Acton’s Director of Research, Samuel Gregg, notes in a recent NRO article that vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan has avoided “emotivist nonsense” and presented a clear moral vision for our country.
Among other things, Ryan, ever so politely but unambiguously, underlined the immense damage inflicted by sometimes well-intentioned government welfare programs upon those in need. Yet he did so in a manner that detailed the economic costs but also went beyond a narrowly materialist reckoning. Ryan pointed to the manifold ways in which government programs have undermined the dignity of those in need and constrained their opportunities for human flourishing.
But then Ryan did something else: Identify civil society as the distinctly American way of addressing the challenge of poverty, be it material, moral, or even spiritual in nature. As he noted: “There’s a vast middle ground between the government and the individual. Our families and our neighborhoods, the groups we join and our places of worship — this is where we live our lives. They shape our character, give our lives direction, and help make us a self-governing people.”
Put another way, America has never regarded politics as the be-all and end-all of human existence. Politics has its place, but most human flourishing occurs in other arenas of life. That’s something the Left will never, ever understand.
