Human Rights and Providing for the Common Good as Priorities in Democracy

Human Rights and Providing for the Common Good as Priorities in Democracy

            By Rudy Barnes, Jr., August 30, 2025

Events in Gaza and Russia have challenged the priority of democracy in America’s foreign policy.  Trump, Netanyahu and Putin are demagogues in democracies who have demonstrated that democracies do not guarantee politics that provide for the common good and are not an adequate defense to violations of fundamental human rights.  

The violence in Ukraine and Gaza and Trump’s radical right American regime are unlike conventional aggression where outside forces oppress a population.  They are more like slavery and colonialism where corrupt politicians brutalize those in their own democracies.  They ignore International human rights that are not just for those in wartime, but for all victims of violence.

Trump, Putin and Netanyahu have used Hitler’s playbook to promote their illicit power using nationalism and radical religion to establish their oppressive regimes.  For all of Trump’s braggadocio, he and his Republicans have not opposed the war crimes of Putin or Netanyahu.  They are all complicit in making a mockery of democracy and the rule of law.  

Hitler set a precedent for distorting democracy and Christianity into a political tyranny.  Putin convinced Russian Orthodox Christians to support his restoration of a Russian Empire in his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, while Netanyahu mobilized fiercely loyal orthodox Jews into a Third Temple Movement to keep him in power and avoid charges of political corruption.

Trump has equivocated on opposing Putin’s unprovoked aggression in Ukraine and Netanyahu’s killing over 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza.  Those war crimes are evidence that demagogues like Trump can exploit divisions in a democracy.  But most Americans have proven that they are oblivious to that danger, having elected Trump twice as their President.  They have not learned that democracy cannot protect people from political depravity.

America has put too much emphasis on democracy to protect it from tyranny.  Trump has demonstrated how the exploitation of America’s polarized politics have made it vulnerable to unprincipled politicians.  Even in America a popular demagogue can undermine liberty and freedom with a majority of weak-minded and greedy supporters who ignore the warning signs.

Emphasizing fundamental human rights in the Constitution and providing for the common good rather than favoring the rich and powerful are moral principles essential to protect a democracy from the corruptions of human depravity.  Americans should have learned by now that democracy can offer a false sense of security from unprincipled politicians like Trump.

Democracy makes us the masters of our political destiny--for good or bad.  Democracy is not a panacea.  Too often we choose leaders like Trump who are committed to promote their own power and ignore human rights and the common good.  For democracy to be good, we must choose leaders committed to protect human rights and provide for the common good.

Musings on Ukraine's Fight for Its Independence

Musings on Ukraine’s Fight for Its Independence 

By Rudy Barnes, Jr., August 23, 2025

The primary moral imperative in American democracy is providing for the common good, and Donald Trump’s election twice as America’s president is proof that in U.S. politics, power trumps altruistic morality.  Trump exemplifies political immorality with ample evidence that American Constitutional democracy now fails to provide the rights that it provides. 

The church has been the primary source of moral standards in America, but it has failed to be a moral steward of democracy.   Thomas Jefferson once observed that “the teachings of Jesus are the most sublime moral code ever designed by man,” and they are summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors, including those of other races and religions as we love ourselves.  Its  moral imperative is to provide for the common good.

Trump is not alone in giving his personal power precedence over the providing for the common good.  Putin in Russia and Netanyahu in Israel have both nationalized their religions to promote their political power.  Putin has used the Russian Orthodox Church to promote his unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, and Netanyahu has used a Zionist Third Temple Movement to promote the expansion of Israel through its oppressive occupation of Gaza.

In a democracy power resides in the voters, and demagogues like Trump, Putin and Netanyahu have thrived within democratic regimes shaped by the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  All religious cultures have affirmed the precedence of political power over promoting the common good, in spite of their many prophets of altruistic politics.

History shows that democracies are as corrupted by materialism, hedonism and greed as autocracies, with little precedence for justice over political corruption and oppression.  In the continuing cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil, democracies have been as corrupted by demagogues like Trump as those redeemed by more altruistic moral leaders.

The greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors as we love ourselves, including those of other races and religions may provide the altruistic moral imperative to provide for the common good.  But in practice the church has ignored Trump's narcissistic emphasis on his personal power rather than providing for the common good.

What does American  exceptionalism mean today? In Trump’s America there is more emphasis on seeking power and glory than on providing for the common good.  With popularity now the measure of success in religion and politics, America’s values are more compatible with materialism, hedonism and greed than with altruistic moral standards.

Has America lost the universal and altruistic vision exemplified by Jesus?  Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian, but the church has made Jesus Christ into an exclusivist icon, limiting salvation to Christians who believe in church doctrines never taught by Jesus.  Can a diminishing church resurrect a universal Jesus committed to provide for the common good and save itself and America from themselves?

Notes:

Thomas Friedman has written on “how Ukraine diplomacy has revealed how-Un-American Trump is. The United States must provide the security guarantees that would deter Russia from ever trying this again and encourage our European allies to promise that Ukraine will one day be in the E.U. — forever anchored in the West. Trump is unlike any American president in the past 80 years. He feels no gut solidarity with the trans-Atlantic alliance and its shared commitment to democracy, free markets, human rights and the rule of law — an alliance that has produced the greatest period of prosperity and stability for the most people in the history of the world. I am convinced that Trump looks at NATO as if it’s a U.S.-owned shopping center whose tenants are never paying enough rent. And he looks at the European Union as a shopping center competing with the United States that he’d like to shut down by hammering it with tariffs. The notion that NATO is the spear that protects Western values and that the European Union is possibly the West’s best modern political creation — a vast center of free people and free markets, stabilizing a continent that was known for tribal and religious wars for millenniums — is alien to Trump.  “However much European leaders pile on their flattery of Trump, it’s clear the fundamental bond of trust that underlay the 80-year success of the trans-Atlantic economy, that served the U.S. so favorably for decades, is now ruptured.  There is only one conclusion: The only sustainable way to stop this war and prevent it from coming back is a massive, consistent Western commitment to give Ukraine the military resources that will persuade Putin that his army will be chewed apart. Putin’s punishment for this war should be that he and his people have to forever look to the West and see a Ukraine, even if it is a smaller Ukraine, that is a thriving Slavic, free-market democracy, compared with Putin’s declining Slavic, authoritarian kleptocracy. But how will Trump ever learn that truth when he basically gutted the National Security Council staff and shrank and neutered the State Department, when he fired the head of the National Security Agency and his deputy on the advice of a conspiracy buffoon, Laura Loomer, and when he appointed a Putin fan girl, Tulsi Gabbard, to be his director of national intelligence? Who will tell him the truth? No one. See Ukraine Diplomacy Reveals How Un-American Trump Is at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/opinion/trump-russia-ukraine-putin.html.

#559: Does an Israeli Third Temple Movement Justify Killing 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza?

    By Rudy Barnes, Jr., August 16, 2025

The short answer is No!  International law makes such carnage a war crime.  But that’s the cost so far for Netanyahu’s IDF to prepare the way for the Third Temple.  It would also require tearing down the Dome of the Rock Mosque currently on the Temple Mount before the Third Temple can be rebuilt in its place as God’s sacred home for Jews.

If and when the Third Temple is built, Mosaic Law will be restored as God’s law for Jews, including sacrificial rites.  The destruction of the Dome of the Rock Mosque will undoubtedly cause much religious controversy, if not violence but the restoration of the Third Temple represents the goal of many, but not all, orthodox Jews, including Prime Minister Netanyahu.

That has been the goal of most orthodox Jews since the destruction of the second temple by the Romans in 70 AD.  Many American Christians, including President Biden, have professed to be Zionists, and many Jews understand that replacing the Dome of the Rock Mosque with a Third Temple will likely generate religious violence.

 MIke Huckabee is a Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas who has been the 29th U.S. ambassador to Israel since April 21, 2025.  As a conservative diplomat and political commentator, Huckabee is sympathetic to the Third Temple movement, but over 60,000 Palestinian casualties and crowds of starving Palestinians in Gaza have made Israel a pariah nation, with support for Netanyahu’s messianic goals waning.

The mix of religion and political issues in the Third Temple movement is likely to generate serious political debate in America, and American support is essential for the success of Netanyahu’s Third Temple Movement.  The threat of a holy war will likely deter Israelis from going forward with any site work on the Temple Mount for now, 

The evidence is clear.  The Third Temple Movement in Israel does not justify Israel’s IDF turning Gaza into a wasteland awaiting Jewish occupation, while creating a hunger crisis among young Palestinians in Gaza.  It’s time for the world to see Netanyahu for what he is:  A Jewish demagogue corrupting the Holy Land. 

 “How did we get here, where a Jewish democratic state, descended in part from the Holocaust, is engaged in a policy of starvation in a war with Hamas that has become the longest and most deadly war between Israelis and Palestinians in Israel’s history, and shows no sign of ending?  Thomas L. Friedman has observed that it pits the worst, most fanatical and amoral government in Israel’s history against the worst, most fanatical, murderous organization in Palestinian history.”

      

Notes:

Netanyahu has said that “Israel wants to hand over control of Gaza to unnamed “Arab forces” after Hamas defeat,” but so far there are no takers to provide those forces.  The Israeli cabinet signed off on Netanyahu’s latest proposal for the Israeli military to take over Gaza City, but has stipulated that the Palestinian Authority not administer postwar Gaza. See Arab Forces Running Gaza? Netanyhu’s Goal leaves many questions.

On Israel facing growing condemnation over military expansion in Gaza, see https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-palestinians-war-hamas-hostages-ceasefire-85dd158efed9eeab482d434e36bf130a.

          

On Arab Forces’ Running Gaza? Netanyahu’s Goal Leaves Many Questions. See  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/09/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-arab-forces-postwar.html.

On How Netanyahu Played Trump for a Fool in Gaza, see https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/29/opinion/gaza-netanyahu-trump-israel-starvation.html.

  

For American Democracy, the End of the Trump Regime Can Be a New Beginning

Rudy Barnes, Jr., August 2, 2025

Hope that a Constitutional democracy can one day rise “phoenix like” as an altruistic democracy from the wreckage of the immoral Trump regime is possible, but not a certainty.  As a pastor, I frequently used The Hymn of Promise to promote the hope, though faith, that the death of loved ones is not the end but a new spiritual beginning.  The S.C. motto, While I breathe I hope, is a secular version of that hope.

In ancient folklore the majestic Phoenix symbolizes the hope that something good can rise out of its ashes: “Ancient legend paints a picture of a magical bird, radiant and shimmering, which lives for several hundred years before it dies by bursting into flames. It is then reborn from the ashes, to start a new, long life. So powerful is the symbolism that it is a motif and image that is still used commonly today in popular culture and folklore.”

Like European colonial regimes of the 18th and 19th centuries.  Religion is not necessary, but altruistic morality is essential to the political legitimacy needed for a viable democracy; and former colonial regimes in Europe have demonstrated that even morally corrupt democracies can be redeemed from slavery and immorality.

Over its corrupt 2,000 year history, the church has failed to be a good steward of altruistic morality in democracy.  In America white Christians elected Trump twice as their President.  Thomas Jefferson was a Deist and a Founding Father of America who considered the teachings of Jesus “the most sublime moral code ever designed by man.”  Jesus was a universalist.  He was not even a Christian, but a maverick Jew.

The universal teachings of Jesus are summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and our neighbors of other races and religions as we love ourselves.  It’s taken from the Hebrew Bible, was taught by Jesus, and has been accepted by many Muslims as a common word of faith.  Sadly most Jews, Christians and Muslims have ignored the moral imperative to provide for the common good.

Can people in the world’s democracies subordinate their greed, materialism and hedonism to provide for the common good?  History teaches that human depravity has trumped altruistic morality in all of the world’s democracies; but in America the sacrifice of health care and social security to provide tax relief for the wealthy by Trump and his Republican Party could change political priorities.

It’s highly unlikely that the Trump regime will support altruistic moral policies that can save America from itself.  Changes in America’s moral priorities to provide for the common good will require a dramatic change in America’s current politics, and that won’t happen unless and until voters elect new political leaders who reverse Trump’s current immoral politics in the national elections of 2026 and 2028.  Those elections are the only polls that will count.       

Notes:

The Hymn of Promise by Natalie Sleeth is at page 707 of the United Methodist Hymnal:

In the bulb there is a flower, in the seed an apple tree; In cocoons, a hidden promise; butterflies will soon be free! In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be, Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;  there’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me. From the past will come the future, what it holds a mystery, Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning , in our time infinity; In our doubt there is believing, in our life eternity. In our death, a resurrection, at the last a victory, Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see

On the folklore legend of the Phoenix rising from its ashes, see Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology).

On the dismal state of American politics with a looming crisis on social security and health care, see Warren Buffett’s longtime Social Security warning is coming to fruition, with retirees facing drastic cuts based on Trump’s “big and beautiful bill” giving tax breaks to the wealthy, see https://fortune.com/2025/07/28/when-will-social-security-run-out-insolvent-warren-buffett-crfb.