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Part
III of "Bombing His Way Into the Jaws of Armageddon":
Democracy "Obscures" the Divine Authority Behind Government, Says Antonin
Scalia
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
For the Introduction to this BuzzFlash Editorial Series on Bush's Hijacking of God, see http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/11.html.
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Part III: Democracy "Obscures" the Divine Authority Behind Government, Says Antonin Scalia
December, 2000: It was the critical moment for American democracy in the first year of a new millennium. The Florida State Supreme Court had ruled that the accurate counting of votes was vital to determining whether Al Gore or George W. Bush was the winner in Florida. The Federal Appeals Court for the Southwest (Eleventh Circuit) had ruled that the State Supreme Court was acting within its states' rights powers in doing so.
The Bush campaign appealed its request for a stay to stop the recount to the U.S. Supreme Court. Legal scholars and pundits predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court, especially in light of the obsessive emphasis placed on states' rights by its right wing faction, would side with the appeals court and allow the recount to continue.
But the scholars and pundits were wrong. They didn't realize that Antonin Scalia and God were on the side of George W. Bush.
On Saturday, December 9, Antonin Scalia wrote the following statement in support of stopping the Florida recount: "the counting of the votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to [Bush], and to the country, by casting a cloud upon which he claims to be the legitimacy of his election. Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires."
It was a brazen and Orwellian declaration. What pro-democracy American could claim that something was wrong with counting votes "first"? What pro-democracy American could declare one candidate the winner and protect him from "irreparable harm" if a vote count showed him not to be the winner, after all? Of course, it doesn't make a whit of sense, unless you realize what Scalia didn't reveal in his transparently partisan remarks.
Scalia believed that the issue of whether or not Bush won the election was almost irrelevant. Scalia, like Bush and his right wing cartel, believes that the American government is divinely inspired and that democracy should take a back seat to God.
And when God picked a winner, through Scalia and his four Supreme Court cronies, God chose a "believer," someone who claims to have been "saved" by Jesus. Al Gore was prima facie one of the "fallen," in Scalia's world view. After all, he was a secular Democrat. Even if Gore were, as he is, an observant Christian, he is fallen because, well, Democrats are all fallen.
Scalia
revealed his true hand when he spoke on the subject
of capital punishment at the University of Chicago (in
February of 2002). Scalia, during his remarks, stated: "The
reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy
to obscure the divine authority behind government should
not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat
it as effectively as possible." ("God’s Justice
and Ours" at
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0205/articles/scalia.html)
A BuzzFlash reader saw this quotation awhile back and wrote the following letter to us (as excerpted):
Scalia is calling the religious to arms over the fact that our democracy tends to obscure the Divine Authority that is already there. According to Scalia, God (the Christian God, of course -- let's make that perfectly clear) sent his son (in the form of a doofus) to lead us all to the Promised Land. Perhaps this helps shed some light on why Scalia and the four other right-wing scabs that call themselves justices could so easily subvert our election process and, through an act of divine intervention usher the son onto the throne lost some eight years earlier by his father, the first Bush king.
It angers me to no end to think that a Supreme Court jester -- who may indeed be the front runner to succeed Rehnquist -- is so steeped in his own religious dogma that he has totally lost sight of the fact that our government is of, by, and for the people. We are not merely some lowly serfs bent over in the slop as our High Exalted Lord and Master walks on our backs to avoid stepping in a puddle as he makes his way from his bullet-proof limo to some thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraiser.
Scalia speaks of civil disobedience with contempt and quotes some character from the Bible that, "Ye must needs be subject." We must, as mere servants of the ruling class, acquiesce to our divinely guided leaders. For who are we, as mere subjects, to question those who make (or interpret) the laws? After all, he says that "government carries the sword as 'the minister of God,' to 'execute wrath' upon the evildoer."
Ah, the evildoer strikes again! Sounds familiar doesn't it? In fact, there's a straight connection between Bush believing that he was divinely placed in the White House and Scalia believing that God's guidance and spirit determines the destiny of our nation. Bush was indeed placed in the White House by a man who felt it was his "divine duty" to put a "saved" man there to protect this Godly nation from the heathen Democrats.
An October, 2002, article in "The Nation" discusses Scalia's view of the theological underpinnings of the U.S. government:
Religion is quite central to Scalia's understanding of governmental legitimacy. "My" system, he says, is that of Justice John Marshall, ostensibly referring to so-called natural (or divinely inspired) law -- much of which fell out of fashion before Marshall himself left the bench. (It was Marshall, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who, in an 1823 case, famously opined that the discovery principle gave title in the Americas to "Christian people," specifically the King of England, "notwithstanding the occupancy of the natives, who were heathens.")
Those
persons Scalia deems "not saved" --
the nonbelievers as he calls them -- are equivalent to
the Native American "heathens" mentioned by
Justice Marshall.
Scalia's notion of American law is not grounded in precedent
and a respect for the jurisprudence that springs from
a democracy. Scalia claims he is a strict constructionist.
The Constitution to him is like the Bible to a fundamentalist.
As a document grounded in God, it must be read "literally." (This
is an effort doomed to failure, of course, because two
people can have a different "literal" reading
of any document. Furthermore, Scalia and the right wing
benchers regularly discard their so-called strict constructionism
when they have a partisan point to make. Just look at
election 2000 as a case in point.)
Scalia disdainfully dismisses, for instance, any opposition to capital punishment, because the lord, he believes, sanctioned it in the Constitution:
Scalia cites St. Paul to assert that "the Lord repaid--did justice--through His minister, the state," a conception he maintains was "the consensus of Western thought until quite recent times."
Rather, it is that Scalia seems driven by a wondrously reactionary religious crusade. Take for example, his argument that "the more Christian a country is, the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe and has least support in the churchgoing United States. I attribute that to the fact that for the believing Christian, death is no big deal."
Given that George W. Bush gleefully executed well in excess of a hundred people while he was governor of Texas, you can begin to appreciate that Scalia, in December of 2000, firmly believed that Bush had been tested by Jesus and had proven his "Christian" bonafides. Scalia, like Bush, is obsessed by exercising the power to kill people. As Scalia indicates, to him this is the mark of a true Christian nation.
In his remarks at the University of Chicago, Scalia passionately opines:
Few doubted the morality of the death penalty in the age that believed in the divine right of kings. Or even in earlier times. St. Paul had this to say (I am quoting, as you might expect, the King James version):
"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good."
But the core of his message is that government—however you want to limit that concept—derives its moral authority from God. It is the "minister of God" with powers to "revenge," to "execute wrath," including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty)
And so we have come full circle from December 2000 to March 2003. Scalia, who, in his own mind, implemented God's will by leading the coup that appointed George W. Bush president, believes that a president's "moral authority" comes directly from God.
Scalia must proudly beam when he hears Bush's macabre threats, such as this one, as told to Bob Woodward: "[W]e will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great country and rid the world of evil."
After all, George W. rules as a result of divine intervention, assisted by one Antonin Scalia. And, Lord knows, God just gets a special thrill out of killing people through his anointed one, the king of America. Isn't that right, Antonin?
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Also see these BuzzFlash editorial and commentary archives:
For Introduction to this series see Part I: "Shock and Awe"
Part
I: "Shock and Awe"
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/11.html
Part
II: The Divine Right of Kings and The Madness of King George
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/12.html
Can
Bush Play Chess?
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/2001/09/24_Bush_Chess.html
Is the Pope Aiding and Abetting Terrorism?
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/02/21.html
Profiles in Prophecy: Which Armageddon Angle is Right for You?
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/03/07_armageddon.html
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BuzzFlash Note: Scalia and Bush share another common theological outlook on government. Like Bush, Scalia not only believes our Constitution is a Christian document, he also believes that he knows God's intentions better than religious leaders. In this case, Scalia, who is Catholic, states that the Pope is not interpreting God's intentions correctly when the Pope states his opposition to capital punishment. Similarly, Bush knows God better than the leaders of most religious denominations in the United States and the Pope.
Yes, we truly do have a divine government, with arrogant, dangerous men at the helm, who are-self-appointed, unassailable interpreters of God's intentions.
