Don't Just Do Something...Stand There!

That's the advice my father once gave me about responding to an emergency or crisis.  Sometimes, when you don't have all the facts, it's better to watch and wait then to take precipitous action.  Two of my favorite historical figures, living almost two thousand years apart, exemplify this appeal to reason and patience.

The first is Rabbi Gamaliel ben Simeon the Elder.  He lived in Roman-occupied Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.  He was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.  He is revered in Jewish tradition as one of the greatest rabbis in history, a grandson of Hillel the Elder.  One of his students was Saul of Tarsus, later to become Paul the Apostle.

Acts 5 records what happened when Peter and his fellow apostles were brought before the Sanhedrin for judgment, with some members calling for their execution:

But one member, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, who was an expert in religious law and respected by all the people, stood up and ordered that the men be sent outside the council chamber for a while. Then he said to his colleagues, “Men of Israel, take care what you are planning to do to these men! Some time ago there was that fellow Theudas, who pretended to be someone great. About 400 others joined him, but he was killed, and all his followers went their various ways. The whole movement came to nothing. After him, at the time of the census, there was Judas of Galilee. He got people to follow him, but he was killed, too, and all his followers were scattered.

“So my advice is, leave these men alone. Let them go. If they are planning and doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown. But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God!”

The others accepted his advice.

Gamaliel's level head and even temperament are worthy of emulation.  If only he were alive today, maybe with his own talk show.

 How would Calvin Coolidge have put it?  "If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you."  Coolidge modeled the same steadiness exhibited by Gamaliel.  He was also a man without pretensions who understood and respected, even venerated, the limitations placed on his office, and the federal government as a whole, by the U.S. Constitution.  He was probably the last president to take the oath of office without perjuring himself.

History remembers him as "Silent Cal."  He once explained his reticence saying, "The words of a President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately,"  Most politicians, presidents included, love to hear themselves talk.  Coolidge was not one of them.

Coolidge took his responsibilities as president seriously and was loath to draw attention to himself.  He campaigned the same way.  During the 1924 contest his campaign speeches addressed policy and the role of government.  He never even mentioned his opponents by name.

I fear the days of sober, non-pretentious leadership in our government are long past.  I hope I'm wrong.  It's happened before.

The Sins of the Politician

http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/17/huffpost-white-churches-have-to-repent-the-sin-of-racism-because-trump-won/?utm_campaign=thedcmainpage&utm_source=Facebook&utm_term=ma&utm_medium=Social

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Donald Trump is racist.  All I'll say is I've seen evidence both for and against the proposition.  Are those who voted for him, and Christians in particular, then also guilty of racism and needing repentance?

Every political candidate for any office is a flawed human being and a sinner.  In this last election the two major political parties presented us with two very flawed candidates.  If the sins of the candidate are to be visited on the voter, the only way not to sin is not to vote.  Do Hillary's voters have to repent for the sin of promoting abortion, defaming her husband's victims or lying too many times to count?

Too Many Dare Call It Treason

How would Jerry Seinfeld put it?  "What's the deal with treason?!"  Why is that the go-to charge to throw against political opponents.

It seems to be a favorite of Chris Matthews.  During the Obama administration he would frequently inflate Republican or conservative (they're not synonyms) actions to the level of treason.  But this particular vice is not limited to the left.  Today I came across this meme on Facebook:



Someone is distraught at Michael Flynn's downfall and looking for someone to blame.  In their search they have abandoned logic, reason and basic Constitutional principles.

Set aside the dubious assertion that the two most senior intelligence officials in the country would be reviewing intercepts of foreign intelligence targets alone, with no technicians and analysts to assist them.  The propagator of this meme goes right to the T word.

The temptation to dispose of one's political opponents with a treason charge has an ancient pedigree.  In England it was typically used to remove those who had fallen out of favor with the monarch.  The definition of treason could be rather flexible and the penalty was invariably severe.  Thomas Cromwell went to the block in 1540 essentially because he had engineered Henry VIII's unsuccessful, and short, marriage to Anne of Cleves.

The history of mischief occasioned by the overuse of the treason charge convinced the Constitutional Convention to circumscribe its application.  Treason gets not only its definition from the Constitution, but its rules of evidence as well.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.  No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

 James Madison, writing in Federalist 43, argued that the federal government's power to punish treason must be limited due the "new-fangled and artificial treasons ... the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other..."

Of course, just bringing the word treason into a political argument does no actual harm.  So why do I bother complaining?  Four reasons:

1.  It's immature; a cheap insult that makes the speaker feel virtuous and, occasionally, tough.

2.  It betrays an ignorance of the Constitution and the historical wrongs the framers were attempting to prevent in this country.

3. It's disproportionate.  When you apply the term treason to political opposition, what do you have left to describe people like John Walker Lindh or Anwar al-Awlaki?

4.  It's obsequious.  It elevates the president, a mere civil servant, to the status of a monarch.

So drop the treason talk.  It's very unbecoming.

Filibuster

Tom McClintock, a member of Congress from California, has offered the Senate some advice on changing its rules in a speech to Hillsdale College reprinted in the latest edition of Imprimis.  In short, McClintock proposes that the Senate rescind a change to the filibuster rule instituted in 1970.

The filibuster was instituted with a noble goal, to allow an issue to be fully debated before it is closed and put to a vote.  But it's become obvious that it has had the exact opposite effect.  41 senators can block any bill because 60 are required to invoke cloture and move to a vote.

Before 1970, every matter brought up for debate had to be resolved before moving on to the next.  This forced a filibustering minority to hold the floor and keep talking if they wanted to block a bill.  But in 1970 the Senate adopted a rule permitting a question to be put aside while the others were brought to a vote.  This rule allowed for no-cost filibusters and the numbers of them exploded in the years following the rule change.

McClintock recommends rescinding the two-track rule, re-imposing or enforcing existing limits on the number of speeches each senator may make and introducing a new concept previously not part of Senate procedure - germaneness.

It seems like a good idea to me, if the Senate can get past the fact that it comes from the other side of the Capitol.