Wes Riddle's Horse Sense
Semptember 10 , 2007
Science is a really good thing, generally speaking. Thank God (and science) for modern conveniences, such as electricity, computers, communications, automobiles, air conditioning, TV and riding lawn mowers. Science is a hallmark of the West, though alas, it has become something of an idol too. It competes these days with Deity, to the extent that scientifically based truths and proofs based upon evidence derived from material senses, often compete with faith-based worldviews and philosophical approaches based on subjective standards like a personal relationship with God. Indeed freedom of conscience, whether faith-based or not, often runs afoul the god of Science. Science shows conclusively that it is unhealthy to smoke; and the more you smoke, the worse it is. Some people, however, choose to smoke anyway. They choose to ignore science, disbelieve it, make excuses or say they don’t care. If science defined good and somehow ruled by decree, then certainly it would be illegal to smoke. Prayer might be illegal too, if insufficient evidence were brought forward to demonstrate the utility, which of course would have to be validated by a series of independent and controlled experiments. Obviously this hypothetical scenario is fantastic, but it should at least drive home the point that freedom and science are not exactly the same things. Science in many ways enhances freedom, and freedom certainly enhances science. But freedom is the purview of government, society, politics and natural rights; whereas, science is the purview of knowledge and understanding. The definition of what constitutes the good and just and right to do, however, is the purview of religion, ethics and law. Freedom and science and righteousness all interact, but they are hardly synonymous. In the United States, laws usually regulate activities and conduct that may cause harm to others. The body of the Law never purported to define the perfect society.
Those who worship the god of Science mistake a lot of things, and they make a mess of the rest as well. And what does the secularist and atheist worship if not the idol of science? They subsume freedom to what they call truth, scientifically based, and dismiss the supernatural or metaphysical aspect entirely. Secular proponents generally don’t mind big government either, if they can impose their religion of science. Those who value freedom above what is good for them (scientifically based or otherwise) will see in voluntary religion a friend. Of course to be free, we may voluntarily seek to loose ourselves from at least some of the modern conveniences science has wrought, as well as from certain aspects of organized religion. It’s your call and your eternal soul. Not all that passes as progress or something new enhances freedom or quality of life (not to mention the good or holy life). Be they video games, television, rap music, porn, drugs, addictive substances, public education or government programs, there are pitfalls out there that damage character, independence and thoughtfulness. Not all of them are illegal, and science makes very little qualitative assessment concerning them.
Nothing in the Constitution says you have to be scientific. Nothing says that you have to believe anything. You don’t have to give up your rights for the sake of evidence, real or so-called. You don’t have to pander to science, to medical consensus or diet plans or fads, to the media or polls or to international world court decisions, the U.N. or globalization. So what is the Constitution, and what has it got to do with all this? It is a real document to be sure. It is our national framework for a federated government, in which the People are left free in all these and many other respects to do as they please, to be contrary and utterly unscientific. The Constitution doesn’t even mention God. Those who don’t like the fact (historical if not scientific) that we were born and have since operated as a Christian Republic until the last century, should not have worked so hard to join the Declaration of Independence to Organic Law, since the Declaration most assuredly does mention Him. It is simply a fact that the majority of people in the country and amongst the several states have modeled their governments and societies on Christian notions of what constitutes good, as well as with reference to faith-based conceptions of the universe (i.e., having a Creator, evincing purpose and design, etc.). Of course, American constitutional culture is also steeped in religious values and the assumptions of the Enlightenment, but the good and just and right per se were left to the prerogative of the People. As forward looking as the Founders were, I’m sure they expected us to modernize and to apply the many benefits of science to our lives and even to apply new modes of analysis to problems associated with living and living well. They also wanted us to continue to make right choices, informed by religion and by good ole American horse sense. They wanted us to take the truths of government they gave us, political science as they understood it, and to continue to abide by them, to rearticulate and apply them to new circumstances as necessary, to amend the document even, but not to abandon the Constitution whole cloth.
The Preamble to the Constitution says in its entirety: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” So what are we doing?
_____________________
Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors
from West Point and Oxford. Widely published in the academic and opinion
press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican
Primary. Email: wes@wesriddle.com.
|
