Bill McCollum is the attorney general of Florida who is getting flak for proposing an immigration law for Floridians.
He has set forth a very well reasoned case against the overreach of the Obama administration, pointing out the administration's immigration policy displays a "blatant disregard for separation of powers and federalism [and has resulted in] trampling both the constitutional authority of Congress and the sovereign rights of the states."
Well, yes.
The principles of federalism as envisioned and enacted by the founders of our country are the stuff of genius and have been widely imitated. The European Union, for example, owes its ideas of federation to American political thought.
As McCollum and others point out, at the heart of American federalism is the concept of separation of powers. That separation allows spheres of authority, congress having wide authority in domestic affairs and the president having great authority in foreign affairs.
In his handling of immigration policy, particularly in the case of Arizona, the president has deliberately blurred the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs in order to expand executive power. He did so by claiming his power over foreign affairs grants him power over "any attempt by Arizona to enforce federal immigration law...The administration's effort to strip Arizona of its rights under federal law reflects the view that presidential power over foreign affairs trumps congressional authority over domestic politcy."
But it is not just congress that is being rendered increasingly irrelevant under the Obama administration's power grab.
States also are in danger of being totally subsumed under executive power, their governmental sovereignty trashed and their ability to protect their citizens with their own police powers vitiated. In brief, the Obama administration, by denying Arizona its "law enforcement prerogatives, based on vague assertions of presidential foreign policy interests," has gutted the state autonomy gauranteed within the framework of federalism checked by balance of powers.
McCollum adds: "By that logic, there is no exercise of state prerogatives that the president cannot override all by himself." [Italics mine.]
Well, yes, again. That sentence deserves memorization, for it is the very definition of executive tyanny.
McCollum concludes: "President Obama's actions are unlike anything the American people have seen before. Indeed, they are in an entirely different category than the actions of previous presidents, which were undertaken largely in wartime...[President Obama] is disregarding a clear set of statutory requirements contained in federal immigration law, and he is greatly expanding presidential power--all without tacklong a genuine national security threat...[He] is eroding the separation of powers, evading checks and balances, and destroying federalism. These actions are hostile to the core of our Constitution...
"This president seems committed to running a government of men that rules without regard for the law. A government of laws is what the Constitution requires, and what the American people demand."
In light of the above, what stance should Delaware's candidates for office take? Certainly each and all must stand up to the ever encroaching power of the executive branch and stand for state sovereignty as defined by the constitution. Each and all must stand up for the unique rights of states to defend their citizens. If states continue to lose their right to defend their own citizens, they will be completely subsumed by the federal government. Further,as concerns candidates and fellow citizens alike each and all must stand up for the ability of states to be the breeding ground for unique innovation in diverse fields of endeavor, including economic innovation.
And therein lies the rub for tiny Delaware. If Delaware does not stand up to be counted, just what will be its fate? Its' not hard to guess. Delaware's unique position as corporate headquarters for the nation will be increasingly challenged by an out of control executive branch determined to be sovereign over all economic as well as immigration and other matters.
Right now, as in the past, Delaware has been the initiator of corporate law and has studiously avoided conflict with the federal government, seeking to strike a delicate balance between state and federal authority.
But without a strong, truly federal government, it will, like other states, simply become an administrative appendage attached to an all devouring executive/administrative body. Its unique status will disappear along with its economic base and its stellar position in the corporate world.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Wag the Dog
Costing only 15 million dollars--mere peanuts in Hollywood and congressional circles--and taking a mere 29 days to shoot, Barry Levinson's 1997 Wag the Dog, an acidic political satire, may well have pertinence for the upcoming elections.
In the original story, two weeks before re-election, the president is accused of molesting an underage girl in the Oval Office. The spin doctors, including a Hollywood producer, leap into action, fearing the charges, if made public, will competely sabotage the president's chances for another four years in the White House.
The specialist in damage control suggests creating a campaign centered around a fake war in Albania, and assembles a team of media experts who put out a steady stream of denials of non-existent emergencies. The experts rely on the assumption the American public doesn't know or even care about Albania. But they believe the public will rally to the side of the President and re-elect him. The ploy works.
The manufacture of false crises in order to hide real ones and to win elections seems to be an old and even a rather respected tactic of some administrations, including this one.
The point being that voters should be aware this administration's apparent serenity in the face of what appears to be a gathering political tsunami this November may well be based on backup plans to manufacture a crisis. After all, who can forget Rahm Emmanuel's trenchant advice not to let a perfectly good crisis go to waste? Who cares if the crisis is manufactured or not? A crisis is a crisis.
Not that we have not had enough real crises, mind you; some of which, like the Gulf oil spill, appear to have gone down a black hole as straight faced administration spokesmen assure us 75% of the oil has magically disappeared undersea and seafood sniffers assure the public the taint of oil is nowhere to be found. No olfactory nerves are disturbed by the aroma of oil. No, sir. Eat your flounder dinner in unperturbed equanimity.
But what might a Wag the Dog crisis look like?
Well, it would probably be one that calls all Americans to patriotic solidarity, with an emphasis on getting behind the President and helping him retain a solid Democrat majority which will enable him to deal with the crisis. He will need all the power of congress behind him. Of course, emergency measures will require suspension of certain rights and privileges Americans customarily enjoy, for after all, a dire crisis requires draconian measures.
Could Americans expect a big emergency about two weeks before the November elections? It certainly is not out of the question.
Maybe a nice little attack?
In the original story, two weeks before re-election, the president is accused of molesting an underage girl in the Oval Office. The spin doctors, including a Hollywood producer, leap into action, fearing the charges, if made public, will competely sabotage the president's chances for another four years in the White House.
The specialist in damage control suggests creating a campaign centered around a fake war in Albania, and assembles a team of media experts who put out a steady stream of denials of non-existent emergencies. The experts rely on the assumption the American public doesn't know or even care about Albania. But they believe the public will rally to the side of the President and re-elect him. The ploy works.
The manufacture of false crises in order to hide real ones and to win elections seems to be an old and even a rather respected tactic of some administrations, including this one.
The point being that voters should be aware this administration's apparent serenity in the face of what appears to be a gathering political tsunami this November may well be based on backup plans to manufacture a crisis. After all, who can forget Rahm Emmanuel's trenchant advice not to let a perfectly good crisis go to waste? Who cares if the crisis is manufactured or not? A crisis is a crisis.
Not that we have not had enough real crises, mind you; some of which, like the Gulf oil spill, appear to have gone down a black hole as straight faced administration spokesmen assure us 75% of the oil has magically disappeared undersea and seafood sniffers assure the public the taint of oil is nowhere to be found. No olfactory nerves are disturbed by the aroma of oil. No, sir. Eat your flounder dinner in unperturbed equanimity.
But what might a Wag the Dog crisis look like?
Well, it would probably be one that calls all Americans to patriotic solidarity, with an emphasis on getting behind the President and helping him retain a solid Democrat majority which will enable him to deal with the crisis. He will need all the power of congress behind him. Of course, emergency measures will require suspension of certain rights and privileges Americans customarily enjoy, for after all, a dire crisis requires draconian measures.
Could Americans expect a big emergency about two weeks before the November elections? It certainly is not out of the question.
Maybe a nice little attack?
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Guilt by Naming
Alexander Solzhenitsen described the Soviet gulag as a "human meat grinder" that processed Stalin's enemies, real or imagined. Most of Stalin's victims found out about their categorization as enemies of the state only when there was a knock at the door very late at night accompanied by announcement of arrest.
One never knew when he or she would be hauled off to torture and enslavement. It was not necessary actually to have commited a crime in order to be arrested and sent to Siberia. All that was required was that one was named an enemy of the state. The accusing finger could be an anonymous tip-off by a disgruntled neighbor. Once the "enemy" was named a "wrecker," "vermin," "enemy of the people," his fate was sealed and he was condemned without trial or proof by a tribunal for "hooliganism" or some other such loose term.
It was a characteristic of the intellectual, moral and spiritual bankruptcy of communist philosophy and the Soviet regime that vague, catchall phrases were enough to categorize, condemn and sentence innocent people.
In our own country, how sad it has been to see once legitimate and specific terms become catchall phrases for targeting whole groups of people. How tragic to see mere naming condemn innocent people, making them automatically guilt by verbal decree.
It is particularly tragic that the term "racism" has become in our own time, a catchall phrase that has come to be void of the specific meaning it once possessed; sad--and unjust--beyond belief to see the term "racist" applied to whole groups of people who merely espouse conservative political views. The recent attempts to paint the burgeoning Tea Party movement as "racist" are attempts to condemn by naming; to throw guilt over millions of innocent people in blanket condemnation.
Those of us who lived through the Civil Rights movement of the 50's and 60's will ever forget the harsh reality of racist apartheid and the heroic struggle that led to desgregation of America's institutions. Few fail to applaud the gains for minorities, especially for American blacks.
Those gains are jeopardized when the term "racism" becomes so broad that it is in danger of becoming a generic term meaning "anyone whose ideas I oppose." Those gains are also jeopardized when "racism" is seen as inherent and therefore inerradicable, as a sort of genetic determinism applicable only to whites or Asians. Those gains are further jeopardized when real hooligans are protected by the color of their skins.
Civil rights leaders should never forget the words of one of their foremost representatives, Dr. Martin Luther King, who preached we all should be judged by the content of our character rather than by the color of our skin.
It's well for all of us to recall and to heed his wise words and to reject the despoilation and misuse of a term that, should it continue to lose its specific meaning, could jeopardize the equal rights of all US citizens.
One never knew when he or she would be hauled off to torture and enslavement. It was not necessary actually to have commited a crime in order to be arrested and sent to Siberia. All that was required was that one was named an enemy of the state. The accusing finger could be an anonymous tip-off by a disgruntled neighbor. Once the "enemy" was named a "wrecker," "vermin," "enemy of the people," his fate was sealed and he was condemned without trial or proof by a tribunal for "hooliganism" or some other such loose term.
It was a characteristic of the intellectual, moral and spiritual bankruptcy of communist philosophy and the Soviet regime that vague, catchall phrases were enough to categorize, condemn and sentence innocent people.
In our own country, how sad it has been to see once legitimate and specific terms become catchall phrases for targeting whole groups of people. How tragic to see mere naming condemn innocent people, making them automatically guilt by verbal decree.
It is particularly tragic that the term "racism" has become in our own time, a catchall phrase that has come to be void of the specific meaning it once possessed; sad--and unjust--beyond belief to see the term "racist" applied to whole groups of people who merely espouse conservative political views. The recent attempts to paint the burgeoning Tea Party movement as "racist" are attempts to condemn by naming; to throw guilt over millions of innocent people in blanket condemnation.
Those of us who lived through the Civil Rights movement of the 50's and 60's will ever forget the harsh reality of racist apartheid and the heroic struggle that led to desgregation of America's institutions. Few fail to applaud the gains for minorities, especially for American blacks.
Those gains are jeopardized when the term "racism" becomes so broad that it is in danger of becoming a generic term meaning "anyone whose ideas I oppose." Those gains are also jeopardized when "racism" is seen as inherent and therefore inerradicable, as a sort of genetic determinism applicable only to whites or Asians. Those gains are further jeopardized when real hooligans are protected by the color of their skins.
Civil rights leaders should never forget the words of one of their foremost representatives, Dr. Martin Luther King, who preached we all should be judged by the content of our character rather than by the color of our skin.
It's well for all of us to recall and to heed his wise words and to reject the despoilation and misuse of a term that, should it continue to lose its specific meaning, could jeopardize the equal rights of all US citizens.
Friday, May 28, 2010
To Dad on Memorial Day
In the right drawer of my desk there is a picture of my dad in a US Army uniform. He’s about 30 years old in the picture and he is looking straight at the camera with a clear, steady, unflinching gaze. He reminds me of my youngest son. The same steady gaze, the same full lips; and, as Nathan humorously reminds me, the same hair pattern. "Thanks Grandad," Nathan smiles ruefully, rubbing his balding head.
The year the picture of Dad was taken was 1944, the year of the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last chance to push back the Allies and to obtain a negotiated peace. Americans sustained seventy-five thousand casualties.
The Germans fared worse.
Innocently enough, my dad had kept ahead of the draft because of the number of children he had. But at last even my folks’ dedication to the Genesis mandate to replenish the earth was not enough to keep the Army at bay.
But Dad wasn’t drafted as an Army regular. In fact, he wasn’t drafted at all. He was tapped as a civilian advisor. Plucked from his job at All American Engineering, he was to head to England to coach Royal Air Force and American pilots on how to employ an invention he had helped develop. It was designed to pick up soldiers stranded behind enemy lines.
Dad had wanted a way to serve his country, and he was determined to go, despite leaving his pregnant wife and four kids behind. He knew, Mom was later to tell me, that he might not come back, but his love for his country drove him on. My father, a man of few words, would not often speak about his stay in London. But for the rest of his life, the sound of warning sirens would make him turn white.
As fate would have it, the plane that was to bear him East to England burst into flames on the runway at Newfoundland. Everyone got out safely, slightly singed but none the worse except for some smoke inhalation. But the plane burned up along with all its contents, including Dad’s uniform, which was that of an Army Captain. Back to New York for another flight and another uniform; then off to England, this time safely.
Once in England, Dad faced the last gasp effort of the German Wehrmacht to destroy London. Germany’s silent and deadly V-2 rockets smashed into the city day after day and night after night. In some ways, he was later to say, the V-2 rockets were worse than the bombs of the initial blitz, because of the silence; the dreadful silence. You could be standing in the street and hear absolutely nothing, know nothing, suspect nothing until you felt the earth shudder and saw plumes of dirt and rubble rise and fall like reversed waterfalls in the dank, dusty air.
In spite of the fear, the risk of death and not knowing when the war would ever end, Dad never forgot to write a daily letter to Mom. They were always brief and to the point, Mom remembers. Dad was a man of few words; and, as he was later to tell Mom, he didn’t want to worry her. He would tell her he loved her. He would tell her he believed he would return to her and us kids. Then he would sign the letter, "Forever yours, Frank."
And he was forever Mom's faithful and true love. His fellow soldiers attempts to get Dad some romance on the side fell flat. You're in England, three thousand miles away, they would say. "I love Dottie," he would say. My thrice married Aunt Ruth would later say, "Frank is the only man I know who actually would stay faithful to his wife."
Dad returned within four months when the war suddenly ended. He did not come home a hero like his kid brother Joe, who as a dashing pilot, became an Ace. We have a picture of handsome Joe in his leather bomber jacket and rakishly dashing cap, smiling at the camera. Thankfully, Joe came home, too. My grandmother wept tears of joy.
But while he never considered himself a hero, Dad’s invention did save the lives of downed airmen and stranded soldiers. But Dad, being a quiet man, never even mentioned that.
This weekend, I’ve thought Uncle Joe's and Dad's older brother Jack, who wanted to serve but was too advanced in years at age 38 to go. I’ve thought about my brother-in-law Leonard Bird, shot down in his jet at age twenty-five in Vietnam, leaving behind a grieving bride married all of six weeks. I’ve thought about my cousin Ruth Stonesifer’s son, downed in his helicopter in Afghanistan, his blue eyes closed forever.
I’ve thought of the rows and rows of crosses and stars at cemeteries here and abroad.
But most of all, I have been thinking of my quiet, self-effacing and humble Dad. He loved his country. He served her with the skills he had. And he helped saved a few good men.
Thank you, Dad.
The year the picture of Dad was taken was 1944, the year of the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last chance to push back the Allies and to obtain a negotiated peace. Americans sustained seventy-five thousand casualties.
The Germans fared worse.
Innocently enough, my dad had kept ahead of the draft because of the number of children he had. But at last even my folks’ dedication to the Genesis mandate to replenish the earth was not enough to keep the Army at bay.
But Dad wasn’t drafted as an Army regular. In fact, he wasn’t drafted at all. He was tapped as a civilian advisor. Plucked from his job at All American Engineering, he was to head to England to coach Royal Air Force and American pilots on how to employ an invention he had helped develop. It was designed to pick up soldiers stranded behind enemy lines.
Dad had wanted a way to serve his country, and he was determined to go, despite leaving his pregnant wife and four kids behind. He knew, Mom was later to tell me, that he might not come back, but his love for his country drove him on. My father, a man of few words, would not often speak about his stay in London. But for the rest of his life, the sound of warning sirens would make him turn white.
As fate would have it, the plane that was to bear him East to England burst into flames on the runway at Newfoundland. Everyone got out safely, slightly singed but none the worse except for some smoke inhalation. But the plane burned up along with all its contents, including Dad’s uniform, which was that of an Army Captain. Back to New York for another flight and another uniform; then off to England, this time safely.
Once in England, Dad faced the last gasp effort of the German Wehrmacht to destroy London. Germany’s silent and deadly V-2 rockets smashed into the city day after day and night after night. In some ways, he was later to say, the V-2 rockets were worse than the bombs of the initial blitz, because of the silence; the dreadful silence. You could be standing in the street and hear absolutely nothing, know nothing, suspect nothing until you felt the earth shudder and saw plumes of dirt and rubble rise and fall like reversed waterfalls in the dank, dusty air.
In spite of the fear, the risk of death and not knowing when the war would ever end, Dad never forgot to write a daily letter to Mom. They were always brief and to the point, Mom remembers. Dad was a man of few words; and, as he was later to tell Mom, he didn’t want to worry her. He would tell her he loved her. He would tell her he believed he would return to her and us kids. Then he would sign the letter, "Forever yours, Frank."
And he was forever Mom's faithful and true love. His fellow soldiers attempts to get Dad some romance on the side fell flat. You're in England, three thousand miles away, they would say. "I love Dottie," he would say. My thrice married Aunt Ruth would later say, "Frank is the only man I know who actually would stay faithful to his wife."
Dad returned within four months when the war suddenly ended. He did not come home a hero like his kid brother Joe, who as a dashing pilot, became an Ace. We have a picture of handsome Joe in his leather bomber jacket and rakishly dashing cap, smiling at the camera. Thankfully, Joe came home, too. My grandmother wept tears of joy.
But while he never considered himself a hero, Dad’s invention did save the lives of downed airmen and stranded soldiers. But Dad, being a quiet man, never even mentioned that.
This weekend, I’ve thought Uncle Joe's and Dad's older brother Jack, who wanted to serve but was too advanced in years at age 38 to go. I’ve thought about my brother-in-law Leonard Bird, shot down in his jet at age twenty-five in Vietnam, leaving behind a grieving bride married all of six weeks. I’ve thought about my cousin Ruth Stonesifer’s son, downed in his helicopter in Afghanistan, his blue eyes closed forever.
I’ve thought of the rows and rows of crosses and stars at cemeteries here and abroad.
But most of all, I have been thinking of my quiet, self-effacing and humble Dad. He loved his country. He served her with the skills he had. And he helped saved a few good men.
Thank you, Dad.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Bureaucracy
Surely one of the finest essays ever written about the deadening effects of bureaucracy was written one hundred and fifty years ago by an Englishman by the name of Richard Simmons.
The entire essay is uncannily pertinent to the American dilemma today. With a few changes to make it entirely contemporaneous, it is applicable word for word to the increasing power of bureaucracy over the lives of Americans.
Some pertinent quotes:
"The men of a bureaucracy...set [themselves] up as critics and guides of life, and therefore [see themselves] fit to direct the life of the nation."
"A bureaucracy is not fulfilled till we add the pedantic element of a pretence to direct our life, to know what is best for us, to measure out our labor, to superintend our studies, to prescribe our opinions, to make itself answerable for us, to put us to bed, tuck us up, put on our nightcap, and administer our gruel."
"The bureaucracy of lawyers is the universal pattern of all...The civil law takes the entire man under its tutelage, and sets itself up as the mundane providence...Never was this exhibited more clearly than in the Convention of French pettifoggers, where Robespierre declared, "We will have an order of things where all base and cruel passions are chained up, and all beneficial and generous passions aroused, by the laws; and where St, Just pretended to change, by a violent dose of legislation, the morals and manners of a nation, and to reform the human heart." (Italics mine.)
"Suffice it to say, that the great characteristic of true bureaucracy is the intimate conviction of its conductors that the provisions made by them adequately cover the whole area of human life and thought, or at least the most important parts of it; therefore that all other provision are superfluous, and, if contrary to their ideas, noxious, and as such, to be done away with as soon as possible, so as to leave a clear field for the regenerating action of their beneficent influence. Hence the intolerant, monopolizing, intrusive character of all true bureaucracy..."
"But as the state increases, and most in the classes that require to be administered, administration must increase likewise; the number of employees must wax greater and greater, they must be organized, and with their organisation the classification of the people whose affairs they have to administer must keep pace."
Simpson has wise and powerful insights into the shortcomings of a universal, government controlled educational system; the dangers posed to a democracy by bureaucratic control, and the solution to bloated bureaucracies; one of which is namely, to keep it small.
But there is much else to glean from his amazingly prescient essay, linked here:
http://www.panarchy.org/simpson/bureaucracy.html
Brilliant; absolutely brilliant!
The entire essay is uncannily pertinent to the American dilemma today. With a few changes to make it entirely contemporaneous, it is applicable word for word to the increasing power of bureaucracy over the lives of Americans.
Some pertinent quotes:
"The men of a bureaucracy...set [themselves] up as critics and guides of life, and therefore [see themselves] fit to direct the life of the nation."
"A bureaucracy is not fulfilled till we add the pedantic element of a pretence to direct our life, to know what is best for us, to measure out our labor, to superintend our studies, to prescribe our opinions, to make itself answerable for us, to put us to bed, tuck us up, put on our nightcap, and administer our gruel."
"The bureaucracy of lawyers is the universal pattern of all...The civil law takes the entire man under its tutelage, and sets itself up as the mundane providence...Never was this exhibited more clearly than in the Convention of French pettifoggers, where Robespierre declared, "We will have an order of things where all base and cruel passions are chained up, and all beneficial and generous passions aroused, by the laws; and where St, Just pretended to change, by a violent dose of legislation, the morals and manners of a nation, and to reform the human heart." (Italics mine.)
"Suffice it to say, that the great characteristic of true bureaucracy is the intimate conviction of its conductors that the provisions made by them adequately cover the whole area of human life and thought, or at least the most important parts of it; therefore that all other provision are superfluous, and, if contrary to their ideas, noxious, and as such, to be done away with as soon as possible, so as to leave a clear field for the regenerating action of their beneficent influence. Hence the intolerant, monopolizing, intrusive character of all true bureaucracy..."
"But as the state increases, and most in the classes that require to be administered, administration must increase likewise; the number of employees must wax greater and greater, they must be organized, and with their organisation the classification of the people whose affairs they have to administer must keep pace."
Simpson has wise and powerful insights into the shortcomings of a universal, government controlled educational system; the dangers posed to a democracy by bureaucratic control, and the solution to bloated bureaucracies; one of which is namely, to keep it small.
But there is much else to glean from his amazingly prescient essay, linked here:
http://www.panarchy.org/simpson/bureaucracy.html
Brilliant; absolutely brilliant!
Monday, May 17, 2010
The Gospel According to Bishop Pelosi
In 1934 Germany, the only structure to oppose the supremacy of the Third Reich was one segment of the Christian church. Hitler had already castrated the Roman Catholic church by forcing it to sign the Concordat of 1933, in which the Church, with certain guarantees of limited autonomy, agreed its bishops, upon taking office, would swear an oath of fealty to the Reich as follows:
"Before God and the Holy Gospels I swear and promise, as becomes a bishop, loyalty to the German Reich...I swear and promise to honor the legally constituted government and to cause the clergy of my diocese to honor it. In the performance of my spiritual office and in my solicitude for the welfare and interests of the German Reich, I will endeavor to avoid all detrimental acts which might endanger it."
By acceding to the concordat of 1933, the Church effectively allowed the Hitler regime power over it. Their capitulation, which was complete, was to have disastrous results for the Church and for Christians and Jews living under the Nazi regime.
In protest, the leading German theologians of the day, Karl Barth and Hans Asmussen, formulated and published the Barmen Declaration in protest against the theological claims of the state. Those claims included demands to "Aryanize" the Church, expel Jewish Christians from the ministry and to accede to the "Fuhrer Principle" as the chief organizational impetus for church structure. The end goal of the Nazi regime was to subsume all churches under state control as well as to use the churches to proclaim and reinforce the existing regime as above the authority of the Church. The Church was to persuade the congregations to adopt Nazi legislation. An auxiliary goal was to have the pastors preach Nazi race theory as a revelation equal to that of the Bible.
Barth, Asmussen and the great martyr to the Christian faith Dietrich Bonhoeffer protested the intrusion of the Nazi regime and its agenda into church affairs in no uncertain terms, completely and decisively rejecting the "false doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as a source of its proclamation, beyond and besides this one Word of God (Christ), yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as God’s revelation."
They added that they also rejected the idea that "there could be other areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords....We reject the false doctrine that the Church [must hand over] its message...to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day."
The theologians concluded that neither special leaders such as the Fuhrer nor the government itself were vested with ruling authority over the church. They rejected absolutely the idea that the State "should become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfill the vocation of the church as well."
Today in the United States of America, we are once again revisiting the manifold issues of the authority of Church and state which forced the Reformed and Lutheran churches of Germany to take their stands against the force and power of the state government.
One of the most egregious examples of the intrusion of the United States government into church affairs was articulated recently by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who declared concerning Roman Catholic bishops’ stance on the passage of the administration’s immigration bill, "But I say I want you to speak about it from the pulpit...I want you to instruct...the people [who] oppose immigration reform and are sitting in those pews...that this is a manifestation of our living the Gospels."
Indeed?
It’s worth noting the phrase "But I say..." as it is the very phrase Jesus used when asserting his moral authority. Always the phrase was used to insist on the transcendent moral authority of the Kingdom of God, an authority never subsumed under any earthly government.
The Church has always held to moral autonomy derived from its belief that the kingdom of God informs and suffuses earthly structures, not vice versa. Ms. Pelosi has by her statements reversed that order, putting the political agenda of the state above those of the church. In a shocking reversal of authority similar to that Barth and Bonhoeffer faced, she has put the state above the Church. She has elevated the political religion of progressivism above the Church, trashing the Church’s historic claims to be free from the authority of the kingdoms of this world.
A powerful political leader has once again presumed to tell the Christian church what the political ramifications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ should and must be. Effectively, she has said, "This is what you are to believe as the Gospel, and therefore this is the legislation you are to support and help pass."
She has thereby declared the state the ultimate conscience of the Church and thus has eradicated the lines between Church and state. Barth, Asmussen and Bonhoeffer would have revolted against Ms. Pelosi’s presumption. They would have excoriated her, realizing the Church is not regarded by her as an institution with a sphere of influence that must not be superceded or informed by the demands of the state.
The implications, much less the consequences, of her statement and attitude are indeed eerily similar to those which face the German Church in Nazi Germany. Religion disappears under the aegis of the all powerful and all knowing state. The Church merely ratifies the a piece of legislation important to the agenda presently defined by a powerful state official as the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Were Ms. Pelosi alone in her desire to make the Church the vehicle for actualizing the latest political agenda, she could be dismissed as an anomaly. But she is joined by many others, including many within the Church, who in their desire to effectuate social justice, are in danger of giving over the unique and transcendent authority of the Church to the state by doing the state’s bidding.
The Church needs to understand, reclaim and effectually utilize its role as the conscience of the state. It must vigorously and decisively and reject becoming a tool of the state. Catholic bishops need to refute Bishop Pelosi’s infallible declaration of a manifestation of the Gospel of Christ emanating ex cathedra from her secular seat in the hallowed halls of Washington. That refutation should go out form Church authorities with vigor and unmistakable force and clarity.
In the case of immigration, as in much else that needs the concentrated attention of the Church, it needs to come up with a plan on its own based on the scriptures and traditions of the Church lest it become the mere rubber stamp for federal state immigration legislation–the rubber stamp Bishop Pelosi apparently would like the Church to be. The Church needs to lead, not to follow.
Both Catholic and protestant churches must rise up in outraged protest against the intrusions of the state as propounded by Nancy Pelosi and others. Top theologians need to come together as Barth and others came together during the Third Reich in order to articulate, publish and disseminate another Barmen Declaration. They need to assert with vigor the separation of Church and state and to resist with all their might the assertion of state control over the Church in whatever form it manifests itself. This they must do so lest the Church continued to be crushed and subdued by the state. This they must do lest the Church become a mere tool of the state used to reinforcing state authority.
This they must do in order to remain free to proclaim the historic Gospel of Christ in all its manifestations in accordance with their free conscience.
"Before God and the Holy Gospels I swear and promise, as becomes a bishop, loyalty to the German Reich...I swear and promise to honor the legally constituted government and to cause the clergy of my diocese to honor it. In the performance of my spiritual office and in my solicitude for the welfare and interests of the German Reich, I will endeavor to avoid all detrimental acts which might endanger it."
By acceding to the concordat of 1933, the Church effectively allowed the Hitler regime power over it. Their capitulation, which was complete, was to have disastrous results for the Church and for Christians and Jews living under the Nazi regime.
In protest, the leading German theologians of the day, Karl Barth and Hans Asmussen, formulated and published the Barmen Declaration in protest against the theological claims of the state. Those claims included demands to "Aryanize" the Church, expel Jewish Christians from the ministry and to accede to the "Fuhrer Principle" as the chief organizational impetus for church structure. The end goal of the Nazi regime was to subsume all churches under state control as well as to use the churches to proclaim and reinforce the existing regime as above the authority of the Church. The Church was to persuade the congregations to adopt Nazi legislation. An auxiliary goal was to have the pastors preach Nazi race theory as a revelation equal to that of the Bible.
Barth, Asmussen and the great martyr to the Christian faith Dietrich Bonhoeffer protested the intrusion of the Nazi regime and its agenda into church affairs in no uncertain terms, completely and decisively rejecting the "false doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as a source of its proclamation, beyond and besides this one Word of God (Christ), yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as God’s revelation."
They added that they also rejected the idea that "there could be other areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords....We reject the false doctrine that the Church [must hand over] its message...to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day."
The theologians concluded that neither special leaders such as the Fuhrer nor the government itself were vested with ruling authority over the church. They rejected absolutely the idea that the State "should become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfill the vocation of the church as well."
Today in the United States of America, we are once again revisiting the manifold issues of the authority of Church and state which forced the Reformed and Lutheran churches of Germany to take their stands against the force and power of the state government.
One of the most egregious examples of the intrusion of the United States government into church affairs was articulated recently by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who declared concerning Roman Catholic bishops’ stance on the passage of the administration’s immigration bill, "But I say I want you to speak about it from the pulpit...I want you to instruct...the people [who] oppose immigration reform and are sitting in those pews...that this is a manifestation of our living the Gospels."
Indeed?
It’s worth noting the phrase "But I say..." as it is the very phrase Jesus used when asserting his moral authority. Always the phrase was used to insist on the transcendent moral authority of the Kingdom of God, an authority never subsumed under any earthly government.
The Church has always held to moral autonomy derived from its belief that the kingdom of God informs and suffuses earthly structures, not vice versa. Ms. Pelosi has by her statements reversed that order, putting the political agenda of the state above those of the church. In a shocking reversal of authority similar to that Barth and Bonhoeffer faced, she has put the state above the Church. She has elevated the political religion of progressivism above the Church, trashing the Church’s historic claims to be free from the authority of the kingdoms of this world.
A powerful political leader has once again presumed to tell the Christian church what the political ramifications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ should and must be. Effectively, she has said, "This is what you are to believe as the Gospel, and therefore this is the legislation you are to support and help pass."
She has thereby declared the state the ultimate conscience of the Church and thus has eradicated the lines between Church and state. Barth, Asmussen and Bonhoeffer would have revolted against Ms. Pelosi’s presumption. They would have excoriated her, realizing the Church is not regarded by her as an institution with a sphere of influence that must not be superceded or informed by the demands of the state.
The implications, much less the consequences, of her statement and attitude are indeed eerily similar to those which face the German Church in Nazi Germany. Religion disappears under the aegis of the all powerful and all knowing state. The Church merely ratifies the a piece of legislation important to the agenda presently defined by a powerful state official as the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Were Ms. Pelosi alone in her desire to make the Church the vehicle for actualizing the latest political agenda, she could be dismissed as an anomaly. But she is joined by many others, including many within the Church, who in their desire to effectuate social justice, are in danger of giving over the unique and transcendent authority of the Church to the state by doing the state’s bidding.
The Church needs to understand, reclaim and effectually utilize its role as the conscience of the state. It must vigorously and decisively and reject becoming a tool of the state. Catholic bishops need to refute Bishop Pelosi’s infallible declaration of a manifestation of the Gospel of Christ emanating ex cathedra from her secular seat in the hallowed halls of Washington. That refutation should go out form Church authorities with vigor and unmistakable force and clarity.
In the case of immigration, as in much else that needs the concentrated attention of the Church, it needs to come up with a plan on its own based on the scriptures and traditions of the Church lest it become the mere rubber stamp for federal state immigration legislation–the rubber stamp Bishop Pelosi apparently would like the Church to be. The Church needs to lead, not to follow.
Both Catholic and protestant churches must rise up in outraged protest against the intrusions of the state as propounded by Nancy Pelosi and others. Top theologians need to come together as Barth and others came together during the Third Reich in order to articulate, publish and disseminate another Barmen Declaration. They need to assert with vigor the separation of Church and state and to resist with all their might the assertion of state control over the Church in whatever form it manifests itself. This they must do so lest the Church continued to be crushed and subdued by the state. This they must do lest the Church become a mere tool of the state used to reinforcing state authority.
This they must do in order to remain free to proclaim the historic Gospel of Christ in all its manifestations in accordance with their free conscience.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
True Multiculturalism: AAP Advocates Female Circumcision
So this is where embracing multi-culturalism eventually takes us: Even the morally repellent ritual of female genital mutilation gets the nod form the American Academy of Pediatricians, which in the last few days has come out with advocacy for "federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick,’ such as pricking or minor incisions of girls’ clitorises. In other words, the academy is advocating female genital circumcision "lite," supposedly in order that worse mutilation, available abroad, does not occur.
Lest anyone think the subject is a rarified and indelicate procedure confined to some farflung and remote outposts of the world, it is worth noting the problem of FGM is on the rise in the USA, particularly among Muslim immigrant groups, though not confined exclusively to them.
[You can read the full story, including protests from the World Heath Organization and International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics here: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-academy-of-pediatrics-aap-is-advocating-for-us-pediatricians-to-perform-certain-types-of-female-genital-mutilation-fgm-92871624.html]
As the linked article points out, "mothers who have until now resisted community pressure and not subjected their daughters to FGM in the U.S., in part because of the anti-FGM law, could be forced under the AAP guidelines to ask pediatricians to "nick" their daughters’ clitorises if it is [now] legally permitted."
Another consequence the article doesn’t point out, but one which would be equally serious, is that all US pediatricians, under the pressure of multi-cultural assumptions that FGM is a culturally mandated procedure not subject to Western medical ethics, might be forced against their consciences to perform a non-necessary and deforming medical procedure that does their female patients harm, thus violating the Hippocratic Oath.
Western women’s organizations should be up in arms over the AAP’s accommodative stance. While prominent women’s organizations such as NOW may be officially opposed to FGM, they have been preternaturally quiet. It is time for them and for women’s religious groups as well as for leaders of churches and synagogues to speak up.
The AAP must be pressured to reverse its morally offensive endorsement of unnecessary, psychologically, emotionally and physically harmful procedures which permanently scar young girls..
Lest anyone think the subject is a rarified and indelicate procedure confined to some farflung and remote outposts of the world, it is worth noting the problem of FGM is on the rise in the USA, particularly among Muslim immigrant groups, though not confined exclusively to them.
[You can read the full story, including protests from the World Heath Organization and International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics here: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-academy-of-pediatrics-aap-is-advocating-for-us-pediatricians-to-perform-certain-types-of-female-genital-mutilation-fgm-92871624.html]
As the linked article points out, "mothers who have until now resisted community pressure and not subjected their daughters to FGM in the U.S., in part because of the anti-FGM law, could be forced under the AAP guidelines to ask pediatricians to "nick" their daughters’ clitorises if it is [now] legally permitted."
Another consequence the article doesn’t point out, but one which would be equally serious, is that all US pediatricians, under the pressure of multi-cultural assumptions that FGM is a culturally mandated procedure not subject to Western medical ethics, might be forced against their consciences to perform a non-necessary and deforming medical procedure that does their female patients harm, thus violating the Hippocratic Oath.
Western women’s organizations should be up in arms over the AAP’s accommodative stance. While prominent women’s organizations such as NOW may be officially opposed to FGM, they have been preternaturally quiet. It is time for them and for women’s religious groups as well as for leaders of churches and synagogues to speak up.
The AAP must be pressured to reverse its morally offensive endorsement of unnecessary, psychologically, emotionally and physically harmful procedures which permanently scar young girls..
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