A Historical Perspective On Religion & Obama's HHS Mandate

This is the third part of a three part essay. Part 1 examined the original intent of the Founders in passing the Free Exercise clause. Part 2 looked at the current state of the law surrounding that clause.

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The first thing to understand about the Department of Health and Human Services’ birth-control mandate, and the last, is that it is an assault on both faithful Christians and the Constitution by leftists who consider themselves at “war” — their word — with bourgeois America. It has nothing to do with guaranteeing access to contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients.

Andrew McCarthy, The Contraceptive Mandate’s Shaky Justification, NRO, 11 Feb. 2012

Virtually all laws, at least beyond those that are purely administrative or relating to health and safety, are moral choices of one sort or another. They set the outer bounds of what is morally acceptable or required in our society. So it is no surprise that when Obama speaks of his latest mandate to require all health care plans to provide free contraception, sterilization and plan-B abortion for women, he does so in the language of morality – to fail to force this mandate on religious employers will, he says, “discriminate against women.”

For most of the past two millenium, the moral source of our laws in Western civilization has been the Judeo-Christian ethic. It has provided a stable and immutable framework for morality at the heart of Western civilization - one that places the greatest importance on the sanctity of individual human life. And, as many have noted, it likewise provided the basis for our nation:

Nineteenth century historians wrote extensively on the United States of America having a distinctively Protestant character in its outlook and founding political philosophy. . . .

The notion of a distinctive religious basis for American democracy and culture was first described and popularized by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1840s, in his influential book, Democracy in America. In the second chapter, de Tocqueville describes America's unique religious heritage from the Puritans. His analysis showed the Puritans as providing the foundational values of America, based on their strong Hebrew Bible view of the world, which included fighting for earthly political justice, an emphasis on laws and education, and the "chosenness" which the Puritans identified with, giving them a sense of moral mission in founding America. As de Tocqueville observed, the Puritan's biblical outlook gave America a moral dimension which the Old World lacked. De Tocqueville believed these biblical values led to America's unique institutions of religious tolerance, public education, egalitarianism, and democracy.

And to the end of protecting religion in our country, our Founders wrote into the Bill of Rights that Congress could pass no law prohibiting the “free exercise” of religion. As Thomas Jefferson wrote at the time, that meant that Congress's legislative power did not extend to “rights of conscience,” only to affirmative acts taken under the color of religion that threatened the peace. And as I have noted here, the Catholic Church teachings on artificial birth control and abortion have been doctrinal matters of conscience that far predate the signing of our Bill of Rights and, indeed, extend back into antiquity.

Ironically, almost at the same time as Jefferson and Madison were crafting our First Amendment, half a world away, Christianity's mortal enemy, socialism, was being born in the crucible of the French Revolution. One of the first acts of the Revolutionary government was to initiate a systematic and brutal war on the Catholic Church and its clergy. As recounted at the American Spectator:

The secularists of the French Revolution regarded the Roman Catholic Church as the last obstacle to atheism's final triumph. Blurting this out, the French dilettante Denis Diderot proposed to his fellow revolutionaries that they strangle the last priest with the "guts of the last king."

Socialism is a radical ideology that sprang up largely in response to the ills of the industrial revolution. The goal of socialism is to deconstruct traditional Western society and remake it under the auspices of an omnipotent government that would use its police powers to create a new order of ostensible social and economic equality. Socialists replace God with government as the source of morality. As one particularly observant commentor at Legal Insurrection recently opined:

In any left revolution, be it progressive, bolshevik, socialist, fascist, maoist, or bolivaran, it is necessary to knock down organized religion. The Catholic Church competes for the hearts and minds of people and does so effectively, as do the evangelical Protestant churches, etc. Further, the Church is organized and so can put out a message of opposition. So at some point the revolution has to take the Church on, or lose.

And yet another immutable truth of history is that, as socialist governments fully consolidate power, they invariably devalue individual human life. Much of the 20th century's history is written in the blood of over 100 million people slaughtered as part of socialist experiments.

Sixty years after the French Revolution, Karl Marx, socialism's greatest philosopher, famously wrote in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right that religion is the "opium of the people" and that "[t]he abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness." The British socialist party wrote in their 1911 manifesto that "it is a profound truth that Socialism is the natural enemy of religion." Lenin, the father of the Soviet Union's bloody experiment in Communism, wrote in 1905, “The modern class-conscious worker, reared by large-scale factory industry and enlightened by urban life, contemptuously casts aside religious prejudices, leaves heaven to the priests and bourgeois bigots, and tries to win a better life for himself here on earth.” Lenin further noted that “every socialist is, as a rule” an “atheist.” And Hitler himself was of like mind - "“National Socialism and Christianity cannot co-exist together."

And lest there be any doubt, there was Dutch socialist philosopher, Anton Pannekoek, who wrote in a 1907 essay - interesting in part for its incredibly naive belief in an incipient socialist utopia:

The socialist teachings have inoculated the laboring class with an entirely new conception of the world. The realization, that society is in a process of continual transformation, and that misery, poverty, exploitation, and all the suffering of the present are only temporary and will soon yield to an order of society, to be inaugurated by his class, in which peace, abundance, and fraternity shall reign, this realization must revolutionize the whole world conception of the laborer from the ground up. The theory of socialism furnishes the scientific foundation for this world conception. Political economy teaches us to understand the internal laws, which move the capitalist process, while historical materialism lays bare the effects of the economic revolution upon the conceptions and actions of people. And this stands irreconcilably opposed, as a materialistic doctrine, to religion.

Socialism arrived on U.S. shores in the mid 1870's. One of its early adherents was the father of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. Ms. Sanger, in a 1915 speech to the Fabian Society in London, described her father as “one of the early pioneers of Socialist thought” and noted that she herself was “rocked in the cradle of socialism.”

Sanger ultimately established Planned Parenthood to promote both contraception and abortion. As to abortion, Sanger, a nurse by training who worked among New York City's poor at the turn of the 20th century, saw many poor women suffering from “dangerous and illegal abortions.” In part motivated to help these women, and in part because she was a eugenicist who wanted to limit the birth rate of blacks, she became the leading advocate for abortion.

Sanger's motivation in pushing contraception overlapped with her motives for advocating abortion, but also went far beyond. She wanted to remove from sex any hindrance of ethical and moral limits, and, in order to promote sex among women, make sex free of the physical consequence of pregnancy.

[Sanger judged] the necessity of breaking down the "codes that have surrounded sexual behavior in the so-called Christian communities, the teachings of the churches concerning chastity and sexual purity, the prohibitions of the laws, and the hypocritical conventions of society."

As a consequence, Sanger became a direct opponent of Christianity, especially the Catholic faith, for the Church was the greatest obstacle opposing the release of the "dynamic energy" of sexuality, and such obstruction for Sanger was "nothing less than foolhardy."

"Instead of laying down hard and fast laws of sexual conduct, instead of attempting to inculcate rules and regulations," as the Church had done, "the teacher of Birth Control seeks to meet the needs of the people," she wrote.

Neither Sanger nor socialism itself was part of the original feminist movement. That movement concerned itself with seeking equality before the law for women, as well as securing their right to vote. The feminist movement didn't become radicalized until American socialists adopted feminism in the 1950's and 1960's and, along with American socialism's than recent adoption of the civil rights movement, made radical feminism part of their raison d'etre. It was then that Sanger's goals and ideas became mainstream as part of the “second,” and now “third wave” of the radicalized feminist movement.

The black civil rights movement, though co-opted and bastardized by the socialists in the 1960's, was long supported by the right - indeed, far more so than by the left. Likewise, gender equality and the right of women to be free from discrimination saw bipartisan support. So to the extent that calls for greater protections in these areas were mainstreamed, our nation was able to affirmatively act on them in the 1960's.

(Just as an aside, let me add here that the Socialist left in the U.S. has, in the past two decades, added others to their stable of victim classes that seek to drive Christianity and Judaism from their place in America - the far left wing of the gay rights activists and the political Islamists who dream of a world without Christians or Jews - or for that matter, gays or godless socialists.)

At any rate, the radical aspects of the socialist movement – attacks on religion, as well as pushing for unrestricted abortion and contraception, saw limited success at the ballot box through the mid-20th century. Consequently, socialists turned to the Courts to achieve what they could not through legislation.

In the mid-20th century, the American socialist left used the ACLU - an organization specifically formed to further socialism and communism - to bring a series of Court cases designed to remove religion from the public square and elevate the ethos articulated by Margaret Sanger. The socialists sought judicial activism – and by and large, the Courts complied. Though the Constitution says nothing about abortion or contraception, thus leaving the matters to the states and majority rule by default, the left asked the Court to enshrine abortion and contraception as federal Constitutional rights. Between 1965 (Griswold) and 1972 (Einstadt), the Supreme Court found a “right to privacy” in the “penumbras” of the Constitution such that access to contraception was made a Constitutional right. And then in 1973 (Roe), the Supreme Court, found the same for abortion.

As to religion, it has been under sustained attack by the socialist left through our Courts since 1947 (Everson). wherein the Supreme Court read the 1st Amendment clause prohibiting the federal government from establishing a national church to mean “a wall of separation between Church and State.” Where for almost two centuries there had been fairly substantial involvement of a generic Christianity in the public square, the Supreme Court, in a series of subsequent cases, changed that completely. In 1963 (Engle), the Court ruled prayer in school unconstitutional. In 1989 (Allegheny County), the Court ruled that a creche, prominently displayed in a Courthouse at Christmas, was unconstitutional. In 2005 (McCreary County), the Court held unconstitutional displays of the Ten Commandments in several Kentucky courthouses. But perhaps the biggest victory the left gained through the Court's was the 2002 decision in Lawrence v. Summers, a case seeking to hold Texas's laws against sodomy unconstitutional. Implicit in the holding of that case was a finding that Christian morality, standing alone, is no longer a “rational basis” to uphold our laws. The potential ramifications of that decision have not yet begun to be plumbed.

The election of Barack Obama brought to the White House the first true child of America's socialist movement. And though he nominally claims to be a Christian – he claims conversion not to the words of the bible, but to the political polemics of Rev. Jeremiah Wright – he has also publicly proclaimed that we are no longer a Christian nation. That was an aspirational statement at the time. It is difficult to believe that Obama's Christianity is anything other than a bare patina on his political ambitions.

Regardless, it is no surprise now to see Obama attempting to bring to fruition the socialist goal of weakening religion as an important force in America. With Obama in power, the socialist left has won at the ballot box and need not rely on the Courts, at least for the moment. Obama would see the Margaret Sanger's radical socialism become the moral underpinning of our laws, not merely as an alternative to Christianity as they exist now in our law, but over top of it. That is what Obama is doing with his HHS mandate to force all Christians, including Catholic institutions, to fund healthcare that will provide contraceptives, sterilizations, and plan-B abortion pills free to all women covered by the plan. And for Obama to portray this as a moral good – saying that to do anything else would be to discriminate against women – is simply obscene.

To direct this healthcare mandate at Christians is a raw power play, nothing more and nothing less. If Obama succeeds in this, then indeed, we really will have made the final push into a brave new world. The Courts have raised socialist ethos above religion as the basis of our laws, and now Obama intends to use the socialitst ethos to to significantly drive religion even further from its historic and Constitutionally protected role in our society. Obama's aspirational statement will be made good. For the first time in our history, we really will not be a Christian nation. This is a critical moment in our nation's history.

As I wrote in Part I of this three-part essay, the original intent of our Founding Fathers in passing the Free Exercise of Religion clause should protect the Church from Obama's mandate. And as I wrote in Part II of this essay, the current law surrounding the Free Exercise clause, would also likely find Obama's mandate unconstitutional, though it is far messier given the current state of the law. Let's hope that I am right.

Update: Greg, a former Catholic seminarian and now a history teacher who blogs at Rhymes With Right, believes the time is right for Pope Benedict XVI to respond to this assault on religion with a four part encyclical. Part 1 would be a statement of the proper roles of Church and State. Part 2 would be by-name excommunication of those Catholics supporting Obama's policy, starting with HHS Supervisor Kathleen Sebelius. Greg's suggested third part "ought to be a reminder to American Catholics of the importance of bringing their faith into the public square and voting booth." And lastly, "lest the encyclical be seen as a rejection of the whole idea of health care accessibility, there should be a fourth section reminding the faithful of the Church's continuing devotion to the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, and that it is for this reason that the many schools, hospitals, and agencies subject to the Obama regulation operate." It sounds eminently reasonable to me. Do visit his site and read the entire post.

Update: Kindly linked at Bookwormroom, Larwyn's Linx and Seraphic Secret.

Update: And kindly linked at the Watcher's Council for this week's nominations.

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21st Century Radical Secularism Meets Jefferson Meets Scalia (Part II)

This is Part II of a three part post.

Part I identifies the intent of the drafters in writing the First Amendment's Free Exercise of Religion clause and explains why the Obama HHS mandate is unconstitutional in consideration thereof.

This Part II deals with how the Supreme Court, and particularly Justice Scalia, have strayed from the original intent of the Free Exercise clause, but would still find the HHS Mandate unconstitutional.

Part III will deal with how the founders did not forsee or account for the rise of radical secularism, which is a religion unto itself, and how that impacts the Free Exercise clause.

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Part II Summary

Under current federal law (the Religious Freedom Restoration Act - RFRA), the federal government would stand next to no chance of winning in a suit brought over the Obama HHS mandate as applied to Catholic institutions.  But RFRA - a Congressional power grab on the issue of Constitutional interpretation - is likely itself to be found unconstitutional as applied to the federal government.

If RFRA doesn't apply, then Justice Scalia's 1990 interpretation of the Free Exercise clause, one that severely circumscribes the scope of the clause, would mean that the Obama HHS mandate is lawful.  But Scalia admits in his opinion that he wrote his bright line rule to cut off litigation from minor religions that have sprung up after the signing of our Constitution.  Scalia, like Jefferson before him, implicitly assumes that the government would not encroach on core, mainstream religious beliefs extant at the time of the adoption of the Bill of Rights.  Thus, a case brought today under the HHS mandate would most likely result in a complete reexamination of the original intent of the drafters in passing the Free Exercise of Religion clause.  And if that happens, then the Court would likely find that the HHS mandate is unconstitutional.      

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Part II Discussion:

The First Amendment to the Constitution provides, in relevant part, that "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. As explained in Part I, the original intent of the drafters of this provision, as identified in the 1878 case of Reynolds v. United States, was to keep government from legislating in the area of then extant mainstream religious beliefs, but to allow the government to legislate against acts done under the color of religion that threaten societal order and duties.

As the scope of government has grown over the past near two and a half centuries, and as both minor religious offshoots, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, have proliferated and as people have become inventive in trying to make use of the Free Exercise clause, the Supreme Court has done a significant number of Free Exercise cases.  The Free Exercise clause was used to challenge everything from payment of income taxes, payment of SSI taxes, minimum wage laws, and the draft to name but a very few.  Prior to 1990, the Court had developed "Sherbert" test for Free Exercise cases that it applied on an ad hoc basis.  "Under the Sherbert test, governmental actions that substantially burden a religious practice must be justified by a compelling governmental interest."

That changed in 1990, when Justice Scalia authored the opinion in Employment Division, Dept. of H.R., Oregon v. Smith, a case involving native Americans who claimed the right to use peyote as part of their religious services.  The plaintiff's argued that Sherbert should be applied to their case. Scalia, whose love of originalism exists in conflict with his love of bright line rules, held that the Sherbert test would henceforth be limited to employment compensation matters.  His concern was that the Sherbert test, if generally applied, would produce "a private right to ignore generally applicable laws:"  He as much as admits at the conclusion of his opinion that his goal was to cut off litigation arising out of claims outside the mainstream of religious beliefs, in essence assuming, as did Jefferson two centuries previously, that the Free Exercise clause would protect mainstream religious beliefs because government would never encroach upon them:

It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in; but that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs.

Ultimately, Scalia adopted the brightest line of all -  that a case could not succeed solely on Free Exercise grounds unless the government act at issue was directed explicitly at religion.  The problem with Scalia's solution is that it went too far - and his assumption was wrong.  His reshaping of the law now allows the government, as Obama has done, to encroach on what Jefferson called "the rights of conscience" of mainstream religion that the Free Exercise clause was designed to protect.  It disadvantages all ancient religious practices, not merely those that "are not widely engaged in."

Congress reacted, passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq.  Under RFRA,  laws interfering with free exercise of religion under would have to be supported by a compelling state interest and be the least restrictive of religious freedom as possible.  The Supreme Court would later, in City of Boerne v. Flores, declare RFRA to be unconstitutional as applied to the states because it exceeded the bounds of Congressional authority.  The decision was based on whether the Supreme Court or Congress has ultimate authority to interpret the Constitution.  Yet because the Boerne Court did not address whether RFRA still stands as to federal law, it remains today as the law limiting federal government action.  As NRO points out, the practical effect of the RFRA two prong test would be to make it next to impossible for the U.S. government to succeed in a case over the Obama HHS mandate. 

So here's what all of this boils down to.  In a case over whether the Obama HHS mandate can be lawfully applied to force Catholic institutions to fund contraception and the morning after abortion pill, the Court would have two major questions to answer.  One, whether RFRA is unconstitutional as applied to the federal government.  I think that likely.  Which would then raise the second question, whether the bright line test in Smith applies in a situation where it is not minor religious practices that "are not widely engaged in" at issue, but the ancient, mainstream and core issue of Catholic beliefs as to contraception and sanctity of life.  I cannot seeing the Court doing that, as it would mean truly gutting the Free Exercise clause.  

And that last will cause some amazing linguistic contortions in the Court.  For our nation, at its inception, was a Christian nation that made room for all within its ambit, subject only to restrictions that define the outer edges of what was acceptable to such a Christian nation.  Indeed, that was the whole basis for the decision in the first Free Exercise case heard by the Supreme Court, Reynolds, which I addressed in Part I here.  That is decidedly not politically correct to admit after six decades of radical left wing efforts to remove Christianity wholly from our laws and the public square.  How the Court might modify Smith without admitting to all the rest would be interesting to see indeed.

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21st Century Radical Secularism Meets Jefferson Meets Scalia (Part I)

This is Part I of a three part post. This part deals with the intent of the drafters in writing the First Amendment's Free Exercise of Religion clause and why the Obama HHS mandate is unconstitutional in consideration thereof.

Part II, here, deals with how the Supreme Court, and particularly Justice Scalia, have strayed from the original intent of the Free Exercise clause, but would still find the HHS Mandate unconstitutional.

Part III will deal with how the founders did not forsee or account for the rise of radical secularism, which is a religion unto itself, and how that impacts the Free Exercise clause.

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Part I Summary

The Obama HHS mandate would force Catholic institutions to fund healthcare plans that directly violate the most sacred and core belief of the Catholic faith, sanctity of life. The mandate would force Catholic institutions to provide for contraception, sterilization, and Plan-B abortion, or in the alternative, be penalized or voluntarily dissolve. Such an act violates the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment as it was intended to be interpreted by our Founders.

The original intent of the drafters, as explained by Thomas Jefferson, was to draw a big circle around then extant mainstream religious beliefs and put those beyond the scope of government legislation. Under the Free Exercise Clause, the government could only legislate to stop an affirmative action done under the color of religion that threatened the social order. Catholic opposition to abortion and contraception was an openly held belief at the time, and thus fall within the ambit of the Free Exercise clause's protections.

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Part I Discussion:

The First Amendment to the Constitution provides, in relevant part, that "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. It was over a hundred years from the signing of the Constitution that the Supreme Court was first called on to interpret the Free Exercise Clause in the 1878 case of Reynolds v. United States. In that case, a Mormon criminally charged with polygamy argued that he was only acting in accord with the precepts of his religion. The Court looked back to the drafters to find how they interpreted the "Free Exercise" clause:

[In a bill] 'for establishing religious freedom,' drafted by [Thomas} Jefferson, . . . religious freedom is defined; and after a recital 'that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of [religious beliefs and principles], and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty,' it is declared 'that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.' In these two sentences is found the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State.

. . . Mr. Jefferson afterwards, in reply to an address to him by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, took occasion to say: 'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions,-I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.'

Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere [religious beliefs], but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

(emphasis added, citations omitted)

The Reynolds Court found that at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, all sects of the Christian faith in Europe and America had, since ancient times, practiced monogamy and had outlawed polygamy. It wan't until the Mormon faith was created in 1830 and preached polygamy as one of its tenets that polygamy in the U.S. became an issue. The Court further found that polygamy was universally held to be criminal in the 13 states at the time that the Constitution was signed.

Thus the Court found that the Constitutional prohibition against free exercise of religion did not contemplate polygamy as within its ambit. The Court, describing polygamy as "odious" to the religious traditions protected by the Constitution, and further finding it to be an "act" that threatened the social order, the Court held that polygamy could be prohibited by the state.

Also implicit in the Court's decision was that the Free Exercise clause protected mainstream Christian and Judaism and their religious doctrines extant in the U.S. at the time the Constitution was signed. Other religious beliefs and or religious beliefs claimed thereafter, to the extent that they conflicted with "peace and good order" and "societal duties," could not claim the protections of the Free Exercise clause. To this point, the Court said:

Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice?

So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances.

Today's Christian and Catholic Church doctrines on abortion and contraception are the same as they were at the time of the signing of the Constitution. As to contraception, "the Catholic Church has been opposed to contraception for as far back as one can historically trace." Likewise, there is no question that issues of sanctity of life and the view of abortion as a sin were part of Christianity virtually from its founding.:

There was universal condemnation of abortion in the early Church. The practice was roundly condemned in early Christian writings including the Didache and the writings of Clement of Alexandria, Ambrose, Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine.

David Braine in his study concludes that:

For the whole of Christian history until appreciably after 1900 . . . there was virtually complete unanimity amongst Christians, evangelical, catholic, orthodox, that, unless, at the direct command of God, it was in all cases wrong directly to take innocent human life.

So looking at this from the standpoint of an originalist, there appears little doubt that the decision of the Obama administration to force Catholic institutions to fund contraceptives and Plan B abortion, or in the alternative to be penalized or choose to dissolve, violates the 1st Amendment's clause on the Free Exercise of Religion. The Catholic Church beliefs on contraception and abortion were core beliefs at the time of the signing of the Constitution. The Church has taken no affirmative "act," and as Jefferson points out, the limitation of the government to prohibit the free exercise of religion was meant to vindicate "the rights of conscience." It is hard to see how attacking a core value of the Church could be categorized as anything other than an attack on the conscience. Moreover, as Jefferson made clear, he saw the Free Exercise clause as being in perfect balance with the then extant religions at the time the Constitution was signed, commenting that he saw "no natural right in opposition to his social duties." Today, the natural rights remain unchanged, it is only government imposition of new "societal duties" that unconstitutionally encroach on Jefferson's - and the Catholic Church's - natural rights.

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Let Them Eat Argula

(H/T Instapundit)

First lady Michelle Obama, our “modern-day Marie Antoinette” takes a $375,000 Spanish vacation, closing entire beaches for her private use and "booking 60-plus rooms in a five star Marbella hotel for her entourage."

Meanwhile, the number of people on food stamps back home in America is at an all time high, exceeding 40 million people, the government has just cut funding for the food stamp program, we lost 131,000 non-farm jobs in July, and we lost 221,000 jobs in June. The Dept. of Labor's U-6 unemployment numbers are at 16.5%, but more than a few economists think that even that number is being significantly undercounted, with the actual unemployment at upwards of 22%.

As Hot Air points out, "[i]n a normal recovery with proper economic policies of lower barriers to investor entry, we would see a rapid replacement of jobs . . ." But there are in fact many barriers, as one budding young entrepreneur, seven year old Julie Murphy, found out recently when she opened up a lemonade stand in Portland, Oregon. In what seems a perfect metaphor for the war our government is waging on private business, a health inspector shut her down for failing to have a $120 temporary restaurant license. (The soon to be ex-county Chairman has since apologized for his regulators run amok)

As Peggy Noonan noted recently, America is getting ever closer to "boiling over." That's a nice euphemism for it. As she notes:

In Washington they don't seem to be looking around and thinking, Hmmm, this nation is in trouble, it needs help. They're thinking something else. I'm not sure they understand the American Dream itself needs a boost, needs encouragement and protection. They don't seem to know or have a sense of the mood of the country.

And so they make their moves, manipulate this issue and that, and keep things at a high boil. And this at a time when people are already in about as much hot water as they can take. . . .

When the adults of a great nation feel long-term pessimism, it only makes matters worse when those in authority take actions that reveal their detachment from the concerns—even from the essential nature—of their fellow citizens. And it makes those citizens feel powerless.

Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combination.

Indeed. Were I the left, I would not fear a second American Revolution in our country. I'd fear a second French Revolution in our country.

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Setting A Course Through A Perfect Storm

We are in a perfect storm with Iran. We don't merely have a single event to concern us as regards Iran, but rather a multiplicity of events all converging at once. Iran is within months of crossing the nuclear threshold. Israel cannot afford to allow Iran to create a nuclear arsenal - and for that matter, neither can the West. Everyday that Iran continues its rush to a nuclear arsenal, most other nations in the Middle East, virtually all of them incubators of muslim extremism in one form or another, are also pursuing nuclear weapons out of self defense. At the same time, the Iranian regime is on the verge of a revolution. But it is a largely leaderless revolution, and there is no single individual whom we can bank on to emerge as the head of a new Iran if and when the theocracy falls. Perhaps Mousavi, but it appears ever more that events have passed him by. It truly is a perfect storm from from which any of countless possible realities could emerge, many of which would be inimical to our interests. It is time, to paraphrase from Invictus, that we engage in this matter and become "masters of our fate."

The Washington Post, in an editorial today, takes stock of the past week of protests and joins the chorus of calls for Obama to decisively support revolution in Iran:

ONE WAY or another, Sunday's Ashura holiday in Iran probably will be a turning point in the struggle between an extremist regime and an increasingly radical opposition. . . .

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei clearly is betting he can defeat the opposition Green Movement with brute force. In the past week, security forces have attacked peaceful mourners at the funeral of dissident Ayatollah Ali Montazeri and violated the tradition of restraint associated with the Ashura holiday. The predominant chant in the streets, meanwhile, has shifted to "death to Khamenei" or "death to the dictator." More street protests can be expected when the movement's new martyr, Ali Habibi Mousavi Khamene, is commemorated.

In short, Iran's political crisis now looks like a battle to the death between the regime and its opposition. No one on either side in Tehran is talking about compromise. . . . [M]ore than ever, the Obama administration and other Western governments must tailor their policies toward Iran to reflect the centrality of the Green Movement's fight for freedom. While diplomatic contact with the regime need not be broken off entirely, by now it should be obvious that it cannot produce significant results -- and might serve to shore up a tottering dictatorship.

President Obama shifted U.S. Policy . . . Monday . . . with an admirably strong statement that condemned "the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens" and called for "the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained."

There is, however, more that could be done to help the Green Movement. Russia and non-Western nations should be pressed to join in condemning the regime's violence. Sanctions aimed at the Revolutionary Guard and its extensive business and financial network should be accelerated; action must not be delayed by months of haggling at the U.N. Security Council. More should be done, now, to facilitate Iranian use of the Internet for uncensored communication. The State Department continues to drag its feet on using money appropriated by Congress to fund firewall-busting operations and to deny support to groups with a proven record of success, like the Global Internet Freedom Consortium.

The administration has worried excessively that open U.S. support might damage the Green Movement. Now President Obama has publicly taken sides, and the battle inside Iran has reached a critical juncture. It's time for the United States to do whatever it can, in public and covertly, to help those Iranians fighting for freedom.

The Washington Post has it right. It is time – actually long past time – for Obama to weigh in decisively and on multiple levels to support the revolution in Iran. Besides those things enumerated by Wapo, there are a host of other things that Obama needs to put in motion to support the regime. For example, Obama stripped all funding for the programs promoting democracy in Iran when he took office. He needs to refund those programs, particularly Radio Farda which ought to play a major role in getting news into Iran, both about the outside world and about events occurring inside Iran that the regime wants silenced.

If Obama were smart - and indeed, thinking of his legacy - he would embrace this option with all the fervor with which he has pushed health care reform. It is something that would, I believe, have bipartisan support. And if the revolution succeeds after he has thrown full U.S. support, then Obama's legacy will be cemented in stone. Whatever else he screws up, he will be the President who helped bring an end to Iran's evil theocracy and the President who moved the Middle East much closer to stability. It would, at a stroke, end a highly significant portion of terrorism around the world. It would remove from Hamas and Hezbollah their primary source of funding.

The joker in the deck, if you will, is that the revolution needs time to flower, if it ever will. If Obama does nothing else, time may soon run out. Iran sits on the cusp of crossing the nuclear threshold and, by Israeli estimates, will have a nuclear weapon by 2011. Israel, threatened near daily with destruction by the Iranian regime, has every justification to go to war with Iran to stop the Iranian regime from making that weapon. If Obama is going to fully support the revolution, he needs to buy time from Israel. Obama would need to provide the Israeli government with guarantees that the U.S. will underwrite the missile defense of Israel. Obama needs to further guarantee that the U.S. will, with Israel, jointly conduct that attack on Iran's nuclear sites if and when it appears that Iran's revolution will not succeed. Indeed, if need be, the U.S. should go so far as to publicly put Israel under its nuclear umbrella. For if and when the first bombs strike Iran, war will have begun. We will almost assuredly be drawn into it. And the chance to end all of this through a revolution will have ended.

In short, it is time for Obama to truly engage with Iran's revolution. He needs to set a course through the perfect storm.

Update: What Obama should not do is heed the advice of the NYT editorial board:

President Obama is right to remain open to dialogue with Iran and to continue looking for a peaceful resolution to the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. He is also right to condemn the violence against Iranian civilians . . .

The government still appears to have firm control of the main levers of power, including the brutish Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia. . . .

The Iranian people are demanding what all people have a right to demand: basic freedoms, economic security, and the knowledge that their government is committed to protecting, not killing its citizens.

These people are as out of touch with reality as they were when they called the Iraq War lost during the height of the surge. If they think that the government is firmly in control, they have not bothered to read their own paper's reporting of the events of last week. If they think the Iranian people are demanding mere "basic freedoms," they are completely misreading how these protests have evovled since June. If they think that Obama's main concern should be to keep an "open dialogoue" going with the barbaric and illegitimate government - the same government that has essentially given Obama the one finger salute over the past months - they are utterly insane. What they counsel is not a search for a "peaceful resolution" to this madness. To quote Milton fron Paradise Lost:

Thus Belial with words clothed in reason's garb
Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth, not peace.

The counsel of the NYT would lead us to war, sooner or later. Our best chance for peace, indeed our only one, is to move decisively in support of the revolution.

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This Day In History - 17 June: Dracula Attacks At Night, The Battle of Bunker Hill, & The Supreme Court Wars On Religion

Art: The Death Of General Warren At The Battle of Bunker Hill, John Trumbull

1462 – Vlad Drăcula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, was the Wallachian Prince that served as the model for author Bram Stoker's famous character, Dracula. Vlad lived in an era when his country was under constant threat from the expanding Ottoman Turks. In 1462, Sultan Mehmed II, the recent conqueror of Constantinople, raised an army of 90,000 soldiers and marched on Wallachia. Vlad, unable to stop the advancing army with his much smaller force, began a guerrilla campaign. The most famous of his engagements, in what became known as "The Night Attack," came on the night of 16-17 June when, dressed as Ottomans, his forces infiltrated the camp of Mehmed in an attempt to assassinate the Sultan. They did not succeed, but Mehmed would later withdraw from Wallachia when, according to legend, he came upon the capitol Târgovişte and there saw a forest of corpses - some 20,000 people Vlad had impaled and then left to a slow and gruesome death. Many of the victims were Turkish prisoners of war Vlad had previously captured during the Turkish invasion. The total Turkish casualty toll in this battle reached over 40,000.

1497 – The people of Cornwall rose in revolt of taxes levied by King Henry VII to fund his Scottish Wars. Henry marched on the rebels, engaging them at the Battle of Deptford Bridge on his "lucky day," June 17. Poorly led and lacking in cavalry, the rebels fought a brave but losing battle. The leaders were sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. Henry had their heads displayed on pikes at London Bridge.

1579 – Sir Francis Drake landed in present day California and claimed the land for England, calling it Nova Albion. His territorial claims would became important during the negotiations that ended the Mexican-American War between the United States and Mexico.

1631 – Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, would spend the next 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal.

1775 – Battle of Bunker Hill was one of the early battles of the Revolutionary War. The battle actually took place on Breeds Hill, occupied by colonials on the night of 16 June as part of the siege of Boston. Given the famous order "don't fire til you see the whites of their eyes," the colonials put up a determined defense. The British made three charges on the hill before capturing it when the defenders ran out of ammunition and were forced to retreat. Although the British took the hill, they suffered their heaviest losses of the war - over 800 wounded and 226 killed, including a large number of officers. The aftermath of the battle was three fold. It gave confidence to the colonials that they could stand against the British regulars. For the same reason, it gave the British pause and led to a rethinking of strategy. And lastly, it so teed off the King that it likely played a pivotal role in his refusal to entertain any more peace initiatives from the colonials to avert the war.

1789 – In France, the Third Estate - i.e., the bourgeoisie class of monarchial France - declared itself the National Assembly.

1876 – In the Battle of the Rosebud, 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook's forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.

1877 – In the Battle of White Bird Canyon, the Nez Perce tribe defeated the US Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.

1930 – President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law. This was an effort to protect American jobs during the Great Depression. It backfired, setting off a global trade war that extended and deepened the depression. Unemployment in the U.S. was at 7.8% in 1930 when the Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed, but it jumped to 16.3% in 1931, 24.9% in 1932, and 25.1% in 1933

1939 – Last public guillotining was carried out in France when Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, was guillotined in Versailles outside the prison Saint-Pierre.

1944 – Iceland declared independence from Denmark and became a republic.

1963 – The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools. This was an act of pure judicial activisim and part of the left's war on religion that has been ongoing since the time of the French Revolution.

1972 – Watergate scandal unfolds as five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.

1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway chase , O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman

Births

1239 – Edward Longshanks, English king (d. 1307). He conquered most of Wales and much of Scotland during his long reign. He was recently made famous as the villain in Mel Gibson's loosely factual Braveheart.

1882 – Igor Stravinsky, the great Russian composer

1888 – Heinz Guderian, German general and one of the great tacticians of his age. He is the father of "blitzkrieg" warfare.

1943 – Newt Gingrich, politician, author, philanderer, House Speaker, what's next?

1945 – Tommy Franks, American General who led the successful invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

1945 – Ken Livingstone, - Red Ken, the communist multi-term Mayor of London who, thankfully, was voted out of office last year.


Deaths

900 – Fulk the Venerable, Archbishop of Rheims during the ninth century world of byzantine politics in the Holy Roman Empire. He attached his star to one of the claimants, Charles the Simple, but Fulk was soon thereafter assassinated by Count Baldwin II of Flanders.

1025 – Bolesław I the Brave, first king of Poland and one of the most remarkable politician, strategist and statesman of his age. He made a kingdom of Poland and turned it into a power in Eastern Europe.

1696 – John III Sobieski, King of Poland, the Lion of Lechistan. Western civilization and Christianity owe him a great debt. It was his strategy and leadership that led to victory over the Muslim Turks in the 1683 Battle of Vienna. Loss of that battle would have opened continental Europe to Muslim conquest.

Holidays and observances

Today is the feast day of Saint Rainier, the patron saint of Pisa and of travellers. And it is the feast day of Saint Botolph, a 7th century English abbot who is the patron saint of farming.

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This Day In History - 10 June: A Witch Is Hung, Socialism Is Born, & Alexander The Great Dies

Art: Anne-Louis Girodet De Roucy-Trioson, Ossian Receiving the Ghosts of French Heroes, 1802

1190 – The Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa was one of the great figures of the Medieval Age. He fought in many campaigns throughout Europe, with the campaign to capture Milan seeing him excommunicated by Pope Alexander III in 1160. Their schism would end with the Peace of Venice in 1177 when Frederick, having failed to defeat the Lombard League in his Italian campaign, sued for peace. Frederick would answer the Pope's call in 1190 for the Third Crusade, but then drowned in the river Saleph on this date while leading an army to Jerusalem.

1619 – During the incredibly costly Thirty Years' War, on this date a Roman Catholic army of Karel Bonaventura Buquoy defeated a Protestant army of Ernst von Mansfeld at the Battle of Záblatí, marking a turning point in the Bohemian Revolt.

1692 – The Salem Witch Trials claims its first victim when Sixty year old Bridget Bishop is executed by hanging at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries."

1719 – Jacobite Rising - Jacobites, i.e., those who supported James VII, the last Catholic King of England, attempted several uprisings from about 1688 and 1746. One such uprising involved an alliance of Jacobite rebels and Spanish forces that was defeated by the English forces at the Battle of Glen Shiel on this day.

1770 – British explorer Captain James Cook, discovered Australia - or at least came close to it - when on this date he ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef.
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1793 – The Jardin des Plantes museum opens in Paris. A year later, it becomes the first public zoo.

1793 – Socialism, long tended in the womb by philosophers, was born on this day as part of the French Revolution when, following the arrests of Girondin leaders, the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety and installed a revolutionary dictatorship. They became infamous for their the Reign of Terror and their war on the Church.

1805 – America's first war, the First Barbary War, begun in 1801, came to an end when the Bashaw of Tripoli, Yussif Karamanli, signed a treaty ending hostilities with the United States. He had warred against the U.S. because our ships made easy targets without naval escort and because, as the ambassador from the Barbary states said, "written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.” That is a precept still being taught in Saudi schools and Madrassas around the world.

1871 – Sinmiyangyo refers to a first diplomatic attempt to establish trade with Korea that, through a series of misunderstandings, developed into a minor military conflict, one of whose battles took place on this date when Captain McLane Tilton led 109 Marines in naval attack on Han River forts on Kanghwa Island, Korea.

1898 – U.S. Marines land on the island of Cuba as part of the Spanish-American War. By August, 1998, a combined arms force of Marines and Army soldiers secured the island.
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1935 – Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded..

1940 – Italy's facist dictator Il Duce declared war on France and the UK. FDR denounced Italy's actions with his "Stab in the Back" speech at the graduation ceremonies of the University of Virginia while Canada declared war on Italy. Also on this day, German forces, under General Erwin Rommel, reach the English Channel and Norway surrendered to Germany.

1942 – Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice in reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich.

1944 – 642 men, women and children are killed in the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre in France while in Distomo, Boeotia Prefecture, Greece 218 men, women and children are massacred by German troops.

1967 – Six-Day War ends as Israel and Syria agree to a cease-fire.

1973 – John Paul Getty III, grandson of billionaire J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped in Rome, Italy. His kidnappers demanded ransom and sent the boy's ear and some hair to his father, who finally agreed to pay $3 million. Getty was released and his kidnappers never found.

1999 - NATO suspends air strikes on Serbia after Milošević agrees to withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo.

2001 – Pope John Paul II canonizes Lebanon's first female saint Saint Rafqa

2002 – The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom.

2003 – The Spirit Rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission.


Births

1933 – F. Lee Bailey, American attorney

1967 – John Yoo, American attorney and target of some serious left wing angst.


Deaths

323 BC – Alexander the Great, Macedonian king and conqueror of much of the known world. A student of Aristotle, he began his military career at age 16 when he led a force to crush the revolt of the Thracian Maedi. His campaigns finally came to an end when he died at age 32 in palace of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon.

1190 – Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1122)

1967 – Spencer Tracy, American actor (b. 1900)

1973 – Erich von Manstein, German military commander (b. 1887)

1988 – Louis L'Amour, American author (b. 1908)

2002 – John Gotti, American gangster (b. 1940)

2004 – Ray Charles, American musician (b. 1930)


Holidays and observances

In the Roman Catholic Church, today is the feast day of St. Margaret, queen of Scotland. She was the wife of Malcolm III, King of Scots. Dying in 1093, Saint Margaret was canonised in the year 1250 by Pope Innocent IV in recognition of her personal holiness, fidelity to the Church, work for religious reform, and charity. She attended to charitable works, and personally served orphans and the poor every day before she ate. She rose at midnight to attend church services every night. She was known for her work for religious reform. She was considered to be an exemplar of the "just ruler", and also influenced her husband and children to be just and holy rulers.

And see Rougeclassicism's This Day In Ancient History.

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