Decision ‘08

Krauthammer Knocks One Out of the Park

Charles Krauthammer has a great opinion piece in the newest Time defending Americans of faith who wish to participate in the political process. Many of the themes I have touched on here are included, such as certainty vs. relativism and the ridiculous assertion that participation by religious Americans in the political process is forbidden. Some highlights:

The Op-Ed pages are filled with jeremiads about believers–principally evangelical Christians and traditional Catholics–bent on turning the U.S. into a theocracy. Now I am not much of a believer, but there is something deeply wrong–indeed, deeply un-American–about fearing people simply because they believe. It seems perfectly O.K. for secularists to impose their secular views on America, such as, say, legalized abortion or gay marriage. But when someone takes the contrary view, all of a sudden he is trying to impose his view on you. And if that contrary view happens to be rooted in Scripture or some kind of religious belief system, the very public advocacy of that view becomes a violation of the U.S. constitutional order.

What nonsense. The campaign against certainty is merely the philosophical veneer for an attempt to politically marginalize and intellectually disenfranchise believers. Instead of arguing the merits of any issue, secularists are trying to win the argument by default on the grounds that the other side displays unhealthy certainty or, even worse, unseemly religiosity…

Nothing has more aroused and infuriated the sophisticates than the foreign policy of a religiously inclined President, based on the notion of a universal aspiration to freedom and of America’s need and duty to advance it around the world. Such liberationism, confident and unapologetic, is portrayed as arrogant crusading, a deep violation of the tradition of American pluralism, ecumenism, modesty and skeptical restraint.

That widespread portrayal is invention masquerading as history. You want certainty? You want religiosity? How about a people who overthrow the political order of the ages, go to war and occasion thousands of deaths in the name of self-evident truths and unalienable rights endowed by the Creator? That was 1776. The universality, the sacredness and the divine origin of freedom are enshrined in our founding document. The Founders, believers all, signed it. Thomas Jefferson wrote it. And not even Jefferson, the most skeptical of the lot, had the slightest doubt about it.

Highly recommended…

One Response to “Krauthammer Knocks One Out of the Park”

1 too many steves Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 8:21 pm
Krauthammer is outstanding and this is one of his best efforts.

I am always annoyed by secularists who misappropriate the notion of the separation of church and state to include the banning of any political positions that might originate with ones religious beliefs.

A most absurd example came when candidate Kerry tried to explain the seeming contradiction between his professed personal opposition to abortion and his support, as a Senator, of a woman’s right to choose by saying that opposing abortion would be an unfair public application of his religious views.

I am not a religious person. Whether a person is opposed to abortion because their religious beliefs dictate that opposition or because they simply believe the unborn child is a being with moral status and worthy of protection is irrelevant to me.

I think Krauthammer properly captures and exposes the tyrannical nature of this secular line of thinking - as well as the anti-American (as defined by our Constitution) approach to public discourse.