Traditional values

Consider this sentence from the Bible:

Be still and know that I am God.

The recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States have raised many questions, as well as settling the ones explicitly dealt with in the cases, particularly gay marriage and Obamacare.

These ancillary questions are many, not least in the realm of jurisprudence (were the decisions fundamentally reached by doing what the Constitution instructs and limits the justices to do?) and politics (has the court become simply another aspect of the political activities of the other two branches of the government?)

My concern in this post is to comment on something other than these questions. My concern is the debate that has resulted and will continue for some time about whether “traditional values” are under assault in the United States not just broadly within the culture, which is indisputable, but specifically in an organized way by the organs of the State.

It strikes me that to have this debate is an entirely good thing, but it requires a rigid and demanding kind of clarity. This bring me back to the biblical quotation I opened this post with. Please reread it.

My question is this:

What core value does it embody? There are two possibilities, and this duality points out the puzzle and the challenge in the debate to come.

Is the core value knowing God?

This will be the immediate conclusion, I suspect, of many advocates of “religious traditional and conservative values.” Thus, the debate centers on God and excluded from the biblical injunction are all those for whom belief in God or a god is troubling or impossible.

But, what if the core vale is somewhat different?

Is the core value being still?

It may well be that one has to “be still” to “know God,” but it is not necessary that being still will result in such knowledge. In this event is being still worthless from a biblical perspective? I think not. There is core value to being still in and of itself.

In a debate about protecting traditional values, therefore, I would be prepared to argue and indeed fight for your right to be still (I know, I have not filled out what this might entail; that for another time) whereas I am sure I would not argue and fight for the necessity of you believing in God.

If one simple little biblical sentence can offer this degree of subtle depth of meaning we (those who seek to live by biblicality, if I may put it that way) would be wise to be cautious in our instincts to discern the truth and slow to pontificate, prescribe, and proscribe.

Law, Religion, and Freedom

It is has been an interesting week in the realm of the relationship between religion and law. Three thoughts and an observation:

First, in what is being hailed as a landmark ruling, the US Supreme Court found in favor of religious freedom, as it were, when they upheld the appeal of the Hobby Lobby corporation against certain  requirements of the Obamacare law which stated that all companies must fund employees’ insurance for contraception, and other issues, to which the company founders had objected on grounds that it violated their religious freedom. Their religion forbids such practices to the faithful. It has been pointed out that legal precedent has now been established for a much wider rejection of Obamacare regulations on religious freedom grounds and indeed may have implication for the enforcement of many other laws. Indeed, many are viewing this finding as a recovery of the original intent of the First Amendment in general and not just with respect to “freedom of religion.”

Then, second, there is the European Court of Human Rights and France. You can read about it here. The gist comes in the opening sentence: “The European Court of Human Rights has upheld France’s 2010 ban on full-face veils in public, dismissing a case brought by a French woman against the state for breach of religious freedom.” The decision is “definitive,” i.e. the European equivalent of a US Supreme Court decision.

Interestingly the European decision is the opposite of the American, upholding political or state or legal “control” of faith-based behavior.

Third, Sharia’s advance and promotion in the new Islamic State and elsewhere is an ongoing reality with increasingly global implications. The foundational intellectual concept in Sharia is that there is not and ought not to be any distinction between faith and law. Its assumption is that all of life falls under the will of God. Submission to the will of God is neither a part-time choice nor a decision restricted to only certain activities deemed “religious.” Life under Sharia is not a pizza pie, if you will allow me, with one slice of religious behavior and seven secular slices. (This pizza pie analogy may well illumine the state of affairs in Russia today, where Orthodoxy is allowed one slice, but one slice only.)

An observation:

The issue is well articulated by Thomas Jefferson, writing in explanation of the First Amendment’s religious freedom concept: “the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions.” And yet, what is an opinion that does not impact behavior (actions)? This confusing reasoning lay behind Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. Indeed, the First Amendment goes on immediately to speak of “freedom of speech.” What is speech but a certain type of “action?” This has led, of course, to non-verbal modes of “speech” guarded by the amendment.

Thus, in short, how a society thinks of religion, regulates its expression, and treats its leadership is the clearest window into its commitment to freedom in general. 

Musings

A few random thoughts:

(1) The Google driverless car

Why does it look like a toy? The aerial on top appears to be what you wind it up with. Auto design gone infantile? They should have got an Italian F1 driver to help with appearance, or someone from Jeep, or even Tesla. How many kids are going to buy it? Not very many. What is wrong with looking grown-up?

(2) POTUS as FLOPUS

The president received what is being described as “an icy reception” from the West Point graduates the other day when he delivered a “philosophical” speech on future US foreign policy, the essence of which was captured in his remark, “I am not weak.” Maybe it wasn’t his speech, but his failure to return their salutes, instead offering a handshake, that chilled the atmosphere.

(3) Pope flap?

On being told by the Prime Minister of Israel that Jesus spoke Hebrew, Pope Francis corrected by saying, “Aramaic.” That these do not necessarily constitute an alternative to one another is a matter of enormous scholarly debate. In urging peace in the region, the pope remains silent, so far as I am aware, on the increasing pace of unrest in Brazil as the World Cup looms.

(4) Oops

The White House “outed” the chief CIA operative in Afghanistan. Remember the “outrage” over the Valerie Plame affair? Sigh. Makes me long for simple competence.

(5) VA

The VA scandal surely at the very least is going to cost General Shinseki his job. Right? Right? Surely right? Meanwhile it is worth remembering that the VA hospital system is in disarray. The only viable model for the American government running healthcare. Sigh.

(6) Malaysian airliner

Sadly, it has been announced that the pings guiding the massive seven week search of a patch of the ocean floor in the Indian Ocean off Australia are definitely not from the plane’s black boxes. The search is being widened and relocated. This follows analysis last week that the Inmarsat data was reliable. Certainty is a slippery notion.

(7) H2O

It has been announced that seven states in the US are caught in “severe drought” and some areas in “extreme drought.” Meanwhile, Michigan sees opportunities for development of its “blue economy,” i.e. water-based job growth. One fifth of the world’s fresh water is at Michigan’s finger-tips. One man’s Messiah is another man’s meshugge.

(8) Seasonal displacement

No, this heading does not address global warming/climate change/climate disruption. Rather the two main North American professional winter sports (the NBA and the NHL) plod along through their play-offs. Neither has reached their final series. Will they be done by Midsummer’s Day? Sheesh.

(10) Bottoms up

There is “outrage.” No less … outrage. First a German and now an Australian newspaper have published a picture of Princess Kate’s bare bottom, exposed when a gust of wind lifted her dress. A question must be asked: why “bare”??? We have grown used to the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” and usually alerted to ponder whether such was deliberate. There is no reason for a wind-lifted lady’s dress to expose a “bare” bottom as kilt wearers the world over are very well aware. To bare or not to bare, that is the question, and if bare than bear the consequences.

False security

Security is a general concern; web security is a specific concern; security on the Obamacare website is a focused concern. That being said, the more focus the clearer the light.

I simply direct you to this interview from yesterday’s Mike Wallace show and ask you to make your own objective assessment. It seems to me that white-hat hacker David Kennedy missed the opportunity to draw a perfect analogy. The government “spokesman” had asserted that they had not “detected” any major hacks of the Obamacare site despite Mr. Kennedy’s assertions that it was hugely exposed, “wide open” was his phrase. Kennedy’s response was techno-babble and, I am sure, spot on. But, like all jargon missed the target, namely the gut of the viewers.  Here’s what he could have said:

Imagine two friends, Bob and Bill. They live close by one another and meet on the commuter train every morning. One day Bob says to Bill, “Had another false alarm on the security system in my house last night. My kids just don’t get that they can’t open the door once it’s armed. If we have another the cops are going to start charging me.” Bill turns and smugly says, “I’ve never had a false alarm.” To which Bill says, “Of course you haven’t. You don’t have a security system.”

It’s easy to not detect hacks if you do not equip your website with adequate security tools.

By now we all should know that as consumers of news information we have to hear and read with acumen just as those who speak/write “parse” their words. Hockey coaches are a trivial example, especially during the Stanley Cup play-offs. “Our star player has a lower body issue.” What on earth does that mean? Has he broken his leg or stubbed his toe? So too: we have not detected any major hacks. Because there have been none or you lack the capacity of detection?

If true, this is no joke. More than that, however, it is illustrative of something more than a general lackadaisical approach to security issues in general.

As every philosopher knows, truth is an odd and baffling notion. Just what makes a statement true has puzzled philosophy for centuries. More, is the truth-criterion of statements any indication of the ontological status of truth itself? So slippery a notion is truth that, I am sure, both Mr. Kennedy and his opponents would assert that they were “telling the truth.”  When all this takes place in a political arena in which none other than the President of the United Sates was awarded the 2013 Pinocchio prize for his public mendacity it is hardly surprising that the public shrugs and simply tries to get on with their lives.

This is not good. When a culture loses a grasp on its vision of truth, not to mention some of the other great categories (the good, the right, the ordinary, and the like,) it becomes vulnerable and begins to teeter on the edge of intellectual chaos.

 In regione caecorum rex est luscus. (In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.)

Useless Questions 1

In my mind I have a category of “useless questions” and I tend to fill it up, if not during the day then during the week. There are two wide sub-categories: the question to which nobody knows or has a clue about the answer and the question which can be answered but there is no point in knowing that answer. The first sub-category I call an eternal mystery question and the second, an utter waste of time question.

For example, consider the following: What does a pug eat in the wild? Pug owners will immediately recognize this as an utter waste of time question. “Pugs in the wild” is itself a phrase conjuring up such a radical theoretical that further discussion is indeed a waste of time.

You get the point.

So, to today’s news.

On FoxNews.com there was an interview from last night’s “The Kelly File.” The interview was between anchor Megyn Kelly and, wait for it, Anthony Weiner. It featured his views on Obamacare. I hesitate to provide a link, in case you click on it, but in the interests of thoroughness and integrity here it is.

Some questions:

• Who is asking what Weiner thinks about Obamacare?
• Who cares what he thinks about Obamacare?
• Who cares what he thinks about anything?
• Who cares if he thinks?

The entire Kelly interview was illustrative of another descent into an utter waste of time question.

As for the first sub-category. Did you read or hear the President’s speech about the NSA scandal? It was so artfully crafted (under the over-arching umbrella, which has become his modus operandi, that nobody had told him how far-reaching it was) that it was impossible to deduce what going forward is actually going to be different vis-à-vis the continuance of the NSA’s spying on American citizens going about their lawful lives. The question about policies in this speech on limitations or abandonment of this manifestation of a police state in the contemporary USA falls into the first sub-category.

It’s not all about pugs in the wild. 

Weird day

The global warming scientific team stuck in the Antarctic ice awaiting rescue are causing much amusement.  We are also told (see here) that in 2013 there were many more record low temperatures recorded in the USA than highs. Today as I write we in my area are under a “severe weather alert” and massive snowstorms are predicted (see here) once again for the northeastern USA.

Oh yes: the sun has “flipped,” reversing its magnetic polarity, something that happens regularly and predictably every so many years.

Meanwhile you will be pleased and relieved to know, if you did not already, that transgendered students, including kindergartners (I am not kidding) are to be allowed to choose their bathroom and sports team (boys or girls) based on “gender identity.” Oh well: it’s California, right? By the way, how long will it be before a third category of team is established? It’s not fair after all to have a boys and a girls team only; we need a transgendered team, do we not?

Meanwhile, again, Vladimir Putin has announced his intention following the Volgograd bombings to “annihilate” the terrorists. Wonder how he’s going to do that.

Late last night, we are told, Justice Sotomayor ruled that Obamacare’s requirement to provide contraceptive coverage in all insurance policies does not apply to certain religious institutions. I think the case in point centered on an order of Catholic nuns. The government has until Friday to appeal.

In Italy a court overturned the conviction on pedophilia charges of a man, aged 60, who had sex with an 11 year old girl. The reason for the ruling? They were “in love.” Seems in Italy love conquers all, the law included.

Speaking of Italy, in his address on World Peace Day (today) Pope Francis (who, we were reminded just in case we had forgotten, does not live in the “luxurious papal apartments as did his predecessors, but in a simple apartment on the Vatican grounds”) made headlines with a stunning announcement. “It is time to stop” war. About time, I should say.

I almost forgot: Oregon has legislated that mothers of newborns can take the placentas home (see here.) Thank goodness! At last.

And lest you were holding your breath, Aaron Rogers, quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, has announced on the internet that he is “not gay.” There: that settles that.

One more thing: ever heard of Fredrik Colting? A former gravedigger from Sweden now living in Los Angeles (weirdness coming hint) he has invented Tikker. Tikker is a watch that counts down time. Down to what? The moment, based on the input of various factors, of …. your death! The gift that keeps on giving, for a while. I wonder if it stops at that precise time or ….. oh forget it.

Hey, all these tid-bits are from today’s news. Just today’s!

Happy New Year.