Blumner cross at Scalia

Ah, Robyn Blumner. Missed you while I was vacationing from the blog, my Blumñata.

Blumner this past week weighed in on the state/church divide case involving the Mojave Desert war memorial cross.

clipped from www.panoramio.com

(photo credit: Frank Keeney)

Blumner's opening argument:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is so insensitive to the religious beliefs of others that during an oral argument on Wednesday he had the nerve to denounce the idea that Jewish veterans may not feel honored by a Latin cross war memorial that sits atop a rocky slope at California's Mojave National Preserve.

1) This opening, as it stands, is an irrelevant ad hominem (personal attack on Scalia). Any degree of insensitivity on Scalia's part is irrelevant to the application of the law, minus additional considerations.

2) Additionally, the argument appears to set up a straw man. Scalia does not appear to denounce the idea that a Jewish veteran may not feel honored by a Latin cross war memorial. Rather, he points out a non sequitur in the argument of the plaintiff's lawyer.

Blumner's account adequately illustrates point #2:

"What would you have them erect?" Scalia, a devout Catholic, scoffed. "Some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Muslim half moon and star?"

"I have been in Jewish cemeteries," responded ACLU attorney Peter Eliasberg, who represented Frank Buono, a former National Park Service official who objected to the cross. "There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew."

To that Scalia retorted with irritation: "I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion."

Eliasberg's answer to Scalia's question wasn't exactly direct, was it?

Scalia's point was that the cross as a grave marker carries a meaning far broader than "this dead person was a Christian." In cultural terms, it is seen as just a grave marker. That some might not see it as just a grave marker does not erase the point. That is the point Scalia stressed. Eliasberg and Blumner applied evasive maneuvers. Standard in the sleazy lawyer playbook.

With a bad first step, how will Blumner proceed with the second?

Outrageous? Really? And if the only monument at an officially designated American war memorial was a large Muslim crescent and star, would Scalia feel included?

Highly doubtful, since there is no parallel between using the cross as a grave marker and using the Muslim crescent and star as such. Blumner knows better, doesn't she?

The cross is so ubiquitous in graveyards that it has become a symbol for death, as shown in the advertising campaign to reduce driving speed.

So Blumner's question is just another attempt to distract from the point.

Next?

After recounting how the cross has been replaced at the memorial a number of times, Blumner veers to a different tack:

It is telling that Congress has weighed in three times to try to keep the cross where it is. Such ridiculous lengths suggest what we all know: Without a constitutional brake, government will use its power to promote the majority's religious beliefs.

The majority's belief that the cross has become a general symbol of death in addition to being an explicitly Christian symbol? Or some other majority belief? No doubt Blumner sees the cross only as an attempt to ram Christian belief down her avowedly secularist esophagus. Scalia argues for folks like Blumner to open their eyes to the broader meaning of the cross. But Blumner will have none of it.

Scalia, (wi)ll take any opportunity to water down church-state separation, even if he has to delude himself into thinking that a Christian cross honors people of other faiths.

In other words, Blumner apparently denies that the Christian cross can separately have meaning as a symbol of death. Eyes, ears and any other relevant sense closed to Scalia's point.

Blumñata!



Note: Of course the clipped photo does not show a cross, per se. It shows the current state of the Mojave memorial, with the arms of the cross obscured under court order.

Obama's push toward the secularist state

Bradford Wilcox over at RealClearPolitics sounds a clear trumpet call on one of my pet societal issues:

One unremarked and unintended consequence of Barack Obama’s audacious plans for the expansion of government—especially in health care, education, and the environment—is that the nanny state he is seeking to build will likely crowd out religious institutions in America. In other words, if he succeeds in passing his ambitious agenda, the Obama revolution is likely to lead the United States down the secular path already trod by Europe.

I would take issue with Wilcox's suggestion that the consequences of Obama's plans are unremarked. Hugh Hewitt took special note of the limitations on tax deductions for charitable giving last week.

The broader point is spot-on.

The social safety net of government stands in direct competition with religious (and non-religious) charities. Making that safety net an entitlement both robs the the system of much of its free market efficiency and places a strong retarding effect on the support of private charity. Beneficiaries have less reason to contribute back to society in return for the assistance if it constitutes an entitlement. And the American people lose out on personal involvement in rehabilitating their own society. It has become, after all, the government's job.

The big problem, here, is that the government loves no one. Any caring shown by the government is only an extension of the love extended by individuals. Yet this system will systematically train individuals to regard caring for the weakest as a detached responsibility. We pay our taxes. Others worry about the details.

The next step is insidious. The love, albeit detached, can remain in a majority of individuals but once it erodes from those in power the jig is up. The government has been given the power and the alternative providers have closed up shop. Once the government takes down the safety net there won't be much left.

This is bad, folks.

I've been warning my liberal Christian friends about this for years. They want more government involvement to solve social problems, seeing the short term picture without the long term implications.

Kearny church/state issue update

Regarding the teacher accused of proselytizing in the classroom, the offended student's father has been posting to message board dedicated to the town of Kearny.

Check it out (you may find some of my comments here and there, assuming the moderators find them insufficiently inflammatory for banning).

This issue is near and dear to my heart, since I see the modern court's view of church/state separation as an effective death sentence on U.S. unity with the growth of multiculturalism.

The constitution isn't threatened by Christian fundamentalists at all compared to the threat from folks who do not hold these truths self-evident ...

For the nation to have unity, it must have a substantial common culture. I'm not a big fan of talk radio host Michael Savage, but he's spot on with the borders/language/culture distillation of the problem facing the US. A common culture of multiculturalism is self-contradictory. It cannot lead to unity where the various cultures have no substantial common ground.

It was trendy in times past to regard all of the world's religions as essentially similar. That's why the founders of the nation found it easy to find unity between deists and theists. They weren't all that different respecting morality and civil law.

Times have changed. Moral relativism looks philosophically attractive to many, including academic elites. Moral relativism sits uncomfortably with self-evident rights.
That trend will undermine the constitution one way or another. Either the constitution will be amended unrecognizably, or reinterpreted by the courts so that the authors would no longer recognize it.

One of my first blog posts:
The Constitution of the United States is Unconstitutional.

The Kearny controversy

A teacher in Kearny, New Jersey has become a focus in the news after talking about religion in his history class.
The teacher, David Paszkiewicz, was recorded on the job by a Matthew LaClair, a junior at Kearny High School. LaClair, for what it's worth, is apparently an atheist and the son of a lawyer.

This case seems to show the degree to which secularists are thin-skinned about the mention of religion in the classroom. My computer hasn't helped me listen to the sound files of Paskiewicz's classes, but judging from the transcripts I've seen this far (like this one), it seems that he respects other religious beliefs while leading a productive discussion.

The biggest question I've got about his methods would concern the context--exactly what aspect of history is he illuminating through this type of discussion? There may well be a good answer, but I couldn't hazard a guess at the moment.

A self-described atheist commenting at one of my bloghopping destinations (Talking in Circles [Scratch that, it was at "The Questionable Authority]) summed up my opinion pretty well, though it didn't address my concern about how the discussion fits with the curriculum.

I'm atheist and anti-religion. I came onto this discussion shocked and outraged, but not ready to throw stones until I knew exactly what was said, and some context. Couldn't understand the audio, but thanks to Stephen's transcript, I begin to get a pretty good idea what kind of teacher this guy is.
And, god, I wish I'd had teachers like that.
Wake up, people! He gets high school kids engaged in animated discussions about abstract ideas! Anybody who can achieve this is a hero.
He gets preachy, but he encourages debate and allows disagreement; it's worth it. I don't agree with anything he says, but if I were in that class I'd sure be thinking. And learning.

Posted by: dzho | December 21, 2006 12:37 PM

Well said.