More than the Health of a Candidate
In which I talk about politics, which I reserve for special moments
The health of a president of the USA matters to citizens. The projected health of a president matters, too. Sanjay Gupta, who speaks at times for America’s medical profession and who is a specialist in brain medicine and health, has expressed himself on the health, and projected health, of President Joe Biden. He’s calling for the President to undergo cognitive and neurological testing. Not only that, Dr Gupta wants the test results to be made public. The likelihood of the President doing either is on par with the former President’s making his tax information public.
https://constitutionday.com/the-constitution.html
So this week the media has decided to concentrate (too much of) its energies on calling President Biden to step down or, as we have picked up from the English, to stand down. President Biden has made it clear in tones of vehemence and defiance that he’s not doing so. He is obvious-to-the-world in decline, and projections for the health of a man in his 80s is never all that cheery but, for anyone with the weight of the world on his mind, shoulders, and heart, the projection is dismal.
Presidential elections love controversies and angular stories, 99% of which go away. What will not go away is the Preamble to the US Constitution, seven terms of which ought to be uppermost in the minds of the American citizenry. Here is the opening in the transcription of the original, spelling and capitals as they were:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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.
The terms I have in mind are:
Union
Justice
Domestic tranquility
Defence
General welfare
Liberty
Posterity
Instead of falling for the controversies that stimulate media attention, may I suggest that each of us spends a day pondering each of these terms. (I’m not going to spend a day on this Substack for each, but you can in your pondering moments.) The vision of the Founders of this grand experiment in liberal democracy, which was lunacy to Europeans about 250 years ago, was a country holding hands to form a Union. Never was there a sense that we would all agree; that’s uniformity and requires coercion and force. But we are agreed to work together for the vision of this Preamble, which begins with justice.
Justice jumps from this Preamble. We could debate how best to define justice, but let’s agree in our attempts for this Union to define it as that which corresponds to the ideals and terms of the US Constitution, which goes local in our states and communities. Justice and law hold hands in this country, as we like to claim we are a nation of laws because we broke from the divine right of kings and tyrants, who in history have been the lawmakers and enforcers. Justice is about conformity – at least behaviorally – to the laws of the land.
Domestic tranquility has less to do with households in which families like one another. It has to do with Peace. And that means, as the next term Defence indicates, freedom from the tyrants of Europe (such was the language), safety, and the absence of wars and battles. We have not done well on the absence of wars, not a few of which we have been the initiators, but that’s a discussion for another day. Presidential candidates ought to be talking about what brings peace, both here and abroad. Christians ought to be the vanguard in concerns and working for peace. Sad to say, American Christians have shown more allegiance to their candidate’s stridency than to their Lord’s cross-shaped life that can bring “domestic tranquility,” in homes, in communities, in a nation, and in the world. By the way, a country nurtured in a culture of peace will perceive the wisdom of putting guns and bombs on the shelf.
Presidents have an obligation to know, to defend, and to implement the Constitution, which means promoting the General Welfare. I take this to be a general expression for holistic flourishing – morally, socially, economically, politically, legally, etc.. It transcends partisanship and the me-me-me of so many candidates. Such an expression evokes for me the “common good” and even makes me want to read Thomas Paine’s famous Common Sense. Anyway, when I think of Presidential candidates I want to think of who will nurture a culture in which the most will flourish. Our candidates too often talk about their winning and not our flourishing. Elections naturally draw our attention to persons, but the best person on that platform is the one through whom we see the flourishing of the most people.
That old world Liberty meant then and still means freedom, which inevitably breaks down into freedoms from evil and injustice and war and danger and slaveries, as well as into freedoms for peace and justice and flourishing and the virtues of our Constitutional agreements. The term liberty or freedom constitutes itself as a problem, of course, and our First Amendment, worked out right away, preserves and protects five freedoms:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances.
Listed they are:
Freedom of religion
Freedom of speech
Freedom of the press
Freedom to assemble
Freedom to petition (the government, the law).
Which candidate will best nurture these five freedoms?
We need always to keep our minds on our Posterity. We do this not by asking what is good for me but what was good for our grandparents and what will be good for our grandchildren. I don’t hear much about this today. That’s a pity. Will our economic, legal, social, moral, and political decisions nurture a culture that will enable our grandchildren – we have two of them – to flourish? Or will our decisions put them in a hole from which they will be working to recover? We could benefit from candidates talking about solid information about the direction of our society in all its dimensions, and I’d like to hear them anchor their ideas in the best of America’s traditions. Grandparents and grandchildren.
Yes, a very good post, Scot! I wish there could be a civilized interview/discussion with well respected individuals about the things you highlight. The so-called debates are not designed to allow this to happen.
Thank you! May we all be open to receive the Spirits’ guidance - The Holy Spirit, and the spirit of which your post illuminates!
Thank you Scott. I appreciate and needed to read this today