State of the Country 2011 (download/read full article)

Presented by Rev. Edward Scott
for the Committee on the State of the Country
145th Session of the Virginia Annual Conference
(2nd Episcopal District), May 2011

“The right of nature . . . is the liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing anything which, in his own judgement and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto. . . . And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason: that every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule containeth the first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature, which is: by all means we can to defend ourselves.”

In the aftermath of President Obama’s announcement a little more than a week ago that
Osama bin Laden had been discovered and dispatched by lethal force to the judgement God alone
may render, our committee was moved to reconsider what this singular event betokens for how we weigh all other matters affecting the common good of our nation. We were compelled to reflect
what the ethical import might be for a nation that pledges its honor in the name of God, that
prosecutes war and calls it just, that celebrates its patriotic fevers in the unfurling of flags and the
hooting self congratulations that spontaneously erupted among our fellow citizens when the
Commander in Chief delivered the solemn news of this one man’s death. We have but small
measure of the attention from this conference to assess the concerns of the nation from economics
to education to health care to international affairs and the like. If one were to peruse the president’s schedule on any given day she might begin to understand the depth and breadth of the nation’s heats and desires, the nation’s just needs and perhaps her unholy ambitions as well.

Given the dramatic pause we now sense in the usual run of complaint over unemployment, over the lagging achievement in science and math for our children, over the service of our national interests in relation to the revolutions now underway in the middle east, our committee has determined to see the significance of liquidating Osama bin Laden in the light of our memory of the events that unfolded ten years ago in New York and Washington DC.

To read the full report, download the PDF.