there are absolutes in this world, Mr. Klein

So, Ezra Klein was on MSNBC this morning to comment on the new GOP House Majority’s desire to open the 112^th Congress with a reading of the Constitution.  His comments boiled down to the action being irrelevant because the document “was written more than 100 years ago.” 

He also put these words in print on his Washington Post blog: “…the Constitution is not a clear document. Written 100 years ago, when America had 13 states and very different problems, it rarely speaks directly to the questions we ask it.”

I guess the fact-checker at the WashPost was late getting in this morning because Klein’s entry was later edited to read: “My friends on the right don't like to hear this, but the Constitution is not a clear document. Written more than 200 years ago, when America had 13 states and very different problems, it rarely speaks directly to the questions we ask it.”

But let’s not get picky over semantics, at least not the kind of semantics that make a 26 year old know it all (whose most complete biography can be found on Wikipedia- "100 year old" comment included) look like someone more fit to co-star in the next Michael Cera movie than the actual, informed “policy wonk” he makes the claim to be.  After all, true wonks stand behind their opinions no matter how wacky they may be.  That’s how you go from being a guest star to getting a starring role on MSNBC, right? 

Poor Mr. Klein, he’ll have to wait a while longer, then, for his ship to sail.  By 5 pm he was already retracting his words: “Yes, the Constitution is binding. No, it’s not clear which interpretation of the Constitution the Supreme Court will declare binding at any given moment. And no, reading the document on the floor of the House will not make the country more like you want it to be…”

Mr. Klein should know full well the complete lack of value any public reading has when the words being read aloud fall on deaf ears; he was raised Jewish.  Presumably, whether only on high holidays or on a weekly basis, Mr. Klein attended services and heard the words of the Torah read aloud.  If the Constitution is invalid because it’s “over 100 years old” then the 3,313 year-old Torah must really be out of date, rendering Mr. Klein’s Jewishness about as valid as his Americanness.

Perhaps that is why he was so eager to defend Hitler:

Hitler probably had the Jews of Germany to thank for the boost in effectiveness felt by his social reforms; it was probably easier to get jobs once Jews were denied theirs, and I’m sure apartments were easier to come by once Jews were kicked out of theirs, and well, as far as doctors go, I hear that Mengele was a regular miracle worker.  As far as Volkswagen goes, well, who wouldn’t want to operate a car of the people—the Aryan German people, that is—and when it comes to vegetarianism well, my dead Aunt’s German parents fed off chicken bones because Germany's breadbasket was just so bountiful. 

“Not everything the Nazis touched was bad. Hitler was a vegetarian. Volkswagen is a perfectly good car company. Universal health care is a perfectly good idea. Indeed, the Nazis actually did a pretty good job increasing economic growth and improving standards of living…pushing Germany out of a depression and back into expansion.”

And speaking of bones, Klein throws us one at the end of his heil Hitler:  “Unfortunately, they also set out to conquer Europe and exterminate the Jews. People shouldn’t do that.”

Not only does he mention the Holocaust in passing, he insults his readers (and himself) by actually being sure to remind you that genocide is wrong.

A good conservative would snub their nose at his gross hypocrisy.  A Jew, especially one who happens to be good friends with a Holocaust survivor, would call Ezra Klein an ignorant ass.

A good conservative would combat his comments regarding the Constitution by explaining that without the Constitution Klein would have no America to argue about.  A good Jew would remind Klein that if a document that is 223 years old is irrelevant and up for debate, the 3,313 year-old Torah that made him a Jew must be something best left for the history books.

And a good Jewish American would tell Mr. Klein that if the Constitution is up for debate, and the Torah doesn’t matter, why should his own words even count?  Perhaps those, too, are up for interpretation.

In which case, it’s too bad the Washington Post blows all of its money on morons.

The horrifying thing about Ezra Klein’s comments is that they are

reflective of an entire generation’s thinking: Founding documents do not matter; everything is whatever you want it to be.  No wonder Klein can defend Hitler.  And if Klein—a Jewish American who is a mere 2 generations removed from those who fought in World War II and were murdered in concentration camps—can defend Hitler, and if the thought process that got him there is commonplace in his entire generation, what does that say for the future of America?

Religion, State & the Threat of Dictatorship

How can a State determine a citizen's relationship with God?

The American government was established on the idea that no government can define or interfere in a citizen’s relationship with the Divine.  For Israel, it is an entirely different matter; not only does the State interfere, the State defines this relationship for the individual as both a religious and a national concept. 

For Americans, religion is an act of choice that does not affect their status as citizens of the United States.  For Israelis, religion defines their status as citizens of the State.  In fact, for some Israeli politicians, religion is not only a matter of citizenship; it is a matter of national security.

Americans could never understand this concept because they have never had to live with it.  In fact, their government was created to avoid it.

But how do you avoid the religion-state relationship when you are Jewish?

Why did the colonialists seek to ensure that the government of America would “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”?  Did they do this to escape the corrupt church-state governments of Europe where priests and monarchs played the role of God?  Did they do this in order to be able to express their faith in a public forum without fear of persecution?  These are both true reasons and, perhaps, there is another to be found in the wording of the Declaration of Independence itself: the recognition that God, not the Protestant god, nor the Catholic god, nor the Jewish god, nor any other god, but God was the Creator who endowed every individual with inalienable rights.

I don’t see God being given much consideration in Israeli politics today.  Zionism, yes.  Religion, yes.  God?  No.  Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu Party advocates a national pledge to a Jewish State for purposes of Zionism.  Shas and UTJ oppose the ratification of a Conversion Bill because it goes against the established Rabbinical authorities.  The majority of Israelis sit between a rock and a hard place, between left and right, between nations that wait for their demise and politicians who are digging the grave.  Meanwhile, the people of God know nothing of God because they are too busy being told what does and doesn’t make them a Jew—that is, acceptable in God’s presence—by a group of rather corrupt individuals with high personal stakes and extremely limited objectivity.

It is strange for an American Jew to try and comprehend the idea that the food you put in your mouth, where you set your foot on Shabbat, or who your father did or didn’t fall in love with could impact your status as a citizen of the land you’re supposed to be able to call home.  It is even harder to understand how any religious leadership could declare a person who is willing to study for their nation to be a better person than the one who is willing to risk their life for their nation.  It is hard for American Jews to understand these things because ours is a Jewishness of choice.  If we want to wear peyas and sheitels, we do; if we want to drive on Shabbat, we do; if we want to marry gentiles and still raise our kids Jewish, we do.  America has afforded us the opportunity no other nation ever has; to make the choice as to whether or not we want to live Jewish lives on our own terms.

I am of the opinion that Israel must be a Jewish state simply because that is the destiny of Israel.  What “Jewish” means and how “Jewish” is expressed, despite the wishes of certain political parties cannot be legislated through mandated pledges, a minyan’s agreement, or a forced dictatorship.  God Himself knows you cannot change a person’s heart.  You can, however, “instruct them in the way they should go so that when they grow old, they will not sway from it.”  You can encourage them with joy instead of force and love instead of judgment.  You can instill pride of nation and of self so that the decisions they make as citizens will be in the best interests of the nation.

There are solutions to the fears that Zionists like Avigdor Lieberman face regarding the future of the Jewish State.  Perhaps if he spent less time agitating the Arabs and more time praising his people, and perhaps if the religious parties like Shas and UTJ spent less time politicizing religion and more time promoting faith, they might find them. 

Can a Jew be a Marxist?

Part 1: How European Intellectuals & German Theologians Planted the Seeds of Communism

Author's Note: This article is also being published at OurLastStand.com as the first in a "History 101" Series, a column that will be devoted to exploring the historical and ideological roots of the crisis we now face as a nation.

"The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in general, of religious man, is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, from Christianity, from religion in general." - Karl Marx, On The Jewish Question 1844

To understand today's progressive you have to understand yesterday's socialist. And, by "yesterday" I'm talking roughly 200 years ago when the seeds of socialism were first planted in the hotbed of post-Enlightenment Europe.

History is a lot like gravity; for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction to the abuses of monarchy, aristocracy, and the State-Church complex of the late 1700s was revolution on both sides of the Atlantic. Both the American and the French Revolutions were fed by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, a period in history that directly preceeded this turning point in Western life. The Enlightenment was a period driven by intellectual investigation based on reason as the ultimate means of obtaining objective truth and establishing authoritative systems of government and religion. It could be argued that the Enlightenment was a sort of culmination to Europe's great religious upheaval that started with Martin Luther and expressed itself in radical religious wars. It was as if the growing educated class took a look around and decided that the world could be a better place if only people stopped to think before walking into battle over age-old superstitions and feuds.

In America, the Enlightenment thinkers would inspire Revolutionaries who believed that the ultimate authority over earth was God, and that God empowered individuals with inalienable rights, including the right to worship Him as he or she saw fit, without government interference. However, as David Aiken explains in his doctoral thesis, The Role of Atheism in the Marxist Tradition, European thinkers most strongly influenced by the Enlightenment would go on to declare that it was man who had the ultimate authority over man and, ultimately, God didn't even exist.

As the following outline of Aiken's research details, these European political and theological philosophers made their mark on Marx and subsequent socialist/progressive thinkers:

Political Origins

1793 - In his tome Political Justice, William Godwin argued that:

• rational choice, not Godly salvation, perfected man
• This would leave those who are deemed "rational thinkers" to "save" everyone else, for example, through extensive legislation regarding health care, diet, and exercise.
• man had no moral responsibility,
  
  • For instance, to give water to hospital patients in dire thirst
• man's actions were determined by his environment out of "necessity", that is, what took place before he arrived,
  
  • This totally negates the concept of free will and the ability to choose your own direction in life.
• government should be abolished and replaced with autonomous economic and political units

Godwin was also a strong advocate against property ownership and marriage. His work would influence the Romantic poets Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, as well as the political thinker Robert Owen.

1796 - Gracchus Babeuf constructs a plan to overthrow the French government via a "secretly organized insurrection of the Paris mob". This failed attempt would be known as The Conspiracy of Equals. Their social and economic goals included:

• abolition of right to inheritance
• Inspiring ideas like the Estate Tax
• elimination of distinctions between rich and poor
• equality between men and women
• The kind akin to the "equality" proposed in the defeated Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), perhaps?
• obligation of all people to work
• Regardless of their ability to do so? And what would happen if they could not produce more than they consumed?

These goals were printed in the Manifesto of Equals written by atheist journalist Sylvain Marechal, who was the "first socialist writer to label religion as a drug." Interestingly it was not Marx, but Babeuf, the organizer of the failed coup d'etat, who was the first revolutionary to use the phrase,"From each according to his ability to each according to his need."

1813 - Robert Owen, heavily influenced by the writings of William Godwin, publishes A New View of Society. Owen believed that:

• Man is made by his environment
• and has no free choice in the matter
• Man cannot be changed by punishment
  
  • rendering any kind of justice system useless
• Man can be changed by building a society based on "social justice"
• bad institutions cause misery and evil, which could be eliminated through rational education delivered in conditions of freedom and equality
• and no doubt micro-managed by the Army of New Teachers aka "rational thinkers"

Robert Owen came to believe that "all opposition to his social proposals stemmed from...religious attitudes." Owen's writings became a part of England's "Infidel Movement" that railed against the institutional powers of the Anglican church. The "Owenite Society", later known as the "Rational Society" was established in 1841 and sent atheist lecturers to organized meetings around England; one meeting in Manchester was attended by Marx's co-philosopher Engels. Influenced by the writings of Owen, Marx would write in his 1844 manuscripts, "Communism begins with atheism, but atheism is initially far from communism."

Theological Origins

While the suggestion that Christian belief was "erroneous", "irrelevant to the great issues of the day", and even a "fossilized cultural identity" sprang out of the Goethe-influenced German Romantic tradition of the early 1800s, the German Higher Criticism Theologians were the intellectuals behind the dismantling of faith in scripture. Aiken explains the 4 stages of the breakdown as follows:

1. "Destructive criticism applied to the reliability of the Bible as a source of Christian authority"
   
   • In other words, the Bible can't be trusted
2. "an assault upon the possiblity of any source of law and authority above the observed natural law, in short, on the supernatural"
   
   • You can't see, touch, or taste God, so He doesn't exist
3. "the relegation of the Diety to a human invention serving a utilitarian philosophical and psychological purpose"
   
   • People invented "God" in order to make themselves feel better
4. "the search for a way to eliminate this last barrier to the replacement of God's sovereignty...with man's."
   
   • Man not only replaces God, Man IS God

By the time of the Enlightenment, the Church had already been seen as a failure by Luther and the Reformation. The only supreme authority left was The Bible itself. The German Higher Critics separated "Historical" Truth versus "Religious" Truth, in other words, Reason versus Faith. To the Higher Critics, personal belief was "highly arbitrary" and "incapable of objective definition."

• Bahrdt and Venturini were the first to employ a "Rationalist Historiography" approach to the study of the Bible - eliminating anything from the Gospel accounts that could not be verified by reason.
• Schleiermacher would go on to define religion as "the consciousness of being absolutely dependent" and sin as "anything that curtailed this sense of dependence."
• Kant would declare that "man was to find moral self-perfection by his own unaided efforts," that man was to "accept no dogmas or creeds from previous generations as sacrosanct," and instead was to "exercise freely the capacity of understanding as a means for participation in human progress."
• Fitche would mysteriously declare that, quite apart from Christianity, "a spiritual and moral imperative [was] manifesting itself as a dynamic in the affairs of mankind."
• Strauss, in his 1836 work The Life of Jesus would declare the Gospels to be a "myth".

All of these critics had their impact on the reknown German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. It has been noted that, "without Hegel, Marxism would be unthinkable." To Hegel, the Church ignored reason and, therefore, ultimately despised man. Taking the civilized world backward about 18 centuries, Hegel sympathized with the pantheism of ancient Greece and Rome, calling it "a religion for free people". Subsequently, he hated Jews in particular, writing that, "men thus corrupt...were bound to create the doctrine of corruption of human nature and adopt it gladly." Hegel also "deeply resented the Christian notion that all human beings must submit to God." He preferred, instead, a "theology of a religion in which the self is...God," promoting the idea of "learning to know God as a our true and essential self."

Not only did Hegel despise God, he despised the people who brought God's Word to the world and represented it on a daily basis--Jews and Christians--because these people were a living witness to the truth of God's Word and, therefore, a hindrance to Hegel's own plan for a "Religion of Humanity".

Hegel influenced Marx through Marx's cohorts, "Young Hegelians" Bruno Bauer and Moses Hess:

It was Bauer who introduced Marx to Hegel at The Doctors' Club at Berlin University in 1837. According to famed critic Albert Schweitzer, Bruno Bauer had a "pathological hatred" of Christianity. He also went so far as to claim demonic possession in an 1841 letter to a colleague.

Moses Hess was the one to draw Marx's attention to the connection between atheism and communism. Hess was the first to equate Capitalism's economic alienation of the worker with Christianity's religious alienation of the worker. To Hess, Capitalism and Christianity were so intertwined that the destruction of one was inseparable from the destruction of the other. Hess's direct influence on Marx's work can be seen in Marx's On the Jewish Question in which he denounces the Rights of Man "...including freedom, as concepts which kept man isolated from his fellow man."

And yet, it is perhaps Ludwig Feuerbach who had the most direct influence on Marx. Feuerbach's goal was "...to rid the human race of all religious illusions and turn its attention completely away from God and back to men." For Feuerbach, "God" is nothing more than the archetype for the "Ideal Man", but because of religious misconception of "God", man is held back from having the freedom and autonomy to be the God he could truly be. "To enrich [this idea of] God, man must become poor, that [Man-]God may be all, man must become nothing." Does this sound like the beginnings of collective salvation?

Finally, Feuerbach wrote that the purpose of his work was to "...change man...from lovers of God into lovers of humanity, from candidates for the after-life into students of the here and now, from religious and political valets of the divine and worldly monarchy and aristocracy into free, self-confident citizens of the earth."

So, what is the impact of the growing atheist belief of the 1800s on today's progressive mindset? The answer is clear: These atheistic thinkers helped to shape a worldview in complete opposition to that which the Bible outlines:

• Sin becomes Freedom
• Biblical teaching becomes Imprisonment
• God does not exist
• Man is God
• God does not save
• Man is the source of salvation

Is it any wonder, then, that today's progressives seek to undermine a Constitution that was written to acknowledge the existence of God, the benevolence of God, the need for God, and the freedom God gives to all mankind? These men possessed an avowed outspoken hatred of Judaism and Christianity. Should it be any surprise, then, that their intellectual descendents, today's "progressives," make it a point to decry, condemn, and even legislate away every speck of evidence of the Judeo-Christian heritage of America?

Ironically, Marx's friend and fellow converted Jew, Heinreich Heine, was not too blinded by the atheistic milieu he was in to foresee the problematic, even fatal results of Germany's theological and intellectual denial of the God of the Bible when he wrote the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany in 1834:

"The natural philosopher will be terrible, for he has allied himself to the primal forces of nature. He can conjure up the demonic powers of ancient German pantheism...and if ever that restraining talisman, the Cross, is shattered, there shall arise once more...that mindless madman's rage of which the Nordic poets sang so much... I warn you, Frenchmen, keep then quiet still, and for God's sake do not applaud!!"

The thought process began with the idea that the lessons of the Bible were "irrelevant to the great issues of the day." How many Americans live a Twice-A-Year religion, no faith required? How many of us believe and are teaching our children to believe that the Bible is a dusty old book that sits on a shelf?

If we do not learn from history we are doomed to repeat it. What began with a loss of faith in God and scripture ended in Holocaust for Europe.

How will it end in America?

Only we have the free will to find out.