About two weeks ago, I witnessed an event so fleeting and so rare; an event that had a dramatic effect on my psyche, leaving an afterimage in my mind that I can’t seem to shake.

I was dealing with my morning in the regular fashion–watching my tea steep–when I heard bird-chaos erupting outside. Curious, I peered out a window and saw a Cooper’s Hawk clutching in its talons a very unhappy sparrow.   The hawk was facing me but clearly couldn’t see me in the window.  I stood frozen, afraid that the slightest movement would alert the hunter and cause it to fly off.  I watched the sparrow struggle to escape, its efforts met with a rhythmic downward thrust of the hawk’s talons.  I thought of a man strangling another, and the jerky throttles applied near the end of the deed. 

It was truly amazing.  The hawk was completely unaware of my presence, and I was able to observe the ritual in a way few are ever able to see.  What I witnessed was the power and fury of nature, the mechanisms that transformed the hawk from a once innocent seed-eater into a brutal killing machine executing its dance with a flawless physical poetry.  I witness God at work, and it reminded me of how small and bleak my life is in comparison to the enormous expanse of the Universe.

A friend witnessed a similar show of his absolute feebleness; read about it here. Cobb’s a terribly smart dude, a guy that could probably collect a fair amount of social and political power were he so inclined to do so. Yet his tiny ordeal in a Texas-whipped weather frenzy reminded him of his small place in this cold and cruel existence. And there’s virtually nothing more valuable than being humbled by something as innocuous and insubstantial as a rain storm or, even less extraordinary, a hawk catching its prey.

When the angry fist of God renders its target an annihilated memory, little remains to act as a warning for others vulnerable to his power. A blue giant supernova; two galaxies colliding; star after star compressed into oblivion in the heart of a massive black hole…these represent God’s absolute power, nature’s grand scheme. Our catastrophies humble in comparison, and it’s a bit presumptuous of us to consider the normal, everyday events that shape our natural world as substantial.

Yet they are very substantial for us, for the men and women and children affected or displaced by tragedies such as tsunamis, earthquakes, fires or hurricanes. And so we organize and network; we build villages, town, cities and metropolises for local support; we institute governments capable of surviving such events and leading efforts afterwards; we work to ensure that nature’s design breezes by us with nary a care.

This is the core concept of conservative ideologies, whether they be neo or paleo. The world, indeed the universe, is a brutal place populated not only by events and phenomena so destructive as to wipe out entire solar systems, but also by other forms of life intent on ensuring their survival at the expense of the suvival of others. And so we do what we can as civilzed men and women to ensure that when God’s angry fist does strike us down, or when nature’s hungry stomache does snatch us up into her talons, a safe haven exists within which we can take refuge. In other words, conservatives believe that human life is harsh and dangerous but for the action of man; that without man’s efforts to reduce exposure to realities of existence, our lives would be consumed only with the basics of survivial.

The liberal ideology is different in that it gives to man the characteristic of being the evil intent, the cause of tragedy, and the source of pain in the world. The rules we enact serve only to limit our happiness; the order we demand detracts from our ability to find joy; the philosophies, governments, and materials we create are the detructive forces in this world. In other words, liberals believe that human life is care-free and happy but for the action of man; that without man’s efforts to dominate and assume power, our lives would be filled with happiness, joy, and our farts would shower the world with rose petals.

This stems from the liberal rejection of God and the accusations that the concept of God is what has created so much pain in our history. Without a respect for a higher authority, and without a belief in one, liberals have no one but mankind to point an accusatory finger towards. And they’re not genuine enough to point it at themselves, so they point it at us, at conservatives and our efforts to dull the razor-sharp edge of reality.

A great man once said: “There is a hope, and it is this: having become so impressed with the fact that freedom is not everything, or the only thing, perhaps we can put that discovery behind us and comprehend that without freedom, all else is nothing.” Freedom is not simply reducing man’s effort to control other men. Freedom is not possible without man’s efforts to control other men, because unless other men are forced to cooperate with each other, they are powerless against God and nature’s great might.

Freedom from the rules of man only removes the protective barrier buffering us from reality. And what is the value of freedom from human intervention when your new master is an uncontrollable universe stacked against you?