Unity

We all have heard the admonitions against the admixture of religion and politics into polite conversation. The turbulence of religious or political discussions can turn into arguments, and the arguments can soon take a quiet family reunion or dinner party to the brink of civil war.

There is an undernourished principle, the importance of which can be seen by ignoring it: whether in matters of faith or polity, disharmony causes those outside the disharmonious sphere to look into it with disfavor, and those inside it to lose their energy.

Hear, then, this call for Unity.

The faith and beliefs about government of many or most people are a single body of principles, greatly diminishing the possibility of tearing us away from our convictions about either. Politics and religion not only have these areas of commonality, but they are truly inseparable and often indistinguishable. Faith tells us how we ought to live; politics is how we get others to do the same, either by force of persuasion or force of law.

For many people, political activism for their causes takes on a religious role in their lives. It gives their lives meaning and makes them feel part of a larger whole in the way that religion does. They may also believe that their lives have more than a temporary impact, by leaving behind the aftereffects of the policies they attempt to implement.

For other people, conformity to the values of their religion requires them to have certain political views, and to be active with them. Taking action displays their faith to themselves and others, because our values are shown by what we do.

Religious views become mixed up with political ones, to a greater or lesser extent. Religious values say that saving life is Good, that helping the poor is Good, that chastity is Good, or that being kind to other species is Good. Adherents then are prone to wanting those Good things put into law, or at least to have their government support their practice. And it is an affront to them for their government to fund things with which they disagree.

Like numbers brought to life, people see themselves as having a "right" or "left" sign. They belong to one side or the other, and think they have to conform to all of the beliefs associated with that side. The religious overtones for certain issues bring religious conformity to bear.

But one thing is certain: separating religion from politics is a fool's errand. Calls for the separation of Church and State notwithstanding, few people can separate their deepest held beliefs from their opinion about governance -- and even fewer of those who do can be trusted. Trustworthy people are only found among those whose inmost beliefs (whatever they may be) are reflected in all phases of their lives.

But people of good conscience can disagree on the best way to dot an "i" or on fundamental issues. What we do with those disagreements depends on their centrality to our objectives. If we believe that the other's positive value to our side is outweighed by the negative value of the issue over which we disagree, we take steps to mitigate the damage, even up to dissociation. We ought to be careful, but often are not, that the steps we take to limit the negative effects of a disagreement we have with one of our own do not create more trouble for us than the other's mistaken opinion itself.

Francis Bacon, English scholar, politician, and Christian philosopher wrote of the twin effects of disunity "..[N]othing doth so much keep men out of the church, and drive men out of the church, as breach of unity...". There can be little doubt that this principle applies to all religions, and even to religion in general: few things keep the unfaithful that way more than the strife caused by religious disagreements.

In politics, people in general are attracted by a clear message, and repelled by petty squabbles over corruption, partisanship, and negativism. Whether the clear message is one of sacrifice or prosperity, war or peace, people will accept it more readily and rally to it more easily than if a mixed message is presented by multiple voices. Those already part of a faction may be temporarily energized by charges of corruption, or attacks on an opponent, and partisan fights over minor issues may test the mettle of a party, but viewed from the outside those tiffs are cause for the disdain of politics in general. Negativity requires escalation, as people become inured following each new outrage.

Unity is not the most basic good, however, as noted above. There are times when people disagree, and do so on matters of principle. When principles conflict, we must either capitulate or fight. But how to choose between Unity and some other value such as Life, Liberty, or Pursuit of power? We are required to choose sides, and to know how strongly we adhere to the side we have chosen.

For instance, we Christians have a basic agreement with the Islamofascists that there is a God, that there is life after death, and that certain things are moral and others are not. There are other specific areas of agreement, but the point is that on some level, we both battle the forces of atheism and postmoralism, those who have no God but themselves and no morality but mere ethics. Yet we oppose the Islamofascists, principally and obviously because they want us either to accept their way of thinking or to die. No theoretical partnership between Islam and Christianity can overcome their need to carry the banner of faith themselves, especially since they have chosen to view us as the enemy. So Unity with Islam will have to wait until its radicalism can be brought to heel.

In politics, as well as in religion, there are barriers to Unity. The case of Joe Lieberman is illustrative: here is a man of national stature, a statesman for whom our country should be grateful. But because of his refusal to subvert the defense of his country to politics, he is being shunned by his party. The same can be seen for ostensible Republicans who drift too far into liberality, populism, or intolerance, and are shunned, as well.

There is a difference, however, in rancor and divisions over matters of principle and questions of strategy. It is of utmost importance to maintain integrity of principle, and arguments visible to outsiders over these principles are a necessary evil. Squabbles over strategy and tactics are also harmful, and completely unnecessary unless they cast an unprincipled shadow; even then these should be kept private. Disagreement over strategy is often a mask for a hungry ego, or a poisonous ambition.

Unity is important, and I ask you: are the things on which we disagree, the things over which we squabble, argue, protest, and the things on which we go to war, are these things so important that our disagreement over them outweighs our value to each other?

I have answered the question specifically with respect to Islamofascism, which seeks to destroy first Israel and then the rest of the free world. But what of our fellow Americans of a different political party -- how great is the divide which separates us from them? Forget for a moment your rhetorical need to be right, and ask: is the amount of energy we apply to correct the wrongs of the other side greater than the damage to be done simply by accepting their errors? Can I unite with my rival to defeat our common foe?

Would you really rather show division to our common enemy than accept the goodwill of those with whom you disagree?

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Meanwhile, from the echo chamber

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (DailyKos) has a certain perspective that I seem to lack. Living in an echo chamber can do that to a guy.

Speaking of Tuesday night primary winners and losers, he goes through a long list you can read about at his site if (if you promise to wash before returning). Then he says this:

Losers

Republicans. They're going to do some silly press conference on Wednesday claiming the Democratic Party is held in thrall by craaaazy people who agree with, um, 2/3rds of the American people on Iraq. If they want to make a big deal and remind people they have no exit strategy for Iraq, then by all means, therein lies the path to bizarro 1994.

If they really thought Lieberman losing was such a bad thing for the Democratic Party they wouldn't have gone out of their way to prop him up. Instead, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, the wingnutosphere, several Republican congresscritters, and the GOP's Big Money all rallied around their man. This is not a happy day for them.

Winners

Democrats. Did you see Rahm out of the gate tonight?

"This shows what blind loyalty to George Bush and being his love child means," said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the leader of the Democratic House Congressional campaign. "This is not about the war. It's blind loyalty to Bush."

This is a party with purpose. United on the war (under the call for withdrawal from Iraq), fueled by record fundraising and shockingly good poll numbers, and operating in the best political climate for the opposition since 1994, Dems are poised to make killer gains this fall. And without Lieberman in the caucus to undermine it from within, unity and commonality of purpose is now on the table.

One more point, and an important one to close with --

Tonight's race was watched from every corner of this country. There wasn't a city I hit during my book tour (and I hit over 40 of them) in which someone didn't ask about this race, where people didn't cheer when I mentioned Lamont's name.

Ignore for a moment that the leader of the Congressional Democrats called Senator Joseph Lieberman George Bush's "love child".

Kos thinks we "backed" Lieberman. He's sure that we aren't happy to see a three-way race in Connecticut, in which the huge war chest of Lieberman and the hordes of the nutosphere will do battle over one Senate seat in a Blue State, a seat that was so solidly theirs that it wasn't even on the radar.

So instead of getting behind their party chairbat, they'll be stuck in CT. Instead of taking advantage of the Internet's leverage to bring together local supporters with non-local ones across the country, as Republicans are doing, they will be stuck in the Purple Northeast, doing their best to beat Lieberman again.

Happy? You bet we are.

Ok, so what is this about an echo chamber?

Kos went on a book tour, out among the people of this great land. How many Conservatives showed up? Uh, I would say approximately none. The only voice he heard on his nationwide book tour and Venus natal declension party was the same one he hears every day on his blog, and every year at their little love fest. More moonbats.

So no wonder he thinks he's winning. Get someone in office first, n'kay?

The leader of the Congressional Democrats called Senator Joseph Lieberman George Bush's "love child". I wonder where Joe will caucus when he wins in November: with his knuckledragging neocon worshippers in the Republican Party, or with someone who dishes out personal insults?

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National Priorities

(Crosspost from Redstate)

Your nation, the land you call home, is divided. It has for longer than anyone can remember been controlled mostly by two parties, each of which knows, in its heart of hearts, that the land must be reunified if you are to deal with the threats facing you and to seize the opportunity to lead the human race into a new era.

The worlds you may discover will have to wait until you deal with the cancer of militant Islam. At least, that's what Ferdinand and Isabella decided.

---

The year was 1492. For the people and rulers of Aragon, Castile, and Leon, seven centuries had passed since the Muslims had invaded -- seven centuries of hiding in the Pyrenees and beginning the slow Reconquista. They built castles to stake out the territory they slowly won back (whence the name "Castile"). They had succeeded in reclaiming all of the Iberian Penninsula except for the Christian Portugal and the last remaining Muslim stronghold, Granada.

Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile were cousins, whose marriage would eventually result in a unified Spain. In early 1492, however, while their union and unity was a powerful force, the country remained divided among Aragon, Castile, Catalonia, and Valencia.

When Genoan sailor Christopher Columbus came to Ferdinand and Isabella wanting ships to sail across the sea to find a trade route that didn't require dealing with the Ottomans or the desert, they thought it was a good idea that would have to wait. They had a more pressing priority: defeating Islamic militants.

Only forty years earlier, the Islamic Ottomans had finally ended the Roman Empire (in one of its many incarnations, before and after) by conquering Constantinople. What solace it must have been to the Spaniards when, in 1492, they did in fact drive the Muslim Moors out of Granada.

But once the threat of an Islamic state on their soil was ended, Ferdinand and Isabella could sponsor this Columbus fellow. National priorities now allowed exploration and expansion, rather than merely purification. But purify they would, and through the disgrace and painful decades of Inquisition, their country became Spain.

And what of our national attention, dear reader? We had begun exploring the frontier of space, but our priorities are swayed mightily by the spectre of Islamic militarism. The space program goes on, but our government knows that its first responsibility is not to explore, but to defend. Once the threat of militant Islam is ended, we may again start the search for new worlds.

While history seldom repeats itself, the drag and waste that is the Global War on Terror will only end when we kick the terrorists off the pages of history. It would be entirely foolish to allow them to gain a foothold in space, and to that end we must crush them before any further exploration ourselves.

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SpeakTruthiness to Power

Our culture is falling apart. Culture, as someone put it, is "what you know everyone else knows". It's difficult to think of my ideas as naturally correct and obvious to all when many of those around me think that truth is relative (unless one is speaking it to power).

Looking back, I think it all started when we faked going to the moon. Silly, isn't it? The Moon, as if it's a place we could actually go, and not a nightly mass hallucination orchestrated by radio broadcasts and fluoridated water. When will you people wake up?

Is anyone alive now who remembers the moon before radio? Of course not, because contrary to popular misinformation, radio was invented by the Chinese in 1121 AD, and brought to Europe by Marco Polo.

Actually, the moon-landing-as-hoax inanity is just a short rest stop on the long journey from enlightenment to truthyism.

The Enlightenment, for those six people reading this far who aren't history weenies, was a period following the Protestant Reformation, from around 1600 to 1800, especially the 18th century, culminating in the American and French Revolutions. Enlightenment thinkers reached back across the centuries to classical Graeco-Roman philosophy, combining it with dominant Christian faith, to propound ideas such as natural law, scientific independence from theology, and the guillotine for anyone who wore a white wig.

Since the Enlightenment, or perhaps even before radio, we Westerners have generally interpreted physical events in the world -- an apple falling from a tree, mold growing on bread, a volcano making an island where there was once only ocean -- in terms of a growing knowledge of physical science. We generally saw in humankind's interaction with itself and the world the hand of either a Divine watchmaker or a Grandmaster, either observing or guiding our affairs for His own amusement. Some, of course, saw merely a watch or chessboard, with no attendant Creator or Player. But to whatever degree we viewed the world through eyes of Faith or eyes of Realism, we regarded it basic and unassailable that when the apple fell, it fell. Why it fell depended on your version of "why".

Emotions, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder, as any married man will promptly attest. That inherent relativism does not apply to trees falling in forests, refrigerator lights, or the actual state of being in the world; trees fall whether we are there or not, the refrigerator light does go out, and truth is truth, regardless of anyone's opinion of it.

When my children were old enough to understand, I explained it to them this way, so that the pernicious evil that is relative truth would not find fertile ground: "Do you see that building over there? Suppose it became abandoned, and fell into disrepair, and was torn down, its foundation removed, and grass planted where it used to be. Every last trace of it gone, and no record was kept of it. In a thousand years, would anyone believe that building had been there? Probably not. But their belief doesn't change the fact that the building was there."

The truth is not determined by its beauty or popularity, nor is falsehood proved by repugnance or unpopularity.

Existentialism, and its incident concept that all truth is relative, have found a new friend, or perhaps spawned an offspring lately. Criminologists have long known that witnesses to a crime will see the same events in sometimes wildly different ways, depending on their vantage point, mood, and psychological makeup. That observed phenomenon, and the wisdom of requiring "two or three witnesses" to establish the fact of guilt, have spawned a general belief in the social sciences that truth, along with beauty and emotion, is whatever we believe it to be.

As Francis Bacon (one of those Enlightenment guys) noted, relative truth is not a new concept. "What is Truth?", smirked Pilate, rinsing the blood from his hands. Like a used car with a new coat of wax, it seems unwilling to stay among its equals in the junkyard of ideas.

The willingness or eagerness to ignore Occam's Razor and distrust the obvious leads directly to reading into public affairs a variety of conspiracy theories. It leads not only to doubting the accepted explanation why an apple falls, but doubting that the apple fell at all.

Seen through this lens, it is completely unsurprising that the American Left, who generally accept the notion of relative truth, have difficulty adjusting to world events as they unfold. It also leads to some predictable and disheartening results. Among the items of scantily clad lunacy to which processing relative truth leads are:

• Ronald Reagan made a secret pact with Iranian fundamentalists to make Jimmy Carter look bad
• Bill Clinton was impeached solely because Republicans were "trying to overturn the election"
• Al Gore would be president today if only Katherine Harris hadn't stolen the election in Florida
• John Kerry would be president today if only Diebold hadn't stolen the election in Ohio
  
• Osama bin Laden is a CIA operative who orchestrated 9/11 to justify the PATRIOT Act
  
• Osama bin Laden was not involved in 9/11, but the CIA is framing him to empower President Bush
• Dan Rather's paltry attempt to impugn President Bush with forged documents
  

That list (some of which are from a 2004 article by Oliver North) barely scratches the surface.

I'm not sure if Stephen Colbert realized what an apt term his "truthiness" would turn out to be. It describes so well the activity of those who view truth as relative, since by their standards there is no Truth, there are only viewpoints and ideas that are "truthy". But this clamoring, stumbling, pressured speech of "truth" to the powerful presumes otherwise. Why the urgency? Why the fervor? After all, how can you be sure the apple fell, or that it was even an apple?

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A class of one

Where did the concept of "class" originate? The idea that the world is made up of groups of people, fixed in their strata, fueled into action only by Greed, Envy, or the lust for power?

In ancient times, the oligarchic, aristocratic, and feudal systems of government enforced the notion of class by keeping power and wealth in the hands of a few. There was always a certain amount of fluidity to the classes, however. A Roman soldier could be rewarded with land and fame, so much that the need for more land helped fuel the Roman expansion. Merchants, tradesmen, and farmers have often been able, to one degree or another, to raise their fortunes by skill, diligence and discipline. Countless prodigals have spent their family fortunes on wild living, never to return from the hog pen. There has always been mobility, though it may not have seemed so to the masses.

Karl Marx, who took the notion of class to new heights, saw as inevitable that the working class, those whose hands do the work from which others profit, would bond together, while self-interest would keep the greedy capitalist parasites too preoccupied to unite. His naive model of capitalism, that of the factory with workers and owners, partly explains his disdain of it, but his view of history as a revolutionary class struggle waiting to happen has poisoned academic minds for over a century.

It is this concept of class which most sharply divides American politics. People have either the mindset of being a One or part of a Many. Conservatives generally think of people as individuals needing government to keep them from killing each other, to protect them from outsiders and from itself. Liberals believe government can and should make things right between classes of people, and that by doing this those outside will see how nice we are and ignore us.

The primary virtue, to a person in the Leftist religion, and of left-leaning branches of the Jewish and Christian trees, is a belief in "social justice", or decreasing the gap between "the rich" and "the poor". It presupposes that there are homogeneous classes of people. They treat everyone in a class as the same, whether they got however wealthy they are by inheritance, theft, skill, or hard work, and whether they became however poor they are from handicap, bad luck, or laziness. It doesn't matter how you got where you are: it is "unjust" for one to have more, or for another to have less. Government exists, by their thinking, to enforce that version of equality.

But are any of us ever, truly equal? Do two neighbors who have the same occupation and income level live identical lives? Of course not. There is always a difference in the standard of living between any two people. While the Marxist would call that a a difference without distinction, that dismissal is a result of seeing capitalism through a simplistic lens. People in a capitalist economy have an endless array of options to ply their hand at this occupation or that one, or even to invent something totally new. People are not stuck in place, like cattle in a herd; they are free to move up, or down, in status as their ability and diligence take them.

So I chafe when someone beats the drums of class envy, stirring up those who feel they have no hope. The drumbeat most often resounds to the chorus, "You have no hope but we who beat the drums". I hear their clanging, but I know that only I can help those in my class -- for only I belong to it.

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Hate, March, Terrorize

What we have here ... is a failure to generalize.

Certain crimes of hate, violent political demonstrations, and flying an airplane through the World Trade Center all have something in common.

In what follows, please note that I am not calling for repeal of hate crime laws or a ban on political rallies, any more than I would call for a ban on airplanes because they can be used for destructive purposes. The purpose here is only to show that hate crimes and political rally violence are terrorism, and should be treated as such.

---

What is terrorism?

Wikipedia says there are "hundreds" of definitions. In essence, they all come down to this:

Terrorism is the use or threat of violence by civilians against civilian targets to induce political change.

There are obviously special cases to be asserted, such as paramilitary groups under indirect control of government. The definition of "civilian" blurs in the context of guerrilla warfare, in which combatants try to blend into the surrounding non-combatant population. Guerrillas may in fact engage in terrorism, or commit war crimes, or may operate strictly according to the ethics of war; in any event, the definition of terrorism above accommodates their case.

War crimes are distinguished from terrorism in that either the perpetrator or the victim of a war crime is an acknowledged combatant while the other is a civilian. That is not the entire scope of war crime, which is only discussed here to help build by contrast the understanding of terrorism.

The civilian leader of a country, when acting in his official capacity in control of its military, cannot, by definition, be guilty terrorism. Support of terrorist non-government organizations may make him responsible for terrorism, but that is a different situation than the use of a country's military.

Terrorism is also distinct from common civilian crime, because terrorism is political in motivation. A group destroying a building as a diversion in a bank robbery is not engaged in terrorism, while a person threatening to kill an official's pet to sway his vote is.

An area of civilian crime, crimes motivated by group differences, has been dubbed "hate crime". Hate crime laws have been enacted in several of these United States and in Canada. They typically include hostility against a person, group, or institution based on "actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or gender" as aggravating factors for sentencing guidelines. Sometimes they curtail "hate speech", or speech against a person or group based on those aforementioned factors.

Hate crime laws fail to afford equal protection under the law, because their impetus was the special case of those intolerantly violating the civil rights of others. Such laws usually fail to be designed or enforced such that all anti-group violence is wrong, only that against the protected groups. In some cases they outlaw mere offensive speech. Since these laws specify certain classes of people for additional protection under the law, they facially do not afford equal protection. Their unfairness is caused exactly by their failure to see crimes of hate as action designed to send a political message.

Crimes motivated by the outward differences between groups of people are political in nature if their perpetrators seek to send a message to others through the crime. They seek to control or influence behavior, to govern, by threat of force. Burning a cross in a yard is obviously intended to send a message to the owners of the yard, or the home's occupants, and to drive away those like them.

A distinction could thus be made between one-on-one crime between in which the perpetrator and the victim do not share the same group membership and one-on-many or many-on-one crimes. It would be a rarity for a hate crime in which one person acts against a group or a group acts against an individual not to be intended to send a message designed to control group behavior. Even if the primary intent is not to send such a message, one will clearly be sent. Group hate crime is thus seen to be inherently political, and falls squarely under the rubric of terrorism.

Crimes between individuals are a different matter, however. What difference is it to society if one man kills another in a rage over their ethnic or other differences, rather than over money or jealousy? In any case the victim is dead, and a murderer is among us. Hate crime laws elevate one kind of motive over another, making all others into mitigating or extenuating factors. But they fail to get at the real problem, which is attempting to control the behavior of others through the threat or use of violence. The problem with hate crimes is not the crime itself, but the added communication of the social message: the problem with you is what kind you are.

The crimes of hate that we should punish differently than other crime are the ones that are violence by civilians against civilian targets to induce political change. We should punish all such action, not distinguishing its victims.

Recently, student groups at several American colleges and universities have demonstrated against military recruiting at their campuses. One protester, thinking himself clever, carried a sign reading "I'm already against the next war!". The message he intended to send, of course, was that the Bush Administration would rush into another war as it had rushed, with barely over a year of diplomacy, into Iraq. The actual message is somewhat different: there is no acceptable war, no matter what the cause. Our national future would indeed be in peril if that were a majority view.

Demonstrations are one thing, but vandalism and mob action to exercise political influence are another. They are the use or threat of violence by civilians against civilian targets to induce political change.

Violence must not be a substitute for political discussion, organization, or the ballot box. The problem with crimes of hate, violent demonstrations and vandalism, and other acts of terrorism is that they seek to manipulate and control people and force change through violence. Those who engage in such activities must be stopped, and those who would look the other way are complicit in the cause of terror, as well.

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Traitriotism at the CIA

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