But He's a Catholic....

Jerod Patterson writes at Frontpage.com about the political controversy that arose between Evangelicals supporting either Gov. Huckabee (a former Southern Baptist pastor) or Sen. Brownback (a former Evangelical now Roman Catholic).  The "Catholic card" it seems may be played against Brownback, though Huckabee won't have any of it, calling Brownback his "Chrisitan brother."

I've met Brownback and have heard him speak and give his testimony. I don't see why he should have any problem with (most!) Evangelicals when it comes to his "Catholic" faith being a "turn off." (No endorsement implied.) One may have a perfectly orthodox and sincere faith and be a very inept governor, so I do not look for theological orthodoxy in candidates, but I do expect it from clergy. 

(Thanks, Judy Warner!)

Comments

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

"Nonetheless, his message was clear: theological differences separate our churches but our common Christian faith unites us in politics.

... recognized the proper time and place for disagreement and for unity between Catholics and evangelicals. And both have shown that mutual respect can produce meaningful results.

There are issues of great importance facing America, and a vacuum in our national political conversation for principled Christian voices—evangelical and Catholic alike—to fill. Evangelicals and Catholics have worked together in politics before with considerable results. The question now is: are they willing to do it again?"

The question now is: are they willing to do it again?

Gosh, I hope so. I am very pleased to see President George W. Bush push forward Judge Roberts and Judge Alito onto the Supreme Court.

If it's a choice between a LibProt Democrat vs. a Conservative Catholic Republican, the Republican should get the vote from Evangelicals.

[bonobo]

Except, brother TUAD, if that "conservative" is Giuliani...then it seems to me to become Hobson's choice!

[Truth Unites...and Divides]

If it's Giulani vs. Hilary or Obama, I would speculate that the majority of conservative evangelicals would vote for Rudy.

[bonobo]

Let's hope they don't Rudy day :)

[Judy Warner]

Michael Gerson has a column in the Washington Post today giving an account of a different attempt to drive a wedge between Catholics and Protestants.

According to a recent television ad run by the Louisiana Democratic Party, the leading Republican candidate for governor, Bobby Jindal, has "insulted thousands of Louisiana Protestants" by describing their beliefs as "scandalous, depraved, selfish and heretical." Jindal, the attack goes on, "doubts the morals and questions the beliefs of Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Pentecostals and other Protestant religions."

The ad is theologically ignorant -- Methodism and the others are not "religions," they are denominations. The main problem, however, is that the ad stretches the truth so phyllo-thin it can only be called a smear.

Jindal -- a convert to Christianity from a Hindu background -- has none of the politician's typical reticence on religion. "I'm proud of my faith," he told me in a phone interview. "I believe in God, that Jesus died and rose. I can't divide my public and private conscience. I can't stop being a Christian, and wouldn't want to for a moment of the day."

And Jindal's chosen tradition is a muscular Roman Catholicism. In an article published in the 1990s, he argued, "The same Catholic Church which infallibly determined the canon of the Bible must be trusted to interpret her handiwork; the alternative is to trust individual Christians, burdened with, as Calvin termed it, their 'utterly depraved' minds, to overcome their tendency to rationalize, their selfish desires, and other effects of original sin." And elsewhere: "The choice is between Catholicism's authoritative Magisterium and subjective interpretation which leads to anarchy and heresy."

This is the whole basis for the Democratic attack -- that Jindal holds an orthodox view of his own faith and rejects the Protestant Reformation. He has asserted, in short, that Roman Catholicism is correct -- and that other religious traditions, by implication, are prone to error. This is presumably the main reason to convert to Catholicism: because it most closely approximates the truth. And speaking for a moment as a Protestant: How does it insult us that Roman Catholics believe in . . . Roman Catholicism? We had gathered that much.

Furthermore, Jindal is reacting by speaking out for the necessity of voicing religious beliefs in public.

"This would be a poorer society," he told me, "if pluralism meant the least common denominator, if we couldn't hold a passionate, well-articulated belief system. If you enforce a liberalism devoid of content, you end up with the very violations of freedom you were trying to prevent in the first place."

The Democratic Party ran their ads in the northern, Protestant parts of Louisiana, of course. But the people of Louisiana are on Jindal's side.

"The most passionate defenders of my beliefs," says Jindal, "have come from people who don't share my beliefs." In one account in the Times-Picayune, the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of New Orleans, David E. Crosby, gave this reaction to Jindal's writings: "Anybody who reads this whole article and ends up angry just needs to grow up." That is a good definition of genuine pluralism -- an adult respect for the strong convictions of others.

[Christopher Hathaway]

If a moral conservative votes for Rudy one hopes it would be because a practical evaluation was made that he would be less bad than the alternative, AND that it was desired that he would win. Therefore, it baffles me how anyone could seriously be "dissappointed" in his winning unless it turned out that he was infact worse and more liberal than all his possible Democratic opponents. I hardly think it likely.

Some people in times of great thirst have resorted to drinking their urine because there was no water. They were under no illusion that it would be sweet, but it was better than dying.

There seems to me a continuity of political foolishness between voting on a man based primarily upon his faith and the idea that the choice of the lesser of two evils only applies if one of them isn't evil on this or that issue.

[Joe Long]

Media or Democratic Party attempts to divide Christian voters are very optimistic attempts on their part - perhaps they don't even think they're being obvious! As for "and other Protestant religions" - if you're going to drop leaflets on your enemy to try to cause dissent in his ranks, it might be advisable to learn his language first.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>If a moral conservative votes for Rudy one hopes it would be because a practical evaluation was made that he would be less bad than the alternative, AND that it was desired that he would win. Therefore, it baffles me how anyone could seriously be "dissappointed" in his winning unless it turned out that he was infact worse and more liberal than all his possible Democratic opponents. I hardly think it likely.<<<

As I have said elsewhere, part of being a conservative is taking the world as it is. Another part is the abiity to prioritize. And yet a third is the ability to recognize who or what has proper competence over a particular area.

Considering that we are presently involved in an existential war (whether you like it or not), that is my highest priority, and I want someone in charge who knows how to fight and win. Evrything else becomes secondary to that.

[labrialumn]

That does not follow, for "as a man thinketh, so is he" While someone theologically orthodox may not be cut out for being a civil servant in the executive, nonetheless, absence of orthodoxy is not a good thing for policy decisions, etc.

Catholicism, however, in pretty much anyone's book, qualifies as theological orthodoxy in the terms of the three ecumenical creeds. Further, no intellectually honest and informed person can deny that the Roman Catholic Church has maintained and does preach the Gospel, whatever other disagreements, theological and historical, remain. For those who disagree, there is this book by Chuck Colson, the patron and host of this blog on the subject, entitled _The Body_.

It is also far to early to vote for the lesser of two evils. The party caucuses haven't even been held yet. We aren't down to one candidate per party yet, and Ron Paul for instance (not the only pro-lifer, but the only one who will keep his Constitutional oath) is winning in polls world-wide, only second to Barak Husein Obama, and not always then.

[Ethan C.]

>>Let's hope they don't Rudy day :)<<

Well done, Bonobo.

>>Some people in times of great thirst have resorted to drinking their urine because there was no water.<<

Christopher, your brilliance has just given me a new favorite political slogan. I hereafter plan on referring to all voting for federal offices as "drinking urine." It's pretty much a perfect image! :-)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>That does not follow, for "as a man thinketh, so is he" While someone theologically orthodox may not be cut out for being a civil servant in the executive, nonetheless, absence of orthodoxy is not a good thing for policy decisions, etc.<<<

History tends to tell a different story. Abraham Lincoln, for instance, was a most "un-orthodox" Christian. In times of crisis, good men do not necessarily make good leaders.

[Gene Godbold]

Stuart,
If you really are a *good* man, you are a good leader. If you're a crappy leader, you manhood is (in some sense) deficient.

(Incidentally, I'm a pretty crappy leader. :-)

[Rob Grano]

'Abraham Lincoln, for instance, was a most "un-orthodox" Christian. In times of crisis, good men do not necessarily make good leaders.'

I have decidedly mixed feelings about Lincoln, but leaving that aside, wouldn't we also say that bad men sometimes make good leaders?

I guess it depends on what we mean by a "good" leader. Are we speaking of good as 'effective,' or good as 'morally upstanding AND effective?'

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I have decidedly mixed feelings about Lincoln, but leaving that aside, wouldn't we also say that bad men sometimes make good leaders?

I guess it depends on what we mean by a "good" leader. Are we speaking of good as 'effective,' or good as 'morally upstanding AND effective?'<<<

Bad men most assuredly make good leaders, especially when the situation calls for a lack of scruples. And when I speak of a good leader, I mean one who is given a task and gets it done, hopefully with a minimum of fuss, bother and bloodshed.

[Judy Warner]

>>>If you really are a *good* man, you are a good leader.<<<

Huh? Does that mean all the saints were good leaders? I think there can be other qualities that make up a good man. And does that apply to women too?

[Bob Gardner]

>>Bad men most assuredly make good leaders, especially when the situation calls for a lack of scruples. And when I speak of a good leader, I mean one who is given a task and gets it done, hopefully with a minimum of fuss, bother and bloodshed.<<

So in the case of politics the ends justify the means? It may very well be the case that we are kept safe, and blissfully unaware of the dangers that we face because of unscrupleous leaders (see the debate over what forms of torture are acceptable). But should we desire our safty over their conversion, or is it just a practical matter of not everyone will be saved anyway so do whatever is needed to get the job done? As a coworker is fond of saying it is a sticky wicket.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Huh? Does that mean all the saints were good leaders?<<<

Sticking to the Anglican Tradition for a bit, let's look at St. Edmund, Edward the Confessor, Aethelred Unraed, Henry VI and Charles I.

Alfred the Great, on the other hand, while a pious and sanctimonious prig, had what it took to beat the Danes.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>So in the case of politics the ends justify the means? <<<

Usually, that is the case. Especially in wartime. As I said before, once you decide to fight, the most immoral thing is to lose.

[labrialumn]

Claims to denigrate Lincoln's orthodoxy I find suspect. In an academia where heroes have to be deconstructed, and with so many slaver-apologists still around, I have to be skeptical about the deconstructors.

And I forgot which blog I was on in that other post, too.

My main point is that it is way too soon to give up on Culture of Life Constitutionalists this long before even the State caucuses.

[DGP]

And when I speak of a good leader, I mean one who is given a task and gets it done, hopefully with a minimum of fuss, bother and bloodshed.

Often enough, and certainly in Lincoln's case, being a good leader means getting the job done despite a maximum of fuss, bother, and bloodshed.

[Judy Warner]

Everyone has failings, and politicians seem to have more than the usual share of them. I was thinking this morning, as I got sick of the incessant babbling about Larry Craig and shut off the radio, how common it is for members of Congress to be caught in sex scandals of one kind or another. And how many are there who have never been caught? There seems to be something about having power that leads to sexual misbehavior, though I can't quite grasp what it is. So I think it very likely that many great leaders have been great sinners in their personal lives, and that's not even going into the other kinds of corruptions that power leads to.

[Rob Grano]

"And when I speak of a good leader, I mean one who is given a task and gets it done, hopefully with a minimum of fuss, bother and bloodshed."

Very good -- just wanted to clarify. To take this to an extreme, one could say that in a certain sense Hitler was a good leader, although a very bad man. Leadership skills and morality need not go hand in hand.

"...certainly in Lincoln's case, being a good leader means getting the job done despite a maximum of fuss, bother, and bloodshed."

I'd replace the "despite" with "because of," but that may just be me. I certainly won't demonize Abe, but neither will I genuflect towards the Lincoln Memorial.

[GL]

Rather than rehash this all again, I'll just incorporate by reference my remarks on this same topic from last fall, Rudy Giuliani's Damascus Road?, available at http://merecomments.typepad.com/merecomments/2006/11/rudy_giulianis_.html

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

"Especially in wartime. As I said before, once you decide to fight, the most immoral thing is to lose."

I'll vote for any Presidential and senatorial candidate who thinks like that. We're in this Iraq mess and it would be immoral to lose.

Adapting Hilary's announcement: "I'm in. I'm in. I'm in it to WIN it!"

That's how the U.S. should approach the Iraq war. The U.S. is in. And the U.S. is in it to WIN it.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Very good -- just wanted to clarify. To take this to an extreme, one could say that in a certain sense Hitler was a good leader, although a very bad man. Leadership skills and morality need not go hand in hand.<<<

Actually, a very bad leader, because ultimately he brought his country to ruin, and almost entirely due to his own errors. Whatever successes Germany enjoyed were actually the fruits of others' labor.

You might have a better case with Napoleon, because his leadership skills are well documented--and even though a very bad man, Napoleon did leave a legacy of positive achievement as well as death and destruction.

At the beginning of the discussion, the issue was ends and means. The problem with the Hitler analogy, aside from not being apt from the leadership perspective, is the matter of Hitler's ends, which I think we can agree were unalloyed evil.

You might want to look at Hitler's opponents, Churchill and Roosevelt, as well as Stalin, to see how the issue of ends and means pays out.

[William Wilcox]

Stuart Koehl said: "Considering that we are presently involved in an existential war (whether you like it or not), that is my highest priority, and I want someone in charge who knows how to fight and win. Evrything else becomes secondary to that."

How does Chritianity inform this decision? Do you really mean everything else is secondary?

How would you evaluate the leadership of Christ?

[Gene Godbold]

In response to my: "If you really are a good man, you are a good leader." comment, Judy responded, Huh? Does that mean all the saints were good leaders? I think there can be other qualities that make up a good man. And does that apply to women too?

Last question first: Yes, it applies to women as well.

Harder question second: Were all the saints good leaders?
There are different types of leadership. As examples of virtue, yes, the saints were all good leaders—-that is, you wouldn’t go wrong in following (emulating) their virtuous characters. Does this mean that the saints were equally equipped to, say, lead a platoon in storming a bunker? No. But the storming-bunker type of leadership (which at least requires the virtue of courage) does not necessarily translate into, say, effective business leadership or the leadership of a country. Both of those require some type of trained intuition as well as some ratiocinative powers. Absent those, it would be difficult to be successful. But those who have those powers, without having the proper character (i.e. rightly ordered virtues) can not successfully employ them (or employ them consistently).

[Gene Godbold]

My dad read Alexander Solzhenitsyn and he impressed upon me the value of the leadership of the guy in the Gulag who distributed the food to the other prisoners in his hovel--going without himself (if necessary) and always taking the coldest place by the door to sleep.

[Judy Warner]

That seems to be stretching the definition of leadership, Gene. You're saying that anybody who is worth emulating is a leader simply because of that fact. But there are people who are virtuous without even making that fact known. Or people who are good but don't inspire others. Leadership is a quality quite separate from goodness. That it may be used for good or ill is obvious, but it is not the same thing.

[GL]

I said this on November 28, 2006 on this blog site. I still stand by it:

While one must weigh competence and character, one should not place competence over character no matter what the character flaws are. If the very competent candidate favors abortion, ESC research and gay marriage while the incompentent candidate opposes them, I would choose the latter and place my trust in God and not the prince. It seems to me that to vote for the former because you believe he is better able to manage the economy or win the war even though he will advance the murders of millions of unborn children is to put your trust first in the prince and not God. I would also pray that I do not have to make such a choice in the voting booth and will do what I could to prevent my having to do so.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>How does Chritianity inform this decision? Do you really mean everything else is secondary?<<<

Christianity informs the decision by providing us both with precepts for living and with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It also entrusts us with the stewardship of this world until Christ should come again, which means that we must deal with the problems of this world, resolving them as best we can within our finite comprehension and resources. It means not that we should eliminate, or even try to eliminate evil from this world, but that we should deal with the evils we ourselves confront, so that we provide the opportunity to those who come after us to live in peace and tranquility, even while knowing that they will have to confront the evils of their time in order to pass on the possibility of peace to those who come after them.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>If the very competent candidate favors abortion, ESC research and gay marriage while the incompentent candidate opposes them, I would choose the latter and place my trust in God and not the prince.<<<

Two words, Greg: "Children's Crusade".

[Gene Godbold]

Judy,
You think it's "stretching" the definition of leadership to say that anyone worth following is a leader? :-)

[GL]

Now, now Stuart. I didn't say I would vote for a nut case who said he was in direct communication with God who was telling him exactly what to do (i.e., I did not vote for Pat Robertson). I said I would not vote for a man who supported policies facilitating the deaths of millions of innocent children because I thought he was most able to lead us in war.

David was not who Samuel would have chosen for the next King of Israel. The scrawny little shepherd boy did not strike him as a suitable candidate to lead the army of Israel. It was obvious to Samuel who should be the next king. It was clear to him who could best lead the army to victory:

When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:6-7

[Gene Godbold]

It means not that we should eliminate, or even try to eliminate evil from this world, but that we should deal with the evils we ourselves confront, so that we provide the opportunity to those who come after us to live in peace and tranquility, even while knowing that they will have to confront the evils of their time in order to pass on the possibility of peace to those who come after them.

The "Gandalf doctrine".

[Gene Godbold]

GL,
David may have been short, but he weren't scrawny (and he was apparently good-looking). Any kid who can grab a lion and a bear and kill them is one tough dude (even is he is only 14). That sling stone was probably moving so fast that Goliath didn't even know what hit him. This was a man that gained the loyalty and devotion of the strongest, most ridiculously heroic guys in Israel (the 3 and the 30).

Anyway--don't you think it's weird that *Robertson* is apparently giving aid and comfort to Giuliani.

[GL]

Anyway--don't you think it's weird that *Robertson* is apparently giving aid and comfort to Giuliani.

Yes, as has been Dobson's support of Newt, though I haven't heard much about that lately.

[Judy Warner]

>>>You think it's "stretching" the definition of leadership to say that anyone worth following is a leader? :-) <<<

Yes, Gene, I do. Leadership has some active component, and a very worthy person can be entirely passive with regard to other people. To be a leader one must lead. If he has no interest in leading, or if he tries to lead but no one follows him, he is not a leader. You know how simple-minded I am; I'm just using words in their clear, common-sense meaning.

[Gene Godbold]

How can you be "very worthy" and "entirely passive with regard to other people". I don't know any very worthy jellyfish.

[Judy Warner]

A hermit, perhaps ;-) I really mean passive with regard to trying to influence other people to follow.

[Joe Long]

Sometimes this all seems terribly academic, as we choose between various pigs-in-poke-sacks; the appearance of the competence and/or character suitable for the Presidency, might be a carefully generated illusion anyhow. One of the campaigns polled me the other day, getting responses about one 30-second-spot that called the candidate economically competent, and another which emphasized his conservative values, though both emphasized his jogging - free points with any segment of the electorate, apparently.

Anyway -pretty hard to see what sort of job actually demonstrates competence for the Presidency; we've been hit-and-miss with Generals, governors and a variety of other backgrounds.

[GL]

Sometimes this all seems terribly academic.

I agree, except that when a candidate tells me he supports abortion rights, ESC research, gay marriage (or gay marriage lite -- i.e. civil unions), etc., I, like General Butler, take him at his word. It is when he tells me he is a saint, is loyal to his wife, good to his children, doesn't kick the dog, and supports my views on the issues that I have my doubts.

[Gene Godbold]

Judy,
I know you don't think self-aggrandizement is leadership. I believe that one could neither desire nor seek to lead other people and still be a good leader. Ego isn't a necessary part of leadership (see Moses and, quintessentially, Jesus).

[Gene Godbold]

That said, I do think some people have a divine calling to be leaders. Jesus, again, is the pre-eminent example. More controversially, perhaps, I would assert that Patton did as well (though his arena was rather more circumscribed).

[Judy Warner]

Moses didn't *want* to lead, but he God commanded him to lead, so he did. He had to take definite actions in order to do so. He had to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let his people go. He had to tell his people what was happening, tell them how to keep the angel of death away, and get them to leave. Etc., through all the wandering. These are actions. I think what you're talking about is leadership potential, or leadership worthiness. If Moses hadn't been told to lead, he would not have been a leader, just a potential one.

And I don't know why you think I was talking about self-aggrandizement.

[William Wilcox]

Stuart,

I guess that I was hoping for something more specific that would justify putting winning a war above all else.

For example, where in Jesus' teachings do you find the precepts for setting aside all else to win this war?

Also in reply to this:

>>>So in the case of politics the ends justify the means? <<<

You say this:

"Usually, that is the case. Especially in wartime. As I said before, once you decide to fight, the most immoral thing is to lose."

Show me how Christ teaches this precept or how this is tought in the New Testament.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I guess that I was hoping for something more specific that would justify putting winning a war above all else.

For example, where in Jesus' teachings do you find the precepts for setting aside all else to win this war?<<<

Greater love hath no man than this: to lay down his life for his friends.

[Truth Unites...and Divides]

Literalist. ;-)

[GL]

Greater love hath no man than this: to lay down his life for his friends.

True, Stuart, but Christ did not say, "Greater love hath no man that this: to lay down the life of millions of innocent, unborn children for his nation." Sacrificing myself for others is an act of love; sacrificing others for myself is the opposite.

[Gene Godbold]

What if you sacrifice your own (countrymen) for the lives of strangers who could use a break?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>True, Stuart, but Christ did not say, "Greater love hath no man that this: to lay down the life of millions of innocent, unborn children for his nation." Sacrificing myself for others is an act of love; sacrificing others for myself is the opposite.<<<

At the end of the day, pick your fights. Certainly, if radical Muslims took over the Western world, there would be no more abortion. I solemnly assure you there would be many other things just as bad.

>>>What if you sacrifice your own (countrymen) for the lives of strangers who could use a break?<<<

I am not a big fan of the Kitty Genovese syndrome, whether practiced by individuals or countries.

[Gene Godbold]

I've never heard of Kitty Genovese. Also, about the immorality of losing a war. If one side is (mostly) good and the other side (mostly) bad, then it's only immoral for the mostly good side to lose, right?

[GL]

At the end of the day, pick your fights.

Or do what an informed conscience guides you to do and trust Him for the rest, rather than going against an informed conscience and placing your trust in princes.

[GL]

Didn't we debate this once before?

. . .

And I won if I recall correctly. ;-)

[William Wilcox]

Christ said:

John 15:
10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command.

This is the text you use to justify these statements:

"I want someone in charge who knows how to fight and win. Evrything else becomes secondary to that."

"once you decide to fight, the most immoral thing is to lose."

Do you think Christ was suggesting that the disciples enter into war with the Romans or the Pharisees?

There is no suggestion here, that I can see, that we pick up arms. Certainly Christ did lay down his life but in a much different way than you are suggesting. If we are to love others as he has loved us what does this suggest to you?

Don't you think that whether it is immoral to lose a fight depends on whether the fight was moral to begin with?

I should note that I am not trying to make a case for pacifism. I am uncomfortable with the suggestion that winning at all costs is a Christian precept.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I've never heard of Kitty Genovese. <<<

Kitty Genovese was a young living in New York in the 1970s. She was raped and stabbed outside her apartment building one evening, and lying in the street for two hours she called out to her neighbors for help. Nobody came out. Nobody even called the police. Nobody wanted to get involved. Eventually, her attacker returned and finished her off. Kitty Genovese became a mataphor for the entire city of New York, a place where nobody stuck his neck out for anyone else, a place so selfish that a young woman could bleed to death within earshot of dozens of people, none of whom wanted to get involved. She's a pretty good metaphor for a country or world too self-absorbed to stick its neck out to prevent the most awful barbarism. Oh, we're all for "raising awareness" about things like Darfur. So who's going to step up and send troops there?

>>>Also, about the immorality of losing a war. If one side is (mostly) good and the other side (mostly) bad, then it's only immoral for the mostly good side to lose, right?<<<

The mostly bad side doesn't concern itself with moral choices. This is a question that vexes only the "mostly good".

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Or do what an informed conscience guides you to do and trust Him for the rest, rather than going against an informed conscience and placing your trust in princes.<<<

Works well only if you let personal scrupulousity override more profound moral issues. I doubt that Jesus will cut anyone much slack because he chose not to act in order to avoid the possibility of sin.

[GL]

Works well only if you let personal scrupulousity override more profound moral issues.

I thought we were discussing the morality of voting for a candidate who we believe would be good at winning the War against Islamofascist when we know he favors a woman's right to an abortion, ESC research, etc. I consider the murder of tens of millions of innocent unborn humans to be at least as profound a moral issue as our war against radical Islamists.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Do you think Christ was suggesting that the disciples enter into war with the Romans or the Pharisees?<<<

So, this doesn't really address the issue of what to do once one IS in a war, does it? Didn't think so. But nice try at begging the question.

>>>If we are to love others as he has loved us what does this suggest to you?<<<

That we do what is necessary to protect the weak and the innocent from those who would harm or oppress them. Even to the point of risking the salvation of our own souls by taking up arms to do so.

>>>I should note that I am not trying to make a case for pacifism. I am uncomfortable with the suggestion that winning at all costs is a Christian precept.<<<

It's not. But it is a reality of life in a fallen world. Consider this: in order to win the Second World War the U.S. and Great Britain engaged in a whole range of actions that on their face are immoral. But NOT to do so would, potentially, have allowed the Nazis and Japanese to prevail, Which was the greater evil?

Moreover, leaders in time of war must make their decisions based upon the information and resources at hand. They do not have perfect foreknowledge, and so much play the percentages. "Putting your trust in a higher power" is not a very good basis for strategy, and places me in mind of the story of the old man and the flood: "My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?" "What to you mean? First I sent you a jeep, then a canoe, then a motorboat and then a helicopter". In other words, God works through us, and if someone (like, e.g., Barak Obama) would suggest a priori that there were just some things he would NEVER do (e.g., use nuclear weapons), I most certainly would not want such a lunatic in a position of responsibility.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I thought we were discussing the morality of voting for a candidate who we believe would be good at winning the War against Islamofascist when we know he favors a woman's right to an abortion, ESC research, etc. I consider the murder of tens of millions of innocent unborn humans to be at least as profound a moral issue as our war against radical Islamists.<<<

That's part of "personal scrupulosity". Moreover, like a lot of people who want to end abortion (as I wish), you seriously overestimate the power of the President to act in this area. I personally don't care WHAT a person in office BELIEVES, I care about what he DOES. So, I would take a guy who is pro-choice but who can and will appoint judicially conservative judges, to a guy who has all the right beliefs but is an ineffectual boob. Beyond that, there isn't much he can do.

It is instructive to look at Tolstoy's War and Peace. We have two men, Pierre Bezhukov and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Pierre is full of good intentions and love of mankind. Andrei is cold, cynical, rational, and dispises most of the people he meets. Both men have large estates in which they take close interest. Pierre is full of great ideas for improving the lot of his peasants, because he loves mankind. But for some reason, he's never able to follow through on any of them. Andrei, on the other hand, actually does improve the lot of his peasants, because he hates inefficiency and wants to improve the output of his estate.

Certainly, Pierre is the "good" man. But Andrei is the better leader. Who would you want in charge of things?

[David Gray]

>It's not. But it is a reality of life in a fallen world. Consider this: in order to win the Second World War the U.S. and Great Britain engaged in a whole range of actions that on their face are immoral. But NOT to do so would, potentially, have allowed the Nazis and Japanese to prevail, Which was the greater evil?

Of course some of those activities did little to actually win the war. Tricky business...

[Michael]

>> I doubt that Jesus will cut anyone much slack because he chose not to act in order to avoid the possibility of sin.<<

Stuart, you're flirting with a Protestant maxim. [GASP!] "Sin boldly."

[James A. Altena]

"Works well only if you let personal scrupulousity override more profound moral issues."

This is a completely irresponsible misrepresentation of GL and those (such as myself) who agree with him.

It also assumes a false dichotomy here that a pro-life candidate such as e.g. Brownback or Hucklebee will not do as good a job defending the nation against terrorism as e.g. the pro-abortion Giuliani. I'd like to see hard, irrefutable proof for that presumption, as opposed to mere supposition and gut preference.

We have had this debate before, and it suffers from the same problem as it did last time. "Competence" and "character" are given no concrete definition, but are instead bandied about loosely to mean whatever the particular person posting wishes them to mean, which makes them endlessly moving targets as well. If we could get some consensus on what we all mean by those terms first, then perhaps there could be a more constructive discussion.

For my part, [and don't misread this play on words as an endorsement of pacifism] I will place my trust in the the principles of the Prince of Peace over the principles of "The Prince" by Machiavelli.

[GL]

According to Wikipedia, "[s]crupulosity is obsessive concern with one's personal sins, including 'sinful' acts or thoughts usually considered minor or trivial within their religious tradition."

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, a scruple is "[a]n unfounded apprehension and consequently unwarranted fear that something is a sin which, as a matter of fact, is not."

Aside from the fact that we are not talking about personal sins, I hardly believe abortion and ESC research are "usually considered minor or trivial within" orthodox Christianity. These acts are, inf fact, gravely sinful, in Catholic theology, they are mortal sins. Murder is never a minor or trivial matter.

A nation that condones and even thirsts and hungers for it, as does our nation, has a far worse foe to fear than radical Islamists and must at least consider the possibility that radical Islamists have been chosen as the means -- or at least a means -- of exacting Divine justice for the murder of those whose blood cries to God from the ground.

What can a president do? He can appoint justice who will at least chip away at, if not overturn, Roe v. Wade. He can sign into law bills that restrict abortions and also provide the vehicle to give those justices the opportunity to at least chip away at, if not overturn, Roe v. Wade. He can use his bully pulpit to make the case for life. Those are not insignificant actions. That a president cannot sign an executive order to ban abortion does not mean he can do nothing of significance.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

Pragmatic view of a potential hypothetical:

Suppose Rudy wins GOP nomination. And the choice of the Dems is either Hilary or Obama.

Rudy (Pro-Abortion, tempered by strict constructionist appts., tough on National Security) VERSUS Hilary (Pro-abortion) or Obama (Pro-Abortion).

For this Christian, it's no-brainer. Rudy.

The discussion of Rudy and his character and policy positions only come into play during the GOP primary. In the GOP primary, this Christian will probably vote for Fred Thompson who is pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, and also hoping that he's strong on national security. (Among other things).

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, you're flirting with a Protestant maxim. [GASP!] "Sin boldly."<<<

I'm working within the Byzantine paradigm of having a God-beloved Emperor who may not be a paragon of Christian meekness. Consider that Constantine the Great climbed to the throne by dispatching various competitors, usurpers and pretenders, had his wife and elder son executed, waged successful war against barbarians and despite all that is still a saint of both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. We are pretty open-eyed about the compatibility of secular rule and personal holiness, which is why we pray for our civil authorities at every liturgy.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>What can a president do? He can appoint justice who will at least chip away at, if not overturn, Roe v. Wade. He can sign into law bills that restrict abortions and also provide the vehicle to give those justices the opportunity to at least chip away at, if not overturn, Roe v. Wade. He can use his bully pulpit to make the case for life. Those are not insignificant actions. That a president cannot sign an executive order to ban abortion does not mean he can do nothing of significance.<<<

Only Nixon could go to China. Only Begin could meet with Sadat. Perhaps only a pro-choice President can overturn Roe? Strategy operates according to paradoxical logic. The hardest way is the easiest; the longest road is the shortest route.

[Judy Warner]

>>>It also assumes a false dichotomy here that a pro-life candidate such as e.g. Brownback or Hucklebee will not do as good a job defending the nation against terrorism as e.g. the pro-abortion Giuliani. I'd like to see hard, irrefutable proof for that presumption, as opposed to mere supposition and gut preference.<<<

Since we're determined to go over the same ground again, I'll put my two cents in.

Defending our nation against terrorism is a very tough job. There is only one candidate who has accomplished a tough job and that is Giuliani. Brownback hasn't accomplished anything that I know of except to bring refugees into the U.S. but make sure none of them went to his own state. Huckabee was a pretty good governor but didn't overcome any great obstacles that I know of, except to lose a lot of weight. Romney was weak when it came to standing up to opposition to push his agenda through. Fred Thompson hasn't done anything except talk, and if you've ever heard him give a speech I'd be surprised if you stayed awake to hear the end of it.

Rudy Giuliani on the other hand (1) took on the mob judicially when no one else dared to, and won; (2) cut crime in New York by a huge percentage; (3) blew off the race hustlers in New York; (4) cut taxes in New York causing a resurgence of business; (5) kicked Yasser Arafat out of Lincoln Center; (6) turned down $10 million from a Saudi prince; (7) reduced the welfare rolls by more than 600,000; (8) introduced standards and cut out remedial courses at the City University of New York; and improved the quality of life in New York so that it became once more a great place to visit and live (for those who like that kind of thing).

Most important, when comparing his achievements with others', he did this in the face of daily blasts from the media and all bien-pensant people in New York. The hostility to him was powerful and unrelenting, yet he knew how to prevail. That is the key thing to keep in mind.

To quote from Steven Malanga's City Journal article, Yes, Rudy Giuliani Is a Conservative,

To those of us who observed Giuliani from the beginning, it was astonishing how fully he followed through on his conservative principles once elected, no matter how much he upset elite opinion, no matter how often radical advocates took to the streets in protest, no matter how many veiled (and not so veiled) threats that incendiary figures like Al Sharpton made against him, and no matter how often the New York Times fulminated against his policies. In particular, offended by the notion that people should be treated differently and demand privileges based on the color of their skin, Giuliani was fearless in confronting racial extortionists like Sharpton.

The next president will face two enemies: radical Islam and the anti-American left. I do not see any other candidate who could begin to take on either of these as effectively as Giuliani.

As many of you know, I don't like Giuliani's personal history and I don't like his stance on abortion and other issues. But I agree with Stuart that a war must be fought to win, and there is only one person who has shown the ability to win the war or the wars we are in.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

"Fred Thompson hasn't done anything except talk, and if you've ever heard him give a speech I'd be surprised if you stayed awake to hear the end of it."

Ya mean he's not like the district attorney on Law and Order??!

;-)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Rudy Giuliani on the other hand (1) took on the mob judicially when no one else dared to, and won; (2) cut crime in New York by a huge percentage; (3) blew off the race hustlers in New York; (4) cut taxes in New York causing a resurgence of business; (5) kicked Yasser Arafat out of Lincoln Center; (6) turned down $10 million from a Saudi prince; (7) reduced the welfare rolls by more than 600,000; (8) introduced standards and cut out remedial courses at the City University of New York; and improved the quality of life in New York so that it became once more a great place to visit and live (for those who like that kind of thing).<<<

To this, I would add that he pissed off all the right people.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

In whatever order, what do y'all think of a:

Rudy/Fred GOP ticket Versus a Hilary/Obama Dem ticket?

That would be a majorly intense presidential campaign, doncha think?

[GL]

We will all get our chance to participate in the upcoming primaries or caucuses in our respective states. I doubt any of us are going to change minds here. One thing we can all say of each other, we know and hold steady to our opinions.

[DGP]

>>I'm working within the Byzantine paradigm of having a God-beloved Emperor who may not be a paragon of Christian meekness.

Good, because the Emperor shouldn't be meek in any conventional sense. Fathers, policemen, judges, governors, presidents, kings, and emperors all assume a scred responsibility to protect those in their charge. Personal pacifism is appropriate for monks and those with related vocations (such as physicians or even us celibate priests), but those with innocents to protect can't afford to invoke the Sermon on the Mount without violating a more fundamental principle of the same divine Law. Any Christian who thinks otherwise should stay out of politics, since even to vote is to wield the power of the sword indirectly, and no one should do so who is unwilling to shed blood to protect the weak.

It's perfectly appropriate to argue that protecting the unborn is as or more important as/than protecting the U.S. or others from Islamists. But it's important to distinguish between the principal of protection and actual protection. As Democrats frequently remind us, we pro-lifers are suckers if we vote for a candidate simply because he subscribes to the principle, without doing anything to protect the unborn. I know, I know, the principle is still something, but in politics -- a prudential science -- it weighs lightly against practicality.

[James A. Altena]

Judy,

Aside from some challenges that hav been raised to Rudy's campaign image (I don't have an opnion one way or another on that), you still present an argument and not *proof*. And on your argument, in 1860 the Republicans should have chosen Seward instead of Lincoln as their candidate. that is a prime example of where character not only trupmed competence, but proved that character is accompanied by its own particular competence.

"Perhaps only a pro-choice President can overturn Roe? Strategy operates according to paradoxical logic."

First, that doesn't qualify as "logic";
second, Nixon, et al. were not expected to do what they did, and not elected on that expectation;
third, these instances were major exceptions and not the norm;
fourth, I'm not going to vote for a candidate on the basis of such a chancy and likely "perhaps".

As for Constantine, I'll be bold enough to say that perhaps he shouldn't be on the calendar as a saint. (I also don't remember where the crimes you mention lie in the chronology of his life.) I certainly don't think he has a "cultus" of venerators, even among the Orthodox, the way that the Cappadocians, Augustine, Ambrose Jerome, etc. do.

What remains most disturbing, Stuart, is your cavalier Machiavellian "moral" attitude that we can excuse or accept any sin so long as we think we'll get what we want in wordly terms. But what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? For how long do you think you can plan to pull down your present barns to build bigger ones and make reassuring speeches to your own soul, which may be required of you this very night? Such wordly pragmatism is contrary to all that the Scriptures teach -- not to mention the example of Our Lord's own life.

GL is right -- no-one is likely to change his mind (though Bill R. did the last time around!)

[Judy Warner]

What would constitute proof, James?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>As for Constantine, I'll be bold enough to say that perhaps he shouldn't be on the calendar as a saint. (I also don't remember where the crimes you mention lie in the chronology of his life.) I certainly don't think he has a "cultus" of venerators, even among the Orthodox, the way that the Cappadocians, Augustine, Ambrose Jerome, etc. do.<<<

Well, good then that it isn't up to you, James. As to when Constantine's transgressions occured, the answer is, "throughout his life from the time he was acclaimed as Augustus by his troops in 306". Constantine fought constant wars throughout that time, bumping off his rivals one after the other until, including Maximian's rebellian in 308, his war against Maxentius in 312, and his defeat of Licinius in 324. The latter, by the way, ended the last organized persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.

Now sole Augustus, Constantine moved his capital to Byzantium in 330, oversaw the Council of Nicaea (where he more or less imposed the homoousion solution on the fractious bishops), and in general oversaw the integration of the Church into the Roman world. Along the way, he had to have his former rival Licinius judicially murdered for ostensible conspiracies (it was the Emperor Domition who lamented that nobody would there were plots against an Emperor until one succeeded), executed his son Crispus (the one who should have succeeded him) on false charges trumped up by his second wife Fausta, whom he had executed in her turn for her deceit. As Eleanor of Aquitaine says in The Lion in Winter, "Every family has its ups and downs".

Constantine was only baptized on his deathbed, a common practice among Christians in his day, when the sacrament of confession and reconciliation was not as fully developed as it is today, in order to gain full advantage of the remission of sins that is the concomitant of the new life in Christ resulting from baptism. Nonetheless, it is clear that, even if not fully initiated, Constantine was a sincere Christian at least for the last 26 years of his life. Yet during that time, as Augustus, he had to engage in a variety of un-Christian acts that come with the territory. In the same way that a bishop is in constant danger of damnation because he is responsible for souls other than his own, a secular ruler is in constant danger of damnation because he is respoonsible for the safety and material welfare of people other than himself. This was even more true in an autocracy such as the late Roman Empire than it is in a representative democracy such as the United States.

The veneratio of Constantine was certainly greater while Constantinople still stood as capital of the Christian Empire. Yet even to this day, there are thousands of Greek Orthodox churches named for him, and millions of Greek Christians who take the name Constantine at baptism. Almost every Greek church has an icon of Constantine (prominently displayed in those dedicated to his name). He may not stand on the same theological and spiritual pedestal as the Greek Fathers, but one cannot deny his important role in shaping the early Church.

>>>What remains most disturbing, Stuart, is your cavalier Machiavellian "moral" attitude that we can excuse or accept any sin so long as we think we'll get what we want in wordly terms. But what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? <<<

That's a question for each man to ask himself. If it is a major concern to a person, then assuredly he should not seek positions of political or military responsibility. Once having done so, however, perhaps the state of his soul is more closely connected to how well they perform the duties which they have accepted. In other words, the secular ruler, having assumed responsibility for the welfare of his people, must ensure the welfare of his people. If he decides to go to war, the reasons for doing so must be proper; and having entered into a war, his first responsibility is to win it.

it is the same with the military commander. Having been ordered into combat, he must first acertain that the orders he has received are proper (the German military, for instance, made its first error in obeying Hitler's order to invade Poland, which was neither justified nor in the best interests of Germany--as many recognized at that time). Having taken his men into battle, his foremost responsibility is to lead them to victory, or, if the fortunes of war have gone against them, and further resistance is futile, to preserve their lives both for their own sake and for the future good of the nation.

In pursuit of those objectives, the military commander is governed by a different set of values and a different moral paradigm than that which pertains in peacetime. This seems to be the part people have trouble grasping: War is NOT like peace. War sets up a different scale of values. Traits admired in peacetime are often worse than useless in war, and the man admirable and successful in peace is often a failure in war (conversely, the great war leader is often a failure once the sword is sheathed.

In peace, we value introspection and deliberation; in war, we value decisiveness. In peace, we admire mercy; war requires ruthelessness. The war leader must do whatever is required to win victory--and this often entails commiting horrendus acts in the name of "military necessity". In war, innocents always suffer and many die. There is no way to wage war that avoids this. As Sherman said, "War is cruelty. You cannot refine it. The crueler it is, the sooner it is over". Often, attempts to temper the cruelty of war succeed only in extending its duration, thereby increasing the casualties and the damage to society. War is crude surgery, amputation without anaesthesia, and going slow, or being "proportional" isn't doing anyone any favors.

Civilized armies (a relative term at all times) attempt to limit civilian casualties. They do so for a variety of reasons. First, it is counterproductive--it gets the enemy pissed at you, it upsets your soldiers (who reflect the values of the society from which they come), and it usually diverts scarce resources from other missions of greater military utility.

Yet there are times when it is either impossible to avoid harming civilians, or it is even necessary to do so. Take, for instance, submarine warfare. The Hague Conventions included a number of "prize regulations" governing the sinking of merchant vessels. These were developed before the advent of the submarine. In World War I, the German navy discovered the impracticality of applying these rules to submarines, so they ignored them. After World War I, the very notion of "unrestricted submarine warfare" was declared illegal. When World War II broke out, Germany tried to behave within the scope of the law, but again found it impractical to follow the rules in a submarine, so it switched back to "unrestricted submarine warfare". We, for our part, deeply deplored this German violation of international law, but as soon as the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the first order issued by the U.S. Navy was "Wage unrestricted submarine warfare against the Empire of Japan". We tried Karl Doenitz for waging unrestricted submarine warfare, but we dropped this charge because, well, we weren't willing to try Chester Nimitz or Charles Lockwood on the same charge.

Throughout World War II, the allies bombed German and Japanese cities. At first, all sides, even the Germans, tried to avoid deliberately hitting civilian targets (the Japanese never really cared), but soon the limits of technology kicked in. It simply wasn't possible to hit a target smaller than a town. Flying at night, the British had trouble even finding a large city. Flying in the daylight, the Americans discovered that putting a bomb in a pickle barrel from 25,000 feet under ideal conditions was quite a different matter from hitting a factory building obscured by smoke and clouds, while tne enemy is shooting at you with FLAK and fighters. The best we could do was put half of our bombs within a one mile radius of the target. After the war, one RAF pilot summed it up like this: "We did area bombing of area targets, while you did area bombing of precision targets". To German civilians on the ground, it was pretty much academic.

Some post-war critics have questioned both the morality and utility of the combined bombing campaign, but they ignore a number of realities with which wartime leaders had to deal. First, the limits of technology at the time. Second, the inability of the allies to attack Germany directly by any other means between 1940 and 1944. Third, the necessity, for political reasons, of inflicting PAIN on the German population in retaliation for the pain Germany had inflicted on us (and in a "people's war", maintaining popular support is a prerequisite for success). Regarding the efficacy of the bomber offensive, post-war analyses such as the Strategic Bombing Survey point to several aspects that contributed to the Allied victory, including the diversion of resources to air defense (all those anti-aircraft guns and their crews could just as easily been used as anti-tank artillery), the attrition of the Luftwaffe (which had to fly to defend German cities, and which had to focus on fighters rather than bombers), disruption of industry (which had to disperse in order to survive, and then became vulnerable to disruption of the transportation system), and delegtimization of the Nazi regime (German civilians did not really change their minds about Jews or Poles, but felt the Nazis had let them down). Overall, while not decisive, the bombing campaign seems to have been a rather large contriubter to the rapid demize of the Nazi regime--and thus, Hamburg, Rostock, Dresden and the rest were morally justified.

In the Pacific, we went beyond this and deliberately firebombed Japanese cities, because it was the most effective way to cripple the Japanese economy (which was based on small home factories and machine shops). We killed more Japanese civilians with firebombs than we did with atomic bombs, more than 100,000 on one night alone in Tokyo. There is no doubt that this bombing effectively crippled the Japanese economy, but even then, the Japanese government was unwilling to surrender. It took the shock of two atomic bombs to bring them to their senses. Yet these actions have been decried ever since as immoral. But what were the alternatives?

Some have said that we could have blockaded Japan into submission. But this simply substituted slow, lingering death for a relatively quick one. Blockade meant mass starvation of the Japanese population. The Japanese government was quite willing to eliminate "uselless mouths" by putting to death the sick, the extremely young, and the elderly--leaving what food there was for the fighting population. Millions would have died (millions died in Germany of malnutrition and disease during World War I as a result of the British blockade of Germany (but you never hear about that). At the same time, the blockading force off Japan would have been subject to attack by Kamikazes and suicide boats, which--if the experience of Okinawa was any guide--would have mean the loss of hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of sailors. But, thank goodness, we wouldn't have dropped bombs on innocent civilians!

Others have advocated invasion, but the evidence shows the Japanese knew when and where we were coming, and that a purely conventional landing would have failed. We were, in fact, planning to use upwards of half a dozen nuclear weapons in a "tactical" role to soften up the beaches--a tactic that would have killed more Japanese than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, as well as exposing hundreds of thousands of American troops to radiation (little understood at the time). Once ashore, we would have had to fight for every mile of territory. Okinawa again loomed large in the mind of our military leaders, and casualty estimates based on that battle extrapolated to close to a million U.S. casualties. Japanese casualties would have been several times greater--and many would have been civilians, since Japan intended to mobilize the entire population to resist. But at least we would have the fig leaf of fighting legitimate military targets.

Finally, there are those who say that we should have let the USSR invade Japan and occupy the islands. Based on the record of Eastern Europe, I think we know how gentle a Soviet invasion and occupation would be (read some accounts of the Soviet invasion of East Prussia, Pomerania and Brandenburg, if you want some good nightmares). But in the end, this option really means letting others do our dirty work so we can keep our hands clean and our consciences clear.

It turns out, in retrospect, that the "immoral" situation was the best one, the one that ended the war most quickly, with the smallest loss of life. In the minds of American planners, American lives were paramount--as they should have been--but in trying to preserve American lives, they also saved millions of Japanese lives. This is the perverse logic of warfare.

It may be machievellian in your mind, James, but it is merely a recognition of reality. The Byzantines were both profoundly Christian idealists and military and political realists, perhaps the result of their self-consciousness as the perservers of Christian culture and defenders of the Christian Church. The recognized the inevitabilty and necessity of war, but they never deluded themselves that war could be anything other than a great sin against God. Given their understanding of sin and its effects, they never felt any need to sugar coat war, or somehow derive rules that made it acceptable to God. They never absolved soldiers or political leaders from the consequences of their actions in war, but neither did the shrink from going to war when they needed, and doing all that they could to ensure victory once they did. Because they realized that while everything we do in war is a sin, to lose the war would be the biggest sin of all.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>First, that doesn't qualify as "logic"<<<

It's not "linear" logic, James. It's paradoxical logic, the kind of stuff that drove the Greeks and Romans up the wall. You know, stuff like a man must give up his life to save it; he who would be leader of all must become the servant of all; the last shall be first and the first shall be last. Same thing applies in war, which is why the jump from military analysis to Eastern theology was relatively straightforward for me--I "get" this stuff (but as Victor Davis Hanson pointed out in that excellent essay I sent you, most people don't). Logic that works in peace does not work in war. As war is policy continued by other means, the same paradoxical logic also applies in politics. You can sometimes attain more of your goals by yielding than by resisting. It works in judo, it works in war, it works in politics, too.

[Judy Warner]

To add to Stuart's last point, I believe that if Giuliani wins the nomination he will have to make serious concessions to social conservatives. Not because of the vote in the general election, but because of the foot soldiers in Republican politics who are mostly social conservatives and who will not work for a candidate they hate. He can't raise enough money to replace all the volunteers who will sit out the election unless he gives them something satisfactory.

[Rob Grano]

Do you think that the GOP will attempt to throw the conservatives a bone by giving Rudy a conservative running mate if he wins the nomination? This seems to have been their ploy with Bush I and Quayle.

[DGP]

the jump from military analysis to Eastern theology was relatively straightforward for me

Koehl for president!

[GL]

Koehl for president!

But He's a Catholic....

(So, we have now come full circle, back to where we started. ;-))

[Rob Grano]

"Koehl for president!"

Yeah, there's nothing like Sherman's March repeated on a worldwide scale. ;-)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Do you think that the GOP will attempt to throw the conservatives a bone by giving Rudy a conservative running mate if he wins the nomination? This seems to have been their ploy with Bush I and Quayle.<<<

It is traditional to balance the ticket as much as possible, including geographically, philosophically, and ethnically. A Giuliani/Thompson ticket would work--Noo Yawk Eyetalian moderate teamed with Southern Scotch-Irish conservative.

Of course, a great lost opportunity of the last six years was NOT appointing Giuliani Secretary of Homeland Security. It would have leveraged all of his strengths wrangling the bureaucracy, being hard-nosed on terrorism, and willingness to out on a limb to get things done.

[Gene Godbold]

I'd rather see Giuliani/Huckabee. In any case, I don't think Thompson would want second billing at his age.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Yeah, there's nothing like Sherman's March repeated on a worldwide scale. ;-)<<<

There's something to that. Victor Davis Hanson pointed it out a few years back. Sherman's March targeted specifically the elites of Georgia and South Carolina who not only instigated the war, but also controlled the economic means of continuing it. Sherman eschewed stand-up battles with the Confederate army (he was a mediocre tactician), especially after the debacle of his assault on Kennesaw Mountain. Instead, he prerfered to outflank the army and go after its soft underbelly. Few Confederate civilians or Yankee soldiers died on Sherman's march--most of the latter bushwacked while "foraging liberally off the land". Burning plantations (most small farms in the back country were left intact) is somehow immoral. Grant's overland campaign, a brutal attritional slogging match that caused 60,000 Union and 30,000 Confederate casualties is somehow better because most of the dead and wounded were young men in uniform.

Today, we have the potential to do what Sherman did through the use of precision munitions. That is, given adequate intelligence, we can detect, localize, target and kill the people who instigate wars, bypassing or at least minimizing the need to slaughter of clueless foot soldiers. Thus, e.g., we discover some future Osama bin Laden plotting mayhem from a hideout in some remote valley, and we whack him with a Hellfire missile or JDAM launched from a Predator or Global Hawk UAV. Kim Jong Il or someone like him plans to make a nuclear weapon and blackmail the world, so we drop a precision-guided bunker buster on his head. In other words, we target those who are guilty, rather than their innocent minions.

As part of our confused thinking, we somehow believe that it is immoral to assassinate a handful of evil old men, but believe it is legitimate to slaughter thousands of (relatively) innocent soldiers.

[Gene Godbold]

I think the part that makes assassination so repugnant is that it's covert. If we said, we're going to try to kill this so-and-so because of such-and-such that would make it more sporting. Of course, if you try to kill the leader of a country, doesn't that necessitate declaring war on the whole country. I mean, the leader symbolizes the country, right?

[Rob Grano]

"Sherman's March targeted specifically the elites of Georgia and South Carolina who not only instigated the war, but also controlled the economic means of continuing it."

I don't think this is true, Stuart. If you read the Southern accounts, Sherman (and Sheridan) were not nearly so selective. See, for example, Simms' eyewitness account of the sack of Columbia, SC (recently republished.) I know that Hanson, McPherson, and other pro-Northern historians tend to disregard the Southern eyewitness accounts in an attempt to soften the harshness of the North's tactics, but it seems to lend credence to the Southern accounts when you look at how Sheridan and Sherman used the same 'scorched earth' policy later on against the Plains Indians.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I think the part that makes assassination so repugnant is that it's covert. If we said, we're going to try to kill this so-and-so because of such-and-such that would make it more sporting. Of course, if you try to kill the leader of a country, doesn't that necessitate declaring war on the whole country. I mean, the leader symbolizes the country, right?<<<

It is paradoxical that the "Western Way of War" is agonistic in its origin and conception. That is, war is seen as a contest, whether between cities, kingdoms or nations, in which the virtues of both are tested in combat, and the victor is considered demonstrably better. This goes back to the Greeks, who sharing a common language and culture, but organized into constantly warring city-states, devised a form of warfare that preserved the core interests of the small freeholders who comprised the hoplite phalanx. That is, these agrarian citizen-soldiers wanted a form of war that was short (so as not to take them away from their farms too long) and minimized damage to their farms. Hence, the phalanx battle, a head-on pushing-and-shoving contest that could only take place by mutual consent, hedged in by all sorts of religious rituals and taboos. Wars were short and relatively bloodless, but at the same time, demanded from its participants a degree of discipline and self-denial not found in "heroic" warfare or the more organized raid-and-seige warfare of Asia.

The values internalized through this sort of warfare, the concepts of what constitutes courage, of subordination, of "fairness", are with us still, depsite radical changes to warfare over the ensuing two and a half millennia. it was in the context of the Persian Wars that the Greeks began to incorporate various elements of Aisatic wafare into their tactics, including the use of cavalry, light infantry, missile troops, and seige warfare. Being Greeks, they applied these to their basic phalanx tactics in a disciplined, scientific manner, and proved to be superior to any Asiatic army it encountered--a superiority that Western armies have retained (with exceptions for manifest incompetence here and there) to the present day.

The Greeks were quite willing to violate the taboos of the phalanx battle when encountering barbarians, precisely because those same barbarians did not observe the taboos themselves. Thus, the descration of the body of Leonidas after Thermopylae enraged the Greeks because it violated one of their most sacrosanct practices (the return of the dead for burial). Similarly, in World War II we were enraged by the killing of American prisoners at Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge, but were not at all concerned by the bombing of German cities, in part because the prisoners, having surrendered, were assumed to have certain protections, while the German civilians being bombed were ostensibly defended by German fighters and anti-aircraft guns, which provided the agonistic aspect of the competition between the bombers and the defenses.

We object to assassination within the context of relations between "civilized' states because it violates our self-imposed rules. On the other hand, barbarian states such as Saddam's Iraq (or Putin's Russia) do not quail at bumping off political foes even if they are foreign leaders (e.g., Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko). When they do this to us, they put themselves outside the pale, and we no longer feel constrained to retaliate in kind. Thus, assassination of rogue leaders like Saddam or Kim, or of terrorists such as Osama, would probably meet with a shrug or even wholesale approval (except, of course, by Western liberal elites), while the same tactics applied to the head of a "civilized" country would probably still meet with revulsion.

[Joe Long]

Stuart,

Gotta second Rob here. Sherman's destruction in Georgia and South Carolina was increasingly indiscriminate, not targeted; such instances of "targeting" as occured around here were usually based on the perceptions of individual loot-and-pillagers. (For instance they tried to burn First Baptist Church, where the Secession Convention began, but they "missed" and torched First Methodist instead. Local legend holds that the black caretaker of First Baptist deliberately steered them to the rival church!) The sufferings of the black population are especially ironic examples (see Simms on Columbia again), but the most important "strategic" targets were the homes and farms of ordinary soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia - man who faced strong inducement to desert when they learned the home was in ashes, the mule had been shot (Sherman's men had orders to destroy all horses and mules they could not confiscate) and the children were starving. Planters suffered, of course, but proportionately less in many cases; the fine home used as a local headquarters by the Yanks was often spared when they left, while the ordinary folks' houses and barns were torched. The strength of the Confederacy lay in the common people, and it was the populace he targeted. (For instance, assassinating Jeff Davis would not have broken up the Confederacy; arguably it would have worked to Confederate advantage.)

I agree with Hanson about Sherman's strategic acumen, but was quite annoyed with the Sherman section of "The Soul of Battle" for other reasons - it was little short of a smear on Patton's reputation, to place him as an inheritor of Sherman's (im)moral legacy, no matter how appropriate some tactical and leadership comparisons are. As for Sherman "battling tyranny" - faugh.

Sherman himself had a fine sense for the "competence versus character" leadership debate, at least intuitively, for he himself left us the quote "if nominated I will not campaign; if elected I will not serve". And this is all to the good - his fits of melancholy and (especially) his bitter outlook and mercurial temper most certainly did not belong in the White House.

[Gene Godbold]

I grew up in Columbia, SC and went to high school at Cardinal Newman. We always went to my mother's parish (St. Joseph's) but would sometimes attend my father's methodist church for Sunday school and worship. I think I might have mentioned before that my father's church was burnt by Sherman's army. Someone in the command asked somebody in the town where the First Baptist church was. (Their intentions must have been obvious.) The person they asked was a member of First Baptist and he directed the corp of arsonists to Washington Street United Methodist church.

[Gene Godbold]

Hey Joe,
Thanks for the extra detail.

[Gene Godbold]

Of course, it couldn't have been the "United Methodist" back then...

[William Wilcox]

Stuart,

You suggested that John 15:13 supported your statements. I didn't believe so. Christ after all went to the cross, without resisting active violence, out of love for us. He asks us to love as he loved us. John 18:36 lends additional support to my interpretation:

36Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

>>>I should note that I am not trying to make a case for pacifism. I am uncomfortable with the suggestion that winning at all costs is a Christian precept.<<<

"It's not." So we do agree:)

"But it is a reality of life in a fallen world." So this really is a worldly precept that Christianity must cope with!

James was much more articulate in expressing my reservations with your comments. Your one liners have a certain cavalier aspect that are sometimes not adequate to explain the more complex thought behind them.

"the secular ruler, having assumed responsibility for the welfare of his people, must ensure the welfare of his people. If he decides to go to war, the reasons for doing so must be proper; and having entered into a war, his first responsibility is to win it."

Why would this necessarily be true of a secular leader? Aren't you smuggling in worldview precepts from somewhere? I can't believe there is nothing about Christianity that would cause a reponse to war different than a secular worldview.

I generally agree with your narrative concerning WWII.

"Others have advocated invasion, but the evidence shows the Japanese knew when and where we were coming, and that a purely conventional landing would have failed"

My Dad would have been in that landing. I probably would not be here now if it had happened.

"The recognized the inevitabilty and necessity of war, but they never deluded themselves that war could be anything other than a great sin against God. Given their understanding of sin and its effects, they never felt any need to sugar coat war, or somehow derive rules that made it acceptable to God."

I understand, while noting that just war theory illustrates how Christianity does see the need to set rules that restrict the sin such that to lose a war in this world would not necessarily be the biggest sin of all.

[GL]

My Dad would have been in that landing. I probably would not be here now if it had happened.

Same here. My dad always defended Truman's decision to drop the bombs . . . and he was a lifelong Republican.

[Joe Long]

Best commentary on the Bomb decision I ever saw, is near the end of George McDonald Frazier's phenomenal WWII memoir, "Quartered Safe Out Here." I will not spoil it. Frazier was a British grunt in the CBI and also likely to be directly affected by any continuation of the Pacific war.

Anyway, despite a strong visceral sympathy with Stuart's "the worst sin is losing" proposition... many of my personal heroes were "losers". William Wallace, Robert E. Lee, men who fell despite "having done all to stand" - and in Lee's case, a man who chose honorable defeat over a guerilla-style continuation of his war, and led his people with him.

It is horribly wrong, having resorted to war, to pursue victory half-heartedly; and certainly it is criminal folly to throw victory, bought at the cost of human lives, away. To be defeated is no sin - but in a phrase beloved to the nineteenth century, it means more to deserve victory, than to gain it. The outcome of battle is the Lord's, no matter how diligently the horse and rider are prepared.

Which is positively no excuse for not preparing the horse or rider. Put your faith in God - but keep your powder dry.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I understand, while noting that just war theory illustrates how Christianity does see the need to set rules that restrict the sin such that to lose a war in this world would not necessarily be the biggest sin of all.<<<

Just war theory emerged in Western Europe beginning in the Middle Ages in response to two critical factors: the endemic violence of feudal Europe with its constant 'private" wars; and the lack of a strong, centralized secular authority to maintain order. Into this mix throw the Western Christian conception of sin as a violation of divine law. The Western Church therefore began to create "categories' under which war could and could not be waged. Given the Western conception of sin, waging war outside of the specified constraints would incur sin, which in turn required expiation. The combination of "rules" enforced by the injunction of sin was used by the Western Church in an attempt to control violence and protect the peasantry from the depredations of the armed aristocracy.

Looking at the precepts of just war theory, we find that they are perfectly congruent to the nature of war in the Middle Ages. Emphasis on just cause and legitimate authority were intended to dissuade barons from waging war on each other either for glory or territorial enlagement. On this, both East and West are in accord: one should not go to war for selfish reasons, such as personal or national glory or enrichment at the expense of another, but should reserve war for defensive purposes or for the righting of an objective wrong.

On legitimate authority, this was not really necessary in the East, where the Imperial government and its apparatus still functioned. In the West, though, such an injunction was an attempt to strengthen the rule of the national government in the person of the king. In today's context it begs a number of questions, specifically, who is the legitimate authority? When legitimacy was a matter of dynastic inheritance and annointing by the Church, it was fairly straightforward. With the emergence of the concept of popular sovereignty, matters become more murky. Who was the legitimate authority in the American Revolution? In wars of national liberation? Taken at face value, the precept of legitimate authority can become a justification of the status quo at all costs.

The precept of probability of success was also formulated in the context of war as the private passtime of the aristocracy, and the need to keep warlords from dragging their followers down with them in hopeless endeavors. It becomes quite another matter, though, in wars of national survival. Faced with overwhelming odds, is it better to surrender to the Nazis or the Soviets, or go down fighting? Not an easy question to answer (particularly if you are a Jew or a capitalist, or both).

On the side of conducting a just war (jus in bello), the precepts are even more strongly tied to medieval concepts of warfare. For example:

The principle of discrimination says that war should be waged on malefactors, not the innocent. This had a very practical purpose in medieval warfare when the agents of war were discrete individuals and not institutions. It also attempted to shield the peasantry from the effects of war, since being the aristocracy's chief source of wealth, serfs and peasants would be subject to attack in order to inflict pain on the opposing prince. Most of the Hundred Years War consisted of "chevauchees' (mounted raids) which burned villages, ravaged crops and killed peasants in order to impoverish the King of France and his supporters. This principle continued to have general applicability into the Age of Reason, because wars were still essentially the private affairs of kings which the civil population were passive bystanders. With the rise of democracy and the concept of the Nation in Arms, it became harder to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants; in the age of industrial warfare, it was impossible, because the person who makes the gun or bullet contributes as much or more to the war as the soldier who carries the gun and shoots the bullet. With the decline of mass armies after the end of the Cold War, the potential existed to reassert a strick distinction between combatants and non-combatants, but the rise of asymmetrical warfare, particularly terrorism, has blurred the line again.

Proportionality also made sense, when wars were waged to redress personal wrongs committed against individual rulers. it doesn't make as much sense when one is fighting an entire nation. In fact, a strict sense of proprotionality--tit-for-tat--merely extends the duration of war and thus the extent of the suffering. On the other hand, the disproportionate response can end a war quickly, and also has the benefit of deterring future wars.

Minimum force, closely related to proportionality, cannot be dictated apart from the military principle of "economy of force"--which is to say, not to little and not too much, but just right. That is essentially a prudential military judgment.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

Strongly agree with Stuart in every respect on this particular issue.

I am re-reading the book of Joshua in my devotional time and it is striking to read the phrase "And there was none remaining" in Chapters 10 and 11.

That means every man, every woman, every child, every baby of the opposition was.... was killed. Those days, it was direct killing. The person being killed saw and felt everything happening to them and their loved ones. The people doing the killing saw the facial expressions of the ones they killed. When you think about it, it was very gruesome. Extremely unpleasant. Quite unlike long-range military warfare with airplane bombs and intercontintental missiles.

Joshua did it in obedience to God. God blessed Joshua and the people of Israel for obeying God fully in those military campaigns.

Now I'm not extrapolating to a divine mandate for the Iraq war, but I am saying that Stuart is correct.

And I do agree that Giulani would have been a good choice for Homeland Security Chief.

Lastly, sometimes the only Path to Peace is through War. It's a paradox, but it's true. A total war that extinguishes the will of the enemy.

You just have to have the moral resolve to do it, even in the special case of radical Islamic terrorism. Those folks think in terms of the SUPER-LONG war spanning many, many generations. That requires a resolve of a such a magnitude that they'll have to realize the foolishness of such thinking and surrender now.

Alas, sometimes I fear that the West has lost the resolve due to the liberal 5th column.

[Bill R]

Stuart, I gotta say, agree or disagree with you, you are indeed the Stakhanovite of blogging. I stand in awe!

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Stuart, I gotta say, agree or disagree with you, you are indeed the Stakhanovite of blogging. I stand in awe!<<<

I'm procrastinating--I'm supposed to be writing a book chapter on U.S. relations with Russia, China and India, and am in the midst of a major writer's block. I know what I want to say, but it's just too damned depressing to write.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

"... am in the midst of a major writer's block."

Ya gotta be freakin' kidding me!

Dude, you da man when it comes to prodigious written output that's of A-1 quality in a short period of time.

I stand in awe of your God-given talent.