Sept 18
To Joe Carter and his blogpost that cites an article on how to read The Constitution. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Having read the cited article, it seems that there is a missing part to how to understand The Constitution. Paulsen, the author of the article cited, talks about understanding the purpose and history of the writing of The Constitution. But while mentioning the historical context of the 14th Amendment as an example, he neglects to mention the historical context and reasons for writing The Constitution. The reasons for writing The Constitution was the need to respond to the widespread dissent over the then economic times and Shays Rebellion. That putting down the rebellion required the funding of a private militia. Thus, one of the major concerns that were addressed in The Constitution was the need for a federal force that could put down future insurrections. One only needs to look up all references to the Militia made in The Constitution, including the Bill of Rights to check the validity of that claim.
Some more context can be garnered by reading Henry Knox's letter to George Washington (see https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-05-02-0095 ) and the Constitutional debates (see http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/yates.asp ). Knox's letter shows the concern caused by the times and Shays Rebellion and the Constitutional debates recorded the conversations of the drafters that went into the writing of The Constitution.
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To Joseph Mussomelli and his blogpost that proclaims how we Americans should still claim American Exceptionalism provided that we follow his revisions. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
There is a huge problem with what is being proposed in the above article. That problem consists of the conjunction between the lessons of WW II and the idea that America is morally superior to others. The combination makes the George Washington form of American Exceptionalism untenable. That is because the belief in our moral superiority along with the perception of threats abroad, compel us to act independent of the cooperation of the UN. In addition, belief in American Exceptionalism itself disconnects us from the atrocities we have committed within our own nation.
American Exceptionalism blinds us to the decadence that justified carrying out Manifest Destiny and promoting white supremacy either in the form of slavery or Jim Crow. How did our ethnic cleansing of Native Americans not affect our notion of our own moral status in the world? We can talk about it only if we are allowed to converse with no sense of horror or shame. To converse with others in that way, we must at some point excuse the gross racism that permitted us to steal, or force Native Americans from, the land. That is often done by minimizing the humanity of Native Americans. So that the only atrocities we should be ashamed of are those committed in other lands. In other words, people of other ethnicities are recognized to be more human than the indigenous people of this continent.
And how should we feel about slavery and the subsequent Jim Crow? Should we not again hide our faces in guilt and shame or can we remain unaffected by the atrocities brought on by both because the Civil War was fought to free the slaves and the Civil Rights movement removed Jim Crow laws? And since our worse immoral crimes are in the past, isn't Mussomelli proposing that there is no sense in beating ourselves up over past. Is that what we would advise the Germans to do with their history of Nazism and all that followed that?
Either form of American Exceptionalism emotionally disconnects us from our past. That disconnect is most apparent in the Wilson intervention type of American Exceptionalism. But all of the necessary ingredients for carrying out the ugliest form of Exceptionalism are an integral part of the recommended, George Washington isolationist type of American Exceptionalism or Mussomelli's revised version of Exceptionalism still lead us to the ugliest form of Exceptionalism. That should be clear by how Mussomelli whitewashes some of our past such as our interventions in Cuba and the Philippines from decades ago.
Finally, why insist on being Exceptional in the first place? Is it because of our religious history that Mussomelli wants us to feel compelled to claim superiority over all others? Or is that insistence on being exceptional is because of a belief in racial superiority of Europeans and Western Civilization? Why insist on being exceptional when our religious heritage contains the parable of the two men praying where the person who claimed to be exceptional was rejected by God? Perhaps the reason why Mussomelli insists on America claiming to be exceptional is because it is the only remaining argument that can be used to prevent America from changing the way it has been.
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To Emily Kleinen and her blogpost on how we try to distract ourselves from the finality of death, the eternal, and God by our earthy pursuits. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
The article well describes a hospice way of living. That is that we seek to be comfortable until the end comes The hospice way of living is a living for oneself and it certain denies the eternal and God.
However, Reformed theologian Francis Schaeffer, a while back ago, warned us that this hospice way of living, which he described as making a god out of the pursuit of personal peace and prosperity, also afflicts Christians who also have their eyes on the eternal and on God.
The point being that this hospice way of living is not just motivated out of a desire to distract ourselves from death, the eternal, and God, it can also be motivated out of a pure addiction to the material world. In that case godliness becomes a search for being selfishly righteous. That is we live for ourselves as long as we avoid breaking certain taboos.
Regardless of the motivation, what is lost is what the Old Testament talked about such as in Psalms 103 where the Psalmist mentions many of the benefits God grants us and what the New Testament saw the fulfillment of. And perhaps the reason for people losing track of what the Scriptures say is because of our weaknesses in the face of such strong temptations.
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