PERSONAL NOTES
WHAT IS JIM SOHMER ALL ABOUT- AN INTERVIEW
Q. What is this website really all about?
A. It’s about ideas. It’s about substance. It’s about truth. It’s not about me. Frankly, who I am and what I am is irrelevant, and it is with great reluctance that I’ve got anything about myself on this website; however I’ve decided, within limits, that it is necessary. It has become the fashion of the day, among those who disagree, to engage in shakedowns of personalities as a distraction from analysis of ideas. For Liberals, this tendency is a function of deconstructionism, the belief that there is no single truth or reality, that it is up to individuals to manufacture their own “truth” about the world. If you think 5 and 4 equal 6, that’s ok. The intellectual trash of relativism and moral equivalency is the logical conclusion of Secularism run out to the end of its rope. Liberals in a state of intellectual bankruptcy are left with nothing else but to resort to character assassination. So what I, and most Conservatives, am trying to do is to say enough is enough. Conservatives believe in the singularity of truth; intellectual maturity is signaled by the process of working toward an understanding of what the truth is. This can only be accomplished in a climate of freedom, which is what the United States is supposed to be about. This website is about advancing the Conservative viewpoint. Ideas need to be objectively examined on the merits of the idea itself, not the author.
Q. Who are you?
A. I’m an ordinary American whose early life was shaped in small towns in rural western New York State. My parents were struggling middle class, and my earliest days were shaped by WWII. Both my parents were good people, and did the best they could, within their limits. We all struggle, within our limits. So it is that I was raised in the cradle of northeastern liberalism, and whose curiosity about life was aroused very early by both my parents, and initially shaped by the war. They were both very patriotic, protestant Christians and Rockefeller Republicans. Neither of my parents had an education, except that my mother was a trained registered nurse.
Q. Looking back, what do you think was your parent’s single greatest strength?
A. Very early they aroused my curiosity about what life was all about. My mother, especially, taught me about Jesus Christ, and the moral teachings of Christianity, and that included a respect for Judaism. Like most Americans, I am an ethnic mongrel, but I am mostly German. As a little kid, I could not comprehend what the German’s were doing to the Jews. All of this was the launch point for a curiosity about the fundamental questions of life that has driven me to what I am today. The fundamental premise of my search was the truth, wherever that might lead; let the chips fall where they may.
Q. What came next?
A. Many years of fighting my way out of the mental bag of Liberalism and the northeastern mindset. In my college years I flirted with the Left, but in 1979 I moved to Colorado, voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980, and have never looked back. I just kept running. Believe me; nobody understands the mindset of northeastern Liberals better. They are dangerous, and for those who have never had the experience, it is impossible to comprehend.
Q. Today you describe yourself as an American nationalist conservative. What do you mean by that?
A. To begin with, I believe in American Exceptionalism in the sense that our founding process was Divinely inspired. It is pretty obvious that over the years we’ve made our share of human mistakes, but underneath it all I believe there has been an intended plan, which we have always had the freedom to screw up. I am a nationalist because, as a conservative, I believe human nature has limits of association, and that to arbitrarily attempt to violate those limits is counterproductive in terms of promoting the general peace. I am a Conservative for reasons you will need to absorb this entire website to understand. I am an American in the approximate Burkean sense of the word, as translated by George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, with a little Thomas Jefferson for salt.
Q. What do you think accounts for the dominance of Liberalism in America today?
A. Well we have to define the term and establish historical context. The term itself has been extremely bastardized from an earlier (say late 1800’s) meaning. Today’s Libertarians most approximately equate to the more original term Liberal. The central distinction is the role of government. To fully comprehend the phenomena of modern Liberalism, it is necessary to trace part of its intellectual history back through the twists and turns of the Progressive movement (which also gave birth to modern Republicans), but also to Marxism and even further to the forces that shaped the French Revolution. That’s quite a trip, but it is necessary. The bottom line today is that today’s Liberals are Statists and Collectivists in sheep’s clothing. That is why they are dangerous. They tend to disguise themselves as Democrats, which is pretty pathetic as they have no resemblance whatsoever to Jefferson or Jackson. Years ago Republicans became infected by the virus through the naive innocence of Theodore Roosevelt, who in other respects was a good guy. An infection that has taken root for at least 100 years cannot be overturned in a single election; not too many people understand the discussion, and yet that is what needs to happen if the American Experiment is to survive. What we have today is a Democrat Party awash in the legacy of European Statism, and a Republican Party engaged in an internal civil war of metro male accommodation vs. conservative skepticism.
Q. Why did you become a Catholic ?
A. At the end of a very long trail, it was the only thing to do that made sense for me. I was baptized in the Methodist church, and confirmed as an Episcopalian. Then I left the cultural cocoon of small town rural New York and went to college(1959). There I came face to face with a Jewish boy from NYC who confronted me with a question I was quite unprepared to deal with: How could I believe in a benevolent God who would allow 6 million Jews to be turned into soap? So it is that I came face to face with Existentialism. Christian Faith, in what ? I did not properly understand free will.
Q. How did you respond?
A. Dad, who could not help, and I had a talk with our Episcopal minister who shrugged his shoulders and replied that either I had Faith or I didn't.
Q. Next ?
A. I instantly became an Agnostic, which is to say I put the entire discussion "in park", for future consideration. I realized at the time that serious questions were being left unanswered, but it was only from an agnostic position that I could proceed with life. I remember making the mental note at the time that if one was to accept the basic Christian premise, that the only way it could make sense was through the Catholic Church. The fundamental flaw of all Protestantism is that if you run the discussion out to the end of the trap line, everybody becomes their own Pope; Back to square one. Meanwhile, my father was personally devastated, and never quite the same again.
Fast forward to 1993. I am a man of Objective Reality, by instinct an engineer, ever inquisitive about how things go together and how to take things apart. All my adult life has been dedicated to the manufacture, distribution and transportation of material objects. Throughout the 1980's I was privileged to work shoulder to shoulder with some very smart engineers in the design, manufacture, test, and deployment of one of the most powerful weapons systems ever devised by man, and I was very good at what I did. Our purpose was the collapse of the USSR, and we did it, which is how it came to pass I was driving a truck in 1993, and I am alone, pondering this problem of Faith. It begins with a recognition of the fact that the complexity of the universe could not possibly have been an accident. The numbers don't add up. Beyond our ability to understand, there must be a superior creative intelligence. Purged of self absorption, (and some time alone in the wilderness will help with that), humble objective reality can lead to no other conclusion. So it is that I rediscovered God at 13000 feet in the Colorado mountains. Consideration of the implications of quantum physics also helps, which is to say that we don't know what we're talking about, and, believe it or not, an agnostic systems engineering approach to basic questions can be useful.
During the 20th Century, Statists murdered over 100,000,000 innocent souls. God did not do this. We did it, or allowed it to happen. It is up to us to tear Satin from our hearts. God gave us the freedom to choose, and with that freedom, he set up our ability to choose the "Devil" to test our will. It is written that we failed that test in a garden many years ago. So it has been ever since that to indulge Evil is to become complicit with it. Today, in the United States, that includes the toleration of over 4000 abortions every day (we have out done the Germans, and are closing in on the Soviets), and it includes the acceptance by some of Islamic Fascist (Statist) Terrorism as a "nuisance".
Q. What about Jesus Christ ?
A. I must confess that this was a lot tougher for me to resolve with myself, because it is on this issue that the question of Faith actually enters. For me it is a matter of examining history, and a deductive process. The logic of a superior creative intelligence eliminates any consideration of theology that is not monotheistic.
I accept the Judeo-Christian history as the story of God's introduction of Himself to mankind. The option that I considered for a long time was Orthodox Judaism, but I could not walk away from Christ. Jesus was born of a Jewish mother. His presence is a fact of history, and I simply have concluded, that upon careful examination, there can be no other explanation than that He was exactly what He said he was. No "ordinary" human could have endured what He endured, and offered forgiveness and redemption. Jesus was one very big man, because He was a lot more than a man. He was the Son of God. There were too many witnesses to these events for it to be other than generally recorded.
I have a lot of respect for the serious among the Jewish faith, but they are wrong about Christ. I have no theological respect for Muslims, who are stillborn apostates, however well intended a few might be. I love Evangelicals for their conservative political enthusiasm, but I simply disagree with their theology. Elsewhere, I will probably discuss the game of tag played by many other protestants with the deconstructionist school of the Enlightenment.
So it is that I became a Catholic, acknowledging and embracing the Apostolic Tradition, the Deposit of Faith and the Magisterium.
Q. What about judgmentalism and forgiveness?
A. It is my understanding that Christ's instruction to us is that it is up to God to make final judgments and extend forgiveness. However, nowhere in His teaching have I seen instruction to turn aside from assisting victims of Evil. We are supposed to be our brother's keeper. This implies a worldly authority to assess worldly situations and take action as Biblically appropriate. This is not to substitute ourselves for God; This is to act on Christ's instruction to be Righteous. With the spread of Enlightenment rationality over the last 300 years, or so, and the creeping substitution of human Individual Self for God, we have become very creative at finding excuses to turn our heads away from Evil. The price of this "non-judgmentalism", coupled with a belief that We can forgive, is not only to walk away from God's instructions, but to also cause the gradual collapse of Judeo-Christian civilization. Civilization requires rules, and rules are meaningless in the absence of an ability and willingness to judge, act and enforce. Thuggery inevitably fills the vacuum. That is what we have been witnessing ever since the French Revolution, and look where we are today. Today our brains and hearts are numb. Somehow, I find it difficult to believe that this was God's intent. We all have become complicit with Evil. In this world, that was exactly the real issue before the American voters on November 2, 2004.
Q. Is there a danger in Christian Righteousness going "over the line", so to speak?
A. Of course. History is full of examples. In the absence of moral guard rails, there is even a greater danger, perhaps even a guarantee, that Secularists, worshiping themselves instead of God, will run off the tracks. Secularists pretend that they are not religious, but they pray at the alter of themselves. Their self denial in this regard is what makes them truly dangerous. This is a matter about which I am particularly alert. The Truth lies elsewhere, and is bigger than you and I. This is one of the primary reasons I have sought roots in Christianity, and in the Catholic Church, which, I believe, offers guard rails against the worldly danger of self absorption. The beginning of Faith is humility before our Creator. We don't always succeed, and we slip up. I look to the Church to pull me back when that happens. Hypocrisy occurs; it is a characteristic of human nature. However error, once recognized and corrected, is personal growth. To point out to others an error of which one was once himself guilty is not hypocrisy, it is a helping hand. However, to advise others of matters about which one continues himself, unacknowledged and in denial, clearly is hypocrisy. People of God hold no monopoly on this behavior, quit the contrary. A grand example is that of Liberals advising American blacks that education vouchers (school choice) are a bad idea when, in fact, the real agenda is protecting teacher's unions and their clients. The same folks frequently have their own children in private schools. The list is endless.
Q. Are you suggesting that those who voted for John Kerry are Evil?
A. I'm sure a few were, and are, but I would prefer to believe that the vast majority of people who voted for Kerry are people who just don't think, and who morally and politically are blithering idiots, including Kerry. That is the kindest way I can put it. I am at a total loss to understand how any intellectually sentient and morally conscious person could have lived through the last 40 years in this country and not have figured this all out. That is why I am not thrilled with the results of this election. It was just too close to encourage lots of confidence in the future for the American Experiment. To quantify the point by analogy, compare the margins of the 2004 election results with those of 1986, when the broader choices where very comparable (Reagan vs. Mondale). No objective analyst can deny the cultural erosion. In a healthy body politic, the spread this time around should have been even greater, in our favor, quite the opposite of what has happened.
Q. There are Conservatives who claim to be secular, agnostic or atheist.
A. I confess to hanging my hat on the agnostic doorknob for a long time, but it doesn't work. When you really get right down to it, such folks are really Libertarians. I have come to believe that Conservatism, by definition, has to include recognition of a superior creative intelligence, and in the American sense of things, that means a Judeo-Christian perspective.
Q. God gave us free will as individuals.
A. Yes, and it is how we discharge that gift, as individuals, that is how He will judge us in the end.
Q. Pope John Paul II has spoken against the policy decision to go to war with Iraq. As a Catholic, how do you respond to that?
A. To the best of my knowledge the Pope's words were not spoken EX CATHEDRA. Elsewhere under "Catholic Outreach" you will find a direct Vatican web site link to an index of statements extending over several months on this matter. The Pope appears to be troubled in two respects:
1). He believed (March 03) that insufficient effort went into exploring a peaceful way out of a real problem, as required under Just War requirements, and,
2). The pending American action (March 03) did not have proper international approval.
As a Catholic, and as an American, I simply disagree based on information available to me, and theoretically available to the Pope. Look, I love this Pope, and EX CATHEDRA he has been wonderful.
However, the President of the United States, in his own particular way a man of God, has a responsibility to the American people, and to our Constitution. Tactical errors aside, strategically I believe the President has been correct in his response to the challenge of Islamic Fascism. The fact of the matter is that there is a robust discussion going on within the Catholic community about all this among persons far better qualified than I on matters Catholic. Suffice it to say, I do not stand alone, and I believe that there has been direct contact between the Pope and the Administration which is privileged. Beware of the media's efforts to mis-represent the issue.
Q. You are somewhat disturbed by these apparent differences?
A. Yes. In my mind and heart I believe I speak with a sense of grace and humility on these matters, however I confess my restlessness. We are instructed to do the best we can to follow in Christ's footsteps. I read of an occasion when He considered it necessary to tip over some tables and raise His voice in the Temple. I am but a humble servant still trying to unravel the intended instructions of Vatican II. I am given to understand a desire on the part of the Pope to encourage the Laity, among other things, to confront the World more robustly from a Catholic perspective unavailable to the Bishops. Many American Bishops, in particular, in recent years have been too indulgent with themselves, and their flocks, to an extent, perhaps, even reflecting back up to the Vatican staff itself. Again, within the Catholic community there are persons far better qualified than I on matters Catholic, to assess these issues. However, I did not leave my Anglican roots to become a Catholic to jump from the frying pan into the fire, and I am a Christian from a traditional Conservative American perspective. In my isolated life style I have quiet talks daily with a little voice on my shoulder about these things, seeking guidance. I pray for authoritative correction if that is necessary; in the meantime I've had many years of practice in the World at lining up sights and pulling the trigger, and I will continue to do so, God willing.
Q. You supported this President for re-election. Having accomplished that, what are your major issues of difference with him?
A. Well, there are several, in the strategic context, however as to the current situation (11/04), I would list the following:
1). Taxes. One of the great dangers of the push for "tax reform" is the possibility of enacting some kind of national sales tax scheme without repeal of the 16th Amendment. Then they would really have us by the ying-yang. Go elsewhere on this web site for elaboration, starting with the Mission Statement.
2). International trade, balance-of-payments and control of the borders. All of these issues are inter-related, and I see no comprehensive recognition of this fact. The President's approach to the border problem is out of touch with reality; conservatives must rely on congressional resources to work the issue. In addition, with respect to trade and the balance of payments issues, we simply need to stop giving the country away.
3). I'm afraid the President has been co-opted by the advocates of political correctness, quotas, and affirmative action.
4). We really need to get into major spending reductions at the Federal level, and shift a lot of the impacted choices back to the states. Again, see the Mission Statement.
5). The Courts. While I think the President is on the right side of this issue, he has an un-nerving general tendency to "give away the store". I'd like to see the same determination here that we've seen on the war against IslamoFascism.
04/23/05 Q. Pope John Paul II has passed on, and now we have Pope Benedict XVI. What do you make of this ?
A. I think it is a very positive development for the Church, and Christians everywhere, and I see the hand of the Lord very hard at work. It is no secret that there has been, and is, a struggle within the Church itself that mirrors the struggle within the larger western culture between secularism and faith. The worldly component of the Church is not, and never has been, immune from worldly political cross currents. For example, I think the Church has struggled in recent years, within and without, from those who may have willfully mis-represented the Papal intent of Vatican II.
Throughout its entire history the Church, and Christianity have been targets, so in that sense, nothing is new. However, during the Age of the Enlightenment, Secularism has metastasized into mass movements of hate and an unprecedented disrespect for our souls, producing, by the end of the 20th century, oceans of blood. Typically, Secularists blame "religion", apparently of any species, for this consequence, failing, or choosing, not to recognize that Secularism itself has become self-inserted as the state religion of modernity. Secularism is no longer about its alleged foundation of reason; it has become drunk with power and fixated on the need to destroy God. That is the fear, and danger, of the cornered rat. This is what is at the bottom of the hatred of George W. Bush.
Christians have faith in God through Jesus Christ. Secularists have faith in themselves exclusively through the worldly resources, not of reason, but personal pleasure of the moment.
Pope John Paul II left us a stunning theological legacy of understanding. This is what is at the bottom of the hatred of the Catholic Church. The faithful recognize all this, and showed it in the massive outpouring of love upon John Paul's passing. I think the challenge before Pope Benedict XVI will lie more with the worldly challenge of implementation, and I sense from his record, with our Lord's inspiration, his capability.
Q. What, again, about the question of differences between the Church and the Bush Administration over our policies in the Middle East ?
A. Well I would hope for a comprehensive review on the part of all parties. Critics of all persuasions now need to reflect on the larger meaning(s) of elections breaking out all over. As for the Church, the debate was always about redemptive suffering vs. complicity with evil, and given the overall complexity of the situation of Islamic Fascist challenge to the west, and Christianity, the correct application of responsive state policy to the specifics of this collision. I continue to believe that as an American, and as a Catholic, that our President's strategic judgment was right from the beginning, but I also beg the continuous review of these matters by the Church, and our Lord. In the end, the correct answers lay in Heaven, not the Oval Office.
I might add to this, comments made in National Review, 04/25/05, on Pope John Paul II’s thoughts about the war in Iraq
“The Popes opposition to the Iraq war has also been exaggerated. He said that the war represented a failure of statesmen and urged peace. But he did not condemn the war, declare it unjust, or urge Catholic soldiers not to participate in it. Contrast this with his opposition to abortion: He did urge Catholic doctors not to perform abortions. The gravity and definitiveness of the teachings on these issues are not comparable, and a list of the Church’s “positions” – as though it had a political platform – must inevitably obscure this.”
Q. To be continued--------
A. Yes, on other matters.
08/13/06 Q. It's been awhile. RETURN TO MO 06 05
A. Yes. Perhaps too long. What has finally tripped my trigger is an article in the Summer 2006 edition of The Latin Mass, one of my favorite subscriptions, by one Thaddeus Kozinski, MA.
What we have here is a complaint about Liberalism so broadly drawn as to include the American Founding Fathers and the entire product of their efforts. I am reminded of similar complaints about Edmond Burke as a Liberal, willing to recognize the constructive, as he saw it, growth of popular sovereignty as a palliative mechanism of reconciliation of differences within the polis. Burke, of course, was casting his eye across the Channel at France, and saw nothing to recommend in the Queens' advice to "let them eat cake".
Q. Where was Mr. Kozinski attempting to go with this?
A. He was trying, quite correctly, to make the point that, at least in certain manifestations, secularism in the West has been antithecal to Judeo-Christian belief and values in general, and the Catholic Church in particular. Where he runs off the rails, however, in my opinion, is his labored focus on the First Amendment to our Constitution as the seed of the problem. The complaint here, really, is with Protestant oversight of the Founding process, which he sees as fatally corrosive of Catholic values. From this he is damning the American concept of freedom. My point of contention is that both Catholic and most Protestant theology recognizes the key pivotal point of the need for individual acceptance of God and Jesus Christ. The First Amendment to our Constitution, properly interpreted, and American freedom, properly understood, are entirely consistent with Christian theology on this point.
Q. "The First Amendment to our Constitution, properly interpreted, and American freedom, properly understood". Elaborate on the word "proper"?
A. This gets to the core cultural, political and legal struggle within our society today. This has to do with an "Originalist" interpretation of the Constitution v. the notion of a "living" interpretation of the Constitution. (What 9 sitting judges today want it to mean at the moment.) This is the fundamental legal struggle today in America between Conservatives and Liberals, roots reaching deep into the culture.
Q. Does not the fact that we are engaged in this struggle support his contention that the secular options recognized by the First Amendment are corrosive of Judeo-Christian belief and values in general, and the Catholic Church in particular.
A. This is nonsense. This is a struggle reaching back to Adam and Eve. What the American Founding did was, for the first time in human history, recognize at a worldly level, without ambiguity, as a matter of law, what God has been trying to pound into our heads since that mix-up in the Garden: the responsibility is ours to accept or reject, and to accept the consequences of our personal decisions.
Q. Perhaps he understands that we, as individuals, cannot handle that responsibility.
A. And as individuals, without God, he is correct. However, God assigned to us, as individuals, the responsibility to recognize the need for His help and Love. Short our ability to do so, individually, we cannot have an honest relationship with God. There is no worldly Statist "fix" to this problem. And while the Church itself can be supportive, the linkage must be in parallel, not serial. To not fix responsibility upon the individual to properly address this issue is to excuse failure.
Q. But certainly there has been a broad societal failure, a collective failure, to properly engage and embrace God.
A. Yes, quite painfully so. That is the primary Western weakness in defending itself against IslamicFascism. My point, however, with this particular article, is that each of us has to accept responsibility for our own actions, and our relationship with God, today, and not blame an American Founding principle that was, in fact, exactly in congruence with the original Judeo-Christian teaching. Our problem today is that we have strayed from Christian teachings of grace, and, in so doing, betrayed the opportunities implicit in principles of our own national founding.
Q. Is it unChristian to defend ourselves from IslamicFascism? Mr. Kozinski suggests unease with our military response to some of these problems.
A. I believe it is unChristian to became complicit with evil, which is exactly what one is doing when one engages in the moral and intellectual relativism of accepting IslamicFascist complaints of failures of their own making, material or theological. A "religion" so invested in intolerance towards others betrays a weakness in its own beliefs. I understand that in Arabic there is no direct translation for the word "curiosity". That is a betrayal of fear of others, and one's own system of belief. A real Christian is very curious, and covets a singular understanding of Truth. There is no reason to fear Truth.
Q. You alluded earlier to the possibility of complaint by Mr. Kozinski about the lack of Catholic input to our national founding.
A. Yes, it came across to me like that. I would only suggest that one might take a look at Latin America today, which by contrast, had multiple opportunities to build on the dominance of the Catholic Church. I am an American, and a Roman Catholic, and I am getting a bit tired of all the America bashing by those with conflicting agendas.
I believe The Catholic Church has suffered badly from a lack of self criticism. The worldly component of the Church, especially the American component, has much to fix about itself. The Church needs to look in the mirror.
Q. You indicated you had more to say about "the war on terror"
A. Yes, and the successes and failures of the Bush Administration. Multiple.
12/26/06 Politics, internationally and nationally, is in the midst of a vast sea change. Perhaps this is a good time to move over to PERSONAL NOTES II
FMOWEB 900-001 PERSONAL NOTES (ORIGINAL)