Mike Stenhouse, Thomas Jefferson and a ‘functioning democracy’


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TJ“A properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate,” said Thomas Jefferson.

Well, at least that’s what Mike Stenhouse of the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity tells us. Problem is, that doesn’t sound at all like Jefferson, and I can’t find any reference with a primary source attributed to that quote.* If Rhody’s Littlest Think Tank can’t get a simple quote straight, what’s that say about the level of fact checking that goes on, outside of “I found it on the Internets?”

So what’s got Stenhouse pulling spurious quotations from the Internet anyway? At issue are proposed IRS regulations that might prevent “research organizations,” such as his own, from producing partisan hit pieces or at least prevent them from continuing to pretend these reports are not political activity, distributed under the guise of educating the public. Here’s how Stenhouse describes it:

The Freedom Index is intended as a tool to educate the people of Rhode Island about the activities of their government. However, under many circumstances, the proposed IRS regulations would redefine the publishing of legislator names on any kind of scorecard — such as our Freedom Index — as “political activity.”

Stenhouse frames this as an issue of free speech. But what’s at issue is not his ability to say whatever he likes but rather his organization’s ability to avoiding paying taxes while doing so. And what better way to make that point than to wrap one’s opinions in the “words” of Jefferson? Of course, Jefferson did believe in the importance of an informed electorate and often wrote about the issue. Here’s how Jefferson put it, albeit less concisely:

Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.

So what did Jefferson mean by that? He certainly wasn’t envisioning Republican front-groups masquerading as 501(c)(3)s. What Jefferson was actually proposing was the creation of public schools, one of his lifelong passions.

I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness…Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.
1786 August 13. (to George Wythe)

That’s right, Jefferson was in a sense the Founding Father of the public school system and actually proposed increasing taxes to pay for their creation and support, exactly the kind of activity that would have damaged his ranking as a state legislator in this so-called “Freedom Index.” Wahoowa!

 

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* I searched as best I could for the source of that quote, but I only found it in blog posts and always without mention of the original source. Also sometimes as “the cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate” or as “an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” Monticello lists that as a spurious quotation:

http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/educated-citizenry-vital-requisite-our-survival-free-people-quotation

Here is the closest quote (mentioned by Monticello’s reference librarian). Stenhouse probably should have used this one:

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information.

As I mentioned, the “problem” with that is that Jefferson was writing about public schools. The sentence before that reads (uh, oh!):

If the legislature would add to that a perpetual tax of a cent a head on the population of the State, it would set agoing at once, and forever maintain, a system of primary or ward schools, and an university where might be taught, in its highest degree, every branch of science useful in our time and country; and it would rescue us from the tax of toryism, fanaticism, and indifferentism to their own State, which we now send our youth to bring from those of New England.

I also searched…

Why churches can’t engage in political activity


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IRS Tax Code, Section 501©(3):

A tax-exempt religious organization is a legal entity or vehicle created and operated exclusively for religious purposes, no part of the net earnings of which insures to the benefit of any private individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and which does not participate in or interfere in any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.

shchurch62012
Sacred Heart Church in Woonsocket

In 1954 Senator (later president) Lyndon B Johnson suggested that in exchange for sweeping tax exceptions, churches would be prohibited from endorsing or opposing political candidates.  The Council for Secular Humanism, in a landmark report, estimated that churches in America avoid paying at a minimum $71 billion in taxes.  This amounts to a huge subsidy for religious groups in America, a subsidy we pay whether we are religious or not.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a right wing theocratic legal defense organization, objects to the prohibition on clerical electoral advocacy. They maintain that churches should still be immune to taxation, but should not have to sacrifice their First Amendment rights to free speech to do so. Each year the ADF organizes Pulpit Freedom Sunday, a date for clergy across the country to violate this prohibition and openly challenge the IRS on this issue. As part of this action ministers send videos of their open violation of the law to the IRS, hoping to provoke a court case that the ADF can use to have the law stricken down.

The IRS has only sporadically enforced the law, and there are very few cases of the IRS going after a mainline Christian church. In fact, there is only one example of such a church losing its tax exempt status: “The Church at Pierce Creek in Binghamton, N.Y., lost its tax-exempt status in 1995 after the IRS determined it had violated federal tax law by publishing a full-page ad in USA Today in late October of 1992 advising people that voting for presidential candidate Bill Clinton was a sin. The church sued in federal court to regain its tax-exempt status but lost in federal district court. A federal appellate court later upheld the ruling denying the church tax-exempt status.”

For the most part, the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) has toed the line in this regard. The structure of the RCC is different from Protestant churches. Think of Protestant churches as a string of little franchises, with independent owners acting as they please within the confines of their conscience and faith. An IRS investigation and fine against one tiny church will not result in cases against other churches because there is no direct relation between them.

The RCC is different. The RCC maintains a top down pyramidal structure and all the churches and related property are financially connected. The priests are, in a sense, employees of the local bishops, who are in turn employees of the Pope, who acts as CEO. Were a case to be opened against a Catholic priest, and it was determined that the priest was following the edicts of his bishop, then other churches and other priests could be fairly investigated, and the entirety of the Catholic Church in the United States could possibly lose its tax free status.

High profile right wing religious advocate Mike Huckabee recently maintained that churches should voluntarily give up their tax free status so that they can move more forcibly into the public arena. Though this would be a bold and honest move on the part of religious institutions, remember that we’re talking $71 billion here. Few institutions are that bold or honest.

As Steve Siebold wrote on the Huffington Post, “Imagine how much food that could buy to feed the hungry, or how it could help those less fortunate. This might be acceptable if the church was actually encouraging strategies to reduce human suffering, irresponsible behavior that harms others, ending violence in our neighborhoods and other critical issues. Churches do not serve the common good; they propagate ancient supernatural mythology that brainwashes people into believing the unbelievable and impedes social and scientific progress.”

One last point: The IRS tax code is federal in nature, but city and state governments have expanded the tax free status of churches in other ways as well. “All 50 US states and the District of Columbia exempt churches from paying property tax. Donations to churches are tax-deductible.”

With all this in mind it is difficult to know what exactly motivates Father Brian Sistare in Woonsocket. Certainly, as his Twitter feed suggests, Sistare is extremely conservative in his views. It is possible that the closer ties being formed by Evangelical and Roman Catholic churches over issues like LGBTQ and reproductive rights have allowed priests like Sistare to feel comfortable violating the prohibition on politicking from the pulpit.

Certainly the evidence of emails from Sistare threatening to influence upcoming elections is a troublesome thing. If his actual sermons make good on this threat, then the IRS should certainly investigate and remedy the situation.

Of course, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence could always start paying federal, state and local taxes, in which case no one could complain at all.