I don't know if Bobby Jindal is going to run for president in 2016, but he may have unwittingly thrown down a gauntlet with respect to how candidates can and should talk about God. In a recent address to some people of faith, the Hindu-coverted-to-Catholic hit it exactly right, and this has the folks who want God entirely out of American politics and governance apoplectic - and predictably so. No one has jerked his knee more violently than Nick Gillespie, the editor of the libertarian magazine Reason.
Jindal's parents are Hindu, but he converted to Catholicism and once wrote about participating in an exorcism while an undergraduate. I don't question his faith, only its relevance to coming up with smart and effective policies, especially ones that will limit the size, scope, and spending of government. You don't need to be a believer to realize government at all levels is trying to do too many things for which it has no competency nor warrant.
First of all, let's recognize that Gillespie has no idea what Jindal is actually talking about because he is completely ignorant about the matter. What Jindal gets and Gillespie does not get is that God has to do with everything. The second sentence in bold above makes no sense whatseover, but I think what Gillespie is trying to say is that belief in God is akin to belief in astrology or superstition or something of that nature ("our stars"?), and that it's completely apart from the policies we implement. This is as ignorant as an idea can be. Jindal's point is that we make better policies when we submit ourselves to God because God gives us wisdom.
This doesn't just have to do with social and moral policies. It has to do with fiscal and economic policy too. The godly man won't make spending commitments that will bankrupt the nation. The godly man won't expand the size of government just to empower his political party or a group of donors. The godly man might make laws libertarians don't like, but who cares? The point is that when someone like Gillespie hears "turn back to God," he thinks it means obsessing over abortion and other social policy. Bobby Jindal, whose policies in Louisiana Gillespie actually professes to like, came to those policies by operating according to the wisdom and integrity that comes from God.
Now, a word about why this matters. It's not because Nick Gillespie matters. He doesn't. At all. He's a predictable, doctrinaire libertarian crank who sounds exactly like every other libertarian crank, and thinks that everyone who sees a role for government in anything is a "statist" or a "nanny stater" or whatever. Gillespie's philosophy is not influential at all, and no one should make the mistake of thinking that libertarians are some sort of branch of conservatism. They're not. They just hate everything, and that confuses some conservatives who favor limited government, but still see where government could be a positive force in the nation if limited to its proper role.
Hey, the libertarians oppose a lot of the same stuff we oppose! Maybe we're allies and we should work together! No. (And yes, I know what Ronald Reagan said about this in 1975. He was wrong, and given the way he actually governed I doubt he still believed it in the '80s. But even if he did, he was still wrong.)
This matters, though, because there is a fairly determined movement within the ranks of conservatism that is trying to cut off all talk of God among Republican public figures. They hear someone mention God and their first thought is how the God talk will affect Republican electoral chances. Their supposition is that it will make people have nightmares about a theocratic government led by the likes of Pat Robertson and James Dobson, and obsessed with matters like abortion and what people do in their bedrooms, while having no idea how to make a budget or defend the nation.
Stop talking about God! It doesn't help Republicans win elections!
Note their priorities.
So this segment of conservatism, which is sadly willing to be in league with libertarian cranks like Nick Gillespie, goes into a collective conniption fit any time a Republican candidate mentions that God is important. It's partly because they see it as bad electoral politics and partly because they themselves want no part of God in their own lives.
Here's what they need to understand, but refuse to understand: God matters in everything. Turning back to God is as relevant to economic and foreign policy as it is to the stuff Rick Santorum talks about, because without God you lack wisdom, humility and integrity. Can you think of any politicians who lack wisdom, humility and integrity? What's that? Our entire political class lacks those things?
Darn right they do. Because they've pushed God to the side much as Nick Gillespie prefers, and as a result we've got the type of government Nick Gillespie abhors.
Then again, he abhors any form of government, so who cares?
