Men of Freedom
February 12, 2021 13 Comments
A man I respect, and not only for his angry Lesbian squirrels destroying the world with Abba songs, The Adaptive Curmudgeon has some thoughts. They end up with the words of Marcus Aurelius:
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
That’s good thinking for the times we live in as it was for him. AC says this:
Today, the people who “won” are acting like losers. They remain locked on a goal they chose over four years ago. Can they do nothing more? Impeachment before swearing in, impeachment during office, impeachment after. Is it sane to impeach an election’s loser when the man who earned more votes than any other candidate in history is comfortably in power? Quick, look up. What color is the sky?
We are told we have steady, rational, logical, strong, caring “leaders”. They don’t act like that. They cower like scared children; wrapping faces with fabric and circling buildings with chain link fence. Those of us who breathe free and speak our minds are “subversives”. They speak of hunting us down. Do they fear we’ll look at the sky and declare it the wrong color?
Do winners destroy any with whom they disagree? Is that rational “leadership”? Even kings and popes have detractors… Stalin and Mao had only corpses.
Yep, that’s spot on. So is this
There is madness everywhere. It is the true contagion of our times.
Madness is a fact of the time in which we live. None of us escape unharmed. Yet gloom is not mandatory. There is hope. Even as witch burners stack fuel and media soaked bots dream of guillotines, there is hope. There is always hope.
Time does not go in reverse. There is only forward. In a time of madness, as each day follows day; each stampede follows another panic. Hang on and hope. Aspire to still be standing when the pendulum swings back.
And that is why I keep telling you to “Keep the faith and Hold the line”. This too shall pass.
But I promised you men of freedom (besides AC and myself). Here are two.
God’s Honor; Archbishop St Thomas Becket
Becket was a middle-class Londoner, eager to advance while keeping his moral integrity. Becket’s meteoric rise brought him to prominence as Chancellor to the King of England. But it would be as Archbishop of Canterbury where his institutional responsibilities forced his divided heart to resolve stark, moral choices.
Becket’s rise occurred when a new understanding of a truly good, well-ordered society took shape. This “Gregorian Revolution”—named for the Pope who wrote it into the Catholic Church’s laws—saw the good society as preserving space for individual freedom and religious duties, which were considered intertwined and safeguarded by the church’s freedom from governmental influence. As Archbishop, Becket was forced to contend with Henry II’s claims of royal control over all church functions. Gregorian principles converted Becket’s heart and thereby transformed the church’s freedom. Becket grasped that sustaining his church’s institutional freedom was predicated on becoming personally free from self-interested ambition, honoring God first. Becket’s conversion cost him his life.
As Archbishop, Becket was forced to answer a perennial question: Whose will can be legitimate law? God’s or man’s? Becket answered that question in a manner that American constitutionalism would later reflect. Both considered man’s will, and thus potential tyrants, to be subordinated by objective, moral order—what Becket called “God’s honor.” If we 21st century Americans still agree, then this requires what it required in Becket’s day: moral formation. Ensuring that formation depends, in turn, upon preserving the autonomy of religious institutions to provide it.
Freedom for God’s Honor
Becket’s martyrdom followed decades-long attempts by his longtime benefactor, Henry II, to impose what Henry called the “ancestral customs” of royal control over all church functions. Their dispute is part of what legal historian Harold Berman called “[t]he first of the great revolutions in Western history,” whereby a separate sphere of authority for religious institutions was guaranteed from state control. This marked shift is essential to truly understand Becket’s views and their enduring influence.
This is from a fairly long article by William J. Haun in Law and Liberty. In it, and I urge you to read it, because no excerpt does it justice, you will see the foundations of the freedom Americans enjoy and the roots of the separation of Church and State. And yes, those roots are in Pope Gregory VII’s Catholic Church (his papacy lasted from 1073-1085)
Secretary for America
[…] As Secretary of State, Shultz understood that the word of the United States meant something. He initially resisted pulling U.S. troops out of Lebanon after the Hezbollah terrorist bombing that killed 241 Americans—including 220 Marines—in Beirut. “If we are driven out of Lebanon,” he said, “the message will be sent that relying on the Soviet Union pays off and that relying on the United States is fatal.” But he also recognized that Reagan had already established that his word was reliable. In 1981, Reagan fired 11,000 air-traffic controllers who were striking in violation of their contract. The pressure on Reagan during this key moment early in his presidency was intense, but Reagan did not back down. Shultz called it Reagan’s most important foreign policy decision—the Soviets were watching, and the move gave Moscow a measure of the new president.
The State Department was also the source of the most legendary George Shultz story. Shultz would call all newly minted advisers up to his office before sending them off on their new postings. He would walk the ambassadors over to the globe he had in his office, and tell them, “I’m going to spin the globe and I want you to put your hand on your country.” After each ambassador earnestly pointed to the country to which he or she was headed, Shultz would correct them, explaining that their country was the United States of America.
As so often, not a particularly short article, but one with meaning we need to learn and apply, and so you should read it all. It’s by Tevi Troy writing in City Journal. He ends this way, and it says all that is necessary.
Freedom was a priority for Shultz. He pressed hard for the release of Soviet “refuseniks,” Jews who wanted to leave the repression of the Soviet Union for the freedom of life in Israel. He called the moment when refusenik Ida Nudel called him and said, “This is Ida Nudel. I’m in Jerusalem,” one of the most moving he had had as Secretary of State. But Shultz’s long tenure serving the nation gave him many such moments to choose from. He was not just a former cabinet secretary. He was a Secretary for America.