Race and Reason

For the last two weeks in this space, I have been critical of President Barack Obama. My reprehensions have largely pertained to his policies and performance, in areas like the Gulf oil spill, health care and debt.

Opining about the most prominent politician on the planet engenders fiery responses from all sides. One of the reasons it is unwise to discuss politics socially is that folks tend to jam all the frustrations from elsewhere in their lives into that topic, so rhetoric quickly becomes heated. But with Obama, the debate persistently reverts to the issue of race.

I first puzzled over this after one of my early columns on Obama, years ago. Why was a political article suddenly about skin color? Had my editors slipped in a racial slur?

Myriad opinion-pedlars had the same experience, and it was only in the fullness of time we realized this was “the move” among some partisans – accuse any Obama critic of racial bias.

No decent person opposes Obama simply because he is black. But opposing him does not make people indecent, either. Yet people hammer each other on this score.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say these accusations are generally insincere. That is, folks who hurl the charge don't actually believe that in today's day and age, evil, moustache-twisting racism is behind criticism of Obama.

In my experience, when such accusers are confronted, they normally demur, saying they're not speaking of anyone in the immediate discussion, then they make some vague reference to the rampant intolerance of the Canadian West or the American South. This, too, is bollocks on stilts, defiant of modern realities. Seeing the Calgary Stampede on TV doesn’t mean you understand Alberta, just as changing planes in Atlanta doesn't make you a Civil War buff. Besides, impugning an entire population just to make a political point is pretty poor.

People were hopeful that Obama's election would solve racial problems, but this emerged from overturning the misbegotten notion that America would never elect a black president. Almost two years after a majority of voters did just that, including in the South, the issue lingers.

Look, Obama has not thrived in the presidency. For the good of the world, I hope he gets it together and becomes a smashing success but, for the moment, his lousy performance is a matter of record. That’s not a slur, it’s a fact. But therein lays an opportunity.

I believe real progress will come when Obama is treated like any other politician and the subject of race is no longer raised in his defence. That is, when Americans are just as comfortable voting against him as for him. Obama, or anyone else, should be judged on the strength of his policies and, dare I say it, the content of his character, rather than the color of his skin, even if that means being critical.

Supporting or opposing a candidate for reasons of race, gender, or anything besides what they do and advocate evinces ingratitude for the hard-won struggles of the past. Likewise, assigning sinister motives to fellow citizens who disagree with you is not the stuff on which strong societies are built. We can do better. At long last, it is time for us to treat people, simply, as people.


theo@halfgreat.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

A One-Term Wonder

Watching Barack Obama speak from the Oval Office Tuesday evening, I was reminded of a remark he made back in January: “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” At the moment, he is on track to be neither, but I have often wondered just what he meant.

Does Obama believe he has been really good thus far? If so, in what area? Certainly not the Gulf Coast oil spill, which occasioned his Tuesday speech (if Obama wants that second term, it’s a good thing pelicans don’t vote).

Health care? He forced a trillion-dollar overhaul through Congress, which 63 percent of the American people want to see repealed.

The economy? He is adding more to America’s national debt than all 43 previous presidents combined.

Foreign policy? He laid down fewer conditions for meeting with the president of Iran than with the CEO of British Petroleum, and both oil-rich entities remain troublesome.

After taking office, Obama’s approval rating fell faster than any first-year president in the history of modern polling. When they voted for him in 2008, Americans wanted to believe they were electing a moderate, outcome-oriented, problem-solver.

Instead, Obama has turned out to be what those knuckle-dragging, book-burning, typical white people who opposed him warned: a garden-variety leftist. Like it or lump it, America is a centre-right country, and Obama’s prescription of stern lectures and statism is incompatible with the public mood.

But those are just facts and opinions. Truth be told, I think Obama does feel he’s been successful. The oil spill is not his fault and, unpopular as the new health care law and enormous debt may be, I expect Obama genuinely believes his policies are in America’s best interests. To give the man his due, he is loyal to his convictions.

Fundamentally, though, Obama does not seem to be enjoying his job. Like many liberals, he sees government as central to all human endeavours, which makes the American presidency the grand prize in the game of life. Now that he has the pressures and problems of that portfolio, however, he appears nonplussed.

Which leads us back to that one-term business. If I had to guess, I’d say Obama will not run for re-election in 2012.

The last two presidents who were eligible to run for re-election and chose not to do so, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, were also Democrats who had grown unpopular with the American people. Johnson, in particular, faced opposition from within his own party, as Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy mounted primary challenges. How does this history apply to Obama?

Does anyone remember Hillary Clinton? There were, and are, about a zillion excellent reasons why she should not be president, but not in Newt Gingrich’s wildest dreams could she have done worse than Obama. She may run for the Democratic nomination again, perhaps under the slogan, “Told ya so.”

Who will run for the Republicans? Gingrich? Mitt Romney? Mitch Daniels? We don’t know, and at the moment, it doesn’t much matter. As the adage goes, elections are referenda on the party in power and, although Obama may not be on the ticket, the Democrats will be holding the White House.

In 2008, Americans wanted fresh ideas and a new start. In 2012, they may actually get it.

theo@halfgreat.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

Obama and The Beatles

It takes character to withstand the rigours of adulation. Two men who know what it is to receive the worship of the world met in Washington recently, and the outcome was intriguing.

Last week, President Barack Obama welcomed Sir Paul McCartney, the most prolific of the Beatles, to the White House and awarded him with the Gershwin Prize, commemorating his magnificent musical career.

The presentation was the culmination of a star-studded event, wherein Obama helped McCartney croon his old ballad, “Michelle” to the First Lady. Unless you happen to be a Gulf Coast resident who wishes Obama would call a halt to White House parties until the massive oil leak has been capped, I’m sure it was a touching moment. Maybe McCartney should have included “Fixing a Hole” in his playlist.

But Sir Paul couldn’t just “Let it Be.” After thanking Obama and the award’s sponsor, the Library of Congress, McCartney added, “After the last eight years, it’s great to have a president who knows what a library is.”

This little dig was, of course, the one-millionth instance of some bien-pensant coming up with a new way to call George W. Bush stupid. As it happens, Bush’s wife was a librarian, so one assumes that as a young caveman, the future president would at least pop by the place to drag her home to cook the day’s hunt.

But let’s say it’s true, and Bush is the most remarkable mouth-breather imaginable. So what? He will never hold political office again. Why sully a celebration by trashing a man who’s long gone?

Obama has made a habit of blaming Bush for everything from economic collapse to vapour lock, but unlike McCartney, he has practical reasons for doing so. To wit, the longer Obama can blame Bush, the longer he can avoid criticism himself.

Even so, in the whole history of humankind, scant few have ever been the objects of such global adoration as have Obama and Sir Paul. What, then, are they so cross about?

Obama could be forgiven for being frustrated, as his presidency has not been the success folks expected. As leader of the hopey-changey crusade that swept the world in 2008, he had nowhere to go but down.

McCartney referred to “the last eight years,” and it bears mentioning that Obama has been president for seventeen months. In that time, America’s budget deficit has tripled, unemployment has hovered around ten percent, and Obama’s approval ratings have plunged.

The Beatles, too, began to crack at the height of their success, including the 1966 comment by McCartney’s song-writing partner, John Lennon, that they were, “more popular than Jesus” (Lennon claimed the remarks were misinterpreted; the Vatican posthumously pardoned him in 2008).

Like many young people, I went through a “Beatles phase” (I have yet to experience an “Obama phase,” but anything’s possible), wherein I became a font of trivia about them. But one learns that everybody is fallible, celebrity notwithstanding.

These men, Obama and McCartney, have had it all. They have been to the mountaintop, yet they are still capable of bitterness. How is that possible? Perhaps, to paraphrase another sensation, Shakespeare, the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves. Maybe success and happiness are states of mind, no matter what the world thinks.

theo@halfgreat.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

The Great Health Care Debate

WASHINGTON, DC – Would you rather get sick in the United States or in Canada? The answer depends, perhaps, on who you are, and how sick you get. If, for example, you are a third-generation Canadian with a family doctor and the connections to jump hospital queues for treatment, the Great White North might be where you’d prefer to feel under the weather. If, however, you lack inroads and require urgent attention, you may want to head south and pay for health care in the Land of the Free.

On June 7, four celebrity doctors, including former Vermont Governor and US presidential candidate Howard Dean and former US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, will argue the issue in Toronto as part of the semi-annual Munk Debates. Just prior to this event, four students from high schools in the area will tackle the same resolution. It says here that the students will present more cogent, circumspect cases than their older counterparts, but both debates will be streamed online so viewers across Canada and around the world can decide.

Press bookings have been brisk, especially for the eminently quotable Dean, he of the literal and figurative primal scream. As you might expect, Dean favours a socialized, single-payer system like Canada’s, but he was refreshingly candid in explaining why meaningful tort reform – without which, lawsuits abound in the American system – was absent from the recently passed US health care legislation: “The people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers.”

The fact that Dean is able to concede such a strong point augurs a robust debate. And one can be certain that the new American health regime, dubbed “Obamacare,” will get plenty of airtime on June 7.

Munk Debate moderator Rudyard Griffiths has opined that it was "downright impressive" to see Americans “survive” the overhaul of their health care system over the course of a few months. Well, yes, "impressive" in the sense that an exploding star or massive earthquake might impress a person from a safe distance. As to whether the United States will survive, no one seriously suggested the Republic would crumble the moment President Obama took his Paper-Mate to the bill. Rather, it was the enormous and indefinite expense of the measure, combined with the spectre of rationing and the forcing of citizens to purchase health coverage under penalty of law that brought protests in cities across America.

Indeed, that may be the most "impressive" part of the process – the way in which ordinary Americans rallied, peacefully, against a costly, freedom-squelching initiative for which they did not vote, and which members of Congress did not read.

One of the most eye-catching signs at the health care protests read, “If Obamacare passes, where will Canadians go for their health care?” An interesting point, that. Perhaps a single-payer set-up like Canada’s can exist only in proximity to an open market, as in the US, where folks who have the means and cannot wait for treatment often go – as Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams did recently – thereby reducing strain on the socialized system. Canadians are proud to have universal health coverage – but “coverage” and “care” are rather different things.

Whether Canada's health care system is superior to that of the United States is, at best, debatable – and debated, it shall be.

theo@mcleesedebate.com

Theo Caldwell is the McLeese Chair in Debating.

Less Fear and More Friendliness

Recently, I attended a book launch for my old friend, Dr. John Bowen, who has just published a tome called, “Growing Up Christian.” It’s based on research he did with alumni of a Christian camp in Ontario where I and many other teenagers worked in the 80s and 90s, tracing people’s relationships to the faith after those formative years. Until he delivered his speech at the launch, I had forgotten that I was one of the participants in Dr. Bowen’s surveys about six years ago and my remarks, quoted in the book, read in part as follows:

“My MOST screwed up friends are those who were sequestered in church/Christian families all their lives. It fosters an insecurity and ‘us against them’ mentality, stemming from the repeated belief that the outside or ‘secular’ world is all evil....people lose ANY ability to relate to everyday folks. Whenever I travel to churches, I see that glazed-over look of the lifelong Christian....Less fear and more friendliness is what Christians should have.”

I stand by my comments today, maintaining that, beyond the extreme and tragic cases of abuse in recent news, Christian communities could do a better job of relating to those around them.

Unlike, say, Judaism, which is not particularly given to proselytizing, or Islam, which sometimes does it rather stringently, Christianity is a soft sell. That is, its adherents are called to bring people to the faith by the power of example and compassion. In figurative and literal terms, if you have a Jesus fish on your car, don’t cut anybody off.

Now, there is no shortage of showerless atheists poised to lecture Christians on how they should behave and point out their supposed hypocrisies. Likewise, within political and policy circles, from Howard Dean to Christopher Hitchens, there are plenty of non-churchgoing experts who use the faith to lambaste opponents or recite its history as a litany of crimes. But for my part, having fidgeted awkwardly through Bible songs with actions for more years than I care to recall, I believe I have the bona fides to offer a semi-informed opinion.

Christianity is a faith populated by deeply flawed people, including me. As Dennis Miller said of Watergate convict Charles Colson finding Christ just before he entered prison: “I guess Christ didn’t see him first.” This is precisely the point of the religion. Christ did not come to recruit the best and the brightest, and make them even better. Rather, he came to save sinners.

This is why, whenever some Christian politician, or champion of “family values,” is caught in a compromising position, it makes no sense for folks to cry, “hypocrisy!” The whole gist of Christianity is that people cannot achieve goodness on their own.

The problem arises, in my view as enunciated above, when Christians themselves forget this basis of the faith. When they become smug, convinced that their every action is forgiven in advance, clucking at their fellow man for smoking a cigarette or enjoying a beer, they become insufferable and, more important, do a disservice to the religion they represent (Jesus himself enjoyed a cocktail or two, lest we forget).

Bowen categorizes me as an “Absent Believer,” meaning someone who has not abandoned the faith, but who has departed from organized Christian communities (in fact, I have become a churchgoing Presbyterian, but my fellow congregants could be forgiven for suggesting that I give one of the other major religions a try). This is contrasted with “Loyal Believers,” who never left the fold. In either case, Bowen’s statistical and anecdotal research uncovers vastly disparate life stories as he seeks to determine what drives people from today’s church, and what brings them back.

“Growing Up Christian” gives consideration and voice to those who, for better or for worse, spent adolescent years in Christian communities, providing cogent analysis of the questions that arose from that experience. It is a timely work, by one of the few fellows I met in that milieu for whom I would go to the effort of contributing and reading. Whether Bowen’s subjects have stayed true to the faith, or have left and are contemplating a return, he encourages them to work out their salvation for themselves, advising, “God hopes for a response, but God’s love is a gift.”

theo@halfgreat.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

Saint Patrick and the Selfless Life

“I am Patrick, a sinner, the most unlearned of men, the lowliest of all the faithful, utterly worthless in the eyes of many.”
–St. Patrick, Confession

The life of Saint Patrick is celebrated the world over on March 17, when everyone is a little bit Irish. Solemnity and sobriety may be in short supply on Patrick’s feast day, but this great man merits serious contemplation.

Born a Roman citizen on the west coast of Scotland around 400 A.D., Patrick was kidnapped from his home at age 16 by kinsmen of Niall of the Nine Hostages, Ireland’s most powerful ruler, and held as a slave for six years. It was a brutal time, but one for which the Saint would eventually thank God. Only through the misery of bondage, and his miraculous escape, did Patrick find his true calling.

He missed the major portion of his formal schooling and this made him insecure his whole life, causing him to write very little. When he did take up his quill in later years, Patrick apologized profusely for the quality of his prose: “Anyone can see from the style of my writing how little training in the use of words I got.”

What an irony that the Patron Saint of Ireland, a nation of outsized authors, was not, in fact, Irish, and lamented his own lack of skill for the written word. But Patrick was a gifted speaker, able to find the natural tone that resonates with listeners, whether they are learned or not. As scholar Donnchadh O’ Flionn opined of Patrick’s oratory, “How his unbookish common sense must have baffled those suave and contriving learned opponents of his!”

And opponents, he certainly had. Both within the Church and without, Patrick was surrounded by those who doubted his credentials, his motives, his character and his message. Despite his lifelong knowledge of Christianity (his father had been a church deacon), Patrick did not appreciate the value of faith until he lost his freedom. After escaping to England on a ship that was transporting dogs, Patrick embarked on a lightning clerical career that saw him elevated to the rank of Bishop. Over the course of years, he had visions and dreams of his former captors in Ireland, calling him back to teach them about Christ. He knew that his mission would be hard and folks would doubt him. Yet Patrick persevered, stating, “I came to the Irish heathens to preach the Good News and to put up with insults from unbelievers.”

Patrick understood that, through him and others, God would embrace a new country. In his Confession, he quoted Romans 9:25: “I shall say to a people that was not mine, ‘You are my people,’ and to a nation I never pitied, ‘I pity you.’” To be sure, Patrick believed he was helping to fulfill this prophesy in Ireland.

But discard any idea that Patrick strode onto the Emerald Isle, plucked up a shamrock (derived from the Irish word seamrog, meaning “summer plant”), explained the Holy Trinity to the pagans using its three leaves, then everyone settled into a chorus of Danny Boy (the non-Irish derivations of that song being another discussion entirely). It was a far harder slog. Patrick was imprisoned and robbed repeatedly, attacked, vilified, and he lived in constant expectation of murder.

Gradually, throughout his eventful life, Patrick became aware of his place, if not in history, in God’s plan. He did not think of himself as special; rather, he took pains to point out that his faith, mission, and even his suffering were gifts from God and, perhaps to prove a point, the Almighty had chosen an unlearned former slave, rather than a brilliant scholar, to spread His message.

It is often observed that Patrick led the only bloodless revolution in the whole troubled history of Ireland. Author and Irish Bishop Joseph Duffy notes, “The later compilers of saints’ lives, who were by no means given to understatement, tell of only one martyr in his entire missionary career.” The pen may be mightier than the sword, but Patrick used neither. Instead, his simple faith and plain speaking changed the course of his adopted country.

Writers largely ignored Patrick for more than 100 years after his death around 480, but he was rediscovered in the 7th Century. It was not until 1681 that we find the first reference to wearing the shamrock on St. Patrick’s Day, and this was the same century wherein “Patrick” became the most common Christian name in Ireland. Like any number of ancient tales, the facts of Patrick’s life are disputable but the larger point remains. To wit, a selfless life is worth living.

Patrick had a special relationship with young people, and some suppose he strove to give them a hope and happiness his own childhood had lacked. But were it not for his early suffering, could Patrick have become such a seminal figure of faith? How many people, afflicted as Patrick was, might decide they deserve a comfortable dotage? What, then, urged him on? As he put it, “Surely it was not without God or for worldly purposes that I came to Ireland. Who compelled me?...I sold my birthright without shame or regret for the benefit of others...Thus I am a servant of Christ in a far-off nation on account of the indescribable glory of eternal life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”


theo@halfgreat.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.

Willing to See, Ready to Believe

Kids will ask. When it comes to faith, they have the same questions we all do: Where did we come from? Where are we going? What is the point of this life? To be sure, they will include the kind of queries only children could come up with – Does God have feet? Could Jesus lift the car? – and teaching them about religion is our way of saying, “Here’s what we’ve come up with so far.”

This is a delicate proposition, and you want to find the tools that will serve them in later life. Trying to rush, trick or terrorize kids into a particular belief system is counterproductive. To quote Lady Macbeth, pace Hieronymus Bosch, “'Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil.” Many of my contemporaries are still recovering from early religious instruction, which prioritized that doing one thing or another would land them in Hell. Besides turning people off, this tack misses the point. Fear might keep you from sin, but it makes you too timid to be much use.

Does Hell exist? Is it anything like Cleveland? Perhaps, but damnation is only one part of God’s story. For me, the handiest definition of Hell is existence without God. If you’re going to teach kids about our relation to God, why get hung up on that unpleasant bit?

A preferable approach is to let kids know they matter. “Let the little children come to me,” a good fellow said, adding that anyone who harmed a child was in for a world of trouble. You can never be too small for God to use, but you can certainly be too big. This message matters to kids and, imparted properly, will stay with them when they grow up.

So, how to do this? Religion, like life, is one big best guess. Some folks think they have the answers, including believers and non-believers alike. Whenever one writes a column like this, one hears from doctrinaire adherents, as well as angry atheists (who, it seems, not only don't believe in God, they also don't believe in spell-check). Ironclad certainty in the face of the infinite cosmos is absurd, even with the Scriptures or Richard Dawkins on your side.

But if you give kids the rudiments, explaining what you believe and why, they have the tools to make choices and adapt. As the adage goes, “A scholar is always made alone.” Eventually, a child will have to make his or her own decisions. They must attune to that compass we all possess, which points toward what is right, and not deny it exists. Shine your light, be an example, and if people want a piece of what you’ve got, more the better.

For my part, I am Presbyterian – which is very much like being Christian, only Scottish – and my faith is based on sacrifice for others and the suppression of self. In particular, I believe each of us is so important that God came to live among us, and to die, in order to reunite us with Him. Come to think of it, those are just about the only things I can tell you with any conviction about my religion.

Where, exactly, Jesus was born, what he looked like, etc., are unknowable, and even the Gospels are at odds on such things. Details aside, I choose to believe the larger truth. That is not so simple as it sounds. Lest we forget, it was Jesus' message that got him killed. Then, as now, people had very definite ideas about how God should be. When Jesus was not as they expected, unpleasantness ensued.

Whatever your religious faith (or lack thereof), how many of your most cherished assumptions could you stand to see overturned?

Jesus said, "Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." That is an enchanting yet foreboding remark, but what does it mean? If I had to give my best guess at an interpretation, I’d say: Be open.

We are all someone's children, and we are not in charge. That, in itself, is an encouraging thought. I have seen too many of us wearing socks with sandals to suppose humankind has all the answers.

Fortunate children preserve their sense of wonder and openness into adulthood. The best thing to teach them is to be willing to see and ready to believe.

theo@halfgreat.com

Theo Caldwell is the author of Finn the half-Great.