I discovered the other day that I am not a constitutional absolutist, though I am still absolute in my feeling that we should try to stand to our constitution and abide by its highest standards…. I realize that we cannot take these principles as absolutes. I was listening to the Savage Nation, as I am often known to do on my way home from school and listening to a man say that you can say and promote anything from the pulpit. That we cannot judge right or wrong; the call to kill women and children, calling people of other faith’s the decedents of pigs and monkeys, and calling to war with their societies. I realized I do not believe that those things are right, or even protected under our constitution.
When the same men who fund terrorists, and a “civil rights group” protesting the “terrorist” stereotype also are the ones who fund the mosque we find ourselves with a 5th (typed on my IBM selectric) column, or an enemy within. The State needs to exist for all that happy capitalism we all enjoy, as well as the sense of the freedom of the individual and the sense of self-actualization that makes it all work. Now am I saying we need censors in the church, monitoring it for its danger to the state. No, no I don’t, but I do think when people try to use their freedom of religion to try to destroy the social harmony of the state (Murder, bombings, acts of terrorism, etc.) Then I think the state has not only the right, but also the duty, to bring down the full right of its fury and vengeance upon the people doing it.
But the barbarians using our state’s love of faith to destroy our very social fabric are not the only problems we have that have brought me to this realization. The nutty school out in the nutty state of “Kalifornia” (as it’s “President” would say) has also taken the first amendment to far into the land of utter stupidity. The Declaration of Independence is a unique historical document (preceded only by like minded documents in the Dutch republic, and in Scotland which was the model for the declaration). As the US Declaration of Independence became the model for the Declaration of the rights of man in France, and many other societies down the road it has a great historical impact that is important. Just as we cannot declare the writings of Bill Shakespeare unconstitutional neither can we declare the US Declaration of independence unconstitutional in a context of a class on American history. And even the issues of god in it are against the social mores as interpreted by some, that sense of conflict becomes even more valid fodder for our school children.
Queen Elizabeth I forbade the topic of Politics and Religion from our theater, and while she had a valid political reason for it at the time the ethic that has now extended into every society sewn with a seed from her has a big flaw. People hate that which they do not understand. This has been the case going back into time before we have recorded history. So for politics and religion to go outside the realm of hate it must go into the realm of knowledge. And the first step to get it there is people must accept, not tolerate, but accept the fact that people will disagree with them. That not only will people disagree with them on these fundamental ideas, but also they can disagree with them and still be good people that they very often like. When a society cannot talk about such things that are fundamental to the human condition as politics and faith we loose our ability to be a single community and become divided. “Fear leads to hate, hatred leads to suffering, suffering leads to the dark side” as yoda would say.
Faith and spirit are things I understand, but religion itself is a thing that is often an anathema to me. Religion is a thing built by men, a thing that is often as a bride is to her husband. While the western world has divorced its governance from its religion, religion as events have shown us (the Episcopal Church anointing a gay bishop, the Presbyterian Church denouncing Israel, the Christian Coalition, etc.) Religion finds other ways to husband itself with the political events of our times. It is in this sense the words of Marx about “Opiate of the masses” ring most true. The Crusades were never a war for religion in a Macro sense. They had no such urge when a friendlier Islamic overlord allowed Christian pilgrims to travel, and little such urges existed after that point. There were the economic needs of the trade routes, the 4th and 5th sons who did not have sufficient stock of heiresses to supply them. But for any great and important political undertaking a good narrative was necessary and vital.
Because of these political realities the holy books of the holy faiths by and large (with no exceptions in the cases of the major religions of the day) created religious justifications for all manner of human barbarity. They created all manner of justification for things that ensured positive public health in their day, but they have fewer relevancies today. Most reasonable people have recognized these facts for what they are and lived a modern life. People at a level almost unseen to their own minds accept this fact “religion is a product of men, not the perfection of god.” While religion often tries to get it right and be a flawed temple, shining and seeming as if it was forged from a single stone by no hand less then the grand architect himself, reasonable people accept that’s not how its going to work out.
The quest for the spirit is if you accept the Christian imagery like those Shepard’s who saw the star in the sky who followed it to the manger in Bethlehem. Like Zarathusa spithuman and Moses alone in the wilderness being called to by god. Like Muhammad receiving the words of the Angel Jibril. That is the nature of the Divine calling man to worship, but man is not a solitary creature and man craves communion. And so instead of following that star or talking to that burning bush we see men going to houses of wood and stone and joining with others in the flawed vessel of religion.
We need as people a sense that not only is there a divine master plan; we also need the certainty that it is the truth. Joining with others, their words buttressing our own gives us that sense of security we crave. Walking in the footsteps of giant men such as Moses and the apostles, and the saints, and the prophets, and the martyrs allows us to walk comfortably along a sure and certain path. We crave the purity, but we hunger for the security. For some of us our quest for truth makes us uncomfortable in those campfires of others, it did me for the longest time. While I cannot say Jesus is lord while in and amongst the Christians, I can honor the spirit of hope in the Easter rituals at their churches, when I am drug to them. And as I feel the warmth of community I often wonder if the sacrifice of the purity of my soul would be worth it for the comforts of their tents in the wilderness. I however cannot do so; I must follow my star, I must listen to my burning bush, I must be attentive to the angel at my ear, for it is who I am. I have no desire to build a temple to what I follow, because I know as a matter of faith from inner reflection and struggle that is not what the divine wants for himself, but what he understands we as people need.
I who am most an outsider however find that people cannot talk about flaws in their religion because their faith is an absolute nay is the foundation of their sense of the divine. If we were to find a crypt that would have the body of a Hebrew born some two thousand years ago who was their god, Christianity would endure it. But yet people cannot accept the flaws in their faith as bugs in the system, but they can accept it in their computer system. Just as a perfect OS is impossible so to is a perfect faith.
Some Jewish voices would say that Christ was not the messiah because even the New Testament shows he failed to meet even the most basic of requirements. To many Christian friends, words of such evidence cannot be spoken. The more polite ones will listen and allow the conversation to drop. While the body of Christ cannot kill the Christian faith, a flaw in the body of the bible would kill it to many Christians. They would feel all that they value and gain from it would be untrue, would be a lie, and worse.
Even those who do not fear that the non-Christian is excised from the Bar of heaven fears this upon their very soul, and makes such talk taboo. This we must break from our minds and our hearts. Just because you hear words that differ, even disagree with your own that does not make your heart false. But to my mind, if your faith falls to a few words to a few flaws crafted by the hand of man, then to my mind it was never really true.
Yet greater is the peril in ideas of politics, greater is the intransigence of people over ideas that stand on less then the divine standard of certainty. Some people argue, and posses data that says that cutting taxes grows the economy. Other people have other data and say it destroys it. But politics is not about codifying the certain, but about codifying the will of a society. The will of god is an unknown thing that we grope nakedly in the dark for but the will of man can by a variety of methods and methodologies become easily known to us. Yet we find ourselves fighting even more vehemently over a matter more uncertain.
Just as with religion there are issues of a theology that must be tackled. I believe in a limited and constitutionally constructed government, as the best way to ensure a lack of tyranny and allow people the freedom to grow as their talent permits. People all over this country (and the world) hold a rather different view on the fundamental nature of government. I also accept that some times the government has to go outside the box of the constitution to ensure the system remains in place. I know that when the reservation is left, it is hard to return the government to it. But that does not in any way diminish the need to do so from time to time. Amongst those who believe in a limited government this idea is even disagreed with. Those who think as I do when laws come to the public forum, and candidates run we make our case for the direction of our democracy we want to go within that framework. Others with wildly differing views may join us or oppose us, and in the end one side holds the collective will of the people and a choice is made.
I do not hold these people are malicious for their views, I only hold tactics (such as fraudulent registration, intimidation, etc) as a sign of malice in their political views. Those who try to cheat and impugn the system of our democracy, just as those who use the pulpit to tear it down must be faced with our scorn and contempt as a people. Those who claim the candidate is illegitimate if they can find any small iota of a flaw in the process are demagogues of the first order. If in the case of the Ukraine there is evidence of massive fraud, then by all means we shall march to the barricades, but if in the case such as Washington state a close election is recounted all more recounts will do is serve to make the system less comforting, less stable, and will serve to benefit no one but the demagogue who launches this fight. In 2000 we saw in Florida Fraud, this fraud was not monopolized by any one side; in counts and recounts things were tweaked, massive double voters, military ballots thrown out, minority party ballots being thrown out illegally, and many other problems. But the rules of the system were followed, and despite the flaws under the rules a candidate won. The courts tried to nullify the rules under a most dangerous precedent and both the precedent and the rules were affirmed in an unpleasant manner. Had the sins of old, with dogs and hoses and arrests occurred we might have something but that was not how things ended up going down.
The Ballot box and the Pulpit are fundamental to what we are as Americans, and are fundamental to the first amendment of our constitution. But for both things to be fundamental we need a society. So in this sense I comfort myself with my growing away further from the constitutionalism and libertarianism of my youth as my ideas are entering more and more the mainstream of American political thought.
