On Everything: A New Series on Politics, Culture, Religion and Everything Else...

...WITH CUTE ANIMALS!!!!!

Leftist Mythology and Real Faith

A story:

'Before beginning my talk I want to tell you a story about Moses. When
he struck the rock and it brought forth water, he thought, 'What a good
opportunity to have a bath!'

He removed his clothes, put them aside on the rock and entered the
water. When he got out and wanted to dress, his clothes had vanished.
An Israeli had stolen them.'

The Israeli representative jumped up furiously and shouted, 'What are
you talking about? There were no Israelis there then!'

The Palestinian representative smiled and said:
'And now that we have made that quite clear, I will begin my speech.'

Sounds great, huh? The Israeli just got owned by history. A liberal responded to it with:

“How about we don't care what an old book of myths says about who owns or should own the land?

That being said, I wish [the] story was true.”

Ah, the great answer to the debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Why not ignore the religious claims and just blindly support the Palestinian's great historical ownage. This has pretty much been the left's view on the conflict since Israeli's creation 60 years ago. Ignore legitimate Jewish claims to their ancient homeland. Ignore the ethnic history. Ignore the political claims. The Palestinians are the underdogs, so they're the ones to support.

Aside from over 5000 years of Jewish history in the region (that's 3700 years before Islam), the ethnic similarities between the two warring parties and the decades of Jewish political organization under secular Zionism before the birth of Israel, yeah, that answer pretty much has the entire thing down.

To dismiss faith has been part of the left's agenda since the mid-1900s. Before that, the Progressives were quite religious. Woodrow Wilson based his proto-fascism on, among many things, Christian supremacy. It was the infection of hardcore Marxism that turned formerly pious eugenicists into atheistic fire-starters. Since that time, faith is decadent and evil (see: Dawkins vs. the Catholic Church), and science has become not just a method of investigation, but an ideology (see: Dawkins and Darwin, any atheist). If you think a pompous priest is annoying, wait until you meet a atheist leftist from community college. Gah!

Anyway, liberals, socialist, communists, and pretty much any other left-wing ideology, have this century and a half-long mythology running their political religion. Marx was a genius, not a anti-Semitic Jew who failed in pretty much all his predictions. Wilson was a visionary, not a theocratic tyrant who re-segregated the government and had a true imperialistic vision for America. FDR was a God, not a racist who imprisoned Asian citizens based solely on their race, or a horrible economist who prolonged the Depression and created a culture of dependency and currency inflation. Kennedy was a leftist, not the anti-Communist, pro-free market, “pro-war” president he actually way. LBJ's Great Society sunk minorities into poverty and dependency. Carter's peace overtures killed more people than saved. Clinton's deficit was actually the Republican Congress'. If I had the time and the attention span, a whole book could be written on the myths of the left.

The left believes in these things because, sadly, they have no real faith. They don't cross that line between reason and beyond reason, they straddle it. People of faith believe in things beyond human beings. They believe in the redeeming power of Jesus, or the mercy of G-d, or the righteousness of Allah, or the enlightenment of Buddha. They believe beyond people into the realm of revelation and the soul. They believe, and this is key, in something that TRANSCENDES human nature and act upon that belief. Altruism, as close as one can get to it, is never based on reason, even for those claiming strict atheism. Transcendence beyond our nature is a religious idea. Those atheistic leftists who support indulgence of base instincts like promiscuity, early sexual experimentation, primitivism and the like are much closer to true atheism than those who claim to not believe, but also call on our higher faculties (ie. Against our selfish nature) to give up wealth and economic freedom for others.

Unlike the left's myth of religion, faith and reason are NOT opposites. Of course, you'll encounter those who deny reason because of faith: creationists, Islamists, global warming fanatics; but those people aren't exactly the mainstream of human thought. Science grew within countless religious cultures. A Muslim created algebra. A Catholic created astronomy. An Orthodox Christian founded an alphabet now used by hundreds of millions. A Christian founded modern physics. Science, much to the chagrin of the left, has flourished due to, not in spite of, religious faith. That's not to say that religious INSTITUTIONS haven't interfered with scientific endeavors, but simply believing in God does not discount someone from being a scientist.

Leftist atheists love to shove it in your face that everyone else is stupid. Studies about creationists are their favorite. It's creationists this and God that. If you have faith, you're on the wrong side of history. And amusingly, if you ask a leftist about global warming, they tell you the “science is settled”, which spits in the face of the very idea of science. Or ask about John Kennedy, as I described above. Ask any number of historical or philosophical ideas, and you'll get a pre-engineered response about it from most. Say Hitler, you get right-winger. Say USSR, you'll hear not real communism. Like the religious fanatics in Islam and Protestantism, they're knee jerks will knock you out of your reason chair. But don't tell them they aren't reasonable... because they are... because they say so. And to dispute it is being closed minded.

Sheesh.

Fairness is a Disease

So, a school wants to create a Male Studies program to look into the welfare and psyche of the modern human male. Not a bad idea, eh? Males have changed a lot in the past one hundred years. Suffrage, the women's rights movement, contraception and consumer trends have all created a male completely alien to the Victorian male that brought in the 20th century. Today, there are concerns of the loss of masculinity to an ever increasing feminization of Western culture. Shows like Everybody Likes Raymond, where the husband is always wrong, bumbling and submissive, promote the idea that the Western male is not longer the head of the household, but the laughing stock of it. Of course, this is just one of many theories about the modern male and these theories should be researched and reviewed and published, as is the right of any researcher.

That's if Male Studies get off the ground. When I passed this news along to political acquaintances on the left, the response was a resounding “why?”. Might as well have “white studies” too, one said, since men and whites have dominated the world since time immemorial. We can't be studying the male since the male has had his place of privilege for so long! It's the female's turn! That's the atmosphere I got from them.

When did education go from finding the truth to promoting fairness and alleviating the guilt of left-wing white males? When Plato thought and wrote, it wasn't to make sure the trans-gendered anarchist had a voice. It was to find the truth about humanity and its soul. When Voltaire thought and wrote, it was to explain the world and the mind, not find a new niche market for a women's studies book about anti-antidisestablishmentarianism in the male dominated Greek world.

The idea that we can't study the male, especially the white male, out of some anti-intellectual ideal of fairness spits in the face of every honest educator in the world. Not only that, it spits in the face of real equality between the races and sexes. Babying a broad, monolithic class, in this case “women”, because another broad, monolithic class, “men”, has had their day in the sun is beyond idiotic. It's an idea based on racism, sexism and class warfare. It's an idea that goes against the root ideals of this country and of its history of higher education, going all the way back to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. It's as if the creator of this anti-intellectual ideology couldn't actually come up with an original idea and just flipped the worst views of the worst people of the Civil Rights Era and said, “Ta da! Open mindedness! And if you don't like it, you're a racist!”

SIRIUS/XM radio host Andrew Wilkow has a very apt analogy to explain this view. Imagine two people walking down a street. A white guy with a shirt that says, “White Power” and a black man that has shirt that says “Black Power”. For the last half century, we've been told (trained, in some cases) to look at the white man's shirt and deride him for his ethnic hatred. Yet, when we turn to the black man, we are told (trained) to congratulate him on his progressive ethnic pride in his culture (“black culture”, another broad, monolithic idea). How is THAT not racism? Hate whites for being proud of their race while encouraging blacks to be proud of theirs? That isn't equality, that's overcompensation. That's anti-intellectualism. That's anti-American. Period.

And I haven't even gotten to the best part. History. The leftist opposition to all things white and male are based on the idea of white male domination for God knows how long. But how long as white males actually ruled the planet? Not that long, actually. The domination of the “world” by whites was consolidated around 200 years ago when the British Empire spanned the length of the planet, “the empire on which the sun never sets”, as it was called. I'm including all European powers in this, by the way. But it wasn't actually the world, not even close. The Ottoman Empire spanned well into Africa and the Middle East. Russia's domination wasn't entirely a white man's crusade since much of Russia's ethnic make-up descends from the Mongol invaders four centuries earlier. The South American powers had both white and mixed leaders, as it does now. The only continent that there was near total domination of other races by whites was Africa, but like I said the Ottomans were in there too and I don't believe Turks are considered white.

That's only 200 years ago. But doesn't the Left say white dominated history pre-1800s is part of our guilt? So how far back to we go? Hopefully, for these “intelligent” folk, we don't go back to Renaissance Italy where women had the ability to speak and rule? Or how about certain African tribes where women played bigger roles? Oh wait, they aren't white. I don't think there's black male guilt, is there? Anyway, how about Sparta, where the women under the militaristic regime had the right to speak, to refuse marriage, property rights and were trained in combat to near equal levels as males were? But that's only if you consider ancient Greeks white, and they're only white in Hollywood, not in reality.

This obsession with extra-legal fairness in all things, especially education, is a disease. You cannot change history by buying off your guilt. You cannot change minds by denying education sectors for the crime of going against politically correct dogma. It strikes at liberty, intellectual discourse and our nation's self-esteem. A nation cannot remain free if its taking from one class and giving to another over events that happened pre-independence (or pre-history, for that matter). A nation cannot have honest intellectual debate if charges of racism, sexism and all other words of total insignificance now (thanks, Leftists) are used to put down legitimate criticisms of a anti-intellectual ideology. A nation especially cannot remain powerful and unified when its too busy making sure every nook and cranny of leftist created trans-class, cross-gendered, bottom-up race injustice is being sated by economy destroying programs promoted by people who aren't touched by them, but who somehow feel the tinge of racism from a crowd not saying a word.

John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

And the facts are, dear leftist friends and contacts, that your objections to Male Studies tells a lot about you and your inability to think critically, let alone dictate what others should think. You cannot stop racism with money, sexism with government or bigotry with indoctrination. The best we can do, the best any free nation can do, is make sure that under the law no one is discriminated against. After that, its up to the individual to find the truth themselves, not by government fiat or ivory tower poo-poohing. The past 60 years have shown your idea of fairness has created one of the most anti-intellectual and bigoted mainstream ideologies in America. And that has led to a world where leaders call citizens racists, “teabaggers” and fascists for simply opposing policy the leaders themselves have tainted with the stain of racism, sexism and anti-religious bigotry.

Give yourself a hand.

Oh, wait, you already do.

These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For

A little reminder of the opposing views of why Major Hasan went nuts.

The right believes it was his Islamist ideology, represented by this fellow:


The left's image of the right's view is akin to something like this:
The left believes it was because of the discrimination of the military, who hate Muslims so much they've broken a decades long rule against alterations to the approved uniform code for religious reasons.

Army Times further reported that a Muslim officer serving as an orthopedic-surgery intern at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center had received permission to "wear a beard, as required by his sect of the Muslim faith."

As I said in my last post, Hasan's IDEOLOGY was the driving factor of his attack, not his religion. We can debate the theology and pure religious validity of Islam vs Christianity or secularism or whatever, but that's not the problem (at least to me). The modern Islamist movement that's attacking the West is born out of a POLITICAL version of Islam created by Sayyid Qutb. The modern Islamist ideology consists of a Marxist-inspired vanguard strategy sewn together with revanchist dreams of re-making the Islamic Caliphate that their Prophet created in the 8th century. Something even the most uneducated American should known as anti-liberty and dangerous.

Alas, the left wants you to looking at the knee-jerk anti-Muslim sentiment that rears its ugly head after terror attacks (not something I support, but something that is real and slightly understandable), and not at the attackers themselves who are the programmed automatons of a dark and dangerous political force.

Who is really more dangerous? A bumpkin making bigoted remarks about Muslims while nursing a cold beer, or a motivated ideologue fueled by religious fervor bent on the murder of innocence?

Don't be fooled by the attempts at distraction by the Left. You're reason is right.

On Religious Freedom and the Public Square

What's so bad about religion? What's so damn wrong about it that it drives inverted church-and-state activists bonkers? Is religion so powerful that seeing a lone cross in the desert will create the notion that the government supports Christianity over all else? Is it really so important to muzzle religious speech by banning or diluting the original message of a display? What does that say about how we Americans view religious freedom as compared to our Founders who pioneered the idea? I hope with this post to answer these questions and to lay out a moderate and liberty-based approach to religious freedom in this great country.

Religion and Culture

From the dawn of time, man has had stories of gods, devils, spirits and all kinds of paranormal beings creating the world we see around us. Throughout the years religion has evolved from trying to explain the sun, the stars and the wind to become the staple of the world's most advanced cultures on the planet. Not only that, religion has created some of the most beautiful art, inspired the most profound works of literature, and even was the rallying cry behind the American Revolution and the call to free millions of blacks from the bondage of slavery and suppression of the civil rights. There is not one nation, not one culture, that hasn't been based around or based on a religion.

Even today, in spite of anti-religious rhetoric, every human being is wired to have some kind of faith. They have faith in God, faith in Allah, faith in any number of scriptures, texts, ideas or powerful creators. Our modern society has even reached the point where political ideologies have reached such extremes that the term “political religion” describes the movement's religious nature to secular ideal - not a political ideology based in religious doctrine. To use a current issue, people talk about “believing” in universal health care, having “faith” in its workability, or even outright dismissing fact and proclaiming it good and moral, as if the very declaration will destroy the pitfalls.

Secular political religion in America has a very big grudge against traditional religion and traditional culture as well. One does not have to be an atheist or agnostic to be part of the secular political religion movement. There are many groups of faithful people who also believe in the strict secularization of America's public square. From removing God from the pledge of allegiance to banning any moments from schools that could be used for prayer, the secular political religion has made headway in all aspects of American life. Either knowingly or unknowingly, they have created a wedge between America and her culture, between America and her national values, between America and the ability to teach moral lessons on a national scale. This is dangerous in the long view because no matter how you view a certain religion, or all religions, a moral code is necessary for a moral and just society. There is no better teacher of basic individualistic morality than religious texts.

Defining the Great Line

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
-First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.
-Thomas Jefferson. From his letter to the Danbury Baptists on government interference in religion.

***

As read by the secularization movements, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” along with “a wall of separation between church and state” indisputably means that religion must be either totally removed from the public square or accommodated in full by all other faiths. Otherwise it would seem that the government, state or federal, is “establishing” a religion. A theocracy-by-perception, if you will. This is a ludicrous view of the First Amendment and its history. It also distorts Jefferson's meaning of “church and state” and his personal views on religion in the public square.

Firstly, before anything else, one must read the entirety of the religious clauses of the First Amendment. It says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The first clause is pretty clear in that the United States is not to have a state religion, a state church or any kind of state subsidized religious domination by one section over others. The second clause clearly states in light of the state not establishing a national religion, that the free exercise of religion cannot be prohibited. It does not say that the state cannot have religious displays in national parks, state parks or city parks. It does not say the state must accommodate a religious display with displays of other faiths around it to remove the perception of religious establishment. It does not say that without accommodating other faiths, such displays must be removed for the sake of secular views on religion. It states simply that the state cannot establish a national faith nor can it deny the expression of faith among its citizens. The religious clauses were intended as such as seen by their early drafting, which were written by James Madison as: “The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience by in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.” [1]

While the First Amendment has a clear cut definition of what is and is not permissible by the government in the religious realm, as in all things, modern complexity has brought up many issues that may not fit so easily into the original intent of the clauses. For instance, should a public school have a recited prayer before classes begin? During the first two centuries of America (and before the creation and implementation of incorporation to the states), it was not seen as a violation to have prayer. But with the ever increasing number of secularists, atheists and agnostics, the issue was eventually brought up before the infamous Supreme Court ensemble known as the Warren Court. The verdict in the case (known as Abington Township v. Schempp (1963)) created a new test for judges to use in such cases and is known as the “secular purpose” test. The test is supposed to determine if an activity is secular enough to be compatible with the Establishment Clause. In my opinion, the Warren Court ruled justly. In today's society, the Christian faith, while the majority, no longer has the super majority it once had. To be faithful to the intent of the Establishment Clause, an obvious Christian prayer, even if it's non-denominational, cannot be mandatory in a government-run school.

If the line had been drawn there, I don't think anyone including the politically active religious of us would be able to argue against a simple reforming from a Christian to a secular moment in public schools. Prayer would not be suppressed, but simply not encouraged by the state. Alas, the line was not drawn in rock, but sand. Since then, prayer at after-school games and clubs have been banned or called into question. Christian groups on high school or college campuses have been banned or threatened with banning if they did not include people of other faiths in their clubs. Government voucher programs for poor minority students have been cut with some justifying it on the grounds that the money went to religious schools and the government should not be supporting such schools due to the Establishment Clause. (They forget that these schools were being paid for their service - not subsidized for being religious. Nor do they remember these lucky children were removed from violent and failing public schools that were awful in spite of massive funding.) This hardly scratches the surface as displays religious and seemingly religious in nature are being taken down or are in the process of being struck down. Even World War I memorials in the lonely Mojave Desert are not safe from those who see a single cross on public land as the creeping shadow of a government sponsored religion.

The Hammer, the Flea and the Vase

This post is not meant to demean secularism or try to make excuses for those who wish to see a more religiously based government in America. The former, in the form of the Establishment Clause, has done much to prevent the permanence of religious-based idealists like Woodrow Wilson or (God help us if he ever become President) Mike Huckabee. But, in contrast to the vast good the Establishment Clause has done, the misreading and its abuse by anti-religious groups and overzealous secularists has put religion in a bind, and with that, the nation's moral center.

Every major religion in America has the same common views on life, its importance and its care. Christians, Muslims and Jews may argue over theology, but there is concurrence on topic such as abortion or euthanasia. One will see a beautiful display of inter-religious harmony. Human cloning, destroying embryos for research and other science versus morality issues all require that we look to our moral leanings for guidance. It doesn't matter if you think Christians are polytheists, that Muhammad was a child rapist or that Buddhists are just wackos worshiping a fat statute. When it comes to reflecting on moral choices, religion has the monopoly that no one can break.

The thing is that secular political religion has a problem with the moral monopoly. It may be because of religion's view on gay rights, divorce, drug use, child rearing, etc. The more outlandish and idealistic of the secular movement don't simply want religion in its rightful place in the public square, as the Warren Court provided, but it wants it gone from the square completely. Those in like-mind with the anti-religious crowd, even though they may not be anti-religious themselves, cannot justify their views unless they are prepared to admit they are either anti-religious or making a big mistake. To me, the secularist, who isn't anti-religious, sees an ugly flea of dangerous religious power on the face of the beautiful religious culture vase and wishes it gone. However, instead of simply blowing the flea off the vase with their breath, (something that won't harm the vase), they take a hammer and smash the vase into pieces just to remove the aesthetic unpleasantness of a single flea. How does that help anything? It doesn't, and it drives our faithful citizens to object to the destruction of our grand and free religious traditions - traditions that have done so much for the people of this country. What do they get for their objections? Anti-religionists and like-minds saying religion has no place in this discussion - bold words from the temple's vandals.

Secularize the Government, Pluralize the Square

Most Americans have a rightful fear of the government, either economically, militarily, religiously or politically. Some fear it on all sides, and some do not fear it at all. Religious freedom today has been suppressed on the fear of a religiously powerful government growing from the raising of monuments by private citizens, students and localities. American history does have its times of religiously motivated political extremism, from preachers defending slavery to civil rights suppression and the President saying God wants the nation under a united culture of Christianity. We should not ignore the dangers of a religious-driven politic. Yet, we can't simply throw out the baby with the bathwater, or in this instance, the faith with the demagogue.

As written by the Founders, government has no place in the religious square. Government should not regulate religion nor should it invite religion to create policy or give it undue control of anything. Government should not pick one religion over another; or a group of religions over another group. No public building should have religious imagery without a historical or secular purpose, as the Warren Court ruled. Basically, government can't play favorites with the public's faith. However, the government shouldn't be playing policeman with people's feelings and (mis)perceptions either. Private events approved by public schools, private monuments on public land approved by a city or state should not be torn down over the objections of overzealous secularists under the pretense of a person's perception (most of all theirs). Isn’t it possible to simply regulate HOW MANY private memorials can go up in any section of land - not WHAT KIND of private memorials go up? Hell, just for safety's sake, put a sign saying “The government is not responsible for the views of the displays in this park,” or something along those lines just so everyone knows that the government isn't about to toss gays in jail or atheists into churches. It's simpler and more free to secularize the government, but leave the public square to the plurality of faiths that have built and kept America moral since its birth.

One's ability to display their political views and religious faith in the public square is the core reason of the First Amendment. To toss away half of a guaranteed freedom for bleeding hearts, hand wringers and angry bigots proves that we're cowards, not enlightened.

[1] http://k12subjectguides.suite101.com/article.cfm/understanding_the_history_of_the_first_amendment

My God Wears A Suit

Most people like to talk about politics and religion just as much as they like to have a root canal with only a shot of Jack to put them under. Other, like me, like my fellow bloggers and others, talk of it, but try to keep it apart. Some, though, don't even know they're preaching when they talk. These people, usually the far left, are astounded when you tell them they sound like a religious person. Welcome to political religion, folks.

For most of the existence of conflicting ideologies, religion and politics were pretty much interwoven. Got a problem with the monarchist next to you? Probably has to do with his God just as much as his ideas. Around the Renaissance, politics and religion slowly separated, though it was never fully pulled apart. During the 1700s and through the American Revolution, the idea to keep politics out of religion became a mainstay of our Founding Fathers. Jefferson's letter that talks about the separation of church and state was about limited government, not expanding government to suppress public religious expression, as the ACLU seems to think.

Arriving in the 20th century, we come across a new faith, a dangerous faith. This faith comes in the form of extreme nationalism, collectivism, ethno-centrism and secular fanaticism. Governments like the Nazis, the Fascists, the Stalinists, the Titoists, the Khmer Rouge, the Maoists, and so on. These so-called atheists, anti-Christians and pagans did not embrace the traditional religious view. In fact, they did their best to wipe it out. Italy imprisoned the Pope, Germany wiped out Jews, Christians and Gypsies, China annihilated traditional beliefs and monuments, Russia devastated the Orthodox Church; all this was done in the name of not another God, but in the name of an ideology. In the 20th century, political religion was born.

In today's America, we've recently seen political religion rear it's head in the historic election of President Barack Obama. A masterful organizer, the President rallied both leftists, liberals and moderates to his cause. He also had a following that bordered on a cult. School teachers had their students sing songs about him. Artists superimposed Obama on various religious figures. Smart kids like Ezra Klein couldn't keep from gushing huge amount of love onto their blogs, articles and speeches. Many may have voted for him because they liked his ideas, but there were plenty of people that were more enamored with future President Obama than with future President Obama's policies.

I bring up political religion because there are some true believers out there and the health care debate has flushed them back out into the spotlight. May it be Tweets that know the health care bill will "provide". Or the complete dishonesty of outlets like MSNBC who portray armed protesters as racists, but their example was an armed conservative black man who's ethnicity they cleverly cropped out of their footage.

Thanks to our system, we have yet to have a mass movement like that of the Fascists or Nazis or Maoists. Our decentralized society allowed for one part of the country to fall into the political religion trap while other, smarter folk realized the danger and voted the leaders out of Congress or the Presidency. Alas, the way our government is centralizing every year, it may come to a point in the far future where a fanatic ideological movement may have the ability to co-op the entire country. It won't be soon, of course, but I wouldn't doubt that by the time I'm old enough to not get Social Security, we may have to deal with such a movement, but only if nothing from now 'til then changes.