Here in America, much emphasis is placed on our inherent rights as human beings. The idea of individuals having natural, God-given rights is ingrained into the souls of the citizens of our country.
Jefferson may have said what Americans believe best, as he was wont to do, when he wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “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.”
For a country that specifically denies the establishment of religion, this belief in the absolute rights of Americans has become the state religion that the First Amendment explicitly rejects. In this political religion, several roles from the Judeo-Christian heritage are reprised by American leaders and ideals: Father Abraham is George Washington, the father of our country; Moses, the lawgiver, is James Madison, the father of the Constitution; Jesus, the savior of the world, is, of course, Barack Obama.
The Ten Commandments are replaced by the Bill of Rights. The greatest commandment, love the Lord God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, is now freedom of speech, religion and the press. “Thou shalt not” is now “Congress shall make no law.”
With this has come a complete separation from reality””in the real world, the practical has been replaced by the philosophical.
Modern-day constitutionalists have taken this religion further than any of America’s founders envisioned it going. It seems that when the first Congress penned what would become the first ten amendments to the Constitution, they were filled with caveats, exceptions and “yes, buts.”
For example, the Founding Fathers did not think that the establishment clause prevented states from having established religions””a few states had official churches until well into the 1800s.
The constitutional protections for freedom of speech and of the press did not prevent the government from punishing what they saw as subversive and seditious speech””the Alien and Sedition Acts passed in 1798 were passed by many of the same people who helped write the Constitution, and was signed by John Adams, one of the most important Americans of the time.
The point is, while the men who wrote the Constitution revered it as much as the rest of us do, perhaps more, they understood that rights are not unlimited. There are rational ends to our rights. The men who enshrined free speech into the Constitution could have hardly envisioned hardcore pornography to be a stridently protected constitutional right.
Americans should stop worrying so much about their constitutional rights and begin worrying about what is right.
An oft-repeated claim is that “you can’t legislate morality.” Well, why not? What else are laws against child pornography, prostitution, polygamy, gambling, indecent exposure and the like? These acts offend the moral sensibilities of the people. That is why they are illegal.
If the moral argument works for these things, why does it not for others?
The time for another Great Awakening is upon us. If the morality of this nation is going to change, it must do so from the ground up. For we elect our leaders; if our elected officials are corrupt and immoral, the people that elected them are corrupt and immoral.
Instead of placing such an emphasis on the rights of human beings, let’s focus on the human beings themselves.
Hank Fox • Dec 2, 2010 at 7:37 am
Your beginning here is an extremely strained metaphor. I would have liked this piece a lot more if you’d avoided attempting to make some one-to-one connection between religion and government, because it just doesn’t work. The Ten Commandments and Bill of Rights link is way overwrought, and the Barack Obama crack was just totally out in left field. I’m sure it was fun exploring the possible connections, but this piece would have been dramatically stronger if you’d left that stuff out and focused more on your main point. That main point is left unclear, badly examined, because you wasted so much verbiage on this distraction.
This piece was actually a pleasure to read, compared to a previous post, “Why atheism fails,” (Sept. 17, 2010) ”“ which was such a turbid mess and so woefully lacking in thoughtful analysis it seemed like something written on the school bus to be handed in at an 8 a.m. class.
But then again, props for how you use the language, and for the guts to put yourself out there. Other than a few jarring little cliches and the gooey solemnity of “The time for another Great Awakening is upon us,” the writing in this piece is actually pretty good.
Here’s one thing that really poked me in the eye: “The greatest commandment, love the Lord God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself …” Oh, seriously? This is soooo out of place it practically commands the reader to see you as having a hidden agenda.
And “Americans should stop worrying so much about their constitutional rights and begin worrying about what is right.” What, really, do you mean by this? An example, some sort of little metaphor, might have helped.
BTW, I wonder if the original intent of the phrase “You can’t legislate morality” was more along the lines of “prohibition doesn’t work” rather than something like “You can’t make laws regarding ethical issues,” as you seem to argue here.
I hope what I’m seeing is an embryonic talent visibly developing the ability to think by creatively exploring idea-options in writing — without worrying overmuch about analysis. But from these two samples of writing, what I FEAR is that I’m seeing is a fledgling conservative learning how to lie with buzzwords, hot-buttons, and the kind of vacuous pomposity — “the moral sensibilities of the people” (!) — that plays out well before a slack-jawed audience.
Speaking of which, I think you are completely wrong here: “What else are laws against child pornography, prostitution, polygamy, gambling, indecent exposure and the like? These acts offend the moral sensibilities of the people. That is why they are illegal.”
These acts are illegal (mainly) for good reasons, and not because of “moral sensibilities.” Moral sensibilities arise out of those underlying reasons, just as the law does.
In my view, the purpose of this kind of persuasive writing is not just to see one’s glorious words in print, but to make reasonable arguments that help people understand things better, or act in some way that improves the world both writer and readers live in.
What that means is that you can’t just make cool-sounding bull crap up. It also means that if you make cool-sounding bull crap up and you’re PROUD of it, you’ve pretty much frozen yourself out of any depth of spirit in later life. You’ll be one of those people who bloomed early and then never changed, rather than one who lived with an uncomfortable amount of uncertainty in early life, but who because of it kept asking, searching, learning and growing for decades longer.