Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s -Jesus

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If The Left Are Sheep, The Right Are Fish

I was, quite frankly, astounded when then Senator Obama voted to give the telecoms immunity from liability during his run for the presidency. Obama is supposedly a Constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago, a position he holds, if not actively, to this day. But life for me has been, as it has been for many of you, and should be for everyone who wishes to grow in their understanding of our national circumstance, an exercise in the death of naivety

In my case, the naivety which had begun to die going to the above noted event, concerns the pure, concentrated and unmitigated gall that the votes of over fifty lawmakers who happen to be senators, a certain famous constitutional law professor among them, could thumb their nose at any oath to uphold the constitution with a ‘yea’ voting in a law that has three constitutional violations on it’s face, an ‘ex post facto’, ‘legislative pardon’ that violates our citizens ‘right to petition for redress’ by denying ‘suit at equity’ or access to the courts via lawsuit

Let me explain

The telecoms played ball with criminals in the Bush administration by participating in what amounted to warrant-less searches and eves-dropping without court order, stealing and handing over peoples personal information in criminal acts Americans had been historically protected from by our constitution and pertinent laws. This opened the telecom corporations to both criminal penalties and civil liabilities. There were crimes committed which should have been prosecuted and people have a right to sue. The potential liability looked pretty big and the telecoms lobbied for immunity

1) ex post facto. Our constitution specifically prohibits Congress making any “ex post facto” law, as typically or historically applied that means a behavior cannot be criminalized after the fact and applied retroactively, or more broadly, new laws cannot be made governing an event that is in the past. In this 2nd instance we have a valid constitutional claim prohibiting making a law excusing past criminal civil liberties violations against our citizens, violations which had created liabilities. What is required for the criminal aspect solely, is a PARDON

2) legislative pardon: Congress cannot give pardons to the individuals within the telecoms who’d signed off on and perpetrated the crimes, that is reserved by our constitution to the president and neither can the congress or the president pardon corporations in any manner excusing civil liability, the corporations must be held accountable and seek any leniency based on possible mitigation factors from the courts, because [3 & 4 combine to make a constitutional principle]

3) the” right to petition for redress” is promised to every citizen who has been wronged and

4) “suit at equity”, that is, the courts existing to do what is right by the citizen, is the avenue provided by our constitution to fulfill the promise of every wronged citizen’s ‘right to petition for redress’ or it should be said there is no right of corporate or government impunity. Citizen’s petitions for remedies and compensation may not be preemptively denied fair hearing, in our courts of law by the Congress

The oath to uphold our constitution had been meant to prevent such patently wrong laws in the first instance. That oath is become patently meaningless to the trained lawyers and professionals who should know these things and make up the congress, points squarely to the core of corrupt process usurping our rule of law

Now, what I’d point out to my conservative friends regarding the Senator Obama vote in the case of the Congress patently and illegally extending immunity to the telecoms in violation of every ‘yea’ voting senator’s oath to uphold the constitution of these United States is: that farcical and patently criminal vote violating our most fundamental rights passed with a majority of Republican senators backing. The Democrats voting in favor of the law were a distinct minority. YOUR conservative people’s representatives are primarily responsible for this particular travesty of justice, which has the effect of trashing our Bill of Rights particularly, and other provisions of our constitution generally

Get comfortable with that thought because now I am going to point to some more Republican chicanery undermining our foundational law that is going to hurt some more if you keep reading and are open and honest and willing to look at what has overcome us all, not at the hands of liberals or conservatives, but on account of all ourselves buying into the protected free speech that is political lies

The American constitution, any and all neo-con ‘Liars for Jesus’ notwithstanding, is based on secular ethics, not Christian morality. There IS a difference and that difference is sometimes quite pronounced, as I will demonstrate was the case with the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law forbidding gays serving openly in our military

As a heterosexual secular ethicist, I tolerate male homosexuals and actually get on quite well with lesbians. They very thought of sex with another man revolts me but that is largely beside the point. What I recognize, and what our founding law supports, is the idea a free society mostly cannot legislate morality. Time should have taught us this, as there have been numerous bigoted and unconstitutional laws in the history of our nation made by fundamentalists of one generation to the next.. but what it all boils down to is, it is our constitution’s demand that it is none of our business if a couple of guys practice fellatio, or lesbians cunnilingus, in the privacy of their home

If they are good citizens in a secular sense, perform their civic duties responsibly and don’t push their private sexual life in peoples face, we have to respect they have a right to their lifestyle and a right to be seen affectionately in public together no differently to my own behaviors with a woman in my life. Do I copulate in public with my opposite sex partner? No. Do they perform sex acts in public with their same sex partner? No. No differently, if I can kiss my woman in public, so may they kiss their same sex partner in public. I don’t have to watch and neither do you.. and insofar as influencing children, there is no more a rude thing to do to a child than force them into denial of our world’s realities, a form of lying, you do not raise aware citizens that way

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” crossed our constitution’s demand that there be “equal protection” of all citizens before the law. A law that allows heterosexual expression of one’s sexual preference only, violates the rights of gays. It is quite clear and it is that simple

Before I go into how President Obama and the Senate Republicans BOTH had subverted out rule of law and damaged our constitution with using the “don’t ask, don’t tell” as a political football, it is in order here to give a further short exam of the secular ethics our law is based upon, versus religious, or in the USA, largely Christian morality

Our nation was founded by people with varying experiences at the hands of religion, with nearly all of those experiences negative. It was not only the persecuted religious minority by the religious majority which migrated to what became the USA, but also the political dissident and intellectual who left a country with officially sanctioned state religion used as a tool of repression, such as employed by the Church of England and the Church at Rome, and the free or secular thinkers who abandoned Germany, France, Italy or Spain among many other nations where religious intolerance persecuted anyone who stepped out of the officially sanctioned lines of thinking. The result is what you see in our First Amendment, it is no accident that lumped together there, are freedom of expression, that protects the secular people particularly, and the freedom of people to practice ANY religion and very importantly, in the same paragraph religion is altogether forbidden in the affairs of state. This was the ‘original intent’ of our founders, again, any ‘Liars for Jesus’ notwithstanding

Of course our founders realized we live in an imperfect world and what they attempted to do was in fact establish a libertarian society which would create an environment for elevated awareness and advancement of the future generations with a generous opportunity for our citizenry- given in our founding law. Thomas Jefferson looked at the New England Puritans as hopelessly backward people living out a primitive demonic fantasy, whereas John Adams had a revulsion similar to homophobia in relation to Benjamin Franklin’s libertine philosophies and lifestyle, examples given, but they and other founders all did one thing very well, they tolerated one another, setting aside differences to both: win the revolution and write our constitution intended to preserve the rights of one and all despite their differences. As a group, these men realized there is a sole avenue to any positive future and that avenue is tolerance. This is driving purpose behind our having established secular republic where religious morals are deliberately allowed no part of government and those recent Supreme Court Justices who best personified these secular principles of tolerance were Republican or Republican appointed, Justice Brennan and Justice Stevens

Now, if the left and right both forget Jesus’ admonition not to throw stones, that is, when we have begun throwing our found(er)ing law through windows like rocks with notes attached, and that is where we are now as a political culture,  with smears coming in the name of our constitution, particularly on the right because of “Liars for Jesus” rewriting American history, and stones thrown from the left because of a snotty disdain for any and all things conservative which had been smeared hopelessly by association with the criminal Bush, no matter the fact there are yet many fine and honorable people on the right, all is in a fine mess. And with the people distracted with fighting like a saloon brawl, money and it’s associated personalities in politics are having a field day while narcissistic politicians pandering to corporate greed are running away with our republic

Now, money in politics played off conservative Christian morality against liberal secular ethics with “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and both right & left of the American people lost and money in politics won with people divided and hating

Erstwhile constitutional law professor and faux commander-in-chief Obama had a court ruling in his pocket which flatly stated “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Now, if indeed Obama is commander-in-chief of our military, it was his undeniable duty to simply ORDER “Don’t ask, don’t tell” to be discontinued. But no, manipulative Chicago politicians don’t play the constitutional rules of the game straight, so he has his own Attorney General’s United States Department of Justice hold up the ruling with an appeal, while the senate neo-con Republicans threatened and blustered over repeal of what they know was patently unconstitutional “Don’t ask, don’t tell” law by the congress, an act that would make the court order moot

This play motivated both left and right, rank and file, to fight and pour tremendous energy into hating each other over whether a soldier can get his blow job from a man rather than a woman, and when nobody is looking at that. I hope you all suddenly feel real bright over why real problems this country faces, never get solved, all the while money runs amok in politics and Citizens United is not addressed with a constitutional amendment

But it is actually much, much more than that

It so happens both George Sr and George W Bush had a very close and intimate friend of decades in a real dilemma over “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Obama’s Evangelical Secretary of  Defense Robert Gates, a man epitomized in the warning President Eisenhower gave us about the “Military/Industrial Complex” and its power to corrupt our republic, had asked the Congress to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” in a move to buy time for his religious extremist generals belonging to the right wing “Officers Christian Fellowship.” The “Officer’s Christian Fellowship is behind the acts causing the U.S. military to be repeatedly sued via the Military Religious Freedom Foundation by over 33,000 active duty United States soldiers because the soldiers are being force fed extremist religious right hate propaganda by their superiors.  These extremist officers literally believe “Muslims are the children of Satan” and have pushed the USA efforts in Afghanistan as a religious crusade in an army where recently soldiers who sought combat stress psychological counseling were instead sent to a chaplain who told them their problems would be solved if only they would become “born again in Jesus” and “kill Muslims for Christ.” Small wonder there is epidemic suicide in the United States military not to mention the noted salient facts making an ongoing lie of Obama’s claims the USA is repairing relations with the Islamic world

Of course, in extremist Christian morality homosexuals are aberrant perverts deserving of nothing less than death according to primitive mosaic law and now we will have a whole new class of persecution in our military because the Congress repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” while Obama’s Attorney General kept the case tied up in appeals, it was much easier for Robert Gates to sweep the related unconstitutional religious morals repression of gays by our extreme Christian generals and their religious extremist officer-minions under the rug. Now, illegal persecutions will fall under military justice structures and be much more difficult to bring justice into line with constitutional principle when gays are beaten or murdered with ‘friendly fire’ and lesbians beaten and raped with the tacit encouragement of the extreme homophobic “Officer’s Christian Fellowship” whose mission is a ‘Godly military’ in a crusade to “kill Muslims for Jesus Christ” in a military which already covers up not only rampant rape of its woman soldiers, but the murder of women as well– and going so far as the leadership at the Pentagon had ordered its top expert on sexual abuse not to testify before the Congress:

“But when it came time for the military to defend itself, the panel was told that the Pentagon’s top official on sexual abuse, Dr. Kaye Whitley, was ordered not to show up despite a subpoena.

Rep. John Tierney, the panel’s chairman and a Democrat from Massachusetts, angrily responded, “these actions by the Defense Department are inexplicable.”

“The Defense Department appears to be willfully and blatantly advising Dr. Whitley not to comply with a duly authorized congressional subpoena,” Tierney said.” -CNN

The ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ repeal had been preferred by the close Bush family friend and evangelical Robert Gates because he knows it rendered the Federal Court case moot and everything begins again from scratch with enforcing the rights of soldiers in the military system where his generals can finesse outcomes, and Gates also knows that his generals flipping their middle fingers at a federal judge’s court order overturning ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell” was a real risk because federal judges in theory can take over the operations of entire departments or even branches of government with a “Consent Decree”, pointed at people who refuse to bow to the rule of law and honor courts ordering our institutions into line with constitutional principles. Accordingly, the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and attending loss of Federal Court jurisdiction is in actuality a closet victory for the neo-con leadership of the USA’s military who defies our Congress and Constitution

Meanwhile Robert Gates’ generals religious right support base in the senate played to their homophobic electorate at home which collectively flipped out over the vote throwing out an unconstitutional law and would do so over any other act to honor the constitutional rights of ‘fags’ and Gates’s generals escaped a real catch 22. But is it the WOMEN soldiers paying for this religious impunity with 26,000 sexual assaults in 2012 alone in a military with leadership believing the only proper place of any woman is the bedroom and not the workplace. This epidemic goes unaddressed because misogynist officers in the command structure oversee the disciplinary process

All the while, the progressive left had been backing the right thing to do by our constitution, and are the very people Obama’s Department of Justice had been fighting in the courts while holding up with appeal the Judge’s order throwing out ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and otherwise no player involved except this one judge had honored our constitution, for all of our conservative voters swallowing the bait of their candidates oath to our constitution and professed love for our “Bill of Rights” of which the congressional record of rip-off will hurt the right and left both on other constitutional issues, such as privacy and PRISM. Restated, when you support the congress undermining any aspect of our constitution you don’t like, you have emboldened the congress to undermine aspects of our constitution you hold dear to your heart

And so long as politicians on the right have to pander to voters who follow mental whack jobs like Ann Coulter to keep the conservative vote in one block, while the left can’t shake off the legacy of Chicago style politics, any truly sane center ground allowing for real progress on issues that matter is pie-in-the-sky

There you have it- how in a most perverted sense the Republican senators play a supportive game in cahoots with Obama when it comes to their common cause of keeping the right and left fighting, while money runs amok buying our elections with political lies and in the course of things, trashes our constitution and national sanity

And finally, considering Jesus instruction to ‘give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, the oath to uphold our secular constitution could not be a more clear obligation to those Christian conservatives who would prefer not to be labeled hypocrites ..

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