The October 8th WSJ Oped by Sheikh Ali Gomaa, Grand Mufti of Egypt is a refreshing and seldom heard communication from Islam to the West. The sub headline reads, “Peace among the Abrahamic faiths will be built on respect and the law.” This harkens back to my September 26th post, One God, Three Faiths. Our main world religions do, after all, trace our roots to Abraham. While the implications of some of his concepts call for discussion, Ali Gomaa’s stated aspirations are welcome and hopefully a great start for better understanding.

We unequivocally condemned violence against the innocent during Egypt’s own struggle with terrorism in the 1980s and 90’s, and after the heinous sin of 9/11. We continue to do so in public debates with extremists on their views of Islam, in our outreach to schools and youth organizations, in our training of students from all across the world at Egypt’s theological institutions, and in our counseling of captured terrorists. As the head of the one of the foremost Islamic authorities in the world, let me restate: The murder of civilians is a crime against humanity and God punishable in this life and the next.

Yet, just as we recommit to reinforcing the values of moderation in our faith, we look to the United States to assume its responsibility for the sake of a better relationship between the West and Islam.

First, it is essential that the U.S. confront the fear and misunderstanding that has often pervaded the public discourse about Islam, especially in the media.

Second, while we must strive to reinforce the common principles that we share, we must also accept the reality of differences in our values and in our outlook. Islam and the West have distinct value systems. Respect for our differences is a foundation for coexistence, and never for conflict.

Finally, there must a true commitment to the rule of law, and to sovereign equality, as the legitimate basis for international relations. While some of the divide between Islam and the West lies in the realm of ideas, it lies mostly in the realm of politics. The violence and the aggression to which many Muslim countries have been subjected are the main sources of a deep and legitimate sense of grievance, and they must be addressed.

via Ali Gomaa: Islam, Israel and the United States – WSJ.com.

Tom Motherway

Obama like Big Brother attempts to separate us from our roots, our traditions, our beliefs. That’s the gist of Robert Costa’s post on the NRO interview with Newt Gingrich who is touting his newly hosted documentary, Rediscovering God in America II: Our Heritage. As we know Newt is an historian of the first order and also an intelligent observer of contemporary America. Our Ryan Costella recently traveled with Gingrich on his trip to China and I’m sure he will support both observations.

In any case the interview is well worth the read in full but here is a taste:

Though it may be about the past, Gingrich says the documentary’s themes are tied directly to the present. He says he worries that the “core definition of America” — that citizens are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” — is “under assault, both in the academic and news-media communities, as well as in the courts.”

Gingrich says he has major concerns about American culture, and “the degree to which it is becoming an anti-religious culture.”

“Ironically, in some ways, it is becoming a culture in which it is more acceptable for schools to teach about Islam than to teach about Christianity,” says Gingrich. “If you think about that, it verges on the bizarre.”

“We are the only society I know of that asserts that power comes directly from God to you, that you are sovereign, and that you loan power to the government,” says Gingrich. “A point that Reagan always used to make was that the Constitution begins with ‘we the people,’ and not ‘we the bureaucrats,’ or ‘we the lawyers,’ or ‘we the judges,’ or ‘we the politicians,’ but ‘we the people.’ If you eliminate that, and you make generalizations about where power comes from, then of course we can trust the judges, and of course we can trust the politicians.”

If power in America continues to move away from the people, Gingrich says that the country risks “actually eliminating the uniqueness that has made America an exceptional nation. You begin drift into a world where nothing is stable.”

“The modern Left is essentially proto-totalitarian,” says Gingrich. President Obama, he says, is “an authentic representative of the intelligentsia. I think he likes Reveille for Radicals for a reason; he likes William Ayers for a reason. He didn’t notice 20 years of sermons for a reason.”

But is Obama that different from liberals like George McGovern? “Oh, yeah,” says Gingrich. “My sense is with McGovern, unequivocally, that he was a man from a different world. McGovern was a man who had grown up in pre–World War II America. And he grew up in South Dakota. Obama really grew up in the world of the modern American intelligentsia — he is a person of the Left. The minute you accept that, you understand almost everything.”

Obama, Gingrich adds, “is a radical in the sense that the victory of those values would mean the end of American civilization as we know it.” President Reagan, in contrast, “was a radical within the American tradition. He was almost like the Jacksonian uprising against the establishment. Reagan represented a fundamental break with the dominant system of government for the last 60 years. He didn’t quite pull it off. He managed to defeat the Soviet Empire and managed to renew the energy of entrepreneurial America, but he did not in fact change the underlying crisis.”

And Americans didn’t vote for Obama’s brand of radicalism. In 2008, Americans, says Gingrich, “were voting for the end of Bush. They were voting to have no taxes raised on anybody making under $250,000, and they were voting for a tax cut for 95 percent of the American people. Go back and read what Obama campaigned on. This is a con job on the scale of Madoff.”

via Our Heritage by Robert Costa on National Review Online.

The Obama ego, self confidence, and solipsism fit neatly into Newt’s observations as does the pitiful state of our liberal, leftist ruling class. Man is the measure of all! What a shame for this once great nation.

Tom Motherway

The Pope’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate in not the leftist manifesto for which some liberals hoped. As Tyler Cowen in his Vaticanomics Wall Street Journal article points out, “the underlying assumption of the document is the continued reign of the status quo–a globalized , wealth-creating economy–with some ethical adjustments.” It’s a fundamentally a conservative piece of work. After the Madoff scandal, it’s hard to argue that the system doesn’t need ethical adjustments.

Robert Sirico fills in a few more details on those ethical adjustments in his WSJ op-ed, The Pope on ‘Love in Truth’. “He constantly returns to two practical applications of the principle of truth in charity. First, this principle takes us beyond earthly demands of justice, defined by rights and duties, and introduces essential moral priorities of generosity, mercy and communion — priorities which provide salvific and theological value. Second, truth in charity is always focused on the common good, defined as an extension of the good of individuals who live in society and have broad social responsibilities.”

The Pope is not an economist; nor is he a international political scientist. He is though a European and his suggestions for a world financial regulatory framework should only reflect other such calls from European heads of state. Like the Basal II Accord, these suggestions will not work. His worries on wealth aggregation reflect concerns of economists like Alan Greenspan, our former Fed Chairman. A broader treatment of the encyclical can be found in George Weigel’s Charity in Truth in National Review Online.

So where are we with the morality of capitalism as a system? This is an economic system that has raised the living standards of the masses from its beginnings. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations took steroids as it grew and, pejoratively speaking, “trickle down” economics benefited all. But something is indeed missing if the greed of the “invisible hand” is the only obligation of the head which governs that hand.

The medieval concept of noblesse oblige, I believe, gives secular society an answer. This is the moral obligation of those of high birth, powerful social position, etc. to act with honor, kindness, and generosity. In other words, take care of those less fortunate. And a scale is implied in the concept, the more you have, the greater your obligation. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam the religious context further requires almsgiving of all, regardless of status. The story of the widow’s might is all too familiar. In short, there is an obligation of charity.

So if we add a specific concept of charity to an economic system which benefits all, we have what the Pope is promoting. This indeed all religious leaders should promote.

I personally go further and believe that governments should provide the freedom to allow individuals, social institutions, and business enterprises to give alms and perform charitable works. Unfortunately the statist governments in Europe and the Obama government in the US are not so inclined. In Europe individual charity is lacking and people rely on the state to take up the individual obligation; witness the tsunami relief of recent years. And Obama has proposed to limit charitable deductions in favor of government controlled largess.

When we depend on the state for more and more of our needs, we are enticed to cede our moral obligations as well, in the end we lose our individuality and we are nothing but slaves of the state. The Road to Serfdom is an easy path indeed!

Tom Motherway, tom@renohayek.com