Archive for

Goodnight and Thank You, Señor McCain

Colin Powell is ready to endorse Barack Obama for the presidency. I can think of no better prophylactic against a national-security centered “October Surprise,” or a last-minute “endorsement” by Osama bin Laden. The approval of Colin Powell, the one man who got out of the Bush Administration relatively untarnished, will silence Obama’s critics on foreign policy and sway moderate Republicans.

Democracy in America: Religion, Free Exercise, and the Second Certainty of Life

The oldest causus belli in America’s culture war is, perhaps, also the most basic: was America founded as a Christian nation? The traditional wisdom about where the battle lines should be drawn on this matter – progressives “holding the line” on a secular vision of America, with theocrats insisting on Christianity as THE “founding faith” ((Interesting side note: John McCain believes that the Constitution – not abstract notions of foundational values – affirmatively established a Christian nation (YouTube). This is so patently false as to be an obvious attempt to pander to the religious right, and an indicator that McCain, for all his attempts, just can’t speak their language.)) – unfortunately leaves the truth somewhere in the crossfire.

A Partial Defense of Religion in the Public Sphere

In fact, the Founders contemplated neither extreme. History, insofar as it can be used to reconstruct America’s foundational values, indicates that the Founding generation did – to a certain extent – see a strong confluence between religion and democracy. In an oft-quoted passage, Alexis de Toqueville, surveying the nascent American Republic, considered religion integral to the American democratic ideal:

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

Early American religion served to justify and legitimize early American democracy (“Endowed by our Creator…”). Clearly the Founders hoped that, by guiding the private lives and works of its citizens, faith would strengthen the moral fiber of the Republic. But just as clearly, they intended a strong separation between private faith and public faith. America could brook no tyrant, not even if God was on his side.

Hence our careful constitutional compromise between free exercise and non-establishment of religion, a fusion of seemingly contradictory requirements that strives to validate the multifaceted potential of civic religion. In the spirit of free exercise, government gives faith a chance to realize its great potential for good (in the form of subtle accommodations for charity-minded religious institutions), while, in the spirit of non-establishment, limiting its equally great potential for mischief (by erecting “The Wall” between church and state).

Taxing Religious Politics

The legal implications of America’s compromise between its inherent religiosity and its fear of theocracy range from the profound to the mundane. Let’s start with the mundane, and work our way back up.

Taxes. To encourage the positive role of religious institutions as community builders, churches, synagogues, etc., are typically exempt from federal taxation unless (since 1954) they endorse a political candidate, or function as a political action group. This concession validates the Founders’ vision of religion as a desirable entity, and a potential pillar for the Republic’s morality, while limitations on the exemption ensure that the republican barrier between politics and faith remains intact, pragmatically limiting both church and government to their areas of competence.

Of course, as religion and politics become increasingly intertwined (abortion, gay rights, etc.), religious leaders have to face the harsh reality that their political role is, to some extent, circumscribed by their budget: ministers can play the part of the culture war field marshal, but the state won’t subsidize it. Attempts to characterize this limitation as an impediment to free speech rely on the proposition that religious institutions are somehow entitled to special treatment, merely because they’re religious institutions. But this has never been the law and, as argued above, it’s certainly never been the reason behind the law. American religion has never been an excuse for special treatment in otherwise neutral policy arenas like crime, tax or, say, academic performance:

The American constitutional tradition only creates special laws for religion when they’re necessary to affirm religion’s special place in our lives, and when it’s reasonable to assume a confluence between religion’s goals, and the goals of pluralistic republican government. Political advocacy is serious business – but it’s also regulated business. The mere fact that political speech comes from a pulpit, and not a television, is not reason for it to avoid those regulations.

Tangled Bank #116

Every two weeks, one of the internet’s “popular scientists” compiles a list of content pertinent to biology, science, and politics, and calls it “Tangled Bank.” If you’re looking for rational discussions on science, creationism, etc., on the interconnected series of tubes, this is the place to go… and here’s today’s edition.

Not With a Bang, but a Whimper

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: “McCain needs a game changer.” Tired from repetition, perhaps, but no less valid. As tonight is the last time John McCain will have an opportunity to fling lies at Barack Obama’s face – as opposed to his preferred strategy of lying behind his back, preferably through intermediaries – an air of anxiety and desperation appropriately hangs around Republicans and quasi-Republicans. Even Sarah Palin, speaking with Rush Limbaugh, implied that she’s giving up the ghost.

Cornered and sensing defeat, the McCain camp let slip that their candidate will, perhaps surprisingly, bring the nasty and disturbingly personal tone of the past two weeks into the debate hall with him: Ayers is not off limits. In fact, we can expect a mention.

This is a mistake. Personal attacks like the manufactured Ayers controversy are the things you tell your supporters at rallies: without the opponent there to clarify the facts, the tale grows larger with the telling. When you tell it to your opponent’s face, though, he gets a chance to set the record straight. If it’s offered, a politician like Obama will not fail to seize that chance (if you think Obama doesn’t have a whopping solliloquy prepared for the occasion, you’re dreaming). Perhaps more importantly, though, Senator McCain has never successfully pulled of a personal attack at a debate. As much as he tries – God love him for it – it’s just not in him. Like Harry Potter trying the killing curse, it simply fails to convince and, in politics, the only thing worse than a widely-publicized personal attack is a failed personal attack. It fools no-one, and still makes you look like a jerk.

Make no mistake. John McCain is – or was – a great man. For the past six months, political junkies like myself have watched in horror as, in the struggle for John McCain’s soul, his inherent nobility of spirit steadily lost ground to the influences of the modern-day, Rove-built, hate-filled Republican Party. As late as this past weekend, there was still some hope for McCain’s redemption. Tonight we’ll see if that hope remains. If McCain invokes Ayers, he will consummate his union to the “Republican wing of the Republican party,” forsake his noble reputation, and probably lose the election, all in one fell swoop.

McCain could still pull a victory out of this rout, but if he takes that path, it will be a victory without honor, a pyrrhic capture of the office he once deserved, at the expense of his honor, his integrity, and his sacred reputation as a bipartisan consensus-builder. I once respected John McCain, as a true American patriot and one of the few who actually put “country first.” Much of that respect is gone. If he takes the road-more-traveled tomorrow, it will wholly disappear, and I will sadly add another name to the Long List of Good People Ruined by Bush-Era Republicanism.