- Filmmaker Michael Moore insists that corporations are evil and claims he doesn’t invest in the stock market due to moral principle. But Moore’s IRS forms, viewed by Schweizer, show that over the past five years he has owned shares in such corporate giants as Halliburton, Merck, Pfizer, Sunoco, Tenet Healthcare, Ford, General Electric and McDonald’s.
-
Staunch union supporter Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has received the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Union. But the $25 million Northern California vineyard she and her husband own is a non-union shop.
The hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Pelosi has received more money from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union than any other member of Congress in recent election cycles.
But the Pelosis own a large stake in an exclusive hotel in Rutherford, Calif. It has more than 250 employees. But none of them are in a union, according to Schweizer, author of “The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty” and a regular contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other periodicals.
The Pelosis are also partners in a restaurant chain called Piatti, which has 900 employees. The chain is – that’s right, a non-union shop.
- Ralph Nader is another liberal who claims that unions are essential to protect worker rights. But when an editor of one of his publications tried to form a union to ameliorate miserable working conditions, the editor was fired and the locks changed on the office door.
-
Self-described socialist Noam Chomsky has described the Pentagon as “the most vile institution on the face of the earth” and lashed out against tax havens and trusts that benefit only the rich.
But Chomsky has been paid millions of dollars by the Pentagon over the last 40 years, and he used a venerable law firm to set up his irrevocable trust to shield his assets from the IRS. - Air America radio host Al Franken says conservatives are racist because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action. But fewer than 1 percent of the people he has hired over the past 15 years have been African-American.
- Ted Kennedy has fought for the estate tax and spoken out against tax shelters. But he has repeatedly benefited from an intricate web of trusts and private foundations that have shielded most of his family’s fortune from the IRS.
One Kennedy family trust wasn’t even set up in the U.S., but in Fiji.
Another family member, environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr., has said that it is not moral to profit from natural resources. But he receives an annual check from the family’s large holdings in the oil industry.
- Barbra Streisand has talked about the necessity of unions to protect a “living wage.” But she prefers to do her filming and postproduction work in Canada, where she can pay less than American union wages.
- Bill and Hillary Clinton have spoken in favor of the estate tax, and in 2000 Bill vetoed a bill seeking to end it. But the Clintons have set up a contract trust that allows them to substantially reduce the amount of inheritance tax their estate will pay when they die.
- Hillary, for her part, has written and spoken extensively about the right of children to make major decisions regarding their own lives. But she barred 13-year-old daughter Chelsea from getting her ears pierced and forbid the teen from watching MTV or HBO.
- Billionaire Bush-basher George Soros says the wealthy should pay higher, more progressive tax rates. But he holds the bulk of his money in tax-free overseas accounts in Curacao, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
message to the liberals: take the log out of your eye first! =]
I heard an interesting comment on the radio yesterday that Michael Moore has made more money on the Iraqi war by producing his anti-Iraq war films than Halliburton.
This looks like one of these things that float around the internet. Are there any references for this things, or are they just disembodied assertions?
Some of this doesn’t make any sense to me. Pelosi is supposedly a hypocrit for having a non-union vinyard. Well, did the employees try to organize one? This may come as a surprise to the author, but you don’t just go out and buy and union, like a piece of equipment. I’m a big supported of unions, but I work for a non-union company. Does that make me a hypocrit too?
“Filmmaker Michael Moore insists that corporations are evil and claims he doesn’t invest in the stock market due to moral principle. But Moore’s IRS forms, viewed by Schweizer, show that over the past five years he has owned shares . . . ”
If true, that would make him a liar, not a hypocrit, right?
“Air America radio host Al Franken says conservatives are racist because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action.”
Does he actually say that? Where? When? What context?
“But fewer than 1 percent of the people he has hired over the past 15 years have been African-American.”
If it’s true, does that make him a hypocrit?
“Bill and Hillary Clinton have spoken in favor of the estate tax, and in 2000 Bill vetoed a bill seeking to end it. But the Clintons have set up a contract trust that allows them to substantially reduce the amount of inheritance tax their estate will pay when they die.”
This is perhaps the stupidist item on the list. One can be in favor of certain taxes while minimizing one’s own tax liability. For example I’m in favor of a federal income tax, though I also claim various deductions that lower my taxes. It would be quite a stretch to say that’s an example of hypocrisy.
“Hillary, for her part, has written and spoken extensively about the right of children to make major decisions regarding their own lives. But she barred 13-year-old daughter Chelsea from getting her ears pierced and forbid the teen from watching MTV or HBO.”
I suppose this is about Clinton’s opposition to parental notification in the case of abortion? I have to infer that, because the article doesn’t even say what it’s talking about. If so, does that mean that anyone who opposes mandatory parental notification is a hypocrit unless he removes all restrictions from his own children, letting them run wild in that street? Is that what is being asserted here?
I have no idea why stuff like this is posted. There are no references, no way to verify anything. In some cases I don’t even know what it means. Michael Moore says he doesn’t own stock. When did he say that? Twenty years ago? Last week? Barbard Streisand “prefers” to make movies in Canada? What does that mean? Which movies? How many movies? Were the production workers in Canada unionized? Are there other reasons why she “prefers” Canada?
Stop and Search
The NYACLU headquarters has a stop and total search point immediately in front of the door of their office, however, they have sued New York State to PREVENT searches of persons entering sports stadium. Gotta lov it.
Duly noted!
However, in an effort to remain “fair and balanced”, we should probably post a few Republican hypocrisies as well.
1) Sponsor of the “Defense of Marriage” Act, Rep. Bob Barr, is currenly on his third marriage.
2) Jay Sekulow, lead attorney for the ACLJ and “defender of Christian values” has apparently used his non-profit organization to subsidize a $2,374,833 home used primarily by him and his wife, among other things. Says one former employee: “Some of us truly believed God told us to serve Jay … not to help him live like Louis XIV.”
Nothing intrinsically immoral about living well, but when “extravagant spending burns up [more] money … from donors [than] for legal causes”, something is amiss.
3) Dick Cheney criticized big dollar campaigning and accused liberal philanthropist Peter Lewis of attempting to “buy democracy”. This was, of course, at a $2,000 per plate dinner hosted by business tycoon Tim Timken for the city’s wealthiest civic and business leaders. Tim had prior to that helped raise $750,000 for Bush and Cheney as well.
4) Bill Bennett, author of “The Book of Virtues” and supporter of morality enshrined in public policy, has lost over $8 million in various casinos, often after drawing from various lines of credit. True to form, he “portrays liberals as inherently less moral than conservatives, more given to excusing personal weaknesses, and unwilling to confront the vices that destroy families.”
5) Rush Limbaugh on Kurt Cobain of Nirvana after the latter’s suicide: “Kurt Cobain died of a drug-induced suicide, I just â?? he was a worthless shred of human debris.” Harsh words from an oxycontin addict.
Now, we all have our flaws, it’s just that conservatives seem to more readily deny their own. In addition:
“It sometimes happens that men who preach most vehemently about evil and the punishment of evil, so that they seem to have practically nothing else on their minds except sin, are really unconscious haters of other men. They think that the world does not appreciate them, and this is their way of getting even.”
Fa. Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 93
When all else fails, the right-wing disinformation machine drags out the old, tired “Limosine Liberal” cliches and stereotypes. It’s amazing to me that people still fall for this.
Meanwhile the Republican class war against the poor and middle-class continues at a busy pace. Right now, as you read this, the Republican Congress is planning to slash billions from programs that provide food stamps to the poor, health care to children in Medicaid and heating assistance to seniors in colder climates. Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, just sent President Bush a list of “tax-simplification” proposals that includes eliminating the mortgage interest deduction and tax deductions for state and local taxes. These changes if enacted would be devastating to the middle-class, but would help pay for the tax cuts for the rich, and our dirty, immoral war in Iraq.
Talk about buying into cliche stereotypes.
Dean how can you believe that the Republicans are running a class war? When it’s the Democrats who are whining that we don’t pay enough taxes. And why? So they can perpetuate the myth that the rich aren’t paying enough to those who live off the government largess. It’s a game Dean and I can’t believe you’re buying into the propaganda. If you’re not being sold on the class war. Then you’ll be sold snake oil about race war, gender war, the haves and have nots, sexual identity, environmental pillaging, blah blah blah. It has nothing to do about truth, or security, or making your life better, or any other reality you deal with. It has everything to do about keeping you on their reservation. It has everything to do with keeping them (the Washington, New York, L.A. social political circuit) in power. Your value to them lasts as long as you push the button for them in the ballot box.
The only reason I vote Republican is they’re not as quick to rush America headlong into the new Gomorrah as the Democrats are. In other words, I’m not willing to support a party whose primary stances are to kill babies at any cost, to condone senilicide, to corrupt my children, and a number of other social ills and deviancies. But I don’t put my faith in men, so it doesn’t surprise me that they’re flawed.
Truthfully the power game is the only game played in Washington. And if you believe that any politician, reporter, entertainer, etc. cares about you or anything about you, then I have some purple Kool-Aid for you.
So what’s my point? We can type our pithy comments on internet to support our favorite lies and deceptions, but in the end it’s not going to help the soldier serving somewhere in the world. It’s not going to resolve the family struggling to survive. All it will do is just re-enforce the propaganda machines for people in power.
Jerry – Its an indication of your deep confusion that you believe the “suffering” of a millionaire who may have to pay a few thousand dollars more in taxes is equivalent to the suffering of thousands of lower income families who will lose access to food assistance and health care under Republican legislation about to be approved by Congress. That is a sick, malevolent attitude that is inconsistent with Christian morality.
An analysis of the Republican legislation found:
“The bill would deny food stamps to 225,000 individuals in working families whose savings are just above food stamp eligibility limits or whose income is just above the income limits before housing and work expenses are taken into account, but below the limits after those expenses are taken into account.
The reconciliation proposals approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee include significant cuts to Medicaid, with a substantial portion â?? $30 billion over the next ten years (estimate based on CBO data) â?? coming from allowing states to impose new costs on low-income Medicaid beneficiaries for health care services and needed medications and to restrict the health care services Medicaid covers.
The bill would restrict the health care services available to children with incomes just above the poverty line.[2] These children would no longer have protections under the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) provisions of the current Medicaid rules, which guarantee that children receive the medical services they need. As a result, states would be allowed to terminate or severely limit coverage for a wide range of services and medical devices, such as mental health services, eyeglasses, hearing aids, and other therapeutic services.
The reconciliation proposals approved by the House Ways and Means Committee would cut funding for child support enforcement efforts by $5 billion over the next five years
Many children in low-income working families would lose access to child care assistance under the House Ways and Means reconciliation package. â?? the bill gives states fewer resources than prior versions of House TANF reauthorization bills, and less child care funding than is needed just to keep pace with inflation.
The House Ways and Means proposal would eliminate federally funded foster care benefits for children who do not meet the foster care eligibility criteria based on their biological parentsâ?? circumstances, but who do meet those criteria based on the circumstances of the relatives, such as grandparents, with whom they now reside.”
At the same time, “Not only have the House and Senate spared already enacted tax cuts from any reduction, but over the next several weeks both chambers plan to consider tax reconciliation legislation that allows for $70 billion in new tax cuts between fiscal years 2006 and 2010. A large portion of the benefits of these tax cuts will flow to upper-income households and to businesses. Thus, many high-income households, rather than contributing their fair share to deficit reduction or to offsetting the costs resulting from the hurricanes, will actually receive more resources as a result of the budget process. Most notably:
The tax-cut packages are expected to extend capital gains and dividend tax cuts (which expire in 2008) through 2010. This would cost about $21 billion â?? more than the Houseâ??s cuts to Medicaid, child support, and food stamps combined. According to the Tax Policy Center, in 2005 more than half (53 percent) of the benefits of the capital gains and dividend tax cuts will flow to the 0.2 percent of households with incomes over $1 million, while three-quarters of the benefits will go to households with incomes over $200,000 and 90 percent of the benefits will go to households with incomes over $100,000.”
http://www.cbpp.org/10-28-05bud.htm
Hurting the poor so we can give the rich bigger tax cuts during a time of budget deficits. This is so diametrically opposed to what Christ taught that we should call it “satan’s agenda”. But that what Republicans support.
Dean
Don’t buy into the social gospel propaganda. It’s not the Gospel. Christ’s death on a cross was not to ensure there is a chicken in every pot.
If you really look at welfare you would realize that it’s nothing more than a form of suppression. It is nothing more than a way to keep the masses appeased and ultimately it’s a type of slavery because it makes people dependent upon the new slave master, the government.
If you truly want to help the poor then help them so that they can care for themselves. Take away the burdens that punish success, such as oppressive taxes. Because even if you raise taxes on the wealthy or on business do you really think they’ll pay them? The new tax will all just get transferred to those in the lower income brackets, like always.
And don’t buy into leftist propaganda that a reduction in projected spending is a cut, it’s not. If you look at the history of spending, it’s always gone up regardless of who is in power. This constant whine of the press and the left about cuts hurting the poor is nothing but hysterical reporting to rile the masses.
Historically when taxes have been increased it has reduced consumption. The result being reductions in production. Leading to layoffs, closures, etc. So any concept of “punishing” the rich by excessive taxation only results really in hurting the lower income brackets, not helping.
Jerry – It’s reassuring for me to realize that your views are those of a shrinking minority. Americans are realizing that government provides valuable services they don’t want to sacrifice and are rejecting appeals based on greed and selfishness coming from the political right wing.
In Colorado last week voters elected to do away with spending caps and let state government keep a a projected $3.7 billion in tax rebates over the next 5 years. Even Republican Governor Bill Owens supported the spending cap suspension arguing that without it, essential government services would have to be cut. Owens stood up to conservative activist Grover Norquist who has stated that his goal is to get government so small “you can drown it in the bathtub.”
“‘This is a stinging rebuke of those who want to cut programs and attack middle-class and low-income families in the name of tax cuts that mainly benefit the wealthy,’ said Gregg Haifley, the deputy director of public policy for People for the American Way”
“Colorado Cap on Spending Is Suspended” The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/03/national/03denver.html
Californians are poised to defeat Proposition 76 which would give Governor Schwarzegger near dictatorial power to cut spending on any state program without legislative approval next week. The measure is trailing in the polls.
There are six million MORE Americans without health care insurance than there were in 2000 and the number of employers offering coverage has dropped from 69% to 60% during the same period. Meanwhile the political right continues to oppose government initatives to expand health care coverage that might reverse this trend.
Health Affairs magazine found that “Further, more than half of the increase in the uninsured occurred in the South, where uninsurance rates were already the highest in the country.” I find it interesting that the political right, through its subservience to corporate lobbyists and a reflexive anti-government philosophy, is inflicting the most economic harm on the very people who constitute its political base.
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2005/11/policy_the_unis_1.html
Dean,
You’re playing into a bad gambit. You are running against the Republican Party as if it were anti-New Deal and anti-statist. That is completely untrue, which is why the Democrats are having a really hard time finding any traction. The Republican Party has small government types in office, but they are a really small minority. The vast majority of elected Republicans are of the George Bush variety. George Bush never met an entitlement program that he didn’t like.
New prescription drug benefit? He’s for it! Farm subsidies? He’s for that too. Massive spending in the Gulf reconstruction? He’s on board, no matter the price. Bush and most Republicans are not anti-government. They have proven quite the opposite, they are extremely pro-government. This is the not the party of Robert Taft or Barry Goldwater. This is the party of Bush, and they positively LOVE government programs.
Now, a substantial case can be made that the Republicans have been ineffective, and that their favored programs don’t work well. However, the Democrats don’t really make that case. They keep running against the Republicans as if they were Barry Goldwater, and that just doesn’t wash. No Republican of any stature is advocating meaningful cuts in ANYTHING.
The ‘left’ in the U.S. pretends that the ‘right’ is trying to roll back the New Deal and create massive tax breaks for the wealthy. The ‘right’ pretends that the ‘left’ wants to raise taxes and expand government welfare give-aways.
The truth? A Democrat gave you welfare reform and balanced the budget, because that helped take the fire out of the Republican base in 1996. A Republican blew a massive hole in the budget supporting every single social program imaginable, because that helped win ‘moderate’ voters in 2004.
(By the way, they both started foreign wars, but that is another story.)
If you want to get some traction, stop building up and knocking down strawmen. Run against the Republicans as they really are, not as they might have been in 1964 or 1980/1984. They are certainly not ‘mean spirited’ when it comes to throwing money at social problems. Instead, make the case that they are incompetent or follow some other line of attack.
By the way, Jerry is right about the social issues. The Democrats need a Bill Casey. A pro-life Democrat who is hawkish on the border could DESTROY any Republican in 2008. Hey – is Bill Richardson pro-life?
Glen,
Are you familiar with the Nixon quote; “we’re all a bit Keynesian now”?
I know the quote.
Nixon – that was a piece of work. Nixon’s response to economic problems in the early 1970’s was to institute wage and price controls. His policies were so interventionist that they led to the creation of the Libertarian Party, as small government types and free marketers fled the Republican Party in droves. Many of them eventually came back, but that took almost a decade and the ascendence of Reagen.
Yep. Nixon’s style of Republicanism is exactly the problem. I wish it had been buried back in the 70’s, but it alive and well.
Glen writes: “You’re playing into a bad gambit. You are running against the Republican Party as if it were anti-New Deal and anti-statist.”
A friend has an interesting theory that makes sense of a number of things that on the surface would appear to be contradictory. In his view, the ultimate goal of many Republicans is to destroy the regulatory structure under which businesses operate.
How does that work? The strategy is that you create a tax system and government programs that ultimately starve the regulatory agencies. So it really doesn’t matter where the tax money goes — whether it’s squandered on some new drug benefit, spent on new nuclear submarines designed to fight the old Soviet Union, or given back to rich taxpayers.
So we eventually end up with a situation in which the regulations stay on the books, but there is no money for enforcement or prosecution. It’s a way of effectively removing regulations without ever having to vote them off the books. So on the one hand you have what appears to be “big government” spending massive amounts of money and running up huge deficits. But on the other hand you have a government that is in effect smaller because it can no longer afford to enforce it’s own regulations.
This whole thing of giving back tax money to the rich . . . hell, the rich don’t give a damn about that, because they are rich! Some dude with a $10 million gross income isn’t going to care about getting another $100 thousand back from reduced tax rates. But he’ll be very interested in not having health inspectors visit his chain of meat packing plants very often. He’ll be very interested in having laws that make it virtually impossible for his workers to start a union. He’ll appreciate it if safety inspectors come through every three or four years instead of annually. And he’ll be really happy if he doesn’t have people coming around taking samples of his wastewater. And he’s going to contribute money to the candidates who, one way or another, can help make all of that happen.
Jim, Ah yes, the evil rich. Your post is such a sterotype. Your smarter than that. You can think far more deeply. You’ve actually done it on this blog from time to time.
Jim,
Starving the beast is, in deed, a strategy that has been put forward by pointy-headed Republican thinktanks. The idea is exactly has you describe. Cut taxes to the point that the government simply has to shrink.
There are more than a few major holes in that, however. The first is that Republicans are just as interested in buying votes with government programs as Democrats ever were (even at their worst). Republicans put just as much pork into various bills as any group of politicians ever did. And they show no real signs of wanting to slow down. At the same time, I don’t know of a single government department that is in danger of any real budget cuts.
Well, if taxes are down how can we pay for this? Well, liberals are the ‘tax and spend’ group. Republicans have turned out to be the ‘borrow and spend’ group. So, instead of starving the government by cutting taxes, the truth is that spending has continued to expand exponentially because we can just issue more Treasury bonds to make up the difference. The pointy-headed types in the think tanks didn’t consider that angle in their models. They assumed, wrongly, that fiscal conservatives would require Congress to live within its means, and that as those means decreased so would federal expenditures.
The Democratic Party is the party of good government. I will not debate that. The Dems care about government programs, and they wholeheartedly believe in their efficacy. They want to make them work, and are often the most innovative. The Republicans campaign against government, but when in power, they end up trying to use government power for their own ends. This breeds a huge, whopping case of cynicism on the Republican side. Official doctrine is that the government should shrink, but then almost everyone votes to increase it in order to buy votes and get re-elected. All the while, not really being convinced that most of the programs will even succeed.
As Trent Lott once famously said to a conservative activist, “We can’t cut the budget, I have an election next year. Talk to me in two years and we’ll have good government then.”
My point, of course, still stands. Democrats need to work against what the Republicans actually are, not what some of their rhetoric might suggest. Republicans, at this moment in time, are big-government types. Their tax cuts have been modest, but their spending on new social programs like Medicaid has been astronomical. They do, in deed, often favor their pet business interests. So do the Democrats. Corporate money flows towards power. If the Dems come back in power, the money will switch back.
Michael writes: “Ah yes, the evil rich. Your post is such a sterotype.”
I’m not trying to ‘diss’ the rich. I’m searching for an explanation for the paradox that those who traditionally have denounced big government are the very ones who end up making it bigger. It would be easy to dismiss it as garden-variety hypocrisy. But it’s not; there’s a strategy and logic behind it. I’m just trying to figure out what that is.
Jim
It’s the same paradox as though who now cry for a balanced budget, were the same ones who were continually expanding the budget over decades.
It comes down to political power. Whoever is in power will do anything to remain in control. They will also payoff those groups who helped them achieve power to maintain it. And the opposition will say anything to gain power.
If the Republicans were to make huge cuts in social spending they would only give the Democrats ammunition to use against them. The only reason the Dem.s take on the cry of balanced budget is to garner support for their party from those who belief fiscal responsibility is the priority concern. (But do you really belief the Dem.s are going to balance the budget if they regain control of Congress?)
For lack of a better definition it’s tied into the concept of triangulation first used by President Clinton and Dick Morris for the ’96 re-election campaign. In short it’s the act of solving the political priorities of your political opponent,thus you disarm your political opponent. For Clinton/Morris it was welfare reform and balanced budgets. For Bush/Rove it’s such issues as health, social security, and education. And truthfully it’s an effective tool. There’s no mystery and there’s no hypocrisy (as though hypocrisy is a huge concern in politics).
If you really look at the actions of Presidents and Congresses since 1990 there has been little change. President Bush’s domestic policies are not that different from President Clinton’s. And, Pres. Clinton’s weren’t that different from the first President Bush. Even in trade/business/financial policy there is little difference (i.e. Clinton signed GATT and NAFTA in opposition to the left in his party).
The only difference between the parties now comes in social policies (i.e. abortion, homosexual marriage, etc.) And how international affairs are conducted, not necessarily the goals. For example Clinton had a policy of removing Saddam but tried to do it through the U.N. It’s the same with several other international issues same goal just different means in attempting to achieve the objectives.
So it’s no surprise to me that we see political parties making outward changes to their appearance to garner support. It’s all based upon a selfish nature to retain or gain power.
Jerry writes: “And how international affairs are conducted, not necessarily the goals. For example Clinton had a policy of removing Saddam but tried to do it through the U.N.”
Of course, Clinton wasn’t fabricating evidence, which is an important distinction.
An interesting article in today’s New York Times discusses the use of discredited information as part of the justification for the war:
———————–
“WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 â�� A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.
The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, ‘was intentionally misleading the debriefers’ in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaedaâ��s work with illicit weapons.
“The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libiâ��s credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libiâ��s information as ‘credible’ evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.
“Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that ‘weâ��ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.'”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/politics/06intel.ready.html?pagewanted=print
—————————
It will be interesting to see how Faux News spins this one.
Wow Jim, you don’t think Carl Levin doesn’t have a bias when releasing the information? Which again proves my point about the striving in Washington for political power. Do you really thing Levin did it for truth’s sake?
Jim it doesn’t change my point, the Clinton administration had a policy of removing Saddam using intelligence information prior to what the New York Times cites.
You need to get over your hatred of Bush and realize that this was an international problem. Saddam was a festering sore in the Middle East and regardless of who was in the White House,whether Democrat or Republican, they would have had to deal with him.
And as far as the news can you tell me a media outlet that doesn’t have a bias? Jim you have such a myopic view about politics that your take is even worse than what you claim Fox News has.
Jerry writes: “Wow Jim, you don’t think Carl Levin doesn’t have a bias when releasing the information? Which again proves my point about the striving in Washington for political power. Do you really think Levin did it for truth’s sake?”
Jerry, you can’t just dismiss everything because of “bias.” Bias doesn’t change the facts. I don’t care why Levin did it. I don’t care if someone bribed him. I don’t care if he did it to impress a cute secretary. His motives are utterly irrelevant to me. The Bush administration has abused the truth so many times that I’m happy to see the truth liberated from them, however it manages to escape.
Jerry: “Jim it doesn’t change my point, the Clinton administration had a policy of removing Saddam using intelligence information prior to what the New York Times cites.”
Clinton didn’t bring about 2,000 dead U.S. soldiers and a bill for $200 billion — and counting, based on false information.
Jerry: “You need to get over your hatred of Bush and realize that this was an international problem.”
I didn’t hate Bush initially. I didn’t vote for him, but I thought wait and see. After 9/11 I thought he did exactly the right thing, and I supported the invasion of Afghanistan. But everything with Iraq has been marked by lies and incompetence. And you don’t solve international problems with lies.
Jerry: “And as far as the news can you tell me a media outlet that doesn’t have a bias?”
If you’re asking whether any news organization achieves a kind of metaphysical, ideal, platonic level of objectivity, then no. If you’re talking about whether a news organization can aspire to get at least most of the facts right, then yes, I think that is possible. In fact, the whole reason you are able to criticize the bias of news outlets is because they do try to be objective, and when they fail it is legitimate to point that out.
Concerning Fox News, as I’ve said before, their problem isn’t bias but rather that they function as a kind of unofficial propaganda arm of the Republican party. It makes no sense to criticize them as biased, because they’re not trying to be unbiased in the first place, “fair and balanced” not withstanding.
Jim I worked in the media industry for several years. Let me tell you a secret, they’re all biased. Every reporter has a paradigm in which they’re going to report the news and every newspaper editor/television producer is going to present the news with their bias. You can get the facts right, but it’s how the facts are presented is what creates bias. It’s like the analogy of saying whether the glass is half empty or half full.
If you really watched Fox News you would know that they’re reporting is not that different from other media outlets. They’re covering the same stories etc. The only difference is that when they analyze the news they actually have the “talking heads” evenly divided between conservative and liberal. The complaint against other news outlets is that they don’t differentiate between conjecture and news. But by no means is Fox a propaganda arm of the Republican party, that’s nothing but leftist propaganda you’re citing.
And get over the leftist mantra of 2,000 dead and millions spent, blah blah blah. We can go through the history of democratic leadership and come up with similar or not worse scenarios of the use of the military. Or inaction and incompetence to deal with genocide or terrorism resulted in the death of the hundreds of thousands under a Democratic administration. We can even argue that we wouldn’t be in Iraq if a previous President had taken the necessary national security measures to secure the region. But what does it prove?
Also don’t buy into the leftist regurgitation that Bush administration took us to Iraq under lies, falsified information etc. It’s absolute el toro caca. Every intelligence agency around the world came to the same conclusions with their own intelligence. The UN came to the same conclusion. The previous administration came to the conclusion (unless you believe that Bush was able to change classified information in the Clinton White House). And every Democratic Senator on the intelligence committe came to the same conclusion.
Let me clarify something for you intelligence is not an exact science, it’s an art. It’s the process of gathering as much information as possibly then trying to fill in the missing gaps. Is it 100 percent? No. But it’s what we have to work with. To now come along and argue that some of the information is questionable is Monday morning quarterbacking. Because you don’t know if that information was used in the final analysis, you don’t even know all the information that was collected (and probably never will because of being classified). When a news source quotes one portion of intelligence information, it’s already incomplete. Because, as I pointed out earlier, no intelligence report is based upon that single piece of information. To buy into a news story that just provides limited intelligence information as full justification to hate Bush or oppose the war, is either buying into incompetent reporting or outright propaganda.
It all comes down to your blind hatred of Bush, Jim. Like the leftist true believer anything that discredits Bush is now your gospel. You have reached a point that you’re almost rooting for terrorists and insurgents because it makes Bush look bad. Get beyond the Kool-aid line.
Note 17: Jim H is looking for an “explanation for the paradox that those who traditionally have denounced big government are the very ones who end up making it bigger”
I’m not so sure most conservatives are opposed to big government in principle. It simply depends on what the money is being spent on or who the “target” of the government action is. Have you ever heard a Republican complain that a military conflict “cost too much money”? I don’t think I have, even if the conflict was questionable in its necessity: in these instances, our pockets are apparently a bottomless well.
In addition, government is only big and “intrusive” when it keeps them from hurling invective on street corners (in which case they’re labeled “hate speech” laws). If however, the speech consists of words that makes them blush (which seems to be quite an easy thing to do), there’s really no fine large enough or a sentence harsh enough.
Conservatives blasted Michael Moore who suggested that minors purchasing ammunition at a WalMart may not be such a wise thing — (Wal-Mart later payed over $14 million for gun law violations). Meanwhile, making it illegal for a minor to purchase games that even simulate the actual use of a firearm seems to bother none of them. I’m not sure what they think guns are used for. Perhaps a charming “objects d’arte” collection over the mantle?
So, really the phrase “big government” is just a way of critiquing a social policy that is unpopular in an intelligent sounding fashion – it sounds more cogent than “we just don’t like it”.
Glen: The overwhelming rejection of the Bush social security privatization scheme will stand as the high water mark for conservative economic policies in modern US history. The repudiation of the privatization scheme marks the point in which a solid majority of Americans understood the potential for the free-market fundamentalist policies championed by the Republican party to hurt them economically. I really believe that this is the major Achilles Heel of the Republican party.
There used to be an America where people who worked hard for many decades were rewarded with a modest pension and health care coverage should they ever get sick and need help. Last month I heard a chilling comment from the chairman of Delphi, the auto parts maker that recently declared bankruptcy. He said that corporate America wanted a “new social compact” with workers that would free them from the responsibility for providing health insurance or pensions.
Already we are seeing corporations like United Airlines ending their pension fund systems. Employees who labored for decades expecting a pension as part of their compensation sytem will be left high and dry. Governor Schwarzennger is working as hard as he can to dismantle the pension system for California public employees. The widows and orphans of policemen and firemen killed in the line of duty must be constent with whatever little sum their dearly departed was able to put into a 401-K and no more, my Governor declared.
As I indicated earlier, the number of employers offering health insurance has dropped precipitously, down from 69% to 60% in just five years. A Walmart internal memo recently leaked to the press, advised senior management on ways to hold down health care costs by driving out older, sicker employees (make them do heavy physical labor until they quit).
Those employers that do offer health insurance are trying to move employees into Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) combined with high deductible plans, and other types of “consumer driven health plans. These plans reduce the employers health care cost burden, and aren’t a bad deal for young, healthy employees, but they create a great deal of financial risk for workers with chronic diseases or unexpected accidents or illnesses.
The Republican party has championed HSA’s and consumer driven plans even though they do not address the rising costs of health care like astronomical drug prices and the exploding burder of providing uncompensated care for the uninsured. HSA’s and consumer-driven plans merely shift the costs to the oldest and sickest workers, and to the agencies like Medicaid or Medicare who might, or might not, step in to help them. It’s a rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic, one that leaves American workers more economically at risk and insecure.
Let’s summarize what the Republican party wants for American workers: No pensions, 401-k plans that rise or fall in value with the fluctuations of the market which each worker must fund sufficiently for their years of retirement regardless of salary, and much more financial risk for workers if they get sick, including having to mortgage their home or go into bankruptcy if the bills get too high.
Dean,
Private retirement accounts as part of social security is not a conservative proposal. It is a lot of things, but conservative it definitely is not. A conservative approach to Social Security would be to sunset the program entirely over time, and allow workers to keep more of their paycheck and their responsiblity for saving or not saving for retirement.
The Bush plan is endemic of the current environment in the Repubican Party. Rather than offering the voters a clear alternative, they simply tweak existing New Deal or Great Society Programs. The tweaks are usually a bad idea, but the Democrats explode as if the Republicans are out to get rid of these programs. Many rank-and-file Republicans would like to deep-6 these programs, but the leadershp of the party is completely committed to the preservation of the New Deal and Great Society in their entirety.
The histrionics of the DNC don’t help their cause. It is obvious to most people that we are dealing with tweaks, and that the rhetoric is overblown. Robert Reich, by the way, does the best job of dealing with these issues in a logical, straight forward manner. He should be the frontman for the party, not Howard Dean.
As for pension funds and other benefits such as employer-sponsored insurance, we need to keep in mind how these things arose. During WWII, wages were controlled by the government and pay increases were banned. To attract workers, companies were allowed to give benefits. The tax code was re-worked to encourage this. Thus, since the 1940’s, health care and retirement have been intimately related to employment.
This system is simply outdated, and should be revised. Companies at this stage can’t continue to carry these costs. Even if we killed the Exec perks and trim exec salaries, the burden of benefits is bankrupting a lot of major corporations. The current system is untenable.
The two choices are: single-payor system like in Europe, or ditch the whole business and go completely individual. Gradations in the middle like we have now are not working. I don’t mind a debate on these two alternatives, and let the people decide. The problem is when Democrats and Republicans are afraid to put forward bold alternatives and, instead, just muddle through in the mess we already have.
Dean
there have been attempts to address the rising cost of health care by tort reforms. Litigation has been one of the prime reason health care costs have gone up.
Until you address that issue you will not reduce health care costs.
Dean neither party has seriously addressed the issues of retirement and health care. Both have been sticking their fingers in the dyke hoping that’s enough.
Malpractice insurance is responsible for only a small fraction of the rise in health care costs. The major causes include:
1. Increasing amount of unreimbursed care hopitals must provide the uninsured.
2. Sharply higher pharmeceutical costs.
3. Fragmentation of the insurance risk pool further separating healthier low cost individuals and sicker, high cost into different plans.
3. Up-front costs of investments in new medical technologies
4. The cost of caring for an aging population.
The increasing number of uninsured creates a “vicious cycle”, in which the increasing amount of unreimbursed care hopitals must provide the uninsured pushes up hospital costs, which in turn pushes up insurance premiums, which in turn causes more employers to elimnate health insurance for their workers, which in turn creates an increasing number of uninsured.
We can see that drug companies today are out-of-control, monopolistic monsters that spend more on marketing and lobbying than they do on medical research. The drug companies have spent $80 million in California alone to defeat Proposition 79, which would allow the state to negotiate lower drug prices on behaqlf of everyone in the State, and I can testify that their TV commercials have been on the air almost constantly.
As a nation we had to decide during the Medicare Drug debate whether to allow government to negotiate drug lower prices with manufacturers, introducing a new level of government control, or allow the manufactureres to set their own prices, ensuring further medical care hyperinflation. We chose the later.
If we had a single payer system, or even a mandatory multi-payer system, we could address the first three issues, but right now everyone in Washington is too intimdated by the lobbyists and the power of drug company money.
Jerry writes: “To now come along and argue that some of the information is questionable is Monday morning quarterbacking.”
It’s not that we are now discovering that some of the information was questionable, but that the Bush administration knew it was questionable in the run-up to the war. They used other strategies as well, such as omitting all the moderating qualifiers such as “perhaps,” and “maybe.” They intentionally disregarded contrary information, and looked for confirming information. They disregarded the advice of the experts. They relied on Iraqi defectors whom many in the intelligence community doubted. They got rid of people who expressed doubts. One recent report showed that one of the reasons they weren’t interested in a sound occupation plan was because they were afraid it would undermine the case for war.
Jerry: “Let me clarify something for you intelligence is not an exact science, it’s an art. It’s the process of gathering as much information as possibly then trying to fill in the missing gaps. Is it 100 percent? No. But it’s what we have to work with.”
When large portions of Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. are inaccurate, misleading, or downright wrong, you can’t tell me that that’s just a normal amount of inaccuracy inherent in the intelligence business.
Jerry: “It all comes down to your blind hatred of Bush, Jim. Like the leftist true believer anything that discredits Bush is now your gospel.”
And you appear to dismisses anything critical of the Bush administration as “leftist,” as if the mere application of that label somehow clinched the argument. No matter what the evidence is, all you have to do to is say “leftist,” and poof! everything critical of Bush vanishes. It doesn’t work that way.
Congratulations to Virginia Governor-elect Timothy Kaine who proved that a Democrat can run a faith-based campaign and win.
According to the Washington Post: “Kaine defended himself against Kilgore’s attack on the subject by saying that it is his beliefs as a deeply religious Catholic that lead him to oppose the death penalty and abortion. But he also said he would follow the law on capital punishment and advocate laws that protect the right to abortion.
“The elite never really got that argument,” said David Eichenbaum, one of Kaine’s media advisers, referring to columnists and others who wondered how Kaine could be, in his words, “morally” opposed and yet pledge not to try to change the law. “But people who heard him got it.”
‘I think this is an interesting test case for Democrats to see if you can run a faith-based campaign focused on values and do so as a progressive candidate in a Southern state,’ Rozell said.
It worked, Rozell said, because of Kaine’s frequent reference to his service as a missionary in Honduras while in law school and his familiarity with the language of religion. ‘It did not come off as calculated,’ he said.
In his victory speech last night, Kaine told the crowd, “We proved that faith in God is a value we all can share regardless of party.”
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/08/AR2005110802241.html
Kaine shows the problem with the American religion, the failure to understand absolutes and accept incompatible ideas.
It should also be pointed out, that just because you use “religious language” doesn’t mean it’s of God.
It should also be pointed out, that just because you use “religious language” doesn’t mean it’s of God.
Yes, absolutely – and that’s exactly what critics of the “religious right” have been saying all along.
Jerry, you seem to be saying that one cannot hold a certain religious belief and legislate contrary to that belief. In regards to abortion, I think we need to ask more than just whether the legislator is trying to criminalize abortion or not. If the popular will of the people is to keep abortion legal, there may not be much they can do. They can however, reaffirm their position against abortion (especially PBA), raise the obvious question as to whether mere “dependency” on another removes the protection of individual rights, contribute to pregnancy counseling centers that assist young women in finding adoptive parents for their unborn child and so forth. I wouldn’t underestimate the powers of persuasion in these matters.
I don’t think you really mean to say that we must always legislate according to our religious beliefs, are you? This would imply that we could (or should) fine or imprison heretics, blasphemers and people who work on the Sabbath.
Mr. Kaine’s quotes posted here seem to be a sophisicated version of “I believe, but I’m not going to force my beliefs down anyone else’s throat” or “Religion and public life are separate”. IMO if faith in God means anything, it means that there is no separation of God from any part of your life. For we Orthodox, it is literally impossible (if we believe what our Church teaches) because when we are Chrismated, the Holy Spirit is sealed in our body and soul.
That does not mean, however, that legislating particular beliefs is called for. JamesK sets up two radically different types of belief and equates them. Legislating on the Christian understanding of the sanctity of human life in all of it stages and legislating specific religious practices is quite different.
I realize the political difficulty of actually suceeding in the attempt to restore human dignity and responsibility in our legal system in such a way that allows for a true body politic rather than a loosely confederated tribal conglomeration. It appears to me that Mr. Kaine has abdicated that responsibility altogether.
I don’t question that he actually believes what he says, it is just that what he says is not about authentic Christian faith–a faith that calls all of us to a higher standard and creates community from people who would otherwise hate one another.
We must go far beyond Christian legalism and the narrow issue by issue approach and develop an true Christian social ethic that can be functional in today’s world.
Michael: The good news is that the Kaine victory reinforces the message for Democrats that they need to incorporate religious values into their positions and message, and that they need to do more to reach out to people of faith. A growing number of Democrats are coming around to this point of view, especially after their defeat last November.
Like you I would have preferred to see a stronger anti-abortion message from Kaine, one that recognized a moral obligation to actually do something to reduce the numbers of abortions. However, at least he acknowleged a powerful moral dimension to the issue, and this alone challeges the secular, pro-choice position that the abortion debate is morally neutral and concerned with a woman’s “privacy” and nothing else.
The problem is, it is language without substance. How can a person claim a religious standing, but support the exact opposite?
I’m also bothered by politicians who adopt religious language, in particular Christian langauge, that will garner them the greatest support. It nothing but political propaganda to manipulate the masses toward their cause.
Action speaks louder than statements. If a politician claims to support life but chooses to vote against life affirming legislation, truthfully doesn’t believe what they say.
Jerry writes: “If a politician claims to support life but chooses to vote against life affirming legislation, truthfully doesn’t believe what they say.”
In your view, are there times when a politician’s political views should override his religious or moral views?
For example, imagine a politician voting against some restriction on abortion because he believes that the restriction would be unconstitutional. Would that be acceptable?
Also, do your views extend only to politicians, or to judges as well. For example, a supreme court judge who personally opposed abortion and thought Roe v. Wade a bad decision might uphold Roe on the basis of stare decisis. Would that be acceptable?
Dean writes: “The good news is that the Kaine victory reinforces the message for Democrats that they need to incorporate religious values into their positions and message, and that they need to do more to reach out to people of faith. A growing number of Democrats are coming around to this point of view, especially after their defeat last November.”
I’m going to have to disagree with you here. I think the religionizing of politics — and the politicizing of religion — in the U.S. has been a terrible thing, a horrible thing for the country — and for religion.
What you call “incorporat[ing] religious values,” often is nothing more than pandering to fundamentalists or others on the extreme religious right. It involves throwing around the right God talk so that people think you’re one of them. (Listen to a Bush and you know what I mean. Remember when he said that Jesus Christ is his favorite “political philosopher?” Bush wouldn’t know a political philosopher if he tripped over one, and he surely doesn’t know Jesus Christ either.) Bush couldn’t be bothered to interrupt his vacation for hurricane Katrina, but he rushed back to the White House to sign the Terri Schivo legislation in order to pander to the religious base. This is the kind of thing that happens when religion and politics mix.
But look also at what happens to religion. Some years ago Christians made a deal with the devil and got in bed with Republicans. In exchange for Christian support for their economic agenda right-wing Republicans opposed abortion (which previously meant nothing to them.) In exchange for Republican support for the anti-abortion agenda, Christians got on board with the Republican economic agenda. So you end up with Christians denouncing public programs and saying that Jesus Christ doesn’t like labor unions (I actually heard that on a local Christian talk show.) Conservative Christians end up becoming little dog-eat-dog economic libertarians and social darwinists.
Worse yet, Christians begin to adopt neocon thinking with respect to international affairs. So we end up with *Christians* being apologists for torture. We end up with *Christians* talking about how our Christian president is leading us into a kind of holy war. We end up with Christians being enthusiastic cheerleaders for that war. I have fundamentalist acquaintences who casually mention that we should have used nuclear weapons in Vietnam, and that Israelis should drive Palestinians out of the holy land at gunpoint.
Last week in this venue we heard that having a woman priest would be wrong, because it would cause some kind of peturbation in the priestly symbology. But apparently having a priest, an ikon of Christ, acting as a cheerleader and sabre-rattler for war is just fine.
All of these things come from joining politics and religion, and both end up worse off.
Both Dean and Jim are missing the point. It’s the Democratic captivity to the ideological/cultural agenda of the hard left that is driving the values issues. Values issues play out in national elections, much less in state races. Once Democratics move back to the center by jettisoning their uncritical support of abortion, gay marriage, and the other hot button issues, values questions won’t play as prominently as they do today (and won’t provoke diatribes like Jim’s above).
My hunch is that Kaine won not because of religious values, but he addressed local concerns better than his Republican challenger. The shape of national debates, particularly on the moral questions, usually don’t share a direct correspondence to state and local races.
Both Dean and Jim are missing the point. It’s the Democratic captivity to the ideological/cultural agenda of the hard left that is driving the values issues.
That doesn’t seem to address Jim’s point, quoted here:
Some years ago Christians made a deal with the devil and got in bed with Republicans…. In exchange for Republican support for the anti-abortion agenda, Christians got on board with the Republican economic agenda. So you end up with Christians denouncing public programs and saying that Jesus Christ doesn’t like labor unions (I actually heard that on a local Christian talk show.) Conservative Christians end up becoming little dog-eat-dog economic libertarians and social darwinists. Worse yet, Christians begin to adopt neocon thinking with respect to international affairs. So we end up with *Christians* being apologists for torture. We end up with *Christians* talking about how our Christian president is leading us into a kind of holy war.
I quoted so much of that because I think Jim expresses very succinctly just how the “values” debate has been framed by the right.
Otoh, while I agree that GWB “wouldn’t know a political philosopher if he tripped over one,” I don’t think we’re in a place to assert that “he surely doesn’t know Jesus Christ either.” My impression, from what I’ve read and heard, is that he did go through a genuine conversion experience that enabled him to turn his life around to some extent on a personal level -that is, to stop drinking and keep his marriage and family together. He’s obviously not above pandering to his constituency, but I don’t think believe his religiosity is all show.
Jim’s characterization is caricature. Accept the premise and discussion is closed. It displays one reason why Democrats, despite Republican failings, still can’t get the traction they need. No one really buys it except the Al Franken wing of the party.
Jim: I was not suggesting that Democrats buy into the entire agenda of the religious right, but that they hurt themselves by remaining silent on matters of faith and morality. Because they come from a heterogenous “big tent” party, Democratic politicians have been reticent about discussing religion for fear of offending one group or another. However by remaining silent on matters of faith and morality the Democrats have allowed their opponents to frame the debate and to falsely portray them as being against both.
Some moral issues work to the advantage of Democrats. President Bush and Vice-President Cheney this week have been standing up for evil by defending the use of torture and attacking the Geneva Conventions. Jim Wallis has said that federal budgets are also statements of morality. This week we see the conservative Republicans trying to pass harsh budget cuts that will hurt the poor (who Christ taught us to assist) so that that they can pass another $70 billion tax cut that will overwhelmingly benefit the very, very rich. What does that say about their morality? It’s gratifying to see moderate Republicans standing up to the darker forces in their party this week and oppose both positions.
One issue where I think that the Democrats do need to change is to recognize the deep moral antipathy so many Americans have for abortion and acknowlege that this issue does have a moral dimension. Criminalization of abortion may be the wrong answer, but the Democrats have to propose some realistic alternative method for reducing abortions or else they will continue to alienate many voters and remain perennial losers.
Note 39: While I also take issue with politicians who uncritically accept the agendas of any group (especially with the premise that abortion is somehow a moral good), I have yet to hear any proposed political compromise on these issues within this forum. To me, this implies that accepting the full agendas of the “Conservative/Religious Right” is somehow better.
This is the thing: even if, on the surface, being a captive to the desires of the far right appears to advance the common good, it cannot do so without incredibly deleterious effects on our liberties.
“I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardize in any degree, the common rights of its citizens,” – Abraham Lincoln.
So, yes, we can have a culture that fully embodies Christian values in our laws. It’s not really going to look like America for very long, however.
This is why I keep harping on the idea that if one wishes to bring about social change, for heavens’ sake don’t become a politician!! Changing or adding a few laws serves only to make the already bloated leviathan of GOVERNMENT ADMIN grow even larger. It certainly won’t change hearts. Go work as a missionary or work in a counseling center for unwed teens.
Fr. Hans writes: ” . . . . and won’t provoke diatribes like Jim’s above.”
I wish it were just a diatribe. Or, even if it is a diatribe doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. Just yesterday, the Rev. Pat Robertson, one of the leaders of the religious right, and the head of a religious broadcasting network of international scope, warned the inhabitants of Dover, PA, that their city might be destroyed by God, because they voted out Republican pro-intelligent-design school board members. In addition, the good reverend told the people of Dover that “if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to God. You just rejected Him from your city.”
It’s interesting that intelligent design is sold as a non-religious, scientific viewpoint. But when rejected, we find out that such rejection is a rejection of God, and the true motive of the pro-ID side is revealed.
Juli writes: “[President Bush] did go through a genuine conversion experience that enabled him to turn his life around to some extent on a personal level -that is, to stop drinking and keep his marriage and family together. He’s obviously not above pandering to his constituency, but I don’t think believe his religiosity is all show.”
He did have a conversion experience. But there are various degrees of conversion. Ceasing to be a drunk is certainly good thing, and is in all truth a noble and virtuous thing to do, especially for the family. But given Bush’s other statements and actions, it seems to me that his conversion did not penetrate very deeply. During the presidential debate, even Bush was unable to explain what the conversion meant to him. When asked repeatedly why Jesus Christ was his favorite political philosopher, all Bush could say was “he changed me,” and “he changed my heart,” without giving any details of what the change actually encompassed. (And in any event it is not clear how one’s personal conversion somehow makes Jesus a “political philosopher.”) One tries not to be cynical, but given the political utility of religion in the current age, and given that a number of Bush’s words and actions seem inconsistent with a religious conversion, I think it is fair to question the degree of conversion that he actually experienced.
Fr. Hans: “Jim’s characterization is caricature. Accept the premise and discussion is closed.”
The last couple of decades have seen a remarkable transformation of both the Republican party and conservative Christianity. While there were no doubt certain common interests, there have been accomodations in both groups, and especially among the Christians. Thirty years ago I didn’t know any Christians who routinely denounced social programs. Thirty years ago I didn’t know any Christians who thought it was the religious destiny of America to dominate the world. Now these beliefs are common. What has been effecively lost in that transformation is the gospels. Many Christians are bothered by that, but the absence of the gospels in modern American conservative Christianity has been noted even by unbelievers.
The problem is that much in the gospels is simply incompatible with libertarian economics and neocon militarism. Of course, the gospels and Christian tradition can be interprepreted so as to be consistent. But in my view that interpretation damages Christianity and turns the Christian tradition into the body servant of popular temporal ideologies.
And maybe it always works that way to some extent. Maybe Christians always have to re-interpret the tradition to some extent in order to make it relevant to current realities. But when we get to the point at which the gospels are missing in action for many Christians — when Christians listen to Michael Savage more than to the words of Jesus — then something has gone very wrong.
Dean writes: “I was not suggesting that Democrats buy into the entire agenda of the religious right, but that they hurt themselves by remaining silent on matters of faith and morality.”
I agree with you that such silence hurts Democrats. But turning the public political discussion into a religious discussion hurts America. I worry that we will reach a point at which religion will become the currency in which all of our political discourse has to be transacted.
We already see this. In, as I recall, the recent election for governor in Virginia, the Democratic candidate was criticized by the Republican for his stand against the death penalty. The Democratic candidate defended himself by noting that his opposition to the death penalty originated in his Catholic faith.
So what should have been a discussion about the issue turned into a situation in which one candidate “out-faithed” the other. The trump card for the Democrat was “this is part of my Catholic faith,” end of discussion. The Democrat won; people who care about the issue itself lost.
Long Promised References on the Constitution
Some time ago, I promised I would supply some recommended reading on U.S. Constitutional history and law. Here is a great place to start.
American Ideals: Founding a Republic of Virtue: Daniel N. Robinson. This is a series of 12 lectures by Prof. Robinson. Total time 6 hours. You can purchase this at http://www.teach12.com for $140.00 for the audio CD version OR ask your local library to get it for you. Watch for used copies on Ebay for greatly reduced price. I got mine from inter-library loan services at my small city library. Robinson is a brilliant lecturer, a real joy to listen to. I like to listen to tapes like these when I am on the treadmill or driving long distance. This is a virtually effortless way to learn.
Here are the titles of the lectures.
I. The Colonists as Faithful Subjects
II. Colonial Constitutions and Their Inspiration
III. Who “Founded” the United States
IV. Taxation without Representation
V. The Declaration of Independence
VI. the Royalist View of the Revolution
VII. The Articles of Confederation
VIII. The Constitution of the United States, Part I
IX. The Constitution of the United States, Part ii
X. Publius
XI. With Liberty and Justice for All
XII. Paine and Burke
Included in the package is a list for further reading, timelines, and thumbnail biographies. Great package.
Here are some references included by Prof. Robinson that would be of interest to many on this board.
A)The Old Religion in a New World, the History of North American Christianity, Mark Noll, Eerdmans, 2003, Grand Rapids, MI. Prof. Robinson adds this description. “Christianity was the bedrock of every one of the early colonies and informed their official documents.” This gives the lie to the current disinformation that the Founding Fathers were not truly Christian but merely deists. The deist theory is usually supported by a few isolated quotes from Jefferson and Paine. The American colonial population was thoroughly Christian (or Jewish) as were their leaders.
B)The Debate on the Constitution, Bernard Bailyn, New York, Viking Press, 1993.
C)The Bill of Rights, Karen Hossell, Chicago, Heinemann, 2003
D)Federalist Papers, (many editions out there, you can get a cheap copy in paperback)
I am still hunting around in the standard legal literature for something that isn’t a terrible chore to read (hah!!)
JamesK, you should at least devote 6 measly hours to listening to Prof. Robinson before you pop off and engage in constitutional theorizing. You will note that I have spared the board my half-baked ideas on theology and Scripture.
Fr. Hans said, “It’s the Democratic captivity to the ideological/cultural agenda of the hard left that is driving the values issues.
I suppose I’m a good example of what Fr. Hans is saying. I never imagined myself to have much in common with the people who are referred to as the “religious right.” Then after quite a bit of soul-searching, I came to believe abortion on demand was wrong and that personal and national self-defense were right. As I came to adopt many other conservative points of view (which in previous decades were regarded simply as common sense), I found myslef separated from the people I had been voting for.
But at least for me, “values issues” have shaped my religious affliations even more than my political ones. The church in which I was reared has for some time promoted abortion on demand, taken a dim view of self defense, and generally put a veneer of religious approval on every “progressive” issue that has come along. For me, it’s been a good experience to visit many different churches, and I’m looking forward to finding one to join.
Note 44. Take Robertson with a grain of salt like conservatives take Howard Dean. Over the top statements (both men have their share) are not that important.
As for Christians and social responsibility, don’t assume that the liberal calls to help the poor means that all the programs crafted to help them actually do. Moreover, a lot of good thinking is coming from consrvative quarters on these issues — read Theodore Dalrymple or City Journal for examples. A moral condemnation towards people who point out that some programs actually institutionalize poverty is not a substitute for engaging the critique.
All for discussions about values and public life, I welcome it. I think it is healthy.
Fr. Hans writes: “All for discussions about values and public life, I welcome it. I think it is healthy.”
What I don’t understand is why it is thought by some that positions derived from religious faith are somehow superior to those arrived at by rational or other means.
For example, given the recent election in Virginia, it seems that when a candidate holds a position on the death penalty, that position is somehow validated or ennobled if it is derived from personal religious faith. The Democratic candidate in Virginia is able to trump his opponent by playing the religion card. His opposition to the death penalty comes from his Catholic faith. But so what? Why should anyone care about that? How does that constitute a defense of the position?
And this is exactly my concern about the religionizing of politics. Instead of politicians selling ideas on their merits, they end up selling themselves as “people of faith.”
Well, there are a lot of “people of faith” out there, some of them not very nice. Moslem extremists are people of faith. David Koresh was a person of faith. On the other end of the spectrum there are wise and compassionate atheists and agnostics. Being a “person of faith” means nothing by itself.
Fr. Hans: “Take Robertson with a grain of salt like conservatives take Howard Dean. Over the top statements (both men have their share) are not that important.”
It seems to me that there is an order of magnitude difference between saying that Bush has squandered our military strength and saying that God may destroy some city for having voted the wrong way. Robertson is condeming an entire city as ungodly and unworthy of God’s protection. You may take that with a grain of salt, but others take him seriously. People like Robertson are turning Christianity into very different kind of religion.
Note 45: “The American colonial population was thoroughly Christian (or Jewish) as were their leaders”
I may read Robinson’s book on the condition that it’s not yet another revisionist interpretation of American history. If it is, I really can’t be bothered.
Now, I do not deny that Christianity held a place in the lives of many of the early settlers (although accord. to stats, “81%” of today’s Americans are religious and 75% consider themselves Christians). Some great men and great minds came out of that era. However, it was also a Christianity where certain concepts of morality were not even really considered: candy-coat it as much as you wish, but the history of this nation involved a relative disregard for the humanity of Native Americans and the slaves we brought over on ships (and they weren’t Carnival cruise ships, I can assure you). Women were generally kept illiterate and had zero property rights. What disturbs me is when people who cannot swallow the truth of these less-than-flattering facts recast history in such a light as to make the vices of many of these believing settlers practically irrelevant.
So if this book contains a real pretty portrait of life in colonial times as if it were without significant errors, I have better things to do. Oh, and if you really want to romanticize this period that much, Missourian, keep in mind that you’d be trading that law degree in for an apron.
JamesK, Robinson’s Course Offered as a Good Start
Robinson’s coure is offered as a good place to begin the study of the United States Constitution. It is compact,it requires only 6 hours of your time and it gives you an excellent overview of the topic. He includes a fairly comprehensive bibliography for further reading on the many, many issues and and subtopics relevant to the study of the United States Constitution. His bibliography is useful because he identifies the scholars that are recognized as leaders in their fields. I recommend that you read several authors on any given topic to get a well-rounded understanding of an issue or a historical period. I don’t claim that Robinson is the only author that can provide such an oversight, but, he is an excellent lecturer with an amazing breadth of knowledge and his course is extremely convenient. Read any other established scholar if you like, but, read something.
The second paragraph of your post 49 is simply a re-hash of some very common observations about colonial America. They are very tired and trite ideas and don’t advance the reader towards the goal, that being an understanding of the United States Constitution. The “less than flattering” truths are just examples of anachronisms. You are applying the standards of 21st century America to 17th and 18th century America.
American political thought was TRULY a REVOLUTIONARY ADVANCE over that which had gone before. Europe was still thinking in terms of the “Divine Right of Kings” while the Americans were developing theories of individual rights which had NEVER BEFORE been put into practice as they were in America. In the mean time you are complaining that average Americans didn’t live up to the highest ideals of their faith (this is news?) and that 17th Century Americans didn’t live up to the ideas of the 21st Century. These are very old, very chewed over ideas.
This is your chance JamesK, with relatively little effort you can gain a great deal of knowledge about the intellectual history of the United States Constitution. Your previous comments have demonstrated an overwhelming ignorance and misunderstanding of constitutional law, YET, that didn’t stop you from posting on constitutional issues. For example, you wanted to discuss a hypothetical about the government placing camers in citizen’s homes to record their activities, yet, you were UNAWARE that the Fourth Amendment would prohibit that. Consequently, I have listed a book on the Bill of Rights (First Ten Amendments) for you to read. Read that and the other books on the list and get back to me.
On another occaision you claimed to observe that American law regulates “relationships.” However, the Courts have expressly addressed the subject of American law and have decided that it is “conduct,” not “status” or “mental states” or “beliefs.” Oprah is about RELATIONSHIPS the Constitution is about powers, rights, duties and conduct. I don’t claim that Robinson is the only good source of information out there. I just think his is the most compact and handy. Read any respectable author, just read something.
Just be happy I’m not charging you for my time.