(I am expanding upon yesterday’s “God and Bates in Tulsa” theme of faith in the public square.)
On Thursday, Nov. 3, Jesus Christ, the Lord of all creation, reprimanded J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Speaker of the House of Representatives, in the rotunda of the Capitol. The only begotten Son of God “gave [Hastert] an earful,” according to witnesses, expressing His divine indignation over the proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2006, and condemned the Republican Party to eternal torment in Hell, for they did wilfully propose two percent less than His preferred level of federal spending on social programs.
Rather than deliver this condemnation in Person, however, our Lord chose to speak through His earthly mouthpiece, the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA. Rev. Edgar and three other “religious leaders” had just held a joint press conference in the Mansfield Room, where they did inform the city and the globe and all men of good will that the Lord thy God doth demand $2.544 trillion in F.Y. 2006 outlays, not $2.539 trillion.
Like Ezekiel and Isaiah before him, Rev. Edgar is a man, a mere creature, a mortal. But he made it clear that he was conveying God’s own policy preferences, saying “we come here today to remind [the Republicans] whose side God is on!”
Jim Wallis, editor of the magazine Soujourners, echoed the theme, asking, “What would Jesus cut? Dust off the Bible, my friends, and do some Bible study.” (NB: I dusted off my own Bible, and couldn’t find where Jesus ever cut anything. In fact, one of His final acts was to a restore a cut proposed by the proto-Republican Simon Peter.)
None of Thursday’s prophets was Catholic, but quasi-papist John Kerry is doing what he can to preach the message unto all the earth. (Sen. Kerry, you will recall, was the candidate who “did not wear his faith on his sleeve” in last year’s presidential contest.) At a campaign rally today in Manchester, New Hampshire, John was as a voice crying in the wilderness, saying: “the budget recently approved by the Republican-controlled Senate is immoral… nowhere in Christ’s teachings does it say to cut children’s health care…”
It must be nice to be given all the answers directly by Jesus. But here I am with my dusted-off Bible, and all I have are questions.
Federal budgets are a dismal science. Everyone wants a balanced budget — or even, God willing, a surplus — and yet everyone wants more and more money spent on, well, everything. Everyone wants to pay for it all by raising taxes (but not their own taxes) and cutting waste (but not their own waste). This year, the Congress found a way to save a teeny, tiny, five billion dollars a year on health care, without cutting anyone’s benefits, by turning the screws on drug makers and insurance companies. ‘Twould seem an unalloyed blessing.
But Jesus, apparently, says no. How dare you save money on health care for the poor, ye generation of hypocrites! Which leaves us with only two possibilities:
1) God is an idiot, or
2) God is not actually speaking through these idiots.
I’m going to have to go with answer number two. But that answer only creates another question. Why do I never hear the “keep religion out of politics” people — the civil-libertarians, the feminists, the New York Times, the Michael Newdows of this world — why don’t I hear them complaining when moonbats enlist God into their ranks? Why is George Bush a “theocon” for saying “God bless America,” but John Kerry gets a pass to claim that his will is the Will of the Most High?
Here’s a theory: the moonbats have permission to invoke God because everybody thinks they don’t mean any of it. Really, can you imagine John Kerry actually reading a Bible? And praying that Jesus would enter his heart? And surrendering his own will to become the slave of Christ? Really? Well,… I can’t. Just as I cannot imagine President Bush not doing those same things. (Note that my theory doesn’t rely on whether these men actually are devout and sincere, just on whether they are perceived as being so.)
So the critical difference is, when George Bush says, “God bless America,” he really means it. And everybody knows he really means it. And that drives the moonbats crazy. Crazier, I mean. But when John Kerry says “God wants more federal spending,” we all know he’s just putting on an act for the benefit of the credulous, like when he pretended to play football for the cameras in 2004, only with Jesus as the football. In laymen’s terms, he’s lying. So that makes it okay.
I’ll have one more post, tomorrow, about faith in the public square. Then I’ll blog about comic books or something.
If I understand you correctly, you observe that “moonbat” politicians are not criticized for claiming a religious basis for their positions. Or at least, moonbats are not criticized as much as certain other politicians. If we are going to call people names, then in the interest of fairness let us call these other politicians “wingnuts”.
You then go on to hypothesize that moonbats escape criticism because nobody takes their faith seriously. But wingnuts are criticized precisely because their faith is genuine.
Now if that is correct, then a person of faith will be doubly offended: Offended first because the cynical moonbats are making disingenuous references to their faith for political ends. Second, the apparent hypocrisy of the critics implies that their true objection is not to faith in politics, but to faith itself. This is why they castigate the wingnut for speaking truthfully, but ignore the lies of the faithless moonbat.
As one of those “keep religion out of politics” people, I have to concede at least the appearance of hypocrisy, and I thank you for your post because it gave me a perspective that I did not have before. But I want to explain my own perspective and see if it makes any difference to you.
When I hear a politician talking about religion, my first reaction is to ignore it. I am not among the faithful, and I am not going to accept any arguments based on faith. I accept the right of the speaker to say whatever they want, but I only care about arguments based on observable fact and logical reasoning.
This selective deafness has an interesting side effect:
If Senator Moonbat says 1) cutting benefits for children will cause children to go hungry and 2) Jesus wouldn’t approve, then I only hear statement 1. I may or may not agree with Senator Moonbat, but either way statement 2 has nothing to do with it.
Now suppose Senator Wingnut says 1) we have an obligation to protect this nation’s children and 2) I have prayed long and hard about this decision and believe that it is God’s will that we be frugal at this time. I may agree with statement 1 but it is inconsistent with statement 2 and the actual policy proposal. So that leaves me with statement 2 alone as the basis for considering Senator Wingnut’s argument.
The problem here is that Senator Wingnut appears to be arguing for a policy on faith alone without any substantive and consistent objective argument. In this case, I would indeed be critical of Senator Wingnut, because I do not want policy decisions to be based solely on the professed faith of any one individual or group, even if that group currently happens to be in the majority.
So that’s my perspective. I’d be curious to know your reaction. But you also wrote something else that fascinated me:
You asked “Really, can you imagine John Kerry actually reading a Bible? And praying that Jesus would enter his heart? And surrendering his own will to become the slave of Christ?”
Nope. One can’t know for certain, but Kerry is the man who said “Who among us does not like NASCAR?” He is the King of Pandering. It pained me greatly to vote for him. But I also don’t care about his faith, or lack of it, with regard to his role as a legislator.
But then you write “Just as I cannot imagine President Bush not doing those same things.” And that just *floored* me. Do you really mean that? If so, I am very curious to know why you believe this, because I just don’t see it.
It seems clear to me that Bush and his appointees have lied to us on multiple occasions, and he has done other things that seem entirely inconsistent with devout Christian belief. Most recently he threatened to veto legislation banning torture. So I’m just really baffled here. Please help me understand why Bush is perceived as devout by the faithful.
Religion in Politics
Not long ago I added Sean Gleeson’s site to the list of sites I read. His posts are well written and thoughtful, and just recently he created a pretty nifty Flash version of Texas Hold’em poker.
Yesterday I responded to a post of his o…
That’s a lot of food for thought. I’ll start with the dessert.
George Bush “threatened to veto legislation banning torture.” This is really the sort of oversimplification found normally in the Huffington Post. Some false claims require a good deal of digging and subtle reasoning to debunk, but this ain’t one of those. Vice President Cheney asked nicely for an exemption for the CIA, but only under certain conditions, and even then he never asked for permission to torture anybody, just an exemption from some of the more vaguely worded restrictions, like “degrading treatment.” Isn’t being locked up in a prison at all degrading, in some sense? An exemption from that restriction would avoid such quibbles. You could say such an exemption is a good or bad idea, but it’s hardly the work of the antichrist.
Likewise with the “multiple lies” told by Bush and his henchmen; I don’t doubt that you have access to a list of 50 or 5,000 “Bush lies,” and I don’t have room to answer each of them here, but suffice to say that I am unaware of even one lie told by President Bush.
But the selective deafness, that is fascinating.
Perhaps the selective deafness works a bit differently than you think it does. Perhaps it is not that you only hear the secular arguments but not the religious ones, but instead it is that you only hear the sweet voice of reason in those arguments with which you already agree, and the barbaric grunting of lunacy in those with which you disagree, and you ascribe the lunacy to religion.
Yes, this is another theory I’m trotting out, a corollary to my aforementioned hypothesis. But I am glad you’re here, so we can test it. Your participation will help advance the social sciences.
Suppose Senator Moonbat quips thusly: “This country does not need and cannot afford another tax cut for the rich! Christ tells us to care for the poor, not the wealthy!”
Filtering this sound bite through your selective deafness, you only hear the first sentence. “He’s absolutely right,” you think. “Cutting taxes for the rich is a terrible idea.” (Call this the “control” sound bite, because the result will be the same whether my theory is correct or not.)
But Senator Wingnut counters with his own sound bite: “A capital gains tax cut would spur growth, attract foreign investment, and end up generating more revenue. Plus, it says so right here in Nehemiah 5:15.”
A) If your filter works as you think it does, you should again hear only the first sentence, the one that presents secular arguments. You should say, “I must admit that is a reasonable position,” or even, “When you put it that way, how can we afford not to?”
B) But I think maybe it doesn’t, and you won’t. Instead, you’ll hear only the second sentence. You’ll think, “That pandering S.O.B. is trying to line the pockets of his cronies, with nothing but a Bible verse as a reason!”
So, which comes closer to your real mental reaction, A or B?
Senator Moonbat has said “This country does not need and cannot afford another tax cut for the rich!”
I oppose deficit spending, so I agree with the statement that we “cannot afford another tax cut” unless there is some reduction in spending or increase in revenue. The “for the rich” part makes me uncomfortable. The rich are paying most of the taxes, with little direct benefit to themselves. It’s not appropriate to demonize them.
Senator Wingnut has said “A capital gains tax cut would spur growth, attract foreign investment, and end up generating more revenue.”
Senator Wingnut in this case has an interesting argument. Cutting the capital gains tax would be an elegant solution if it works out the way he describes, but I’d want to know more. How much more revenue is projected, and how do we know that projection is accurate? And what are we going to do about the current shortfall until this new revenue materializes? What if it doesn’t?
(I will not accuse Senator Wingnut of cronyism unless he is advocating a tax cut or loophole for a particular industry or group to which he has ties. If he’s saying we should cut the capital gains tax for everyone, then it may benefit his supporters, but it isn’t cronyism.)
Now I don’t claim to be a liberal or representative of the general moonbat population, so I don’t know if my answer says much about your original hypothesis. Sure, there are people who are simply opposed to having people of faith in office, or who are trying to sell their policies by making disingenuous references to separation of church and state. But it would be painting with a wide brush indeed to claim that everyone who opposes religion in policy decisions is so misguided.
Let’s go back to the earlier point regarding torture. I’ve read the text of the amendment, and it is not vague. (http://www.phrusa.org/research/torture/mccain_text.html) The terms “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” are defined via reference to the United States Constitution and to a long-standing UN convention on torture, which has already been clarified by US declarations and reservations to avoid the sort of vagueness you describe. (http://www.hri.ca/fortherecord1999/documentation/reservations/cat.htm)
So, the way that I read this amendment is, “This is what we mean by torture, and we don’t want it done in our name, ever, anywhere.” And if the president vetoes this bill, the logical implication is that he either thinks that the definition of torture should be more lax, or he wants the power to torture people in certain cases. Neither position seems particularly Christian. I don’t think I’m oversimplifying here, and I didn’t say that Bush is the anti-Christ, but that his actions do not seem consistent with the teachings of Christ.
Lastly, on whether or not Bush has lied. You seem to be saying that you have not seen any evidence from a source that you consider credible.
I suppose as you say there are lists out there compiled by “moonbats” as some sort of catharsis for their fervid hatred of the man, but I have made no effort to find and read them.
I have read many accounts from a wide variety of sources for the entire time that Bush has been in office. Based on what I’ve read, my call is that he’s either a liar or mind-bogglingly oblivious. I am specifically thinking of two occasions where it seems clear to me that Bush has lied about a matter of importance when he was obligated to either speak the truth or withhold comment.
To arrive at this conclusion I had to make judgments about the veracity of different accounts, because liars usually try to conceal their deceit. So it is possible that I’ve misjudged. My impression of Bush after he first took office was mildly favorable, and I think I am giving him a fair consideration, but no human is infallible.
In closing, my question to you is: what evidence, from what source, would convince you that Bush has lied about a matter of importance?
The term “torture” is very specifically defined in the U.S. treaty reservations to which you linked. A technique has to meet one of four specific criteria to be torture. These criteria make it pretty easy to know which actions are torture, and which are not. Breaking a detainee’s bones is torture. Shining a light in his eyes is not. Et cetera.
But there is no similar checklist for the “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” provisions, which are still only vaguely defined. That the Senate understands these terms to mean any punishment “prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and-or Fourteenth Amendments” doesn’t clear up the vagueness, since the Constitution doesn’t define “cruel and unusual punishment” either, but leaves the interpretation to the courts. That means there are an infinite number of possible interrogation techniques which are clearly not torture, but which may be prohibited by these other provisions, but nobody knows which until the courts rule on each one of them.
Is it then “cruel” to interview a detainee before he has had a good night’s sleep? Nobody knows. Is it “inhuman” to play a Madonna album at 90 decibels? A bit iffy. “Degrading” to put him in the same room as a plush toy of Piglet? The Constitution is silent.
The administration asked for an emergency exemption from these provisions, not from the ban on torture itself. Your inference that Bush “wants the power to torture people in certain cases” is manifestly untrue. The very worst that can truly be said is that he wants the power to treat foreign enemies cruelly without torturing them in certain cases. Maybe that’s not such a good idea (the Senate sure thinks it isn’t), but I think it should at least be described more accurately than you are doing. I don’t care for the exemption he seeks myself, but (coming back to our real topic) I do not think it in any way casts doubt on his Christianity.
You are right that no human is infallible, and President Bush has proved that he is no exception, alas. But errors are not the same as lies. E.g., Aristotle said that the planets move in circular orbits, but I happen to know they move in elliptical orbits. Nonetheless, I do not think Aristotle was lying.
The proof that would convince me Bush has lied is the same as for any other man; that is, proof beyond a reasonable doubt. He would have had to make an untrue assertion, knowing it was untrue, with the intent to deceive. That’s a hard standard to prove, I admit, and maybe that’s why I tend to take most people at their word.
I did get a bit sloppy. You are correct that one cannot infer directly that Bush wants to torture people if he vetoes the amendment, because the amendment prohibits things other than torture, and the administration claims these other things are poorly defined.
Except that they aren’t. Most of the examples you cite would be instances of interrogation, which according to the McCain amendment would be constrained by the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation. It would be surprising if the Army left much up to interpretation. The amendments to the US Constitution would only come into play for things such as confinement, punishment and the due process of law.
The words “cruel and unusual punishment” appear specifically in Amendment VIII, ratified in 1791. Our courts have had 217 years to establish legal precedent with regard to these words, and to say now that they are somehow unworkable strains credulity. The government could comply with this aspect of the McCain amendment simply by adopting the standards and practices common in any federal prison.
President Bush would not be ignorant of this. If he vetoes this bill and claims that it is because of the vagueness of the wording, then I would suspect that he is making that claim falsely because he doesn’t want to reveal his real concerns.
True, this would still not prove that Bush wants to torture people. More likely he is concerned about the provisions in amendments V and XIV with regard to due process of law and equal protection. Maybe he just wants to lock people up indefinitely without due process. Even so, the Jesus I remember from Sunday school would not have any part of such foolishness.
But I am not the Christian in this conversation, and it is certainly not my place to tell you the mind of your Lord. If you say that you see nothing inconsistent with your faith here, then I take you at your word.
You write that it would take “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” to convince you that Bush has lied. It is indeed a hard standard to prove, but it is one that we should all attempt to uphold more often. However my question was not about your standard of proof; I assumed as much. I want to know about the proof itself.
Unlike the litigants in a court of law, we as private citizens of the republic do not each have a team of lawyers, investigators and other experts who respond dutifully to our calls for more information. Yet to execute our franchise faithfully we are obligated to form opinions about those who would hold public office.
And so while we may still seek “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” our standards of evidence must out of necessity be different. Instead of criminal investigators, we have the press, and the press is flawed. Media corporations seek to profit from us and that sometimes will be at cross purposes with telling us what we do not want to hear but must. Individual reporters and organizations may be well-meaning but biased and attempt to impose their perspective on us.
So we must each pick and choose which reports and which sources of reports to trust. Would you insist on a paper trail of some kind? Would you accept the account of a witness? What sort of person would the witness have to be? Since it is unlikely that you would hear the account of the witness firsthand, who would you trust to publish it?
For instance, if the New York Times published the account of Karl Rove saying that his boss lied like a rug, would you believe it? That’s obviously a preposterous example, but seriously, what would it take?
Also, “Madonna album at 90 decibels?” If it isn’t classified as torture, it should be.
The “Honesty” thread is worth pursuing for its own sake. I will write a post about it rather than commenting. Look for it tonight.