To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine (6 page)
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Authors: Newt Gingrich
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BOOK: To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine
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SECULARISM: ONE COUNTRY WITHOUT GOD
Describing the Left as “secular” will be controversial for two reasons. First, when you discuss a left-wing politician’s secular policies, many on the Left, abetted by the mainstream media, will indignantly insist you are accusing them of being atheists or apostates. Don’t take the bait. We cannot know what is in the hearts of other men and women, and any speculation is an exercise in hubris and futility.
Instead, our central argument lies in the second reason for controversy. It is one rooted in historic fact and American history, which makes it a winning argument for us. But it requires a calm, steady, and repeated explanation of the facts to counter the bed of lies that has obscured our understanding of the “separation of church and state” and “religious freedom.”
Among some Americans, particularly the academic elite, it has become unchallenged conventional wisdom that the First Amendment’s establishment clause—“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”—means the U.S. government must purge all religion from public life. To understand just how wrong this interpretation is, we need to discuss what the term “secular” actually means.
The Latin root of “secular” is “saeculum,” which meant “an age,” or roughly, a human lifespan. It is closely related to the word “century,” or 100 years. The connection from this original meaning to the term’s modern understanding as “non-religious” is its emphasis on the “current” and “the now” rather than being concerned with an afterlife.
A purely secular outlook does not acknowledge God. It does not consider the implications of one’s actions beyond the impact they make within one’s own life. It does not recognize any higher moral order beyond that which human beings have rationally developed.
The argument that the Constitution’s establishment clause requires a purely secular government is fatally flawed because America’s historic conception of rights is clearly dependent upon a higher moral order than the laws of man.
For example, the Declaration of Independence, America’s founding political document, boldly proclaims, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
This extraordinary sentence makes some key assumptions: that God is sovereign over the affairs of the universe; that God created man; and that man must obey an order of justice God Himself has instituted.
How then can a purely secular worldview account for the original American understanding of our rights and freedoms?
It cannot.
The secular-socialist Left bitterly oppose anyone who speaks the truth about the central role of “our Creator” in the Founders’ formulation of our rights and freedoms. When confronted with the facts, they often resort to ad hominem attacks, arguing that if you oppose militant secularism in the public square, then you must be endorsing a theocracy. This is a ludicrous, insulting charge, especially when so many people throughout the world today are enslaved by religious dictatorships.
When forging the Constitution, the Founding Fathers did not see the need to choose between the fraternal twin oppressions of a militantly secular government or a state-sponsored and imposed religion. Their new, American model was a country with no official national religion where everyone could worship as they pleased. But they were also careful not to shut out religion from public life. The Founders saw religion as vital to the survival of republican government because they believed the maintenance of liberty requires virtue.
That’s why, in addition to the establishment clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. . . . ”), the First Amendment also contains the free exercise clause (“. . . or prevent the free exercise thereof”).
That’s why George Washington declared, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensible supports.”
That’s why John Adams said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.”
And that’s why Thomas Jefferson, probably the least religious of the Founding Fathers, stated, “Reading, reflection, and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts . . . in which all religions agree.”
It’s worth focusing on Jefferson, because he is the Founding Father most cited by militant secularists. Jefferson, of course, wrote the phrase “separation of church and state,” which appeared in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists. For fifty years, a deeply anti-religious court system has used this phrase to justify banning school prayer, tearing down crosses on public land, and even threatening the Boy Scouts, whose program includes a multi-denominational religious component.
The importance of this five-word phrase from one of Jefferson’s private letters has been exaggerated and its meaning completely distorted. In fact, if you look at Jefferson’s public actions as vice president and later as president of the United States, it’s clear he did not intend the establishment clause to ban religion from the public square.
The most obvious example is that two days after he penned the letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson attended church in the U.S. Capitol building. These services were acceptable to Jefferson (and James Madison, who also attended) because they were voluntary and non-discriminatory; many different preachers, and eventually priests, from various denominations led services. Jefferson also allowed other executive branch buildings to be used in a similar manner.
It’s hard to square Jefferson’s support for church services in the U.S. Capitol building with the secular insistence that all matters of faith be banned from public life.
Instead, it’s clear that Jefferson, like the rest of the Founders, wanted a government that allowed for public religious expression, but did not endorse any particular denomination. Doing so would preserve the rights of Americans of all faiths (and of no faith), while recognizing the importance of religion and morality to the Republic’s survival.
The plain facts of our nation’s history have not stopped anti-religious bigots in the judiciary, academia, and in elected office from insisting that religious belief is inherently divisive and that the
discussion of public affairs can only occur in secular terms. Consider the oppressive effect of this secular worldview in our public schools:
discussion of public affairs can only occur in secular terms. Consider the oppressive effect of this secular worldview in our public schools:
• School officials prevented a New Jersey student from reading his favorite story to the class because it came from the Bible.
• A Pennsylvania school suspended a teacher’s assistant because she wore a necklace with a cross.
1
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• A Colorado high school valedictorian was refused a diploma unless she apologized for mentioning Jesus in her commencement speech.
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2
Such absurdities, of course, hardly display the “tolerance” that the Left claim to value above all else. And recent court cases are even more disturbing:
• A federal court in California found that the leasing of parcels of parkland to the Boy Scouts was unconstitutional. While the case was stayed pending a related decision, the fact that the plaintiffs were found to have standing to bring the suit, in the words of six dissenting judges on the Ninth Circuit, “creates a new legal landscape in which almost anyone who is offended by anything has standing to air his or her displeasure in court.”
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• The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is arguing on behalf of a parks service employee to remove the 76-year-old World War I Memorial Cross in the Mojave National Preserve.
4
The cross has been covered with a plywood box until the Supreme Court decides the case. An organization I founded called Renewing American Leadership, headed by Rick Tyler, has filed an amicus
brief along with Citizens United in support of maintaining the cross. To be clear, the Mojave cross is in the middle of the desert, eight and a half miles away from any major roadway. Imagine for a second the mindset of a militant secularist who is so terrified and offended by a cross in the middle of a desert.
4
The cross has been covered with a plywood box until the Supreme Court decides the case. An organization I founded called Renewing American Leadership, headed by Rick Tyler, has filed an amicus
brief along with Citizens United in support of maintaining the cross. To be clear, the Mojave cross is in the middle of the desert, eight and a half miles away from any major roadway. Imagine for a second the mindset of a militant secularist who is so terrified and offended by a cross in the middle of a desert.
• In DeFuniak Springs, Florida, a judge ordered that a copy of the Ten Commandments in the courthouse be covered during a murder trial because he did not want the jurors to see the commandment “Do not kill.”
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• In June 2002, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance to be unconstitutional. The Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2004 upon procedural grounds rather than on its merits. In early 2010 the issue was brought up again in the Ninth Circuit, and this time the court ruled in favor of keeping “under God.” Michael Newdow, the atheist behind this string of lawsuits, has vowed to appeal the ruling.
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The wall of separation these secularists seek to enforce is really one between the historic America and the radically different America they want to create—an America without God, traditional values, or knowledge of its own history.
SOCIALISM: SPREADING THE FAILURE AROUNDDescribing the Left as socialist will also be controversial because the Left hate accurate language about their goals. But any fair assessment of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid economic policies shows they are indisputably socialist.
Broadly defined, socialist policies favor increased central planning of the economy by politicians and bureaucrats instead of allowing entrepreneurs, businesses, and customers to make decisions in the free market. Socialists also favor government attempts to collectivize the means of production and to divvy up the national wealth. Socialists favor these methods because they insist on equality of
results
, rather than the traditional American belief in equality
under the law.
Therefore, they champion a strong central government to impose equality of outcomes, as Joe the Plumber found out during the 2008 campaign when he was told by then-candidate Obama that taxes needed to be raised in order to “spread the wealth around.”
results
, rather than the traditional American belief in equality
under the law.
Therefore, they champion a strong central government to impose equality of outcomes, as Joe the Plumber found out during the 2008 campaign when he was told by then-candidate Obama that taxes needed to be raised in order to “spread the wealth around.”
It’s hard to imagine, but as late as the 1970s, before the Reagan revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union, socialism had not yet been thoroughly discredited in the United States. Meanwhile, conservatism, while growing in force, was not yet the dominant ideology in America or even in the Republican Party. American politics was stuck in a cycle arguing between slower and faster routes toward big government. Favoring the fast route, many Democratic Party leaders sought to impose a form of socialism on America.
With that in mind, it’s important to recognize that most of today’s powerful Democratic congressional committee chairmen were first elected in the 1970s. In other words, today’s Democratic leaders joined Congress at a time when socialist, big-government solutions were in the mainstream in their party.
Coupled with the current Speaker of the House, who is a legitimate representative of the left-wing values of her home district in San Francisco, is it any wonder the new Democratic majorities have aggressively pursued big-government, socialist policies?
Look at the signature bills considered by the House and Senate under President Obama, the committee chairmen responsible for their development, and when these chairmen were elected to Congress.
• The Employee Free Choice Act (
Education and Labor Committee: Chairman George Miller, 1974
) Last year, the House passed the EFCA card check legislation that would strip American workers of the right to a secret ballot when deciding whether to join a union. It would also institute “binding arbitration” that takes power away from U.S. employers and employees and gives it to new arbitration bureaucracies. The political rationale for this bill is that unions—long-time power centers of the global socialist movement and a powerful Democratic constituency—have been shrinking in size and influence over the past fifty years (with the notable exception of public employee unions). This bill is a clear attempt to reinvigorate them with new powers, even if workers don’t agree.
Education and Labor Committee: Chairman George Miller, 1974
) Last year, the House passed the EFCA card check legislation that would strip American workers of the right to a secret ballot when deciding whether to join a union. It would also institute “binding arbitration” that takes power away from U.S. employers and employees and gives it to new arbitration bureaucracies. The political rationale for this bill is that unions—long-time power centers of the global socialist movement and a powerful Democratic constituency—have been shrinking in size and influence over the past fifty years (with the notable exception of public employee unions). This bill is a clear attempt to reinvigorate them with new powers, even if workers don’t agree.
• Cap and Trade (
Energy and Commerce Committee: Chairman Henry Waxman, 1974; Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee: Chairman Edward Markey, 1976
) The House passed a huge energy tax increase on the American people in the guise of a cap-and-trade scheme. The bill would concentrate the authority to choose the recipients of carbon permits—and by extension, the power to determine which U.S. firms will be allowed to produce, innovate, and grow—into a centralized bureaucracy. This is clearly a step toward central economic planning.
Energy and Commerce Committee: Chairman Henry Waxman, 1974; Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee: Chairman Edward Markey, 1976
) The House passed a huge energy tax increase on the American people in the guise of a cap-and-trade scheme. The bill would concentrate the authority to choose the recipients of carbon permits—and by extension, the power to determine which U.S. firms will be allowed to produce, innovate, and grow—into a centralized bureaucracy. This is clearly a step toward central economic planning.
It’s also worth noting that the Senate’s failure to pass this bill has provoked threats from the Obama administration to have the Environmental Protection Agency regulate carbon as a pollutant, a move that would centralize economic power in bureaucracies even more than cap and trade would have done. Additionally, the Copenhagen Conference on global warming produced a commitment from participants,
including the United States, to initiate a vast transfer of wealth from developed nations to poor ones. It’s socialism on a global scale.
including the United States, to initiate a vast transfer of wealth from developed nations to poor ones. It’s socialism on a global scale.
• Stimulus Bill (
Appropriations Committee: Chairman Dave Obey, 1969
) Congress circumvented the normal appropriations process and hastily passed this convoluted legislation that mandated which agencies, firms, and individuals would (and, implicitly, would not) receive taxpayer dollars. Five-hundred thirty-five individuals exercised complete control over $787 billion in taxpayer funds. Another step toward centralized economic planning, the stimulus has only sent a fraction of the money to “shovel ready” infrastructure and other jobs projects. Far more has gone into state and federal bureaucracies, perhaps irreversibly growing the size and power of government at the federal, state, and local level.
Appropriations Committee: Chairman Dave Obey, 1969
) Congress circumvented the normal appropriations process and hastily passed this convoluted legislation that mandated which agencies, firms, and individuals would (and, implicitly, would not) receive taxpayer dollars. Five-hundred thirty-five individuals exercised complete control over $787 billion in taxpayer funds. Another step toward centralized economic planning, the stimulus has only sent a fraction of the money to “shovel ready” infrastructure and other jobs projects. Far more has gone into state and federal bureaucracies, perhaps irreversibly growing the size and power of government at the federal, state, and local level.
• Healthcare Overhaul (
Energy and Commerce Committee: Chairman Henry Waxman, 1974; Ways and Means Committee: Chairman Charles Rangel, 1970; Education and Labor Committee: Chairman George Miller, 1974; Senate Finance Committee: Chairman Max Baucus, 1978
) The healthcare bill signed into law in March 2010 will turn healthcare into a de-facto nationalized utility by forcing all Americans to buy health insurance and micromanaging insurance companies from the Department of Health and Human Services. Fortunately, many of the most destructive elements of this bill do not take effect until 2014, so there is still time to repeal it and start over with market-based, patient-oriented health reform.
Energy and Commerce Committee: Chairman Henry Waxman, 1974; Ways and Means Committee: Chairman Charles Rangel, 1970; Education and Labor Committee: Chairman George Miller, 1974; Senate Finance Committee: Chairman Max Baucus, 1978
) The healthcare bill signed into law in March 2010 will turn healthcare into a de-facto nationalized utility by forcing all Americans to buy health insurance and micromanaging insurance companies from the Department of Health and Human Services. Fortunately, many of the most destructive elements of this bill do not take effect until 2014, so there is still time to repeal it and start over with market-based, patient-oriented health reform.
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