President Obama's recent statement that techniques such as water boarding "undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer" caught my eye.
I wasn't so much interested in his assertion that water boarding does not make us safer. That particular question can't really be answered, at least not well. There are plenty of people out there who will argue one way or the other, and I have no interest in compiling a list of Ph.Ds who love to differ with each other and argue their respective points on endless political talk shows.
Actually the most interesting statement comes in the beginning of what he said, that these techniques "undermine our moral authority."
It left me curious about what our "moral authority" is. What is he referring to exactly? Whose respect are we trying to garner by being morally superior to them? Does having 'moral authority' give us a stronger position when negotiating diplomatic matters? And exactly how are we morally superior to anyone else? What gives us our moral authority over them?
Do we draw our moral superiority from the increased rate at which our kids are failing out of high school? Or perhaps it comes from our advanced political evolution, which allows to see the moral benefit to aborting millions of children every year. Or maybe it's our colorful history in the field of eugenics that so inspires the world to our advanced morality. Then again, our flirtation with Gay marriage certainly would gain the respect of the devoutly religious Muslim, increasing his desire to be 'just like us.' Our image of being greedy and selfish obviously inspires others to model their society after ours. Maybe it's our tenacious hunger for all things pornographic that so interests people in democracy and gives us our moral superiority. If it's not those things, it must be our history of slavery that gives us the moral authority needed to lead the world with such confidence.
Out of all the characteristics of our society that so infuriate and disgust some in the Muslim world, are we seriously suppose to believe that sticking someone under water intending to scare them into telling us where a bomb is located is really the thing that causes people hate us? Is that what causes us to lose our 'moral authority'? I mean,
really? It certainly isn't helpful, but I believe terrorists flew planes into the WTC before we started water boarding. We were still hated enough to be attacked, and our supposed 'moral authority' wasn't enough to lead the world into happy Utopia before September 11th. Have we since become so pious that we have gained a moral authority we lacked before those attacks?
The idea that we posses any type of 'moral authority' is, quite honestly, ridiculous. In this the President is grandstanding: trying to impress those who believe they are morally superior to others because they are so refined (that'd be Europe) or because they live in a democracy (that'd be us). We are just as screwed up as a people as any other culture on Earth. If we don't have that moral authority, it is impossible for us to lose it by water boarding. But understand this: I'm not advocating water boarding, I'm merely stating that we don't posses any moral authority over others that could be lost with increased interrogation techniques.
But where does this idea that we posses any heightened morality come from? Our religions? Where in the Bible does one draw their right to vote? Or to own property? Or their pursuit of happiness? Our government was designed to limit the powerful destruction that can be brought by sinful man. Small, local government was the order of the day. Weak, Federal government was what was originally designed. But even that does not provide us with any 'moral authority' with which we can dictate to the world what they should do. Moral authority lies with Christ alone, not with us. Democracy might be better than a theocracy, but a system of government can't provide anyone with moral authority over others. If the President honestly believes that we lost our moral authority because of water boarding when so much about our culture indicates that there is nothing intrinsically moral about us, he is sorely mistaken.
Let me ask a question: do you think there is something morally wrong with allowing only landowners to vote? How about only letting men vote? Or only women? Do you think any of us posses a moral right to vote? If you said yes you're drawing your moral bearings from recent interpretation of the Constitution, not from God. Not from the Bible, the Koran, or any other religious text. Christ didn't advocate democracy or voting. I have no right to vote in a deomocracy any more than I have the right to be under a King. Voting 'rights' don't exist other than in a democracy, and yet we think that by employing them here in the U.S. we gain some type of moral superiority over those who don't employ them in their country. Perhaps our system is preferrable, but morality has nothing to do with it.
What is amazing to me is that we live in a society where our culture is utterly despised by many in the Muslim world (and even here in the West), and yet we're arrogant (dumb?) enough to think that water boarding is what causes us to lose our 'moral authority.' The most difficult part of all this is that our freedoms
permit our debauchery. Much like God doesn't intervene when we sin, and thus permits us to chose sin (for a time). It's why Adams said our government is only viable when the citizenry is highly religious and moral, and it is completely ill-suited for the government of any other type of people. Once we stop realizing that free speech was designed to protect us from government imprisonment and start believing it was designed to protect our rights to peddle porn or sit on a corner with a sign that says "Obama is Satan," then we've completely missed the boat. When we lose our bearings and no longer understand that our rights
protect us from government and are given to us by God, and start believing but that our rights exist so our
government can provide us with things (health care, welfare, social security, etc), then we are no longer in agreement with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, or and our our Framers. We will no longer understand why this country split from Britain, and we'll no longer resemble the country as it was founded. Once we get there (are we there already?), we're on the shore watching the boat sail into the sunset. Or as Ronald Reagan said, "one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
Sadly, I think President Obama is one who has missed the boat. And in my opinion the worst part is I don't think he knows he missed the boat; and he's leading a bunch of people who don't know they missed the boat either.
