Radio/television host Sean Hannity, advocate of capitalism, and movie producer Michael Moore, advocate of socialism, sat down to debate the merits of capitalism the other night. Michael Moore began by saying he’s primarily a Christian, not a socialist or liberal. Sean Hannity replied that he, too, is primarily a Christian (Catholic), not a capitalist. I turned off the debate, because I knew it was over. You cannot advance capitalism or, more fundamentally, individual rights and freedom, on the
basis of religion. If your rights come from “God,” as Moore and Hannity no doubt agree, then the debate is simply over whether you leave it to religious institutions or governmental authorities to decide when, where and to whom those rights apply. If rights exist in man’s nature, and by the nature of reality –and ONLY in reality — then no government or authority of any kind has a right to prescribe rights — only to protect them. Conservatives like Hannity want the “moral power” of Jesus’ message, that self-sacrifice is the moral ideal, to penetrate free people’s minds while they guiltily pursue capitalism. Liberals and socialists like Moore are much more consistent. They maintain that if you really believe self-sacrifice is the ideal, as Jesus taught, then you must practice it and enforce it — at the point of imposing it on those who don’t agree, even those who want to take responsibility for themselves and be left alone. Hannity wants Jesus with guilt; Moore wants Jesus with guns. Few, if any, stand up for freedom and the individual, daring to say, in the process: To hell with Jesus.