Tennessee’s legislature recently enacted a bill requiring public schools to teach the “virtues of capitalism . . . as compared to other . . . economic systems such as communism and socialism.” I would have voted for the bill, I suppose, but not because I think it will get at the root of what is driving the movement in our nation toward overt wealth redistribution. In fact, I hope, were I still in office, I would have said on the Senate floor what follows, namely, that capitalism, as understood today, rests on the same worldview as socialism and communism and, consequently, the bill will not have the effect hoped for. 

Last week a pastor well known in certain Baptist circles in Tennessee texted these words to me after receiving my new book about the United States Supreme Court, The Naked Court-Understanding and Resisting a Damnable United States Supreme Court, “You are a camelhair-wearing, locust-eating, fire-breathing PROPHET.” So, now, turning from the Court, I will provide an honest assessment of the work being done in conservative and Christian political circles.

After meeting this week with a respected state legislator who I personally like and whose moral values I share, I left disheartened. CPED is killing our nation. I fear those now trying to recruit candidates to run for the legislature will not look for signs of CPED and will be sorely disappointed, even if their candidate wins. CPED is not easily detected, but this should help you spot it going forward.

The Tennessee General Assembly reconvenes June 1, and it is still up in the air as to how much regular business it will conduct. I suspect it will be rather short, because primary season will be around the corner. But I have come to believe that perhaps the thing voters most need to know about legislative candidates isn’t where they stand on policy issues; it is something more fundamental.

On January 1, the U.S. representative from Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, Mark Green, penned an editorial in which he said, “I’m more convinced than ever that the only thing that will save America is what started America: Federalism.” He is mostly right, but where he is right, Tennessee’s elected officials and Tennessee’s evangelicals better understand the breadth of?his challenge to assert the principle of dual sovereigns embodied in federalism. I’m not sure they really do.