Critical Meanderings

President Obama’s recent announcement that he’s nominated current Solicitor General Elena Kagan for a tinnitus information
soon to be vacant seat on the Supreme Court unleashed the expected firestorm of opposition from Republicans. That's to be expected -- nominees are almost always opposed for some reason, no matter who is selected. The basic reason, of course, is their usual longevity once appointed. In some respects, appointments to the nation's highest court can often be the most long-lasting legacy of any president's term.

This said, one of the most ridiculous reasons put forth so far is that Kagan is not and has never been a judge. Comments made on social networks range from the simple question of why a non-judge would ever be nominated to vitriolic diatribes suggesting that the President's selection means he doesn't know the law of the land.

Funny -- even the quickest search (it took me about 10 seconds to Google this and check the first few results) show that no fewer than 14 former Chief Justices and over 50 former Associate Justices were not judges prior to their appointment to the Court. This august group includes such (hopefully) recognizable names as John Marshall, John Jay, Earl Warren, William Howard Taft (a former President, but never a judge!) and Thurgood Marshall. In fact, many never attended law school. By contrast, Kagan is a former Dean of Harvard Law School (for crying out loud!). I suspect she actually knows a thing or two about the subject.

Yes, this is for real. In fact, Wikipedia correctly notes that "Because the Constitution does not set any qualifications for service as a Justice, the President may nominate anyone to serve." Getting them through the nomination process is another matter, since it's become increasingly politicized over the last few decades.

So for all those alleged Constitutional scholars out there who are protesting Kagan's nomination because she's never been a judge: learn your history, and try reading the Constitution in its entirety for a change. It's not just the Bill of Rights!

If you want to make enemies, try to change something — Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)

The tinnitus pillow
current debate over the establishment of universal health care in the US conjures up many cases in recorded history of an almost pathological resistance to the very idea of change. One can almost imagine some Neolithic human scratching his head and saying "I don't know about these metal tools...if we stop using stone, the whole world might end." Fear of change seems to be ingrained into the human psyche. Those who resist it most fiercely often invoke the idea that change will result in social collapse, the anger of the gods, an overturning of a so-called "natural order", or some calamity that will sweep away whole nations.

We don't have to go far to find examples. Until comparatively recently, military commanders tried to keep women out of the armed forces on the premise that it would upset the natural order and have a negative impact on discipline (an excuse recycled later on to justify opposition to openly gay soldiers). Opponents claimed women were too frail, too valuable, or somehow unfit for combat. In at least one case authorities rationalized opposition by claiming women shouldn't be in combat units because being in the field during menstruation would be unhealthy!

In the 1940-1960 time frame, Southern conservatives invoked the image of social disorder in order to block passage of the Civil Rights Act. Likewise, military authorities used the "negative impact on discipline" excuse to rationalize opposition to integrated units. Not many people like to remember that US military units were strictly segregated, and blacks generally prohibited from serving in combat units (with some notable exceptions), until after the Korean War.

Moving backward, there was widespread opposition to women's suffrage from its inception in the 1850s until the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1920. Again, excuses varied. Some men claimed women would lose their "moral superiority" should they be dragged into the rough and tumble of male-dominated politics, while others insisted they were too frail or (far worse) too unintelligent to participate in intellectual exercises. Others resisted on the basis of Biblical teachings.

The reality is clear: humans love the status quo. They fear change, and will resort to any argument or rationalization in order to avoid confronting it. Fear takes many forms: fear of loss of control, fear of the unknown, or simple fear that a wrong decision will result in unspecified negative effects.  Opponents of the current health care bill are no different. They invoke the classic American bogeyman of socialism, which many wrongly equate with communism (the two are radically different). They claim costs will spiral out of control, or simply fall back on the non sequitur that "the government shouldn't be trusted with anything important...they'll just mess it up." Worse, many simply claim a public health system is "un-American" -- a classic and meaningless charge designed to inflame passions.

Change is difficult. It's upsetting. People dislike it, even when it means nothing more than a one block detour from their daily route due to construction. We are creatures of habit, of custom, and of superstition. Yet without change, we'd still be banging rocks together in caves and wrestling with squirrels over hickory nuts.

It's time to grow up and stop hiding behind feeble excuses. Whether the debate is over health care, racial equality, or women's rights, reason and ethics should never take a back seat to fear-mongering.

The last decade has seen a great deal of public posturing over the integration of religion and politics in the US. Conservatives claim that the United States is a “Christian Nation” and that what “we” need is a return to those fabled days of yore when all Americans were God-fearing and pious.

But is any of that really true?

The first issue to address is the “Christian Nation” concept. Whether the assertion is correct is dependent on how one define that term. If the claim is that the early US was predominantly populated by self-identified Christians then it’s correct. However, it is absolutely incorrect to tinnitus stress
claim that the government of the US is based on Christian principles, or that the US is a Christian nation in the same way that, for instance, Iran is a Muslim nation.

The US government does not operate under the guidance of a priestly caste, as was the case in Medieval Italy and France, not to mention today’s Iran.

In fact, the US government was designed explicitly to exclude such guidance, and for good reason. European governments prior to the Enlightenment were often directly under the control, whether overt or no, of a priestly body. One need only look at France, where cardinals and other religious officials held offices within the government itself. The church’s support was actively sought when monarchs wished to fight wars or make other changes.

Likewise, citizens could be imprisoned by the religiously-influenced state for “religious offenses.” Apostasy, heresy, blasphemy, and other non-secular crimes were punishable by terms in prison.

An extreme case of religion directly affecting daily society was obviously the Inquisition, which had the authority to arrest, torture, and punish anyone they chose to target. This power was massively abused. Citizens were arrested as the result of arguments with neighbors. Vendettas were carried out. Property owned by those accused by the Inquisition was seized by the church, and was frequently awarded to the accuser either in whole or in part.

The Founding Fathers of the US were children of the Age of Enlightenment. They recognized the danger of combining religion, of any type, with secular power. They also believed in the concept of certain inalienable rights, such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

The structure they built was entirely secular in nature, and with good reason. These founders were well aware of the abuse inherent in such systems, having seen them in action across Europe and the Middle East.

It is worthy to note that, by the middle of the 19th century, most European nations had also abolished ties between state and religious bodies Religious crimes like heresy were no longer punishable by imprisonment. States moved away from monarchical systems in which state power was alleged to derive from God’s sanction, toward a more democratic system in which political power lay largely in the hands of the people and their designated representatives.

Those who assert that the US is, or should be administered as a “Christian” nation would do well to examine history and the reasons the US government was created in its present form. They do not understand, or more likely are simply unaware of, the abuses our current form of government was intended to avoid.