TERMS OF DEBATE

Once again I have not been as focused as I should be relative to my blogging. Currently as I most likely have noted before I am reading a book on ethics, Being Good. In one section the author has offered what I view as a particularly insightful analysis of one of things that is wrong with our current political debate. This comes to the forefront today as the Democratic Party is conducting its Pennsylvania primary election.

The author Mr. Blackburn talks about how the way we phrase our ideas ultimately prevents us from addressing troubling issues head on in an open and meaningful manner. For example, if we talk about religious freedom we end up with the question of whether we are talking about freedom of religion, freedom from religion or freedom to engage in religion (or not).

When you talk about the freedom from something it implies paternalism. Using the term from appended to the word freedom albeit from want, from unlawful search or from slavery implies that government or some other elite should be making a determination wherein the larger community benefits from the constraint of some level of individual action. Freedom from hunger means that somebody will not be allowed to accumulate foodstuffs in excess of what they need when others are hungry.

Freedom from religion is tricky. Our constitution prohibits the government from either promoting or constraining religion. The First Amendment prohibits the federal government from making a law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The first part is the element most people don’t understand and which causes the major kerfuffle in our conversation on this, it is the from clause. No one is required to be religious and they have every right to be without a doctrine or theism. Without expressly using the word from, this is a from freedom. The second part of the establishment clause is the to clause.

A freedom to carries with it the connotation of a submission of the general society’s interest to the will of the individual. In the religious milieu our case law has defined this to mean that for so long as some higher more ultimate societal rule is not broken we cannot bar a person from a unique act that may be found to cause unease in others in their pursuit of God or universal connection. Snake handling and urine drinking are examples of this. Virgin sacrifice resulting in death or ceremonial and ritualistic rapes are examples of religious practices that would violate higher values.

The area where this all breaks down in our discourse is when we talk about the freedom of something. A freedom of something conveys a more generalized, more philosophical sense of what we are talking about as to religion. Thus people talking about freedom to practice religion, freedom of religion and freedom from religion are talking past each other when they say they believe in religious freedom. It is easy to be in favor of religious freedom or a free press until you get to the details of what that means.

Our politicians don’t address the hard questions head on because it is anathema to electability. We let them get away with it by allowing sound bite addicted press pundits present faux debate. Don’t you really want to know what they feel about the growth of Islam in America and the granting of tax exempt status to schools sects that view women as not entitled to suffrage? It is a freedom of religion issue. What about a ultra orthodox Jewish Sect if it had a similar doctrine vis a vis women and suffrage?

I guess what I am saying here is that it is easy to find common ground by using expansive terms, but we need to debate our stands on the harder issues, the from and to freedoms. In an age of global warming and diminishing economic power for the United States these debates are crucial and need to be honestly addressed.