To Harry Reid, Alito Too Qualified?
The nomination of Samuel Alito for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court occurred moments ago. First impressions yield only this: the guy is incredibly well-spoken. In fact, he might be the most grammatically and syntactically precise speaker I've heard in a long time. Yes, of course, he is an Ivy-leaguer (which is no bad thing), but it is clear he's no legacy child. I'll wager he entered Princeton and Yale on his merits.
Harry Reid, the petulant Democratic senator from Nevada, has already berated President Bush for nominating "another" appellate court justice. To Reid, the court is now looking a bit like a "good old boys club", resembling nothing of America at large. Apparently Harriet Miers should have been confirmed. We must, after all, keep up appearances. (One Democrat has already called Mr. Alito an "extremist.")
McCain Denies Bush/Rove South Carolina "Smear"
In other news, I think many of you will recall that Karl Rove, the wunderkind of the White House, is feared and loathed by his critics for his allegedly heavy-handed schemes and ploys in policy-making and election campaigning. Recall that in the 2000 election cycle it was alleged Republican John McCain was defeated in the South Carolina primary by a Rove scheme wherein phone calls were made throughout the state asking potential voters if they had heard about John McCain's illegitimate child (Mr. McCain has no such child). Though this story was dubious from the start, and has been soundly dismissed by credible analysis, activist Democrats believe the veracity of the story to this day, and believe that Rove is the devil for doing something so unseemly. But what a moment today when Mr. Don Imus (Imus in the Morning, MSNBC) asked Mr. McCain about the Rove-Libby duo, and whether Mr. McCain was glad to see bad luck fall upon his political foes who so abused him in South Carolina. McCain's reply was telling: "I don't think they had anything to do with that." Oiks! There goes another myth. (And it was also telling that McCain reiterated that though he thinks the Iraq War has been badly mishandled, "every intelligence agency in the world" asserted that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. Thus, McCain defended the Administration's earlier claim that the fact of Hussein's possession of WMD was "a slam dunk." Ouch!)
Lastly, I leave you with this quote from C.S. Lewis' great speech, Membership:
Fruit has to be tinned if it is to be transported and has to lose thereby some of its good qualities. But one meets people who have learned actually to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh. A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much of his digestion; to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for the one as the other. But if either comes to regard it as the natural food of the mind–if either forgets that we think of such things only in order to be able to think of something else–then what was undertaken for the sake of health has become itself a new and deadly disease. [emphasis added]†
Why this quote? Just to remind myself, really, that political thinking is a means, always a means, and never the end in itself. Politics is so much tinned fruit. The man who eats solely from its bounty is sure to go hungry; is sure to fall ill.
Contratimes
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
†The C.S. Lewis address may be found in The Weight of Glory, Walter Hooper, ed., MacMillan Publishing, NY. Page 109.
Showing posts with label Supreme Court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Supreme Court. Show all posts
Monday, October 31, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
(This Just In ...): No More Swearing, Please!†
The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, like the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, have nothing on me. I at least recognize the implications of their efforts to eradicate from the public square any vestige of Christian symbolism or influence. I wonder if the more liberal among us are similarly aware.
An anecdote will help elucidate what I mean. Two winters ago, while placing postage stamps on Christmas cards in an otherwise vacant post office lobby, I heard from behind the service desk a very loud outburst.
“Jesus Christ!” shouted a man, a US postal clerk, from behind the counter.
I turned to look at what might be causing such consternation. It seems there was some sort of problem with postages on sundry packages.
As I left that postal facility, descending its steps and turning to cross its lawn, I was struck with something more philosophical than one usually considers during simple chores. It went something like this:
When the postal clerk shouted the name of the Christian deity, he was doing one of three things. He was either praying aloud, invoking the name of Christ for intervention. Or he was blaspheming, profaning the Name billions of Christians hold dear, invoking it as a curse. As for the third option, I will mention that in a moment.
How is it that it is against the law, or at least decency, for a Christian crèche to be erected on the lawn of a federal post office, and yet it is not wrong for a federal employee to either pray or defile the name of Jesus Christ, all while in a federal uniform, on federal property, on the federal dollar? Is not the employee’s act a breach in the wall between church and state? And if we dismiss the employee’s act not as prayer but as swearing, and somehow tolerable, how does the state defend its right to permit the profanation of Christianity on state property and yet not the promotion of it? Is the employee’s speech protected by the Constitution?
And if the US Postal Service is not per se federal, then what about other federal officials in other federal offices? Are they entitled to besmirch Christianity with the oft-heard “Jesus Christ?” How so?
The third option, that the federal employee was merely using a name that is so grossly misused in the public square that it has become a completely secular expression, begs several questions. Who decides that something is completely secular; and is not meant as a religious slur? The state? And if it is the case that Jesus Christ’s name has a secular value as an expression of disgust, how is it that a crèche is exempt from possessing a secular value, such as “renewal,” or “humble beginnings are oft advantageous,” or “sacrifice for the sake of one’s fellow citizens is noble"? Surely these lessons are inherently trans-religious, readily secular, and could be easily commended and protected by the state. In fact, such values are part of the very mythology of the American Dream. How is it that promoting these values with a crèche is not constitutionally protected?
So, then, the legal implications are quite important for the secularist. If there is no secular but only a religious value to Jesus Christ’s name, then of course, all federal and state employees, and all those receiving state funds, who use this name, must cease and desist. This would include teachers, politicians, military, fire and police personnel; and those novelists, playwrights, poets and filmmakers who receive federal grants.
Moreover, it could be argued that the US postal service has no business printing religious postage stamps of any kind, primarily those promoting Christianity, nor should federal employees be utilized for the shipping and delivery of religious gift packages during holy days. All that should be left to the private sector. (Of course, the financial impact of this would be grotesque.)
Really, if the secularists are going to secularize, by all means let them go all the way. But how many of us are willing to live in such a world? For this is not a brave new world the secularists are conjuring, but a cowardly old one.
Let’s fight them with all we have.
Peace!
Bill Gnade
†[Please note, dear reader, that only an hour-and-a-half ago I wrote that today would be an off day for me; that my essay was not (nor would be) issue-driven. Let me inform you, then, that there are TWO posts today, the first being a (barely) vulnerable piece about writing for you on a nearly daily basis.
THIS post, however, is as immediate as one can create. Moments ago I read two amazing news items, first, that the US Supreme Court, in agreement with the ACLU, decided 5-4 that the posting of the Ten Commandments in courthouses was an unconstitutional act. Then, I read that, in a separate decision, the same court said it was OK for religious displays on government property.
I will not venture to examine the nuances of these decisions at the moment. Suffice it to say that I have already written a response to the whole separation of church and state issue, and due to the urgency of the moment, which is a truly momentous occasion in American jurisprudence and culture, I share it with you now. Please read my essay above titled, "No More Swearing, Please!" Mull it over. It's important. Really. Send it to the highest places.]
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
An anecdote will help elucidate what I mean. Two winters ago, while placing postage stamps on Christmas cards in an otherwise vacant post office lobby, I heard from behind the service desk a very loud outburst.
“Jesus Christ!” shouted a man, a US postal clerk, from behind the counter.
I turned to look at what might be causing such consternation. It seems there was some sort of problem with postages on sundry packages.
As I left that postal facility, descending its steps and turning to cross its lawn, I was struck with something more philosophical than one usually considers during simple chores. It went something like this:
When the postal clerk shouted the name of the Christian deity, he was doing one of three things. He was either praying aloud, invoking the name of Christ for intervention. Or he was blaspheming, profaning the Name billions of Christians hold dear, invoking it as a curse. As for the third option, I will mention that in a moment.
How is it that it is against the law, or at least decency, for a Christian crèche to be erected on the lawn of a federal post office, and yet it is not wrong for a federal employee to either pray or defile the name of Jesus Christ, all while in a federal uniform, on federal property, on the federal dollar? Is not the employee’s act a breach in the wall between church and state? And if we dismiss the employee’s act not as prayer but as swearing, and somehow tolerable, how does the state defend its right to permit the profanation of Christianity on state property and yet not the promotion of it? Is the employee’s speech protected by the Constitution?
And if the US Postal Service is not per se federal, then what about other federal officials in other federal offices? Are they entitled to besmirch Christianity with the oft-heard “Jesus Christ?” How so?
The third option, that the federal employee was merely using a name that is so grossly misused in the public square that it has become a completely secular expression, begs several questions. Who decides that something is completely secular; and is not meant as a religious slur? The state? And if it is the case that Jesus Christ’s name has a secular value as an expression of disgust, how is it that a crèche is exempt from possessing a secular value, such as “renewal,” or “humble beginnings are oft advantageous,” or “sacrifice for the sake of one’s fellow citizens is noble"? Surely these lessons are inherently trans-religious, readily secular, and could be easily commended and protected by the state. In fact, such values are part of the very mythology of the American Dream. How is it that promoting these values with a crèche is not constitutionally protected?
So, then, the legal implications are quite important for the secularist. If there is no secular but only a religious value to Jesus Christ’s name, then of course, all federal and state employees, and all those receiving state funds, who use this name, must cease and desist. This would include teachers, politicians, military, fire and police personnel; and those novelists, playwrights, poets and filmmakers who receive federal grants.
Moreover, it could be argued that the US postal service has no business printing religious postage stamps of any kind, primarily those promoting Christianity, nor should federal employees be utilized for the shipping and delivery of religious gift packages during holy days. All that should be left to the private sector. (Of course, the financial impact of this would be grotesque.)
Really, if the secularists are going to secularize, by all means let them go all the way. But how many of us are willing to live in such a world? For this is not a brave new world the secularists are conjuring, but a cowardly old one.
Let’s fight them with all we have.
Peace!
Bill Gnade
†[Please note, dear reader, that only an hour-and-a-half ago I wrote that today would be an off day for me; that my essay was not (nor would be) issue-driven. Let me inform you, then, that there are TWO posts today, the first being a (barely) vulnerable piece about writing for you on a nearly daily basis.
THIS post, however, is as immediate as one can create. Moments ago I read two amazing news items, first, that the US Supreme Court, in agreement with the ACLU, decided 5-4 that the posting of the Ten Commandments in courthouses was an unconstitutional act. Then, I read that, in a separate decision, the same court said it was OK for religious displays on government property.
I will not venture to examine the nuances of these decisions at the moment. Suffice it to say that I have already written a response to the whole separation of church and state issue, and due to the urgency of the moment, which is a truly momentous occasion in American jurisprudence and culture, I share it with you now. Please read my essay above titled, "No More Swearing, Please!" Mull it over. It's important. Really. Send it to the highest places.]
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
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