Killing The Bill Of Rights On Its Anniversary

The title of this post is the header of an email that I received today from Matt Hawes of the Campaign for Liberty. I post the significant portion of Mr. Hawes' email below.

Today marks the 220th anniversary of the day the Bill of Rights were officially added to the Constitution.

Ironically, the U.S. Senate is set to kill the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments of that Bill of Rights later today.

Last night, the U.S. House approved the Conference Report version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes provisions that would allow the President to throw American citizens in jail and keep them there indefinitely.

The Senate is set to vote on this bill . . . today.

The Bill Of Rights is now legally dead. Yes, 220 years is a pretty good run -- unless you happen to be living on the day it dies.

I am going to try to forbear haranguing anybody about their political preferences, but you need to know that both major-party political establishments are behind this, or it would not be passed with such overwhelming support. Please forgive me if I am silent whenever I hear anybody's future enthusiams about your party in Washington. The Republican and Democrat insiders both favored this. (Because there is only one Inside.) And they have an absolute majority.

Please don't bother telling me how pro-life you are, how pro-Israel, how pro-troops, how above-politics, how respect-the-government, how you can hardly wait for Jesus to come back, how you don't believe in conspiracy theories, how we're-going-to-take-it-back, how anything. Not because your views are wrong, but because they don't matter.

Why don't they matter? Because, actually, there was a significant group of people in Congress who voted against this death warrant, and their views and votes don't matter either.*

It's over, folks.

And it wasn't the "liberals" who destroyed our freedoms, or the "radical Islamists," or "Obama," or the "Occupy" people. Not without the active support of conservatives, neo-conservatives, religious-establishment Christians and Jews, Wall Street, and active and retired military.

This day has come because of entrenched evil in the underworld that has shamelessly seduced our legitimate government. Yes, they have fooled the people; but the people were far too easily fooled. And the people who cared were too few, and too weak.

Do I still love and respect the Constitution? Yes, of course.

Do I have any hope? Yes, but only because I believe in Resurrection. It gives Wendell Berry's advice (given in a slightly different context, but applicable) new importance.

"Practice Resurrection."

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Comment if you care.

* There were 13 Senators who voted against the bill in its final form: 6 Republicans, 6 Democrats, 1 Independent:

NAYs ---13
Cardin (D-MD) Coburn (R-OK) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Durbin (D-IL)	Franken (D-MN) Harkin (D-IA) Lee (R-UT) Merkley (D-OR) Paul (R-KY)	Risch (R-ID) Sanders (I-VT) Wyden (D-OR)

Judge Andrew Napolitano has just written an article on this subject. You can read it here.

Ten Trillion On War

       Twenty years ago, when the Cold War ended in a (fairly) good way with the (relatively) peaceful replacement of the old Soviet Union with a separation into smaller and more independent states, there was talk -- brief talk -- of a Peace Dividend. What we have gotten instead is a perpetual-war economy.

       In the last twenty odd years (no hyphen intended), the World-Wide-Warfare State has hit up the American people for at least ten trillion dollars of war spending.  (And hit up a lot of non-American people with lots of high-tech explosives.)

       If that amount of money had been spent evenly, for the benefit of every one of the three hundred million Americans, on general or personal improvements, that would have amounted to about $33,000 for each man, woman, and child in America, over and above what is now spent on our behalf for highways, medical care, free lunches, social security, welfare, subsidies, and the like.  That's over and above.

       And the current rate of spending adds about $3,000 per person per year.  I've done the math for my family.  How about yours?

       What if we, or our local governments, or even our federal government, had spent all that money, even wastefully, for the benefit of the common people?

       If you are thinking green (as in environment),  do you think we might have had more and better solar power?  Less wasteful oil consumption?  Better-cared-for national parks?  More effective transportation?  Fewer areas of urban blight?  More wildlife?  Better forests and cared-for wetlands?

       If you are thinking green (as in people), do you think we might have had better job opportunities -- things that we could have done for ourselves?  Fewer young people feeling that they have to join the military for reasons of personal economics?  Healthier farms?  Healthier cities?  Healthier people?

       If you are thinking green (as in money), do you think we might have had fewer arms industries but better local production?  Fewer billionaires (hopefully) but a lot more millionaires?  A sounder currency?  A more sustainable economy?

       Are we predestined to be stupid, or do we have a free choice?

       Or is it a government mandate?

       Come to think of it, that is a great question to ask your favorite theologian or politician, whichever you trust the most.

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       Yes, this was just off the top of my head, and it shows.  Sorry.  Comments still welcome, pro and con.  Are we predestined to be stupid . . .?

Police States Don't Work-- And Won't Work In The US, Either

       The Twentieth Century, which congratulated itself on its "modernity," whatever that may have meant, was famously noted for its very regressive police states.  But they didn't work.

       The Soviet police state was conceived by the Revolutionary Left; gestated in a matrix of philosophical and practical love of collectivist violence; was enforced upon the Russian people through atrocious acts of fear, violence, and mass terrorism; and reproduced itself into about three generations of wholesale death, wholesale misery, and mental and physical depression.  It spread itself across half of Europe and much of Asia.  Thankfully, the human spirit survived, at least in some people, and the system has largely come apart, especially in those places where it was experienced at its worst.  It did not work, because it could not work.  Finally, the people, and some intelligent leaders of (more or less) good will, succeeded in dismantling it, after 70 years.

       The Nazi police state was developed by the Reactionary Right, apparently as a counter to the Soviet and international revolutionary menace.  On the idea that one must "fight fire with fire," or appealing to darker old pagan individual vices (such as "fear of the Other", and deification of War to alleviate that fear) that temporarily masqueraded as civic virtues, the Nazis embraced the same methods of fear, violence, and mass terrorism. They enhanced these evils with "scientific" techniques and unleashed an efficient war machine on their enemies, following up with police and secret-police brutality on the captives and survivors.  It lasted for about 12 vicious years, and was decisively ended by defeat in war.

       Both of these police states were created by men of great power and subtlety, essentially irreligious and anti-human, believing, or seeming to believe, that Force can substitute for Wisdom and that the human being, body, soul, and spirit, was to be their property, their chattel, the grist for their satanic mills, the means to their great Dystopias.  But in the long run, they did not last.  They could not last.

       Nevertheless, police states have a frequent place in the seamy side of long human history.  The supposed "glories" of most empires, ancient and modern, are often little more than the banners and flags worn to cover the shame of naked greed and war-worship that transmutes into tyranny, slavery, and control.  Open the history books, read, and think.

       Today, interestingly enough, despite the receding of the threat of "revolutionary communism," or  "militant atheism,"  there has been a new resurgence of fresh trust in the police state as a suitable form of national organization; but this new embrace of police state mentality and method comes from a source that surprises me -- that is, from people that imagine themselves to be conventionally and truly religious.  I am speaking of Jews and Christians.

       It amazes me that Jewish sons and daughters of the death-camp experiencers in Europe could be seduced into erecting what is essentially a martial-law police state in the "holy land," in contravention of their bitter experiences, their larger humanitarian impulses and the traditions of their ancient prophets.  But so it is:  ask any thoughtful and honest Palestinian, Arab or Jew.  Whom do they most fear, or alternatively, respect?  The security organs, the military police, and the IDF.  Not their sages, not their factory workers, not their farmers.  Not even their politicians.  No:  it is the men with the uniforms, with the guns, with the "authorization."

       And it amazes me that Christian grandsons and granddaughters of World War II veterans could be seduced into admiring, and desiring, the development of a police state in the "land of the free and the home of the brave," in contravention of our own national ideals and experience.  But so it is.  Ask churchgoers and homeschoolers.  Whom do they admire and support, pray for, and aspire to be?  "The troops," "special ops," and "law enforcement."  Not scientists or doctors, not factory workers or managers, not conservationists, not farmers, not inventors or builders.  Not even politicians.  No:  it is the men (or women) with the uniforms, with the guns, with the "authorization."

       Well, I know these trends didn't begin yesterday -- they have been going on for years; and they are probably not going to be reversed tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.

       But police states don't work.  This gives me both comfort, and pause.

       Comfort, because I know that my great-grand-children are not likely to live in a police state, because police states don't last.  They cannot.

       Pause, because I know that my children and I already live in one, and it is not good today, and it is not going to be good tomorrow or the day after, because police states don't work.  Even though they exist.  And last longer than they should.

       Even in the United States of America.

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Your comments are most welcome, pro, con, and otherwise.





    

  

The Bill of Rights Eviscerated -- What Now?

Guest post by Ben Carmack

Many thanks to my friend Jon Adams for letting me know about the National Defense Authorization Act, a law that Congress is preparing to pass and send to our president for his signature. According to this article from the Huffington Post, the U.S. Senate voted, 38 to 60, to reject an amendment from Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) that would have rolled back a provision of the bill that allows the U.S. military to imprison American citizens indefinitely without charges or trial if they are "suspected of terrorism."

How many hearings would one get if one were charged under this bill? One hearing. And then prison. 

This is disturbing on many levels. The prospect of the "War on Terror" coming to the United States--with fellow citizens, many of them perhaps our Muslim neighbors, being railroaded into prison and "enhanced interrogation," then held indefinitely--is not pleasant. But we can't say we weren't warned about this. We allowed the federal government under the previous administration to persuade us that Muslim terrorists were a grave threat to our country, when reality makes clear that they were not. We bought the fear mongering; now the policies we allowed to be used on foreigners, because "they weren't U.S. citizens" and "not entitled to our Constitutional protections," are now going to be used on us.

Extreme nationalism and hatred of "the other" doesn't work, folks. We're all people. We're all human beings, whether we're American citizens or not. The basic human rights listed in the Bill of Rights are inherent rights of all humans, given to us by a good and just God. Governments do not decree them and hand them down to us, then, when they feel like it, take them away. Our rights continue to exist even if no government acknowledges them. It is our right to insist on our rights and to refuse to acquiesce when governments don't respect our dignity. 

What I am saying comes directly from the Declaration of Independence. What could be more American?

Furthermore, carrying this logic even further, the military's participation in warfare does not purchase our rights or our freedoms. We do not need to thank soldiers for "giving us our freedom." Our freedom is a birthright from God. Governments may not respect our freedoms but we have them nonetheless. I should add that government is never more at odds with God-given freedoms than in time of war. It is especially odd that we should thank the military for our freedoms.

As anyone who has served in the military knows, military leaders do not highly regard freedom, particularly the freedom of "enemy" civilians. According to the more conservative statistics, upwards of 100,000 Iraqi civilians have perished in the Iraq War. Other estimates say upwards of half a million. Many thousands more have died in Afghanistan and Pakistan, several at the hands of drone aircraft, safely operated by computer jockeys in the continental U.S. Do those people think their freedoms are being defended? Wonder why they're not grateful to U.S. soldiers for their freedoms?

This is all part of a pattern. The U.S. military treated German and Japanese civilians the same way during World War II. The U.S. military repeated the pattern in Korea and Vietnam. All of these wars were said to be about freedom. All involved heavy civilian casualties. All involved gigantic increases in government power at home and abroad, power that was not totally reversed when peacetime came again. 

Selling arms to a government at war and making loans to a government at war are highly profitable. You can make a real killing, as they say on Wall Street. The wars continue.

When it was about killing people far away, Americans more or less put up with it. After all, them's other countries, other people. They talk funny, worship statues, and pray to the Moon God, probably all bound for Hell anyway, right? Hell, we're just executing God's judgment on the poor suckers. They shoulda been good upstanding Christians like us.

Now that the same cruelty that we have inflicted on foreigners is coming to our shores, a few of us are rightly upset and angry, but I'm afraid it's too little, too late. Cruelty against one is cruelty against all, American or non-American.

On the upside, there's a lot of money to be made in building prisons and building weapons. As American citizens are hauled off to prison indefinitely without due process, the economy will be stimulated and jobs created. Doesn't that make you feel better?

While our feckless Congress can't figure out how to balance the budget, regulate the financial industry, deal with unemployment or keep Social Security solvent, they can all get together to erase the Bill of Rights and enforce the new Police State. 

What should be done? Should we join Occupy Wall Street? Should we write our Congressman? Should we protest? Perhaps. I'm not sure what good all of that will do. I confess I'm not real political myself, and probably that won't change. 

Here's what I can suggest: an Advent meditation to bring us all back to the basic dignity and worth of all people, regardless of citizenship:

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Titus ii:11

I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 

And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

St. Luke ii:10-14

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Comments always welcome, pro and con.

Advent Reflections

Waiting.

We are all waiting, anticipating.

You and I, each one of us is

Waiting.

For a rending,

a breaking,

For the tearing of a crack at the edge

of our consciousness,

that opens to the slowly growing light.

Waiting.

 For that silent, uncreated Word

to speak Itself 

into voiceless silences,

gently and quietly

like mountain waterfalls,

like a symphony orchestra.

Waiting.

For the first ripple upon our stagnant waters

the first breath of wind upon our shores 

disturbing

the mosquitoes and the gnats 

a little,

an intimation of the Spirit's coming,

the rustle of dead leaves

that hung too long 

upon our branches.

Waiting.

For the Other. For perfect Being.

For the great eternal Something

to enter and to fill

the awful wastelands of our nothingness.

We are all waiting

as if in labor

broken,

bleeding,

crying out,

anguished expectancy,

the pain of a hope 

not yet fulfilled...

the convulsions and the clutching of a pillow.

And the others:

in the aptly named waiting room

white knuckled, breath held,

pacing the plain white floor

can only pray

and wait.

Is this also waiting?

This restlessness,

this nervous blinking, peering side to side,

thumbing through the morning papers,

one too many cups of coffee,

fumbling in one's pockets for a lighter,

and a cigarette

one does not have.

Is this also waiting?

The wastrel in the gutter

clutching at his gin

the narrowness, the closing in,

is he also waiting

in his small brown

paper bag?

The addict,

tired of waiting

flick his wrist to find a vein

worn out, afraid,

afraid of all this silence,

afraid of all these voices,

These too, are waiting.

A barren waiting,

devoid of hope.

Afraid You will not break open,

Afraid You will not speak,

not breathe, not fill.

Terrified You might....

And so the frantic

treading of water,

pushing dead branches 

over the open well,

skating very rapidly

on extremely thin ice,

busily nailing down the shutters

of a barren house.

All of these are waiting, too.

And there is expectancy,

another kind of waiting

one not barren

but filled with hope.

And there is another 

kind of silence

not the silence of death or lassitude

but the silence of a momentous

expectancy.

And another void, 

another place of emptiness

undespairing, full of potentiality

Only in this place of nothingness

where we are unmade and then

created,

only in this silence 

can we begin to strain our ears to hear

the first sounds

of the Coming.

Advent and the Parousia.

The First and Second Coming,

and in between a million lesser Comings

to you and me, and to all of those who 

wait.

Somewhere,

the desperate dropping of a needle,

the kicking of a bottle to the curb,

the sudden realization that one has no lighter,

the pouring of the coffee down the drain.

A sudden  silence strikes the waiting ear,

the cries and the contractions cease

more suddenly

than they first came.

And those in eager stillness waiting,

standing just without the door,

leaning forward,

strain their ears to catch

the first small glimmerings 

of sound.

For unto us a Child is born.

-- Isaac Fox

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Comments welcome.  Visit Isaac's website for more of his thoughts..

His Tail In The Water

       Here is a brief, but true, animal story.

       I was walking on a hiking trail near the bank of our river.  The day was cool and pleasant, and the sunlight was that beautiful pale thing that it can be in late autumn.  Most of the leaves of the trees were down by now; but the river had risen quite a few feet above its normal level.  There must have been quite heavy rains upstream.

       While I was walking, I had been mulling some slow thoughts of, to me, considerable profundity on the lives of the Apostles -- St. John and St. James, Christ's own beloved 'Sons of Thunder,' had been in my mind -- and my thoughts had unaccountably drifted to the more recent (and more mathematical) sage, George Cantor, who famously pondered the infinite -- but mostly countable -- mysteries of the Aleph, and bequeathed to modern mathematics its current fundamentals of set theory.

       At that moment, on a high bank overlooking the river -- and also, at that moment, overlooking a passing tow of barges moving several thousands of tons of something valuable from somewhere upriver  to somewhere else downriver -- my eye caught sight of a common turtle poised on a branch of driftwood that was jammed in the water, near the shore, a dozen or so feet below me.

       The turtle's head was fully extended; whether to better enjoy the fresh air, or to get a better look at the passing barges, or for some other reason, I do not know.  His feet clung to the driftwood branch.  And his tail was in the water.  Just a moment later, he dropped right off the driftwood and disappeared below the surface.  And then reappeared, swimming, head out of the water, a few feet downstream.

       I thought of the old Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu and his story about refusing a government appointment, preferring the happy life of a turtle, "dragging its tail in the mud."  This little story has delighted thinkers for more than two millennia, and is mentioned by Thomas Merton in his book, The Way of Chuang Tzu.

       I really can't say for sure whether the turtle was a he or a she -- but I am certain that he was not a mere it.  A little, four-legged, hard-shelled Fact in the universe, swimming right here in Lao-Tse's nameless Tao, living out his little purposes, reproduced from the thousand generations of turtles that join Chuang Tzu's times to our own, and perhaps destined to enjoy reproducing himself into a thousand generations to come.  Some species of turtles, they say, are long-lived.  Perhaps this little fellow will outlive me.  Perhaps his descendants will be seen by my own, along this same river bank, or some other, two or three centuries from now.

       When he suddenly pulled his head underwater, a ring of little ripples spread out, blending and merging with the larger waves raised by the passing barges.  Before they could reach the shore, they were gone.

Qadhaffi: Unjustly Killed

  Guest post by Ben Carmack

On Thursday morning I learned that Moammar Qadhaffi, the dictator of Libya since 1969, had been killed. Libyan rebel leaders were interviewed on the BBC and other media outlets celebrating the death of a man they regarded as an oppressor and tyrant. They are looking forward to a democratic future for Libya.

Nonsense of course.

I do not mean to defend Qadhaffi here. He was, no doubt, a sleazebag and glorified mobster. No doubt he is guilty of many injustices, so many that his inglorious death is deserved.

Except that is wasn't. Not under the standards of civilized warfare.

You see, when we point the finger at Qadaffi for being an oppressor, a murderer, a tyrant and a thief, we are really pointing the finger at all governments. Government is, after all, the one institution in society that has a monopoly on all socially acceptable violence: such as imprisoning people, torturing people (now legal in the U.S.), killing people (the death penalty and war) and, last but not least, forcing people to hand over their money (better known as taxation).

History has proven that when human beings, no matter how virtuous at the outset, are entrusted with such great power over others, they inevitably abuse it and become mobsters and thugs under the color of "law and order."

Murray Rothbard, an anarchist libertarian economist and author, once told a friend that the government was kind of like the Mob, except the Mob actually provided services that people wanted. He was closer to the truth than most would admit.

I am not an anarchist, and I find many libertarian ideas about, say, privatizing the justice system or the highway system or public education, to be ludicrous and unrealistic. I even think that government should play a larger role in regulating the distribution of health care so that all people can afford basic health care. Nonetheless, I harbor no illusions about the tendencies of government, nor do I consider politicians to be saints.

Our Founding Fathers wisely understood that concentrated power of any sort was dangerous, so they set up a constitutional federal system that spread power around as much as possible. A few of them, like Thomas Jefferson, argued also for maximized economic independence, which usually ensures political independence. If you can grow your own food, own your profits and own your land, you have little need for assistance or support from the "authorities." You are also less susceptible to be fooled by their promises of a better tomorrow if only you will support their programs and cockamamie ideas.

Too bad we didn't listen. 

Qadhaffi was probably a liar, a thief, a cheat and a murderer, as we accuse him of being. What are we to say of our own leaders?

President Obama, our latest Fuhrer, has violated the Constitution routinely throughout his presidency. He has ordered the assassinations of two American citizens without trial. He launched the war in Libya undercover without informing the American people or Congress. Needless to say he did not proceed with a declaration of war, as the Constitution requires. His health care law, regarded as a high achievement of his presidency, is unconstitutional through and through. Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government mandated to provide universal health care. Nowhere is it given the authority to force Americans to purchase health insurance.

Needless to say the president has continued two unconstitutional and unjustified wars, and has done nothing to seriously investigate the event the precipitated both wars: 9/11. 

Is Obama really all that different from Qadhaffi? Isn't the question more of degree?

Obama gets away with his thuggish behavior only because he commands the largest military force in the entire globe. None dare to oppose him. Obama is the Godfather, the master Mob boss, if you will. The other bosses must bow to his whims.

Qadhaffi, rather than being simply assassinated undercover, was entitled to a fair and honorable meeting with his enemies, as well as just terms of surrender. He ought to have been sent away to a small cottage somewhere, perhaps on a small island, like Napoleon. He ought to have been allowed to defend himself and his regime before a candid world.

His killing, an act of bloodlust and vengeance, will do nothing to ease tensions in the Arab world. It will only increase the sense of many Arabs that they are being manipulated by hostile Western powers who hate them.

President Obama deserves not praise for his Libya adventure, but impeachment and removal from office. 

Instead, half of the voting population will likely vote to re-elect Obama as their president next year. The other half will vote to replace him with a Republican who will only make the situation worse.

Some may call me cynical. I'd like to think I've learned an important lesson in my brief time on this Earth: government and politics are not humanity's salvation. The nature of power is to inspire corruption and deceit. Human beings can't handle it, "it" being the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The State, contrary to the beliefs of many Christians, is not in league with God, seeking to do us all good. In truth, the State shares more in common with Satan, the Accuser. It is a grimly necessary reality because of Original Sin. It is not our salvation.

Why do otherwise intelligent people continue to believe, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that government and politics can make life better for mankind? Why do we put so much effort, blood and toil into making it work? Why do we put so much faith in the government, but not in ourselves, or better yet, in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit? Will we ever learn that the new boss will be the same as the old boss?

I don't get it. 

Moammar Qadhaffi, rest in peace. I hope you found salvation and comfort in your final moments. I hope you genuinely repented of your many sins, and received the unconditional forgiveness of Christ Jesus. God rest your soul.

For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe. -- St. Paul,  I Timothy 4:10

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Comments welcome, pro and con.