To: Frank Grose
From: Rob Weinberg
Subject: Re: Cartoon III
At 09:59 PM 11/2/97 0600, you wrote:
That is surprising, especially since "throwing" is work! What really is surprising is that there is that much disunity among Jews. Really eye opening!
Why should that be surprising? There's an old joke. You get two Jews in a room and you'll get three opinions. (Don't repeat that, even to Jews. It would be offensive coming from a gentile.) Seriously though. Why should it surprise you? I know you don't mean it this way, but you can't lump us all together and assume we have a common ideology on all things. That's why I never cared for your "chosen people" references. The same is true of blacks and other racial minorities, women, homosexuals, all sorts of people. Differences WITHIN groups are greater than differences BETWEEN groups. An important principle to bear in mind when dealing with such issues.
Considering this situation, the situation in general in our own country, and the recent prayer ruling, on could conclude that it is the MAKING of "rules of what can't be done" that is the divisive impetus.
No, you're stretching in order to try and reinforce your point. You'll never convince me that the will of the majority should prevail on this issue. History has proved time and again how dangerous that is. As you suggest below, we may ought to let it rest. I'm thinking the focus should be not on changing one another's core beliefs, but trying to figure out whether its ever possible to accommodate them.
For 200 years we lived in a country where people were allowed to practice their religion unrestrained. Existing laws dealt with criminal activity directed against others, although there were many shameful failings with regard to the black Americans. People get upset when they are told they can't do something, especially if it has been okay in the past. Human behavior is to be "clannish," and to be prone to ridicule or look down on those who aren't "in." Gangs are an example of that. I don't think the government (which really is a select group of people) can stop us from being "human."
It's clear you're putting some thought into this, delving into the psychology of why we do what we do. But it's still too easy to say, in essence, "that's the way things are, we're human, we should just accept it." We CAN change human behavior. Else, what are we put here for? Government isn't the bad guy either. It's people who abuse its power who are the bad guy.
All we can hope is that it can keep us from being actively aggressive to the point of physical injury to the "outsider."
I disagree. Excluding people from participating in the benefits of government, depriving them from the rights and opportunity to pursue life, liberty and property on the basis of race, sex or religious belief need not involve physical injury. These are equal protection principles.
For the government to try to ensure no one ever feels like they are being mentally labeled as an outsider is assured failure (because I cannot control your perception of an act or situation, as we have discussed before), and leads to divisions within our society. We, including you in your profession, should all give serious consideration to what we are doing to ourselves with this course of action.
Rest assured I do give serious consideration to this, daily. But I'm not talking about mentally labeling someone or a group of people. That's just sticks and stones, and all that. The courts don't control thought or belief, they control action. It's not what you think, it's what you do, that matters. That's why it's simply misleading for people to argue that your right to believe in God is in peril from the government or the ACLU.
Here's one for you. Do you go into work and hold prayer meetings over the intercom? It's not really germane to what you're there for, is it? What is it about using the trappings of government, the biggest single hypocrite magnet, the compels people to display their piety in public? Truly, I will never understand that. We had a circuit judge here in Montgomery, Randy Thomas. He got the "calling" from God to preach against abortion. He left the bench to do so rather than use it for a pulpit. I may disagree with him on the issue of abortion (let's not even go near that one), but I respect him for knowing the difference between what he does on the bench and off.
BTW, my blood pressure is okay. It is an emotional issue, but you didn't offend me. Yes, I read your "opinions."
Funny how when people agree with my "legal opinions" they're brilliant insights, but when they don't they're just my "opinions." I've seen it before in other contexts and I'm not offended. Bemused, more like it. Ah well, that's the thing about free legal opinions. You get what you pay for, eh?
I have a response almost completed, but I have hesitated to even finish and send it. I'm afraid it might be too much for even a flack vest to withstand.
Who would be wearing the flack jacket? Me? I doubt you'd say anything I've not heard before in response to my legal opinions. But you can't reply to my legal analyses with biblical debate.
You and I have some fundamentally different outlooks on the general prayer and religious freedom issue. Neither of us seem eager to move closer the center on this, and arguing about it may be a waste of our time. And you are right that arguing vociferously can lead to alienation. I don't want to endanger our friendship. To do so would be counter to our objective. I've been really busy at work and at home, and haven't had much time to devote to the dialog lately.
That's OK, I've needed to get back to work myself. I came across an interesting law review article discussing "ceremonial deism," which is how the U.S. Supreme Court dispensed with the arguments about "In God We Trust," "Thanksgiving" and other formulaic invocations of God by government, when considering some of the important prayer cases. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, kinda' long (500 footnotes!).
Anyway, our hesitancy is a good thing I think. We're still defining our "objective." And it's good to go slow. It may be frustrating at times for you, but it's been very helpful for me. It's important for me that you attempt to understand a different approach to the topic. You don't have to agree with it, but when you can make my arguments for me, I'll know you understand. People have, like in the cartoon, been killing one another in the name of God for thousands of years. Why should we think we're gonna' find all the answers in a couple of months worth of emails?
Here's another one for you. Has anyone from the government come into your church and set up government? The church you went to on Sunday. Where were the G Men? They weren't there. The first amendment saw to that. So, why should people from the church be permitted to go into government to set up church? That's what you're suggesting in the previous paragraph. You just have no right to use government to set up church. The Bill of Rights don't read that way. Period. End of discussion. I want a fruitful dialog too, but truly, where has your right to practice your religion been infringed upon in the least, except where my tax dollars are concerned? Honestly.
Where in the Constitution does it give you the right to spend MY tax dollars to further YOUR religious institutions? Appeals to "majority rule" and public opinion won't work with me, as you know, because that's exactly what the first amendment is designed to protect against -- the tyranny of the majority. And appeals to history don't work either, as you know, because (a) the historical original intent arguments are selective, and generally tendered out of context; and (b) 200 years of wrongdoing doesn't make it right.
Woodrow Wilson said, "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about." And that doesn't mean the politically correct revisionist history so pervasive today.
That's nice rhetoric, but are you suggesting too that we should return to the days of slavery, and when women couldn't vote, and all the rest of that which comes with a return the good old days (that I submit respectfully never were). I view the historical original intent arguments tendered by today's "right" as so much revisionist history. There's a serious lack of objectivity in those arguments. To apply what Wilson said, we must, as you suggest, understand history, but we must understand it in context in order to apply it to today's world.
Both sides could take a lesson here. Once again, making "thou shalt not" rules governing religious expression doesn't seem to be the answer.
Ayup. G'night.
-Rob
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