This is why the East Coast is good for a thoughtful liberal: because it’s worse to be around a bunch of dogmatic twits who vote the other way than the same way you do. Nothing infuriates me more than the types that make my political position look ridiculous.

Do you mean the opposite of what you said? If so, I agree: it’s far worse to be around dogmatic twits of similar persuasion than to be around dogmatic twits from the other camp. It’s harder to remember why you’re not as idiotic as they are.

I’m not sure what Cassie meant, but I agree that the East Coast is a good place for a thoughtful liberal to be. DC is even better. Okay, it’s good for liberal Johnnies to be, and to be together, because it constantly presents to one’s consciousness the foolishness of the liberal side. When 90% of the people around you voted for Kerry, though it is somewhat gratifiying, one cannot but be a Johnny contrarian and want to give your own liberal views the best of examinations. I for one do not feel stained by the fact that many dogmatists around my office voted for Kerry. Makes me stronger in fact. At least when I come home and argue with Mary and Joe, et al., it does.

Now, as for being stuck with thoughtless twits from one camp or the other, I guess I would at this point choose the conservatives, though I would add as a desperate caveat to the hypothetical that there must at least be some conservatives with the remotest interest in argument. I really cannot figure out why Social Security and Medicare are bad, but that’s what these Norquist true believers think.

Wait a moment. Dan? You there?

Dogmatic as Leftists can be, they are certainly more liberal than Rightists. Yes, it is important to go among those with whom one disagrees, for the sake of intellectual healthiness and growth. However, to disagree with a Rightist community is to have one’s throat torn out or one’s very being smothered over time. To disagree with a Leftist community is to — well, they can become histrionic. In short, it is pleasanter (and more feasible) to be a conservative among liberals than a liberal among conservatives. My earlier life among conservatives has taught me that I will remain among liberals as long as I have a choice.

Think about it further: Tyranny spreads through fear and coercion, freedom spreads through joy and self-confidence. There [i]will [/i]be a difference in how the former and the latter treat dissenting minds. The march of the Red States is not merely a growing happy agreement with “conservative values” — it is interpersonal and institutional tyranny with an expansionist appetite. (Although, the American Right is not all tyranny, and the American Left is not all freedom — not by any means.)

On a related note: I wanted to steal some of them “I VOTED!” and send them to you guys so you’d feel like part of the process, but alas, the poll lady only gave me one, and I needed that to keep from being beaten up by MTV.

Hmmm…I suppose I vote for the party that doesn’t mean to openly tyrannize the symbol of what I will spend 50+ waking hours of every week for the rest of my life doing: my personal wealth. Somehow, in a society which takes 50% of what is effectively my life, whether or not I can get some piece of paper from the government saying, “You’re just super!” should I one day wake to find myself gay is of little import. But, hey, I’m nuts that way.

Don’t worry, Nate. I’ll try to see that my boys in the GOP go easy on your civil liberties. Still, vote for a Dem next time and it’s off to Guantanamo with all of ya’.

Oh, since I was mentioned by name: Social Security, aside from eroding America’s tradition of individual responsibility and freedom, is institutionalized racism. No group is more likely to pay Social Security tax than black males, and no group is less likely to see a single Social Security check.

Porter: As tempting as it may be when looking at the map presidential results by county, I cannot rationally support the notions that a) the Red states constitute a cultural bloc or b) this cultural bloc is on the march. Yes, fear and hatred were behind the decisive votes on Tuesday, but only about 2.5 million of them, or more exactly 150,000, really matter. Every voting group turned out to vote in higher percentages this year, but the irrationals turned out to vote in an even higher proportion. While it’s certainly true that their numbers are likely to increase in the next four years, they are dwarfed by the number of Bush voters who are still persuadable by reason, if not directly by means of words. Largest number of people ever to vote against a president, etc. If Kerry had taken on the question of gay marriage directly, he would have gained more people satisfied with his resolution than he would have lost those opposed to gay marriage, who had no reason to vote for him anyway. The Democrats’ poor rhetoric lost this election more than the self-hating millenialists won it.

Dan: As for Social Security, while the second argument is a mere debater’s trick, I am interested in the first. But where and how are the morals of Americans degraded? I’m certainly ill at ease with the meaningless of many senior citizens’ lives, but I’m not sure that Social Security and Medicare are really to blame. Moreover, it might be that the benefits of not having half of all seniors living in poverty might, in a country as large, varied, and morally empty as ours, outweigh the harm to our principles. Actually, I suspect that the line taken by the opponents of Social Security is more likely to be your argument about wealth, and that for them it stems more from ideology than from honest judgment. But again, that’s why it’s good to have real people such as yourself around.

I should probably stop hijacking Monadology for my own political purposes. The blog police might criticize the site further, and the god knows I want it to stay around. I can be reached via gmail.

The Red appears amarch to me for reasons personal and anecdotal: My home state of Kentucky has become enthusiastically Republican where before no Republican could be elected. This transpired, to me, in my last visit home, and I could not reconcile what I heard and saw with my older memories.

well as a conservative christian I am here to voice my opinion Mr. Eagle. YAY BUSH WINS!!! Kerry would have sent this country to hell in a hand basket. And now libs cant make any dumb coments like “Bush never WON an election”. He did now so eat it! (not meaning you Mr. Eagle) Anywho I think you have no right to be rightously outraged, much less outraged. I am outraged that you voted for Kerry. This is the man who voted against any and all things that would help the army. He voted AGAINST giving our soldiers body armor for pete’s sake. Plus he, like most democrats, supports abortion. I cannot cast my vote for someone who advocates the murder of children. (and If any of you start to argue with me about, well its not technichally a child yet I will hit you, with fists and arguments) I am surprised you voted for Kerry, yet profess Christian beliefs seeing as he stands for many things that are opposite of what the Bible tells us. Plus, Bush is a Christian with Christian ethics. I am surprised and somewhat miffed at your voteing choice Mr Eagle. But anyway, take care in Cameroon and be carefull.

Porter—Again, my sympathies. I still take some consolation in Kentucky’s congressional races(I volunteered in Ben Chandler’s race in February and have a fond regard for the states). The fact that Mongiardo got so close and that Ben Chandler won both help me feel that there’s still reason in the state’s voters, at least near Lexington. But is this redness new? The Republican voters used to be Dems, but in name only. Now they’re voting R because the Rs became conservative enough to get their votes.

And to Brian, how could you possibly support Bush? Didn’t you know that he threatened to veto the $87 billion after he proposed it? And then he supported it again! Shocking! Moreover, his Vice President proposed cutting the intelligence budget much further than even the liberal Senator from Massachusetts! Egad! How can you support men who hate America quite so much?

Think for yourself, kid. Don’t just watch the TV ads.

I understand that it’s impossible for conservative Christians to vote consistently with their beliefs (and maybe in this way they’re not so different from the rest of us) but why-oh-why just this once couldn’t more of them have voted inconsistently with their abortion-is-the-bad belief rather than inconsistently with their killing-15,000*-innocent-civilians-in-Iraq-is-the-bad belief? Surely they have both beliefs, don’t they?

(* probably not 100,000, as reported by Lancet: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ )

But I guess maybe they don’t have both. I admit it doesn’t sound so much like Brian does. Maybe they think pre-emptive war is WJWD, in which case our problem is deeper than I thought (and we’re in deeper shit than I thought).

For what it’s worth I sit now in a country with an official religion (Catholicism), where abortion is illegal, and where gays won’t be getting hitched any time soon, but there’s a profoundly different take on the morality of our candidates.

In the last few months I have been asked by virtually every bartender and cabbie whether I like Bush, and they have been uniformly delighted when I said no. It usually gets me a handshake or a thumbs up. Once a free drink, and once a brief round of applause. And in those instances when the subject was pursued further, I have found virtually universal agreement that the distinction is starkly moral, but seen rather differently than in the red states.

I wonder about the morality of the GOP’s (very shrewd) effort to convince the evangelicals that they are they “moral” party. Part of me can’t believe it has been so overwhelmingly successful. Maybe their evangelical wing ought to try some geometry on camels and eyes of needles. Or to read the New Testament with two differently-colored hi-lighters for those places where they find mention, on the one hand, of reproductive rights and gay marriage, and on the other, say, poverty. But I guess that would only take one hi-lighter.

The great political re-alignment of the last decades does not look promising to me. Bush isn’t even a fiscal conservative. More and more the parties seem to be abandoning the old distinctions of class or of political or economic theory in favor of a simple religious distinction.

It seems to me that the Dems need to get more comfortable talking about morality, even to frame their social and foreign-policy concerns as fundamentally moral concerns, and with greater moral imperative than the GOP’s phantom issues. They need to stop thinking of themselves as an urban party and reconnect to their blue-collar roots, to appeal more sincerely to the middle of the country (I don’t take it as a coincidence that the last three Dems to stand a chance in the South — Carter, Clinton, and Gore — are all three of them Southerners).

But then, I’ve always been sentimental about the working class, and I’m now in Latin America reading el Che, so maybe my vision is colored.

Viva la libertad,
Viva la revolución,
Patria o muerte,

Robbie Pollack

P.S. for Brian, though I hope he doesn’t keep to his promise of hitting me with fists or arguments (especially while I’m buying Internet time by the hour): Though he favors maintaining its legal protection, as a good Christian himself John Kerry does not “advocate [snip].” Maybe the distinction between supporting the preservation of a legal freedom and advocating any particular exercise of it is weak or even impossible, but it is an important distinction to many religious Democrats and at least we ought not to summarily dismiss it.

(So lonesome for Conversation not to mention for English, here I am buying Internet access by the hour and exploring Johnnie blogs.)

Brian, Mr. Bush may possess “Christian ethics” but he does not possess any of the truth or justice or mercy of Christ. Read Christ’s great sermon (Luke gives us a good account of it — begin at chapter five), and you will soon see that Mr. Bush and his fellows could not be more different from Christ. I am a follower of Christ, and that your stridently unjust belief-system has stolen his name repulses me.

More practically, I will directly address your argument that a Mr. Bush had to be elected to stop abortions: Six of the nine presidential terms-of-office since Roe vs. Wade have been served by Republicans. During these terms, the rate of abortions did not abate. Mr. Bush allows abortions to proceed as we speak. However, he also commands the death, torture, and false imprisonment of millions, crimes against life which his Democratic rival would have ameliorated. In the end, rhetoric is not action, and I am convinced that you and your fellow Religous Rightists are daily played for fools.

Whoa. Millions? Sweet.

No one knows for sure the number of victims of Mr. Bush’s wars against the world and against American rights, because they are in so many ways secret wars, but there can be no doubt that it is in the hundreds of thousands. His pursuing these new wars, however, does not absolve him of continuing old wars, such as the “war on drugs” whose victims are over a million by any count.

Robbie—Wow. Great to hear from you. Certainly give me an email at hb if you’re starved for conversation. You should check out Joe Method’s site, which is http://stupididea.com. I would love to hear the reactions in Argentina (isn’t it?).

Posting this quickly to catch you. Hope Margaret’s well.

Alright were to begin,I guess with hb. If I didnt think for myself and just watched TV than I would be a Kerry supporter. At this time the media is so liberal that its sad.

For Robbie. First and foremost its W.hat W.ould J.esus D.o (WWJD). Also, killing innocents is wrong BUT SO IS KILLING CHILDREN! Plus the 15,000 “innocents” you claim that Bush has gotten killed is a gross miscalculation of civilian casualties in the war on terror. I guess if you consider women who run towards american troops and then detonate a bomb strapped to their chest innocent than that number would be higher but no where close to what you are saying. Also I would suggest talking to some other people about Bush besides bartenders and cabbies, seeing as they are not known to be the most morally sound people (some are fine, just saying overall).

To Porter: Uh… YAH.. Bush IS A CHRISTIAN! Bush is a follower of Christ and this is what helps him make his decisions. I dont know many people that have “Christian Ethics” but arent Christians that read the Bible everyday. Also you said he tortures and kills MILLIONS? No offense but you sound a lil paranoid. President Bush has done no such thing. He hasnt had 1 person tortured. Those that have been killed due to The War on Terror in general were enemies of the United States and were attacking either our troops or our country. As in all wars there are civilian casualties but these could have been reduced if the Iraqi forces hadent used PUBLIC PLACES as stageing areas and hideouts. Plus the Iraqis used CHILDREN AS BOMBS to kill our troops. They also used women and babies. Also may I ask what denomination are you? Also I believe you and your fellow leftist liberals are the ones being played for fools by the media and by corrupt and deceitful democratic represenitives. Oh and the war on drugs you said that Bush has continued, and that he is killing thousands of people, its better to kill the bastards that are flooding our country with addictive and harmfull drugs than for our fellow americans to be dieing in gutters and alleys with needles in their arms, or bullets in their chest because they were so broke they had to resort to crime to support their addiction. Personnally, I find your comments to be quite the oppoisite of most Christian beliefs.

“Personally, I find your comments to be quite the opposite of most Christian beliefs.” Thank you; that very much pleases me to hear.

“Those that have been killed due to the War on Terror in general were enemies of the United States …” “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you. … To whomever will strike you on the right cheek, offer the other also.”

Dude…Secret wars? Blaming Bush for the people who die from the so-called “drug war”? You’re like my evil twin, Porter. Rock on.

You didn’t mention the concentration camps the administration erected in Dallas, but I’m sure that’s due to assumed common knowledge, rather than any absent-mindedness on your part.

Porter if you claim to be a Christian than y are you glad that your beliefs are contrary to what is in the Bible?

and dan, that was a funny post

Brian, you’ve a flair for non sequitur. But — do you think the Bible true because it is the Bible or because it is true?

hb:
It’s good to be heard, and good to hear from you too. Argentina is correct, Buenos Aires is more precise. I couldn’t be much happier here. It’s a metropolitan city of millions, with a highly educated populace since a free university education is constitutionally guaranteed to all who want it, and the majority these days are educated in the humanities because the economic crises have left “practical” disciplines no guarantee of work and people are thus inclined to study what they love. It’s something of a cliché here that even the cabbies have degrees in philosophy or political science. The world-class opera house offers matinees that frequently sell out. Books stores are abundant and more often than not Program Books are displayed in the front windows. Cervantes and Shakespeare and Homer and Sophocles and believe it or not Darwin and David Hume can be purchased on the subway or newspaper kiosques alongside Cosmo and pornography.

And while the posted prices usually look about the same as in the States, they are quoted in pesos, not in dollars, which means they cost about 1/3.

It’s wonderful and maybe I’ll drop you a line next time I’m leaving a pile of money in an Internet Café. I’m at hotmail and gmail, rmpollack in both, and would be similarly pleased to hear of your own sallying-forth.

Margaret is well and in North Carolina, studying weaving like it were a Liberal Art (and perhaps it is!). She will be coming here soon, and the two of us will return to the States in mid-December.

Brian: I know that the acronym is WWJD, but I had to change it to keep the sentence grammatical. I figured that it would be understood just as well.

Of course everyone here agrees that killing children is wrong (where not?, I wonder) and the disagreement is only about whether a first-trimester fetus qualifies as a child — and these days, unfortunately, whether a fertilzed egg that will be left on ice or discarded anyway is a child (or deserves legal protection, at any rate).

But that’s not a conversation I’m able to have just now.

You ought to understand, however, that about the 15,000 innocents (I’m not subjecting them to the indignity of quotation marks) I do not believe there is a “gross miscalculation” and neither does the number include all those who have been killed in the War on Terror. It is of Iraqi civilians whose deaths have been confirmed in multiple reliable journalistic sources. The real number is likely to be much higher than this. One group estimated 100,000, but I think that’s probably too high. I don’t think there is much room for doubt, however, than 15,000 or more innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed. I don’t know how many women have strapped bombs to their chests and ran toward American troops (and neither do you, we should remember), though I expect rather few. It is not, however, exceptionally difficult to find footage of screaming and crying old Iraqi women in piles of rubble looking for body parts of their families and neighbors after our ultra-accurate precision bombs take out three or four houses in the vicinity of alleged secret hideouts (which may or not have been there, depending on the reliability of our sources and our bombs, neither of which I am inclined to trust so much).

See the link in my last post for the specific methodology involved in getting this number.

I have been talking to other people than cabbies and bartenders, of course. I used them as an example as if to say EVEN cabbies and bartenders. I have been talking, of course, to all sorts, surely dozens and dozens, including members of my own family, some of whom are doctors and teachers and all-around decent folk, and so far I have met exactly zero persons who like Bush and the majority seem to consider him immoral (many of these are religious catholics and Jews — though no evangelicals, I am compelled to admit — who do not support abortion or gay marriage).

All the best,

Robbie

Briefly: Nate, you were right in your assumption about my mistyping.

Others: eeeeeagh. HB, I wonder if, in a year, your enthusiasm for political discussion might not suffer as much as mine has, given the high exposure one gets in this town. Admittedly this is only an intermittant problem, but…

If I must, I must.

Cassie: Perhaps it will. I suspect that you have more such discussions, and certainly more such discussions with those of a fervor akin to Bill’s, which would naturally tire anyone out. On the other hand, you do talk to Mr. Kalkavage a fair amount, but I can see how his, presumably, well though-out arguments might wear on even inveterate liberals such as ourselves over time.

It has been interesting to return to a format for and topics of discussion that I left behind some time ago.

Brian: In all honesty and with snippishness aside, I wish you would at least attempt to answer all of the points put to you. Don’t be afraid of argument. Don’t pick and choose which scripture you’ll apologize. You won’t gain from arguing down your rhetorical opponents if you don’t confront all their arguments. At best, they’ll keep bringing up the contents of the Gospels, say, and you won’t have an answer. At worst, you’ll be fooling yourself.

Robbie: Your challenge to tell of my own sallying-forth, as you well put it, is a worthy one. We’ll see what I can come up with. I am persuaded that it can be good to write these things down, when one’s able. Glad to hear that yours has not been an entirely lonely existence and that Margaret gets on well.

On the question of the evagelicals and how they’ve been convinced of their moral superiority, as one myself (at least by upbringing), I can say that it’s not strictly logical, that is, having to do with words. Certainly not with scripture and all its nuances. Many of these people feel powerless, even desperate, for reasons beyond their control. They also sense the deep moral hollowness of liberalism, which refuses to make so-called moral judgments in the realm of individual freedom (a false category if I ever saw one), even as it makes deep moral claims on “society” to take care of every member. Yet the power of the Rs is over the right-wing evangelicals’ feelings, not their minds. Now, I speak broadly here, and not to anyone in present company. There certainly are rational arguments against abortion and even, gasp, gay marriage. Indeed, I would be the first to make the latter (though I’m not a bigot! Wow!), but that’s not what the party has used to appeal to a voting group.

So, feelings. People feel “in their bones,” as it was well put to me, that abortion is wrong. They can try to make arguments loosely based on scripture, or to manufacture ideologies such as the odious “culture of life,” but you don’t find these things in the Bible and Aquinas beat ‘em to it in the rational argument department (that’s another fight, though, as you say). The pictures of an aborted fetus or of gay men having sex act powerfully upon the souls of an image-soaked people. When they can make simple moral judgments against these disturbing feelings, many Americans grasp at the opportunity. Little else is open to condemnation, these days. Not even Britney Spears. (She’s hot!)

Let me make clear that by saying that the Republican Party’s manipulation is arational and imagistic, I am not calling the converted stupid (nor, as I said, am I calling anyone here such a name). I have great faith in the rationality of the American electorate, based firstly on the subjective glimpses from my own experience. Some might be poorly educated, surely, but these fall on both sides of the political spectrum. Many are afraid of argument, even as they are deeply convicted, the latter being an admirable trait of many Rs. But your appeal to real scripture and personal inquiry (e.g. geometry with camels, confronting the Sermon on the Mount in public life, etc.), as tempting as it is to make, given its basis in a) Christ’s words and b) arguments, is beside the particular question you seemed to be asking.

You don’t win elections by winning arguments. For reference, please note the recent pres debates and the ensuing election.

Used to be that Dems were tops at playing the emotion card. Now the Reps beat them at their own game, which is of course the only reason a sane person would need to light themselves on fire in front of the White House.

Characterizing the parties’ members becomes frustrating soon. These organizations are too vast. Consider that the Republicans comprise the functionally psychopath as much as the irrationally emotional. In the end, the parties’ great difference is their greatest likeness — an unwavering hatred for one another, regardless of issues or times or persons.

I believe the Bible because it is true. For those of you who dont, I respect your opinion but am saddened by your spirtual position. Also I am not afraid to address all responses made to my comments, I have not been on the site for a while and just read them.

-Robbie, I have gone over several sites claiming to have an “accurate body count” and not one of them is the same as the other. Plain and simply if you want to say that 15,000 people are dead in Iraq, thats fine. BUT you cannot say 15,000 innocents are dead. You seriously overestimate the amount of “innocents” killed and you seem to be a sheep of the liberal media which is feeding you this garbage. Also, I doubt you keep very close company with people who are very differant from you and so you wouldnt talk to many Bush supporters. And no offense to Cathlics or Jews, but they have serious issues with their belief systems (not all Cathlics, but a majority). All in all though, there is no way either of us is going to be able to find out an ACCURATE body count of civilians ( and I stress civilians) that have been killed. Still, nice to discuss with you. Later all.

HB: Christians do not believe they are morally superior than anyone else. I believe I am as sinfull and fallen as anyone else. But, our belief in the Bible, and our study of it guide us to a moral path. Also there is a general sense of right and wrong in most people. I doubt any sane person would argue that 9/11 was a good thing. Anyway, please study the subject of Christianity some more before you make broad generalizations like that, thanks.

Porter: Of course all this talk of groups is difficult, and precision is impossible. But that’s why I was trying to be so narrow in focus, specifically responding to what Robbie has first asked about. It’s utterly useless, however, to just give up and say, “Well, America’s too even talk about,” as frustrating as such speech might be to those of us with careful habits and a desire for precision.

Dan: Of course no one argument wins an election, and of course the beast is fickle. But human beings do chose the candidate they think is in some way better, and this choice is in some way based on an argument/reason/premise (i.e. a string of assertions, no matter how short or wrong). You and I know this. I was pointing, not very carefully, to one general argument/reason that was being encouraged among a certain number of people, namely “Bush is better ,” where the brackets enclose a statement that I argue has little to do with words. Oppose this, say, to someone who might vote for a candidate because they like something that he’s done or will do (a much broader group). This latter group might be persuadable by many different things, not all of them arguments, but they would have something like “Bush is better because I think deficits are good,” going on. I would even count “…because he limited stem cell research,” or “…reinstated the global gag rule” in the category. Again, the emphasis is on words being the thing people reach for in justification (it doesn’t have to be specific policies, see). Now the distinction’s somewhat muddied by the fact that people will always have recourse to some words or phrases when pressed by pollsters or bloggers, likely something they’ve been prompted with like the worthless “moral values.” They will, that is, if they think arguing is worth doing, which many people don’t (they just walk on by). Does that clear up the distinction?

Also, what are you thinking of when you say Democrats and the emotion card?

And finally Brian, resisting your taunt to have me kick your ass with my superabundant “Christian cred,” I will first clear up something, since it might be of use to others as well.

I was making a very specific argument about the right-wing Christians that Robbie seemed to be asking about, though I was a little loose with my restrictions, I admit. I was not criticizing Christians as a group, nor even these people insofar as they are Christian. I was asking how a certain group of people who have been convinced of their moral superiority got to be that way. If people aren’t so convinced, they don’t fit in the category. I think people who cling to their gut moral feelings in the manner I described do so out of a kind of desperation, for lack of a better term. It isn’t Christian behavior, no, but many people who do so call themselves Christians. Many such folks have called themselves Muslim, Jew and king, too, for that matter. Robbie happened to be asking about people who clung to superiority, called themselves conservative Christians, and voted for Bush.

Now, as for yourself, I shall name two challenges to assertions of yours that you have quite neglected. First, where I pointed out—somewhat subtlely, I know—that your criticism of Kerry for having “voted against any and all things that would help the army,” in addition to being wrong, was laughably inconsistent with your support of Bush. I’ll spell it out—JK had votes that when taken out of context could be said to show that he didn’t support the military, i.e. the $87 billion. But Bush and his VP did the exact same stuff. Therefore, on this ground, your support of Bush was logically indefensible. You didn’t respond to my saying that. You don’t have to now, either, I’m just pointing out how an argument opposed yours and you didn’t either defend your argument, or concede that you were wrong. (And it’s fine to be wrong, sometimes, by the way.)

Second, and more relevant to the rest of the thread, Porter asked you how Bush’s actions and beliefs squared with Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. You haven’t answered. I’m not prepared to go into this argument here, either, but those were two glaring omissions that I wanted to alert you to. Just trying to keep you honest.

(And I will tell you my extensive experience with and reading about Christianity by email, if you really must know.)

“too big” I meant to say, in the first graph

And oops, where I mention brackets, should say “because my unexamined moral gut feelings tell me so.”

Damn no-link policy.

Mr. Hb is a persistent fellow. I should hope this thoughtful thread should not become a fight. To me, Brian’s youthful enthusiasm is delightful, and, as fond as I am of logic, I am not sure that I wish to see the colt in the traces perforce; he will assume them of his own better inclination in time. But, Brian, since Mr. Hb has brought up the Sermon on the Mount again — do you think you could help me by answering an important question? It is a question that I have hoped to find a Christian who is fond of Mr. Bush to answer for me: What are a few things that Mr. Bush has done — not said or promised or denounced — has done in his role as President that are Christ-like? I should be satisfied with two I think. Thank all of you for an interesting conversation.

Yes, in the light of morning, I see that the above could be read more pugnaciously than a meant. I didn’t mean to fight or insult anyone, certainly not Brian (the kicking ass reference was entirely figurative, etc.). Peace.

Seeing as Congress writes a draft and the Supreme Court then writes the actual law, wouldn’t it be rather difficult to point to anything Bush alone “did”, since the President is largely just a figurehead?

Furthermore, “Christ-like” is not some universally agreed upon term. If some of us call a progressive tax and preventing a father from bequeathing his wealth in full to his children manifestly un-Christian practices while others believe forced income redistribution, full abortion rights and state-recognized gay marriage are examples of Christian charity and tolerance, how can there ever be agreement?

First: Because an idea is not or might not become “universally agreed-upon” can’t be an exemption from intelligently arguing it. I’ll begin and propound: a Christ-like act is an act that: mimics an act of Christ’s; or: fulfills an instruction-to-act of Christ’s.

Second: I accept your protestation of the Executive’s ineffectualness: you are proposing that Mr. Bush has done no Christ-like act.

Thank you, Mr. Neal. I anticipate Brian’s answer.

hb:
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I am inclined to agree with your perception and analysis — surely about the alogic of this particular persuasion.

I still wonder whether the Democratic party could turn the tables by persuading these folks of the morality of their own platform. These days the Dems seem to me so bashful about religion and morality, that even when they do mention them, as often as not, they come off (to my ear, at any rate) insincere and awkwardly politically calculated. I don’t think this has always been the case, and as a particularly vivid example I recall Clinton’s use of the phrase “New Covenant.” I sense that the Republicans have been trying to corner the market on morality for some time now, to be the christian-est christians around, and that they have been so successful that the Dems don’t seem credible on the subject. Like Republicans talking about minority rights — of course they are for minority rights, and the Dems are for morality and Christianity, and probably they’re all for puppy dogs and candy, too, but the one party has become so culturally affiliated with blacks and gays and the other with evangelical Christianity that the candidates even sound suspicious of themselves when they encroach on the other side’s territory. Bush good for minorities? Impossible. Kerry a Christian? No way, he’s Catholic, and probably not even a good one.

Brian:
Of course the different webpages give different numbers of casualities. This is because nobody knows the number, and nobody ever will. I cited the page I cited because they have a fairly rigorous system for their estimations, they use legitimate news sources (they are not even attempting to documate all the fatalities; only those that are reported and reported redundantly), and they give what they take to be a range of probability rather than a simple number.

I’ll succumb to the temptation to tell you (but you’ll have to guess where my tongue is) that of course they weren’t all innocents, because none of us are. Too bad all that Christian mercy doesn’t benefit them so much. If only they were unborn… .

In any case, of course you can’t back up any claims that no or even few innocents have been killed. You can believe it if you like, of course, but whether or not it is true, you should admit to yourself that you don’t have much of a basis for believing it aside from your liking it.

Whatever the number, my point remains. I’m not sure how flattering a notion of Christian morality this is that takes legal abortion and state recognition of gay marriage as deciding moral factors — while the endless carnage in Iraq is accepted and even vigorously defended.

What would Jesus do, Brian? Really. Maybe this gets to Porter’s point, too. I won’t speculate too far, but I figure it’s a safe bet that he wouldn’t have sentiments involving the phrase “better to kill the bastards who [whatever]” or justify an increasingly baffling war with claims that probably not so many of the people who are being killed are innocent anyway.

I am not sure I’d have Jesus running my country, of course, and neither am I convinced of the virtue of a Christ-like Commander-in-Chief, but I don’t see much sense in supporting Bush because of one’s devotion to Jesus, and this is what inspired my original post. Surely Christians can vote for Bush, just as I can vote for a guy who supports some things I don’t or who doesn’t support all the things I do, but I don’t understand how they can rationalize saying that they vote for Bush precisely because they are Christians, or how they can look so suspiciously on Christians who don’t (or on Christians who say that it is precisely because they are Christians that they don’t vote for Bush).

Your pronouncement on the problems Catholics and Jews have with their belief systems (well, okay, not all Catholics), reminds me of something Jesus said about eyes and motes and beams.

-Robbie

Brian:
I nearly forgot to respond to this:
“[Y]ou seem to be a sheep of the liberal media which is feeding you this garbage [about civilian casualties].”

Overwhelmingly, the “liberal media” is not reporting it, or reporting it unadorned in a number of reported dead at the bottom of an article. Certainly nobody is feeding it to me. But I know that you can’t drop bombs on Baghdad without killing lots of folks by mistake, and my concern for them has inspired me to try to get some idea of just how bad it might actually be. Of course I don’t know just how bad it is, but I’m pretty sure that it’s pretty bad, and I am stunned that anybody is willing to use Christ in their defense of it.

And:
“Also, I doubt you keep very close company with people who are very differant from you and so you wouldnt talk to many Bush supporters.”

Right now I’m in a country that, as far as I can tell, doesn’t have any Bush supporters. And I must admit that I am a Californian by birth and upbringing, so not much denial available to me on that front either. But I do actually know a few Bush supporters, I’m proud to say, and even prouder that I don’t think ill of them — count a few in my own dear family, in fact — and am considering, believe it or not, living in Mississippi for a while.

My problem is not with Bush supporters, or even, at bottom, with Bush himself. It is with the use of Christianity (a religion I respect and admire a great deal, though I am not a part of it) and morality as principle arguments in his defense, and in the defense of his policies, and in opposition to the opposing party which strikes me, over all, as being quite fundamentally moral.

-Robbie

“I doubt any sane person would argue that 9/11 was a good thing.”

This is only true if you define “sane person” as “person who would not argue that 9/11 was a good thing”, which I think is fairly typical among Americans, because it happened here. But there are thousands if not millions of perfectly sane people who consider it a military action. After all, it didn’t take many lives at all compared to… well, a lot of things America’s been involved in over the last decade, really. And those American lives were as anonymous and distant as Iraqi lives are to you. Not everyone who holds that viewpoint would argue that the taking of life itself is a good thing, but rather that war involves casualties and terrorism is the only way to wage war against a superpower.

I for one don’t hold this view. I feel the violent death of an innocent American is exactly equal to the death of an innocent Iraqi, and I support neither. In my own view, supporting a fraudulent war in Iraq is as reprehensible as supporting the 9/11 attacks. (Note that it is possible to agree with that statement as a hypothetical, but state that the Iraq War is in fact less fraudulent than Osama bin Laden’s war against American. There’s an argument there; I personally don’t much buy it.)

Christ like actions of Bush
1. Opposed gay marriage, the Bible says homosexuality is an abomination before the eyes of the Lord

2. Actively sought out and destroyed evil (Taliban, Terrorists, etc.)

There are two and I could probably think of more. No time though, sorry if Im not keeping up with the posts I only check it about once or twice a week. Cursed exams.

Great, Brian, and thank you.

Now I’ll just please ask you (and it’s my fault for not being clear) to summarize the act or teaching of Christ that each of your two acts of Mr. Bush follows.

(Oh and, Brian, please feel welcome to come by my blog any time! and read or comment or ask questions. I can’t put the URL here, but it is listed on BLTadv.)

Do we need a constitutional amendment on barbers too? I could sit here and quote things banned by Leviticus all day, but that’s not the point. The question was about Christ-like actions of Bush, and Jesus never said a thing about homosexuality, nor do I recall him ever actively seeking out and destroying any evil - at least, not in the form of human life, though he did get pretty pissed at that one fig tree.
Here are some things I’d think epitomize Christ-like behavior:
1) telling a wealthy person to give everything he owns away
2) going after the moneychangers in the Temple
3) maintaining that religion must be a private matter, and to flaunt it is rank hypocrisy
4) telling a coherent story
5) treating the Jew and the Gentile equally, with no strings attached
6) feeding, healing, and clothing those in need
7) putting the good of those who scorn him before his own life
8) and so on.

Show me some evidence that Bush has ever put the poor before the rich, fought those profiting off of religion, worked to keep religion out of public life, spoken wisely, had dinner with Wiccans, supported health care and social programs, or put the good of America and the world before his own wallet, let alone life, and then we’ll talk.

“I like your Christ, but not your Christians.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

From Sojourners magazine, which I on occasion browse.

“Politics and Christ
by Frank S. Palmisano III
To what extent did Jesus involve himself with the tense political situation of his day? When Peter questions the Lord about taxes, Jesus admonishes him to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto the Lord what is the Lord’s. When he stands before Pontius Pilate on the charge of blasphemy, Jesus clearly defends himself by putting his own mission as far from the political spectrum of turmoil and unrest of the day as he could possibly go. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he spoke. “If it were, my servants would be fighting.” Jesus constantly eschewed titles and grandeur. In the political scene of the day, there were groups of nationalists (or zealots) who pushed for Jesus to adopt a political agenda and set up a temporal king on earth. How many Christians too easily fall into the same trap as those zealots? Grievously, it’s evident in the masses of Christians trying to establish a temporal reign of Christ here on earth through a political candidate.

How many of us find a perfect set of moral imperatives in one candidate, only to stamp him with Christ’s seal of approval, forgetting that it’s a change of heart, not a changing of the guard, that is required? How many of us act as God’s attorneys when we are not satisfied to be witnesses? As many rushed off to the polls in hopes of consecrating the best man for the job under a banner of Christ, I was reminded of the Crusaders who carried banners in the Lord’s name, as they went forth to establish “Christian rule” on earth, and sealed their testimony in the blood of unbelievers. Let us take to heart that we are merely sojourners, not here to establish kingdoms, but to bring people into the only one that matters.

Frank S. Palmisano III is a freelance writer from Baltimore, Maryland. “

…

Wow.