Via d over at Lawyers, Guns and Money, the following quote from Victor David Hanson in a Wall Street Journal editorial called Losing the Enlightenment, where he mention’s Wal-Mart’s “amazing ability to bring the veneer of real material prosperity to the poor.”
The veneer of prosperity? Is that supposed to be good? And what the hell is the veneer of real prosperity? The veneer of real material prosperity? As opposed to the veneer of potential spiritual prosperity? The veneer of imaginary insubstantial prosperity?
That’s just thirteen out of 2,800 words in a speech Mr. Hanson gave to the Claremont Institute three weeks ago. It’s startlingly incoherent, but following the trail there led me to a startling thing at their site: Richard Samuelson, in their blog, chimes in on Islamic Citizenship. Remember, by the way, as I start to froth at the mouth, that Claremont Institute, according to their Mission Statement, “finds the answers to America's problems in the principles on which our nation was founded.” OK, ready?
No, not yet. First I have to rant—Oh, I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, but I cain’t he’p m’sef—about Dennis Prager. You see, Dennis Prager thinks that America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on. Yes, we will have a Muslim Congressman come January and Mr. Prager thinks that the Hon. Mr. Ellison “should not be allowed to” take his oath on a Quran, rather than a Bible. Of course, as every schoolboy knows, the Constitution expressly forbids a religious gateway to serving in office, as in the third paragraph of Article VI, which in full states:
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.Of course, Mr. Prager doesn’t see this as a religious test. No, he is perfectly happy for people to espouse whatever religion they like, or none, so long as they take their oaths on the Bible (by which I assume he means the Christian Scriptures). After all, Mr. Prager says, “... for all of American history, Jews elected to public office have taken their oath on the Bible, even though they do not believe in the New Testament.” This would be a telling point of some kind, I suppose, if it weren’t an outright lie. Congressmen do not take their oaths on a Bible of any kind. They affirm. Always. As the Constitution requires. No Bible, no Tanakh, no Quran, no Book of Mormon, no controversy whatsoever. Just a lie.
Now, as shocked as I am to read that the enemies of America lie, I was even more shocked to read Richard Samuelson on the subject. He admits that the constitution forbids any prohibition on adherents of a particular religion serving in Congress. “But what is the constitutional definition of religion? And does it apply to Islam? Might "religion" not be the best word to describe the kind of thing that Islam is?”
Er, yes. Yes, it would. But Mr. Samuelson is not finished:
To be a Muslim, as far as I understand it, is to belong to the Umma. The Umma is, in principle, a nation with a distinct set of laws, not a spiritual communion that appeals to ethics. So long as Islam is understood that way a tension, if not an outright contradiction, will exist between Islam and American citizenship.Do you recognize this, Gentle Readers? Yes, that’s correct, it’s the Jewish Question, with a simple global find-and-replace. The last place I read it was in G.K. Chesterton, talking about how Jews couldn’t be trusted to serve in Parliament. It’s back, and Mr. Samuelson doesn’t seem to have any shame about it. This isn’t the first time he’s said it, either: he asks outright Is Islam a Religion? in a note where he says, I shit you not, “As far as I understand the intellectual history of religion, the idea of religion is of Christian origin.” He also writes about “a state within a state” in Imperium in Imperio, a note which would be absolutely indistinguishable from a simple attempt to update Mr. Chesterton’s Anti-Semitism for this year. Note, please, that every single argument about Islam works identically for Judaism, with the substitution of Mosaic law for Shariyah; if Moslems cannot be full citizens of the US, then neither can Jews. Of course, if Mr. Samuelson really believes that “religion” means nothing more or less than “Christianity”, then our Constitution only protects us against tests measuring whether a Christian office-holder is sufficiently Christian, which would allow Catholics to hold office, at least for now.
Perhaps, then, Mr. Hanson only asks us to appreciate the veneer of real material prosperity, as Mr. Samuelson does the veneer of democracy, liberty and equality. All the better with nothing behind it.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
Rampant stupidity! Aargh.
at this point i find it funny to see any bush-supporting pundit worrying about the trustworthiness of government officials. of course that’s because i’ve failed in my moral relativistic outlook to consider the plight of being the elephant in the center of the room. what would i do in that situation? i don’t want to leave the room. the main thing would be to keep the people with the measuring sticks busy with other things, like requiring that they accurately size up every single person who enters the room after me, to make sure we don’t end up with two elephants, because that would be very uncomfortable.
okay so, now we have to figure out what religion our government is. here’s how i’m thinking about it. lately the government has been scourged by super-patriots with very unique interpretations of common legal concepts, unique bordering on imaginary, who declare theirs a fundamentalist political faith. “constitutional originalism” is not however a widely-held understanding of legal reality. does this mean that constitutional originalism forms a separate set of laws, to which modern righties are more loyal than existing american negotiated agreements? shouldn’t they also be banned from office, then?
As appalling as Mr. Prager, Mr. Samuelson, and Mr. Hanson are, and as important as it is to reveal the shoddy intellectual foundations with which they attempt to put a veneer of reasonableness upon their classist, racist, and Christianist bigotry, I find it reassuring that some parts of our Constitution were designed specifically to forbid our government from carrying out the will of such bigots.
These people are going to make it seem as if I have Tourette’s, I swear.
peace
Matt
I should add that Dennis Prager has retracted his statement that The Hon. Mr. Ellison “should not be allowed to” take his oath of office on the Quran, rather than the Christian Scriptures. He now states “I am for no law to be passed to prevent Keith Ellison or anyone else from bringing any book he wants to his swearing-in, whether actual or ceremonial.” He still disagrees with the decision—he has not explicitly retracted his statement that doing so would be worse than murder—but he at least has retracted the call to prevent him from doing so. At least to prevent him by law; it’s pretty clear that he is not calling for illegal prevention either.
Thanks,
-V.
Do you recognize this, Gentle Readers? Yes, that’s correct, it’s the Jewish Question, with a simple global find-and-replace.
If you go back farther, it’s the Christian Question, too: Christians can’t function as citizens of the Roman empire because they belong to an alternate race/kingdom and their religion bars them from participating in the central political and religious activities of the state.
Mr. Samuelson is right that our (modern, Western) notions of what a religion should be, or what it means to be religious, are heavily conditioned by Christianity. To suggest that Christians invented “religion,” however — bah. He should take my Greek Religion course next semester.