The Democrats’ ideal of America
Paul Belien of the
Brussels Journal—now a fellow of the Hudson Institute—has an
article in the
Washington Times arguing that the Democrats’ agenda is to turn America into Europe—a secularized, sterilized, demoralized, welfarized, unfree continent of Eloi submitting ourselves to Islam. I think his main point is correct, but I don’t feel he has advanced it persuasively in this column, which is long on large and alarming assertions, short on argument.
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Alex K. writes:
Belien says “the U.S. Constitution recognizes that there is an authority higher than the state—God.” But I don’t think God is mentioned in the Constitution. Am I wrong or did Belien make kind of a howler there?
LA replies:
Yes. The Constitution does not mention God in any way. This is a very common error among U.S. conservatives, and Belien probably reads their stuff and picked up the same incorrect idea.
The error comes about like this. America at the time of the Founding was certainly a Christian society; or, alternatively, it was 13 Christian societies. But the Constitution, while it was based in part in a Christian understanding of man’s sinfulness and the consequent need to prevent any one part of the state from having unrestrained power, was not a Christian document per se and made no reference to religion except for the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. Even more disturbingly, the United States in its treaty with one of the Barbary states, written at the end of the Washington administration and ratified early in the Adams presidency (I don’t have the quote at the moment) explicitly declared that the government of the United States was not Christian. At the level of the Constitution, this was true, though it was untrue at the level of the actual, living America.
The bifurcation between the concretely Christian society and its non-Christian federal charter created a conflict within the American mind that has lasted to this day. On one hand, traditionalist Americans feel and know their society to be Christian, and they know that this Christian character is central to what we are. On the other hand, the main political symbol of America, indeed, the only viable political symbol of America, is the Constitution, and the Constitution is resolutely non-Christian. Since America is in reality a Christian nation under God, and since the Constitution is neither Christian nor under God, and since the Constitution is the only available symbol of America, the only way traditionalist Americans can resolve the conflict is by (falsely) describing the Constitution as Christian or as recognizing God.
We can resolve this contradiction in only one of two ways: by breaking free of our Constitution- and idea-worship and recognizing that the Constitution, while it is the highest level of our political structure, is not the totality of what America is; or by revising the Constitution so as to make explicit the concretely Christian and “under-God” aspect of America.
Loren P. writes:
Is there not a slight connection in the preamble of the constitution “secure the Blessings of Liberty “ that connects the constitution to the Declaration of Independence “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” that hints at a Christian basis for the document?! Does it not?
LA replies:
Yes, there is a slight connection. The Constitution has a relationship with the Declaration, and has it in other ways as well. But the question was whether this statement by Paul Belien is correct: “the U.S. Constitution recognizes that there is an authority higher than the state—God.” Clearly it does not. I’m not saying I’m happy that this is the case. It is a central traditionalist position that the American Founding documents are flawed in being insufficiently explicit about the cultural and spiritual bases of America.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 14, 2007 09:33 PM | Send