The Bosque Boys

Last Tuesday, I sat in with the guys from Political Vindication Radio and Shane from NeoCon News for a blogger's roundtable. Fun stuff. Good guys.

They archive their past shows, so you are welcome to catch up with last week's discussion--if you are a mind.

This week Frank and Shane interview Spree from "Wake Up America."

Listen live here Tuesday nights at 6:00 PM Pacific.

Thanks again for the red-state fellowship. Godspeed.

I just finished teaching an 8-week introductory course in American Federal Government on the campus of Ft. Sill for a nearby university. The majority of the students were active-duty Army taking the class over their lunch hour, with some from the regular campus population who liked the time. I did the same class in the summer. The students spent the last week of each class presenting Issue Papers and debating. Each student had chosen a topic of current policy interest and researched it. In their papers, 1 page max, each student presented a question concerning Federal Government policy, and gave his/her answer, a defense of the answer, and an action plan to work toward implementing that answer. The papers were then presented in class and debated.

In both classes several student chose something related to abortion. Though my sample is too small to have poly-sci validity, I offer some observations. Here is where it gets interesting for the politics of pro-choice versus pro-life:

1. Nearly all my students were pro-choice. Given that my classes probably were toward the more conservative end of the late-teens and twenty-something spectrum, the pro-choice movement may be making progress.

2. Interestingly, all the students who supported the availability of legal abortion thought there should be limits: they wanted new laws against late-term abortions and limits to the number of abortions one woman could have. Nobody argued for an absolute right to abort a baby. The pro-choice movement may be causing itself a problem by arguing for the absolute right to abortion without restrictions.

3. In one debate, some of the men argued that fathers should have a legal say in the decision to abort. The women in the class reacted emotionally against such an idea--a woman's body was her own to make decisions about. I think the pro-life movement would do well to make sure that the front-line in the fight against abortion is made up of women: men who picket abortion clinics probably are viewed by pro-choice women as just more men who want to control women.

The other morning I heard a radio talk-show host opine that for Romney to break out of the low poll numbers, he would need to address the fact of his Mormonism head-on. The host said that Romney should give the nation a short-course in Mormonism. Perhaps he meant that conservative unease with the thought of a Mormon president was due to fear of the unknown.

But fear of the unknown is not the problem. Southern evangelicals are in a battle for converts with Mormon missionaries, the nearly ubiquitous pairs of neatly dressed young men and women who can be seen walking or bicycling through suburbs everywhere. In the South especially, Mormons present themselves very much as the church of God and country, patriotism and traditional morality. Local Southern Baptists feel the Mormon missionaries are stealing their best lines. In Sunday School classes and from pulpits conservative church-goers are warned against "the cults;" that list includes Mormonism.

For Romney to address his Mormonism explicitly in a high-profile way carries a great political risk. So long as conservative Christians don't think about his religion, Romney could seem an attractive candidate. But if he were to address his religion in an attention-getting fashion, tens-of-thousands of evangelicals will get the heebie-jeebies. They have been primed to react this way.

And, there is another reason for Romney not to give the address the radio host called for. Trying to explain Mormonism, even in a short course, will involve the now-you-see-them, now-you-don't Golden Plates, the belief that "God" is Adam-become-the-god-for-this-world, that any male Mormon potentially can become a god with his own world, that there are a potentially infinite number of gods, that women reach a place in paradise based on the achievements of their man, etc. The buzz generated by a Romney Mormonism speech will bring up not just polygamy, but also holy underwear, the former ban on black priests, and the "history" of North America that contradicts everything anthropology and archealogy teaches. He would risk alienating many beyond the evangelical base whose reaction might be, "that's just plain weird."

I don't think Romney has a snowball's chance to capture the 08 Republican nomination.

A few more random and half-baked reactions:

1. I ran a Bosque Boys search for "al gore," and I was surprised by the number of entries and the variety of posts. I modestly suggest that the thread offers several essays worth a second look here.

2. The more I think about all this, the harder it becomes to see this award as anything more than "gotcha" politics. Having said that, the Nobel folks can point to a noble tradition of tweaking the powerful and lending support to worthy dissenters. As I mentioned earlier, Lech Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. The Prize committee, undoubtedly, meant to harass and shame the totalitarian, Soviet-controlled Polish government.

In the same vein, the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Martin Luther King in 1964 was clearly directed at embarrassing the various oppressive American governments clinging to a Jim-Crow past.

Were these awards political? Yes. Were they aimed at goring someone's ox? Yes. But were the recipients deserving? Yes. Do the awards stand the test of time? Yes.

On the other hand:

Do all of the Nobel Peace Prize winners stand up to these standards? Yasser Arafat (translation: No).

Has the Prize diminished in stature and power as a result of frivolous and petty politics? Jimmy Carter. Al Gore (translation: unfortunately, YES).

Allow me a few less-than-gracious thoughts on Al Gore and the Nobel Peace Prize:

1. How can anyone take the Nobel Peace Prize seriously again?

2. Kofi Anan, Jimmy Carter, Mohamad el Baradei, and now Al Gore. The conclusion of the Bush administration will necessitate a paradigm shift for the awards committee, as the number one criterion--stick it in the eye of George Bush--will eventually recede as the primary consideration.

When my wife and I were newlyweds in the late '70s, the retired couple in the next trailer invited us over for supper. Most of the evening was spent listening to their sales pitch for past-life regression hypnosis along with stories of their "past lives." They were into some sort of Americanized verzion of some sort of Buddhism. Then the woman said, "That's why I am so against abortion, it breaks the karmic cycle."

From listening to the MSM, one would assume that all pro-life activists were right-wing evangelical and Roman Catholic fanatics. While I suspect that the largest group of anti-abortion Americans fit into that category, it certainly does not cover everyone.

Check out these sites:

Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League Homepage

Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians

Libertarians for Life

Feminism & Nonviolence Studies

A Buddhist Look at Abortion

Jews for Life

Pagans for Life

On Oct. 8, 1956, Larsen was as close to perfect as any pitcher can be and he chose the most important series in baseball to have his shining moment. Story.

The occasion was Game 5 of the World Series, Yankees versus Dodgers. A perfect game.

We watch sports for many reasons: the excitement that takes us out of our narrow concerns and for a moment or an hour induces self-forgetfulness, the camaraderie with other fans that makes us part of a larger fellowship even if only for an afternoon, the satisfaction of the same deep feelings that caused pagans to mark the progression of seasons with ceremonies: fall football, spring baseball.

But we also watch sports to see occasional human perfection--Montana floating a pass through the narrow window that exists only for a moment between the cornerback and safety, and into the hands of the receiver who will cross that window for a fraction of a second, all as Joe evades a rushing defensive end with mayhem on his mind; Jeeter leaping to snare a scorching liner then twisting his body to throw a bullet to first, catching the runner off the bag, all before Derek's feet hit the ground again; Stockton surrounded by giants down in the paint, hitting Malone streaking in from the corner even though John's glimpse of Karl was a fleeting sight of jersey briefly glimpsed between defenders.

Those we watch on summer evenings and fall afternoons and winter nights give us occasional glimpses of human perfection, gods at play. Major league baseball has burned me more than once, but, I'll be in front of the television for all the games I can, watching the World Series. Maybe I'll see a god at play.

"The [Founders] would be amazed and disappointed that after 220 years, the inheritors of their Constitution had not tried to adapt to new developments that the founders could never have anticipated in Philadelphia in 1787."

So says Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia and author of "A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country" as quoted in the LA Times--full article here.

It is hard to imagine anyone other than a political scientist presuming, with such authority and absolute certainty, to speak for the founders concerning modern politics.

According to Professor Sabato, the founders would endorse a long list of changes proposed by--no surprise here--Professor Sabato. How shall all this be accomplished? A 21st century Constitutional Convention.

What historical evidence does Professor Sabato offer to prove his assertion that he is channeling the Spirits of 1787? One lonely voice.

Sabato again:

"Thomas Jefferson, for example, insisted that 'no society can make a perpetual Constitution. ... The Earth belongs always to the living generation. ... Every Constitution ... naturally expires at the end of 19 years' (the length of a generation in Jefferson's time)."

Good enough? Hardly.

1. Thomas Jefferson is a founding father but not a constitutional "framer," which is an important distinction Sabato neglects to mention--much less explain. Inarguably, Jefferson is an American icon and a first-tier member of the founding generation. However, it is necessary to make clear that Jefferson was not a party to the Constitutional Moment. He did not attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787 of which Sabato makes mention. Jefferson did not contribute to The Federalist, the collection of essays designed to explain and defend the Constitution, and, early on, he was famously less-invested in the Constitution than his good friend and long-time political partner, James Madison, whom we rightly call the Father of the Constitution. It is worth noting that Madison thought this "nineteen-year cycle" of legitimacy complete lunacy.

2. Eventually, even Jefferson came to believe his revolutionary ravings were ill-considered and sheepishly backed away from his initial assertion regarding generational sovereignty.

Another glaring fallacy in Sabato's ham-handed assertion: the history of the United States is very much the story of change over time. We have adapted plenty. We have also added twenty-seven amendments to the handiwork of the framers. I invite Professor Sabato to draft a few more and subject them to public scrutiny and debate.

But a Constitutional Convention?

We should give thanks to Providence that we have not had another Constitutional Convention over the last 220 years. May God in Heaven grant us the wisdom to understand that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

For years I have confessed to my classes my fear that another Constitutional Convention would portend the expedited end to our American experiment in self rule.

Why?

1. The framers of the Constitution met in closed session. We did not know with any degree of accuracy exactly what went on behind those closed doors until the death of all the men present. Amazingly, there were no leaks. They purposely sequestered themselves and kept one another's secrets so that special interests and demagogues could not foist upon the proceedings ill-advised whims, narrow considerations, and popular foolishness.

The next Constitutional Convention will not meet in executive session. The next Constitutional Convention will be a circus--covered wall-to-wall by C-SPAN and CNN and Fox News. Every delegate will harbor personal ambitions greater than his/her desire to form a more perfect union, and he/she inevitably will hold press conferences after every session, playing to the crowds and mugging for the cameras.

This is a formula for an unwieldy, incoherent, and rotten-to-the-core manifesto of political correctness and Beltway legalese.

2. We caught lightening in a bottle in the summer of 1787. We can never hope to equal the brilliance, dedication, and public-mindedness of the 55 men who attended the real Constitutional Convention. Not even if we invited Larry Sabato.

Story. From the International Herald Tribune.

It is important to realize that Hirsi Ali may be the first refugee from Western Europe since the Holocaust. As such, she is a unique and indispensable witness to both the strength and weakness of the West: to the splendor of open society, and to the boundless energy of its antagonists. She knows the challenges we face in our struggle to contain the misogyny and religious fanaticism of the Muslim world, and she lives with the consequences of our failure each day. There is no one in a better position to remind us that tolerance of intolerance is cowardice.

Having recapitulated the Enlightenment for herself in a few short years, Hirsi Ali has surveyed every inch of the path leading out of the moral and intellectual wasteland that is traditional Islam. She has written two luminous books describing her journey, the most recent of which, "Infidel," has been an international bestseller for months. It is difficult to exaggerate her courage. As Christopher Caldwell wrote in The New York Times, "Voltaire did not risk, with his every utterance, making a billion enemies who recognized his face and could, via the Internet, share information instantaneously with people who aspired to assassinate him."

We who are not Islamic, East and West, must ask ourselves a simple question: Do we believe there is something worth defending from a totalitarian religion/culture/political system with an intrinsic expansionism? If we answer yes, then we must fight, with words and votes and weapons. If we answer no, then we must await the darkness.

Supporters of Mainline Denominations often say that the official positions of most of these groups are not as liberal as the conservatives make them out to be. In most cases this is true. But, there is a difference between official positions and the actions of the denominational establishment.

Case in point. I just received the catalog for the upcoming (Februrary) national meeting of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators, which also includes the ed folks from my denomination, the RCA.

Included in the workshops are:

Sharing the Bible and the Qur'an with Children: "How well are our children prepared to converse with their Muslim friends? How well are they prepared to understand their own faith in view of Islam?" ---most Christian children I know still need lots of work on understanding the Bible, from the Christian point of view.

Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: "Explode the Myths, heal the Church--This workship will make a biblical case for equal rights for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender." ---there is no comparable workship on the traditional understandings of homosexuality as it affects holding church office