Liberals would do well to read the book Democracy's Discontent by Harvard University scholar Michael J. Sandel. Harvard is not known as a conservative bastion, at least not the last time I checked. So Mr. Sandel's critique of liberalism would be a good read for many who write in these spaces, particularly those who are prominent in the upper left hand portion of this page.

Here's a quick summary of what Professor Sandel has to say. He observes that folks today are very discontented with the country. On the one hand they fear that, both individually and collectively, people are losing control of the forces that govern their lives. On the other hand is a fear that "from the family to neighborhood to nation, the moral fabric of community is unraveling around us". In essence, the "anxiety of the age" is the "loss of self-government and the erosion of community". Moreover, the prevailing politics of this age have failed to answer this anxiety. How can this be? Indeed, how did we arrive at a point where people feel so badly about their government and their society?

Sandel feels that the blame rests with the liberal construction of what he calls the "procedural republic" where procedures take priority over particular ends; ends that are often defined by values of religion, tradition, and patriotism. "In recent decades", writes Sandel, "the civic or formative aspects of our policies has largely given way to the liberalism that conceives persons as free and independent selves, unencumbered by moral or civic ties that they have not chosen". To illustrate this point of view, consider the recent outburst by the editorial writers of this page (Op-ed March 13, 1997 "Mind Your Own Business") when the Potomac News excoriated County Supervisors Wilbourn and Rutherford for revisiting the issue of Internet screening of pornography in County libraries. Said the Potomac News writers "Who are Wilbourn and Rutherford…to decide what Prince William's taxpayers can and cannot see?" Who indeed. Consider Aristotle who said "any polis which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness". (Seen any "goodness" in pornography lately?)

Can we gain the goodness our "polis" needs with the values-neutral philosophy espoused by liberal courts, politicians, and press? Liberals are quick to assert that if we bring religious values to the political table, we will introduce a corrosive agent in the crucible of freedom. But as Sandel points out "the liberal vision of freedom lacks the civic resources to sustain self-government". Why? Because without values, yes even religious ones, we cannot inspire the "sense of community and civic engagement that liberty requires." We must have a form of politics that cultivates in our people the qualities of character that self-government requires. (Wonder if anyone in Washington is listening?)

Many liberals will assert at this point "Hey, we believe in values too!" The dilemma that liberals face is they insist values should be "bracketed", or not considered in the development of policy. The trouble with moral "bracketing" is that it leads to a kind of moral obscurantism, that is, a refusal to be enlightened to the dangers that a value-neutral public policy has for our society. The Lincoln-Douglas debate over whether to permit slavery to expand into US territories was not about the morality of evil slavery. It was, as Sandel says, about "bracketing a moral controversy for the sake of a political debate". When modern-day liberals say that government should not take a stand on the morality of abortion, but allow each woman to decide for herself, they do just as Douglas did in bracketing the morality of a issue for the sake of a political solution. By attempting to banish morality from the public discourse, liberals impoverish the political debate and erode the civic and moral resources that are vital to self-government.

Sandel is on the mark. A society that "brackets it's morality and religion so completely soon generates its own disenchantment". Indeed, that sort of procedural republic where value-neutrality is resident, creates a moral void that leads to "intolerant moralisms" not entirely unlike the castigation Supervisor's Wilbourn and Rutherford recently took from the editorial writers of this paper. The procedural republic will necessarily fail to secure the freedom it promises to itself because "it cannot sustain the kind of political community and civic engagement that liberty requires". The moral void must be filled with people and leaders who speak out on moral issues if we hope to inform the process by which we govern ourselves.

So dear editorialists, the next time a political leader has the temerity to suggest a moral solution, or when a civic organization like the Christian Coalition presses for a policy of decency in our community, pause to ask yourself who is truly doing the work of civic engagement; those speaking for morality, or those admonishing those that do?

L. Scott Lingamfelter is a Colonel in the US Army and a resident of Lake Ridge.