By Rudy
Barnes, Jr.
At the beginning of each session members
of Congress put their hands over their hearts and pledge allegiance to the flag
…and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all. That’s
a pledge for liberty and justice for all,
not just a favored few.
Partisan politics in the U.S. have
been divisive and polarizing, with each party mobilizing its constituents with
hot-button issues that have strained the fabric of democracy to the breaking
point. Bipolar politics have produced enough
disaffected and dysfunctional voters to make Donald Trump the presumptive
nominee of the Republican Party. It is a
political aberration that has undermined the legitimacy of the GOP and denied
sensible voters a choice for President.
A politics of reconciliation is
needed to save our democracy from self-destruction. It was predicted by Plato, Edmund Burke (In a democracy, your forge your own shackles)
and by other philosophers—including Pogo the Possum, who observed, We have met the enemy and it is us.
A politics of reconciliation is based
on the religious or secular ideal to provide liberty and justice for all, and that requires balancing individual
rights and special interests with providing for the common good. If a majority of voters seek to promote their
individual rights or special interests for some to the exclusion of liberty and
justice for all, then democracy will
fail.
The Orlando massacre last week
produced public reactions that were as negative and divisive as they were
positive and reconciling. The President predictably
infuriated gun advocates when he emphasized the need for gun control. Donald
Trump used the tragedy to shamelessly take credit for his past anti-Muslim
sentiments, continuing to fan the flames of religious division and hate. And a fundamentalist Baptist preacher in
California preached a hateful tirade on the killing of homosexuals as God’s
will.
There is a means of reconciliation
that can counter such dark forces of hate.
The three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—all share the greatest commandment to love God and
our neighbors as ourselves. To love our
neighbors as ourselves in today’s world requires a politics of reconciliation to
overcome discrimination based on race, religion and sexual preference to enable
us to be one nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Michael Gerson noted that the
Orlando massacre would likely produce more divisiveness than reconciliation
because of “…our strong tendency is to employ events to reaffirm our
convictions.” And our conflicting convictions—whether
on immigration, race, religion, sexual orientation, or guns—are amazingly
strong and divisive. Gerson asserted
that “Our political leadership has lost the ability to focus on shared tasks
and express moral stakes.” But he was
hopeful: “We are called to imagine...that love wins.”
To complicate the issue of political
reconciliation, globalization has forced us to think beyond being one nation
under God, and recognize that we are one world under God. That has implications for U.S. immigration
and refugee policies, foreign policy and military operations.
The U.S. cannot open its borders to
everyone, nor can it block immigrants based on their religion or national
origin. To prohibit Muslims or Mexicans
from entering the U.S. violates the most fundamental concepts of liberty and
justice for all; but it is reasonable to have quotas and to restrict entry to
anyone who may have ties to terrorist organizations.
Liberty and justice are meaningless
without human rights to define them. The
First Amendment to the Constitution provides for the freedoms of religion,
press and assembly in the U.S., and overseas the International Covenant of
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) makes those fundamental human rights international
law. Human rights are essential to
providing liberty and justice and can counter religious violence in Islamic
nations; but promoting human rights has not been a priority of U.S. foreign
policy or its military operations.
Politics in any pluralistic
democracy are by nature messy—and the U.S. is no exception. Liberty and justice for all requires political
competition to ensure the free flow of ideas and holding those in power
accountable. With the demise of the GOP,
the two-party system cannot function.
There is a need for multiple political parties, so that if one party
loses its legitimacy, as has the Republican Party, there will be other parties
to hold those in power accountable.
The American Party of S.C. is a
political party that emphasizes inclusion rather than exclusion and seeks to reconcile
political differences rather than exploit them.
It recognizes the need to balance individual rights with providing for
the common good, and promotes liberty and justice for all. With the moral corruption of the Republican
Party by Donald Trump, voters should now give serious consideration to third-party
candidates like those of the American Party.
Notes and related blogs:
On the
hateful tirade of a fundamentalist Baptist pastor that the real tragedy in
Orlando was that more homosexuals were not killed, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/06/14/pastor-refuses-to-mourn-orlando-victims-the-tragedy-is-that-more-of-them-didnt-die/?wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1.
Michael
Gerson has commented on the demise of the Republican Party as the party of liberty
and justice for all now that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the
party for president. “Without a passion
for universal dignity and worth—the commitment to a common good in which the
powerless are valued—politics is a spoils system for the winners. It degenerates into a way of one group to
gain advantage over another. [With Trump’s
presumptive nomination for president] Many Republicans, I suspect will sicken
of defending this shabby enterprise….”
See https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-party-of-lincoln-is-dying/2016/06/09/e669380a-2e6b-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1.
On Gerson’s commentary on the divisive aftermath of the Orlando
massacre, divided we mourn, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/divided-we-mourn/2016/06/13/19253be4-31a6-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.
Katherine
Parker has noted that “democracy, freedom and civilization…all hang by a
thread” in America, and are threatened by the “demographic, slicing and dicing”
of the electorate by partisan politics, and the resulting voter frustration and
anger has given rise to the nihilistic politics of Donald Trump. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/once-a-great-notion-america-is-under-relentless-attack/2016/05/31/cf8d43d0-2775-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_headlines.
On human
rights in Islamic nations, see Barnes, Religion and Conflicting Concepts of
Legitimacy at https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/5473-barnesreligion-and-conflicting-concepts-of.
On human
rights in the U.S. military training and advisory mission, see Barnes, Back
to the Future, Human Rights and Legitimacy in the Training and Advisory Mission,
at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3gvZV8mXUp-eVRlcWFENHNUVUE/view
See the following related
blogs in the Resources at http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/: Religion
and Reason, December 8, 2015; Faith and Freedom, December 15,
2014; The Greatest Commandment,
January 11, 2015; Love Over
Law: A Principle at the Heart of Legitimacy, January 18, 2015; Jesus Meets Muhammad: Is there a
Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims Today?, January 25,
2015; Is Religion Good or Evil?, February 15, 2015; Religion and Human Rights,
February 22, 2015; The Kingdom
of God, Politics and the Church, March 15, 2015; The Power of Humility and the
Arrogance of Power, March 22, 2015; May
10, 2015; Faith as a Source of
Morality and Law: The Heart of Legitimacy, April 12, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National
Security, May 10, 2015; De
Oppresso Liber: Where Religion and Politics Intersect, May 24, 2015; Liberation from Economic Oppression,
May 31, 2015; Reconciliation
in Race and Religion: The Need for Compatibility, not Conformity, July 12,
2015; Fear and Fundamentalism,
July 26, 2015; Freedom and
Fundamentalism, August 2, 2015; Balancing
Individual Rights with Collective Responsibilities, August 9, 2015; How Religious Fundamentalism and
Secularism Shape Politics and Human Rights, August 16, 2015; The Power of Freedom over Fear,
September 12, 2015; Politics
and Religious Polarization, September 20, 2015; Who Is My Neighbor?, January
23, 2016; The Politics of
Loving Our Neighbors as Ourselves, January 30, 2016; The American Religion and Politics
in 2016, March 5, 2016; We Are Known
by the Friends We Keep, February 14, 2016; Religion, Race and the
Deterioration of Democracy in America, March 12, 2016; Religion, Democracy and Human
Depravity, March 19, 2016; Religion,
Democracy, Diversity and Demagoguery, March 26, 2016; Standards of Legitimacy in
Morality, Manners and Political Correctness, April 23, 2016; The Relevance of Religion to
Politics, April 30, 2016; Religion
and a Politics of Reconciliation, May 7, 2016; and The Arrogance of Power, Humility,
and a Politics of Reconciliation, May 14, 2016.
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