The Consultantocracy Strikes Back!
http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2007/1/5/1257/33576
[excerpts]
The Consultantocracy Strikes Back!
By Frederick Clarkson
01/05/2007 01:25:07 AM EST
I recently posted about the latest piece of dubious advice from the
consultantocracy that is shaping the Democratic Party's approach to
religion in public life. I noted that Antonin Scalia and his friends on the
religious right are undoubtedly laughing and rubbing their hands with glee
at the latest Democratic Party capitulation to their world view.
Now the consultantocrat in question has responded.
The occasion for the post was a major article in The New York Times,
profiling a two-year old consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, that is
apparently playing a growing role at high levels of the Democratic Party on
matters of "religious outreach." While there is nothing inherently wrong
with that, there was a key point in the Times article caught my eye:
In an interview, [Vanderslice] said she told candidates not to use the
phrase "separation of church and state," which does not appear in the
Constitution's clauses forbidding the establishment or protecting the
exercise of religion.
"That language says to people that you don't want there to be a role
for religion in our public life," Ms. Vanderslice said. "But 80 percent of
the public is religious, and I think most people are eager for that kind of
debate."
I argued that in this, a core principle was being abandoned in the name of
political expedience. Mara Vanderslice has now asked Pastordan to post her
response to me and to "other bloggers" for her at Street Prophets. He did.
She says
[snip]
Since Ms. Vanderslice said she is specifically replying to me, let's see
if she does so. Well, right off, she knocks down a straw man. There is
nothing in anything I wrote that said that she or her company, regarding
the First Amendment, "encouraged the Democratic Party or Democratic
candidates to denounce or undermine this founding principle of our nation."
I am sure that if she had encouraged anyone to denounce the First
Amendment, she would have been fired on the spot. It is also worth noting
that she says that her remarks to the Times were "misread by many and
written out of context." Interesting. Unfortunately, she does not say how
that was so. Nevertheless, what I find remarkable, is that she very largely
restates the views that I find most problematic -- and then makes matters
worse.
[snip]
The phrase separation of church and state, as is well known, comes from
president Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association during his
presidency. Historians have demonstrated that Jefferson's purpose was not
only to provide an explanation of the meaning of the first amendment for
the Baptists, but for posterity. Jefferson had his Attorney General vet the
letter before he sent it, and it was included in a volume of Jefferson's
papers published in the early 19th century. Far from being an obscure
notion or phrase, the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of decisions in the
mid-20th century, picking up on Jefferson, used the term to help explain
the meaning of the First Amendment as it applies to the collisions of
religion and public policy that come before them with some frequency. The
phrase has served the court and society well. Sandra Day O'Connor, wrote
in a Ten Commandments case in 2005: "Those who would renegotiate the
boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult
question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one
that has served others so poorly?".
Of course, most folks, no matter how well-educated or involved in public
life, are not necessarily up on such details; and how politicians navigate
these things can be tricky. I appreciate that, and I really don't care
whether a pol goes around saying "separation of church and state" or not.
That is not my point.
It is, however, not unreasonable to expect that candidates for relevant
state and national offices will respect and understand the term and what it
means. This is a very significant area of constitutional thought that has
evolved over a long period of time. It is not something about which anyone
should be glib, underinformed, or entirely silent.
My main point here is that the reason that Vanderslice feels she has to get
Democratic pols to not use the term is because it has been effectively
demonized by the religious right, and their gaggle of historical
revisionists, in the service of Christian nationalism. One cannot
effectively contend for power with Christian nationalism over the long haul
without the clear, unambiguous doctrine of separation church and state as a
guidepost. The attack on the phrase has been going on for a long time as
the religious right political movement -- one of the largest and most
powerful in American history -- continues to play a major role in American
public life. But Vanderslice argues that Democratic politicians should
abandon the phrase, and in effect, concede the point. And she does so by
utilizing the religious right's main talking point as her rationale. The
phrase does not appear in, and does not accurately represent the meaning of
the first Amendment. Well, Mara Vanderslice, Nino Scalia's gotta be lovin'
it.
To listen to the historical revisionists of the religious right, one would
think that the famous phrase had no context in the time of the framing of
the constitution, and was the invention of a liberal activist court,
desperate to legislate from the bench and marginalize people of faith from
the public square. But listen to Isaac Bachus, one of the most prominent
Baptists of 1773 who says when
"church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not
at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded
together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have
ensued."
Such views were far from unusual in those days, and were part of the
philosophical alliance between deists and evangelical Christians that
crafted an approach to religion and public life that continues forward into
the thinking of Sandra Day O'Connor.
Vanderslice epitomizes the all too common approach to politics in which the
radical reductionism of message always trumps principle. I am certain that
she and others don't really intend it that way, and part of their answer
would be that one does what it takes to get elected. I am enough of a
pragmatist to appreciate that. But I also know that principles are too
easily thrown out the window in these environments, and Vanderslice's
protestations not withstanding, I think that is exactly what is happening
here. Sometimes when politics is reduced to message, it is because there is
not enough substance in the first place.
[end excerpts]
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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