The Christian Taliban no likeee judges

If you want to get a good glimpse into the mind of Taliban Christians [1] in this country, check out this [2] article:

The notion of preserving some archaic definition of “family” offends me. First off, who defined marriage in the first place? And if you believe certain sexual behavior is wrong—which I certainly don’t—how would you enforce your rules: by invading people’s bedrooms, trampling on the right to privacy? The spirit of tolerance demands that we allow free men to define family for themselves.

Also, the idea that God has a place in U.S. society goes against the principles I hold dear, the tenets by which civilization should be governed. Any American knows that church and state must be kept separate. Should Muslims be forced to view publicly displayed religious messages like the heavy-handed Ten Commandments? Should a young Buddhist be forced to listen to school prayer? Should millions of atheists feel compelled to say they belong to one nation under God?

I think most of us would tend to more or less agree. But in fact the article is raising these points as a form of satire as though we would read every line and gasp at how pinko liberal our judiciary has become. The author genuinely perceives a judiciary that has declared war on the Christian Right (and not the other way around) and even trot out obscure biblical scripture out of context in order to lend theological weight to their argument:

The war on family and religion in the U.S. is now decades old, and one of the primary weapons of those who oppose morality is the judiciary … God Himself said it would be so. When the Prophet Isaiah warned about a lack of leadership in the modern nations of Israel and Judah, he specifically warned that God would take away the “judge”—the men who would interpret the law and properly administer justice (Isaiah 3:1-3). Today, the highest court in the land is handing down morally irresponsible rulings that violate God’s laws and attack religion and family. To do so, justices are forced to violate even the U.S. Constitution.

And what they want most in the world is not actually a Taliban-style theocracy governed by the most radical wing of American Christians, but rather a glorious return to the good old age of light in which the founding fathers spread their theocratic warmth for all generations to come:

Originalism means that judges look to the U.S. Constitution but avoid creating rights beyond those defined by the Constitution. Originalism promotes the rule of law by imparting to the Constitution a permanent, predictable meaning … But rather than limiting themselves to the original intent of the Founding Fathers, some justices engage in judicial activism: predetermining the outcome they would like to see, then devising a reason to support it.

I especially love how they italicize ‘judicial activism’ as though it were somehow a definitive label used to describe those who oppose this concept of originalism. The fact is, all members of the judiciary are to some extent activist in any case lacking in precedent (i.e. most constitutional cases that the supreme court must decide). The only question is whether they are liberal activists or if they are Republican activists [3] and therefore more in tune with the zealot fringe of the Christian Right [4].

In a sense, they are right. I mean, if the founding fathers were alive today, they would probably vote Republican. There. I’ve said it. I mean, the twisted beauty of concepts like ‘life’, ‘liberty’ and the ‘pursuit of happiness’ is that they sound like kittens and puppies to anyone who hears them. Our minds reflexively define these incredibly subjective concepts and we believe unquestioningly that our perception is the universal reality. They’re the rhetorical equivalent of a Rorschach inkblot.

Yet I’m fairly confident that the founding fathers’ vision of these concepts would have been far more analogous to hard-right Republicans than to my own. If the old coots were alive today they would probably have campaigned for a second Bush term. They would likely cite national security concerns in order to compel a third (or a fourth). They might even play golf with Rove once in a while. So go ahead and gloat, Republicans, because this progressive is willing to admit that the founding fathers shared your vision of America and not mine.

But the founding fathers were assholes. Who in the world would choose them as a role model? Why are we are haunted by the specter of these mythologized jerks as though their narrow worldview somehow formed a mandate for the present? They enslaved millions of people to involuntary servitude. Today we call it trickle-down economics. They wanted to conduct commerce without the interference of England’s regulatory controls. Today we call that neo-liberal globalization. They brutalized and killed an aboriginal population unwilling to bend to economic subjugation. Today we call that the Global War on Terror.

Yes, I’m fairly certain the founding fathers intended life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be bestowed upon a narrow swath of privileged white businessmen. But if they really wanted us to behave like that today then they would have written a far more rigid constitution. They didn’t. The U.S. Constitution is Our constitution and is one of the most malleable governments ever conceived. The founding fathers didn’t intend for the constitution to have a “permanent, predictable meaning” like this article would have us believe. The fact that it has endured intact over two centuries of power fluctuations is a testament to its flexibility, not its strength. So don’t think you can just throw the founding fathers in my face in order to somehow ‘win’ the argument. You can’t.

The point is that our government belongs to We the People. Here. Now. It’s designed so that the spirit and will of the people can freely evolve (or devolve as the case may be). It bends and adjusts so that We can live the life We want now and not the life of some dead rich dudes from a profoundly different culture. If we want a large middle class, fine. If we want basic healthcare for all, terrific. If we want every Thursday to be green Jello and taco day then so be it. It’s Our country and we can run it any damn way We please.

So who’s happy with the way it is today?  Pretty much nobody.  And God help us if we ever are.  As Americans, we remain beholden to a permamnt battle to define the American identity.  We have a neverending responsibility to ensure that our triumphs and tribulations alike are defined by rationality [5] and not a hypocritical fringe whose leadership are trying to redefine the world in apocolyptic terms.

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