Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

I use to think the ACLU was in the business of looking out for Joe Average American, acting as a watchdog over the government and its tentacles reaching ever deeper into our souls–you know, kinda like MSM.

But like any organization that has success in living up to its original charter, once its work is pretty much complete, it begins looking for other things to keep those who live off its income employed. We will never see a “non-profit organiztion” simply decide to close up shop because their work is done. They must continually look for “victims” to “help.”

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

That’s pretty clear, is it not? Okay, it may not be clear what “an establishment of religion” means. The precise meaning was, and is, that the Federal Government cannot establish any religion by law. Nor can Congress prohibit anyone from exercising their own religion. Less than two decades later, almost immediately after his inauguration, President Jefferson responded to a Baptist association in Connecticut whose congregation feared he would restrict them in their religious practices. He wrote to assure them he would not, and told them he felt “separation of church and state” were essential.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions

Funny that the Separation advocates ignore the last part of that sentence and often advocate hate crime legislation. If we are to take Jefferson’s words as unofficial amendment to the Constitution, perhaps we should include them all. Isn’t it also odd that Jefferson would also say (in the same letter), “I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man.” Do you think he meant God?

Actually, if you want to understand the essence of the words in our Constitution and its first ten Amendments, maybe the best way is to see how James Madison, primary author of the document, first wrote it:

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience by in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.

Today we have the ACLU demanding the Defense Department distance itself from the Boy Scouts, and we have a teacher in California in trouble for distributing historic documents to his students. And our popular ACLU continues its assault on Christmas, with communities knuckling under in order to not have to spend exorbitant amounts of money fighting through court.

Will the ACLU come to the teacher’s defense? Isn’t the government imposing opinion?

The ACLU is also involved in trying to have a small cross removed from the Seal of the City of Los Angeles. They will prevail because the City will simply remove it rather than take the fight to court. Yet I see nothing in the First Amendment, or any other portion of the Constitution that restricts a city from having a religious symbol, or even a city ordinance requiring everyone in town to belong to a specific church. If a city council decide to force everyone to become Catholic, there is nothing in the First Amendment to prevent it.

It would be nice if everyone running for office had to pass a test on the Constitution. I would also prefer to see Justices on our Supreme Court be students of the Constitution rather than the law. Perhaps then groups like the ACLU would quit using what they see as tacit approval from the First Amendment–it only says Congress shall make no law; It says nothing restricting the courts from making those laws.

I am a supporter of the arts. And I enjoy many of them–painting, sculpture, music, theater, prose, and poetry. I’m not a fan of dance, although I enjoy the athleticism of ballet, and I can’t sit and listen to opera. I had the good fortune to spend some of my youth in England and France where I got to see some of the Old Masters’ work, but my favorite art museum is the Amon G. Carter Museum in my hometown. Any time I return there I am drawn to see what is on display.

Today, as I browsed the archives at Commentary, I came across an article written by Joseph Epstein, What to Do About the Arts (subscription required). As a former member of the National Council for the National Endowment for the Arts, he has the experience to judge how this entity has performed. Although he believes the NEA has its place, he blames it for the mediocrity that the arts in America have become.

Mediocrity, the question of what may be called quality control, was rarely discussed during my time at the NEA. It could not be. Most NEA panelists believed in encouraging the putatively disadvantaged more than they believed in art itself, and this made them prey to the grim logic of affirmative action.

It reminds me of one story I heard (no verification of its truth) that a “poet” had written a “poem” consisting of a single word. When no publication would agree to publish it, he went to the NEA and got a grant to purchase advertizing space in a poetry magazine, and used the space to “publish” his “poem.” Other groups, denied the grants sought, have filed suit claiming censorship–and won.

Poetry is the art which has suffered most. Today’s poets (speaking of the ones I’m aware of who receive acclaim) have no sense of meter or rhyme. Rhyme is not necessary, but a rhythm is essential if we are to separate poetry from prose. Otherwise, “free-verse” simply becomes a new name for short prose. I no longer read poetry; it seems quite mundane, requiring little skill and good marketing. Where are the modern incarnations of Jesse Stuart, Robert Frost, or even Rod McKuen?

I could not help noticing, too, the special obligation which the people who worked at the NEA felt toward what passed for avant-garde or “cutting-edge” art. The cutting edge, almost invariably, was anti-capitalist, anti-middle-class, anti-American, the whole-earth catalogue of current antinomianism. What was new was that the artists who wanted to seem cutting edge also wanted the government they despised to pay for the scissors.

By no means does Epstein want the NEA to go away. It fills the void in some communities by sponsoring touring exhibits or shows to give some culture to those of us in the hinterlands. You know–Red States. But the grant process has become a travesty, and a means for those with lesser talent to make a living in the Arts. In supporting them, the overall quality of our Arts is diminished.

To me, “expanding the envelope” in the artistic world means taking the available tools and using them in different ways–using your mind to create art. Music is a prime example. People who create it use the same eight notes and their variations to create something new–different combinations, different rhythms, different instruments. Stomp is the one dance show that would interest me simply because of the creativity involved. Using urine or feces to create something unimaginative doesn’t make it art. It makes it unimaginative–waste.

I see the NEA getting further and further away from its original intent. In this time of Congressional budget legislation, I think it does us well to question whether the money spent on the NEA is money spent wisely. If not, it either needs to be eliminated, or significant changes made in how that money is spent.