The Separation of Church and State By Diana Hsieh @ 10:00 AM
I want to strongly recommend this recently-released lecture by Onkar Ghate on "The Separation of Church and State," given at OCON in 2009. It was particularly stellar.
With religion on the rise in America, maintaining the separation of church and state is now a pressing issue. This talk begins with an examination of the contemporary debate about the principle of separating religion from government. Dr. Ghate argues that both sides of the contemporary debate are mistaken and explains why today even most well-meaning Americans are unable to mount a tenable defense of the principle. To understand what the principle actually means, Dr. Ghate then considers some of the history behind the principle, focusing on John Locke's crucial contributions. Finally, Dr. Ghate sketches what a full philosophical argument for the separation of church and state looks like.
For an understanding of the philosophic foundation of the secular government, including the problems with the standard attacks on and defenses thereof, you won't find anything better. Most people in the audience were surprised and delighted by the discussion of John Locke on faith. I wasn't surprised, but I was delighted! I've always taught a class on "Faith and Reason" in my Introduction to Philosophy courses, and Locke is undoubtedly the highlight. While he defends faith, his defense is such that faith cannot sustain any foothold in cognition. (Locke is far, far better than Thomas Aquinas on this issue... but that's a subject for a future podcast.)
The Roots of Political Freedom By Diana Hsieh @ 10:00 AM
Political freedom requires valuing each person's life and happiness on this earth as an end in itself -- not merely as a means to secure some unknown afterlife.
Political freedom requires respect for the authority of each person's rational judgment -- not deference to the supposed commands of God and his earthly representatives.
Political freedom requires justice in dealings with others -- not conformity to arbitrary rules and commands of scripture.
Political freedom requires people to make their own way in the world by their own efforts -- not dependence on favors granted by God for abject pleading.
Political freedom requires regarding other people as innocent until proven guilty -- not as sinful by nature.
Political freedom requires taking life on this earth seriously -- not regarding it as a trial run for the next life.
Religion cannot be a foundation for political freedom. If mankind were a mass of wretched, sinful, unworthy servants seeking the bliss of the afterlife, with almighty God presiding over them as absolute lord, then religious dictatorship would be the only proper political system. Thankfully, that's not the case.
So if you think that freedom is a Christian value, think again.
A few weeks ago, our older cat's kidneys stopped working. She was 18 years old, had recovered fully from breast cancer through surgery and chemo, and had later been diagnoses with stomach cancer and given an estimated lifespan in months . . . three years before. She stopped eating and started losing weight; I made a vet appointment; and the night before I took her in, she started repeatedly drinking a lot and then immediately urinating (on the bathroom tile, which is why we knew it was repeated). The vets diagnosed her and told us that we might be able to prolong her life by hydrating her; I asked them to do it, so we could bring her home and observe her . . . and only hours after we had her home, we called back and made the appointment to have her euthanized. I don't want to go into details; let's just say that she was debilitated, uncomfortable, and rapidly losing body weight.
We both cried buckets as she died . . . but I hadn't a moment's doubt that it was the right thing to do for her. Nothing we could do would actually give her LIFE; all we could do was prolong her dying, and the suffering that went with it. Instead, we let her go, and she was still able to lift her head at the last, and respond when we petted her the last time. And I say that euthanizing her was an act of love, and that we never felt our love for her more, or acted on it with more integrity, than in those last moments.
Of course, a human being's death is different. A cat isn't a conceptual being, doesn't understand that it's mortal, and doesn't fear the shortening of its life; it only know its present suffering, and so ending that is an unmixed good. But I think it can be good for a human being, too, if continued existence is no more than a burden and a torment; because that makes the prospect of longer life not a good but a bad. There are circumstances under which I would choose to end my life; and I wish it were legal for my girlfriend to have that done for me, or I for her, if we are in those circumstances and helpless to end our own lives.
I don't think changing attitudes on this are a product of relativism. When I was a child in the 1950s, medicine was not far past being helpless to prolong the lives of the old and chronically ill; doctors still acted on the assumption that saving life was always a good thing, and families still expected them to. But now an entire generation has seen what that prolongation of life can mean, and has said, "Not for me."
Of course there need to be legal safeguards on this decision. But sometimes it's the right one to make.
When you say that "If the Church had the weapons of the 20th century, God (metaphor) only knows how many they would have killed," I would go further than this.
We have, shall we say, a Christian myth about how God runs the world and what he intends for it, one that many Christians believed was literally true. And what it says is this:
God is a self-appointed dictator who cannot be voted out of office, and who makes the law by unilateral decree
God constantly watches everything human beings do, both directly and through a secret police corps of angels appointed to watch over us
At any time, we can be taken into God's hands by death and called before him to be judged
Under his law, we are automatically guilty and cannot defend ourselves against his charges
When found guilty, we will be sent to a concentration camp where we will be tortured forever, without hope that death will release us
Those who affirm that these actions are signs of God's justice and love, and plead for mercy, will be let off and assigned to join a propaganda corps that spends eternity praising God, and that is permitted to see the tortures of the damned perfectly in order more fully to enjoy their own salvation
If someone you loved on Earth goes to Hell, your salvation entails rejoicing both at their being in Hell and at your being in Heaven apart from them
In sum, Christianity envisioned all the horrors of totalitarianism, millennia before human dictators achieved the technological capability to realize them on Earth. And said that they were desirable; indeed, it called them the Good News.
These striking parallels between the theology of Christianity and the practice of totalitarianism make clear -- yet again -- that political freedom cannot be founded on the Christian faith.
By my present stage of decline, I am thus effectively quadriplegic. With extraordinary effort I can move my right hand a little and can adduct my left arm some six inches across my chest. My legs, although they will lock when upright long enough to allow a nurse to transfer me from one chair to another, cannot bear my weight and only one of them has any autonomous movement left in it. Thus when legs or arms are set in a given position, there they remain until someone moves them for me. The same is true of my torso, with the result that backache from inertia and pressure is a chronic irritation. Having no use of my arms, I cannot scratch an itch, adjust my spectacles, remove food particles from my teeth, or anything else that--as a moment's reflection will confirm--we all do dozens of times a day. To say the least, I am utterly and completely dependent upon the kindness of strangers (and anyone else).
Please, go read the whole thing. While I don't know what Mr. Judt's own religious views are, I regard his life as a clear demonstration of the life-hating brutality of Christian doctrine. To wit:
Christianity regards suffering like that of Mr. Judt as not merely noble and elevated, but positively divine. It's not good to live fully, happily, robustly according to Christianity: it's good to suffer and die. That's what Jesus taught -- and then he lived and died by that ideal.
Christianity regards the body as a vile, despicable prison that leads a person's divine soul astray into the dark depths of sin. Mr. Judt is positively lucky, as his body really is a prison: he cannot indulge pleasures of the flesh, not even the seemingly minor ones like scratching his own itches.
Christianity regards Mr. Judt's life as God's property, not as his own. So Mr. Judt must be forbidden by law from ending his own life, if and when it becomes intolerable. If anyone attempts to help him end his life, that person should be imprisoned as a murderer. As a bonus, if Mr. Judt manages to end his own life somehow, the loving Christian God will consign him to the torments of hell for all eternity.
Of course, many Christians do not live by such dark principles. They are kind, decent people, loathe to see anyone suffering from such a tragic condition. They might even support stem-cell research, and even assisted suicide. To that extent, their values are more American -- loving science, seeking happiness, and upholding individual rights -- than Christian.
It is time to tell people the unvarnished truth: to stand up for man's mind and this earth, and against any version of mysticism or religion. It is time to tell people: "You must choose between unreason and America. You cannot have both. Take your pick."
If there is to be any chance for the future, this is the only chance there is.
Religious conservatives are fond of replying by pointing excitedly at the references to "Nature's God", "Divine Providence", and the "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence.
Raymond then quotes the relevant passages of the Declaration:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights;
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Raymond then cites some other passages in Jefferson's writings where he displays as obvious hostility to Christianity. So Raymond asks, "Of what 'God', if not the Christian one, was Jefferson speaking?" He replies:
The answer to this question -- which also explains the references in the Declaration of Independence -- is that Jefferson, like many intellectuals of his time, was a Deist. The "Creator" and "Nature's God" in the Declaration of Independence, and the God of Jefferson's altar, is not the intervening Christian God but the God of Deism.
Deism was an early attempt to reconcile the mechanistic world-view arising from experimental science with religion. Deists believed in a remote sort of clockmaker-God who created the universe but then refrained from meddling in it afterwards. Deists explicitly rejected faith, revelation, religious doctrine, religious authority, and all existing religions. They held that humans could know the mind of God only through the study of nature; in many versions of Deist thinking, the mind of God was explicitly identified with the laws of nature.
Thus "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God"; in Deist thought these concepts blurred together. The phrase "endowed by their Creator" could be rendered accurately as "endowed by Nature". In modern terms, this is an entirely naturalistic account of human rights.
That's exactly right. Finally, Raymond notes:
Jefferson’s "altar of God" quote and the references in the Declaration of Independence are easy to misconstrue today because Deism did not long outlive the Founding Fathers. In their time it functioned as a sort of halfway house for intellectuals who rejected traditional religion but were unwilling to declare themselves atheists or agnostics. As the social risk of taking these positions decreased, Deism waned.
Given the bravery of the early Americans in opposing the British Empire, I doubt that intellectual cowardice was the reason for their deism. I suspect -- although I've not much researched the subject -- that they accepted some version of the Argument from Design. Absent a solid grasp of the fact that physical laws are the necessary expression of the identity of entities and absent an explanation for the great diversity and complexity of living organisms, the Argument from Design would seem quite plausible. It's still flawed, purely on philosophic grounds, but the mistake was understandable in the 18th century. Deism was the rather benign result of that mistake.
Today, people have far less excuse for believing in God's existence on such grounds, as the scientific and philosophic objections to the Argument from Design are well-known and devastating. They have no excuse for leaping from such arguments to claims about the truth of Christianity. The Argument from Design, even if sound, could not lend the slightest bit of support to the myths and dogmas of Christianity.
For more, see my three podcasts on the Argument from Design: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Part 4 is forthcoming.
In October of this year, New Age Guru, James Arthur Ray, led about 60 participants on a "Spiritual Warrior Retreat" at the Angel Valley Retreat Center near Sedona, Arizona. The retreat resulted in the deaths of three participants and hospitalizations of several others with severe dehydration and organ damage.
Accelerate the releasing of your limitations and push yourself past your self-imposed and conditioned borders (no more coloring inside the lines)...
Carve out your own destiny
Experience a new technologically-enhanced form of meditation that creates new neurological pathways, allowing you to experience powerful whole-brain thinking (this one's gonna knock your socks off)...
Experience, at the spiritual level, the ancient methodologies of Samurai Warriors.
This was to be achieved by 5 days of fasting, sleep deprivation, journaling, burning the journal pages, mind-altering breathing exercises, and finally by a climactic 2-hour sweat lodge ceremony in a cramped, sweltering, and pitch-dark hot house.
Despite being called "New Age," there is essentially nothing "new" about this example of religiosity: it was led by a guru who claimed special spiritual knowledge that others don't have, it emphasized the suspension of rational faculty, and it was ritualistic.
It was led by James Arthur Ray, someone who claims to have superior spiritual knowledge, just like the Pope, Jim Jones of the People's Temple or Mohammad. For example, on his website, James Arthur Ray claims to have "the unique and powerful ability to blend the practical and mystical into a usable and easy-to-access formula for achieving true wealth across all aspects of life."
Ayn Rand calls these people "mystics of spirit", who "declare that they possess an extra sense you lack: this special sixth sense consists of contradicting the whole of the knowledge of your five [senses]... and as proof of their superior ability to deal with existence, the fact that they lead you to misery, self-sacrifice, starvation, destruction."
And in fact: the participants willingly underwent deprivation of nutrition, hydration, sleep, and maintenance of body temperature in order to induce a supernatural-like spiritual awakening. But these activities deprive the most critical organ of our body -- the brain and mind -- with the life-essential elements of its survival. The health of the body was quick to deteriorate from hyperthermia and hypovolemic shock, which causes multi-organ failure. This wasn't a life-enhancing journey, but a death trap.
Up the ante: American Indians sue for tribal infringement
Not unexpectedly, the case is being investigated as negligent homicide by the local sheriff's department, and several civil lawsuits are underway against James Arthur Ray and the retreat center.
But the most compelling lawsuit is the one being filed by the Lakota Indian Tribe against the United States Government, the State of Arizona, James Arthur Ray, and the retreat center.
They claim that the incident violates the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868, and that the sweat lodge ceremony (one of several sacred rights) represents a "desecration" by causing the three deaths. The lawsuit also alleges that the retreat leader and center committed fraud by impersonating Indians.
Sam Longblackcat, Lakota spokesman, said:
We Lakota people continue to fight for our way of life. The sweat lodge -- we call it Oinikaga or Inipi -- is a purification ceremony, to make life. Our sacred way of life was desecrated by a non-native man. This is our property, and there are laws in the United States and in the United Nations that state that these customs are ours and that they are to be protected.
This is a twist on the violation of the separation of church and state
I couldn't even begin to unravel the complex historical legal treaty and welfare-state system in place between the U.S. Government and Native American Tribes. But it raises in my mind concerns about separation of church and state.
The establishment clause of the First Amendment of our Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This has been the basis for fighting the Religious Right's actions to pass laws enforcing a biblical morality on society.
But why should the American Government be obligated to protect exclusivity in the practice of religious rituals of a particular religious tribal group? Mr. Ray may have been "borrowing" from Native American traditions as part of his eclectic spiritual retreat, but for the U.S. Government to protect tribal domain of those practices would be tantamount to a government-enforced monopoly of religion.
Freedom of religion means that a person should be free to choose a religion, regardless of its historical background. If Mr. Ray wants to practice his religion, which he says is inspired by many traditions, than he is free to do so by Constitutional protection.
The Pope and his Vatican authorities in American don't like the way many Catholics practice their Catholicism (for example, Catholics who are pro-choice). But the Church is not suing the U.S. Government to enforce "pure" Catholic practice on American Catholics or to prevent non-Catholics from practicing elements of Catholicism (like many Haitians living in the U.S. who practice a religious mix of Catholicism and Voodoo).
It is my view that finding for the Lakota Indians in the lawsuit would be an unconstitutional violation of the freedom of religion and the establishment of religion.
I have no idea how this lawsuit will play out, but the case is fascinating and brings up yet a new challenge in the ongoing battle to not only protect religious freedom but, more importantly, to protect our secular society from religious domination.
President Obama may have chosen as his official home church the same one attended by his political opposite, the Religious-Right-placating G.W. Bush. But to meet his true spiritual needs, Obama has surrounded himself with spiritual advisers that come straight from the Religious Left, like his former pastor Black Liberation Theology-proponent Jeremiah Wright.
Let's take Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This enthralling minister really works the congregation into a lather, preaching in a dramatic, rhythmical, and provocative vocal style. Once listeners are primed like an intoxicated audience at a rock concert with Bible quotes and thanks to Jesus, she begins to screech her circuitous point that "although we have deprivation... and... wounds... nothing can get in the way of God's love." The riveting sermon is tapped off with soulful gospel music that could convert even an agnostic.
But there's more to Bishop McKenzie than bringing Jesus to life at the pulpit. She's vehemently anti-capitalist, as exemplified by her speech, "Who Benefits," in which she links AIDS in Africa, the war in Iraq, "predatory" lending, and the pharmaceutical industry with purported evils of the profit motive. She never makes a logical argument defining profit in the first place, or why the profit motive is bad, but instead relies on explicit innuendo and her charismatic presentation style to transmit her disgust of American capitalism. She simply says, "if we track the money, we'll find out... Follow the money..."
And THISSSSSZZZZZ-AAAHHH, is one of Obama's closest advisers.
The notion that pursuing wealth for one's own benefit is cold and thoughtless comes from the religion shared by Obama and McKenzie. Obama aligns his ideals for the country with Black Liberation theories of social disorder, in which America is a zero-sum battle between social classes (from his book, "The Audacity of Hope," p. 215):
After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten-point plan. They are also rooted in societal indifference and individual callousness -- the desire among those at the top of the social ladder to maintain their wealth and status whatever the cost, as well as the despair and self-destructiveness among those at the bottom of the social ladder. ... I am suggesting that if we [Christian] progressives shed some of our own biases, we might recognize... the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of "thou" and not just "I."
Obama is appallingly ignorant of business and capitalism, characterizing them as "winner take all." In a March 2008 speech, he chastised companies for their audacity to be profitable: "[T]he real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit."
In his book he at least acknowledges America's economic achievements and the kind of social system that made this progress possible:
It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services -- electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, television, and household appliances -- that are still unattainable for most of the world... Our greatest asset has been our system of social organization, a system that for generations has encouraged constant innovation, individual initiative, and the efficient allocation or resources.
However, Obama undertakes no philosophical analysis whatsoever to explain how the social system created these life-enhancing things. So, it's easy for him to evade facts, formulate irrational ideas, rattle off lots of data in a clever way, and come up with floating, conflicting, and mystical explanations that conform to his Black Liberation worldview.
As an prime example, in a speech also entitled, "The Audacity of Hope," given at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama espouses the contradictory notion that individuals can pursue happiness while living in a society that requires God-inspired sacrifice for the benefit of collectivist categories of people. He said,
It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead. I believe that we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair.
Obama Performs a Perfect Marriage of Religion and Leftism
Obama finds the perfect pragmatic model for carrying out his good works: FDR's huge federal government. He says in his book (AOH, p.176):
FDR led the nation to a new social compact -- a bargain between government, business, and workers that resulted in widespread prosperity and economic security for more than fifty years...[T]hat security rested on... a job that paid enough... a package of health and retirement benefits from his employer, and a government safety net -- Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, unemployment insurance..... ut his compact also rested on an understanding that a system of sharing risks and rewards can actually improve the workings of the market.
Obama Thinks Big Government ROCKS
Obama actually believes that government is better at managing people's lives than individuals themselves in a free market.
[A]lthough the benefits of our free-market system have mostly derived from the individual efforts of generations of men and women pursuing their own vision of happiness, in each and every period of great economic upheaval and transition we've depended on government action to open up opportunity, encourage competition, and make the market work better...
Retirement and Health Care...
As an example, Obama disparages the "Ownership Society" for legitimately exercising their property rights concerning retirement and health care (AOH, p. 179). His ignorance of economics is also evidenced.
Take the [Bush] Administration's attempt to privatize Social Security... that the stock market can provide individuals a better return on investment... But individual investment decisions will always produce winners and losers... What would the Ownership Society do with the losers? Unless we're willing to see seniors starve on the street, we're going to have to cover their retirement expenses... In other words, the Ownership Society doesn't even try to spread the risks and rewards of the new economy among all Americans. Instead it magnifies the uneven risks and rewards of today's winner-take-all economy.
And in a July 2009 news conference on health care he rambles on and on, tossing out mind-numbing "this" and poor-Joe-family "that" and how government can somehow sort it all out, because the "American people need some relief." Obama says, "The House suggested a surcharge on wealthy Americans. And my understanding, although I haven't seen the final versions, is that there has been talk about making that basically only apply to families whose joint income is $1 million."
As we know, the House passed in October a multi-billion dollar bill that in fact surcharges "wealthy" Americans to help pay for it.
Economic Recovery...
And you can follow the progress of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, delivered right in the comfort of your own home by Obama and his Congress for a few billions and billions of dollars. Follow how it's going to create jobs, save jobs, spur economic activity and economic growth. To borrow Bishop McKenzie's words, "follow the money."
Financial Reform...
As far as the financial sector goes, Obama doesn't hesitate to place full blame on Wall Street for the financial crisis:
We were on the verge of a complete financial meltdown. And the reason was because Wall Street took extraordinary risks with other people's money...(H)ear my words: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses.
And get ready for this one from September 2009: "We have a host of members of Congress, but there's one that I have to single out because he is going to be helping to shape the agenda going forward to make sure that we have one of the strongest, most dynamic, and most innovative financial markets in the world for many years to come, and that's my good friend, Barney Frank." [emphasis mine]
Just to remind you, despite warnings going back to 2001 that the quasi-governmental lending giants Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac were on the brink of an insolvency that could spread to the whole financial system, the now-Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Barney Frank, said everything was just fiiiinnnnne. Obama ignores this fact and argues instead for sweeping regulatory control over the financial markets.
The Audacity to Take Our Money
Obama contradicts himself again and holds back some love of FDR, and decides to go for a kind of middle-ground way to implement his Religious Leftism. He claims that neither Democratic New Deal policies or Republican Reaganomics will work in today's global economy. He writes, "But our history should give us confidence that we don't have to choose between an oppressive, government-run economy and a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism." (?!) -- [my own facial tic, sorry]...
Blah Blah Blah...
"We should be guided by what works." "(I)nvestment" in education, "provid(ing) many students and parents with more direct help in meeting college expenses... [I]nvest[ing] in our future innovators -- by doubling federal funding of basic research over the next five years... It's hard to overstate the degree to which our addiction to oil undermines our future... It undermines our national security... And then there are the environmental consequences of our fossil fuel-based economy... What we can do is create renewable, cleaner energy sources for the 21st century... [We should] demand that 1 percent of the revenues from oil companies with over $1 billion in quarterly profits go towards financing alternative energy research and the necessary infrastructure."
But What of the Individual?
The Religious Left has big plans to create an egalitarian and "just" America by doing good works of Jesus. Obama and Congress are going to accomplish this by a massive wealth re-distribution scheme and lots of borrowing. And they're going to sell it to America by invoking the power of envy and religious indignation.
If only we could convince them to read Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal" and Andrew Bernstein's, "The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophical Case for Laissez-Faire." They would learn that statism and freedom are mutually exclusive and incompatible.
I like the way Dr. Bernstein puts it: "Is a human being a sovereign individual who owns his life, mind, effort and its products -- or is he a slave to society, who can control his life, dictate his thinking and expropriate his property?"
And the final word on capitalism I take away from Obama and give to Ayn Rand
If there were such a thing as a passion for equality (not equality de jure, but de facto), it would be obvious to its exponents that there are only two ways to achieve it: either by raising all men to the mountaintop--or by razing the mountains. The first method is impossible because it is the faculty of volition that determines a man's stature and action; but the nearest approach to it was demonstrated by the United States and capitalism, which protected the freedom, the rewards and the incentives for every individual's achievement, ... thus raising the intellectual, moral and economic state of the whole society.
President Obama finally found a home church last June after breaking his 20-year-old spiritual ties with his former pastor, the venom-spewing Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The First Family now belongs to the same non-denominational Christian church attended by former President G.W. Bush, Evergreen Chapel at Camp David. It was probably more politically palatable for Obama to align with a church open to hundreds of military personnel with sermons delivered by a Navy Lieutenant chaplain, than to join another church that proselytizes Black Liberation Theology.
As we know, for decades the Religious Right has been bludgeoning the wall separating church and state. Now the Religious Left has made its national debut, with President Obama as the poster child. While leftist Christianity may seem like an oxymoron because of the Marxist influence on the American Left, it's actually a perfect marriage of irrational ideas. Defenders of capitalism and freedom have at least as much cause to worry about the Religious Left's agenda as the puritanical obsessions of conservative evangelicals.
The newly-empowered Religious Left is egalitarian, tribal, anti-reason, and deeply anti-capitalist. And unlike the Religious Right which focuses on the soul and the glory of heaven, the Religious Left promotes activism in Jesus's name in the here and now. In examining Black Liberation Theology, which has been our President's spiritual bedrock for over 20 years, it becomes very clear where he will take America -- despite the eye-rolling stunt to appear more worthy of the title "Commander-in-Chief."
Foaming at the Mouth: What the Reverend Wright Says to America and Obama
Months before the 2008 Presidential election, the media let a spitting, scratching cat out of the bag: Reverend Jeremiah Wright. YouTube videos of his pugilistic, outrageous sermons shocked many Americans, ultimately leading to Obama disavowing his relationship with the fire-breathing Reverend.
You may remember Reverend Wright's infamous sermon in the late fall of 2001 in which he blamed American friendship with Israel for the 9/11 attacks by Islamic terrorists:
Last year's conference in Africa on racism, which the United States would not participate in because somebody dared to point out the racism that still supports both here and in Israel. I said that dirty word again... Don't be skerd! Don't be skerd! You don't see the connection between 9-1-1-0-1 and the Israeli-Palestinian?! Something wrong?! You wanna borrow my glasses?"
Or how about the "chickens come home to roost" sermon in which the Reverend expands his sphere of contempt for American foreign policy and his blatant multiculturalism to imply that America deserved 9/11.
... We have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. We want revenge, we want paybacks, and we don't care who gets hurt in the process. Now, I asked the Lord, "what should our response be, in light of such an unthinkable act?" ... I heard Ambassador Peck on... Fox News... This is a white man... and an ambassador! He pointed out that what Malcolm X said ... was in fact true: that America's chickens are coming home to roost! We took this country, by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers, and hard-working fathers! We bombed Qaddafi's home and killed his child. Blessed are they that bash your children's head against a rock! We bombed Iraq! We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living! We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for their attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of unarmed people ... We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon. And we never batted an eye... We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans. And now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred, and terrorism begets terrorism.
And then there is Reverend Wright's best example of what he thinks the American political system and capitalism are all about:
Who cares what a poor, black man has to face every day in a country and a culture controlled by RICH, WHITE, PEOPLE. ... Jesus was a POOR, BLACK man who lived in a country and who lived in a culture controlled by RICH, WHITE, PEOPLE. ... It just came to me within the past few weeks why so many folks are hating on [candidate] Barack Obama. He doesn't fit the model. He ain't WHITE. He ain't RICH. He ain't PRIVILEGED. ... Hillary fits the mold. Europeans fit the mold. ... Hillary ain't never been called a nigger. ... I'm so glad that I got a God who knows what it is like to be a poor, black man in a country and a culture controlled by and run by RICH, WHITE, PEOPLE. ... [Jesus] never let [his enemies'] hatred dampen his hope.
When the Reverend is not at the pulpit arousing the envy and resentment of his mostly-black congregation, he credits Black Liberation Theology in forming his views. The founder of Black Liberation Theology in the 1960s, James Cone, explains that it is essentially about doing Jesus's work for the poor and oppressed in the here and now, as applies specifically to black oppression in America. In a 2008 NPR interview he said:
Black Liberation theology sees God as primarily concerned with the poor and weak ... in society. It's not just for black people. ... Justice for the poor is the very heart of what God is about. ... The white church didn't talk about blacks struggle for justice. ... The gospel isn't about going to heaven; it's about justice and peace. ... Salvation in the Bible means being delivered from bondage. ... Jesus was crucified ... because he disturbed the consciousness of the people.
He also explains that it is blacks who don't love themselves, and that the justice Jesus fought for is for them too, in this way merging Malcom X's Black Power with Martin Luther King's Christianity.
Now decades past the Civil Rights era, Reverend Wright has exploded the tenants of "Jesus Justice" into a tirade of rage against what he considers the symbols of an evil America: war (regardless of the reasons for it): cultural repression (regardless of American ideals of freedom and individual rights); and racism (regardless of the fact that America has eliminated the evil of slavery and made quantum leaps in correcting past legalized oppression of blacks).
Yet still, proponents of the various permutations of Black Liberation Theology profess that America should be transformed into a society characterized by:
1. Mysticism: That Biblical Scripture, not a Constitution, should be the law of the land.
2. Socialism: That taking care of the "poor" and "oppressed," rather than promoting capitalism and the freedom of individuals, should be the social mandate.
3. Racism: That identity is based on race, rather than on the metaphysically given primary, the individual; and
4. Multiculturalism: That we should consider as morally equal to America all societies, such as World War II-era Japan and Germany, Palestinian terrorists, primitive tribal societies, dictatorial Libya, etc. etc.
Obama Disavows Wright but Not the Ideas
If there is any doubt about whether or not the Reverend Wright had a profound influence on Obama's present-day thinking, there should not be. In a 2007 interview, Obama said:
During this holiday season and during this political season I'm continually reminded that the values that I learned at Trinity (Wright's church) and as part of the UCC (United Church of Christ) community are values that can't just stay in church but have to be applied outside of church. ... I realized that Scripture and the words of God fit into the values I was raised in... [W]hat was intellectual and what was emotional joined, and the belief in the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, that he died for our sins, that through him we could achieve eternal life -- but also that, through good works we could find order and meaning here on Earth and transcend our limits and our flaws and our foibles -- I found that powerful.
As a poignant summary of Obama's creed: "Race is a central test of our belief that we're our brother's keeper, our sister's keeper ..."
How the theology of Obama translates into the policies of his Administration will be the subject of my next post.
A Free Market of Ideas By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
Rob Abiera of The Morality War published an excellent letter in the Oklahoma Gazette last week in defense of separation of church and state in a capitalist economy:
In his article, "Conspiracy 'synthesis'", in the March 11th Oklahoma Gazette, Ben Fenwick quotes state Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, referring to a plot to destroy "our economic basis of free enterprise".
Rep. Ritze's bill to put a monument to the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state Capitol proves to me that he hasn't got the slightest idea what freedom really is, much less free enterprise.
What do people such as Ritze, state Rep. Sally Kern and state Sen. Randy Brogdon think would happen to religion under a system of completely free enterprise? Religions would have to compete on a free and open market just like everything else. That means laws granting favoritism to one religion over another would be forbidden, just as they currently are under the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state.
That people such as Ritze don't see this and persist in attempting to tie their favorite religion to support for "free enterprise" is evidence enough for me that these people are no real friends of freedom - economic, religious or otherwise.
Christian Love? By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
By what stretch of the imagination is the anti-abortion movement supposed to be "pro-life"? Forcing a nine-year-old girl to carry twins to term after she was raped for years by her stepfather is morally repugnant and rationally indefensible. Yet that is what the Catholic Church demands with its excommunication of the doctor who performed the abortion:
The Archbishop of the Brazilian city of Recife has announced the excommunication of a doctor who performed an abortion on a nine year old girl, as well as the family members who made the decision to carry out the procedure. The girl, whose name has not been revealed by the Brazilian media, was found to be pregnant with twins recently. Her stepfather has confessed that he began molesting her at the age of three and that he is the father of the child. He is under arrest pending an investigation of his relationship with his stepdaughter, as well as her 14 year old sister.
Although doctors at the hospital where the girl was initially admitted, Imip, reportedly said that her life was not in danger, her mother reportedly transferred her to another hospital, Cisam, that was willing to do the abortion, which is not penalized under Brazilian law because the girl was raped.
José Cardoso Sobrinho, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, confirmed that while the child would not be held accountable for the act, the doctor who carried out the abortion and anyone who assisted or gave their approval were excommunicated by the Church. "To be subject to this penalty is it is necessary to be of age. The Church is very benevolent, especially with minors," the Archbishop told the media. "Now the adults, those who approved, who carried out this abortion, are excommunicated."
Sobrinho brushed aside the notion that the legality of the abortion under Brazilian law was a sufficient excuse for those involved. "The law of God is above all human law," he said. "Therefore, when a human law, meaning a law promulgated by human legislators, is contrary to the law of God, this human law has no value." Abortion, he said, is "homicide against innocent life. We are talking about a silent holocaust, that kills a one million innocents in Brazil and fifty million in the world every year, a holocaust worse than the six million Jews, which we lament every year."
Abortion is very much morally defensible based on the facts of pregnancy, as Ari Armstrong and I argued in our policy paper Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life.
Taxes and Religion in Schools By Ari @ 12:01 AM Reposted: Mike Adams is irritated that a teacher at Los Angeles City College called a student a "fascist bastard" for promoting religion in a class presentation. And Adams has picked an easy target; the teacher's behavior is inexcusable. However, the target is so easy that Adams neglects to put more serious issues in his cross-hairs.
Adams writes, "In November, Jonathan Lopez attempted to give his informative speech on God and the ways he has seen God act miraculously in his life and in the lives of others. In the middle of that speech, Lopez spoke of God and morality and read the dictionary definition of marriage. He also read two verses from the Bible."
Curiously, Adams neglects to mention what the two Bible verses were, but it's clear where this was headed. The teacher, Adams relates, is a supporter of gay marriage.
The teacher, John Matteson, left a note with the student: "prostyelsyszing [sic] is inappropriate in a public school."
You could make a pretty good case that any teacher who refers to students "fascist bastards" -- as this teacher apparently did twice -- should be fired. What a jerk. Yet Adams fails to seriously explore matters of free speech in the context of tax-funded institutions.
Adams equates the teacher's conduct with censorship with a "chilling effect on First Amendment expression." (I would be interested to learn whether Adams is similarly committed to overturning censorship of pornography and unsavory language.)
The basic issue, then, is whether the student has a Constitutionally protected right of free speech to rail against homosexuals in a tax-funded classroom. The only possible answer is that no answer is possible. Forcing others to fund religiously motivated attacks on homosexuals violates their rights of free speech -- people have the right not to fund speech they find offensive. But excluding such speech violates the rights of the student and his supporters, who also pay (or will pay) taxes. Forced wealth transfers for the propagation of ideas inherently violates people's rights.
The only solution that consistently upholds people's right of free speech -- along with their rights of property -- is to stop the forced wealth transfers. But Adams, along with practically all conservatives, show no interest in that. Instead, many conservatives look to increase tax funding of "faith-based initiatives" and the like.
On a free market, should schools allow speeches, in speech class, of a religious or bigoted nature? I think so. However, a school that allows attacks on homosexuals is going to have a hard time banning racist speeches. My sense is that the student should be able to meet the assignment according to his own judgment, and if he's an idiot, he will earn a reputation as such. Teachers obviously can grade down for lack of cogent argument. Surely there are lines that no school would like to cross, such as neo-Nazi marches on campus. But these are tricky issues best left to the boards and leaders of private institutions.
Declaring that "there is a force for good greater than government," President Barack Obama on Thursday established a White House office of faith-based initiatives with a broader mission than the one overseen by his Republican predecessor.
The article discusses the problem of tax-funded religious groups hiring on religious grounds. But that is merely a peripheral problem. The gigantic problem is simply the forcible transfer of funds to faith-based groups. Any such program inherently violates the rights of conscience and property of those who do not wish to finance such organizations.
Obviously the other major problem is that the expanded program will bring religious organizations more under the power and influence of federal politicians. He who pays the piper calls the tune. The bipartisan faith-based initiatives threaten to undermine the separation of church and state that has significantly contributed to the relative liberty of the West.
Everyone who cares about religious liberty, believers and nonbelievers alike, must criticize Obama's effort at every opportunity. Faith-based welfare should not be expanded, it should not be reformed, it should be completely eliminated, in the name of liberty.
Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband -- an influential member of the local Muslim community -- reported her death to police Thursday.
Police identified the victim as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37. Detectives have charged her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with second-degree murder. "He came to the police station at 6:20 p.m. [Thursday] and told us that she was dead," Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said late this morning. Muzzammil Hassan told police that his wife was at his business, Bridges TV, on Thorn Avenue in the village. Officers went to that location and discovered her body.
Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light. The killing apparently occurred some time late Thursday afternoon. Detectives still are looking for the murder weapon.
"Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible," Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said today. Authorities say Aasiya Hassan recently had filed for divorce from her husband. "She had an order of protection that had him out of the home as of Friday the 6th [of February]," Benz said.
Muzzammil Hassan was arraigned before Village Justice Deborah Chimes and sent to the Erie County Holding Center.
Honor killings are commonplace in Europe, as this excellent 2005 article in Der Spiegel details. To refer to such murders as "domestic violence" trivializes them: they are pure barbarism. And if Americans do not wish to see more of them, we must treat them as such.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned supporters Tuesday that the $828 billion stimulus package is "anti-religious."
In an e-mail that was also posted on his blog ahead of the Senate's passage, Huckabee wrote: "The dust is settling on the 'bipartisan' stimulus bill and one thing is clear: It is anti-religious."
The former Republican presidential candidate pointed to a provision in both the House and Senate versions banning higher education funds in the bill from being used on a "school or department of divinity."
The valid reason to oppose the stimulus -- and the bailout before it -- was that it authorized frighteningly irresponsible government spending without any regard for the principles of limited government or individual rights. Funding some churches wouldn't have changed that one iota; it only would have further entangled church and state.
A Terry Schiavo Case in Italy By Gina Liggett @ 12:01 AM
Remember in 2005 when then-President Bush rushed back to Washington to get the Republican-dominated Congress to intervene directly in the Terry Schiavo right-to-die case? Terry Schiavo had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, alive only because she was receiving nutrition through a feeding tube. Her husband and legal guardian--who knew she would never want to live like that--fought Terry's staunchly Catholic family in the court system for years over her right to die in such a circumstance. A Florida state appeals court agreed with Terry's husband and allowed the feeding tube to be removed in spring of 2005.
Out of all legal options, the family went to the top of the political ladder, and got President Bush and his religious-right powerhouse in Congress to counteract that ruling. Congress passed, and Bush signed, emergency legislation, sending the case back to the federal court. But wisely, the federal court did not overrule the previous decision. The feeding tube was not reinserted, and Terry was allowed to die.
The case was a sickening display of not only the breach of the separation of powers as well as the separation of church and state, but also of how quickly and deeply one's personal life can be penetrated by a government. A federal appeals court judge in Atlanta quite eloquently admonished Congress and the White House for acting “in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers’ blueprint for the governance of a free people — our Constitution.”
Fast forward to 2009, and there is an eerily similar kind of family nightmare in Italy. A 37-year old woman, Eluana Englaro, has been in a coma since a car crash in 1992. Her father, who claims that her daughter would not want to live in such a vegetative state, has spent years petitioning the Italian court system to allow her to die. Finally, doctors were allowed to implement a medical protocol for withdrawing Eluana's artificial nutrition--that is, until Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, after consulting with the Vatican, issued an emergency decree stating nutrition cannot be withdrawn.
Magnifying the absurdity of the Italian government's and Vatican's interference in the private lives of these citizens is the Prime Minister's justification for his decree: physically at least, Eluana was "in the condition to have babies."
Allow me to elucidate. Irregardless of the comatose woman's inability to consent to anything, the Italian Prime Minister and the Vatican are in effect saying that it would be acceptable for someone to impregnate this woman, have her body incubate a fetus, then deliver it; but to allow her to die a natural and dignified death by withdrawing artificial nutrition would be immoral, despite what Eluana would have wanted.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who pleaded with Berlusconi to not permit Eluana to die, told him "We have to stop this crime against humanity." (I must say, I find it ludicrous and ironic that the religious institution responsible for the horrific crimes of the medieval Crusades and the systematic enabling of pedophilia in the priesthood has the audacity to say anything about crimes against humanity.)
In these two right-to-die cases, Terry and Eluana were young when they suffered their irreversible brain damage and had not made their wishes explicitly known in writing. But those closest to them and legally responsible for making decisions on their behalf have a better idea than the government or the Church about whether or not they would want to linger for decades in an unconscious state.
Even more fundamentally important than the ethics of proxy medical decision-making is the right to die. I think this right is a corollary of Ayn Rand's concept of the right to life: "There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life."
In their quest to take away the right-to-die, the Vatican and America's Religious Right are basically taking away the right to life, claiming your life belongs to God, not to you. This religious view is the reason the Schiavo family fought Terry's right to die; this was the reason they took their case to a President who actively promulgated religious initiatives; and this is what the Italian father is fighting.
Your right to life includes your right to end your life according to your values. If you would not want to be kept alive for decades in a comatose state--and your proxy decision makers know that--then they have the ethical and legal obligation to carry out your wishes. And any governmental or church interference with that right is an immoral and egregious offense to the citizens of a society obligated to uphold their Constitutional rights.
An update: Eluana died Monday Feb. 9 as the Italian legislators debated her case. The Italian government plans to continue to push for an anti-right--to-die law.
Beck poses as a victim, asking why it is that the 10% of the country who doesn't believe in God is pushing the other 90% around and forcing their nonbelief down their throats. Believers don't do that, he says, so why not just let people be? Of course, striking down a mandatory moment of silence-or-prayer isn't forcing nonbelief down peoples' throats -- it's only stopping believers from forcing their religion down others' throats via violations of individual rights. Talk about spin. Even purely secular-sounding "moments of silence" only exist because of believers' desire to get God into the classroom to indoctrinate children.
Beck goes on to exaggerate that "it's been deemed unconstitutional to even say the word 'prayer' to our children," and Dobson says that "they just have to eliminate even the possibility that someone might pray." Um, no: the kiddies are free to pray anywhere at any time as long as they aren't being disruptive. What's been deemed unconstitutional is taking money from taxpayers by force to fund schools students are compelled to attend, and then requiring them to do or be indoctrinated in your religion. Reading the text of the ruling, you can see how the judge traces out where and how the line is crossed. (Of course, if we didn't have government schools that people are forced to fund and required to attend, then this would be a non-issue. Don't like your school's policy regarding religious indoctrination? No rights violation there, and you're free to find or form another school. Have a nice day.)
So, does it count as dishonest or just weak-minded when Beck turns to a wider point to claim that "in this country, our rights come from God" and to ask the rhetorical question, "if you take God out of the picture, then where do rights come from?" Oh, I see your point: you don't seek to ram your religion down peoples' throats... but we really do have to make sure your religious ideas are rammed down peoples' throats lest civilization collapse. Got it.
But I'm happy he asks about the basis of rights, because it reminds me that more people need to appreciate the analysis Ayn Rand offered in her classic essay, "Man's Rights":
The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day. In accordance with the two theories of ethics, the mystical or the social, some men assert that rights are a gift of God -- others, that rights are a gift of society. But, in fact, the source of rights is man's nature.
The Declaration of Independence stated that men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Whether one believes that man is the product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man¿s origin does not alter the fact that he is an entity of a specific kind -- a rational being -- that he cannot function successfully under coercion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival.
"The source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A -- and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational." (Atlas Shrugged)
Once again, the answer to the idea that our options are restricted to either religion or anything-goes subjectivism is that this alternative is malformed. Rather: it is either objectivity and facts, or whim. The right-religious whimsy approach to "rights" is just as wrongheaded and dangerous as the left-secular whimsy approach to "rights."
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM Government-sponsored prayer sidelines those of different faiths
The case for respecting the true spirit of religious freedom by ending publicly sanctioned prayer was eloquently and rationally made by Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center ("Civil religion no longer fits nation of many, varied beliefs," Opinion, Jan. 19).
The activist religious right sometimes makes hysterical claims that the moral foundation of our culture is threatened without such state-sponsored displays of faith, or that eliminating official prayer "kicks God out of the public square."
They either fail to understand and sympathize with everyone's religious freedom, or don't value others' equal rights and want their own personal religious beliefs to be espoused as official state policy.
The absence of official prayer never precludes individuals from offering their own personal prayers. Many devout people of faith recognize that the separation of church and state protects their religious freedom, as well as others'. Numerous Christian principles themselves argue against pressing religious observances onto others, not least of which is Jesus' admonition to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
We should no more start a City Council meeting with a statement that God does not exist than begin with a sectarian religious prayer. Either is dismissive of a cross-section of our citizenry. Let's not wait for a court decision to end state sponsored public prayer; let's do it out of the goodness of our hearts.
Barb Ferrill Van Hoy, Executive director Citizens Project Colorado Springs
Count on a politician - in this case New York Gov. David Paterson - to insult the competence and rationality of everyone involved, by calling their exercise of rational human virtue a "miracle on the Hudson." The designers of an airplane that can be landed on water and safely evacuated; the Captain and the crew and the emergency professionals who were prepared, knew what to do, and did it faultlessly; and the passengers, who stayed calm and rational as they acted together to secure their own and each other's lives - this is what our Human Civilization is all about. This is not any kind of arbitrary "miracle." This is about Humans, the animal of the mind, as we can be and can become, using our minds, our evolved organ of survival, for our life and our happiness on Earth.
MEXICO CITY -- Kissing in public will be punished with fines and even jail time in the central Mexican city of Guanajuato under a new municipal ordinance that also bans begging, using rude words and street peddling. The measure emerged Tuesday from a municipal government controlled by the rightist National Action Party, or PAN, which has been in power at the national level since 2000.
The ordinance also punishes tourism promoters who approach motorists, people who cross streets without using pedestrian bridges, those offering windshield-cleaning services and those who engage in street demonstrations. For example, the law bans "obscene words and attitudes in public places that offend third parties, as well as touching obscenely in public spaces." Those who fail to abide by the ordinance can be punished with 36 hours in jail and fines up to 1,500 pesos ($108).
Paradoxically, one of the tourist attractions of Guanajuato, capital of the likenamed state, is El Callejon del Beso (Kiss Alley), which as its name implies is an alley where, according to legend, visitors kiss in order to enjoy seven years of happiness.
For Mayor Eduardo Romero Hicks, the ordinance is neither excessive nor a form of persecution, and its goal is "to inculcate values and civility" among residents.
Opposition City Councilman Jorge Luis Hernandez does not agree - he told Efe Friday that the PAN measure looks like a "return to the Middle Ages."
He said that the text "lacks legislative accuracy and contains more than 100 errors."
For example, he said, the ordinance forces people to cross streets on pedestrian bridges that are often not suited for use by invalids.
The national leadership of the PAN distanced itself entirely from the Guanajuato ordinance.
In a communique, the party of Mexican President Felipe Calderon said that the "full and responsible exercise of individual freedoms is not only a right guaranteed in the judicial system of our country, but a fundamental condition for democratic coexistence."
Guanajuato is a university town with a rich cultural life where the International Cervantes Festival is held every October.
It is also considered one of the regions where the ultra-Catholic right has the greatest influence.
Two comments:
(1) This law is not as bad as the law against dirty words in public or to minors recently proposed in the United States by a South Carolina state senator. Although a $100 fine is absurd, at least it doesn't carry a possible five-year prison term.
(2) It is not the job of any government to "inculcate values and civility." The only proper function of a government is to protect individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Laws mandating some conception of virtue violate those rights: each person has a right to live according to his own values, so long as he does not violate the rights of others.
The Internet search engine Google has bowed to China's demand that it clean up its act.
Google and other major Internet sites were threatened by China because of the proliferation of pornography. But Pat Trueman of Alliance Defense Fund reports Google formally apologized.
"They said they would eliminate all vulgar material 'which may have had a negative effect on web users,'" Trueman notes. "Well, of course it has a negative effect. Child pornography and hardcore adult pornography harm people -- and Google apologized to the Chinese."
Google's statement, which was posted in the company blog on its Chinese side, added: "Google is willing to be a law-abiding citizen in China."
Trueman contends that Google and others can control pornography just as much for America as they can for China. "They should apologize to the world -- particularly to the United States of America, where they are a facilitator of child pornography and hardcore adult pornography," says the pro-family attorney.
Google was one of 20 Internet companies singled out earlier this month by the Chinese government, accusing them of spreading porn and other material that could corrupt young people. China's most popular search engine, Baidu, also issued an apology "for the negative impacts we brought upon the society."
In fact, the religious right should apologize for ignoring the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a leading candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee (RNC), is coming under fire Monday for making remarks this summer that gays and lesbians suffer from a "compulsion" that can be "restrained."
"You can choose to restrain that compulsion," Blackwell told radio host Michelangelo Signorile, a gay and lesbian advocate, this summer during the Republican National Convention. "And so I think in fact you don't have to give in to the compulsion to be homosexual."
"I've never had to make the choice because I've never had the urge to be other than a heterosexual," Blackwell added, "but if in fact I had the urge to be something else I could have in fact suppressed that urge."
Another RNC chairman candidate, Chip Saltsman, saw his bid derailed after circulating a CD to RNC voters that critics said was racially insensitive toward President-elect Obama.
The worst part of this statement is not Blackwell's bizarre hypothetical that if he did have homosexual urges, he knows that he could resist them. If by that, he means "I could remain celibate for the rest of my life," then sure, a person could do that. But the question is "Why?!?" In particular, why should gays and lesbians cut themselves off from the possibility of healthy, loving, fulfilling sexual relationships for their whole lives?
Ultimately, the only answer is because God forbids it. According to scripture, he commanded, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22). We are supposed to obey without question, whatever the cost to our own personal happiness -- just the faithful Abraham does in the story of the Binding of Isaac.
Of course, politicians are welcome to embrace the religious values of obedience and sacrifice, if they so choose. However, such beliefs ought to be regarded by all as private and personal -- not as relevant to public policy. After all, in a free society, every person has the right to enter into whatever consensual sexual relationships he wishes. The government has no business legislating sexuality.
Unfortunately, that's not the view of politicians today, particularly not in the GOP. So the worst part of this interview is that a person seeking the top job of a major political party in America -- a country founded on the principle of inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness -- would suggest that gays and lesbians have any kind of obligation to suppress their sexual desires. Given today's climate of pervasive statism, the step from such publicly-expressed opinions to attempting to restrict or even forbid gay and lesbian relationships is very, very short.
The War on Birth Control By Diana Hsieh @ 12:01 AM
I recently found this 2006 Ayn Rand Institute op-ed by Keith Lockitch on the deeply anti-sex and anti-pleasure ideology underlying the religious right's increasing opposition to birth control. While we might have won some recent battles, the war for our political freedoms against the theocrats is ongoing. So a reminder of what is at stake and why is quite appropriate.
The Conservatives' War on Birth Control By Keith Lockitch (September 19, 2006)
Religious conservatives are increasingly opposing birth control. The Bush administration has shifted funding from sex education endorsing condoms to programs preaching "abstinence only." And Bush F.D.A. appointees spent three years blocking nonprescription use of the "morning after" pill, despite overwhelming evidence of its safety. Shockingly, there has been an increasing number of Christian pharmacists refusing to fill contraceptive prescriptions--in some cases even for ordinary birth control pills for married women. What is behind this disturbing hostility to reproductive freedom?
Religious conservatives insist that their growing opposition to contraception is not the product of some sort of puritan, anti-sex agenda. What they are concerned about, they claim, is irresponsible sexual indulgence. They decry what they see as a culture of mindless promiscuity spawned by the advent of effective and easily available birth control.
But blaming birth control for the irresponsible actions of those who misuse it is like blaming Sudafed for crystal meth addiction. Like any other technology, contraception is a tool that can be used rationally or abused--and used properly it enables people to be more responsible about sex. It is bizarre to crusade against irresponsible sexuality by crusading for the renunciation of responsibility: the conscious, deliberate rejection of rational family planning in favor of reproductive roulette. Clearly, there is something deeper underlying the growing antagonism to birth control.
It is significant that in opposing contraception, conservatives declare that sex must be inextricably tied to reproduction--that it is morally wrong to pursue sexual pleasure while deliberately preventing pregnancy. "To demand sexual pleasure without openness to children is to violate a sacred trust," writes Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. But this implies a certain hostility to sexual pleasure, as such: not its irrational, promiscuous pursuit, but the very act of enjoying sex as something separate from reproduction. What explains such hostility?
Consider that sexual desire is a response to personal values. For a rational person, it is not a desire for mindless, indiscriminate indulgence, but a feeling that results from the embodiment in one's lover of one's highest, most important values. For a couple in a serious, committed, romantic relationship, sex is a celebration of their love--an expression, in the form of intense physical pleasure, of the joy that each partner derives from the other.
But such joy is a selfish pleasure--a rationally selfish pleasure. It is a pleasure that people pursue for the sake of their own enjoyment and happiness, whether they choose to have children or not. And this, fundamentally, is what religious conservatives have against it.
Virtue, according to Christianity, consists of sacrificing one's desires and goals in the name of fulfilling one's duties to God. Sex, on this premise, is at best a necessary evil--a sinful act, justifiable only by the duty to procreate. To deliberately prevent pregnancy by using birth control is to assert one's right to enjoy sex purely for its own sake--not as a means to procreation, but purely as an end in itself. And this is what conservatives find unacceptable. What they object to is that a couple using birth control is placing their own, personal happiness above obedience to religion. They object to contraception not despite the fact that it removes the fear of unwanted pregnancy, but precisely because it removes that fear.
To proclaim categorically, as Mohler does, that "every marriage must be open to the gift of children" is to demand that a couple sacrifice their own dreams and long-range goals to an alleged duty to "be fruitful and multiply." Even a couple who wants to have children must, on this premise, do so out of submission to divine will--not because they value children as a source of personal joy. The rejection of birth control is the demand that couples surrender the power--crucial to their own happiness in life--of choosing when, or whether, to have children, and instead allow themselves to be reduced, by means of their healthy sexual desires, to the role of stock farm animals, breeding uncontrollably.
Though they claim their intention is not to condemn sexuality as such, but merely its indiscriminate pursuit, religious conservatives are in fact opposed to sexual happiness. They are opposed to the fact that sex is an exalted pleasure that people pursue as an end in itself. Their war on contraception is not a war against the alleged excesses of the "birth control revolution"--it is a declaration of war against the pursuit of happiness.
Keith Lockitch, PhD in physics, is a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
The contraceptive pill is polluting the environment and is in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said on Saturday.
The pill "has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature" through female urine, said Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, in the report. "We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill," he said, without elaborating further. "We are faced with a clear anti-environmental effect which demands more explanation on the part of the manufacturers," added Castellvi.
The article was promptly dismissed by several organisations. "Once metabolised, the hormones contained in oral contraceptives no longer have any of the characteristic effects of feminine hormones," said Gianbenedetto Melis, vice-president of a contraceptive research association, quoted by the ANSA news agency. The hormones contained in the pill such as oestrogen "are present everywhere... in plastic, in disinfectants, in meat that we eat," added Flavia Franconi, of the Society of Italian Pharmacology. ...
The alliance between capitalism and religion in the 20th century in America was artifact of the rise of atheistic communism. It's not a sustainable union: a religious worldview cannot ground the rights of the individual to pursue his own happy life by his own rational judgment as required by capitalism. (On that point, see Ayn Rand's essay "Faith and Force" in Philosophy: Who Needs It.) More particularly, the Christian scriptures preach disdain for this world, blind obedience to the whims of God, abject sacrifice for the sake of the poor and weak, acceptance of sin, the positive value of suffering, and the moral corruption of wealth. A person who takes those values seriously cannot preach or practice capitalism. (See this LTE and this one.)
Consequently, I'm not surprised to see supposedly "conservative" religious institutions abandon their marginal respect for individual rights in favor of statist causes like the welfare states and environmentalism. Of course, the Catholic Church has never been a defender of individual rights, particularly not reproductive rights. But its embrace of environmentalist arguments to further that end is something new -- and ominous.
The Illinois Supreme Court last month gave pro-life pharmacists a victory when it determined that they can proceed with their lawsuit seeking to overturn a mandate Gov. Rod Blagojevich put in place. The governor's order makes them fill all prescriptions, including those for the morning after pill. The pharmacists objected to being forced to fill orders for the drug on both moral and religious grounds and because the Plan B drug can sometimes cause an abortion. The state's high court said the religious objections of pro-life health professionals must be considered by the Illinois courts and sent the case back to the trial court.
By any rational definition, pregnancy begins with the implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterine wall, not fertilization. That's because the significant biological changes to the woman associated with pregnancy begin with implantation, not fertilization. Moreover, starting pregnancy at fertilization would have bizarre implications. For example, a woman undergoing IVF would be pregnant while her fertilized egg remained in the lab, before it was ever implanted in her womb. So pregnancy does begin at implantation, and any method of preventing that implantation is rightly regarded as birth control, not abortion.
Nonetheless, in a free society, pharmacists should have the right to refuse to fill prescriptions that violate their moral principles -- whether those principles are right or wrong. They should not be required by law to become the slave of anyone with a script. Correspondingly, pharmacies should not be held in thrall to the whims of their pharmacists: they should have the absolute right to fire a pharmacist who refuses to fill a prescription.
Tom Bowden of the Ayn Rand Institute offers a similar view in commenting on the Bush administration's attempt to shield anti-abortion and anti-contraceptive doctors from being fired for refusing to deliver such services this past summer. He writes:
This is the kind of political infighting that's inevitable when doctors, hospitals, and patients are denied freedom of contract. Such moral questions have no place in the political arena. Instead, the law should recognize each individual's right to deal, or refuse to deal, with others on a voluntary basis.
For example, a doctor has the right to refuse an employment offer from a Catholic hospital that forbids contraceptives and abortions. But if he takes the job, he has no right to force the hospital to abandon its religious taboos and allow him to perform abortions. Likewise, a hospital has the right to hire only those doctors willing to prescribe contraception and provide abortions. If one of those doctors refuses to perform such services on moral grounds, he must take the contractual consequences.
Patients have the same rights as doctors and hospitals to set their own terms of trade. A pregnant woman contemplating abortion has the right to seek treatment at a hospital whose doctors are unencumbered by religious superstitions about ensoulment at conception. But if that hospital denies her admission, she has no right to demand that the Catholic hospital down the street abort her fetus.
The correct path out of the 'conscience controversy' over abortions and contraceptives is not to adopt new regulations creating 'provider conscience rights.' The solution is for government to recognize and protect the individual rights of all participants in the health-care system. Doctors, hospitals, and patients should be allowed to deal with each other by voluntary agreement, with government's only role to enforce contracts and prevent fraud.
You can find more on that particular federal-level controversy in this PWG post.
GOP's 'social conservatism' alienates young Republicans
In regard to the Dec. 17 article, "Young Republicans seek a new kind of party": I voted Republican in 1996, 2000, and 2004, but not in 2008, because I was finally fed up with the ever-increasing influence of the religious right on the Republican Party – especially on issues such as abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage.
If the GOP returned to affirming individual rights, limited government, and fiscal responsibility, then I would be glad to support it again.
But as long as they support the toxic "social conservative" agenda of the religious right, then they will continue to alienate many young and independent voters and lose elections. And deservedly so.
Evangelicals Leverage Downturn By Ari @ 12:01 AM (Reposted:) An article in the New York Times verifies what many of us suspected: economic downturns are good for certain churches. The paper notes that "evangelical churches around the country... have enjoyed steady growth over the last decade. But since September, pastors nationwide say they have seen... a burst of new interest..."
There seem to be two main reasons for this. As one pastor told the paper, "When people are shaken to the core, it can open doors." The article also discusses an economist who sees the increased attendance as more related to economic concerns: churches provide a safety net, and people without jobs aren't busy on Sundays.
The article mentions "Good Sense," a church-based financial management program. A downloadable document reveals some of the details. It praises "avoiding consumer debt and saving for the unexpected" -- good advice -- but it also advocates greater political control of the economy, demonstrating yet again that evangelicals hardly advocate economic liberty as a rule. The document states:
On a macro level, increased regulation of certain sectors of our financial markets, about which some have warned of excesses for some time, will become reality and will hopefully prevent repeats of the abuses that have led to the situation we are in now. Capitalism must have moral restraints and while those can’t be legislated, regulations can at least make it harder to do wrong and easier to punish those who do.
Most significantly, we are reminded that earthly treasures can succumb to rust, moths, thieves and to economic upheavals and that it is our treasures in heaven that are safe for eternity.
This also shows the tension within the Christian movements for financial planning. I've heard claims that God wants us to be rich, that the Bible counsels hard work and the prudent accumulation of wealth. Yet the stronger Biblical strain is egalitarianism and the call to renounce wealth. One televangelist told the Times we're living in a "time of fear and greed." Yet this fails to distinguish the "greed" of political manipulations and wealth transfers from the self-interest of free markets and individual rights.
Thus, the evangelical movement offers two conflicting messages: be responsible in how you accumulate wealth, but realize that wealth doesn't matter relative to an eternity in heaven.
I did find this line from the Times humorous: "At the Life Christian Church in West Orange, N.J., prayer requests have doubled -- almost all of them aimed at getting or keeping jobs." Yes, all we need is a divine stimulus package.
Dobson Insists on Faith-Based Politics By Ari @ 12:01 AM (Reposted:) James Dobson of Focus on the Family makes two main argument in a recent posting that was brought to my attention by 5280 magazine. First, the religious right didn't really lose in the last election, and second, the religious right should continue to make explicitly religious arguments to advance their faith-based politics.
As I've pointed out, the religious right got trounced in Colorado. Voters rejected McCain and his evangelical running mate, picked a United States Senator who penned a particularly eloquent defense of the separation of church and state, ousted a House member known for her faith-based views, rejected an anti-abortion candidate for state senate, and defeated the "personhood" initiative (which Dobson endorsed) by 73 to 27 percent. The religious right hardly could have taken a worse beating.
To "refute" this obvious fact, Dobson points out that voters in "California, Florida and Arizona voted to define marriage in their constitutions as the union of one man and one woman..." But that hardly proves Dobson's point. Defining marriage as heterosexual is hardly the same thing as endorsing the religious right's vicious anti-homosexual agenda. It is common to want to restrict "marriage" to heterosexual couples and still confer full legal rights to homosexual couples. In this case, many voters side with the religious right by coincidence.
Dobson simply ignores all of the other electoral outcomes.
But here is the more substantive point: Dobson calls on Christians to attempt to enforce their distinctly religious views through politics. Dobson rejects Barack Obama's stance that political policies must be based on "some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.” Dobson calls on Christians to reject the "invitation for believers to show up, but then only to be allowed to make arguments that are not based in their deepest beliefs."
And what are Dobson's priorities? "We will continue to stand up for the sanctity of human life, the sacredness of marriage and the right to have a say in the principles that will continue to guide this nation founded on biblical principles."
Banning abortion is his first priority; discriminating against homosexuals is his second. (No serious person protests Dobson's right of free speech; that's hardly the issue.) And Dobson frankly admits that both these causes are particularly religious in nature. With an agenda like that, it's no wonder that most Americans (particularly in the Interior West) have rejected the faith-based politics of Dobson and the Republican Party.
