Correspondence: Decency & the U.S. Constitution

By Moristotle

I’m going to be a bit of a provocateur relative to Charlottesville.
    Can you believe Trump? A genius at the un-PC sound bite. Making it hard for his Republican friends. Pretty soon his core supporters will be the same as David Duke’s.
    On the other hand, I listened to his original statement and it wasn’t that bad. I mean, he isn’t exactly articulate. The neo-nazis have rights too, and it takes two to make a fight. If you really believe in the Constitution you have to defend their rights to assemble and enjoy free speech, no matter how much you disagree with them.
    Arguably the protesters were trying to deny them those rights. Democracy is messy that way.

    Yesterday, Trump made one of his typically dyslexic and rambling statements, which, of course, the press and most politicians are all over him about. I watched the video of the riot pretty closely several times and in spite of the terrible news coverage, I didn’t see anything that contradicts his statement about the left provocateurs who were armed and armored and itching for a fight. And it seems likely that some people at the rally were there to defend the statue of Lee, which I can sympathize with. Do I support racism and the rest? Of course not. Do I defend those peaceful demonstrators who were run down? I do. But that’s all too complex and nuanced for our politically correct establishment news media.
    I raise the issue of Charlottesville because it highlights fundamental questions relative to the Constitution. On a simplistic level, the Constitution is our guarantee that we will treat each other with decency.
    What lies tattered and crumpled in the street, trampled and ignored, is the Constitution and our rights to freedom of speech and assembly. And simple civil decency. The whole thing is a sign of the times; that’s the sad part.

The U.S. Constitution may look great, but if a large number of our citizens act indecently, will the formal law matter very much? My italicized phrasing paraphrases a passage from the article: “New on This Fall’s Law School Syllabus: Trump” [Adam Liptak, NY Times, August 14]. Excerpt:

The nation’s law professors have spent the summer revising their courses to take account of a president who generates fresh constitutional questions by the tweet....
    When is firing a subordinate to thwart an investigation obstruction of justice? Can a sitting president be indicted? Can the president pardon himself? May he accept financial benefits from foreign governments? Are his campaign statements evidence of religious bias? Must Congress authorize a nuclear strike against North Korea?
    “It would be easy to design a whole course or write an entire book about the constitutional issues raised in just the first six months of the Trump presidency”....
    ...said Mr. Trump’s presidency had revealed some shortcomings of the Constitution. For instance, he said, the framers should have made it easier to remove the president before his term was over.
    “The fixed four-year term means we’re stuck with him unless we go through an unlikely impeachment or the 25th Amendment,” he said....
    “A desirable system,” Professor Levinson said, “would offer a way of voting ‘no confidence.’”....
    “A lot of what we teach in constitutional law classes rests on unspoken assumptions about how people in the government will behave,” Professor Strauss said. “Everyone understands that when we’re talking about other countries — their constitutions may look great, but if the officials are authoritarian or corrupt, the formal law won’t matter very much.” [italics are those of the correspondent]
    “Now we have to think about those questions,” he said, “in explaining to students how our own constitutional principles are vulnerable and what we can do about it.” [read more]

Good grief. What were the authorities thinking? The white nationalists are certainly a menace. Makes defending their rights hard.

Dakota Free Press

I have personally experienced the polarization of the United States and I am personally against it and patiently awaiting the pendulum to swing the other way. I had a close friend from high school who now refuses to talk to me, because of my opinions on the political scene. In particular, I felt after the Obama administration, that I loved it for what occurred during that period, that the pendulum was going to swing the other way, as it has.
    I have learned from a young age how polarizing politics and, really, one’s world outlook can be, in and of itself.
    Charlottesville: I am horrified at what is happening and is continuing to happen, in more places than Charlottesville. But long ago I had to reconcile myself, really come to grips with the gazillion horrors that have occurred on this planet. One of my hobbies is reading about WWII...how an ordinary bunch of nice German guys could get up in the morning, have a few glasses of schnapps, and go out and murder Jews...6 million Jews murdered...And the other day (8/15/2017), they were celebrating the birth of Pakistan, in which one million people were murdered when Pakistan separated from India. Think of what July 4th would mean if it represented the murder of a million people. I think I have now a good understanding of all these murders; part of the answer has to do with the swinging pendulum.
    The correct vote in November was obvious. I will never vote for a groper. I need no other details. Why? Because to me it is all about decency, and doing the decent thing. I am a black sheep in my family of origin, because everyone else in my family of origin voted for the groper. However, in today’s Washington Post I read about some decent women in South Dakota who are beginning a movement against Trump, largely (in my words) for decency. And frankly, I think most of the people in this country are decent people and I have been wondering when they are going to wake up (the pendulum swinging back) and just simply speak up for decency.
    By the way, on December 6, 1941, America was at least as polarized at it is today. But then, the next day, as I recall, Congress voted to go to war with nearly 100% voting for it – practically no polarization. It is interesting how fast the pendulum can swing.

Did you see the press conference yesterday? I think it was the first time (finally!) that Trump publicly decried specific racial hate groups by name. Of course, now I suspect his crime will be saying one thing and doing another.
    Unfortunately, Trump has people like Pastor Robert Jeffress advising him, and, even worse, he too often listens to them. Here are excerpts from Steven Paulikas’s August 14 NY Times article “Christianity Does Not Justify Trump’s ‘Fire and Fury’” rebutting Jeffress. Paulikas uses what I consider the standard format for responding to such people: “Here is someone misusing Scripture, when a better understanding of the whole of Scripture disavows his position.” I think Paulikas’s citations are perfect for this purpose:

Following President Trump’s initial threats of “fire and fury” toward North Korea on Aug. 8, Robert Jeffress, the evangelical pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, and a presidential adviser, released a statement claiming that God had given the president authority to “take out” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Jeffress was the president’s selected preacher at the traditional pre-inauguration liturgy at St. John’s Episcopal Church and claims to speak with Mr. Trump “on a variety of issues.”
    Regardless of his political credentials, Jeffress’s theology is shockingly uninformed and dangerous, and it is a sobering reminder of the power of misguided moral statements to influence matters of life and death in policy....
    In an interview with The Washington Post, Jeffress backs up his argument by citing Paul, in Romans 13, a famous passage on the relationship between earthly and divine authority. Yet even the casual reader of the Bible will be hard-pressed to recreate this interpretation of Romans. In order to reach his desired conclusion, the pastor rips this passage from its context; Paul is telling Christians to obey the Roman authorities in temporal matters such as taxation, not justifying the authority of one ruler over another....
    Jeffress told The Post, “God has endowed rulers full power to use whatever means necessary — including war — to stop evil.” I argue that recent history has already demonstrated that the invocation of evil in political rhetoric leads to violence....
    So how can we bring a halt to this march toward war? The answer lies in theology and ethics as much as it does in politics and strategy. Secular and religious people alike must be aware that moral arguments — whether or not they involve religious tropes — are not just political sideshows but rather can determine the outcomes of the most important policy decisions of this or any time.
    There is such a thing as incorrect theological and moral thinking, and the best way to neutralize it is with an intellectually and morally superior argument on the same terrain. Only good theology can debunk bad theology. We must all engage in this work as if the future of this republic and its place in the peaceful order of the world depend on it — because they do. [read more]

Grateful for correspondence, Moristotle