Category: Culture

“The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.”

Plato
Republic — Book IV

I wonder what this means for the Church. I wonder if we imperil the Church when we introduce the strangest of melodies. Sure, there can be little doubt that introducing cutting edge music will grow the church but is the numerical growth of the church achieved at the price of the malformed Christians?

Parents, pay attention to what music your children listen to. Music is not neutral and as such the music they listen to will shape them in the direction of the musicians tastes and thinking. I suspect that in our current climate this will be in a direction not desired by the parents.

“‘Man is a political animal,’ says Aristotle. He thrives in a community of families and clans who govern themselves freely and well, providing for more than basic subsistence. What they mainly provide is freedom: free time, leisure for conversation, an arena for debate, for struggles that have consequences, for reading and arguing, for sport, for contemplation, for honing all practical and intellectual virtues. True civility has more to do with a well-ordered fight than with the bonds of niceness.”

Anthony Esolen
Politically Incorrect Guide To Western Civilization — pg. 36

This gives us instruction about the kind of Government men should build in order to pursue the end of true civility. If Government is centralized it is to intrusive for the end of true civility. If Government is anarchistic lawlessness gets in the way of true civility. In our time we have allowed the government to create a soft tyranny that squeezes out civility. The Government has done this by its reduction of the citizenry through its “educational” arm, to a point where the citizenry is incapable of the intellectual virtues required to engage in a well ordered fight — the key sign that true civility exists.

“Every society reproduces its culture — its norms, its underlying assumptions, its modes of organizing experience — in the individual, in the form of personality. As Durkheim said, personality is the individual socialized. The process of socialization, carried out by the family and secondarily by the school and other agencies of character formation, modifies human nature to conform to the prevailing social norms.”

Christopher Lasch
The Culture Of Narcissism

Please understand the import of this quote from Lasch. Lasch is insisting that culture is the mold that an individual is poured into that produces personality. All of this works to bend human nature in the direction of societal norms. Now, certainly, we would add that this process works in reverse at the same time. A handful of individuals always escape and rise out of the societal mold in order to make major contributions to the shape which the societal mold will take.

All of this is why it is so important for the Church as well as individual Christians to speak to cultural issues. If the Church surrenders her input then the norms, underlying assumptions, and the culture’s mode of organizing experience will belong to the religion and theology that doesn’t surrender on this score.

Further, Lasch’s point is that people are individual manifestations of the culture that has been impressed upon them. Pagans understand this in a way Christians do not. This is why pagans want the children for their schools. This is why the pagans want to use legislation for social engineering. This is why the pagans want to control the media levers. The pagan understands that when a culture and its institutions are pagan then the individuals will be pagan as well. Now, the fact that this isn’t universally true is the providence of God calling His people out from the cultural mold, but how faithful to their rescue and their rescuer are those who have been rescued from that pagan mold who insist that it is wicked and wrong of the Church to be culturally engaged?

If personality is the individual socialized then the Church should move heaven and hell to speak into that socializing process.

Dear ****:

Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 1913, a bill that would provide assistance to states and localities to better prosecute hate crimes. I appreciate hearing from you.

On April 2, 2009, Representative John Conyers (D-MI) reintroduced the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. On April 29, the House of Representatives debated this legislation, passing it with a bipartisan majority of 249-175. H.R. 1913 is also supported by more than 300 organizations, including law enforcement groups, religious groups, civil rights groups, disability groups, and numerous other associations. It is currently awaiting consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I supported the bill because I believe crimes based on the ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual preference, or disability of the victim must be met with an adequate response from law enforcement agencies. State and local authorities currently prosecute the overwhelming majority of hate crimes and would continue to do so under this legislation. The special attention these crimes require can stretch local law enforcement resources beyond their capacity. Oftentimes, states and local police departments do not have the expertise, manpower, or financial resources to investigate and prosecute such crimes. This bill would enable the federal government to provide crucial federal resources to state and local agencies to equip local officers with the tools they need to prosecute hate crimes. This legislation would also authorize the Attorney General to make grants to state and local law enforcement agencies that have incurred extraordinary expenses associated with the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.

Additionally, H.R. 1913 would extend existing protections to more Americans. The current federal hate crimes statute provides for federal assistance in the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes in the cases of a violent crime committed against persons because of their race, color, religion, or national origin. This bill would close the current gaps in federal law to also provide federal assistance in the cases of a hate crime committed against persons because of their gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

Some critics have a misplaced fear that any federal assistance in investigating or prosecuting hate crimes will lead to the prosecution of thoughts and beliefs. This is untrue. H.R. 1913 only applies to bias-motivated crimes of violence and does not impinge freedom of speech or religious expression in any way. Others contend that with passage of this bill, individuals may be arrested for speech and spoken words. This, too, is false. H.R. 1913 does not prohibit thought, speech or expression protected by the First Amendment.

Again, thank you for being in touch. For news on current federal legislative issues, please visit my website at www.house.gov/dingell; you can also sign up there to receive my e-newsletter. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me again if I may be of assistance with this or any other matter of concern.

With every good wish,

Sincerely yours,

John Dingell
Member of Congress

1.) Note the second paragraph. The implicit idea that is communicated is that Dingell’s vote is justified because the world is filled with so many other idiots who likewise support this legislation. No idiot ever need fear being exposed as an idiot as long as he is standing in a crowd of idiots.

2.) Note paragraph 3 sentence 1. Now let me get this straight… we are contemplating passing a law so that if a parent commits a crime against someone else because that someone else is a pederast and just fondled their 8 year old son or daughter that parent is going to be prosecuted more heavily? We are creating as scenario where the parent could be charged with a greater crime then the lech.

Secondly, touching paragraph 3 sentence 1 what we are doing is establishing that some crime victims are more important then other crime victims. Also, you can take it to the bank that the only criteria for pursuing a hate crimes prosecution will be the very fact that the victim of the crime is a pervert. Remember, in order for a prosecution to be successful on this matter it is going to have to be proven what was going through the criminals mind the very moment he committed the crime. Since, that is virtually impossible what will result is both an increased politicization of the court process as prosecuting attorneys try to make a name for themselves by convicting people for hate crimes, and the reality that a hate crime, since intent can’t be established, will be pursued simply because there was a crime against somebody in a protected class.

3.) The rest of paragraph 3 establishes that we are incrementally moving towards nationalizing and federalizing our local police. Keep in mind that dollars are following this legislation. What always happens at that point is that more hate crime cases have to be discovered in order to justify the flow of money from the Feds to the state and local police enforcement. Money flows to the local police and the local police have to show that the money was well spent. Remember the principle … what you subsidize (in this case resources for hate crimes prosecution) you always get more of (in this case increased hate crimes in order to use the subsidized resources).

4.) Paragraph 4 establishes that we are giving extra protection to people who love to copulate with dead people, people who love to copulate with cows, adults who love little boys, and other assorted perverts, queers, and general social deviants.

5.) Paragraph 5 is merely an opinion. Dingell has no idea the way that courts will interpret this legislation. One can easily foresee this legislation against hate crimes being used to rule against hate speech as clever prosecutors will connect the dots between the hate speech that putatively provokes hate crimes. At such a point a “hate crime” will include speaking that allegedly leads to violent acts.

Dingell is an idiot and as such he is the perfect man to represent Americans.

Recently, I have seen several prominent Reformed and Evangelical Christians chastising the Christian community for hyperventilating regarding the recent hate crimes legislation that is moving through Congress. The constant verbal flogging used by these prominent men is that much is being made about nothing since the express language of the hate crimes legislation increases penalty for hate crimes while saying nothing about hate speech. Their point seems to be that this proposed hate crimes legislation will only effect people committing crimes and since Christians don’t commit crimes the legislation is nothing to be concerned about.

These people criticizing those of us who are raising voices of warning about this proposed hate crimes legislation are not people who are aware that how legislation gets written, interpreted and implemented are very different realities. To be honest the prominent Reformed and Evangelical critics are political naifs who do not realize how the game is played in Washington.

In Washington all laws are expansively interpreted so that the qualifications that were originally part of legislation is often ignored by those executing and prosecuting the law. In the Government class I am currently teaching we are seeing the historical use of this maximal judicial hermeneutic.

Paul Craig Roberts makes this same point in a recent article he wrote,

“The Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) was directed at drug lords. Nothing in the law says anything about divorce; yet it soon was applied in divorce cases.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly bans racial quotas and defines racial discrimination as an intentional act. Yet, quotas were imposed by the civil rights bureaucracy on the basis of the 1964 Act, and intent was replaced by statistical disparity.

The Clean Water Act makes no reference to wetlands and conveys no powers to the executive branch to create wetlands regulations. Yet, for example, Ocie and Carey Mills, who had a valid Florida state permit to build a house, were imprisoned by federal bureaucrats, who claimed jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. The bureaucrats ruled that the clean dirt used to level the building lot constituted discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters of the U.S. No navigable waters were involved, and according to the state of Florida, no wetlands.”

Woods and Gutzman’s book “Who Killed The Constitution,” likewise delivers example after example of how legislation is interpreted in a maximal fashion quite contrary to it’s supposed limitations.

Prominent Reformed and Evangelical Christians ought to do their research on how legislation has been used to pursue ends that were putatively not part of the original legislation before they criticize people who have a historical sense of how this kind of thing works.

Mark my words …. the hate crimes legislation that is currently moving through Washington, if passed, will eventually be used to stifle speech against the perverts that the legislation seeks to protect.