Christian Democracy

I have thought, for a long time, that we need an organized Christian Democratic movement in the United States (see links on Christian Democracy and the Rerum Novarum on the right-hand column of this page). While I do believe that fiscal conservatism, in general, "works" better than the various left-wing economic ideologies, some tend to forget that the dollar is a servant, not a master. Oftentimes, when the currents of the market take us off course, the state must act as the helmsman who steers us back on course. Pope Leo XIII and, to an extent, G.K. Chesterton (http://www.chesterton.org/) struck the perfect balance, whereas Adam Smith and Karl Marx went too far off the edge on the Right and the Left respectively.

Various attempts have been made to promote a CD movement in the U.S. - one of the most recent being here: http://web.archive.org/web/20080126131126/http://www.cdusa.org/ (the site is now down, so it now resides in Web Archive for posterity). While I do not agree 100% with everything the CDUSA had on their website, I believe they were much closer to the mark than the GOP. It's a pity they didn't make it far off the ground. One of their organizers set up a "meetup group" down in Texas: http://cdu.meetup.com/, but I am unsure how successful it has been. Even another blogger whom I sometimes follow, http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/, has given up CD to join the Constitution Party, which he confirmed in his response to comment I left on his blog. See http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2008/02/proposed-platform-for-christian.html. Is the possibility of even a non-partisan CD movement dead in the water? It may seem so, but it doesn't have to be.

Christian Democrats need to take a page from the Ron Paul playbook, and focus on grassroots organization in both parties: CD social policies can be emphasized in the GOP, whereas CD economic policies can be emphasized in the Democrat Party, under the guise of the heritage of William Jennings Bryan, Al Smith, and Sargent Shriver. A focus should be made on electing CD precinct committeemen, State Central Committee members, and convention delegates, and, as the Ron Paul movement has shown, Meetup Groups and internet organization can be very successful in this venture. If we are serious about making this happen, then it can happen. However, if we simply resign ourselves to the Culture of Death and Socialism on the one side, and marketeer libertarianism and vestiges of Social Darwinism on the other, then it cannot happen. If the libertarians can exercise influence within the GOP with these methods (at the State and local level, at least), then we can do it as well. A CD movement would be particularly successful in conservative, working class, "union" areas like Shoshone County (or Appalachia).

Something to think about, in any event...