Pope Francis’ Views on a Favorite Target of Culture Warriors: Secularism

Posted on September 27, 2013 by politicaloptic

Pope Francis’ recent statements urging restraint by the Catholic Church on hot-button issues is a hopeful sign that he may be looking to modify the Church’s behavior in the political sphere.  His words are likely a reaction to the hierarchy’s tendency of late to identify with the political right and to use doctrinal litmus tests for determining the loyalty of Catholics. If one wants a true indicator of Francis’ real intentions, however, it might be best to go beyond the general tone of his remarks and explore how much he seems to agree or disagree in specific instances with the worldview of his hard-line predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. In particular, where does he stand, as far as can be determined, on the broad issue of secularism in modern society, a favorite preoccupation of Benedict’s.

Benedict and his allies on the Christian Right have made a point of exposing the so-called evils of secularism and, on that basis, justifying their hard-line positions on morality and the prerogatives of the Catholic Church. They reject the commonly held view that secularism in Western democracies enhances religious freedom by ensuring the religious neutrality of government, allowing for a level playing field for all beliefs. Instead, Benedict and his supporters see secularism, by virtue of its non-religious orientation, as a mortal enemy of Christianity. They commonly declare that it acts as a substitute for religion and that it aggressively, even conspiratorially, imposes its “anti-religious” values.

By holding to such claims, Benedict in effect endorses the culture-war framework of the Religious Right, which sees the world as divided into irreconcilable camps fighting to impose different versions of the truth. It thus becomes easy for him to view neutrality as impossible and tolerance as a false ethic used by secularists to obscure their “authoritarianism.” He chooses to call their open-mindedness a “dictatorship of relativism” because, in his view, it forces religion to accept passively things it views as evil, such as same-sex marriage and birth control coverage in health insurance plans. Coexistence under such circumstances he views as out of the question.

To what extent does Pope Francis share these stark assumptions about secularism and culture war? The evidence so far is somewhat inconclusive. On the one hand, the new pope has not publicly rejected Benedict’s stance. Shortly after becoming pope, he actually seemed to reaffirm some of  Benedict’s framework. In a speech in March 2013, he briefly mentioned the “spiritual poverty of our time” and used the words “dictatorship of relativism,” used by his “much beloved predecessor,” to describe it. And he has since referred to the need to “work together to challenge the contemporary problems of secularism and disrespect for the human person.”

It is very possible, however, that Francis was employing such words more as a signal of respect for his predecessor than as a full endorsement of their ideological import. There have been instances where he has, in fact,  appeared to take a flexible stance toward secularism and secular culture. For example, in a June meeting with politicians from France, a country that lives firmly by secular principles, he showed an appreciation of the openness of French society and its willingness to accommodate religious influences. He made clear that the principle of secularism in itself “shouldn’t mean hostility to religious reality or the exclusion of religion from the social sphere and the debates that animate it.” Clearly secularism here has a less “authoritarian” face than in Pope Benedict’s typical pronouncements.

Pope Francis’ recent August interview with Antonio Spadaro is significant because it gives further evidence of his willingness to come to terms with secularism in many forms. He reveals in the interview a wide knowledge of secular culture and shows no inclination to reject it in categorical terms. He expresses an impatience with those who would simply condemn the evils of the prevailing order,  stating that a knee-jerk hostility to the world leads to a sterile conservatism. In his words:

Complaining never helps us find God. The complaints of today about how ‘barbaric’ the world is–these complaints sometimes end up giving birth within the Church to desires to establish order in the sense of pure conservation, as a defense. No, God is to be encountered in the world of today.

Francis opens his eyes to the world of today–the secular world–and shows his willingness to learn from it. “Even the other sciences and their development help the church in its growth in understanding,” he declares. He takes a positive view toward the modernizing changes made under the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), usually minimized by today’s conservatives, stating that the Council was a “re-reading of the Gospel in light of contemporary culture.” And he suggests that those who persistently long for “doctrinal security” in a changing world turn faith into a mere ideology. Such statements seem a far cry from talk about the evils of a devouring secularism.

To be sure, Francis’ openness to present-day experience is not meant in his eyes to lead to relativism or put in question the truths of Christianity, and he seeks to protect himself from that criticism. By reason of his leadership position, he clearly feels obliged to hedge whatever might appear to be a major departure from orthodoxy. It would thus be premature to celebrate any abrupt changes in his approach to secularism and the secular world. But it is surely a good sign that he is beginning to demonstrate his independence from the more dogmatic ideological constructions of his predecessor.

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The “Pro-Family Election Disaster”

Posted on November 14, 2012 by politicaloptic

For the Christian Right, there is no hiding from the drubbing it received on November 6. Unable to spin it away, movement leaders have taken to gnashing their teeth in recent days. Mike Huckabee described the election as a “humiliating defeat,” while Janet Porter (formerly Janet Folger) of Faith 2 Action called it a “pro-family election disaster.” Other leaders have used similar words. The re-election of Barack Obama and the repudiation of their loose-lipped favorites, notably Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, realized their worst fears. But surely the biggest blow to the movement was the popular endorsement of gay marriage in Maine, Maryland, and Washington and the defeat of a restrictive amendment on marriage in Minnesota. In no previous state balloting has gay marriage received a majority mandate from the voters. Now the electorate in four blue states has changed the dynamic.

Its humiliating defeat on gay marriage should not come as a total surprise to the Christian Right. It has clearly been playing defense on the issue, at least in the more moderate states,  obviously aware that simply inciting antagonism against gays no longer works. This  explains its carefully crafted ads suggesting that one can be “tolerant” towards gays while still voting against gay marriage. Such ads are dishonest in the sense that they downplay the elemental hostility that religious rightists continue to have for gay people. To this day they have not made peace with any aspect of the gay movement, consistently opposing legislation dealing with discrimination, bullying, and hate crimes and showing little toleration for gay adoptions or civil unions.

To its shame, the Christian Right has always viewed opponents not simply as political protagonists, but as existential enemies condemned in the eyes of God and branded as such for eternity. God’s “enemies” have comprised a rather large swath of Americans over the years, including secular humanists, evolutionists, New Agers, feminists, liberals, climatologists, and Planned Parenthood. Gays have always been part of this group, but rose to special prominence in the mid-1990’s, when Christian rightists decided that the gay movement was a major threat to their biblical agenda.

Sadly enough, culture war against enemies is essential to the Religious Right’s reason for being. The movement’s textual rallying cry is the provocative passage from Romans 1, which declares that neutrality is impossible in this world. Since God has made his presence “manifest” to all mankind, those who do not accept His sovereignty must be regarded as idol worshippers. Labeled as rebels and enemies of God, they are given over to sins of the flesh (sodomy being prominent among them) and deemed “worthy of death.” All of this is red meat for the faithful, who are often seen with placards quoting Romans 1 at demonstrations.  The same viewpoint is echoed in activist Matt Staver’s post-election declaration that the Democrats have led the country to destruction on a “Romans 1 platform.”

Such odious statements underline how crucial it was to win on the social issues in this election. American voters repudiated an ideology of hatred and reaffirmed equal treatment and pluralism. The LGBT community, which has born the brunt of the Religious Right’s wrath for years, can celebrate the hope of a better future. Their victory is a victory for America’s best traditions, one that all well-meaning people can be thankful for.

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Ballot Box Vigilantes

Posted on November 1, 2012 by politicaloptic

One thing to be ready for on Election Tuesday is the invasion of the ballot box vigilantes. These guardians of the vote will be out at polling places around the country to challenge any suspicious-looking voters. By all accounts, they are an angry and well-organized bunch, convinced that America’s electorate is riddled with non-citizens, fictitious characters, and impersonators who imperil the rights of ordinary Americans.

The prime mover in this mighty people’s movement is an organization called True the Vote. Founded in 2009 to resist apparent voting irregularities in a Texas county, the group claims to be non-partisan and, indeed, currently holds non-profit status. But a quick view of its history reveals that it is simply an offshoot of a Tea Party organization called the King Street Patriots, which describes itself as a defender of freedom, capitalism, and American exceptionalism. Concerned over “threats” to liberty in the electoral system, True the Vote focuses its attention on minority voters, whom it sees as overwhelming the voter rolls and serving as fodder for the opposing party.

Responding with Minuteman efficiency to this looming menace, True the Vote has recruited a legion of “citizen watchdogs” and poll watchers to deploy during the upcoming elections, largely in minority communities, to rectify the voting process. But the group’s national elections coordinator, Bill Ouren, spells out its true intentions in clear language: targeted voters should feel like they’re “driving and seeing the police following you,” he states. They are being served notice that they are under surveillance. True the Vote has mounted road signs in some states warning that voter fraud could lead to long prison sentences, and it has stigmatized low income voters in speeches, calling them “food stamp armies.” It is hard not to interpret such actions as subtle or not so subtle attempts at voter harassment.

Indeed, that interpretation is confirmed by True the Vote’s broader campaign to push for burdensome voter legislation at the state level. In the last two years, it has supported strict limitations on organized registration and inflexible voter ID laws. When it suits them, tea partiers clearly have no problem standing up for bureaucratic red tape and tough regulation. Its efforts have born at least partial fruit in Republican-governed states like Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

The organization, of course, bases its restrictive agenda on claims of widespread voter fraud. But such claims have been repeatedly debunked on both empirical and rational grounds. Empirically, there is little solid evidence for this kind of fraud, given that cases of it are few and actual convictions even fewer. One study estimates that individual voter fraud happens about .00004% of the time, about as likely as getting killed by lightening. And rationally, since new voters must declare under oath that they are citizens, there are huge disincentives to making a false declaration. Who would want to risk five years in prison and $10,000 in fines for the miniscule payoff of casting a single vote? The idea of it defies common sense.

Discernible amounts of fraud, of course, do exist in American elections as they do everywhere, involving such things as missing ballot boxes, false tallies, and the manipulation of voting machines by rogue actors. But these crimes involve the operation of the voting system itself rather than the discrete acts of individual voters. Unfortunately, the laws being pushed by our vigilante friends in no way address  systemic issues. Their focus is entirely on burdening the individual voter.

Avid defenders of voter purity seem unfazed by the onus that some potential voters would bear under the new laws. Florida legislator Mike Bennett, sponsor of that state’s draconian voting law, voices a typical Tea Party sentiment: “I don’t have a problem with making it harder. [Voting] should not be easy.” And let’s be clear about those for whom it would be “harder”: it would be the underclasses, the infirm, and those without driver’s licenses (or, in states like Florida, firearm permits). These folks would need to traverse a system of fees and bureaucracy hefty enough to deter all but the hardiest. They would have to earn the right to vote by jumping through hoops and circumventing roadblocks.

As Americans, we need to remind ourselves that voting is not a privilege, but a right. Our nation has served as an example for the world when it has upheld the rights of its citizens, not restricted them. Passing restrictive legislation and sending out the posse on election day to intimidate voters is not the way one does things in a democratic society. It’s time to remember where our values lie.

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Florida’s Amendment 8 Sounds a Lot Like Religion on the Dole

Posted on October 19, 2012 by politicaloptic

Amendment 8 on this November’s Florida ballot is labeled by its authors the Religious Freedom Amendment. The amendment, which would reverse key language of the Florida constitution on the separation of church and state, has the full-throated support of the freedom-loving Florida Republican Party. It is also lauded by certain organizations that defend liberty and free enterprise to the last, including the James Madison Institute, a recently formed think tank that issues glossy publications. But, for all the talk of liberty, the amendment has little to do with defending religious choice or protecting it from forces that might try to snuff it out. It has everything to do with enabling the unimpeded flow of public taxpayer money to sectarian organizations approved by the state’s Christian-leaning governing authorities. Rather than the Religious Freedom Amendment, the proposal deserves to be called the Church Subsidy Amendment.

In specific terms, the Amendment would strike out language presently in the Florida constitution that bans direct or indirect “aid” to “any church, sect, or religious denomination.” It would replace such language with an open-ended directive: “No individual or entity,” it states, “may be discriminated against or barred from receiving funding on the basis of religious identity or belief.” This revealing use of words relies on a popular right-wing assumption that religious individuals and entities are regularly discriminated against by government. The sentence suggests that government should be in the business of aiding particular religious groups. It construes government’s attempt to remain neutral in such matters as a form of “discrimination.” In general, it replaces a balanced view of religious freedom with a no-holds-barred version that sees no limits to religion’s role or the benefits it can receive from government largesse.

The promoters of Amendment 8 claim that they are merely trying to preserve existing arrangements under which religiously affiliated entities perform certain social services for the state. The amendment, they hold, would insulate these arrangements from potential lawsuits. But if this were their true intention, why didn’t their revised language reflect that intention? They could, for instance, have rewritten the clause to protect the principle of funding-in-exchange-for-services while at the same time reinforcing the ban on outright “aid” to religious entities. Or they could have made it clear that proselytizing activities would not qualify for state funding. Although their wording does dutifully acknowledge the authority of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, one needs to remember that the Christian wing of the Republican Party does not accept the traditional interpretation of that Amendment or the principle of church-state separation in general.

There is actually much irony in this attempt at obfuscation and overreach. If the Amendment were actually to pass (it requires a 60% majority), its Christian  cheerleaders, who apparently have not considered the measure’s full consequences, might just find themselves with a doozy of a hangover. Any public money dispensed to religious organizations would surely come at the price of independence for those  organizations, since taxpayers would insist that aid be accompanied by oversight and strings to guard against malfeasance. Christian groups receiving aid would have to be subservient to “gov’mint,” the entity they so love to vilify. Moreover, among the likely applicants  lining up to receive benefits would be many with religious views unacceptable to those dispensing such benefits. Unfortunately for the dispensers,  any attempt to deny funds with obvious bias would make them vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy and lawsuits. The result: a can of worms with no end in sight.

Hopefully, the Florida voters will show more foresight than the authors of this misguided measure and vote no.

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Lessons to be Drawn from Denver Debate

Posted on October 6, 2012 by politicaloptic

Democratic supporters of President Obama were looking for a forceful case for his reelection at Wednesday’s debate. Instead they saw the president withdrawn and in rambling mode, woefully unprepared to answer his opponent’s programmed assault. Having spent weeks rehearsing his lines, Romney overwhelmed Obama with a cascade of unsubstantiated claims enough to keep New York Times fact-checkers up until the wee hours. These claims begged to be rebutted on stage and then followed by a convincing alternative. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. In the aftermath, we are left with a presidential race that is much more in doubt than it was before.

So what can we learn from this missed opportunity? A lot, not only about the benefits of preparedness, but the importance of communication in overall strategy. Obama and, by extension, Democratic intellectuals in general have often demonstrated a tin ear and mediocre messaging skills in the way they relate to the American people. This lack of connection was very noticeable in the Colorado debate.

Three long-standing weaknesses stand out in the president’s performance. The first is an elitist, egg-headed attitude that assumes that reason will win out simply if all the facts are laid out in calm fashion. It overlooks the fact that politics are at least partly affective, being a function of the gut rather than strictly one of rational calculation. The intellectual approach gives far too much attention to wonkish details and too little to values, which are most effectively expressed in the language of conviction, empathy, and outrage. The wonkishness came out, for instance, in Obama’s stress on detailed exposition rather than pointed rebuttal. He tended to defend the intricacies of Obamacare or the Dodd-Frank regulations rather than exposing the damage Romney’s corporatist approach would inflict on our safety net and societal well-being. In so doing, he failed to present policies in terms that everyday Americans could understand viscerally.

Second, he made the common liberal mistake of not challenging opponents’ frames. The major frame adopted by Romney during the debate was the one about government being a noose around our necks and a burden on our children. It is inefficient, abusive, over-bearing, and just plain bad, threatening our liberties, our initiative, and our future. But how about the following: government assistance, intelligently focused, bolsters our liberties, our initiative, and our future. When government offers college loans at low rates, it helps people achieve their dream of independence. When it supports research (often too risky for private enterprise), it aids innovation. When it establishes financial regulation that requires transparency, it promotes efficiency. When it offers health care that relies on economies of scale and curtails emergency-room medicine for the poor, it reduces costs. And so forth. Bottom line: government can be good if we make it good. It’s the frame, stupid.

Third, Obama lets his desire to compromise interfere with his basic message. There is nothing wrong, of course, with compromise in the politics of a democracy. It is something the tea partiers, who seem bent on blowing up the system if their demands are not met, have yet to understand. But compromise should come only after one has laid out and fought for one’s positions. It should come late in the process, when ultimate decisions have to be made. If one is unwise enough to incorporate the positions and assumptions of one’s opponents in everyday talking points, as Obama so often does, it waters down one’s message. A clear example of this failing is Obama’s defense of government programs, on the one hand, while stating that he is perfectly willing to negotiate their demise, on the other. By seeming to be almost enthusiastic at arriving at a “grand” compromise, Obama trivializes the damage that would be caused to our safety net, our education system, our infrastructure, our energy innovation, and the like, which are at the center of his appeal. It legitimizes the Republican message of government overspending tied to an urgent deficit “crisis.” An effective counterargument would stress handling the deficit not by obliterating government programs but by improving government efficiencies, ending the overseas adventures that are so dear to Republicans, and raising more revenues from those who can justly afford it.

If there is a silver lining to the last debate, it is in demonstrating to Obama and his political team those things he needs to work on to be an effective communicator and political strategist. An advance in this regard will improve his game not only on the debate stage, but in the White House.

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The “Dependent” Ones

Posted on September 28, 2012 by politicaloptic

On the basis of Mitt Romney’s comments on the 47%, it seems obvious that he believes being “dependent on government” in any form is a condition worse than sin. His view that almost half of us fit into that category conforms with a moralistic narrative on the right that sees the world split between the productive and the unproductive, the givers and the takers. But what is clear in the eyes of Romney and the Republican faithful is almost by definition ambiguous or contradictory to the rest of us. Indeed, Romney’s specific assertion about dependency is vulnerable to two cogent criticisms: it is either an outlandish understatement or a crude exaggeration.

Let’s start by viewing it as an outlandish understatement. To say that 47% of us are dependent on government and 53% aren’t ignores the fact that 100% of us “depend” on government in fundamental ways. We are referring not just to Social Security and Medicare, but to programs that guarantee the safety of our food, air, and water, ensure the trustworthiness of our marketplace, maintain our transportation systems, offer an abbreviated safety net, and provide national security. We all rely on government for these essential functions, and that’s a good thing. Owing to the federal government’s ability to  provide uniform oversight and take advantage of economies of scale, it is uniquely qualified to handle these challenging tasks (and, by the way, fulfill its mandate to “promote the common welfare,” as stated in the Constitution’s preamble).

Can it be said, however, that the disadvantaged are proportionately more dependent on government than the rest of us? In a perceptual sense perhaps yes, but overall no. According to the non-profit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, it is true that the poor, as a percentage of the population, receive more than their share of so-called “entitlement” dollars (32% of benefits go to the bottom 20% of the population). The middle class receives approximately its proportional share (58% go to the middle 60% of the population), and the highest income group, less than its share (10% go to the top 20% of the population). This ostensibly represents a shift of resources to the low income from the high income group. But here is the clincher: higher income Americans are rewarded for their “sacrifice” by receiving the lion’s share of what Alan Greenspan calls “tax entitlements.” These are loopholes in the tax code aimed at particular interest groups and especially wealthy investors. A full 66% of  “tax entitlements” go the top 20% of the population. Bottom line: it is a stretch to say that lower income Americans are appreciably more “dependent” on government than anybody else, if we measure dependency by government benefits received.

But let’s assume that Mr. Romney has in mind a more shaded meaning for the word “dependent.” Perhaps he is thinking of “dependent” in the sense of encouraging “passivity and sloth” and enabling able-bodied people to shirk their responsibilities.  If we view his 47% statement in this light, however, it would seem to take the form of a crude exaggeration.  Conservatives never make a broad connection between government services and sloth. The reason is, they can’t. Romney’s basic claim is based on a favorite factoid of the right, namely, that approximately 47% of households do not pay federal income tax (technically true), and hence are non-contributing encumbrances on the system. But in fact, most of the 47% are working families who do pay substantial payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare taxes) , as various commentators have pointed out.  Often their payroll taxes alone are proportionately in excess of what the wealthy pay in taxes. Meanwhile, those who pay neither payroll nor income taxes–about 18%–are hardly the drifters and ne’er-do-wells that Romneyites would have us believe. About half of them are elderly citizens who have retired after years of employment, and many of the remaining 9% are disabled or temporarily unemployed after being laid off.

It is true that America’s poorer citizens, unable to survive on a ludicrously low minimum wage, often receive government assistance in the form of food stamps, housing supplements, and the like. Our wage system, not sloth or the unwillingness to work, encourages this sad state of affairs. However, the actual proportion of non-working people receiving “welfare,” as it is commonly defined, is relatively small. These are poor families with dependent children covered by the TANF program (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), partially administered by the states. According to the Department of Health, families receiving more than 50% of their income under this program constitute 1.7% of the population, not the bloated figures suggested by conservative bloggers and think tanks. And even this 1.7% receive welfare assistance for a limited time period only and have to satisfy certain training or work-related requirements. While unwillingness to work may exist on the margins, it is more a political fiction of tea partiers than a demonstrable problem.

The evils of government “dependency” will always be a rallying cry of the right because it rests on the dogma that government can never be a force for good, and thus never something one should rely on.  On this assumption, one could even construct an argument that the more useful and popular a government program is, the more insidious it should be considered because a grateful citizenry relies on it. Government is bad not because it doesn’t work, but because it does. Unfortunately, this is the sort of bizarre argument that today’s  Republican governing philosophy is based on.

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Romney: Rights Come from God

Posted on September 17, 2012 by politicaloptic

In some of his recent speeches, Mitt Romney has come out with the claim that our rights come from God. His rhetoric may be nothing more than garden-variety pandering to a key constituency, in this case the Christian Right. Nonetheless, by associating himself with the notion that “inalienable rights,” the foundation of American liberty, came into being with God’s sanction, Romney helps to legitimize phoney history and a religiously biased framework.  Advocates of such a viewpoint of course consider God to be their god, the God of the Bible. Disparaging pluralism, they appeal to one narrow religious perspective and reject all others.

Religious rightists have long tried to commandeer our founding documents for their own purposes. To make a case for Christian (or Judeo-Christian) origins, they utilize lines from the Declaration of Independence that say men are “endowed by their Creator” with inalienable rights based on the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” In actual fact, the Founders’  linkage of rights with natural law and a vague “creator” is more consistent with classical philosophers like Cicero and deists like  Benjamin Franklin than it is with Christianity. The Founders’ use of the trappings of natural law is fully understandable given their inability to appeal to British constitutional traditions to justify a rebellion against the king.  The purpose of their language was to unite opinion in the colonies, which was quite diverse, not to brand it with a particular denominational or religious character. Twelve years later under more favorable circumstances, they wrote a constitution that eliminated god talk altogether.

The tendency of today’s Christian conservatives to identify modern rights with the God of their religion is difficult to comprehend given that the Bible shows little interest in “rights” as such.  The right of religious freedom, for example, is plainly ignored in the first two of the Ten Commandments, which dictate that a person must worship one particular God and no other. In the New Testament, Jesus is clearly concerned with faith, conduct, and salvation, not rights. The idea of individual rights evolved gradually, but modern “rights talk” did not gain traction until the advent of John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers. It was directed against the reigning absolutisms of the day, including–ironically–certain flagrant examples of Christian establishment in Europe and the American colonies.

But Mitt Romney’s latter-day acceptance of the God-rights connection is worrisome not just for its unsubstantiated basis in history and fact. More fundamentally, it opens a political can of worms about what our legitimate rights are and how they should be determined. If God is the source of our rights, rather than humans guided by experience and reason as usually assumed,  then logically God’s loyal followers become the referees determining how those rights are defined. Many, if not most, citizens would be left out of the process.

By common definition, rights describe the just claims that give meaning to citizenship. The gradual extension of rights to out-groups has been central to the American story, bringing civic empowerment to African-Americans, women, laborers, immigrants, minorities, the disabled, gay people, and others in the course of some 200 years of advocacy and struggle. Christian rightists, however, seek to change that narrative, guided by their theory of God-based rights. They have signaled that many of the recent achievements in rights are illegitimate or undeserved and believe they should be restricted, if not eliminated, in  accordance with religious texts. Liberty, they often assert, needs to be “ordered” within certain religiously-correct parameters.

It is not difficult to foresee how the Republicans’ newfound advocacy for God-based rights might play out in the political realm. There would likely be renewed efforts to undermine women’s right to control their own health, to frustrate the right of gay people to share the full benefits of citizenship, and to deny the right of victims of discrimination to protection, among other efforts. At the same time, the rights of religious minorities who happen to believe in the “wrong” god, particularly Muslims, would assuredly come under renewed attack, while the presumed rights of Christians to undo the neutrality of the public sphere, brandish Christian symbols in official venues, and assert religious authority in secular affairs would have a re-energized cadre of supporters.

It is bad enough that Mitt Romney has incorporated the talking points of religious extremists. His use of such language shows the limitlessness of his opportunism, which by itself warrants condemnation. But his words are especially consequential because they lend credibility to ideas that detach our constitutional traditions from their moorings and threaten the very basis of our pluralistic democracy.

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Paul Ryan, Son of John Galt

Posted on September 5, 2012 by politicaloptic

Paul Ryan has downplayed his Ayn Rand associations lately in deference to Christian sensibilities. Rand, the popular priestess of über-individualism, was a militant atheist and no friend of the Christian religion. Still, while Ryan dismisses Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, he in no way repudiates her most famous novel, Atlas Shrugged, featuring a heroic capitalist (John Galt) who bucks the welfare state. Ryan’s ambiguity is somewhat amusing since the novel espouses principles and prejudices that are virtually identical to the philosophy of its author.

Atlas Shrugged presents a world at odds with reality as most mortals  experience it. It portrays a society where the economically successful are persecuted rather than empowered. The “achievers,” far from prospering from their efforts, see their just earnings redistributed to the undeserving  masses. It is thus they, the capitalists, not the workers, who in this saga of industrial conflict rebel against the established order. John Galt is the entrepreneurial insurrectionist who secretly organizes a “strike” against the government. The novel reaches a decisive point when Galt reveals himself to the people in a long radio address, justifying his decision to rebel and explaining the philosophy that underlies it. The book comes to an end as those who symbolize the establishment meet a grisly end in a dramatic train crash.

Galt’s stated worldview–basically Ayn Rand’s individualistic philosophy in a fictional setting–is a combination of bravado and paranoia. The bravado part is expressed in the glorification of selfhood. It is all about the individual, alone and dedicated to his/her productive pursuits, standing up against regulation and intrusion by a coercive government. The self, in the Randian perspective, is detached from any concept of the community or any social responsibilities that it might involve. Devoid of sentimental notions of altruism or humanity, it is centered exclusively on its own destiny.

In justification of his one-track focus, Galt claims that he is simply following the most rationally consistent course of action. Reason is the sole source of knowledge and the sole guide to action. It enables one to understand that all effects have causes and that all human achievements are the product of human thinking. It dictates that one should live by the work of one’s own mind. Applied to the world of economics, it claims special prerogatives: most notably, it specifies that the non-thinkers are always inferior and in debt to the thinkers. The result is a two-class society of producers who think and non-producers who don’t. If this sounds a bit extravagant, one should remember that Galt (Rand) treats rationality as immune from the normal laws of experience. His/her logic forbids the possibility of contradiction and leads inexorably from egotistical premise to sociopathic conclusion. By real world standards, such “rationality” is simply a form of reductionism, in which cause and effect are uncomplicated and construed through the lens of the isolated self. It is one-dimensional thinking combined with a total lack of empathy.

The Randian point of view would not be so dangerous if it were not combined with paranoid tendencies. According to it, the world is inhabited by those who threaten the producers and wish to pick their pockets under the aegis of the state. Throughout John Galt’s long monologue, they are portrayed as “looters,” “moochers,” and “robbers.” They include the religious idealist, who stresses love thy neighbor, and the liberal progressive, who emphasizes social responsibility. Rand’s division of the world into heroes and destroyers, producers and leeches, good and evil, mirrors in many ways the culture war divisions stressed by the Christian Right, although in a different form.

Rand, for whom Galt is the mouthpiece, has a distinctly personal reason for demonizing enemies. In her characterization of hostile forces she is drawing from the dark memories of her childhood in the Soviet Union, where she and her upper middle class family suffered under Lenin’s regime. Her great strike in Atlas Shrugged is a recapitulation of the Russian Revolution, although this time turned on its head. The pro-capitalist novel is apparently Rand’s way of exacting retribution.

It is not too hard to draw a line between the speech of John Galt to the budgetary philosophy of Paul Ryan. The themes of impending financial disaster, the insidious role of government and its coercive acts of redistribution, the debt owed to those who “produce,” and the sacrifices required of the undeserving are prominent in both.  It is ironic that Paul Ryan had to rely on a Russian émigré’s view of American government, so heavily reliant on an overwrought version of the Soviet system, to form his own opinion about it. Their visions would have been less controversial if Ryan and Rand had infused their rationality with a dose of humility and realism.

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Paul Ryan and the Fusion of Fiscal and Social Conservatism

Posted on August 16, 2012 by politicaloptic

Paul Ryan needs no introduction as a fiscal conservative. The chairman of the Budget Committee in the House and the author of several controversial budget plans, Ryan has long been a guiding light for government-allergic libertarians.

Less well known but of equal significance is Ryan’s record as a social and religious conservative. Ryan closely follows the Catholic bishop line on abortion, birth control, and so-called religious freedom. “I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” he stated in a 2010 interview, and his advocacy in Congress testifies to it. According to a recent report, his voting record compares with that of Michelle Bachmann, an exemplar of the Christian Right. It comes as no surprise that his selection as Romney’s running mate was met with enthusiasm by Christian conservatives like Ralph Reed, Rick Santorum, Tony Perkins (Family Research Council), and Penny Nance (Concerned Women for America), among others.

For Ryan, social and fiscal conservatism are intrinsically related rather than constituting two separate domains. Far from subordinating moral issues to secular ones, he views the two as mutually reinforcing. In this sense he comes close to the tea party formula endorsed by Bachmann and Demint, which focuses on economic issues, but has biblical proof texts (or papal edicts) in the wings ready to back them up.

Two of Ryan’s recent position statements reveal how purposefully he fuses religion and economics. While his arguments display a certain ingenuity, they also reveal intellectual confusion and a stress on rhetoric over substance.

The first of these comes from a 2010 article on the rights to life and economic freedom (“The Cause of Life Can’t be Separated from the Cause of Freedom”). To try to show how the two are connected, Ryan utilizes the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He argues that the iconic words from the Declaration of Independence demonstrate a parallel commitment to the right to life as defined by today’s Christian pro-life movement, and free market liberty as viewed by his favorite idol, the anti-Christian Ayn Rand. By binding the two causes together under the umbrella of the founding document, he obscures their very different origins and protects himself from embarrassment over a key  incongruity, i.e. his support for government intervention on one issue (abortion) and rejection of it on the other (the economy).

Unfortunately, Ryan seems to forget that the Declaration’s words were inspired largely by the English philosopher John Locke, not by anti-abortionists or plutocrats. Locke used “life” in the sense of a person’s self-preservation and safety in a theoretical state of nature. He had no interest, nor did the American Founders, in embryonic speculation. Locke’s view of “liberty” and property rights, which helped to justify the capitalistic accumulation of wealth, comes much closer to Ryan’s approach. But it hardly extols über-individualism and elitism in the Randian mode.  It would be simplistic to assume that Locke, and the Founders, were trying to lay the groundwork for Rupert Murdock and the Koch brothers.

Responsibility is a second of Ryan’s pet themes. By making fiscal responsibility analogous to individual responsibility, he seeks to establish a simple link between economics and religion. A rising government debt, he states in a recent article for the Catholic publication Our Sunday Visitor, is immoral since it demonstrates lack of discipline and self-restraint. It shows imperviousness to consequences and hence moral  irresponsibility. For him, one must renew the connection between hard work and wealth, and teach people how to do without government. Ryan refers to declarations by Pope Benedict to underscore the religious basis of his argument.

The problem is that Ryan’s view of responsibility is almost exclusively individualistic.  It shows little recognition of that other side of responsibility which is “social” and community-oriented, which sees the necessity for schools, roads, parks, safety nets, and regulations that protect people and the planet. A “responsibility” that ignores these things, refuses to raise taxes, and turns away from our collective problems is a very strange sort of responsibility indeed.

When all is said, Ryan’s merging of economic and religious themes would seem to aid in bolstering the Republican agenda. It is rhetorically appealing to fiscal and social conservatives and serves to unite them behind a set of policies. But the vision it offers is scarcely a coherent worldview.

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The Occupy Movement: Success and Limitations

Posted on July 30, 2012 by politicaloptic

No one on the progressive side of the ledger can deny the positive impact of Occupy Wall Street (OWS). After two years of angry verbiage from anti-government tea partiers, the occupiers of Zuccotti Park finally provided a blast of fresh air. By refocusing on the financiers and manipulators who brought the financial system to its knees, they were able to introduce a dose of realism to the discussion of what went wrong with our economy and to rebut the vocal supporters of America’s hard-pressed billionaires.

E.J. Dionne is quite correct in calling the Occupy Movement an authentic expression of progressive populism. It went beyond the wonky focus on administration and expertise so favored by liberal intellectuals. Rather than techno-talk, OWS adopted a rhetoric that spoke to people in straight language, highlighting the central issue of inequality with that simple fraction 99/1. In doing so, it united a large number of Americans around an issue that resonated.

The impact of OWS on national discourse has been palpable. Like the Tea Party, the Occupy movement provided a way of framing current problems in the vernacular of politics. But this time the frame was a progressive one, voicing the discontents of those who have seen their opportunities restricted. For the first time in a long time, President Obama and fellow Democrats were holding their heads high and showing spine in their interactions with Republican obstructionists.

Still, we wait to see if OWS has the staying power of the Tea Party movement. In its favor, one can cite its idealism and authentic voice. Unlike the tea partiers, who quickly cashed in their populist cred for aid from the Koch brothers, Fox News, and a cast of right-wing pols, the occupiers maintained a staunch independence. Their credibility with the general populace seems to have gained as a result.

But genuineness and spontaneity can be ambiguous assets, often leading to organizational weakness. This was always the case with OWS.  Since its members represented a diversity of causes each with distinct goals, the challenge of singing in unison proved thorny. For a long while the movement seemed stuck on deciding what its role was to be. Unable to agree on a list of demands or whom to address them to, it eventually settled for a “kitchen sink” approach that outlined a broad manifesto for the public at large. Emphasizing internal democracy and barring dialogue with the establishment, the movement ultimately opted for general principle over politics.

This may have been a mistake. One needs to ask if the Occupy Movement could have done more by taking a more active political role. Could it have made better use of its moment in the spotlight by being more focused and specific? Should it have demanded that politicians, many of whom in the end brushed it off as utopian, clarify their positions? Surely one can sympathize with the left’s disgust for today’s dysfunctional politics and unwillingness to contribute to it. Nonetheless, Hendrik Hertzberg‘s comment on the need for realism is worth quoting: “Ultimately, inevitably, the route to real change has to run through politics–the politics of America’s broken, god-awful, immutably two-party electoral system, the only one we have.” Politics has a way of muddying the waters, but it is also the main means by which power is distributed and translated into policy.

The real danger is that those who play down politics are playing into the hands of the Koch brothers and their like, who seek to control the process for themselves and exclude the rest of us. Opposition to government in all its forms, let’s face it, is a right-wing frame. Republicans ever since Reagan, but now more than ever, have been trying to prove that government is untrustworthy and to make it so through a process of ugly attrition. A left that is cynical towards things political is essentially allowing a right-wing view of the world to prevail.

One can hope that the message of the 99% will turn some minds before the November elections and that it is more than a distant echo of a valiant movement that tried but didn’t go far enough.

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