Hang Together We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. Be

Time 2021-08-21 08:06:47

Web Name: Hang Together We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. Be

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Hang Together We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. Benjamin FranklinIt emerged from a lab, it s mutating new variants, and it s infecting the whole world.No, not that! I m taking about a different kind of highly dangerous experiment. Last year in this space, I wondered out loud whether the American experiment in human rights and religious freedom was migrating to Asia. There, brave souls were taking their stand against totalitarianism and dying for freedom; great statespersons clarified that what they were fighting for was not bigger crusts of bread from their masters, but God-given rights. Then a funny thing happened on the way to the Capitol building. And as vandals sacked the seat of our government, some of the embers of the old fire began to light up again. What s more, in a striking number of cases they led not to repetition of the same old culture-war ideological claptrap, but to new experiments in understanding and expressing the meaning of the American experiment.After all, it isn t the first time the Capitol of the most powerful empire in the world got sacked by vandals, and the result was a bold and transformative new vision of what it meant to be a citizen of that empire, and how that empire could aspire to a new vision of justice and mercy in the world.(Notice I didn t capitalize vandals unfortunately for my otherwise flawless illustration, the Vandals didn t sack Rome until 455.)There is a very silly argument happening on social media right now (I know, I know) sparked by George Will s comment that January 6 was comparable to September 11. The people focusing on the number of deaths or the lack of a real prospect that the government could have been actually overthrown are, I think, missing the point. What I take Will to be saying, and I think he s right, is that we should appreciate that both these events were enormous symbolic humiliations for the American experiment, inflicted by its enemies, made possible by the complacency and arrogant self-confidence of our technocratic but morally bankrupt ruling classes. Perhaps the key here is the old saying that history always repeats itself first time as tragedy, second time as farce. But if January 6 was a farce, it was no less a real defeat for our country, which exists essentially not as a concrete culture (like, say, France or China or Brazil or Egypt) but as an experiment in the rule of law, human rights, religious freedom and civil equality.And yet I m far more optimistic about the future of the American experiment now than I was a year ago, because I am seeing important new work being done to understand and express America s founding principles.People like FAIR and Persuasion are not only taking up the right causes there have always been people doing that but shaking loose of the old, moribund, culture-war ideologies, reaching across boundaries to build unlikely (and yet not so unlikely) coalitions for freedom and equality.The success of ventures like Blocked and Reported and The Dispatch is creating space for dissenting thought within each of the two culture-war sides, making it possible for people who are alive to the real political problems to find one another and create new discussions including new debates, because the whole point of the experiment is that we shouldn t expect to agree on everything!Not all these new efforts will succeed. I wrote in February, for example, about why Arnold Schwarzenegger s very impressive video message after January 6 was not, in the end, going to be the sort of thing that would work.And, of course, even the efforts that are more promising will take a long long time to be effective. We are dealing with generational efforts here. Or perhaps even more; it took something like a century or two for Rome to really establish the vision whose outline was first traced in Augustine s City of God. Today s equivalent of a century or two, in the accelerated social media age, might be something less, but we should still not expect overnight results.My point today is that this is precisely the sort of effort we need to see people like these folks making and they are making it.And God bless the amazing people all across Asia, who continue to stand up to totalitarianism, and make the choice to die for freedom. A conference attended by young Evangelicals called Q Ideas is currently platforming Covid conspiracist Alex Berenson in Nashville today in an interview with @gabelyons. The session is called questioning journalism. https://t.co/CaHLCqZYaZ pic.twitter.com/4GZhua0xyn— Adam Wren (@adamwren) April 22, 2021 As John McCain was nearing the end of his Senate career, he endured (not for the first time) outrageous outrage from the newly Trump-compliant GOP for voting against the use of a shady parliamentary maneuver to ram an otherwise desirable bill through Congress.The Republicans found a way to pursue their shenanigans without McCain s vote, and now they reap the predictable (and predicted) consequences. The Senate parliamentarian is currently ruling Democratic maneuvers in-bounds in part because Republicans used similar maneuvers.Personally, I never liked McCain, but I wrote this when he cast his vote:I can recall how angry we on the Right were when Obamacare was rammed through using procedural shenanigans. Did we object because making law by shenanigans is bad, or because it was the other side doing it?The descent of the American constitutional order into chaos requires that at some point one side refuse to use the other side’s tactics. The GOP in general gets no points for this, because the GOP in general has proven itself willing to stoop as low as any Democrat. The GOP and Trump have earned each other.McCain, however, gets to retire with honor. Well done.I ll admit that in the years since, I have sometimes thought about that post and wondered whether I overdid it. This was, after all, a procedural nicety. But right now, I bet the GOP wishes it had shown more restraint, just as the Democrats wish they hadn t eliminated the use of the filibuster for judicial nominations. What, after all, did Congress pass during the Trump years that was worth the current progressive legislative deluge?Wish I could post here more frequently, folks. Combination of my writing a second dissertation (yes, I m a glutton for punishment) and big transitions I have to manage in my day job look for announcements about those later this spring. Big, exciting things are coming, if the Lord continues to grant our prayers! In the meantime, I don t usually post stuff from my day job here, but that s mainly because I don t usually write substantively in my day job. I m trying to prevent the Oikonomia Network from becoming The Greg Forster Variety Show. But I thought y all would want to see this my 2,000 words on the crisis of the American experiment at the present moment (particularly after Jan. 6) and the role of the church in determining the outcome:What America needs most, humanly speaking, is credible leadership. We have plenty of leaders whose authority is accepted within their own particular social faction or subgroup. But we have virtually none who have credibility that is broader than mere loyalty to the tribe.The incompetent management of the pandemic, our inability to enact criminal justice reform despite bipartisan desire for it, our burning cities and our broken capitol – all our crises point to the same need.We need individuals and institutions able to stand up and say, “the public good requires us to do X,” and be widely believed.Come for the riff on Conan the Barbarian s unsuitableness as a model of civic virtue, stay for the inspiring summons to raise up a new generation of credible leaders for God s people and world.

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