Another Chesterton Quote

From one of my pastor's emails. I need to read some G.K. Chesterton.

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Liberals. The business of Liberals is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

G. K. Chesterton

(speaking of early 20th century England)

Arizona

Arizona just put into effect a law allowing police to stop people anytime they are suspicious those people might be illegally in the country. The people must produce proof they are here legally, and may be arrested if they cannot show proof, even if they are here legally.

Let's be honest here, this law is targeting Hispanics. How many people with non-brown skin do you think are really going to be asked to produce papers?

Putting aside the legalities of this, let me pose a question:

What if the tables were reversed? Arizona allows openly carrying weapons and concealed carry. What if every time an officer wanted they could ask to see not only your FOID card (or the equivilent), but wanted your driver's license, birth certificate and recent proof of a background check?

The cries of "the gov't is interfering in mah life daggumit" would be heard to the heavens!

So, government is "bad" when it affects the "rights" of white people. But its "good" when it profiles racially and only affects non-whites.

So, really, tell me again how so many of these "conservatives" aren't racist?

Also, Barry Goldwater and I may not agree about much, but he must be rolling over in his grave at this. The man was a true libertarian and this would most likely disgust him.

Federal Dollars for Religious Social Services

I'm reading a fascinating and disturbing book entitled "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism" by Michelle Goldberg. As a secular Jew, she doesn't quite "get" all aspects of evangelicalism, but overall the book is excellent if scary.

I'm currently on the chapter discussing Bush's "faith-based initiatives." These innocuous sounding plans allow religious organizations to get public funds to do good work.

The issue is this. Certain well established religious organizations such as Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services set up secular branches to work with the government. Both the Catholic and Lutheran churches have plenty of religious social work they do as well under different umbrellas, but those agencies are the ones that recieve the bulk of government funds.

Many other groups do not make this distinction. They offer social services and prosyletization all at once. That's fine, except when you are taking government money. Then you get into issues with the separation of church and state.

Don't get me wrong. We are guaranteed freedom OF religion, not FROM religion. But, when the government starts giving certain groups money, groups who aren't soley interested in social good, but conversion as well, you're getting into dangerous territory. If Christians can do it, so can Muslims, Buddhists, Scientologists, etc. Unless you believe that America was founded as a Christian nation then, well, I'm sorry, the facts just don't support that.

Now, I'm saying no government money for these programs. Does that mean I think these programs should go away? Of course not! These are the places Christian charity should be going. To help people and their souls. But, its also helping people no matter what!

Are there radical secularists in this country that make life hell for any group wanting to do good in Christ's name? Yes. Are there fundamentalist groups that give the secularists good grounds for their concerns? Sadly yes.

Christ didn't work through the government. He didn't speak much about it at all really. I find the idea of so many Christians loathing the government, but wanting to twist it and use it when it benefits them disturbing. Its a very, well, un-Christlike thing to do. There was no duplicity in Christ. At least not in His aims or means.

What if it happens to you?

Ok, so you don't like the idea of national health insurance. You thought the public option was bad, and you like the system we have.

Just remember this, private health insurance companies care about profits, not people. Am I calling them evil? Not quite.

However, when they are targeting women with breast cancer and AIDS patients to rescind their coverage, that's getting really close in my book. And when the wife of a senator is on the Wellpoint board and that senator helped to successfully lobby to keep a public option from the bill, you're into highly sleazy.

People, I understand you don't want to hear this. However, the only fair, equitable, and morally responsible way to dispense health insurance (not the care, the insurance) in this country is a national single payer plan.

Lacking that, a public option for affordable insurance to compete with the private insurers. These companies care about bottom line. Not people. What is more important? Millionaires making more millions? Or people getting access to the care they need?

Tradition, Tradition!

A great quote from my pastor's weekly email.

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the self-important living who merely happen to be walking around."G. K. Chesterton

Thoughtful Column

A nice column on what I've slowly realized. (Thanks mightily to such wonderful authors/activists as Johnathon Kozol and Jim Wallis.)

Well, I was right...

Huh, here's a post I wrote a couple years back.


"...lots of companies could cut back payroll by 15% and not notice it if getting things accomplished was actually the goal of management."

Sadly, this proved completely true as the financial crisis forced layoffs like crazy. Now we have around 10% of the workforce not working, and no real job recovery in sight.

What is it going to take for the government to encourage (force) companies to create jobs in this country?

People need to work.

Reality

You can believe whatever you want. The facts don't lie. Here are the facts.

Babykillers, Lies, & Love

Bart Stupak, the Democratic, Pro-Life, Congressman from Michigan is retiring. After initially raising concerns that the new health bill provided room for federally funded abortions, he was ridiculed, called a baby-killer, and other things after eventually voting for the bill. He was assured the bill was not opening that door and decided that the good of the bill outweighed the negatives.

Being a politician of faith is not simple. Faith tends to call us to be uncompromising in our convictions while politics is a continual call for compromise.

Rep. Stupak's choices could not have been easy.

However, I want to direct this towards those who in the name of "life" called him a baby-killer or anything else.

I have never understood some of the more militant stands "pro-lifers" take.

I also don't understand how so many pro-life proponents (of who I am one in principle, life is very seldom as simple as black and white however) can be against EVER allowing an abortion to occur, but have no problems with the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or the numerous smaller conflicts the US has been involved in since the "pro-life" movement really got moving in the 1980s.

What it leads me to believe, and I hope I'm wrong, is that too many pro-lifers have a very narrow view of the lives they want to save. They want to save American babies lives. That's nice. That's good. But what about other countries children? (And not just children but all who live in wartorn lands.)

Do they not deserve a life free of American cluster bombs, landmines and machinegun fire? Should they live in fear that kicking a soccerball in an empty field one day will set off a long dormant weapon, scarring and maiming them for life? (I could write another blog on my view of the usage of cluster bombs & land mines. Maybe I will sometime.)

Or even, taking the "-life" idea further, beyond children, what of the lives of those on death row?

Thanks to the vagaries of the justice system, they disproportionately black and poor. Also, since death is final, even one mistake of convicting and sentencing an innocent man results in another innocent life being taken.

Is this right? Is that being "pro-life?"

Finally, taking it beyond the realm of simple life, where is the love? Yelling hateful, spiteful words, even in pursuit of good, is never, ever right. Was Christ sometimes harsh and honest? Yes, but most often against those in his own religious community.

And there is a difference between harsh honesty and poisonous words that can only cause division.

The tragic consequences of abortion on demand in our nation call for a loving, caring discourse. Creating more pain and strife is not the answer.

Nor do I believe it's what Christ wants for us.

Postmodernity is Everywhere

I'm reading an interesting book called "A Primer on Postmodernism" by Stanley Grenz.

The book is just what the title implies, a primer into the murky world of postmodern thought. Written by an academic to non-academics, it avoids as much as possible the coded, specific language philosophical texts are usually full of.

I'm about 50 pages in and its been very interesting. Learning that postmodern ideas can be both disturbing and transformational has gotten me thinking greatly about how to engage it when necessary.

The lack of "absolute truth" in postmodernity is disturbing, but interestingly enough, God is not 100% incompatible with all postmodern beliefs.

One interesting idea that has come from postmodern art is the collage; a juxaposition of varied images, media, or ideas (truth/fiction) into a final output.

We are hit with this daily in the form of television, but even more so in the form of television "news." The proliferation of "news"-talk programs on TV where they impart fact, distortion, editorialization, sound bites, quotes without context all come from the postmodern viewpoint.

And, following postmodern thought, they all appeal to their own "community."

I see this as another danger. While postmodernism has destroyed the modern idea of the "superiority" of Western thought, etc., the idea of every community, culture, or tribe being equally valid in their worldview can be problematic. Especially if that worldview is being twisted to nefarious ends.

Granted, this is not a problem that in inherent to modernity alone. Christian and Muslim fundamentalists, radical Marxists or Maosists, and extremists of any kind have always twisted information to their own end.

I suppose what I am learning is this: Postmodernism was a necessary progression to wipe away the ills of modernity. It presents its own challenges going forward, specifically a place for God (absolute truth), and the challenges of pluralism leading to increased tribalism in an ever growing and changing world.

Hedge Funds & You

Not for a strong progressive tax yet? Read this!

Good column

Great column here on sexuality, marriage and modern men & women.

Its so sad but so often so true.

True to a Point

Here's a link to a great column about the Hutatree Militia.

She raises many good and valid points. One issue she skirts is the major difference between Christianity and Islam.

Christianity's central figure, Christ, never focused on political power or violence. He healed the ear of one of the people coming to arrest him after Peter cut it off.

Islam's prophet/founder on the other hand used mercenaries to take over a city and violently set up a political theocracy. This was from the start of the faith.

Now, am I going to say that Christ's adherents have followed his ways or teachings very well with how they relate to temporal power? No. We've done a terrible job. Its merely that there is nothing in the teaching of Christ or the New Testament to support many of the horrible things done in his name.

Islam, conversely, has more to answer for because of how it began. Does it mean every Muslim is a potential terrorist or believe in the more violent interpretation of the Quran? Of course not, and its unfortunate that most countries that are run according to interpretations of Islamic law are run by fundamentalists who take the most conservative and harsh stands.

Should every Muslim have to apologize for the misguided and those perverted by evil? No. Does Islam need to do much soul searching about how it interacts with the modern world? Yes.

Just as Christians need to as well.

Election Law

On our recent family vacation, my dad, brother and I were discussing, among other things, national elections, our screwed up political process and our grand ideas for fixing it. (We have ALL the solutions, unless we don't.... )

A one point during the discussion my brother mentioned "state's rights" and I said something to the effect of "screw states rights!"

Now, I do think to a certain degree states rights are very important.

However, when it comes to National Elections, states rights need to go out the window. For Presidential elections there should be 1 primary date. There should be the same laws and rules applying to all states.

Every state should adopt a percentage based distribution of electoral votes with the majority getting any votes that needed rounded up.

Currently the "winner takes all" approach means that many people's votes literally do not count. In Illinois, this past presidential election was the first time my vote actually counted. I'm sorry, you can say my vote counts, but when my state gives all the electoral votes to 1 canidate, that means my vote actually didn't matter a bit.

I am NOT in favor of a straight popular vote. Voter fraud is easy enough, lets not make it any simpler.

Also, there needs to be a "secondary" vote option. I first heard this idea from my dad and it strikes me a good one.

Since our system is currently set up to exclude anyone who is not from one of the two major parties, a vote for a 3rd party is literally throwing your vote away.

If you vote 3rd party and your canidate doesn't get elected, your vote defaults to your "second" option if you choose.

With the Supreme Court's allowing corporations, foreign countries, and flying ducks to donate money to campaigns now, we need more than ever term limits. BUT, we also need 1 electoral process for the entire country.

Allow states to run their state and local and even legislative elections however they want. But for presidential elections it needs to be a case of everyone playing by the same rules.

I'll rant on the desperate need for people to take part in elections another time. And term limits. We need them so badly that I can't even begin to state the importance of this. Then, only then can we hope to inact some of the lobbying limitations that need to happen.

Yes Virginia, You are living in the Past

Congrats Virginia, you are a bunch of backwoods hicks! You've effectively made yourself look like racist fools in front of millions.

I'm not saying you are all racist fools, you're just doing a good job of attempting to make the Confederacy look like a good thing. And that's pretty darn foolish.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand your Governor is pandering to the "conservative" base, but honestly, proclaiming a Confederate History month with no mention of slavery because "there were many issues at stake during the war" is pretty much a joke.

There were many issues at stake, almost all of them can be drawn back to slavery.

States rights? Slavery
Economic issues? The reliance of the southern economy on slavery and lack of an industrial base in the south.

Honestly, I cannot say how much this makes me sad. The attempted glorification of a horrible war, Americans slaughtering Americans mainly to protect states ability to choose to ENSLAVE other human beings is disheartening.

As America becomes ever more polarized this sort of "hat-tip" to those that really don't need support is tragic.

I understand many people are sick of "Black History Month" or "Women's History Month." They have arguments such as "they didn't found the country, they didn't contribute as much..." etc. etc.

Besides the fact that blacks and women have contributed immensely to the economic, academic, and humane aspects of American life, one must remember that for more of this continent's history than not blacks were by and large enslaved and disenfranchised (which continues to be a problem even to this day) and women were blocked from positions of power.

Maybe to celebrate the bank's massive bonuses we should install a National Plutocrat Month where Ayn Rand is required reading and we learn all about Carnegie, Pulitzer, Morgan and others! Think of the fun that could be had in schools as we train children to be even better little consumers and that greed is not only good, its to be expected and encouraged!

Yay!

edit: Just so you don't believe I'm some "All things southern were awful." I'm not. There were many great southerners. Robert E. Lee first and foremost among them. That doesn't mean he made the right choice in joining the Confederacy. Nor does it mean that the Confederacy, the rebelling against the US to insure that states could choose certain things for themselves, such as keeping humans enslaved, was a good or noble memory.

I'm not asking for handwringing, sackcloth and ashes. I am asking please, lets keep the Confederacy and all of Antebellum American in perspective.