Happy Independence Day

A Thought for Independence Day (Eric Gans, 1998)

Breathing New Life Into The American Trinity

There is much truth to be found in fantasy, which helps explain, I suppose, our ongoing fascination with dreams. And cartoons.

No matter how old I get I hope I never grow too old to enjoy cartoons. Watching some childhood favorites again through Youtube, I see them today with new eyes, as exhibits of something I absorbed but never understood, when first observing them at a younger age.


The Hollywood theatrical cartoon of the forties and fifties is so delightfully, unapologetically, indelibly American. The best of them reflect the best of American civilization: its capacity for keeping faith, its belief in re-invention... both cultural tenets joining as one, in the form of the Happy Ending. (In the above example, a pragmatic Happy Ending, making it all the more quintessentially American: where else is it so ingrained to take lemons and turn them into lemonade..?)

A further American trait I see on display in many of the old cartoons, going hand in hand with the ideal of re-invention, are their many examples of forgiveness. Old enemies putting aside deeply-held grievances in order to rally and address a new and greater problem, exhibiting the rare self-discipline of not holding a grudge.


Growing out from the ability to keep faith in oneself, benefiting from the belief in the Second Chance formula of “try, try again”, comes the true arena for success: a forum that preserves the freedom to fail, so that by trial and error you may learn what you are best suited to become. We are not born to follow in our parents' footsteps unless that ends up being the choice we select for ourselves.


Put them all together and what do you get?

In God We Trust (the most self-renewing source of self-confidence), e pluribus unum [“from the many, one”] (the recipe for moving on from old grudges arising out of old relationships, looking to see what may be shared in common as well as where there may be differences), and Liberty (the freedom to fail while searching for the best version of ourselves to become): the three stages of the American Trinity, as described on American coinage... and older American cartoons.

For how much longer will this Trinity prevail, with anti-theism on the march, with old grudges increasingly unforgiven, with ever increasing suffocation of Liberty, the fragile laboratory so necessary for innovation and self-discovery?

These besieged older values desperately need to be re-animated with a fresh breath of new life, a new will to forestall a final fade-to-black on the last best hope on Earth.

I imagine we will find a way to win, in the end; it's a dream I picked up from watching a lot of old cartoons...

[With thanks to Dennis Prager]

Witness to Faith, Pervaiz Masih

Maybe you've heard this story, but today it's news to me; anyway, it deserves much repeating. Most people, if faced with a gunman who seems intent on committing a horrible crime would either freeze or try to run away. How many of us would have the courage to die that we might save elite women of a society in which we are of the lowest ranks?

ISLAMABAD, Oct 21: The courage shown by two unsung heroes, including one who lost his life during the two suicide bombings in the International Islamic University (IIU), saved lives of hundreds of girl students in the institution’s cafeteria on Tuesday.

Pervez Masih, a 40-year-old Christian worker, saved scores of lives at the double-storey cafeteria, where around 400 female students were present at the time of the attack.

“There would have been dozens of deaths had the suicide bomber not been blocked by Pervez Masih,” said Saifur Rehman, a senior security official of the IIU.

The other hero, Mohammad Shaukat, survived the attack but he is fighting for his life on a bed in the surgical ward of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, as a shot fired by the suicide bomber hit him in lower abdomen.

Narrating the scene of the suicide attack on the cafeteria for women, Shaukat told Dawn that: “The attacker clad in a black burka was heading towards the cafeteria for female students at a time when they were having their lunch. I felt something wrong as no girl student, even one who observes veil, wears a head-to-toe burka on the women campus. I intercepted the bomber, who shot me, and I fell down but Pervez, who witnessed the scene, understood the designs of suicide bomber and held him at the entrance of the dining hall where the blast took place.”

Organs and flesh of the suicide bomber littered the entrance area and Pervez was thrown at the wall on the other side of the dining hall, said another eye-witness.

Christian writer, Mark Earley, elaborates (HT: Vladtepes)

In late October, at Islamabad’s International Islamic University, an Islamic suicide bomber tried to attack the women’s side of campus. But there worked a lowly janitor, Pervaiz Masih, who like so many of the 2 percent Christian minority in this 95 percent Muslim country are relegated to the most menial jobs in society-garbage collectors, sewage workers, and servants.

The suicide bomber was making his way to a cafeteria of some 300 to 400 women students, when Masih came between him and his goal. Masih is a common name among the Christian minority-it means Messiah. And on October 20th, Masih certainly followed in the footsteps of Jesus, the true Messiah. He refused to let the bomber pass. In the process the bomb detonated, killing Masih, the bomber, and three girls nearby. Meanwhile, the 300 to 400 Muslim girls inside the cafeteria were unharmed.

In the midst of the rubble from the explosion lay two martyrs. A so-called Muslim “martyr” had maliciously murdered others. Meanwhile, a Christian martyr had laid down his life for his brethren. A Christian died to save Muslims from a fellow Muslim.

CNN reported Professor Fateh Muhammad Malik, a rector of the university, as saying that Pervez Masih “rose above the barriers of caste, creed and sectarian terrorism. Despite being a Christian, he sacrificed his life to save the Muslim girls.”

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that not “despite being a Christian” but because of being a Christian, Masih laid down his life.

As news cameras showed the garbage-strewn cemetery [see video here] where Masih is buried, I couldn’t help but think of God’s great reversals. A King born in a manger. A hero buried beneath garbage. And I couldn’t help thinking how one day this upside-down world would be turned on it its head at the second Advent, when Christ comes in glory.

In the meantime, pray for persecuted Christians in Pakistan who suffer under unjust blasphemy laws, and who as recently as this past July were murdered, beaten, and had their homes set on fire simply for bearing the name of Jesus.

Pray that Masih’s heroic actions will help many Pakistanis to see Christians in a different light. And pray that Islamic extremists would have their eyes opened to what it means to be a true martyr, that is, to give one’s life to save others, not to give one’s life to kill others.

Most people, I dare say, would be unable to make the split-second decision not to run away but instead to put one's life on the line for others, for women who probably never gave you a second's notice unless, perhaps, it was in caste-bound condescension. Most people couldn't make that important moral decision because in some important sense they are less free than the illiterate janitor with the name of "messiah".

Gil Bailie has put up a quote, from Hans Urs von Balthasar, which might throw some light on this event:

. . . from the true Christian there radiates the kind of freedom that is constantly only being sought after by the non-Christian. In modern times, the freedom of man is a theme which preoccupies both Christian and non-Christian, and a competition is in process as to who can understand this freedom more profoundly, who more effectively put it into practice.

Bailie adds:

One could argue that the failure to understand the true nature of freedom is at the heart of the contemporary crisis, and, moreover, that the very notion of the "true nature" of anything has been put into question by our confusions about freedom.

Who Owns The Sky?

In Colorado, "every drop of water that hits the ground belongs to someone."

So says said Kevin Bommer, Colorado Municipal League lobbyist who is critical of new legislation giving homeowners the right to collect the rainwater that falls from their skies. **If** homeowners can prove that setting up a rainbarrel does not infringe on other water users' rights.

Because for years now, the rain falling from the clouds was private property. Does that mean that someone owned the sky over Colorado..?

"People are shocked that some developer or water provider owns the water that falls out of the sky," said Rep. Marsha Looper, a Republican from rural Calhan, southeast of Denver, who sponsored the legislation.

The New York Times carries an arresting article this week, "Its Now Legal To Catch A Raindrop In Colorado", reminding us rain-drenched city-dwellers on Canada's wet coast that it's a big world out there, and that our little corner of it is only a tiny drop in the ocean. The article also signals how laws based on science need constant updating if they are to remain soaked in justice:

A study in 2007 proved crucial to convincing Colorado lawmakers that rain catching would not rob water owners of their rights. It found that in an average year, 97 percent of the precipitation that fell in Douglas County, near Denver, never got anywhere near a stream. The water evaporated or was used by plants.

But the deeper questions about rain are what really gnawed at rain harvesters like Todd S. Anderson, a small-scale farmer just east of Durango. Mr. Anderson said catching rain was not just thrifty — he is so water conscious that he has not washed his truck in five years — but also morally correct because it used water that would otherwise be pumped from the ground.

Mr. Anderson, a former national park ranger who worked for years enforcing rules and laws, said:

“I’m conflicted between what’s right and what’s legal. And I hate that.”

Election Day Blogburst: Sign off for Freedom

I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledege to uphold for myself and for all mankind.

-Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker, from the House of Commons, Debates (on the Canadian Bill of Rights), July 1, 1960.

Today is Election Day in Canada. To mark the occasion, some bloggers, led by Nick and Kathy, are doing a blogburst featuring the above quotation. See:

FiveFeetOfFury
Small Dead Animals
Right Girl
Time Immortal
Ghost of a Flea
Halls of Macadamia
Chris Reid
Dust My Broom
Blazing Cat Fur
Wonder Woman
Political Staples
Uncommon Sense
Jack of Hearts
Deborah Gyapong
At Home in Hespeler
Because No One Asked
Free Canuckistan (formerly Free Mark Steyn)
Sleepy Old Bear
Daimnation
Big Blue Wave
The Great Pumpkin
No Libs
Cruel But Fair
The Screaming Pages
Nice Comfy Fur
Right to know Coalition of Nova Scotia
Just Right
The Daily Bayonet
Alice The Camel
Denyse O'Leary
Nova Scotia Scott
Island Breezes
Scaramouche
The Black Kettle
Stubble Jumping Redneck
POETENCY & APOETASY
Alice the Camel
The Sheep Cat
The Nexus of Assholery
J.D. Carriere
A Dog Named Kyoto
Ephemeris
Hello Birdy
The Phantom Observer
Blue Like You

It seems to me that the preamble to the 1960 Bill of Rights is also worth remembering these days amidst confusion as to the nature or origin of human rights:

The Parliament of Canada, affirming that the Canadian Nation is founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of God, the dignity and worth of the human person and the position of the family in a society of free men and free institutions;

Affirming also that men and institutions remain free only when freedom is founded upon respect for moral and spiritual values and the rule of law;

And being desirous of enshrining these principles and the human rights and fundamental freedoms derived from them, in a Bill of Rights which shall reflect the respect of Parliament for its constitutional authority and which shall ensure the protection of these rights and freedoms in Canada:

To fill out this post I thought I would offer some further quotations on freedom, collected in Robert M. Hamilton and Dorothy Shields, eds. The Dictionary of Canadian Quotations and Phrases (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979):

We will enjoy here that which is the great test of constitutional freedom - we will have the rights of the minority respected

- Sir John A. Macdonald, Confederation Debates, Feb. 6, 1865

I believe you realize the value in the interests of true liberty of a free utterance before his fellow countrymen, of the distinctive opinions held by a public man.

- Edward Blake, speech at Aurora, Ont., Oct. 3, 1874

It is to our own convictions, right or wrong, that we must after all be true. To put forward opinions we do not hold, or ignore difficulties we cannot solve, or deny or conceal the tendencies and results of policies we undertake to propound, would be dishonest and unworthy.

- Edward Blake, to the Members of the West Durham Reform Convention, Feb. 9, 1891

Parliament itself could not abrogate this right of discussion and debate.

- Justice Douglas Abbott, Dominion Law Reports (2d), 1957, Vol. 7, 371.

Free institutions will not make free natures, and small is the number of those who are by nature free. Most of us crave for a sheepfold and a shibboleth.

- Goldwin Smith, The Bystander, N.S., Jan., 1890

Who wooed the west to win the east,/ And named the stars of North and South,/ And felt the zest of Freedom's feast/ Familiar in his mouth

- Charles G.D. Roberts, "Epitaph for a sailor buried ashore", 1893

Freedom breeds loyalty. Coercion always was the mother of rebellion

- Sir Wilfid Laurier; attributed

It is our proud boast that Canada is the freest country in the world. It is our boast that in this country liberty of all kinds, civil and religious liberty, flourish to the highest degree

- Sir Wilfrid Laurier, addess at Tercentenary Celebration, Quebec, 1908

Praise for faith in freedom/ Our fighting fathers' stay,/ Born of dreams and daring,/ Bred above dismay

- Bliss Carman, "In the day of battle", 1916

Since you who walked in freedom/ And the ways of reason fought on our front,/ We foresee the plot is solvable, the duel worthy.

- Earle Birney, "For Steve", 1945

To be indifferent to one's own fate and to be absorbed in another's, to forget the shrinking of the body of flesh and nerves as completely as if that body were already in the grave and as if the ghost that had driven and been driven by it were already free of it - this was to know freedom

- Philip Child, Day of Wrath, 1945

Freedom has nothing to do with lack of training; it can only be the product of training. You're not free to move unless you've learned to walk, and not free to play the piano unless you practice. Nobody is capable of free speech unless he knows how to use language, and such a knowledge is not a gift: it has to be learned and worked at.

- Northrop Frye, The educated imagination (1962)

Only the tiniest fraction of mankind wants freedom. All the rest want someone to tell them they are free.

- Irving Layton, "Some observations and aphorisms", Tamarack rev., (1968)

Freedom and justice do not depend on the goodness of the people up top, but on the courage of the people down below.

- Richard J. Needham, A friend in Needham (1969)

Men are entitled to as much freedom as they can get - no more and no less.

- Irving Layton, "Aphs", The whole bloody bird, 1969

Vote for those who promise reasonably to help institutionalize a greater degree of freedom for our nation...

Or who will help set the scene for a greater degree of human self-understanding in our nation...

That we citizens may better recognize the shared necessity and responsibility from which our performance of new freedoms will emerge...

- Covenant Zone, Oct. 14, 2008