We Swear We’re Tolerant
A Christian student in the counseling program at Eastern Michigan University was expelled because she believes in the traditional definition of marriage and consequently did not feel comfortable being forced to counsel same-sex patients. Julea Ward in turn sued the school, and yesterday a federal judge in Michigan threw the case out, siding with the university.
U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Ward’s lawsuit against Eastern Michigan University. She was removed from the school’s counseling program last year because she refused to counsel homosexual clients.
The university contended she violated school policy and the American Counseling Association code of ethics.
But I thought that college campuses were the bastions of free thought and moral relativism?
Eastern Michigan University hailed the decision.
“We are pleased that the court has upheld our position in this matter,” EMU spokesman Walter Kraft said in a written statement. “Julea Ward was not discriminated against because of her religion. To the contrary, Eastern Michigan is deeply committed to the education of our students and welcomes individuals from diverse backgrounds into our community.”
In his 48-page opinion, Judge Steeh said the university had a rational basis for adopting the ACA Code of Ethics.
“Furthermore, the university had a rational basis for requiring students to counsel clients without imposing their personal values,” he wrote in a portion of his ruling posted by The Detroit News. “In the case of Ms. Ward, the university determined that she would never change her behavior and would consistently refuse to counsel clients on matters with which she was personally opposed due to her religious beliefs – including homosexual relationships.”
So everyone is welcome, all religious beliefs are on the same level playing field, but because Julea Ward would not "change her behavior" (aka "change her religious beliefs") she is not able to be accredited with a degree in counseling? Putting aside how one feels about gay marriage (or homosexuality in general), what in the world do Julea Ward's personal religious convictions have to do with her ability as a counselor? Counselors and psychiatrists can choose to see (or not see) any client they want. You can decide to not see a client because they are obnoxious, or you don't care for the perfume she wears, or they are White Sox fans.
There is a cultural battle waging in this country, whether we like harsh terms like "battle" and "war" or not. Groups like the Alliance Defense Fund are actually joining in the debate. If you're not familiar with ADF, you should be. Even if you aren't willing to give of your time or effort, support those who are.
Dostoevsky Was Right, And I Hate Socialism
By: R.J. Moeller
In the opening pages of his masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky gives a description of the key players the reader is to meet in his epic tale of generational sins and familial redemption. The third and virtuous Karamazov brother Alyosha is commended by the narrator not only for his devout and fervent faith in God, but the methodic patience and due diligence he exhibits in his pursuit of moral truth and wisdom. In contrast to the rudder-less passion that so many young people of that generation (1860's Russia) had for new and constantly-changing "causes," Alyosha is described as follows:
"The path he chose was a path going in the opposite direction of many his age, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As soon as he reflected seriously on it, he was convinced and convicted of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul, and at once he instinctively said to himself: 'I want to live for immortality with Him and I will accept no compromise.'
In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and socialist. For socialism is not merely the labor question, but it is before all things the atheistic question, the question of the form taken by atheism today. It is the question of the tower of Babel built without God, not to mount to Heaven from earth but to set up Heaven on earth."
I couldn’t have said it better had I blogged it myself.
As much as I would love to write an entire column on the subtle genius of Dostoevsky’s analysis of the human condition in Brothers, let me focus like a laser-beam on the profound insight he made some 150 years ago regarding the “question” of socialism. Socialism, the economic and political theory that advocates for the state to control the means of production and oversee the distribution of resources, was relatively new back in Old Fyodor’s day and the assumption among intellectuals from Moscow to Mexico was that it would inevitably become the way all countries ran their government, society, and economy.
Now, with the winds of a century-and-a-half of unflattering evidence at our back, it ought to be much easier to identify the failings and false assumptions of countries that adopted Leftist (i.e. collectivist, Marxist, and socialist) creeds for the management of their nation. I say “ought to be easier” because it seems that each new generation in Western nations thinks that it will be the one to find that elusive utopian pot-of-gold at the end of their artificially-created, progressive rainbow. These dreamers have it set in their minds that the problems with socialist thought are all superficial ones.
If we only had the right leader. If people just knew the good intentions we have in trying to help them. If the citizenry could just be educated properly. If the right piece of legislation were to be passed. If bothersome things like the traditional family structure and local church were to disappear.
Equally frustrating are the responses (or lack thereof) from Americans who don’t believe in top-down socialism, yet remain unconvinced that those who do believe in it are supporting something that is a potential threat to their way of life.
We’re not going to turn into Cuba tomorrow, so why all the fuss? Progressive liberals aren’t really advocating socialism. The American system is too strong to be disrupted by a few rabble-rousers at Harvard and in the media. The Bible doesn’t say that much about “politics” so I don’t think we should even worry too much about it. Ever heard of “separation of church and state”, bro?
What the naïve on both sides of the political aisle in this country are missing is this: the problem with socialism is not simply this or that policy, this or that leader, this or that educational improvement. The problem with socialism (and any ideology using socialism as its proverbial North Star) is an inherent rejection of a Higher Power, mankind’s fallen state, and the immortality of the human soul.
Of course not every liberal, progressive, leftist, or out-right socialist is irreligious, but the ideas that have fueled the ideological Left’s engine for two centuries (about the same amount of time America’s Judeo-Christian, free-market value system has been in place) come from the minds of irreligious men and have almost exclusively produced irreligious results.
This matters, or should matter, to anyone who claims to believe in God. Almost any recent study puts that number at about 90% of Americans.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, thinkers such as Robert Owen, Henri de Saint-Simon, and Friedrich Engels (pictured right) began to lay the intellectual groundwork for socialism’ move from a fringe idea to the most dominant socio-political force of the 20th century. They rejected private property. They loathed the excesses and exploits of industrialization. They believed in the supremacy of science and the ability of the enlightened human mind to coordinate the activities of millions of less-enlightened human beings.
Above all else they denied the existence of a personal, rational God and any moral code for living He might have.
This aversion to the divine wasn’t some peripheral, incidental motivation for the founders of modern socialism: it was as foundational to their ethos as “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” is to the American one. Committed socialists have always been either adamantly anti-religious, or at the very least, unrelenting critics of religion.
Belief in a Higher Power carries with it certain realities for our day-to-day lives, and even for the way we construct a society and government. For example, it requires humility to acknowledge “there is a God, and I’m not Him.” Such humility is a precursor for the acceptance that mankind is not inherently good, but actually inherently flawed (and in need of redemption). If I’m flawed, then we’re all flawed. If we’re all flawed, then the idea that we can centralize power in the hands of a few and trust their good will and judgment to organize the lives of 300 million people living in the most technologically-advanced, complex civilization in human history becomes untenable (and literally impossible).
Social engineering, an irreplaceable plank in the socialist platform, never works because of the complexities of even the simplest societies and so the socialist committed to science and logic is left floating in the wind with an idea that doesn’t produce the results their theories promised it would.
It is here that the secular collectivist and socialist, realizing that no matter how hard they try they can never fully eradicate man’s primal desire for higher truths and objective standards, begins to invoke language that is soaked in moral, religious connotations. Words like “justice”, “compassion”, and “fairness” are bandied about on the Left by everyone from Karl Marx to Bill Maher. To compound the confusing, contradictory positions they take, socialists seek out religious leaders sympathetic to their anti-capitalist, anti-establishment message.
As I wrote about last summer, Barack Obama moved to Chicago 25 years ago for this very reason. An atheist until his late 20’s, then Barry Obama responded to an ad in The New York Times looking for a young, articulate minority activist to come work in the South-side neighborhoods of the Windy City to help advance the secular-socialist dream of fundamentally changing America as envisioned by the grand puba of community organizing: Saul Alinsky. The people that recruited Obama were, like Alinsky before them, white secular socialists who thought that their inability to capture the hearts and minds of the black and Latino neighborhoods had to do more with the color of their own skin than their revolutionary message. What Barack Obama found out from a local pastor named Jeremiah Wright was that to be taken seriously in these predominantly religious communities, young Obama would have to be in church on Sundays.
Dostoevsky had something to say about this wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing tactic the secular-Left constantly employs as well. During a conversation later in Book One of Brothers Karamazov, a minor character named Peter Miusov recalls the words of a French police inspector put in charge of squashing the 1848 socialist uprising in France.
“We are not particularly afraid of all these socialists, anarchists, atheists, and revolutionists; we keep watch on them and follow all of their doings. But there are a few peculiar men among them who believe in God and are Christians, but are at the same time socialists. Those are the people we are most afraid of…The Christian who is a socialist is to be dreaded far more than the socialist who is an atheist.”
This unholy union between church and big-State proponents is as ironic as it is prevalent throughout the history of the last two centuries. While I can never know the heart or real motivation of someone who claims to believe in both the God of the bible and the tenets of socialism, I can know (and judge) their actions and the results of the things they publicly promote.
I want to be as clear as I possibly can: I hate socialism, in all its various forms and guises. I hate it like I hate the habitual, willful sins in my life that I struggle with on a daily basis. I hate it like I hate the thought of someone who has access to clean water refusing to drink it in favor of contaminated pond-water just because they dislike the person offering them the bottle of Aquifina.
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the political, economic, or historical aspects of socialism: it all stinks (and to high heavens).
Rejecting socialism and the notion that the centralization of power and redistribution of income are compatible with liberty and prosperity does not mean that one must instantly become a Ronald Reagan-loving capitalist. It also doesn’t mean that every opponent of socialism has to sign their name to a theologically uniform document, or even be a religious person themselves.
My concern today is two-fold: First that those of you reading this that do hold Judeo-Christian convictions would at least recognize the fundamental rejection of God that lay at the very heart of socialist (Leftist) thought. And second, whether you are a believer or not, that you would have had your intellect intrigued enough to set out to find out if I’m accurate in my appraisal (or at least my agreement with Dostoevsky’s appraisal) of socialism.
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” -Winston Churchill
The Burger and I
At the end of May I took my little sister to a new hamburger joint near my house called Meathead's. We got some food and on our way out I saw a poster for this "Create A Burger" contest. For spending a couple of minutes putting together the toppings of a hamburger you think other people might like to eat, some lucky winner would receive a $500 gift card and have their sandwich featured at the Chicago-land Meathead's locations.
Well, one of those lucky winners was me.
If you live near a Meathead's, do yourself a favor and go order up "The Seinfeld" and tell 'em rjmoeller.com sent you.
"The Seinfeld"
Two 100% Angus patties, cheddar cheese, grilled onions, bacon, fried egg, tomato, pickles & BBQ sauce on marble rye
Why the name "The Seinfeld" you ask? Here's the description/rationale for my toppings choices that I submitted for the contest.
"My favorite show of all-time is obviously Seinfeld. The Marble Rye episode is the best that show ever put to air. So you gotta start with the Marble Rye as your base for this sandwich. Bacon and eggs go on it because Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer were always eating in Monk's diner (which primarily serves breakfast food). The Cheddar, Bacon, and Grilled Onions must be included because those are three of the most important food groups in the food pyramid (I think). So not only will you have a delicious tasting burger...you'll have a nutritious and hilarious one as well."
God bless fast food.
The Best Indie Rocker In Town
Like many Americans right now, I'm in something of a Galifiana-craze due to the comedy styling of one Mr. Zach Galifianakis. I'm certain of the fact that Zach and I share very little of the same perspective on politics, but he's as funny as they come and so I choose to embrace that and look past his liberal leanings. Big of me, no?
Anyway, here is a fantastic bit Galifianakis did with comedian Michael Showalter which takes more than a few jabs at the often pretentious world of the music industry. Enjoy!
2 + 2 = 4
There's not debate in my mind that New Gingrich is the the most capable, informed, articulate politician since Ronald Reagan. A lot of people feel very strongly one way or the other about the former Speaker of the House, but believe me when I say that he should be the next GOP nominee for president in 2012. That might shock some of you, and I realize that Newt is no stranger to controversy, but no one else has the experience, ideas, and ability to communicate that he possesses.
For the liberal reader, I understand you'll never like Newt; but for the Right-of-Center visitor to this site, all I am saying...is give Newt a chance. Listen to what he has to say. Visit his site. (His many sites). Investigate what he's been up to the past 6 years. Think of what this man could do to Barack Obama in a debate on national television!
Here's a little taste of the clarity and wisdom of Gingrich:
The Problems and Pitfalls of “Cradle To Grave”
Milton Friedman's Free to Choose is one of the most influential books written in the past 50 years. In it, Nobel prize-winning Dr. Friedman explains the intricate link between economic, political, and religious freedom. One of the most important chapters in his book, "Cradle to Grave," dissects the problem with the welfare state that progressive liberals promote. Thankfully for those of us with shorter attention spans, PBS actually allowed a 10-week miniseries on Free to Choose to air back in 1980. Here's the beginning segment from the "Cradle to Grave" episode. Watch it!
Obama’s Department of Agriculture: “We Did Enough” For The White Guy
Now I fully realize that public figures sometimes say things they don't mean while the cameras are rolling, but this latest clip that has surfaced from the Director of Rural Development in Georgia is highly offensive.
Does it even need to be said that had a white member of the Bush administration said anything resembling this nonsense to an all-white crowd of Republican voters in Georgia it would be front-page, wall-to-wall coverage for the rest of the year until the mid-term elections?
Where is the racial reconciliation we were promised from the Agent of Change during the 2008 presidential campaign? President Obama and angry black liberals such as this federal official in Georgia have forgotten the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. and it's sad to behold.
Of course racism is in the human heart of people from all ethnic groups, but if we can't publicly call black racists what they are, we will NEVER "move past" race in this country.
Dems On Their New Bank”Overhaul” Bill: We’ll Figure It Out Later
In the end, it's only a beginning. The far-reaching new banking and consumer protection bill that President Barack Obama intends to sign on Wednesday now shifts from the politicians to the technocrats.
The legislation gives regulators latitude and time to come up with new rules, requires scores of studies and, in some instances, depends on international agreements falling into place.
For Wall Street, the next phase represents continuing uncertainty. It also offers banks and other financial institutions yet another opportunity to influence and shape the rules that govern their businesses.
Perfect. This plan sounds flawless...except for the fact that the full plan is not known, even by those who created it.
Last week the controlling political party in the United States passed another 2,000 page bill that few have read and even fewer comprehend. It is a monstrosity, just like the health care bill before it (and like the cap-and-trade bill looming before November's mid-term elections).
Notice how many times in this Yahoo News article references are made to plans, agencies, bureaucracies, etc. F.A. Hayek called this obsession with micro-managing un-manageable facets of society, government, and the economy is the Left's "fatal conceit." They insist on dis-regarding a century's worth of evidence that the top-down controlled state always fails (and fails big).
It reminds me of something a wise (and dastardly) man named Screwtape once said
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.
A Little Levity For Lebron
In keeping with the topic of my column this week, the good people at ESPN had actors Steve Carell and Paul Rudd do a bit of a spoof on the Lebron James televised event in which King James announced his intentions to leave Cleveland to play in Miami. Enjoy:
In case you haven't seen the clip of Lebron announcing his decision last week, here it is. The Carell-Rudd clip will make much more sense.
Patton, Pride, and The King
By: R.J. Moeller
“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. And a slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.” -General George S. Patton
Humility is the rarest of all human characteristics, and pride is the most abundant. How do I know this? Because I am one – a pride-ridden human, that is. As the great Christian thinker C.S. Lewis put it, we are most certain of the specific faults and flaws in others that we ourselves possess. There is a self-identification with the pride that resides in my own heart when I see my neighbor, or, for example, a 25 year-old NBA basketball player who recently switched NBA teams to play in Miami, indulge in a public exhibition of prideful, immature showboating.
I identify with it and resent it in large part because I know deep down that I am capable of making the same type of mistake (and likely have already at some point in my life).
For those of you living abroad or under a rock with poor cable and cell reception, (arguably) the best basketball player in the world, Lebron James, held the basketball world “hostage” the past month as he deliberated over which NBA team he would play for starting in the 2010-2011 season. James had been a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers his entire career since being drafted straight out of high school in 2003. Last Thursday night, in what can only be described as a classless move, Lebron agreed to announce his career intentions on live television. His decision was to leave Cleveland for the sandier pastures of Miami, FL where two other mega-stars, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade, had already signed.
There are three basic reasons why so many people and sports media pundits have reacted negatively to Lebron’s antics over the past 4-6 weeks. The first is that James did not show the respect to his former employer, the owner of the Cavs, to call and let him know that he was bolting for Miami. Instead he, his ego, and the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) colluded to produce an hour-long special where King James would announce his intentions on live television. The hype surrounding the announcement suddenly became more important than the integrity of anyone involved. You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice that night that Lebron was uncomfortable with the format and execution of the televised interview – probably because it was ridiculously lame and dishonorable.
The second reason this story has generated the backlash it has is that with Bosh and Wade, Lebron James has instantly created an All Star-caliber squad that most objective observers would agree instantly has the best chance to win the NBA championship title next year. But while Americans love a winner, we rarely enjoy a lop-sided winner. People don’t like to see Andre the Giant wrestle Jackie Chan. We want competition, and we love stories of home-grown talent that overcome great odds and foil old foes on their path to victory. Say what you will, but sports do matter in this country and Americans instinctively sense the moral and ethical dilemmas and lessons inherent to athletic competition (especially on a such a prominent, national stage, as the NBA). Teams like the Miami Heat and New York Yankees may be within their legal rights to purchase a title, but that doesn’t mean sports consumers have to applaud it.
The third and final disappointing aspect of the Lebron-to-Miami saga came the following day after his infamous press conference. Last Friday, in a spectacle I imagine was akin to the Roman parades for returning conquerors General Patton spoke of in the quote I opened with, the Miami Heat held a sold-out welcome rally and extravaganza in their arena.
There were roofs raised, high-steps taken, fist-pumps pumped, and shimmy-shakes aplenty as James, Wade, and Bosh strutted their stuff on stage in front of thousands of rabid fans. Fireworks exploded and confetti fell. It was out of control, over the top, and unsettling to behold. The “Big Three” embarrassed themselves and came off as immature and petty.
A celebration such as the one witnessed in Miami last week ought to be reserved for teams that have actually won something, like my Chicago Blackhawks did in winning the 2010 Stanley Cup in hockey.
These young men enjoyed their day in the sun after defeating four different teams in four different grueling best-of-seven series. The Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith, the NHL’s eventual winner of the Defensive Player of the Year award, lost seven teeth early in the 3rd round of the playoffs after taking a puck to the mouth and not only played later in that same game, but played every one of the remaining eight. That’s sacrifice and effort worthy of the 3 million Chicagoans who came out for the victory parade and rally in Grant Park.
Contrast the earned achievements and displayed class of the Chicago Blackhawks with the self-indulgent, premature, and overstated hootenanny held in Southern Florida last week. The Miami Heat would have done well to provide Lebron, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh each with their own personal assistant who was required to walk alongside them during the festivities surrounding their arrival and whisper in their ear, “All glory is fleeting.” But they didn’t. And as a result, all three players, but Lebron in particular, are experiencing a less-than-positive backlash from fans, journalists, and former NBA players.
Almost overnight, “King James” has become the least popular thing associated with South Beach since Will Smith’s “Welcome to Miami (Bienvenido A Miami)” music video dropped some ten years prior.
So what is it that drove Lebron James, an otherwise controversy-free athlete, to make such a spectacle of himself? What led to his fall from grace with millions of adoring fans and respectful peers? And what do his recent, unfortunate actions say about modern American culture? What does our reaction to those actions say about us?
Pride, not money, is the root of all evil. Pride is also the root of most selfish, silly actions; especially among men. We are competitive creatures. In his chapter on pride in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes:
“Pride is essentially competitive - is competitive by its very nature - while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest…
Power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers.”
Throughout this entire free agency process, we have heard many times from Lebron James that he is simply “all about winning.” He is a competitor and a tremendously gifted athlete, but I believe his pride has been hurt over the past seven years as many have criticized him for failing to win an NBA championship. The combination of prideful ambition, in conjunction with a ceaseless chorus of naysayers regarding his value as a player if he never wins a title, compromised James’ better judgment and led him down a path that resulted in the bizarre, unpopular decisions we witnessed as of late.
It wasn’t the glamour, the women, or the tropical climate that brought him to Miami. It wasn’t the cash-money, “dolla’, dolla’ bills ya’ll” that guided his decision to flaunt his free agent status and to force NBA teams to grovel at his feet for his considerable services. It was pride. It was the superior feeling he got from making others move about like toy soldiers.
But Lebron is not alone in terms of who can learn a valuable life lesson or two from the events of the past month. The owners of the Miami Heat are largely responsible for the disgusting display of hasty, gratuitous celebration that took place at last Friday’s rally. My problem is not with the fact that an NBA franchise is so excited about their new team that they want to gin-up some enthusiasm among the local fan-base, but that they poured out such extravagant honor for three players who have yet to complete a single practice together. This is the same problem I had with the entire coverage of the Barack Obama presidential campaign and election (and presidency, thus far).
The man had impressive academic credentials, had an adoring base of supporters in the media, and generated large crowds around the country when he spoke. But he hadn’t accomplished anything of note when Oprah wept, Chris Matthews swooned, and the Nobel Peace Prize committee went ga-ga for Barack after only a couple of weeks in office. Perhaps he will accomplish something grand by the end of his one-term in office, but save the misty eyes and tingling legs for after a president displays greatness. To do so before says much more about the desperation of one’s supporters than it does about the man himself.
Which brings me to my final thought on the matter: the Lebron James saga is really all about us. It is about the consumers that lap up the drivel 24-hour-a-day entertainment networks like ESPN present us to sell advertising time on the air. We buy the tabloids in the grocery store, we (myself included) tune in when Tiger Woods has a press conference to confess his infidelities, and we create the cultural environment within which young people like Lebron James grow up. That environment is one that promotes fame and stardom over good character and sound judgment. It is one that promotes academic knowledge and “a good job” over moral wisdom and personal contentment. It is one that promotes financial wealth over economic stability and personal responsibility.
I can identify and recognize these societal flaws so readily because I harbor them in my own heart. Lebron James’ mistakes are so abundantly clear to so many of us because we can spot unbridled pride from all the years we ourselves have indulged in it. While we must never cease to call reckless or silly public behavior what it is, we do not have to write-off those who engage in it.
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.” Matthew 7:1-5
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