Mormon leader Dallin Oaks' comments earlier this week that - comparing the experience of Mormons in the last year to that of African Americans during the civil rights movement - were roundly and richly mocked in the blogosphere. But his speech, otherwise, received little analysis.
I've written response to Oaks' statement elsewhere (oneutah.org) but I want to us this space to look at what he said and analyze it at length.
Oaks argued that respect for religion has declined in our society, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of people who are nonbelievers and an increase in criticism of religious belief all of which added up (to him) to a threat to religious freedom.
During my lifetime I have seen a significant deterioration in the respect accorded to religion in our public life, and I believe that the vitality of religious freedom is in danger of being weakened accordingly.
Using the model of framing favored by Jeffrey Feldman, here's what Oaks is saying [loss of respect] = [loss of freedom] - or [respect] = [freedom]. It's an interesting argument, but what does it mean? Oaks went on to explain:
Max Blumenthal's Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement that Shattered the Party is a hit and miss book - Blumenthal shrewdly documents the carnival of personal dysfunction that defines so many leading figures on the American Right, offering a broad analysis drawn from Erich Fromm's Escape From Freedom.
The authoritarian nature of America's right wing movement has been documented by many writers and observers. Blumenthal offers an explanation, from Erich Fromm:
When radical extremists sought to cleanse society of sin and evil, what they really desired was the cleansing of their souls.
He described how submission to the authority of a higher power to escape the complexities of personal freedom would lead not to order and harmony but ultimately to destructiveness.
He points out that this escape from freedom, this dynamic of submitting one's self to a higher authority has become the bond that holds the America's right together. The centerpiece of this authoritarian, right wing culture, its beating heart if you will, is James Dobson and his organization Focus on the Family (or as its known among gay folks "Focus on the Anus" - or generally among its critics " Focus on your damn family."). Dobson is a notorious yenta, sticking his stern disapproving nose into everyone's business. FoF is a right wing behemoth, dolling out equal parts strict father parenting advice and political patronage. Dobson is the right's king maker, able to move millions with his opinions. Dobson's training is as a child psychologist, author of an infamous child-rearing manual entitled Dare to Discipline which advocates beating children into submission - well into their teenage years. Dobson's book stands in stark contrast with most modern child-rearing literature which does not advocate beating children.
I recently finished Cass Sunstein's The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution--And Why We Need It More Than Ever. I've been ruminating on the book and its ideas since I finished it.
It may come as no surprise that I am unsympathetic to the libertarian position. I find it intellectually incoherent - things like the free market cannot exist separate from a stable society, the underpinnings of the free market (things like contract and property rights) cannot exist absent some form of stable government to enforce them; the infrastructure needed for businesses to operate includes not just a stable legal environment but a civic infrastructure such as transportation systems, sewer and water systems, utilities and so on - all of which require a basic, stable society, one which is created by a stable government. When libertarians say things like "If you want a fire department, contract for one" my response is "We already did. We created a the government." More practical libertarians wish to limit government to an absolute minimum of activities - usually those specifically mentioned in the Constitution (for all intents and purposes this usually involves the military and little else).
Cass Sunstein is a very smart man who has spent much of his adult life studying, thinking, pondering and writing about tough problems. Sunstein is exactly the sort of person you would think we want in government. He has a quick and flexible mind, able to grasp complex problems, think through them from many angles and suggest solutions to address those problems.
Guess what? He's being attacked from the right for exactly those traits.
I had an interesting chat with my pastor yesterday. I commented to her that I appreciate the fact that is not a conventional thinker and does not offer conventional sermons and that her leadership style has been to model the kind of congregation she believes we should have - one that is relational, missional and justice oriented. She and I talked for a few minutes about the ways in which our changes in process - holding meetings in different ways, focusing on discussion and dialog processes to make decisions without making decisions, and the ways in which embracing the idea of being a self-governing congregation has led us to engage in different processes for decision making.
John McGowan's American Liberalism: An Interpretation for Our Time deserves far more attention than it has received. McGowan reviews the roots of liberalism as a political philosophy, offers a history of its ideas and their application, surveys its critics both right and left, offers an "historical interlude" examining state action within liberalism, national security, market interventions, and liberalism's response to discrimination, then ends with an examination of the relationship between liberalism and democracy. McGowan's book should find a home on the bookshelf or Kindle of every self-respecting progressive/liberal.
I'm going to do my best to summarize the keys points in the book.
John Dean, in broken government, described the characteristics of great presidents thus:
Watson summarized the traits of these great presidents as follows: humanity, compassion, and respect for others a governing style that unifies, not divides rhetorical skills and the ability to communicate a clear, realistic vision willingness to listen to experts and the public ability to admit error, accept criticism, and be adaptable engaged and inquisitive, with a sense of perspective and history integrity, inspiring trust among the people moral courage in not shrinking from challenges
There's been a debate happening in the blogosphere about the South and it's role in American politics. A DailyKos poll showing a majority of Southern Republicans believe either that Barack Obama was not born in the US or weren't sure. George Voinovich, Republican of Ohio, recently criticized the Southern domination of the GOP:
In Margaret Wheatley's Leadership and the New Science, she says that successful organizations share something in common - they know who they are, they know their strengths and they know what they're trying to accomplish. Successful leadership lies not in giving orders or in making decisions but in helping an organization discern its vision, keep that vision in front of everyone and empowering people to enact that vision individually. A successful leader in this model is charged with consistently casting the vision.
