Christian Democrats in the United States
Domestic Issues - Equal RightsWe support equal protection under law for all people in America. The individual right to human dignity cannot be surrendered by groups. While we leave the definition of the word "marriage" up to the states, we recognize civil unions and the right to a civil life for all people. We applaud the military for its progress on racial integration in America and support affirmative action to enable Americans of every culture and color to advance themselves and society.
As our substantive due process is the only thing that separates the U.S. from tyrannical states, we insist on due process for all suspects accused by the U.S. of any crime. We are opposed to secret renditions, secret courts and torture of any kind, even of enemy combatants. We believe in our community values, and our leaders should allow those values to do their work in the world.
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Saturday, November 24, 2007
9:55 PM
I do, however, feel that the psychological sickness at the root of racism is a lot deeper than other people being different. It is deeper, even, than the human need to form smaller social groups with relationships that can be more easily understood and harmonized. The need to control others springs from an inability to control one's self, from an awareness that thoughts are not thought alone, that out there in the shadows of one's mind is either an Otherness, or a Nothingness that disintegrates one's self as well. This frightens us more than any violence or physical terror in the world outside.
Some people invent entitlements to power over others because they are afraid of the shadows in their own heads, the empty parts of their own identities beckoning to be filled. This fear is so great they construct whole industries, cultural dependencies, self-fulfilling economic pressures, and schools of thought to justify their insanity with a great mechanical edifice that they can claim is rational. It attempts to occupy this empty place within ourselves, feeding us artificial reasons to explain why we think and act, gradually eroding our notion of independent free will until we all view ourselves as exchangeable and disposable components. Wheels turn within this giant machine, and it gathers so much inertia that it is easy to feel that its demands for blood to oil its gears must be answered, or else "all of society will fall apart," and we will fall back into the unknown, where we have no guidance, where God has left us to figure out things on our own.
The cross provides one view to understand this, or the spectral lynching tree that this country has not faced. It is the same thing. The cross, from the Roman view, was only another tool, a cultural tool to make human power seem to occupy that fearful place of the unknown within our minds. From the Christian view, it is a symbol of everything wrong with us, of our basic human confusion, our delusion that our human "power" means anything when compared with the broader scope of the universe, and at the same time, a symbol of the unknown powers of the universe that we cannot fathom or conceive, and of the infinitude of possibility.
The Romans, the Klan, whoever they are now, or whatever groups or colors of people who play into the machine around the world, they intend to strike fear in their victims, to "shock and awe" them into submission to their human power. But their motivations are obvious now, because the word has taken root, whether we deny it or not. It is obvious that they are the ones with the greater fear, the fear of the shadow in their mind, the fear that in submitting to their machines of thought, they have sold out the last bit of humanity they had, and they descend into a viscous spiral of terrorism. The victims of the cross, the tree, the gun, the bomb, they may have been afraid, but they can never be made to feel the fear that the aggressors exhibit so plainly.
That is why the aggressors lose. The real fear, that place within our own minds where we are in danger of becoming lost, that place can never be fully occupied by human power, because there is always something else there, occupying that space. What is it? Only when we understand and overcome that fear will we be free of the terrifying outer manifestations of our futile attempts to shackle our own spirits.
racism in america
Somewhere else here I said something like "get over race, race is just a pretext for slavery." While this is true, the statement sounds trite and I think a lot of people, African American, European American and of subsequent waves of immigration from all over the world cannot just "get over race," it is obviously not that simple. Nothing can change the astonishing and ironic history of America, and we have to talk about it to get over it, we cannot just wave our hands and declare ourselves whole again.I do, however, feel that the psychological sickness at the root of racism is a lot deeper than other people being different. It is deeper, even, than the human need to form smaller social groups with relationships that can be more easily understood and harmonized. The need to control others springs from an inability to control one's self, from an awareness that thoughts are not thought alone, that out there in the shadows of one's mind is either an Otherness, or a Nothingness that disintegrates one's self as well. This frightens us more than any violence or physical terror in the world outside.
Some people invent entitlements to power over others because they are afraid of the shadows in their own heads, the empty parts of their own identities beckoning to be filled. This fear is so great they construct whole industries, cultural dependencies, self-fulfilling economic pressures, and schools of thought to justify their insanity with a great mechanical edifice that they can claim is rational. It attempts to occupy this empty place within ourselves, feeding us artificial reasons to explain why we think and act, gradually eroding our notion of independent free will until we all view ourselves as exchangeable and disposable components. Wheels turn within this giant machine, and it gathers so much inertia that it is easy to feel that its demands for blood to oil its gears must be answered, or else "all of society will fall apart," and we will fall back into the unknown, where we have no guidance, where God has left us to figure out things on our own.
The cross provides one view to understand this, or the spectral lynching tree that this country has not faced. It is the same thing. The cross, from the Roman view, was only another tool, a cultural tool to make human power seem to occupy that fearful place of the unknown within our minds. From the Christian view, it is a symbol of everything wrong with us, of our basic human confusion, our delusion that our human "power" means anything when compared with the broader scope of the universe, and at the same time, a symbol of the unknown powers of the universe that we cannot fathom or conceive, and of the infinitude of possibility.
The Romans, the Klan, whoever they are now, or whatever groups or colors of people who play into the machine around the world, they intend to strike fear in their victims, to "shock and awe" them into submission to their human power. But their motivations are obvious now, because the word has taken root, whether we deny it or not. It is obvious that they are the ones with the greater fear, the fear of the shadow in their mind, the fear that in submitting to their machines of thought, they have sold out the last bit of humanity they had, and they descend into a viscous spiral of terrorism. The victims of the cross, the tree, the gun, the bomb, they may have been afraid, but they can never be made to feel the fear that the aggressors exhibit so plainly.
That is why the aggressors lose. The real fear, that place within our own minds where we are in danger of becoming lost, that place can never be fully occupied by human power, because there is always something else there, occupying that space. What is it? Only when we understand and overcome that fear will we be free of the terrifying outer manifestations of our futile attempts to shackle our own spirits.
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