"Blinding the Faithful"--Al Gore

I took my children to Paradise Lake today, and finished reading the chapter called "Blinding the Faithful" in Al Gore's book The Assault on Reason.

There is a passion these days to defend the Christian faith politically, because it is in danger of slipping away--at least in the form that has been known in by the faithful for centuries. The peculiarly European Protestant Christian heritage found refuge in the early United States, and there are many today who believe that this is a last stand to preserve it. And in this political movement, it is often claimed that America was founded as a "Christian" nation. I recently relayed a quote from John Adams cited early in the chapter by Gore. Adams signed a treaty, passed by the Senate, that clarified the issue for their day: "The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or Mohammedan Nation."

In this chapter, Gore starts with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, who said that the leader of a state-sanctioned religion "has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

Gore recognizes that the Founders weren't "irreligious." He writes, "They knew then--as most of us feel now--that despite the many clashes between reason and faith, these cohabit much more easily in the mind than do reason and fear."

But there seems to be a rebirth of fundamentalism worldwide. Gore wonders if part of the reason for this could be the rapid rate of increase in technological change that is transforming our world. It makes people afraid, and they are possibly clinging ever more tenaciously to past tradition in response. And, as he says, "In simple terms, when fear and anxiety play a larger role in our society, logic and reason play a diminished role in our collective decision making."

Gore talks about the system of checks and balances within the federal government. And the Founder's wisdom at giving no preference to a particular religious sect. He talks about how one of the things that set our government apart was the belief that the government itself "has no God-given rights," but that the government derives its power from the people. It is the people who have God-given rights. For this reason, much of the Founder's emphasis was on combating any concentration of power.

But this entire beautiful system depends on a "well-informed citizenry" that reads, and has accept to information through an independent print media. He emphasizes print, because it is less easy for information to be "spun" in print. The mind is more actively engaged when reading than in the passive act of watching or hearing the news.

But he laments: "Our facility with rational analysis is not what it used to be. The truth is, reading and writing simply don't play as important a role in how we interact with the world as they used to."

He compares the informed citizenry to the body's immune system. It prevents disease from taking over, because it recognizes it and checks it before it can grow.

Gore believes that the current conservative movement has gone to war with this system through an alliance that has developed between what he calls the "economic royalists" who mainly want to cut taxes and regulations against the wealthiest creating more wealth, the foreign-policy hawks who simply want to spread U.S. power around the world, and the religious right. They all make use of a well-oiled propaganda machine led by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

This chapter focuses on the role of the religious right. George Bush has used it in many ways, but most especially when it came to the war. From the beginning, he proclaimed it to be a war of good versus evil. He went so far as to say he was going to "rid the world of evil." I think we'll have to be at war for a long time to accomplish that. (Forever.) In this war of good versus evil, he has said that you're either for us or against us. He originally said that in the context of other nations, but the same thought is true within our country. If you question the war, you're "unpatriotic," and a "traitor." Gore says that some pundits like Ann Coulter have even suggested that "liberals" should fear for their lives. They led us to a war that they called a "Crusade." And they tortured in the name of Jesus. Opinions that differed from the administration's coming from the military or the CIA were threatened with being fired.

There is an awful lot of important material in these pages, but I can't get it all in here. Let me conclude with this one paragraph:

"Make no mistake: It is the president's reactionary ideology, not his religious faith, that is the source of his troubling inflexibility. Whatever his religious views, President Bush has such an absolute certainty in the validity of his rigid right-wing ideology that he does not feel the same desire that many of us would in gathering facts relevant to the questions at hand. As a result, he ignores the warnings of his own experts, forbids dissent, and often refuses to test his assumptions against the best available evidence. He is, in fact, out of touch with reality, and his recklessness risks the safety and security of the American people."

And, by the way, there's a Draft Al Gore for President site, if you're interested. I have to say that if he were running, he'd be my choice at this point.