|
|
|
V.J. Chalupa On Post-Modern Politics
|
|
|
CHAPTER 28 SOME CONCLUSIONS
When
the theoretical principles of politics are applied to the actual political
situation in the United States some practical conclusions follow. Rekindling the spiritual development in the United States
requires both the opening of room for differentiation (variability and
competition) and firming up integration. This does not mean a return to the
past; the changes effected by the Movement make it impossible and attempts at it
are futile; but the past represents a solid and correct foundation on which it
is possible to build and which it is desirable to develop. The State Differentiation The
general rule of promoting spiritual growth through adjustments in the structure
of the state is to strengthen and widen
democracy. Democracy
consists in an arrangement in which subjects of duty bound by a norm are also,
to the largest extent, the normgivers. This principle is based on the
recognition that the so-called ordinary people know best what is good -- that
when they reason on the basis of the diversity of their lives' experience using
their common sense and with assistance of tradition and religion, and when they
have sufficient knowledge on the issues to be decided, they arrive in their
majority conclusions at more correct decisions than specialists and
experts who judge things from their limited viewpoint. Therefore, the principle
of subsidiarity is a strong contribution to democracy: it brings normgiving to
those who are closest to the issue to be decided, are familiar with it and know
best the consequences of their decision, especially in matters of morals and
education. "Ordinary people" are also those who are more willing to
subordinate their individual interest to the common good than any other sector
of the population. Therefore the strengthening of local self-government and its
insulation from interference by federal institutions, especially the
arbitrariness of the federal judiciary, represents the strengthening of
democracy. In
the same direction aims the transfer to the states of jurisdictions accumulated
by the federal government and not covered by the original contract between the
states, and especially the exemption of state matters from the jurisdiction of
federal courts. It is necessary for the protection of the remaining sovereignty
of states that federal judiciary be inhibited from overturning legislative acts
and especially results of referendums as unconstitutional by an inventive
interpretation of the Constitution. The failure of the assumption by the federal
government of jurisdiction over matters reserved by the states is clearly
demonstrated on the example of abortion: as long as abortion was a matter under
the jurisdiction of states, it did not represent a serious political problem;
once it was "federalized" by the Supreme Court, it divided the nation
like nothing since slavery. The
other branches of the federal government, i.e., the legislature and the
executive, have also the duty and right to protect the Constitution and
therefore the obligation and duty to counteract arbitrary judicial decisions
which are, by common sense and logical reasoning, against or outside the plain
wording of the Constitution; best constitutional lawyers defend against
"activist" judges the integrity of "original intent" of the
Constitution and their expert opinion would support corrective measures by
Congress and the President. The
principle of subsidiarity is applicable also to the raising of taxes,
principally to federal taxation when its proceeds are used for purposes other
than those entrusted to the Federation by the Constitution. Introduction of
subsidiarity would mean that the main institution taxing individuals would be
the states; increase of their jurisdiction demands inevitably additional
revenues whose collection can be accomplished only if outweighted by lowering of
federal taxes. The administration of tax proceeds by the federal government is
notoriously wasteful and all attempts to curb the wastefulness have been in
vain; due to its size, complexity and ramification, federal bureaucracy is
unmanageable; states' administrations are under closer control and therefore
more efficient. If Congress finds that the taxing system managed by states is
incapable of redressing significant social disparities between states, it would
be much more efficient and democratic to impose on states equalization
contributions into a common fund from which they would be redistributed to the
needy states from the wealthy states. Individual states would be free to defray
or to spend this assessment in any way they would find best. Federal grants with
strings attached restrict the jurisdiction of lower administrative units
including states, and should not be included in the federal budget. This would
also decrease radically the need and opportunity for corruption at the federal
level. All agencies dealing with matters not reserved by the Constitution to the
federal government should legally be abolished. Only such a reform will bring
bureaucracy under control. Such
a radical democratization of the legal structure would significantly reduce the
elites' near monopoly on intellectual leadership executed through the system of
public schools. Integration The
American legal system was built as a system of rights and was balanced by
Christianity which is a system of duties -- no man has rights against God. Since
the balancing power of Christianity has been legally eliminated by the so-called
wall of separation between Church and state, certain integrating elements have
to be included into the legal system to restore the balance. The
Constitution lists certain inalienable rights attaching to each human being as
self-evident because stemming from nature and its Creator and not dependent on
the individuals' will; from the same source flow self-evident obligations
attaching to each human being independently of individuals' will or consent.
These obligations are ("self-evident") duties towards self, duties
towards others, obligations towards the community, obligations toward the
nation, towards humanity, and nature. -
Towards self, man has the
obligation to procure means necessary to develop his potentialities into
actualities which includes protection of his life and his health. A body is a
cooperative of millions of cells; each of them gains safer and longer life. As
man's mind and will coordinate them, he is bound to direct them towards this
end. -
Corporally closest to each are one's
relatives, i.e., parents and grand-parents, siblings, children and their
children, and the person with whom one forms "one flesh" in the
transfer of life, and this person's relatives. From this bond flows the duty to
care and provide for this group -- the family
-- on the basis of solidarity, and also to extend the solidarity to their
families if need be. -
In a wider sense, and on an increasingly cultural basis, one has
obligations towards one's nation, an
entity based on common ancestry and common culture, especially language, to
protect its independence, work for its well-being and to increase its numbers
and its spiritual and material wealth. -
Towards humanity as the carrier
of life's evolution man has the duty to ensure and multiply its life, expand its
horizons, contribute towards maintaining peace and establishing an international
law based on principles of individual rights, freedoms and obligations as well
as the principle of national independence and state sovereignty, and to resist
and suppress attempts at subverting or endangering these values. -
Towards the environment, man
has the duty to avoid actions or omissions which endanger or destroy life,
natural resources and species for reasons and in ways not indispensable for the
life of humanity. Man has also the duty to change the environment in ways which moderate its natural destructiveness and
increase its harmony and beauty. -
Towards others, man has the
natural duty to exercise his rights in a manner which does not violate their
rights and which respects their dignity and sensibilities. -
Towards the state in which he
lives, man has the duty to observe its laws (he should have the right to leave
it as long as he does not intend to obey). The same applies to other organizations or associations to which he belongs. Certain
formulations of natural duties are contained in the pledge of allegiance:
Americans pledge allegiance to the Republic, to its nation, submission to God,
to liberty and justice for all. The incorporation of such natural obligations
appropriately formulated into individual states' legal systems, even if
overruled by the federal judiciary and retained only as non-binding declaration
of the will of a state's citizenry, can serve as interpretative guidelines for
the state's courts and for political decisions in order to redress the supremacy
of integrating elements over disintegration. Another
integrating factor inherent to democracy is the principle that the majority
creates the will of the state in so far as it does not subvert the right of the
minority to become a majority and the inalienable rights and civil liberties
protected by international treaties and agreements, and in the United States
also by its constitution. The majority principle loses its integrative power if
the majority must respect in all its decisions the peculiarities, sensitivities
and special interests of minorities beyond the equal status before the law. The
principle of equality of groups regardless of their numerical strength is not
compatible with democracy because it involves the creation of a permanently
privileged number of people; beyond a certain point, legally enforced
preferences for individuals based on their minority character exceeds individual
equality and approaches equality of groups. This might be acceptable and agreed
upon by the majority under exceptional circumstances as a temporary remedy. As a
permanent arrangement or a permanent "temporary" arrangement it is
contrary to democratic principles and has disintegrating consequences.
Government against the will of the majority can be maintained only by open or
disguised liquidation of democracy. Nation The
Pledge of Allegiance (now under attack) describes the population of the United
States as "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all." Enthusiastically recited by multitudes at all public gatherings, it
expressed the overarching national consensus. This consensus is now vanishing. The
unity of this purportedly indivisible American nation was not anchored in common
national or racial origin, but in the religious identity ("under God")
and adherence to its constitution and especially its Bill of Rights ("with
liberty and justice for all") of its citizens. This attitude -- patriotism as a form of nationalism -- is
incompatible with the individualism of the elitist ideology; their movement
therefore pioneers multiculturalism, introduction of alternative official
languages and racially adjusted history which separate a people into groups of
individuals rather than uniting them into a nation. Experience shows that
usually states with a population divided by a multitude of cultures, languages
and histories do not last and, often bloodily, break up into nation states. In
the United States, the slide on this slippery slope has already started. The
elitist ideology is by its very nature unable to form a nation, and is unable to
do so especially in the United States whose majority is religious and will not
accept killing as means of public policy, even if disguised as compassion
(abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide), and without killing the proven
practices of animal husbandry cannot be applied. The population of the United
States can be re-formed into a nation if presented with a mission in line with
its main characteristics: generosity, true compassion, freedom and a pioneering
spirit. This means assuming leadership in activating the resources of the planet
and the potential of the human race for ensuring its growth and for pushing
humanity's "frontiers" past the limits of this planet -- into space.
Only the United States has, in this historical period, the means and opportunity
to do so, provided it undertakes this as its objectives in the same spirit in
which it secured the dominance of democracy worldwide. Economy Disappearance
of the middle class resulting in the forming of an hourglass type society is
detrimental to democracy; democracy was strongest in America, when the majority
of its population owned means of production and could, with their help, provide
for itself. The forces of the free market and progress of technology reversed
this relationship: at present, only a minority owns means of production and the
majority is dependent on wages, salaries and welfare payments. This
majority of the population has been entangled into a web of material dependency
on the federal government: through reliance on unemployment compensation,
welfare payments, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, agricultural
subsidies, scholarships, payments to one-parent families, disaster assistance.
This dependency influences the votes of the recipients, pits each group of
beneficiaries against others and makes a needed reform unlikely. To return to
this majority its economic, and therefore political, independence, two reforms
suggest themselves: -
Transfer and entrust the creation and management of the safety nets to
individual families by encouraging or coercing them to establish and hold funds
for future expected expenses: on education, for illness, for retirement, and/or
insurance coverages for unexpected outlays: unemployment, disaster, accident.
This would relieve the government from collecting and dispensing the funds for
all these purposes, necessary subsidies be the responsibility of states and
self-government. -
Rather then transfer income, transfer ownership of means of production.
This approach has been partly tried by various states (Mexico, Chile) and is
successful. Its substance is: corporations pay taxes in the form of their
stocks; taxpayers obtain vouchers, conceivably in amounts in reverse order of
income. The vouchers enable them to bid for shares of companies from the above
mentioned created fund; successful bidders pay the price and this payment flows
in the coffers of the government instead of individuals' taxes. The purchasers
of these shares have all the rights of regular shareholders except one: they can
not (until certain age) sell them; they can only exchange them for shares of
other companies from the same fund. In time, each taxpayer would accumulate
enough shares to obtain from their dividends the necessary support payments
which are now obtained from the government. Every citizen would thus share in
the wealth of the entire nation -- also in profits obtained by multinational
corporations in other countries. He would also bear his share in economic
difficulties; such share would necessarily be less than the share now borne by
non-owners of means of production: they are the ones who are affected first and
foremost and bear the brunt of any economic slump. Foreign Policy and International
Relations The
United States as the most powerful nation is by its position forced to engender
a certain world order which would embody its leading ideas. The obvious
instrument of the establishment of such an order is the United Nations
Organization even if it is very poorly qualified to take up such a role. To be
able to play it, it needs to undergo a number of changes. The
United Nations Organization was created for the purpose of maintaining peace;
this original purpose has become a side issue; the organization sprouted a
number of agencies in various fields having nothing to do with its original
objective. They deal with culture, health, children, housing, women rights,
environment, and while they interfere in internal matters of states they are
practically out of anyone's control. Led by members or imitators of the Western
elitist movement, they are endeavoring to impose on the world a uniform, i.e.,
western elitist culture. No matter what official aims the sundry agencies have,
their agenda always boils down to one objective: to prevent more people to be
born. The abolishment of all these accretions would render the operations of UNO
much less expensive and would disrupt the efforts of its bureaucracy to create a
world government without an agreement of the member states and their peoples and
beyond their control. As
the source of a world legal order, equipped therefore also with an enforcement
force, UNO's agenda and activities would need to be strictly limited and its
day-to-day operations put under consistent control. This means the policy of the
U.S. as the leading member would apply to UNO the same principle as mentioned
under the subsection on the state: democratization. This application could take
on various forms, but it has to address the following points: (1) the principle
of "one state, one vote" is not democratic because states are not
equal; to make the UNO credible, the number of representatives or of votes of
each state should also reflect the number of its citizens as well as other
criteria -- economic power, education, stability; (2) the institution of the
Security Council has become obsolete, the composition of its permanent members
does not reflect power relationships which were the deciding criterion at the
time when UNO was founded; a procedure for their rotation or recall is overdue;
(3) the organization needs a small permanent elective body supervising the
functioning of UNO's bureaucracy. By
restricting its objectives to matters more closely related to its original peace
keeping mission, UNO could become efficient and meaningful. In addition to its
present interventions in areas of conflict, such objectives are: (a) to organize
and perform worldwide interdiction of drug trade; drug traffickers profit from
the fact that their business
reaches across state boundaries and is prosecuted under different legal systems;
(b) to keep track of production of arms of mass destruction and report findings
to the Security Council or other supervisory body; (c) to take over the
administration ("mandate") of countries incapable of governing
themselves either due to a protracted civil war or a repeated famine, (d)
organize space exploration and exploitation, (e) secure sufficient food
production for a growing world population (rather than pushing life-prevention
measures). By following these objectives, the U.S. would be building the
foundations of a world legal system because all participating states would have
to surrender to the UNO some elements of their sovereignty relating to these
projects (and only these elements); this surrender would be made easier and more
palatable, if the organization taking over these fractions of sovereignty had
significant democratic elements in its structure. By taking initiative in any of
these projects, the United States could assure itself world leadership longer
than by financing depopulation measures and creating anomie around the world --
measures which will reap it enemies and turmoil caused by breakdown of the
various national cultures and religions. To
sustain its international mission, the United States needs to rely on the
support of states which are closest. There are two regions of them.
Geographically and geopolitically closest are the states of North and Central
America; geopolitically and culturally closest are the states of Western and
Central Europe. The
basis of closer cooperation is economic interpenetration and integration. This
cannot avoid bringing with it certain sacrifices to be borne by U.S. citizens;
these sacrifices are justifiable, as long as U.S. foreign policy manages to
transform economic closeness into political cooperation solidified by
supra-national institutions following identical aims of member states; such
organization must not fall into the hands of self-governing bureaucracies which
chip away at member states' sovereignty. In both areas, the conditions for such
organizations being under democratic control of member states are much more
favorable than are conditions worldwide, because the economic, educational and
political (democratic) levels are almost identical. The regional institutions do
not have to be composed only by
government representatives, but some can be (in Europe they already are) elected
directly by the people of the member states. In order to prevent managerization
the elected normgiving (policy making) regional bodies must not be shunted aside
to a "consultative" role; they have to have also a supervisory and
controlling function and effectively perform it. Such regional organizations are
also a fallback position if and when another power center attains superpower
status allowing it to compete with the United Stats in building a global legal
system. To
remain a superpower, the United States needs moreover to maintain bilateral ties
with reliable allies in other areas and maintain its presence it their regional
organizations to exert a balancing and peace keeping (i.e., war preventive)
influence. In
order to maintain a leadership position without or with minimal use of force
(economic, military or political pressure), the US must avoid coming as a
promoter of the elitist ideology inimical to national sovereignty, religion,
family, and children of other countries, such policy being against "the
laws of nature and nature's God" its long term effects cannot fail being
disastrous. Political System The
American political system is fundamentally a two-party system; attempts to
create a third party have never been successful since the creation of the
Republican Party. The two contending parties are at present the Democratic Party
and the Republican Party. Their
election programs are almost identical; they differ somewhat in methods, but not
too much in goals. There is only one issue that divides them sharply and defies
attempts at compromise; it is the issue of abortion. Through the instrumentality
of the two parties there takes place a clash of two irreconcilable movements
described as "pro-life" and "pro-choice", the first one
defending the "sanctity of life", the other the "quality of
life" when relating to preborn human beings. The designation
"pro-life" is accurate; the designation "pro-choice" is a
misnomer; its adherents concentrate on the right to abortion and have not yet
expressed any concern, help or assistance to women who choose to have children.
Therefore in the interest of accuracy, the term "pro-abortion" will be
used, although the issue of abortion is the most visible and critical, but not
the only one. Each of the two movements is the result of two different
ideologies, the elitist one (see Chapter 23) with an articulated program of
managing humanity (biomaterialism) and
the opposing one with no systematic positive program, and therefore in constant
defensive. The two conflicting positions then permeate the two movements'
attitudes toward almost all political issues which, not having a political
solution due to the unyielding stand of both, end before the courts -- and with
another victory of the pro-abortion movement not only in matters related to
abortion, but also concerning euthanasia, assisted suicide, homosexuality,
pornography, public schools, libraries and an entire progeny of more or less
related matters. The
preceding analyses conclude that the pro-abortion movement and its background
philosophy are mistaken and fatal. The American political scene will now be
evaluated on the basis of this conclusion starting with the recognition that the
elitist movement has the initiative and is on the way to creating a
decentralized totalitarian political system (Chapter 7) by having attained in
part the necessary near-monopolies of communications, intellectual leadership
and organization. This emerging political system is wedded with strong elements
of the reverse solidarism economic system (Chapter
9). The
near-monopoly of communications
is almost complete; all opinion polls
indicate that over 80% of reporters, commentators and managers of the
nation-wide TV corporations and other media agree with the pro-abortion movement
in all issues. On the pro-life side are ranged dozens of local radio stations
belonging to the evangelical and biblical "fundamentalist" churches,
which devote all their time to religious programs. On the Catholic side, there
is one explicitly pro-life TV station which also has an almost exclusively
religious character (Masses, rosaries, homilies). For information on politics,
economy, science and entertainment, their listeners have to turn to the gigantic
corporations which mostly propagate the elitist world view covertly, but
consistently; this cannot remain without effect. Among the subtle suggestions,
there are explicit plays, movies and panels to break society's
"taboos" and immunize it against biases and prejudices of the
traditional civic religion. The result is that the ideology of the elitist
movement penetrates into the ranks of its opponents, but there is no movement in
the opposite direction. Lately, new technology, namely Internet, seems to have
alleviated this isolation. Even so, the pro-life movement needs its own
"secular" TV corporation which would provide its listeners with the
same material as the pro-abortion corporations without their onesided
perspectives. In
the world of publications, the situation is similar. All popular periodicals are
favorable to the elites; there exist some good magazines on the pro-life side,
but they represent a small fraction of the total output. They are more or less
boxed in to the readers of their persuasion. The selection of magazines in
public places is typical. In waiting rooms of doctors, dentists, lawyers, in
restaurants and most libraries, on stands in grocery chains a pro-life
publication is never found; nor are they advertised by the most powerful
advertiser of magazines, the Publishers' Clearing House or in the samplers
distributed by banks to their charge card customers. Among
plays and novels, whether science fiction, spy stories or detective stories,
there is practically none that would not take a critical stand towards marriage
and family life and would not depict in detail a sexual act or preferably a
perversion. This is so although the rare stories which do not follow this
fashion, become best-sellers (like the Hobbitt saga) and reruns of old films on
TV like the series "I love Lucy" are highly popular, which would
indicate that the public still retains its old preferences of decency. Popular
songs for the young generation went so far that they became the subject of
parental protests so strong that some publishing houses agreed to adopt a rating
system similar to that existing in movies. The
near-monopoly of intellectual leadership
is completed on the prestigious universities, and in public schools at least to
the extent that favorable mentions of Christianity are expunged from history
books and readers. Research into fields which are "politically
incorrect" or "culturally incorrect" is not funded, not welcome
and seldom published. Universities of Christian Protestant churches mostly
concentrate on theology and are not esteemed for their natural sciences. The
Catholic Church had a few prestigious universities, but they declared their
independence from Church authorities and ignored recent papal instructions to
submit to their diocesan bishops. Intellectually, they are sources of support
for the elitist values. One or two new ones of high quality have been opened and
operate successfully, but the results of their efforts are not yet felt. The
biggest battle between the elitists and their opponents was and is being fought
on the subject of sex (renamed "family") education in grammar schools
and high schools; the battles fought school district by school district mainly
by the "extreme religious right" were occasionally won and often lost.
In Catholic schools, the clinical sex education was frequently introduced by
sympathizers (nuns) of the pro-abortion movement. The graphic presentation of
the various types of sex combined with education to tolerance and equivalency of
all the practices and life-styles to pupils and students of the most
impressionable age destroys their natural modesty and introduces them to
experimentation which renders them receptive to the entire message of the
elitist ideology; the authority of the school offsets the authority of parents
from whom the children are cautioned to keep hidden their schoolbooks on sexual
education and its contents. By requesting children to report
"incorrect" behavior of parents some schools have assumed a control
function over private lives similar to that of schools in totalitarian regimes.
The dissatisfaction of parents has called forth a growth of private (mostly
religion-affiliated) schools and a movement towards home schooling. The
near-monopoly of organization is
not complete, but is successful in the most important area -- in politics. Of
the two political parties, the Democratic Party is firmly under control of the
elitist movement; the control is such that not even one of pro-lifers among the
delegates of the Party's convention was permitted to speak. The situation is
different in the Republican Party. The pro-abortion forces in the party
endeavored to nominate a "pro-choicer" for President and to remove the
party's commitment to the pro-life position from the its platform. They did not
succeed, but they have enough power in the party that in the conflict between
the pro-life and pro-abortion movements in Congress the pro-life forces in the
party are effectively paralyzed. The
political organizations of the pro-life movement, the Christian Coalition and
the Moral Majority, are strong enough to prevent the Republican Party from
moving into the pro-choice ranks, but they are evidently not able to exert
political power. But without gaining sufficient political power
("clout"), the pro-life movement will remain helpless. The progress
from a moral and religious movement to a political movement and from a political
movement to a political party is for the survival of democracy in the United
States necessary. It will be speeded up because members of the elitist movement
will sooner or later abandon and actually already began to abandon their
movements main strength: invisibility of oppression and tolerance of helpless
dissent (41). Certain
anti-religious steps as inimical to Christianity as the communist regimes had
been, are pushing the pro-life movement nilly-willy to political action
(Appendix 8). In such occasions, a political personality has he opportunity to
translate into political action the indignation of people who realize that they
are themselves denigrated on a personal, intimate level. Such opportunities
might, but might not arise again. To
attain direct political power, the pro-life movement is forced to attempt the
creation of its own instrument which transforms voters' will into the State's
will, i.e., a political party translating the objectives of the movement into
political will: a legislative program, its implementation by the executive
branch and its respect by the judiciary. There
appear only two scenarios for the pro-life movement in this respect. One is to obtain control of the Republican Party even at the
price of losing its pro-choice segment and its desertion making it a minority
party again. In spite of the fact that its last National Convention retained, in
its plank, the party's commitment to the pro-life cause and specifically its
anti-abortion stand, these and other related moral issues did not appear on any
of the insistent appeals for help and activity with which the party's adherents
were inundated by the Republican National Committee and the corresponding Senate
and House of Representative's as well as local committees in preparation for the
1998 elections. Detailed questionnaires centered on economic issues (which are
of little interest to citizens without taxable incomes: tax cuts, balanced
budget, "big labor bosses") and remained silent on issues which do
interest every citizen: partial birth abortion, condoms and sex propaganda in
schools, same sex marriages, special privileges for homosexuals,
euthanasia/assisted suicide. Since there is no probability that the Democratic
Party would take them up, by this simple maneuver these items were swept off the
political agenda. The
other option for the pro-life movement is to create its own party with an
uncompromisingly pro-life program. To succeed under this scenario, such a party
would have to fulfill three conditions: (1) It would have to join its pro-life
platform with a consistent program opposing the elitist ideology in all its
points, especially in its unobtrusive circumvention of democratic political
processes, and combine this program with a new economic program barring reverse
solidarism and including tax reform, welfare reform and reform of financing
elections. The program would have to articulate clearly the attitude towards
abortion: no compromise concerning its illegality, but admitting alleviating
circumstances (same as in ordinary murder cases); (2) it would have to be a
party of a type new in American politics: a party based on small local
organizations as a foundation for a hierarchical structure through which would
constantly flow (by inexpensive internal communications -- internet, broadcasts,
tapes, videos, leaflets or brochures) input and feedback between the leadership
and the membership; a prototype of such local organizations can be the
assemblies of local Christian churches in the South and regular meetings of
local pro-life groups in the Midwest; joining the forces of the Christian
churches in the South with local pro-life Catholic parish groups and gaining the
support of the (local) Catholic hierarchy would increase tremendously its change
of success; (3) it would have to extend its economic foundation beyond the small
contributions of members to financial support of larger economic entities; the
first steps in this respect were taken by certain long distance telephone lines
and charge card issuers ("Lifeline") who deliver a certain percentage
of their income to pro-life organizations (other business could follow: they
have an assured customer basis); (4) it would have to concentrate its efforts
and resources on one state in which it could win a visible victory in the first
elections: governor, senator or congressman. It could then target cutting off
the flow of funds from public coffers into the coffers of anti-life
organizations, domestic and international or at least balance such contributions
with contributions to truly pro-family and pro-life organizations. With related
publicity (which would be unavoidable) it could then expect to enter the next
elections with confidence, and even its minimal victory would have worldwide
repercussions: it would give the pro-life forces in all the beleaguered
countries a rallying point and hope. Its opponents would use a strong weapon
against effective pro-life political action: the attempt (already initiated by
some anti-life groups) : to use the overlapping membership of political pro-life
supporters with membership of Chritsian churches to accuse churches of political
activity and deprive them of their tax privileges. Without a political success, the pro-life movement will continue to lose ground; so far, no concerted political effort has been made by its components. Under normal circumstances, the American political system makes the success of a new party very difficult, but the circumstances change by the steadily decreasing voters' participation in elections. (According to newspapers, during the last election 36% of the electorate cast their votes; of the 36% only 49% elected the President; this means that the decision about the Presidency was made by less than 19% of voters.) In this situation, a party of disciplined members convinced of the vital importance of its program can overcome the difficulties for new parties imbedded in the majority electoral system. This would seem to be an overwhelming task, but with the Creator's blessing, it would succeed; after all, it would be in harmony with his rationally recognizable plan for humanity.
|
