty. This is the kind of thinking that led America into civil war 150 years ago. It is beyond the realm of acceptable discourse in a civil society, and it should not be treated any differently from any other act of domestic terrorism. Yet fairly reasonable politicians in the Republican Party, including Oregon Representative and senior member of the House GOP Greg Walden have made sympathetic noises recognizing the grievances of the occupiers.
For now, at least, the mainstream of the Republican Party still recognizes the existence of the federal government, but the party has certainly showed itself vulnerable to takeover by unreason. The rise of Donald Trump who, whatever his real views are, has made a very successful campaign out of playing the most radical adherents of the Republican religion could be a foreshadowing of the future. And so, Senator Goldwater’s words, true in their time and still true today take on a new meaning in the context not of traditional religion but of the new religion of, to paraphrase Adam Savage, rejecting reality and substituting their own. What’s left of the old establishment caucus had better act quickly before they are overrun by zealots.