Tag Archives: democracy

Crying for Paris

Posted on November 15, 2015 | 1 comment

Paris MapThe horrific attacks in Paris this week brought home once again the precarious nature of our freedoms. 

And so we cry for France and the rest of Europe, so vulnerable with porous borders, weak military, costly social welfare, and alarming inclusivity. 

As the daughter of England, America looks to France, and all of Europe, with anguish and tears. America was birthed by the English, explored by the French, settled by the Spanish, and later enriched by Germans, Italians, Irish, East Indians, Africans, Asians and many others. America has gloried in inclusivity, insisting this great experiment in democracy will after all succeed. Yet, in the last fifty years it is showing signs of serious failure. 

Since her birth, America has welcomed all who escaped to her sanctuary of sacred space, of liberty and life and the peaceful pursuit of happiness. All who came desired safety and a chance to live a better life in which to raise their children. Some sought life itself. This stream of grateful immigrants continues, legal and illegal, crossing borders, running around and over borders, desperate to get in. 

As America grew in strength and wealth, she defended England and the countries of Europe, as any good son or daughter would defend their family from harm. She became a force for good, sometimes through might, sometimes through love of all humanity, usually well intentioned. 

But as Europe aged she grew complacent about defense, counting on America’s strength. Americans looked across the seas to Europe’s villages and history, her cobbled streets, her quaint ways, her saints, her cathedrals, her vineyards and her civilized way of life. We were wealthy and could afford a military that could defend the free world, protect our Western Civilization. Europe rested, relaxing borders. With American might, Europe could afford generous social welfare programs. She could house, feed, nurse, and school all who crossed into her lands, even those who broke her laws. Giving and giving, Europe self-righteously distributed her benevolence. Americans, those coarse fellows across the sea, could provide troops as necessary. 

But no longer. A little like Robin Hood, America robbed from her defense to protect her domestic welfare. She too wanted to feel self-righteous, to “care” as Europe cared. To pay for these programs, programs that buy votes, the CIA was cut and we were attacked on 9-11-01 in New York. To pay for these programs, the military budget was cut and policies of disengagement and “dialog” with our enemies were preferred over shows of strength. 

Islamic State took notice. And so, the barbarians are no longer at the gates. They are here. Living among us, networking their creeds of jihad. National boundaries no long keep the bad guys out. They keep them in. 

It has been predicted by many that Europe as we know or knew it is over. Demographics prophesy that France will be a Muslim state within the next decade, and a sharia state soon after. Put simply, free French are not having children; sharia French are. The same could be said for England. 

In America we are teaching our surviving children to hate our culture, its history, its freedoms. They will not be a generation interested in protecting us. 

In America we rob our children of religious faith and leave them to wander in a nihilistic desert. They will fill this void and find meaning in a Facebook network of suicide warriors. 

In America we slaughter our unborn and euthanize our aged, blinded in our selfishness, not seeing that we are assisting in America’s own suicide. 

But in spite of all the wars and rumors of wars, all the fear on city streets, all the anguish in the once glorious city of light, we hope and do not despair. Those who can see are seeing for others. Those who can teach our children the truth are teaching them the truth. Those who can pray are praying. 

We prayed for Paris this morning in our little chapel in Berkeley. And I prayed that the eyes of the West have been briefly opened, hopefully long enough to change course, to destroy this cancerous evil spreading through the free world. We need a strong America again, one clear-eyed and courageous, yet humble enough to sacrifice for others. We need to wave the flag and revive old-fashioned patriotism.

We need an America that will defend the streets of Paris, once again showing the world and its tyrants that we will ensure peace through strength.

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Licensed to Vote

Posted on October 25, 2015 | Leave a comment

voteSometimes I think one should be licensed to vote in national elections, perhaps take a test as one is tested for a driver’s license. Each of us wield a powerful tool, the vote, more deadly than any vehicle. We should be responsible with that tool, just as we should be responsible with our vehicles. We must know the rules of the road – the role of government, the history of our country, essentially, Civics 101.

The history of the West is largely the history of Jews and Christians and their systems of right and wrong, codified in time, ways of living together (not always successful) that honor the dignity of every person. We are taught shoulds and oughts. We feel shame and guilt when we should and ought to feel this way. We honor humility, and we dishonor pride. These are mechanisms of change within and without, ways to right our behavior, to become righteous, better people. We confess our sins and we make amendment. We repent, return to the right path. Can a society survive without these habits of living and thinking? Can a society that values self-esteem over self-sacrifice continue as a community? That is the challenge of today’s secular culture.

In many areas of society – government, church, family – I increasingly meet those who want to run away from serious debate, rational reasoning. We are like birds with our heads in the proverbial sand. It is more comfortable to avoid discomfort, to insulate oneself with rosy visions of reality. Who doesn’t want to love everyone and be loved by everyone? Sounds good.

But life is more complicated than that, indeed, survival as a nation is more complicated. One behavior slides toward another. In studying history, whether it be the history of an individual or a nation, we see these patterns and can better predict outcomes from those patterns. We apply that knowledge to current crises and so make better decisions.

In a democracy we citizens need to be educated on the issues. Without an educated electorate electing, choosing candidates and platforms who will determine our nation’s future, democracy becomes a sham and we the people, blindly teeter on the edge of a cliff.

It takes courage to face reality, whether it be the state of our own hearts or the state of the state. Many of us would rather not face facts, just to keep the peace. The price is high, however, as we veer unchecked toward the precipice.

In our nation, we look to educational institutions to educate us, to ensure each generation learns their country’s founding story, as unbiased as possible, through clear lenses rather than filtered through biases of gender or class, race or religion. We look to our schools and universities to foster honest debate, in fact, to teach us how to debate civilly, how to consider the opposite side of an argument. Most importantly, we want to be able to hear criticism and not deem it hate speech, to differ without fearing jail.

There has been a recent trend on university campuses for students to veto invitations to speakers with whom they disagree. So far, among many, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, George Will, and Charles Murray have been invited and disinvited because of the possibility of disagreement among students. For disagreement has become synonymous with hate. Here, on university campuses, where the exchange of free ideas should be encouraged, where the First Amendment right of free speech should be explained and exalted, tyranny of thought and language reigns.

McLaughlin & Associates conducted a survey of attitudes towards free speech on campus, and by wide margins, students desire codes regulating speech for students and faculty, requiring “trigger warnings” in class in case material might be uncomfortable. Might be uncomfortable? I would find the trigger warnings themselves uncomfortable; does that mean there should be triggers for the triggers?

Such absurdity nearly sidesteps the serious harm done to free speech and the dumbing down of an electorate who should be tough on all sides through reason. The gift of reason is unique to our species, one claimed divine and proof of God’s existence, that is, the existence of a reasoning Creator. We think things through, we legislate laws, we judge our fellows innocent and guilty. Courts and their legal systems, rights to defense and trial, separation of powers stemming from Magna Carta and earlier, all are rooted in the remarkable belief that we can reason through our differences, and only in this way can we maintain peace.

That we must train the next generation to do the same, to carry on this great tradition of Western civilization, seems obvious, at least to this writer, using her limited talents to reason.

Children who are surrounded by serious conversation around the dinner table are deemed to have a head start in life in contrast to those not exposed to such speech. They learn by example the steps taken to reach a point, and the charity required to listen to opposing views. Such beginnings are far more powerful than class or gender or race. There was a time it was thought that only the best educated could provide these beginnings for their children.

Not so any more, it appears, with the current trends. For academia favors a sweet diet of no opinion, sameness. We must agree (with the liberal viewpoint) or be arrested. Why does this brave new world remind me of a book by that name? Why does it remind me of Islamic State and its thought police who behead Christians and crucify those of differing beliefs, who sell their children into slavery, who watch and wait as America grows increasingly weak and wavering?

The natural desire to avoid conflict, to silence speech contrary to one’s own, and then silence one’s own speech to keep the peace, is especially harmful to a nation nearing national elections in 2016. But we must take courage, pull our heads out of the sand, and listen to the arguments pro and con. We must study our Western patrimony (Daniel Hannon’s Inventing Freedom is a good and readable start) and make intelligent, educated choices in the voter booth next year. We should listen to the candidates and judge their true character. Do they understand America’s true character? Are they unafraid to uphold the character and the history of the West? Or do they feed us a sweet diet of platitudes and promises to make us feel better?

If we don’t do our homework, then we should not be voting. If we do not license ourselves to vote, others will take our vote from us.

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Law and Order

Posted on May 3, 2015 | 1 comment

If we can’t police ourselves, others will police us. History, that long forgotten study of cultural, social, and national memory, is a clear witness that this is so.

And so I weep when I see Baltimore burn with such division, so inflamed by looters who discredit and dishonor the peaceful protestors of their community. Then, to see the city government allow this to happen, as though sanctioning it. For when law is not ordered, enforced by the state, disorder is seen as lawful.

We live in a democracy, a glorious, messy mix of peoples of all races, classes, ages. We are an experiment, according to European observers, and I often think the experiment is on the brink of collapse at moments like Ferguson and Baltimore. We have grasped a delicate balance between state and individual, between no speech and free speech, between public and private spheres. We are a family of passionate beliefs and ideals, often opposing, thrown together in a whirlwind we call society.

How are we to we get along? How do we express our deeply held opinions and beliefs? How do we protect property and individual freedoms? Provide for our future as a free people? Ensure our defense and care for the poor and innocent, the least among us? We do all of these things through laws, good laws.

Without law, we become slaves, property owned by the strongest among us. Without law to protect us, we allow might to make right. We hide in fear waiting for the looters who will, in the end, rule us.

I am looking forward to reading Os Guinness’s book, The Global Public Square: Religious Freedom and the Making of a World Safe for Diversity. As Christianity is marginalized in our culture, so are the Judeo-Christian virtues of tolerance, self-restraint, and brotherly love, among many other values supporting democracy. To be sure, Christians and Jews do not always practice what they preach, but ideals must still be preached, they must still be heard and honored in the public square.

We can differ as Americans, but we can continue to converse. We can respect one another’s right to speak, to believe and live in peace, as long as we keep the peace. One group of color or creed need not dominate; but all must keep the peace.

And so as the looters set fire to their own community in Baltimore, and as others smashed car windows in our neighboring Oakland, I thought back to our inaugural lecture on Sunday night taking place at our new Center for Western Civilization, near UC Berkeley. It was well attended by young and old, from many racial backgrounds, and we were told by one speaker that each of us had lit a candle with our presence, adding to the light of freedom. There were also many words of encouragement at the reception afterwards: “So glad you are doing this,” they said again and again as I recalled the Center’s mission:

“Ignorance is the greatest threat to our civilization. Departments of Liberal Arts are shrinking in our major universities. Courses in the Western Tradition, history, literature, art, poetry, philosophy, and ethics are no longer required. Few students have enough understanding of the origins and principles of Western Civilization to maintain or advance our democratic institutions. The absence of this critical knowledge threatens the future of our personal freedoms. It is our responsibility to support every effort to keep the lights of freedom burning before we descend into darkness.”

The lights of freedom – our flaming candles – must help us see where we have come from in order to know where we are going. Fire is good when tamed and used constructively by man. It warms us when we are cold. It cooks our food and burns our garbage. In even turns our flesh to ash to be buried when we die. It lights the dark of the past, the present, the future. Each of us present on Sunday night on Bancroft in Berkeley was lighting a candle in and for our world; each of us was eager to keep the flame burning if only for another lifetime, another year, another day.

And in the end, each of us is only that, a single voice in a sea of voices and one soul in an ocean of souls. I carry, like my neighbor who sat next to me on the hard folding chair in that YWCA hall, a hope within me that my single voice matters, and that my neighbor’s voice matters too. The Baltimore looters matter, each one of them. All of us form America, and we can all carry a flame – our voice – into the public square of our nation, and of our world.

But the flame must not burn others; it must light their way. It must not destroy; it must give life. But how do we keep our candles lit in this darkness?

We keep them lit by respecting law and order; by enforcing peace in our communities. We keep them lit by understanding who we are – where we have been and where we are going.

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Tearing Down the Walls

Posted on November 9, 2014 | Leave a comment

fallofberlinwall_bundle_576x361Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today is also two days before Remembrance Day, which recalls the signing of the World War I armistice, and Veterans Day, honoring all military men and women who have served our country.

Remembering these soldiers and these wars, recalling our defense of freedom and defeat of tyranny reminds us of the fragility of peace. Evil flies in planes across our borders, bombing our cities. It creeps through the jungle into our civilized world. But it is also deep within each of us, lying dormant, or not so dormant, asleep or not so asleep. A wall runs through each heart, a wall not so unlike the one that divided Berlin. On one side, the bestial; on the other, the celestial. One side is self-preserving and tyrannical; the other is self-sacrificing and honorable. Most of us do not see the border, for we are used to it and the territories merge. It is a smudged line at best, and we ignore it.

Similar blurry lines run through cultures. Parts are barbaric and others civil. One side recognizes the law of the jungle, might makes right; the other upholds the law God gave to man, life is precious, love one another, the common good is good. In some countries the boundary is clear, a geographical periphery bordering the nation, defined by democratic institutions. In some communities it is hazy and lazy, as law-abiding neighborhoods slip into law-breaking ones. Inner cities, once “gentrified,” blur into crime-ridden communities, where politically correct policies encourage the criminals.

Other lines are more clear. We can see clearly the border between the Trade Center Towers and the terrorists who destroyed them. We see the border between the peaceful shoppers in a mall and the terrorist who beheaded the coworker. We can see also the border between the innocent runners in a marathon and the terrorists who maimed them.

We fought two World Wars so that free peoples could live freely and peacefully. How ironic and tragic that we must go to war to ensure peace. It seems to be the way of man, that one side of his heart must triumph over the other in order to protect the good from the evil. The free must triumph over those who seek to enslave them. This is a just war.

The Berlin wall was hugely symbolic and terribly effective. Many lives were lost in attempts to flee Eastern Germany and the shackles of the Communist Soviet Union, to the safety of the West. But even with the wall finally down, and even with our rejoicing in its fall, we know there are still five countries imprisoned by Communism. For them the wall has not fallen; they do not remember victory on this day or any day; they mourn for the daily victims.

Hong Kong, back under Communist China’s control since 1997, recently witnessed thousands of protesters demanding the right to vote in honest elections. The protest was quelled by tear gas, pepper spray, beatings, jailings, in an echo of the Tienanmen Square massacre twenty-five years ago. In Laos, the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, the only party allowed, denies free speech, religious freedom, and property ownership. Like its neighbor Communist Vietnam, the government tortures and imprisons those who disagree. Cuba follows the Communist playbook as well, keeping a tight grip on thought, speech, and freedom. The border between Communist North Korea and Democratic South Korea is a clear geographical boundary, a four-hundred-mile demilitarized zone, separating a people with common language and history. The Communist North tortures and starves its citizens, denies freedom of religion, thought, travel. As Mr. Marion Smith, Executive Director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal:

“To tear down that wall will require the same moral clarity that brought down the concrete and barbed-wire barrier that divided Berlin 25 years ago. The Cold War may be over, but the battle on behalf of human freedom is still being waged every day. The triumph of liberty we celebrate on this anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s destruction must not be allowed to turn to complacency in the 21st century.”

And so remembrance inspires us to rededicate and re-shore our beliefs, our courage, and yes, our military strength as a free nation in a world of shackled peoples. Recent midterm elections recognized this. I hope we will see more clearly the wall dividing freedom and tyranny, so that we may preserve our own scattered communities of peace.

And we give humble thanks to the brave men and women who have kept us free, fighting and dying for our freedoms. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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