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A Sound Mind

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” II Tim 1:7

Fear is the enemy of power, love, and good reason.

Since 9/11 we have been governed by an administration that has used fear to justify a systematic erosion of our freedoms. The most recent of these surfaced in a speech given by Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence at an intelligence conference last month.

In the speech Mr. Kerr suggested that the legal concepts of privacy that we have come to take for granted in this country may be outmoded. His premise is that because so much of our lives are accessible through search engines like google or social networking sites like facebook, anonymity and privacy are dangerous myths. As a result, privacy should be, “a system of laws, rules and customs with an infrastructure of inspectors general, oversight committees and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured.”, rather than the absolute guarantees that are currently in law and the constitution.

What Mr. Kerr missed in his argument is the fact that regardless of how publicly you choose to live your life, the government is still prohibited by law and the constitution from any unreasonable search of anything of yours that is private.

What I found interesting in this discussion is that it is being raised by an administration that is the most secretive in history.

Here’s a short list you might find interesting.

In 2001 President Bush signed an executive order gutting the Presidential Records act originally signed by Ronald Regan. The law mandated that an administrations archive of records is opened to the public 12 years after that administration leaves office. Bush added a provision giving former presidents, vice presidents, and their heirs the right to review any and all records before they are released. Courts have already found that this has the effect of keeping those records secret indefinitely.

VP Cheney still hasn’t said who the oil execs were that participated in his famous policy planning meeting, though the list was eventually leaked to the Washington Post. The Vice President has also claimed that his office didn’t fall under the Executive Branch in order to avoid Court orders to preserve email records.

Karl Rove is known to have used a Republican National Committee email address in an attempt to circumvent the executive branch records keeping requirements.

Senator Waxman has begun an investigation into which records the administration has been attempting to keep secret. Here’s his list.

The records at issue have covered a vast array of topics, ranging from simple census data and routine agency correspondence to presidential and vice presidential records. Among the documents that the Administration has refused to release to the public and members of Congress are

(1) the contacts between energy companies and the Vice President’s energy task force,

(2) the communications between the Defense Department and the Vice President’s office regarding contracts awarded to Halliburton,

(3) documents describing the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib,

(4) memoranda revealing what the White House knew about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and

(5) the cost estimates of the Medicare prescription drug legislation withheld from Congress.

The Buffalo News wrote this editorial on January 6, 2004.

“Concealing information has become an option of first resort… More than any presidency in memory, Bush’s has what can only be called a fetish for government secrecy. Whatever justifications there may be for this predilection - and there are some – Bush’s love of secrecy does much more harm than good, in the end, to the fabric of a democracy. Long after he is gone from office, this change in public policy will be a black mark on his administration.”

I just find it curious that a government that appears to breaking new ground with regard to withholding information from the public is simultaneously seeking to extend its powers of surveillance and weaken individual privacy protections. All this while wrapping itself in the mantle of defending the country during a time of war.

The solution to the problem of fear is not to become more secretive and fearful. It’s what Paul elegantly describes in his letter to Timothy. Fear is not something that comes from God. If it doesn’t come from God, then it has no reality. Simply reject those who suggest that there are fearful powers greater than God, and embrace what God has given us, the power to live a loving thoughtful life.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 9:37 pm and is filed under Politics, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

18 Responses to “A Sound Mind”

  1. keith Says:
    November 15th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    i think both side use fear in their politics and it’s mostly seen by the type of glasses you happen to wear. G.W’s admistration uses fear no more then any else. do you remember the 90’s when newt was accussed of want to kill old people and starve childern? i heard it live and in person from my bonyor live and in person in downtown monroe. that was fear on the highest order.

    my personal favorite was al gore’s comments regarding using some s.s. funds to be put in the equities market. he called that idea a “risky sceam.”
    now jeff you can agree or disagree with whether we should put those dollars there but to say the finacial markets of the world are a “risky sceam” is pushing the envolope of the perverbal edge….

    i thinked hyped fear i all colors is not welcome. i’d be interested to get your opinion on the dem’s debate tonight if you would find anything they would say to be fear mongering……

    (i didn’t even mention al gore’s movie which does nothing but sell fear. most intellectual supporters an the global warming side agree he vastly over sold this. he used the extreme x 20 on everything to make his point. now that’s fear mongering. and he can’t sell!!!!

  2. Jeff Beamsley Says:
    November 15th, 2007 at 3:39 pm

    Keith,

    I agree that fear is a primary weapon of politics these days.

    I’ve suggested a spiritual approach, but it also involves a practical response. That is to quit supporting those who try to manipulate the public through fear regardless of their party.

    So rather than attempt to determine who is MORE guilty for the use of fear, or perhaps who started it; my sense is that we simply have to reject it whenever it is employed by whomever employs it.

    So I’ll continue to point out the occasions where I think fear is being used to support particularly troubling policies (domestic spying, pre-emptive military action, etc.). As the dems get to the point where the things that they are proposing have an opportunity to become reality, I promise to hold them accountable too.

    Jeff

  3. keith Says:
    November 16th, 2007 at 11:23 am

    Jeff,
    My point isn’t who is MORE guilty. (I stopped counting how many times I heared the word “crisis” in the dems debate last night) But I sometimes think yours is, unententionally also I will suggest. That goes to my point of which glasses we are looking through. You 95% of the time, I guessing, only point out the fear or, to quote your title, “spritual wickedness in high places” of conservatives. Spritual wickedness has no party and is covered in both.

    Mostly my beef with you is this. Under your title you present topic’s you support it with scripture. You then almost entirely point of the spritual wickedness of one group when clearly it can be applied to all of us. I think your title is a misrepresentation of your blog. Y

    our title caught my eye and it’s the reason I follow your stuff. To see if it is truely spritual wickedness you are pointing out or a veiw of politic’s seen through your glasses from your spritual perspective. I believe you to honest in your veiws but biased in the subject matter you choose to shine the light on.

    One of my fists comments back to you was this…your blog should be titled Rebulican…in hgh places. You said then that it’s just so much easier because they make it so easy. You also said you would try and point of that of the Dem’s we it was presented……It’s presented daily bur is unseen by you. (and take no offense to that) It just goes to my point that it is very difficult for anyone to be objective and you are clearly not. (I’ll repeat that I believe you to be honest in your views and the positions you take are well intended) However, until you can see spritual wickedness as it lies, as Jesus did, your blog is a political one and not a spritual one. That’s the beef. When you let the General “BE TRAY US” thing pass your colored glasses did not allow you to see, hatred, divisiveness and dishonestly on display in a way I still can believe.

  4. Jeff Beamsley Says:
    November 16th, 2007 at 12:05 pm

    Keith,

    I do appreciate our conversations and the time you spend reading what I write. It is very flattering and I’m grateful.

    That said, this IS a political blog. Read the tag line. Politics from a progressive Christian perspective. I am a progressive. You are not. That’s OK. We share a common Christian spiritual experience but different political views. We learn from each other.

    One of my reasons for doing this is to demonstrate that you can read the Bible every day, depend on God to direct your life, pray for healing, and still have a progressive political point of view.

    I thought the general betray-us comments were over the top too, but these days there is so much hyperbole and bickering on both sides that anything that I do say is only going to perpetuate something that I don’t support. Other than perhaps establishing some new low water mark with regard to respect for a member of the military, I’m not sure that it made any difference in terms of our policy in Iraq. It did affect my willingness to support Move-on, but that’s my own personal decision and not something I think anyone else would be interested in. But for every “betray-us” event, there are comparable “swift boat” events and going down that road doesn’t get us anywhere.

    Where I do feel I can add some value is doing exactly what the title of blog says. Revealing actions by those in power that I feel are not in the best interests of the country. Because it is the waning days of a Republican administration, there is a lot to choose from. If it were the waning days of a Democratic administration, there would be a lot of Democratic dirty laundry to share.

    As I’ve said before, once the democrats are in the position to actually affect policy change, you’ll see more comment from me about their plans. In the meantime, I think it is much more important to focus on the plans and actions of the current administration because they are the ones that have their “finger on the trigger”.

    Jeff

  5. Jeff Beamsley Says:
    November 17th, 2007 at 9:12 am

    Keith,

    Just one more thought that is closer to the original subject of this post.

    The Bush administration seems to have lowered the expectations of the public regarding transparency and access to public documents. As a result, the public appears willing to tolerate other politicians also refusing to disclose records of past activities. The one that comes to mind here is Hillary Clinton defending Bill Clinton’s decision to take advantage of the executive order that President Bush signed regarding privacy of presidential records.

    I think that as long as she is willing to trade on her past experience in the White House, she also should be willing to release any documents relating to her time in the White House for public review.

    The best practical solution to corruption is sunlight. More transparency in government through public access to records is the most effective deterrent to future corruption. It is also the best way to earn back the trust that the public seems to have lost in our government.

    I’m not suggesting that Senator Clinton has anything to hide. She has a good record in the Senate and when she has encountered problems (e.g. fund raising), she has gone public with them quickly and taken the appropriate steps to resolve them.

    What I am suggesting is that she take this opportunity to set a example of what sort of administration she would run if she were elected President.

    Jeff

  6. keith Says:
    November 29th, 2007 at 3:14 pm

    unfortunately, she is setting an example and it’s based on her past precident while in ark at rose law firm, believe it or not i’ve met people who worked there just after she left, and as first lady. lets not forget how many times she said “i don’t recall.” for being the smartest woman alive her memory certainly wasn’t too good.

    if i have one hope it’s not the the dems lose next year, it’s that she doesn’t win. if we are going to some how come together in this country it’s not going to be by her. all she knew before and still to this day is to devide and say “right wing conspirecy”

    though i share very little in common with bill r., b.o., or mr biden, i could at least live with that.

  7. Jeff Beamsley Says:
    November 29th, 2007 at 3:27 pm

    Keith,

    Good to hear from you again.

    I think that it is interesting to see how those with great personal ambition are able to come to terms with their own personality flaws and still rise to the highest levels in their profession.

    I think that Senator Clinton would make a good President, but I fear that the unreasoning animosity of some of the voters would make it very difficult for her to govern. On the other hand, if she were able to overcome that animosity through hard work and good practices, she could probably do more to heal the culture war rifts than any other single individual. So the risks are high, but the potential rewards are high too.

    That said, I also agree with you that there are several other very capable candidates who haven’t attracted nearly the same attention. Chris Dodd, for example, is actually a quite thoughtful and capable candidate, but nobody seems to know or care.

    So pick your poison. Either we confront the issues of division and difference head on and hope that the country somehow emerges from that conflict with a new sense of purpose and unity, or we choose a candidate that is more acceptable to both conservatives and liberals, and we discover whether there is enough common ground for them to govern.

    Jeff

  8. Keith Says:
    December 3rd, 2007 at 8:53 am

    There is no chance Hillary can bring us togather, none. She invented the division of politics we know today. Just listen to her speak once, like her husband, no sentence is complete without creating a division with someone. I’ll never forget her comments about John Ashcroft when he was up for AG. No comment could be complete without “His views and posistions are out of step with the main stream.” All because he apposed abortion. Being opposed to abortion is hardly “out of step with the mainstream.” Lets we forget the “vast right wing conspirosy?” Jeff not only don’t I feel she is capible of leading, as that takes charicture and vision, she is probably the last person on earth that could unite us. She is bitter, full of self ambition, unwise, condesending, lacking in judgement, hypocritical to the Nth degree, etc, etc, etc…… I’ve never even considered her smart.

    As for ever stopping division that’s a whole new ball game. Bush tried when he got to in but you can see what that got him. He took on Ted Kennedy’s “no child left behind” and that did nothing for him.

    What we need is REASON from both sides. Fair tax policy and the elimination of entitlements that ultimately hurt those who they entend to help is a good place to start. This inlawful flow of immaragrtion MUST be put to an end also.

    “a democracy is doomed to fail when the citizens realized they can vote themselves shares from the public teasury.” Chaplin of the senete 1948ish

  9. Jeff Beamsley Says:
    December 3rd, 2007 at 12:22 pm

    Keith,

    I get it. You can’t imagine yourself ever voting for Clinton (if you are going to use last names for President Bush, you should show the same respect to Senator Clinton). In your mind she represents everything to which you are opposed.

    Welcome to my world for the past eight years.

    Now take a deep breath.

    Put away those passions for a moment and put your thinking cap on.

    Nixon was able to go to China because no one on the political right doubted his patriotism. LBJ could not have done it.

    Reagan was able to negotiate an end to 40 years of cold war with Gorbachov because every Republican still had the “tear down that wall” speach ringing in their ears.

    Lincoln, perhaps the best President we’ve ever had, was elected with less than 40% of the vote. He was attacked from both sides because he was a moderate on slavery who did all he could to prevent civil war. The circumstances (the attack on Fort Sumpter) gave him an opportunity for greatness. He became a great president because he recognized and accepted the higher purpose of his calling. None of his contemporaries could have done it.

    As your post clearly demonstrates, we are in the middle of a culture war. You happen to be standing for the conservative view. I feel just as passionately about the progressive view. For this country to go forward, neither view can dominate. Both sides have to find a way to meet in the middle. That means that I am going to have to give some things up that are near and dear to me. It also means that you are going to have to give somethings up that are near and dear to you. It does no good to speculate what those things are because your reaction today is that you could never do that. My reaction is likely the same.

    George Bush had an opportunity to end the culture wars in the aftermath of 9/11. The fact that we continue to have these deep divisions in the country is evidence that he failed. We will likely not agree on the reasons for that failure.

    The only thing that could prevent a democrat winning the Presidency next November is another terrorist attack in the US. Otherwise, whomever wins the democratic nomination is going to have an opportunity similar to Lincoln, Nixon, and Reagan. They will have broad support from the progressive half of the country. They can use that support to attempt to solidify the progressive power base (as the Bush administration did) or they can try to end the culture war by taking on the big issues (Iraq, abortion, gay rights, global warming, healthcare, social security, immigration, etc.) with mainstream solutions which will not satisfy either political extreme.

    The reason why I feel that Senator Clinton could be that person is BECAUSE she is just as trusted by progressives as she is distrusted by conservatives. Whether or not she has the opportunity and then rises to that challenge, only time will tell.

    Jeff

  10. Keith Says:
    December 4th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

    There is certainly no hatered for hillary on my part. (i call her that for among other reasons i don’t know if it’s senator clinton, senator rodham-clinton or senator rodham) my thinking cap is squarely on and my judgement regarding her is clouded by nothing other then what i’ve heard her say and represent. 1) i believe her to have socialist views….health care is certainly an example of this. she has said…to each according to their need, from each according to their abilty……………i’m certain i don’t need to explain that to you may friend. jeff, care to elaborate on that?
    i don’t need to go any further and list #’s 2 - 1,000. this is not culture war fare. they is anti american and anti capitilist…..is is wrong for us.

  11. Jeff Beamsley Says:
    December 5th, 2007 at 10:54 am

    Keith,

    You’ve eloquently laid out the conservative view. That is one pole in what I’m calling the culture war.

    The other pole, the one you’ve characterized as socialist, anti-american, and anti-capitalist, feels just as strongly that these and other policies ARE what we need. Like you , they are also hardworking, patriotic, thoughtful, reverent, God-fearing people. There are just as many of them as there are of you. They also have just a difficult time understanding your point of view as you do theirs. And yes, they have their set of adjectives that they use to describe your views and they are just an unflattering as the adjectives you use.

    That’s why it’s appropriate to call it a war.

    The fact that I don’t agree with your characterizations doesn’t make you wrong or make me right.

    In a healthly democracy it is the grist for vigorous debate out of which good compromises would emerge.

    For a number of reasons which I may go into in another post, this is not a healthy democracy. So we can’t have the sort of respectful debates that raise the level of understand and reveal common ground. Instead, we are reduced to dogmatic entrenched positions and name calling.

    I’m doing my best one-on-one to start these dialogs. My sense, however, is that I simply represent a yearning for a new order. We need inspired leaders and likely a significant crisis to convince us that the current order is no longer going to sustain us and that we need to abandon it and move to some new understanding of how we relate to each other as Americans.

    Jeff

  12. Keith Says:
    December 5th, 2007 at 4:46 pm

    lets you and i start here;

    “To each according to his need, from each according to their ability.”

    are you saying this is a conservitive point of view?

    i call that socialism (i only do so because it is. read the manofestos)…..socialism is not what our founding fathers had in mind. so i’ll ask you again Jeff this question in another way. are you in favor of the gov’t deciding “To each according to his need, from each according to their ability?” do you think this is socialism? if so, is it a good thing or a bad thing?

    hillary stands for this. thinking cap on, unemotional, with no rethoric or name calling, i oppose this. it is a non-starter with no common ground to be had. many things are but this isn’t.

  13. Jeff Beamsley Says:
    December 5th, 2007 at 6:26 pm

    Keith,

    I’m not trying to duck your question. I just don’t think that there is much value in discussing it.

    Conservatives believe in the free market, individual responsibility, and a limited government role. You’re going to see pretty much everything to the left of that as socialism and communism.

    Progressives believe in social responsibility and a government that protects society from the excesses of the free market and plays a positive role in helping every member of society achieve their potential. We’re going to see pretty much everything to the right of that as reactionary and dictatorial.

    President Bush is a conservative. Senator Clinton (the proper form of referring to Sentors. You should try it.) is a progressive.

    By your definition, social security and medicare are socialism. So what?

    I can attach similar sorts of unflattering terms like isolationism to some conservative plans to deal with immigration. So what?

    Trying to use the founding fathers as a litmus test of what is right or wrong doesn’t work either. Many of them were slaveholders which is clearly an unacceptable practice for both conservatives and progressives. They left us a framework and some basic principles which we have expanded on to get to where we are today.

    The nature of this discussion is just evidence that we as a society are losing the ability through our current civil framework to talk with each other in any constructive way. This isn’t new. We had to do this in order to free ourselves from the British. We had to do it again to free ourselves from slavery. Now the framework that grew out of our success in WWII is also losing steam.

    We’ve (collective we) got a lot of work to do to find the new paradigm which will again give us a way to have a productive conversations and forge a common vision. Unfortunately, I’m becoming convinced that the only way that is going to happen is a crisis of such magnitude that the future of our country hangs in the balance. it will force us to put away the old ways and become, as the bible says, new men.

    Read some of my recent posts and you’ll have a better idea of where this is coming from.

    Jeff

  14. Keith Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 4:54 pm

    Hey Jeff,
    Socialism isn’t conservitive or progressive, it’s socialism a form of gov’t un to itself. This is a very important distintion and that you avoided making above. You reverted to a general dialog saying conservitives see one directions and progressives see the other. That is off topic, as you acknowledged, from the direct question I asked. Do you believe we should adopt a socialist form a gov’t?

    I would call Social security a form of socialism and it has failed terribily.
    When created it was for those over 65 and ment to be a help at the end of life. Life expectancy was 65.7 years then I believe. It was not ment to be a retirement fund. Now its unrecogniziable as to what it is. It’s a social works program it appears. Money is not in a “lock box” for you and I. It’s been deverted to other things. This is a great example of gov’t running amuck and in a socialist endever. It fails all the time.

    If all the money you had put into S.S. were inversted in the dow you would have far more in retirement then you will. Plus the money isn’t there anyway. It’s off making up the short fall of our budget. The indivisual would have been better off if left along to invest for his or her own future.

  15. Jeff Beamsley Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    Keith,

    I’m happy to have a discussion anytime about the relative merits of any form of government from monarchy to democracy to communism. They all have their appropriate place and time.

    Our discussion, however, was about conservatism and progressivism.

    What my post said was that conservatives generally accuse progressives of promoting socialism or worse. Progressives often accuse conservatives of promoting dictatorships or worse. That’s the sort of discussion that I predict is going to go nowhere.

    I also agree that the entire civil structure put in place after WWII is runninng out of gas. Social Security just happens to be part of it. We’ve already agreed that employer-paid healthcare is also failing and some sort of single-payer structure is needed.

    I’m suggesting that you are missing a much larger point if you attempt to sort things out as socialist=bad and consumer-driven=good.

    Read the last couple of posts I’ve put up from this book that I’ve been reading.

    They help explain the current culture wars that we are experiencing and predicts that in our lifetime we will go through a crisis that will force us to create a new civil order which, at least for a while, will put us all on the same page again (until our grandkids start to tear it down again).

    Jeff

  16. Keith Says:
    December 7th, 2007 at 10:28 am

    I do understand the larger point you are making. I’m only saying this;
    socialism = bad every time. Freedm = good everytime I believe the desire for all humans is to be free and make their own choices.

  17. Jeff Beamsley Says:
    December 7th, 2007 at 11:41 am

    Keith,

    You’re lookinig at this from far too narrow a context.

    Read a little bit about the eskimos. Surviving in the harsh climate in which they live demands a socialistic culture and government.

    It’s also pretty easy to come up with lots of examples where individual choice just doesn’t work. Red lights, speed limits, and insurance requirements come to mind.

    Your sense of where this country should be, however, fits perfectly with the Four Turnings model. There is deep discontent in the country because many people feel that their rights as individuals are being limited in arbitrary ways by our strong central government.

    Yet it was this same strong central government that the generation before our parents put in place to get us out of the depression and to win WWII. It was also this vision of a strong central government combined with a robust manufacturing economy that our parents coming back from WWII embraced as the perfect model for a modern nation.

    They weren’t wrong. They made exactly the right choices for their time and place.

    The problem is like any human system, this one has run its course. We happen to be at the point of maximum discontent where we all agree that there are problems but are trying to blame those problems on those who don’t agree with us.

    The next step is a crisis of such proportions that we will no longer have the luxury of internal bickering. It will be a crisis of such scale that we will need to reinvent ourselves in order to survive. That process of re-invention will practially elminate the concepts of progressive and conservative because in order to survive we will all have to agree.

    I’ll post something today speculating on what the nature of this crisis might be. I’m interested in your thoughts on this subject too.

    I know it sounds painfully apocalyptic, so I’m a little concerned that this line of thought might be misconstrued as such. I’m not an end-timer nor do I ascribe to any “end of the world” philosophy. The “crisis” that these folks are predicting is not the sort that will end civilization as we know it, just provide our country an opportunity to “shed its skin” so to speak.

    This particular theory is born of academic work in generational dynamics. It’s still very controversial, so I’m just throwing it out there as a thought exercise rather than any particular prediction of future events.

    Jeff

  18. Keith Says:
    December 7th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    I thought this event occured on 9-11. Bill Bennett rightfully called it “The hour of moral clarity.” The Iraq occured and the hour evaparated. I clearly remember Chris Matthews, of all people, saying “we really aren’t a divided country as we are portrated to be. I mean nobably really believes all this libral crap that we agrue about. Nobody really believes what Hillary says or her view.” Mostly accurate but some paraphasing there.

    I simply stood amazed at the librials comdemming of our country when we went to Iraq. I think I wrote a few paraghraghs to you about this within the past month. I was simply amazed. WE were the problem. WE were at fault. WE were wrong. I believe that complaining and self blaming is the cause for most of our diffuculty over there. That public admonishment of OURSELVES provided the insuragnecy with “fuel” to make this last far longer then it should have. (We didn’t have the best planning i’ll conceed)

    So much for the hour of clarity.

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