Jefferson

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Keep Your Religion Out of My Government!


Everyone knows the First Amendment, right? I kind of doubt it because most people believe it is all about freedom of the press and the right to assemble. It is but that is just the first part. The First Amendment reads in its first part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The is the first portion. It is not until the second part that freedom of speech is address as-well-as the freedom of assembly and to petition the government with its grievances. During colonial times, Americans had a long running battle with the British over their right to assemble, have a free press, and to demonstrate their grievances.

When it came time to write the Constitution, all of the first 10 Amendments we left out as an expediance to getting it passed by at least 10 states, the minimum required. They knew that when the government was officially formed in 1789, they could present amendments to the constitution. To show how almost paranoid the early leader were about establishing their personal freedoms, that one amendment seems a bit of an anathema today, the third amendment. It deals with the quartering of military forces in private residences. Why did they put this one in as anyone today knows that it seems a bit ridiculous. Back then it was not. The British has passed a law called the “Quartering Act” which allowed exactly that.

It took two years for the states to agree on what we call “The Bill of Rights,” but they knew these amendments had to be faultless. The second amendment, always of great discussion, was a direct response to General Gage’s numerous attempts to capture gun power the various town militias kept as they felt their right. Again, in colonial times, all men from 18 to 60 were considered a part of that town’s militia and were required to purchase their own gun and to partake in regular exercises as the town saw fit. The very first part of the amendment states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to to secure a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The idea of a regular military, today’s active duty, was held by a minority, George Washington being its most fervent supporter and Thomas Jefferson stating that he believe only act active navy was necessary. Still, the idea behind this was that no one could ever keep our country from being well-armed. Even the NRA, as recently as 1939, believed that to be the truth. But in recent years the US Supreme Court has ruled that it does indeed extend to private individuals. I only bring this up to show that we have differences about what the amendments mean, and the 2nd Amendment has been the most visible.

My ancesters were Puritans who arrived here, at Ipswich Massachusetts in 1638. The very word “Puritan” came from the idea that these people had about “purifying” the Church of England which they believed to be too “papist.” The Puritans of Boston who moved to New Town, a portion later known as Cambridge, founded Harvard College, as a non-sectarian seminary. To this day, the Harvard Divinity School retains that ideal. But this is import to recognize because these Puritans to a man believed that religion was a personal thing which each man had to decide for himself. These beliefs brought about the founding of the Congregational Church which allowed for no hierachy. And later the founding of the Unitarian Church but the transcendentalists. To differentiate the Puritans from the Pilgrims, a mistake often made, the two groups were at odds with each other. John Brewster, the leader of the Pilgrims, was the leader of a seperatist group. A radical group who did not believe the Church of England could be reformed. They were Calvanists who believed in predestination. But Roger Williams, a Calvanist preacher with the Pilgrims, split of and founded Rhode Island and the first Baptist church in America.

The British were always upset that the Americans refused to be a part of the Church of England although there was little the could do about it. But the British had the Church of England at the center of their government. The colonists hate that ideal and refused to abide by it in America. This feeling was even stronger at the writing of the Constitution. Among them were the atheist, Benjamin Franklin, and the indifferent, Thomas Jefferson, who called himself a “Theist,” to George Washington who was an Anglican, and others who were Roman Catholic, Presbytarian, Congregationalists, and others. To them, it was obvious that the inclusion of religion in matters or state was against all they held true. Their differences were on display at the Constituional Conventions, and none tried to claim their religion over all others. That they knew of Britains efforts to force the Church on England on them allowed them to understand the need to keep all religion, without exception, out of their government.

It is ironic that the Republican Party, whose adherents claim often to be originalist, fail to apply that to religion in government and are frequently trying to put conservative Christian beliefs into law, or to defeat laws they dislike or claim to be against their religion. Now they will never say it is against their religion but instead state their belief and tell all who will list that to thing otherwise is unpatriotic. Their efforts to ban abortion are absolutely of religous belief. What they fail to realize that they are doing exactly what they claim to be against, defining morality on certain issues. Morality, or lack thereof, is the right of the individual to decide and must remain out of our government!

The right wing attack of Planned Parenthood is an abortion unto itself. Ninety percent of everything Planned Parenthood is about is helping to educate women about sex and their bodies. That the Federal Government would fund an organization whose main task is to educate any portion of our society is against all reason. For example, Ted Cruz, who is a Southern Baptist, and claims the moral high ground, speaks for on 6.7% of American when calling upon his religous beliefs. He does this often. Our founding fathers knew full well the danger of this. Why cannot right wing Republicans do the same. Republican claim to be the party of Lincoln. Did they ever look to see that Lincoln did not care for any formal religion. The great minds of our early country usually believe in a power greater than themselves, a God who above all, and for no one in particular. Why cannot those who seek to push religion into our government see that?

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Just Who Is the “Average American”


Sadly, biased political love to use the term “what Americans want” when in truth, it is really only what their more liberal or more conservative side wants.  I do think, however, it is safe to say that what Americans want is for their government to run much more smoothly than it has in recent memory.

Right now American like to think that the Congress that has been in session is particularly polarized and incapable of compromise.  And that may be true but it is certainly nothing new.  When Thomas Jefferson was elected, a Democrat-Republican, the Federalist party thought that it spelled the end of the republic for certain.  Jefferson was viewed as a radical left-winger who cared little for the safety of America.  He did, in fact, do his level best to reduce the military to near insignificance.

But the most polarized Congress ever was probably that which existed during Abraham Lincoln’s years as president.  Not only were the Republicans and Democrats at each other’s throats constantly, but within each of those party there existed groups known as “war Republicans,” “Peace Republicans,” “War Democrats,” and “Peace Democrats” who factionalized their own parties.  Each contented it knew what the American people wanted and what was best for the country.  Part of Lincoln’s greatness was his ability to bring these warring parties together.  To that end he took Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat, as his running mate for his second term.  He jettisoned Hannibal Hamlin, his first term vice-president, a rather popular Republican, taking the southerner Johnson knowing that once the war was won he would need a southerner to bring the formerly warring parties back together.  That was not the only time there was a split-ticket in the White House, but it was the last time.

In 1908 the Republican party took the more cerebral William Howard Taft over the feisty Theodore Roosevelt as Republican party power brokers viewed TR’s populist tendencies as being too radical for the “Grand Old Party.”  Roosevelt was seen as a friend to labor, had worked diligently to break up monopolies, and was responsible for the starting of the national park system and other populist ideas of the day.  After his defeat to Woodrow Wilson 1912, Taft confided that he was quite relieved from the burden of such leadership.  Years later he was appointed to the US Supreme Court, a job that he was made to do, and ended his career as its Chief Justice and is generally recognized as one of the best ever in that role.  His genius was in Constitutional  interpretation, and not in Constitutional administration as is required of the president.

The point of this, so far, is that the partisan party politics we are seeing today is nothing new, and certain not the worst this country has ever experienced.  The strength of the republic is in its ability to be greater than any single person.

Political pundits love to clamor over who are Democrats and who are Republicans.  But statistics tells us that such definition is foolish at best.  The following diagram is what is known as a standard statistical curve.  It means that when you take a mixed population of anything, in this case the people of the United States, you can present that population with a high degree of accuracy using this diagram.

curve

Look at this diagram as being read from left to right.  Think of it in terms of the left being the political left and the right as being the political right.  If you look at just the blue portion under the curve you will see 34.1% extending from the center to the right and left.  In statistics it is mathematically provable that any population will find 68.2% of whatever you are counting, in this case voting Americans.  This is also known as the first standard deviation.  The next 13.6%, or the 2nd standard deviation, in our example refers to the more liberal or more conservative members of either party, leaving the last 2.15% as the most liberal or conservative.  The mathematics behind these numbers allow for no more than a 1% to 2% error, a very small number.  But what it ultimately means, and most importantly, is that 68.2% of the voting public has close to the same opinion on any given target.

The problem we here in America have is that those political operatives who live in the 2nd or 3rd standard deviation, tend to do a lot of yelling and attention garnering with the claim that they are speaking for most Americans.  But in truth they are speaking for, at most, 25% of Americans.  These people have the sad tendency of being ideologues whose ability to moderate their view is rather limited.  They have the tendency to be heavy-handed and take a “my way or the highway” view on every issue.

I think I am like most Americans.  I am as likely to take a liberal view on any particular issue as I am to take a conservative view on it.  I am a person of strong convictions but I know that in the interest of the greater good there are times when, without abandoning my convictions, I must compromise to find the middle ground where we can all agree.  For example, even as a registered Democrat, I am extremely pro-military and I am not in favor of any military spending cuts as is now being proposed.  That is a rather conservative view I believe.  But to achieve a reasonable end I recognize I will have to give a little.  Another day is in the offing when everything will be in play once again and I can once again fight for what I believe in.

Personally, I view the majority of our congress as being moderates.  Sadly, however, I see them being far too heavily influenced by the more conservative or liberal members of their own party.  They seem to have forgotten the mandate placed upon them by their own constituency, and this is to do the will of the people who put them in office, not the will of the power brokers.

 

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Republican Nominating Process Shows Demise of American Political System?


It was reported in the Boston Globe (June 24, 2012, P. B1) recently that the state Republican Party revoked the delegate status of 17 Republican delegates.  Why?  They had refused to sign an oath of support to Mitt Romney.  Massachusetts, of course, voted overwhelmingly for Romney as the Republican candidate but state Republican party rules do not bind delegates, nor does it require any oath of allegiance.  The state party decided that had to be changed.  Why?  The 17 delegates in question were supporters of Ron Paul.

What state party leaders fear is that the Paul delegates, once at the Republican Convention, would draw attention to Paul’s agenda.  That, of course, has the possibility of gaining support from delegates of other states at the convention and bring on unwanted turmoil.  This is nothing new, of course, but it is showing the power of the super-pacs who now seem to control our election process.

To be fair, I think the same sort of process exists within the Democrat Party but since it is not looking for a candidate this year, it is not nearly so important that party doctrine be held in lock-step at their Republican counterparts seem to need.

This really started about 1994 when Republican party leaders demanded that all congressional members sign their “Contract With America.”  On the outside it seemed not only harmless, but a truly good thing.  Much of what the contract contained were statements that seemed entirely common sense.  But it served as a vehicle to reign in party members in the future.   By the time of Pres. Bush’s first election party leadership brought in their “our way or the highway” by threatening the withholding of election funding.  It has been, to say the least, effective.

The point is, Americans have allowed the election process to be co-opted by extremely well-financed political action committees.  These committees, both conservative and liberal, set agendas.  And now we have the “super-PACs” to deal with.  These PACs have made public financing of campaigns irrelevant.  That means, a single person or business can give as much money as it wants to a PAC that is not directly supporting any single political candidate.  How have the gotten around that?   Simple.  They launch attack ads against opponents’ ideas without ever mentioning the candidate they support.

Campaign Finance Reform of many years ago was designed to keep this exact thing from happening, but there are truly gifted and talented people who can find a hole in a seeminly solid slab.  They have an army of lawyers on the ready, as well, to back up their position should they be challenged.

I fear we are becoming a country where puppets of well-placed people do their bidding in the halls of Congress.  Our elected officials only get there after they have been vetted by rich and powerful groups.   Simply put, the best candidate for office will never get past the nominating process if he/she does not sign on the line with the PACs that support their party.  If Abraham Lincoln had to run his campaign then, as things are now, he would never have been supported.  He was an unknown from Illinois who was not presently in public office and who had only once served a two-year term as an Illinois representative.  Family problems that become known once he was president would have served as fodder for his opponent.

We cannot allow our political system to be taken over by the rich and powerful.  This is at the heart of what the founders of this country feared.  Such had been the case in 1775 England when the Lords of English Parliament held a deaf ear to their American cousins.  And that, as much as anything, is what is at the heart of our Constitution.  No other country had regularly scheduled elections as we do here in America, a purposeful design of the constitution.  No other country in the world has the absolute separation of powers, legislative, executive, and judicial, as we do in America.  And nowhere else is the power of the people so heavily invested in the words of a constitution as is in ours.

The PACs and super-PACs serve only to undermine those powers for their own selfish purposes.  PACs do serve a good purpose but their power and sway have got to be brought into check.  They wield far too much power in our elections and now, seemingly, hold the power of who, at the very least, will be that party’s nominee to any elective office.  This is a serious affront to the ideals that Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and so many others fought for.  It is time Americans became not just angry, but furious with the way the PACs are conducting themselves, and in turn, affecting our sacred political process.