UPDATED: NOV 14, 2007

“THE REAL MEANING OF THE “FAITH-BASED PRESIDENCY, PART 2”
A RE-RUN

Introductory note: Picking up where we left off last week, this column originally ran as my “TPJ No. 40,” on December 23, 2004. It is presented here as part of my occasional series of “Bush re-runs,” in the run-up to the 2008 election. In that election, of course, I feel that a key to a Democratic victory is to place George Bush and his Presidency front and center as to what exactly is wrong with our great nation, what it is absolutely essential to fix, and that only a Democratic president, with a Democratic Congress, can accomplish that task. In this column, just after the Second Presidency Stealing by Rove, et al, I continued the consideration of the so-called “faith-based Presidency.” Since this column was originally written, the role and function of this totally unconstitutional Presidential concept has, if anything, become even more threatening to the struggle to preserve U.S. Constitutional Democracy in the face of the continued Georgite assault upon it. And so, with the Georgites, the more things change the more they stay exactly the same, if not more so. Thus let us turn to that column of 2004 (with some judicious editing done on it here and there).

As I noted last week, in The New York Times Magazine of October 17, 2004, Ron Suskind presented the most comprehensive picture yet of George W. Bush’s concept of the “faith-based Presidency” and how it operates. As I noted then, George Bush apparently really believes that he is on a mission from God, that his decision-making is based on God’s wishes, and that he is carrying out God’s vision. A major and well-known feature of this approach to governing is that Bush acts with absolute certainty. He makes decisions that he just knows are right, because God is in his mind and Bush knows that God is right. There is no evidence that any of this thinking pattern in the Bush brain, apparent IQ 92 or no, has changed since 2004.

The re-run of Part 1 of this two-part series, which appeared last week, discussed some of the implications for past Georgite policy of this approach to governance. The critical issue now facing our country in the wake of Bush’s garnering of a second term (whether by a true electoral win or by cheating) is: what are the implications of the Bush “faith-based” theory of governance for American constitutional government and its future?

she is “carrying out God’s will.”

Most important here in terms of the nation’s policies and actions, whether or not there is a God, or at least whether or not there is one who gets involved at a detailed level in human affairs, the ruler who claims this authority is really making decisions and giving orders based solely on what he/she thinks is right and what he/she wants to do, based solely on his/her own authority. Whether or not the thoughts are actually coming from a God, whatever he/she/it might be, the “God tells me” thinking process is what is going on in the ruler’s own mind. Because that person is convinced that their perceived thoughts are produced by God or at least reflects God’s will, there is no reference either to evidence or (heaven help him) rational analysis, or to any binding human laws, such as the U.S. Constitution.

In reality such a ruler, in this case Bush, may or may not be doing what, given that there is a God, is objectively “God’s will” (and Bush really seems to think he is). But that matter is irrelevant. In practice, the rules of governance have become Bush’s Rules (in this case proudly made without recourse to evidence, analysis, and the process of reasoning, as one source told Mr. Suskind). So as far as Bush is concerned the rules “come from God,” and in the well-known Scalia-Thomas way of thinking “Natural Law,” that is “God’s Law,” stands above the Constitution. Thus in Bush’s mind, since he is “doing God’s will” the Constitution no longer needs to be adhered to.

On such matters as: individual rights (The Patriot Act), abiding by international treaties that just happen to be part of the Constitution (the endorsement of the use of torture on prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions), the declaration of war (Bush’s “war on terror,” self-, and not Congressionally, declared), or Congressionally-passed legislation he doesn’t like but doesn’t want, for once reason or another, to veto (dealt with through the entirely unconstitutional “Signing Statement” process), Bush has just ignored both the process and the content required by the Constitution and the traditional US Constitutional form of government and governing.

In Bush’s mind he is “carrying out God’s purpose” and whether that is objectively true or not, he has substituted his say-so for that of the Constitution. (Of course, he has ignored the possibility that “God’s Will” is following the requirement of the Constitution, just as Evolution may be God’s way of creating species and species development, and God may, in terms of “natural rights,” regard homosexuals as the equals of heterosexuals in every way, but that is a matter for another day.) Bush has substituted the Rule of Man, his own, for the Rule of Law, the Constitution. When Bush says, “God’s will be done,” whether he recognizes it or not, in reality what he is saying: “MY will be done.” This is an entirely new element in the American system of governance. This theory of governance stands at the entrance to the road to dictatorship and fascism.

(The latter is a word I do not throw around loosely. Here is my short definition of it. ““Fascism is a politico-economic system in which there is: total executive branch control of both the legislative and administrative powers of government; no independent judiciary; no Constitution that embodies the Rule of Law standing above the people who run the government; no inherent personal rights or liberties; a single national ideology that first demonizes and then criminalizes all political, religious, and ideological opposition to it; and total corporate determination of economic, fiscal, and regulatory policy.” [If you want to see my longer definitions, please refer to my “The Political Junkies” columns of May 27, 2004 “On Fascism -- And The Georgites,” Jan 27, 2005 “Comparing George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler”, and February 10, 2005, “The Georgite Version of ‘Freedom and Democracy’.”])

This is what a “faith-based” Presidency really means. At the time this column was originally written we had got a “faith-based” leadership in the House of Representatives as well, for Tom DeLay had publicly said that he also was “doing God’s work.” This is what at its core the Republican Religious Right is all about: the substitution of the Rule of Man for the Rule of Law. This is the battle that must be joined, and joined soon, if our beloved country is not to sink into the abyss into which this kind of thinking has lead every country ever governed by it in the course of history. Once again, let me say that in my view this must become the number one issue for the 2008 election, ahead even of Iraq or, God help us, Iran.

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