The Public Policy / A New Flock of Sheep
Berns, Walter
A NEW FLOCK OF SHEEP As the Catholic "Peace Bishops" are about to learn, it is not possible to be both an American and a martyr. Christian " w i t n e s s e s " have been known in other times...
...From his office came the following answer: "Admiral Rickover has asked me to reply to your letter . . . . Please be advised that he does not desire to have a book written about him...
...Thomas's opinion was idiosyncratic even within his church, yet he was permitted to rely on it when he claimed compensation...
...Since it was clear from the record that he had "terminated his employment for religious reasons," the Court forbade the state to deprive him of compensation, for to do so would prohibit him freely to exercise his religion...
...indeed, Thomas had a friend and fellow Jehovah's Witness in the plant who said it was not "unscriptural" to work on weapons parts...
...They don't ask anyone to "testify" to his faith...
...Rickover has never made any secret of his contempt for Annapolis - - i t must have been particularly galling for him when, in 1974, he had to attend the dedication there of a building named in his honor--but it was probably his years at Annapolis that helped form a frame of reference that provided the basis of his contempt for a larger institution: the United States Navy...
...Christian " w i t n e s s e s " have been known in other times and places to endure unspeakable torments rather than abandon their faith, and there must still be Americans (perhaps these bishops) who would cheerfully audition for that role, but, alas for them and fortunately for the rest of us, our civil authorities refuse to cooperate by casting them in it...
...God, they all believe, has forbidden them to render unto Caesar what, in this case, Caesar had demanded...
...It surely was for Eddie C. Thomas and it is likely to be for the bishops and their flocks...
...Jefferson stated the principle embodied in the free exercise clause when he wrote that, unlike the operations of the mind, the acts of the body "are subject to the coercion of the laws," and he would have scoffed at the idea that the operations of Thomas's mind were being coerced when, by Indiana law, he was being deprived of a share of the state's money...
...A t this point, it might be useful to be reminded of what the Constitution (as opposed to the Supreme Court) has to say on this subject of religion and the military...
...As biography, however, the book is a failure, on the same order as Ralph de Toledano's J. Edgar Hoover...
...They ask only that everybody obey the laws, which explains why our potential or passive martyrs are reduced to going to court...
...Simon and Schuster, $20.75...
...As someone said during the Bill of Rights debates in the First Congress, and no one contradicted him, "no man can claim this indulgence by right," and so long as these issues were governed by the Constitution, no man could claim any lesser indulgence by right...
...the Constitution forbids them to ask such questions...
...The Thomas case provides an example of this...
...Only Justice Rehnquist dissented...
...Here he was opposed by the Indiana law that recognized voluntary terminations of employment but only those for "good cause in connection with the work...
...Raffler than fight the issue in the courts, the states would be better advised to ask Congress to dust off that old Roosevelt Court-packing plan...
...Here, at least, it was correct, but legions of dissenters, each asserting an "honest" religious opinion--it must be a religious opinion--will be able to march through the door opened by the Thomas decision...
...Some produce nuclear warheads, for example, and it may not have been a coincidence that, within a few weeks of the Court's decision in the Thomas case, the Bishop of Amarillo was calling upon his diocesan Catholics to quit their jobs in the nearby warhead assembly plant...
...I n one respect, however, the Thomas decision departs even more than Yoder from the original understanding of the free exercise clause...
...So it was in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), a case much relied on by the Court in Thomas...
...His administrative appeals proving fruitless, Thomas went to court, eventually all the way to the Supreme Court where, as any cynical (and not so cynical) observer of that august body could have predicted, he won...
...And if the Court is consistent, that, too, will be that...
...it has long since abandoned any idea that it might learn something of importance from the Constitution itself or from the men who framed and first explicated its provisions...
...Disgruntled crew members raised the red flag of mutiny during his tenure, and secretly painted the word "madhouse" on the ship's side THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1982 21...
...And the response will be, "my bishop told me so," and that will be that...
...His one tour in command of a naval vessel--81 days during 1937--was a fiasco...
...Such judgments, it said, are not within " t h e judicial function and judicial competence...
...The religious provisions of the First Amendment read as follows: "Congress [and by judicial construction, thestates] shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
...now there is a long and tiresome book that goes a long way toward proving it...
...So far, only the name of Eddie C. Thomas is inscribed in our Book of [Minor] Martyrs, but there will soon be many more eligible for inclusion...
...by Walter Berns understood to be a matter of legislative grace, not constitutional right...
...What," they might ask, "after all these years, makes you now think that making nuclear weapons is forbidden by your religion...
...Not that the authors didn't try...
...While acknowledging the possibility that someone might come forward with a claim "so bizarre, so clearly nonreligious in motivation, as not to be entitled to protection under the Free Exercise Clause," the Court was unwilling to make that judgment here and, moreover, suggested that it would be reluctant to make it in any case...
...It is an article of faith with the Old Order Amish that their communities, and beyond a certain age 20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1982 their children, be isolated from the influences of the world around them...
...The authors charged ahead relentlessly nevertheless, in a manner not dissimilar to their subject's...
...time, after this book was published-the nuclear Navy...
...Their book is not quite the one they wanted to write...
...But this was IValter Berns is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute...
...And one particularly unpopular Jew in Rickover's class had a yearbook page all to himself when he graduated--a page that was unnumbered and perforated at the binding...
...Jehovah's Witnesses are not the only sectarians with religious scruples, and our factories produce lots of weapons in addition to tanks...
...beyond the information culled from files, newspaper clippings, and the spotty reminiscences of disgruntled former associates, there just isn't much of a story...
...This new principle of religious freedom would permit a person to disobey a criminal statute if, in his "honest" opinion, to obey it would require him to act contrary to a religious belief...
...But there is no equivalent consensus among the Jehovah's Witnesses concerning employment in weapons factories...
...Hyman G. Rickover was born the son of a Jewish tailor in Russianoccupied Poland in 1898 or 1900...
...Formulated in Jefferson's terms, this means that the law may not coerce or "punish" an act of the body (quitting a job) that is induced by an operation of the mind (a religious opinion), a proposition which would have astonished Jefferson and the framers of the First Amendment...
...Another bishop, this one from Seattle, is advising his people to withhold half their federal income taxes as a way of protesting the arms buildup...
...All Jews lived in Coventry," remembers one by Joseph A. Rchyansky member of the class of 1915, by which was meant isolation and ostracism...
...In much the same way that Hoover was the FBI, Admiral Hyman George Rickover was--even, for a "Rwkover: Controversy And Genius, by Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen...
...The Supreme Court, ruling in his favor, did not declare the law unconstitutional--after the school segregation case especially, who would dare to say that it is not important that children be required to go to school?--it simply said that Yoder did not have to obey it...
...The former date appears more likely to be the correct one...
...Rickover's assistance and cooperation were solicited early on...
...Contrary to popular legend, he was neither the first Jew to graduate from the Academy nor the first to achieve flag rank...
...Like almost every other American profession or, indeed, activity, what passes for martyrdom here is likely to prove profitable...
...Citing religious scruples against any kind of military weapons work, Thomas quit his job and--apparently setting aside whatever scruples he might have had against receiving aid from a government that has a use for tank turrets--applied for unemployment compensation...
...The letter was signed by Rickover's secretary...
...Since the so-called "Peace Bishops" (and their Protestant coadjutors) are at work all over the country, the time will soon arrive when all the states will be under a similar obligation...
...He and his co-defendant were fined the sum of $5 each...
...The only issue to be decided, said the Court, was whether Thomas refused to make tank turrets "because of an honest conviction that such work was forbidden by his religion...
...By refusing to award him unemploy_9 compensation, the Court said, Indiana had deprived him of the free exercise" of religion in blatant violation of the First Amendment...
...Yoder, a member of the Old Order Amish sect, refused to allow his children to attend high school, public or private, and was convicted of violating the state's compulsory school attendance law...
...the young Rickover may have falsified some information in order to avoid the possibility of being considered too old to enter the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1918...
...It used to be understood t h a t nothing in this language prevented the government from requiring military service of every citizen or from punishing anyone who, for whatever reason, refused to serve_9 Since the United States has never seen itself as a modern Sparta, the apparent severity of this principle has always been moderated by the practice of allowing people with religious scruples against bearing arms to claim exemptions as conscientious objectors...
...until their periods of eligibility run out...
...Although it had ramifications that extended far beyond this particular religious group, the case illustrated the importance of being Amish: Alone among all the people of Wisconsin, Yoder and his fellow sectarians do not have to obey a valid criminal statute...
...Then, assuming the President makes the right appointments and the law is brought back in conformity with the Constitution, our potential martyrs will have a chance to demonstrate the real depths of their convictions...
...Why, or when, Rickover decided to stay in the Navy is not clear...
...Therefore, he will not grant the interviews you requested...
...His career, until he became the head of Naval Reactors Branch at an age when most naval officers are preparing to retire, was entirely undistinguished, except by his capacity for hard work and by several disasters...
...As the Court put it, " t h e guarantee of free exercise is not limited to beliefs which are shared by all of the members of a religious sect...
...He was, however, one of only 17 Jews (of 955 midshipmen) who entered, with _9 the class of 1922, an institution that, if not exactly rife with anti-Semitism, was definitely not hospitable toward its Jewish midshipmen...
...Lest you think me unkind, let me hasten to add that, after this work, there can probably never be a more definitive history of the development of American naval nuclear power...
...Under the threat of being inundated by such claims, their unemployment compensation boards might decide to get tough...
...A Jehovah's Witness, Thomas was initially hired by his employer to work in a roll foundry which produced sheet steel for a variety of industrial uses...
...None of this carries any weight with the modern Supreme Court...
...There, instead of being tortured, they are rewarded...
...when the foundry was closed down, he was transferred to a department engaged solely in the fabrication of military tank turrets...
...When brought before a court, they too will say, "my bishop told me that it is forbidden to pay for life-destroying weapons, and that to be forced to pay for them would deprive me of the free exercise of my religion...
...He suggested that they find life.saving rather than life-destroying jobs, and, thanks to the Court, Texas will be under a constitutional obligation to tide them over until they succeed (or, at least...
...Joseph A. Rehyansky ts an enlisted veteran of service in Vietnam with George S. Patton Ill's 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, a contmbutor to National Review, and a lawyer...
...ADMIRAL ANTINUKE F o r years much evidence has existed that tended to show that Admiral Hyman George Rickover, the father of the atomic submarine, is a miserable little man...
Vol. 15 • September 1982 • No. 9
