Would you trust me with your wallet?

It's been written, by historical cognoscenti, that Martin Luther was the father of modern political liberalism. In challenging the authority of the Papacy and helping to spawn the Protestant Reformation, his life was part of the long trend away from subjugation to kings and dogma and towards a belief in the individual's primacy which may be the underpinning of democracy. Sort of an "we're all equal before God; we don't need any popes or priests as intermediaries; we are equal to each other." (Almost syllogistic. I'll have to brush up on my Aristotle.) And this fight seems to form a dialectic: submission versus freedom. It's for someone much smarter than I to discover if this is a war which can be won or is an inescapable part of (our) nature.

One difficulty with having an individual be master of his own religious faith and practice it that he may reject religion itself. In the US we are all well-versed in the problems this causes. So we end up with situations where some religious folks, personally and through historical influence hostile to "Romanism" find themselves allied with Catholics over many issues, and many of these "Protestants" are more authoritarian than the Pope himself! But if you don't want to kneel before the "Vicar of Christ" why would you submit yourself to the power of "christian" coalitions or televangelists? Twenty years ago the Rev. Mr. Jimmy Swaggart called himself the greatest preacher of love in the world. I never did catch relevant comments of any young lady of his acquaintance, though he's currently on Spike TV. (Never been a goody two-shoes, but if God really loves sinners I've got a lot of catching up to do!)

So, are we lucky or doomed to have a "born-again" President who believes he's on a "mission from God?" I'm glad the man's found his place in this world, but not certain I want to attend his church. Whether by design (for the paranoid among us) or happenstance, we're daily assaulted by threats to our very lives and if we don't toe the line (meaning "do what I say") we'll die regretting it. Someone, somewhere, might do something bad to us? Snoop on everybody to identify them. Then what? Jail or torture or kill them? How do the feds go from fighting terrorism to spying on WTO protesters? If we do not face Washington three times a day and Hail, Caesar, are we giving aid and comfort to the enemy? Like the Pope speaking ex cathedra, is a somewhat democratically sort of elected (the Supreme Court as our College of Cardinals?) official the arbiter of political acceptability?

Life's tough. It's complex. And our leaders and overseers -the corporations- are only too ready to tell us just how complicated things are, how beyond our understanding or control. So we are "inundated by piffle" (to borrow a very felicitous phrase from the renowned Russell Baker).

Someone leaks that the President may have broken the law? Find that person and prosecute. Amphetamines destroying our youth? Ban the sale of over-the-counter cold remedies which contain "precursor" chemicals. Cancer from second-hand smoke? Ban smoking in public places. (I must comment that I've read we are 6 times more likely to get cancer from eating seafood than from second-hand smoke, and if smoke-free restaurants are "good" for business why didn't restaurants ban smoking decades ago?) Worried about anything? Outlaw it; destroy it. Tolerance getting you down? Become intolerant. Even better trust the authoritarian intolerance of our leaders.

And at the same time that our liberties are being restricted and our livelihoods outsourced (cui bono?) we're fed the daily prattle about being the freest people in the world. I'm not convinced; are you? Yesterday was fourth amendment. How about the ninth?

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.