Undermining Order is a dangerous gambit...

A Washington Post article recently pointed out the worst example of an unchecked president:

A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.

At issue is the very notion of credibility, responsibility, and civility in our entire public sphere. Defenders of the president may suggest that these are all political appointees and always do the biddings of their maste—er, I mean the president. They may also suggest that the surgeon general himself is a political appointee, and need not actually be credible. OK, they may not make that last suggestion, but they may as well, since that is their position. Bush II, unlike his more prinicipaled, if not more competent, father, has consistently placed unqualified people in positions of authority or undercut, underfunded, and undervalued those appointees who were actually qualified for their posts. The current Surgeon General, Richard Carmona is only trying to do his job: pushing national and global health priorities. He wrote a report:

The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.

William R. Steiger, described by the Post as “a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney,” with virtually no experience in public health, medicine, or science, was appointed to run the Office of Global Health Affairs and was responsible for the blocking of this report. Carmona recently testified that the document needed to be changed to fit into the political criteria of the administration.

This story highlights the main concerns that arise out of politicizing and manipulating the facts and those we hold responsible for finding the facts. A president that manipulates, suppresses, and in any way diminishes the work of those trained and best-equipped to tell us the truth is the most dangerous tyrant. Blatant acts of cowardice expressed by the world’s most devious dictators such as Pinochet’s disappearing of political dissidents in Chile or Hitler’s imprisonment of Jews and sympathizers are evil and deranged—but are also public and monstrous. By using back channels and underhandedly manipulating the very fiber of our social covenants, Bush is proving to be a much more dangerous monster: a man who ignorantly destroys Western civilization.

For without the public sphere that allows us to critically assess policies and the make-up of our sense of order, how might we have any basis for our actions? Even theology and philosophy require a testing of concepts; in fact, the very notion of philosophy was grown out of Western reason, not blind faith or firm ideological claims!

I am not suggesting that reason is better than faith, but I am saying that these are two important and related concepts that are not diametrically opposed, but work in tandem. Reason without faith and faith without reason are hollow and serve no greater purpose than themselves. A full-bodied faith that commits reason as an avenue of greater success will always prevail. For a president committed to overt religiosity to attack reason, science, and the foundations of our civilization, Bush must misunderstand the very truth embodied in the gospel. The gospel isn’t about a Republican pro-corporate agenda and “small government”, but a revolution of social order that places God above everything else. Bob Marley would serve as a better example of the Christian politician than Bush.

Still not convinced? Here’s the straight dope. Our society is based on a gentle trust that we believe the best in our neighbors. The police don’t primarily catch wrongdoers, but serve to remind us to maintain order. We are willing to line up in a first-come-first-serve way in most restaurants and gas stations. We generally are polite to our neighbors and to strangers alike. On a grand scale, millions are successfully embracing our proper order, while only a few thousand screw it up for the rest of us. Bush’s attack on that very order not only disrupts our ideological agendas, our tax structure, and who gets arrested for what, but it serves to dangerously snip those threads of connection: those delicate means of sharing experience, relating, and believing in each other. Bush wants you to distrust your neighbor, and in so doing, undermine your very ability to relate to others. This is the true Bush doctrine. And you thought he just wanted people to follow him.