Nature’s God: The Misunderstanding of our Founding Philosophy

Does this sound like a proponent of Christian Theocracy to you?

“All men are created equal” was a statement made by Enlightenment Era deists who believed in a non-personal non-acting metaphysical being. It was not a pronouncement that all rights and morality came from a Christian god. The Declaration of Independence is no more of an endorsement or confirmation of the supremacy of Christian morality and theology then is Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. The fact that some people find a reason to think that this is in fact the case shows more about the ability of conservatives to project their beliefs onto any secular document than anything else.

The founding fathers were certainly not of one mind regarding spirituality or belief (I hardly think that George Washington would have found the need to reedit the Bible as did Jefferson) but the men who had the most influence in shaping and passing the Declaration and the Constitution were in no way men of faith as a conservative Christian of today would understand it. Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and Hamilton were al believers to a degree (with the possible exception of Jefferson) but none of them were fanatical in their belief or an advocate of Christian moral law as a basis for a Constitutional Republic. These men grew up in colonies founded for the most part upon the principle of religious freedom, or at least fear of government interference and partnership with religion. These men were also highly educated in the philosophy of the European Enlightenment thinkers of the past century. Rousseau, Locke, Fichte, Voltaire, Hobbes…none of these men is exactly known for their writings in favor of theocracy as a mode of civil government.

Jefferson in particular feared the pernicious potential of state and church uniting. He helped to guarantee religious freedom in his home state, and he had no intention of betraying his principles when he had a chance to shape the national dialogue. The fact that nearly each and every major delegate to the Constitutional Convention and the Continental Congress had a different religion or different view of religion was not lost on the founders who crafted our foundational documents. The deliberate exclusion of reference to a deity or even to any matters of faith or morality, save for religious freedom protections, from these documents puts the lie to the idea that these men saw America as a potential Christian Republic based upon Biblical precepts.

Many revisionists will have you believe that the private letters and papers of the founders are positively littered with references to the almighty and the Bible. In some regards they are correct: it would be strange if men born in an era and a civilization that took to heart biblical ideas and teaching did not reference such views in their personal lives. This, however, is not a sign that they meant the secular and civil documents and institutions they created should be run or interpreted based on limited biblical conceptions of law and ethics. They would be bad enlightenment thinkers, and indeed bad stewards of the traditions and ideas of their forebears, if they were foolish enough to be led by purely biblical precepts. These men knew in what context the bible was written, and they knew that this context could not be directly fused onto a civil society based around Enlightenment precepts and English common law. Lord knows that the precepts and traditions of common law itself did not adhere strictly to even the most liberal readings of scripture then extant.

“The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”. This was not the wording of a theology friendly or familiar to traditional Christianity at this place and time. Just imagine a preacher referring to “Nature’s God” in the pulpit of a Catholic Church in Baltimore, or in a Baptist preacher’s sermon. It would have been a scandal! Just ask any evangelical today if they worship “Nature’s God” and they will laugh you out of their Church…and then pray for the redemption of your sinning soul. “Nature’s God” and the rights that derive from it were a deist precept, the belief of a theology of humanistic enlightenment. Jefferson or Adams would be horrified by the idea that their Declaration would be interpreted today by some Christians as a vindication of Biblical prophecy or of the inherency of scripture. “Nature’s God” was not a god of active creation or omniscient interference or will: it was the basis of a humanistic philosophy of nature as the center of all understanding of morality and ethics. Nature provided a world that allowed for the full potential of the human mind and heart to be realized. Look into the Bible. There is no striving for deeper knowledge of creation, there is no guarantee of fair and equal status for all, there is no unalienable right to anything beyond the “right” to worship and obey an unfathomable and inscrutable metaphysical force! Show me anywhere in the Declaration or the Constitution where government procedure, law or ethics is in any way attributed to a deity, let alone a specifically Christian one.

And even if there was, which God would it be? Would it be the God of the Quakers who vouchsafed our liberty? Of the Catholics? Of the Unitarians? But today Christians insist on interpreting the Constitution and the declaration from a Christian perspective that would be as alien to the founders as the founders beliefs would have been to the elder fathers of church doctrine and law! And furthermore, these men who are revered by Conservatives for their unwavering devotion to their ideals, how come none of them ever even made a gesture towards even trying to establish a more “Christian Union”. Jefferson was President, so was Washington and Adams and Madison…None of these men made even the slightest nod towards theocracy or a theological interpretation of the document and government they themselves forged. Were they moral cowards then? Or is it more likely that they never intended for their ideas to be taken as an endorsement of Christian moral theory in government? I think we can all realize the true answer here.

We were indeed “created” equal in the minds of our founders, but not equal within the bosom of a Christian god. Equal in the sense that we all have within us as human beings the potential for good and ill, happiness and sadness, rashness and wisdom and we also all have the responsibility to protect and serve each other equals in a march towards greater prosperity, stability and enlightenment. There is not Christian god to be found within the Declaration or the Constitution because he was never there to begin with. To think otherwise is to grossly misunderstand, and underestimate, the intentions and the wisdom of the founders.

I Met a Misogynist Today

It can really throw you off balance when you run into the human personification of your ideological worst nightmare. I am still reeling from my encounter a few minutes ago. I was out running some errands, which included stopping at a shop downtown that I enjoy searching through. They have a lot of interesting things and also will buy some stuff off you if it is interesting enough. Well I was selling some old DVD’s when I struck up a conversation with the owner (something I try to force myself to do in order to get out of my autistic comfort zone). It started out friendly enough until I came to the subject of politics. I mentioned that I really did not care for Bush and he, to my surprise, agreed with me and declared he had voted for Kerry in ’04. I said I did as well (little white lie to keep the conversation going: I was 7 months shy of my 18th Birthday in 2004, but I would have voted for him) and thought that for once I had found someone over the age of 30 in this town who was not a Tea Party fool…and then it all fell apart.

I told the man that I reserved my vote for the person who I felt could best express my values and philosophical beliefs. I paused expecting my conversation partner to agree, and he did…To a degree. “I will vote for any man who think has the capacity to run the country well…and I do mean man. If you know what I mean.” He then stared intently into my face, waiting to see if he was in the presence of a fellow misogynist compatriot. I all but felt the white- heterosexual male privilege oozing from his pores and reaching out for a high five. I declined to meet him halfway.

“Umm…Well I am afraid I do not know what you mean.” I suddenly felt like I had walked into a meeting of Klan members.

“Well, I mean I will only vote for a man. Men are placed over women by God, and I don’t even want to think about the trouble our world would get into if a female were in control of things. The Bible tells us how things are supposed to be.”

At this point I could not even keep a friendly smile on my face. “Well I supported Hillary Clinton in 2008, and I think she would have made an amazing President. I still think she would. And anyway, I’m an atheist and don’t really buy into biblical morality.”

This seemed to take the man aback a bit. He was honestly expecting me to agree with him I think. He blinked a few times before responding. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “Yeah, well, yeah. I respect your different view (his vaguely disgusted expression told me that he obviously did not)…But that does not make right and wrong any less right and wrong. Man was placed as the head of woman for a reason.”

It was at this point that I almost broke out laughing, and I think I confused the poor schlub with the smile that spread across my face. There were a thousand snarky comments I had on the tip of my tongue, and I was ready willing and able to have a debate right there, but I knew it was futile given that he was a Christian and a Tea Party hack…and he was buying my shit and I really did need the gas money…So I just said “I guess we gotta agree to disagree. I personally think that things would be a ton better if women ran things for awhile” . After receiving a deathly stare in the place of a response I took my money and left. I broke out laughing as soon as left the shop though. It is one thing hearing Rick Santorum and Catholic bishops inveigle against the wiles of the women folk, but it was quite another to have to encounter it in real life…and 5 blocks from my apartment!

It was an eye opening experience indeed, and I think next time I visit his shop I might wear my “I’m a feminist” T-Shirt. Maybe we’ll have an interesting conversation about it.

Song of a Hedonist

Sing me a song of temptation

And I’ll dance like a Dionysian child

For if there’s a hint of elation

In your voice well then my spirit will go wild

 

Everything is partaken of freely

Though nothing is taken for granted

The aroma of salvation is deadly

But its dangerous reputation is vaunted

 

Tethered to the immortal credo

A tin-pot lie sold to us as the golden truth

Don’t the prophet’s realize what we do?

Theodicy is getting a bit long in the tooth

 

For once let us gain from our progress

Instead of fleeing from change in all forms

For faith is an infinite regress

That feeds upon long discredited norms

 

Religion is naught but a draught

Taken by the platonic to sooth their wavering consciences

Sobriety is what we have sought

So that we can finally enjoy our corporeal senses

10th For Tat

Not Gods but Men

 

Forgive me for the length of this post but I really think that the topic deserves an in depth discussion.

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution must be reexamined and reimagined if we wish to persist as a Democratic Republican nation concerned with Universal Individual and societal rights and decency.

When the Amendment was passed they were as a sop thrown to the Anti-Federalists and Southern Slaveholders who wanted to make sure that their “reserved” rights to hold human chattel as property were not abridged by a newly formed central government. This is an aspect of the “founding” that many people have forgotten or have chosen to forget: There was no universal agreement on what constituted a “right” or what authority should be central to the protection and proliferation of rights.

The Articles of Confederation proved to be an enormous and ill-conceived failure, at least as far as running a country and not a multi-national imperial conglomerate of independent nations. The myth that the founders created the Constitution  in order to cement State authority is just that: a myth. Reading the Constitution, and more importantly the letters and the pamphlets of the people who wrote the thing, reveals a document that nothing if not an indictment of state privilege over national unity and democracy.

From the banning of state administered religious tests for office to the assertion that it is the central government elected directly by the people who should be responsible for taxation and the general welfare of the nation as a whole. The preamble mentions “We The People”, and not “We the States and the people residing therein”. Conservatives claim that the founders were near infallible in their logic and statecraft, but if that is the case we must also accept that the founders knew what they were doing when they said what they did in the preamble and wrote what they wrote about the authority of the central government over the states. Steven L. Tyler, Professor of Political Science at Troy University, said this about the supposed “fear” the founders had of a central government in his article “The Founders and The Central Government” [ http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-founders-and-the-central-government/ ]:

If, in fact, the founders feared a central government, why did they form one?  The very purpose of the Philadelphia convention of 1787 that produced the Constitution of 1789 was to create a central government that could actually govern the United States.  It was a purposive transfer of power from states to the central government.

This is the truth, especially considering the way the first 8 President’s ran the country: as moderate to extreme proponents of Central Government authority over the states. Their ideas and programs forged a United States that for the first 40 years of its existence was striving towards a more unified and cohesive nation, and no nation can exist as a conglomeration of semi-independent states. The very concept of some of our basic governmental systems shows us that the founders not only trusted Centralized authority but actively expanded and strengthened it. A Supreme Court to arbitrate disputes that cannot be solved at the state level, a three branch governmental system that explicitly does not include, let alone mention, state governments as part of the greater central authority, and a Bill of Rights that almost exclusively deals with issues that would have been decided on a state by state basis otherwise, therefor weakening the entire idea of National Republican Democracy. Even so called “Small-Government” minded politicians like Jefferson recognized that the states must be led from the center if the nation stood any chance of surviving as anything other than an international laughing stock. Taking action against the Barbary Pirates, the purchase of mass quantities of land by the federal government from the French, and the voyage of Lewis and Clark, these actions could not have ever been undertaken at a state level nor would the even have been likely to be proposed at all. For good or ill it must be acknowledged that if strong central authority was not exercised by the founding Presidents, the United States would not exist as an international force, or even as a Constitutional Republic in any more than a de jure sense.

Which brings me back to the Bill of Rights. It is obvious which Amendments prove to be the exception to the generally Republican and cohesive layout of basic individual and societal rights and liberties: The 9^th and Tenth Amendments. It bears repeating that many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were Southern and/or Slave holders, and they saw it as an essential right to own and control their property, albeit human property. This was a genuine debate, and it certainly was not self-evident that slavery would not end up as an essential right. Of Course the 9^th and 10^th Amendments were not created just as a protection of slavery, but at the time the rights that people who hope to reserve often dealt with property or business concerns. And for much of the nation those two concerns could not be separated from slavery as an institution, and therefor as a right. Madison knew what he was doing when he introduced the 10^th Amendment, but he did not know what sort of federalist monster he had unleashed upon future generations of an inevitably more populous and centralized nation.

The 9^th Amendment is actually much less of a concern to me in particular. It deals with “the great residuum being the rights of the people”, as Madison put it, and not with particular concerns of state and local authority. It was more of a rhetorical admission that by enumerating rights the delegates were not eliminating the common law rights and privileges of a free people that necessarily exist within a civil society as envisioned within the context of The Social Contract. We must always remember that greatest movers and shakers of Constitutional law were Enlightenment Philosophers and theorists in the French philosophe tradition. This context does not lead one to see the founders as extreme reactionaries against central civil law. On the contrary, many of the founders and their supporters realized that there must be a central authority in order for rights as laid out in law to be possible and to be truly universal as a human political ideal. If in one state one possesses or lacks rights that one does or does not possess in the next state over, is that indeed a Republic or is it a corporation of regions who do not respect the primacy of enlightened human reason as a universal ethical construct? The Founders as a whole realized that there could be no guarantee of Rights and Liberties for individuals or for a society if the same rights and Liberties were extended to the same degree to the states. The Revolutionaries threw off a tyranny that did not represent their concerns or their rights. They were indeed fighting for the right to participate in a central government authority. They realized that no rights or privileges can be assured in isolation or in a piecemeal sense: there must be a central arbiter, and a central authority wherein the social contract can be executed, enforced, and yes, expanded.  And clearly any questions about the superiority of central authority as protector of the general rights of all citizens over the whims of the states was settle definitively by the Union Army and the American People in the Civil War.

The 10^th Amendment is an anachronism that no longer has a place in a strongly centralized and proactive government with progressive and strong protections of civil rights. It is a sad fact of history that authority is needed in order that the good of individuals and society can be maintained, but it is a fact. The 10^th Amendment, which started as an admission that the debate over the existence of the USA as a concept was far from over, has now become a catch-all tool for those who would claim that the states have overriding authority over the general will of the people as a nation. What is the United States if it is not united in its protection and recognition of basic human rights? And what is a Constitution of it cannot evolve and expand and be reimagined in order for an expanding and ever evolving and imaginative nation to endure? The Supreme Court (whom Conservatives seem to respect only when, against the Court’s own convention, it rules in favor of the restriction of central authority as a way of protecting Universal Rights) has made its opinion on the matter clear. In United States Vs. Sprague the court states that the Tenth Amendment “added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified”, and really stated nothing more than a truism that is implied by the very Enlightenment nature of the Constitution and its authors: That Human Beings by the nature have rights and that government is enacted in order to protect and expand those rights. The Anti-Federalists would not be championing the 10^th Amendment as a tool for every extreme libertarian or reactionary at the state level who tries to retard or stall the general progress of human decency and freedom in the name of some sort of State privilege.

Does a state have the right to have different conceptions of rights and laws than the country does? Or the county from the state? Or the city from the county? Or the household from the city? Where does the infinite regress of an applied 10^th Amendment end? It ends with the end of the idea of Universal Human decency and rights as the purpose of government, and it negates the very revolution that the Enlightenment Era founders imagined and executed.

I will end with a quote from the ruling in the case of United States Vs. Darby. It is as relevant to the nature of our constitution now as it was then at the height of the Second World War:

The [10^th] amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers…..

Reactions to “Crips and Bloods: Made In America”

I am not going to attempt a thorough review or analysis of this remarkable documentary  right now. There is far to much I want to say and I think the subject deserves a well thought out and researched essay.

In the meantime here are my thoughts on the Independent Lens showcased documentary “Crips and Bloods: Made In America”. Some of these are tweets from while I was watching the documentary, others are just passing thoughts I’ve had since finishing it:

This documentary is amazing. “Crips & Bloods: Made in America” should be required viewing for every American voter. Especially conservatives 

“The pen is the new cotton field.” 1 in 4 black men will either go to jail, prison, or be put on parole or probation. God Damn.

Racism is the root of all the problems of poverty and violence in cities and suburbs. How can we ignore this fact?

“The gang member is the scapegoat [of our society]“–Quote from a Professor Interviewed for the film

And what do we see in the media? We see blacks being violent, blacks causing problems, white victims. The media is the tool of racism.

Take away all hope and chance at an education, tell people for 400 years they are less than human, provoke and abuse and attack these same people for generations and you are shocked when there is violent reaction on occasion?

So many people fail to remember that cancer like gang violence comes when a body (or a body politic) is allowed to go hungry and cold and scared.

The solutions are not easy…but they are clear. People need to stop seeing “different communities” and start seeing ONE community…And by one community I do not mean a raceless or perfect society…I mean a society that sees everyone as equally deserving of love and care

These gangs and all gangs regardless of nationality or color or religion are not made up of animals or sociopaths. They are made up of human beings, who fear and love and hate and have dreams and think

Man what a moving film. We have failed as a democracy and as a community. And we still refuse to see that the problem IS our way of life.

***

Well those are just my passing thoughts on the film as I watched it. I am sure I will revise them and add to them as I think about the film further. There is a lot to digest here, just like with history in general.

Confessed Confusion

No this is not Newt Gingrich, but I could not resist using this Pope in a Wind Machine photo

Not a big fan of the Bible. Not a big fan of Christianity…at least not how the Christians choose to do it these days. But let’s pretend for a moment that I did give a messy bowel movement about both. Just for fun.

Every conservative evangelical voter out there will tell you that the Bible is infallible. Every last bit of it. For trues. But I have found that is not actually strictly speaking the case. The Bible is apparently only infallible when used to defend the truly infallible doctrine: gays are icky and they do icky things, Israel is the best thing to happen to the world since the creation of fire and the poor are poor because of their own laziness and the rich shall inherit the earth. The first two propositions have some backing in the thing: Israel indeed does get a lot of good mentions, and the Bible does not tend to have nice things to say about gay people. Especially from Saint Paul…then again not much gets a good word from Saint Paul. Guy needed to get out more. But as to the last idea, the stuff about the poor, not much is said that would back up their vitriol against them. I have checked. It was not fun. (in Jimmy Fallon voice) You’re Welcome.

It does say a lot about killing those who do not believe in your god. And in how shellfish has the potential to send you to a burning lake of fire. Oh, and a lot more incest then you would expect. But sadly no general condemnations of the poor or any reasons at all for why they are indeed poor. Ron Paul missed the deadline to get his particular thoughts on poverty  included in the Bible. Ron Paul’s Newsletter to the Corinthians…HA! That’s funny…

Guess what it does say about the poor and the powerless though? A lot! And it is all rather Pinko if you ask me…I mean look at this stuff! It is downright Obama level Communism:

“Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys.” Luke 12:33

“For many and great are your sins. I know them all so well. You are the enemies of everything good; you take bribes; you refuse justice to the poor.” Amos 5:12

“If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land”.  Deuteronomy 15:7

“If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.”  Proverbs 21:13

“Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.” Newt 40:23

Oopsie! That last one was not from the Bible! That was just silly ol’ Newt Gingrich showing how he so so wishes that the USA would once more send its children to do hard labor instead of sending them to school for all that New York elite subway riding edjumacation they have been wasting their time with. The way conservatives quote people like Newt and Mitt “Banks are Feeling the Pain” Romney you would think that they were long lost Biblical Prophets. Maybe they are…Who am I to question the will of God? But until they are proven to be Prophets are messengers from Jesus, they had better start shutting up about the Bible hating poor people. Actually, poor people seem to be the only people or things that the Bible doesn’t hate with a vengeance. Have you seen what this book has to say about women? Some omnipotent entity needs to get into the dating scene or something…

This has been a bit of autistic blabbing and obsessing, brought to you by my genetic make-up.

 

 

 

 

 

Nerds Assemble!

Not an Accurate Portrayal of Me. Sort of.

Ok, just to prove that I do not exclusively think/talk/write about political and philosophical ideas that are so mind-numbingly serious that they would put Clint Eastwood into a coma…I am going to talk about two comic book flicks I am HUGELY LOOKING FORWARD TO!

For people who know me it is no secret that I was once a complete comic book FREAK. I used to collect comics, and I read them religiously. My favorite titles were “X-Men”, “Uncanny X-Men”, “Iron-Man” and of course nearly any “Batman” permutation. I no longer actively read new comics mostly because the major titles (with the exception of Batman on occasion) now suck monkey taint, to quote…I think it was St. Thomas Aquinas? Anyway, I no longer actively read or collect comics, but I still love the characters and the mythology behind them. And I also love (for the most part) the films that they spawn. They bring the comics I love to life in a way I once could only dream about. I get chills when I see the Joker attacking the Batman with a piece of 2×4, laughing like an idiot. I get to enjoy all the technology and the genuine coolness behind Tony Stark and his creation Iron Man. I can see what it would be like to have the ability to control all forms of metal, and the very magnetism of the Earth itself. And I can do all that by going to a theater or logging into a website (totally legal downloads of course ) ! Oh, and I want to BE Tony Stark.

And this coming summer I get to see potentially two of the best new comic films.

I have been obsessed with Christopher Nolan’s take on the Caped Crusader since his first film came out in ’05. To say that I enjoyed the second in the series, The Dark Knight, would be an understatement worthy of being carved into a golden plate, buried, and found centuries later by a con man from New York. Wait a minute…

Anyway. The third film in the Trilogy is coming out in July, and I am already looking for a way to get early tickets! I have plans to see the opening of this film at Navy Pier with my artistic partner in crime, budding director, and brilliant actor Tyler. We shall then gorge ourselves on Chicago foodstuffs and talk about the ramifications of what we just saw until we are blue in the face or dead. Bane. Selena Kyle. GARY OLDMAN!!! What is there not to like? And after seeing the leaked teaser trailer a few weeks ago I am about ready to renounce my atheism and become a convert to “The Church of Nolan”. So, I guess you could say that I am excited about the movie.

And then there is The Avengers. I have been seeing hints of this flick coming for years…The Hulk revival, Iron Man 2, the Introduction of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow in the same, and now Captain America. Oh, and Jeremy Renner taking up archery or whatever. During that large sporting event we had a few Sunday’s ago I saw the first full length teaser for the film…And I about peed myself. I did not think I would get excited over the Avengers film. The comic only occasionally held my interest, and those were mostly back issues from the 70′s and 90′s. As far as story-telling and art go, The Avengers has kind of been the “Waluigi” of the comic hero book pantheon: entertaining, but a little bit uninspired and familiar. But THIS film…THIS story…I personally loved ALL of the re-imaginings of the Marvel Heroes. Especially Iron Man. Did I mention that I want to BE Tony Stark? As I was saying, this version of the Avengers looks like it is going to kick ass and take names. I was even wowed by the special effects shown in the TRAILER for the movie. And I was already laughing at all the in-jokes and nerding out about the references to the Marvel Universe. So while this film may be more of a guilty pleasure for me compared the “inevitably-going-to-be=cinematic-genius”-ness of Nolan’s film, I am really looking forward to seeing this f**ker in the theaters. I may even go see it in 3-D. Or not. (I am so sorry for my moment of weakness, Roger Ebert)

That is all. Just a moment of Nerd. Back to the Constitution and Expressionist Painters and such.

DISCLAIMER: Of course all names, concepts, titles, and themes of the Heroes mentioned and their respective attributes are totally and UTTERLY IN PERPETUITY SO HELP ME JESUS the property of their respective copyright holders, corporations and artists (This means you Marvel and DC comics), and the films are the same (This means you big Hollywood studios) . YOU OWN THIS S*IT! I am just bowing down in awe of your collective amazingness…that is all…please don’t sue me… :p

Autism and Kindness

 

Autistic people do not work well with others in a basic sense: they do not have the basic tools that others have to empathize with or to understand their fellow human beings. Oh there is an awareness of emotion, and we are not all totally hopeless in social situations, but our sense of emotion and how it is expressed is really quite basic, almost vestigial. This is hard for non-autistic people (neuro-typical to some) to understand, and some may even take offense at our “coldness” or believe that we are just cruel. We are not. Of course there are cruel autistic people out there who manipulate others, but that is the case with any human being. What I would ask family, friends, and co-workers of autistic people to realize is that we do not want to hurt others, and we do not NOT care about others. We just care in a different way. Autistic people can often be incredibly good listeners and can be quite the physical comforters. Someone I know once said that we are like security blankets: we are not much for conversation but we can make you feel warm and we never ignore you or abandon you.

Empathy is a valued trait in human beings partly because most human beings can come to it naturally…An autistic person does not, but this is not a moral choice. I wish I could empathize with my wife on certain issues, and not being able to do so will always lead to some misunderstandings. At the same time though, it  can be so comforting and, well, feel so safe to be able to shut out the anger and sadness and panic of the “real” world and its emotional problems. I live for long periods of time on my own in my head, not out of necessity or out of hatred for humanity, but because I love my head and what I can do in there. In my mind I have no restrictions, in fact I am advantaged by my autism in that I can vividly recall ideas and images and thoughts in ways that some of my peers can only dream about. I can make connections and find patterns that would never occur to other people, and I believe that makes me a better artist.

There are times when I am honestly surprised by the kindness of some people, and other times when I am taken aback by their callousness. Some people do not like people who are different. I have had a long struggle with dealing with my autism, especially considering it was only confirmed in me at age 21. Since my diagnosis I have found quickly who will stand by me and who will take my diagnosis as an excuse to alienate or belittle me. I am not asking for pity, and it really does not bother me much to cut such people out of my life (one of the perks of autism for me is that I can cut people I dislike out of my life rather easily). What my relatively minor struggles have shown me is that there is a large and much more afflicted and affected community of Autistic people out there, low and high functioning, who lack the support and the kindness that I have experienced from my family and from my closest friends. I feel for these people because I know what it is like to feel alone and to feel like an alien. So I do not think it is to much to ask that non-autistic people take a moment to realize that their autistic peers are not trying to frustrate or anger them. On the contrary, they are often trying harder then anyone else could possibly imagine to just get by in a world not made for them.

So, next time you interact with someone with autism take a moment and try to realize that whatever confusion or frustration you feel, they are feeling tenfold, and often without any recourse to be heard or understood. So listen, and do not judge. Talk with them not as an alien or an oddity, but as a person who has some limitations in relation to you. Do not punish them for not having what you have. Instead, use your own typical nature to your advantage and make an effort to help autistic people make themselves understood. We cannot always speak each others “language” but non-autistic people are in a unique position to make the lives of autistic people better just by listening, and by not judging.

On Libertarianism (Part I)

Uncle Milty Says Everything Can be Sold

[This is the First Part of My Essay on Libertarianism. Future Parts to Come]

            There are many who praise Liberty as the last best hope of humanity against tyranny, and I believe the come to this conclusion for the most part from a good faith point of view. They want to see justice done, and many genuinely believe that liberty is the way to achieve it for the greater human family. But the philosophy that sprang up around the concept of Liberty has lost touch with the original intent and meaning of the concept, and has joined the fetid ranks of self-justifying and essentially moronic political ideologies. To embrace absolute liberty is to embrace the animal fear that motivates the most disgusting and reprehensible pain we often inflict upon our fellow human beings. To believe in the truth, let alone the viability or possibility, of complete subjective liberty is a sign that one has lost their trust in and respect for the Social Contract. This fear leads to a sort of reaction in personal politics that amounts to an assault on the idea that there is anyone who can be trusted to keep the fear and the fearsome things in the world at bay. That is except for oneself. The abomination of fear based personal politics, as expressed through current libertarian thought, can be understood as a misunderstanding of the meaning of liberty as it relates to the Social Contract governing society and the betterment and general welfare of the same and the mechanisms and laws that allow for this.

What do I mean by the Social Contract? Well in this context at least I mean that unwritten societal agreement forged over time by the people of the world as a hedge against the privations and perversions that come about through the fear that is inherent in many people. This is the Social Contract of Rousseau and Fichte, the understanding that to guarantee, or at least to vouchsafe the possibility of, the right of peoples to live in security and freedom relative to those whom they exist with in society. The society then creates a form of government that best represents the best interests of the people as expressed by the people, but where “the general will is the transcendent incarnation of the citizens’ common interest that exists in abstraction from what any of them actually wants”¹. This serves to free the people from the tyranny of the man possessed of pure liberty in a state of nature, and also is a hedge against the possibility of inhumane despotism at the hands of those who reject society at large. It is essentially impossible to protect the liberty (in the form of property, possessions, personal safety and ambition) of millions of individuals in a state of nature that rejects the very idea of societal rules and laws. Freedom is the ideal of the Social Contract, and liberty is only considered an intrinsic good insofar as it is used to progress the society and the welfare and needs of the individual or individuals within that society.

It is useful now to illustrate the difference between the terms “liberty” and “freedom”, at least within the context of  of the Social Contract. Liberty is closer to the state of nature that man is in as an animal, the unfettered license of an animal to do whatever it needs to do to survive against threats to its existence, even if those threats are merely perceived. Essentially liberty at its least adulterated (the form most often celebrated by modern, libertarians) is the state of living as oneself without reference to others needs or desires. If you are to survive and survive within the confines of pure liberty, one must be sure that the needs of oneself outweigh all others’ needs and desires. It is the act of ultimate selfishness in the most basic sense: the prioritizing of the self as the only ideal and the only potential for good.

The libertarian believes that all moral good must come from the individual and her personal acts and decisions. Anything else is an artificial form of good that is imposed from haughty fools in an ivory tower built to honor societal goodwill. Liberty can really only be seen as a “positive” ideal within the context of the aim being pursued: the liberty to commit crime is indeed a liberty, and it can be quite beneficial to the individual, but obviously the act of committing a crime goes against the liberty of others to continue to possess their own lives and possessions. And within the state of nature that must exist in order for full liberty to be achieved, every act must lead to crimes against others because in the end only one individuals’ conception of liberty can be fully realized. In contrast, the Social Contract is constructed with the goal of freedom through striving for, and yes enforcing, the greatest possible equality between its participants. This is anathema to the libertarian. Equality, fairness, fraternity, these are words that go against the idea that the individual is the best, indeed the only true, arbiter of ethical and moral action. In conversations with libertarians I have often heard the bromide that it goes without saying that liberty should only extend as far as it can before infringes upon the liberty of others. But therein lies the real problem: who decides what is and infringement? What are the consequences of this violation of another’s personal liberty? Once you concede that liberty must have some natural limits in order for humanity to any semblance of order and justice, you essentially concede that there must be some form of system, some sort of contract, put into place to handle the disputing claims of liberty between individuals. There are of course, within this context, arguments that can be made for a more or less loose societal and governmental arraignment, but the overall thesis of Social Contract theory is upheld by the fact of the unaccountability of one individual to another. Save for some sort of justice minded and omniscient arbiter, there is no way for two (or more) individuals to come to an agreement over what is a legitimate, and yes fair, expression of liberty in relation to one another.

Thus it is easy to see how some philosophers have posited that true uninhibited liberty, the liberty of animal potential, can and must come from an intelligent deity with no limits on its own liberty, albeit on a metaphysical scale. It is easy enough to imagine unlimited liberty in human affairs being an inherent good when the god worshiped and theology maintained demands that this good be set forth as law. No liberated act can be bad by definition if the god who, in his unlimited liberty, created us in his image, and any conflict of interests can be posthumously arbitrated by the mere fact of one individual (or group of individuals) triumphing over another.     But such questions of metaphysics are for another essay. As to freedom, well freedom on the other hand is essentially human, and by extension communal, in nature. What cannot be guaranteed by pure liberty for every person can be promised, albeit in a necessarily abridged form, through freedom for all people. What we must have as a society is the freedom to be happy and safe, and for freedom to occur there must be conditions met and laws set down. For the betterment of all is worth ten times over the enjoyment or the comfort of one in his liberty. To be free is to be safe and secure and in possession of the potential for pure liberty, but with the reason and common sense to decline to exercise that animal attribute of nature.

According to Fichte in his analysis of the Moral Right in law, we must recognize in others the freedom to act and to posit themselves as an individual, and they must pay us the same courtesy. Only through this mutual understanding can these individuals, and by extension all individuals, create a system, or a society, that limits the freedom of the one so as to recognize the freedom of the other and vice versa: The greatest amount of freedom possible for the individual while still preserving the viability and the safety and welfare of the Society. This is the essence of the Social Contract, which modern political libertarianism violates by its very nature. The libertarian mindset comes from the erroneous assumption that total liberty equals total freedom and happiness. It is something of a tautology in practice however. Those most at liberty to practice complete liberty are often the ones most favored and most lionized by systems that restrict or undermine the liberty of those with less potential to exercise their own liberty.

Take for example the tax system of the United States. It is enshrined in our law that it is somehow worth more for society for the rich and the powerful to go under taxed when the income in question is derived from investments or other forms of market derived capital. The income derived from physical, intellectual, and service labor is taxed at the lowest level the same as the highest level of income derived from manipulating capital in the financial markets. In some cases the tax on earned income can be twice that of the tax on investment, or pure capital, income. Libertarians will tell you that this is fair because it is only through the “risk” taken by the rich and powerful Capitalist that anyone has any chance at making any income worth taxing. Thus the “job creators”, as they are called, are exercising the purest form of liberty in their pursuit of moving about, manipulating, hiding, and building capital. For how can someone truly be a “liberated” person with potential if the shackles of fairness and humanity are placed upon the,.

Regardless of whether or not the tax system as it stands is at all justifiable or even wise (I have my doubts, to say the least), the fact remains that the bias of the system is towards those who Libertarians see as exhibiting the greatest degree of liberty through their financial muscle and skill at manipulating Capital. If you can get away with something in a market place, then you should by virtue of the fact that it is possible. For a libertarian, Liberty is, in and of itself, the greatest of all virtues: fairness is a myth for those who cannot, or will not, recognize their own potential for absolute liberty. If laws, governments, and ethics were debated only insofar as their reach and their content, if the only point of conflict was in the differences between adherents of a Strong Social Contract and a weak one, then I would not be wasting my time with this essay. Sadly the differences are much deeper, and the libertarian viewpoint is much more irrational and intransigent.

This leads me to what I consider the root of the problem with modern American Libertarianism. As Jeffery Sachs deftly put it, politico-economic libertarianism is “the self-justification of powerful social groups that wish to deny society’s responsibility to weaker and poorer members of society”. In other words, libertarians are not content to leave well enough alone. There is either complete liberty or there is total tyranny. There is no middle ground. Modern libertarianism seems to be taking most of its cues from the economic theories of Mises and Hayek, and the ethical and political philosophy of Ayn Rand. A general dissection and discussion of Austrian Economics is beyond the scope of this essay, and is also essentially useless because Austrian Economics is more of an infallible economic theology then an economic theory, but I will touch on Rand and her impact on modern American libertarian ideas and yearnings.

Known by most Americans for her enormous and nearly unreadable novels if for a anything, Ayn Rand would find herself influencing the American libertarian movement more than any other thinker or politician. Rand herself was the classic émigré who found her dreams fulfilled in America… That is if her dreams involved becoming the most infamous philosopher of the 20^th century. She was also a profoundly disturbed individual, as evidenced by her cruelty to her followers, scores of failed relationships, and overall personal unpleasantness. Just try to watch an interview with the woman without wanting to punch her in the face 5 minutes in. Of course none of these things would matter in the least (Thomas Jefferson is no less of a brilliant philosopher for having bedded human beings whom he owned) if the philosophy she created were not as odious as her personality. Hers was a philosophy of unapologetic and unwavering self-interest, and a near rabid hatred for the social instinct of human beings. Hers was the philosophy that so many pompous Christians used as an example of the “evils” of atheists: a philosophy of pure individual will and greed that dictated that the only good that can be hoped for in the world comes from one person running roughshod over the rights and needs of another. In her note books Rand defined the “good” as “that which one acts to gain and/or keep”. Within the context of her philosophy “good” is anything that individual can achieve or take through exercising total Liberty. It is obvious the kind of temptation this provides to those politicians, businessmen and policy makers who already have a predisposition towards libertarianism.

Libertarian politicians such as Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan find much to admire in her philosophy, not least of which is a justification for their own self-interested view of the world: the view of the privileged and powerful minority. All three politicians are white male Christian cultural conservatives, a small but elite demographic. They have in no way had to face the type of hardship or unbalanced conditions facing most of the world. Rand’s philosophy essentially gives them a free pass: they are where they are because of who they are, and how the exercised their own individual will and liberty, and for it to be otherwise would be not only impolitic but indeed anti-human. Theirs is a philosophy of A Priori self-satisfaction. If others have not reached the heights they have achieved it is either because of lack of ability or inherent quality, or because their liberty has not yet been properly, for lack of a better term, liberated. You see how this is essentially a closed logical loop: if the philosophy fails it is actually a confirmation of the philosophy, and if it succeeds that success has been inevitable and never in doubt.

It is easy to be a Libertarian when one has already achieved or can easily achieve the goals set down as necessary for being a “success” in modern society: wealth through capital acquisition, comfort in a system designed by your kind for the betterment of your kind, power over the lives of others, and the ability to spread your philosophy.

[END PART I] 

 

1* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/#IdeGenWil

2* Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

 

 

Interview with a Socialist: An Economic Fable

It was dark and it smelled like gasoline mixed with wet concrete. The sun was just starting to set and the last rays reflected off of the heavily tinted windows of the cars on this third level of a public parking low. My subject was late, and something told me that this was on purpose. My subject seemed the type who liked to play hard to get. Either that or given the current political climate he was concerned for his safety. I didn’t blame him. I had seen the news stories myself; it was now more popular to be a registered sex offender then it was to be an avowed Socialist. In certain parts of the Republic mentioning the terms “Collective” and “Union” were hangin’ offenses. The only five year plan that was likely to get through any legislature in this country would pertain to the amount of time a damn dirty hippie would spend in jail for pot possession. Things were hard all around for those of the left leaning persuasion.

                A car horn bleated, magnified by the acoustics of the structure, and the sounds nearly left me needing a fresh pair of boxers. Of course this was the moment that my subject chose to reveal himself.

“You are late.” The voice was heavily accented, eastern European sounding with a hint of British academic spread on top for good measure. His was the voice of an English as a second language speaker who could communicate better and more elegantly in the tongue then a lifelong speaker. It was almost enough to make you forget he was a filthy foreigner. At least he was not from Kenya.

I pulled up my collar and warmed my hands, near frozen solid in the chill February air, in my deep wool lined coat pockets. Why couldn’t we have met in a café, or even a rest stop? “Sorry, I had a hard time finding the location. My GPS is on the fritz.”

A plume of cigar smoke shot out of the shadows gathered around the support pillars. My subject was only visible from the waist up, and only then in a bare silhouette. I could not make out his features save for the fact that he had a large mane of curly hair that surrounded his head and face. Damn, but that was an amazing head of hair.

“I suppose that is what happens when you depend on the wonderful products put out by our Capitalist manufacturing apparatus…It’s fine. I still have about a half hour before I need to be somewhere.”

I took out my digital recorder. “Mind if I tape this?”

Another puff of smoke accompanied by a shrug. “It’s your interview. I don’t have to give any real names do I?”

“You don’t have to supply any information you don’t want to. I am just happy that you decided to talk at all. You are a hard man to find.”

My subject chuckled. “I have been told that you have something of an obsession regarding me and my views. I’m glad to hear it…About time people paid real attention to what I have to say. Your nation is fucked beyond anything you can possibly imagine. I am not happy to say that, but I think you are intelligent enough to handle the truth.”

Realizing that the interview had started without any fanfare, I whipped out my list of questions and got right to the point. “So, is Barack Obama a socialist?”

A big hearty guffaw issued from the shadows. “Obama is no more of a socialist than John McCain is. Actually, I think that your erstwhile great white hope would have had a more contentious relationship with the business and financial community. McCain always struck me as someone that everyone hates. Obama is a moderate to conservative corporatist who throws out a few well-placed sops to the cultural left. Gays in your military was paid for by at least two more years of corporate hand outs in the form of the late great President George W. Bush’s tax cuts.”

I was startled by my subject’s forthrightness right off the bat…startled, but not unprepared. “Do you view the tax cuts and the bailouts as the antithesis of your socialist plan?”

“What plan? You mean my analysis of capital acquisition? Or do you mean my party platform? Or are you referring to my plan outlining the implementation of the dictatorship of the proletariat? Either way the answer to your question is no, oddly enough, at least “no” in the sense I believe you are thinking about. On its face the “bailouts”, as you are fond of calling them, seem to be a perverted misunderstanding of the dictate “To each according to his contribution”…Market theologians would have is believe that the barons of financial transactions bring more value and worth to the general society than any other group. These “job creators” actually make money liquidating and essentially atomizing capital to its basest and most ethereal form, and then selling the opportunity to cash in on their glorified flea market sale of labor and capital resources. These wily men wink and let us come to the conclusion that they are working within the self-perpetuating and self-justifying free market. The invisible hand seems to enjoy spoon feeding the run-off from the loins of the munificent class after their terms in the esteemed business degree mills. The irony here is that while the chuckle and masturbate to old interview footage of Friedman and Hayek, they are actually benefiting from what is essentially market regulating socialism in reverse.”

I clicked off my recorder and looked into the shadows with a face full of shocked incredulity. “Are you trying to tell me that the plutocrats, the corporatists, the bloody 1% are actually socialists?” I looked around and over my shoulder after I said this, worrying that the higher pitch of my startled voice had given me and my subject away.

The man in the shadows seemed as ever unfazed. “You are asking the wrong question. You should be asking me about why it was so easy for the millionaires and billionaires (those fuckers didn’t even exist when I was writing) to transfer all that wealth from the workaday mailmen and bakery owners to themselves? It was perfect example of capital reapportion, or “spreading the wealth” as your President alluded to when he dared to speak that phrase aloud. That faux-plumber really got wet and warm when he heard that talking point didn’t he? The news cycle that never ends: the hyperactive hyperbolizing about class warfare and the danger to the American Dream. Only the class that started the war owns all the media outlets, and that American Dream turned out to be a pre-adolescent wet-dream didn’t it just? Such a fickle thing, the human mind, especially when it is told exactly what it should not be told in exactly the way it wants to hear it told. The plutocrats obviously read my works, and they learned well, well enough so that they could turn my theories on their head and essentially execute it in reverse. It is a myth that the welfare state is dying. Not so! Indeed it has never been more alive…albeit serving the truly greedy and lazy mob: Wall Street and the Corporate Boardrooms.”

I started to sweat. I had already been out in the open for longer than I had intended. I had assumed that we would have moved into a car or a staircase by now. I felt like a million conservative eyes were watching me and preparing to serve me up to the “lame stream” media on a silver platter. Mint jelly optional of course.

“I still don’t get it. Why is this happening? Why now? And what about the-“

He interrupted me. His voice was becoming more severe and clipped. He seemed to want to get to the point, almost as though he were running out of time. “The protestors? The ones in the streets occupying the public spaces made private by gross finance? They are the vanguard, they are the first of many, and in so many ways the end of an era. But they are bound to fail…not because their message is flawed, or erroneous, because it certainly is not. They are bound to fail because they must fail so that others who think they have no stake in the situation see what happens to even the most innocent when they stand up to the hoarders of invisible and atomized wealth and capital. They will fail and stoke the fires of revolution through their failure, and that flame with light the way for the mother, and the father, and the pensioner and the crone, and the pauper, and the unemployed worker and his family. They will see then what is at stake and what we see now as an occupation will be remembered as a scouting mission for the campaign to come: the rise of the proletariat and the transition from capitalism to socialism. The step after that is entirely up to the people, but I think I knew where everything will end up.”

He dropped the used up stub of cigar onto the floor and ground it to ashes with his blackened boot heel. I heard a car idling behind me and I turned to see a black German import 4 meters to my right. The man in the drivers’ seat sported a jet black beard and slicked back and oiled black hair. He was nattily dressed. He seemed nervous and he kept taping his fingers on the roof of the car. My subject coughed. “That’s my ride. It has been a treat talking to you son. I hope-“

I cut him off and I frantically tore through the notes I had taken. “But you can’t! I have so much I want to ask you! Why have you been in hiding? Why did you lead people to believe you were dead? Why didn’t you do something about this tragedy we have gotten into as a nation, as a world?”

The man stepped just a little bit out of the shadows, just enough so that I could see the snarl on his mustachioed lips. “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that I have been here all along? That maybe this is the way I wanted it all along? That maybe things are going exactly as I expected, exactly as I outlined even? Maybe you need to start asking yourself the questions: what are you doing about things? Are they as “bad” as they seem, as chaotic, or is there a pattern hidden in plain sight that you are just not enlightened enough to see yet? I would say that you should do a little bit more research. You’ll know where to start. You have always known the answers to the questions you have asked me. Try asking the only question that really matters: when? I must get going, but rest assured I will never be very far away. Good evening.”

He got into the car and as soon as he slammed the door behind him they drove off with wheels screeching. I was left with nothing but a still running recorder and the acrid stinging smell of burned rubber in my nostrils. I turned and headed to my car on the first floor. When I got there I turned it on winching, half expecting to explode in a fireball of gasoline. I of course did not…The people who might want to hurt me were much too subtle for such a theatrical assassination ploy. I started West out of the city and eventually found myself on Ogden Ave. and a few blocks from my place. I was still running over what I had heard; what did he mean that I’ll “know where to start” when it came to further research? I had reached a dead end. That was why I had contacted the subject in the first place! I pulled into my parking lot and turned off the motor. It was then that I noticed the book near the bushes 5 or six meters to the left of the front door. It was wrapped in a red ribbon, and a card was attached. I hesitated, but only for a moment. This was obviously my subject trying to lead me on the right track. He probably just did not feel safe giving it to me in public. Strange he would just leave it on the grass though…But I had to go see what it was.

I walked over slowly, looking all around me as I did. I walked so slowly that it took me nearly 5 minutes to reach the lawn from my car, only two car lengths away. I kneeled down in order to see the title of the book. The dew on the grass fogged up my glasses so I had to wipe them on my shirt as I brought the book up to my eyes to read. The book was black and hard covered. In silver indented lettering on the cover it read Interventionism: An Economic Analysis. I mouthed out the title and scratched my head. I turned my attention to the card taped to the front right corner of the book. I opened it up and saw written in an elegant hand:

Just a little gift

Courtesy

Of

Ludwig, Freddy, and Milty

Happy Reading!

 

                I had barely finished reading the message when I heard two pops and then felt two heavy blows hitting me in the center of my chest. This was immediately followed by a cackling laugh. A elder gentleman walked out of the bushes, brushing leaves and twigs from his well-made silk suit. He was bald, and had a kind looking face punctuated by thick black eyeglasses. He looked like a sweet old grandfather. He stood over me pointed the Steyr M series pistol, with silencer attached, at my face. I coughed and spit up a mouthful of blood. I looked the man in the eyes and I shook my head. “You just couldn’t let it go could you? You just have to have the last word.”

The man smiled and adjusted his glasses. “Ours is always the last word my friend. And don’t you forget it. Shake the invisible hand for me won’t you?” He unloaded the rest of the ammo into me, and I quickly drifted to sleep. Perhaps I surprised my assassin with the smile on my face as I faded away. Little did he know that the recording device was a blackberry, that I am an expert at sending media files one handed while driving, and that my editor checked his email on the hour. Looks like the filthy socialist finally got the last word in after all.