Tuesday, October 11, 2005
CATHOLIC JOURNALISTIC POLAR SHIFT AND EDITORIAL COMMENTS
Never thought I'd see it. The current issue of NOR includes an article by Robert Sungenis titled "Grand Detours From the Second Vatican Council"! Well, they do say the polar ice caps are melting.
Normally I'm a big fan of NOR, but one of the editorials in "New Oxford Notes" this month fails to get my vote. Titled "Hysteria Central", the editorial concerns Michael O'Brien's article in "The Catholic World Report" titled "The New Totalitarianism". NOR's comments open this way:
Michael O'Brien is an accomplished Catholic novelist. His strength is fiction. In The Catholic World Report (April), he ventures into nonfiction, specifically political science, and what he writes turns out to be fiction as well. He writes about "The New Totalitarianism" that is already here or on its way because of "hate" crimes legislation and same-sex "marriage."
The argument NOR presents is that "O'Brien doesn't understand that there is no such thing as a perfect democracy," and goes on to list instances where democracy fails, such as the fact that men had the right to vote long before women did, Japanese were held in prison camps during the war, filibustering in the Senate thwarts the will of the majority, and Mormons cannot practice their religion of polygamy, and a few others then goes on to indicate this is not evidence that "America was not or is not a democracy, that America was or is a totalitarian state or that it is headed toward totalitarianism."
NOR objects to O'Brien's claim that "because of 'hate' crimes legislation and same-sex 'marriage,'...that 'a whiff of Germany in the early 1930s is discernible in the atmosphere' and that 'for several years now we have lived in a situation very close to the crisis that Germany reached when the National Socialists' came to power. This is pure hysteria, and is so reminiscent of the New Left in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which claimed that Nixon was Hitler and America is Amerikkka."
NOR continues, "Your Editor lived in a police state, a totalitarian state, in 1966. That state was East Germany....There was no freedom of speech. There was no freedom of the press...There was some freedom of religion, quite curtailed..." and on to more of the restrictions imposed on East Germans.
Obviously this is not East Germany in 1966. By 1966 East Germany had been a totalitarian state for how long? Certainly long enough to get lots of restrictive rules into place because political power was concentrated and entrenched. But is the fact that we don't look like East Germany a guarantee that we never will?
In 1966 I could leave the garage door unlocked. The neighbors on my street did that by mistake a few weeks ago. In the morning all their tools were gone.
In 1966 I could go to the Cleveland airport on Sunday afternoon to sit on the open air observation deck above the boarding gates and watch the planes arrive and take off.
In 1966 those nifty little TV cameras that photograph me in banks, in stores, and at street intersections hadn't been invented yet.
Neither had the chip ID.
In 1966 it wasn't necessary to shred credit card solicitations before throwing them in the wastebasket.
In 1966 I didn't have to be fingerprinted to volunteer in my parish.
In 1966 students didn't have to pass through metal detectors in order to get to class.
In 1966 when I changed a savings account from one bank to another there was no security check on where the money came from and where it was going.
I flew to Vegas last June. It was the first time I'd flown since '83. A lot has changed at our airports. Instead of going to the gate with me and waiting for the plane to take off, my husband had to kiss me goodbye almost the moment he got through the door at the terminal. I had to take off my shoes and jewelry in order to pass through the metal detector on the way to the gate. And no doubt somewhere along the process some camera took a picture of me to have a record of my crime of getting on an airplane.
But of course we don't see this as totalitarianism because we see it as security just like we've been told to see it. Sort of like those mandatory seat belts we wear for our own safety.
When East Germany became totalitarian it was the result of a war. That isn't the only way it can happen. We can be persuaded that our best interests require ever-increasing rules and restrictions that limit our movement because our society has come to fear its individual members.
We are becoming increasingly lawless. What happens when the lawlessness escalates until no one is safe in their home? Think about New Orleans. Given such a dire situation, we would welcome greater restrictions and not see them as totalitarian but rather as a safety net. Like the frog in slowly heating water, we may not realize what is happening to us until our freedom is gone.
NOR, I usually like what you have to say and chuckle over your editorials. But this time, guys, I think you got it wrong.
