Render Unto Ceasar

I have a serious problem with the ultimate credibility of both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, which has nothing to do with their politics. It's with what both claim to inform and shape their politics, their faith.

Both are more than willing to cite the importance of the Bible, and both are proud of their significant religious ordinations; both are hold ordinations in their respective faiths, and Romney is the equivalent of a Christian Bishop.

Furthermore, it seems to me that any fair-minded person, in reviewing the accomplishments of both men, which are honestly significant and important, than it's evident that they have, within the limits of human nature and circumstance - strived to honor the spirit as well as the letter of doctrinal guidance. These are not bad things. Indeed, in many ways, both men illustrate the impact of religious culture in society in it's best light - and I say this while taking direct issue with much of what each stands for, religiously and politically.

But if we are to praise men of faith who do their best to honor the words of Christ as they understand them in the world, we must heed Matthew 6:24 :

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

In context, Matthew chapter six is purportedly the direct words of Christ and is indisputably the foundation of some of the oldest and most basic Christian doctrines. In other words, it's pretty much a litmus test for people who say they are Christians, or (in Mitt's case) that their faith derives from and amplifies Christianity.

While my understanding of Mormonism is weak at best, I know of nothing in it that would dispute this passage. And aside from anything else, the words stand for themselves; they are persuasive due to them being a matter of common sense, one that is well understood within common law, which would express it as "conflict of interest."

If this were the only leg to my argument, though, it would not be worth uttering, for of course the issue goes to motive, and motive we cannot know. No, the more critical issue is this:

Both men, in taking direct ordinations and embracing certain spiritual obligations and duties, have accepted what is generally understood by persons of faith to be a higher, overriding duty. And - in the case of BOTH Mitt's Mormonism and Mike's Southern Baptist faith, there are going to be times when it will not be possible to come to an honorable compromise between the prior charge of the priesthood and the later oath of office.

The only way either could legitimately take the oath would be by renouncing their prior ordinations. But then, that would not really reflect well upon how seriously they took the duties and obligations they had sworn before their visions of God to uphold.

It seems to me that as things stand, the only way I can assume that either will "faithfully execute the office of the President" is if I assume that they were keeping their fingers crossed when they made their earlier promises, for the honorable exercise of their offices requires them to put the interests of the faithful and of their faith ahead of anything else, to a far greater and more stringent degree than is required of someone who is merely a congregate in good standing.

If I assume they are both men of faith to the degree I am expected to believe, if I assume they are sincere in their beliefs, if I assume they are faithful to their various religious doctrines which both claim overriding divine authority, I must then assume that in conscience and in practice that doctrine and faith will trump Constitution and Law every single time. And, as both support amending the constitution itself to take rights away from gays who are doctrinally excluded from marriage within either faith, we clearly see how this conflict resolves for each.

I don't ascribe this to some nefarious hidden agenda, I ascribe it to perfectly sincere faith, executed by men of conscience to the best of their ability. Believing as they both do, there is no other path of conscience.

Which means, alas, that neither man should, in conscience, be running for political office, knowing full well that they cannot and must not serve two masters.

The only question is this: which one will they choose to betray?

The President must be president for all citizens - not just citizens of a particular faith or range of faiths. The President is the safeguard of our liberties - not the figure that would impose duties upon us by fiat. We are offered two men from two very authoritarian religions who, we must assume, believe not only that it's proper that moral standards be imposed, but who each hold offices that make them responsible for doing just that.

I'd have a problem with that even if I were a member of such a faith - and I rather think that my objections would be even more profound if I held a similar ordination in a similar faith.

That is why the founders somewhat reluctantly agreed that there should be a separation of Church and State and forbade the establishment of any religion, even the rather inoffensive Deist faith.

Because a man may not serve two masters - and neither may a government.

tag: religion, faith, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, election 2008, Matthew 6:24

Where I stand

I've said that Ron Paul is my favored candidate right now, but in the areas we disagree, we disagree passionately.

In the areas where we disagree, each of us departs from stock libertarianism in one case - and not in the other. I think it's worth looking at where each of us emphasise principle over practicality - and vice versa.

Read on..

I'm an exception to all other Libs I know of in that I advocate a strong and secure social safety net. I don't refer to it as "socialism" or "welfare stateism" in that I am not talking about those approaches to this particular problem. However the lack of success in a particular approach toward solving a problem does not make the problem go away. Generally it makes it worse. In the case of both socalism and welfare state policies, centralized planning and paternalism make the problems addressed so very much worse that it's easy to believe that merely getting rid of the solution would solve the problem.

Oh, if only it were that easy. But in fact, it's not, and a comparison of the livability and costs to citizens in the "socialized" nations of europe shows that recognizing and dealing with poverty least intrusively dealt with by a very simple process: Give the poor enough money to not be poor AND desperate.

Poverty is relative - desparately poor is to put people under basic survival pressure. When enough people in your society ARE under survival pressure, Very Bad Things Happen that in our nation, You See On Fox Every Day.

I differ from Ron in having had the opportunity of being poor in Canada - and now seeing what being Poor in America is like. Hell, in many ways it's better to be poor in Canada than Lower Middle Class in America. At least you have health insurance!

So we differ there, in that I feel that it's a government's duty to address matters of common concern to all citizens; healthcare, poverty and crime are all issues that are common concerns and which tend to be causes and effects of each other.

On the other hand, we disagree passionately on the issue of open vs closed borders. As a Libertarian, I believe in the free movement of peaceful people. Furthermore, I feel that this whole matter falls under the Bobatearian principle of "no Stupid Laws," that is to say, laws that are intrusive by definition and which will obviously increase both hassle and provide endless opportunities for the corruption of government officials.

I like what another Libertarian running for President has to say on this topic.

Beyond the economic and cultural positives of open immigration, we must consider the national defense problems posed by "closed" immigration.

Capital -- including human capital -- moves to where it can be most profitably invested for all concerned, and it rolls right over government barriers to do so. In practice, this means that millions of immigrants arrive, and will continue to arrive, in the United States each year regardless of what our government does to stop them.

Right now, nonsensical US immigration policy forces many of those immigrants to sneak in rather than walk in "through the front door." Reasonable estimates put the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico alone in excess of one million annually. An entire industry of cross-border guides, called "coyotes," is built around getting those immigrants into the US to live and work. These "coyotes" don't care one way or another whether the person they're smuggling into the US is a janitor from Guadalajara or an al Qaeda fighter carrying the material to make a "dirty bomb" in Dallas. And our immigration policy gives the latter type of "immigrant" a huge crowd to hide himself in.

The first step in providing for our national defense at the border is to let those who bear us no ill will to come in "through the front door" -- to walk across the border publicly and conveniently instead of sneaking over it in the middle of the night and in the middle of the desert. Believe me, they'd rather be welcomed than hunted ... and welcoming them rather than hunting them will reduce the cover they provide for our enemies.

The second step in providing for our national defense at the border is to re-focus the government services which address that border away from hassling peaceful immigrants and toward detecting and eliminating real threats to the United States.

I attribute most anti-immigrant sentiment to race panic, where people see the culture changing in response to new waves of immigrants and proceed to freak out in all directions. As the decendent of economic migrants myself, like most people who are not actually Native Americans, I find arguing against open borders both unprincipled as a libertarian and distasteful as a civilized human being. But perhaps Ron cannot risk alienating the racist right together with the racist left and racist center. Very well.

But I have no such excuse and I won't provide him cover on this issue.

There's a far simpler way of dealing with the poverty that drives people to climb the border fences and risk death in the desert, and that is to adjust our foreign and economic policies that are, frankly, aimed at keeping our southern neighbors broke, for the sake of cheap bananas and minerals. Free and fair trade will do more to stem the flood than any tonnage of barbed wire and guard dogs.

Oh, and a fence that keeps other people out is pretty damn good at keeping you IN, come the day Bush decides to round up the Usual Suspects.