Article VI Blog

Victor Davis Hansen in The Corner yesterday (apologetically reprinted in toto):

Michelle Obama is now weighing in on the Sotomayor nomination, and I think it will prove a serious political mistake, since she is reverting back to her “me too” campaign mode, in that she emphasizes both race and the anonymous “they” who are not nice or not sufficiently accommodating to the Other.

So Michelle Obama describes the fear that Sotomayor felt at Princeton — and its lasting effects to this day — and then compares it, of course, to Michelle’s own ambiguous feelings toward the same Princeton campus (cf. Michelle’s thesis for the details), that one is willing to put up with for the education and prestige it gave, but does not really like for the presence of apparently so many stuck-up, rich, preppy kids and their ubiquitous exclusive campus culture. 

Three or four observations:

1. Many Americans were terrified about our first year in college. Some left farms for sophisticated urban environments and were lost; others were the first in their families to go to colleges, and so on. The Ivy League is by definition snobbish to all outside its traditional insular orbit, whether white, black, brown, country folk, foreigners, etc. But by predicating such common discomfort on their own race and gender, Ms. Obama and Judge Sotomayor deprecate a universal human experience, and instead claim it as something unique to identity politics;
2. Once more we see the schizophrenia of affirmative action, diversity, and identify politics — the university is both obliged to select students on the basis, at least in part, of race, class, and gender, but then almost immediately faulted for a climate that, in the eye of the recipient, stigmatizes those to whom it gives unusual consideration (what is the answer? — no race/class/gender consideration at all?; constant race/class/gender consideration that begins at admission and continues through graduation?; damned if you do, damned if you don’t?);
3. And the remedy for feeling separate at elite colleges is apparently to reemphasize separatism based on identification with the tribe (e.g., Justice Sotomayor’s senior thesis, like that once written by Ms. Obama, is predicated on ethnic and racial grievance).

All this should disturb Democrats because it fuels a general and growing perception (cf. Sotomayor’s white-male references, Eric Holder’s “cowards” remark, the serial Obama apologies abroad, the confusion about America being an important Muslim nation, etc.) among the public that something very strange is going on — a sort of generic anger being expressed at the highest levels of government that seems fueled by long past resentments against a perceived establishment that at times apparently is too roughly characterized as white, or white male, or rich, or Christian, or something other than poor, of color, or of female?

One would have thought with the presidency, or nomination to the Supreme Court, or with the office of Attorney General, or First Lady, such hurt feelings and old grievances might wane; but instead the resentment seems to be ubiquitous, and growing, and the lectures will be with us for the next four years in almost every imaginable circumstance. If the administration is not careful, millions of Americans are going to begin feeling that they are caricatured pretty much as those once were in rural Pennsylvania.

Food for thought for both “the minority” and “the majority.”  There has got to be a better way to do things.

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Chuck Colson yesterday:

Could the rise in government spending—from economic stimulus to health care reform to education spending—endanger the vitality of religion in America? That’s a question University of Virginia Professor W. Bradford Wilcox discussed recently in the Wall Street Journal.

Wilcox zeroed in on a fascinating study entitled “State Welfare Spending and Religiosity.” The study’s authors, Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde, found an “inverse relationship between religious observance and welfare spending.” Put more simply, the more a government spends on welfare, the fewer people go to church. [ed note:  links added by this ed.]

This is why it is that church attendance is so low in welfare states such as Denmark and Sweden compared to countries like the U.S. and the Philippines—where government doesn’t provide cradle-to-grave assistance.

[...]

Nor does it bode well for the future of American democracy.

In his classic book, Democracy in America, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at how Americans could accomplish almost anything through voluntary associations—especially churches. They built schools, hospitals, sent missionaries all over the world. He wrote, “I frequently admired the boundless skill of Americans in setting large numbers of people a common goal and inducing them to strive toward that goal voluntarily.”

De Tocqueville doubted that government could ever accomplish all that American citizens could do through their associations. But he also warned that if government should supplant the good work of these associations, the American people would ultimately end up dependent upon government. And this, he said, would imperil not only American democracy, but “civilization itself.”

All the more reason for us to create a nation where religion can flourish.  Which makes me wonder about this blog post from Tony Perkins:

On Monday in an interview with French journalist, Laura Haim, President Obama spoke about the purpose for his trip to the Middle East. During the interview, which you can read on the White House website, the President stated the following:

…I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.

What?

In April, on his trip to Turkey, President Obama said, “we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation…”

So, according to President Obama we are not a Christian nation, but we are one of the largest Muslim countries in the world?

The President’s remarks were less than prudent in either instance, but I am not sure we want to open a debate as to  whether we are a “Religion X” or a “Religion Y” nation.  We are a nation that welcomes all religions and a nation where those religions thrive.  We are also a nation where those religions compete, non-violently and in religious terms.  That is the point the President should have emphasized.

Forms of Islam that thrive in this nation (Yes, we have our dark Islamic underbelly, but we have a dark Christian underbelly too – as the Tiller murder over the weekend proves) are generally on the same ethical page as we are and contribute to the civic order.  That makes them welcome.

We are a “Christian nation” only in the sense that we are majority Christian, and frankly, it is up to evangelists and missionaries to keep it that way, not the government.

But what is really disturbing to me is that Colson is pointing out how this administration’s polcies are undermining ALL religion in the nation and Perkins wants to argue about religious labels in speeches.   It’s akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  And it’s why at least one strand of social conservative finds themselves planted deeply in the political wilderness, and having a hard time finding their way out.

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. . . well, it is the biggest box office grosser of the YTD, and he’s not really “Captain yet.”  Besides there is much fascinating to read, and it is difficult to make a complete picture out of all of it.

Let’s start on a personal level.  LiveScience via US News gives us the following head/sub-head:

New Surprising Results on Abortion and Religiosity

Young pregnant women from private religious schools are more likely to obtain abortions than their public school peers.

And Dan Gilgoff’s blog on that same outlet tells us:

. . . a recent but overlooked Pew survey that finds “moral values,” cited by more Americans as their top issue than any other concern in the 2004 exit polls, is now tied for third place as issue No. 1.

These stories seems to spell a difficult time for the social conservative.  The Gilgoff piece makes some sense given the current state of affairs in the world, it is only natural that the economy would be #1, but health care as number 2 and defense against terrorism way down the list?? That I find different than expectations.  But moral values at #3 seems reasonable, and when we read the abortion piece, we find the headline a bit misleading:

Despite the absence of a link between personal religious devotion and abortion, religious affiliation did have some important influence. Adamczyk found that conservative Protestants (which includes evangelicals and fundamentalist Christians) were the least likely to report having an abortion, less likely than mainline Protestants, Catholics and women with non-Christian religious affiliations.

“On the other hand, simply attending church or finding religion important does not appear to shape a young unmarried woman’s abortion decisions,” Adamczyk said. “But many very liberal-minded people who seem themselves as prochoice still attend church.”

Oh.  This we knew.  Lots of people attend church with lots of different values.  This is not news, save for the fact that it was in a poll.  So maybe things are not quite what they seem for social conservatism.  Especially when you consider these two pieces. Gallup reports:

Republican Base Heavily White, Conservative, Religious

And according to RCP, a new CNN poll tells us:

A new poll of the potential 2012 GOP primary field from CNN/Opinion Research Corp. shows a log jam of three candidates at the top. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and current Alaska Governor Sarah Palin are in a statistical dead heat according to the survey conducted May 14-17 with a 4.5% margin of error

OK, once again, not really surprising.   Romney, Palin, the Huckster are really the only names left standing from last time so it is natural that they would lead the pack right now, and the Gallup poll just says Republicans have not quite figured out how they are going to rebuild just yet.

One is tempted, at first glance to put all of these together and conclude, as the press has since last November, and some inside the GOP as well, that the party has to move left to regain its footing.  And yet, when you look at the Gallup poll on the base such might just violate the first rule of parties: don’t tick off the base.

On the one hand, the mood of the country always changes – it will swing back right.  The question is, how soon, and how much damage will be done in the interim?  Well, the current administration is spending its political capital as fast, perhaps faster than it is printing currency, it’s going to dry up pretty quickly.  But we cannot control the general mood of the country so back to what the party should do.

I do believe the GOP is going to have to find a way to at least sequester a portion of its base – the rabid, “God said so,” social conservative.  You know the ones I’m talking about.  The ones that would not consider Giuliani because he was pro-choice, and Romney because he was “a heretic.”  We are watching the Dems spend their political capital on their ideology when circumstances are demanding a different set of priorities.  In the end that will likely make this administration’s victories Pyrrhic.

The nation cannot afford to have two parties engaged in such practice.

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All weekend long John and I have been reflecting on Friday’s Washington Post piece, ‘The Mormons Are Coming!’  John found it almost funny (he comments below); I found it both fascinating and revealing.  The reporter, Karl Vick, seems pretty clear-eyed about what is happening.  For example, Vick notes that Proposition 8 likely would not have passed in California without the support provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He then matter-of-factly adds that some gay marriage advocates on the East Coast

are shouting that fact in the streets, calculating that on an issue that eventually comes down to comfort levels, more people harbor apprehensions about Mormons than about homosexuality. [Emphasis added.]

Well.  That makes the point pretty clearly, doesn’t it?   Playing on the electorate’s fears about a minority religious faith can help you win an election.  It sure worked for Mike Huckabee in Iowa, but no one came right out and said that the way Karl Vick did here.

In a way this is helpful because the tactic is now out of the shadows:

“The Mormons are coming! The Mormons are coming!” warned ads placed on newspaper Web sites in three Eastern states last month. The ad was rejected by sites in three other states, including Maine, where the Kennebec Journal informed Californians Against Hate that the copy “borders on insulting and denigrating a whole set of people based on their religion.”

That language “borders on insulting and denigrating a whole set of people based on their religion.”  You think?

Apply my favorite test for bigotry, which John and I have often used here:  Insert “Jew” or “Muslim,” “Catholic,” or “gay” in the above-quoted ad language and ask yourself if the advertisers could ever get away with such a tactic.

Nope, they couldn’t, could they?  Vick, to his credit, continues with a clear-eyed view of what is going on:

But the demographics tempt proponents of same-sex marriage: Mormons account for just 2 percent of the U.S. population, and they are scarce outside the West. Nearly eight in 10 Americans personally know or work with a gay person, according to a recent Newsweek survey. Only 48 percent, meanwhile, know a Mormon, according to a Pew Research Center poll.  [Emphasis added.]

So now that we know what’s really happening, we get to the real question:  Is that tactic legitimate?  One political expert quoted in the article doesn’t address that question, but focuses on the tactic’s effectiveness:

“Is it fruitful to use the Mormon bogey?” said Mark Silk, a professor of religion and public life at Trinity College in Connecticut. “My sense is that there aren’t great risks to it. Once a religious institution is going to inject itself into a public fight, which the LDS did in a straight-up way, then I think people are prepared to say, ‘Well, okay, you’re on that side and we’re against you.’”

In other words, once a church takes a position on a public issue, and urges its members to exercise their political rights as voters and citizens to support that position, using that church as a bogey man can be very effective.  No surprise there, and there’s nothing unlawful about such a tactic.

To me, however, the real questions are these: Should we as a society sit still for such behavior?  Isn’t the Kennebeck Journal’s position more consistent with what we’ve come to call “the American Way?”  And if we do not stand up against such bigoted political discourse, isn’t it a very short step to using any candidate’s religion against him or her?

And do we really want to go there as a nation and as a society?

Update by Lowell:

Our reader Carl H. has commented below, and we find his thoughts so useful that we are adding it to the post:

Mollie at GetReligion takes up Vick’s article–and the important issues–here, and considers the elephant in the room that only one side of the debate is willing to discuss:

I also find it fascinating that this entire story aims to support the notion that Americans will be less comfortable with Mormons than gays (if forced, somehow, to choose). We learn all sorts of things about the Mormon church in this story — much of it very fairly written. But we never explore whether it’s true that the more people know about gay activists, the more comfortable they’ll be with them.

Take, for instance, the woman who organized California’s “Meet in the Middle for Equality” march held Saturday in Fresno. Her name is Robin McGehee and she seems by all accounts to be a very nice and capable woman. Here’s an absolutely fawning profile of her in the San Francisco Chronicle from last fall. I sure hope it was written by her mother — it’s just that biased. Anyway, she is one of four partners in the raising of her children — two partnered women and two partnered men. I’m sure that what I’m about to write is considered shocking inside the Washington Post … but I bet quite a few people in America think that such a family arrangement is less than ideal. They might even feel more, dare I say, “comfortable” with the Mormon family next door (not that I, again, think this should matter regarding marriage policy). But we never really see any hard-hitting looks at why society considers families led by two parents of opposite sex to be best for children. It’s almost considered impolitic to discuss this reality.

Indeed.   I have more thoughts about this, and an intriguing Gallup poll, at True North.

John comments:  OK, it is serious, but come on – “The Mormons are Coming”?  It conjures up some images of old, very funny movies.

I am reminded of July 2007 when we accused Jim Geraghty of being an “accomplice to bigotry” due to some argument  he leveled against Romney at the time.   Jim did not take it kindly.  What Jim engaged in then was what this piece does now – some cold political calculation, and we leveled our accusation because sometimes decency demands that some political realities be denounced. There is a point at which winning is not the only thing.

The American way is nothing if not fair.  That means that Lowell’s analysis is right.  If this stands, then any other religion will be the next thing that can be attacked.   But it won’t stop there, then we will attack on other things.  Identity politics are just wrong.

Way back in 2005 I was on a jury in a criminal case.  Jury deliberations came down to race.  It was ugly.  At the time I wrote:

High School Civics class, first day, first words:

Ours is a nation of laws not men.

Those words, that idea, that sentiment has made this nation great. It has, given time, undone the injustices that our society wrought early on.

There was a time, sadly, when the law did not apply equally to all people in our nation. It is our great national shame; fortunately, it is not true any more. More importantly; however, the solution to that former gross injustice lies not in changing what people group gets the benefits of that unequal application – it lies, rather, in assuring EQUAL application.

The pro same-sex marriage crowd feels justified  in their discriminatory rants because they feel discriminated against.  That is an arguable point, but discrimination begetting discrimination delegitimizes any argument they may have – at that point the discussion has shriveled to hatred, pure and simple.  (related reading – Victor Davis Hansen – today)

As proof consider yesterday’s heinous murder of late term abortion provider George Tiller.  This decidedly pro-life blog hereby denounces loudly and condemningly the murder of Tiller or any other abortion provider.  Despite how wrong I think the actions of such doctors are, it does not justify “returning the favor.”  In fact such is an imperative of the same source from which I have come to believe abortion is wrong.

But what I really do not understand in this situation is the press.  Why can they not see the discrimination and denounce it?  I am old enough (as the movie citation above proves) to remember the racial tensions of the late 1960′s and the press coverage of the same.  As I have said before, I have much family in Mississippi and I remember wincing while watching the news thinking that the things they were saying they were saying about my family.  And yet the press cannot seem to muster even one ounce of the outrage at this bigotry that they could raise at Mississippi in that time.  The coverage of the Tiller murder leads with how awful acts of murder and terrorism are against abortion clinics (and they are!) with denial of sympathy for the murder by the vast majority of the pro-life community coming only late in the story.  And yet the coverage of the issue of religious discrimination bears none of the same reporting style.  Why are we not informed of the level of hatred for religious people that runs through the gay community?  Agreed, it is not violence – yet – but with protests and demonstrations and civil disobedienced witnessed both ater the vote last fall and int he wake of last week’s court decision, one has to wonder about the potential.

But this is made all the worse because there really is no outrage involved in any direction – it’s just cold political manipulation.

Or was it?  The Canadian press seems to think religious people in general are just a little nuts. 

Bush, a born-again Christian since age 40, arrives for today’s paid speaking engagement at Metro Toronto Convention Centre with fellow former president Bill Clinton amid a series of stranger-than-fiction disclosures, one of which suggests that apocalyptic fervour may have held sway within the walls of his White House.

Read the rest of the story if you can stomach it, but let’s be serious here.   Could someone as fanatical as they describe Bush to be even survive the election process?  I don’t think so.  Which is part of what makes the idea of “The Mormons are coming” funny.  The Prop 8 campaign was highly skilled and learned political action.  Religious fanatics of the type they seem to invoke here simply could not be that well organized, too much rationality is involved in the execution.

Finally, God help us all, they are talking Iowa ’12 already.  Personally, I think Iowa is done as a political bellweather.  Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee are not winners that prove much in the way of reliability.  Don’t be surprised to see the GOP, and perhaps the Dems make some moves towards either changing the rules in the early states (IA and NH) or moving towards a national primary day.  Iowa did more than cost Romney the nomination last time – it split the party.  We cannot afford that. 

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