Big State Nightmare
April 22, 2010 by JeremiahFlint · Leave a Comment
Hi Folks,
By way of personal preface, I like all of you, but I do not care if you dislike me. That is to say, it’s OK if you impugn my humanity. Also, in writing, I strive for economy. That requires attempting to use the single best word to convey nuance of meaning, even if it strains the limits of a reader’s lexicon. I do not apologize for this. If you don’t know what a word means, look it up in a dictionary. If you leave me a comment containing a word I don’t know, I will do the same, grateful for the enrichment.
Jeremiah Flint, PhD
The preface for this article is two stories in the press I came across recently. I submit them as a composite metric of current German morality. The first reports the conviction of a Catholic Bishop, Richard Williamson, in Germany who was convicted in a German court for denying the Holocaust. Read the article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_holocaust_denial
The comments in question were made by Williamson, who is British, during an interview he gave in Germany to Swedish television. See the interview here:
Prior to stumbling upon this article, I was unaware that it is a crime in Germany to deny the Holocaust on the premise that it constitutes an incitement to anti-Semitic behavior. Watching the interview, it is clear that Williamson calls in question the scale of the Holocaust, and the method by which it was accomplished. I read up a bit on the Bishop elsewhere and it is also clear to me that he leans in an anti-Semitic direction. I am not sure how anti-Semitic he is, but I am aware that there are those who hold the view that somehow, the Jews merited the horror of the Holocaust, which I believe claimed at least 6 million lives. That view is reprehensible to me. But that is not the view he expresses in the interview.
Without question, shouting “fire” in a crowded theater can hurt people and justly incurs the condemnation of society as a criminally irresponsible act. Germany has decided that what you just watched on YouTube was a criminally irresponsible act. To me, killing 300,000 Jews in concentration camps is every bit as reprehensible as killing 6 million. Every life is precious. But so is free speech, because it makes life more precious. This guy may be nuts. But are you sure that an idea you find reasonable will never be subject to this kind of codified political correctness?
The next story is about a young woman in Germany who faced the possibility of losing her employment benefits for refusing to seek work in the sex industry. Read the UK Telegraph article here:
This one speaks for itself. At least it does in the ranks of decent people. And I do not hesitate to suggest that a society who would uphold such a law has lost its grasp of decency.
To me, these two stories, taken as a composite, are a portrait of what some have referred to as “The Big State Nightmare”.
The large issue for me in the dichotomy of these two stories is the moral turbidity and confusion that, historically, always seem to both support and grow out of the “big state” in an awful, parasitic symbiosis. Yes, I am saying that moral decline and big government are mutually enabling.
The miracle of this nation is built upon the premise that our rights and responsibilities derive from God, not institutions or individuals. I recently heard a radio commentator articulate this principle in response to a caller’s suggestion that the Republicans would get a lot more traction, get a lot more people in the tent, if they would run on a primarily fiscal-conservative platform more neutral to “moral” issues like abortion. The commentator pointed out that if you try to obviate or ignore God and his preferences in the political dialogue, you have ceded your claim to unalienable rights.
That’s a really important point. But which God, with which attributes? Could this miracle ever have caught its first breath in the arms of the midwife of Islam? Or secular humanism? The wisdom of the Greeks, English Common Law and the Decalogue were crucial bodies in the system our founding fathers aligned but they were not the strong force that held – and holds them – together. That strong force, I assert, is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Himself, who gave the Law to Moses – and who also gave the Sermon on the Mount. That strong force is what saw Washington through the winter in Valley Forge, and many others through the darkest times this nation has seen. It also asks, “who is my neighbor?”. For America, that neighbor has included not only millions of Jews in concentration camps, but also post-war Japan and Germany. A secular nation does not behave that way. Nor does an Islamic one.
The Republic, undergirded by the Declaration and the Constitution, is a God-given gift. It is much like the gift of God to Abraham by way of covenant which enabled Abraham to obtain peace, freedom and abundance. So our American gift is really a covenant inextricably intertwined with the privilege and burden of choice. And, like the ancient knight said to Indiana Jones, we must “choose wisely”.
The matter of what we uphold or reject as a society really is a choice of life or death implication. Ours is a conditional charter. The freedom and abundance we have enjoyed as a nation are historically unparalleled. They have come to us, ultimately, only by the grace of God after doing all we can to build, to grow and to be good. My worry is that our Nation’s covenant with God is like the proverbial pearl of great price that people will trample under foot as they essentially seek to obviate God.
Many conservatives have vented angst about leftist monopoly of the media megaphone. I recall the celebrities paraded out for the post – 9/11 telethon. Many invoked the name of God and called for prayer. I believe they were sincere. But I also believe most of them forgot about it a few days later and went back to whatever. We can’t, we won’t prevail as a free nation if we keep “going back to whatever”, if we are not a nation under God. If one believes there is a God, and that God had a hand in the birth of this nation, then it is reasonable to believe that same God has sustained it through difficult times on his own terms, or else he is merely an idol fashioned vainly by men for the purpose of their own validation.
The questions of who he is and what his terms are for a nation to whom He has granted so much – again, I believe they encompass the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount, and the US Constitution – are the great points on which the fate of this nation hangs. We have become a people attuned to demagogues who give us bread and circus. Who tell us that we can indulge ourselves on debt and be prosperous, on immorality and have peace. Who, in fact, would have us forget the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and George Washington and simply support our president. In reality, they have, in great part, succeeded in selling the Rolls for scrap to fashion a sparkling new Yugo: the new morality of multiple categories of recycling bins, hybrid cars, fake fur, neutered pets and condoms for one-night-stands.
Everyone belongs in this tent, except, of course, those who think it might be a bad idea for seventh graders to put condoms on bananas in health class. This is the current iteration of the historical morality of the big state. Now, think about it: currently and historically, does the big state stay big without owning the definition of morality? If not, is not logical to assume that the big state will make a heavy stake in defining morality? That diseased definition is much like the counterfeit cup grasped by the greedy fool in “Last Crusade” who chose poorly and ended his days in death and horror.
That moral counterfeit cup, to me, is the ultimate big state nightmare. And that’s the punch we’re poised to gulp. The Republic, undergirded by the Declaration and Constitution: our divine charter that allows us to continue to choose. But to retain that charter, we have to choose to be good, and no society chooses to be good for long without choosing the God of Liberty.