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Out of Babylon

In the early years of the 6th century B.C., Judea was at war with Babylon. Twice the forces of the empire laid siege to the Jewish capital at Jerusalem, as the disobedient vassal refused to pay tribute to the encroaching pagan power. At the end of the second siege, Nebuchadnezzar’s armies burnt the temple to the ground and razed the city’s walls, dragging the starved and siege-wearied Jews in captivity back to Babylon.

The ensuing exile has held a key place in the historical consciousness of Jews and Christians for 26 centuries now. Perhaps its most famous episode saw three of the Jews—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—refuse to worship a golden idol set up by Nebuchadnezzar. When the king had the recusants cast into a blazing furnace, an angel of the Lord appeared to preserve them from the flames.

When Nebuchadnezzar died at the impressive age of 80, the Jews remained in exile in Babylon. Three kings followed him in quick succession before Nabonidus’s rise brought a modicum of stability in the year 556.

Off in the west, Nebuchadnezzar’s brother-in-law faced trouble in his own kingdom. Astyages, the aging sovereign of the Median Empire, was in arms against his grandson. By some accounts a cruel and unjust ruler, the Median king had foreseen in a dream decades before that his daughter’s son would one day take his throne. His general Harpagus mutinied; the Median soldiers switched allegiances en masse. After three years of war, Astyages lost his kingdom.

But the new king had not yet had his fill of conquest. Upon winning Media in 550 B.C., he turned his sights westward to Lydia, a small but very wealthy kingdom in western Asia Minor. The campaign there was particularly nasty; after the first phase of conquest, a Lydian ally to whom the country’s seized treasure was entrusted took the money and hired a mercenary army. The king of the Medes met the rebellion in kind. He had brought the land to heel by the year 542.

Just a year before that, Nabonidus had returned to Babylon from a self-imposed exile. (A zealous religious innovator, he may have come in conflict with the clerical elite.) The return would be short-lived. Babylon was the last power in the region that could rival the rising empire. Conquering armies pushed quickly south, and by 539, Nabonidus’ kingdom had fallen, a generation after Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem. The grandson of Astyages stood alone on the field of power in Western Asia—the greatest conqueror the world had seen so far.

The story of his rise is a bloody one, full of the death that comes along with war and the treachery that comes along with government. Yet he is remembered largely as a merciful ruler. Upon the completion of his final conquest, he sent God’s chosen people back to the land that had been promised them—allowing them, like all under his rule, to freely practice the religion of their fathers. In Jerusalem, the long work of rebuilding the temple began; in Babylon, the new emperor inscribed on a clay cylinder a decree announcing the return of captives to their homelands and the restoration of their national traditions. The magnanimous conqueror, of course, was Cyrus the Great.

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The 2022 International Religious Freedom Summit convened in Washington this past week. At a kickoff event on Monday morning, summit co-chair Katrina Lantos Swett invoked the Persian king’s legacy. (Swett, the daughter of Holocaust survivor and U.S. congressman Tom Lantos, graduated from Yale at 18 and went on to earn a Ph.D. in history in Europe before embarking on a career devoted to the defense of human rights.) In an interpretation stretching back at least to the last century, she cast Cyrus’ declaration as a very early predecessor of the modern tradition of religious liberty and universal rights.

Meanwhile the summit’s other co-chair, Sam Brownback, described in his Monday morning remarks an innate hostility between government and religion. (Ambassador Brownback, genial and disarming, introduces himself as “Sam.” He represented Kansas in both the House and the Senate, then served as the state’s governor, before accepting President Trump’s appointment as ambassador-at-large for religious freedom.) Government is naturally opposed to religion, the ambassador said, because it gives people something to believe in that transcends and precedes the state. He reiterated the point in front of the full summit crowd on Tuesday, with the additional prophecy that, “Ultimately the kingdom of God will not be subdued by the kingdom of man.”

Does the history of free religious practice stretch back to the establishment of the world’s first imperial superpower, or is government by nature an enemy of religion? The former seems more plausible, not least of all because empire by design neutralizes (as best it can) the sectarian and ethnic conflicts that endure in the absence of a unifying force like Cyrus. In fact, it could be argued that a genuine liberty is only possible in the presence of a Cyrus figure, who dispels anarchy and furnishes the necessary conditions for freedom in practice. Though the language of religious freedom is intensely libertarian, the reality of religious freedom requires very high state capacity and a strong activist government.

This is just one among a number of tensions that religious-freedom activists, the summit’s conveners and speakers chief among them, are still trying to work out. Hand-in-hand with it is the tension between the abstract philosophy of rights and freedoms on the one hand, and the flesh-and-blood urgency of persecution on the other. Perhaps the most pressing case at present is Nigeria, where Islamic militants are committing horrific and persistent genocide against the Christian, especially Catholic, population.

Like the Jews in Babylon, it may be that oppressed religious minorities today can only be delivered by actual counterforce. Frank Wolf, the retired U.S. congressman from Virginia, understands this, calling for an empowered special envoy from the U.S. government to address the Nigerian crisis. At present, however, the U.S. Department of State does not even list Nigeria among the Countries of Particular Concern.

Though the human cost of genocide is more than enough to demand our attention, Nigeria is especially important in light of discussions of empire and religion, and of geopolitical realism. A conquest of the democratic and still-diverse country would provide radical Islam a bypass around the Sahara Desert, and thus a gateway into sub-Saharan Africa. The potential for such a passage to reshape balances of power and the global state of affairs can hardly be overstated.

***

Another key question is whether freedom of religion also entails freedom from religion. One speaker actually said so in as many words. Others were more subtle—including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who in video remarks celebrated the freedom “to follow whichever belief system we embrace, or to choose not to follow any belief system at all.” Beside the fact that “not to follow any belief system at all” is a nonsensical proposition, this comment raises substantive concerns. If a sound doctrine of religious freedom is rooted in man’s being ordered toward the Divine, would it not be contradictory to suggest an implicit right to non-religion?

In remarks heavy on foreign policy, Mike Pompeo quoted Alexis de Tocqueville: “Liberty regards religion as its companion in all its battles and its triumphs.” Swapping “irreligion” into the sentiment would render a rather shallow understanding of “liberty”—certainly not the one Tocqueville observed as foundational to the American character.

Other speakers were much more forceful in their defenses of public religion as a necessary aspect of true freedom. Yasonna Laoly, Indonesia’s minister of law and human rights, even seemed to offer a measured defense of his nation’s blasphemy law as “intended for maintaining harmony” in a pluralistic society.

Alejandro Giammattei Falla, president of Guatemala, likewise presented somewhat unorthodox remarks. Making use of a translator, the president spoke about his efforts to protect life from conception to natural death by means of law. For this protection of human life, Giammattei has been denounced as a violator of human rights (the supposed right to an abortion) by international organizations, on par with the leaders of nations like Cuba and North Korea.

Yet Giammattei is unshaken, insisting, “I will do what my conscience dictates, and what my faith dictates.” Under his vision of freedom, true religion must be allowed to work with full force out in the public square. What he seeks is both justice and social peace in a complex, potentially divided modern world, and “only principles and values based in God can guarantee that peace.”

He seems to understand, like Cyrus, that liberty requires a strong hand. “If I’m named a dictator for the sake of religious freedom,” Giammattei announces, “I’m okay with that title.”

The post Out of Babylon appeared first on The American Conservative.

Roe Falls: The End of the Beginning

Though it seems anecdotally that the inverse is more common, I found my way into the world of politics by virtue of being pro-life. It was in middle school that I first learned that the people of an alien culture coexisting beside my own still sacrificed children to demons, and did so in temples that aped healthcare clinics with priests masquerading as medical doctors. My horror was instinctive and demanded some kind of action, and I spent much of my time in the years that followed praying at clinics and marching in protests and advocating for the unborn in what little ways I could.

My entire worldview formed around this one, simple belief: Murdering babies is bad, and it ought to be illegal. Yet even in pro-life circles, and even in the last decade, that outcome seemed far from guaranteed. Everyone wanted to see Roe overturned, and most held out hope that someday it would be. But it was usually viewed as something off on the horizon—as the end goal of a struggle that may, if we were fortunate, see resolution in our lifetime.

It happened yesterday. After nearly half a century of wholesale industrial slaughter, a Supreme Court majority—comprising Samuel Alito, the three justices appointed by Donald Trump, John Roberts along for the ride, and Clarence Thomas concurring with a flamethrower—has overturned Roe v. Wade. In the opinion of the Court, Justice Alito writes that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

But this is not victory. In Dobbs, the Court did not strike down the sacrifice of children; it just struck down the mandatory sacrifice of children. As the last clause there suggests, the Court managed yesterday to affirm nothing more than the claim that “the Nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated.” A brief overview is given of what that looked like before Roe:

Until the latter part of the 20th century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. No state constitutional provision had recognized such a right. Until a few years before Roe, no federal or state court had recognized such a right. Nor had any scholarly treatise. Indeed, abortion had long been a crime in every single State. At common law, abortion was criminal in at least some stages of pregnancy and was regarded as unlawful and could have very serious consequences at all stages. American law followed the common law until a wave of statutory restrictions in the 1800s expanded criminal liability for abortions. By the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, three-quarters of the States had made abortion a crime at any stage of pregnancy.

This summary has the double effect of reminding how little foundation Roe had in American history and law, and suggesting how much damage—beyond, of course, the 63 million human victims—the Burger Court’s decision has inflicted. Virtually the entire legal and moral landscape of pre-Roe America on the question of a child’s right to life has been demolished. After 50 years of brutal damage to the conscience and Constitution of a nation effectively possessed, there can be no quick or easy return to the historic American consensus that murdering babies is bad, and ought to be illegal.

Roe is dead. That means the first phase of a cultural and spiritual war has been settled in our favor. But the war will go on, and new campaigns will see the conflict spill over into more than the cultural and spiritual domains.

The most devoted partisans of legal infant-sacrifice have already made it abundantly clear that they will wage violent jihad in its defense. Pregnancy centers are burning from coast to coast, Justice Brett Kavanaugh nearly met an assassin’s bullet, and organized terrorists are warning of more to come. This was predictable, or at least it should have been. Only once before in our history has the country been so divided over the fundamental rights of a human person; that conflict was resolved on a battlefield.

Then, too, the division was one of states against states. We learned at the cost of 600,000 American lives—just 1 percent of those already lost to the war started by Roe—that a Union cannot endure whose members cannot agree on what constitutes a human person deserving the law’s protection. Yet that is exactly the situation Dobbs now sends us hurtling towards. Many states will now affirm the most basic right bestowed on all human beings by their creator. Many, such as much-discussed Virginia, will try to broker an impossible compromise between the camps of life and death. Most important of all will be those states that commit themselves fully to Moloch’s cause. Notably leading the charge is Massachusetts, whose progressive Republican governor effectively declared the state a haven for abortion in post-Roe America, explicitly setting up one state of the Union in life-or-death conflict against a number of the others. This is not a path to enduring peace. It is political brinkmanship—not to mention murder by proxy.

Robert P. George, a right-liberal professor of philosophy well known for his committed pro-life stance, took to Twitter yesterday to encourage magnanimity halfway to victory, instructing fellow pro-lifers: “Please read Lincoln’s Second Inaugural and be guided by its spirit. Let us not exult over those of our fellow citizens—good people who are sincerely concerned about women’s welfare—who see the demise of Roe as a disaster. Malice towards none; charity for all.”

Outside the window of my office, in full view of my desk, stands a ten-foot-tall statue of David G. Farragut, the Tennessean admiral who fought for the Union in the first civil war. So my mind drifts instead toward the Battle of Mobile Bay:

Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.

The post <i>Roe</i> Falls: The End of the Beginning appeared first on The American Conservative.

Every Knee Shall Bend

Who could ever have guessed they’d have such a thing for compelled submission?

I’ve always been a devotee of the New World monarchies, not least among them the presidency of these United States. Yet even I was a bit perturbed this week when the nominally reigning Joseph I issued his royal decree in observance of the new liturgical season.

The president warns therein that “the rights of LGBTQI+ Americans are under relentless attack… especially people of color and trans people.” (“LGBTQI+ Americans…especially people of color”—does Biden just have crappy writers, or is it gay to be black now, too?) He bemoans that “an onslaught of dangerous anti-LGBTQI+ legislation has been introduced and passed in States across the country, targeting transgender children and their parents and interfering with their access to health care.”

If there was any question remaining as to this government’s support for the permanent surgical mutilation or chemical sterilization of children, it has now been put to rest.

The proclamation concludes:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2022 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to recognize the achievements of the LGBTQI+ community, to celebrate the great diversity of the American people, and to wave their flags of pride high.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.

At the risk of stating the obvious, these words do not suggest the “live and let live” mentality once feigned by the drivers of the LGBT movement. A presidential proclamation is a pretty public thing, and a call from the Oval Office for “the people of the United States…to wave their pride flags high” does not exactly leave room for dissenters. This is symbolic, of course, but it does reinforce the administration’s professed interest in advancing “LGBTQI+” interests through actual policy.

Symbolic actions matter. When the highest official of the most powerful nation in the history of the world sets aside an entire month in honor of a deadly sin (not to mention the particular weirdness of that sin’s entanglement with deviant sexual habits), that matters.

Nor was the White House the only part of the government to honor the occasion. On June 1, Secretary Janet Yellen raised a rainbow flag just below the stars and stripes on the flagpole of the U.S. Treasury building. As the American economy limps toward the abyss, it is good to know the chief financial officer of the United States government has her priorities in order.

Even the military, in living memory (and properly by nature) one of the government’s last reservoirs of tradition, joined in celebration. In an apparent knockoff of the poster art for Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (not exactly a Marine-friendly movie), the Corps posted a picture of an old-school M1 helmet holding six rainbow bullets that look suspiciously like crayons in its band. The gaffe was mocked relentlessly on Twitter. The Air Force tweeted a similarly goofy rainbow-tinted picture. The Army, for what it’s worth, marked June’s beginning only as the month of its own founding in 1775.

In other uniformed services news: The U.S. Public Health Services Commissioned Corps simply tweeted a captioned picture of its four-star Admiral Rachel ( Richard) Levine, to a whopping 31 likes as of this writing.

“Pride” is even more pervasive outside the official confines of the regime. Every major corporate power, and a good share of the smaller ones, has taken the opportunity to announce its devotion. When the clock struck midnight on the first of June, every company logo suddenly turned rainbow, and massive corporations have issued newspeak statements about the infinite glories of queer folx. One hippie toiletry co. even tweeted an exhortation to “groom with pride” before thinking better of the word choice.

In a way, the corporate gayification is even more consuming than the government one: How could anyone who does not wish to involve himself in observances of Pride even participate in the economy—with all the social and material necessities it provides—for the thirty days of June?

Those who still bother remarking on hypocrisy have pointed out that no such corporate rainbow onslaught occurred in countries that have not abrogated laws criminalizing sodomy, which is a helpful reminder that culture and capital both remain (at least in part) downstream of politics. In the West though, the unspoken message of capital has been one with that of the state: Get on board or go hungry.

In fact, the state has decided to make that message explicit. Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that any public school that does not comply with the Biden administration’s LGBT agenda will risk being cut off from federal funding for vital programs like lunch for students from low-income families. If they can’t slice your kids, at least they can starve them.

Happy Pride to all who celebrate, and all the poor souls who will have to soon.

The post Every Knee Shall Bend appeared first on The American Conservative.

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