Partisanship is Not the Root of the Problem

With the current debt ceiling crisis in the news partisanship seems to be rearing its angry face again.  In fact, partisanship seems to be all the rage today, more so than in most periods of our history. 

But what is partisanship?  And is it really the main reason for the dysfunctional state of our politics today? 

My father and I seemingly always discussed politics and social issues of the day, me being liberal and him a moderate conservative.  I have memories of doing so all the way back to when I was in junior high, 54 years ago. Unlike many we enjoyed our disagreements and discussions.  And while disagreeing we never became disagreeable and still respected each other. 

I remember that he would often disparage partisanship and said that our politicians just need to quit being worried about their party and being partisan and just vote for what is best for the country.  That seems to be the attitude of many today about partisanship, ignore the party and just vote for the good of the country.  However, doing this will not change the state of our politics today.   

One reason why Democrats and Republicans and those members of other parties vote the way their party does most of the time is because they agree with it.  Very few join a political party in which they disagree with most of the platform and ideas espoused by that party. 

Take myself for an example.  I am a Democrat. I joined the Democratic party because I supported their stance on the environment, racial issues, women’s issues, LGQT issues, and so forth.  I formed my views first and then found the party that matched them most closely.  I did not choose a political party and then form my views around their platform.  This is the way most people choose which party to belong to.  Most people includes our elected officials, our politicians. 

And yet many people when they say drop the partisanship seem to think that if all the politicians stopped looking at whether an idea came from a Republican or a Democrat or a Libertarian or a Green party member and instead just looked and voted on what would be in the best interests of America then the gridlock would be gone.  Magically. 

It wouldn’t.  It wouldn’t because they already, for the most part, vote in ways that they think best for the country. The problem is that there are fundamental differences on what the best interests of the country are, and how different policies and laws would impact that.  In fact, these differences are why our political parties came about, and came about as soon as our nation was created. 

In fact, partisanship is normal and expected in a democracy.  Groups of similar minded individuals form who then work together to promote their views on what is best.  And, in order to be able to better implement what they think best, they also support their resultant party. 

Partisanship alone is not the root problem of our current almost dysfunctional government.  Partisanship will always exist. People will always form groups to better promote their political views.  In fact, it is one of their rights.  And then they will promote their group and protect it.  This is not necessarily a problem, but rather the normal workings of democracy.

The problem, instead, is an extreme unwillingness to compromise.  An unwillingness to vote for the second or third or fourth best bill for America in the interests of getting something done that is needed.   The problem is partisanship combined with an extreme unwillingness to compromise, as well as an unwillingness to believe that even though they strongly disagree the other side is acting in what they perceive as the best interests of the country. 

Let’s call this dysfunctional partisanship. 

The formation of the first political parties is instructive in regard to this.

The US won our independence in 1783.  In 1787 we created our Constitution which was ratified in 1788 and in 1789 was put into effect.  The first Congress under our new Constitution met in 1789.  This first session of Congress, from March 1789 to March 1791, was probably our most important Congress in that they decided what the words of the Constitution meant and how to apply them to real governance. 

One of the most critical questions they addressed was one that we are struggling with today, albeit in somewhat different form – what to do about our debt.  Specifically, in 1790 they were looking at what to do about the debt accumulated by each of the states during the revolution.

What made this issue so contentious is that before and even during the Revolutionary war we had considered each state sovereign and independent of the other.  Now though we had created a nation out of 13 formerly independent states.   The question was how far to take this unity.  Those states who had already paid off all their debt and were doing well economically, such as Virginia, argued that each state was responsible for paying off their own debt.  They had no responsibility to pay off the debts of the other states.  This side was championed by James Madison, and later Thomas Jefferson, founders of the Democratic-Republican Party. 

The other side though said that debt was accumulated on the part of all of us in the war against Britain.  And that we are no longer 13 independent states but one interdependent nation.  Because of this the federal government should assume all the debt from all the states and pay it off, raising money through issuing bonds that would later be paid off through revenue generated by tariffs on imports.  This side was championed by, and the brainchild of, Alexander Hamilton, founder of the Federalist Party.  And in 1790 Hamilton did not have the votes to pass his economic measure.  Fortunately for the economic health of our new nation, he did have something both Jefferson and Madison badly wanted. 

Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton had a private back room dinner to discuss what might be done.  The result of this “dinner table bargain” was that Jefferson and Madison would withdraw their opposition to Hamilton’s plan to have the federal government assume the state debt and in doing so created the basis for public credit. In return Hamilton would support creating the capital of the new nation within the states of Virginia and Maryland – agrarian and slave owning states.   This might not seem such a big deal today, but back then with the travel times and trying to influence which voices the federal government would most listen to, it was of huge importance. 

What makes this Compromise of even greater interest is that Hamilton and Jefferson hated each other.  Jefferson saw the centralized government Hamilton was trying to create as nothing more than a version of European style monarchy and tyranny.  Hamilton saw Jefferson as a radical with hidden political ambitions. 

This is an example of what non-partisan truly means.  Working with those you disagree with, and maybe even hate, because not doing so would harm the country. 

A few years later Hamilton provided another, in many ways a better example of the thinking needed when he, when pressed, said he supported Jefferson in his bid for Presidency over Burr. Writing in a letter to Harrison Otis, a Massachusetts Congressman, Hamilton explained:

“In a choice of Evils let them take the least – Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr. Mr. Jefferson, through too revolutionary in his notions, is yet a lover of liberty and will be desirous of something like orderly government.” 

This letter also hits at the other part we are missing – the belief that those whose views we oppose nonetheless hold those views because they do care about this country and the people they represent. We may think their policies and ideas disastrous for America, but we shouldn’t be questioning the ultimate motivation for these views.  At least, not for most.

Hamilton continued;

“Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself – thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement – and will be content with nothing short of permanent power in his hands.” 

And this gets to the kernel of what is partisanship.  This sentence about Burr. But instead of “his own aggrandizement” insert “the party’s aggrandizement”, although personal gain is also often a part of this. 

Now such people have always been part of our system and society, in both the Democratic and Republican parties as well as all other third parties.  But they rarely had control, not totally.  Over the years though that has changed, with the Republican party becoming more and more beholden to the extremists and their attitude of take no prisoners, make no compromises. 

So, what can be done? 

First off, at a very minimum, vote.  And make it an informed vote.  Know not only the candidate’s position but any financial or criminal actions they may have in the past or that are pending. Look at how effective they are.  Know who you are voting for, not just their position papers.

But this will not be enough.  Over the decades our political system has moved towards one that fosters and creates this sort of dysfunctional partisanship.  To correct that, and to improve on what we had, we also should:

• Get rid of gerrymandering by using Independent Redistricting Commissions (IRC) to draw up boundaries instead of the state legislatures.  There needs to be standards set up serving on the IRC, such as not allowing recent or current elected officials to serve on this commission, as well as not having political party officials, lobbyists, or government employees serving.  Also, guidelines for how to draw fair boundaries.
  • Along with this Congress could create a law banning gerrymandering.  While this one is a good goal, and one worth pursuing, I think the IRC’s the best and more likely way to stop gerrymandering.

• Change our way of voting from plurality wins all to ranked choice voting.  Ranked choice voting is where voters pick their first choice, and then who would be their second, their third and so on.  If someone gets over 50% then that person wins.  If not though then the person who received the least amount of votes is dropped and their votes distributed to their second candidate.  This continues until someone receives over 50% of the vote. 

• Controlling the money going to candidates.  And make it completely transparent.
• Change how Congress does its job.  Over the last few decades changes have been made that encourages and promotes this type of dysfunctional partisanship.  Changes such as:
  • fixing the discharge process so that a committee chairman cannot hold legislation hostage from a majority of the House;fixing the special order of business process so that a leader cannot hold legislation hostage from a majority of the House;making committee composition more proportional between the parties.
  • All legislation goes before the House and Senate, regardless of whether it could pass or fail on the votes of only one party. 

We have made it so that laws can be held from a vote, a hostage, if there are not enough votes to either pass or block it by the votes of just one party.  Which means that working across the aisle is no longer needed to get things done.  Or tried. And the good of the country gets sublimated to the power of the party. 

These are just a few of the needed changes.  I am sure there are more that could be thought of, but these would be a good start.  Currently dysfunctional partisanship has put our country in the greatest state of dysfunction since the Civil War.  That needs to change. 

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The Longest War of the United States

Since the United States was created in 1776 it has been at war. I am not referring to the many short wars that have punctuated its existence: the war of 1812, the Civil War, WW 1 & 2, Vietnam, and all the other named wars. Instead, the war I am referring to has been one long continuous war, one whose existence was foreshadowed by the ideals that created the Revolutionary War and were then given form in the Declaration of Independence. This foreshadowed war flamed into existence by the creation, ratification, and implementation of our flawed Constitution.

The ideals? Ones that most people already know, at least by word.

• All men are created equal.
• All men have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• That the power of government derive their powers from the consent of the governed.

The ideals expressed within our Declaration were given flesh and substance by our Constitution.  As is usual when ideals are translated into reality, a great deal was lost in translation.  Not all men were treated equal, even under the law. In fact, inequality of the most brutal kind was actually protected by the Constitution.  And, despite Abigail Adam’s words to her husband to not forget the women, women were forgotten.

The war I am referring to is the one to close the gap between the ideals and the reality of our Constitution, our government, and our society.  The two sides are those who believe that the gap between ideal and reality should be closed, and those who are fighting for the status quo, for the way things are, for a world of gaps. It is one that we are still very much engaged in and, indeed, are in the middle of a reversal, something I will discuss more later on in this blog.

Like all wars, there have been successful battles and lost ones, advances followed by reversals.  It seems that human society acts much like Newton’s universe, for every action an equal and opposite reaction.

In regards to slavery, some of the advances include the founding of the world’s first abolition society in Pennsylvania in 1775,  the Gradual Emancipation Act passed in Pennsylvania in 1780,  the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, the creation in Philadelphia of the first independent black organization/mutual aid society, the joining of several state and regional antislavery societies into a national organization in 1794, the first independent black churches in 1794, the passage of the federal Slave Trade Act of 1794, several attempts by both blacks and whites to organize a slave insurrection, Congress outlawing participation in the African Slave Trade in 1808, the creation of the Underground Railroad, and much more.

But, there were reversals and defeats too, starting with the creation of the Constitution which allowed the institution of slavery to continue and flourish, enshrining the idea that not all men are equal.  Other reversals include such things as the 1793 passage of the fugitive slave law, the passage in several slave states of laws that made organizations and speech promoting abolition illegal and punishable by expulsion or prison, anti-black and anti-abolitionist violence against blacks and abolitionists in free states such as Pennsylvania,  the taking away the right to vote from blacks in the revised Pennsylvania state Constitution in 1838, the Compromise of 1850, the repeal in 1852 of the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scott decision, and others.

As most know, this battle on this front resulted in the Civil War and ended in bloody victory with the passage of the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery, the passage of the first Civil Rights Act in 1876, the passage of the 14^th amendment granting blacks citizenship and the passage of the 15^th amendment granting black men the right to vote,

The problem with all such victories is that they are never complete and become the impetus of an opposite and, at times, equal reactions.  In this case, the reactions were the creation of the KKK, the numerous Jim Crow laws, the lack of protections for blacks across the country as well as the lack of help for those who were freed from slavery with no possessions, no money, and limited opportunities, the separate but equal ruling and much more.  This front of the war continued on, with the side of regression holding the upper hand for the most part, through both laws and terror, for almost 100 years. And, although great strides were taken with the Civil Rights movement of the 50s, 60s and 70s and the Civil Rights laws passed then, victory has still not been achieved.  The nature of the battle and the front has changed, but the battle to view and treat blacks equally as whites is still on-going.  In fact, it is an ironic truth that the very success of the Civil Rights movement has led to a new tactic by those against full equality – the belief that victory has been achieved and nothing further need be done.

This war though has several fronts, two old and one new.  The other older front is the battle for women’s rights. As with the battle for racial justice and equality, it too had its victories and defeats, its advances and retreats. In fact,  in the beginning there was a tight alliance between those organizations promoting the rights of women to vote and the anti-abolition movement, with women and men often active in both.  Both Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were two such individuals.  However, the split between the two occurred early, when in 1840 the American Anti-Slavery Society split over the issue of public involvement of women, with one group against having women involved and saying they should have no formal role.  And, after passage of the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments, the abolitionist societies disbanded and their members no longer actively supported the women’s suffrage movement.   The women were on their own.

Many today do not realize how hard fought that battle was. It officially started in 1848 with the Seneca Falls women’s rights convention.  For the next 100 years these women tried to educate the public of the need for women to have the vote. Petitions were created and given and Congress was lobbied for the passage of a Constitutional Amendment; most of which were largely ignored. After all, why should these male politicians pay attention?  Women couldn’t vote, and their place was in the bedroom creating a baby, and in the kitchen feeding the children and her husband.  Some women tried to vote, or even run for office, in the hopes of forcing a Supreme Court ruling. They successfully forced a Supreme Court ruling in 1872. However, the court ruled against them.

Around the turn of the 20^th century, more active measures were taken – mass protest and demonstrations, with a great many women being arrested and jailed.  And, when those women then went on hunger strikes, they were force fed.  Eventually, they succeeded in getting the vote with the passage of the 19^th amendment in 1920.  However, just as gaining the right to vote was not the end of the war for blacks, so too gaining the right to vote did not end the war for women.  Having the vote was not the same as being equal, and just as with blacks, women were still considered inferior.

Laws and standards and mores existed which served to enforce women’s inferior status.  They could not go into certain jobs and what jobs they could get paid less than men’s.  Even doing the same work, women were paid less than men. Women were considered the ward of their husband or other male relative and usually could not enter into financial agreements by themselves.  Husbands were allowed and often expected to beat their wives if they got out of hand (think of the many movies in the 1950s and 1960s in which the women were spanked with the message she deserved it, or the commercials of that same time).   College was a rarity and taking science and engineering and other such masculine courses discouraged.  Women, like blacks, learned that being able to vote did not make them equals in the eyes of government or whites or men. Further, sexual harassment as well as rape was usually considered the fault of the woman.  And thus was created the Feminist movement.

Recently, there has been a third front on the war to live up to the ideals of our founding.  This one is attacking the restriction of the rights of those who do not follow the norms established for heterosexual desire, identity, and attraction, the LGBTQ.  Although the conflict and laws and debates have been around for millennia, in the US the push for equal rights for the LGBTQ could be said  to have started in 1924 with the founding of the Society for Human Rights, the first gay rights organization.  In 1950 another gay rights group, the Mattachine Society was formed.   In 1955 the first lesbian rights organization in the US was formed, the Daughters of Bilitis.

Laws against homosexuality have existed since its founding in the US. However, as gays started speaking out more and worked to gain societal acceptance new laws and actions were taken in reaction.  In 1952 the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual listed homosexuality as a “sociopathic personality disturbance”.  In 1953 President Eisenhower signed an executive order banning homosexuals from working in the federal government. However, in 1969 the one event that most people have heard of in regards to gay rights, the police raid of Stonewall Inn in New York City  launched the gay civil rights movement in the US.

After years of strife – Matthew Shephard, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, California’s Proposition 8 – a series of important victories in this war occurred. In 2003 the Supreme Court struck down homosexual conduct law, in 2004 the first legal same sex marriage in the US took place in Massachusetts, in 2013 the Supreme Court ruled that legally married same sex couples are entitled to federal benefits, and in 2015 the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot ban same  sex marriage.

However, as with women and blacks, this was not the same as being considered and treated equally.  In fact, this was still in the process of being worked out amid much opposition before being derailed in 2016.  And the work to just protect the lives of transsexuals, never mind protect their rights, was just beginning before 2016.

The year 2016, the year that the forces of the status quo, of inequality, of regression struck back. And did so supporting a most unlikely champion – a man of limited intellect and ability, rich and spoiled, abrasive and abusive.  A man of towering inflated ego. trump.  At first glance trump seems an unlikely champion for a group that wants a return to “traditional values”, since he has never exhibited any such thing in his personal life, nor has he demonstrated any commitment to a belief outside of pure self-interest.  However, he knows how to condemn and demean, to attack and push and tear down.  He knows how to harness the emotions of anger and fear. He knows how to destroy.  The fact that trump has no idea how to build matters not, because those supporting him do not want something built, they want something destroyed.

From eight years of a black president, of significant gains in regards to LGBTQ rights, continuing gains in regards to minorities and women, we are now going backwards.

I started this by stating that this war has been about making this country meet the ideals of its founding. However, I freely admit that many, probably most, and possibly all, of the founders and creators of the Constitution and the US would be horrified at where this push to live up to the ideals they espoused has led. Many would be against women voting, against blacks being equal, and feel disgust at the thoughts of LGBTQ equality.  However, they are the product of their times, no matter how great and visionary.  And they were visionary, visionary beyond their ability to accept. Although I do think some might have accepted all of this, whether they would have or not though doesn’t really matter.  The ideal of equality for all humans has an existence separate from them.  One that it is up to us to continue to form and create.

After such a long war, and after having made such significant gains, it is no wonder many of us are fatigued and stressed, seeing hard won victories for our fellow citizens and humanity in general being torn down and destroyed; seeing the pain and the suffering engendered by this reversal.   However, I agree with Martin Luther King Jr. that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

I agree because of what I see in history, both of the world and of the United States. Even with the reverses since 2016, we are still further towards the realization of our nation’s ideals than we were during its founding, than at the dawning of the 20^th century, and even than during the turn of the 21^st century.  I also realize from history that progress is most often three steps forward and two steps back, each step labored and often bloody.  Although frustrating and depressing at times, there is some comfort to have that we are doing better than the universe with our reaction being slightly less.

A final thing I know. Just because I see this in our history does not mean that there is some mechanism that will ensure this journey will continue onward, that we will not fall back and back and back and not move forward again.  Whether it does or not depends on us, on our individual actions.  I know that many are tired, I know that I am tired of what I see going on, that there are times I have to take some time to turn away from what is happening or else despair. For so many to support this man, and these actions….  I had thought us at least slightly better than this.

At the same time, I know that I also have to come back and move forward to change things, to help us take those three steps forwards before the next two steps back are upon us. All  in all, a good New Year’s resolution.

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Against American Values – A Look at an Electoral College Argument

It strikes me, as it does many, that the arguments many of those strongly defending electoral college are using is, at its heart, un-American; against our values and our ideals.  What is worse, it is our most basic ideal, the one referred to at the start of our Constitution, “We the people..”  Or, as Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address, we are a “government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

In defending the electoral college, they deny this basic truth about our country.

What is more interesting is that they deny that they deny. They continue to speak about how Trump represents “the people” and “the people have spoken” and listen to the people”, while at the same time arguing how it is right and proper that a minority of the people overrule that of the majority, and then call that minority “The People”.

What is fun is that at some level they know this since they continually try to justify this by stating that the United States is not a democracy but a Republic.  They state that in a Republic the rights of those in the minority are protected, whereas in a Democracy they are not. They say that a Democracy poses the threat the rule by the mob, and that a Republic does not. And then they often cite some of the founding fathers, often Madison, to support them on this.

This is a mistake for several reasons.

First, they mistake the source of the protections of the minority. It is not the political structure, although that can help or hurt. But Republics have abused those holding minority views too. Blatantly and violently at times. A quick look at our history shows this to be true. This happened frequently in the Southern States in their war against abolitionists in their states before the Civil War, due to the fact that the Bill of Rights did not apply to state governments, only the Federal government. Afterwards, that changed.  Slowly, but it did change.  This shows it is not whether a government is a direct democracy or a republic, but, rather it is the fact of the existence of a Constitution providing protections for those of minority views.

Next, they ignore or deny that our Constitutional Republic is a form of Democracy. Democracy is simply rule by the people.  There are many ways that can happen though.  Direct Democracy is one of them, and is what they are referring to when they deny the United States is a Democracy.  However, just as a collie is not the only type of dog, so too is Direct Democracy not the only form of democracy.

A Democracy, as a general category, is any government that derives its power to govern from the people, in which the citizens control the government and can hold it accountable. Both Direct Democracy and a Republic are democracies since in each the people are the foundational source of government.

I mentioned that they often use some of Madison’s words to support their position that electoral college is needed to prevent the rule of the majority, or the mob. However, they overlook that in addition to being justifiably concerned about the rule of the mob, there was another great danger that Madison and other founders were equally concerned about: that of the minority ruling the majority.

I unexpectedly came across something interesting in regards to Madison’s views while reading Richard E. Ellis’s book “The Union at Risk: Jacksonian Democracy, States’ Rights and the Nullification Crisis”. The Nullification Crisis referred to in the book was the belief by some states (in 1830, out of the 24 states then comprising the Union, this was mainly South Carolina) that states could nullify any law passed by the federal government that they thought was unconstitutional.  For the federal government to then enforce that bill, according to their thinking, it would first have to be proposed as a Constitutional amendment and then passed as such, which would require the approval of 2/3 of both the House and Senate and then ratification by ¾ of the states. Obviously, not a likely event.  Those who argued for nullification usually referenced the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions which were written by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

James Madison was not happy about this. In fact, he felt so strongly that he came out of retirement from public life to comment on it in a letter he wrote to Herman V. Ames, a letter that he fully intended to become public.  In it he wrote:

Can  more be necessary to demonstrate the inadmissibility of such a doctrine than that it puts in the power of the smallest fraction over ¼ of the U.S – that is of 7 states out of 24 – to give the law and even the Constitution to 17 states, each of the 17 having as parties to the Constitution an equal right with each of the 7 to expound it  and to insist on the exposition. That the 17 might, in particular instances be right and the 17 wrong, is more than possible. But to establish a positive and permanent rule giving such power to such a minority over such a majority, would overturn the first principle of free Government and in practice necessarily overturn the Government itself.

What those vehemently arguing for the electoral college forget, or chose to ignore, is that there is a danger in the minority controlling the majority.  This one reason why they so often deny the fact that we are a form of democracy. The saving grace of a democracy is that it is a way for the governed to control that which governs them.  A democracy means that the majority rule, although there may be and should be limits to their power. But, those limits do not extend to determine who our elected officials are, including that of President.  As long as their rights as expressed in the Constitution are not violated – freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and the rest – you cannot use the excuse of protecting rights of the minorities for negating the vote of the majority.  That argument can be used on any side that loses a vote.

To my arguments so far, most of those strongly defending the electoral college will then reply that our founders set it up in order to provide protections. And, to an extent, they did.  It was set up for two reasons; to provide a buffer between the people and the presidency that would protect against the creation of a mobacracy. They were concerned that by manipulating the emotions of the population, a tyrant could emerge. A valid concern.  However, I would point out two facts.

First, despite the electoral college we have already elected someone who wants to be tyrant and is working on becoming so.  His election was due to his ability to stoke and manipulate fear among many in our population.

Second, if you read the reasons for why they thought the electoral college would prevent this you will see that what we have today won’t work.  From The Federalist 68, written by Hamilton:

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.

It sounds here as if Hamilton thought the electors did not have to vote in line with those that elected them. In fact, there is nothing in the Constitution that requires them to.  For Hamilton, this was a plus and a constraint upon the possibility of mob rule.  Of course, if they have to go along with the views of those who elected them, it really isn’t..

Along with this is the fact that in the beginning the state divided its electors up.  It was not a winner take all. This started to change in the 19^th century so that by the end of the century most states had gone to the winner take all. This only increased the chances that the electoral college winner could wind up not being the one who had most of the popular vote.

A final reason for the creation of the electoral college, was to protect small states and slavery. Most of the small states were slave holding states. Further, with the 3/5 compromise wherein each black person counted as 3/5 of a person when the census came around; and from that number the number of legislators that state received determined, they got a boost in electoral votes given to them as well.

One final thought. The Constitution, as impressive and magnificent as it is, is also flawed. George Washington thought it flawed.  James Madison thought it flawed.  Thomas Jefferson thought it flawed.  Alexander Hamilton and John Adams thought it flawed.  As did most others. However, they also thought it the best that could be got at that time and a vast improvement over the Articles of Confederation.

Oh, and a little known fact in regards to Madison.  He too thought that the presidency should be decided by majority vote, but knew that this would not pass due to the opposition of the less populous slave states.  I am unsure of whether he supported this in order to pass the Constitution or because he let his identification with his home state of Virginia, who would benefit from this, outweigh what might be best for the nation.

At the end of the day though, it really doesn’t matter why the founders went with the electoral college system. What matters is that the Constitution is a flawed document. Something I have already mentioned that the founders knew. Fittingly, the first flaw they corrected quickly was in how the President and Vice President were selected. The election of 1800 dramatically showcased that flaw, one they quickly fixed by passing the 12th amendment. The electoral college is now the modern day version of a similar flaw on the same subject, its flaw being shown that within the space of less than two decades, the person winning the electoral college has also lost the popular vote.

This must be corrected. Elections matter because they are the voice of the people.

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A Celebration of Liberty and Humanity…and Resistance

On this particular July 4^th I think it appropriate to check over the state of our humanity.  Patriotism I am not worried about.  We have lots of that. In fact, we are overflowing with patriotism. So much so that many people are justifying immoral and inhumane actions in the name of God and country.  Or, just country.  Either is equally bad.

Our imperfect founders founded an imperfect Republic, one that imperfectly provided rights.  Imperfect because at first they were given only to white males.  It was imperfect in also not requiring that the states hold to the same standards of individual liberties, so that states could and did restrict freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly.  And let us not forget, many of these states also restricted who could be called human.  And being imperfect, it was immoral.

To our nation’s credit, we have gradually made our government, our system, less imperfect.  First, through a Civil War that resulted in the abolishment of treating people as property and, at least on paper, gave all males the same rights. In practice, not really.  Another 100 years would pass before another great upheaval would result in significant gains being made in providing equal rights to those who were not white.  And even today we are still working to finish the job.  Or were.

Women.  When the 14^th amendment was passed eliminating slavery, it defined “citizens” and “voters” as male. No women need worry themselves about such things as rights.  That’s what husbands are for.  It would take marches and protests and work and perseverance and the breaking of many laws on federal, state and local level before the 19^th amendment was passed and women also got the right to vote. However, just like blacks, that did not make them equal.  Although we have made progress traveling down that road leading to equality, we have not arrived yet.

And then there is the other, those that were not born here but who come to work and live. Many of these fleeing persecution, oppression, extreme poverty, and death. We have always had a mixed record on that.  At times welcoming and winning a reputation as a beacon of hope.  So much so that France gave us a lovely lady to honor that ideal.  At other times though, treating the immigrant – the Irish, the Chinese, Eastern Europeans, the Jew etc. –  with scorn and derision, as second and even third class citizens.  Often on a par with women and blacks.

This included the others who were here before us, the Indians.  Treaties broken, massacres given, lands taken, peoples moved.  And then families separated. This time with the intent into turning them into good little white folk instead of allowing them to remain red skinned savages.

And the Japanese.  Driven by fear and racism, during WW2, we took all of our citizens of Japanese decent and put them caged them in communities surrounded by fences and guards.  Citizens treated as enemy.  Men, women, and children.  Although, small comfort, they were kept together as a family and did not face the Sophie’s Choice of either choosing to stay confined or being expelled from the US.  I guess that their citizenship did count for something at least.

And I have not even touched on all of our history here.  Just enough to show that we have been an imperfect bearer of liberty.  Still, we have been a bearer of liberty.  We have over our history expanded who we considered a citizen with the full rights of citizenship.  We have also, much more slowly, expanded our ideals on who is the same sort of human as us.

Which brings us to today.  To this Fourth of July.  Over the years we have erratically and inconsistently, expanded who deserved the liberties and rights of being a citizen.  We have also erratically and inconsistently expanded our ideas on who was fully human and who was not.  And combining the both, we have also, even more erratically and more inconsistently, expanded who deserved to come to the US to both work and to join.

Today, we are in retreat.  Retreat in regards to who deserves to be considered a full citizen deserving of all the same liberties and protections as the white Christian male.  The transgendered, the gays and lesbians who have so recently started to make progress have had that progress come to a halt. Not only a halt, but are being pushed back towards being made second class, at best, citizens again.

Retreat in regards to keeping, never mind building on, the gains made by minorities and women in achieving the equal rights given to white males from the beginning.  Retreat in regards to a woman having control of that most precious possession, herself.  Retreat from the idea that our government is neutral in regards to religion and cannot and should not favor one religion over another.  Muslims are being singled out.

And fear of the others is increasing, stroked by our President and his administration and, unfortunately, finding ready tinder in the souls of too many citizens.  Instead of treating those who come to our country, both legally and illegally, as human, they are being treated as non-human threats.  Threats we can deal with however we chose, no matter how inhumane.  After all, morality only applies to US citizens.  Everyone else is fair game.

Our founders set in motion a process that would expand not only liberty and rights, but also expand our moral treatment of others, our recognition that the others are humans, just as we are, and so deserving of being treated with respect and dignity.  As I said, it has been an uneven and jerky process, filled with stops, reverses and often glacial slowness.  But, despite this, in the long term, progressing forwards and expanding who we include as human.

Unfortunately, we now live in a time where progress has stopped and we are being walked backwards.  Where the other is no longer considered fully human. Where the job of ensuring those considered fully human is considered done and over with, and even overdone.  And so progress stops for the minorities and women.  And often reversed, as it is for those of differing sexualities.   Instead of expanding what  it is to be a human being fully deserving of being treated humanely and with respect, we are letting fear and anger restrict our definition of who is fully human and who is not.

Whether this will someday become just a stain on our national history, a stain  like many others we bear, or whether this will become the new reality forever and ever amen, is up to us to determine.  And I take hope in seeing how many are working hard to make sure this is a stain and not a permanent reality.

Much is made of civility today.  Mainly by those who are restricting our definition of who should be fully recognized as human; from those whose leader insults freely and often, treats others poorly, who lies constantly, calls for violence, is vulgar in his treatment of women and others, who has cheated others; from those who denounce “political correctness”, which is often and usually just treating others who differ with respect and as equals, so that now they feel empowered to insult and abuse those they consider a threat and inferior.

For myself, I am a believer in civility.  To a point.  In the past, during the past of my own life, with past administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, whether liberal or conservative, we never reached that point.   Today we have, or at least have started to. Due to the dangers posed by this administration both by words and deeds, it is time to become a bit uncivil (it is not an all or nothing thing).

In the past I would not have supported confronting members of an administration when they go to restaurants, when they go to movies, when they go to the theater.  I do now.   This is not a call for violence.  This is not a call for an unlawful overthrow of our government.  It is, though, a call to let our government know in no uncertain terms that what they are doing is not only wrong, that their actions and words not only harms our nation, but harms our humanity.  It is a call to use the tools of democracy to overthrow this government – by petition, by contacting representatives in a tsunami of emails, letters and calls, by taking to the streets, by registering to vote, by voting in all elections, by attending town hall meetings, by contributing what time and money you can to those assembled to protect our freedoms and our humanity and by direct confrontation of this administration who are promoting this harm.

 

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

My own personal take is that we have too many good  and moral people in the United States, that we have a sound system of government, that we have a long history of surviving traumas, that an actual civil war or revolution will not happen.  Violence on the scale of the Civil Rights and Vietnam War protests may occur, but I do not see a full scale violent revolution.  Or Civil War.  Although there are commonalities, Trump is not Hitler and our government and history not the same as 1930 Germany.  However, does an evil and threat have to reach the scale and scope of a Hitler before civility is no longer the chief concern and stronger actions taken?

This Fourth, celebrate what our founders created, what we have over the years laboriously and with a great deal of suffering and blood, created by protecting that creation.  Celebrate by Resisting.

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On the Necessity of Evil Compromises

So often I hear people say to stand firm on your principles.  As I have gotten older and thought about this, and had my thinking influenced by several conversations with several people and by watching current events and reading of past events, I have come to the belief that principles are not for standing upon.  They are for pointing a direction.

Too often when a person takes a firm stand on principle they wind up building a wall instead. And the problem with walls is that they actually can keep you from going anywhere, especially forward. They fence you in.

 

In fact, I think most of the times, the great majority of the times, that standing firmly on your principles can be the worst thing that can be done; that there are instead many times when a compromise, even an evil one, can be the right thing to do.

 

For a grand example of this, let me use something from the history of the United States, the creation of our Constitution.  The compromise was called the three – fifths compromise. This compromise  not only allowed slavery to continue to exist, but gave the southern slave states more power in the House and in Presidential elections.

 

The three –fifths compromise came about due to a heated disagreement on who to count for the census. This was important because the population of a state determined how many representatives it would have, and also how many electors a state has for presidential elections.   The Southern States wanted to count their slaves as part of the census.  Those opposed to slavery, and the northern states, did not want to count the slaves as they felt that would make the slave states too powerful (and I note the irony here that those against slavery wanted to have slaves not even count as being a person).  The compromise that was agreed to was that slaves would count as three-fifths of a free citizen.  Which still gave the southern slave states a great deal of power within the federal government.  Because of this the southern slave states were dominant for most of the pre-Civil War United State.   Something that can be seen in the fact that ten of the first 16 Presidents (all the Presidents before Lincoln) were from Southern States.

 

Now consider the principle of “All men are created equal”. No one at our Constitutional Convention stood up firmly for that principle. In fact, they gave way and made what I would characterize as an evil compromise (I will note that those opposed to slavery argued for slaves not being counted for the census in order to reduce the power of the Southern states).  They agreed to continue the belief and practice of treating some people as nothing more than property and, even worse, gave those with the greatest interest in promoting this belief and practice the means to continue it.

 

 

Why did those who opposed slavery agree to this compromise?  They did so because they hoped that a United States would one day be able to resolve the issue of slavery, and end it.  In other words, they hoped that more good would result from a United States than from there not being one. Because without this compromise the United States would not have existed.

 

 

And I would say that history proved them right in making this compromise, in not standing firmly on principle.  Why?  Because if they had not, if they had not made this evil compromise, I do not think slavery would have been abolished in North America until the 20^th century at best. And once abolished those states that did abolish it in the 20^th century instead of the middle 19^th would still be going through their version of Jim Crow or worse.

 

Before going further let me acknowledge the complexities and difficulties in predicting what might have been. Let me also say that I am giving a very simplified version of what could have happened in order to try to keep this blog as close to 1000 words as possible.  Just to give some of those complexities, the United States could have broken down into three, four or more separate countries each going their own way and pursuing their own interests, with all the resulting conflicts, alliances, rivalries and wars attached to doing so. Some may have even become part of the British Empire again.  That’s not even considering the effect of several individual countries trying to expand westward.

 

But, in order to keep this short, I am not going to try to cover all of those aspects. Instead, I want to focus on just one simple part of this that illustrates what I am saying  about principle and compromise.

 

Consider this: if the United States had not formed there would have been at least two separate countries formed – the Northern States that would have abolished slavery and the Southern States that had already made slavery an integral part of their society and economy.

 

Consider also that the Northern States and President Lincoln did not go to war with the Southern States to abolish slavery, but to preserve the Union.  If there were no union to preserve, there would have been no war.  There would have been no war that resulted in abolishing slavery in North America in the 1860s.

 

 

There are two reasons to make evil compromises.  One is because all the other options are even more evil.  The other is that that compromise has the potential to lead to a good, a potential that the other options do not have.   In this example, I think most of the founders who were strongly against slavery – such as Alexander Hamilton – made this compromise not only because they believed that a United States with slavery was better than numerous countries in conflict, many of which would also have slavery as an institution, but because they believed that a United States would be better poised to eventually eliminate slavery – although they did not know how.

 

So, they made their evil compromise instead of firmly standing on principles. And then they hoped, they prayed, and they worked to make that hope come true.  Something that would not have been as possible, or as quickly possible, had they stood firmly on principle.

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Our Flawed Understanding of our Founders and Our Constitution

I am currently reading, and greatly enjoying, a book by Ray Raphael titled “Constitutional Myths”. It looks at various beliefs many if not most Americans hold about the Constitution, its creation, and the founders and evaluates how much truth there are to these beliefs –Taxes, Politics, Principles, etc. It generally finds a kernel of truth, or has so far, but finds that for the most part these myths do not hold up well to the reality.

Now, having read quite a bit about the origin of our Constitution, I knew, in broad outlines at least, a great deal of this information. But this book is providing a great deal more details and also puts it together in ways that made me more aware of things that in my previous readings I had just passed on by.

Given our current political climate, I thought a few comments on these might be of interest.

First and foremost – the Constitution was a compromise from beginning to end. I doubt that there were any of its writers who were satisfied and happy with it. Madison, Washington, Hamilton, and others have written letters stating this. Gouverneur Morris said that although he continued to have serious objections to this plan he would “take it with all its faults”. This was a common refrain.

Next, was the sheer amount of politics involved in this – politics at its worse. We often portray the founders are dealing solely with great principles of government and being guided by reason and a concern for what is best for all. However, the reality is that while that was partly the basis of their deliberations there was an equal, if not more, amount of self-interest, regional politics, and political wheeling and dealing and bluster. Issues such as how to best ensure representation for both small and large states, slavery, and other issues almost scuttled the whole process many times. In fact, the vitriol and rancor involved in these deliberations was probably almost as great as what we see today in Congress. Their saving grace though was a willingness to make a deal and compromise.

In fact, the electoral college was one of those comprises between intransigent groups. It was mainly between those small states who wanted one state one vote and the larger states who wanted votes based upon a state’s population, What I found interesting in this is that they also tossed in the House being the only one who could initiate money bills – something that had been defeated in an earlier vote establishing the Great Compromise on the Senate and House representation. This was tossed in to sweeten the deal for the larger states so that they would buy off on a Presidential election system that somewhat favored the smaller states. Today too many are willing to stand totally on principle and then condemn those who would work to find compromises.

Also, in light of how many are touting state’s rights and pointing back to the founders, I found it interesting how many of them not only were not strong supporters of state’s rights but also saw them as a danger to the nation. Madison and Washington (along with one other delegate whose name escapes me right now) before the convention had corresponded about some ideas of what should go into a new Constitution. One such idea was that the national government should have the power to review laws passed by the states and veto them if they found them inappropriate. At the end of the convention both Madison and Washington still considered the lack of such a mechanism a great flaw in the Constitution.

In fact, Madison was against the Great Compromise that had the House being set by a state’s population whereas the Senate had each state equally represented regardless of population, and argued strongly against it. “Whatever reason might have existed for the quality of suffrage when the Union was a federal one among sovereign States, it must cease when a national Government should be put into the place.”

Another point that was made was that taxes were the reason for the Constitutional convention and was one of the main motives for the creation of the Constitution. To be clearer, it was the necessity for the national government to have the strong ability to tax and raise revenue. After seeing the results of trying to create a functional government under the Articles of Confederation and knowing how vital a sure revenue stream was for good government, the lack of such was a major failure of that government and a major reason for the convening of the Constitutional Convention.

Finally, although I have not gotten to the chapter about Originalism, what I have read so far just reinforces my own thoughts from prior readings – the idea that we can interpret the Constitution based on what the founders originally thought is balderdash.

First, the word “founders” presupposes that all or most of the founders thought the same way and agreed. They most assuredly did not. As I mentioned, the Constitution was a compromise document in which most had serious reservations on at least part of its provisions (which part varied by person). Further, as soon as the Constitution was ratified and started to be applied to specific issues of the day you would find the writers of that Constitution lined up on opposite sides of almost each and every issue. If those at the convention who wrote and signed the Constitution together could not agree on how to understand and apply it, what chance does discerning original intent today have?

To make this even more complicated, thoughts about the Constitution and how to interpret and apply it changed over time. For example, Madison’s thoughts from just after the ratification of the Constitution and his thoughts at the end of his life about the interpretation of the constitution changed. So too, did many others.

Given that our founders did not speak with a unified voice and their thoughts and ideas on the Constitution also changed over time, the idea of discerning original intent seems more of a chimera than a rational and realistic approach. It will be interesting to see what Raphael has to say at the end of the book.

For those Americans who are interested in the origins of or constitution “Constitutional Myths” is not a bad place to start. I know I am greatly looking forwards to finishing this book.

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Of Knives and Guns and ….. Fruit

One of the first items that crossed my mind on hearing of the stabbings at a Murrysville Pennsylvania high school was, thank goodness it was not a gun. Given that I am for strict gun control, my thoughts eventually did lead to the puzzling problems so many have with any sort of gun control; especially after I heard a conservative talk show host rhetorically asking if the gun control crowd was now going to outlaw knives. Given this, I thought it might be fun to blog about gun control and the various arguments given against it.

1)      Guns do not kill people, people do. 

That is true enough. However, humans are tool using animals, and the more effective and powerful the tool, the more effective and powerful the human using it. What this means is that a person with a gun can do a whole lot more killing and wounding than someone without a gun. Please note that no one in the Murrysville stabbings is going to die. In other words, they all survived. Had this teen had a gun or two, the odds greatly favor several people dying.

2)      People kill using different items all the time – knives for instance.

This is closely related to number 1 above. In addition to noting the differences in the number of deaths and wounded between a knife attack and a gun attack, let me also point out that a person with a knife is much easier to stop than a person with a gun. With a baseball bat, I like my odds against a person with a knife. Give that person a gun though and I am probably a dead man.

3)      We have a constitutional right to have guns.

And I am not advocating abolishing that right. However, all rights have limits and laws regulating them. With freedom of speech, there is the old standby of not being able to yell fire in a crowded theater. Also, you cannot just go anywhere and have your say – offices, schools, main street all have laws limiting a person’s absolute right to free speech. Then there are, of course, defamation, libel and slander laws.

Religion is also not an absolute right. Human sacrifice is prohibited. Most drugs are too. If you are a government employee you cannot proselytize while on the job. Churches have to follow zoning laws.

None of our rights are absolute. The reason for this is that we have many rights and because of this one person’s rights can conflict with another’s. In regards to gun control, people have a right to life and liberty too.

Yet those who argue against any sort of gun laws seem to believe that gun rights should be. Sorry guys, but our constitution does not work like that and I have yet to see a case made for why guns, out of all of our other rights, should be unlimited.

4)      We need guns for protection against crime.

Personally, I have never needed one. I used to investigate child abuse for the great state of Texas, and have been in the bad parts of town. My wife and I, in our poverty days, lived in those bad parts of towns. Yet I never needed a gun. Further, there are some studies indicating that owning a gun actually puts you at greater risk of being shot.

However, my personal comfort level is not the same as yours. If you feel you need one for protection then by all means buy one. Just register both yourself and your gun and enjoy the psychological benefit of owning a gun. Keep in mind that gun control is not the same as abolishing all guns. The only caveat here is that I see no reason to have military grade guns for protection – or for hunting. Nor cop killer ammunition. Nor large ammo clips. Protection and the joys of hunting can be had without these weapons, and their potential for extreme violence to others too great to allow them to be purchased by civilians. Again, one of those conflicts with others rights that I mentioned above.

5)      We need guns for protection against our government.

Sorry, if you think that owning guns, even military grade ones, is going to provide protection against a totally rogue government, then you have not kept up with the times. Or even with the times of our revolutionary war. Even with our forefathers all owning guns, we needed the professional army of France to win our freedom from Britain. It is a myth that a bunch of citizen soldiers on their own defeated the British. Without the professional help of the French in regards to arms, training and troops, we would still be British subjects today.  Today this is even more true.

To think that a disparate bunch of people armed with guns is going to be able to take on an organized and well trained military that can coordinate its various units and groups and which are equipped with advance communication equipment, advance weapons that include various types of missiles, cannons, aircraft, and other things that cause other things to go boom, have a strong logistics structure,  medical support and various and sundry other things that make for a modern, effective, and deadly military is delusional at best.

 

To summarize then – there is no reasonable and rational reason for being against gun control.  I would much rather face and deal with an epidemic of knife attacks from effective gun control laws than our current epidemic of attacks by guns.

Let me just say that this is not a complete discussion of this issue and was not meant to be. It was instead just dealing with some of the more popular arguments for exempting gun rights from any sort of controls, controls that all of our other rights, for good reasons,  have.

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Three Reasons Why Christians Who Believe Homosexuality is a Sin Should Oppose Legalizing Discrimination Against Gays

Even though Arizona Governor Brewer has vetoed the legislation that would have allowed those with religious objections to deny service to gays, the debate will still go heatedly on.   The Christian right who pushed for the passage of this bill will condemn Governor Brewer, those business groups who pressured her into vetoing it, and the gay rights movement and their supporters.  However, the Christian right will also continue to push for similar legislation that has already been proposed in Missouri, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, and Tennessee.   And I am sure that with the recent federal court decision to overturn Texas’ law against gay marriage that one will be proposed in Texas too.   That will keep this issue simmering in the press for months to come.

However, I can’t help but wonder if these Christians have really thought this through in terms of their faith and beliefs.   While no longer a Christian, I was at one time and still have many Christian friends and relatives.   Based on knowing them and on knowing Christianity and the Bible, I think that the Christian conservatives who are supporting these sorts of laws are not following their faith faithfully.   To my mind, and in the minds of many Christians too, there are three good reasons for why even a Christian who believes homosexuality is a sin should be against these laws.

 

First,  there is the example of Jesus.   He did not shun the sinners and the tax collectors, he did not refuse to see and deal with the Samaritans and the pagans.   If he did not, then why should the Christian businessman of today refuse to serve gays?     This refusal to deal with gays seems to me closer to the actions of the Pharisees who condemned Jesus than that of Jesus.

Now it can, and I am sure will, be argued that Jesus did so to save them, to show them the way. However, I do not believe that all such sinners were saved, and yet he still met and socialized with them.   Further, consider your actions if you turn away a gay person from your business.   What sort of witness does that provide?

You deal with other sinners (something I deal with in the second reason), yet you refuse to deal with them.   Where is the loving acceptance?   Where is the chance to show the much touted Christian love and care?   Instead what you have done is shown a cold heart.   You are providing a business service for a person.   You do not have to condone the sin of your customers, but you should not reject the sinner in doing so – which is what the refusal to provide that business service does.

 

Second , why refuse to deal with gays but still deal with other sinners?   Since many of the examples I have heard of deal with weddings, let me use and example appropriate for weddings.

You are a Christian baker of very conservative and very deep and sincere beliefs.  Because of these, you refuse to create a wedding cake for the wedding of a gay couple.   So, do you also reject the business of a Jewish and Christian couple getting married?   What about the marriage of an atheist and Christian, or a Baptist and Catholic?    After all, according to the Bible:  ^“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” 2 Corinthians 6:14 (NIV)

For many conservative Christians this is a command not to marry those of different faiths.   So, for those Christians, will they continue to marry couples who are unequally yoked despite what the Bible says?

Or what about divorced couples?   After all, Jesus said:  ^“But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”  Matthew 5:32 (NIV).

This means that any divorced couple who were divorced for any reason other than adultery are themselves committing the act of adultery by getting married again.   Do you bake their cake, for these sinners?   If you do not for gays, then, to be consistent, you should not for the divorced and for the unequally yoked.   Yet I know of no one advocating for that, nor engaging in such discrimination.

So, why the double standard?  Is not hypocrisy also a sin?

Further, according to standard Christian doctrine, all of humanity is fallen with a sinful nature.  We all sin.  Most do not repent or regret many of their sins.  So, given this, why provide a cake for most sinners but not those sinners who are gay?

The problem here is two-fold.  First off, homosexuality as a sin is treated differently by conservative Christians today than most other sins.   Yet, it is a sin not mentioned by Jesus (adultery was, yet that does not seem to be as great a concern in regards to being a customer for a business owned by a Christian),   It is not one that takes up that many verses within the Bible.   Many other sins take up much more space of the Bible than homosexuality does.   In fact, homosexuality does not even make it into the 10 commandments.   Yet so many treat it as if homosexuality is the worst of sins, so terrible that, in their business, they will deal with all manner of other sinners except the gay sinners.

The other fold of the problem is that in taking this attitude, it assumes that the businessperson, in providing the service of his business is in some manner condoning the morality of his customer.  It does not.  You are providing a service, a product for the public – all of the public.   Doesn’t matter if the person is a smoker, you create a wedding cake.  Doesn’t matter if one is an alcoholic, has lied on their tax returns or resume, has cursed his parents and refuses to have anything to do with them, eats too much, has a bad sense of fashion, is a Muslim or atheist – you create them a cake.   Your business is to create a wedding cake, and that is what it is, a business, not an endorsement.

Providing a service to the public does not mean that you condone that person’s lifestyle and choices.   If it did you would have to start having people fill out a questionnaire before serving them; after which your client base would become so sparse as to force you to close your doors due to lack of viable customers.

 

Third, the United States has a secular government.  Our founders created a secular government – the first one in the world – in order to protect the freedom for every citizen to believe as they saw fit.

While your religious beliefs may be the basis of your morals, and may be one reason why our representatives propose a law, they should not be the sole reason for our laws.   There should always be some secular reason, a reason common to all regardless of religious belief, for all laws.   To do otherwise would be to prefer one religion over all others in our nation, and thus set the stage for the same strife and war that we see in much of European history and in the Middle East today, and that the American colonies started to experience in the beginning.     But perhaps a few examples would help bring this into focus better.

There has been a great deal of push to have the 10 Commandments posted in schools and courthouses, so let us use that as an example.  And using the version of the 10 Commandments used by Orthodox and Reformed Christians (but not Lutherans, Jews, and Catholics), consider the 1^st and 4^th Commandments.

The first commandment – You shall have no other Gods before me.    That is a commandment.   It is part of your strong religious beliefs, so strong that you try to get it put into our nation’s schools and courthouses.   Yet, to enact this as law would be to violate our Constitution and its religious freedoms.   After all, you are first going to have to decide whose God should have no others before him.   And won’t that be a fun conversation, one that will be as divisive and, probably, wind up as violent as the conversation our nation had about slavery in the mid 19^th century.  After all, whoever loses this argument, their religious beliefs wind up being deemed inferior and decidedly second class with only second class protections, at best.

The fourth commandment – Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.   First question that comes up in making this the law of the land, whose Sabbath day?   That of the Baptists, the Methodists, and the Catholics?  The Jews and Seventh Day Adventists?  What about the Muslim?

Then comes the question of what it means to keep it holy?  This question is followed closely by one asking, what about those U.S. citizens who are not part of that religious belief?   I imagine this would include, at the very least, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and Atheists.   Dependent on the answer, many forms of Christianity would also be on this list.   Again, what about their rights to practice their beliefs in the way they see fit, without interference from the government?

Trying to base a law solely on a religious belief is an act of exclusion and not inclusion and is what has torn nations and countries apart in the past.  It is something that our founders realized and why they created a secular government.   It is why there needs to be a secular reason for laws, reasons that will impact a person regardless of their religious belief.    To not hold to this standard is to trade a possible short term gain for the majority religion into a long term disaster for all – including those in the majority.

And, finally, in regards to this point, do you really want your religion to be linked with the government?   History has shown that linking religion to government damages both.   This fact, that linking religion to government causes great harm to religion, is why it was a Puritan theologian and founder of the Baptist Church in America who first argued for a complete and total separation of church and state (one more thorough than our own today), and who then proceeded to create the first government to embrace this ideal – Roger Williams.

 

Final Thought – Each of the above arguments alone should be enough to make a Christian who believes homosexuality to be sinful to pause and think again before pressing for such discriminatory laws such as the one that almost passed in Arizona.   Together though, these arguments support and aide each other so that the sum of these arguments is greater than each part.    Laws allowing discrimination in business based upon religious belief is a bad idea, even from the standpoint of those Christians who believe homosexuality a sin.

 

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What Most Have Forgotten

The sight of gallows loaded with the bodies of men and women hanged and sometimes mutilated just for their beliefs. Men such as the Jesuit John Ogilvie who was sentenced to death by a Glasgow court and hanged and disemboweled on March 10, 1615.

The thousands of men and women deprived of their property due to being of the wrong religion with the definition of the wrong religion changing when the English rulers changed. First Protestant, then Catholic, then Protestant again.

The thousands of Lutheran men, women, and children who starved and froze to death when, on October 31, 1731, 20,000 of them were expelled from their homes in Salzburger, Austria by the Archbishop Leopold von Firmian. They were given only eight days to leave their homes.

The drowning of Protestants by the Irish Catholics in 1641. After holding them as prisoners and torturing them, the Catholics then forced them to the bridge over the River Bann, forced them to strip, and then drove them into the water at sword point. Those that survived the plunge were then shot.

Our Founders remembered this and more. It is why there is no mention of Christianity, no mention of God, no mention of Jesus in the Constitution. Our Founders set up a secular state so that freedom of conscience would be guarded for all men.

The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris on August 24, 1572 when thousands of Huguenots (Protestants) were butchered by Catholic mobs. This was just the worst of the many killings and riots that occurred during the 30 years of war between the French Protestants and Catholics that started in 1562.

The Huguenots disemboweling and burying alive priests. The killing of Catholic children. The torture of priests and Catholics during the same 30-year war.

John Rogers being burned alive at Smithfield England, the “first Protestant martyr” executed by England’s Catholic Queen Mary.

The smell of burning flesh as John Lambert was chained to a stake in 1537 at Smithfield, England and then burned. He had defended his conscience and faith after being summoned to an inquisition.

For not enshrining God and Christianity into its text the Constitution was heavily criticized. This omission of God and Christianity was denounced by the Reverend John M. Mason who declared it “an omission which no pretext whatever can palliate.” He went on to warn “we will have every reason to tremble lest the Governor of the universe, who will not be treated with indignity by a people more than by individuals, overturn from its foundations the fabric we have been rearing and crush us to atoms in the wreck.”

 

Others warned of the dangers of not putting God and Christianity into the Constitution because it would be an “invitation for Jews and pagans of every kind to come among us.” and that “a Turk, a Jew, a Roman Catholic, and what is worse than all, a Universalist, may be President of the United States.”

 

Our Founders knew that, with most of the states having religious tests for citizenship and holding office, that pushing a thoroughly secular Constitution would be difficult. Yet they did push.

 

George Washington, John Adam, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the others of our Founders considered the lack of religion in the Constitution important enough to weather the firestorm of criticism to get the Constitution ratified as it was – without God and without religion.

 

In fact, eventually all the states would follow the lead of the writers of the Constitution and erect their own wall of separation between church and state.

Anne Hutchison defending her beliefs and being banished by the Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637. The same Puritans who were persecuted in England and sailed to the New World carried the Old World’s intolerance of dissent with them. Anne Hutchison, her servants, and 5 of her children were killed by Indians in New York in 1643.

Roger Williams’ defense of the separation of church and state in the mid 17th century. He believed that the state should not be involved in religion at all. He believed that all men — the Muslims, Jews, infidels, and atheists – should have freedom of conscience and for the state to be involved in any way with religion would infringe on this right. His books were banned and burned in England. In America he was banished by the Puritans.

The persecution of the Quakers by the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1656 the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws against anyone bringing Quakers into the Colony or anyone harboring them. They would be fined 100 pounds and then either imprisoned or banished. Other fines included 54 pounds for possessing Quaker books or writings, 40 pounds for defending the teachings of Quakers, 44 pounds for a second offence of defending the teachings, followed by imprisonment until the offender could be shipped out. The laws also allowed corporal punishment ie., whippings, cutting off of ears, boring holes in tongues, and hanging. Mary Dyer, William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson were some among many who braved these punishments in order to speak their conscience. All three had been banished, endured flogging, and were eventually hanged.

Today we take the benefits of keeping church and state separate too much for granted. It has allowed us to avoid most of the religious violence that has embroiled much of the world despite our being the most religiously diverse nation on earth.

 

Even though we are home for Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Protestants, and Catholics we have avoided the strife that plagues India from the Hindus and Muslims, the wars that consume the Middle East between the Sunnis, Shiites, Jews, and Christians, and the violence between the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland.

 

We take these so much for granted that many do not understand why the state cannot favor any religion; why the state shouldn’t fund or help religious groups and organizations.

 

In An Essay On Toleration Benjamin Franklin wrote, “If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Roman Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. These found it wrong in the bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.”

In his statement about why he refused to proclaim a national day of fasting and prayer Andrew Jackson in 1832 said, “I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.”

James Madison, the chief author of our Constitution, wrote in a letter objecting to the use of government land for churches in 1803, “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”

The Treaty of Tripoli of 1797, carried unanimously by the Senate reads, “As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) … it is declared.. that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.”

In a letter John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson, “I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved– the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”

These and more statements from our founders, from George Washington to Thomas Paine, from Ethan Allen to Thomas Jefferson all attest to the fact that they set up a secular government in order to preserve the new country that they had created from being torn by religious wars. A country where all men, not just Christians but all men, would be free to follow their conscience and express their beliefs.

During the beginning of the Civil War, the National Reform Association was founded in order to correct the mistake that was tearing our nation apart. No, it was not slavery that was the mistake in the eyes of these clergymen but instead it was the lack of an acknowledgement of God and Jesus in our Constitution.

 

In 1863 an attempt was made to amend the Constitution’s preamble and there acknowledge not only God but also Jesus Christ as the source our government. A foreshadowing of one of our recent President’s use of Jesus as his political mentor.

The clergy involved in the National Reform Association devised a statement that would not offend any of the mainstream Protestant denominations (they were not worried of course about Jews, Quakers, or Catholics who, being religious minorities, were aghast at the idea). It proposed replacing “We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” with “Recognizing almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, and acknowledging the Lord Jesus Christ as the Governor among the nations, his revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government…” Shades of the Islamic constitution in Iran.

The National Reform Association met with President Lincoln in February 1864 and presented him with their petition for a Christian government. His response was the observation that “…the work of amending the Constitution should never be done hastily.” and a promise to “take such action upon it as my responsibility to my Maker and our country demands.” He then took no action at all. Neither did Congress, instead tabling the resolution for years until it was forgotten.

 

Now these and other histories have been forgotten. We have taken for granted the benefits of a secular government. Now a new mythology is being created that our founders would be appalled by. The myth that the United States of America was created as a Christian Nation.

 

We no longer remember why that road is such a dangerous one. We no longer seem to understand why a secular government is necessary for the continued freedom of belief and conscience that we now so blithely enjoy.

 

Even such seemingly laudable actions such as giving government money to religious charities creates problems and raises troubling questions.

 

When the government gives money, as in the faith based charity programs, it decides which religions get money and which do not. Is it really any surprise that during President Bush’s Presidency the vast majority of the money is given to evangelical organizations that supported him?  Is it any surprise that only they, out of all the organizations that our government supports with our money, are allowed to discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion with that money?

 

And how will you react when Moslems charities start receiving money? How about Scientology? Wiccan charities? Secular Humanist charities? Do you approve and trust our government to start picking and choosing what religions are “worthy” of receiving money and government approval and which are “unworthy?”

 

Despite all the talk about original intent we are moving away from what our founders intended.

 

Although some of our founders were traditional Christians, most, while devout, were not traditionally so. Many believed that religion encouraged morality in the common people and so followed religious practices. All, though, recognized the danger that comes from religion and government becoming entangled. All recognized the necessity for a secular government. All remembered the reasons why a strict separation between church and state is necessary. I think it is time that many of us read more thoroughly our own and European history and take a good look at the world around us.

 

I think it is time that we start remembering again.

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Secular Governments and Religious Cultures

I have seen some atheists decrying what they see as the religious government of the United States.  Some have even gone so far as to label it a theocracy.   It is not though.  What such people fail to do is distinguish the government from the culture of the United States.

The Flavor of a Democracy

The government of the United States is most assuredly secular.  However it is also equally assuredly a democracy and a strongly religious culture.  These two points are important.  They are important because all democracies take on the flavor of the dominant culture.  It is inevitable.  After all, a democracy reflects the will of the people – they elect officials, vote on laws, and are polled on what they believe and want and if elected officials desire to be re-elected such desires have to be considered.  Further, elected officials are drawn from the culture which means that whatever is the predominant strain running through a culture and society then people who believe in that strain and think like that strain will get elected more frequently than those that do not.

This fact is highlighted by the recent Pew poll on the composition of our 2013 Congress.

http://www.pewforum.org/Government/Faith-on-the-Hill-The-Religious-Affiliations-of-Members-of-Congress.aspx

“Members of Congress are often accused of being out of touch with average citizens, but an examination of the religious affiliations of U.S. senators and representatives shows that, on one very basic level, Congress looks much like the rest of the country. Although a majority of the members of the new, 111th Congress, which will be sworn in on Jan. 6, are Protestants, Congress – like the nation as a whole – is much more religiously diverse than it was 50 years ago.”

While there is some variation in religious representation in Congress with that of  American society, most notably among the nones, as a whole it fairly closely matches.  Given all of this it would be surprising if our government did not have a religious flavor.  It is made up of religious people and is reflective of American society at large.

However, our government having a religious flavor is not the same as it actually being religious.  It is rather more like those fruit juice drinks with artificial flavoring but containing no real fruit juice.

A Secular Government

Let us start this section by noting that the United States Constitution is a starkly secular one.  There is no reference to God or Christianity in it.  The only religious reference are the ones telling the government to stay out of the individual’s religious beliefs – the no religious test for public office clause and the 1^st amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Indeed, as an outline for the workings of government it is more secular than almost any other such document for any other government.

It is more secular than Canada’s, “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.”

It is more secular than Denmark’s, “The Evangelical Lutheran Church shall be the Established Church of Denmark, and, as such, it shall be supported by the State.”

It is more secular than Germany’s, “”Conscious of their responsibility before God and man, … the German people, in the exercise of their constituent power, have adopted this Basic Law.”

It is more secular than Australia’s, “Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown … Be it therefore enacted … as follows:”

Much more secular than Ireland’s, “In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred, We, the people of Éire, humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial, … do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.”

It is more secular than Switzerland’s, “In the name of Almighty God! The Swiss People and the Cantons … adopt the following Constitution:”

And the list goes on.

So, despite what some believe, both atheist and theist, the United States is a solidly secular government.  One though set in a religious culture, in fact one of the most religious cultures in the industrialized nations.

So, how does the interplay of religious culture and secular government work out then.

Secular Government Meets Religious Culture

The United States secular government restricts how far legislation based solely on religion can go.  It does so through several different methods.

First, the fact that our Congress represents the views of a great many diverse people means that the more radical religious acts die without even being voted on.  Of those that do get voted on the majority will wind up never passing.  And then it still has to be signed by the President.

Keep in mind that there are numerous voices clamoring to be heard during this whole process.  This includes the secular and those who value church/state separation as well as the religious who wish to impose their views on all.

Even should such legislation (overtly religious) get passed there is still another check point – the judiciary system.  Such laws can be challenged in court and the courts can and have overruled them.

Now, keep in mind that all of this is not an automatic process, nor is it one that happens instantaneously.  It cannot be so due to the fact that the Constitution is a document that has to be interpreted and that men of good will can disagree on this; and that a democracy is inherently a messy and inefficient system of government.  Also, the weeding out involves a process and the process, as all processes do, can and usually does take time.

To provide an example of what I mean, consider creationism.  Every year numerous bills are proposed in the states and occasionally at the national level that would promote creationism.  The vast majority never get beyond the proposal state.  They either die in committee, or are not passed by the legislature, or are vetoed by the governors.

Of the few that do get enacted so far each and every one – every single one that has managed somehow to be passed – has been struck down by the courts.

Or consider the fate in Florida of Amendment 8.  This proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution in 2012 that would have prohibited state government from discriminating (specifically in terms of financial aid) against religious organizations, including schools with religious affiliations.  It needed 60% of the population to vote yes in order to pass.  It didn’t even get half the votes, winding up with only 44.5%.

Even had it passed it would still have been successfully challenged in the courts.

I know that there are some religious trappings to our government.  I would like to see them banished, however they are trappings and not substance.

The swearing of oath of office on the Bible is one such.  However, keep in mind that there is nothing in the Constitution requiring this, nor does the Constitution require saying “So help me, God.”  This is cultural only, and one that is changing.  Today we have Muslims swearing in on the Qur’an, a Hindu who swore her oath on the Bhagavad Gita, and a “none” who swore on nothing at all.  Here is a link to a very good article that provides a bit of background on this particular practice.

https://www.au.org/church-state/january-2013-church-state/featured/so-help-me-gods

Some Comparisons and Their Meanings

All of the following information is from “Freedom of Thought 2012; A Global Report on Discrimination Against Humanists, and the Nonreligious”

 

http://www.iheu.org/new-global-report-discrimination-against-nonreligious

 

Several countries have hate crime laws that make it illegal to insult religions.  These include Germany where the German magazine Titanic was prosecuted after their front page showed a crucified Jesus appearing to be receiving fellatio from a Catholic clerk and also a German businessman who printed “Koran” repeatedly on toilet paper who was initially sentenced to one year of prison and 300 hours of community service.

 

Other countries with such hate crime laws include the Netherlands, France, Ireland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.  All of these countries have used these laws against those making strong statements against religious groups.

 

You will not find that here in the United States.  It would be considered unconstitutional and a violation of free speech as well as religion in many cases.

 

Many countries also give preferential treatment to one religion over another.   In Sweden Swedes can designate part of their income tax to go to their church or religious body, but secular Swedes have been denied the right to do this for the Humanist Association.

 

While I would like to do away with the tax exemption for churches in the United States it is at least applied to all religions and includes Humanist organizations.  I will note that sometimes the atheist organizations receive a tax exemption on grounds other than religion, but it still is a tax exemption and is a level playing field as opposed to actively giving money to all religious organizations except secular ones.

 

Other countries that financially contribute to religions includes Ireland, the United Kingdom, Iceland which promotes Lutheranism, Norway which supports the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Switzerland which supports one of three traditional communities through church taxes and Canada in which six of the ten provinces provide partial or full funding to religious schools, usually Roman Catholic.

 

Yet despite all of this and more, the United States is the government considered the least secular and most religious.  Why?

 

The difference here is culture.  Were the United States to have a constitution like many of these other countries have then I would imagine we would be in danger of becoming a religious theocracy.  However, I would argue that fact that our constitution is so secular has prevented and will continue to prevent this from ever occurring.  The flip side is God, so to speak, help the citizens of those countries should their culture ever become dominated by conservative religious groups.

 

What Need to be Done in the U.S.

 

The government of the United States has a good secular foundation.  It does not require any change in regards to this, only protection of its secular nature and skilled, consistent use of its laws and nature to continue to fight back against religious legislation.

What is needed instead though is a change in our culture.  To my mind this involves focusing on three areas.

1)       A PR effort to educate the religious public about atheists and atheism; that we are not evil and immoral people and can be trusted.  This would make it easier for us to work together with theists in areas where we have common cause and also increase the odds that an atheist can be elected to public office.

 

2)      Work to encourage the questioning of religious “truth” and ideas with the rationale that once such questioning begins some (although not nearly all) would become atheists.  The others, although not becoming atheist would become more liberal and progressive and more willing to work with us for the common good.  While this questioning might lead these theists to becoming even more religious it would be a religion that is more intelligent and rational.

 

While there is a need for the firebrands and hardliners in this, most such efforts to encourage questioning should be more low key and part of an on-going dialogue.  Why?

 

Because such a low key approach will be the most effective.  It also will not hurt our PR effort mentioned in #1 above, whereas the firebrand approach can create a backlash and be counterproductive to such efforts. Lastly, it is  matter of human fairness and courtesy – theists are deserving of being treated with respect even if we disagree with them about God (after all, aren’t we demanding the same sort of courtesy from them?)

 

3)      We need to educate theist about the benefits to them of a secular government.

 

Some atheist might laugh at this, along with some theists, but I would point out that the earliest arguments for the separation of church and state were made by very devout theists using the Bible as part of their arguments and rationale (Roger Williams is a good example of one such theist).

 

Further, many of the organizations today that are fighting to maintain a wall of separation between church and state consist of many or even mostly religious people.  Americans United for Church and State is headed by an ordained United Church of Christ Minister and consists largely of theists.  The Texas Freedom Network, who has done a good job here in Texas combating attempts to mingle religion and state consists largely of clergy and religious people.    The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty is a group consisting mainly of Baptists (surprise!) who strongly support the separation of church and state.

 

I think a lot of the differences between the United States and many of the European and Canadian governments is due to the historical fact that we created a secular government first and are slowly working our way to a secular culture.  In Europe and Canada their culture became secular first and caused their constitutions to be used and interpreted and somewhat modified in a secular manner.   Broad generalization here I know, but I think there is a great deal of truth to it.

It is also why I am not overly concerned about the United States becoming a theocracy or being taken over by the fundamentalists.  I would be more concerned about this if our Constitution had more sympathy for religion and God as do so many European ones does, but it does not.  It is, at its foundation, a thoroughly secular government with some religious flavoring added.

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