Rob Tracinski presented his idea to create a 'secular right,' based on Ayn Rand's philosophy, in his essay "How to be an 'Anti-Bushite for Bush.'" He sees the Republican party as salvageable, and thinks that what is necessary for the future is that Objectivists convince others on The Right to cast away religion and embrace secular ideas in the defense of America.
What Mr. Tracinski proposes can only result in confusion and disaster. The confusion would result from the package-deal of putting Objectivism, a pro-reason, pro-egoism philosophy, under the same concept, The Right, as religious groups and pragmatist conservatives. The disaster would come in the form of Objectivists wasting untold effort combatting the package-deal, especially since it would be Objectivists themselves inciting the confusion.
As I have pointed out in this blog once or twice, Objectivism and religion are crucially different. Objectivism holds that existence is primary, that reason is man's only means of knowledge, and that his own happiness should be his purpose in life. Religion holds that consciousness (God's, typically) is primary, that faith and intuition reveal the important truths, and that sacrifice of your happiness here on Earth is the moral ideal. To put these two systems of thought together under one concept would require blanking out these essential differences. Adding the mealy-mouthed modifier 'secular' does not change this.
Also, we cannot look to the intellectuals on The Right who seem less religious as allies. As John Lewis pointed out, their philosophy is essentially Platonism. Also, politically, they advocate deception as practical. In America, this amounts to promoting religion, even if they themselves do not believe in it. Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses, and right-wingers of the Straussian ilk are content to encourage the masses to smoke up. Again, to say Ayn Rand's ideas are part of the 'secular right,' would require ignoring fundamental differences in philosophy. In this case, the word 'secular' would only add to the confusion, because followers of Strauss may very well be unreligious themselves.
All package-deals require a fig leaf of cover, some non-essential similarity that people can cling to when using the term. In this case, the non-essential would be the tough, pro-American rhetoric. To include Objectivism in The Right would amount to saying that The Right is the political movement of people that say they love our country--whether they do so because of its "Judeo-Christian tradition," or because it is the right balancing act of civic virtue and rights, or because America is the only nation that recognizes man as an end in himself with certain inalienable rights. In the package-dealing mind,that's all fine, because the 'essential' is proclamation of love of America, whatever that means to the proclaimer.
If this were to take hold, confusion would reign amongst the very people that Tracinski would be trying to bring to Objectivism. If he took a swipe at some inanity from Bill Bennett, people would wonder why. After all, they would ask, we're all on 'The Right' together, aren't we, defending America against the liberals? How does Tracinski propose to pry away the people who join the Republican Party for all the right reasons, while saying we are on the same page with the people who are there for the wrong reasons? Every argument would be seen as infighting amongst people who are on the same side, not as clashes between opposing philosophies.
The epistemological damage would take a long time to undo. John Lewis showed that this is a problem with Bush's tough talk and weak action. How much worse of a problem would it be if the one philosophy that can save America, Objectivism, now had to be explicitly and continuously distanced from opposing ideas--ideas it would have never been associated with, except that an Objectivist advocated the package-deal in the first place? Note that neither National Review, nor its founder, William F. Buckley, Jr, are clamoring to absorb Objectivism into the political movement. No evangelical group is sending out 'feelers' to ARI, and no conservative, to my knowledge, has been been lauding Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss as philosophical soulmates. In fact, for some Objectivists to start claiming to be part of The Right seems like begging for political acceptance from a major player, as if we've given up standing on our own, and now just want to be part of the game.
Ayn Rand's philosophy is brilliant, and, more importantly, true. It deserves better.
