Jeff Schweitzer's Blog, page 9

A Just God in Newtown

Albert Einstein famously said that, “Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former.” Nothing proves the statement true more than the persistence of the idea of a benevolent god in Newtown, Connecticut.

The murder of 20 children in a country that refuses to talk rational means of preventing such deaths reveals an inherent absurdity that we willfully ignore in the aftermath. This is the absurdity of faith; the central dilemma that all religions must somehow explain the existence of evil in the presence of god. Despite heroic efforts, all attempts have failed completely. In a world that knows evil, like we just witnessed in Newtown, an all-powerful god responsible for all creation must be evil. The free will argument does not work. But given that a few billion people will insist on disputing this claim, we will show next how no other conclusion is possible.

Argument Number 1: God Did Not Create Evil

Some who oppose the notion of a brutish ugly violent deity propose that god did not intentionally create evil. If so, that begs the question of evil’s origin if not from the hand of god. In one scenario, evil flourished as an unintended consequence of human depravity once his newly-minted Adam and Eve started roaming the earth. God was surprised by evil, but allowed it to exist once brought to his attention. In another scenario, evil sprang to life without god’s permission at all, as a rude cosmic surprise. Both scenarios would give god a pass on being evil himself, but they create yet another dilemma. In either scenario, god is not omnipotent. After all, if evil exists as a mistake or without god’s permission we must conclude that he is incapable of peering into and controlling the future, a decidedly un-god-like attribute. Let’s review our two choices:

1) An all-powerful god must be evil since evil exists and god created all, including evil; or,

2) God’s work somehow got beyond his control, with evil coming along as something like a divine blooper, a mistake not typically associated with an all-powerful thing.

We can only conclude, then, that god himself is evil (choice number one) or he is benign but with diminished powers (choice number two). And a god with limited powers is no god at all.

Argument Number 2: Free Will and Prayer

Religion solves this conundrum the old-fashioned way: by making up a silly answer with truly contorted logic. The answer in this case is free will, but only for human beings. Somehow, when god gathered his last strength to make people before taking a one-day vacation, he decided, unlike with spiders, beavers or parrots, to give his new creation the ability to choose a path not preordained by god. This divine grant of free will solves the dilemma because people can choose to be evil without implicating god.

Unfortunately, the idea holds no water. Even a brief examination destroys any claim that free will was or could be granted by an all-powerful god. The idea is an absurd oxymoron: the very act of granting free will would destroy the power do so. Let’s see why by looking at the combination of free will, evil and prayer in the presence of an omniscient god.

We can start with prayer. If god has a plan for everything and everyone, prayer could not affect his behavior. If he changed his plan according to a prayer, that would be an admission that god’s original plan was flawed, making him fallible. If only those prayers that fit into god’s original plan are answered, then the purpose of praying is defeated. With preordained fate, prayer could not change any outcome, which is the very purpose of a prayer.

Ah hah, you might say, the trick is that god gave mankind free will — that allows for the legitimacy of prayer. But prayer cannot work in the case of free will, either. If we have the power to choose our own destiny, prayer has no role to play. If I pray to god for a certain outcome, just the act of praying is an admission that I do not determine my fate; I admit my fate is in the hands of god, that god can change the outcome of my life, making the notion of free will moot. The idea of free will is religion’s version of having your cake and eating it too. You can have a god who already preordained everything, and you can pray for a different outcome anyway, and you have free will to change your destiny. Simultaneously holding three mutually incompatible ideas is untenable.

An argument often provided to counter this line of reasoning says that god knows what every person will choose beforehand, but the person does not; the person is still making a choice. How oddly tautological. Whatever we choose, our choice is according to god’s plan because we chose it! But if god already knows what we will choose, already knows the outcome of every choice, that is not free will, only the cruel illusion of free will. The choice was already made at the beginning of time, meaning there never was any choice at all.

Another common argument is that free will allowed humans to fall from god’s grace, without impugning god’s character. That is simply defining away the problem without solving anything. If god is all-powerful, he could have created a species of humans who chose to use the gift of free will only for good. That his creations chose to behave badly means that such behavior was either god’s original intent, or that god is not all-knowing.

Argument Number 3: Evil is Here for Good Reason

Perhaps a benevolent god created a world with evil, but he chose to do so for good reasons. He created evil, but is not evil himself. Assuming this logic, some argue that evil and suffering are necessary in order to know god. Well, that is simply another example of solving the problem by defining it away, and ultimately contributes nothing. Since god is all-powerful, he could have just as easily designed the world such that suffering was not required to know him.

Let’s look at a real case of evil, the shooting of 20 children and six adults in Newtown. One possibility: god knew beforehand the choice the killer would make, and did nothing to prevent the outcome. Second possibility: god knew beforehand, but could do nothing to change the outcome. Third possibility: god did not know what choice the killer would make and did not know the outcome. From these three possibilities we must once again come to the same conclusion we reached earlier. Therefore: in a world in which evil and suffering exist, god is either all powerful and is responsible for that evil and suffering, through design or neglect (first possibility), or god is benevolent but not all-powerful (second and third possibilities). Nothing else is possible, other than the obvious conclusion that god does not exist.

With evil in the world, an all-powerful god cannot be benevolent. Whether god’s power is diminished either as an original state of being or as a consequence of voluntarily relinquishing his power to human free will, the effect is the same. If god is benevolent and not culpable of evil, he has no control over evil. If god is not evil, he cannot alter our fate. No amount of convoluted logic can change that immutable conclusion.

That conclusion yields an obvious and terminal problem for prayer. If your baby is seriously ill, you would naturally pray to god for her recovery. But why? If god is all-powerful, he would already know the fate of your baby, and your prayers would be for naught. Whether you prayed or not, your baby’s fate is already sealed, pre-ordained, for better or worse, by the all-powerful god. Also, since an all-powerful god must be evil, since he is responsible for everything in the universe, including evil, he might take joy in your suffering, since he has allowed so much grief to visit the human condition long before your child became ill.

Alternatively, if god is benevolent, he is not responsible for the evil and suffering in the world, meaning he has diminished powers since forces exist in the universe for which he has no responsibility and no hand in their creation. You would be praying to a being without the ability to control human fate, rendering the prayer useless. If god has no control over evil, praying to him to stop evil and suffering makes no sense.

Prayers to an all-powerful and evil god are futile; prayers to a benevolent god are useless.

Does God Have Free Will?

The flip-side of human free will is also important to examine; that is, does god himself have free will? If not, can god grant what he himself does not have? An all-powerful god is all-knowing, meaning god knows all of his future actions, and all of the choices he would make. Here is the rub: god could not change those choices, otherwise his earlier knowledge would have been wrong, meaning god would not be all-knowing! All omniscient god therefore has no free will to choose actions, since all actions must be preordained. God becomes an observer of his own omniscience since all knowledge of the future precludes any changes to that future. Any god with free will would have to be imperfect, and would by definition not be all-knowing.

So an all-knowing god, who cannot possess free will, cannot grant something he himself does not have. But a bigger problem remains. Free will implies a future with no predestination. A god who knows all, about everything past, present and future, could not create any free will that would prevent that knowledge of the future; the very act of creating free will would destroy the fact of omniscience.

These obvious arguments are not new, and in fact date all the way back to Epicurus, as summarized by Moojan Momen in 1999:

The presence of evil and suffering in the world has ever been argued by some philosophers from Epicurus (341-720bcd) to David Hume (1711-1776) to cast doubt on the existence of God. Other more modern writers such as Freud and Marx sought to show that religion’s explanations of the presence of evil and suffering were based on delusions.

And so we have the human species embracing what is nothing but an insane delusion. And in embracing that delusion we avoid a discussion critical to our society: how do we prevent evil like what we saw in Newtown?

I hope no alien species is watching this spectacle of ignorance and avoidance. We would be the laughingstock of the universe. As president Obama said, we can do better. The question is: will we? Not if we plan on calling on a benevolent god to help us. Not if our plans are based on delusion rather than reality. We must stop this feel-good appeal to an absurdity and tackle the issues before us with clarity and purpose, with a firm grasp of the reality before us.

I Hear the Voice of God

I hear the voice of god. Well, OK, it is Pat Robertson whispering in my ear, but that is pretty close. The subject of his whispers seems to be expanding. Prognosticator and religious leader Robertson has gotten into the business of socio-economic analysis. Of President Obama the oracle said on his show Thursday, December 13, 2012, that “I think he thinks ideologically: ‘I must cripple the capitalist class; I must cripple the business owners; I must destroy the free enterprise system in America.’”

Note that while he had the floor Robertson never offered any explanation of how Obama was going to accomplish these sinister goals. Robertson did not address actions Obama has taken that would seem to work in the opposite direction of saving capitalism, nor the fact that the stock market is up nearly 70 percent during the first four years of his presidency. In comparison, after eight years of George Bush the market had declined 25 percent. Which president between the two could be considered the champion of destroying America’s free enterprise system?

While patently absurd, and easily dismissed, we cannot afford to ignore Robertson’s rant because his views and those of his followers present a danger to civil society. He meddles in politics while claiming tax exempt status as a non-secular religious leader; he attempts to influence our secular world while hiding behind the shield of religion. He agitates unrest following man-made and natural disasters, claiming to know the will and mind of god. He promotes hate and distrust of those who do not comply with his worldview. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

9/11

Following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, Pat Robertson (echoing Jerry Falwell) claimed the tragedy was the fault of the “ACLU, the abortionists, the pagans, the feminists, the gays and the lesbians, not to mention People for the American Way” because “God would not be mocked.” One wonders if the families of the 3,000 dead blame gays or Islamic terrorists for the loss of their loved ones; and if Robertson is promoting healing or hate.

Hurricane Katrina

On September 1, 2005, Robertson claimed that Hurricane Katrina was sent by god in retribution for legalized abortion. The storm coincided with the hearings for then-Supreme Court nominee John Roberts during which the old idea of a litmus test on abortion came up. The storm according to Roberts was god being angry at the presence of the litmus test. Robertson’s lunacy inspires madness in others as well. Hal Lindsey in his September 9 show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network said, “It seems clear that the prophetic times I have been expecting for decades have finally arrived. And even worse, it appears that the judgment of America has begun. I warn continually that the last days lineup of world powers does not include anything resembling the United States of America. Instead, a revived Roman Empire in Europe is to rule the West, and then the world.”

Haiti Earthquake

Robertson blamed the devastating earthquake in Haiti in early 2010 on that country’s “pact with the devil.” The tragedy was a consequence of something that “happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. The Haitians were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’” So this dialogue with the devil is a “true story.” But climate change is a hoax. Sigh.

Chick-fil-A

The fast food chain’s president Dan Cathy told a gathering of religious conservatives that his company supported “the biblical definition of a family. I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, “We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.”‘ This is official corporate policy, not the views of one individual. Just as our First Amendment gives us freedom to express ourselves, so too do we have the right to protest. Cathy’s statement infuriated the gay community, who promptly organized protests in response. But Robertson did not see this as two sides exercising the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. Nope. He said that protestors have no right to condemn Chick-fil-A “until homosexuals produce a baby from their rear end.” I kid you not. He quoted Leviticus to bolster his point that homosexuality is an abomination “for a man to lie with a man as with a woman.” (Leviticus has nothing to say about Lesbianism by the way). I say if we are going to rely on Leviticus for guidance, we must also call on society to stone to death any woman who falsely presents herself as a virgin on her wedding night. And we need to be sacrificing goats and cattle as well to appease a wrathful god. If one section of Leviticus is valid enough to control social policy today, then all of it must be; otherwise, who could know what passage to choose? Even though quoting Leviticus is silly, that is not Robertson’s oddest transgression. His remarks imply that any heterosexual couple unable to conceive a child is committing a sin, an abomination, every time they have sex.

Sikh Temple Shooting

On August 5, 2012, a lone gunman and known white supremacist walked into a Sikh temple in Milwaukee and killed six people. Thankfully when confronted with such horrific senseless acts of violence we have Pat Robertson to interpret the word of god for us. With his insight we now know why the shooting at the Sikh temple took place. Robertson says, “… people who are atheists, they hate God, they hate the expression of God, and they are angry at the world, angry with themselves, angry with society and they take it out on innocent people who are worshiping God…” Being one myself who rejects the idea of god I’ve never had the urge to harm innocent people. Unlike Christians during the Crusades. Hey, if Robertson can hark back to ancient history with the devil, I can reference an event much more recent in human history.

Hurricane Isaac

Following his growing tradition of blaming hurricanes on god’s displeasure with gays, Robertson said following Isaac, which threatened the GOP national convention, that Isaac was “God’s wrath” against sinners, specifically the hundreds or thousands of closeted Republicans gathering in Tampa. He got more specific: the storm was god’s vengeance for “Republicans who are getting nookie on the down low, marrying just to keep up a facade, or ordering up gay prostitutes more often than they call Dominoes.” He did not entertain the possibility that the hurricane was god’s wrath for the GOP nominating Romney. But what more direct proof can we ask for that god does not like Republicans? A hurricane barreling down on a GOP convention would be a direct hit — the equivalent of a lightning bolt hitting an individual sinner. It would be like a strike at a bowling alley; a bull’s eye on a dart board, a three pointer at a basketball game. It must mean god is really ticked off at the GOP and their ideas about legitimate rape; how could Robertson conclude anything else?

Anchorage Earthquake

Of this devastating 1964 trembler Robertson said… absolutely nothing. So we must therefore ask the great “broadcaster, humanitarian, author, Christian, businessman, statesman” from Lexington, Virginia, for what sins did the citizens of Anchorage, Alaska, suffer for the quake of 1964? Why was there no declaration of god’s intent from that event? And we must query Robertson on the divine meaning of the massive earthquake in Chile. Perhaps their sin is naming a country after a pepper, and then misspelling it?

According to religious seers like Robertson, sinners will inevitably suffer the wrath of god in the form of earthquakes, floods, fire or disease as biblical punishment for their errant ways. But take note that the declarations and explanations of such divine calamities always come after the fact, making their predictive qualities a bit suspect. Creating an explanation for a past event is child’s play, and not horribly interesting.

Odd that we don’t hear from Robertson about genocide in Africa, or about the one billion people in the world with no access to fresh water or adequate nutrition. What about the 50,000 soldiers who died in Vietnam? What was god’s plan for vengeance with the tsunami in Indonesia? Robertson’s proclamations are childish, inconsistent and vile; the ravings of an old man who has lost his grip on reality. Claiming to know god’s intent following a natural disaster is the worst kind of hucksterism.

The time has come to use Robertson’s own phraseology to counter his hate: “those who love god just hate all those who don’t love their particular understanding of god and they are angry at the world, angry with themselves, angry with society and they take it out on innocent people who are worshipping another god…” True story.

Common Grounds and Common Sense

“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

– John Adams, 1797

In Austin, Texas, a trend has developed over the last decade in which people decorate trees with Christmas ornaments along major highways. The state transportation department has declared that this is not illegal. That is a bit dodgy though because littering is illegal, and if people do not remove the ornaments after the holiday they are littering and therefore committing a misdemeanor.  But for argument’s sake let us say there are no legal barriers to the practice.  Is it acceptable, and if not, why not?  And for now let’s ignore that many people find the decorations ugly and trashy.

The answer is no, the practice should not be allowed.  If it is OK for private citizens to put up Christmas ornaments on public land, then I can put up 7-foot-tall Islamic Crescents and Stars of David all along the highway. Or how about large images of Charles Darwin? Or huge 3D models of an atom?  Since this is unregulated, I could line the entire highway with a solid wall of signs for miles in every direction. Or if you want precise equivalency, I could put up large crescents, Stars of David and Darwin photos on top of the trees.  Why not? What distinguishes the two practices? If I am not allowed to do so then the state is favoring one religion, Christianity: a clear violation of the First Amendment. Put up the most elaborate, gaudy display of Christmas ornaments you want on your personal property or in your home; but leave our public space alone. It is for everyone.

This practice in Texas is troubling because much more is at stake than the ugly aesthetics of plastic balls hanging on trees.  Many Christians believe that we are a Christian nation, or if not, that we should be. This explains why people cannot be satisfied with decorating their own land, their own space. This explains why people insist on imposing their beliefs, practices and rituals on others who do not share them. This march toward a Christian nation explains why we have this conflict at all: arrogance. Arrogance that everyone thinks it will be OK because you think is it OK; arrogance that it is assumed Christianity trumps all other faiths and personal beliefs.  That idea is an existential threat to the nation.

That the notion of a Christian nation threatens our very existence can be understood best in historic context.  England’s King Henry VIII tired of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, because she failed to produce a male heir to his throne. But the Catholic Church believed that marriage was for life, and therefore did not allow divorce. So in 1527, the king solved his dilemma by ordering the Archbishop to grant him a divorce against the express wishes of the Pope. The Archbishop was fond of keeping his head attached, so complied.  With this one act King Henry split from the Vatican and created the Church of England, to which he named himself head. He promptly married Anne Boleyn.

This lesson from this vignette was well understood by our founding fathers when they created a secular republic.  We do not need a Church of America: what the founding fathers knew in 1776 holds true in 2011. In spite of right-wing Christian rhetoric to the contrary, that we are a secular nation cannot be denied. The facts supporting that conclusion are unambiguous, overwhelming, and indisputable. The Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Articles of Confederation of 1777, the U.S. Constitution (1787), and the Federalist Papers (1787-1788) are purely secular documents. I have previously reviewed each in detail. Searching for references to god in any of these documents is akin to looking for Rick Perry at a gun control rally. Nowhere to be seen.

Our national obsession with god in politics is a recent phenomenon, and would seem completely alien to any of our founders.  “In God We Trust” was first placed on United States coins in 1861 during the Civil War. Teddy Roosevelt tried to remove the words from our money in 1907 but was shouted down. Only in 1956 was that phrase adopted as the national motto by the 84th Congress. The clause “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance was inserted only in 1954 when President Eisenhower signed legislation to recognize “the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty.”

For the first 180 years of existence, the United States never included god in its motto, on its currency, or in any document creating the republic. We were born a secular nation and remained one for nearly two centuries.

The religious right claims, incredibly, to know more about the intent of our founders than the founders themselves.  We really need to stop this ridiculous argument about being a Christian nation.  If there should be any doubt, let us listen directly to the words from those who created our great nation. This from Thomas Jefferson in an April 11, 1823, letter to John Adams: “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”  He went on to say in his concluding paragraphs, “But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding… ”

Jefferson said long before the United States existed that his statute for religious freedom in Virginia was “meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammeden, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

The final word, however, belongs to John Adams, who said when signing the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, “the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”   Since he helped found the country, he would certainly know on what principles the nation was founded.  Should we not take his word over some preacher’s interpretation almost 300 years later?

And yet in spite of the clear intent of those who created our country, we continue to argue the point.  The Rev. Robert Jeffress, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Dallas, preaches to a flock of about 10,000 followers. The good pastor insists that only “followers of the lord Jesus Christ” are qualified to occupy the Oval Office. The Church of America.

Jeffress was in the news a long while back as a result of his accusation that Mitt Romney, as a member of the Mormon cult, is not a Christian.  More noteworthy but overlooked was Jeffress’s self-answered questions when he introduced Rick Perry at a Value Voter Summit, before the Perry campaign self-imploded:

“Do we want a candidate who is skilled in rhetoric or one who is skilled in leadership? Do we want a candidate who is a conservative out of convenience or one who is a conservative out of deep conviction? Do we want a candidate who is a good, moral person — or one who is a born-again follower of the lord Jesus Christ?”

We do not need a Church of America; it is counter to every ideal on which this country is founded.  We do not need Christianity imposed upon the rest of us on public grounds, which we own too.  We do not need priests and ministers telling us how to vote while claiming tax exempt status as a non-political organization.  We need each to respect the each other’s beliefs and not impose one over another. This is not a war on Christmas; this is a battle for common sense. Practice your religion in peace and health, and in private; and leave everyone else alone.  We are not a Christian Nation; we are the United States of America.

Secession Movement: It Is Neither Cute Nor Funny

Let’s be clear that the secession movement is racist no matter how vigorously that may be denied.  There would be no movement if a white man was sitting in the Oval Office.  The economy continues to recover in all sectors, unemployment continues to inch down, the auto industry is healthy and the stock market is 65 percent higher now than when Obama took office. Yet from this progress comes the need to secede.  So let us ignore the reality of a growing economy; let’s forget that we fought a bloody war to settle this question; in spite of that we will go with the flow.  I have a proposal.

The epicenter of secession fever is, not surprisingly, in Texas.  So we should use that momentum to everybody’s favor, and designate Texas as the new Republic to which all secessionists move.   We strip American citizenship from all people who sign secession petitions and assign each a temporary Green Card to allow them legal residency in the United States for a designated period.  We allow Texas to secede and create an independent New Texas Republic.  We then encourage all secessionists to move to their new Republic; we do so by having the Green Card expire in five years.  At the date of expiration they need to either be residing in New Texas or be subjected to deportation to the new country. As part of the secession process, New Texas will have to agree that current residents of Texas who do not wish to leave the Union retain their U.S. citizenship with no limits on residency and no restrictions on any rights afforded to U.S. citizens.   Since only the U.S. federal government can print money, New Texas would have to create its own currency.  The new country would also have to issue passports and create all the other trappings of an independent country.  Citizens of the new country would forfeit their Social Security, have no Medicare and have to compensate the United States for lands and improvements like federal courthouses, prisons, military bases and parklands.

Think how much better off we all would be if all those who thought so little of the United States that they wished to leave the Union were actually gone.  Good riddance; we should actually encourage them.  We can live without Texas.  Our political discourse would return to the center with no anti-science, anti-intellectual, religiously intolerant extremists to skew the debate.  Give them Texas; let the loony right create a concentration of crazy; let those who wish to create a Christian nation do so; let them create a state of intolerance in which all abortions are banned, Creation Science is taught in place of evolution and climate change is a liberal hoax.  And then let us move on.

Oh how that would feel good; but talk of secession is irresponsible. We need to be adult about this and recognize secession for what it is, and to do so we need to revisit our history.  Southerners have explored this territory before, so let us look at their logic and see how they fared.

Southerners who claim a deep national pride celebrate their ancestors’ efforts to dissolve the very union of states whose flag they now so proudly fly.  They honored then and again now a campaign to divide our country while claiming the mantle of patriot.  That makes no sense.  The contradiction is always swept under the rug with lots of flag waving. But that includes the confederate flag.  A southern loyalist or any secessionist cannot be a patriot; the two ideals are mutually incompatible.  You cannot simultaneously love the United States and love the idea of destroying the United States through dissolution. To claim both is insane, the equivalent of declaring that you love all Mexican food but hate enchiladas.  The claims are each exclusive of the other and therefore by definition both cannot be true.

The last time Americans spoke of secession more than 630,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in four years of hellish war. To put this in perspective consider that the entire population of the United States at war’s end was 35 million, putting war casualties at nearly two percent of the total populace.  Equivalent rates of casualties today would result in 5 million dead or wounded, dwarfing our losses in World War II, or any other war.  This talk of secession is irresponsible, and ugly, and disrespectful to those who died preserving our Union.

Why did two percent of our population suffer death or maiming? So many Americans died because two sides differently interpreted the meaning of state sovereignty and the Tenth Amendment (ratified in 1791).   The text of the amendment is simple enough: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  But we also have the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution, which says, “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

Eleven southern states seceded from the Union in protest against federal legislation that limited the expansion of slavery claiming that such legislation violated the Tenth Amendment, which they argued trumped the Supremacy Clause.  The war was indeed about protecting the institution of slavery — as a specific case of a state’s inherent right to declare any federal law null and void.

The inherent tension between Article VI and the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution has kept lawyers busy and wealthy since our founding, and the argument goes on today.  Nevertheless, Lincoln saw clearly that in seceding from the Union on the basis of the Tenth Amendment the southern states by default declared the U.S. Constitution dead. The Union could not possibly survive if secession was left to stand. Once the principle of seceding is established the glue holding the Union together would soon dissolve. Proof of that is in the fact that during the war the Confederacy began to dissolve through the secession of Southern states from the Confederacy.  South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union, also threatened later to secede from the Confederacy, as did Georgia later in the war.  The legitimacy of secession could lead to nothing but balkanization, a group of independent states much like we see in Europe.  The United States of American could not exist under these conditions.

The president of the United States, sworn to uphold the Constitution, had no choice but to take whatever measures were necessary to fulfill his commitment.  You need not agree with that; the war settled the question whether you like it or not.  Losing a war has consequences.  We have had the argument and fought the war and the result is in.  We have more than 600,000 dead and wounded to tell us that the Tenth Amendment does not trump the Supremacy Clause.  Secession is not viable; we have been there and done that.

Anybody signing a secession petition should be deeply ashamed. The petition soils the memory of those who fought this battle before. By definition, nothing could be more un-American than an attempt to leave the Union.  Secession is treason. Waving the American flag while promoting the effort to tear down that flag through disunion is untenable. Make a choice; be a proud American or a proud Secessionist. You cannot possibly be both.

Shot Across the Bow

For those agitating for small government, who believe government is the problem, take note of the deadly meningitis outbreak now spreading to 18 states. This is a harbinger of our future if we continue to cut government services.  This outbreak is not an assault of nature but the result of sloppy pharmaceutical processing.  The New England Compounding Center (NECC) of Framington, Mass., made steroids (preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate) for injection into the spinal column.  The problem is that they did so in non-sterile conditions, leading to contamination with a fungus that can cause a rare form of meningitis.  Often misunderstood by the general public, the FDA currently does not regulate or oversee compounding companies like NECC, which have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws.  We have here a classic example of what happens in the absence of federal regulation.

But the meningitis outbreak is such big news because as a general rule the FAA regulates the pharmaceutical industry with sufficient vigor that routine audits typically uncover problems before they impact patients so that these problems are rare; that will not be the case if we continued to disparage and assault the regulatory authority of the government. The meningitis outbreak won’t be news but routine fare. People forget that the FDA acquired its modern moral and legal authority to regulate drugs when the agency, in spite of intense pressure, refused to approve thalidomide for use in the United States, thereby saving thousands of children from horrible deformities that were later seen in Europe.  Regulations are not developed in a vacuum.

The dirty little secret in the pharmaceutical industry is that drug companies welcome FDA oversight.  The process of drug development is long and expensive, costing more than a billion dollars and taking more than a decade to bring a new drug to market.  No company or investors want to risk this by bringing to market a drug that is ultimately ineffective or dangerous; or using manufacturing techniques that risk contamination.  In the absence of regulation and oversight, though, companies will have the countermanding incentive to cut corners, to cut costs to remain competitive.  Doing so is risky, but we know companies take such risks.  FDA oversight eliminates the potential advantage of cutting corners: federal oversight and regulation creates a stable environment in which all companies must invest in the same safety measures, making the huge investment in safe drug development a rational one instead of one creating a disadvantage with competitors.

The compelling need for oversight does not end with drugs. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle should be required reading for anyone promoting the idea that government is the problem.  Just as with drug development, the safety of our food supply depends on federal oversight and coordination.  Even now with resources stretched too thin the United States sees 5,000 deaths per year from food poisoning.   More than 325,000 people are hospitalized each year after consuming contaminated food. In addition to human anguish that costs the economy about $152 billion per year. Since foods are shipped across state lines, devolving food safety authority to each state makes little sense. If you like the idea of having human parts, rat hair and feces and other filth ground up with your beef then small government is your best bet.

Conservatives fail to realize that federal regulations did not come from thin air but in response to gross abuses by industry lacking any oversight. Consider the meat packing industry before the USDA. In the absence of regulation, and punishing fines to enforce them, industry has no incentive to invest in the equipment, personnel and procedures necessary to ensure food or drug safety. This reality is something that should be inherently obvious to those who constantly appeal to the magic of market forces. Unless there is a level playing field enforced federally across all states, any company that invests in food or drug safety would be at an immediate disadvantage to all others that do not. Even creating a niche market based on a reputation for cleanliness and safety would be difficult to sustain without the ability to certify the claim independently.

Note too our nationally-coordinated response to Hurricane Sandy, which could impact 14 states.  Mitt Romney finds such use of federal funds to be an immoral use of resources. Romney wants to disband FEMA and give to the states (“first responders”) the funds necessary to respond to emergencies. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.” When asked to clarify if he really means to include disaster relief in that, he said, “Absolutely. We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids.” Of course your kid won’t have much of a future if he is floating down the river.  What better entity to respond to an emergency than a bankrupt state?  In case we misunderstood his meaning, the Romney campaign put out today this statement:  “Gov. Romney wants to ensure states, who are the first responders and are in the best position to aid impacted individuals and communities, have the resources and assistance they need to cope with natural disasters.”

Even stranger, Romney went further and said that we should privatize disaster relief.   This from a businessman who is supposed to understand profit.  One wonders how the private sector, which must generate profits to survive, would be suited to take on the unknown costs of deadly hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and earthquakes.  What revenue would offset those costs?  Government contracts?  So much for privatization; that is a recipe for corruption.

But this is Romney’s solution to almost every challenge — give money to the states or privatize.  The problem with emergencies: they do not respect state boundaries. A potential disaster like Sandy, spreading across thousands of miles, requires a response beyond what any one state can provide; and in the absence of effective coordination resources are wasted or applied inefficiently to ill effect or at cross purposes.  We saw with Katrina what will happen if we weaken FEMA, which Bush did by appointing as its head Michael Brown, who was grossly incompetent for the task.

Conservatives fighting for small government are naïve. Yes, government is inherently inefficient and wasteful; and yes, government should be as big as necessary but no bigger.  But the key there is as big as necessary; and conservatives have the dangerous view that not much is necessary. They hold a Pollyanna-ish view of what states can do.  Conservatives are right that regulations can become obsolete, grow too onerous or become debilitating to industry.  But they want to throw the baby out with the bathwater; rather than reform they want to kill regulations.  Conservatives can’t complain next time they see a rat hair sticking out of their hotdog.  They can’t lament when a loved one dies from drug contamination or when a child gets ill from bad meat.  This is the natural consequence of their political philosophy.

Mitt Romney, And What You Should Know About Mormons

Most folks are unfamiliar with the real story of how Mormonism originated.  Prior to having a Mormon run for president, such historic ignorance was benign enough.  No more; voters really need to understand what they are getting when voting for Romney. We are reticent to discuss religion on the campaign trail, but the media is nearly criminally negligent in ignoring the story of Mormonism.  Voters need to know the core belief system of the candidate, and what Mormons believe is anything but mainstream.  You will think I am making up the stories below, because they are transparently the work of an uneducated peasant mind, but you can easily verify them for yourselves by going to the Mormon website itself, or better yet, read the Book of Mormon and the Mormon Book of Abraham and decide for yourself.

In the early 1800s, in Palmyra, New York, a local boy claimed he could divine the location of ground water, as well as treasures buried by Indians.  Persuasive as a snake-oil salesman, farmers paid him $3, a princely sum then, to find buried riches on their land.  The boy, Joseph, used “magic stones” to discover the sites of this bounty.  When he inevitably failed to find either water or treasure, he would leave town, often with “encouragement,” and move on to other fee-based treasure-hunting activities in another town.

After a particularly large and humiliating failure in the Susquehanna Valley, near Damascus, New York, Smith stayed on to court a local gal, Emma Hale, in spite of community accusations that he was a “charlatan.”  In the spring of 1826, a group of unhappy customers went further and brought formal charges against Joseph, claiming he was nothing but an imposter.  He was subsequently convicted of “glass gazing,” an outlawed form of fortune telling. Emma’s dad, Isaac, was one of the duped treasure hunters who testified against Joseph, so he was not pleased by the courtship of his daughter by this convicted criminal.  He considered Joseph to be arrogant, fraudulent and lazy.  Those who knew Joseph best claimed, “He could utter the most palpable exaggeration or marvelous absurdity with the utmost apparent gravity.”  Others said that Joseph was “in particular considered entirely destitute of moral character and addicted to vicious habits.”  But Joseph was persuasive to some, and Emma eloped with him in January 1827.  To reconcile with his estranged father-in-law, Joseph promised to lead a more honest and honorable life, and to help Isaac on his farm.

Instead of working in the field, however, Isaac found Joseph spending all his time indoors.  When he finally investigated, he discovered his son-in-law muttering long phrases from the Bible, with Emma sitting behind a curtain writing down Joseph’s ramblings.  Joseph explained that he had found two ancient golden plates by digging in a spot to which he had been led by an angel.  He claimed the plates were written in “reformed Egyptian.”  No such language exists.  Fortunately, the two plates conveniently came with their own set of Rosetta stones, allowing him to translate the symbols to English, which explained his indoor activities.  Joseph Smith was translating the ancient Book of Mormon.  The “ancient” part might be in question, though, since the book agitated against such contemporary institutions as Freemasons, and even Catholicism. Sadly, the plates mysteriously disappeared before the dates could be authenticated. In fact, Joseph declared that instant death would be the result for anybody but him looking at the golden plates.  Nobody but Joseph, the fraudulent diviner fromPalmyra, ever saw the plates. Only through the tainted word of a convicted con man do people know of the existence and content of those disappeared golden tablets.  So terribly odd that such a monumental discovery would be hidden and destroyed rather than proudly shown to the world to prove that god’s word had been found at last.

Are the claims of Joseph Smith any less bizarre than those of Marshall Applewhite and Heaven’s Gate or David Koresh and the Branch Davidians?  Without large numbers, Mormonism would be considered just another lunatic cult, with a foundation no less ridiculous or no different from Heaven’s Gate or the Branch Davidians.  But why would you care?  Here is why:  because unlike Applewhite or Koresh, Mormons are trying to elect a man to lead our government who believes in a religious philosophy that is strongly anti-American.  Apostle Orson Pratt, speaking officially for the Mormon Church, said: “The kingdom of God (by which he means the Mormon priesthood) is an order of government established by Divine authority …. All other governments are illegal and unauthorized…. Any people attempting to govern themselves by laws of their own making, and by officers of their own appointment, are in direct rebellion against the kingdom of God”.  Romney as a devout Mormon believes that the United States government is illegitimate.  I hope readers find that sufficiently frightening.

Another oddity comes up when looking at Romney supporters.  Evangelical Christians by right should be supporting the candidate who is a devout and faithful Christian family man, that is, Barack Obama, rather than the follower of a thoroughly anti-Christian religion.  Have no doubt that Mormonism perverts all fundamental Christian tenets (which of course are themselves strange); specifically for example Mormons are taught that Christ’s atonement has nothing to do with our sins.  It would seem that being black is more disqualifying than being anti-Christian in the eyes of evangelicals.  There is really no other convincing explanation for why an evangelical would support Romney.

Finally, voters really need to know the fundamental beliefs of the Mormons if Romney is to occupy the Oval Office.  Even by the strange standards of religion these beliefs are breathtaking.  And we are not talking just about sacred underwear, which the official Mormon website describes as “garments worn as an outward expression of inward commitment” with no further explanation.  We gather though that wearing “the whole armor of God” offers the wearer protection from temptation as a physical reminder not to sin.  But underwear are not nearly the biggest eye opener. Take the planet Kolob (sometimes references as a star) described in the Mormon Book of Abraham, another Joseph Smith publication.  Kolob is the heavenly body closest to god’s throne, yet to be discovered by astronomers.  This god living on or near this planet or star, conceived “billions of spirit children” who were sent to earth to take on mortal bodies and learn good from evil (I’m not making this up, really).   First, the Mormon god on Kolob and one of his goddess wives came to earth in the form of Adam and Eve to start the human race.  So in Mormonism, Adam is god himself, not a creation of god.  According to Mormonism, Genesis is all wrong; in fact the entire Pentateuch is wrong.  Once the human race began and the spirit children from Kolob occupied those mortal bodies, those who remained neutral in the fight between good and evil would be “cursed to be born with black skin.”  Some Mormons believe that god created black people when Cain killed Abel, with God giving Cain black skin to punish him and all his children.  Either way, being black is not a good attribute to Mormons.  African Americans might want to pause before punching the lever for Romney.

So, anyway, God went home back to Kolob after starting the human race, but then a few thousand years later returned to earth to have sex with the Virgin Mary in order to provide Jesus with a physical body.  With that physical body Jesus took three wives, Mary, Martha and Mary Magdalene, from whom Joseph Smith claims direct descent.  After Jesus’s resurrection, he came to North America to preach to the Native Americans, who Mormons believe are Israelites. And then the story gets weird (compared to what you’ve just read, so you can imagine), leading ultimately to the gold plates eventually found by Joseph Smith.

Another oddity to consider:  Mormons baptize the dead, even if the deceased would have objected to the process in life.  But it is hard to get an argument from a corpse. This is something else one would think would turn off any evangelical Christian.  But being black is worse, and apparently that is something Mormons and evangelicals can agree upon.

So next time you consider voting for Romney, think of Kolob, spirit children, black people as sinners, sacred underwear, Adam as god, Jesus’s three wives and their descendant Joseph Smith, and finally, the Mormon belief that the United States government is illegitimate.  But hey, the choice is yours.

Gender Politics: You Can’t Have It Both Ways

One reaction to the presidential debate I found quite odd on the liberal side — pundits claim that one mistake Romney made was to ride roughshod over a “female moderator” because that came across as bullying and disrespectful to women. I could not disagree more. If Romney was a jerk and lied through his teeth that has nothing to do with gender politics. I agree that aggression toward any moderator is risky business for a candidate. But I think the idea of differentiating between male and female moderators in fact is a bit outrageous and offensive, a reverse form of gender discrimination.

Beyond our obvious physical attributes and different genitalia, I believe women and men are perfectly equal in all respects, from the trivial to the significant. On the trivial side, for example, I open doors for men and women alike if I get to a door first in a line of people, but not because one in line behind me is a woman. I think opening a door for a woman, because she is a woman, is absurd and implies that in fact we are not equal. Why wouldn’t a woman open a door for a man? Same with pulling a chair out to be seated — why wouldn’t a woman do that for a man? More significantly, a woman should clearly receive equal pay for equal work, have every opportunity to advance no different from a man, make her own choices about her own body with no interference from government, be unrestricted in what military and combat duties are available to her no different from anyone meeting the necessary requirements, and in all aspects of everything we do meet no limitations on the issue of gender alone.

With some very rare exceptions in occupations that require great physical strength (Sumo wrestler comes to mind), it is downright medieval to believe that women are not as perfectly qualified as men to accomplish all jobs, to do anything and everything men can do. So why on earth should candidates treat a male moderator differently or more aggressively than a female moderator? Is the poor little woman moderator going to melt under the pressure? Will her delicate disposition be crushed by the assault of bad words? C’mon folks, you cannot have it both ways. Women and men are equal, so to imply that female and male moderators should be treated differently is no better than telling us women should stay home and pump out babies. That is liberal hypocrisy and we should back away from it as soon and as fast as possible.

Time to Abandon Prohibition

A recent article by Fredrik Dahl noted that Mexican authorities believe they are making progress in the war on drugs. Top-level operatives have been killed or captured, and even those at the next level down in the hierarchy are being brought down. Cartels can do less than before. I believe these claims to be largely true… and completely irrelevant. We have been approaching our drug problem from the wrong end for decades. Our first mistake was to declare war; that is exactly what we got, and why we are in such trouble. We could empty our jails, gut the cartels, generate billions in revenue, and lower crime everywhere simply by legalizing drugs. We should have learned our lesson with alcohol and prohibition. Making booze illegal gave rise to notorious mobsters; legalizing it destroyed their organizations or forced them on to other endeavors. We make drugs illegal to enforce an outdated moral code. The arbitrary division between alcohol, tobacco and legally prescribed drugs on one hand and banned substances is very fine indeed. So fine that we cannot justify torturing society to enforce the diminishing distinction.

We, of course, need to enforce laws that prevent use of any drug in inappropriate circumstances like driving or flying an airplane, or at work for that matter. We ban cigarettes just about everywhere, and we jail people for driving under the influence of a legal substance. We can do the same for all drugs. We don’t need to legalize marijuana; that is like moving a beach one grain of sand at a time. We need to legalize all drugs, any drugs, and instead focus our resources on enforcing laws that prohibit their use in inappropriate circumstances. Cocaine? Sure. Make it legal; but make it illegal to have any trace in your blood at work, or when driving or operating heavy equipment. Conservatives should jump on board with this. After all, guns don’t kill people, people do. Well, drugs don’t kill people; people using drugs in excess kill people. We need to decriminalize drugs but make abusing the drugs costly — much as we do with alcohol now.

People who want to use drugs will do so whether legal or not; our attempts to enforce one rigid view of morality has not worked any better than prohibition. The time has come to declare the war on drugs over.

Laughing All the Way to the White House

While I disagree, the conventional wisdom has concluded that Obama blew the debate, phoning it in instead of engaging his opponent. But no matter: the reaction and aftermath are much more instructive about the distinct differences between liberals and conservatives.

I just finished watching Saturday Night Live (SNL) do hilarious skit after skit parodying Obama sleeping and clueless. And therein we find the big divide between right and left. There are really two clear differences here.

First, liberals did not blame “conservative media” or a conservative conspiracy for the outcome; they got down and made fun of themselves on one of TV’s most popular shows. Now let’s reverse the situation and assume Romney blew it, and SNL did similar skits skewering Romney. Need I say more? You can practically hear the constant drum beat against liberal media, or the spin to make his performance look good, or some pundits going so far as to deny there was ever a debate, and that liberals created a false debate to make Romney look bad (unemployment numbers anyone?).

Second, if Romney had blown the debate, where would there be the conservative equivalent of the SNL skits making fun of Romney? Nowhere — because conservatives are incapable of making fun of themselves. If you deny that, show me an example. Show me the equivalent of an SNL put on by conservatives making fun of conservatives. No such animal exists. If conservatives have any sense of humor the joke is at the expense of others (blacks, Jews, Hispanics, poor people), never themselves. This all reflects a disease of taking oneself too seriously, which is part of the genetics of eschewing compromise and justifying any means to a particular end. Liberals can laugh at themselves because they know the world is complex with multiple points of view each offering valid insights, and those differences are ripe for self-deprecating humor. In contrast, it is hard to laugh at yourself when you know your point of view is god’s word, only you are patriotic and only you can save us from the devil of temptation. The conservative lack of humor is serious stuff. Self-parody implies a mind open to new possibilities, to accept new perspectives, and to welcome new ideas. A lack of such humor implies the absence of all those traits. And that is why Democrats are going to be laughing all the way to the White House in November.

If you doubt my thesis here, watch a tape of the recent SNL and ask where is there the conservative equivalent of self-parody. There is none.

The Bad Mojo of Voodoo Economics and the Failure of Theocratic Politics

David Brooks, a rare breed of thoughtful conservative, recently wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece:

Some people blame bad campaign managers for Romney’s underperforming campaign, but the problem is deeper. Conservatism has lost the balance between economic and traditional conservatism. The Republican Party has abandoned half of its intellectual ammunition. It appeals to people as potential business owners, but not as parents, neighbors and citizens.

He is on the right track but draws a conclusion short of the station. The problem is not the loss of balance between two intellectual branches of conservatism, with one gaining too great a prominence over the other. Instead, the two have been hijacked by extremists who reject both of the traditional “mentalities” that Brooks references. The extremists eschew any form of compromise; they will accept no tax increases of any kind in the effort to balance the budget, advocate theocratic social reforms, and demonize all aspects of government save the military and homeland security. Focusing on the old tension between the two traditional branches of conservatism in the face of today’s extremism is like worrying about gas mileage as your car goes sailing off a cliff.

The problem is not, as Brooks postulates, that “Republicans like Romney often rely on an economic language that seems corporate and alien to people who do not define themselves in economic terms.” No, the problem is that the GOP now represents those who embrace ignorance as a badge of honor. Fortunately that is not resonating with the majority of Americans. The problem is that the GOP rejects climate change, fights against evolution, attacks basic women’s rights, attempts to impose Christianity as a national religion, assaults any efforts to reform our health-care system, and focuses attention on distractions from our main problems with issues like the president’s birth certificate. Conservatives are in trouble because they treat voters like idiots: Romney absurdly proposes to balance the budget by adding $5 trillion to the debt; he proposes giving tax breaks to the wealthy in the hopes of creating jobs, ignoring the fact that this very effort failed miserably under Bush.

But some conservative pundits see the writing on the wall and anticipate a big loss in November. We can practically hear the sound of knives being honed. But instead of pointing fingers, conservatives need to look closely in the mirror. Conservatives are in trouble, but not because Romney was an ineffective candidate. Conservatism is in trouble because the founding ideology has failed in both theory and practice. Reagan’s efforts to “balance the budget, cut taxes and increase military spending” failed. Bush Sr.’s “read my lips: no new taxes” failed. Bush Jr.’s massive tax cut for the rich while executing two unfunded wars failed. We have 20 years of Republican rule (Reagan for eight, Bush Sr. for four, and Bush Jr. for eight) to prove that the basic ideas of conservatism do not work. We have 12 years of Democratic rule (Clinton for eight; Obama for four, so far) to prove that liberalism does work. In the eight years Bill Clinton was in office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average more than tripled, from 3,310 to 10,578. When George W. Bush left office, the market was at 7,948, a massive decline of 25 percent. Today the market is solidly in the 13,000 range, a gain of more than 60 percent during the four years of the Obama administration. Yet in spite of this overwhelming evidence, conservatives still believe Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility. Absurdly, they say Romney would be better than Obama because he has a business background, but so did both Bush Sr. and Jr., and Reagan came in saying he would run the government like a business. And that is why conservatives are in trouble: They reject facts that do not support a pre-conceived conclusion; they deny reality with faith-based reasoning. They are anti-science, anti-women, anti-reason; they are for massive government spending on the military and homeland security while claiming they want small government; they lament the debt while proposing to add another $5 trillion to it; they want government off our backs while putting government in our bedrooms and doctors’ offices. They disparage half the country for not paying taxes while doing everything possible themselves to avoid paying taxes. In the former case, people are moochers; in the latter, they are clever users of tax loopholes.

As ineffective as he is, Romney is not the problem; no, the real issue is that conservative ideology is intellectually bankrupt, morally corrupt, and internally inconsistent. Conservatism is failing because the movement offers us a rigid ideology instead of practical solutions to our most pressing problems. The bottom line is that conservatism is in trouble because theology is not a viable organizing principle in a modern democracy. Conservatism is failing because the movement has become a gooey mix of extremism, theology, and voodoo economics.