Here in St. Paul we have the wonderful opportunity to witness students and protesters from local colleges snarl traffic on Snelling and Summit accusing the Israeli's of being terrorists, of being responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent children, and the perpetrator of the entire conflict. To placate my frustration at an inability to counter those demonstrators I offer a piece of international reporting from Melanie Phillips:
When asked at Monday’s press conference whether UNRWA was indeed a Hamas front John Ging, UNRWA’s Director of Operations in Gaza, stalled:
He was ‘just not going to answer’ allegations that UNRWA had been infiltrated by Hamas. No evidence had ever been provided by any authority, at any level. Absolutely no official allegation had been made.
It is left to those in Israel who are aghast at the vicious moral inversion of the west’s response to the Gaza crisis to put events into context. Thus Ben Dror Yemini writes ironically:
The refugees believed they found safe haven. They were wrong. The air strike didn't spare their lives. Over 100 were killed. This is not an account of the tragic bombing of the UN school in Gaza. This is the story of the bombing of Korisa in the former Yugoslavia, the strikes carried out by NATO planes, which took place nearly 10 years ago on May 13th 1999. There are other accounts of this type of catastrophe. On April 12th NATO planes killed, accidentally of course, 12 civilians. April 14th saw the death of 70 refugees. On April 27, 16 civilians were killed. On May 1st, 23 civilians were killed when a bus was bombed. On May 6th, 16 were killed by a cluster bomb. On May 19th, a Belgrade hospital was bombed, 3 dead. May 30th saw 11 die when a bridge was bombed. On the very same day an old age home was hit and 20 residents were killed. The next day 11 more died. About the same time, the Chinese embassy was bombed, and a misdirected missile flew 30 miles off course and hit the Bulgarian Capital of Sofia. ‘It was a mistake, sorry’ was the NATO spokesperson's standard response.
This is what happens during war. It is sad and lamentable. Europeans are not called upon to cast their memory all the way back to the bombing of Dresden; all they need is to look back to events that happened less than a decade ago, ere they start wagging their admonitory finger at Israel. Because Israel has not killed, nor will it kill, even a tenth of the number of innocent deaths incurred by European democracies in just wars... Thousands of Taliban fighters die each year as compared with ‘just’ a few tens of European soldiers. Hundreds or thousands of civilians die in Afghanistan, as compared to zero civilian casualties in Europe. So you, in Europe, purport to lecture to us, Israelis, about war ethics and ‘proportional responses?’ Are you for real?
In a magisterial analysis, Professor Haim Harari of the Weizmann Institute ponders the way Israel is actually behaving in Gaza and the way this is being so wickedly misrepresented by the western media:
During the current operation, when the Israeli Air Force wants to blow up a house which serves as a missile storage, Israel phones every family in the house and gives them 15 minutes to evacuate. The Hamas is then sending the women and children to the roof of the building in order to prevent the Israeli aircraft from making the kill. Israel has now developed a tiny arrow-like missile which can be sent to the corner of the roof, making a loud noise and harming no one, in order to scare away the women and children on the roof, before the real bomb destroys the missile collection or the explosive storage place. Often, the women and children used by the Hamas as a human shield, escape and the house is then blown up, with a spectacular secondary explosion of the stored missiles or other war materials. On other occasions, a Hamas person gets to the roof and prevents the women and children from leaving. In those cases, the operation is not completed by the Israeli Air Force, in order to spare civilian lives, at the risk of having the rockets launched into Israel on the following day.
Never in history, has any country made such an enormous effort to avoid civilian casualties, in fighting against murderers who target only civilians and never anything else.No one in Kosovo, Serbia, Georgia or Iraq, was offered such a courtesy by the bombing and attacking powers. This fact is never mentioned by the western media. Many of the heroic commanders of the Hamas are hiding in the central hospital of Gaza, in an elaborate network of bunkers, trusting that Israel will not attack the hospital. Hamas spokesmen issue proclamations from the maternity ward of the same hospital, knowing that Israel will not hit them there.
...But the same western media repeatedly show the pictures of injured or dead children, some of whom were indeed accidentally injured or killed by the Israeli attacks on military and terror targets, and some are obviously fake pictures with red paint smeared on children faces. At least in one case, the same child, obviously painted and not injured, has been paraded in front of various TV cameras by several different men, each declared to be his father by a different network.
Children and innocent civilians are, indeed, killed and injured, in spite of all the enormous precautions and efforts of the Israeli forces. This is truly tragic. But the only alternative for Israel is to sit still, absorb the thousands of missiles on its civilian population and wait for bigger, deadlier and longer range missiles to start destroying everything in Israel. Israel is offered a choice between a complete national suicide, on one hand, and an attack on the terrorists, with extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties, but with the knowledge that such casualties must occur when the other side is using children as human shields, storing explosives in mosques, shooting mortars from schools and hiding the perpetrators in hospitals.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
stranger II
It's an interesting path we walk, twists and turns, unexpected changes, generally speaking you never know what's going to happen next. So I have this nice long post about how we don't watch much TV. Which is true. But what do we do for Christmas? We use some gift money to buy a new HDTV, 23", and some cables to make the Wii look better with the newer technology. And a new antenna so we can if we choose, watch the nonsense in Hi-Def. Including the pathetic Vikings.
Since we watch mostly movies it has been a great upgrade to the old TV. And we finally subscribed to NetFlix instead of heading off to the atrocious local alternatives. We had to play with aspect ratios and other settings, but mostly it's worked out well.
Interestingly enough, some of my kids have had extensive TV watching elsewhere and have come to my side about TV viewing. Some have not. But the new technology will actually help me control the TV viewing because it requires the new antenna to receive analog broadcasts, sticking a pin or hanger in the port won't work anymore.
But I draw the line at getting Cable or Dish. NO WAY.
Since we watch mostly movies it has been a great upgrade to the old TV. And we finally subscribed to NetFlix instead of heading off to the atrocious local alternatives. We had to play with aspect ratios and other settings, but mostly it's worked out well.
Interestingly enough, some of my kids have had extensive TV watching elsewhere and have come to my side about TV viewing. Some have not. But the new technology will actually help me control the TV viewing because it requires the new antenna to receive analog broadcasts, sticking a pin or hanger in the port won't work anymore.
But I draw the line at getting Cable or Dish. NO WAY.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The Stranger
It's been awhile (again) since I posted. So it's about time. I came across this article today, and thought it very pertinent. The rest of my remarks are afterwards.
"The Stranger"
"A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small Tennessee town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later.
As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. In my young mind, each member had a special niche. My brother, Bill, five years my senior, was my example. Fran, my younger sister, gave me an opportunity to play 'big brother' and develop the art of teasing. My parents were complementary instructors-- Mom taught me to love the word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it.
But the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spell-bound for hours each evening.
If I wanted to know about politics, history, or science, he knew it all. He knew about the past, understood the present, and seemingly could predict the future. The pictures he could draw were so life like that I: would often laugh or cry as I watched.
He was Iike a friend to the whole family. He took Dad, Bill and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars. My brother and I were deeply impressed by John Wayne in particular.
The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn' t seem to mind-but sometimes Mom would quietly get up-- while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places-- go to her room, read her Bible and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave.
You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions. But this stranger never felt obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house-- not from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four letter words that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home - not even for cooking. But the stranger felt 1ike we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often.
He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (probably too much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes sugestive, and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man-woman relationship were influenced by the stranger,
As I look back, I believe it was the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave.
More than thirty years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. He is not nearly so intriguing to my Dad as he was in those early years. But if I were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.
His name? We always just called him TV."
-Told by Keith Currie
__________
We made a decision awhile ago to pretty much not have a TV in the house. We watch movies on a computer hooked up to a large monitor, and I even purchased a USB device so we could transfer some tapes to DVD. We only really brought a "TV" able to receive actual broadcasts, back into the house when we purchased a Wii.
I occasionally catch the kids sticking a fork into the tuner to watch cartoons, or some TV shows. But then they catch heck, and we don't watch anything for awhile. During the football season we have the TV on more to watch the Sunday game. Or sometimes the Monday night game. And my kids sit with me. As we watch the commercials of the regular trash, I have the discussion again, about why we don't watch TV. There's really not much value in even the news. Certainly in my mind, and many disagree with me, there's not much good that warrants wading through the bad.
And I don't think my kids suffer for it. They sometimes feel left out of some conversations because we don't see the shows other students see. And some kids that watch the shows really don't have a problem. But I have multiple age groups in the house. And what MIGHT be marginally ok for the older teens is certainly not ok for the younger. But they aren't getting seperate TV's for their rooms, so too bad.
I'm such an overbearing, stuck in the mud dad.
"The Stranger"
"A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small Tennessee town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later.
As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. In my young mind, each member had a special niche. My brother, Bill, five years my senior, was my example. Fran, my younger sister, gave me an opportunity to play 'big brother' and develop the art of teasing. My parents were complementary instructors-- Mom taught me to love the word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it.
But the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spell-bound for hours each evening.
If I wanted to know about politics, history, or science, he knew it all. He knew about the past, understood the present, and seemingly could predict the future. The pictures he could draw were so life like that I: would often laugh or cry as I watched.
He was Iike a friend to the whole family. He took Dad, Bill and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars. My brother and I were deeply impressed by John Wayne in particular.
The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn' t seem to mind-but sometimes Mom would quietly get up-- while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places-- go to her room, read her Bible and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave.
You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions. But this stranger never felt obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house-- not from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four letter words that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home - not even for cooking. But the stranger felt 1ike we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often.
He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (probably too much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes sugestive, and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man-woman relationship were influenced by the stranger,
As I look back, I believe it was the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave.
More than thirty years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. He is not nearly so intriguing to my Dad as he was in those early years. But if I were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.
His name? We always just called him TV."
-Told by Keith Currie
__________
We made a decision awhile ago to pretty much not have a TV in the house. We watch movies on a computer hooked up to a large monitor, and I even purchased a USB device so we could transfer some tapes to DVD. We only really brought a "TV" able to receive actual broadcasts, back into the house when we purchased a Wii.
I occasionally catch the kids sticking a fork into the tuner to watch cartoons, or some TV shows. But then they catch heck, and we don't watch anything for awhile. During the football season we have the TV on more to watch the Sunday game. Or sometimes the Monday night game. And my kids sit with me. As we watch the commercials of the regular trash, I have the discussion again, about why we don't watch TV. There's really not much value in even the news. Certainly in my mind, and many disagree with me, there's not much good that warrants wading through the bad.
And I don't think my kids suffer for it. They sometimes feel left out of some conversations because we don't see the shows other students see. And some kids that watch the shows really don't have a problem. But I have multiple age groups in the house. And what MIGHT be marginally ok for the older teens is certainly not ok for the younger. But they aren't getting seperate TV's for their rooms, so too bad.
I'm such an overbearing, stuck in the mud dad.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
the onion - obama win
Ok, so it's good to have other friends perusing the web, otherwise we wouldn't come upon things like this, courtesy of Stephanie Rumpza:
The onion
or this, courtesy of Abe Olson:
Businessweek
Since the election I've been trying to have conversations with people I know voted for Obama and understand why he was an acceptable choice. It's an interesting discussion. I still can't reconcile the notion that millions of Catholics voted for a radically pro-abortion candidate. My youngest kids came home the day before the election and said their class voted 80% for Obama, at a Catholic gradeschool! And of course, they did as well. Before they talked to dad. The next day they went in and convinced at least one other person to vote for McCain. Kids understand abortion.
The onion
or this, courtesy of Abe Olson:
Businessweek
Since the election I've been trying to have conversations with people I know voted for Obama and understand why he was an acceptable choice. It's an interesting discussion. I still can't reconcile the notion that millions of Catholics voted for a radically pro-abortion candidate. My youngest kids came home the day before the election and said their class voted 80% for Obama, at a Catholic gradeschool! And of course, they did as well. Before they talked to dad. The next day they went in and convinced at least one other person to vote for McCain. Kids understand abortion.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Neuhaus - Election/Freedom of Religion
So I'm doing the unusual, I'm reprinting here an article from First Things. Here's the link to the original FirstThings article.
In the People of Praise, and in the Catholic denomination, there are Obama supporters. I just want you to understand the implications of your vote. The Obama positions listed here are a matter of public record, you can look them up if you care to.
_________________________________________________________________________
Why this Election is About the Freedom of Religion
By Richard John Neuhaus
Friday, October 31, 2008, 12:01 AM
One can argue that every presidential election is a “historic” election. But some are more historic than others. Daniel Henninger had a provocative column yesterday making a strong case that this one is a “tipping point” between America continuing as an entrepreneurial society or going the way of the European “social democracies.” He cites the late Senator Pat Moynihan who said the big difference between Europe and America is that the former gives priority to equality and the latter to liberty. I’m not sure that Henninger is right in saying there would be no turning back after four or eight years of President Obama and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress imposing their passion for a government-directed program of redistribution and social coordination, but the future he depicts is both plausible and ominous.
There is another dimension of this ideological passion for the expansion of government control that is at least equally worrying. It has to do with the freedom of religion in the American constitutional order and the indispensable part that religion plays in checking the ambitions of the modern democratic state. Obama has said that he thinks it is “tragic” that the Supreme Court has declined to advance the cause of redistributive justice. That refers, of course, to economic redistribution. But the language of healing divisions and bringing us all together—under government auspices—applies also to the social dynamics of American society.
There are several issues, all closely related to religion, on which Obama, for all his undoubtedly sincere talk about his own faith and the importance of religion in public life, is manifestly hostile to the vibrant diversity of American life. The first is abortion, of course. The protection of innocent human life should not be seen as an exclusively religious concern, for it is grounded in scientifically-informed moral reason that should be compelling to all. Nonetheless, the pro-life cause is largely driven by the religiously motivated.
Obama makes no secret of his intention to shut down that cause and disenfranchise the millions who are committed to the abolition of the abortion license imposed by Roe. This is evident beyond doubt by his repeated and enthusiastic endorsement of the Freedom of Choice Act, which would, among other things, eliminate all state regulation of abortions—such as informed consent and parental notification—and provide government funding for abortions. FOCA aims to extinguish once and for all the single issue in American public life on which the free exercise of religion has had greatest potency in the last several decades of our history. Similar dynamics are in play in the court-imposed laws favoring same-sex marriage, of which Obama has expressed his approval, such as the California ruling now being fiercely contested in a referendum.
Consider also Obama’s consistent hostility to parental choice in education, even though for millions of African-Americans in our cities having an alternative to the failed government school system is their only hope for a decent education. Parental choice in education is by no means an exclusively religious concern, but religious and moral concerns are typically pronounced among supporters of charter schools, vouchers, and homeschooling. Here again, Senator Obama, in lock-step with the public-school teachers’ unions, is the champion of monism against pluralism in American society.
Then there is his position on the faith-based social initiatives advanced by George W. Bush. Obama says he favors such initiatives, but he also insists that faith-based institutions using government funds must not be permitted to “discriminate” in their hiring policies. This would, quite simply, mean the end of such institutions being faith-based. If an institution is not free to choose leaders who affirm its guiding and motivating mission, it is, in fact, forced to surrender that mission. That applies to any institution, but in this case it clearly violates the free exercise of religion by those for whom the most important thing in faith-based is faith. It is fatuous to say they are not forced to accept government funds. If they are denied government funds because they are determined to maintain their religious character, that is clearly discrimination against religion. Nobody suggests that Planned Parenthood, which also receives government funding, should be disqualified because it refuses to hire leaders who oppose abortion.
On these and other issues, Senator Obama is an ideological statist, determined to impose a monist vision on a pluralistic society. Although some were more explicit about it than others, the American Founders understood that religious freedom is the foundation of all the other freedoms they intended to protect. It is not entirely by accident that the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment is the freedom of religion.
To contend for the free exercise of religion is to contend for the perpetuation of a nation that is, in Lincoln’s words, “so conceived and so dedicated.” It is to contend for the hope “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Despite the perverse jurisprudence of recent decades, most Americans still say with the Founders, “We hold these truths.” And, with the Founders, they understand those truths to be inseparably tied to religion, both in their origin and in their continuing power to elicit assent.
This is not to say that the founding truths cannot be supported for reasons unrelated to identifiably religious warrants. They can be. But in their origins and continuing power to elicit popular adherence, they are inseparable from religion. Remove that foundation and we remove the deepest obligation binding the American people to this constitutional order.
The words from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, under God, were added to the Pledge of Allegiance only in 1954, but, as recent debates over removing those words have made clear, for most Americans they are inseparably connected to their understanding of this constitutional order. There are those who make no secret of their wish that the American people were not as religious as they are. One is reminded of the observation of the playwright Berthold Brecht. After the June 1953 uprising in East Germany, the secretary of the communist party’s writers union distributed leaflets declaring that the people had lost the confidence of the government and it would take redoubled efforts to win it back. To which Brecht responded, “Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?” Church-state decisions by the Supreme Court, and by the judiciary more generally, sometimes seem to be aimed at replacing this inconveniently religious people with another people more to its secular fancy. His rhetoric about the importance of religion notwithstanding, these are the decisions that, whether explicitly or by logical inference, Senator Obama supports—only adding that he wants a more interventionist judiciary to press for their full implementation.
The free exercise of religion can be inconvenient, and sometimes more than inconvenient. Sometimes—reluctantly, and in cases of supreme and overriding public necessity—the claim to free-exercise protection for certain actions must be denied. Where such lines should be drawn is a matter of both constitutional law and democratic deliberation. It is sometimes simply a matter of prudence, civility, and common sense that does not require the invocation of high constitutional doctrine. In this age and this country, as Lincoln might say, the limits on the free exercise of religion must themselves be legitimated to the satisfaction of those who care, and care deeply, about religion.
We have in this last half century drifted far from the constituting vision of this novus ordo seclorum. The free exercise of religion is the irreplaceable cornerstone of that order. In his famed Memorial and Remonstrance, James Madison wrote: “It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.” The last line bears repeating: This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. That is the truth that the Religion Clause is intended to protect from the overweening ambitions of the modern state.
The great problem today is not the threat that religion poses to public life, but the threat that the state, presuming to embody public life in its entirety, poses to religion. The entire order of freedom, including all the other freedoms specified in the Bill of Rights, is premised upon what Madison calls the precedent duty that is signaled and sustained by religion. When the American people can no longer publicly express and give public effect to their obligations to the Creator, it is to be feared that they will no longer acknowledge their obligations to one another—nor to the Constitution in which the obligations of freedom are enshrined. The word enshrined is used advisedly.
Those who belong to what St. Augustine called the City of God on its pilgrim way through time are careful not to sacralize any temporal order short of their destination in the New Jerusalem. Along the way, however, as the prophet Jeremiah counseled the Israelites in Babylonian exile, we seek the peace of the temporal city in which we find also our provisional peace. In this penultimate world of temporal orders, the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom touches upon the sacred. Upon its vigorous defense rests the hope of novus ordo seclorum—the hope that this experiment in representative democracy may be a new order for the ages.
I am sure that Senator Obama shares that hope. I am also sure that—based on his above-mentioned positions and his enthusiasm for a monistic and government-directed rather than pluralistic and free society—he does not begin to understand why that hope depends on the first freedom of the First Amendment, the freedom of religion.
Richard John Neuhaus is editor in chief of First Things.
References:
The True Meaning of “Historic Vote,” by Daniel Henninger
In the People of Praise, and in the Catholic denomination, there are Obama supporters. I just want you to understand the implications of your vote. The Obama positions listed here are a matter of public record, you can look them up if you care to.
_________________________________________________________________________
Why this Election is About the Freedom of Religion
By Richard John Neuhaus
Friday, October 31, 2008, 12:01 AM
One can argue that every presidential election is a “historic” election. But some are more historic than others. Daniel Henninger had a provocative column yesterday making a strong case that this one is a “tipping point” between America continuing as an entrepreneurial society or going the way of the European “social democracies.” He cites the late Senator Pat Moynihan who said the big difference between Europe and America is that the former gives priority to equality and the latter to liberty. I’m not sure that Henninger is right in saying there would be no turning back after four or eight years of President Obama and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress imposing their passion for a government-directed program of redistribution and social coordination, but the future he depicts is both plausible and ominous.
There is another dimension of this ideological passion for the expansion of government control that is at least equally worrying. It has to do with the freedom of religion in the American constitutional order and the indispensable part that religion plays in checking the ambitions of the modern democratic state. Obama has said that he thinks it is “tragic” that the Supreme Court has declined to advance the cause of redistributive justice. That refers, of course, to economic redistribution. But the language of healing divisions and bringing us all together—under government auspices—applies also to the social dynamics of American society.
There are several issues, all closely related to religion, on which Obama, for all his undoubtedly sincere talk about his own faith and the importance of religion in public life, is manifestly hostile to the vibrant diversity of American life. The first is abortion, of course. The protection of innocent human life should not be seen as an exclusively religious concern, for it is grounded in scientifically-informed moral reason that should be compelling to all. Nonetheless, the pro-life cause is largely driven by the religiously motivated.
Obama makes no secret of his intention to shut down that cause and disenfranchise the millions who are committed to the abolition of the abortion license imposed by Roe. This is evident beyond doubt by his repeated and enthusiastic endorsement of the Freedom of Choice Act, which would, among other things, eliminate all state regulation of abortions—such as informed consent and parental notification—and provide government funding for abortions. FOCA aims to extinguish once and for all the single issue in American public life on which the free exercise of religion has had greatest potency in the last several decades of our history. Similar dynamics are in play in the court-imposed laws favoring same-sex marriage, of which Obama has expressed his approval, such as the California ruling now being fiercely contested in a referendum.
Consider also Obama’s consistent hostility to parental choice in education, even though for millions of African-Americans in our cities having an alternative to the failed government school system is their only hope for a decent education. Parental choice in education is by no means an exclusively religious concern, but religious and moral concerns are typically pronounced among supporters of charter schools, vouchers, and homeschooling. Here again, Senator Obama, in lock-step with the public-school teachers’ unions, is the champion of monism against pluralism in American society.
Then there is his position on the faith-based social initiatives advanced by George W. Bush. Obama says he favors such initiatives, but he also insists that faith-based institutions using government funds must not be permitted to “discriminate” in their hiring policies. This would, quite simply, mean the end of such institutions being faith-based. If an institution is not free to choose leaders who affirm its guiding and motivating mission, it is, in fact, forced to surrender that mission. That applies to any institution, but in this case it clearly violates the free exercise of religion by those for whom the most important thing in faith-based is faith. It is fatuous to say they are not forced to accept government funds. If they are denied government funds because they are determined to maintain their religious character, that is clearly discrimination against religion. Nobody suggests that Planned Parenthood, which also receives government funding, should be disqualified because it refuses to hire leaders who oppose abortion.
On these and other issues, Senator Obama is an ideological statist, determined to impose a monist vision on a pluralistic society. Although some were more explicit about it than others, the American Founders understood that religious freedom is the foundation of all the other freedoms they intended to protect. It is not entirely by accident that the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment is the freedom of religion.
To contend for the free exercise of religion is to contend for the perpetuation of a nation that is, in Lincoln’s words, “so conceived and so dedicated.” It is to contend for the hope “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Despite the perverse jurisprudence of recent decades, most Americans still say with the Founders, “We hold these truths.” And, with the Founders, they understand those truths to be inseparably tied to religion, both in their origin and in their continuing power to elicit assent.
This is not to say that the founding truths cannot be supported for reasons unrelated to identifiably religious warrants. They can be. But in their origins and continuing power to elicit popular adherence, they are inseparable from religion. Remove that foundation and we remove the deepest obligation binding the American people to this constitutional order.
The words from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, under God, were added to the Pledge of Allegiance only in 1954, but, as recent debates over removing those words have made clear, for most Americans they are inseparably connected to their understanding of this constitutional order. There are those who make no secret of their wish that the American people were not as religious as they are. One is reminded of the observation of the playwright Berthold Brecht. After the June 1953 uprising in East Germany, the secretary of the communist party’s writers union distributed leaflets declaring that the people had lost the confidence of the government and it would take redoubled efforts to win it back. To which Brecht responded, “Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?” Church-state decisions by the Supreme Court, and by the judiciary more generally, sometimes seem to be aimed at replacing this inconveniently religious people with another people more to its secular fancy. His rhetoric about the importance of religion notwithstanding, these are the decisions that, whether explicitly or by logical inference, Senator Obama supports—only adding that he wants a more interventionist judiciary to press for their full implementation.
The free exercise of religion can be inconvenient, and sometimes more than inconvenient. Sometimes—reluctantly, and in cases of supreme and overriding public necessity—the claim to free-exercise protection for certain actions must be denied. Where such lines should be drawn is a matter of both constitutional law and democratic deliberation. It is sometimes simply a matter of prudence, civility, and common sense that does not require the invocation of high constitutional doctrine. In this age and this country, as Lincoln might say, the limits on the free exercise of religion must themselves be legitimated to the satisfaction of those who care, and care deeply, about religion.
We have in this last half century drifted far from the constituting vision of this novus ordo seclorum. The free exercise of religion is the irreplaceable cornerstone of that order. In his famed Memorial and Remonstrance, James Madison wrote: “It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.” The last line bears repeating: This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. That is the truth that the Religion Clause is intended to protect from the overweening ambitions of the modern state.
The great problem today is not the threat that religion poses to public life, but the threat that the state, presuming to embody public life in its entirety, poses to religion. The entire order of freedom, including all the other freedoms specified in the Bill of Rights, is premised upon what Madison calls the precedent duty that is signaled and sustained by religion. When the American people can no longer publicly express and give public effect to their obligations to the Creator, it is to be feared that they will no longer acknowledge their obligations to one another—nor to the Constitution in which the obligations of freedom are enshrined. The word enshrined is used advisedly.
Those who belong to what St. Augustine called the City of God on its pilgrim way through time are careful not to sacralize any temporal order short of their destination in the New Jerusalem. Along the way, however, as the prophet Jeremiah counseled the Israelites in Babylonian exile, we seek the peace of the temporal city in which we find also our provisional peace. In this penultimate world of temporal orders, the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom touches upon the sacred. Upon its vigorous defense rests the hope of novus ordo seclorum—the hope that this experiment in representative democracy may be a new order for the ages.
I am sure that Senator Obama shares that hope. I am also sure that—based on his above-mentioned positions and his enthusiasm for a monistic and government-directed rather than pluralistic and free society—he does not begin to understand why that hope depends on the first freedom of the First Amendment, the freedom of religion.
Richard John Neuhaus is editor in chief of First Things.
References:
The True Meaning of “Historic Vote,” by Daniel Henninger
Thursday, October 30, 2008
American Thinker article.
As the election approaches I'd suggest some interesting reading. It's a bit long but very good. You may not agree with it's conclusions but I think no one will go away without thinking about the elections differently.
American Thinker - Walid Phares
American Thinker - Walid Phares
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Nathan is 14 today
The name Nathan means Gift of God, or more formally, He(God) has given. I distinctly remember thinking about the circumstances of his conception and how appropriate this name would be. He was literally a gift of God to us when, already blessed with two beautiful girls, we weren't thinking of having another child for awhile.
Nathan has many wonderful talents and gifts. He loves to talk, not just about typical 14 year old issues, but is quite capable of having in-depth discussions on just about anything. I remember a discussion between Nathan and an older sibling about Robin Hood, the morality of his actions, and what God might think about them. That conversation was at least 3 years ago. You can watch his mind go through a conversation and see him make logical connections to different tangents. Getting him to slow down and really thing about those tangents is an evolving aptitude. He did win an award last year in speech club for his ability to take a tabletop discussion and consistently present a compelling argument for his position.
Musically he's very gifted. While his primary instrument is currently the violin, he has a wonderful voice and a good ear for pitch. I love hearing him really get into playing a difficult piece with good intonation. Athis recitals he sometimes plays a duet with his instructor and it really develops in me an appreciation for the instrument and the broad variety of styles the violin can cover. Playing with the Trinity Orchestra is teaching him how to play in an ensemble which will provide him opportunities far beyond his HS experiences. Now we need to find him a full size violin to encourage him to persevere with the instrument. Lessons and orchestra take a lot of time which leaves him sometimes frustrated at not being able to do other things.
Like most young men, Nathan has some athletic abilities. He can play just about any sport at some level. He would love to play football but since Trinity doesn't have a team it's not really an option. Soccer and wrestling are his primary interests, wrestling probably his better sport. It's an awesome thing to watch him get intense at a match and just flip a guy on his back and pin him. He bought his first weight set a week ago and is starting to put the effort into sports training that will be required at the HS varsity level.
I think Nathan has a great sense of what is good and true, and beautiful. While undergoing all the emotional twists that adolescence brings, he know, knows, in his heart the truth about most issues and circumstances. That makes some conversations very easy. It provides a foundation for more difficult discussions over extended periods. He exhibits great perseverance in adversity, and demonstrates a willingness to lay down his preferences when necessary.
As you can tell, I'm a bit proud of my oldest son. It's an emotional roller coaster having children and trying to raise them and guide them and see them move from toddlers through preschool to their emergence as the fine young men and women. And Nathan is on that path. But he's still young enough to sit with me this past week on the couch and just veg and watch a movie together. With copious amounts of popcorn of course. Now when he want the car keys.......
Happy Birthday Nathan. I love you.
Nathan has many wonderful talents and gifts. He loves to talk, not just about typical 14 year old issues, but is quite capable of having in-depth discussions on just about anything. I remember a discussion between Nathan and an older sibling about Robin Hood, the morality of his actions, and what God might think about them. That conversation was at least 3 years ago. You can watch his mind go through a conversation and see him make logical connections to different tangents. Getting him to slow down and really thing about those tangents is an evolving aptitude. He did win an award last year in speech club for his ability to take a tabletop discussion and consistently present a compelling argument for his position.
Musically he's very gifted. While his primary instrument is currently the violin, he has a wonderful voice and a good ear for pitch. I love hearing him really get into playing a difficult piece with good intonation. Athis recitals he sometimes plays a duet with his instructor and it really develops in me an appreciation for the instrument and the broad variety of styles the violin can cover. Playing with the Trinity Orchestra is teaching him how to play in an ensemble which will provide him opportunities far beyond his HS experiences. Now we need to find him a full size violin to encourage him to persevere with the instrument. Lessons and orchestra take a lot of time which leaves him sometimes frustrated at not being able to do other things.
Like most young men, Nathan has some athletic abilities. He can play just about any sport at some level. He would love to play football but since Trinity doesn't have a team it's not really an option. Soccer and wrestling are his primary interests, wrestling probably his better sport. It's an awesome thing to watch him get intense at a match and just flip a guy on his back and pin him. He bought his first weight set a week ago and is starting to put the effort into sports training that will be required at the HS varsity level.
I think Nathan has a great sense of what is good and true, and beautiful. While undergoing all the emotional twists that adolescence brings, he know, knows, in his heart the truth about most issues and circumstances. That makes some conversations very easy. It provides a foundation for more difficult discussions over extended periods. He exhibits great perseverance in adversity, and demonstrates a willingness to lay down his preferences when necessary.
As you can tell, I'm a bit proud of my oldest son. It's an emotional roller coaster having children and trying to raise them and guide them and see them move from toddlers through preschool to their emergence as the fine young men and women. And Nathan is on that path. But he's still young enough to sit with me this past week on the couch and just veg and watch a movie together. With copious amounts of popcorn of course. Now when he want the car keys.......
Happy Birthday Nathan. I love you.
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