Monday, May 24, 2004

Exodus Let's face it: our nation is beyond redemption. Sure, a godly man inhabits the White House, and conservatives dominate all branches of government. But they are powerless against the forces of Academia, Hollyweird, and MTV, which produce more converts than the Church every year. After decades of fighting to return the nation to its Christian foundations, the war has been lost. The defeat was sounded when homosexual marriage was legalized in Massachusetts. What are conservative Christians to do now? The founding members of Christian Exodus (not to be confused with Exodus Ministries, which preaches freedom from homosexuality through the love and power of Jesus Christ) have a solution. The Texas-based non-profit has decided to bring together like-minded people (the goal is 50,000) to a lowly populated conservative Christian Southern state, politick within that state to secede from the Union, and repeat the formula state by state, until they redeem the whole US of A. ChristianExodus.org offers the opportunity to try a strategy not yet employed by Bible-believing Christians. Rather than spend resources in continued efforts to redirect the entire nation, we will redeem States one at a time. Millions of Christian conservatives exist, but we are geographically spread out and diluted at the national level. Therefore, we must concentrate our numbers in a geographical region with a sovereign government we can control through the electoral process. ChristianExodus.org is orchestrating the move of 50,000 or more Christians to one of three States for the express purpose of dissolving that State's bond with the union.  The three States under consideration are Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina.  The exact destination will be chosen by vote of our membership.  Our move will commence when the federal government forces sodomite marriages on our local communities or once we reach the 50,000-member mark, whichever comes first. According to a report in WorldNetDaily, the organization has chosen South Carolina to start their movement of Christian secession. The risk is great, but so is the reward. If all goes according to plan, [President of ChristianExodus.org Cory] Burnell is hoping to have a constitutional convention by 2014, with a president of the new nation -- still to be known as South Carolina -- elected in 2016, which is also a presidential election year in the U.S. He says the nation would be founded on Christian principles, and the people writing its constitution would have to hash out details to safeguard it as a Christian republic. So are you ready to join today to restore our nation to Christ? Your current level of disgust will determine your commitment level and future role. Commitment Level 1: Things are already bad enough; I'm willing to move to reestablish constitutional government as soon as possible! [i.e. You're willing to move immediately.] Commitment Level 2: Gay marriage is the last straw!  If it's forced upon my community, then I'm willing to move to reestablish constitutional government. [i.e. You're willing to move if gay marriage comes to your town.] Commitment Level 3: I'm unable to move, but I agree that it's time for significant change.  If gay marriage is forced upon my community, I will vote for my sovereign State's independence from the union.  Then I'll work to return limited constitutional government to my State. [i.e. You're willing to work in your own state for the same goal.] The organization has so far received only 1,500 messages of interest, so there's plenty of room for growth. Postscript: The Christian Exodus organization isn't the first to try such a strategy. The Free State Project is a group of libertarians who plan to move to New Hampshire to create their own libertarian utopia via state secession there. WorldNetDaily has more. UPDATE It turns out that Christian Exodus is just the latest attempt by Cory Burnell and his allies to garner support for Southern secession -- an attempt that seeks to capitalize on recent Christian anger over homosexual marriage. The Confederate State of America Project is a longer-standing, similar plan to gather radical conservatives to South Carolina to move for secession. Ron Holland, editor of Dixie Daily News, explains: The CSA Project is a call to all the conservative & liberty loving people of Dixie & the United States to join the last crusade & final defense of all Christendom, western civilization & limited constitutional government. Put aside your organizational infighting, your religious, racial, class or ethnic differences and come together as one people under God and stand up for the best values and traditions of the South and the real America. For this is the last chance for the resurrection of freedom and liberty on the American continent before the darkness of tyranny at home and empire conquest abroad falls over us all and we are a great nation and people no more. In a separate essay on the Dixie Daily News site, Cory Burnell explains his "workable plan." I believe we can have Southern independence by 2014, but we must make some drastic changes in the goals and perceptions of our movement. Here is a workable plan for independence within a decade: 1. Our enemy is not a government, but rather is our socialist (albeit sometimes unwittingly) neighbors. 2. Our current scope is too large and thoroughly impossible in the near-term. 3. Our immediate goal must be to free one targeted state from the union. 4. Independence for additional parts of Dixie should fall under mid- and long-term goals. 5. Relocate thousands of Constitutionalists to predetermined legislative districts in our target state. 6. Win a sizable portion of the State House and give voters the option of Independence. 7. Establish an ETI [Estimated Time for Independence] and a timeline for achievement of necessary precursors. Mr. Burnell seems to be set on the 2014 deadline. I wonder how he arrived at that date. Perhaps Jack Van Impe has the answer. 11:56:35 PM    comment [] How "Geneva Conventions" are used to mislead The debate over detainee mistreatment at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere is invariably set in terms of the Geneva Conventions and their possible violation. Framing the debate in this way has given the Bush Administration and the Pentagon a rhetorical advantage. First, as Justice Department lawyers have argued, since the Geneva Conventions formally apply to state-to-state conflicts with lawful combatants wearing uniforms, they do not, strictly speaking, apply to many of the detainees. Second, those leaders who, despite legal arguments to the contrary, decided that the Geneva Conventions ought to apply to the prisoners thereby portray themselves as especially noble. Treating the prisoners humanely is seen as a supererogatory act of kindness, rather than as what is simply owed to them as human beings. Furthermore, focus on the Geneva Conventions frames the debate in terms of warfare and laws that pertain to warfare, even though it is unclear whether and to what extent we are, strictly speaking, at war. Finally, since most people are unfamiliar with the Geneva Conventions, framing the debate in this way serves to cloud the relevant moral questions in the public mind. This whole way of framing the issue obscures the simple fact that the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere violates universally acknowledged human rights -- standards that apply to all human beings everywhere and at all times, regardless of war and peace, nationality, religion or circumstances. Thus I suggest critics reframe the debate simply and explicitly in terms of human rights. And there are already codified principles at hand for the purpose. First, there is the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, formulated by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt and adopted by the UN in 1948. According to Article 5 of the Declaration, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Second, there is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States ratified in September 1992. Article 7 of the Covenant repeats Article 5 of the Declaration: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." It may be objected that the International Covenant only applies to "all individuals within [a state's] territory," (cf. Article 2) and not to the treatment of foreigners abroad. But this runs counter to the universalizing language of the preamble and the rest of the document. By "no one," Article 7 clearly means "no one" -- not "no residents." It may also be objected that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is just that -- a declaration, without enforcement power. However, the straightforward denial of universal human rights is not a claim that our political and military leaders can make without general disapproval. Thus, the debate on the detainee scandals ought to be reframed simply in terms of human rights abuses. The photos of Abu Ghraib aren't simply about violations of agreed "conventions" of warfare. They're about naked affronts to human dignity and the universally acknowledged rights that protect it. I suggest that critics reframe the debate by asking the following questions of the Administration: According to Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "No one shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment." Even though the detainees may not fall under the Geneva Conventions, don't you think that Article 5 should apply to them simply as human beings? According to Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States ratified in 1992, "No one shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment." Don't you believe this principle ought to apply to all detainees, even if they don't fall under the Geneva Convention? Do you believe the detainees, simply as human beings, have the right not to be treated in a cruel, inhuman, or degrading matter? 12:55:30 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 David V. Johnson. Last update: 6/1/04; 12:53:22 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.