A Well Deserved Rebuke

The Supreme Court of the United States has received a rare rebuke from the President of the United States and in my opinion the five Justices voting in the majority in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission deserve it.

I find it hard to understand, by any stretch of the imagination, by any application of logic, or by any legal argument, how a corporation can be guaranteed the same right to freedom of speech as a living, breathing American citizen. A corporation is a legal entity created out of thin air. A corporation’s very existence, not to mention its rights, is defined by the legislation creating it and the laws governing it. The public creates and recognizes corporations as legal entities. Sometimes corporations are recognized as “persons” but not as a living, breathing human beings. The mistake the Supreme Court made in this case was to confuse legal terminology and concepts with actual things, a “legal” person to a living person. The public by law create corporations but only the union of a sperm and an egg can create a human being. Just as the public created corporations the public can just as easily limit their powers, including their rights.

A human being exists for a finite time, from its birth to its death. A corporation is not born in the biological sense but created in the legal sense. Unless it dissolves, its “life” is potentially everlasting. There are corporations in America that have been in existence much longer than the longest human lifespan, and their potentially everlasting life spans allows corporations to accumulate great wealth and exercise great economic and political power. Corporations are not bound by time or even space as human beings are. While a corporation maintains a physical address it may actually operate, unlike a human being, in several locations, thus extending its political power.

By the Supreme Court’s logic, a corporation also ought to have the right to vote, to bear arms, and every other right enacted in the Constitution. Forget about Exxon or Halliburton contributing to candidates for President and buying a Commander-in-Chief to their liking. According to the logic of the Supreme Court, a corporation can simply run for and be elected President as long as it has been in existence long enough.

What ‘s So Special About the First Hundred Days?

I had been planning to blog about my assessment of President Obama’s first one hundred days in office. I decided not to post my reflections Wednesday morning because I wanted to first hear and read how the political pundits assessed his record. The democratic, progressive, liberal, socialist, communist media I read, like the New York Times and Washington Post, and listen to, such as NPR, and watch, such as MSNBC, has given him generally high marks. I do not know what I could add. Way to go Barack! Here is a first bump to you.

All this talk about the President’s first one hundred days got me thinking, however. What is so special about 100 days? It is not very Biblical. If we were truly a country founded on Judeo-Christian principals we would have assessed the President after his first forty Days.

Or if we were really patriotic we would assess the President after his or her first fifty days, one day for each state. Or maybe seventy-six days, for 1776. Or maybe thirteen weeks, a week for each original colony.

One hundred sounds so, well metric! And by extension, so European. I remember the big move to go metric. I remember when gas was sold in liters, distances on road signs were printed in both miles and kilometers, and speedometers were also calibrated in both miles and kilometers. But that seems like a long time ago. Metric now seems reserved for the laboratory and the mechanic who works on foreign cars, not or measuring up a President.

OK, so our monetary system, unlike the English, is based on a decimal model. There are 100 cents in a dollar, etc, etc, etc. But then again, maybe our economy would be in better shape if we went back to eights bits in a dollar, or converted to schillings, the pence and the pound. After all, we do still buy produce by the ounce and pound, and package beverages by ounces, cups, quarts and gallons rather than going metric. Maybe we should be assessing President Obama after his first dozen weeks in office (84 days) or his first baker’s dozen weeks (91 days).

Phileas Fogg made it around the world in eighty days. Is eighty days not enough time for a President to make an impression? Sometimes it seems like politics inhabits more of a fantasy world than any ever conjured up by Jules Verne. Surely both Republican and Democrat spin doctors can offer up a diagnosis within the first eighty days of a President, even if their sound bites are more fictional than non-fiction.

Regardless of the time span - forty days or 13 weeks - so far I seem to be more satisfied with our my President than he is with himself. He must hold himself to a higher standard than I hold him. I wonder what scale he is using. Fahrenheit or Celsius?

Obama’s First International Crisis?

Did the Somali pirates holding the American captain of an American flagged commercial ship qualify as an international crisis? Whether or not it did, I am impressed with how our President handled the situation.

First, he did not say a lot about it. He made no bellicose statements and issued no threats.

Second, he did not embargo, bomb or invade Somalia.

Third, he allowed enough time for the Navy and FBI to negotiate with the captors in an attempt to diffuse and end the situation without loss of life. There was no knee-jerk reaction.

Fourth, he empowered and trusted the Navy Commander in the field to exercise deadly force if the opportunity presented itself. No innocent civilians were killed. There was no collateral damage.

Fifth, he did not fly to the Navy destroyer to make a speech with a big banner proclaiming victory behind him. In fact, he has said very little after the fact.

Not only do I think that our President passed the test; I also think the Navy passed as well, especially the Navy Seal sharpshooters. The final score: Obama 1, Navy 1, Navy Seals 1, Somalia pirates -3.

The Decline and Fall of Christian America?

I am not a subscriber or usual reader of Newsweek, but when I heard a blurb on NPR about the April 13, 2009 cover story, I popped into Barnes & Noble and bought a copy. “The Decline and Fall of Christian America”? So what’s new? Oh, that’s right. This is the Newsweek issue hitting the newsstands just before Easter. It is the one of two issues of Newsweek a year with a cover story about religion, the other issue being the one just before Christmas. Does that mean Newsweek shares a profile with “C&E” Christians? You know, the ones that show up for worship only at Christmas and Easter.

“The End of Christian America” by Jon Meacham quotes E. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—as writing in response to the news that “the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified” “The so called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture.”

Mainline Christians have been aware for years of the trends cited. We have been bantering about the terms “post-modern, post-Christian” and “post-Western” for awhile now. Some of us even think that the end of the Constantinian era and end of Christian empire is a good thing for the faith. After all, Jesus was a counter-cultural, in your face, speaking truth to power sort of guy rather than an establishment type.

Consider this, however. George Bush, the born-again conservative and the religious right activists that put him into office probably did more with their policies to hasten the decline of Christianity in the West than any Scientist, Philosopher or decision by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, even before he was elected, the campaign of Barack Obama had people once again talking about, and seriously re-considering and rediscovering the theology of H. Richard Niebuhr and talking about ethics.

Maybe Christian America is not as Christian as it once was. Then again, maybe America was never as Christian as we have been led to believe. Maybe America is growing up, embracing a more critical faith posture and asking questions about things ultimate that a church grown fat and lazy from its baby-boom growth spurt is unprepared and unwilling to address and answer.

A.I.G. Bone-A$$e$

Maybe A.I.G. is legally bound by contracts to pay previously promised bonuses to some of its executives, but those executives are not legally bound to accept them. Instead of accepting these outrageous bonuses A.I.G. executives should accept some responsibility for their ineptitude and confess that they screwed up. How can they morally justify receiving such bonuses when the tax dollars of hundreds of thousands out of work Americans are enabling them to even have a company to work for in the first place? If the Obama administration and New York Attorney General Cuomo are not able to thwart these bonuses, then the names of those receiving them ought to be publicly displayed on a wall of shame and the Federal Government should make sure not a single one of them ever receives a government appointment or contract.

President Obama receives a "B"

The grading period is over and grades are in. Six readers responded to my unscientific and unrepresentative poll and assigned a grade to President Obama after his first month in office. Four readers awarded our President an “A”. One assigned him a “B” and one person failed him. His grade average is thus a “B”. That is above average with room for improvement.

President Obama addresses Congress

President Obama addressed the Congress last night, and via prime time television the American people. I was busy providing officer’s training to an incoming class of church officers and missed most of the speech, catching only the last few minutes. I was impressed with the little I heard and saw. What were your impressions?

There are still two days to grade the President in my informal, unscientific poll. Assign your grade at the top of the column to the right.

On a side note, as I was watching the last few minutes of the speech I was struck by the image of the three Democrats on the platform. There was President Obama, our first President of color, from Chicago in Middle America. To his right was Vice President Biden, a white male from the East Coast with a son serving in Iraq. To his left was Speaker of the House Pelosi, a white woman from the West Coast. It was an image nothing like I have seen in over eight years, if ever. It was a welcomed image.

Grade the President

It has now been over a month since Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. He works for us. It is up to us to tell him how he is doing. How would you grade the President so far? Respond to the poll at the top of the right hand column and grade the President.

Grade Report

The grading period is over. Grades have been averaged and here is the report. With twelve people responding, Rick Warren's inaugural prayer earned a D+, or a 1.6 on a 4.0 scale. Joseph Lowery’s inaugural prayer earned a B+, or a 3.4 on a 4.0 scale. I thank those who submitted grades and look forward to another interactive poll, whatever that might be.

Grading Inaugural Prayers

The Reverend Rick Warren offered the invocation and the Reverend Joseph Lowery offered the benediction at yesterday’s inauguration of Barack Obama as America’s 44th President and the nation’s first President of color. Controversy over the selection of Warren has been well documented in the media. Not much press was given to the selection of Lowery.

If you watched or were present for the inauguration, imagine yourself a seminary Professor of Worship or Liturgy. You have assigned your students the task of composing and delivering a prayer for a presidential inauguration. If Lowery and Wilson were two of your students, what grade would you assign to their prayers?

Assign you grade at the top of the right hand column. The semester ends and grades are due by noon January 31, 2009.

Inauguration of Change

The pre-Socratic Natural Philosophers struggled to understand apparent changes in nature. If they were living today, would they ponder the political and social changes marked in Washington this day.

Much has been made about Barack Obama being the nation’s first Black President. If I am not mistaken, he is our first President of color, any color other than white. With his inauguration the all white boys club of the American Presidency has been integrated. How long, however will it take for the now racially integrated all boys club to welcome its first woman? Will that woman be Hillary, Sarah, or another? When will it admit its first Native American, Hispanic, or Asian? When will it admit its first Jew or Muslim? When will it receive its first agnostic or atheist? When will it accept its first open homosexual?

Barack Obama might be our nation’s first Black President, but that is not what is bothering me about him. What is bothering me is that when he was inaugurated he became the first President of the United States younger than me! Ouch!

In May of 2008 the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) elected the Reverend Bruce Reyes-Chow as moderator of the 218th General Assembly. The grandson of Filipino and Chinese immigrants, he represents the racial ethnic diversity the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is seeking to more fully attract and embrace. And he too, like Obama, is the first Moderator of the General Assembly that is younger than me. Ouch again.

Many years ago a member of a Pastor Nominating Committee that ended up calling me as their Pastor later told me that the PNC had initially been concerned about my youth, equating my youth with inexperience. He told me that he pointed out to the other members of the PNC that his Physician, Accountant, and Lawyer were all younger than he was, so why shouldn’t his Pastor be younger as well?

With the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, much has changed. Unfortunately, part of that change is the recognition that I am aging. The pre-Socratic’s might be able to explain aging but they cannot stop it. President Obama might be able to reverse the many excesses of the former Bush Administration but he cannot reverse the aging process.


God bless President Obama and God Bless the United States of America.