In recent months many counties and cities in the U.S. have posted the Ten Commandments in their courthouses.  The State of Alabama -- led by their Supreme Court Chief Justice, Roy Moore -- has even done so in its highest court.  Needless to say, the ACLU and like organisations have mobilised to sue, promising yet another waste of taxpayer's money on litigation.

Their contention is, of course, that posting the Ten Commandments does two things:

• Breaches that "wall of separation" of church and state.
• Abridges freedom of religion generally.

For people with any real sense of history, the first is silly.  Our founding fathers' intent was to end the European practice of having a state church, supported with tax dollars and making religions other than that of the state church either restricted or illegal.  No one has yet to come up with the "state church" that all of these "fanatics" are wanting to establish.  Adjunct to that disestablishment is the abolition of the "religious test" for public office.  The last major religious test applied in this country was during John Ashcroft's confirmation hearing, when the liberals wanted to bar him from becoming Attorney General because he is Pentecostal.  (Perhaps we "holy rollers" are a bigger threat than we think!)

The second, of course, goes to the whole issue of human rights and freedom in our society.  Let's take a look at a recent event and see what could have happened to our human rights.

The "What-If" of 9-11

The actions taken by the U.S. government subsequent to 9-11 have generated a lot of discussion about the status of our freedoms as Americans in view of our need of national security through the activities of law enforcement.  What most people haven't thought of yet is what could have happened with a more "broad-minded" occupant in the White House regarding national security possibilities.  In the wake of the fear generated by this event, such an occupant could have:

• Sent the Congress home for an indefinite period, saying that it was too dangerous for them to stay in Washington with all of these terrorists about.  Since their emergency home in West Virginia is now a tourist attraction, their options would have been limited.
• Enacted restrictions on who could fly, empowering the government to "prequalify" travellers on the commercial air system.  In a country as large as the U.S., this would be tantamount to an internal passport system such as existed in the Soviet Union.
• Launched a broad based legal assault on evangelical Christian organisations.  Since any Christian organisation worth its salt believes that God is above and beyond any government (as Muslims do also), and since the media have spent so much airtime lumping all "fundamentalists" together, a well oiled propaganda machine (such as the Clinton administration had) could have easily made a "threat to national security" line plausible to many.

This is just a sample; people more familiar with the ins and outs of the legal system could probably add many more ideas to this list.  However, on 11 September 2001 the U.S. had a President who was God-fearing enough to restrain such assaults on our freedoms, the carping of his critics notwithstanding.

Who's Really in Charge?

One of the fears of those opposing the posting of the Ten Commandments is that the posting of this very Jewish document might instil in someone Christian values that would encourage some religious belief by the state.  This needs to be looked at in a "holistic" (to use a good New Age term) way.  Think about growing up in the U.S. for a minute:

• Most Americans go to a public school system where it is illegal in varying degrees to either express religious opinions or to do religious practices.  Moreover by law they are forced to endure a Darwinist view of the world shoved down their throats, where God has no place and everything is caused by purely materialistic means.
• If they really want to get anywhere in the system, they are inevitably forced to go to expensive, liberal Ivy League schools where they get more of the same and then some.  Think: when was the last time we had a President that didn't come from the Ivy League?  Do you really think that we'll have another that didn't for the rest of this Republic's existence?  I certainly don't.
• Once out, any kind of meaningful Christian beliefs exclude their holders from many of the circles of power in our society.  This tends to trap their holders in the lower reaches of the society.  Don't believe me -- just look at the demographics of evangelical Christians.

Most Americans -- and many Christians -- don't look at things this way because the U.S. is still a large, diverse country, where many can be born, live and die in one place without seeing "how the other half lives," although with mass media this is more difficult all of the time.  The election of 2000 showed graphically how regionally divided the U.S. is concerning many of its fundamental opinions.  The regions that voted for the current occupant to the White House -- and make no mistake, his getting there was a miracle -- hold a different value system than those that went otherwise, and those areas cover the main seats of power in the country.  It is in the first region that the move for the Ten Commandments is coming from.

Petty legalism aside, what governments that post the Ten Commandments are doing is in effect "levelling the playing field," by putting up an alternative value system to the one held by this society's upper reaches and set forth by its media, news and otherwise.  That levelling -- that would in turn shift the balance of power in the long run -- is what liberals fear the most.

The Highest Authority

We said at the start that any Christian organisation worth its salt proclaims that God's authority is above any human government.  That too is not to the liberals' taste; they speak of freedom, but by putting the government at the top of human society they guarantee that freedom will sooner or later go away.  When the Ten Commandments are posted in our courthouses and other public places, it is a reminder that there is in fact a God who is higher than our government and other institutions, our final appeal when we are oppressed and our help when our own government turns against us.  Eliminating that appeal -- and that is something the liberals ultimately cannot do -- will make us slaves to whatever power holder gets to the top.

Written January 2002