Hillary Rodham Clinton was, and a far as I can tell, still is a New Democrat. Being translated that means a Centrist who is a fiscal conservative, sympathetic to American civil liberties, and willing to implement moderate reforms. Despite the desperate attempts of the Republicans to paint her as a far left Democrat, the facts are she is a Centrist.
So the question is, does a Centrist have the willpower to effect the changes and reforms necessary to re-establish the middle-class, push through universal health coverage, and stop the drain of capital and jobs to overseas. Clearly, as her husband proved, a Centrist Democrat can shame the Republicans into balancing the budget. But Bill balanced the budget on the back of the middle-class, and when we were finally back in the black -- what happens? The neo-conservatives sweep into office and unload the surplus not on helpful domestic spending to assist the middle-class, but as a massive tax cut to the ultra-wealthy.
To get America back on track, there is going to have to be a certain amount of healthy class warfare in America. The question is, does a Centrist Democrat have the stomach for it?
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Reagan's Most Damaging Impact
Ronald Reagan did a lot of damage to our nation, but perhaps his attack on labor unions resulted in the greatest harm to the average American. It set the stage for the massive chasm between the haves and the have nots and began the steady march of the American Middle Class into extinction.
Unions were very important to our having a stable and responsible government. For all their warts and corruption, they were a way for the blue collar working class to organize and create leaders capable of making the economic and social issues of the blue collar and middle classes of America known to Congress and the legislatures and making sure that the blue collar and middle class interests were respected.
After Reagan and the onset of globalization combined with urestrained laissez faire capitalism, they evaporated as an effective force and their leadership lost the clout it had previously wielded. In essence, Reagan created a power vacuum and the Republicans were ready, willing and able to fill that power vacuum with the religious right. The blue collar class disintegrated and descended into poverty, the middle class began to melt away.
The result was that the religious right organized the lesser educated into a significant political machine which blamed all of our economic and social woes upon our moral decadence and delivered their votes to the Republican party free of all strings pertaining to the economic interests of these economic classes. The result has been that the Republican party has been able to win elections by obtaining the campaign funding from the economic elite while purchasing votes from the lower economic classes by pushing social agenda issues which do nothing to improve the economic standard of living of these groups.
The consequence has been that we have seen a massive polarization of wealth, destruction of affordable access to some of the basic needs of our citizens such as health care and the ability to improve their economic standing by putting college education out of reach for their children. In other words, the loss of organized leadership on economic issues previously provided by labor unions has been disasterous for America. We may not have liked how they behaved. We may have thought they encouraged less than productive behavior to employers.
But it should be clear that without some way of organizing and providing economic leadership to the working class Americans, we all would suffer and we have. As the religious right has repeatedly stepped over the boundaries protecting individual liberty in America, and the average American has become weary of listening to debate after debate as to the morality or immorality of abortion and same sex marriage and unions, this economic strata has become available and is looking for something other than religion to rally to and provide leadership.
Political dominance in the coming decade is going to hang upon which party or group successfully manages to organize the working and middle-class economic strata. So far that has been a culture war that the Democrats have been losing to the Republicans since Reagan -- although before his Presidency was eclipsed by sex scandals, Clinton provided an alternative leadership which reached out to this group. The Republicans under Bush, however, consolidated their control of this economic stratum via the Christian Evangelicals. Now, the ball is once again in the air and the fate of America for the first half of the 21st Century lays in the balance.
Unions were very important to our having a stable and responsible government. For all their warts and corruption, they were a way for the blue collar working class to organize and create leaders capable of making the economic and social issues of the blue collar and middle classes of America known to Congress and the legislatures and making sure that the blue collar and middle class interests were respected.
After Reagan and the onset of globalization combined with urestrained laissez faire capitalism, they evaporated as an effective force and their leadership lost the clout it had previously wielded. In essence, Reagan created a power vacuum and the Republicans were ready, willing and able to fill that power vacuum with the religious right. The blue collar class disintegrated and descended into poverty, the middle class began to melt away.
The result was that the religious right organized the lesser educated into a significant political machine which blamed all of our economic and social woes upon our moral decadence and delivered their votes to the Republican party free of all strings pertaining to the economic interests of these economic classes. The result has been that the Republican party has been able to win elections by obtaining the campaign funding from the economic elite while purchasing votes from the lower economic classes by pushing social agenda issues which do nothing to improve the economic standard of living of these groups.
The consequence has been that we have seen a massive polarization of wealth, destruction of affordable access to some of the basic needs of our citizens such as health care and the ability to improve their economic standing by putting college education out of reach for their children. In other words, the loss of organized leadership on economic issues previously provided by labor unions has been disasterous for America. We may not have liked how they behaved. We may have thought they encouraged less than productive behavior to employers.
But it should be clear that without some way of organizing and providing economic leadership to the working class Americans, we all would suffer and we have. As the religious right has repeatedly stepped over the boundaries protecting individual liberty in America, and the average American has become weary of listening to debate after debate as to the morality or immorality of abortion and same sex marriage and unions, this economic strata has become available and is looking for something other than religion to rally to and provide leadership.
Political dominance in the coming decade is going to hang upon which party or group successfully manages to organize the working and middle-class economic strata. So far that has been a culture war that the Democrats have been losing to the Republicans since Reagan -- although before his Presidency was eclipsed by sex scandals, Clinton provided an alternative leadership which reached out to this group. The Republicans under Bush, however, consolidated their control of this economic stratum via the Christian Evangelicals. Now, the ball is once again in the air and the fate of America for the first half of the 21st Century lays in the balance.
ITS THE SYSTEM, NOT THE INDIVIDUAL: CAPITALISM IN AMERICA
When you wish to really avoid analyzing whether a certain system inherently leans towards evil, you quite frequently run into the rebuff that its the people not the system which creates the problem. This frequently is not an argument that can withstand the light of day. It is nowhere more obvious than with respect to laisez faire capitalism
I disagree with the argument that it is not capitalism, but selfish people who are the problem. This argument is like the one made by the NRA, its not guns that kill people, but people. To quote Eddie Izzard, "...umh, I think guns might just have a little bit to do with it." The problem with the people not system position is that capitalism is an amoral system which has two tendencies one is to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few, and the second is to require selfishness in order to work efficiently. Even the moderate free-market capitalists indicate greed is a virtue in such a system because of the so-called constructive destruction theory. Capitalism requires us to measure things and money and materialism provides the medium of measurement. I would also state that Soviet style communism suffered from the same problem. The social system needs to be community based and the economic system needs to be designed to support the social system, rather than the social system being designed to fit the economic system. This clearly differs from the neo-conservatives. Once when I was getting career advice from my great Uncle, he pointed out the window to his shiny new T-Bird and Lincoln Continental (this is late 60' mind you) and said "See those." I said "yes." He said, "That is how America keep score." I think that pretty much sums it all up -- capitalism is the game, materialism denotes the winner.
This concept of a game is interesting, since Kemp said on the floor of Congress in relation to the World Cup, "Football is an American capitalist game, soccer is a European socialist game." I would agree, since football is considerably more violent than soccer -- both as a sport and as a symbol. Football has also been referred to as the modern form of gladiator fights, which is also appropriate since that was a favorite pastime of the first major Western empire.
I disagree with the argument that it is not capitalism, but selfish people who are the problem. This argument is like the one made by the NRA, its not guns that kill people, but people. To quote Eddie Izzard, "...umh, I think guns might just have a little bit to do with it." The problem with the people not system position is that capitalism is an amoral system which has two tendencies one is to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few, and the second is to require selfishness in order to work efficiently. Even the moderate free-market capitalists indicate greed is a virtue in such a system because of the so-called constructive destruction theory. Capitalism requires us to measure things and money and materialism provides the medium of measurement. I would also state that Soviet style communism suffered from the same problem. The social system needs to be community based and the economic system needs to be designed to support the social system, rather than the social system being designed to fit the economic system. This clearly differs from the neo-conservatives. Once when I was getting career advice from my great Uncle, he pointed out the window to his shiny new T-Bird and Lincoln Continental (this is late 60' mind you) and said "See those." I said "yes." He said, "That is how America keep score." I think that pretty much sums it all up -- capitalism is the game, materialism denotes the winner.
This concept of a game is interesting, since Kemp said on the floor of Congress in relation to the World Cup, "Football is an American capitalist game, soccer is a European socialist game." I would agree, since football is considerably more violent than soccer -- both as a sport and as a symbol. Football has also been referred to as the modern form of gladiator fights, which is also appropriate since that was a favorite pastime of the first major Western empire.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Kennedy was Wrong
Every President whose words are remembered, are normally remembered for only a few words said in the course of their career. (Lincoln our only presidential poet being the exception that proves the rule.) But Kennedy said something that was taken as a massive display of patriotic rhetoric. The phrase for which he is most remembered is, "Think not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
It sounded good. It was, however, wrong. It is the epitome of nationalistic rhetoric run amok. People do not exist to serve their country, countries exist to serve their people. When governments cease to serve their people, then they should be removed and replaced.
There is no legitimate purpose for government than to serve its citizens. There is no other purpose, and citizens need to be demanding of their government -- we may disagree on how or what services should be delivered, but we should never support a government which exists to self-perpetuate itself.
In America when we think of what it means to be an American, it means subscription to a package of ideals which were the ideals of the deist enlightenment thinkers who conceived it. Those ideals are developing and are evolving towards the more romantic and higher ideals which are embodied in the Declaration of Independence. That ongoing development and evolution is highly dependent upon the citizens making demands upon that government.
While it is appropriate to call upon citizens to help each other, and to do things for each other, and to build strong communities, it is not appropriate to ask the citizenry to abjectly submit to a concept of a nationhood that is to be defended at all costs and against all odds. That kind of devotion is sacredly restricted to defending our brothers and sisters -- our fellow citizens, not some abstract notion of a fatherland or homeland.
This is not an easy concept to understand and many beloved Americans are hard to understand. Probably the hardest to understand is Robert E. Lee. Offered command of the Union forces, he chose Virginia over America. He did not seem to be terribly devoted to the preservation of slavery as an institution, but he led a fight on the side of the slaveholders. What did Lee think Virginia was and why was he more loyal to it, than the nation he had previously taken an oath to defend? Was it an abstract notion of a certain government, a geographical location, a culture? These are imponderables which historians and social thinkers will debate and mull over so long as American history is taught.
I find Lee the ultimate enigma. But I have thought, and continue to think, that Lee rendered his greatest service to his fellow Americans after he surrendered and after he lay down his sword. He did so by sternly admonishing his generals and leaders not to convert their struggle into a partisan guerrilla war, and afterwards downplayed militaristic ideals, going so far as to intentionally walk out of step in parades at his college.
It sounded good. It was, however, wrong. It is the epitome of nationalistic rhetoric run amok. People do not exist to serve their country, countries exist to serve their people. When governments cease to serve their people, then they should be removed and replaced.
There is no legitimate purpose for government than to serve its citizens. There is no other purpose, and citizens need to be demanding of their government -- we may disagree on how or what services should be delivered, but we should never support a government which exists to self-perpetuate itself.
In America when we think of what it means to be an American, it means subscription to a package of ideals which were the ideals of the deist enlightenment thinkers who conceived it. Those ideals are developing and are evolving towards the more romantic and higher ideals which are embodied in the Declaration of Independence. That ongoing development and evolution is highly dependent upon the citizens making demands upon that government.
While it is appropriate to call upon citizens to help each other, and to do things for each other, and to build strong communities, it is not appropriate to ask the citizenry to abjectly submit to a concept of a nationhood that is to be defended at all costs and against all odds. That kind of devotion is sacredly restricted to defending our brothers and sisters -- our fellow citizens, not some abstract notion of a fatherland or homeland.
This is not an easy concept to understand and many beloved Americans are hard to understand. Probably the hardest to understand is Robert E. Lee. Offered command of the Union forces, he chose Virginia over America. He did not seem to be terribly devoted to the preservation of slavery as an institution, but he led a fight on the side of the slaveholders. What did Lee think Virginia was and why was he more loyal to it, than the nation he had previously taken an oath to defend? Was it an abstract notion of a certain government, a geographical location, a culture? These are imponderables which historians and social thinkers will debate and mull over so long as American history is taught.
I find Lee the ultimate enigma. But I have thought, and continue to think, that Lee rendered his greatest service to his fellow Americans after he surrendered and after he lay down his sword. He did so by sternly admonishing his generals and leaders not to convert their struggle into a partisan guerrilla war, and afterwards downplayed militaristic ideals, going so far as to intentionally walk out of step in parades at his college.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
The Patriarchal Role: Fathers and Community
Having been asked to prepare a Sacrament Talk on "Fathers" for a Father's Day Sacrament Meeting, I found myself in something of a stupor of thought. All that swirled through my mind were the gushy, sentimental observations, and very tired cliche's and supposed Biblical connections that everyone assumes are somewhere in the Bible about family values. Such thoughts just did not resonate for me. The more I meditated on the subject, the more I realized that was not where I was supposed to go with the talk.
So I tried to think about my father's generation -- which Tom Brokaw labeled "the greatest generation," a statement of praise that is probably overstated. They were blessed, or cursed, whatever way you want to view it with America's last morally unambiguous war. In fact, the more I thought about it, the less enthused I became about that generation. But, fortunately for our family, Dad did not behave like a lot of the Dad's of that generation. He showed up for all of our activities even though we sat the bench in all the team sports. My mother, my dad and my dog tended to be the only adults other than the coaches who showed up for cross-country meets and track meets. My generation on the other hand flocked to our kids meets both home and away. Same for music competitions.
My father shared most of the racial prejudices of white males in post WWII Indiana. Indiana was the hotbed for the Twentieth Century KKK. But that did not include my father -- who attempted to shelter the Catholics who drew the harassment of the KKK, because there were no readily available African-Americans to persecute. And, he annonymously decorated the grave of an African-American who had led him, as a small child, around on a pony in the churchyard when services droned on too long. His attitude with the gypsies who periodically travelled through the area was to get to know and befriend their King, rather than close up shop when they came to town. So he was the kind of guy who would bluster one thing, but behave completely inconsistent with his bluster.
While unconsciously I believe he was indeed my role model, I never really thought of him that way, nor do I remember him ever behaving in a manner intentionally to serve as such. Well, I take that back -- Dad drank socially, but he never drank in front of me until I was of legal age. An intentional deception which backfired on him because I located and raided all of his liquor stashes -- its kind of hard to discipline a kid for consuming something that you are trying to pretend does not exist. Less hypocritical was his position on smoking. But what I mean is that he never seemed to be behaving in a "preachy manner" calculated to impress me with the notion that I was to behave as he did. The role modeling must have been too subtle for my older brothers because I cannot see that they ever used him as a role model.
The question, however, which haunts my mind is whether a father plays any other function in society other than a role model for his children and a source of financial support for his family. If he does, then what might such a function be and what might its level of importance be to the family and society. In a society where the social conservatives keep chirping about the importance of "family values" or "traditional value" there needs to be some in depth thought and investigation lavished upon such an inquiry.
I believe a father (and sometimes the mother) play an important role in anchoring or connecting the family to a community. The father is, especially in traditional white anglo-saxon Christian families, the person who establishes the family within the community and in many spheres also establishes the role the entire family plays in the community. Because of Victorian notions regarding gender roles, the exception to the father being the anchor in the community, is in the area of education. The Victorians specifically reserved this role to the mother and hence the mother frequently is the person anchoring the family within the public school system.
If what I have just said has even a modicum of truth, and I believe it has much more truth than that, when we start lamenting the decline in "family values" -- we may be looking at the wrong culprit. What I mean is that "family values" are associated by the vocal right as being under attack by gays, abortionists, pornographers, and the media. Somehow, I have always doubted that -- not that I necessarily condone homosexuality, abortion, pornography -- but because these are not new activities.
What I believe is happening is that the fathers have no community with which to connect. Certain religious groups do supply at least a partial community to which the fathers can connect. For example the Mormons, the Amish, Jehovah Witnesses, and the Islamists all recognize the inherent need for community.
For the Mormons it goes beyond that, and I fear that many Mormons do not understand the full extent of what is happening in society and its impact on Mormon standards and belief. Shortly after Joseph Smith, Jr. established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Lord directed him to start up colonies of members who would be a part of what is called the United Order or the Order of Enoch. These were something like the Israeli kibbutz -- in other words they were very communitarian in nature. Because of persecution, the Mormons after the assasination of Joseph Smith, Jr., by an anti-Mormon mob in Illinois, migrated to Utah under the leadership of Brigham Young and established successful United Order communities in the west. These communities continued to function until the Federal Government in the guise of clamping down on polygamy caused the communities to dissolve for fear of seizure of their land.
Obviously, United Order villages are what might be considere hyper-communitarian. But, America still had communities in the rural small towns and in the ethnic neighborhoods in the urban area which were still true communities until in the late 1980's. What we are seeing now, however, is the complete destruction of the communities encompassing small towns. During my father's generation, there was still a community to which he could connect his family. Persons born to families in such towns tended to either stay in the community after they graduated from high school, or returned to them after college or graduate school. That is much less likely now.
America during the last forty years put the saying, "home is where the heart is" to the test. It appears to me, that the saying has been found wanting. Home may be where the heart is and certainly no home can long endure if the family's heart is not in it, but home needs to be an actual community and an actual geographical location as well. It requires a father to stake his claim in that community and to connect his family to that stake. The creation of a home involves more than simply a home or an apartment in which blood relations reside, just as a community involves more than a group of housing units with a shopping center.
The sense of being at home cannot be franchised whether by a Church or a business. After WWII, servicemen who had suffered homesickness abroad came back with the notion if you had a business set up to look exactly like the same business elsewhere then it would make people feel at home. The concept being if you went into a franchised restaurant or store that was just like the one in your hometown then you would immediately feel comfortable and at home. In other words, businessmen went out with the conscious intent of creating a homogenized hometown so that wherever you went it was home. Religions such as Mormonism and the Jehovah Witnesses understood the concept as well and so every chapel and every Kingdom Hall tends to resemble every other chapel and every other Kingdom Hall. If you attend a Sunday service in one Mormon ward, you can expect that a similar service with the exact same Sunday School lesson is occurring in similar chapels all over the United States. Mormons often point out that no matter where you go you are at home at Church.
The problem with this economic concept is that if home tends to be everywhere, then instead of home being everywhere -- it is nowhere. Families moving in and out of LDS Wards every couple years or so, can only develop a superficial connection to the community at large and a somewhat tenuous connection to the Ward family. In other words, the father has no community to connect his family with, (not to mention the mother being unable to connect with the educational community) and as a result he is denied the opportunity to connect his family to any community.
The phrase "army brats" meaning children of military personnel who bounce around the country and the planet following their parents' postings has come to potentially include a huge segment of American society. As a consequence, father's are failing to fulfill their complete role and families are falling apart at a prodigious rate. But what the social conservatives are complaining about are merely symptoms of a much more systemic problem. That problem is that fathers no longer play the role they have to play in the community because there is no community in which he can play the role.
My father connected his family to his community. We knew we had certain standards which we were charged to uphold in order to protect or improve our family's reputation in the community. Our father provided the family leadership in this respect, and if his family upheld the reputation then it reflected well not only upon the father, but the whole family -- deservingly or not. This had a tremendously positive impact on the entire community and tended to keep families together. If the community is only a homogenized replication of some other community -- or a tract of hundreds of houses looking more or less the same as all of their neighbors, this community never comes into being. With the loss of the community, the obligation to protect the family reputation or even to keep the family together tends to erode -- you can just move on to another community which is exactly like the community where the family fell apart, or a different Ward which looks exactly like the Ward your family crashed and burned in.
The demise of this patriarchal role is of very significant religious importance and nowhere of such importance than Mormonism. Although one may search somewhat in vain for praise of family connections in the Bible, one finds such praise much more evident in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants which along with the Bible and the Pearl of Great Price constitute the canonized Latter-Day Saint scriptures. In Mormon theology there are three Priesthoods: the Aaronic Priesthood which is an appendent to the Melchizdek Priesthood, the Melchizedek Priesthood, and the Patriarchal Priesthood. Currently the only ordinances of the Patriarchal Priesthood currently restored are the sealing ordinances conducted in the Sealing Rooms of the Temple. This Patriarchal Priesthood is bestowed as part of the marriage ceremony and cannot be held by persons who have not wed. While the Melchizedek Priesthood is the authorization to act in God's name with respect to mortals, the Patriarchal Priesthood is the authority by which the Celestial Kingdoms are governed. In other words, the Patriarchal Priesthood governs the community of the gods.
If we believe that everything on Earth resembles that of the Heavenly Realms. Earthly Fatherhood then involves training to connect families to the community of the gods. For that reason, it is more than merely the assumption of duties of support and maintenance, and it is more than the duty to be a role model. It is to prepare for the enternities in God's Creation. As a result, it is not just a building block of society, it is that which when accompanied by God's grace secures and binds the eternal relationships of the Kingdom of God.
I suspect as a result, that if we want families to continue to be the bedrock unit of our country, we should spend less time battling pornography, abortion and bad media, and more time rethinking our economy and society so that families make a difference. Our goal should be the literal creation of Heaven on Earth, or rather the Kingdom of God. That goal involves much more than the preaching of sexual morality, it requires the creation and nurturing of a society to which a father can connect -- in other words a community in which every family has a place and every father a role. Not only a place and a role, but a cherished place and a dignified role.
So I tried to think about my father's generation -- which Tom Brokaw labeled "the greatest generation," a statement of praise that is probably overstated. They were blessed, or cursed, whatever way you want to view it with America's last morally unambiguous war. In fact, the more I thought about it, the less enthused I became about that generation. But, fortunately for our family, Dad did not behave like a lot of the Dad's of that generation. He showed up for all of our activities even though we sat the bench in all the team sports. My mother, my dad and my dog tended to be the only adults other than the coaches who showed up for cross-country meets and track meets. My generation on the other hand flocked to our kids meets both home and away. Same for music competitions.
My father shared most of the racial prejudices of white males in post WWII Indiana. Indiana was the hotbed for the Twentieth Century KKK. But that did not include my father -- who attempted to shelter the Catholics who drew the harassment of the KKK, because there were no readily available African-Americans to persecute. And, he annonymously decorated the grave of an African-American who had led him, as a small child, around on a pony in the churchyard when services droned on too long. His attitude with the gypsies who periodically travelled through the area was to get to know and befriend their King, rather than close up shop when they came to town. So he was the kind of guy who would bluster one thing, but behave completely inconsistent with his bluster.
While unconsciously I believe he was indeed my role model, I never really thought of him that way, nor do I remember him ever behaving in a manner intentionally to serve as such. Well, I take that back -- Dad drank socially, but he never drank in front of me until I was of legal age. An intentional deception which backfired on him because I located and raided all of his liquor stashes -- its kind of hard to discipline a kid for consuming something that you are trying to pretend does not exist. Less hypocritical was his position on smoking. But what I mean is that he never seemed to be behaving in a "preachy manner" calculated to impress me with the notion that I was to behave as he did. The role modeling must have been too subtle for my older brothers because I cannot see that they ever used him as a role model.
The question, however, which haunts my mind is whether a father plays any other function in society other than a role model for his children and a source of financial support for his family. If he does, then what might such a function be and what might its level of importance be to the family and society. In a society where the social conservatives keep chirping about the importance of "family values" or "traditional value" there needs to be some in depth thought and investigation lavished upon such an inquiry.
I believe a father (and sometimes the mother) play an important role in anchoring or connecting the family to a community. The father is, especially in traditional white anglo-saxon Christian families, the person who establishes the family within the community and in many spheres also establishes the role the entire family plays in the community. Because of Victorian notions regarding gender roles, the exception to the father being the anchor in the community, is in the area of education. The Victorians specifically reserved this role to the mother and hence the mother frequently is the person anchoring the family within the public school system.
If what I have just said has even a modicum of truth, and I believe it has much more truth than that, when we start lamenting the decline in "family values" -- we may be looking at the wrong culprit. What I mean is that "family values" are associated by the vocal right as being under attack by gays, abortionists, pornographers, and the media. Somehow, I have always doubted that -- not that I necessarily condone homosexuality, abortion, pornography -- but because these are not new activities.
What I believe is happening is that the fathers have no community with which to connect. Certain religious groups do supply at least a partial community to which the fathers can connect. For example the Mormons, the Amish, Jehovah Witnesses, and the Islamists all recognize the inherent need for community.
For the Mormons it goes beyond that, and I fear that many Mormons do not understand the full extent of what is happening in society and its impact on Mormon standards and belief. Shortly after Joseph Smith, Jr. established the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Lord directed him to start up colonies of members who would be a part of what is called the United Order or the Order of Enoch. These were something like the Israeli kibbutz -- in other words they were very communitarian in nature. Because of persecution, the Mormons after the assasination of Joseph Smith, Jr., by an anti-Mormon mob in Illinois, migrated to Utah under the leadership of Brigham Young and established successful United Order communities in the west. These communities continued to function until the Federal Government in the guise of clamping down on polygamy caused the communities to dissolve for fear of seizure of their land.
Obviously, United Order villages are what might be considere hyper-communitarian. But, America still had communities in the rural small towns and in the ethnic neighborhoods in the urban area which were still true communities until in the late 1980's. What we are seeing now, however, is the complete destruction of the communities encompassing small towns. During my father's generation, there was still a community to which he could connect his family. Persons born to families in such towns tended to either stay in the community after they graduated from high school, or returned to them after college or graduate school. That is much less likely now.
America during the last forty years put the saying, "home is where the heart is" to the test. It appears to me, that the saying has been found wanting. Home may be where the heart is and certainly no home can long endure if the family's heart is not in it, but home needs to be an actual community and an actual geographical location as well. It requires a father to stake his claim in that community and to connect his family to that stake. The creation of a home involves more than simply a home or an apartment in which blood relations reside, just as a community involves more than a group of housing units with a shopping center.
The sense of being at home cannot be franchised whether by a Church or a business. After WWII, servicemen who had suffered homesickness abroad came back with the notion if you had a business set up to look exactly like the same business elsewhere then it would make people feel at home. The concept being if you went into a franchised restaurant or store that was just like the one in your hometown then you would immediately feel comfortable and at home. In other words, businessmen went out with the conscious intent of creating a homogenized hometown so that wherever you went it was home. Religions such as Mormonism and the Jehovah Witnesses understood the concept as well and so every chapel and every Kingdom Hall tends to resemble every other chapel and every other Kingdom Hall. If you attend a Sunday service in one Mormon ward, you can expect that a similar service with the exact same Sunday School lesson is occurring in similar chapels all over the United States. Mormons often point out that no matter where you go you are at home at Church.
The problem with this economic concept is that if home tends to be everywhere, then instead of home being everywhere -- it is nowhere. Families moving in and out of LDS Wards every couple years or so, can only develop a superficial connection to the community at large and a somewhat tenuous connection to the Ward family. In other words, the father has no community to connect his family with, (not to mention the mother being unable to connect with the educational community) and as a result he is denied the opportunity to connect his family to any community.
The phrase "army brats" meaning children of military personnel who bounce around the country and the planet following their parents' postings has come to potentially include a huge segment of American society. As a consequence, father's are failing to fulfill their complete role and families are falling apart at a prodigious rate. But what the social conservatives are complaining about are merely symptoms of a much more systemic problem. That problem is that fathers no longer play the role they have to play in the community because there is no community in which he can play the role.
My father connected his family to his community. We knew we had certain standards which we were charged to uphold in order to protect or improve our family's reputation in the community. Our father provided the family leadership in this respect, and if his family upheld the reputation then it reflected well not only upon the father, but the whole family -- deservingly or not. This had a tremendously positive impact on the entire community and tended to keep families together. If the community is only a homogenized replication of some other community -- or a tract of hundreds of houses looking more or less the same as all of their neighbors, this community never comes into being. With the loss of the community, the obligation to protect the family reputation or even to keep the family together tends to erode -- you can just move on to another community which is exactly like the community where the family fell apart, or a different Ward which looks exactly like the Ward your family crashed and burned in.
The demise of this patriarchal role is of very significant religious importance and nowhere of such importance than Mormonism. Although one may search somewhat in vain for praise of family connections in the Bible, one finds such praise much more evident in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants which along with the Bible and the Pearl of Great Price constitute the canonized Latter-Day Saint scriptures. In Mormon theology there are three Priesthoods: the Aaronic Priesthood which is an appendent to the Melchizdek Priesthood, the Melchizedek Priesthood, and the Patriarchal Priesthood. Currently the only ordinances of the Patriarchal Priesthood currently restored are the sealing ordinances conducted in the Sealing Rooms of the Temple. This Patriarchal Priesthood is bestowed as part of the marriage ceremony and cannot be held by persons who have not wed. While the Melchizedek Priesthood is the authorization to act in God's name with respect to mortals, the Patriarchal Priesthood is the authority by which the Celestial Kingdoms are governed. In other words, the Patriarchal Priesthood governs the community of the gods.
If we believe that everything on Earth resembles that of the Heavenly Realms. Earthly Fatherhood then involves training to connect families to the community of the gods. For that reason, it is more than merely the assumption of duties of support and maintenance, and it is more than the duty to be a role model. It is to prepare for the enternities in God's Creation. As a result, it is not just a building block of society, it is that which when accompanied by God's grace secures and binds the eternal relationships of the Kingdom of God.
I suspect as a result, that if we want families to continue to be the bedrock unit of our country, we should spend less time battling pornography, abortion and bad media, and more time rethinking our economy and society so that families make a difference. Our goal should be the literal creation of Heaven on Earth, or rather the Kingdom of God. That goal involves much more than the preaching of sexual morality, it requires the creation and nurturing of a society to which a father can connect -- in other words a community in which every family has a place and every father a role. Not only a place and a role, but a cherished place and a dignified role.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Innocence
The other day while sitting in a PX at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, a thought began to take shape. It was something my subconscious has been mulling over for a bout a decade and then over a single weekend emerged into my consciousness.
The problem my subconscious had been wrangling with was how can you feel good about an action even though you know there is a dark irony or consequence which will taint the action. Do you have a duty to call someone to account for the action?
Let me give a few examples. In my faith we are fairly strict on the notion of keeping the Sabbath Day Holy, there are things you just are not supposed to do on the Sabbath like shoping or going to a sporting event, etc. I was serving in a bishopric at the time of this particular event with a bishop who spent his vocational time as a public prosecutor. He was probably the most laid back bishop that I had ever known or had the opportunity to serve with. So one Sunday after Church we were sitting in a bishopric meeting when one of the women in the Church who took it as her duty to hold the other members of our congregation accountable came storming in to indicate that we needed to make some kind of statement on the following Sabbath that people should not be selling things at Church on Sunday. She was of course correct. I looked at the Bishop and he looked at me, and we both knew she was referring to one of our mentally handicapped children who had been selling chocolate bars in the foyer as a class fund raiser that Sunday. The Bishop said, "Well the one I bought was pretty good."
Let me give another example. Another Bishop and his wife decided that the local congregation should work on a blood drive with the American Red Cross and in general the concept was favored by the congregation, although a couple members had expressed some reservations about doing anything with the American Red Cross because of their poor reputation. There was some quiet recognition of the fact and most of the local congregation helped out. Then the Red Cross came back and wanted the Church itself to sponsor a blood collection opportunity for them and the Bishop gave his blessing and the event occurred and the goals were exceeded -- on about the same date that the news services were carrying an article on the FDA hitting the Red Cross with the largest single fine ever assessed against a non-profit organization. The fine was for faulty screening and testing of blood, etc. The Red Cross responded that the fine would not be paid out of donations -- but operating revenues. So in essence our congregation was donating blood to an organization which was going to sell it and use part of the price it charged to pay a fine for sloppy handling of blood.
Now a person could look at either situation and see something wrong with both and wonder how a person could feel good about doing something that was probably questionable. I think that it is a gift from God a blessing of innocence which allows us to look at the intent of the act and intuitively feel good about it regardless of the implications and consequences. When the Bishop bought the candy bar on Sunday at Church what he saw was the excitement in the eyes of a young woman whose eyes were normally kind of glazed over dull. When the congregant gave blood he or she was intending to literally give of his or herself to help someone. And, even if both knew that there were problems involved -- still both were entitled to feel good about what they did. That to me is a blessing which allows us to overlook some of the missteps our religious leaders may make or our churches may take and still feel blessed.
So why did this thought start emerging while I was sitting outside a PX at Fort Jackson. Well, it was pretty much my first encounter with the military and I had previously been pondering the fact that the soldiers on the base were predominantly made up of minority races, in particular, African Americans. The main boulevard into the base was named after the former Senator Strom Thurmond who in his day was an ardent segregationist and most of the by-ways on the base were named after Confederate Generals. That is an irony that I would normally suck up and run with. But, this day I was overwhelmed by the politeness of the soldiers I encountered and the joy they were having with their families who were there in force to celebrate their graduation from basic training -- I just couldn't let the political irony wash out what I was seeing. Although my son later informed me that the racial and regional harmony that I perceived was actually something of an illusion, even that information couldn't take away from what I felt. I think it was a blessing of innocence.
The problem my subconscious had been wrangling with was how can you feel good about an action even though you know there is a dark irony or consequence which will taint the action. Do you have a duty to call someone to account for the action?
Let me give a few examples. In my faith we are fairly strict on the notion of keeping the Sabbath Day Holy, there are things you just are not supposed to do on the Sabbath like shoping or going to a sporting event, etc. I was serving in a bishopric at the time of this particular event with a bishop who spent his vocational time as a public prosecutor. He was probably the most laid back bishop that I had ever known or had the opportunity to serve with. So one Sunday after Church we were sitting in a bishopric meeting when one of the women in the Church who took it as her duty to hold the other members of our congregation accountable came storming in to indicate that we needed to make some kind of statement on the following Sabbath that people should not be selling things at Church on Sunday. She was of course correct. I looked at the Bishop and he looked at me, and we both knew she was referring to one of our mentally handicapped children who had been selling chocolate bars in the foyer as a class fund raiser that Sunday. The Bishop said, "Well the one I bought was pretty good."
Let me give another example. Another Bishop and his wife decided that the local congregation should work on a blood drive with the American Red Cross and in general the concept was favored by the congregation, although a couple members had expressed some reservations about doing anything with the American Red Cross because of their poor reputation. There was some quiet recognition of the fact and most of the local congregation helped out. Then the Red Cross came back and wanted the Church itself to sponsor a blood collection opportunity for them and the Bishop gave his blessing and the event occurred and the goals were exceeded -- on about the same date that the news services were carrying an article on the FDA hitting the Red Cross with the largest single fine ever assessed against a non-profit organization. The fine was for faulty screening and testing of blood, etc. The Red Cross responded that the fine would not be paid out of donations -- but operating revenues. So in essence our congregation was donating blood to an organization which was going to sell it and use part of the price it charged to pay a fine for sloppy handling of blood.
Now a person could look at either situation and see something wrong with both and wonder how a person could feel good about doing something that was probably questionable. I think that it is a gift from God a blessing of innocence which allows us to look at the intent of the act and intuitively feel good about it regardless of the implications and consequences. When the Bishop bought the candy bar on Sunday at Church what he saw was the excitement in the eyes of a young woman whose eyes were normally kind of glazed over dull. When the congregant gave blood he or she was intending to literally give of his or herself to help someone. And, even if both knew that there were problems involved -- still both were entitled to feel good about what they did. That to me is a blessing which allows us to overlook some of the missteps our religious leaders may make or our churches may take and still feel blessed.
So why did this thought start emerging while I was sitting outside a PX at Fort Jackson. Well, it was pretty much my first encounter with the military and I had previously been pondering the fact that the soldiers on the base were predominantly made up of minority races, in particular, African Americans. The main boulevard into the base was named after the former Senator Strom Thurmond who in his day was an ardent segregationist and most of the by-ways on the base were named after Confederate Generals. That is an irony that I would normally suck up and run with. But, this day I was overwhelmed by the politeness of the soldiers I encountered and the joy they were having with their families who were there in force to celebrate their graduation from basic training -- I just couldn't let the political irony wash out what I was seeing. Although my son later informed me that the racial and regional harmony that I perceived was actually something of an illusion, even that information couldn't take away from what I felt. I think it was a blessing of innocence.
Book of Mormon: Keystone of Our Religion
For years I have heard the Book of Mormon referred to as the keystone of our religion and it just never made sense until recently. The reason it did not make sense was if you really wanted to know how the Church ran or what the most notable peculiarities of us Mormons you would look in the Doctrine and Covenants. I thought that perhaps they referred to it in that way to serve some missionary purpose, or perhaps it was something that Joseph Smith said before the Doctrine and Covenants was published.
But the other day I was looking at an arch with a keystone and for some strange reason it occurred to me if the Book of Mormon is the keystone, then what are the sides? At that point I realized that the sides were the New and Old Testament. I thought, "You know Christ being the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament, kind of made him look like a split personality or something. The Old Testament is about as harsh a document as you could want to stumble into when it comes to God. But if you put the Book of Mormon in between then you can get a little bit clearer understanding of the Old Testament and that perhaps a lot attributed to God in it was just not set down right or something."
I think if possibly more Mormons would just come out and say, "Geez, ya know I can't see Abraham as doing the right thing when he almost burned up Isaac. And what on Earth sense do you make of God gambling with Satan in Job." Perhaps we should just step back a ways and say – "You know let's quit trying to invest some of these stunts with profound religious meaning, and quit attributing God with some of this stuff."
When we do the Old Testament in Sunday School we kind of dance over the genocides that are attributed to God. The Book of Mormon approach is ever so much more reasonable – the ethnic wars explained in it are generated by men, God may predict they are coming – but He doesn't speed up the work. So I believe it is right to say that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion.
But the other day I was looking at an arch with a keystone and for some strange reason it occurred to me if the Book of Mormon is the keystone, then what are the sides? At that point I realized that the sides were the New and Old Testament. I thought, "You know Christ being the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament, kind of made him look like a split personality or something. The Old Testament is about as harsh a document as you could want to stumble into when it comes to God. But if you put the Book of Mormon in between then you can get a little bit clearer understanding of the Old Testament and that perhaps a lot attributed to God in it was just not set down right or something."
I think if possibly more Mormons would just come out and say, "Geez, ya know I can't see Abraham as doing the right thing when he almost burned up Isaac. And what on Earth sense do you make of God gambling with Satan in Job." Perhaps we should just step back a ways and say – "You know let's quit trying to invest some of these stunts with profound religious meaning, and quit attributing God with some of this stuff."
When we do the Old Testament in Sunday School we kind of dance over the genocides that are attributed to God. The Book of Mormon approach is ever so much more reasonable – the ethnic wars explained in it are generated by men, God may predict they are coming – but He doesn't speed up the work. So I believe it is right to say that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion.
Impeachment: Political Weapon of Last Resort
The problem with impeachment proceedings is that we do not want to encourage a trend of impeaching Presidents. Gingrich's House was way out of line in doing what it did to Clinton, and though the sins of Bush relate directly to his power as the Chief Executive and probably do rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors (unlike dalliance with a female intern), still it is a power that should be invoked sparingly.
I realize that a lot of Democrats and even some Republicans have their dander up. Nobody likes to be lied to, and they especially do not like being lied to when it means they are tricked into sending American GI Joes and Janes into harm's way. And, although the Republicans set a very bad example in picking up impeachment proceedings as a way of distracting a nation and gaining political leverage to derail an administration -- that does not mean that the Democrats should follow their example.
The frequent employment of the impeachment process in a democracy endangers the democracy's ability to reflect the will of the people. It should only be employed where it is clear that the executive has committed treason or is clearly shown to have been tampering with the Democratic process. Nixon, for example, got caught red handed at directly tampering with the Democratic process. Clinton's impeachment was just a vicious form of politics since lying, even lying under oath, about an extramarital affair has pretty much zilch to do with the Democratic process. Bush's sins obviously are more like Nixon's than Clinton's and it is fairly clear at this point that he violated the protected civil liberties of citizens. This is not, however, the first time that Americans have been led into a war based on flimsy evidence or downright lies. It is pretty clear that Spain did not sink the Maine, which was very well understood at the time from an inspection of the hull -- and they had complied with every ultimatum we made, but we went to war anyway. It is also very clear that Johnson knowingly lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to get a war making resolution during the Viet Nam war.
Although Bush's doctored intelligence reports on Iraq do have an aroma similar to that of the accusation that Poles attacked a broadcasting station which was used to trigger WWII, it is not quite the same. As a result, I believe that it would be in the best interest of the nation to simply wait Bush out -- approximately 70% of America has figured out that he is not to be trusted, and in a Democracy that pretty much destroys your ability to do really, really bad things.
The other problem is that it will be a major distraction unlikely to develop enough votes to get the job done anyway. So I would say, Congress would better serve the American people by wielding the power of the purse, isolating Bush, and curtailing, with investigations, the more overt transgressions of his appointees. We have demonstrated that the lower echelon political operatives of the White House are no longer terribly interested in falling on their swords to protect the Administration. As a result, the White House can be held in check by investigations.
I would liken the situation to Iraq. We now know that Saddam was being held in check by the combined effect of UN inspections, US Airforce fly-overs, and economic sanctions. I believe that the Bush Administration can likewise be kept in check by the combined effect of Congress exercising the power of the purse, Congressional Committee investigations, and lawsuits by the State Governments to challenge Federal Agency malfeasance. That is a much safer route to take than an impeachment struggle.
I realize that a lot of Democrats and even some Republicans have their dander up. Nobody likes to be lied to, and they especially do not like being lied to when it means they are tricked into sending American GI Joes and Janes into harm's way. And, although the Republicans set a very bad example in picking up impeachment proceedings as a way of distracting a nation and gaining political leverage to derail an administration -- that does not mean that the Democrats should follow their example.
The frequent employment of the impeachment process in a democracy endangers the democracy's ability to reflect the will of the people. It should only be employed where it is clear that the executive has committed treason or is clearly shown to have been tampering with the Democratic process. Nixon, for example, got caught red handed at directly tampering with the Democratic process. Clinton's impeachment was just a vicious form of politics since lying, even lying under oath, about an extramarital affair has pretty much zilch to do with the Democratic process. Bush's sins obviously are more like Nixon's than Clinton's and it is fairly clear at this point that he violated the protected civil liberties of citizens. This is not, however, the first time that Americans have been led into a war based on flimsy evidence or downright lies. It is pretty clear that Spain did not sink the Maine, which was very well understood at the time from an inspection of the hull -- and they had complied with every ultimatum we made, but we went to war anyway. It is also very clear that Johnson knowingly lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to get a war making resolution during the Viet Nam war.
Although Bush's doctored intelligence reports on Iraq do have an aroma similar to that of the accusation that Poles attacked a broadcasting station which was used to trigger WWII, it is not quite the same. As a result, I believe that it would be in the best interest of the nation to simply wait Bush out -- approximately 70% of America has figured out that he is not to be trusted, and in a Democracy that pretty much destroys your ability to do really, really bad things.
The other problem is that it will be a major distraction unlikely to develop enough votes to get the job done anyway. So I would say, Congress would better serve the American people by wielding the power of the purse, isolating Bush, and curtailing, with investigations, the more overt transgressions of his appointees. We have demonstrated that the lower echelon political operatives of the White House are no longer terribly interested in falling on their swords to protect the Administration. As a result, the White House can be held in check by investigations.
I would liken the situation to Iraq. We now know that Saddam was being held in check by the combined effect of UN inspections, US Airforce fly-overs, and economic sanctions. I believe that the Bush Administration can likewise be kept in check by the combined effect of Congress exercising the power of the purse, Congressional Committee investigations, and lawsuits by the State Governments to challenge Federal Agency malfeasance. That is a much safer route to take than an impeachment struggle.
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