How passionately should people object to our elite opinion-forming classes when they support and encourage this?

Here is Glenn Greenwald's description of what the Bush administration done to America.

As the Bush administration comes to a close, one overarching question is this: how were the transgressions and abuses of the last eight years allowed to be unleashed with so little backlash and resistance? Just consider -- with no hyperbole -- what our Government, our country, has done. We systematically tortured people in our custody using techniques approved at the highest levels, many of whom died as a result. We created secret prisons -- "black site" gulags -- beyond the reach of international monitoring groups. We abducted and imprisoned even U.S. citizens and legal residents without any trial, holding them incommunicado and without even the right to access lawyers for years, while we tortured them to the point of insanity. We disappeared innocent people off the streets, sent them to countries where we knew they'd be tortured, and then closed off our courts to them once it was clear they had done nothing wrong. We adopted the very policies and techniques long considered to be the very definition of "war crimes".

Our Government turned the NSA apparatus inward -- something that was never supposed to happen -- spying on our conversations in secret and without warrants or oversight, all in violation of the law, and then, once revealed, acted to immunize the private-sector lawbreakers. And that's to say nothing about the hundreds of thousands of people we killed and the millions more we displaced with a war launched on false pretense. And on and on and on.

Prime responsibility for those actions may lie with the administration which implemented them and with the Congress that thereafter acquiesced to and even endorsed much of it, but it also lies with much of our opinion-making elite and expert class. Even when they politely disagreed, they treated most of this -- and still do -- as though it were reasonable and customary, eschewing strong language and emphatic condemnation and moral outrage, while perversely and self-servingly construing their constraint as some sort of a virtue -- a hallmark of dignified Seriousness. That created the impression that these were just garden-variety political conflicts to be batted about in pretty conference rooms by mutually regarding elites on both sides of these "debates." Meanwhile, those who objected too strongly and in disrespectful tones, who described the extremism and lawlessness taking place, were dismissed by these same elites as overheated, fringe hysterics.

Can the supporters of these Bush administration actions rationally argue that those who learn about what was done should not respond to such non-American aberrations from the Constitution in a passionate manner?

Frankly I think anyone aware of these Bush administration actions who is aware of them and does not passionately oppose them is simply unAmerican.

Federal Judge appointed by Bush 43 denies claims of immunity to subpoenas

Glenn Greenwald discusses the slap-down that Federal District Judge, John D. Bates of the District of Columbia District Court gave to the Bush administration's clearly illegal assertion that Presidential aides have absolute immunity to Congressional subpoenas. That's a rare win for the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

In the Judge's 93 page ruling (.pdf) the claims of immunity to subpoena claimed by the Bush administration for Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton were declared to be totally without foundation in either law or case law. Apparently King Bush and his court jester Dick Cheney can't reliably control the lawyers they appoint as federal judges.

As Glenn Greenwald writes:

As part of its investigation, the Judiciary Committee issued Subpoenas to Miers and Bolten in an effort to find out, among other things, who actually made the decision for those U.S. attorneys to be fired. The subpoenas ordered Miers to appear before the Committee in order to testify, and ordered both to produce documents to the Committee. Both Miers and Bolten refused to comply with the Subpoenas. Miers simply failed to show up for her hearing, while Bolten refused to produce the demanded documents. They did so in reliance on the Bush administration‘s claim that both of them, as top-level aides to the President, enjoyed absolute immunity from Congressional subpoenas. It was that extremist theory which the court today rejected -- and rejected decisively and unequivocally.

In unusually strong language, the court pointed out that the President's claim that his aides enjoyed absolute immunity from Congressional investigations was "unprecedented" and "without any support in case law" (p. 3).

Karl Rove's refusal to appear before Congress and answer questions about his role in the railroading of Democratic Governor Don Siegelman is an identical situation to that of Miers and Bolton.

The post Rule of Law America

Glenn Greenwald provides a succinct description of the depths that America has sunk to under the Bush administration and where it will remain if McCain is elected to extend Bush's presidency to a third term.

What we've done over the last seven years -- at least much of it -- isn't a secret. It's worthwhile to state frequently in clear, dispassionate terms what our country has done. Our Government has kidnapped people off the street and from their homes and sent them to places like Syria to be tortured for months (including completely innocent people) and then invoked National Security claims to bar them from holding our Government accountable in a court of law. We've disappeared others into secret prisons beyond even the reach of the Red Cross, or encaged them in a lawless black hole on a Cuban island. We've tortured them, sometimes to death, even with the knowledge that many were innocent. We attacked and completely demolished another country that couldn't attack us even if it wanted to. And our President openly declared that he has the power to break our laws, spy on U.S. citizens with no warrants, and indefinitely imprison even our own citizens with no process of any kind. Those are all just facts that aren't really subject to dispute or debate.

Worst of all, having done all of that -- not for weeks or months following the 9/11 attacks, but for years, still -- we've collectively decided, without much turmoil or debate, that it should all be forgiven, that none of it should be punished or even investigated, that it's best just to keep these crimes concealed and, when accidentally disclosed, to immunize the criminals. And all of that is being done right out in the open, so that our formal human rights reports are self-evident, almost laughable, farces, and even countries like Zimbabwe, when their governments want to engage in tyrannical acts, can and do rationally point to the U.S. as the leading example which they're following.

It's difficult to reconcile what teachers say is America's Constitutional Democracy with this shocking new America, this product of the century of war (also known as the twentieth century.) This new America has taken its form from the Reagan Revolution and the conservative movement.

The nation, looking back at the "glory" of WW II, began to try to solve every social problem with some form of war and military or police government discipline. As it has done so, the American Constitution has been shredded like a flag in a hurricane.

Is it too late to try to resurrect the America of the Founding Fathers who felt that the American Revolution had created a nation based on the sovereignty of the people instead of the sovereignty of tyrants and offered the American ideal to the world as a demonstration of how a great nation should be run? Has the spark from 1776 died away in a new tyranny? Is Liberty dead?

Because that is what is really meant when people say that "America has moved to the right."

The American Republic is dead. Does anyone care enough to hold a funeral?

Former CIA analyst and Presidential briefer Ray McDaniel says that Bush and Cheney knew clearly that there were no WMD's in Iraq and Knew that there was no active Iranian nuclear weapons program as early 2005. They were lying to the American public in order to start a war with Iraq, then more recently were lying to start a war with Iran. Here is Ray McDaniel's article:

Former CIA analyst says evidence abounds for impeachment

PORTSMOUTH — The evidence for impeachment of the president and vice president is overwhelming, former CIA analyst and daily presidential briefer Ray McGovern told a room full of people at the Portsmouth Public Library Monday night.

McGovern, who provided daily briefings for former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush as well as other high ranking officials during his 27 year CIA career, said he has witnessed a "prostitution of his profession" as the Bush administration lied to the American people about the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"Don't let anyone tell you the President was deceived by false intelligence ... they knew," McGovern said.

For the next 40 minutes, he relayed a series of events leading up to 9/11 which illustrate the President's desire to go to war with Iraq well before 9-11, that reliable CIA evidence showed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and was presented to the administration and the "facts were fixed" in order to legitimize the invasion.

"The estimate which said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was prepared to the terms of reference laid down by Dick Cheney in a speech on Aug. 26, 2002. It was the worst estimate of intelligence and came to the wrong conclusions, but it was designed to do that," McGovern said.

McGovern has been an outspoken commentator on intelligence-related issues since the late 1990s and since 2002 has been publicly critical of Bush's use of government intelligence in the lead-up to the war.

The recent report detailing Iran's stopping its nuclear weapons program four years ago, is an example of how the administration knows it can no longer hide such "incontrovertible evidence" from the American people in the fallout from the misinformation they received on the Iraq War, McGovern said. He added that he had almost given up on believing their were people still working at the top with a conscious and enough people at the top willing to let analysts do their job and accept independent analysis.

In late 2005, Congress requested an estimate on Iranian nuclear capabilities.
"My former colleagues got really good, incontrovertible evidence that the program, such as it was, has been ordered stopped since 2003. The evidence was such that not even Dick Cheney could deny it. That's why the report was not produced until three weeks ago," McGovern said, adding that the Bush administration has been putting "spin" on their rhetoric ever since.

McGovern also addressed the reasoning he believes is behind the threat of war with Iran. He said he believes Israel thinks they have a pledge from the White House to deal with Iran before Bush leaves office and relayed the story of the U.S.S. Liberty, which was attacked by the Israelis in 1967 and covered up by the United States. Thirty-four U.S soldiers were killed and about 170 were seriously injured.

"It seems to me, that on June, 8, 1967, Israel realized it could literally get away with murder," McGovern said.

McGovern said he also believes Congress will be of little help. Recently House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted to learning about torture and illegal eavesdropping in briefings, but said it was her understanding when briefed, that she will not share the information with anyone else, including other members of the House Intelligence Committee.

McGovern called Pelosi out on violating her oath to uphold the Constitution "against enemies, foreign or domestic" by allowing acts in violation of the Constitution to continue by not saying "diddly."

He added that although an impeachment bill currently in Congress is gaining more support, Democrats are shying away because of the influence of lobbies and political analysts telling them to "wait it out" until the election.

Charges in the impeachment bill sponsored by Dennis Kucinich, are very detailed and "as good as any," McGovern said, and referenced the illegal eavesdropping of American citizens. He added that the President has "admitted" to this "demonstrably impeachable offense."

"The argument for impeachment is overwhelming," Randy Kezar of Kingston said after the event. "Impeachment is constitutionally required."

McGovern's visit was co-sponsored by NH Codepink, Seacoast Peace Response, NH Peace Action, NH American Friends Service Committee, Seacoast 9-11 Questions Group, NH Veterans for Peace and Witness for Peace-N.E.
[Highlighting mine - Editor]

Bush has been a rogue madman in office, and the evidence keeps growing. Yet no leader in government - including the Democrats - has stood up to expose this criminal cabal. Anyone who fails to understand that America's government has failed America completely is either bought off by them, corrupt, or simply stupid.

The Democrats are almost as bad as the Republicans, doing anything to avoid conflict and get their personal graft. Then there is the media which seems seems to be more interested in the entertainment values of the war than in the deaths and financial cost. Oh, and the corruption of getting the government to allow it to consolidate. That's not for profit. It's for power. The media now elects our Presidents.

I wonder how many Romans realized that their Republic had died when it became the militarized Empire? Those of us alive in America today have seen a very similar destruction of the Constitutional government that created our Republic, and everyone seems to be moving on, fat, dumb and happy, whistling past the corpse of the the American Republic and the Constitution which was its core lying dead in the street at their feet.

Will anyone police up the corpse, or will it just be left to lie there and rot?

Did FDR's attempt to enlarge the Supreme Court end the New Deal?

Mark Graber kicked off an interesting discussion over at Balkinization. Here is the beginning:

Professor David Adamany in an essay written many years ago maintained that one consequence of the FDR's Court-packing plan of 1937 was that Roosevelt lost vital political capital that could have been spent on other liberal reforms. Most scholars agree that after the failed Court-packing plan and the failed purge of southern conservatives in 1938, the momentum for the Second New Deal was largely over, not to be revived until the 1960s.

Roosevelt’s experience may teach two related lessons about politics. The first is that politics cannot be about everything at once. Political movements must choose their issues. Abraham Lincoln urged his former Whig followers not to raise tariff issues in order to maintain a united front against the expansion of slavery. Ronald Reagan during his first term downplayed opposition to abortion in order to maintain a united front in favor budget cuts. Roosevelt, by choosing to emphasize judicial reform, diverted vital resources from previous fights for economic equality. The second is that politics makes strange bedfellows. To paraphrase Churchill on his alliance with Stalin, he would make a pact with the Devil to fight Hitler (I’ve forgotten the exact quote). Roosevelt’s coalition of racist southern populists and northern workers (who, as Paul Frymer points out, were not exactly racial egalitarians) accomplished much good. Roosevelt’s effort to forge a purer coalition stalled his program completely.
[Emphasis mine - editor.]

I was ready to buy this reasoning completely, until further down I read this comment by Bart DePalma:

Professor David Adamany in an essay written many years ago maintained that one consequence of the FDR's Court-packing plan of 1937 was that Roosevelt lost vital political capital that could have been spent on other liberal reforms. Most scholars agree that after the failed Court-packing plan and the failed purge of southern conservatives in 1938, the momentum for the Second New Deal was largely over, not to be revived until the 1960s.

Forget the "Second New Deal." The First New Deal would not have survived constitutional muster without expending that political capital bullying the Supreme Court. From FDR's perspective, if not arguably the country's, that was political capital well worth expending.

The New Deal was hardly a case of a job half done. FDR was one of the two most powerful Presidents in the 20th Century because he finished the job of convincing the country to embrace the concept of government run social insurance and entrenched the Dems as the majority party for a half century as the defender of that concept.

This part of Depalma's comment I agree with. He goes on to accuse the New Left of attempting the guarantee an equality of outcome, which I don't think is true. But that's neither here nor there.

The real question is whether FDR's effort to restructure the Supreme Court actually derailed the New Deal, or if it was merely an event that occurred at the same time the New Deal was winging down, or (as a third possibility) if it was a necessary effort to ensure that the New Deal could survive intact. [I suspect that the options are not mutually exclusive. All three could have been true at once.]

The key issue as I see it is that the Constitution set up a very conservative structure, one that demanded a true super majority to effect permanent change. Another comment by someone named Joe added:

Many constitutional historians have pointed out there was no one "switch in time that saved nine," but actually a steady development of constitutional law that increased the understanding of "public interest" in the early 1900s up to the 1930s. This reflected a growing understanding, by a super majority, of what the Constitution meant. One that involved a "living Constitution"...

which I found to be an interesting insight.

It seems to me that what America has is a Constitution that requires a long-term super majority before any permanent structural change can be made. Until such a permanent change is locked in by a change to the Constitution, we have a system that permits flexibility, currently described by the term "a living Constitution". The "living Constitution" allows some things to be tried out, but if they don't gain a super majority of acceptance they are not locked in permanently. An example was the income tax - first imposed during the Civil War, then later declared unconstitutional. But it gained sufficient acceptance (apparently a super majority) so that the 16th amendment was passed to permit it in spite of Supreme Court objection. The income tax thus became locked in permanently to the basic law of the land.

That seems to me to be an interesting combination of a rigid base law (the Constitution) with flexibility provided within the boundaries set by the Constitution by both Stare Decisis from the Common Law and the concept of the "living Constitution". Both the rigidity of the base Constitution and the flexibility to experiment provided by the concept of the "living Constitution" will have strong opponents.

I don't think that the efforts by the religious right (and currently Presidential candidate for the Republican nomination Huckabee) to impose a theocracy on the U.S. can make it through this system. Thank god. But those of us in Texas and Oklahoma will suffer from the theocrats for quite a while anyway.

Congress condemns Move-On, ignores Iraq War and Jena, La racism

Chris Dodd provided a an outstanding quote today in response to the Congressional condemnation of MoveOn.org's anti-Petreaus advertisement:

"It is a sad day in the Senate when we spend hours debating an ad while our young people are dying in Iraq. Now that the Senate has twice voted on this ad, it is time to move on and vote to end the war."

But what has Congress done about the obviously racist use of the justice system in Jena, La. to oppress Black teenagers while letting White teenagers guilty of similar or worse things avoid any condemnation?

Throughout the South and in Texas there are two justice systems. There is one for White kids that recognizes that teenagers occasionally step out of line and corrects but does not destroy those kids. Then there is the justice system in Paris, TX. that sent a teenager (who shoved a substitute teacher) to state juvenile school (jail for teenagers) for an indeterminate period of up to 7 years. When her case was finally reviewed after the new media got hold of it, she was released along with 150 other Black teenagers whose offenses were similarly minor. She had spent a year in jail and had no prospects of being released.

Cotton, who is 15, had no prior criminal record when she was incarcerated a year ago under an indeterminate sentence that could have lasted until her 21st birthday. Her case rose to national prominence and became the focus of ongoing civil rights protests after a March 12 Tribune story detailed how a 14-year-old white girl convicted of the more serious crime of arson was sentenced to probation by the same judge.

Cotton's case occurred against a backdrop of persistent allegations of racial discrimination inside the Paris public schools -- allegations that are the subject of a continuing probe by the U.S. Department of Education to determine whether black students in the district are disciplined more harshly than whites.

Paris, TX is only 327 miles from Jena, LA according to Mapquest. Such racism permeates the entire route between those two towns, as well as much of the rest of the South and Texas.

Congress seemed trapped between the old do-nothing status quo and the extremist wing of the authoritarian and theocratic Republican Party. It looks like just taking the federal government back from the Republicans, giving it to the Democrats, and stopping the militarist fantasies of the Republicans and Dick Cheney is not going to be enough. It is time to considered rebuilding an activist Democratic Party while destroying the remainder of the conservative and theocratic Republican Party.

Nothing less than that is going to take American back to the dream built into the U.S. Constitution by the founding fathers.

The dangers of church control of the state

Church and state have always been a dangerous combination. Religion is a major way that people determine who their enemies are, and the state fights wars against those religion-determined enemies. Part of the genius of the U.S. Constitution has been its enforcement of the separation of church and state, but this separation is currently under major attack. So what is the human basis for religion and what makes religion so different from government that the two must be kept apart?

Religion

Religion is older than government, so we should start there. Religion also existed before churches did. Religion is, at its very core, human beings attempting to understand the Universe and their place in it, and then discussing what they have learned with their fellows. Religion, then, is intimately bound up with the very characteristics that make people uniquely human. The urge to understand the Universe is a natural result of complex human language and the innate need of human beings to share their understandings with each other in the form of stories. What we today call religion is a natural outgrowth of being a human being. Religion is based in language.

Language

Language in humans has two particularly interesting characteristics. First, the motivation to learn a language is inherited. The process is laid out in our genes, and can be watched in the development of any healthy child. Each child begins by listening to the language around them, and as the brain connections develop between the hearing center and the speech center, they begin to try out making sounds. This is first babbling, which grows into words and then sentences. The same process also leads children to telling stories, beginning sometime between age 2 and age 4.

The second interesting characteristic that is if importance to religion is that human language is a set of symbols that are not tied directly to specific individual sounds. Where a monkey may make one sound-symbol to warn of snakes on the ground and another sound-symbol to warn of hawks in the sky, humans combine a series of individually meaningless sounds into each meaningful symbol. This means that instead of the symbol set of a language being limited to the number of individual separate sounds that can be made (Is it true that a cat can make between 50 and 70 different meaningful sounds?) the symbol set for human language is infinite. It is also recursive - that is, we can create language symbols that point at other language symbols and use these things meaningfully.

Sentences, syntax, narrative and stories

Which leads to sentences, syntax and narrative. All of these are required to tell stories. Language and the higher forms of human thought required for storytelling are learned, but the urge to learn them is hard-wired into each human individual’s development. These abilities are the clearest characteristic of what distinguishes human beings from our nearest primate cousins.

Sentences are a series of words used together to express a specific meaning to other people. Syntax is a set of rules for word use in sentences that tells which objects are acting, which are being acted upon, and what actions are being taken. Syntax is a set of patterns that determines the form sentences in a given language take, and the rules of syntax communicate much of the context surrounding the words in any sentence. Narrative is the manner in which language is used to explain what is happening to someone else. Narrative communicates meaning from one person to another.

A narrative consists of a series of cause-and-effect events linked together. When those events are told to another person with a beginning and an end, they are stories. Stories have been the central method people have had for communicating meaning to each other since people first existed sometime between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago.

When Peter Berger wrote "religion ... [is a] ...humanly constructed universe of meaning, and he explains, ‘Worlds are socially constructed and socially maintained,’” he was discussing stories. Telling stories is the method of constructing and socially maintaining that universe of meaning. At its base, all religion is social meaning communicated through stories, and language is the medium on which those stories are built.

All religions are based on stories to carry the meaning and teach it to others. The very structure of the stories makes people ask certain questions. One such question is what started the chain of events (humanity) and another is what happens when someone dies.

Signifiers and metaphors to communicate meaning – the limitations of words

The narratives of linked cause-and-effect events that make up stories sometimes include a true understanding of what caused something else to happen. For example, the dam stored water behind it, but then it broke and caused the flood. In this case the cause of the event – the flood – is known and can be expressed in clear words.

But how does the storyteller fill an unknown gap n the narrative if the cause an event is not known? How does a storyteller communicating meaning structure a story that explains what happens to a person after death? An explanation of the nature of the Universe and its relationship to Man, for example, is quite beyond the ability of clear words to explain. That gap cannot be filled with a clear, definitive set of words of the type that can be used to tell an engineer how to build a dam or a bridge. So storytellers switch to metaphor.

The reason that some subjects can only be described in metaphor is that language is limited. For some subjects, language can be specific enough so as to adequately explain the subject, but other subjects (Man in the Universe) are quite beyond language. It has to do with the nature of words as symbols. Words are signs that the community using the given language agrees signify or points to something specific. Then ever time an individual uses a word, that word describes something by excluding everything else. If a word does not do this exclusion trick, it is not a meaningful description.

That works well as long as the word is pointing at something that can clearly be separated from the things surrounding it. But what does a language user do to signify something that cannot not be seen, measured or fully understood and cannot be separated from everything else that surrounds it. Something infinite like the Universe cannot be described since the object to be described is limitless. No word is possible that points at the object described. Language deals with this problem by resorting to metaphor. The word “God” is built on such metaphors, since no definition of “God” can fully capture whatever it is that people are attempting to point to and to understand.

When a person uses a metaphor, he is saying "I can't point directly at the item I am discussing, so I will point at something else that is in some manner similar." When the original subject under discussion and investigation is infinite or too large to be understood, then the metaphors of necessity will be things that, at best, are similar to only part of the main item.

Metaphors allow us to talk about the unknown in a somewhat meaningful way. If the metaphor is really similar to the ultimate item under discussion, it may actually provide some elements of shared meaning. But metaphors are not the actual unknown item, so a metaphor cannot provide clear and certain directions and instructions about how people should behave or act in the way the instructions for building a bridge can tell the Engineer what to do. The metaphor is always incomplete and subject to revision when a new, better metaphor is discovered or developed.

Religion and language

Since religion is essentially a human quest into the nature of the infinite, the stories we tell about God and the Universe must all be metaphors. Oh, and to use the word "God" means that you are looking at those aspects of the Universe to which you can ascribe human-like characteristics. That might be saying that God is less than the Universe - except that if both have the characteristic of being infinite, to say that God is less than the infinite Universe because certain parts are left out would be the same as saying that the infinite set of all even numbers is smaller than the infinite set of all natural numbers - clearly not true. [Though there are three different types of infinite numbers with different sizes, but that is another issue.] So religion is a set of stories used to communicate what finite people know about a subject which is infinite, or well beyond the finite understanding of humans. By the very nature of their subject, those stories are based on metaphor rather than precise language.

Written religious stories

Religion was a human practice when all humans were hunter-gatherers. About 12,000 years ago somewhere in the Middle East some humans settled down and learned to live together in one place, creating towns that included people from more than one family for the first time. Those settled humans developed agriculture and established the first governments. The development of governments was accompanied by the development of hierarchies of rank and aristocracies. An aristocracy is a small group of people who perform a coordinating function for society rather than working to produce their own food. They have to be supported by the food-producers in society. The aristocracy of religious leaders and the aristocracy of administrators were small, so they consisted of much the same families. The stories told by the religious leaders justified this social invention of an aristocracy. The aristocracies, both religious and administrative quickly became hereditary, since training was done in the family. This is in contrast with the aristocracies in hunter-gatherer societies in which the best and most experienced people were the religious or war-band leaders.

Something strange happened in towns in the Middle East about 5,000 years ago. Writing was invented. One of its first uses was to write down the stories that explained and justified the society and its ways of life.

All kinds of stories were written down. They included local histories, stories and myths from neighbors and conquerors, and anything else that seemed important to maintain the culture. Writing was something the aristocrats took advantage of, since it made them able to direct people to do things at a distance and over time. The religious leaders wrote the stories told by earlier religious leaders since written stories and myths can be retold in an unchanging manner. The religious stories were the ones that were kept over time (how long do you keep business records?), leading to the oldest books in the Middle East – the Old Testament and Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad.

There is a subtle danger to writing down the metaphors that are the basis of a religion however. Metaphors are used by religions to explain and pass on an understanding of things that cannot be made explicit. Written documents, however, are not limited to such metaphorical subjects. In fact, writing probably developed first as a way of transmitting specific directions over distances and time to others who were to carry out those directions, and only later was adapted to recording the metaphors that are at the core of the religious experience. Individuals who performed both governmental duties and Priestly duties would be used to taking explicit directions from written documents.

The danger is that religious leaders who gained that status because of inheritance or family connections and the ability to read and write would have insufficient understanding of the religious mysteries that they were handling to know that metaphors were necessary for religious subjects and that metaphors are not directive language Such men would begin to take the metaphorical language and use it as a basis for religious directives to direct and limit men’s actions. In short, the mixture of organized religion and its offshoot, government would lead to inappropriately turning religious metaphors into literal instructions that "God" said had to be followed.

Writing down the religious metaphors also damaged religion. The written document provided a false certainty to what should have been a tentative understanding of religion. With written stories as the source of the stories that communicated the meaning of religion the narratives were permanent and inadaptable to the understanding of the audiences. The permanence of writing the stories separated them from any connection to the immediate reality perceived by the audience.

Metaphor became easier to confuse with things that could be communicated literally and precisely. Writing the stories down may have made the words permanent and easily reproducible, but since they were metaphors that only resembled the religious subjects being discussed, that false appearance of permanence was achieved by a loss of the ability to adapt the stories to the current reality. That led to a misuse of the stories and myths on which religion is based.

That confusion made it easy for Priests in the religious hierarchy to use the written documents to intimidate parishioners with false directives that seemed to be as precise as the written word itself. Such religious directives are not the essence of religious meaning, however. They are political documents used to direct the behavior of the people in the congregation. Until the European Religious Wars were over, government used its police and judicial power to enforce such religious directives. King Charles II was replaced by the British Parliament because Charles did not understand the futility and destructiveness of attempting to enforce religious beliefs using government police and judicial powers, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 led the American founding fathers to write the separation of Church and State into the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

When religion is confused with the powers of government

This confusion of religion and of government is not over yet.

When the Pope claimed the other day that religions which are not Roman Catholic and part of the traditional Catholic hierarchy are less than fully Christian, he was making a political statement and a power-grab. The Pope was not making a religious statement. He was demanding to be acknowledged as the top ranking Christian in the world. But hierarchical power is political, not religious.

Evangelists and Fundamentalists claim that all religion flows from their book, but which one is it? The Bible? Which Bible? Or is it the Koran? Each chooses one of the books and asserts that to be 'Christian' (or Muslim) you must accept their doctrine. When they make that assertion, they are making a power grab similar to what the Pope just did. What they are doing is not religion. They are not communicating social meaning about humanity and the Universe. They are playing politics and demanding that you choose them as your hierarchical leader to support.

Those political actions establish a hierarchy of coercion, not a communication of meaning. There is no religious meaning in a hierarchy of Priests or Preachers, just a choice of political leaders.

The doctrine of “Separation of church and state” separated the religious hierarchies from the government ones, and took the power of coercive enforced law away from religious leaders. Enforced law is a part of governance by the government, not a part of religion. Coercion does not communicate meaning. It forces approved behavior and punishes unapproved behavior. That's government.

If this concept of religion is communicated to the politicians in robes trying to take over the state, this nation will be a lot better off - and so will the religions. The religions can focus on explaining the unexplainable meaning of the Universe instead of coercing everyone to behave and dress as they demand.

How to destroy the Constitution

Josh Marshall at TPM wrote the following this evening:

I think we are now moving into a situation where the White House, on various fronts, is openly ignoring the constitution, acting as though not just the law but the constitution itself, which is the fundamental law from which all the statutes gain their force and legitimacy, doesn't apply to them.

If that is allowed to continue, the defiance will congeal into precedent. And the whole structure of our system of government will be permanently changed.

I think Josh is highly intelligent and very sensible. I generally take political positions that are a little more extreme than he does. So I am really happy to see him catch up to me here. What I regret, and I am sure he does also, is that we have both come to the conclusion that Bush is working to destroy American Constitutional democracy.

The Bush administration is a rogue Presidency. It is out of control and has been since 2001. There has been a series of events that each should have been considered a Constitutional Crisis, but politicians and journalists have been afraid to call the Bush people on it, while the Republicans who have had control of the Congress until January 2005 have reveled in it.

Andrew Johnson, who became President when Lincoln was assassinated, did everything he could to prevent the freeing of the slaves after the Civil War. His impeachment was well deserved, and the failure to convict him in the Senate allowed him to remain in office where he did immense damage to America. The damage he did lasted until the period of the Civil Rights movement.

But it could have been worse. Congress learned after he survived the impeachment trial to work around Johnson and isolate him so that he became the next thing to a eunuch in the office of the Presidency.

Reid and Pelosi need to understand what was done to Andrew Johnson and apply those lessons to the single worst President American has ever had - bush.

One thing about Johnson, though. He did not have much scope for mischief making in international affairs. It is in that area that Bush and his puppet master Cheney have had their worst effects. That, too, must be considered.

America as a nation under the U.S. Constitution is in grave danger from Bush and the Republican Party as created by Goldwater. We have to stop them from destroying America, and when we accomplish that, we really need to hope that a semblance of America remains.

The rebuilding, if possible, will take decades at best.

Gerson vs Meyers: Does God exist?

Michael Gerson is a militant "Christian." P.Z. Meyers is a militant Atheist. As Mark Kleiman points out "Meyers furiously denounces as false the sort of childish religion that Gerson exemplifies but that thoughtful worshippers of every persuasion have always despised."

So Mark goes on to explain why the very debate - on both sides - is an example of ignorance, intolerance. It is based largely on taking what is actually metaphorical and trying to pretend that it is literal.

After reading Mark's excellent article, Consider what Pope Benedict had to say recently and ask yourself - where is the actually spirituality in that? All he is doing is setting guidelines for his own hierarchical authority over an organization. That's power politics, not religion.

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I realized a number of years ago that it took as much blind "faith," dogmatism and refusal to inquire into the spiritual unknown to be an evangelical Atheist as it does to be a fundamentalist or evangelical religious person. On the part of the Evangelists and fundamentalists (Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, whatever) it takes the form of trying to force or bribe others to accept their point of view and setting up tests of behavior generally as demonstrated by public Religious observations, quoting of the unquestionable sacred texts provided my some wise men, etc. Most Atheists I have known have adopted Atheism as a defense against such fundamentalist forcible or repeated intrusions into their religious inquiry.

My conclusion has been that the U.S. Constitution has it right. There is no place for organized religion anywhere near the levers of political power or especially near the authority to tax or to use tax money.

Would you like to get on the 'No-Fly' list? Easy. Here's how.

Professor Walter F. Murphy, distinguished scholar of public law in political science, emeritus of Princeton as well as a combat veteran from Korea and a retired Marine Colonel has learned how to get on the No-fly list. According to his letter published in the blog Balkinization, all you have to do is

• Participate in a Peace March, or
• Give a speech critical of George W. Bush.

Do you feel that the Bush administration is making us safer from terrorists this way, or is Rove making Republicans safer from the American public?

It makes me wonder if, by writing this and publishing it, I may find myself on the No-Fly List also. I don't have Professor Murphy's credentials, but I am also a retired U.S. Army officer. It's not just restricting Professor Murphy's speech or right to assemble that the Department of Homeland Security wants to accomplish. At least as important is to make potential critics have second thoughts before sharing their criticism of this administration.

Americans don't have to lose the war in Iraq to lose (whatever that means) the war on terrorism, as Bush and Cheney so often assert will occur if we leave Iraq. We Americans have lost the war against the terrorists when the First Amendment has been gutted. When the First Amendment to the Constitution is gutted then the two-century experiment with democracy started on the North American continent has ended.

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U.S. Constitution - Amendment I (Ratified 1791)

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

[h/t to Mark Kleiman via Kevin Drum.]

M. Romney - "Habeas Corpus? Probably not if I am President.

Glenn Greenwald has centered on a key plank that appears likely in the Republican platform if Mitt Romney gets elected President.

Various Republican candidates attended a meeting of Club for Growth, and afterwards, National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru spoke to Cato Institute's President Ed Crane about what they said. This brief report from Ponnuru is simply extraordinary:

Crane asked if Romney believed the president should have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens with no review. Romney said he would want to hear the pros and cons from smart lawyers before he made up his mind.

Mitt Romeny can't say -- at least not until he engages in a careful and solemn debate with a team of "smart lawyers" -- whether, in the United States of America, the President has the power to imprison American citizens without any opportunity for review of any kind. But in today's Republican Party, Romney's openness to this definitively tyrannical power is the moderate position. Ponnuru goes on to note:

Crane said that he had asked Giuliani the same question a few weeks ago. The mayor said that he would want to use this authority infrequently.

It sounds like Giuliani is positioning himself in this race as the "compassionate authoritarian" -- "Yes, of course I have the power to imprison you without charges or review of any kind, but as President, I commit to you that I intend (no promises) to 'use this authority infrequently.'"

Two of the three leading Republican candidates for President either embrace or are open to embracing the idea that the President can imprison Americans without any review, based solely on the unchecked decree of the President. And, of course, that is nothing new, since the current Republican President not only believes he has that power but has exercised it against U.S. citizens and legal residents in the U.S. -- including those arrested not on the "battlefield," but on American soil.

Habeas corpus has been the basis of all legal Freedoms since King John signed the Magna Carts in 1215. There is only one reason for a President to do away with habeas corpus, even in extremely limited circumstance, and that reason is to impose an authoritarian government.

An authoritarian government operates under "Rule (of the population) by Law," not as we function here in America, under the "Rule of Law." Under "Rule by Law" the top government officials are not subject to any limitations built into the law. They are above the law.

Someone ought to ask Jose Padilla how well that works.

The U.S Constitution is specifically secular - see Poputonian

Poputonian writes regularly on Digby's blog "Hullabaloo." He frequently discusses American history in the late 18th century with specific focus on Boston and people there such as Samuel Adams. This time he is describing the logic used by the founders when they wrote the U.S. Constitution, and what they meant when they created a secular document. Here is what he says:

The Constitution is a secularist document because of what it says and what it does not say. The first of the explicit secularist provisions is article 6, section 3, which states that federal elective and appointed officials "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." No religious test. This provision, much less familiar to the public today than the First Amendment, was especially meaningful and especially sweeping in view of the fact that the necessity of religious tests and religious oaths for officeholders had been taken for granted by nearly all the governments of the American states (not to mention those of the rest of the world) at the time the Constitution was written. The addition of the affirmation is significant, because it meant that the framers did not intend to compel officeholders to take a religious oath on the Bible. The intent could not have been clearer to those who wanted only religious men -- specifically, Protestant believers -- to hold office. As a North Carolina minister put it during his state's debate on ratification of the Constitution, the abolition of religious tests for officeholders amounted to "an invitation for Jews and pagans of every kind to come among us."

Notice that the statement in article 6, section 3 specifically allows Muslim Rep. Ellison to use any document he wishes to swear in as a Congressman, or no document at all (if he "affirms" rather than "swears."

But more significantly, the Constitution had to be secular because of the crazy patchwork of religions which made up the states that the 13 colonies had become. Every choice of a state religion would have caused great strife all over the nation. There was no compromise that could have satisfied most of the population.

There have been only three U. S. Attorney's fired since 1981 - until now under Bush/Gonzales.

What do you think it means that there have only been three US Attorneys fired since 1981 until Alberto Gonzales just fired six in one day and two additional that we know of? That's what the diarist reports at dKos today.

It is my opinion that this is just one more step in the process the Bush/Cheney/Gonzales administration has set in place to replace the U.S. Constitution with a right-wing authoritarian theocratic government. US Attorney Lam got Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham from San Diego sent to prison, and indicted at least one more Republican Congressman before leaving office. US Attorney Ygliesias failed to respond to calls from Republican Sen. Dominici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson to bring an indictment against Congresswoman Wilson's opponent before the November 2006 election. Congresswoman Wilson won reelection by only 826 votes, which demonstrates how close the election was. The US Attorney for Arkansas was fired so that an aide to Karl Rove could be given his office.

Do you want to live in a nation operated under the Rule of Law? One where the US Constitution is the highest law of the land and no person, including the President, is above the law? Bush, Cheney and Gonzales don't want you to. They want a right-wing authoritarian theocratic government in which the highest law in the land is the one they want.

John Locke - Second Treatise on Government makes it clear that that the legislature MUST be the one supreme power in the government. The Founding Fathers were fully aware of this when they wrote into Article VI of the Constitution the following:

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

So the legislature is the supreme power in the land (as indicated by its position as Article I of the Constitution, before all other agencies of government) and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

The 1803 decision of Marbury vs Madison made clear what had been only implied in the Constitution, that the U.S. Supreme Court interprets the meaning of the U.S. Constitution when a case that requires such interpretation is appealed to them and they accept it.

Don't overlook the fact that the Courts cannot go our and decide to start a case. Every case must be brought to the court by a prosecutor, or appealed from such a properly initiated case in the various States. Federal cases must be initiated by a Federal Prosecutor. If the administration can intimidate the US Attorneys to stop them from initiating a case, that case will not be considered in the Courts for its Constitutionality. That is what is happening here with the firing of the many US Attorneys. The replacements will be a lot more amenable to "suggestions", and so will all the other US Attorneys who want to keep their jobs.

These are the major institutions that operate the Rule of Law in the United States. None of these instutions and decisions include the claim of Vice President Dick Cheney that the President can operate without constraint when he acts as Commander-in-Chief in time of war. There is no such power described anywhere, and the assertions of the Vice President do not change that in any way.

The coup-de-etate and elimination of the US Constitution being attempted by this administration has no basis in law whatsoever. The efforts of Gonzalez to remove all the US Attorneys he has suddenly removed are a desperate attempt by the attempted coup members to make an end run to avoid the law and the Constitution.

These people mst be removed from office before they really damage America beyong repair.