Culture Wars?
It is Saturday morning and I am enjoying my weekend ritual: reading the NewYork Times and internet news printouts, listening to public talk radio,
smelling the rich aroma of a freshly brewed pot of French roast coffee, and
spreading some double creme brie on my croissant. If I owned a Volvo I would go
out and wash it.
Anyway, there I am peacefully minding my own business when I spot this
article about a Culture War in America. We have a Culture War? IsnÂt
terrorists wanting to blow us up and at least 90% of world pissed at us
enough? Now we have a culture war to deal with?
I read the article to discover that Extremists, remember I won't call them
Republicans because that would foul an honored tradition, are claiming that
there is a war of culture going on. The radical religious-right are
oppressed by the effete intellectual left-wing Liberals. Me? Moi? I say to
myself. I am oppressing someone?
I smear some strawberry jam on what is left of my croissant and read on.
It appears that the Liberals are dominating our society and making it
impossible for the Extremists and Radicals to practice their way of life. I
was shocked! I do not intend to keep the hysterical Extremists from living
as they want. I do not care how they live so long as they do not abuse
animals, children, women, the weak or me.
I am engrossed and take a long thoughtful drink of steaming black coffee,
tres bien!
The Extremists are saying that because we will not let them say prayers or
practice dogma in school or government buildings that we are offending
their faith.
They say that we all-powerful Liberals are getting in their way of their
faith by supporting the right of Choice and Roe v Wade. Rather than remove
the right of women to make that decision for themselves, according to their
own religious and moral beliefs.
They say that we tax and spend Liberals are taking their money and spending
it unwisely on programs that offend their religious and moral convictions:
such as public education, feeding hungry children, and providing care to
the elderly.
The list goes on and on and I am deeply shocked at my Liberal indifference
to the plight of the helpless Extremists and Radical-Religious Zealots.
I get up and put a CD of Edith Piaf on the player, ah the Little Sparrow of
Paris, her voice brings tears to my eyes. If I smoked, I would light up a
Galois and spit tobacco fragments on the floor.
Perhaps my beliefs are all mistaken and need serious reappraisal: a
practice that the Extremists and Zealots are well known for.
All their complaints seem to come down to a couple of core issues: freedom
of religion and the exercise of personal choice and responsibility.
As I understand it, the intent of the separation of church and state is to
protect religious freedom. The founders of our nation had plenty of living
examples of governments using one approved religion to stifle all others:
in England and Holland, it was Protestantism and in Italy, Spain and France
it was Catholicism.
The founders knew that the only way that all people would be free to
practice their faith, or lack of it, would be if the government were
neutral in the practice of religion. Then the power of the government could
not be used to abuse any particular religious group and, should the
government try, all the religious groups would see it as a threat and
exercise their non-religious powers as voters to change the government.
I took a drag on my imaginary Galois and then sipped my coffee. As I
exhaled phantom blue clouds of smoke, I realized that the founders had been
correct and that government until very recently had been working as planned.
Our society promotes its values through its schools and through its
governmental branches the legislature, executive, and judicial. To keep
these institutions neutral towards religion they must be housed in
buildings that are not decorated in any particular religious motif or
celebrate any particular tradition more than anyother.
Decisions must be made using reason and the principals of law rather than
religious canons or scriptures. Over time our laws have become neutral to
religion and thus protect it. Religious writings on the other hand, tend to
be extremely biased and only protect the believers of a particular sect.
Schools in particular must be careful to teach all children the tolerance
our society requires if religious and political freedoms are to be
preserved. Again, leaving tolerance to religious teaching has shown to be a
very bad idea.
Besides, isn't the practice of religion also the exercise of a personal
freedom and responsibility? While the schools should teach children how to
read, write, do math, etc., the schools are also responsible to teach how
to be good tolerant citizens. That is what insures religious freedom. Isn't
it the responsibility of the parents to teach their children their faith
and not the schools or government?
America is one of the most religious countries on the planet. We have more
churches and denominations than anywhere else. I have read articles that
compare our integration of religion and faith in to our daily lives as
equal to any Moslem country, with the exceptions or Saudi Arabia and Iran.
In other words, what are the Extremists and Zealots squawking about?
They are free to practice their faith and I am free to practice mine.
Unless their desire is to turn us into a Christian version of Saudi Arabia
or Iran, then they have the freedom that they claim they to be denied. If
we do what the Extremists and Zealots want, to turn to a more religious
centered society through the usurpation of the government, they become
their own worse enemies. They destroy the very freedoms that have nurtured
them. This year it could be the Zealots of the Bible Belt and in a few
years Islamic Zealots from American Madrasas. Both sound like horrid ideas.
Another sip of coffee and I stub out the Galois.
Personal freedom and responsibility is at the heart of the ability to
choose for yourself.
Taxes are an integral part of freedom and choice. The state is not free. It
costs money to make sure that we have laws to protect us, schools to
educate us, a military to protect us, and even our roads. The entire
structure of our world is in great part the result of what we have done
through the collection and spending of taxes. That great freeway system
that we love was not free. Our airports are not free nor are our trains,
barges, or bike paths.
Schools are the perfect example of freedom and responsibility. If we want
our children to have good jobs when they grow up, they must have good
educations: not just a few of them but all of them. The reason is simple.
Every child that does not get a good education is less likely to get a good
job and more likely to need governmental services such as healthcare and
perhaps detention. The cost of these services will be born by our kids
which means that they will have to pay taxes which would do them more good
going to schools rather than emergency room care and prisons.
Besides the cost of governmental services, there is also the personal cost
to our children should they need medical care, made more expensive by
serving to poor, or as victims of crime.
Most poor people are honest and religious. Most poor people work very hard
to give their children things that they have not had. They do so because
they have hope in the future. They trust that the future will be better
than the past and that is why they are hones and hard working. Only a few
of the poor are criminals but the cost of those few is enormous.
What would happen if the poor lost faith in the future? What would happen
if they saw that hard work and following the rules did not advance them or
their children? Instead, what if they saw the wealthy and powerful acting
irresponsibly and getting wealthier and wealthier. All this while the poor
found themselves locked into a perpetual state of economic siege? Would
they continue to be honest and hardworking?
History past and present is full of examples where the poor and the middle
class have lost hope in the future and the result is nasty. Is that what we
want for our children?
School taxes are a good example of freedom and responsibility.
Even if you do not agree with schools being religiously neutral, you have
the responsibility to pay taxes to support them, even if you place your
kids in a private academy or teach them at home. Why? Because, while it may
not be important to the Zealots and Extremists to teach their kids
tolerance, their religious freedom depends on the rest of society learning
to be tolerant of their faith.
The better our schools are, the more likely that your religious freedom
remains intact.
I finish my coffee. Edith's voice soars as she sings about lost love and
then all is quiet.
It is a beautiful summer morning and the birds are singing. I can hear them
in between the airplanes coming in to land at the airport.
Culture war? I am not at war with anyone. I have always believed that each
of us has the right to decide for ourselves what to believe and how to live
our lives. I am convinced that the vast majority of us, of the human race,
is primarily interested in living in peace and doing their best for their
children, families, communities, and so on.
I have not oppressed anyone.
It seems to me that the ones waging the war are not the all powerful
Liberals but those poor, oppressed Extremists and Zealots. I do not want to
take anything away from them, yet they seem bent on taking freedoms away
from me.
As I said, I do not care what some one does so long as they do not abuse
animals, children, women, the weak, and me.
Well the Extremists are abusing children, women, weak and me. I care and
I am doing something about it.
posted by Les @ 4:33 PM
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