Human Rights and Culture Review*: Three Key Books on Democracy

The Founders would not recognize American society today. While some of them would applaud where we are today, others would be appalled and join the Republican Tea Party.

In 1790, a year after the U.S. Constitution became effective, slave holding was legal in all states including northern ones (except Vermont, which made slave holding illegal in 1777); women and free blacks could not vote; white men who did not own property could not vote; those accused of non-federal crimes had no right to a lawyer; and states were not bound by the Bill of Rights. 

There was no Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. There were no national laws against discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, religion or nationality. There were no labor unions or minimum wage laws. Gay marriage would have been an absurd idea. 

In the 224 years since then, our democracy has grown considerably and come closer to embracing the idea of human equality.

This process of growing could end and even retreat. Many issues still face us, including, among many other things, extreme poverty and hunger, loss of privacy, contraction of women’s rights, the distortion of electoral politics due to lack of reform of campaign financing, and the increasing power of the executive branch to define our “enemies,” domestic and foreign, and confine, torture or assassinate them.

 Lack of awareness of what democracy means and complacency are the primary enemies of preserving democracy and furthering its growth. (I have explained these dangers and the mentality behind them in my book, HowWe Are Our Enemy—And How to Stop: Our Unfinished Task of Fulfilling the Valuesof Democracy.)

I have picked three books that provide critical parts of the basic understanding that we all need to understand the human rights that are the foundation of democracy. By no means are these the only books worth reading on the subject. There are too many to name. But I have picked these three books, because they (1) elucidate essential ingredients of a democratic society, (2) are quite interesting, enjoyable and even fascinating to read, and (3) will whet our appetite for more reading, thinking and discussion about what kind of society we want to live in and how to attain it. Those who have already read them can encourage others to do so too and add their favorites to their own lists.

Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty, by John M. Barry

This book helps us to understand why and how democratic ideas took hold in America.

The Puritans who arrived in Massachusetts from England in the early seventeenth century to escape from oppression were not seeking democracy. Instead, they replicated the very oppression from which they were escaping. Their vision of a perfect community required conformity not only of actions but also of thought. Anyone who insisted on not agreeing with them could be banished or executed, and many were. 

Roger Williams, banished from Massachusetts in 1635, escaped on foot through a life-threatening blizzard with the critical help of Native Americans, to a place he called Providence in an area that was to become a part of Rhode Island. Providence became a refuge for others banished or fleeing from nearby intolerant settlements. There, unlike any place known then to England or Europe, he guided this new community to accept total freedom of conscience, full separation of church and state, and the radical idea that the power of government comes not from some higher divine authority but from the people treated as equals. These concepts were not widely accepted in America until a century and a half later. 

This book tells the fascinating story of America’s early beginnings in exquisite and often shocking detail, giving full credit to concepts of liberty and science that were nascent in England during Williams’ youth.

Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, by Anthony Lewis

 

The title speaks for itself. Democracy requires the freedom to think freely and speak freely. In clear and easy to read language, this book describes the struggles this freedom has had to survive and grow. We have come a long way since the Puritans’ arrival on these shores. Yet, this freedom is still not safely secured.

Gideon’s Trumpet, by Anthony Lewis

It is easy to overlook the importance of the right of a defendant to have an attorney in a criminal trial when the defendant cannot afford to pay for one. Without legal assistance, people in poor communities were defenseless against local police and prosecutors and often subject to their racial and ethnic prejudices. Clarence Earl Gideon, white, poor and poorly educated, led the way to changing the law of the United States--remarkably, not until 1963--to require provision of legal counsel to indigent defendants. 

That an ordinary and impoverished citizen could change the law of the nation is itself a fascinating story. While this book focuses on Mr. Gideon’s mission, it also provides an extensive and clearly stated education on constitutional law and the critical role of the judiciary.

If you read (or have read) these three books, you will know more about human rights and American democracy than you were taught in college or even in law school.

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* Human Rights and Culture Review is a new series on this blog, starting today. The previous series on Corporations (which has not closed) can be located on the “Contents by Topic” page of this blog.

Confusing Science and Faith

One sure way to destroy the separation of church and state is to treat science as a “faith.” I caught a Boston Globe columnist making this mistake and today (April 6, 2013) the Globe published my response (page A8):

Don’t confuse science with faith

KEVIN LEWIS (“Uncommon Knowledge,” Ideas, March 31 [Boston Globe]) seems to misunderstand science when he asks, “Could a faith in science similarly guide your values?” The question assumes that faith underlies science in the same way that it underlies religion.

The difference between science, properly understood, and faith is that science looks to experience to challenge and modify its own concepts, whereas faith is adherence to given ideas regardless of experience.

John L. Hodge

Jamaica Plain

As I’ve argued before, the survival and growth of democracy depend on getting religion out of politics. Politics needs to be based on facts (whether certain or probable), reasoned arguments and agreements. Science belongs in politics; faith does not.

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Links to the author's related posts and writings:

• Fight Against Religion's Continuing Intrusion Into Politics

• Get Religion out of Politics: Part I
• Get Religion out of Politics: Part II
• What's God Got To Do With It?
• Towards—Or Away From—American Theocracy?
• Dialogues on God: Three Views
• An explanation of why the values of democracy require separation of religion from government is contained in Chapter 4 of How We Are Our Enemy—And How to Stop.
• A thorough analysis of President George W. Bush’s belligerent views connecting God to the United States is contained in Chapter 3 of How We Are Our Enemy—And How to Stop.

Fight Against Religion's Continuing Intrusion Into Politics

The following letter was published by the Boston Globe on November 16, 2012, p. A14, and online at BostonGlobe.com:

Faith groups should lose tax break when they enter politics

Step by step, we are allowing religion to intrude further and further into politics. Ballot Question 2 and the laws governing abortions, for example, are political issues. Yet current interpretation of tax law allows churches and religious organization to raise money in support of their views on these political issues with no consequences to their tax-exempt status (“Bishops adopt a mandate,” Metro, Nov. 13 [stating that the Catholic Church helped raise over $4 million to oppose a proposition in support of physician-assisted suicide]).

By allowing religious organizations to raise money for political causes through tax-exempt donations, we are giving them a privileged position. Our tax laws need to change or be interpreted to remove this privilege and put these groups in the same position as similarly situated nonreligious organizations.

The issues of abortion and physician-assisted suicide concern the laws by which the public desires to be governed consistent with our constitutional rights. These laws are political in that they affect everyone without regard to religion. Religious matters, on the other hand, properly pertain only to the members of the religious organizations to which they belong.

When religious organizations raise money to support or oppose laws that affect nonmembers, they overstep their role and become political organizations.

The public should fight back and call for taxing the contributions to these organizations when they engage in fund-raising to support political positions.

John L. Hodge

Jamaica Plain

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Links to the author's related posts and writings:

• Get Religion out of Politics: Part I
• Get Religion out of Politics: Part II
• What's God Got To Do With It?
• Towards—Or Away From—American Theocracy?
• Dialogues on God: Three Views
• An explanation of why the values of democracy require separation of religion from government is contained in Chapter 4 of How We Are Our Enemy—And How to Stop.
• A thorough analysis of President George W. Bush’s belligerent views connecting God to the United States is contained in Chapter 3 of How We Are Our Enemy—And How to Stop.

Why the Republican Platform, not Repudiated by Romney, Would Destroy Women’s Rights: Part I

            The Republican platform contains two sentences that would spell the end of women’s rights. The hidden threatening consequences of these two sentences must be exposed.

            These two sentences advocate equal rights for fetuses. The platform states, “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.” The Fourteenth Amendment provides that a state may not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The platform also states that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.” These words have been there and repeated since 2004. They will continue to be repeated if their implications are not fully exposed.

These words have been misinterpreted to merely state an opposition to all abortions. But giving equal rights to fetuses is much more devastating than that. You cannot give equal rights to fetuses without taking away the rights of those who carry fetuses--or who unknowingly might be carrying fetuses--within their own bodies.

Giving equal rights to fetuses support the following shocking consequences:

            Consequence 1: All states have laws that protect the health of children to the extent that state agencies may remove a child from the parents if the appropriate state agency determines that the parents are abusive or the parental home is not in the best interests of the child. But what if that “child” is a fetus? The Republican’s position gives the fetus the same rights and protections as a child. The platform would empower the state agency to do what it can to protect the fetus, just as the agency is already empowered to do what it can to protect a born child. Thus, a state agency could determine that the best interests of a viable fetus require that it be removed from the pregnant woman against her will, and handed over to medical personnel and foster care. This might occur, for example, if the pregnant woman does anything that might increase the probability of harm to the fetus, such as taking illegal drugs, having unprotected sex, drinking heavily or not eating well.

            Consequence 2: If a fetus does not survive, and that failure to survive can be attributed to any behavior of the woman who carried it, the woman could be prosecuted for causing the fetus’ death. This could result in charges ranging from manslaughter to first degree murder. Part II of this two-part series will give a real example of such an occurrence.

            Consequence 3: Since conception cannot be immediately determined, every woman of child-bearing age would have to be treated as a potential carrier of a fetus. To protect the equal rights of this potential fetus, the state not only would have to monitor the sexual activities of every woman of child-bearing age to see if she might be pregnant, it also would have to require her to behave in certain ways so as not to harm the fetus that might be within her--whether or not she is actually pregnant. If a woman failed to behave in those prescribed ways and happened to get pregnant and the fetus did not survive, she would be subject to Consequence 2.

            In short, the consequences of the Republican platform’s position would potentially lead to placing all women of child-bearing age, not just pregnant women, under governmental surveillance and control. Thus, this extreme “pro-life” position would destroy the equal rights of women. This is a threat to women’s rights that must not be glossed over or ignored.

          We must all take notice and do what we can to expose these consequences of the Republican platform. We cannot have democracy without equal rights for women. Giving equal rights to fetuses would destroy women’s rights and thereby destroy a necessary component of democracy.

          Where does the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stand on this issue? Given that he has not repudiated this part of the Republican platform, it must be assumed that he supports it. That would be a significant danger were he to become President.

          Even if President Obama wins the election, we must not forget that the continuing presence of this part of the Republican platform will remain a lurking threat to women’s rights. Imagine what would happen if the Republicans controlled the Presidency and both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court. Fetuses would have equal rights, and women would suffer the consequences.

Get Religion out of Politics: Part II

            Those who argue that the “Founders” were religious, and that, therefore, religion should be a part of politics today, are wrong on two counts and correct on none. (See for example, Jeff Jacoby’s “Faith enriches politics, on both sides,” The Boston Globe, Page K9, Sept. 9, 2012). First, many of the founders were not particularly religious. Second, and more importantly, the Founders wrote into the U.S. Constitution clear instructions to keep religion out of politics.

As I stated in Part I, beliefs in God should be personal, not political.  Far from enriching politics, appeals to God are barriers to compromise, nationally and internationally. Such appeals are also disrespectful of those who are atheists or agnostics, as well as disrespectful of those whose beliefs in God do not fit traditional views. (Read Dialogues on God: Three Views, for further discussion of this point.)

            In deciding how we should approach this issue today, it does not matter what the individual Founders’ faiths were, any more than it matters today what the Founders thought about slavery. Are we going to say that, since some of the Founders had slaves, that it is OK to have slaves today? Thus, appeals to the Founders’ faiths is not relevant.

But we would also be wrong to accept the commonly stated view that the Founders were strongly religious people. Some of them, at least, kept their religious beliefs to themselves, so we do not know how religious they were, if at all. Historians are still not clear what religious beliefs George Washington and Thomas Jefferson actually held. There seems to be no record of George Washington ever mentioning the name of Jesus, and his references to God were not easy to find or interpret. Thomas Jefferson may have been a deist, one who believes that God set the world in motion and kept out of it thereafter. This is not the kind of God who would bless America. The point is that this uncertainty about their religious beliefs, or lack thereof, means that they did not make it a public matter. (See “The faith (and doubts) of our fathers,” The Economist, Dec. 17, 2011.)

            More important than the different faiths, or lack thereof, of particular Founders are the words in the U.S. Constitution that they agreed upon. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Article VI states, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” These statements establish the separation of government and religion. They do not support the view that “faith enriches politics.” Instead, they support the view that religion and politics should not mix. “No religious test” means that belief in God, or in any particular view of God, is not a prerequisite for public office.

            In spite of the clear separation of government from religion that is supported by the U.S. Constitution, successful efforts to put religion back into politics have been going on for decades. The words “under God” were put in the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. The words “In God We Trust” became the national motto and were added to the currency in 1956. Every presidential speech today ends with “God bless America.” President G. W. Bush went further. By frequently adding the words, “and continue to bless America,” he changed the meaning of “God bless America” from a desire that God bless America (which nonetheless assumes the existence of a particular kind of God) into an historical assertion that God in fact does bless America. With those words (along with others), he completed the identification of America with God. For decades, beginning even prior to the 1950’s, we have been increasingly headed in the wrong direction and continue on the same dangerous path.

Bringing faith into politics is contrary to the values underlying democracy. When we identify our political views with God, we are doing nothing more that asserting, “We are right!” This assertion generally implies that those who have other views are wrong. God is with us, not them. There is no need to think about it. Facts are irrelevant. Bringing God into politics is the means by which we disrespect those with differing views. (Read Chapter 4 of How We Are Our Enemy—And How to Stop for further examination of this point, with an historical and ethical perspective.)

            If we get God out of politics and stop identifying God with America, we will become more open-minded, more thoughtful, and give greater consideration to opposing points of view. It will help replace belligerence--the kind that led to the invasion of Iraq--with peaceful negotiation of agreements. Identifying God with America is a rejection of the very values that underlie democracy, the values that assert the equality of all people regardless of their religious beliefs.

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Notes:

• On the dangers of theocracy, see this commentary.
• A thorough analysis of President George W. Bush’s views connecting God to the United States is contained in Chapter 3 of How We Are Our Enemy—And How to Stop.