Monthly Archives: July 2013

Inconvenient History

On the 4th of July, the Indianapolis Star had dueling full-page ads, one from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and another purchased by Hobby Lobby, both focused upon the “real” beliefs of the Founders. Taken together, they were a great example of the perennial battles over separation of church and state.

A post yesterday from Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars points out how much that narrative has changed.

During the arguments over ratification of the Constitution and for a considerable time thereafter, religious folks complained bitterly about the “godlessness” of the Constitution, and made several efforts to amend religion into it. When those efforts failed, they switched tactics, and began to argue that the Constitution established the US as a “Christian nation.”

Brayton quotes Timothy Dwight, a Congregationalist minister and president of Yale, who wrote:

“Notwithstanding the prevalence of Religion, which I have described, the irreligion, and the wickedness, of our land are such, as to furnish a most painful and melancholy prospect to a serious mind. We formed our Constitution without any acknowledgment of God ; without any recognition of his mercies to us, as a people, of his government, or even of his existence. The Convention, by which it was formed, never asked, even once, his direction, or his blessing upon their labours. Thus we commenced our national existence under the present system, without God.”

Historians Isaac Kramnick and Lawrence Moore offered many similar examples in their book The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State:

If there was little debate in Philadelphia over the “no religious test” clause, a veritable firestorm broke out in the country at large during the ratification conventions in each of the states. Outraged Protestants attacked what they saw, correctly, as a godless Constitution. The “no religious test” clause was perceived by many to be the gravest defect of the Constitution. Colonel Jones, a Massachusetts delegate, told the state’s ratifying convention that American political leaders had to believe in God and Jesus Christ. Amos Singletary, another delegate to the Massachusetts ratification convention, was upset at the Constitution’s not requiring men in power to be religious “and though he hoped to see Christians [in office], yet by the Constitution, a papist, or an infidel was as eligible as they.” In New Hampshire the fear was of “a papist, a Mohomatan [sic], a deist, yea an atheist at the helm of government.” Henry Abbot, a delegate to the North Carolina convention, wamed that “the exclusion of religious tests” was “dangerous and impolitic” and that “pagans, deists, and Mahometans [sic] might obtain offices among us.” If there is no religious test, he asked, “to whom will they [officeholders] swear support-the ancient pagan gods of jupiter, Juno, Minerva, or Pluto?”

As Brayton notes, “attempts were made throughout the 1800s to amend the Constitution to include language expressing the nation’s dependence on God or Jesus (depending on the specific amendment), all of which failed. It was only in the early 20th century that they suddenly reversed themselves and began arguing that the Constitution they had been condemning for more than a century as godless was really a Christian document all along.”

Of course, it is a lot easier to make that argument these days, when so few schools bother to teach–and so few people know–their country’s history.

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Lesson from Egypt

There’s an old saying to the effect that what you see depends upon where you stand, so the lessons we can learn from the chaos in Egypt will depend on the perspectives we bring to our analysis.

In my view, Egypt is a cautionary tale about zealotry and fanaticism, about rigid self-righteousness untempered by doubt or moderated by open-mindedness.

As Roger Cohen wrote in yesterday’s New York Times,  the Arab Spring “demanded of political Islam that it reject religious authoritarianism, respect differences and uphold citizenship based on equal rights for all.” But zealots cannot, by definition, respect the equal rights of others. They cannot concede the reasonableness of differing beliefs or judgments, nor the right of others to hold those beliefs.

 Morsi misread the Arab Spring. The uprising that ended decades of dictatorship and led to Egypt’s first free and fair presidential election last year was about the right to that vote. But at a deeper level it was about personal empowerment, a demand to join the modern world, and live in an open society under the rule of law rather than the rule of despotic whim.

In a Muslim nation, where close to 25 percent of Arabs live, it also demanded of political Islam that it reject religious authoritarianism, respect differences and uphold citizenship based on equal rights for all.

Authoritarianism, however, is indistinguishable from zealotry and fundamentalism of all kinds.

As a friend of mine noted in an email a couple of days ago, the despotic and deeply anti-libertarian impulses that are so easy to condemn when expressed by Islamic extremists are not so different from those displayed by some on the Christian Right, or in the Tea Party. If you need examples, think about Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann…think about the antics currently underway in statehouses across the country, as self-righteous men pass laws to control women’s bodies. Think about Indiana, where Mike Pence and Brian Bosma reacted to the DOMA and Proposition 8 decisions by doubling down on their insistence to make “sinful” gays second-class citizens in Indiana.

The lesson I take from Egypt is simple: zealotry is dangerous, no matter what its content.

As the late, famed jurist Learned Hand memorably put it, “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.”

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It’s About More Than the Fireworks

I hope you all had a happy 4th of July celebration. (For those in my age cohort, I hope you were able to stay up for the fireworks….I’m happy to report that, with the help of an afternoon nap, I made it!) I also hope that at some point during the festivities, you thought a bit about the meaning of citizenship.

I know my periodic diatribes about the importance of civic knowledge often makes me sound like a broken record, so today, I’m ceding my position as annoying sermonizer to this guy. 

I hope you take the time to read the whole column. It isn’t long. But in case you are disinclined to click through, here’s the conclusion:

For good or for ill, the education reform movement of the last few decades has achieved a nearly unquestioned consensus that the big picture goal of K-12 education is to ensure that all of America’s children leave school “college or career ready.”

By all means, let’s prime the pump of our economic competitiveness with more college-goers, more science, math and technology graduates. Let’s ensure every child has a shot at a private piece of the American Dream.

But let’s also make sure schools still perform the greatest possible public service: preparing our children to be the informed citizens a stable, self-governing country needs.

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Depressing Thoughts for the 4th

Today, as we celebrate the birthday of our country, we might take a few moments to consider our polarized and paralyzed legislative process.

To take just one example, the odds are high that the GOP-controlled House will block immigration reform. Wonder why?

Blame gerrymandering.

Jared Bernstein laid it out recently in the Washington Post:

First, “only 38 of the House’s 234 Republicans, or 16%, represent districts in which Latinos account for 20% or more of the population.” Second, “only 28 Republican-held districts are considered even remotely at risk of being contested by a Democratic challenger, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.”

So for about 200 of the House’s Republicans, a primary challenge by conservatives angry over “amnesty” is probably a more realistic threat than defeat at the hands of angry Hispanic voters, or even angry Democrats.

This state of affairs is pernicious, but it is also difficult to change. Thanks to partisan redistricting and the precision of modern computer programs, voters no longer choose their representatives.  Representatives choose their voters. And as I have previously noted–and Bernstein’s article amply documents-gerrymandering exacerbates political polarization and gridlock.

In competitive districts, nominees know they have to run to the middle to win in the fall. When the primary is, in effect, the general election, the battle takes place among the party faithful, who tend to be much more ideological.  Republican incumbents will be challenged from the Right and Democratic incumbents from the Left. Even where those challenges fail, they are a powerful incentive for the incumbent to protect his flank. So we elect nominees beholden to the political extremes, who are unwilling or unable to compromise.

Since both parties gerrymander when they are in power, it has been virtually impossible to replace the current corrupt system with nonpartisan redistricting. We are stuck with the crazies for the foreseeable future.

Of course, so is the GOP.

Happy 4th.

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The Revenge of the “Elitists”?

Politico surveys the political landscape, and finds that the GOP has made itself toxic to high-information voters.

With their disdain for intellectuals, their flat refusal to acknowledge global warming, their denial of evolution and their inability to comprehend that rape can result in pregnancy, the modern, heavily tea-stained version of the Republican Party is simply unpalatable to the vast majority of scientists, professors and other educated professionals. As GOP candidates continue to pander to aging white religious fundamentalists and conspiracy theorists, they undermine their own hopes for reclaiming the White House in 2016.

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As the Republican Party continues to dismiss man-made climate change, continues to ignore the biological realities of the female body and continues to appeal to xenophobia and anti-intellectualism, they will continue to dig their political grave. The GOP has become entirely dependent upon the White Evangelical Christian vote for its political survival. In the 2012 election while White Evangelicals gave Romney a whopping 78-21 margin, the rest of the nation collectively chose Barack Obama by a 60-37 landslide. Since White Evangelicals are now just over a quarter of the electorate and shrinking as a percentage each election cycle, the GOP’s pandering to their anti-science, anti-woman agenda will only hasten their demise as a competitive political party. If the party wishes to continue to disregard the theory of evolution, they may do so at their own peril. For if the GOP fails to evolve into a party that high information voters can again support, they will eventually face political extinction. The Republicans may do everything they can to suppress the votes of students, senior citizens, and minority voters with photo ID laws, but if they continue to remain politically toxic to the highly educated, they will continue to lose elections consistently, and no amount of voter suppression will be enough to save them.

If Politico is right, consciously choosing to remain “the party of stupid” is not a formula for continued success. I tend to agree–but boy, they’re doing a lot of damage in the meantime.

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