The “Wall of Separation”

To address a disturbing trend in the United States of America recently exemplified by statements made by Rick Santorum (Lawyer and ex-Senator from Pennsylvania) in interviews during the 2012 Presidential Campaign.   
For this horrendous ignorance of American Civil Liberties and History, and to educate those that promote this rationale I post the following article:

There is much public confusion today over the phrase, “wall of separation,” in terms of describing the official relationship between church and state in the United States of America. Many conservative Christians, intent upon denying that the concept has any relevance in the founding of America (so as to argue that America was founded as a Christian nation), claim or infer that Thomas Jefferson coined the term a decade after the enactment of the First Amendment.

In reality, however, the use of the precise phrase dates back to Roger Williams (illustration), the first Baptist in America, in the early 17th century. Williams used the phrase in 1644 (“Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered”) to describe the Baptist belief that church and state should be kept separate. A strong advocate of freedom of conscience, Williams’ insisted that the state should not intrude into the free exercise of religion, and that religion should be disestablished from government.

Why did Roger Williams want to build a “wall of separation” between church and state? From the fifth century through the Reformation, church and state ruled together, and the marriage consistently produced wars, destruction, killings, and intense persecutions of those who did not embrace state religion. Yet there was more. Williams realized, as had the first generation of Baptists before him (the Baptist faith emerged in 1609 in Amsterdam, Holland), that state religion – even in the guise of Christianity – was false religion. True religion, according to Baptists, was voluntary and came from a free conscience, as taught by Christ. State operated or approved religion, therefore, was the enemy of genuine faith.

Persecuted for his beliefs (and nearly to the point of death) by the Puritan (Congregational) state church of New England, Williams purchased land from Native Americans and founded Providence Plantations (now the city of Providence, Rhode Island) in 1636, and eight years later was instrumental in the establishment of the colony of Rhode Island.

Providence, initially, and then Rhode Island, were founded on the principles of freedom of conscience, full religious liberty, and separation of church and state. The rise and advocacy of these principles was a radical development in the history of colonial America, and Williams and his fellow Baptists in particular were considered, by other Christians, to be liberals, heretics, and infidels.

The generations of Baptists in America who followed Roger Williams continued fighting for the separation of church and state. Christian government officials in both the northern and southern colonies persecuted the heretical sect. Baptists, who refused to pay taxes to the state church and refused to baptize their infants (as the law required), were beaten, whipped, jailed, stoned, shot, waterboarded, and had their lands confiscated. In some cases, church state officials accused Baptist parents of child abuse for not baptizing their infants into the state religion, and in punishment took their children away from them.

The persecution of Baptists was not isolated. Between 1768 and 1776, roughly one-half of all Virginia Baptist preachers served time in jail for preaching in public, refusing to pay taxes, or otherwise defying the theocratic Anglican government in Virginia. In the painting above, Virginia Baptist minister David Barrow is being waterboarded in 1778 by Virginia’s church-state officials, for his heretical views.

In the 1770s, as America rebelled against Great Britain, most colonies were yet ruled by church states. Even as colonial governments and politicians proclaimed political freedom from England, they denied religious freedom to Baptists.

Yet, Baptist patriots proved valuable in the fight against Great Britain, and soon Baptists in Virginia were able to acquire new, powerful allies in the fight to separate church and state. Among their allies were Virginians James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Virginia Baptists, most visibly represented by the popular evangelist John Leland, worked alongside the efforts of Madison and Jefferson to secure Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which separated church and state in colonial Virginia and secured religious liberty for citizens.

Five years later, in 1791, American Baptists’ nearly two centuries-old campaign for church state separation was finally realized in the enactment of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution. Stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” the United States became the world’s first secular nation by enacting the Baptist vision of a “wall of separation” between church and state. As Baptists had long advocated, the First Amendment forbade government from interfering with religious expression (free exercise clause) and forbade the government from establishing or incorporating religion into government (establishment clause).

By 1833, thanks to the still tireless efforts of Baptists, the last vestiges of church state union at the state level were finally eradicated (Massachusetts was the last state to do so).

While Baptists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries – no longer persecuted by church state officials – rejoiced in living under a secular government in which church and state were legally and effectually separated, many conservative Christians (of former official state churches)remained opposed to America’s secular government, and insisted that God would punish America.

Most Christians of the founding era of America understood that the primary Founding Fathers (with one exception) were not Christian in the traditional sense of the word. In the larger context, few Americans (about 10%)attended church in the 1780s, and the primary Founding Fathers were no exception. Indeed, most of the primary Founding Fathers were deists (that is, they philosophically embraced a concept of a distant deity or supreme being, but rejected the divinity of Christ and the Bible).

If one enlarges the definition of “Founding Fathers” to include dozens or even several hundred prominent men who played various roles in the establishment of the American nation, the number of Christians (measured by affiliation) increases, as most were representatives of or leaders within theocratic colonies/states.

That the founding fathers resisted intense pressure by church state leaders to include references to God and Christianity in the U. S. Constitution, and then enacted separation of church and state in the First Amendment, did not sit well with many Christians who once had been the recipient of special government privileges. (Modern attempts, by conservative Christians in America, to reconstruct the primary Founding Fathers as evangelical Christians would have baffled conservative Christians of the late 18th century.)

Thomas Jefferson, by virtue of his prominent role in paving the way for the enactment of separation of church and state in the First Amendment (modeled after Jefferson’s 1786 aforementioned Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom), came to be especially despised by many conservative Christians of the early 19th century.

While Baptists greatly appreciated Jefferson (who in 1802 wrote a now-famous letter of response to praise from and a petition of Danbury Baptists of Connecticut, voicing the Baptist “wall of separation” metaphor to describe the First Amendment’s separation of church and state), many other Christians considered the president a heretic, infidel, and even an atheist.

Today, many conservative Christians place their faith in the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation, arguing that since the words “wall of separation” of church and state are not mentioned in the U. S. Constitution, the concept does not exist.

American Christians living in the 1780s and 1790s would have considered this argument to be ludicrous. They, living witnesses to the founding of America, well understood that America was established as a secular democracy with the separation of church and state (although not all appreciated this state of affairs).

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Part 1 of 3: Do Christians Have a Duty to Oppose & Remove Malignant Leadership?

The Right to Resist Evil Leaders—The Christian History

By Kelly OConnell August 4, 2014






Do Americans have a right to oppose unjust authority? Given our history, this right goes without saying. You see, our country was founded by men resisting the unjust rule of Great Britain. More precisely, in one of history’s most famous recitations of the Right of Resistance, the American Declaration of Independence itself says,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

And yet, to many American Christians, part of the de facto religious majority—a straightforward reading of the Bible might suggest there can be no opposition to the established authority. In other words, true Believers are simply commanded to suffer wrongdoing in silence, and any evil will be judged later by God. Yet, were this true, even if a Hitler arose in America, there could be no Christian resistance. Further, had this been true during the American Revolution, the Founders would have been the evil-doers, while mad King George III would have been the more correct. Does the American church really embrace this position?

It is the simple and straightforward opinion of many sincere Christians that God commands passive obedience to all authority. This would be based upon such passages as Romans 13:1-7:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

But, if so—Americans could never stand against the evil misuse of authority in the States. But how can this possibly be accurate in a world where evil flourishes when not confronted? So, obviously this notion of good Christians simply taking abuse in resigned silence, no matter how bad the ruler, must be wrong.

But how did our intrepid forebears, being sincere and highly educated Christians, mount and justify revolutionary activities? By taking a deeper and more exhaustive examination of Scripture, as well as using history and common sense as their guides. In doing so, they created the biblical doctrine of Resistance Theory.

I. Early History of Resistance: Martin Luther


The foundations of Resistance Theory were laid during the Reformation (1517-1648). Of course, since time immemorial there have been sentiments to push-back against tyrants. For example, Julius Caesar was killed by members of the Roman senate for creating a tyranny, as immortalized in Shakespeare’s famous play. Such anger towards tyrants is caused because of the incredible destruction such regimes create, and their war against liberty. For example, while Julius’ adopted son, the Emperor Caesar Augustus oversaw one of history’s most peaceful reigns, later emperors were often ineffective, depraved, perverted and even mentally deranged.

The American Founders employed Calvinist Resistance Theory, although this was not ultimately derived from John Calvin, but Martin Luther, according to Quentin Skinner inThe Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol. 2: The Age of Reformation. Originally, after the Reformation split, the Lutherans were content to simply work with the amenable Catholic German authorities. But around 1530, when these same Catholics suddenly decided to compel the Lutherans to rejoin the Church, Luther and the other leaders were in a quandary. So, they began to debate amongst themselves about their options.

Two theories emerged from these Lutheran discussions on how to resist evil rule. The first was a “private-law” argument based on the theory that everyone has a right to defend themselves against the menacing actions of other private citizens. Ingeniously, they claimed the bad ruler lowered himself to the level of a private citizen by doing evil acts. In doing this, they echoed the Conciliar Theory of the Catholics during the crisis of the Great Schism.

The second theory was a constitutional argument. Here, they argued that the seeming prohibition against resisting God-appointed authorities was countered by the fact that God does not call leaders to do bad acts. If “leaders” regularly do bad things, harming the state and the populace, this simply reveals that these are not men God has called to lead. Further, the term “authority” itself is not singular, but is composed of all the established magistrates. And therefore, to resist one does not mean to reject all authority, for a lesser magistrate can resist an evil, higher leader.

II. Magdeburg Confession


Magdburg is a small, ancient German city, over 1,200 years old, originally founded by Charlemagne. The Magdeburg Confession was a response to royal tyranny, and is considered the foundational document related to the Right of Resistance. It’s story emerged in the aftermath of Luther’s decision to leave the Catholic Church and start the Lutheran Church.

The Reformer’s theories on resistance were soon tested when German king Charles V demanded all Lutheran cities, including the Saxon town of Magdeburg, return to the Holy Roman Church in 1546, in the document called the Augsburg Interim. Magdeburg was a small town with a history of independent thinking and resiting tyranny. The Magdeburg Confession is similar to Luther’s Warning to His Dear German People, based upon his two-kingdom argument, which similarly prepared the Protestants of a coming religious war. The ministers published their Confession and Defense of the Pastors and Other Ministers of the Church of Magdeburg in April, 1550.

According to David M. Whitford in Tyranny and Resistance: The Magdeburg Confession and the Lutheran Tradition, the Magdeburg siege was a political and religious blunder for Charles V, as it caused the Protestant movement to gain sympathy and supporters. Further, it was a failure as a means of staunching anti-Catholic sentiments or political movements.

The Magdeburg Confession begins with these words:

If the high authority does not refrain from persecuting with force and injustice not only the persons of their subjects, but even more their rights under Divine and Natural Law, and if the high authority does not desist from suspending or eradicating true doctrine and true worship of God, then the lesser magistracy is required by God’s divine injunction to attempt, together with their subjects, to stand up, as far as possible, to such superiors.

The work of the Confession was authored by a number of resistant ministers. Writes Whitford,

...the pastors underlined a fundamental doctrine that supported their work: They referred, though not by name, to Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms. Their readers were to resist the current persecution, “each one in accordance with his calling and his ability.” The implication, to be repeated again and again in the body of the work, is that persons ought to work in their areas of competence and calling; lesser magistrates must resist, and pastors must admonish and preach.

The Confession is a complex document, which deals with the two-kingdoms of religious and secular authority. Matthew J. Trewhella, in The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates: A Proper Resistance to Tyranny and a Repudiation of Unlimited Obedience to Civil Government, explains the Magdeburg doctrine:

In their arguments, the pastors declare the idea of unlimited obedience to the State as ” an invention of the devil. ” They rightly assert that all authority is delegated from God. Therefore, if the one in authority makes commands contrary to the law or Word of God, those subject to his authority have both a right not to obey, and a duty to actively resist…no one in authority holds his authority autonomously. Rather it is delegated to them from God. If the authority therefore makes law which contravenes the law of God, those subject to their authority can refuse obedience because, as the pastors write, “divine laws necessarily trump human ones.”

The teaching here was that it was no rejection of the biblical doctrine of obeying authority, if lesser authorities—or “magistrates”—were encouraged to resist the bad deeds of higher rulers.

III. Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates


The Reformers, in their desire to be biblical, and yet still preserve their lives and movement, developed a nuanced definition of “authority.” In their theory, when the Bible described “authority,” the writers countenanced the entire gamut of various authorities in a society. The lesser posts were referred to as “magistracies.” So, for example—in ancient Rome, where there was either a consul in the Republic, or a later Emperor, their would be various lesser officials, or magistrates, such as aediles,praetors, or prefects. Or, consider in modern American, the many lesser magistracies, such as US and state senators and likewise congressmen, etc.

Trewhella here defines lesser magistrates:

The Magdeburg Confession is an important historical work because the pastors of Magdeburg were the first in the history of mankind to set forth in a doctrinal format what only later came to be known as the doctrine of the lesser magistrates…The lesser magistrate doctrine declares that when the superior or higher civil authority makes unjust/ immoral laws or decrees, the lesser or lower ranking civil authority has both a right and duty to refuse obedience to that superior authority. If necessary, the lesser authorities even have the right and obligation to actively resist the superior authority.

To the pastors of Magdeburg, all magistrates, higher and lower, possess delegated authority from God. Therefore, the lesser magistrates have a right and duty to oppose the superior magistrate-turned-tyrant when he makes laws contrary to the law and Word of God. This responsibility is both positive and negative. In other words, a magistrate has a duty to disobey the evil commands of a bad ruler, and help protect the at-risk subjects of the realm. But if the lesser magistrate does not resist, he himself becomes an instrument in the hand of the evil ruler, and therefore subject to the judgment and wrath of God.

Conclusion
The argument of the Madgeburg pastors was simple, yet revolutionary. If God creates all authority, from greater to lesser magistrates, then all authorities answer to him. Further, since God does not directly call anyone to do evil things, and therefore break his law, a bad ruler becomes just a simple private citizen.

And if a bad leader begins to oppress the people and do ungodly and monstrous deeds, it is up to the lesser magistrates to do what they can to resist and protect their people. In doing this, the magistrates are not acting illegally, but fulfilling God’s higher law by acting in love in the face of hate. Further, the fact that the lesser magistrates have the duty to resist evil, means that the private citizens would not have the right to revolt. This would keep the entire society from erupting into chaos and anarchy, a position the Lutherans worked hard to avoid in their theory.

We will examine next week how the Calvinists evolved the Lutheran argument, and upped the ante, making possible the American Revolution.

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Mugabe: Whites Can’t Own Land in Zimbabwe

By Taylor Wofford
Filed: 7/7/14 at 3:47 PM

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe stands during celebrations to mark his country's 34th Independence Day in Harare April 18, 2014. Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters



Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe as a Marxist dictator since the country became independent from Britain in 1980, is telling his country’s few remaining white landowners: Your time is up.

“We say no to whites owning our land, and they should go,” Mugabe told supporters, according to The Christian Science Monitor. “They can own companies and apartments…but not the soil. It is ours and that message should ring loud and clear in Britain and the United States.”

Mugabe’s declaration is mostly symbolic. Few white farmers remain in the country after Mugabe’s first pogrom, which began in 2000. According toHuman Rights Watch, Mugabe sent “ruling party militias, often led by veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war,” to harass and expel the country’s then-5,000 white farmers. In 2012, The Guardian reported that no more than 500 remained. Mugabe and his allies now own about 40 percent of the land seized from white farmers, The Guardian said.

Many critics blame Mugabe’s aggressive land grab for Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown. In 2000, Zimbabwe was the world’s second largest exporter of tobacco; seven years later, it had slipped to sixth place, the economy had shrunk by 40 percent, and, in 2008, inflation hovered at 500 billion percent,Bloomberg reported.

Peter Godwin, whose memoir When A Crocodile Eats the Sun traces his white family’s loss of their land in Mugabe’s land reform, called Mugabe “a nonagenarian bellowing about antique struggles well past their fight-by date, while ignoring the juggernaut of economic collapse that bears down on him.”

However, Zimbabwe’s ravaged tobacco production finally appears to have recovered. According to the country’s Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, this year’s crop finally topped 2001 levels, Bloomberg reported. Agricultural Minister Joseph Made told Bloomberg Zimbabwe’s apparent agricultural recovery “vindicates the country and the policy,” though he did not speak to the decade of famine that followed the policy’s implementation.

Whether there exists strong support for Mugabe’s command among government officials and local leaders remains unclear. In the same speech in which he announced his plan to evict white farmers, Mugabe castigated cabinet members and politicians for protecting white farmers. Mugabe’s call to oust white farmers may be simply ignored. According to NewsDay Zimbabwe, one farmer present for Mugabe’s speech said provincial politicians “dine with whites by night and denounce them by day.”

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Founding Fathers - The Threat of Tyranny

Batr Sartre

Published on Jun 20, 2014

Quotes of the Founding Fathers

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Facebook secretly experimented on its users

Mandie Sami reported this story on Monday, June 30, 2014 08:15:00

Listen to MP3 of this story (minutes)

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CHRIS UHLMANN: If you're one of Facebook's more than 1 billion users you might have been part of a social experiment without knowing it.

A new study has revealed that Facebook intentionally manipulated the news feeds of almost 700,000 users in order to change their emotional state.

And it claims it was done for research.

Facebook insists the study was legal, but as Mandie Sami reports, privacy experts say the experiment was dangerous and unethical.

MANDIE SAMI: When users sign up to Facebook, most know the social network will use their information for marketing purposes.

But many don't think that Facebook will use them as guinea pigs in an experiment they're not told about.

FACEBOOK USER: Facebook conducting these experiments without telling people is not okay.

FACEBOOK USER 2: Yeah I don't think it's really okay either; I think informed consent is always really important whenever an experiment is being conducted.

FACEBOOK USER 3: Keep it transparent if you're going to manipulate us.

MANDIE SAMI: A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has revealed that's exactly what Facebook did.

The researchers who carried out the study are affiliated with Facebook, Cornell, and the University of California-San Francisco.

For one week in January 2012, they manipulated what almost 700,000 Facebook users saw in their news feeds when they logged in.

Some people were shown content with only happy and positive words, while others were shown posts that contained sad and angry content.

The point of the experiment was to find out whether emotional states were contagious.

DAVID VAILE: The conclusion was, we can actually manipulate people's feelings by manipulating their news feed on Facebook.

MANDIE SAMI: That's David Vaile, the Co-convenor of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Community at the UNSW Law Faculty.

The study found more negative news feeds did lead to more negative status updates and conversely more positive news feeds resulted in more positive status updates.

David Vaile says, while not illegal, the experiment was unethical.

DAVID VAILE: Any sort of university or established researcher would typically have to take this to an ethics panel and get ethics clearance and first thing they'd ask is, where's the informed individual consent?

So, the issue here as well as not being informed consent for the individuals, is also the question of research ethics that you know they're messing with real people's lives and let's not forget that some you know negative experience online have real consequences for people.

At worst, case people get desperate or get… ending up feeling depressed, people have committed suicide from terrible things that have happened to them online.

MANDIE SAMI: AM contacted Mia Garlick, Facebook's head of Policy for Australia and New Zealand, to ask about the ethical concerns surrounding this experiment and whether informed consent was obtained.

She declined to comment and instead referred AM to Facebook's media enquiries line.

A spokesperson from Facebook is yet to respond.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Mandie Sami reporting.
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Breaking the Law to Go Online in Iran

The Opinion Pages

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR



By SETAREH DERAKHSHESH

JUNE 24, 2014



CreditDan Stafford

WASHINGTON — WHEN Anthony Bourdain posted a cryptic message on Facebook at the end of May that he and his television crew would be off the social media grid for the next 10 days because they were “truly going to #PartsUnknown,” his fans around the world were intrigued. Was he shooting his CNN show (titled “Parts Unknown”) in a remote desert or on top of a snowy Himalayan peak?

Ten days later, Mr. Bourdain posted a picture of himself sitting with a small glass of tea at a traditional Iranian teahouse in Isfahan, and it was immediately clear why the famous chef and TV show host had had no other option but to maintain radio silence.

In Iran, the government officially blocks access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and almost all other social media platforms. Any attempt to bypass this block by using a virtual private network (VPN) connection or other software solutions is illegal. Numerous reports indicate that Iranian authorities restrict access to thousands of American and European websites, particularly those of international news sources, and even throttle down Internet connections to limit the ability of Iranians to surf the rest of the Web.

“Internet speeds are incredibly slow in Iran, which ranked 164 out of 170 countries in a recent study,” says the latest “Freedom on the Net” report from the human-rights organization Freedom House. The report lists Iran as last in the world in terms of Internet freedom. And that was before an Iranian court banned Instagram last month.

This suppressive approach, zealously pursued by hard-liners and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was ridiculed two weeks ago by none other than the minister of culture, Ali Jannati. Addressing members of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Jannati criticized the practice of blocking websites, social media and popular messaging apps. “In social media and the virtual world, we still do not know if we are supposed to block Viber and WhatsApp or not,” Mr. Jannati said, according to the news site Al-Monitor. “There was a time we had problems with video. There was even a time we had issue with the fax machine,” he said.

“Apparently we have to confront every new phenomenon and after time has passed, then accept it,” Mr. Jannati continued. “We always want to have a 20-year distance with the world. Let’s at least move along with the world.”

Meanwhile, several top Iranian officials enjoy what they deny to their citizens: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani and the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, apparently have accounts on Facebook or Twitter, with Mr. Zarif attracting nearly 900,000 Facebook followers to his page in Farsi.

Mr. Rouhani has staked his reputation on the success of Iran’s talks with the so-called P5-plus-1 countries — the permanent United Nations Security Council members Russia, China, Britain, France and the United States, plus Germany — on a possible nuclear deal before July 20. A deal would ease international sanctions on Iran and allow Western companies to return, giving the struggling Iranian economy a long-needed boost. The reintegration of Iran into the world economy would also require allowing unfiltered access to the Internet and international satellite television broadcasts.

According to “The Iran Primer,” a website and publication of the United States Institute of Peace, “Iran is one of the most tech-savvy societies in the developing world, with an estimated 28 million Internet users, led by youth,” the site says. “Iran boasts between 60,000 and 110,000 active blogs, one of the highest numbers in the Middle East, led by youth.”

The Iranian authorities admit, reluctantly, that it is almost impossible to rein in Iranians who are eager to know about the outside world and know how to use alternative means to gain access to the web. “Four million Iranians are on Facebook, and we have restricted it,” Mr. Jannati said in a speech in March in Tehran. “The preservation of Islamic values cannot be used as an excuse to stop the growth of something in the country.”

Mr. Jannati also cited the 71 percent of Tehran residents who have satellite dishes and watch foreign television, which is also illegal. “This means that millions in the capital are committing a crime every evening,” he said.

Here at the Voice of America Persian Service, we are familiar with this situation firsthand. Even though all of our satellite TV and radio programs, our website, our social media and our mobile apps are officially banned in Iran, our on-air and online audience numbers have shown steady growth, especially after the start of the P5-plus-1 talks with Iran.

The feedback we get from viewers, listeners and website visitors also confirms strong interest from Iranians to know what is really happening in the country they have been taught to call the “Great Satan” — whether we report on President Obama’s speech at West Point, or a recent visit by American Catholic bishops to Qom to start an interfaith dialogue with top Iranian ayatollahs on the need to restrict nuclear weapons, or Goldman Sachs’s predictions for the Iranian national soccer team at the World Cup.

We have to tweak our web content to accommodate low download speeds in Tehran, Mashhad or Shiraz, and we look for ways to help Iranian students win a cat-and-mouse game with authorities over the use of VPNs and other anti-filtering tools. Our experience confirms what “The Iran Primer” finds: Despite the Iranian authorities’ efforts to shield them from Western influences, “Iran’s young are better educated and more worldly than any previous generation” and “most are exposed to global media, ideas and culture through satellite television and the Internet.”

Before leaving Iran, Mr. Bourdain tweeted: “Never would have guessed that of all countries in world, my crew and I would be treated so well everywhere, by total strangers in #Iran.”

It’s a pity that Iranians weren’t able to read these kind words about their own hospitality on Twitter without breaking their country’s law.


Setareh Derakhshesh is the director of the Voice of America Persian Service.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on June 25, 2014, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Breaking the Law to Go Online in Iran.

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Obama administration targets coal with controversial emissions regulation

White House


Published June 02, 2014
FoxNews.com



The Obama administration took aim at the coal industry on Monday by mandating a 30 percent cut in carbon emissions at fossil fuel-burning power plants by 2030 -- despite claims the regulation will cost nearly a quarter-million jobs a year and force plants across the country to close.

The controversial regulation, which some lawmakers already are trying to block, is one of the most sweeping efforts to tackle global warming by this or any other administration.

The 645-page plan, expected to be finalized next year, is a centerpiece of President Obama's climate change agenda, and a step that the administration hopes will get other countries to act when negotiations on a new international treaty resume next year.

"We have a moral obligation to act," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said, in announcing the plan Monday morning.

While the proposed regulation drew praise from environmental groups, the coal industry and coal-state lawmakers were immediately wary. Democratic West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall announced he would introduce legislation, along with Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., to stop the EPA plan.

"We will introduce bipartisan legislation that will prevent these disastrous new rules from wreaking havoc on our economy in West Virginia," Rahall said in a statement.

Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, said he's "certain that it will be very bad news for states like Kentucky who mine and use coal to create electricity."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who represents Kentucky, called it a "dagger in the heart of the American middle class" -- and predicted higher power costs and less reliable energy as a result. McConnell's general election opponent, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, also spoke out against the plan.

The draft regulation sidesteps Congress, where Obama's Democratic allies have failed to pass a so-called "cap-and-trade" plan to limit such emissions.

Under the plan, carbon emissions would be reduced 30 percent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. The proposal sets off a complex regulatory process in which the 50 states will each determine how to meet customized targets set by the EPA.

States could have until 2017 to submit a plan to cut power plant pollution, and 2018 if they join with other states to tackle the problem, according to the EPA's proposal.

EPA data shows that the nation's power plants have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 13 percent since 2005. But with coal-fired power plants already beleaguered by cheap natural gas prices and other environmental regulations, experts said reaching the targets won't be easy. The EPA is expected to offer a range of options to states to meet targets that will be based on where they get their electricity and how much carbon dioxide they emit in the process.

While some states will be allowed to emit more and others less, overall the reduction will be 30 percent nationwide.

The options include making power plants more efficient, reducing the frequency at which coal-fired power plants supply power to the grid, and investing in more renewable, low-carbon sources of energy. They also can set up pollution-trading markets as some states already have done to offer more flexibility in how plants cut emissions.

If a state refuses to create a plan, the EPA can make its own.

The Obama administration claimed the changes would produce jobs, cut electricity bills and save thousands of lives thanks to cleaner air.

But critics disputed the estimates.

"Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama has adopted a 'my way or the highway' approach, and that explains why he's shoving these EPA regulations down our throat," Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has found that each year this regulation will kill 224,000 jobs and force energy rates to skyrocket, so it's no wonder President Obama is circumventing Congress to implement his latest job-killing regulation."

Hundreds of coal-burning plants will have to comply, which has resulted in strong opposition from the energy industry, big business and coal-state Democrats and Republicans, who argue Obama’s green-energy agenda is tantamount to a “war on coal.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce argues that the rule will kill jobs and close power plants across the country.

The group released a study that finds the rule will result in the loss of 224,000 jobs every year through 2030 and impose $50 billion in annual costs.

Without waiting to see what Obama proposes, governors in Kansas, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia have already signed laws directing their environmental agencies to develop their own carbon-emission plans. Similar measures recently passed in Missouri and are pending in the Louisiana and Ohio legislatures.

On Saturday, Obama tried to bolster public support for the new rule by arguing that carbon-dioxide emissions are a national health crisis -- beyond hurting the economy and causing global warming.

“We don’t have to choose between the health of our economy and the health of our children,” Obama said in his weekly address. “As president and as a parent, I refuse to condemn our children to a planet that’s beyond fixing.”

Many anticipate the rule change will increase electricity prices, considering the United States relies on coal for 40 percent of its electricity. However, the plants also are the country’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Many of the Democrats who are raising concerns represent coal-producing states and face tough 2014 reelection bids.

Among them is West Virginia Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall, whose state gets 96 percent of its power from coal. Rahall said Thursday that he didn't have specific details about the rule, but "from everything we know we can be sure of this: It will be bad for jobs."

Obama is being forced to use the 1970s-era old Clean Air Act, after failing during his first term to get Congress to pass a law. The law has long been used to regulate pollutants like soot, mercury and lead, but has only recently been applied to greenhouse gases.

"There are no national limits to the amount of carbon pollution that existing plants can pump into the air we breathe. None," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address. "We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury, sulfur, and arsenic that power plants put in our air and water. But they can dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the air. It's not smart, it's not safe, and it doesn't make sense."

The rule also will prescribe technological fixes or equipment to be placed on existing plants and require new ones to capture some of their carbon dioxide and bury it underground.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Jesuit Order - United States Under Siege - Vatican Nazis

ReligiousMatrix

Published on Jan 11, 2014

http://religiousmatrix.com/https://www.facebook.com/Metro.Angels...
The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu, S.J., SJ or SI) is a Christian male religious congregation of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents. Jesuits work in education (founding schools, colleges, universities and seminaries), intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes and promote social justice and ecumenical dialogue.

Ignatius of Loyola founded the society after being wounded in battle and experiencing a religious conversion. He composed the Spiritual Exercises to help others follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. In 1534, Ignatius and six other young men, including Francis Xavier and Peter Faber, gathered and professed vows of poverty, chastity, and later obedience, including a special vow of obedience to the Pope. Rule 13 of Ignatius's Rules for Thinking with the Church said: "That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity ... if [the Church] shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black."[2] Ignatius's plan of the order's organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by the bull containing the "Formula of the Institute".

Because of the military background of Ignatius and the members' willingness to accept orders anywhere in the world and to live in extreme conditions where required, the opening lines of this founding document would declare that the Society of Jesus was founded for "whoever desires to serve as a soldier of God"[3] (Spanish: "todo el que quiera militar para Dios"),[4] "to strive especially for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine."[5] Therefore Jesuits are sometimes referred to colloquially as "God's Soldiers"[6] or "God's Marines".[7] The Society participated in the Counter-Reformation and later in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council in the Catholic Church.
The prophecy of Revelation 13 declares that the power represented by the beast with lamblike horns shall cause "the earth and them which dwell therein" to worship the papacy—there symbolized by the beast "like unto a leopard." The beast with two horns is also to say "to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast;" and, furthermore, it is to command all, "both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond," to receive the mark of the beast. Revelation 13:11-16. It has been shown that the United States is the power represented by the beast with lamblike horns, and that this prophecy will be fulfilled when the United States shall enforce Sunday observance, which Rome claims as the special acknowledgment of her supremacy. But in this homage to the papacy the United States will not be alone.

The influence of Rome in the countries that once acknowledged her dominion is still far from being destroyed. And prophecy foretells a restoration of her power. "I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." Verse 3. The infliction of the deadly wound points to the downfall of the papacy in 1798. After this, says the prophet, "his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." Paul states plainly that the "man of sin" will continue until the second advent. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8. To the very close of time he will carry forward the work of deception. And the revelator declares, also referring to the papacy: "All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life." Revelation 13:8. In both the Old and the New World, the papacy will receive homage in the honor paid to the Sunday institution, that rests solely upon the authority of the Roman Church. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, students of prophecy in the United States have presented this testimony to the world. In the events now taking place is seen a rapid advance toward the fulfillment of the prediction.

With Protestant teachers there is the same claim of divine authority for Sunday keeping, and the same lack of Scriptural evidence, as with the papal leaders who fabricated miracles to supply the place of a command from God. The assertion that God's judgments are visited upon men for their violation of the Sunday-Sabbath, will be repeated; already it is beginning to be urged. And a movement to enforce Sunday observance is fast gaining ground. Mark of the Beast Sunday Law

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Will liberal thought police come for you *

Kirsten Powers: Liberals' Dark Ages

Kirsten Powers

6:33 p.m. EDT May 15, 2014

Each week seems to bring another incident. Who will the thought police come for next?



(Photo: Janet Van Ham, AP)

Welcome to the Dark Ages, Part II. We have slipped into an age of un-enlightenment where you fall in line behind the mob or face the consequences.

COLUMN: Dear Condi, no one was listening anyway

How ironic that the persecutors this time around are the so-called intellectuals. They claim to be liberal while behaving as anything but. The touchstone of liberalism is tolerance of differing ideas. Yet this mob exists to enforce conformity of thought and to delegitimize any dissent from its sanctioned worldview. Intolerance is its calling card.

COLUMN: 5 steps for Shinseki to rebuild trust in Veterans Affairs

Each week seems to bring another incident. Last week it was David and Jason Benham, whose pending HGTV show was canceled after the mob unearthed old remarks the brothers made about their Christian beliefs on homosexuality. People can't have a house-flipping show unless they believe and say the "right" things in their life off the set? In this world, the conservative Tom Selleck never would have been Magnum, P.I.

This week, a trail-blazing woman was felled in the new tradition of commencement shaming. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde withdrew from delivering the commencement speech at Smith College following protests from students and faculty who hate the IMF. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, this trend is growing. In the 21 years leading up to 2009, there were 21 incidents of an invited guest not speaking because of protests. Yet, in the past five-and-a-half years, there have been 39 cancellations.

Don't bother trying to make sense of what beliefs are permitted and which ones will get you strung up in the town square. Our ideological overlords have created a minefield of inconsistency. While criticizing Islam is intolerant, insulting Christianity is sport. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is persona non grata at Brandeis University for attacking the prophet Mohammed. But Richard Dawkins describes the Old Testament God as "a misogynistic … sadomasochistic … malevolent bully" and the mob yawns. Bill Maher calls the same God a "psychotic mass murderer" and there are no boycott demands of the high-profile liberals who traffic his HBO show.

The self-serving capriciousness is crazy. In March, University of California-Santa Barbara women's studies professor Mireille Miller-Young attacked a 16-year-old holding an anti-abortion sign in the campus' "free speech zone" (formerly known as America). Though she was charged with theft, battery and vandalism, Miller-Young remains unrepentant and still has her job. But Mozilla's Brendan Eich gave a private donation to an anti-gay marriage initiative six years ago and was ordered to recant his beliefs. When he wouldn't, he was forced to resign from the company he helped found.

Got that? A college educator with the right opinions can attack a high school student and keep her job. A corporate executive with the wrong opinions loses his for making a campaign donation. Something is very wrong here.

As the mob gleefully destroys people's lives, its members haven't stopped to ask themselves a basic question: What happens when they come for me? If history is any guide, that's how these things usually end.

Kirsten Powers writes weekly for USA TODAY.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the opinion front page or follow us on twitter @USATopinion or Facebook.

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* Original title when I read it on Thursday's USA Today Newspaper (5/15/2014).

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United States of Secrets: Part One

PBS



Published on May 14, 2014

From PBS and Frontline: Last year Edward Snowden downloaded tens of thousands of top-secret documents from a highly secure government computer network. The revelations that followed touched off a fierce debate over the massive surveillance operations conducted by the National Security Agency. Now FRONTLINE investigates the secret history of the unprecedented surveillance program that began in the wake of September 11th and continues today. Through exclusive interviews with intelligence insiders, cabinet officials, and government whistle-blowers, Part One reveals how the U.S. government came to monitor the communications of millions of Americans and to collect billions of records on ordinary people around the world..

Watch it for free on WNET 13
or
Watch it gratis on PBS site

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Rand Paul, Warning About Spying, Faults Obama

By JEREMY W. PETERS 
MARCH 19, 2014



Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, spoke about domestic spying Wednesday at the University of California, Berkeley. Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times


BERKELEY, Calif. — Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said Wednesday that President Obama should be particularly wary of domestic spying, given the government’s history of eavesdropping on civil rights leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., injecting the issue of race into the contentious debate over surveillance.

“I find it ironic that the first African-American president has without compunction allowed this vast exercise of raw power by the N.S.A.,” Mr. Paul said in an address at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Certainly J. Edgar Hoover’s illegal spying on Martin Luther King and others in the civil rights movement should give us all pause,” he said. “Now if President Obama were here, he would say he’s not J. Edgar Hoover, which is certainly true. But power must be restrained because no one knows who will next hold that power.”

Related Coverage


video
Video: Rand Paul Making HeadlinesJAN. 25, 2014

Judge Rebukes Justice Dept. for Requesting Overly Broad Email SearchesMARCH 19, 2014

Mr. Paul’s remarks were part of his effort to bring his libertarian brand of conservatism to audiences in less friendly territory. Here at a campus that has been a wellspring of American liberalism, he tried to speak in an informal way, bluntly telling students he was a defender of the rights they hold dear. “I believe what you do on a cellphone is none of their damn business,” Mr. Paul said in one of the lines that drew the most applause.


 

Brendan Pinder, left, president of the Berkeley College Republicans, called Mr. Paul’s campus appearance “a bold choice.” Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times


His stopover here may have seemed like a wrong turn on Mr. Paul’s cross-country speaking tour, hardly the most orthodox place to rally support for a politician who won the presidential straw poll this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of die-hard conservative activists.

But Mr. Paul knew his audience better than it may have appeared. The title of his speech, “The N.S.A. vs. Your Privacy,” was carefully tailored as the latest piece of a grander strategy by the senator to broaden his appeal to people — particularly younger ones — who have largely written the Republican Party off.

He seemed at ease, reclining in a chair on stage as he answered questions from a student moderator. Wearing baggy bluejeans, an oxford shirt with a red tie and cowboy boots, he was more dressed down than some of the Berkeley College Republicans who were there to welcome him.

He joked about Pink Floyd and even compared the Republican Party to bad pizza — that staple of college sustenance.

“Remember Domino’s finally admitted they had bad crust?” he asked, drawing chuckles as he tried to draft an analogy to how Republicans should adapt. “We need a different kind of party,” he said, noting that Republicans “have to either evolve, adapt or die.”

Saying the nation’s intelligence apparatus was “drunk with power,” he said that warrantless domestic surveillance should be a matter of concern to everyone.

“I’m not here to tell you what to be,” Mr. Paul told the crowd of several hundred, most of them students taking a break between classes. “But I am here to tell you, though, that your rights, especially your right to privacy, is under assault.” It was an attentive crowd. There were no disruptions or protesters with hectoring signs. At least one person was wearing a Ron Paul T-shirt. The speech was the latest test of Mr. Paul’s experiment to see whether a conservative Republican with a less rigid adherence to the party line can appeal more broadly.

More than most of those Republicans considering a run for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, Mr. Paul has spent a considerable amount of time courting African-Americans and Hispanics with a message of inclusion and an insistence that his party must drastically change or risk alienating minorities for a generation or more. He has also tested out his free-market economic policies on audiences in traditionally Democratic but economically depressed communities like Detroit. And some Republicans say he is targeting one of the party’s potential growth wings, that of younger, libertarian-leaning voters.

His appearance was another example of his willingness to embrace risk. Few college campuses are as associated with the American left as Berkeley is, and it has often been a caldron of liberal discontent, better known for featuring the anti-Vietnam speeches of Dick Gregory and Dr. Benjamin Spock than for hosting a man elected to the United States Senate on the energy of the Tea Party.

“It’s a bold choice,” Brendan Pinder, a junior who is president of the Berkeley College Republicans, said of Mr. Paul’s decision. “Coming to Berkeley does make a statement.”



The audience members at Rand Paul’s speech were largely enthusiastic when he said they should be wary of domestic spying. Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times


Robert B. Reich, the former labor secretary in the Clinton administration who is now a professor of public policy at Berkeley, was walking around the auditorium before the speech and remarked that Mr. Paul had chosen a safe topic.

“He’s not in the lion’s den. He’s in a playroom of pussycats,” Mr. Reich said. “I’d like to see someone ask him about his position on gay rights and abortion.” But that did not happen. The moderator only selected questions that had been submitted on notecards before the speech. Continue reading the main story
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Smotri 5 hours ago

I don't agree with Rand Paul on most anything, but on this I agree with him 100%. Our consititution is systematically being violated on a...
Mike 5 hours ago

I'd like to see Democrats respond to Senator Paul about the NSA. Yes, his positions on other topics are important and should be explored,...
ondelette 5 hours ago

Is it any wonder that young people will grab a single well-publicized issue and be willing to move to a libertarian view of government --...
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As was clear from a number of Democrats like Mr. Reich who were there, Mr. Paul has become something of a political spectacle, drawing people who want to see what all the fuss is about.

“I’m a big Hillary person,” said Gavin Newsom, the state’s lieutenant governor, gamely laughing off the idea that he was “a Paulite.” Hillary Rodham Clinton is his candidate, he assured a group of students and reporters who had surrounded him. “I’m interested in why this message has resonated, particularly with young people.”

It was at Berkeley that Ronald Reagan vowed to crack down on the university’s vocal and often unruly antiwar activists in the late 1960s. “Clean up the mess at Berkeley” became a campaign pledge during his run for governor of California.

In one infamous episode, Reagan sent in National Guard troops to break up a large protest, leading to an outbreak of violence that left one person dead.

Mr. Paul seemed amused by the incongruity of his appearance here and grinned as he discussed his reasons for accepting the school’s invitation. He said he liked the idea of the challenge. “I see it as a way to attract new people to the party,” he said in an interview before his speech, sponsored by the Berkeley Forum. The point of his visit, he said, was “hopefully showing that the message of a Republican with a libertarian twist may well be acceptable to people, even in Berkeley.”

This was not the first time Mr. Paul had set foot inside potentially hostile territory. Last year he visited Howard University, the historically black institution in Washington, in an attempt to try to show that the Republican Party was not as out of sync with young African-Americans as many of them might think.

But his tone at Howard — where he reminded students that the N.A.A.C.P. had been founded by Republicans and spent a good amount of his remarks on the history of civil rights — struck many in the crowd as somewhat patronizing. Some booed.

The Berkeley audience was enthusiastic, especially when he responded “maybe” to whether his outreach was part of a 2016 strategy. But he stayed away from discussing social issues.

Next up on his speaking calendar could be before another unexpected crowd: the N.A.A.C.P. The group has invited him to discuss his proposal for “economic freedom zones” in poor areas.


A version of this article appears in print on March 20, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Paul, Warning About Spying, Faults Obama. 


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Above the Law: Secret Deals, Political Fixes, and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice

David Burnham
Above the Law: Secret Deals, Political Fixes, and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice
Scribner, 1996
ISBN 0-684-80699-1
444 pages, $27.50 hb.
Reviewed by Gary McGath
This review copyright 1996 by Gary McGath


The Department of Justice wields a great amount of power; and as our government as a whole grows more powerful and abusive of our liberties, it is only to be expected that many of these abuses will be found in its law enforcement apparatus. David Burnham has provided an illuminating account of some of these abuses.

Burnham's political sympathies clearly lie toward the left side of the conventional political spectrum, but he addresses his subject matter with a minimum of bias. For example, in discussing the Senate's investigation of Watergate, he points out that previous Presidents, notably Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, had also made use of the FBI for their own political purposes, obtaining background checks on their opponents and leaking information to influence campaigns.

Some of Burnham's views are disturbing. For instance, he notes that two-thirds of the corporations in a survey violated environmental laws, in the opinion of their own lawyers; but rather than thinking that there might be something wrong with a system of laws which makes the large majority of the affected parties criminals, he appears to take this as evidence that not enough businesses are being prosecuted. But the fact that Burnham provides enough facts to support arguments against his own conclusions does illustrate his thoroughness.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations come under scrutiny. Burnham condemns Jimmy Carter's orders to expel Iranian students en masse and Bill Clinton's exploitation of the Oklahoma City bombing to promote "antiterrorism" legislation which "had very little to do with terrorism," as well as Ronald Reagan's alleged violation of tax laws and Richard Nixon's many manipulations. And he gives credit where due to Republican actions, such as Rep. Henry Hyde's strong opposition to the excesses of civil forfeiture. (Yes, this is the same Hyde who wrote language into the Telecommunications Act outlawing the posting of information about abortion. His name seems eerily appropriate.)

The discussion of the FBI's attempts to increase its surveillance capabilities and reduce the privacy of citizens will be of special interest to most of the online readers of this review. Burnham discusses the efforts to make the key-escrowed Clipper chip the de facto standard for encryption, Louis Freeh's campaign to outlaw strong encryption and obtain a vast expansion of federal wiretapping capability, and the sweeping use of telephone call logs to gain information on anyone who calls or is called by a suspect. The book argues that Freeh has used distorted statistics to make the crime problem look worse than it is; while its does not directly tie this to Freeh's claims that encryption will frustrate legitimate law enforcement efforts, the material in the book provides at least a starting point for casting doubt on the FBI chief's arguments.

In discussing the War on Drugs, Burnham takes a conventional liberal position; he does not dispute the legitimacy of laws criminalizing people's choice to ingest certain substances, but he recognizes that the enforcement of anti-drug laws is ineffective in stopping drug abuse, especially harsh on some ethnic groups, and often detrimental to people's liberties. He notes that intensive anti-drug efforts have often let crimes against people increase by diverting enforcement resources. He also points out the rapidly growing cost to the taxpayer: "For the Justice Department alone, spending for drug-control purposes has grown at an astonishing pace, increasing more than eleven times, from $360 million in 1981 to slightly more than $4 billion in 1994."

The current Attorney General also comes in for criticism; for example, Burnham notes that Janet Reno has spoken in favor of arbitrary sentencing disparities in drug laws and has defended the practice of seizing the assets of people who have not been convicted of any crime. Curiously, there is no mention of the Waco siege, although other examples of stormtrooper justice are cited.

Above the Law is heavy but rewarding reading for those who want to learn more about how the growth of government power has injured our liberties. While I do not agree with all of Burnham's conclusions, I think he has presented a compelling and well-documented case that the government officials who are charged with protecting us from crime are often the ones from whom we are most in need of protection.


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Democracy's Road to Tyranny

 Photos (Courtesy) http://voloth.geo.do/web/ipertesto/pages/fototeca_fascismo.html


MAY 01, 1988 by ERIK KUEHNELT-LEDDIHN

 
Dr. Kuehnelt-Leddihn is a European scholar, linguist, world traveler, and lecturer. 


Plato, in his Republic, tells us that tyranny arises, as a rule, from democracy. Historically, this process has occurred in three quite different ways. Before describing these several patterns of social change, let us state precisely what we mean by “democracy.”

Pondering the question of “Who should rule,” the democrat gives his answer: “the majority of politically equal citizens, either in person or through their representatives.” In other words, equality and majority rule are the two fundamental principles of democracy. A democracy may be either liberal or illiberal.

Genuine liberalism is the answer to an entirely different question: How should government be exercised? The answer it provides is: regardless of who rules, government must be carried out in such a way that each person enjoys the greatest amount of freedom, compatible with the common good. This means that an absolute monarchy could be liberal (but hardly democratic) and a democracy could be totalitarian, illiberal, and tyrannical, with a majority brutally persecuting minorities. (We are, of course, using the term “liberal” in the globally accepted version and not in the American sense, which since the New Deal has been totally perverted.)

How could a democracy, even an initially liberal one, develop into a totalitarian tyranny? As we said in the beginning, there are three avenues of approach, and in each case the evolution would be of an “organic” nature. The tyranny would evolve from the very character of even a liberal democracy because there is, from the beginning on, a worm in the apple: freedom and equality do not mix, they practically exclude each other. Equality doesn’t exist in nature and therefore can be established only by force. He who wants geographic equality has to dynamite mountains and fill up the valleys. To get a hedge of even height one has to apply pruning shears. To achieve equal scholastic levels in a school one would have to pressure certain students into extra hard work while holding back others.

The first road to totalitarian tyranny (though by no means the most frequently used) is the overthrow by force of a liberal democracy through a revolutionary movement, as a rule a party advocating tyranny but unable to win the necessary support in free elections. The stage for such violence is set if the parties represent philosophies so different as to make dialogue and compromise impossible. Clausewitz said that wars are the continuation of diplomacy by other means, and in ideologically divided nations revolutions are truly the continuation of parliamentarism with other means. The result is the absolute rule of one “party” which, having finally achieved complete control, might still call itself a party, referring to its parliamentary past, when it still was merely a part of the diet.

A typical case is the Red October of 1917. The Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party could not win the elections in Alexander Kerenski’s democratic Russian Republic and therefore staged a coup with the help of a defeated, marauding army and navy, and in this way established a firm socialistic tyranny. Many liberal democracies are enfeebled by party strife to such an extent that revolutionary organizations can easily seize power, and sometimes the citizenry, for a time, seems happy that chaos has come to an end. In Italy the Marcia su Roma of the Fascists made them the rulers of the country. Mussolini, a socialist of old, had learned the technique of political conquest from his International Socialist friends and, not surprisingly, Fascist Italy was the second European power, after Laborite Britain (and long before the United States) to recognize the Soviet regime.

The second avenue toward totalitarian tyranny is “free elections.” It can happen that a totalitarian party with great popularity gains such momentum and so many votes that it becomes legally and democratically a country’s master. This happened in Germany in 1932 when no less than 60 per cent of the electorate voted for totalitarian despotism: for every two National Socialists there was one international socialist in the form of a Marxist Communist, and another one in the form of a somewhat less Marxist Social Democrat. Under these circum stances liberal democracy was doomed, since it had no longer a majority in the Reichstag. This development could have been halted only by a military dictatorship (as envisaged by General von Schleicher who was later murdered by the Nazis) or by a restoration of the Hohenzollerns (as planned by Bruning). Yet, within the democratic and constitutional framework, the National Socialists were bound to win.

How did the “Nazis” manage to win in this way? The answer is simple: being a mass movement striving for a parliamentary majority, they singled out unpopular minorities (the smaller, the better) and then rallied popular support against them. The National Socialist Workers’ Party was “a popular movement based on exact science” (Hitler’s words), militating against the hated few: the Jews, the nobility, the rich, the clergy, the modern artists, the “intellectuals,” categories frequently overlapping, and finally against the mentally handicapped and the Gypsies. National Socialism was the “legal revolt” of the common man against the uncommon, of the “people” (Volk) against privileged and therefore envied and hated groups. Remember that Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler called their rule “democratic”—demokratiya po novomu, democrazia organizzata, deutsche Demokratie—but theynever dared to call it “liberal” in the worldwide (non-American) sense.

Carl Schmitt, in his 93rd year, analyzed this evolution in a famous essay entitled “The Legal World Revolution”: this sort of revolu-tion-the German Revolution of 1933-simply comes about through the ballot and can happen in any country where a party pledged to totalitarian rule gains a relative or absolute majority and thus takes over the government “democratically.” Plato gave an account of such a procedure which fits, with the fidelity of a Xerox copy, the constitutional transition in Germany: there is the “popular leader” who takes to heart the interest of the “simple people,” of the “ordinary, decent fellow” against the crafty rich. He is widely acclaimed by the many and builds up a body guard only to protect himself and, of course, the interests of the “people.”



In the Name of the People

Think of Hitler’s SA and SS and also of the tendency to apply wherever possible the prefix Volk (people): Volkswagen (people’s car), Volksempfänger (people’s radio set), des ge-sunde Volksempfinden (the healthy sentiments of the people), Volksgericht (people’s law court). Needless to say that this verbal policy continues in the “German Democratic Republic” where we see a “People’s Police,” a “People’s Army,” while Moscow’s satellite states are called “People’s Democracies.”

All this implies that in earlier times only the elites had a chance to govern and that now, at long last, the common man is the master of his destiny able to enjoy the good things in life! It matters little that the realities are quite different. A very high-ranking Soviet official recently said to a European prince: “Your ancestors exploited the people, claiming that they ruled by the Grace of God, but we are doing much better, we exploit the people in the name of the people.”

Then there is the third way in which a democracy changes into a totalitarian tyranny. The first political analyst who foresaw this hitherto-never-experienced kind of evolution was Alexis de Tocqueville. He drew an exact and frightening picture of our Provider State (wrongly called Welfare State) in the second volume of his Democracy in America, published in 1835; he spoke at length about a form of tyranny which he could only describe, but not name, because it had no historic precedent. Admittedly, it took several generations until Tocqueville’s vision became a reality.

He envisaged a democratic government in which nearly all human affairs would be regulated by a mild, “compassionate” but determined government under which the citizens would practice their pursuit of happiness as “timid animals,” losing all initiative and freedom. The Roman Emperors, he said, could direct their wrath against individuals, but control of all forms of life was out of the question under their rule. We have to add that in Tocqueville’s time the technology for such a surveillance and regulation was insufficiently developed. The computer had not been invented and thus his warnings found little echo in the past century.

Tocqueville, a genuine liberal and legitimist, had gone to America not only because he was concerned with trends in the United States, but also on account of the electoral victory of Andrew Jackson, the first Democrat in the White House and the man who introduced the highly democratic Spoils System, a genuine invitation to corruption. The Founding Fathers, as Charles Beard has pointed out, hated democracy more than Original Sin. But now a French ideology, only too familiar to Tocqueville, had started to conquer America.

This portentous development lured the French aristocrat to the New World where he wanted to observe the global advance of “democratism,” in his opinion and to his dismay bound to penetrate everywhere and to end in either anarchy or the New Tyranny—which he referred to as “democratic despotism.” The road to anarchy is more apt to be taken by South Europeans and South Americans (and it usually terminates in military dictatorships in order to prevent total dissolution), whereas the northern nations, while keeping all democratic appearances, tend to founder in totalitarian welfare bureaucracy. The lack of a common political philosophy is more conducive to the development of outright revolutions in the South where civil wars tend to be “the continuation of parliamentarism with other (and more violent) means,” while the North is rather given to evolutionary processes, to a creeping increase of slavery and a decrease of personal freedom and initiative. This process can be much more paralyzing than a mere personal dictatorship, military or otherwise, without an ideological and totalitarian character. The Franco and Salazar regimes and certain Latin American authoritarian governments, all mellowing with the years, are good examples.



Slouching Toward Servitude

Tocqueville did not tell us just how the gradual change toward totalitarian servitude can come about. But 150 years ago he could not exactly foresee that the parliamentary scene would produce two main types of parties: the Santa Claus parties, predominantly on the Left, and the Tighten-Your-Belt parties, more or less on the Right. The Santa Claus parties, with presents for the many, normally take from some people to give to others: they operate with largesses, to use the term of John Adams. Socialism, whether national or international, will act in the name of “distributive justice,” as well as “social justice” and “progress,” and thus gain popularity. You don’t, after all, shoot Santa Claus. As a result, these parties normally win elections, and politicians who use their slogans are effective vote-getters.

The Tighten-Your-Belt parties, if they unexpectedly gain power, generally act more wisely, but they rarely have the courage to undo the policies of the Santa parties. The voting masses, who frequently favor the Santa parties, would retract their support if the Tighten-Your-Belt parties were to act radically and consistently. Profligates are usually more popular than misers. In fact, the Santa Claus parties are rarely utterly defeated, but they sometimes defeat themselves by featuring hopeless candidates or causing political turmoil or economic disaster.

A politicized Saint Nicholas is a grim taskmaster. Gifts cannot be distributed without bureaucratic regulation, registration, and regimentation of the entire country. Countless strings are attached to the gifts received from “above.” The State interferes in all domains of human existence—education, health, transportation, communication, entertainment, food, commerce, industry, farming, building, employment, inheritance, social life, birth, and death.

There are two aspects to this large-scale interference: statism and egalitarianism, yet they are intrinsically connected since to regiment society perfectly, you must reduce people to an identical level. Thus, a “classless society” becomes the real aim, and every kind of discrimination must come to an end. But, discrimination is intrinsic to a free life, because freedom of will and choice is a characteristic of man and his personality. If I marry Bess instead of Jean, I obviously discriminate against Jean; if I employ Dr. Nishiyama as a teacher of Japanese instead of Dr. O’Hanrahan, I discriminate against the latter, and so forth. (One should not be surprised if an opera house that rejects a 4-foot tall Bambuti singer for the role of Siegfried in Wagner’s “Ring” is accused of racism!)

There is, in fact, only either just or unjust discrimination. Yet, egalitarian democracy remains adamant in its totalitarian policy. The popular pastime of modern democracies of punishing the diligent and thrifty, while re warding the lazy, improvident, and unthrifty, is cultivated via the State, fulfilling a demo-egali-tarian program based on a demo-totalitarian ideology.

Democratic tyranny, evolving on the sly as a slow and subtle corruption leading to total State control, is thus the third and by no means rarest road to the most modern form of slavery.


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Quotes About Tyranny

Quotes tagged as "tyranny" (showing 1-30 of 126)



“When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.”
― Thomas Jefferson




“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress





“If tyranny and oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
― James Madison




“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
― Thomas Jefferson



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