This is the third installment of a three-part series on American Religious Freedom. Click here for Part I, and here for Part II.

In last week’s post, I argued that the most pressing threat to our religious liberty was the movement for institutionalized secularism in America. If allowed to continue unchecked, the removal of religion from public affairs (governmental and non-governmental alike) will erode the morality of our culture and open the door for government to impinge on our individual liberties in general. This week, I argue that the looming future threat to our religious liberties is political correctness, which, reacting to the recent large-scale movement of Islam to the West, has the potential to sell out Americans’ most fundamental freedoms for the sake of a cosmopolitan, multicultural society devoid of absolute cultural standards and unalienable rights.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the "Father of the Turks"

In traditionally secular Turkey, an Islamist government has asserted its dominance and has undone many reforms put in place by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the great Turkish reformer and modernizer. Now, five prominent Catholic priests have been killed in Turkey in the past four years in spite of the fact that Christians make up only 0.2 percent of the Turkish population. What was until recently a relatively westernized, free, and peacefully multi-religious country has regressed into one of violently enforced institutionalized Islam.

Closer to home in Great Britain, there are now two million practicing Muslims, about as many as there are practicing Christians. “Mohammad” is the most popular name among all baby boys born in London (see the Daily Telegraph story here). The statistics are real, and the demographic shift over the past few decades is unprecedented and destabilizing. This is not intended to be a fear-mongering statement, nor is it a rallying cry against Islamic immigration. It is simply a statement of fact. Britain, Spain, France, and even Canada now face floods of Muslim immigrants, and they have shown themselves to be unprepared to deal with the cultural ramifications.

So how does this pertain to us in the United States?

In his fascinating book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, Mark Steyn argues that Europe’s present is America’s future. Even now, he writes, we face the challenge of large-scale Muslim immigration, and we must be prepared to respond to it to preserve our liberty, our unique culture, and our rights. Western European countries have shown us what happens when a country does not adhere to fundamental values and allows itself to be transformed by the culture of its immigrants. The result has been violence, terrorism, and ethnic self-segregation, as well as growing movements of racism and xenophobia among the native populations.

The fundamental question here is this: is it possible to maintain our fundamental liberties while allowing the free exercise of faiths different from that of our Founders and the majority of Americans? My answer is a wholehearted yes, and here’s how we do it.

As with just about any question regarding American liberty, the answer lies in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and their protections for the freedom of individuals. The First Amendment, which I have mentioned in each installment of this blog, provides for the free exercise of religion as any individual sees fit. According to this concept, Muslims should be allowed to practice their faith in America, plain and simple.

For example, there is a fight going on in New York City right now to determine if the use of a building as a mosque should be permitted adjacent to the former site of the Twin Towers. If the building is declared a historical landmark, its use as a mosque will not be allowed. Thus, many New Yorkers are lobbying to have the site declared historical precisely to avoid the existence of a mosque so close to the site of a disaster created by Islamic terrorism. Now, if the site is not made a landmark, there is, constitutionally speaking, nothing to prevent the owners of the Park51 building from converting it into a mosque, and they have every right to use it as they please. Personally, I hope that the site is declared historical because it was hit by debris from the falling towers in 2001. However, if it is allowed to become a place of Muslim worship, I am willing to respect the First Amendment and the free worship of those Muslims who choose to go there. Any government effort to disallow the building’s use as a mosque on the grounds of it being an inappropriate location for Muslims to meet would violate the First Amendment right to free religion, speech, and assembly.

On the other hand, we should not sell our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the price of multicultural acceptance. Europe and Canada have spent the past decades embarking on multicultural, multiethnic crusades of tolerance and political correctness, and radical Islam has festered inside their borders. In Canada, honor killings (the murder of girls by their fathers or husbands as punishment for sexual immorality) could potentially be prosecuted lightly because Muslim immigrants have different “cultural practices.” In Ontario, the government permits polygamy de facto by sending (assumedly Muslim) men monthly welfare checks for each of their wives. In France, a national law to ban the veiling of women is about to be approved as a measure to protect the individual liberties of women who are forcibly veiled.

Noor Almaleki, honor killing victim, murdered by her own father in October 2009.

In the American tradition, the free exercise of religion ends when the individual freedoms of others are invaded. Honor killings violate women’s fundamental right to life, plain and simple. As honor killings begin moving south of the border, young women must be protected from a tradition of murder by their own family members, and it is the government’s responsibility to do so. As for the French banning the veil, such a law would not be constitutional in the United States because women should be allowed to wear a veil if they choose to. However, if they are forced to wear a veil by a husband or family member, their right to free expression is violated, and the state should protect this right as well.

All of this is to say that the allowance of free religious expression protects Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike (along with all other faiths) only insofar as they respect the fundamental rights of others. The moment that a Muslim husband forces his wife to wear a veil, beheads his daughter for dressing immodestly, or advocates treasonous acts of terrorism on religious grounds, his First Amendment protection ends. But until he reaches such a point, the practice of his faith should not be impeded by any governmental or civilian authority. If he is not doing harm to anyone else, Americans should heed the words of John Locke in dealing with someone in a religious minority: “Let those men consider how heinously they sin, who, adding injustice, if not to their error, yet certainly to their pride, do rashly and arrogantly take upon them to misuse the servants of another master [god], who are not at all accountable to them.” When all is said and done, we are all accountable to God for our faith, or lack thereof. If a man does no harm to his neighbor in the practice of his faith, then his religion is of no concern to anyone else.

The challenge of Islam is often presented to us as a confrontation between “Islam and Christianity,” or “Islam vs. the West.” Though the distinction may seem a bit nuanced, it is more appropriate to see the clash as “Islamic tradition vs. the American tradition of God-given rights.” As Americans, we are blessed with a government whose sworn purpose is the preservation of our inviolable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Freedom of religion, as I have written here before, is essential to the prosperity and liberty of our society. However, it is imperative that we retain the delicate balance between allowing the free exercise of religion and allowing the practices of that religion to violate the God-given rights of individuals. As patriots and adherents to the values embodied in our Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights, I hope that we can all look first to these documents for our policy on the freedom of religion.

I will conclude this post with a brief word of caution. The fear aroused by Muslim immigration has given rise to frighteningly powerful movements of racism and nativism in Europe, such as the Front National in France or the British National Party in England. Such movements represent a violent backlash from native populations who have abandoned their respect for the humanity and fundamental rights of immigrants, and they are a prime example of how not to face such a challenge here in America.

For further reading, I recommend John Locke’s “Letter Concerning Toleration,” Mark Steyn’s America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, and Alexis deTocqueville’s Democracy in America.

This concludes the three parts of this blog, but I will post a short wrap-up segment next week to truly conclude this series on American religious freedom. I hope you have enjoyed it, and I hope you have learned as much as I have and will continue the dialogue in the future. I believe it is only fitting to end such a series by simply saying, “God Bless America.”

Lately, I have been reading John Locke’s “A Letter Concerning Toleration.” In it, he makes the case for religious freedom in a free society, specifically targeted at the interdenominational fighting happening amongst Christians in England during his lifetime. Now, Locke’s commitment to freedom of religion, like his adherence to the pursuit of liberty in general, is palpable as one reads this document. However, in the course of his exposition of philosophical truths validating religious freedom and tolerance, he intersperses a few crucial truths about the duty of government in general.

I was set on an entirely new train of thought after reading the following statement, and I expect that you probably will be as well. Locke writes, “The public good is the rule and measure of all lawmaking. If a thing be not useful to the commonwealth, though it be ever so indifferent, it may not presently be established by law.”

Now, it is important to know that whenever Locke uses the terminology of “may” or “may not” in any of his works, he is usually speaking in the realm of natural rights, or rights that are given by God and may not be usurped. Knowing this, we can interpret this statement to mean that when the government passes laws that are not “useful to the commonwealth,” it violates the natural, God-given rights of its citizens. Moreover, knowing that our Declaration of Independence states that our government was established to preserve our rights, thus doing the will of God, it violates His will when it takes action that is not “useful.”

How many times have we seen this government pass laws that are not useful to us? How many taxes have been levied or raised, causing us hardship? How many regulations have been passed, within or outside of legislative action, that have done harm to the ease of our lives or the welfare of our businesses? In the past year, five years, decade, century?

We tend to blame our politicians for making our lives harder, making bad decisions, and jeopardizing our security, and rightly so. However, I implore you to remember that we have been given rights by God to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and what is given to us by our Creator, no earthly power can take away. If a law does not benefit the American people, if it is not “useful to the commonwealth,” then our government has not only failed its mission, but it has betrayed the very people it exists to protect.

This is all you need to hear. You know it to be true, and you know that this upcoming election is a referendum on politics-as-usual, the kind that has passed harmful, useless laws that degrade our commonwealth and our well-being. And it is the knowledge that there is an element of the Divine in our efforts that should spur us on even further – the knowledge that by giving of our time and talent to make a difference this November, we are preserving our God-given right to liberty and a government that is useful to us, not harmful.

I’m working on the final installment of my religious freedom series, but I just couldn’t pass this one up. Special thanks to the RVA Patriots (@RVAPatriots on Twitter) from my hometown of Richmond, Virginia for posting this story.

The National Institute of Health, in a surpassingly frivolous and mind bendingly irresponsible foray into the realm of the meaningless, gave a $181,000 grant to a scientist at the University of Kentucky studying the effect of cocaine on the sex drive of Japanese quail. This, according to CNSNews.com.

Now, I could understand this grant if the species of quail were American. But really? Exporting our tax dollars to determine how much more frisky a Japanese quail becomes after hitting the white stuff? Honestly.

The NIH justifies the study because drugs play a role in a sizable proportion of sexual encounters where HIV/AIDS is transmitted among humans. But given the difference in cultural customs between the Japanese and Americans, I have to question the prudence of testing on foreign animals. After all, courtship and marriage customs are noticeably different between the U.S. and Japan, so I cannot help but expect the results to be skewed.

Finally, after some basic math, I have determined that each taxpaying American (60 percent of the general population) will pay an average of one tenth of a cent for this study. That number is tiny, and it is inconsequential in the big scheme. What is important here is the absurdity of the expenditure.

Now, rather than continue ranting, I am pleased to open the floor for some good, old-fashioned, First Amendment-sanctioned free expression. What are some other expenditures that rival or top this one in ridiculousness? Can you possibly justify to me why I should care about the, um, “energy level” of Japanese quail after a little bit of cocaine? Something tells me that there are more cost-effective and worthwhile ways to study the transmission of HIV/AIDS.

That “something” is called common sense. Apparently our National Institute of Health misplaced theirs, along with their fiscal responsibility.

This is the second installment of a three part series on the tradition of American religious freedom. For Part I: The Past, click here.

Today’s blog is posted under a bit of a misnomer, as it will be more about the recent past than the actual present. In addition, it will be less of a historical narrative and more of an exposition of certain truths essential to understanding the source and application of American religious freedom, with a few historical examples to reinforce the central argument. As I proceed through these points, I will argue not only that religious freedom must be preserved, but that institutionalized secularism is a force that counteracts the advancement of religious liberty, and liberty in general. I ask you to bear with me as I try to cram a plethora of ideas into a post of a manageable length.

First, it is essential to understand, as I wrote in the previous installment of this blog, that an understanding of the Founding Fathers’ belief in a Creator as the source of our natural rights is essential to grasping the true meaning of liberty as they conceived it. I stress this because when we do not believe in God-given natural rights that cannot be taken away by any power on Earth, we diminish the dignity of our humanity. If I do not look to God for my rights, but to man, then my liberty is subject to the whims of a fundamentally corrupt being, and my value as an individual is likely to be neglected. The Founders believed that our Creator knows and values each one of us, and this is why we are all individually endowed with certain unalienable rights that are as much a part of us as our very humanity. The role of government is not to bestow these rights, but to preserve them.

Opposite this perspective stands the doctrine (and I use that word deliberately) of institutionalized secularism, which seeks to remove all religious influence from public life, mostly through the power of the courts. This practice is based on a flawed perception of religion’s role in American history, and its result is the minimization of human dignity, the degradation of fundamental societal values, and ultimately the lessening of liberty.

For a powerful historical example, I turn to the mid-19^th century. Belief in the dignity of the human individual was the driving force for the majority of the abolitionist movement according to Dr. Wayne Grudem, a leading reformed theologian at Phoenix Seminary (listen to his lecture series on faith and politics here). According to Dr. Grudem, two thirds of abolitionists in the United States were Christian clergymen (this statistic from Alvin Schmidt’s How Christianity Changed the World). My point here is not that Christianity is the only force for good in America, nor do I believe that to be true. Rather, my point is that it was the belief in the dignity of the individual, fostered by the belief in natural rights imparted to every man by his Creator, that spurred on a movement, ended slavery, and changed America forever.

John Locke

As a quick aside, to those who would point out that many slaveholders were Christians and that southerners often justified slavery on Biblical grounds, my response will be pithy. I do not believe I need to say much more than John Locke when he writes, “If [a man] be destitute of charity, meekness, and goodwill in general towards all mankind, even to those that are not Christians, he is certainly yet short of being a true Christian himself.” Now, there is no way for us to know the heart of anyone but ourselves. However, I find it hard to believe that any person who considered it proper and permissible to own chattel slaves could possibly have had a deep belief in the fundamental value of the individual, nor could he have truly understood that Christ came “that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

That being said, there is a movement afoot in America today that seeks to construct a “wall of separation” between church and state, removing any religious influence of any kind from the affairs of government. The argument for this position goes something like this: The influence of religion on government affairs will intrude on the free exercise of those who do not hold those particular religious convictions, and thus it cannot be allowed. The “wall of separation” implicitly argues that government will function just as well, in fact better, if religion is uninvolved in public life.

President George Washington

Now, this position is foolish in its belief that government can function without an absolute moral code. As George Washington said in his farewell address, “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” Moreover, to consistently assert that government would be better off without the influence of religion, one would have to argue, for example, that slavery would have been abolished without any religious influence on government. I leave it to you to decide what would have motivated an adequate number of Americans to agitate for the dignity and humanity of black slaves, if not the adherence to an absolute moral code handed down by a divine Creator.

In addition, one would have to remove the faith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a pastor, from the Civil Rights Movement. Without the influence of Dr. King and the involvement of churches, would the Civil Rights Movement have succeeded as it did in reinforcing the value of the American individual regardless of race? The preamble to the Constitution asserts that our government exists to “promote the general welfare.” It is an undeniable historical fact that in the most momentous occasions where the general welfare has been promoted by the U.S. government, the influence of religion, or at least a moral code derived therefrom, has been indispensable.

By far the most glaring recent example of judicial activism supplanting the influence of religion on public affairs was the 1996 Colorado case Romer v. Evans, in which the Colorado Supreme Court struck down a constitutional amendment after it was passed in a popular election by the people of Colorado. The amendment essentially refused to recognize homosexuals as a protected class. The court justified its decision to strike down the amendment by saying that the law was passed with too much religious influence. According to the court’s opinion, the consideration of one’s religious principles while voting in an election “lacks a rational relationship to legitimate state interests” (wade through the original text of the Colorado decision here). Dr. Grudem calls this justification “foolishness,” and he makes a compelling argument for the freedom of people to consider whatever they want while voting. “The nature of a free society requires that people should be able to base their political convictions on whatever reasoning process or whatever authority they prefer.”

The Romer decision, along with any other government action intended to discount the legitimacy of a person’s religious convictions in their decision making, amounts to nothing less than an infringement on citizens’ right to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Historically speaking, religious freedom has been fundamental to the retention and advancement of American liberty in general. Because religion is allowed, in private and in public, to flourish without interference by the government, American morals are what they are, and individuals are valued as they deserve to be. It is because of the influence of religion on American history and philosophy that people of all races may vote without preconditions. Because of the general belief in the transcendent value of the individual, American women may vote, work, drive, and enjoy all other freedoms imparted to them as Americans. In addition, they can live without fearing the humiliation of polygamous marriages, oppressive dress codes, or cruel punishments as women do elsewhere in the world. I believe that our first president said it best: “Of all the dispositions which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable results.”

It is for this reason that institutionalized secularism is the single largest threat to American religious freedom today. We may not think much of a court decision here or there, but the ripple effect of degraded religious freedom will have enormous repercussions for our liberty as a whole, the state of our culture, and our well being as a nation.

In the third and final segment of this blog, I will address the issue of religious freedom as it applies to the mounting obstacles of globalization and radical Islam. For those who wish to read a more religiously universal assessment, rather than the Judeo-Christian focus of these first two parts, the upcoming installment will be of particular interest.

For further reading on the topics mentioned in this post, see John Locke’s “Letter Concerning Toleration,” the chapter “On Faith and the Founding” in Mark R. Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny, Alvin Schmidt’s How Christianity Changed the World, and Dr. Wayne Grudem’s lecture series on faith and politics.

This post is the first installment of a three-part series on the American tradition of religious freedom.

There are about as many opinions on religious freedom in America as there are Americans, and this blog certainly won’t please everyone. However, because faith is of such importance to so many Americans, why should it be taboo?

This post was largely inspired by two recent discoveries regarding the nature of religion in American politics and culture. The first of these is a lecture series on faith and American politics by Dr. Wayne Grudem, a seminary professor at Phoenix Seminary and one of the premier reformed theologians of today’s evangelical movement. These lectures, though I have only listened to a handful of them so far, have already brought much more depth and perspective to my thoughts and opinions on the tradition of religion in American public life, and I highly recommend them.

The second inspiration was a pithy quip by a tour guide at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, which I was privileged to visit this week. Our guide left no ambiguity in explaining that our third president was not a devout Christian, citing an 1820 letter to William Short in which Jefferson laments that the biblical accounts of Christ’s life are full of “so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible” that one person truly professed everything Jesus taught.

Thomas Jefferson, the "Sage of Monticello"

These words were written by the same man that had penned the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the very document that Americans look to for protection of the separation between church and state, as well as the freedom to individually and privately practice any religion. It is an interesting and ironic conundrum that the document cited by so many Christians in defense of their right to freely worship was written by a man who once wrote, “I can never join [John] Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.” It goes without saying that Jefferson was a man of contradictions. From his ownership of slaves to his opinions on religion, the “sage of Monticello” was indisputably brilliant, but certainly an enigma to his enthusiasts then and now.

With such uncertainty imputed to us by the very author of institutionalized American religious freedom, the question before us in this installment is: what role has religion played in the American culture, public life, and political tradition?

First, the concept of God-given natural rights is an essential component of our Declaration of Independence. In the first two sentences of the Declaration, the Founders (Jefferson being the principal author) make two references to God. First, the Declaration asserts that the United States have a right to be a free and independent country according to “the laws of nature and nature’s God.” Second, it argues, in those famous words we all know and love, “that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Declaration begins by laying out two key assumptions. First, governments exist according to laws laid out by God. Here we encounter a commonly debated question, that of the origin of natural law. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, the existence of “moral [or natural] law suggests the existence of a moral [or natural] lawgiver.” All of our Founding Fathers probably would have agreed with this statement, though some (notably Jefferson and Franklin) would not have concluded that this “natural lawgiver” was the Christian God. The second assumption is this: We the People have certain rights that cannot be taken away by any government because they were given to us by God. Without the influence of faith, where would our rights come from? Would they be granted to us by men, and thus subject to the whims of whatever human authority was in power at any given moment? What a chaotic, unstable society that would be! It is exactly because our political tradition is entrenched in a belief in God-given, irrevocable natural rights that we can live without fear of tyranny from our own government.

Moreover, as argued by Dr. Grudem, without the appreciation of faith’s influence on our political culture, our Declaration of Independence would be rendered invalid. The Declaration appeals directly to God for the moral legitimacy of the states’ secession from the British Empire. It asserts that governments have “a separate and equal station” among entities which is given to them by God, and that this “station” is one that requires them to respect and protect the rights of their people. If our government was not established on the premise that God had ordained its status as a protector of freedoms, we would look to humans for a guarantee against tyranny, and such faith always proves to be misplaced.

Briefly, let us examine the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. A pithy document, the Statute opens by establishing the premise that “Almighty God hath created the mind free,” and that free minds should be given liberty to choose the way in which they worship. Thus, the government of Virginia declared in 1786 that it would not make any law impeding or compelling the practice of religion by individuals because freedom of religion was a “natural [read: ‘God-given’] right.” This idea became an American policy three years later in the adoption of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Jonathan Edwards

Finally, I conclude this portion of the blog with a quote from Jonathan Edwards, hailed by many as the greatest theologian ever produced by America (and for my fellow history nerds, the grandfather of Aaron Burr). Edwards, a man who surely considered his citizenship to be in Heaven (Philippians 3:20), nonetheless valued liberty here on Earth as much as any other American. Edwards wrote that “True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will.” That’s some complicated grammar. In other words, Edwards knew that liberty, as guaranteed to us by our Creator, is ultimately most perfectly manifested in our having the freedom to worship as we please (doing “what we ought to will”) and in not being coerced to worship in a certain way (“being constrained to do what we ought not to will”).

Now, this first installment has focused largely on the Judeo-Christian roots of the American political tradition. This is because our Founding Fathers, the initiators of that tradition, were largely Christian. However, the more important point that I am trying to make is that understanding the Founders’ faith in a Creator is essential to understanding the origin and sanctity of our American rights, privileges, and traditions. Our rights as Americans are unalienable not because they are so valued; rather, they are valued because they are unalienable, and unalienable because they are given to us by God. Intertwined with our commonly accepted national philosophy is an element of the divine, and we should be proud to say so.

For those who disagree, I urge you to probe the depths of your reasoning to determine the fundamental origin of your rights. Ultimately, we are all after truth, and I hope you find that above all else. In the end, this is only my personal perspective, influenced by some great thinkers and theologians. I would be very interested to hear what others have to say.

The next installment of this blog will examine some more recent instances in which American freedom of religion has been crucial to the promotion of the “general welfare,” some times when it was used to wrongly justify tyranny, and a few episodes in which it was called into question.

For further reading, I refer you to the American Majority pamphlet “Why America is Great: Volume 1.” There you will find a comprehensive look at the ancient backgrounds of the ideas contained in our political culture. Also, I recommend the chapter “On Faith and the Founding” in Mark R. Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny.

Last week, Clint Didier, former NFL player and current candidate for senate from the state of Washington, caught the eye of a notable political pundit. Keeping his supporters up to date, Didier posted on Twitter, “Just arrived in D.C. I’m in to win!” to which Politico’s Kenneth Vogel commented dismissingly, “Another Tea Party outsider comes to D.C. to kiss insider rings.” I have no idea who Didier was meeting with, and it doesn’t really matter. Vogel’s judgment is understandable, and I will even concede its accuracy, at least based on the appearance of such a rendezvous.

But what should grassroots activists be saying in reaction to Didier’s meeting with the old guard in order to kiss the proper rings, especially when he boasts substantial Tea Party support and a crucial endorsement from Sarah “The Kingmaker” Palin? How should a movement dedicated to replacing jaded fat cats with fresh outsiders react when one of their own schmoozes with the targets, the very Washington elites who have been marked for ejection come November?

The answer: cautious assent. Let the leash out a little bit.

As much as the recently revitalized grassroots would love to see a “pure” campaign, the simple fact of the matter is that American politics is won and lost by whose coattails you are riding, whose hand you’re shaking in that photograph, and whose barbecue you went to last weekend. We all know the cynics who constantly decry the system. “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know,” they say, with a wave of the hand, a roll of the eyes, and a sigh of defeat. “The issues don’t matter. It’s all identity politics. America elects politicians based on who they would rather get a beer with.” The list of complaints goes on and on, and I’m nodding my head with each one, the same as you. Politics is disgusting; it has evolved into an impenetrable system of give-and-take, an arena for men to trade other people’s things for their own gain, a veritable “old boys club” in which your liberty and mine is the currency of deals that should never be made.

But the real question is, when has politics not been exactly that? More than 300 years before Christ, Aristotle penned a treatise called The Politics, in which he wrote that “man is, by nature, a political animal.” A cynical interpreter (which I happen to be) would apply this passage to say that man is, by nature, destined to manipulate political systems to maximize his own power and secure the most possible property and comfort for himself at the expense of someone else. This is, and always has been, the nature of politics.

At its founding, the American political system was unprecedented in its allowance of liberty, its protection of the people from the potential tyranny of their own government, and its basis on a solid moral foundation. Unfortunately, it was built by humans who were imperfect, reprobate, and prone to greed. I think we can all agree that our political history, especially recently, has clearly exemplified the effects of such pervasive fallibility.

So am I saying there is no hope for American politics? Are we doomed to a never-ending cycle of back-door deals, favors for endorsements, coattail riding, and old boy schmoozing? Not necessarily. I am of the opinion, as are many pragmatic Americans including Clint Didier, that the American political system has been tainted beyond recognition, and it will operate at an ethically reprehensible level until humans become perfect (which is to say, until pigs fly).

However, Didier’s move to meet and greet with Washington insiders should be tolerated and appreciated by grassroots supporters, not shunned. Didier, a novice politician, is a pragmatist. He has chosen, as wise competitors do, to operate within the established political game to the best of his ability in order to win. The “rules” of Washington were established long ago, and though we hate the rules, those who follow them get elected.

Our hope is found in politicians of good character – outsiders, real people, Mr. Smiths, if you will. These men, of whom Didier has been judged to be one, do not soil their potential for bringing about true reform simply by associating with the old guard. Too many Americans are apt to throw the baby out with the bath water. Many would read Ken Vogel’s “ring kissing” comment and their blood would boil, as if political corruption was contagious and Didier just recklessly exposed himself to it.

Thankfully, it is not contagious, at least not after a few meetings. Didier, along with other grassroots politicians like him, can and should seek endorsements from insiders because pragmatic politics wins elections. I recently received a comment on a blog post telling me that voting for third parties and independent candidates was the “American way.” This is a nice thought, and it may be so in the true spirit of the non-partisan founders. However, history shows us that two-party, back room, favor trading, dirty politics is the true American way, and has been since the day after George Washington left office. The key is working the system to our advantage, using connections, endorsements, and favors (all ethically) to bring candidates of character and integrity to power: candidates who will bring some degree of relative decency back to a capital that so desperately needs it.

This is exactly why American Majority trains activists and candidates based on the way the political system currently works. We realize that to make a difference in government, candidates must get elected, primarily to state and local office. In order to be elected, candidates must exercise some degree of pragmatic judgment and check their uncompromising anti-establishment animosity at the door. Andrew Kerr wrote about exactly this a few weeks ago. Activists should be outsiders who work inside the system, strangers in a strange arena seeking to change it from within. Importantly, in order to get into the arena, outsiders need to work the current system. Laurie Masterson put it best in the words of her father when she wrote that you, the candidate, should “play their game by your rules.” The game has already begun, and it is up to us to change the rules. But we have no chance of doing so if we don’t go into the belly of the beast with a pragmatic mindset, bent on winning at all ethical costs in order to see true reform.

Following the president’s speech last night regarding the oil spill and cleanup efforts, I stayed around to watch some of the commentary just to see if I had missed any good observations. When FoxNews pundit Charles Krauthammer weighed in, I was not disappointed. (For the particular response referred to in this post, click here. For the full segment, click here).

This post is NOT about the oil spill, nor is it about the current administration. It is about the nature of government and our expectations thereof.

When asked what the government should have done, and if it could have done more to react to the spill, the response of Krauthammer, normally an outspoken critic of the current administration (labeled by National Review as Obama’s “critic-in-chief”) was surprisingly level-headed and difficult to dispute. Krauthammer replied that he was “not surprised” with the government’s reaction to the spill, and that governments are “inherently inefficient” and fallible, so we should not be shocked either. He did not let the administration off the hook by any means, nor did he belittle the tragic impact of this disaster. However, his reasoning should give us pause.

Are our expectations of government unreasonable? We know that it is “inherently inefficient,” and this fact has been cited repeatedly in recent arguments (healthcare, cap-and-trade, Social Security, and others). No American would dispute that, being an institution composed of fallible humans, the government is fallible. Many critics have said that the government is good for nothing except winning wars and paving roads. If this is the case, then is it fair for Americans to suddenly develop astronomical expectations for the administration’s efficiency when an unprecedented, unexpected crisis such as this one arises? Is Charles Krauthammer right to be unsurprised by the government’s reaction? And if he is right, does this make the critiques of the administration’s response partisan, and therefore factually unwarranted?

Applying this thought to a larger realm, should Americans have been “surprised” by the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina? Should we be “surprised” by the ongoing policy fight over illegal immigration? Is there a solution to government inefficiency, or should we learn to live with it?

Comments are welcome. It is important to know what we expect of our government, and what we should not expect.

It may not be in the headlines much these days, but the healthcare battle rages on.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, no stranger to controversy and risk taking, has taken his state’s resistance of the Obama administration’s healthcare bill to the courtroom, challenging it on constitutional grounds. Virginia argues that the bill is not valid under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and that the bill violates the Tenth Amendment, as the Commonwealth of Virginia passed a law before the passage of the healthcare bill forbidding the government from compelling citizens to purchase insurance. (See the Virginia Healthcare Freedom Act here).

The Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that it should be brought in three years, closer to when the bill is set to take effect. July 1^st is the date set for the debate to begin in court, and many Virginians will be watching with rapt attention. For a more comprehensive account of this story, see here and here.

We all know the arguments for and against the healthcare bill, as we have heard them since the outset of the Obama administration. It is important for every American to form his or her own interpretation of what the Constitution has to say about this and other issues. However, let us take a few moments to consider the vital importance of localized government in this legal debate, as well as its importance in the American political tradition.

Many Americans need to be reminded frequently that the United States is a nation of independent states held together by a sovereign, yet limited, federal government. This legacy goes back to the days of the thirteen colonies, in which each colony governed itself with little, if any, real interference from the British government. Cuccinelli’s Virginia, in particular, knows a thing or two about self-government. The Virginia House of Burgesses began meeting in 1619, existing as an elected representative legislature with powers to make laws governing the Virginia colony, and it did so without the express permission or oversight of the British Crown. In other words, localized government began in America virtually the minute that British colonists set foot on dry land. What’s more, the colonies, in practice, independently governed themselves for a century or more before declaring independence from their mother country. Importantly, they did so as thirteen separate entities, only uniting when faced with the common threat of tyranny from Britain. Following the unification of the colonies and the American Revolution, the legacy of the independent, autonomous states was preserved in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, signifying the importance of the federalist system.

So how does this apply to us today, and more particularly to the healthcare debate?

This is, as they say, a “teachable moment,” an occasion to be reminded of the virtue of localized government, a favorite theme here at American Majority.  I wrote in a post a few days ago that the federal government would be expanding its scope too far by implementing a Government 2.0-style approach, involving more people in its affairs via social media and networking, and my most prominent reason for this argument was the resultant loss of local emphasis. When people become increasingly focused on the affairs of the federal government, they lose sight of the matters that affect them on a day-to-day basis, and in which they have the most say. The Founding Fathers never meant for the federal government to grow as large as it has, and in fact they feared the centralization of power into the hands of the national government (see Federalist 32). So, when a law comes along seeking to mandate that every American purchase health insurance, Americans should certainly be asking, “Why should I have to buy insurance?” But, what they should be asking with equal fervor is, “Why, and on what constitutional grounds, has the federal government taken this power to regulate from the states?”

The healthcare debate, and this blog for that matter, are less about healthcare than they are about the preservation of the American tradition of localized government. Let us view Attorney General Cuccinelli’s lawsuit, as well as that of the fourteen other governments co-filing in Florida, as a battle not for freedom to purchase (or not to purchase) health insurance, but as a defense of Americans’ long-standing tradition of freedom to govern themselves locally.

The virtue of such local government cannot be overstated. In a debate almost two years ago, National Review Online Editor-at-Large Jonah Goldberg explained his view on the importance of local governance this way: “Why not let a thousand flowers bloom, and let one community live the way it wants, and another community live the way it wants? At least the beauty of that is if you win in a democratic fight, and you infringe on the rights or the prerogatives of somebody else in your community, you’ve got to look them in the eye every day. But people who live on the west coast or the east coast or the north or the south, and want to impose one vision on the entire country…that is what I oppose, because freedom is about not just freedom for individuals but freedom for communities.”

I am a proponent of looking beyond common buzzwords and concepts and finding deeper meaning, so let us apply that perspective here. Let us look beyond the healthcare debate and see the deeper implications of this legal battle. This fight is immediately about my choice in healthcare. However, it is more importantly a fight for the preservation of a system in which I have a voice in the doings of my town and state, in which my neighbors and I can discuss and debate the best policy for our immediate community, and in which I will see the effects of my agenda on the lives of my family and neighbors every day. As Jonah Goldberg put it, it is a struggle for the freedom of my community to govern itself.

The fight for the freedom to govern locally continues, and this is only one front. Across the nation, American Majority is searching for the people who will step up to the front lines and get involved in their local and state governments. Are you one of them?

Special thanks to Austin James for bringing this to my attention, and Raz Shafer for contributing key material. Regarding this piece from the Huffington Post:

We see here the fight that grassroots constitutionalists are up against, and the new medium that it is expanding to. There has been a fair amount of talk in political circles and elsewhere about the vast network of information, people, and resources that the government-expansion crowd uses to make their message palatable and marketable to the very voters that will be exploited by such statism. (For a more in-depth case study, see The Blueprint by Schrager and Whitwer, recommended by AM president Ned Ryun here).

This post by Ariana Huffington, written with a touch of hopeful anticipation, outlines a plan for the federal government to “open” (note the buzzword, falsely implying transparency) itself to outside innovation that will only further empower it. President Obama, in the parlance of media guru Tim O’Reilly, champions an overhaul of government that will allow more participation in public affairs by citizens via technology and new media. Sounds great, right? I mean, who wouldn’t want to have more involvement in the affairs of their government? That’s what democracy is all about, right?

The problem here is the goal of a Government 2.0-type program. Uncle Sam wants your ideas to help widen and streamline the way the federal government operates. We should not be surprised in the least by the tendency of the big-government establishment to employ new media and social networks to expand the influence of the bureaucracy. What’s more, those who support such an agenda make no effort to hide their expansionist goals. The Mayor of Newark, as quoted in the Huffington article, seeks to use new technology to build “a larger democracy that is learning how to master media and drive social change.” And why should such visionaries make any effort to hide their big-government tendencies? After all, the majority of voters in 2008 cast their ballots for “a larger democracy” and a government that “drives social change.” There can be no doubt that those behind this government-driven change will use any and all means to do so, including new technology. Would a technological Government 2.0 be more transparent? Maybe, but actions speak louder than words, and we have seen government transparency in practice over the past few weeks, months, and years, and you can draw your own conclusions from there. Would a “larger democracy” be good for the free market and individual liberty? Almost certainly not.

For the entirety of American history, the American population has been at odds with the power of the federal government. To channel a popular radio host, the American political tradition has always come down to an ongoing struggle between liberty and tyranny. When the proponents of government-driven wealth redistribution and social change by sometimes constitutionally questionable means advocate the use of new technology to involve more people in that agenda, their vision smacks of a relationship between governors and governed that Americans should instinctively perceive as too close for comfort.

To put it another way, here’s a quote from Barry Goldwater, the late U.S. senator and 1964 presidential candidate:

“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

The government-as-platform structure mentioned in the Huffington article is exactly the wrong application of new technological resources. Those who wish to pursue individual liberty and a smaller government should pursue the use of new technology and social networking to organize efforts aimed at resisting governmental expansion, not facilitating it. Here at American Majority, we are working to build a network of constitutionally minded grassroots activists that will bring about social change from the ground up, not imposed top-down by the government. Networks such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, news websites, podcasts, and other media make possible the sharing of a vast wealth of information intended for the use of limiting government influence, rather than expanding it. They connect people with like-minded people of skill, means, and ambition, and the relationships formed through these networks grow into the movements whose influence we see in the congressional primaries even now. By training grassroots activists and candidates, we do not seek to build a “larger democracy” as the establishment does, but rather a new nation of responsible, conscious citizens who will be educated and equipped to defend liberty for this generation and the next.

The tools are out there for everyone to use. The big government crowd has already begun. When do we get started?

There was nothing particularly odd about this post from the Philadelphia Libertarian Examiner. Nothing, that is, until the last line. Every day a new column, blog, or news story comes out telling us that the GOP is in a fight for its life against the Tea Party, which threatens to destroy it from within. It’s always “Tea Party vs. the Establishment” or “GOP Shakeup Imminent,” or some such thing, and this is exciting stuff. But what caught my eye about this Examiner piece was the subtle injection of that little phrase everybody is thinking about, but only a few people are saying.

As primary season continues, candidates come out of the woodwork, congressmen are sent packing by “anti-incumbent fever,” scandals torpedo credibility, and change is on the rise (again), we are revisited by the specter of an old idea long since thought to have passed on, but that lives once again. You have heard whispers of it on the right and the left, shouts of it at tea parties, mention of it at your dinner table. It’s the phrase that we bury every few decades, but that rises from the dead every time we finally drop the shovel and dust off our hands. You know the two little words I’m talking about.

Third party.

Ned Ryun, the president of American Majority, wrote a piece about the third party temptation a few months ago, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. However, now that primary season has begun, Rand Paul has become the Tea Party’s prom queen, and moderate incumbents are dropping like flies, it appears that some hard line anti-establishment types need a reminder of why the Tea Party movement would help itself by remaining exactly that: a movement, rather than a party. I point you first to Ned’s blog on the subject. Also see Laurie Masterson’s piece from yesterday at AmericanMajority.org: “Vote Them All Out?”

Third, consider the historical example of the 1848 presidential election, in which Martin Van Buren, the presidential candidate from the Free Soil Party, took ten percent of the vote on a purely anti-slavery platform, and probably sealed the defeat of anti-slavery New Hampshire Democrat Lewis Cass at the hands of the pro-slavery Virginia Whig Zachary Taylor. In more recent memory, recall the effect of Ross Perot on the 1992 presidential election.

The bottom line is this: now is the time for candidates from the grassroots to throw their hats into the ring. Primary season is meant for all ideologies and candidates to be presented to the people for their approval. To the candidates and activists out there, I encourage you to promote your platform, run your campaign to win, and stand up to the old vanguard. To the voters, I cannot stress how important it is to make your voice heard in the primaries. As Ned Ryun writes, “Those who win primaries and attend party conventions decide what a party is.”

Now, a word of caution. Once primaries finish and we head for the general elections, the third party temptation will take hold. Mark my words. Anywhere it tries to act as a third way, the Tea Party will split the vote formerly monopolized by the GOP, handing victory to liberal democrats every time. Candidates like Steve Levy, the recently defeated candidate for the New York Republican gubernatorial nomination, who are “contemplating” third party forays have far more at stake than their own victory. If Levy and his kin run in a general election against a Republican and a Democrat, there is no reason to expect any outcome other than a democratic win.

The case of Rand Paul is an excellent example of how the primary system should work. A true conservative-ah, what the heck, a libertarian- was nominated to represent the party that traditionally represents conservatives. Kentucky conservatives did what Ned Ryun calls making a party “a creature of their own creation.” Martin Avila at UnitedLiberty.org cautions anti-establishment Tea Partiers in a similar fashion not to turn their backs on the GOP, which so many have forgotten is not set in stone, but in fact malleable. His advice is important for independent-minded conservatives to remember.

Now, don’t go calling me an old-school party-clinging hack just yet. (Come on, I’m a college student.) At my @EricJ_AMajority twitter page, I recently tweeted an interesting column in the Washington Post in which we are told that the GOP should fear the loss of party discipline if Tea Party candidates are elected. As for me, I am willing to sacrifice party discipline for the assurance that my representative will vote according to my best interest. You have all seen the bumper sticker (and many of you probably have it): “Gun control is being able to hit your target.” Now, I propose another redefinition: “Party discipline is being able to vote out your defunct representative in a primary.” Try that on for size.

All of this is to say that change (the good kind) is in the air once again. Primaries are the perfect time for grassroots candidates to enter the race and make their voices heard. When these few months of primaries are over and the race for November begins, we will see what constituents truly want out of their representatives, and inevitably, we will see a few third party races. I cannot, nor will I, tell you how to vote in November, but what I will say is this: we are not in Europe, where elections are contests between ten parties. In the United States, votes for third parties do not simply materialize; they have to come from somewhere. Let us not hand over elections because we are too blinded by ideology to know what is politically prudent. Voting for the lesser of two evils may seem like politics-as-usual, but sometimes it is all we can do. If the worst should happen, the next primary is only a few years away. And that, my friends, is the beauty of the American system.

As a college student and a lowly intern here at American Majority, I feel like I am diving head first into the world of political action, especially the realm of the new media. Nonetheless, I am excited to stretch my wings in this new means of communication, writing for a bigger audience than I have ever had. I cannot think of a better way to step into the spotlight than to unashamedly bring my own perspective, hoping that you, the patriots, will be challenged and stimulated by my food for thought.

As I peruse the previous blogs posted here, I have no doubt that the folks at AM know their principles, and know how to engage in this struggle for liberty and fiscal sanity. The question I bring to the table is this: Why do we do it? Why do we dedicate the hours to meetings, trainings, rallies, blogs, libraries, and the like? To narrow the concept further, why do you do it? We so often look to the past for our motivation. Many of you will point me to our first principles, precedents of liberty to be found in our rich history. But I challenge you to think toward the future and put your finger on what it is that motivates you. What do you need to see in order for you to decide that all of this time and effort will have been worthwhile? This may seem like a simple answer, and many would quickly retort “liberty,” or “fiscal responsibility,” or “transparent government.” I agree with all of the above. Now, allow me to complicate it for you a little bit.

To those who would give me the first of these answers, I unfortunately cannot accept liberty as a rationale for political involvement. It is not liberty that motivates you, and if it is, you should think beyond it. An influential economist once wrote that wealth is worthless on its own. Its value is found in its potential to be exchanged for goods and services. That economist’s name was Karl Marx. Now, if you haven’t stopped reading at the mention of that oh-so-infamous name, allow me to apply Marx’s logic to my point. As money is not an end but a means, I challenge you to realize that liberty is not something to work for in and of itself. Liberty is meant to be exercised; what we struggle for is what we will do with that liberty. Will you use your freedom of speech for good, productive purposes? Will you be a responsible, exemplary gun owner? Take some time to consider the ways in which you will apply your personal freedom in a responsible way that benefits yourself, your family, and your society.

As for the second response, fiscal responsibility, I urge you to think beyond this oft-repeated answer. For most of us, this maxim implies a reduction of government spending, and more often, of taxes. We want lower taxes because we want more control of our wealth. We want to keep what we earn. It’s okay to nod in agreement, you don’t have to be ashamed. But I challenge you to think beyond bringing home more of your paycheck. Money is worthless unless we put it to use. How will you use it? Will you pocket it, invest it, buy more toys with it, pimp your ride with it? Will you give it charitably and generously, bringing love and goodwill to those in need? Thankfully, you are free to do whatever you want, but I urge you to know how you intend to handle your finances, deciding what will bring you the most satisfaction and fulfillment. We make signs for rallies decrying our government’s lack of fiscal responsibility, and this animosity is well founded. But take this a step further, and decide what your own fiscal policy will be.

Whether in financial, personal, or other forms of liberty, let us not sell ourselves short by neglecting to consider how we will become the upstanding citizens of tomorrow. We are not there yet, folks. We have a long road to liberty and fiscal sanity ahead of us, fraught with opposition the whole way. Here at American Majority, we strive to adhere to the first principles of our nation, implementing them in the fight to return America to the intent of our founders, constructing a civil society that will foster liberty, equality, and justice for all. So I urge you to know your principles. Know where you have come from. But beyond that, know where you are going. Decide now what kind of citizen you will be in five years, ten years. Think beyond the buzzwords of “liberty,” “low taxes,” “transparent government,” and know what you will do with these reclaimed freedoms, and how you will translate them into your unique contribution to this union of responsible citizens, the greatest civil society the world has ever known.