Unity, Decorum, and Money
One of these is needed more in politics, and less of the other two.
This week, after that train wreck of a presidential debate as well as some frustrating interactions with the electorate on social media, my husband had a bee under his bonnet and needed to get some stuff off his chest. So, helpful wife that I am, I suggested he write this guest post for me. It coincided so nicely with the upcoming holiday, it’s like it was meant to be! The reason I’m recording this piece instead of him is because he’s got a cold and his speaking voice isn’t quite up to snuff. I hope you enjoy…
Unity, Decorum, and Money
This isn’t going to go how you think it will go. In fact, it’s going to seem downright heretical. Maybe even crazy.
But I believe, based on my firsthand experience as a former activist-legislator, that unity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Decorum isn’t always virtuous. And money is not destroying America.
Unity
“United we stand. Divided we fall.”
It sounds nice, but it is neither true nor possible.
Consider that when there is a job to do, it isn’t actually helpful if everyone drops what they’re doing and starts doing that job. We know this, and say things like “too many cooks in the kitchen” or “too many chiefs, not enough indians.”
There are a lot of different kinds of jobs to be done. If we all united and did one thing, a lot of other necessary things would not get done.
That’s the real value in diversity—not in victimhood status, but in the variety of skills, interests, and values.
I believe that everyone has something to contribute, but only they will decide whether to contribute it. Sadly, many won’t. Sadly, many can’t see past their own human self-interest to be bothered about anything bigger than their tiny corner of the globe.
That’s okay. It’s a free country. Let them be.
You don’t need EVERYBODY, you only need A FEW.
Sometimes after an election, people see low turnout and wring their hands, as if the people that didn’t vote would surely have voted for the same people they did. I’m glad when people who don’t know what’s going on don’t bother to vote! I’d much rather have low turnout than low-information voters.
The solution here is most assuredly NOT holding a voter registration drive, to get even more people who don’t know and don’t care to go vote for who knows who.
Freedom means that any law-abiding citizen of age can vote. But freedom also means that they don’t need to vote. Only they can decide if they need to vote. If they decide they don’t need to vote, who are you to say otherwise?
It’s a free country. Let them be.
Meanwhile, there are some of us who try as we might, can’t not try to make things better around us. Thank God for people like this in America. They are the only ones left holding things together. The day there are no more of them will be the day Atlas shrugs, America topples, and freedom is finished.
As we celebrate Independence Day, remember that the war against King George was fought by just 3% of the population. As these people sacrificed everything—their property, their families, their lives, their reputations—they did so while 97% of their neighbors either looked on with apathy, or worse, ratted them out to King George.
And yet, they pressed on, for you and me. As they wrote in the Preamble of the Constitution: “for ourselves, and our posterity.”
While we hope for better days, when more of our neighbors and families are aligned in knowledge, in belief, and in ethic, it is not this way today.
The only time in recorded history where national and global unity existed was in Genesis 11, when all people of the earth united to build a tower and ascend to the realm of God. We’ve all been on a different sheet of music ever since—and that’s a good thing.
But for the redemptive and transforming work of Jesus Christ, through his Holy Spirit and Holy Word (Romans 12), man should never experience unity, lest he do evil with it. Only after the King of Kings returns will all the peoples and families of the earth, the ones who remain who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, unite (Revelation 21).
Unity is only possible around common beliefs, common values, common goals, and yes, common enemies.
Those who will unite, should unite. Those who won’t, should not be invited to the party.
Decorum
It baffles me how many, particularly in older generations, seem to hold decorum up as a virtue unto itself.
Never speak out of turn. Never call someone a bad name. Never break the rules.
I want to know what kind of genteel planet these people think they are living on, and if they think one should be quiet, polite, and decorous in the face of the evil that is literally everywhere.
When I served in the South Carolina House of Representatives, there was a day when the House voted to stop mothers from having their unborn babies killed. Not all of them, not even most of them, just some of them.
The Republican, pro-life, Speaker of the House watched aloof while his Republican, pro-life, colleagues voted to carve away in reserve whole classes of unborn babies that could still be legally killed (those conceived in rape, or incest).
He couldn’t be bothered in the slightest when his Republican, pro-life, Majority Leader and colleagues voted to block amendments by another Republican, pro-life legislator (me) from having a chance at a debate and a vote—amendments that would have ended the murder of all unborn babies.
It was only when I deliberately littered the floor of his House chamber, tossing those very amendments into the air, and storming out in a deliberate but silent act of protest did he fly into an absolute rage.
Come to think of it, if anyone broke decorum, it wasn’t me. It was him.
Seriously though—how is being polite, orderly, and compliant in the face of evil not evil itself?
Rescue those who are being taken away to death,
And those who are staggering to the slaughter, Oh hold them back!
If you say, “See, we did not know this,”
Does He who weighs the hearts not consider it?
And does He who watches over your soul not know it?
And will He not repay a person according to his work?
Proverbs 24:11-12
God’s men throughout the Bible engaged in very purposeful name-calling. Amos called the women in the royal court “Cows of Bashan… led away with meat hooks” (they literally were, in fact). John the Baptist tore into the religious politicians who came for baptism with these words, “You brood of vipers! Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Jesus himself referred to the same religious politicians, calling them “Whitewashed tombs, full of dead men’s bones” and other such nasty names.
Frequently, indecorous words and actions are regarded as a threat to unity. But all they really do is rip away the façade of fake unity where there really was none to begin with.
Politics is necessarily confrontational. It’s not nice. It requires disagreement. It’s a conflict.
Just this week, I hurt someone’s feelings by telling them that disagreement was not bullying, and “if you can’t take someone disagreeing with you, politics isn’t for you.” I won’t apologize because it’s the truth.
Arguing and fighting are quintessentially American and it’s been that way from the beginning. If you can’t handle arguing and fighting in politics, I recommend gardening!
Money
“We’ve got to get money out of politics.”
People say this when they hear of political campaigns and interested, wealthy persons (often corporate interests) dumping obscene amounts of money into political advertisements.
But politics doesn’t operate according to public intuition.
Money is “speech.” And speech costs money.
“Free speech” cannot be exercised without the freedom to raise and spend money.
Taking away the money won’t stop politicians from telling lies. It will only stop you from calling out their lies, because their platform is already bigger than yours, and you won’t be able to get and spend the money to counter them.
“Taking money out of politics” usually means draconian campaign finance restrictions, or banning voluntary campaign donations altogether and funding all campaigns with tax dollars.
If anyone ever successfully takes money out of politics, they will simultaneously drop an iron curtain across America. The powerful will stay powerful, and you won’t be able to say or do anything about it.
We regard those who go from rags-to-riches as quintessentially American. America is the land where you can work, make a living, accumulate property, and generally enjoy the fruits of your labors. It’s “The American Dream.”
Taking money out of politics does to the first amendment what taking the guns away does to the second amendment.
One de-fangs the American people. The other, de-claws them.
My dear Americans, you cannot be free without bullets, and you cannot be free without advertisements. Money pays for both.
If you aren’t willing to pick up the phone and ask someone for money for your cause, you don’t really believe in your cause!
The only thing wrong with money in politics is that our side hasn’t got enough of it!
Can we stop with the stupid slogan now?
More money, less unity, less decorum
That’s what’s needed in politics.
Remember, it was not unity and decorum that started America. There was nothing decorus about dumping tea in the Boston Harbor. And without money, Washington and his soldiers would have starved (they nearly did, as it was). Getting money out of politics then would have been an act of treason against liberty, and would have kept the colonies as vassals and slaves to a tyrannical King.
I’ll leave you with my favorite Patrick Henry speech—not the famous “give me liberty or give me death,” but a different one two months later which was so indecorous that they almost strung him up by the neck for it:
"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First, his Cromwell, and George the Third—“
"Treason!" came the cry, and answering shouts of "Treason, treason!" echoed from every part of the chamber.
Without faltering, Henry concluded loftily:
“—may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."
Happy Fourth of July, you rebels!
Engraving by Alfred Jones, 1852, published by the Library of Virginia.
Hope you all enjoyed that. And I hope you have a wonderful 4th of July holiday this week. Careful with the explosives and the beer. Specifically, the explosives and beer together. That’s all for now. Until next time, folks…
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