Animus as Impetus

It is likely that the issue of national gay marriage will turn on the definition of a single word.  The word is animus.  It means strong dislike or hostility or enmity or animosity or hatred.  As you can see, the word has a whole spectrum of meaning.  Its primary hue is red.  It denotes seething.  Some use it as legalese for 'hater'.  It is a good word for revolting teens:  "Dad, you are showing animus toward my friends and lifestyle."  Who feuds wielding this word, comes off sounding very sensible--as he or she expresses what is really only an opinion.  Animus is about heat and opinion; it is not a word for facts or reason.  It doesn't express something that can be measured rationally; for example, the advocates of its usage in same-sex arguments can't credibly say:  "the animus scale clearly reveals that this author falls somewhere between a hostile and a hater."  Animus has yet to be measured in individuals with any standardized method--let alone to be measured in a populace.  When it is, it will be measured using subjective standards.

In court, the animus assertion sounds like this:  the states "have given us no reason to think they have a 'reasonable basis' for forbidding same sex-marriage.....this suggests animus against same-sex marriage."  The courts have preferred to indict the masses for animus rather than acknowledge that our basis for moral judgment under the Constitution, including the notion of non-discrimination, is Judeo-Christian (ie. "do unto others as you would have them do unto you")--a basis which must finally yield up its place and authority in order to accommodate gay marriage for the 1%?

Isn't it curious that this highly variable, exceptionally sentimental word is expected to overturn laws that majorities made in many States--in our highest court?  By basing their judgment on this one wobbly word, will the Justices discover or devise some objective scale for weighing animus (ie. toward equal protection under law for same-sex couples) or will they reveal their animi (animuses) toward the People, their legislatures, the Constitution, the First Amendment, States rights, Judeo-Christian morality, and republican democracy?  These things would be rather a lot to cast on the ash heap for such a wobbly word--especially when the word might be best applied to the condemnation of a majoritarian sentiment.  Will the Supreme Court deem the People 'haters'?

Abraham Lincoln, Conspiracy Theorist (Continued)

Today, in an article entitled "At Supreme Court, Kicking the Tires on a Same-Sex Marriage Case Fit for History", the New York Times observed "The lawyers challenging the same-sex marriage bans (in many states) are confident they will win in the Supreme Court, which is why they have all urged the justices to hear their cases even though they had won in the lower (appeals) courts."  This is how the Times explained the inexplicable and generally unheard-of acts of appealing--en mass--verdicts deemed victories: it is simple glory-hounding by persons prescient about how the Supreme Court will rule!?!  Observe that these lawyers stand to gain--not just the notoriety of a historic verdict, as noted by the New York Times--but the standing of nobility in America for themselves and others of their ilk.  Imagine the importance of argumentation and presentation--their specialties--when laws become completely arbitrary and amoral.  This is precisely what national gay marriage would do: it would redefine law away from morality as we know it.  However moralizing the tenor of the arguments by its advocates, national gay marriage would make laws amoral and judgment immoral.  This would serve ambitious litigators:  when charisma is the only criterion in court, nothing will be outside the grasp of a good, licensed attorney.

I pity their gay clients.  Not because they found matrimonial bliss in spite of populist state laws.  But because they are being made to hazard their it anew for a runaway cause.  Their issue is no longer the concern of a mere 1-2%.

Their issue has become the foil of every gentile thrusting against God's objective moral code and against America's Judeo-Christian Constitution and legal system.  With this, they thrust viciously at the eyes and ears and mouth of legitimate justice.  Some human eyes are already dull; some ears are already missing; some mouths are already silenced.  Unchecked, these wicked strokes could blind the body politic, mute expression, and dumb truth; and thus, would foil freedom, faith, and hope--for everyone--eventually including those stabbing and slashing at the only real basis for law and justice.  Resist this national self-mutilation while you can still see and speak.  Eventually, if we let them "succeed", the only equality will be an equality of misery.  Unless they desist, they will discover that they brought their sword to a duel with God--that they brought their sword to a cataclysm.

God bless us with better sense than that of a swarm of fruit flies:  may we sense while we are still aloft (and not afloat) that vinegar, however presented, is not, after all, a fruit.

The Security of a Vain Imagination

Americans are afflicted with a certain malady common to hegemonies. The ancient Romans caught it. In fact, it was the seed of their demise. It appears in much of our self-help literature--a self-affirming, self-congratulatory, self-buoyancy that damns the torpedos of fate that can only afflict less enlightened peoples. This self-sufficient self-satisfaction is never rash nor abashed. Our assumptions are laced with it--assumptions about how to, what's important, and who's who. Some suggest that this is a strength of ours. I believe, if anything, it has reached the dimensions of a delusion. And daily, it is more delusional. We ask ourselves, "aren't we":

"Buoyant"—who have never really been fated to sink?
"Optimistic"--who have rarely hoped in vain?
"Settled" who have not been removed by conquest?
"Sensible" who haven't really experienced the senselessness of human barbarism?
"Pragmatic"--who haven’t known the exasperation of predator nor the desperation of prey?
"Resourceful"—whose resources have almost always sufficed and been sustainable?
"Enterprising"--whose returns have usually been predictable? 
"Enlightened"--who haven’t endured a long night of totalitarianism?

Of course, I hope that America can remain buoyant and never sink. But we see wilder waves now. And it may not be the fate that God Almighty grants us.

Perhaps as we war with words, mutiny, face existential threats of our own making, and scrap God, we might yet buoy and keep ourselves up with the ballast of our indomitable attitudes? Perhaps our concentrated, happy thoughts will mount a vigorous defense--while our military is dismantled and while the world burns around us? Perhaps if we were more monomaniacal about channeling the American Dream--if we believed more, doubted less, worked longer, spent less, saved more, strove harder for the secular, conformed our every conviction to it, and censored ourselves in favor of the Dream (isn't there yet a dearth of online advice about how we might do these things?)--our federal liabilities, totaling about $530,000 per household, would never come due and would be indefinitely deferred?

I do not hold with those who would afflict America for her hubris--those who would have her or make her abject. Nor do I sympathize with those who believe she was never exceptional--those who pejoratively call her "Merka" even as they are carried by her. These are blind guides and blind observers. They are blind to the protection, prosperity, and preservation of the Almighty.

But even as the bankruptcy of our choices and policy appears, as a nation, as individuals, we are in denial about how we got here. It isn't because we didn't rely on ourselves; it is because we didn't rely on God. It isn't because we lack outward certitude--that which makes for good "optics"; it is because we lack the inward fortitude of faith. It isn't because we didn't fault others for our failures; it is because we didn't find them in ourselves--and amend our ways. It isn't because we didn't have credible reasons to act or to omit actions; it is because we didn't love the truth. It isn't because we have lacked means; it is because we have valued possessions and power more than God, truth, right, and others. It isn't because we didn't have grievances; it is because we didn't seek to be reconciled to God and others. As we remain in denial that we are in demise, how can it be averted?

A group of fishermen once found themselves tossed by a tempest. As the gale shrieked, they knew their seamanship would not suffice--it could not save them. Wisely, they turned to the Master of Sea and Earth and Skies, Jesus Christ. We might do the same. Or not--and perish from the earth as a people.

A Schism Between Progressives

Reviewing recent literature about the shortfalls of elite education in America, in an article entitled "Becoming a Real Person", David Brooks of the New York Times observed "people in authority no longer feel compelled to define how they think moral, emotional and spiritual growth (progress) happens, beyond a few pablum words that no one could disagree with and a few vague references to community service. The reason they don’t is simple. They don’t think it’s their place, or.....they don’t think they know."  Education is lacking and especially in the moral sphere, according to Mr. Brooks.

So if "people in authority" don't think it is their place to define morality or don't think they know what is moral anymore, what does this say about their fitness to set alternative moral standards for society as Sam Harris, a New York Times best-selling author, prominent atheist, and neuroscientist, and others have argued they should?  To Mr. Harris, per his TED speech "Science can answer moral questions", it is "patently obvious, that we can no more respect and tolerate vast differences in the notions of human well being than we can respect or tolerate vast differences in the notions about how disease spreads or in the safety standards of buildings and airplanes.  We simply must converge on the answers that we give to the most important questions of human life.  And to do that, we have to admit that these questions have answers"--answers that science can now supply, according to Mr. Harris.  But why would Mr. Harris suggest we need to stamp out individual variability in our own species when it is the very basis of evolutionary biology?  To me, this is not the morality that one would infer from science.

There is a schism in modern progressivism.  But you wouldn't know it from watching mass media.  It is the chief impediment to their "progress".  Progressives have discovered that to destroy is not to create.  It is one thing to displace God.  But it is quite another to replace Him.  To replace His morality, to muster the authority He once wielded in society, to exercise power over life and death and freedom, to concentrate their control over scarce resources, progressives must make themselves gods.  In other words, if progressives would implement controls over what is existential to others (ie. health, the economy, the environment, births), they must make themselves god-like experts.  This requires certitude--certitude, not in an objective divine but in one's human self--fanatical certitude.  But what sort of gods will they be?  This question is the source of their schism.

Will they be stern gods--like the one many deride, the Old Testament God of Israel, who had His people drive and kill those who differed?  At least, that God is not a human and is, many allege, omniscient:  He is not the god of self, by self, and for self.  Perhaps it was the idolatry of human omniscience that made the people of the ancient Levant irreconcilable to God's people?  In America, how can we be reconciled if progressives will not tolerate active faith expressed by majorities in public policy?  Are they advocating extermination?  Is theirs a secular variant of radical Islam?  Do they consider Judeo-Christians to be infidels?  Thankfully, there is a schism between these progressives and other progressives.

Note that, for more than two millennia, our nation, under God, was not indifferent to moral questions nor intolerant of broad divergences.  Laws were generally executed with the moral certainty of Judeo-Christianity.  And the Constitution has not dictated convergence.  If anything, it has enabled the very opinions (ie. a new progressive theocracy) that now threaten its existence.

As they seek to be the source of existential allocations, if not stern gods, will progressives choose to be gods of reason--gods who will educate and lift others until all mankind embraces their enlightened views?  Of course, this assumes that everyone will eventually see their views as enlightened.  Even Israel's God has had difficulty there.  It also assumes that progressives can be patient--as patient as Israel's God who has over centuries mentored man--only to be ousted in modernity.  But their human mortality is a problem:  how does one inculcate a new conscience in a generation or two?  If it took miracles and millennia to form the old conscience, how can human reason inculcate a new one?  And if reason and reflection will not suffice, what sort of force and fanaticism must one resort to so as to inculcate a new human conscience?  Perhaps science has some promising drugs or medicine some promising therapies?  Oh, but we're back to the stern gods.

Thankfully, there are still progressives with less certitude than what is germane to a god--persons too human to determine what is dispensed to others--persons pansophical enough to see that the burnings at Seville, the gassings at Auschwitz, and China's Great Leap Forward (perhaps 30 million deaths) all involved convergence for 'the greater good'.  God bless them for their reticence to be god themselves.  I am hopeful that they can check the ambitions of others--as these seek to be the sole dispensary of what is existential to others.  Once existential allocations are concentrated, we will be at the mercy of the allocators and the tendency will be to a tyranny of one.

On Prepping

Are you prepared?  For every conceivable contingency?  Are you ready?  For every inconceivable contingency?  Would you survive a riot, war, nuclear disaster, fire, hurricane, earthquake, tornado, virus, comet, or solar storm?  Or live through a confluence of all of these events?  Are you prepared?!?!

It is insatiable--our striving for security.  Once our belly is full, we fill our shelves.  It will not suffice to provide for today.  We must lay up stores for tomorrows--exquisite tomorrows--for distant heirs.  Once we have insured against disability, we might insure ourselves against a pet’s death.  But there is no mass-market insurance for what is truly hazardous--things like divorce, mental illness, long-term un- and under-employment, or incarceration.  However mightily we strive, perfect security eludes us--because we are human.  Of this striving, I suppose I am guilty as any--because I am human.

To some degree, our striving is prudent—the conduct of a sentient and insecure being.  But, at some point, isn’t it absurd?  For example, why are the top 20% of Americans still striving for something that cannot make them secure--when they already control more than 80% of America’s net worth?  Can their wealth ensure them against a solar storm?  And isn’t this vast disparity in the distribution of wealth fraught with peril for both the possessed and the dispossessed--doesn’t it pit the fewer and richer against the more numerous and poorer?  And doesn’t arbitrary redistribution by government make the rich more stingy and the poor less contented?

What does our frenzied, American pursuit for possession (ie. prepping and now redistribution) say about our faith and trust in God?  Have we placed our trust in the creature--and not in the Creator?  Wouldn't this naturally detract from our faith and trust in God?  Perhaps we blame Him for the insecurity we have fueled?  Or have come to consider His conditions unsustainable—come to the conclusion of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor:  real faith is untenable and immaterial?  Perhaps, like the Inquisitor, some seek to correct God’s work, to give men bread first and then demand their abject obedience?

Jesus sought to prepare others for the future but He was no prepper.  His preparations involved faith in God, not substance.  He considered survival and security to be inferior to, subordinate to, and distractions from true salvation:  “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).  He put faith first—even before fulfillment, even before preparations for the future:  “take no thought for the morrow”, He counseled.  Though He anticipated calamities, rather than warn His disciples to prepare for every contingency, he instructed them to “seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind…..For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things” (Luke 12:29-31).  He offered the Bread of Life to those who sought miraculous provision.  He warned the rich to willingly abase and not to exalt themselves “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:13-21); “go and sell that thou has, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven” (Matthew 19:21).  He counselled us all to “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you” (John 6:27).  When we are alarmed or hear alarms, it might be best not to go to fetch or pen the golden goose but to turn to the God of Israel and his manna—Jesus Christ.

A Riddle

It is the currency that revolutionaries, zealots, mutineers, and demagogues offer the masses.  It is that of which they deprive them:  it obstructs progress--for good or ill.  It is goad and hold for Satan's fold.  To fearful mortals, it is insatiable.

What it is?  Mortal security.

On Apostasy

Apostasy is the condition that prevails when men refuse faith and trust in God for other things. 

We are all apostate to a degree:  Jeremiah described men as “brutish” in knowledge (Jeremiah 10:14); Paul observed that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and are generally “ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” (Romans 10:3); John warned “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8); many of the faithful have denounced the wickedness, hatred, pride, vanity, foolishness and hardheartedness of men who seek peace and security where it cannot be found—in possessions, in sin, and in oppressions.

Faith has a history of fits and starts.  History shows that the general condition of humanity has been apostasy.  For example, faith in the God of Israel has been anything but common in most civilizations (ie. in Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and etc.) and most places (even today).  It was fragile even among the children of Israel.  Often, they chose idols over God.  They had epochs of unbelief, captivity, and dispersion; and they had eras of faith, emancipation, and reunion.  Even to God’s most trusted servants, faith has seemed, at times, tenuous.  For example, our New Testament portrait of Peter, the "rock"--a self-deprecating portrait preserved at Peter’s behest-- is one of a man who was generally bewildered by the words, will, and works of God, a man who was often rebuked by Jesus (“thou savorest not the things that be of God”--Matthew 16:21-23).  Nothing, it seems, has been more tenuous than truth about God.  Nothing has been less secure.  The hands of men have been too ambitious, too cruel, too weak, too self-serving, to hold the truth and oracles of God long.   In fact, apostasy has been so common, it may seem that this is how God wanted the world to be.  I don’t think that it reveals God’s will that men have only had that portion of God’s word that they were prepared for and willing to receive and keep.  To me, it reveals God’s great mercy.

That apostasy has been prevalent is no marvel, as Paul observed, because “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).  John the Revelator beheld a whore representing the dominion of wickedness over all the earth, and among all nations and people.

Paul anticipated that the truth would be persistently imperiled.  He exhorted believers to “be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:2-4).  Paul anticipated that churches would fall into apostasy; he anticipated a day when the son of perdition would show himself to be God even in the holiest place(s).

I am encouraged by the examples of Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:21-39).  As they worshipped God, in a conquered, abject country, captive to an apostate empire, in a temple overseen by apostates (Pharisees), God rewarded them for their faith:  they saw and recognized the Christ child and rejoiced in His coming.  We can have confidence--in perilous times, in a fallen world--that God will reward our sincere faith and love of truth.