Category Archives: government

And the winner—

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(Your faithful observer confesses to being less observant than he thought he was, as at least three of you faithful consumers have been good enough to remind me.  For those who don’t or won’t in the future know about that to which I refer, go on with your lives. For those who do, please note that I have made the slight correction you suggest, with thanks.  But Mr. Biden is still P45.)

—won’t be known until January 6, 2021, two weeks before inauguration day.

Not officially, anyway.

We think we’ll know.  The networks will think they know.  The print reporters and the pundits will think they know. But they won’t be correct until January 6.

Officially.

Before we launch into an explanation of those statements, we want to say two things.

First: Joseph Biden will NOT be the 46th President of the United States.  He will be the 45th.  He will lead the 46th presidential administration but he will be the 45th president.  Grover Cleveland screwed up the numbering system when he served two non-consecutive terms and somebody decided he would be the 22nd and 24th President.  He was not two people. But he did lead two administrations.   It’s a small thing. But there are those who get really irritated with the lack of clarity in describing Mr. Biden as our 46th president. If should be apparent who one of them is.

(On Monday, we heard Governor Parson talk briefly about what an honor it is to be Missouri’s 57th governor and to realize how small the group is of men who have led the state in its 200 years.  Actually, the group is more exclusive than that.  He’s our 55th Governor, serving the 57th administration.  Phil Donnelly was 41 and 43 and Christopher Bond was 47 and 49 in terms of state administrations. So Governor Parson is one of only 55.)

Second and more important to today’s discussion: Our county election officials and the hundreds of volunteers who filled various roles on election day—for pitifully little pay—did something remarkable two weeks ago. Not just in Missouri.  Nationwide. With all of the concern about trouble from poll watchers, concerns that the number of voters would overwhelm the system, that the pandemic added hostile and confusing elements, and with the U. S. Postal Service set up to be a fall guy if some absentee or mail-on ballots didn’t get counted, election day happened without noticeable problems beyond the usual ones.  Election days are never easy days for those responsible for administering them.  But November, 2020 should be remembered because our election authorities stayed focused on their jobs and their responsibilities and did a highly-praiseworthy job. Thank Heavens our state went Republican. Otherwise those good folks would be living with unreasonable accusations and insults they do not deserve.

Now, on with our explanation of why we won’t have an official winner until the first week of the new year.

A week ago today we went to bed and we woke up and we didn’t know who would take the oath of office in Washington on January 20, 2021.

There’s a lot about this process of picking a president that we have forgotten about—if we ever knew it.

First, there’s this reminder. You and I were not electing a president two weeks ago.  We were indicating a preference for a president. We were deciding which party’s electors would elect a president.  Missouri Democrats and Republicans each select ten electors, one for each of our members of congress plus two because we have two Senators.  Our system says the person who finishes ahead in the popular vote in Missouri gets all ten of our electors. The electors then vote for the president.  In 2016, Donald Trump won Missouri 10-0.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  Our friend Phill Brooks, who started covering the Capitol about the same time your obedient servant did and writes a weekly political column about Missouri politics, said in a recent column, “the results reported on election night are neither official nor complete.”

Those of us who enjoy reporting the numbers on election night like to think they are, but Phill is correct. Mail-in and absentee ballots are counted after election day if they are postmarked by election day.  That’s why the numbers from the November 3 election were not certified by local election authorities on the spot.

But those are not the official numbers.

“The state law gives the state Board of Canvassers several more weeks before announcing the official state results based on those local reports,” Phill wrote. It is during this time that required recounts in local elections take place and protests or lawsuits are filed.  Once all of that is resolved and canvassers certify no problems with the count, a determination is made about which electoral college panel gets some work to do while the others go home.

The Missouri electoral college delegates will not meet until December 14.  Our ten D or R delegates will give all ten of Missouri’s real determining votes to the state winner, meaning Donald Trump will carry Missouri again 10-0.

But the winner is not determined then, either.

Congress collects all of the Electoral College reports and will hold a joint session on January 6. It will count the electoral votes and declare the person who got 270 or more electoral votes the winner of the big chair in the oval office.  Two weeks later that person will be inaugurated.

That’s how it works. We voted November 3 to pick someone from our district to represent all of the winner’s voters. That person will present all ten of our votes to one candidate.

And then it’s official.

The Secretary of State reports Donald Trump got 1,711,848 votes in Missouri last week. But actually, he got 10.  Joe Biden got 1,242,851.  Actually, he got none.  But thank you, 1,242,851 Missourians for taking part.

One other thing to mention.  Missouri saw 3,012,436 votes cast for president. The total number of votes cast (because some people did not vote for president but voted for other candidates or issues) is going to be more than that. But the number of votes for president was almost 200,000 more ballots that were cast in the 2016 election.

It has to be FRAUD, I tell you!

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I’ve been studying the Missouri results of the November 3 election and I believe we need some judges to declare there were fraudulent votes cast.  Thousands of them.

One need only look at the winning percentages of statewide Republican candidates to see evidence of illegal activity.

Missouri abolished straight-ticket voting in 2006.  But look at the winning percentages of top-of-the-ticket Republicans:

Trump 58.26%

Parson  57.17%

Kehoe  58.5%

Secretary of State 60.6%

Treasurer 59.2%

Attorney General 59.5%

Clearly, there’s something fishy here.  It’s impossible to have percentages this uniform unless there wasn’t illegal straight-ticket voting going on.  I’m not sure how it was done but it’s time to hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit, and accuse voters and local election authorities of plotting to assure a Republican sweep.

These votes should not have been counted because the percentages show there was clear tampering going on at the ballot box.  Chances are that a check of thousands of ballots will show remarkable similarities in the way the little ovals next to candidates’ names were filled in by reputed voters.

Furthermore, poll watchers were kept so far away from the tabulations that they could not closely examine the way the ballots were marked, thus being unable to challenge each ballot before it was processed.

All of the votes cast in the election of 2020 in Missouri should be voided because the uniformity of markings clearly shows extensive violation of the state election law against straight-ticket voting.

An investigation must be launched at the highest level to find the actual ballots that were removed so these fake ballots could be substituted and elections officials throughout Missouri should be jailed for their parts in this massive voter fraud that resulted in obvious straight-ticket voting ban.

Maybe the Democratic Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, and nine other Democratic Attorneys General who have no business sticking their noses into a Missouri election should file a petition asking the United States Supreme Court to throw out all of the ballots showing near-uniform voting for President Trump and the five Republican statewide officers.

Note to Nicole Galloway:  This election is not over!

The whole election was a record-breaking fraud, I say.  FRAUD!!!  FRAUD!!!

A presidential favor

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Our president refuses to admit he’s a loser..

But that’s okay—although his personal behavior and his political attitude suggest he should be sent to his room without supper

—because he might be doing the country a big political favor with his stubbornness. .

Mind you, this is being written by a voter who didn’t cover the campaign or the national election returns with the intensity of the national media, whether friendly or fake in the eyes of the president.

The election was unique beyond the combatants.  It was unique in the process by which it was held, a process that is likely to continue in many parts of the country.  Early voting in one form or another is here to stay. Processing of those votes in this election seems to have satisfied most people, but not our president and his loyal supporters. The president is filing lawsuits right and left alleging various kinds of fraudulent actions that have denied him a second term. The complaints appear to lack evidence but our legal system does not require proof before a citizen files a complaint.

Critics have little good to say about all of this even though they are not surprised President Trump is being a poor sport about losing.

Our president is also a citizen and as with all of us, he has a right to ask the courts to remedy what he asserts is a wrong that has been done to him. It would be nice if he had firm proof to back up his attacks on the elections system and the people of both parties who administered it in this terrible time.

That aside, let us look at the positives he might be providing the country rather than dwell on the negative aspects of his personal behavior.

Your obedient servant sees at least two benefits to his actions.

First, in filing all of his lawsuits claiming the process was badly flawed, he is giving the courts multitudinous chances to confirm it was not.  He is giving the courts—perhaps ultimately including many judges that he appointed—an opportunity to confirm our elections system worked even under one of the most severe tests it ever has faced.

As this is written, he and his lawyers haven’t won a single case. His efforts to de-legitimize the election and the election process are, in fact, legitimizing them, thanks to his losses in the courts.  So cut him a little slack. So far he has proven the process he seeks to disprove.  Let him keep going.  In the end, the establishment of a 21st Century system of voting might be one of his biggest legacies, much as he might dislike the result.

Second, he is proving something upon which he has at times cast doubt—the concept that no one is above the law.  Not even the president.  In filing his lawsuits he is admitting that he does not have the power as President of the United States to void an election.  He has the same authority you or I have, the authority as a citizen to seek redress of perceived wrongs through the court system.  He’s not above us.  He is still just a citizen regardless of his title.

So let him go, even though his accusations and his lawsuits and his lack of cooperation with the president-elect’s transition effort is not good for the nation.  Let’s appreciate that he’s proving—although he doesn’t seem to want to—that two essential parts of our democracy are true—that no one is above or beneath the law including a president, and the election system not only works, it is capable of working under the greatest of strains.  It might need some fine-tuning after this, but once again, this latest use of the system given to us by our founders has continued to work.

A departure 

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Dr. Frank Crane will resume his normal Monday place next week.  But tomorrow is an election day, perhaps the most consequential election day since 1860.

These are fearful times in which we have a choice of thinking the worst of a system that has sustained our free country, or believing that we are capable of being better tomorrow than we are today.

Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address, in 1861, with a nation crumbling before his eyes into what he knew would become a terrible struggle to determine whether any nation could live half-slave and half-free, hoped for a nation that would not turn upon itself:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, published in 1960:

One thing I believe profoundly: We make our own history. The course of history is directed by the choices we make and our choices grow out of the idea, the beliefs, the values, the dreams of the people. It is not so much the powerful leaders that determine our destiny as the much more powerful influence of the combined voice of the people themselves…Surely in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.

And in the fearful years of Joseph McCarthy’s rantings about Communists in government (he never provided the names he claimed to have on his famous list and changed the number from time to time), journalist Edward R. Murrow closed one of his “See it Now” broadcasts:

We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular…. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility.

For the past several Fridays we have drawn upon Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America, in which he argues this nation has several times been driven by fear to teeter on the edge of losing its democratic republic system of government. Each time, he says, the people have shown this nation to be one of hope, not fear. Let us go forth responsibly tomorrow, not in fear, but in hope, in this time when fear, bitterness, and degradation of others has been sewn repeatedly, and seek the better angels within ourselves and those we select.

Normally in this space on Mondays we have shared with you some thoughts of Dr. Frank Crane. But tomorrow is an election day, perhaps the nation’s most consequential election day since 1860.

These are fearful times in which we have a choice of thinking the worst of a system that has sustained our free country, or believing that we are capable of being better tomorrow than we are today.

Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address, in 1861, with a nation crumbling before his eyes into what he knew would become a terrible struggle to determine whether any nation could live half-slave and half-free, hoped for a nation that would not turn upon itself:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, published in 1960:

One thing I believe profoundly: We make our own history. The course of history is directed by the choices we make and our choices grow out of the idea, the beliefs, the values, the dreams of the people. It is not so much the powerful leaders that determine our destiny as the much more powerful influence of the combined voice of the people themselves…Surely in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.

And in the fearful years of Joseph McCarthy’s rantings about Communists in government (he never provided the names he claimed to have on his famous list and changed the number from time to time), journalist Edward R. Murrow closed one of his “See it Now” broadcasts:

We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our own history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular…. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility.

For the past several Fridays we have drawn upon Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America, in which he argues this nation has several times been driven by fear to teeter on the edge of losing its democratic republic system of government. Each time, he says, the people have shown this nation to be one of hope, not fear. Let us go forth responsibly tomorrow, not in fear, but in hope, in this time when fear, bitterness, and degradation of others has been sewn repeatedly, and seek the better angels within ourselves and those we select.

Book Club—VIII

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In this, our last entry in this series, we turn to the last few words of The Soul of America by Jon Meacham, who writes, “For all of our darker impulses, for all of our shortcomings, and for all of the dreams denied and deferred, the experiment begun so long ago, carried out so imperfectly, is worth the fight. There is, in fact, no struggle more important and none nobler, than the one we wage in the service of those whose better angels who, however besieged, are always ready for battle.”

We conclude with the words John F. Kennedy would have spoken in Dallas on November 22, 1963 had he not been murdered on the way to a luncheon at the Trade Mart. They are as timely today as they were then, perhaps even more timely now because so much of what he warned against has come about,

Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country’s security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason — or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.

There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternative, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.

But today other voices are heard in the land — voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the sixties, doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness…

The United States is a peaceful nation. And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help…

In today’s world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles — on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny…

Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society…

We, in this country, in this generation, are — by destiny rather than by choice — the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: “except the Lord keep the city, the watchmen waketh but in vain.”

We watchmen go to the polls next Tuesday. May we be worthy of our responsibility. And may our better angels prevail.

 

More History Than We Could Have Imagined 

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We have been reminded from all sides that this year’s election is historic. Whether it is as historic as some of the rhetoric has tried to portray it will be determined by the passage of time, as time’s context defines history. But it is, at least, unique.

Especially for Missourians.

We might be—probably are—participating in a huge first step of a transition from polling place to mailbox or other ways of casting votes. While mail-in voting was approved by the legislature as a one-off experience in this pandemic year, this bell has been rung and it can’t be UNrung. It is hard to believe lawmakers here and throughout the country will not revisit this issue, smooth out its rough spots, and move to make remote voting in one form or another a regular practice.

Resistance can be expected. But the arrow is in flight and while its course might become longer than anticipated, it will not be diverted.

More locally, what we are seeing in Missouri this year has never happened before or has happened only once. For example—-

Governor Mike Parson is not running for RE-election. He was Lieutenant Governor when Eric Greitens resigned, moving him into the big office. This is the first time Missourians have been faced with a sitting governor running for election since Lilburn Boggs, who as lieutenant governor replaced Daniel Dunklin, who resigned after becoming Surveyor General of Missouri and Illinois. Boggs, who is best known for issuing the extermination order against the Mormons, was elected to a full term in 1836.

(As a side note, all of this occurred a decade after an unusual gubernatorial succession circumstance put one man in the governor’s office with no opponent. Our second governor, Frederick Bates, died in 1825. Lieutenant Governor Benjamin Reeves had resigned earlier to help survey the Santa Fe Trail.  Senate President Pro Tem Abraham Williams, a one-legged shoemaker from Columbia, assumed duties as governor and under the constitution in effect at the time, called an election.  John Miller defeated three other candidates. Miller ran for a full term in 1828 and to this day is the only governor elected without opposition.  He served the longest continuous term until a constitutional change allowed Warren Hearnes to succeed himself in 1969.)

Never before have we had so many people seeking election to statewide offices they already hold but were not elected to hold.  Parson, Lieutenant Governor Kehoe, Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick were not elected to their present offices. But  Mike Kehoe was headed back to private life as a term-limited senator and Fitzpatrick was facing ouster from the House because of term limits. When Parson moved up to governor, he promptly appointed Kehoe as Lieutenant Governor. Schmitt was elected State Treasurer then was appointed by Parson as Attorney General when Josh Hawley ended Claire McCaskill’s U. S. Senate Career.  Fitzpatrick, the outgoing House Budget Committee Chair, was appointed by Parson as Schmitt’s successor as Treasurer. The only statewide office holder who is running for RE-election, not just election, is Secretary of State Jay Ashcoft, who has stayed where voters put him four years ago.

The last time a sitting statewide office holder was elected, not re-elected, was 1996 with the election of Bekki Cook as Secretary of State.  She had been appointed to succeed acting Secretary Dick Hanson after the Missouri Supreme Court removed Judi Moriarty from office. Hanson, incidentally, served in the office only a few days and as far as we know holds the record for shortest time in office of any statewide official.

Cook did not see re-election but four years later was the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor. She lost to fellow Cape Girardeau resident Peter Kinder who went on become the only person to serve three full terms as Lieutenant Governor—a record unlikely to be broken if Amendment 1 is unfortunately approved next week.

President Trump’s repeated refusal to say he would assent to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses recalls an instance in Missouri when the legislature refused to allow such a transfer. Democrats had a stranglehold on state offices and on the legislature in 1940 when Republican Forrest Donnell was elected Governor.  In those days, the Speaker of the House proclaimed the official winners of statewide elections and Speaker Morris Osburn refused to certify Donnell’s election. The loser, Democrat Larry McDaniel, and state Democratic Party Chairman C. Marion Hulen claimed voting irregularities made McDaniel a winner by 30-thousand votes, not the 36-hundred vote loser. The Missouri Supreme Court finally ordered Donnell be sworn in—six weeks late, and to serve until a recount showed he had lost. The recount became a disaster for McDaniel, who withdrew his challenge without consulting Democratic leaders who had urged him to fight.

The event is unlikely to be repeated. A new state constitution adopted five years later made the Secretary of State, not the Speaker of the House, the person who certifies election results.

Many who read these observations already have cast their ballots and already have contributed to this historic election.  Thousands more will go to polling places next Tuesday to do their parts.

It’s not often that so many people make so much history.  We hope you will have or already have done your part.

 

God and the election

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(Since July, 1997, the Reverend Doyle Sager has been the lead pastor of the First Baptist Church, next to my First Christian Church—and across the street from the First Methodist Church—a few blocks from the Missouri Capitol.  Whenever I stop at the cafeteria in the basement of the Capitol, I see if there’s a new edition of Word and Way, a monthly Baptist magazine because I enjoy Doyle’s thoughtful essays.  He wrote one a year ago, in the October, 2019 edition, that is appropriate for these last few days before a major election.  We’re passing it along today instead of our usual meditation from Dr. Frank Crane because it strikes us as eminently appropriate to our times.)

NATIONALISM & THE TRIBAL GOD IT CREATES

More than anytime in our recent history, America is struggling to discern the difference between patriotism and nationalism. This summer I attended the annual gathering of the Baptist World Alliance in Nassau, the Bahamas, interacting with believers from approximately 50 nations. As always, it was a beautiful experience of cultural immersion—all sorts of languages, all shades of skin color, and all kinds of beautiful Caribbean costumes. Back in my room late one evening, I made a journal entry about a Christ who is bigger than our Western culture and sectarian politics.

But instead of worshipping a Cosmic Christ, many have settled for a tribal deity who suits our tribal behavior. The result? A nationalism which places country above God and uses religion to justify any means.

Observe carefully: Most genocides are religion-based. These pogroms christen violence in the name of their god. Conveniently, a tribal god hates what we hate and loves what we love. In contrast, the true Lord God of Hebrew and Christian scripture is larger than our nationalism. Isaiah, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus all bear witness to a God who strides above the nations and will not be domesticated for our parochial purposes.

History offers many warnings. By the mind-1930s Germany’s body politic had been infected with Hitler’s toxic fascism. In protest, Karl Barth and others crafted the Barmen Declaration, a bold witness offered by those who loved their country enough to tell it the truth (an essential ingredient in true patriotism).

For our purposes, two points from the Barmen Declaration are particularly relevant. Number three: “The message and order of the church should not be influenced by the current political convictions.” And number six calls for the rejection of “the subordination of the Church to the state…” In other words, the Church is not the errand boy for any politician or party.

Nationalism loves to delete unpleasant portions of its history, bending and weaponizing its myths to align with its purposes. Patriotism, on the other hand, is willing to face harsh truth in order to be liberated from the past. Karl Barth often marveled at the human capacity for self-deception. It never occurs to us that God might be opposed to us. We always see God as the guarantor of our values, our way of life and our tribe. What if we’re wrong? What if God isn’t pleased?

Here’s a challenge: Read in detail the tragic massacre of Native Americans at Sand Creek and Wounded Knee. Also consider a lesser-known national sin, the Rock Springs massacre.  After the sweat and toil of thousands of immigrant Chinese had made possible the completion of the transcontinental railroad, white Americans decided they had no more use for the foreigners who were taking up space and being hired for jobs that whites needed. Tensions rose and a riot broke out in present-day Rock Springs, Wyoming. Enraged miners killed at least 28 Chinese and injured 15 others. Seventy-eight Chinese homes were burned. One local newspaper defended the killings. A grand jury refused to bring any indictments. No one was ever convicted for the slaughter.

Our church recently hosted a community worship service commemorating the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in America.  The service was a painful time of truth-telling, as blacks and whites together reflected on our country’s nightmare and our dreams. We cannot undo the past, but we can tell ourselves the truth in order to make tomorrow better.

Without fail, history bears witness to an ironic truth: Nationalism always leaves us more enslaved, not more free.  This is true because tribalism always shrinks us—a smaller world, more selfish goals, deeper fears and more distrust of the other. And a small-hearted tribe always needs a very small, angry, god.

Recent brain science research has revealed that we become like the God we worship.  Contemplating a loving God strengthens portions of our brain where sympathy and reason track.  Contemplating a wrathful God empowers the limbic system, which is filled with aggression and fear. Brian McLaren comments, “The God we choose to love changes us into his image, whether [that God] exists or not. (A New Kind of Christianity, p. 279).

Everyday, Americans get to decide; Do we choose a god who is a mascot for our shameless nationalism? Or do we choose the one who is above all rulers and authority and who calls us to healthy, thoughtful patriotism.

(Reverend Sager was diagnosed in mid-August with Stage IV lung cancer. He recently finished a round of chemotherapy and posted on his web page that the results were encouraging. We pray for his recovery.)

 

Book Club—VII

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Jon Meacham quotes Theodore Roosevelt describing in an 1884 speech the responsibilities we share as American citizens: “The first duty of an American citizen…is that he shall work in politics; his second duty is that he shall do that work in a practical manner, and his third is that it shall be done in accord with the highest principles of honor and justice.”

Roosevelt elaborated on the subject in an April, 1894 issue of “Forum Magazine.” 

The man shows little wisdom and a low sense of duty who fails to see that love of country is one of the elemental virtues, even though scoundrels play upon it for their own selfish ends; and, inasmuch as abuses continually grow up in civic life as in all other kinds of life, the statesman is indeed a weakling who hesitates to reform these abuses because the word “reform” is often on the lips of men who are silly or dishonest.

What is true of patriotism and reform is true also of Americanism. There are plenty of scoundrels always ready to try to belittle reform movements or to bolster up existing iniquities in the name of Americanism; but this does not alter the fact that the man who can do most in this country is and must be the man whose Americanism is most sincere and intense. Outrageous though it is to use a noble idea as the cloak for evil, it is still worse to assail the noble idea itself because it can thus be used. The men who do iniquity in the name of patriotism, of reform, of Americanism, are merely one small division of the class that has always existed and will always exist,- the class of hypocrites and demagogues, the class that is always prompt to steal the watchwords of righteousness and use them in the interests of evil-doing.

The stoutest and truest Americans are the very men who have the least sympathy with the people who invoke the spirit of Americanism to aid what is vicious in our government or to throw obstacles in the way of those who strive to reform it. It is contemptible to oppose a movement for good because that movement has already succeeded somewhere else, or to champion an existing abuse because our people have always been wedded to it. To appeal to national prejudice against a given reform movement is in every way unworthy and silly. It is as childish to denounce free trade because England has adopted it as to advocate it for the same reason. It is eminently proper, in dealing with the tariff, to consider the effect of tariff legislation in time past upon other nations as well as the effect upon our own; but in drawing conclusions it is in the last degree foolish to try to excite prejudice against one system because it is in vogue in some given country, or to try to excite prejudice in its favor because the economists of that country have found that it was suited to their own peculiar needs…In short, the man who, whether from mere dull fatuity or from an active interest in misgovernment, tries to appeal to American prejudice against things foreign, so as to induce Americans to oppose any measure for good, should be looked on by his fellow-countrymen with the heartiest contempt. So much for the men who appeal to the spirit of Americanism to sustain us in wrong-doing. But we must never let our contempt for these men blind us to the nobility of the idea which they strive to degrade.

Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, became President when William McKinley died after being shot in Buffalo, New York in 1901.  He was elected to his own four-year term in 1904.

 

Throwing away our right to vote—again

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How unfortunate that in a year when millions of Americans and thousands of Missourians are taking such extraordinary steps to vote, Missourians are likely to throw away the right to vote.

Again.

For the third time, by our count.

Amendment One puts term limits on the Lieutenant Governor, State Auditor, Secretary of State and State Auditor.  Two terms and they never again can fill those offices no matter how well they have done their jobs, no matter how many people want to vote for a third term for them.

Missourians are likely to throw away their right to decide if these people should be in office longer than eight years.

Missourians threw away their right to vote for a fifth term or more for their state representative or a third term for their state senator about thirty years ago.   Many years later, Missourians threw away their right to decide whether their city ever could levy an earnings tax. The same amendment required St. Louis and Kansas City to get voter approval of earning taxes every five years. But a not-well publicized additional provision means local voters can never decide an important local issue.

Now here we are with Amendment one.

In an election cycle that will be remembered for, among other things, the intentional promotion of distrust in and confusion about our election system, when tens of millions of people are determined to vote despite a pandemic and the generated chaos in the system, citizens of this state are being asked to approve a third constitutional amendment taking away a voting right.

Past results indicate they’ll do it.  And then they will hypocritically prove they don’t really believe in what they are approving.

Prove it, you say? Easily. The term limits do not affect the listed statewide officers until the next time they come up for election. If State Auditor Nicole Galloway remains the State Auditor after this year’s governor’s race is decided, she will have a chance to serve two MORE terms as Auditor.  Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who could be elected to a second term this year would be eligible for election to two MORE terms—giving him four terms in office. Lieutenant Governor Mike Kehoe and Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who are serving out unfinished terms of Mike Parson and Josh Hawley could be elected to full terms this time and be eligible to run for two MORE terms, if they want to do so.

We saw this happen with legislators when the original term limits were enacted.  Those lawmakers elected that year were eligible to four MORE terms in the House no matter how many they already had served and those elected to another four-year term in the Senate were eligible to run for two MORE four-year terms.

And their constituents did vote for them for those additional terms after saying eight years was a limit for their service.

It is a fact proven by experience that voters are more likely than not to support an incumbent time after time after time if they have the chance—-despite saying they want term limits.

Term limits paints with a size 30 brush when voters would be better served with a size four brush. It misses the target it should have.  The biggest danger of unlimited terms is not in positions of  service; it is in  positions of power.  Controlling government power is one thing.  Limiting the opportunity of trusted and responsible office-holders to continue providing service is another.

It is appropriate that Missouri has term limits for the Governor and the State Treasurer—although making them nuclear limits as they are (never again serving in those offices after, for example, waiting four years before trying to come back) can be and has been questioned—because these two officers have executive and financial powers that set them apart from the other statewide officials whose roles are more management-oriented.

In an extended age of loud voices that undermine trust in public institutions of all sorts and the easy acceptance of paranoid conspiracy fictions, we are willing to sell out, again, one of the great gifts our founders gave us—the right and the opportunity to decide who deserves to stay in office.

Our founding fathers gave us a system that can work if we are responsible enough as citizens to make it work.  If the national polls are correct, we might find out in a few days that voters decided Donald Trump’s term limit is one, a proof that the system can work if we are responsible enough to protect that system and use it.

Your pessimistic observer knows that his voice is unlikely to influence a wide audience on Amendment One and it probably is too late in the process for it to make any difference.  But giving away our right to vote, one increment at a time, is not something that should never happen quietly—or ever happen again.

 

Book Club—VI 

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In 1832, South Carolina enacted nullification acts declaring the state would not obey or enforce federal laws establishing duties on certain imported products.  Jon Meacham quotes President Andrew Jackson telling his Secretary of War, Lewis Cass, “Nullification and secession, or, in the language of truth, disunion, is gaining strength. We must be prepared to act with promptness and crush the monster in its cradle before it matures to manhood.”

Jackson, whose followers founded the Democratic Party and saw him elected to the presidency in 1828, issued a special proclamation on December 10, 1832 defending the concept of a union of states and the importance of a central government.

Contemplate the condition of that country of which you still form an important part. Consider its government, uniting in one bond of common interest and general protection so many different States, giving to all their inhabitants, the proud title of American citizen, protecting their commerce, securing their literature and their arts, facilitating their intercommunication, defending their frontiers, and making their name respected in the remotest parts of the earth!  Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and happy population, its advance in arts, which render life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind!  See education spreading the lights of religion, morality, and general information into every cottage in the wide extent of our Territories and States!  Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and support!  Look on this picture of happiness and honor and say, We too are citizens of America. 

Meacham writes in “The Soul of America” that Jackson “had spoken in the vernacular of hope and of unity to combat fear and disunion.