The Conservative Brotherhood

The past week to ten days has left me mentally fatigued; not that I've been revving up my brain power attempting to unravel quantum mechanics, or understand two consecutive paragraphs of Kant, or things similarly cognitive. I have been worn out by membership in this society. I’ve been made tired trying to contemplate the many faces of Michael Jackson, from the little boy who wowed me when I was a young adult, to the nature of the enigma behind the demented clown face. It is too difficult, for me anyway, to rank the congruities of sentimentality and reality, and to be convinced it was a worthwhile investment of our vast public consciousness in these troubled times, debating if Michael Jackson was black, white, or Dorian Gray. Enough said.

The July 4th holiday apparently inspired a few people to ponder not only political freedom but the freedom, or lack thereof, circumscribed by ethnicity and history. I read blogs noting the detriments of the lingering "slave mentality" and still others decrying what they see as Barack Obama's disconnect from the ethno-political psychology of black America. By the criteria of some, the President's skin color is just irrelevant pigmentation because his African paternal DNA was never steeped in bondage, and his maternal DNA bears the taint of Caucasian. Conversely, not long ago in sociological measure, when unity was the theme, the chosen argument to rope in those thought to have a pigmented, educational, or financial advantage, thereby supposedly having an enhanced opportunity to advance individually, was the prognosis that the slightest tint of dark DNA, was the scarlet letter mandating inescapable assignment to only one possible socio-political "home" regardless of any other history, credentials, or hubris. As I recall, this line of reasoning built to the level of a mantra. A person with Obama's appearance, genetics aside, would have been castigated if he didn't voluntarily identify as "black", based not on nature or nurture, but solely on tincture. Now, he is denigrated by some, not only for the combination of DNA he possesses, but additionally because he didn't inherit and was never taught the predispositions of the slave mentality. If I were a Gulliver washed ashore and into the midst of this controversy, I would be hard pressed to know whether I should pity his disadvantages or marvel how he overcame them.

The experiment of America, as an aristocracy of merit, challenges us all. To take the idea of citizenship seriously is to approach the best understanding of individuality and the rights of man. I think that requires of us a great deal. There is only so far the offices of government should go in recognizing us as we necessarily think ourselves to be.

Many years ago, I held the somewhat common notion that the Declaration of Independence might have listed complaints against the deprivations of racial offense and become the basis of an anti-racist Constitution. The fact that it didn't suggested to me some original flaw in the founding of the nation, which a proper evolution of thought would correct. But I did all that for the purposes of the anti-racist promise, without much regard for the substance of the original complaint.

It was my hard fought intention to refrain from commenting on the death of Michael Jackson. I am convinced more words, however perfectly chosen, cannot bring any of us closer to the world he and his family inhabited. I'm sure there are among that grieving group today the fleeting desire to trade all the fame and fortune for the simple comforts of family happiness and longevity, for mediocre backyard barbeques and typical squabbles over lent money, and the pleasant frustration of grandchildren too independent for their level of maturity. They probably wish the unknowing world didn't seek profit from dissecting their grief, and think already redeemed tickets grant access to their most intimate and painful moments.

In my last post entitled, "Five Thousand Years and Holding", I made the uncomfortable (to some) speculation that the theistic beliefs held dear by many billions might become, if the carcasses littering the transit way of history are informative, another transitory philosophical vehicle doomed to quaint obsolescence by the desideratum of future ages. In a roundabout way I was asking if anything that is 'believed' by man can necessarily be outside of the ability of man to have 'conceived'. Since there is no verifiable philosophical equivalent to technology's Error Correction Codes, and the receivers of divine revelation are known to possess flaws and imperfections common among the rest of mankind, it may be acceptable to query if an unadulterated revelation could have emerged through the human filter, or if so-called revelation is actually sourced in divinity rather than being a product of human creativity fully within the potentiality of the human mind as evidenced by the colossal creative and intellectual annals sourced directly to inventive mankind. Is this line of inquiry simply a provocative thought exercise more appropriate for a forum other than "The Conservative Brotherhood"? Normally I would think so, but everywhere I look, at blogs and battlefields, I see the intertwining of religion and politics, and I find that Lucretius' outlook that religion is immoral because its superstitions concerning divine motives and meddling make men servile and miserable, isn't invalidated by evidence. I offer as a case in point a blog in the American Spectator by Peter Ferrara titled, "Obama's Iran Blunder".

Four decades ago, National Geographic magazine Vol. 135 No. 5 May 1969 contained an article that so impressed me I saved the issue and have it on hand as I write today. It was about the deconstruction and relocation of the ancient monuments at Abu Simbel threatened by rising Nile river waters behind the newly constructed Aswan Dam in Egypt. Originally erected 13 centuries before Christ as temples to the sun god Re-Harakhti and Pharaoh Ramesses II, the consequence to Egyptian and world culture was deemed so significant, the governments of Egypt and the United States principally, with assistance from UNESCO, funded the project to dismantle the gigantic structures and reassemble them on higher ground safe from the rising water. The article is less about history than the exposition of a challenging engineering feat; but even back then I thought there was a greater implication than the mechanical marvel undertaken. Although it is the hubris of our culture to discount religious beliefs not deriving their authority from the Pentateuch, it must be accepted that the site was as holy to the adherents of the contemporaneous religion, who built it, as any sites cherished by the active religions of today. A millennium of religious belief preceded and empowered its construction, even though the subsequent evolution of mankind's thoughts have since diminished it as skillful and elaborate monuments to foolishness. Its iconoclastic fate makes me wonder if our religious beliefs today have reached their final, eternal, and unalterable destination, or will our holy constructions become philosophical relics in a museum of the future? This line of thought was reawakened in me after participating in exchanges arising from a blog titled, "Obama's Inner Muslim" on a site called "The Black Sphere". The blog was the author's (Kevin Jackson) reaction to the President's speech in Cairo.

I will be acutely interested to hear the result of the Supreme Court review of the New Haven decision, Judge Sotomayor's explanation of her Appellate affirmation of the District Court's decision, and the reaction of those who oppose her nomination. As much as I shudder at the necessity to equate "un-learned" with "can't learn" or "can't do" as a legally binding mantle tailored specifically for minorities, represented in this case by black fire fighters, I think as a matter of law I might be required to do so by the theory of Disparate Impact. It seems that employment or promotion processes that do not render a statistically acceptable percentage of minority representation, regardless the recognized fairness or race-neutrality of the testing mechanisms "must" be adjudicated to be invalid unless the employer can make a convincing argument that the qualifying standards set by the tests are an absolute "business necessity". Absent that criterion, the standards can be considered arbitrary and a possibly capricious attempt to target areas unrelated to the performance of employment duties, but hoped and intended to be beyond the practical abilities of those targeted for exclusion. An example frequently given is an inappropriate weight lifting requirement as a standard likely to disqualify more women than men. No foolish loyalty to or identification with any ideology can exculpate our history or American culture from the documented ignominious use of inventive intellect to circumvent the intent of laws and policies designed to combat execrable discrimination and confiscation of indefeasible rights of adulthood and citizenship. It is amusingly ironic that Judge Sotomayor and her joining colleagues are being disparaged by critics on the right, not for judicial activism or personal liberal bias, but for holding firm to the letter and intent of the law, together with a lineage of precedents flowing from Disparate Impact's inception in 1971. This is not to say the policy can't and shouldn't be reviewed as a garment fit for wear in contemporary society, just that the somewhat forced attempt to paint the decision as an indication of improper judicial temperament can be questioned using the standard logic and rhetoric of the right.

I am expecting an interesting few months forthcoming. The reaction and consequence of the California marriage decision should be compelling theater. I am generally pleased with the California decision because I would have had more difficulty reconciling the court overturning the sovereign will of the people than dealing with the hurt feelings the denial of the semantic privilege to the word marriage has caused. It is inevitable the existing contractual arrangement, civil union, which I understand in California is presently virtually indistinguishable from marriage, will be transformed and subsumed under the traditional, thence universal label, but I suggest the delay in the application of the desired terminology, is less harmful than inappropriate judicial activism and expropriation of the people's will by the fraternal order of the California Bar. I can understand the frustration of those fully endowed to contract in every other manner of civil and economic commerce being made to await a special legal liturgy to address a circumstance not pertinent to any of the established elements necessary to contract, but when contrasted to the threat of judicial despotism, a deferral of a social privilege must remain secondary. I fully expect, in short order, a satisfactory legal universality of "marriage" will be approved and accepted by the people of California, which unreservedly and commonly enfranchises everyone legally competent and desirous to contract in this way, but still feel the court made the proper decision, in this instance, by not overturning a constitutional amendment properly and electorally generated by the sovereign majority. Had they done so, future generations would be slaves to rather than sovereign descendents of their predecessors, unable to propose and ratify changes to their political existence necessitated or desired due to the exigencies or particularities of their circumstances. They would be ruled by judicial fiat and autocratic courts un-deferential to the will of the people, and any mode of legal expression of their will would no longer be interpreted by courts, but legislated by them. If it was not unconstitutional to contest the issue electorally, the votes of the people must take primacy over a panel of judges. Democracy, as practiced in California, must either be changed or honored.