(Minor updates to fix typos)

For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Beyond all hope—what a joy it is to see Saddam Hussein, one of recent history’s most ghastly tyrants, captured and awaiting punishment for his crimes. What is, perhaps, most appropriate is that this self-styled King of Babylon was found out and captured in stuck in a hole he had dug in the ground in his efforts to flee. If a bit of Scripture is in order, I would like to suggest:

4. That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
5. The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.
6. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.
7. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. …
12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13. For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

(Isaiah 14, King James Version)

For the people of Iraq — who are wary of claims from The Officials but celebrating in the streets in the hope that it’s true — I can only offer my hope that it is true, and add my voice to the celebration.

But like the Iraqi people, I am wary. Not so much that what the officials are saying about the capture is false. Although I’m sure that a predictable cast of conspiracy theorists will trot out a predictable micro-analysis of one crucial photograph that they are sure must be fake, I don’t think there is that much reason to doubt the reports. It’s not that I don’t think the people presently in power aren’t capable of just making shit up for their own political ends, but rather that the consistent body of evidence here seems to be pretty clear.

But what we will no doubt see, thundering down the echoing halls of television punditry, and coming forth from the bully pulpit that the President is going to assume in an hour or so, is very likely to be a threefold disaster.

First, we are likely to see the same sort of hollow triumphalism with which Caesar celebrated his defeat of Pompey. If any man is prepared to gloat over the stench of carrion that his putative victory cost, it is this man.

Second, and closely connected, we are likely to be told that the capture of Saddam Hussein is proof positive that we were justified in this gruesome joke of a war. Of course it doesn’t — but unfortunately this tacitc may go over well for a while. If there’s anything that the American people love, it’s a winner — and sometimes this blanks out important truths.

Third, the warhawks have already begun to take this (as the neo-conservatives, in particular, take everything) as proof positive of their fanciful dreams. That’s what happens when you confuse your own PR echo chamber for reality; and it’s already on display. For example, consider the fanciful dreams of the U.S. military establishment and their sympathetic commentariat:

Hussein’s capture will be an immediate and devastating body blow to the anti-American resistance in Iraq. …

Within Iraq, the American commanders and their allies hope that the capture of Hussein will break the back of the anti-American resistance. Most of that resistance has come from former forces of Hussein located in the so-called Sunni Triangle in the middle of Iraq, around Baghdad.

So let’s take a moment to review the facts as we know them.

In spite of the Defense Department spin, the insurgency against American troops is not all burned-out Ba’athists. Ordinary Iraqis are mad as hell at the increasingly draconian occupation. And as renewed terrorist activity all around the world indicates, international jihadis have taken up Mr. Bush’s war on Arabs as their own cause celebre. Ba’athist remnants may have reason to be discouraged, but those who revile both Saddam and the Americans (whether from the just aspirations of the Iraqi people, or from the insane fantasies of radical Islamism) are still going strong. As General Sanchez admits (even military commanders have to have more contact with reality than chickenhawk commentators), the deaths will continue – indeed, retaliation may even increase.

Further, Saddam’s capture does not invalidate a single one of the many arguments against the war. No-one doubted that the war would mean a dramatic end to the Ba’athist reign of terror, and that Iraq would be better off for that. What we doubted was that the ends could justify the means–that it was likely or even possible for a U.S. bombing, invasion, and occupation to bring peace and freedom to Iraq. We pointed out that the administration’s evidence for WMD and connections to terrorism was awfully flimsy at best; we predicted massacres of civilians; we predicted a humanitarian and cultural catastrophe; we predicted a hopeless and bloody occupation; we predicted gruesome urban warfare with guerillas. The warhawks said the administration was telling us the Gospel truth, predicted a bloodless victory, where American troops would be greeted with flowers. And here are the facts as we know them: the administration distorted and knowingly lied about pre-war intelligence; civilians were needlessly murdered during the war; the infrastructure and historical heritage of Iraq suffered appalling destruction; the anger and hatred of the occupation is not about to go away; and terrorist attacks continue to kill American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Be that as it may, realism is no excuse for cynicism. Take some time today to be at peace, and to to sing with the people of Iraq. Then take some time to think about how we can make this day sweeter for them. The whole world should rejoice that Saddam Hussein, like the old kings of Babylon the Great, has fallen into ruin. But we also should not forget that Babylon was conquered by the Persians — in the course of creating a mighty empire that was no less tyrannical and no less bloodsoaked than old Chaldaea. It might profit us a bit if we said to ourselves: Rejoice that Balshazzar has fallen! … Now what are we going to do about Cyrus?

This turkey is fake.

If you believe the corporate newsmedia, we are supposed to feel warm fuzzies about President Bush’s surprise visit to Baghdad. Why are we supposed to feel good about it? Because he made a very public and very scripted show of supporting the troops which consisted of a whopping three hours with 600 (no doubt carefully selected) troops? Or perhaps because his conduct of a bloody, senseless war and a bloody, pointless occupation has turned the Iraqi people against him so much that he has to sneak into Baghdad like a thief in the night?

Or, perhaps, that it turns out that the White House lied about it in an attempt to spice up the story – and when called on it, they lied about it again?

You might think that my cynicism about George Bush’s personality is getting the better of me: these lies, for example, are ultimately quite inconsequential bits of venality on the White House story-tellers. Isn’t it kind of petty to harp on them, especially when Bush’s bigger lies led us into an unjustified and illegal war?

Well, in one sense this sort of thing is venal and inconsequential. But in another sense, it goes right to the rotten heart of the Bush administration—that is, a man who is essentially petty and venal at his own core. Bush is, after all, the same man who evidently delights in hollow Caesarian triumphs like the landing on the U.S.S. Lincoln back in May, parades around in the bomber jacket that he earned by going AWOL on a cushy Air National Guard post during Vietnam, and who continues to set new standards for contemptuous official secrecy and scripting of press conferences. It has become common on the Left to see George Bush as the diabolical figurehead of a neferious Right-wing conspiracy against truth, justice, and the American way, with resources bordering on the limitless and motives bordering on the Satanic. But he is nowhere near as grandiose in his wickedness as all that (very few evil people actually are — Dante was closer to the truth about the Devil than Milton). Bush is, ultimately, a sad little man with sad little pretensions to the alleged glory of power. If the Bush administration seems like a political Leviathan at the moment, it’s only because it is bloated up with a lot of gas: the best way to deal with it is not to assail it with apocalyptic rhetoric but rather to deflate it, and show it up for the sorry mistake that it is.

Roderick has a new argument for anarchism. Here’s how it goes:

1. If anybody should rule, philosophers should.
2. But philosophers should not rule.
3. Therefore, nobody should rule.

Any philosopher who denies (1) is excessively timid; any philosopher who denies (2) is excessively bold. Hence moderation demands assent to the conclusion.

It’s worth noting that Roderick’s argument also succeeds in combining the thesis embodied in uncritical democracy (2) with the antithesis embodied in Platonic totalitarianism (1). Thus anarchism is the dialectical synthesis of two genuine insights which are disastrous when taken out of context. Maybe this will convince Chris Sciabarra to be an anarchist again…

12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13. For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Isaiah ch. 14, King James Version

It’s official: on Thursday, November 13th, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary delivered Alabama from the lawless, theocratic rule of Chief Justice Roy Moore. The nine-judge panel threw Moore off his position on the state Supreme Court after he defied a federal court order to remove a two-ton Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building.

As it stands, Moore has been thrown off the bench, but is free to run for an office on the Supreme Court again in the next election. Fortunately enough, the Southern Poverty Law Center is working to remedy that situation by filing a complaint with the State Bar Association. If they are successful (and the Court of the Judiciary’s ruling makes it much more likely that they will be), Moore will be disbarred and therefore prevented from ever darkening the judicial bench again.

All of this is great. Roy Moore is a dangerous demagogue without any respect for either justice or the positive law; he has used his bench not only for banging the Bible, but also to issue homophobic tirades posing as legal opinions, and to make the chilling pronouncement that:

The State carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle. (p. 36 of decision, emphasis added)

(As a side note, it’s also worth celebrating the fact that Moore’s screed has lost whatever legal grounding it ever had; insofar as he engaged in legal reasoning at all in the course of the opinion, it was based on the criminality of sodomy in Alabama and elsewhere. But sodomy can no longer be recognized as a crime under Alabama’s positive law, since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling for personal liberty in Lawrence v. Texas.)

Of course, all this good news hardly means that either Roy Moore or his peculiar brand of politics are going to go away. What everyone’s noticed, and talked about, is not so much the facts of the case but the underlying politics: Roy Moore’s confrontational brand of Christian fundamentalism and the rallies, vigils, sit-ins, and other efforts of fundamentalist flaks to back up Moore and his monument. Unfortunately, the national newsmedia had no particular clue about what was going on (or if they had one, they certainly didn’t print it). But I’ve already talked at length about those misunderstandings in this space. There are plenty of misunderstandings to go around on Moore’s side of the fence too, which I’d like to mention here.

Most of the arguments that get thrown out to back up Moore are barely worth considering at all. The Mooreans (as seen, for example, in numerous off-topic responses to my letter to the editor concerning one of Moore’s decisions) claim that Moore’s freedom of religion is being infringed. Of course, it’s not: Moore has every right to worship however he sees fit. The only way that Roy Moore’s rights would be trodden upon here would be if he had a right to force religious displays on people in a government venue. But there is no such right. (Christians, of all people, ought to recognize this; it’s a sad commentary on modern fundamentalism that certain Christians can no longer distinguish between what is Caesar’s and what is God’s.)

Others have deflected the issue from Roy Moore’s individual rights to questions of state’s rights against centralized federal power. Now, as I said before, these aren’t really Roy Moore’s reasons for fighting the federal judiciary. The Yankee press got it more or less entirely wrong when they read Roy Moore as an updated George Wallace; the reasons that Roy Moore gives for his defiance are religious reasons: it’s not about state’s rights for him; it’s about Jesus. Nevertheless, while these are not really Roy Moore’s reasons, some of Roy Moore’s supporters have put this forward as an argument. In particular, Alan Keyes, who openly embraces the idea of theocratic states, and spends a great deal of time and linguistic mincing trying to show that the sum of the First and Fourteenth amendements really doesn’t amount to a ban on State religion—just a ban on federal religion. Here’s how he put his conclusion at the rally in Montgomery back in August:

We have the right to live in communities–and that means the people in Alabama can live in this state. And you know how come I know that this is so, that the First Amendment didn’t intend to destroy this right, that in fact such communities could exist, such states could exist? Because at the time the First Amendment was passed, at the time they put it on the books in the first place, there were a majority of states in the United States (at the time, the former colonies) where there were religious tests and oaths of office–where there were, in fact, established churches.

The thing about Keyes’ argument here is that it is not only dead wrong—but it is also completely irrelevant whether it is wrong or right. Let’s say that Keyes is right about the meaning of the federal constitution. So what? His remarks mighth ave been apropos if delivered in another state, but the Constitution of the State of Alabama has this to say on the topic:

Section 3. Religious freedom.

That no religion shall be established by law; that no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect, society, denomination, or mode of worship; that no one shall be compelled by law to attend any place of worship; nor to pay any tithes, taxes, or other rate for building or repairing any place of worship, or for maintaining any minister or ministry; that no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this state; and that the civil rights, privileges, and capacities of any citizen shall not be in any manner affected by his religious principles.

(emphasis added)

So even if Keyes were right about the feds, he’d still be wrong about Moore. Roy Moore didn’t just defy the federal government; he acted in complete contempt of the state constitution that he swore to uphold. (It would have behooved Moore’s apologists to read more than the Preamble of the state constitution. It really isn’t a document that they can rely on for support.)

Of course, whatever the proper mincing of the positive law is, all of this leaves to one side the question of the natural law. Even if there were no protections from State-established religions in the positive law, I would still have every right to be free of Roy Moore’s theocratic displays. He has no right to use the sword of the State to compel religious beliefs or force others to pay for religious monuments. (Indeed, he has no right to use the sword of the State to do anything at all. But let’s set that aside for now.)

Roy Moore’s rights are not being squelched; he is being justly punished for violating the rights of others—by forcing them to endure, and pay for, his public comingling of God and Caesar.

It’s a happy day for Alabama; kudos to the Court of the Judiciary. Écrasez l’infâme.

Hallelujah! The state of Alabama has been delivered from Roy Moore’s rule; the Alabama Court of the Judiciary has ruled to remove Roy Moore from his position as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. The Southern Poverty Law Center is preparing to file a complaint with the Alabama State Bar Association, asking for Moore to be disbarred–which would prevent him from ever returning to the bench.

I have work that I need to get to this morning, but more commentary will be forthcoming. For now, I just wanted to share the happy news.

No more Moore on the bench!

Watch this space.