Many in the blogosphere are waking up to the news of Rand Paul's keynote address to a state branch of the Constitution Party. For those of you who aren't familiar with this Christo-fascist political party, its self-articulated overarching goal is " to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries." As B.E. Wilson at alter.net has laid out, leading figures in this party have offered apologia for the institution of slavery in the United States, advocated execution by stoning for homosexuals, and have sided with the 17th Century Inquisition against Galileo, insisting that the Earth rotates around the Sun. No, I'm not kidding.
The question that needs answering, to my mind, is "To what extent is libertarianism, as espoused by the Paul dynasty, compatible with the authoritarian Christian Dominionism of the Constitution Party?"
It would be tempting to ascribe the seeming contradiction to the typical dearth of logic apparent on the Right in general. But a closer look at the beliefs of the Libertarian and Constitutionalist Parties reveal a disturbing congruity.
Libertarians believe that the "free market" can and should account for virtually all political and social relationships. Corporations, free of any legal restrictions, can and should educate our children, provide our healthcare, pave our roads, generate our power, clean and pipe our water, police our communities, etc., etc. Monopolies do not concern most Libertarians: that is the inevitable outcome of market competition. Mainstream Libertarians advocate, in effect, a form of corporatism in which the rights and choices of real individuals are dictated and subordinated to the "rights" of a legal fiction: the corporation.
Constitution Party argues that the sum total of political relationships are to be found in the Bible and that our Constitution was written by Christians upon Biblical principles that have divine authority. But when you scratch a Biblical patina comprising opposition to gambling, pornography, the lionization of the nuclear family , the body of the party platform could have been written by a Libertarian: "America was founded on the economic principles of the "free enterprise" system. An individual was free to operate his business under the law without government intervention and regulation"; "the federal government should not interfere with the development of potential energy sources." And even in those instances, such as pornography, where they flirt with regulation, the rhetoric is carefully hedged about with libertarian caveats, such as this marvelous piece of equivocation: "While we believe in the responsibility of the individual and corporate entities to regulate themselves, we also believe that our collective representative body we call government plays a vital role in establishing and maintaining the highest level of decency in our community standards." Essentially, the Constitutional Party simply adds another, Christian layer onto a typical Libertarian world-view. Where a secular Libertarian argues for the primacy of the free market, the Constitutional Party adds that this primacy is divinely ordained and therefore to oppose it is against the dictates of that oldest collective fiction: God.
Beyond their corporate authoritarianism, both also share a radically ahistorical view of the corporation and our founding Fathers. That the vast majority of our founding fathers were not Christians, but Deists (at best) should need no demonstration. But more disturbing than the typically wrongheaded view of the Founders' religious beliefs is a complete ignorance of the history of the corporation as a legal entity. Corporations, like the Dutch East India Company, were (and still are) chartered by sovereign states for or in accordance with the sovereign's view of the public good. They are not an end but a means. The implications of democracies and republics are clear: assemblies have the power to regulate the activities of corporations. In espousing their vision of corporate supremacy, Libertarians and Consitutionalists strike at the fundamental principle of democracy: the supremacy of the People's will.
What remains to be seen is whether the MSM really holds Paul accountable for his courting the support of dangerously radical Christian Dominionist party that seeks to replace our secular constitutional order with the Bible.
I wouldn't hold your breath.