Open Carry Oath Keepers Swear to Keep Bigotry Alive

Photo by Ryan Dickey

CBS Detroit reported that a group calling itself the Oath Keepers--an open carry group--rallied yesterday in Dearborn, Michigan. Dearborn is a suburb of Detroit with a large Muslim population. According to CBS, a rally organizer explained:

As this invasion of Muslim colonization continues unchecked on American soil, we can only expect the same suffering now endured by EUROPE…Now is the time to act.

It's true that Dearborn has one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in the US, a demographic phenomenon that began back in the mid-1970s with an influx of Lebanese fleeing their country's civil war. As Michigan Radio reported last year:

  Today, Dearborn is a unique Arab-American community--both nationally and among the smaller Arab communities scattered around Metro Detroit.
  The Dearborn community is overwhelmingly Muslim, and majority Shiite Muslim. Shiites are a minority in the Muslim world. It’s also mostly Lebanese, with smaller pockets of Iraqis, Yemenis, and Palestinians.
  Nationally, Arab Americans are roughly half Muslims and half Christians. Metro Detroit also has a number of smaller Arab communities, many of them majority Christian—like the growing Chaldean community in Sterling Heights.

Is this an "invasion" or "colonization?" Hardly, but not surprising that some people think that. The British polling firm Ipsoso MORI found that people in the US tend to wildly overestimate the number of Muslims in the country:

According to the new poll, US citizens guessed the Muslim population of the US to be about 15 percent when asked “Out of every 100 people, how many do you think are Muslim?” This would mean that the US has 47.4 million Muslims. The reality is quite different, with current research putting the percentage of Muslims in the United States at about .8 percent of the population, with an estimated 2.6 million Muslims in the US as of 2010 [quoted here, see also the Pew Foundation's similar estimate here, which also predicts a doubling of that population by 2030, to 1.7% of the US population].

But given that Oath Keepers label this tiny demographic shift an invasion of colonization (an odd conflation of two different concepts), no wonder they want to gather in Dearborn, openly bearing their weapons. They've a country to defend! Even humanity to defend, for yesterday's "resistance" was part of a nation-wide "Global Rally for Humanity."

Apparently, humanity excludes Muslims, who make up almost a quarter of the world's population. What are we to make of a group that dehumanizes such a large number of people? Worse, a group that connects the demand for unfettered gun rights to the fear of Muslims?  And not just fear of them. This regurgitation of John Birchers (see a profile of their leader here) is afraid of the United Nations, of a black president, same sex marriage, and immigrants in general who don't look like what they think an American should look like, even if they're Christian (see here for a resume of Oath Keeper actions). Must be tiring to go around lugging those guns, day to day, afraid of so much.

They remind me of a lovely person I live with who happens to be tragically sliding into dementia, talking to people I cannot see, who won't come out of her room because there's a "man" out there, who fears unlocked or open doors, who is constantly startled by whatever. But she has no control over this. The Oath Keepers, on the other hand, have made the choice to live a life of fear, and to take it out on others.

According to one source, only "about twelve" showed up, just four of them openly armed. The Detroit News reported that

Saturday’s boisterous assembly included about 75 people, mostly counter-protesters, according to Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad.

That heartens me. Only a paltry number in Michigan exhibit, at least publicly, this collective dementia that unjustifiably translates difference into existential angst.

Patriotic Providentialism

Earlier this year there were rows in the Michigan Statehouse over compelling public schools to abide by the Common Core standards.  Senator Colbeck "expressed concerns about a possible lack of local control over what is taught in Michigan schools."  This same Senator was the primary sponsor of three measures recently passed by the Michigan Senate that instruct our public schools how to teach civics.  I guess "local control" is a very flexible principle.

I'm a political scientist, and am all for bolstering instruction on our country's political system, but these measures seemed to be based on a presumption that public schools aren't already teaching civics.  Indeed, Senator Colbeck "conceded that Michigan's current high school curriculum does a good job of covering the topics envisioned in his bill, but said he believes that this additional instruction is necessary" (you can find the Michigan Department of Education's civics curriculum here).

What is this "additional instruction?"  Well, it's really just an injection of religion and a conservative understanding of our country's political history, á la the faux historian David Barton, I'm guessing.  It's no surprise that the group backing this legislation, Patriotweek.org, passes on lesson plans from The Providence Forum, an organization committed to the following idea:

The Doctrine of Providence declares that the world and our lives are not ruled by chance or by fate, but by God. The Providence Forum demonstrably acknowledges that the Providence of God continues to be at work and calls us to action.

Senate Bill 120 is not so forthright about its political theology, but tells schools that it cannot

. . .censor or restrain study or instruction in American history or heritage or Michigan state history or heritage based on religious references in original source documents, writings, speeches, proclamations, or records.

Have Michigan public schools engaged in routine censorship of religious references in political documents?  I can find no news or report on this supposed perfidy (though if someone out there has plausible evidence, I'd love to see it).  This language invents a problem.  Thankfully, pushback from educators forced Colbeck to drop this language that would have encouraged public school teachers to use sectarian documents as part of civics instruction:

. . .school districts may post documents and objects “of historical significance in forming or influencing the United States or its legal governmental system” and explicitly allows for “documents that contain words associated with religion.”

This law also implies that "original source documents," presumably the US Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers, among others, are chock full of religious references.  They're not--as Senator Colbeck and other "patriots" should know.  That said, I'm all for talking about religion as one element in a fascinating political history, but not as an occasion to paint a picture of Jesus present at the founding of the nation (and I imagine he would have felt a little uncomfortable among all those deists who denied his divinity).

John McNaughton (Mcnaughtonart.com)

Senate Bill 121 mandates schools to "designate and observe 1 week each year as 'Patriot Week," during which curriculum will focus on what is already in the civics curriculum--US foundational documents, political principles, ideas such as the "social compact" and "rule of law," and so on.  Moreover, students are to get the lesson that all of our nation's war making has been about "liberty."

Instruction in the sacrifices made by millions of military personnel and their families in the defense of liberty starting with the Revolutionary War and progressing to current conflicts.  Discussion should address the historic and modern-day significance of Veterans' Day, Independence Day, and Memorial Day.

I have no issue with honoring past and present members of the military, nor with studying the origins and meanings--not one meaning, as the text implies--of patriotic holidays.  But it is facile to equate all US military actions with the "defense of liberty."  Were we defending liberty while butchering Filipinos in what might be called the US's first counter-insurgency war (1900-1913)?  How about military interventionism and occupations in the Caribbean and Central America in the first third of the 20th century?  Or we could think of Vietnam, or, more recently, Iraq, where "liberty" became the cause only after we couldn't locate Iraq's WMDs.

Patriotism doesn't have to be about chest thumping (the US is "the greatest nation in world history," spouts Patriotweek.org).  It doesn't have to an unquestioning stance towards the military and US military actions.  Nor am I arguing that political and military history should be one long guilt trip.  Lessons in patriotism should include sober reflections on how the US has used its power, and the costs of war.  We should want informed students, not uncritical ones.

Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut, 1972 (acquired here)

Senate Bill 423 is a selective mash of lines drawn from the US Constitution and other national and state-level foundational documents.  Seems so redundant to be telling schools to teach students about things like separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, etc, when it's already in the curriculum (whether they are taught or learned well is another matter).  But I think the point of this law is really in the first "core principle" on which public school teachers are to focus.

(A) The core principles of the Declaration of Independence, including, but not limited to, the following:
    (i) We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

This instruction is lifted from Patriotweek.org's playbook, which is based on the idea that rights and liberties come not from government, nor from action by social movements demanding certain rights and liberties, but from God and its creation.  For example, in its explanation of the "First Principle" of equality,

The Founding Fathers embraced the Judeo-Christian understanding that the Creator created all individuals, that each person arises from His handiwork, and that every person embodies His blessing. Regardless of physical, mental, and social differences between individuals, each individual is equally precious in His eyes. While this First Principle originally arose from a belief in the nature of the Creator, the laws of nature lead many to the same conclusion.

At a very, very general level, the argument that the founding of the US rests on a Judeo-Christian understanding of the world is correct (though we'll have to ignore all the anti-semitism in the US history, and that the term "Judeo-Christian"wasn't popularized until the early 1950s).  However, it's questionable that a Judeo-Christian understanding of the world was the crucial factor behind the US's "exceptional" origins.  By the same reasoning, we could say that understanding was also responsible for fascist horrors in Italy and Germany, two countries also resting on the bedrock of Judeo-Christian ideas.  Association is not causation.

I suspect the other thing driving this legislation is the standard conservative jeremiad in which 'we've lost our way, and need to strip away all the extraneous stuff we've wrapped around our origins.'  For some Christian conservatives, this is the "sola scriptura" argument.  For political ones in Michigan, it's the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance, the US Constitution, parts of the Bill of Rights (SB 423 mentions Amendments 1, 2, 9, and 10, omitting 3-8), and the Michigan Constitution.

A lot has happened and changed since the late 18th century.  The world today would likely mystify our founding fathers.  Many were brilliant and we should study them and their works.  But we shouldn't sacralize them, nor turn foundational documents into a holy canon.  If God and nature were behind the "First Principle" of equality, certain social groups still had to struggle mightily to win that equality, against others--including agents of local, state, and federal government--who thought they had divine and natural law on their side.

Patriotweek acknowledges that our nation took some time to grant women and African Americans political equality, and that this "First Principle" is still a work in progress.  But it's telling that Patriotweek does not give a nod to other social groups who have suffered from inequality, e.g., Native Americans, Latinos/as, the disabled, and the LGBT community.  Hagiographic lessons on patriotism are inevitably myopic.

To my mind, real patriots can celebrate our country's achievements, and recognize its flaws.  Real patriots aren't so insecure that they must take the arrogant position that the US is "the greatest nation in world history," and that God is on its side.  Real patriots can love their country without such idolatry.

Those Scary Three Rs

Blog Song for the Moment

Don McLean, Everybody Loves Me, Baby (American Pie, 1971).

Heard Jack Lessenberry's commentary last week about opposition in the Michigan State Legislature to adopting the Common Core.  He called this opposition, to my surprise, the "lunatic fringe."  Lessenberry's a pretty moderate guy, so for him to label it this way was strong stuff.

What's the Common Core?  Basically, it's what they, way back when, used to call the "Three Rs." Reading, 'riting, and 'rithametic.  According to the Common Core website,

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort that established a single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and mathematics that states voluntarily adopt. The standards are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to enter credit bearing entry courses in two or four year college programs or enter the workforce. The standards are clear and concise to ensure that parents, teachers, and students have a clear understanding of the expectations in reading, writing, speaking and listening, language and mathematics in school.

In other words, this is a pretty conventional attempt to assure that high school students are better prepared to enter the workforce or higher education.  The standards try to ensure, given the now wild mobility of Americans, and that some states were cheating on their report cards, that college admission officers and employers across the country can have some sort of solid expectation of what a high school diploma actually means.  It's also an effort to make the US education system more competitive in the global arena.

But this Common Core has run into the localism that has long prevailed in US education.  Michigan adopted it back in 2010, but renewal of its funding comes up in August.  A Republican faction in Michigan opposes that, and a Tea Party Republican on the Michigan House Education Committee, Tom McMillin, took the lead, slipping some lines into the budget bill that erase funding for Common Core initiatives.

In an op-ed, McMillin presents the Core--what some right-wing wits are calling "obamacore"--as a federal takeover of education, an opportunity for the Feds to steal student data, but what really has pissed him off was the lack of transparency around the development of the Core.  At the Statehouse hearings, he badgered  Department of Education officials, repeatedly asking about the process by which the Common Core was adopted, to such an extent that a chair, a fellow Republican Tim Kelly, cut him off.

After the hearing, Kelly said it was "unfortunate when you have some members that aren't listening to the answers that are beingprovided. You may not like the answer, but that doesn't mean you keep repeating the question."

Other legislators (both Republican and Democrat) wondered whether the federal government would use Common Core implementation to gather data on individual students.  There are more hysterical critiques out there, too.  Predictably,  Glenn Beck has labeled it "an extreme leftist ideology," connecting the dots of Obama, Common Core, and a retinal scan kerfuffle in a Florida school district.

It's odd that McMillin focuses on the process rather than the content of the Common Core.  No questions about whether the Core will improve educational outcomes, just veiled unsupported accusations that the Michigan officials lied about public input in the development of the standards, and that they represent a massive federal intrusion in local governance.  He bases his argument on two members of the Common Core Validation Committee who refused to sign off on the final version, neglecting to mention that there were 27 other members who did sign off, along with a bipartisan executive committee of six governors and four state superintendents.  This is a very centrist, technocratic policy proposal that only in feverish minds constitutes a left-wing conspiracy.

But there are good reasons to question the Common Core.  It is a top-down effort, orchestrated by governors, top education officials, academics, and funded by an array of organizations, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the NEA to the Aspen Institute and the New American Foundation.  So I suppose one could dismiss the Core as yet another elitist effort that is not in touch with the daily grind of education.  In other words, how capable are school districts of implementing the Core, and will it ameliorate or exacerbate the growing inequality in our country's educational system?  Also, The No Child Left Behind Act has already incentivized 'teaching to the test,' and will the Common Core standards turn into goals that teachers end up mechanistically trying to realize?

As well, the Obama administration made a political mistake, I believe, in contributing funds to the Common Core initiative, and in compelling states bidding for "Race to the Top" education grants.

But, heck, I'm just sniping here.  There is faction of Americans that will criticize the Obama administration for whatever it does, and I'm glad some people with expertise and money have tried to do what so many local school boards have failed to do--raise the bar on education outcomes.

Letter to Governor Snyder: Please Veto SB 59

Dear Governor Snyder,

I urge you to veto Senate Bill 59, recent legislation permitting Michigan gun owners to carry concealed arms in public places.

I teach at Grand Valley State University, and in no way will I feel safer with armed amateurs around me--I'll instead feel more insecure.  The eight hours of extra training proposed in the legislation hardly eases my mind.  The undependable benefit of an armed amateur stopping a mass slaying, itself a minute possibility, does not match the costs of multiplying the chances of accidental or intentional gun violence on campus (I'm thinking: alcohol + irritability over grades or noisy neighbors or just the angst of youth + gun = possible horrible result).  A 2011 New York Times article surveyed the data on the relationship between crime and concealed weapons in states with permissive laws: “...Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue, economists and law professors, concluded that the best available data and modeling showed that permissive right-to-carry laws, at a minimum, increased aggravated assaults.”  As well, the article further reports, loose oversight of the law in places such as North Carolina has resulted in a spate of violence by permit-holders with records of felonies, substance abuse, and mental illness (Michael Luo, “Guns in Public, Out of Sight,” December 26, 2011).

More generally, this law means we both succumb to fear and increase it, hardly the basis for a healthy civil society.  I agree with Jill Leporte's point made in an April 2012 New Yorker piece ("Battleground America"):

Gun-control advocates say the answer to gun violence is fewer guns. Gun-rights advocates say that the answer is more guns: things would have gone better, they suggest, if the faculty at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Chardon High School had been armed. That is the logic of the concealed-carry movement; that is how armed citizens have come to be patrolling the streets. That is not how civilians live. When carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood not as a failure of civil society, to be mourned, but as an act of citizenship, to be vaunted, there is little civilian life left.

Please, Governor, do not give in to those who think the answer to social ills is a gun, to those who have twisted the ideal of liberty into a right to assuage their individual, and often exaggerated, insecurity with concealed weapons, and thereby contribute to public insecurity.

Sincerely,

Andrew Schlewitz