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My question: Does Christianity have a tendency to produce mullahs--religious leaders who wish to use political authority to enforce conformity and purity? Are Christians, because of their beliefs, likely to support such an approach?
In recent months there has been a tendency to draw a sharp contrast between Christianity and Islam. Christianity, we are told, is compatible with freedom, capitalism, the liberation of women, and all the good things the U.S. is fighting for; Islam may not be.
I know very little about Islam, and I'm not an expert in Christian theology either, but the questions raised here have interested me for a long time.
I should say at the outset that I don't think Jerry Falwell or Franklin Graham (Billy's son) have ambitions to be ayatollahs. When Bart Giamatti spoke at Yale in 1981 and warned about the threat to free speech and free thought posed by the Moral Majority, he must have been dreaming. There may not have been a single fundamentalist Christian anywhere on that campus. On the other hand, there were groups who wanted to prevent certain books from being sold and taught--feminists, cultural relativists, etc.
(I found the Giamatti quote at http://www.bfi.org/grunch_of-giants4.htm/ In fairness, there is also a quote by Giamatti on the web warning about various groups threatening freedom of speech--on the left as well as the right.)
I very much enjoy reading Richard Neuhaus in his journal First Things. In my experience his commentary "The Public Square" is usually the best thing in every issue. The name refers to his book (which I haven't read), called The Naked Public Square. Like Walter Berns and other scholars, Neuhaus argues that the U.S. Supreme Court has gone too far in interpreting the First Amendment's injunction against "establishing" a religion. The Court in the 60's and 70's did not simply to wish to prevent a particular sect, or even a particular religion such as Christianity, from being established; they wished to remove religiosity as such from the public domain; hence "the naked public square."
Neuhaus encourages public religiosity, and serious discussion of religious and theological questions. He was an outspoken pro-lifer even as a Lutheran, and is perhaps even more so as a Catholic convert. He is confident that "religion" in the U.S., if any appeal is made to the majority, will mean Christianity. He is confident that a truly significant proportion of Americans are believing Christians, as well as believers in liberal democracy. It is important to him to argue that there is no necessary tension or opposition between the different strands of true belief in the decent, church-going American middle class.
In November 1997 Neuhaus wrote on "pluralism" as follows:
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9711/public.html/
(Sorry I'm still not linking properly. I need to learn how to link from a few plain-language words.)
"It is not accurate to say that Christianity has made its peace with pluralism and democracy, as though they were forced upon it and only grudgingly accepted. Nor is it accurate to say that pluralism and democracy are achievements of Christianity alone. But without Christianity they would not have been. The Church acknowledges these children as her own, even if some of the midwives involved in the delivery were less than friendly to the Church. Today, declares John Paul II in the encyclical Redemptoris Missio (The Mission of the Redeemer), 'The Church imposes nothing. She only proposes.' She would not impose if she could, and that precisely for the sake of the mission of the Redeemer. Democratic theory and practice is not of first concern for the Church. Priority is and must always be given the mission of Christ. Among the things learned from the Church's experience of religious monism is that it compromised and obscured the lordship of Christ by confusing his rule with ecclesiastical power in the temporal realm."
Neuhaus suggests there is no necessary tension between Christianity and democratic pluralism--indeed it is Christianity that has allowed pluralism to flourish. He seems to admit that some great defenders of pluralism were not Christian. But if those thinkers believed the success of pluralism required the decline of Christianity, they were mistaken.
Neuhaus took up a similar argument in December 2000. In this case he enters a debate with a former teacher of mine, Clifford Orwin:
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0012/public.html/
Orwin had written in the National Post as follows: "What remains of religion in mainstream North America is one thing only: a diffuse moralism accompanies by a vague conviction that religion supports morality....Americans may go to church more often than other modern peoples, but what they learn in church is this gospel of universal toleration. All good people go to heaven."
Neuhaus replies in part:
"The never-ending task for Christians is to make clear that their respect for others is not despite but because of their Christian faith. The alternative to tolerance premised upon indifference to truth is a lively pluralism premised upon the conviction that the truth both requires and makes possible our mutually respectful engagement of the differences that make the deepest difference. It is probable that only a minority of Christians understand and embrace that alternative, but then it has probably always been the case that most Christians are, at least most of the time, not terribly serious or reflective about what they say they believe as Christians.
"There is nothing wrong with the claim that 'all good people go to heaven,' if we understand that the good is inseparable from the true. The tolerance that, implicitly or explicitly, denies the reality of truth recruits religion to the service of the American Way of Life, which then becomes, not to put too fine a point on it, an idol. The circumstance and the temptations described by Prof. Orwin have been with us since the beginning of the American experiment, and in fact go back much earlier. The adherents of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus have always been tempted to settle for His being tolerated as one of the gods of the tribe or nation. But He remains a jealous God because truth is jealous. Truth refuses to split the difference with falsehood.
"Tolerance, rightly understood, is obedience to St. Paul's injunction to 'speak the truth in love,' which, in turn, is premised upon love for the truth. In this light, the 'gospel of universal toleration' is not to be despised. Most Christians are not theologians, which is just as well, nor given to making fine distinctions, which is perhaps unfortunate but inevitable. When they tell pollsters that religious differences make no difference in their respect for others, many, if not most, Christians probably believe that that is what is required by the commandment to love one's neighbors. What social scientists register as religious indifference may in fact be, to cite Paul again, 'faith active in love.' It may be. Who knows? God knows. And one day He will let us know."
Neuhaus rejects the suggestion that there is a choice to be made between "dogmatic thugs" and "relativistic wimps," with the former believing that "vibrant religion" requires "the readiness to declare that those who do not share one's understanding of the truth will go to hell." True faith and true tolerance go together, but there are constant temptations both to give up and tolerate falsehood, on the one hand, and to crack down on disagreement on the other. Some of the famous persecutions of heretics and infidels, we might say, show the power of one temptation; some examples of American easy-goingness show the power of the other.
My question is: how powerful is that temptation to crack down? Or: does Christianity as a whole make something like a crack down by mullahs likely? The U.S. has achieved some kind of combination of Christianity and tolerance. Does it primarily show that Christianity supports and encourages true tolerance, or that liberal tolerance, beginning from non-Christian if not anti-Christian sources, has tamed Christianity?
The Roman Catholic Church kept Dante's work Monarchy on the Index of condemned works until sometime in the 19th century. In this work, the poet whose Inferno is considered a classic statement of Catholic theology, insists that the Pope should be subordinate to the secular political authority. There is at least a substantial hint that the basis for legitimate authority is the consent of the governed. It was only with the Second Vatican Council in the 1960's that the Catholic Church formally accepted liberal democracy.
How close is pre-liberal Christianity, or Christianity that can consistently oppose liberal materialism, to rule by the mullahs? Anne Roche Muggeridge, in her book The Gates of Hell, said: "A conservative Catholic feels more sympathy with the world view of ardent Moslem leader Colonel Quaddifi than with that of Marxist-oriented theologian Gregory Baum" (p. 23). I'm pretty sure she says something similar in her more recent book, The Desolate City, but I have been unable to find it.
Meanwhile, where did liberal democracy, and its practice of toleration and pluralism, actually come from? Two major sources are Hobbes and Locke--and they are surely among those Neuhaus hints were not Christians in any recognizable sense. (Although of course today many people say it is possible to call oneself a Christian ane believe almost anything).
Hobbes has been accused of making an "absolutist" argument for government. He says that once we give up our right to attack others to the sovereign, or government, in order to leave the state of nature, we have no right to return to a state of war by attacking the government because of its actions or views. If the government confiscates your property, Hobbes says, that is indeed an "inconvenience," but you should be glad your life is not threatened. Government might impose or establish one sect or religion (such things have been known to happen); Hobbes makes a complicated argument that almost all doctrine is a matter of indifference in any case. Although he was mainly interested in 17-century England, it seems he would want people to accept Islam if that were necessary to keep the peace.
What later liberals tend to miss is that Hobbes establishes liberalism. He says government only has one purpose--to protect the lives and security of the governmed. And there is one one legitimate basis for government--the consent of the governed. Hobbes insists that almost any government is better than none, but he is also forced to admit that no one can force you to risk your life, or to accept an attack on your life by the government without running away.
Locke was able to build on Hobbes's foundation. If government violates the security of too many people, making many people think their lives might later be in jeapordy, then it is the government that has re-belled, or returned to war, not the so-called rebels. Hobbes argued that we should be sufficiently indifferent to different religious creeds that we can take almost anything a government dishes out in terms of doctrine; Locke expects believers to want to keep a recognizable creed, so he argues for toleration of different creeds. My main point is: logically, indifference comes before toleration, and that gets back to Orwin vs. Neuhaus.
I e-mailed Colby Cosh on this last November, and I will cut and paste some of what I said then. I think the combination of Christianity and liberalism works only when there is a fundamental indifference to the truth of revelation. This seems strange with the great example of the U.S. before us, but Americans are always talking about choosing for themselves the specific church that is right for them. There is a never-ending proliferation of sects--not because people are going to make war to spread the truth, but because they want to pick and choose until they get what they want. This is somehow the opposite of saying: we will follow a specific revelation humbly and to the best of our abilities. Tocqueville says many wonderful and subtle things on this subject, but I believe one thought is: Americans want to do well in this life, so they don't see why they shouldn't do well in the next life as well.
In short, to the extent people are genuine Christians, they probably tend to support mullahs; if there is little or no sign of such support, that is probably because Christianity has been transformed by liberalism. Liberal democrats want peace rather than war, and Christianity often presents itself as the religion of peace. But what is the goal that comes closest to uniting all Americans, whether believers or not? Material progress. What is the daily activity that defines this unity? Not prayer, not really acts of love, but commerce.
I e-mailed another former teacher of mine--William Mathie--on these questions back in '99. Mathie converted to Catholicism about 20 years ago. Somewhat rudely, I asked if the Church was still or always attracted to the Ayatollah or Inquisitor role. (Thinking partly of the "Grand Inquisitor" in Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov). One thing he said in his reply is that this role was rejected by Aquinas (citing Summa Th. 91.4) if not Augustine. It seems funny to say the Catholic Church gave up using the state to persecute heretics about 1100 AD. Does this mean that in all the religious wars of early modernity, Rome was more sinned against than sinning? Even if this is true, it suggests that the problem was not clearly resolved until about a thousand years after the death of Christ. Islam may not be all that far behind.
Mathie also cited recent encyclicals by Pope John Paul II. in Anno centissimo, the Pope seemed to endorse liberal democracy or the view that consent is the necessary and sufficient basis of government (Mathie's paraphrase); in the later Evangilium vitae, however, he expressed second thoughts. The later view, in Mathie's words: "government ought to be seen as in the hands of the Lord's annointed, or as a scourge for fallen and sinful man, not so that it can reach and impose upon men's souls but so that it can limit the human propensity to do wickedness through the collective power of society."
This is an incredibly long post, but I am almost done. Mathie's language, paraphrasing the Pope, sounds like Augustine as elaborated by Ernest Fortin. The Christian should see politics as a way to mitigate evils, not a path to paradise on earth, or even as a way to do the work of the Church in spreading the truth. Augustine was concerned to show that Christians could be good citizens in an utterly un-Christian political order; their faith calls on them to perform many duties, including lowly daily and human ones, at a high level, so they should do what the government or political community asks (as long as it is not an outright sin)in addition to, not as a substitute for, their strictly Christian duties.
Fortin says in a 1971 article that Augustine did not perfectly resolve the issue of the Christian and the political order.
http://www.library.villanova.edu/sermons/fortin.htm/
He comments that in terms of various kinds of natural law, later thinkers (above all, I would guess, Aquinas) are more clear than Augustine but also more rigid; they may not provide a better solution, for example, to the problem of war, and the attempt to define a just war (pp. 29-30). In another Fortin article, which unfortunately is not on the web and I don't own (his article on Augustine in the Strauss-Cropsey reader), Fortin says that when Augustine as Bishop used governmental support to suppress the heretics called Donatists, he did so reluctantly, and he came to regret it; nevertheless, there is a certain logic to a Christian leader doing so.
In the 1971 address, the Donatist controversy comes up very briefly (p. 26): Christian love "encompasses one's enemies as well as one's friends and fellow citizens...the toleration of...evils...is as much a betrayal of love as is the self-righteous and fanatical desire to extirpate forcefully all evil from among men. Its total dimension is summed up in Augustine's well-known dictum, 'Love and do what you will....' Interestingly enough, the maxim appears to have been invoked for the first time in the course of the Donatist controversy as a means of justifying reprisals against heretics."
In other words, granted that self-righteous persecution in an attempt to save and purify souls is an evil; letting sinfully sleeping dogs lie is as great an evil, and a Christian must do something about it. Here we go again.
Colby Cosh drew a contrast between Christianity and Islam. I'll attempt a paraphrase: Christianity has a long tradition of accepting different points of view, reasoned argument, even (with Augustine, Aquinas and other) some kind of marriage with Greek philosophy. Christians are taught that the truth shall set them free, so they don't necessarily accept that there is a real tension or opposition between faith and reason. Scripture is a document to be interpreted and worked on, rather than a weapon as the Koran seems to be for Muslims.
I would agree that during the Salman Rushdie episode, and more recent ones, there has been a striking contrast. Rushdie was supposed to be killed for blasphemy; blasphemy in books is old hat for Christians. Of course there are protests at the depictions of Christ in movies, but debates about whether Biblical miracles actually happened go back for centuries. The relationship between faith and Greek philosophy is especially interesting. The great Islamic empire produced and in a way protected some great philosophic scholars, who knew the Greeks well. It has often been said it was the Muslims who kept the Greek books in existence until "the West" was able to appreciate them. But as I understand it, philosophic writers in the Muslim world were always forced to conceal their meanings--Leo Strauss uses them as the ultimate example of great and profound writing that was carried out under persecution. Only in the West has there been something close to open avowals that there is a true Revelation from God, and at the same time, open and radical questioning of any such claims. To paraphrase Strauss again; it is at least a major part of the definition of "the West" that it keeps alive, incorporates, and keeps in tension, apparently contradictory views of the whole of life: Bible vs. philosophic skepticism; ancients vs. moderns; liberal individualism vs. various universal and secular faiths, etc.
We can all be grateful to Christians for contributing to this rich debate. We can also be glad that mainstream Christianity has turned into something compatible with liberal democracy. It still seems, however, that Christianity like Islam once had at its core an evangelical zeal to spread a simple teaching, and to encourage people to "live by the rules." Sophisticated talk about reason didn't necessarily help with this mission, and it may indeed have obstructed it. Lawful, constitutional government, including liberal democracy with its open avowal of toleration and pluralism, may also have been an obstacle to be cleared away by holy men and women. Perhaps Islam simply needs more time to become more Western and modern.
Update July 18: Fortin in Strauss and Cropsey, History of Political Philosophy, 3rd ed. U. of Chicago Press, 1987; pp. 197-98. As Bishop of Hippo, Augustine had to deal with a group of sectarians or heretics called the Donatists. Drastic measures became necessary because the Donatists were growing in strength and resolve, and were resorting to methods including terrorism that threatened the entire civil order.
Augustine decided to "sanction the use of force," and "turn the matter over to the local civil authorities." He tried to impose restrictions on the severity with which people were treated, especially if they showed that they were open to persuasion.
"Unfortunately, his action established a precedent whose consequences far exceeded anything that he himself appears to have foreseen. What was, for him, a mere concession to necessity or at most an emergency measure designed to cope with a specific situation was later invoked as a general principle to justify the church's reprisals against heretics and apostates. If such is the case, Augustine may be partly to blame for the religious persecution of the Middle Ages, which came to be looked upon as a prime example of the inhumanity fostered by the undue exaltation of moral standards and became the object of one of the principal criticisms levelled at the church throughout the modern period."
Obviously this also has some relevance to "McCarthyism," which has been disinterred by Ann Coulter more than once. Trying to find the truth about people's hearts and minds, and punish bad thoughts or disloyalty, can start a kind of police action that is hard to stop.
Update August 30:
See an excellent article by
James Q. Wilson (link from Instapundit). Wilson stresses the role of historical accident in the development of "tolerance" in Western countries; the religious factions grew so numerous, and the fighting so bitter, that some kind of truce had to be arranged in order for any stability or trade to be possible. Similarly Turkey became the most Westernized of Islamic states largely because of one person: Ataturk.
I'm slowly making my way through "Speaking for Themselves," a book of letters between Winston S. Churchill and his wife Clementine.
I was struck by letters he wrote to her after he arrived at the front in World War I. Churchill was fired from Cabinet over the Gallipoli campaign, which went very badly for the British. Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, and the campaign was primarily a naval one, but he has always had his defenders who say there was not enough support from the Army. It's probably also true that he had attracted a lot of envy and resentment, so many people were happy to see him fall. So he was fired from Cabinet in a situation where someone else may not have been.
What did he do? He practically insisted on getting back into an Army uniform, and going to the trenches in Belgium. This is the famous nightmare battlefield, where young men by the thousands were pointlessly killed, while the front line hardly budged. Indeed it was to stop or avoid some of this horror that Churchill had tried to open an entirely new front through Turkey. But to say the least, his letters do not show him sharing in the doom and gloom, "why are those bastards sending us to get our asses shot off?," kind of attitude.
In November 1915 it was around his 41st birthday. He is (for the time being) a Major.
"I am very happy here. I did not know what release from care meant. It is a blessed peace. How I ever could have wasted so many months in impotent misery, which might have been spent in war, I cannot tell."
His unit takes over a trench that had been occupied by others. Here Churchill shows that he is not exactly unaware of the horrors of war.
"The neglect and idleness of the former tenants is apparent at every step. Filth and rubbish everywhere, graves built into the defences and scattered about promiscuously, feet and clothing breaking through the soil, water and muck on all sides; & about this scene in the dazzling moonlight troops of enormous rats creep & glide, to the unceasing accompaniment of rifle & machine guns & the venomous whining & whirring of the bullets which pass overhead. Amid these surroundings, aided by wet & cold, & every minor discomfort, I have found happiness & content such as I have not known for many months."
Now admittedly, there is something funny going on here. He is reminding his wife how miserable it was back in London, where he was blamed for a military defeat, the Prime Minister had abandoned him, and many enemies were laughing at him. The bloody trenches are absorbing enough, you might say, that he can finally forget all that. Nevertheless, I think it comes through that he really did enjoy himself at the front.
Some would say this is a type of mental illness. George Will wrote years ago that it is hard to forgive Churchill for a photo, taken during World War I, in which he leaves a war planning meeting in London, a huge grin on his face. It is probably true that we wouldn't want a lot of people to be like this. But I believe there is a nobility in it which shines through. Churchill wasn't a mere thrill-seeker (although he did enjoy flying before World War I, when the likehilood of crashing and being killed was very high); he sought out the theatres where noble, lasting, historic actions are possible. It had to be politics, at the highest level, and/or war.
Leo Strauss is supposed to have said Churchill proved that Aristotle's great-souled man could exist in the modern world. Maybe Churchill was too willing to seek virtually any political office, no matter how small. Because of that he was probably too much inclined to suck up to lesser prime ministers. (Aristotle says the great-souled man seeks only the greatest honours; he is disdainful with "high society," to remind them they are not truly his equal, but he is (ironically, in the original sense of that word) much less harsh with people who are clearly his inferiors).
Still, reading Churchill is like getting a dose of something fine and true. The left likes to say Churchill was only right once, and it was probably a fluke that this once happened to be his opposition to Hitler in the 30s. Of course, the left still has a lot to answer for in their flattering of communism over many decades. In the 30s, Churchill must have been amazed that the sophisticated intellectuals roughly divided up (probably more on the left) between the radical left and the radical right. Who was going to defend liberal democracy?
The province of Ontario, Canada, where I live, is going to have an election in the near future. What makes this of some general interest is:
1. Ontario is the most populous province in Canada, and Toronto is the biggest and richest city, closely tied to the Great Lakes states;
2. The incumbent government continues to campaign on tax cuts as one of their main commitments.
The Progressive Conservative government was elected in 1995 with Mike Harris as leader. Harris had become leader in 1990, just in time for an election, after which his party remained in third place. In 1995 very few observers gave him a chance of winning, even though the NDP (social democratic) government was very unpopular. It was widely assumed that the Liberals would form a majority, as they had from 1987 to 1990. Harris worked hard, devised a plan, and stuck to it, and he won.
Harris circulated a manifesto-type document called "The Common Sense Revolution." Both his policies and his strategies owed something to some successful U.S. campaigns: Proposition 13 to freeze property taxes in California in the 70s; Reagan's presidential victories; Christine Whitman's first victory in New Jersey; Engler in Michigan; and the Contract with America. Harris promised across-the-board cuts in income taxes; business-friendly changes to labour laws and worker's compensation; and a freezing of hydro or electricity rates. He promised to at least maintain spending in three key areas: health care, classroom spending (not necessarily administration and other periperals of the education system), and "law and order." He made it clear that any other spending might and probably would be cut.
Harris had always favoured cuts in both spending and taxes, so he was running on his dream platform. As his campaign developed, he picked up on more issues that were suggested by ordinary voters. There was a backlash against affirmative action, especially in government hiring. A fortune had been spent in trying to find a landfill site for Toronto, in a process that was scientifically correct but politically hopeless. The government was perceived as favouring certain minorities with special treatment such as housing, while taking a certain satisfaction in angering the majority of working, tax-paying people.
The broader public sector in general was seen as soft and bloated--even corrupt, in the sense that bureaucrats were building their empires, if not feathering their personal nests, at taxpayers' expense. The NDP, which always seemed to favour a government spending solution to every problem, had made the problems of the public sector especially apparent, but Harris succeeded brilliantly in showing that the Liberals were not determined to stand up to these problems. It was enough for him to hint, therefore, that if elected the Liberals would be rolled by the bureaucrats, the special interests, and the unions. In the language of the trade, Harris used "wedge issues." In a three way race, he didn't even need a majority; he needed to build up and hold onto a loyal core of about 30% of the electorate, and add to it by winning over people who admired his toughness and honesty, and were convinced that the Liberals weren't up to the job. In two majority victories, Harris won 45% of the vote once, and 46% the other time. He won in 1999 because or in spite of the fact that he had kept many promises, cut a lot of ministries, and even taken on some tough fights, such as the structure of municipal government, that no one had expected.
(In a parliamentary system, it is only seats in the legislature or Parliament, and being able to command a majority there, that makes a government. 45% of the vote, spread fairly widely in the country or province, is almost always enough to win a majority of seats. The NDP actually formed a majority with 37%).
Harris stepped down in 2001, and his former Finance Minister, Ernie Eves, became party leader and Premier. Eves promised in his leadership campaign that the days of confrontation--by implication, the days of tough wedge issues--were over. He would consult more, he would avoid angering significant groups, including public-sector unions. Harris was committed to "privatizing" or at least "commercializing" electricity; Eves has put the brakes on this process. As the time for an election has approached, however, he is sounding more like Harris.
Legally, Eves can wait until spring of 2004 to call an election, but it looked like he was ready to do so a month ago. He has produced a Throne Speech, a Budget, and a campaign manifesto. He is promising to ban strikes by teachers (and lockouts by school boards). He is fully committed to tax cuts for parents who send their children to a private school--regardless of whether the school actually teaches the provincial curriculum or not. (He campaigned against both of these stands during the leadership race). Above all, he has promised more and deeper tax cuts, especially for homeowners and seniors.
Polls show the Tories trailing the Liberals, but it seems that if anyone can squander an opportunity, it is Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty. The Tories' wedge issues have tended to work on the provincial Liberals because the latter have difficulty presenting a unified response from within their own ranks. Some of their members, including elected MPPs, are far enough to the left that they would be comfortable in the NDP. Presumably, they decided to run as Liberals in order to have a shot at power. Others are comfortable with aspects of the Tories' agenda.
I am interested in the day-to-day shifts of politics, but I also try to look at the bigger picture. In the 1970s, the growth of the welfare state looked unstoppable. Above all, it looked like a success. Government spending, in good times and bad, smoothed out the troughs of the business cycle without preventing the peaks. It helped ensure an educated and healthy workforce, buying houses and consumer goods and growing the economy. A certain kind of conservative hoped the welfare state would fail, since it is corrupt to succeed by spending someone else's money. But it was very difficult to argue with success.
In the past few decades, however, there has been at least a significant correction. I don't think total government spending has actually gone down, but the rate of growth has slowed, and people's expectations have changed. Tax cuts are not necessarily supported by sound economic theory--sometimes they are a needed job-creating tonic, more or less in Keynesian terms, sometimes (probably more often) not--but they appeal to a sense of justice in a lot of voters. Why shouldn't the "final" distribution of wealth have something to do with that combination of luck, schooling and effort that is called a career? Why should there be a presumption that the mere existence of wealth is a problem as long as some have been "left behind"?
Taking even a further step back, obviously every argument to the effect that the wealthy deserve their wealth can be questioned; but as far as I know, every argument that the wealth should be transferred to someone else is even more questionable.
Universal social programs are an ingenious invention. They make it difficult for many taxpayers to figure out if they are net benefactors or beneficiaries. Somehow there are a lot of public amenities, including schools and parks, and they are paid for somehow. Aristotle says any space or location that is "common" is certain to be neglected; for "everyone" to care for it is the same as noone caring for it. A common room in a dorm would be a good example. The welfare state still holds out the promise that the common good, in a meaningful sense, can be built and maintained by paid bureaucrats. But many conservatives and right-wingers, favouring the entrepreneur, the land-owner, and/or the family, will resist.
Probably the best columnist writing on politics at Queen's Park, as we say, is Ian Urquhart of the Toronto Star. Go from the Star home page to "columnists":
http://www.thestar.com/
Murray Campbell of the Globe and Mail is also very good:
http://www.globeandmail.com/
Mickey Kaus may be right that Bill Clinton's timing was questionable in bringing up the 22nd Amendment. (Scroll down to May 28). Clinton's suggestion was that someone as young as he is could serve two terms as President, take a break, and still be young enough to serve again. The timing issue is that several more or less obscure Democrats are already trying to run for President, and the last thing they want is to be overshadowed by Clinton.
Kathryn Lopez at The Corner took up the issue.
She says she does not want to lead a campaign on the subject, but she does not think the 22nd Amendment was a very good idea. Even if it had allowed Clinton to serve a third term, she would have opposed him within the system, and the people would have spoken. She also says it would have been better if Giuliani could have stayed Mayor, at least for a while.
(The 22nd Amendment prevents anyone from serving more than 10 years as President; anyone elected President twice cannot run again (Ike, Reagan, Clinton, even (hah, hah) Nixon). If a Vice-President takes over during his predecessor's term, he can still only serve a total of ten years. The campaign for the Amendment was driven by Republicans, enraged by losing the presidency 4 times when FDR was their opponent, and then, worst of all, once to Truman. The Amendment took effect while Truman was still President, but he was grandfathered; Eisenhower--1953-1961-- was the first popular president who was "term limited")
I e-mailed Lopez to praise her for an argument that doesn't always support her own prejudices.
[Kudos for making your points about the 22nd Amendment.
It is all the more impressive when you admit your recommended repeal of the Amendment might have prolonged Clinton's presidency, which you would have opposed.
As far as I know, presidential term limits are the only ones that the Federalist Papers explicitly argue against.
No. 72 has been one of my favourites for years. There are lots of arguments, but the clincher seems to be this:
"An ambitious man...finding himself seated on the summit of his country's honours, looking forward to the time at which he must descend from the exalted eminence forever, and reflecting that no exertion of merit on his part could save him from the unwelcome reverse, would be much more violently tempted to embrace a favorable conjuncture for the prolongation of his power, at every personal hazard, than if he had the probablity of answering the same end by doing his duty.
"Would it promote the peace of the community, or the stability of the government, to have half a dozen men who had had credit enough to raise themselves to the seat of the supreme magistracy wandering among the people like discontented ghosts and sighing for a place which they were destined never more to possess?"
I first read this in about 1978, when Nixon was indeed wandering the country (although of course his immediate problem in 1974 was not the 22nd Amendment). Clinton is a unique case so far in that he was popular in 2000 (unlike Truman in 1952), and he is much younger than Ike or RR at comparable points.
Federalist 72 makes clear what many have questioned--that the presidency is supposed to attract the most ambitious (greatest or most dangerous) individuals, and will do so by offering expansive powers, and indeed a chance for glory. Of course there were reasons to downplay the powers of the presidency in order to get the constitution ratified by people who were suspicious of monarchy--even the elected kind. The presidency, as Harvey Mansfield especially has shown, is extremely flexible; sometimes the president can be contained by formalities, when Congress and the Supreme Court exert themselves. At other times--i.e. in an emergency--the presidency can seem very informal, spontaneous, and therefore both dangerous and effective. If the people can keep re-electing the same person, they may confirm the success of a demagogue; but the alternative may be worse.
Of course, Alexander Hamilton would probably be amazed at how peacefully those who lose office accept the outcome.
Anyway, I enjoyed your comments.]
I could have gone on. Federalist #72 also has this wonderful passage:
"Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds, which would prompt a man to plan and undertake extensive and arduous enterprises for the public benefit, requiring considerable time to mature and perfect them, if he could flatter himself with the prospect of being allowed to finish what he had begun, would, on the contrary, deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit the scene before he could accomplish the work, and must commit that, together with his own reputation, to hands which might be unequal or unfriendly to the task."
Update: July 24/03: Lopez brought it up again, linking to a newspaper story in Troy, NY.
The debate rages about Gulf War II and U.S. reasons for "going in" to Iraq.
I've tried to clarify my thoughts from time to time (for a while I was e-mailing David Olive of the Toronto Star). Here is the latest:
1. 9/11 enraged many Americans. It probably shifted Bush II from a "who cares?" attitude toward most of the world, to a determinaion that something must be done. The analogies to Pearl Harbour and World War II, as overdrawn as they often seemed, were a clue to how serious the Americans were. (An aside on the idea that anyone who wasn't totally with them was some kind of appeaser or coward: for two years after Chamberlain's appeasement, the U.S. did nothing while a Nazi empire spread in Europe, and a Japanese empire in the Pacific. The U.S. contribution was Lend Lease, for which the U.K. paid a pretty penny).
2. Taking out the Taliban in Afghanistan, while it was a perfectly logical response to 9/11, wasn't enough to satiate the U.S. rage. No U.S. delegation has proposed going on a triumphal tour of Afghanistan.
3. Iraq was an inviting target:
- Saddam had a long history of defying U.N. weapons inspections
- he ran a brutal and cruel regime, especially after '91
- his history was quite well known in the U.S. This included "unfinished business," the U.S. allowing him to remain in power in '91. There was some awareness the U.S. (Bush I) had made specific decisions that allowed Saddam to massacre tens of thousands of rebels. Americans didn't have to be taught from scratch to hate Saddam.
- (last, in my judgement) there was some real hope that taking out Saddam would make the world, not just Iraq, a better place. In any case his nastiness (forgetting the episodes in which he enjoyed U.S. support) would provide some moral cover.
4. Links between Iraq and al Queda were few or non-existent. (One indication: on 9/10, Saddam had everything his own way--no inspectors, and the sanctions didn't hurt him personally; by 9/12, he was doomed. To take any part in the planning for 9/11 would have been stupid in a way Saddam has really not been accused of). There was certainly more evidence of WMD's, but on this too there was a sense that the U.S. was exaggerating at least until Colin Powell lent his enormous credibility to the cause at the UN on Feb. 5.
5. Now Wolfowitz has said that the "best" rationale to use, for bureaucratic reasons, was removing WMD, as opposed to improving a wider strategic situation, or simply liberating Iraquis. Someone said on the web (I thought it was Kaus, but now I can't find it), that this means WMD was the rationale State and Defence could agree on. The old-fashioned conservative argument, national security, even if it was exaggerated or driven by rage, had more effect than a neo-con argument about saving the world, even if that means constantly being at war. This may be good news if the President himself is actually not that easy a person to persuade to go to war.
6. It's unlikely the U.S. will find no WMD's at all (even if you consider the two Winnebagos "nothing"), but it seems that at the time of the invasion, Iraq may have been one of the most poorly armed countries in the world. This always seemed like a positive to me. It wouldn't be like Vietnam, the U.S. would get the war over with fairly quickly. I'm no kind of military expert, so I couldn't have given details, but I thought the real weakness of Iraq (rather than its ephemeral strength) made it an attractive target. Who will shed tears at Saddam's demise?
7. For obvious reasons, Americans have difficulty talking turkey like this. Bush's defenders talk more and more about saving children from prison, ending atrocities, etc. Of all the children in the world suffering from war, land mines, torture, starvation as a military tactic, the lingering effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam, Bush II has no intention of liberating more than about a tenth of one percent. And that is perfectly sane on his part. His responsibility is to look out for Americans. But it also follows (as Wolfowitz was honest enough to say) the U.S. would never invade anywhere primarily or solely to liberate the suffering people who live there. I am not one who thinks U.S. motives in foreign policy are always worse than anyone else's; but there are times when they are no better. How could it be otherwise?
8. We should probably all read "The Quiet American." (I gather the movie is nastier to the Americans. Who directed--Costa Gavras, or someone like that, thinking the CIA is always the most evil organization around?) As one reviewer said (again, it was probably somebody on Slate): Graham Greene could be condescending to the naive American, but he also suggests that if there is going to be an imperial power, the Americans are probably the best choice--better than the tired, cynical Brits. (Or, God help us, the French or the Germans). Many Americans seem to have freed themselves from Vietnam syndrome. The neo-cons would apparently like to go back to the Cold War, as long as the U.S. is the only megapower, casualties are light, and there is little or no guilt or anxiety. It could be a wild ride.
Lloyd W. Robertson
B.A. (University of Alberta) 1977
M.A. (Brock University) 1980
Ph.D. (University of Toronto)1993 (yes, it took a long time)
All degrees in Political Science. I was Joe Poli Sci or even, let's face it, a Poli Sci nerd.
Beginning in 4th year or Senior year at Alberta, I specialized in political philosophy: a thesis on Rousseau at Alberta, M.A. thesis on Hobbes, Ph.D. dissertation on Aristotle's Ethics.
Publications: not much to show, which is no doubt one reason I was never offered a tenure-track academic job.
An article of mine on Canadian politics appeared in Books in Canada 26:2 (March 1997), which does not seem to be on the web. I've had an article on Churchill published in a magazine called Finest Hour (Summer 2002, No. 115), which should be on the web soon.
It meant something to me when my article on my late father was posted on the University of Alberta alumni website (my father also graduated from there).
My wife and I have two children, and our daughter--the oldest--was born severely handicapped. I had a two-part article about our life with her in Exceptional Parent magazine in 1991. (Search Archive under "Robertson." Articles are $2.95 each, there is a brief precis which is free).
A version of the original articles appears in a book called Families, Disability, and Empowerment, ed. George H. Singer, still for sale on the web.
A somewhat different article appears in a book called Uncommon Fathers, listed for sale on the web.
I'm working on a 30-page article on Dalton Camp, a long-time Progressive Conservative campaign manager/advertising manager/journalist. I don't know who on earth to send it to when it is done.
I am also working on an article on cloning and the modern world, with some discussion of Machiavelli. And I have plans to get back to a book manuscript on Aristotle. Working Title: The Gentleman and the City: An Introduction to Aristotle's Political Science.
OK, here are some favourites, this time (I hope) with links. Thanks to "Support" for a very quick response on this. (I know absolutely nothing about HTML).
Glenn Reynolds
Mickey Kaus
Slate
Colby Cosh
The Corner
Hit and Run
Eve Tushnet
Josh Marshall
Here goes with my first attempt at a link:
http://www.lloydtown.blogeasy.com/
Update Sept. 21: e-mail me at robertson0425@rogers.com
So I'm venturing into the big world of blogs.
I like/visit daily: Drudge, Slate, Instapundit, The Corner, ColbyCosh.
I'm interested in current events/politics: Ontario, Canada, U.S.
I worked for years on an academic career, and I still have "academic" interests--political philosophy, American Constitutional Law.
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