bin Laden and Republocrat hypocrisy

Disclaimer: I am not advocating any kind of conspiracy theory.

2 and 2 still make 4, so I don’t understand certain things about the May 1st killing of Osama bin Laden.

First, the story has changed pretty substantially.  Initially, Navy SEAL Team Six fast-roped into a firefight in bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan where the Al-Qaeda leader went out in the cliche “blaze of glory.”  Neoconservative Fox News was quick to interview Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld, who were equally quick to point out that torture works: the information that led the U.S. government to bin Laden was obtained by the torture of Guantanamo Bay detainee Kalid Sheik Mohammed.  Sean Hannity must have been on the verge of ecstasy over this (and Limbaugh, too).

But now the White House says that bin Laden was unarmed when the SEALs entered his room.  This is also confirmed by bin Laden’s 12 year-old daughter who was an eyewitness, here.  So here’s where the official numbers don’t make sense to me: if torture really does work, and if bin Laden really was unarmed when the SEALs found him, why kill the greatest intelligence asset in the world?  If waterboarding is all that Limbaugh and Hannity say it is, why not waterboard all of bin Laden’s secrets right out of him?  Wouldn’t we be able to anticipate and avoid all of the terrorism Al-Qaeda has planned for us?

I also must admit that I am completely baffled by the decision to bury bin Laden at sea.  Even if the CIA or the SEALs or the White House have some super-advanced DNA testing that gives results in minutes or hours, the decision to bury him at sea will likely out-Elvis even Elvis himself.  Without a real body to display to the world and bury ceremoniously (like dignified human beings), bin Laden will be sighted everywhere, forever.  Even if the White House eventually relents and releases photos, how can we know for sure that they were not Photoshopped?  Again, I am not saying that I believe that this is all a conspiracy.  But now there is no way to gainsay the naysayers.  I mean, forgive my cynicism, but these are the same people who told us that Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were A-OK the Fridays before they failed.  These are the same people who claim to have a strong dollar policy.  These are the same people who call double-digit unemployment (at least in California), a “recovery.”

My first reaction to hearing the news about bin Laden was, “Ok.  Can the soldiers come home, now?”  If Leon Panetta of the CIA, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and their ilk have their way, the answer is a deafening, “NO!”  Instead of bringing the troops home, the death of Osama bin Laden means we have to ramp up the War on Terror many times over.  But I thought our first military action after 9/11 – going in to Afghanistan – was for the purpose of bringing bin Laden to justice.  Now that has sort of been done, if illegally.  If justice has been served and we still need more war, then what is the real purpose of the wars?  Will we ever really know?

Is it really good news?

Over at the Heidelbog in a post called Good News from a Surprising Source?, R. Scott Clark is singing the praises of the Justice Department for suing a school district who won’t grant a muslim teacher unpaid leave to go on a religious trip.  He thinks that this bodes well for Sabbath-keeping Christians, because it is ostensibly a move toward “religious liberty.”  He says,

…it may also yield benefits to Christians who want to work but who also want to observe a weekly sabbath. If the courts rule that Muslims have a right to take unpaid leave to go on a Hajj then might not Christians also be granted the right to take unpaid leave to observe the Sabbath?

However, I would like to know how the threat of State violence against someone who has not taken an eye or a tooth (Matt. 5:38-42)–that is, who has not harmed the person or property of anyone else–is justifiable on his espoused system of Christian ethics.  Violence is the only tool the government has in its toolbox.  If the State said to Employer Joe, “You must give Christian Jim unpaid leave on Sundays,” and Employer Joe responded, “Thank you for your advice, but I would prefer not to follow it–I think I will let Christian Jim go, and hire Pagan Sally, instead” — if that scenario were to play out, the State would sue Employer Joe (just like it is suing the school district).  And if Employer Joe kept responding, “Thanks, but no thanks,” eventually men with guns and other weapons will show up to haul him off to jail.  And if he responds to the arrival of the men with guns with, “Thank you for the offer, but I would prefer not to live in a metal cage,” then it may very well be the last thing he ever says.

The sixth commandment not only prohibits murder, but it prohibits murder by proxy.  Christians are not at liberty to hire anyone to damage another person or another person’s property.  As I see it, using the State to initiate force against a civilly innocent person–even if it benefits us–is still a violation of the sixth commandment.

Now I am not accusing R. Scott Clark of violating the sixth commandment.  After all, he did not ask the State Department to sue the school district.  But he thinks the initiation of force is appropriate here.  Even if there is some genius answer to the problem of the sixth commandment in this situation, how does Clark’s position square with the NT emphasis on the role of suffering in the Christian life?  I will never forget the sharp wit of the Wittenberg Door magazine when it described Joseph Smith (who died in a “blaze of glory,” shooting at people from his jail cell) as the first martyr to die with a gun in his hand.  Using (or condoning) the State’s initiation of force against a civilly innocent person strikes me as the same kind of martyrdom as Joseph Smith — suffering with the government guns blazing on our behalf.

Clark has recently described his political philosophy as tending toward “free market, social conservative, libertarianism.”  Perhaps he should just leave that last adjective out.  And maybe the first one, too.  The Reformed confessions give him all the latitude he needs to oppose those things.  I would just urge him to consider whether endorsing the initiation of force against a civilly innocent person (even if by proxy) is “free market” or “libertarian” in any sense of those terms.

But that brings up another troubling point from Clark’s post.  He seems to think that we have a free market that is simply too free.  He says,

Did the founders envision that an employer would have a right to require employees to work 7 days a week? Probably not. Did the founders envision the sort of no-holds barred market capitalism that has developed in the modern period? Probably not. Did they imagine that there would be conflict between religious liberty and commercial interests? I don’t know but a society necessarily expresses some hierarchy of values in legislation and court rulings and those rulings and laws occur on some basis.

First, I would really like to know where this “no-holds barred market capitalism” is.  As far as I can tell, we have not had a “no-holds barred” market for over 200 years.  The government started interfering in the market very early on via taxes, tarrifs, protectionism, etc.  Perhaps Clark simply means that he doesn’t like the values that are expressed by the contemporary American market.  Fine.  I don’t like them, either.  But I don’t believe the solution is government violence.  I don’t believe that at all.  And the fact that he applauds the State’s threat of the initiation of force against civilly innocent people for ostensibly good ends certainly can’t be marshaled as support for this pretended “no-holds barred market capitalism,” either.

Second, if the founders didn‘t imagine that there would conflict between religious liberty and commercial interests, then they had simply forgotten their American history.  If that’s the case, we shouldn’t be too hard on them.  Many of us do that.  The fact is, the antinomian (read: antilegal) controversy in “puritan” New England had an element of commercial interests.  Some of the followers of Anne Hutchinson were various kinds of business owners.  As I noted above, the term “antinomian,” in the seventeenth century, didn’t usually mean a rejection of the third use of the law; it usually meant an opposition to legalism.  That is not to say that Hutchinson’s commercial followers did not reject the standard, “puritan” view of the 4th commandment.  Maybe some did.  But in any case, there were tensions between commercial interests and religious liberty almost 150 years before the founders inked the Constitution.

One more thing: I should note in closing that it is interesting that in Clark’s example, the Justice Department is suing a school district–another branch of the civil government.  It is kind of like one shark preparing to eat another shark.

Neocon War-Porn

I enjoy good literature and film; I just don’t get enough time to enjoy either one.  One of my best friends studied literature in grad school and loves film analysis.  He tells me that cultural critics and analysts in the field have coined a new term to describe those people who need to see increasing amounts of detailed, graphic violence in order to properly enjoy their horror films.  That term is “gore-porn.”

I find that term quite helpful and insightful because the analogy works so well.  Plenty of research exists to confirm the thesis that regular old pornography does not satisfy a real need, and so ends up creating a felt need for itself.  Soon the consumer of pornography is bored with the graphic nature of his current pornographic diet, and requires more and new and unique depictions.

So it is with those who watch horror films.  They enjoy the adrenaline rush (or endorphines, or whatever biochemical process is involved) of seeing blood, guts and all of the violence involved in producing blood and guts.  But just as with pornography, the consumer of horror films soon finds that his felt need is not being met adequately, and he become bored.  He, too, requires more and new and unique depictions of bloody violence.

Here I would like to suggest that America’s neoconservatives have a similar problem.  I call it “Neocon War-Porn.”  Perhaps someone can suggest a better term, because while both sexual pornography and horror films are things that are generally watched, I don’t believe that most neoconservatives would actually enjoy watching a real war (just think of how much pleasure is taken in watching Saving Private Ryan or Blackhawk Down – and those are still not the real thing).

In any case, by Neocon War-Porn, I mean that neoconservatives love war and news of war.  But soon, that isn’t enough.  They need more wars and they need more human beings to demonize for the purpose of warring against them.  Muslims fill the demonization need for neoconservatives in much the same way that centerfolds fill the need for porn addicts, as evidenced by the recent hysteria about the Muslim cultural center near ground zero in New York.  In both cases, most porn consumers (of both the sexual and war varieties) do not actually know a person like the type they are objectifying (real women or real Muslims).  They are content to be “stimulated” by the way others use real women or real Muslims to bring about a certain desired effect.

The analogy doesn’t end there, either.  Both kinds of porn are endorsed by seemingly mainstream personalities.  The media tells us that viewing pornography is “just something men do,” while Hugh Hefner is accepted enough to even have a reality TV show (of course, it’s not so much about him).  In the same way, most (neo)conservative talk show hosts perpetuate the meme that war is good, but more war is better because it stimulates the economy (a lie) and kills more Muslims (because all Muslims are terrorists, right? – just like all women want to perform degrading sex acts for your personal pleasure, right?).  That meme says that love of war and an hatred of Muslims are “just things conservatives do,” while the only people who are taken “seriously” by the news media are those who love war and hate Muslims.

Perhaps I should be more afraid of Muslims than I am.  But at least nobody has to die in order for me to be politically stimulated.

The Neoconservatives are the REAL Appeasers

Ron Paul, Doug Bandow and other anti-war conservatives are often labeled “appeasers” by neoconservatives because they want to close down U.S. military bases in foreign countries and bring our troops home to defend us here.  The label “appeaser” is not an argument; it is a fallacy (e.g., ad hominem, ad populum – especially since this one was a Nazi favorite for inciting race hatred against the Jews – ad baculum and ad ignorantiam) perpetrated by zombies like the one who keeps interviewing Tom Woods about his new book “Nullification.”

But as we have pointed out on this blog, terrorists don’t hate us because we’re free.  If they did, surely we have given them enough reasons since 9/11 to stop hating us.  And that is what this post is about.  Note well that it is the neoconservatives – those jackbooted liberals who became disenchanted with the political left, and so joined the political right – those neoconservatives are the ones who simultaneously claim that terrorists hate America because we’re free on the one hand, and who steal our freedoms every chance they get on the other hand.  Think about it.  If terrorists hate us because we’re free, the U.S. federal government – under Republican and Democrat administrations – has made a tremendous effort since 9/11 to give the terrorists what they want: an un-free America:

• Congress has been trying for years to pass “net neutrality” legislation that would give the federal government the authority to regulate the internet.  Now, the Disclose Act is about to be passed in order to effectively limit what can be said during political campaigns.  So much for the 1st Amendment.
• After Hurricane Katrina, the National Guard arrived and began going door to door in New Orleans – even stopping cars attempting to leave the city, confiscating guns.  So much for the 2nd Amendment.
• The same ABC News story cited above mentions the fact that a National Guard unit broke into a church to make it their temporary quarters and had to leave a note because they couldn’t find the pastor to ask permission.  Don’t be surprised to see more violations of the 3rd Amendment.
• Americans no longer have a right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, thanks to the warrantless wiretapping authorized in the Patriot Act.  Bid the 4th Amendment farewell.
• On February 3rd 2010, Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence claims that the federal government can – and will – target American citizens for assassination, if the government believes those citizens are a terrorist threat.  Hopefully the government will never make a mistake about who qualifies as a terrorist.  See also these instances of police brutality.  So much for the 5th Amendment.
• The Military Commissions Act of 2006 allowed Bush, and now Obama, to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial.  See also these instances of police brutality.  There goes the 6th Amendment.
• The right to a trial by jury is also violated by the presumption of Dennis Blair (see above).  See also these instances of police brutality.  Say goodbye to the 7th Amendment.
• Though we will never know if this happens, the combination of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 – which allows American citizens to be imprisoned indefinitely without trial – the announcement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair – that American citizens can be targeted for assassination – and the existence of secret prisons where the CIA waterboards (read: tortures) people – could all add up to mean that American citizens can expect to be tortured.  See also these instances of police brutality.  So much for the 8th Amendment.
• The list of violations of the 9th Amendment is simply too long to list here.  The government mentality is that individual people do not have rights unless the government specifically gives those rights to them.
• The new health care bill is a perfect example of a violation of the 10th Amendment.  The Constitution says nothing at all about health care.  The 10th Amendment says that the Constitution’s silence on health care means that health care is the jurisdiction of the states or of individuals.

So if terrorists hate us because we are free, then neoconservatives like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Barack Obama have given the terrorists exactly what they wanted: a less free America.  They are truly the appeasers.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/PL-109-366.pdf

Mormons and Presbyterians Together

But if Lillback’s point is finally about the need for the media and academy to take religion seriously, perhaps he could have pointed the way by not making too much of the civil religion that went with being a colonial white Protestant of British descent. In fact, one way to take religion seriously would be to follow the counsel of the psalmist who advised not putting our trust in princes. This was the instruction that led Martin Luther to write, “That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abideth.” If the psalmist and Luther were right, then a serious approach to the religion of the Bible might well teach that the search for a Christian America is a foolish enterprise the fortunes of the kingdom of grace don’t depend on presidents, senators, or monarchs.

Read the rest of Darryl Hart’s brilliant blog post here.

Are you sure they hate us because we’re free?

Glenn Greenwald is not a conservative.  But despite what certain conservative radio talk show hosts will tell you, Mr. Greenwald is quite intelligent.  While I don’t always agree with him, I have already written on this topic (See They Hate our Freedoms? The Military Commissions Act of 2006) before he wrote his piece at Salon.com.  He references this CNN report on the Department of Homeland Security:

The article notes that a new classified Department of Homeland Security report documents that “the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period.”

Maybe, one day, we might want to ask:  ”why”?  Is it because they Hate Us For Our Freedoms more than ever before?  Are we Extra Free now, thus increasing their Hatred to brand new levels?  Or are they still angry about George Bush’s cowboy swagger even though he’s been gone for a-year-and-a-half?  Or is it that those Crazy Primitive Hateful Muslim Fanatics are being pumped full of more unfair anti-American conspiracy theories than before?  Or does something else explain this?  Is there perhaps anything we’re doing to cause it?  Asking all that may not be as fun or as profitable as picking out all the new rights we’re going to restrict and renounce and the shiny new powers we’re going to vest in our leaders each time there is another attempted Terrorist attack, but it’s probably still a good idea to do it anyway.

“Tell them they are being attacked”

This comes from Robert Higgs’s piece over at the Independent Institute.  Thanks to Doug Bandow for pointing it out:

If any resistance should arise to the rulers’ war-making, the state has a time-tested means of disposing of the resisters. Perhaps the classic description of this tactic was given by the Nazi bigwig Hermann Göring when he was being held in prison during the trials at Nuremberg in 1946. This account comes to us from Gustave M. Gilbert, the German-speaking prison psychologist who had free access to all of the prisoners during the trials and talked to them frequently in private. On the evening of April 18, 1946, Gilbert visited Göring in his cell, and he later described their conversation as follows:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Göring shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”

“There is one difference,” I pointed out. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare war.”

“Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. (Nuremberg Diary, pp. 278–79)

Göring was right, and matters have only become worse in this regard during the past sixty years. Under the postwar regime in the United States, of course, Congress never declares war—it has made no such declaration since June 5, 1942, when it declared war on Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary—and the president now wages war solely at his own pleasure and caprice, as if he were Caesar.

Alan Grayson is a conservative!

Wow!  I think Alan Grayson might be more conservative than most self-identified conservatives.  He is conserving money.  More importantly, he is conserving human lives by working against aggressive, perpetual and total war.  I really wish he had been right about health care, but I’m behind him on this!

War and the Christian

Dear Dr. Van Drunen,

This is exactly what I mean when I say I’m not sure Christians should support the State.  Surely this is not talionic justice.  I can’t support this.  My conscience is not clear about supporting this.  I can bring myself to be profoundly indifferent.  But it also makes me join the apostle John in his prayer in Revelation 22:20.

They hate our freedoms? The Military Commissions Act of 2006

Would you be upset if Barack Obama could secretly arrest you, imprison you and hold you indefinitely without charging you or even giving you the chance to have a judge and jury decide if your arrest and imprisonment were legal?  Well, thanks to George W. Bush and Congress in a bill called the Military Commissions Act of 2006, he can.

We’re told that Osama Bin Laden and his Islamic fundamentalists attacked the United States by flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and (unsuccessfully into) the White House because they  hate our freedom.  But is the Military Commissions Act of 2006 an expression of the kind of freedom that Osama Bin Laden hates?