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Burning Bush creates smoky alliance

Though sounding vaguely Old Testament, this nugget of human wisdom does not, as I initially thought, date back to a time in the third grade when I watched a guy I didn’t know at all whip the snot out of a bully I did know and considered, if not an en
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Though sounding vaguely Old Testament, this nugget of human wisdom does not, as I initially thought, date back to a time in the third grade when I watched a guy I didn’t know at all whip the snot out of a bully I did know and considered, if not an enemy, at least someone I wanted to stay away from lest I be just another of his victims. Without knowing the victor, I considered him a friend as I watched in utter disbelief and joy as the bully whimpered away, begging for mercy.

I later learned this organizing principle was an old Arab proverb. Even later I learned, like so many things I thought I knew, that too was wrong.

Turns out this handy phrase is the work of a 4 th century BC Indian political theorist named Kautilya. I don’t know if he had a first name and, come to think of it, don’t know if he didn’t maybe come up with this while watching someone pound on a bully at his school.

Whatever, it was a pretty smart thing to say back in the 4 th century BC and it’s still true today. It explains things like NATO, why the U.S. cozies up to Pakistan to fight Iraq who the U.S. considered an ally when it fought Iran, why Canadian soldiers are dying in Afghanistan and why, notwithstanding his total lack of appeal, I prefer Stéphane Dion to Stephen Harper. Okay, maybe that last one’s a stretch.

What it doesn’t explain is the fascinating alignment of powerful interests playing itself out in the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

The Bush administration — ever the busybody — has butted in on a legal case pitting student against teacher, rebellion against authority. The Bushies, naturally, side with authority. Just as naturally, the American Civil Liberties Union, sides with the student. So far, not to beat a point to death, nature has run its course.

Where it gets weirder than a Hunter Thompson acid trip though is the supporting cast of characters. There has been, ever since he became president, a deep and abiding relationship between the Bush White House and what is generally referred to as the religious right, those many, many very conservative groups pushing a religious agenda and wanting to blur the line between religion and the state… at least insofar as it furthers their cause.

An impressive number of them have come down on the side of the student, the side of youthful rebellion.

“Why would that be?” I hear the few of you who have gotten this far ask.

In an act even the student himself has declared “meaningless”, he invoked, in his moment of rebellion, the name Jesus, as in Christ, as in the son of God.

What happened is this. School was dismissed in Juneau, Alaska in 2002 so the kiddies could go watch a parade. The parade involved the Olympic™ Torch passing through their town on the way to the Salt Lake Olympics™. When the television cameras approached, little Joey Frederick, a high school senior, unfurled a 14-foot banner that read, “Bong Hits 4 Jesus”. Yes, Bong Hits 4 Jesus.

Joey said it was a nonsensical prank he thought might get him on TV. He said he’d gotten the idea off a sticker he saw on a snowboard. See how much this has to do with Whistler?

Joey’s high school principal was appalled and embarrassed. Obviously, Joey hadn’t learned his lesson about drugs being a bad thing. Equally obvious, the principal hadn’t learned much about Joey’s First Amendment right to free speech. She tore down his sign, crumpled it up, suspended him for 10 days and thought she’d taught him a lesson.

She had.

He sued her in federal court for violating his civil liberties. After all, it wasn’t a school-sponsored outing; school was dismissed. It didn’t take place on the school grounds or in a classroom; it happened on a public street. Joey might not have understood the boundaries of good taste but his principal didn’t understand the boundaries of authority.

Of course, that’s something President Bush has trouble with as well. Which is why his Justice Department(sic) joined the principal in her appeal to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeals held she’d not only violated little Joey’s First Amendment rights but she was liable for damages as well.

So imagine everyone’s surprise when groups like the Reverend Pat Robertson’s American Centre for Law and Justice, the Christian Legal Society, the Liberty Legal Institute and other, historically right-wing, Christian advocacy groups, filed briefs in support of little Joey’s right to religious freedom.

Now doubtless, those groups would not have involved themselves if Joey’s sign had been, say, a protest against the Olympics and said something like, “Bong Hits 4 The IOC”, in recognition of how stoned members of the inner Olympic™ Family circle had to have been when they took bribes from the Salt Lake people to toss them the Olympics™.

But Joey’s invocation of Jesus turned conventional wisdom — and the Kautilya principle — on its head and suddenly, Joey’s got a bunch of new friends and the ACLU is scratching its head wondering what rabbit hole it’s jumped into this time.

All of which begs the question. In this time of increased proselytizing against recreational drugs, in the Age of D.A.R.E and medicinal marijuana, at a time when the West has liberated Afghanistan from the fundamentalist rule of the Taliban and enabled Afghani farmers to get back to what they do best, growing opium poppies, the question arises: What would Jesus smoke?

Since the organized forces who lay claim to his legacy are willing to publicly go to the wall against a valued friend to back some kid’s right to publicize Bong Hits 4 Jesus, it’s important to ask ourselves what Jesus would smoke. Okay, it’s at least as important as asking what Jesus would drive and that particular social movement seems to have gotten some traction, so to speak.

Would Jesus come down on the side of pipes or papers, hookahs or hot knives, pot or hash. Can’t imagine he’d be the kind of stoner who’d embroil himself in smoking crack, he seems like such a laid back, turn the other cheek kind of guy.

And was the story of Moses and the burning bush really just a homily for a pot-induced spirit quest in the middle of the desert? I know many people who honestly believe they’ve talked to God under the influence. They were under the influence; not God.

I don’t know. But I do know religion, even more so than politics, makes strange bedfellows. Hallelujah.