The New England Curmudgeon

Hey! You Got Your Bible In My Government!

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Sun, 13 May 2012 01:40:00 +0000

On Tuesday May 8 the voters of North Carolina went to the polls to vote on, among other things, amending the state constitution to include the following:

Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.

The amendment passed, garnering 61% of the vote (although, as the Rude Pundit points out, only 21% of the registered electorate voted in favor of the amendment, due to the relatively low voter turnout of only 34% overall). And once again we are given evidence as to why the rights of a minority should generally not be subject to the whims of the majority.

I have no desire to discuss the unintended consequences of this amendment for straight couples, nor do I wish to address the obvious drawbacks to corporations seeking to employ talented people from out-of-state who happen to be in a committed homosexual relationship. Often these peripheral arguments are made to convince people whose bigotry isn’t necessarily grounded in uncompromising absolutism that they should wait to vote for discrimination when it’s more narrowly focused – you know, so that only the gays lose out. I don’t like to give people those easy outs. You’re either on the right side or the wrong side of the issue.

So don’t tell me that “people of good faith can disagree” on such fundamental matters as human rights. (“Faith” is a big part of the problem, but more on that soon.) I don’t give a damn for “good faith”, because it is a useless cop-out in this context for refusing to confront evil. What matters is if you are a good person who would not deny equal rights to other good people.

What we witnessed on May 8th was the triumph of religious intrusion into civic government, the injection – once again – of private piety into public policy, something that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution categorically rejects. Because while you as an individual may have chosen to bear the yoke of your faith you don’t have the right to place the shackles of irrational bigotry on anyone else.

If you make the claim that God, through the Bible, has declared homosexuality sinful, you make me sad, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to go forth and, uhm, not be homosexual (I guess). And yes, you can point to passages in the Bible that do, indeed, illustrate God’s antipathy toward homosexual sex:

If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. (Leviticus 20:13)

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion. ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. (Leviticus 18:22-24)

(Of course, the hypocrisy of the people who quote these passages, yet continue to do things like eat shellfish and wear clothing made of different fabrics, among other laws listed in Leviticus, has been pointed out many times, and doesn’t bear repeating here.)

But here’s the problem that you should have: We both live in a (supposedly) secular democratic republic – one that allows you to impose faith-based limits on your own behavior but that prevents you from placing those same faith-based limits on the behavior of those who do not share your belief system. Furthermore, you would be wrong to vote your faith and turn your sectarian belief into the law of the land – thereby forcing the government to “respect an establishment of religion” (as I and many others would interpret that line). Unfortunately we’re becoming less and less concerned about shoring up the wall between church and state in these Culture War times. In my dream of a rational American polity, any appeal to God’s word as a factor in public policy should immediately disqualify the speaker from being considered a serious participant in a debate – and should cause that person to be laughed out of the meeting hall.

An argument based on God’s word is one that is inflexible and not subject to compromise, because, well, it’s God’s word, and God is infallible and perfect and all that. And here’s where liberal Christians run into a problem, because both they and conservative Christians use different, often contradictory, passages from the same Bible to support their opinions. It’s a weakness that an atheist doesn’t share. God often spoke out of both sides of his mouth on any number of topics, and so the liberal Christian and the conservative Christian are equally right and wrong. The secularist doesn’t have this chink in his rhetorical armor. To the rationalist, the atheist, and the secularist, in matters of public policy what God has to say about homosexuality or shellfish or clothing is irrelevant.

It is important to keep the First Amendment in mind precisely because religion has been afforded a pass from honest scrutiny in this country for far too long, to the detriment of advancing civil rights. For while the proponents of Amendment 1 may be more or less hostile to equal rights for homosexuals or to homosexual persons themselves, the vast majority of them – liberal and conservative – are allowed to express their bigotry in the language of religion. Which is why this:

I hate fags because they’re filthy unnatural people, so they shouldn’t be allowed to marry

is not acceptable, while this:

Homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God so homosexuals don’t deserve the right to marry

is spoken and essentially unchallenged. Worse still is the fact that the speaker can vote and enforce his will over others who do not share his narrow sectarian views. The iron fist of bigotry, whether bare or covered in the velvet glove of religious language, strikes equally as hard.

Please, do not speak to me of “people of good faith”. Because “good faith” without “good work” is truly, truly dead – and voting against equal rights for gay couples is bad, bad work indeed.

Gutenberg Is The Bibliophiliac’s Pimp, You Know

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:13:00 +0000

I’ve entered the electronic book age, albeit on the cheap: I don’t have a Kindle or similar device, but Amazon has a free application that functions similar to the Kindle. I downloaded the application and made my first purchase of an e-book (Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World) soon thereafter.

There are some things I like about the e-book phenomenon. For one thing, I find that I am reading more; considering how much time I spend staring at my computer screen, it feels good to actually put that time to good use. And speaking of time, it took literally seconds for me to download a book of around 450 pages, immediately after I purchased it – I didn’t have to pay for shipping, or wait a week for delivery. Because I can browse for titles on line, I can also read the reviews posted by people who had already purchased the books, giving me a little insight into whether or not a book is worth my time (and money). Eventually I imagine I’ll have a little travelling electronic library – which is another advantage of this medium: I have a small house, without a lot of room for bookshelves, and there is no way for me to fit in all the books I’d like to in the available shelf space.

So those are the positives. But there’s a major negative that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to overlook, and I wager my complaint is a common one among book lovers.

“Book lover” – a wonderful term, because in essence, that’s what a book becomes: our constant companion, for an undetermined length of time, one with whom we share stolen moments when we are otherwise alone, in a private place, where we can submerge ourselves into the embrace of those alluring printed pages. To hold and read a book is to experience a very special intellectual intimacy, but there is a smidgen of the physical as well; nothing quite matches the feel and smell of a book.

E-books are practical, and convenient, and they are undoubtedly the wave of the future as regards the mass-marketing of text. But they’ll never engender the romance and excitement one gets from holding a real, printed book.

Racism, Classism, Misogyny: An American Tale

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 11:34:00 +0000

The state of North Carolina is picking at a still-open wound that for years has been ignored: the involuntary sterilization of those deemed racially undesirable and unfit to reproduce.

The practice of forced sterilization was an outgrowth of the politics of race in late 19^th and early 20^th century America, the child of eugenics, the grandchild of social Darwinism. Twenty-seven states instituted some type of forced sterilization programs, usually targeting criminals or the mentally ill or disabled. North Carolina was one of only a few states to include race and class in its formulation to determine who would be subject to the government’s scalpel. Young women on public assistance – the vast majority of them African-American – were threatened with being cut off from the pittance they were allotted by the state unless they accepted being surgically sterilized.

One such victim is Elaine Riddick, who, at the age of fourteen, was raped, became pregnant, and gave birth to a son, Tony, in 1968. Unbeknownst to Elaine, her illiterate grandmother was somehow convinced to authorize the state to sterilize the teenager (she marked an “X” on the consent form). Elaine gave birth via a C-section, and at the same time the physicians sterilized her – a fact she didn’t know until five years later, at which point she was newly married and ready to bear children with her husband. But of course, she couldn’t – because the state had, without her knowledge and certainly against her will, made the decision that she should never again conceive a child.

Why had the state done this? Because the state believed she was “promiscuous and didn’t get along well with others.”

Riddick later said “I didn’t get along well with others because I was hungry. I was cold. I was a victim of rape.”

The charge of promiscuity is what stands out for me, because it reveals so much about the way in which our male-dominated society has historically viewed the crime of rape. Elaine was brutally attacked and impregnated by a man – and yet she was branded “promiscuous”. Was this the state’s way of saying “she was asking for it”? Was 1968 too early for North Carolina’s law enforcement agencies to recognize rape as a crime of violence, rather than of sex?

Elaine Riddick was a victim many times over. She was not only victimized by the man who raped and impregnated her. She was additionally victimized by a culture that saw her rape not as a crime committed by a stronger man against a weaker girl, but as the result of her own “promiscuity”, making her at least partly responsible for her own rape. She was victimized by a state which saw her as less human thanks to her race and her class. And she was victimized by a society that still tries to divide people in order to keep them subservient to the desires of the powerful.

North Carolina’s current government is grappling with how much to compensate the victims of its eugenics program. No matter how much money the state eventually gives in recompense, it will never be enough to erase the stain of genocidal intent.

The Closeted Atheist

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 01:23:00 +0000

A friend of mine recently admitted that he didn’t use the term “atheist” to refer to himself. Not because it wasn’t accurate – he holds the same non-belief in gods and the supernatural as I do – but because of the negative traits people in general, and religious believers in particular, associate with the term. He said he didn’t like how people believe atheists are immoral, certainly less moral than god-fearing folk.

This is one way in which the religious have defined, to their advantage, the difference between those who subscribe to a faith tradition and those who do not. The definition is one that has become an accepted meme in our culture, and is a major reason why more non-believers are reluctant to publicly identify themselves as such. Or if they do, they often choose the less-threatening term agnostic because the word atheist carries so much negative social baggage.

I could not argue against my friend’s decision, because keeping his atheism hidden is still the best choice for those of us who live in a country where an African-American man can finally be elected President, but an atheist hasn’t got a chance in hell.

For myself, I am openly out of the non-believer’s closet. I am not shy about declaring my atheism. But I am very much aware of the isolation and mistrust that such a declaration can engender – and I am sad for my friend who has to hide his honest opinions for fear of making himself a pariah.

Evil Causes And The People Who Fight For Them

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 18:31:00 +0000

A response to blogger Christopher Knight regarding the statue of the Confederate soldier, recently toppled by a wayward vehicle, in Reidsville:

Mr. Knight, your post at "The Knight Shift" reveals an all-too-common lack of historical knowledge. Even a casual open-minded study of history would have led you to different conclusions; however, as you found it necessary to defend what, in the 21st century, should be obviously indefensible, I find it equally necessary to provide a counter-point to your paean to the Confederate soldier statue.

You write:

Here's to hoping them to do the right thing, however. The Confederate Soldiers Monument... contrary to what some speakers at today's meeting asserted, is not a monument to a lost cause. It is not a monument to a slavery. It is absolutely NOT a monument to racism!

I suggest you read James Loewen's "Lies Across America", specifically the many entries examining the origin and actual purpose of statues erected by such organizations as the United Daughters of the Confederacy. These statues - including the one in Reidsville - are nothing if not steeped in an attempt to glorify that "lost cause", which itself had everything to do with defending racism and slavery. They were erected at the turn of the 20^th century at the height of the Jim Crow era to remind African Americans that they were still subservient to whites, and that they should keep to their place. Yet for white people these statues were built in towns across the south as a way of controlling the narrative - that is, to distort history and to gloss over the realities of southern racist culture. As Loewen writes:

When proponents of change do their homework, so they can show that a person or event was controversial in the past and has been idealized in the teeth of damning evidence ever since, opponents of landscape revision cannot claim that correcting markers or removing monuments does violence to our history. Instead they usually argue that the proposed revision does violence to "our heritage." "The heritage syndrome," as historian Michael Kammen calls it, is "an impulse to remember what is attractive or flattering and to ignore all the rest."

The conflict between history and "heritage" goes still deeper. Too often, events that reek of dishonor and shame get abracadabraed into a noble heritage...

The point to neo-Confederates is not to put the Confederacy into its proper historical context, but to maintain its symbols as sites for homage in the present.*

You write:

It is a monument to nearly two thousand men of Rockingham County - more than most other counties in the state which sent the most soldiers to serve in the Confederate army - who arose to the task of defending their families and their communities in a conflict that certainly not one of them had wanted to see in their lifetime or the lifetime of their children.

The personal motivations of the soldiers are irrelevant. The simple fact remains that the reason these people took up arms was to defend an illegal and immoral rebellion, based upon opposition to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, out of nothing else than fear that slavery would be abolished. If you think otherwise, you would be proven wrong by the very declarations of secession of Georgia, which stated that a reason for the state's leaving the Union was:

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders [the Republican Party] and applauded by its followers.

or of Mississippi:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.

or of South Carolina, here regarding the Northern states:

Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

or of Texas:

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

These declarations provide proof positive that the basis for the establishment of the Confederacy was nothing other than the protection of slavery and continuation of racism. Yet you, Mr. Knight, write:

It is a monument to men who went to fight in a war that was clearly unfortunate... but only the most ignorant or the most foolish would call it a war with any side that was clearly evil.

Even at the time, most of the western world outside of the American south recognized slavery as a moral evil. Some one hundred and fifty years later, there should be absolutely no question in a modern mind about the inhuman institution the Confederacy was created to defend - nor of the misguided sense of duty of those who took up arms to maintain that inhuman institution in the Confederacy's name.

It is a monument to men who were only doing what they knew best to do in this fallen world, not out of hate but out of love.

Sadly, their love did not extend beyond their own narrow-minded, culturally conservative racism. For this they should, at best, be pitied - not glorified.

Who are we, who are any of us, to presume that we know better or that we would have done otherwise?

Millions of Americans - including in the southern states - knew what was right, and did the right thing. The people who fought in defense of slavery were wrong. This does not mean they were not brave, or honest - but brave and honest men can fight for evil reasons. Unless you think that every one of the millions of Germans who fought in Adolf Hitler's army were completely devoid of any redeeming human qualities, and that every single one of the millions of Americans who fought against his army were conversely devoid of any faults or moral failures.

Because as far as this writer is concerned, the men who went out from their farms in Rockingham County, were fighting as much for the freedom that we have today... including the freedom to never have to make the choices that they were forced to make... as they were fighting for their own families and friends and communities.

The irony fairly drips from this statement, for the soldiers of the Confederacy were not fighting for freedom, but for slavery. What they fought against was the progressive march of bringing freedom to all, rather than preserve it for a privileged few.

If none of that is worth remembering, honoring and even celebrating, then... I honestly don't know what would be.

You cannot divorce the individual soldier from the evil of his cause. Evil causes should be denigrated - not celebrated.

_________________________________________________
*James W. Loewen, Lies Across America, pp. 41-42.

Murder Most Justifiable

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Fri, 13 May 2011 16:41:00 +0000

I recently read a debate on another blog regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden and the subsequent celebration on many American streets that followed. Both events – the killing itself, and the joyous demonstrations afterward – were topics of a spirited discussion.

I’ll address the last, first. My immediate reaction to seeing the crowds of people holding signs, dancing in the streets, and shouting patriotic chants was negative. I have a visceral dislike of unthinking patriotic fervor, and that’s initially the category into which I placed these celebrations. I still think that’s what a certain percentage of the demonstrators were: jingoistic know-littles who scream “USA! USA!” into the faces of anyone who bows in the direction of Mecca to pray and think Fox is actually a source of news.

But those weren’t the only people celebrating the death of bin Laden. There is a significant segment of the population that felt a justifiable hatred for bin Laden, and didn’t react from a knee-jerk surge of militaristic nationalism. Certainly anyone who lost friends and family in the attacks cannot be faulted for their sense of (long overdue) justice; but there is a wider circle of people – starting with citizens of New York City, and expanding to encompass the United States, and ultimately the globe – who also cannot be faulted for celebrating the demise of the world’s most identifiable face of terrorism. There were very good reasons to despise bin Laden, and there are very good reasons to rejoice in his death: his followers murdered thousands, kept many millions in a state of fear, and caused governments to curb individual freedoms in the name of national security. It doesn’t make us callous or murderous to say humanity is far better off without a bin Laden to serve either as a master-mind of, or motivating force behind, further terrorist acts by al Qaeda.

Which brings me to the act of killing of bin Laden. There are those who have a philosophical issue with simply having armed agents of the government attack and kill, rather than capture for criminal prosecution, even as horrid a creature as bin Laden. In my case, the objection isn’t as much intellectual as it is, as I’ve stated above, visceral: I have a deeply ingrained aversion to killing anything (I am generally a catch-and-release guy, even with insects). I am steadfastly opposed to the death penalty as long as there are viable alternatives to keep people safe.

In the case of Osama bin Laden, I’m not certain that a viable alternative to killing him was available. Nor am I certain that capturing him would not have exposed the world to greater risk of terrorist attacks, as I can envision multiple attempts at taking hostages by al Qaeda and its sympathizers, forcing governments to choose between releasing bin Laden or seeing innocent citizens systematically executed. Or perhaps there might have been a more elaborate plan, with a bigger target involving high explosives or chemical weapons. Or just a wave of individual suicide bombers across the world. Or maybe nothing at all. But the capture and imprisonment of bin Laden, and his continuance as a living symbol of resistance to Western culture and modernism, did probably pose a risk. For this reason alone – that bin Laden’s existence could likely lead to more murder and mayhem – it is preferable that one guilty man should be executed rather than to allow any number of innocents to be killed.

But then there’s this: bin Laden simply deserved to die for his crimes. Yes, I am still personally opposed to killing, particularly state-sponsored killing. Yet bin Laden’s crimes were so heinous, and his ideology so dehumanizing and extreme, that there was no way to “rehabilitate” him. While I personally would have been unable to pull the trigger – again, because it is simply contrary to my nature to do so – I do not at all regret the fact that someone else was able to put a bullet through his brain. Nor do I deny the legitimacy of the cathartic relief felt by millions at his death.

One final note: this intellectual recognition of the necessity of violence to achieve a wanted end doesn’t end with bin Laden (and this is the point I’m actually trying to convey in this post). For instance: there have been times throughout history when the oppressed have risen in violent revolution against their oppressors. On these occasions, blood has been spilled, and those who have committed great evil against the people have been slain. And I think such actions are completely justified. Victims have a right to put an end to their victimization, and they also have the right to put an end to their victimizers, and the right to the celebrate their liberation. This is true of killing stateless terrorists; it is equally true of killing terrorists who control states.

“When in the course of human events…”

Hope, Part II: It Starts Out Bad, But Gets Better

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:13:00 +0000

What is the solution to the crisis of democracy in the United States? Is there no chance for us to reverse our slide into corporate fascism?

By nature, I am a pessimist. That is to say, whether the glass is half full or half empty doesn’t matter because what’s in the glass is usually poisonous. So my gut instinct is to respond with a loud “Hell no!” and return to placidly sipping a gin and tonic.

But my task was to find reason to hope. Which may require more gin and tonic.

I’m pretty certain that the days of the United States as the preeminent world power are numbered. The U.S. economy simply cannot sustain itself at its current level of pure consumption with very little production – that is, we are nation built upon gluttony, which is fine if you’re also a world-class athlete with a hyper metabolism. But as an economic power the U.S. is flabby – we produce next to nothing ourselves – yet we continue to suck in an inordinate amount of the world’s resources, particularly energy, to feed our addiction to easy living. Obesity isn’t just an affliction of the individual American; our economy is likewise overweight, our infrastructure – the nation’s arteries – are “hardening”, our industrial muscle is sagging, our collective brainpower is showing signs of dementia. As an empire, the United States has entered middle age. Certainly our libido is still robust – that is, our military is still capable of defeating any other on the planet. And we certainly do like to drop our bombs pretty regularly, as George Carlin pointed out in the 90s.

from “Jammin’ in New York”

So, yes, the United States is growing old (despite the Obama comb-over and the occasional dose of military-adventure Viagra). Worse, the U.S. is growing paranoid, and as a result our individual freedoms are being eroded at home while we murder those we think might harm us, eventually, overseas. The U.S. Congress is like an old schizophrenic, arguing with himself over trivialities while nodding approvingly as corporate thieves carry the stereo out the window.

Oops! It appears I’ve gone off-track. This post was supposed to offer hope.

There is reason to be optimistic. For instance, I believe that Barack Obama was elected for the best reasons – despite the fact that he hasn’t lived up to the expectations of many who voted for him. Obama’s candidacy tapped into the latent progressive steam that flows beneath the center-right crust of the American body politic. (It’s partly his, and partly our, fault for him not fully tapping that wellspring of liberalism, but oh well.) I firmly believe that America is, at its core, an experiment in individual liberty tempered by a sense of social justice; that there are enough people of good will who, if forced to wake up, can beat back the worst aspects of conservatism that now hold far too much power in our country. The election of Obama was a vote for moving forward, not backward – and that is reason to be optimistic.

I see reason for optimism in the continued spread of information technology, so that motivated individuals can do the work that many mainstream media outlets can no longer, or now refuse to, perform: that of being the watchdogs of democracy. There is nothing more hateful to a government than the free flow of information – as any authoritarian knows, control of the media is as important as control of the army. The attempts by both Republican and Democratic Presidents to keep more and more secrets is generating a backlash that may eventually lead to a more open and, in Obama’s (unfulfilled) words, “transparent” government.

The fact that we are a nation of immigrants can only lead to better things. The more diverse we are, the more open to difference we allow ourselves to be, the more likely it is that we will find a way toward that middle ground that is uniquely American. Being American is to be forged of an alloy; as steel is stronger than iron, so too have we been stronger for our ability to incorporate peoples from all other parts of the world into a nation where it is possible (albeit after overcoming hurdles of varying types) for the individual to excel, regardless of his or her background.*

Finally, the recent unpleasantness in Wisconsin, pitting the unions against the undemocratic power-grab by Governor Adams and his Republican enablers in the state house, may presage the liberal equivalent of the Tea Party (except that it will actually be a populist grassroots movement, and not a pro-business populist front created by the Koch brothers). A popular uprising by the lower, working, and middle classes against the continuing outrages of the wealthy is possibly the only way to bring meaningful change to the country. And that may be the best hope of all.

So there are reasons to hope. True, these are mere glints of goodness in an otherwise murky fog of American apathy and forgetfulness. But it may be that there are just enough people concerned with the future of the country to actually force those changes that ensure that the country does, indeed, have a future.

_____________________________________________

* Yes, I’m probably referring more to the unrealized ideal, than the reality.

Hope, Part I: Not At The Moment. But How About A Cookie?

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:34:00 +0000

Twice during the last week I have been placed in the uncomfortable (and contradictory, according to my nature) position of having to defend the goodness of my fellow human being. I can’t admit to having much success with the first instance, and must concede complete defeat in the case of the second. It’s this last discussion I wish to address in this post.

After enumerating the many ills of American society, my friend asked (at two separate points) if I could offer him “just one thing, one thing, to hope for.” I couldn’t honestly think of anything at that moment, and my response was that he was “searching for a lump of gold in a coal mine.” (Or should I have said he was looking to get blood from a stone? Use whatever geologically- or mineralogically-based metaphor you find appropriate.)

My friend was very disappointed – by President Obama, by his fellow Americans, by the failure of the Left. Indeed, he said more than once that “there is no Left” in America – there are only Right-leaning Centrists, represented by the Democratic Party, and the Right, represented by the ~~Conservative Christofascist Corporate Straight White People’s~~ Republican Party. His was a complaint I am beginning to hear more often from friends and co-workers, who feel that there is no one who speaks for them – and more importantly, no one who speaks for the poor or the middle- and working-class.

He was dismayed by the performance of Barack Obama. I don’t share his sense of betrayal; in truth, I didn’t expect Obama to be anything close to the agent of radical change this country needs to reverse its slide into the abyss of corporate fascism. (There’s no way I can think of that a truly strong proponent of real change can currently be elected by our somnambulant populace). In my friend’s opinion the mediocre healthcare reform measure that was finally passed after long months of torturous political sausage-making was a failure of Obama’s campaign promise to provide healthcare to all – whereas I knew that the existing political establishment, of which Obama is certainly a member, had no intention of ever setting up anything close to what is really needed: a government-run and taxpayer-funded national health insurance program. But Obama is an incrementalist (people such as myself dearly wish that he was one-tenth the fire-breathing socialist revolutionary the right-wing dittoheads portray him as), meaning that he would rather negotiate a compromise that suits no one in favor of actually picking a side that might alienate the Republican half of the country. He is fond of reminding us that he is President of all Americans, be they liberal or conservative. What he refuses to recognize is that many conservatives and Republicans do not consider Obama their President, and have never had any desire other than to see his administration delegitimized and he himself driven out of the White House in some D. W. Griffith-inspired scene of white redemption.

My friend believes that the American people are lost in a fog of media-induced idiocy, anesthetized by pop culture, mesmerized by high-tech gadgets, and rendered immobile by the obesity that c0mes from eating sugar and fat by the bucketful seven meals per day, like a Hobbit with an unfortunate glandular condition. On this point I agree with him, although we likely disagree as to which side – the corporate producers or the individual consumers – bear the lion’s share of responsibility for this sorry state of affairs. Whatever the reasons for the our inability to see beyond the narrow limits of our own self-gratification, the fact remains that we have allowed our leaders to hijack what should be our republic – for their own benefit, for the benefit of big business, for the benefit of the wealthy few, who dine in the manner of 18th-century French nobility while the vast majority are given fewer and fewer crumbs.

The warriors of social progress – the Left in all its myriad guises – have largely disappeared. Avowed socialists (of whom Bernie Sanders is a lone, if persistent, spokesperson), environmentalists, civil rights activists, union members, even Kennedy-esque “limousine liberals” are few in number and mostly powerless. Our political discourse is forced through corporate-controlled media filters, where accuracy is discarded in favor of conflict, and advocacy for the powerless has been replaced by kowtowing to the powerful. Surely the interests of the elite have always been served – for instance, broadcast news has always had a business segment (including the day’s stock market fluctuations) but have never had a regular segment on labor – but never before has the media become so subservient to the ministers of government and the solons of Wall Street. Rather than being the watchdogs of our democracy, modern news organizations are the lapdogs of the aristocracy.

We have become complacent, and fat, and stupid. We didn’t care whether or not the election of 2000 was stolen; we didn’t care when the leader who came out of that election led us into not one, but two wars while at the same time cutting the taxes of the very corporations who stood to gain the most from the conflicts; we don’t care that those same corporations now effectively run our “democratic” government, and will continue to promote legislation that turns back two hundred years of advancement, earned by the sweat of the middle and working classes, so that the corporate elite might see their already-obscene profits reach unto the heavens, a Tower of Babel where the Fortune 500 become a new pantheon of demi-gods. Yahweh is dead; long live Mammon!

That’s the bad news. Is there any possible way to offer hope to my friend? Yes, there is – and I’ll make that my task in Part II.

Comrades! Let Us Sing “La Marseillaise”!

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:52:00 +0000

I was posting a response to a friend on Facebook (who brought up Ford Motors in an example of union busting) when I wrote this. When you read it, imagine someone standing behind a podium, repeatedly slamming his hand down upon it for emphasis. (Yes, I’m inordinately proud of this, so I’m blowing my own horn.)

Ford, like any other large corporation, would deny its workers the crumbs they've earned while lavishing outlandish compensation to its top-tier executives. The economic aristocracy in the United States, having never felt the edge of a guillotine blade released by the hands of their formerly-oppressed wage-slaves, feel safe in continuing to find ways to squeeze every possible penny out of the working class, denying millions such necessities such as basic, affordable health care in favor of a few being able to stuff their overseas bank accounts with piles of unearned cash. The American middle class - already smaller as a percentage of the population than is found in most Western nations - continues to shrink, partly because they are so easily distracted by the wealthy elites. "Lost your professional job and now working at McDonald's? Too bad. Oh, look over there - a woman trying to get an abortion!" Americans, historically ignorant due to the orchestrated failure of our public education system (an educated populace is not favored by the wealthy elites), are drawn to Shiny Things, and the elites know it. So we continue to run after the bait while the upper crust keep accumulating more and more wealth, more and more power, to the detriment of the majority. Our democracy collapses, our communities are impoverished, but thank god we can still watch American Idol and Two and a Half Men on television and stuff our faces with tacos and Big Macs.

Bread and circuses worked two thousand years ago. Fast food and cable television serve the same purpose today.

Forget about paying me to write speeches. I’d pay any politician in America to say this in front of the news cameras. Hell, I can spare $10.

Religion Creates Martyrs… Out Of Liberal Secularists

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:04:00 +0000

Meanwhile, over in Pakistan…

The governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by one of his own security guards on January 4th. Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the guard who used his AK-47 to pump 27 bullets into Taseer after the governor was returning from lunch, surrendered peacefully – probably because he sees himself as a living, shining symbol for pious conservative Muslims, more valuable alive than dead.

Taseer drew the ire of hard line Islamists by opposing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, particularly in the case of a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, convicted of defaming Muhammad during an argument with her neighbors over a glass of water (really? A glass of water?). Because Taseer was, by all appearances, a relatively rational human being (and, as it turns out, uncommonly courageous), he spoke out against those sections of Pakistan’s criminal code that allowed a court to condemn Ms Bibi to death by hanging.

Unfortunately rationality and human decency are among the very first characteristics that are expunged by devotion to conservative religious beliefs. Thus, it made perfect sense in Qadri’s narrowly-defined version of reality for him to pick up his rifle, aim it at his employer, and give Governor Taseer a terminal case of after-lunch indigestion.

Because God needs the help of fanatics. With guns. And no sense of humanity.

Pakistan is a theocratic state: its Constitution declares the country to be officially Muslim and its legal code is required to conform to the dictates of a group of religious advisors (the Federal Shariat Court). The struggle for liberalism, however, continues, and which way Pakistan will go – forward into a progressive democratic future, or backward into a fundamentalist Dark Age – is going to have a profound effect on the future of southern Asia, if for no other reason than that Pakistan has The Bomb. A nuclear Iran may be a problem in five years; Pakistan could be a problem today.

Tomorrow, the U.S. House of Representatives will begin with a reading of the Constitution. Many within the majority Republican caucus would welcome a more prominent role for religion – particularly conservative Christianity – in our government. One hopes that they will actually pay attention to the words found within the Constitution – particularly those that separate church from state (and state from church) and declare that no religious test shall be imposed on government officials – and take note of the following words that are absent: God and Jesus. For the framers were well aware of the consequences of government-sanctioned piety.

Sadly, so was Governor Taseer, who Tweeted on December 31: "I was under huge pressure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I'm the last man standing." In America, I am still waiting for the first influential man or woman to stand up and be counted against the dangers of religious government.

And Now, A Message From The Godless

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:52:00 +0000

We, at the World Atheist Conference: “Gods and Politics”, held in Copenhagen from 18 to 20 June 2010, hereby declare as follows:

We recognize the unlimited right to freedom of conscience, religion and belief, and that freedom to practice one’s religion should be limited only by the need to respect the rights of others.
We submit that public policy should be informed by evidence and reason, not by dogma.
We assert the need for a society based on democracy, human rights and the rule of law. History has shown that the most successful societies are the most secular.
We assert that the only equitable system of government in a democratic society is based on secularism: state neutrality in matters of religion or belief, favoring none and discriminating against none.
We assert that private conduct, which respects the rights of others should not be the subject of legal sanction or government concern.
We affirm the right of believers and non-believers alike to participate in public life and their right to equality of treatment in the democratic process.
We affirm the right to freedom of expression for all, subject to limitations only as prescribed in international law – laws which all governments should respect and enforce. We reject all blasphemy laws and restrictions on the right to criticize religion or nonreligious life stances.
We assert the principle of one law for all, with no special treatment for minority communities, and no jurisdiction for religious courts for the settlement of civil matters or family disputes.
We reject all discrimination in employment (other than for religious leaders) and the provision of social services on the grounds of race, religion or belief, gender, class, caste or sexual orientation.
We reject any special consideration for religion in politics and public life, and oppose charitable, tax-free status and state grants for the promotion of any religion as inimical to the interests of non-believers and those of other faiths. We oppose state funding for faith schools.
We support the right to secular education, and assert the need for education in critical thinking and the distinction between faith and reason as a guide to knowledge, and in the diversity of religious beliefs. We support the spirit of free inquiry and the teaching of science free from religious interference, and are opposed to indoctrination, religious or otherwise.

Adopted by the conference, Copenhagen, 20 June 2010.

Please circulate this as widely as you can among people and groups who advocate a secular society.

_____________________________________________________

Tip o’ the cap to Pharyngula and Atheist Ireland.

Sprechen Sie Adam Smith?

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:09:00 +0000

Over on Pharyngula, P Z Myers writes about the case of teacher Elizabeth Collins, who also maintains a blog where she discusses her liberal activism and the concerns she had regarding her school (she was careful not to reveal the name of the school or the names of the people in her posts). After a conservative donor to the school complained about her, she was summarily dismissed.

The discussion on Pharyngula is lively and contentious, but one particular contributor caught my eye (where he/she quotes two other contributors and expands on their points):

Posted by: Q.E.D | June 10, 2010 6:52 AM

"Our freedoms are not only violated directly by state coercion - they're also violated indirectly, through the control that employers exert over their employees. "Freedom of contract" between employer and employee is a myth, because the inequality of bargaining power between them is so great"

- Walton @ 9

and

"It seems to me that the mark that slavery has left on the US is still very visible. Employers seem to have a much greater sense of ownership of their employees (especially outside working hours) than I have seen elsewhere"

- Echidna @ 102

Conservatives in America have so [successfully] entrenched and [preferred corporate] power that it is almost impossible to question the status quo without being labeled a "commie". People, citizens, workers have yielded previously unimaginable amounts of political power to [corporations]. Most Americans think that they have a right to Privacy. That is true only if it is the [Government] doing the intrusion. [Corporations] are legally permitted to violate their employees' privacy at work and in their private lives to an extent that most Americans can't conceive of.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- attributed to Benito Mussolini

This post stood out to me for its correctly identifying one of the worst aspects of American culture: the wholesale acceptance of a capitalist-corporate ethos, extending into such fields as medicine, education, and government. We, as a society, have determined that Gordon Gekko was right:

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

This is one of the basic pillars of capitalism/libertarianism; the belief that a society made up of individuals who are looking out for no one but themselves (in terms of economic competition) will somehow lead to the ultimate in human progress and thus human happiness, because the free market just kind of works that way.

We’ve bought into this idea that no institution is free from being judged using corporate criteria. Thus, education is not meant to develop good thinkers, but to develop good workers. We show how a lack of education impacts potential earnings, but not on how it impairs critical thinking. We want to hold teachers accountable for the failures of their students and reward them for their students’ success, much as the head of a corporate department would be fired or receive a bonus depending upon the next quarter’s profit or loss.

Many of us have come to expect our politicians to make policies for the country like CEOs make policies for their businesses, while ignoring the simple fact that government is not, and was never intended to be, a profit-making enterprise. When we talk about public health care, we always address how much money it will take to fund it, but we rarely address the costs, both financial and human, of not funding it, as if bottom lines are more important than human lives.

In the case of the teacher whose firing started this discussion, many consider it perfectly reasonable for an employer to dictate what is and what is not acceptable behavior of an employee when she’s not at work. Teachers are apparently supposed to be automatons, beholden to the school district, devoid of independent thought both inside and outside of the classroom. (I find this particularly grating from having had my own problems as a liberal and an atheist in a rural North Carolina school district.)

We are very wary of attempts by the various governments we live under to limit our freedom of speech. We howl, we demonstrate, we cry foul at the merest drop of the censor’s hat. Why, then, are Americans so quiescent when the offending entity is a corporation? Had the Obama administration attempted to do what BP has done on the internet – ensuring that only BP-approved sites appear at the top of any search for “oil spill” – so that it could influence public opinion with disinformation, the halls of Congress would echo with cries of “criminal!” followed by “impeachment!” Yet corporate limits on free speech extending into our private lives are seemingly okay with us.

We need to redefine what a private interest may do in the public sphere. And we need to stop thinking about ourselves as economic units rather than as human beings – human beings who have rights that have nothing to do with how many widgets we can produce, or buy, in an hour.

The Black Golden Rule

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:41:00 +0000

British Petroleum’s gusher in the Gulf of Mexico is, without a doubt, the worst example of corporate malfeasance in several years (although it’s not hard to compile a very large list of lesser crimes committed by businesses that aren’t as sexy as BP). The environmental repercussions of this disaster will be felt for years, and include such charming possibilities as rains of benzene (a carcinogen found in raw crude) along the East coast and tornadoes of fire (highly improbable, and would look really cool, but can you imagine the horror?), never mind the certainty of wide scale destruction of coastal wetlands, the creation of oceanic dead zones, and untold millions of animals smothered, choked, strangled, and otherwise subjected to a sickening, torturous death.

What should happen to the people responsible? Prison sounds good, because the list of crimes mounts daily, topped by the incident that started this woeful tale, the explosion of the BP rig that killed eleven employees. We can begin with those deaths, and then move on from there – how many people are going to have their income “murdered” by the loss of Gulf fisheries? How many people involved in the tourist industry are going to have their economic lives dealt a serious, if not mortal, blow by the contamination of beaches? How long will it take for the ecosystem to bounce back from being inundated by toxic chemicals?

Unfortunately, it is doubtful that BP will suffer anything more than having to pay for the clean-up, the final tab likely to be in the tens of billions of dollars. Annoyingly, Federal law limits the company’s liability for payouts to individuals due to lost wages or economic hardship to a total of $75 million – which is a crime in and of itself, and indicative of why it is that no one in BP’s upper echelons will face jail time. You see, the damage you suffer, the reparations you are entitled to, and the justice you will receive depend a great deal on the color of your collar. In a nutshell: Blue = Who cares, you get diddly; White = Voter, make a token gesture; Gold = What is your bidding, sir, and what a coincidence, your collar is the same color as your parachute.

The simple fact of the matter is that there’s dollars in all that petroleum, as even a rube like Jed Clampett knew, and dollars are what makes the American political system go ‘round. If you had any doubt about it, then you’ll have to come up with a better explanation for the following:

As Congress investigated its role in the doomed Deep Horizon oil rig, Halliburton donated $17,000 to candidates running for federal office, giving money to several lawmakers on committees that have launched inquiries into the massive spill.

The Texas-based oil giant’s political action committee made 14 contributions during the month of May, according to a federal campaign report filed Wednesday — 13 to Republicans and one to a Democrat. It was the busiest donation month for Halliburton’s PAC since September 2008.

Of the 10 current members of Congress who got money from Halliburton in May, seven are on committees with oversight of the oil spill and its aftermath.

(Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38047.html#ixzz0puF8krTI )

Now, if there’s going to be any motion for subpoenas or the filing of criminal charges against Halliburton execs and friends, I wonder how those fourteen recipients will vote… hmmm…

The longer this country goes without full public financing of elections, and the outlawing of any corporate contributions to politicians, the lower it will sink into the cesspool of plutocratic toadyism, where sewage rats such as Dick Cheney cavort in hedonistic abandon. The Tea Baggers are right to want to “take their country back”; they’re just mistaken as to who controls it.

Blood of Liberty, Blood of Empire

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Mon, 31 May 2010 15:46:00 +0000

On this Memorial Day, I will…

…remember the citizen-soldiers of the Revolution, who left their jobs in the city or their farms in the country to fight for the promise of liberty and justice, only to see those promises go largely unfulfilled, and who told the moneyed class so during Shay’s Rebellion.

…remember the soldiers who were sent to fight not in defense of our country, but rather to expand it at the expense of others, wresting half of Mexico’s territory away, committing genocide against the Native Americans, and guarding the concentration camps where thousands of Filipinos died; told they were fighting for God and Country, in reality they were killing – and dying – to create an American Empire, filling foreign graves so the wealthy could fill their coffers.

…remember the 360,000 Americans who died, and the 275,000 who were wounded, between 1861 and 1865 fighting against those who defended the “right” of some human beings to own other human beings.

…remember the young soldiers who were thrown, in all of their youthful enthusiasm, against the German trenches of the Great War, their bodies ripped by barbed wire and torn apart by machine gun bullets in order to “save democracy” – only to have to do it all again, on a grander scale, twenty-three years later, with triple the lives lost, and against a foe who actually threatened to bring humanity to ruin.

…remember those soldiers who were let down by their commanders during the war in Korea, and who were slaughtered in their thousands, and who murdered millions, in Vietnam, destroying an entire country in order to “save it”, leaving only a legacy of madness and bitterness for themselves, and generations of lost limbs and death from unexploded bombs for the peoples of Southeast Asia.

…remember the thousands who died – young men and women, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers – so that oversized Americans could drive their oversized vehicles at a reasonable cost during two separate interventions in the Persian Gulf region.

…remember those places where American soldiers were sent to project American power – Central and South America (there is a very, very long list of repeated interventions), the islands of the Pacific, Japan, China, Hawaii, Colombia (creating Panama), Cuba, Vladivostok and Archangel during the Russian Revolution, Southeast Asia, and other places around the world. The boots of American marines have trod on many a foreign beach, usually to enforce “American interests” – which always seem to coincide with the interests of wealthy individuals/large corporations.

If we must fight, let us fight for the right reasons. Liberty, yes; selling opium to the Chinese, no. If you would be a patriot, remember first your duty to your fellow human being – for it has nearly always been true, that you have more in common with the enemy you see before you, than with the people telling you who to kill and where to die.

Tone Deafness

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:35:00 +0000

Today I would like to address the subject of tone.

Specifically, the way in which I (and by extension others) express my atheism in a world of faith.

Over the last few years there has been a war of words within the atheist blogosphere between the so-called New Atheists (as exemplified by the “Four Horsemen” – Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, and science bloggers such as P. Z. Myers and Jerry Coyne) and “Accommodationists” or “Framers” (as exemplified by some at the National Academies of Sciences, and science bloggers Christopher Mooney and Matt Nisbet and, to a lesser extent, the National Center for Science Education) about the way in which science confronts religious belief – or, indeed, if science should confront religious belief.

Basically, the schism began when the Four Horseman (I just really love typing that) published books that called into question the existence of gods (Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, Hitchens’ God is not Great, and Harris’ The End of Faith) and the benefits of religious belief. After years of dormancy the atheist intelligentsia had launched a new and very public assault on faith.

“Oh woe!” cried believers of all stripes, as hardcore fundamentalists and liberal spiritualists alike were dismayed by this most recent attack of the rationalist elitists. But they were not the only ones to throw the penalty flag. No, even some within the atheist/agnostic camp felt their hackles rise at the confrontational style of the New Atheists. Objections were raised on two fronts: first, there were those adherents to Stephen J. Gould’s NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria): science and religion, they said, address two different aspects of reality, and the one has nothing to say about the other (this is the official stance of the National Academies). As Gould himself put it,

Religion is too important to too many people for any dismissal or denigration of the comfort still sought by many folks from theology. I may, for example, privately suspect that papal insistence on divine infusion of the soul represents a sop to our fears, a device for maintaining a belief in human superiority within an evolutionary world offering no privileged position to any creature. But I also know that souls represent a subject outside the magisterium of science. My world cannot prove or disprove such a notion, and the concept of souls cannot threaten or impact my domain. Moreover, while I cannot personally accept the Catholic view of souls, I surely honor the metaphorical value of such a concept both for grounding moral discussion and for expressing what we most value about human potentiality: our decency, care, and all the ethical and intellectual struggles that the evolution of consciousness imposed upon us.¹

The second problem the Accommodationists identified was one of framing the issue; that is, atheist scientists were alienating an already scientifically-illiterate public with their (perceived) angry and stridently anti-God rhetoric, and if they could just be less angry and strident, they would have a good chance of recruiting liberal believers to the cause of science (since liberal believers are generally also NOMA-types). If science can be made a little more palatable to the sensibilities of the majority, so the argument goes, then it will be more likely to spread and influence more minds. The Accommodationists believe that Dawkins, Hitchens, et. al. are actually harming the very cause they claim to be championing by letting their militant atheism destroy any chance they have of persuading the spiritual public to accept rationalism. The New Atheists are frequently compared (unflatteringly) to fundamentalist religionists, too unyielding in their conviction that they alone are right, and that everyone else is too full of woo to know when they are wrong.

One incident that ignited an internet furor two years ago, and that I wrote about myself, was “Crackergate”. Some background: a Florida college student named Webster Cook attended a Catholic mass and tried to leave without consuming the Eucharist. Before he could exit the building, at least one parishioner attempted to physically pry the little round piece of unleavened bread out of his hand. The incident caused quite a stir, as freethinkers came forward to defend Cook’s bodily integrity from being assaulted over a tiny piece of bread, and Catholics bewailed the damage done to their faith:

"It is hurtful," said Father Migeul Gonzalez with the Diocese. "Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family."²

Naturally, that statement sent the atheist blogs into a frenzy: did someone just compare a cracker to a human being? Did Catholics honestly believe in transubstantiation – that a flavorless, so-thin-it’s-almost-transparent piece of bread could really be magically turned into the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth? (Yes, the Zombie Cult jokes flew like mad.)

Pharyngula’s P. Z. Myers decided to make his own statement in support of Cook. As he wrote, “It’s just a frackin’ cracker”, and while Catholics deserve respect as fellow human beings, no one is obligated to respect their religious beliefs. So Myers obtained a consecrated Eucharist wafer, put a nail through it, tossed it into his kitchen trash, took a photo, and posted it to his blog. As Myers explained,

By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity's knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.

As might be expected, the proverbial airborne excrement hit the rotating bladed cooling device. Myers was taken to task not only by Catholics and other believers, but by the Accommodationsts, who saw the stunt as another outrage that would cause even liberal-minded people of faith to regard rationalists as inconsiderate, extremist, and just plain rude. You don’t win friends by tossing the essence, if not the actual material body, of their savior into the garbage.

That was two years ago. And the debate continues over whether or not it is proper for science (and thus atheism?) to address religious beliefs.

On a personal level, I have also been lectured by others, on several occasions, about my take on the merits of critical thinking and the failings of belief in the supernatural. The language I use is called elitist or insulting; I am branded arrogant, smug, or – gasp – a fundamentalist atheist; I am told I am close-minded and judgmental.

This, then, is my response:

Bollocks.

The error being made by Accommodationists on the big stage, and those who take offense at my words on the personal stage, is that they mistake respect for a belief as equivalent to respect for a person – much as the Catholics in the above example mistake flat, tasteless biscuits for divine flesh – as I’ve mentioned above. Most of the people I know are spiritual in some sense. Some are born-again evangelical Christians, some are cafeteria Catholics, some are New Agers, some are just “open to the mysteries of existence”. Some are family members, some are friends. I love/like them in various ways. But do I respect their myriad beliefs in the many (and often mutually-exclusive) aspects of the supernatural?

NO. I. DON’T.

And let’s be clear: I don’t think they’re stupid, I don’t think they’re mentally ill, I don’t think they’re liars or bad people or psychologically damaged. And I know that there are many excellent and famous scientists in the modern age who are also religious (the most notable examples being Ken Miller and Francis Collins). Obviously, being religious doesn’t preclude one from being a genius.

However, even very intelligent people can believe very irrational things. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, believed in the Cottingley Fairies. David Irving, a historian by training and by trade, is a famous Holocaust denier. Francis Collins, the driving force behind the Human Genome Project, believes that God – and not just an ill-defined “creator force”, but the Christian God – made the universe and directed evolution with the goal of creating humans. Should we, out of respect for the individuals involved, not critically examine these beliefs?

Of course we should examine them. These are truth claims. “Fairies exist.” “The Holocaust did not happen.” “God made the universe.” These statements make specific claims about reality. The best way we know of to judge the truth of a claim is via the scientific method: to say that God gives each of us a soul is no different than to claim that the Earth sits upon the back of the World Turtle, and is equally open to scientific inquiry and critical scrutiny. When a Catholic states that the Eucharist is transformed into the literal flesh of Jesus, that, too, is a truth claim, that can be tested and verified (or falsified) through the best method we know of: the scientific method.

The Eucharist is just a cracker. The Black Stone within the Kaaba is just a rock. The Shroud of Turin was created in the Middle Ages. People are not reincarnated, contrary to the Bhagavad Gita – as far as we know. I do not owe any of these beliefs, beliefs without valid evidence, any more “respect” than I do a belief that the world is flat, or that human beings co-existed with dinosaurs. That intelligent people can (and do) believe these things doesn’t mean that critical thinking and religious belief are reconcilable; it means that we humans are very, very good at compartmentalizing. Sometimes we simply do not want to turn a rational eye on those things which give us comfort (which is why it is sometimes easy for us to scoff at the beliefs of others – that’s their binky, not ours).

So, the advertisement says a car will give us an enhanced lifestyle of consequence-free sex, good food, and exciting adventures in the Australian outback, and we say with our critical mind, “Nah, they’re just trying to sell us a car.” Then we pack ourselves and our kids off to church to hear a sermon where we are promised an eternity of happiness and light and endless concerts by angelic choirs, and we turn off our critical mind and say “Amen.”

I can’t do that now, just as I couldn’t do it years ago, when I realized my faith was an impediment to seeking the truth. I am open-minded. But I also do my best to be a critical thinker – to seek out the evidence, even when it contradicts my own desires. So no, I am not a fundamentalist – because I admit that I can be wrong. Show me another way of knowing that is superior to modern science, and I will gladly switch over to that one.

My “tone” may not be deferential enough – it certainly is irreverent – but ask yourself: shouldn’t you be more concerned with what I said, than how I said it? Yes, I can be flippant, I can poke fun, I may even make an obscene joke. I don’t do it to be cruel or because I don’t take the subject – or the person – seriously. However, I won’t shy away from pointing out what I feel to be ridiculous, and I will voice my opinion – and where necessary, back up my opinions with facts. Feel free to object, by all means – but don’t do so without some facts of your own. Because an opinion that isn’t based on evidence is not necessarily worthy of respect.

__________________________________________

¹ Wikipedia.

² WFTV.

It’s Noon; Have You Said Your State-Mandated Prayer Today?

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 19:15:00 +0000

The Obama administration has decided to appeal the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. This comes as no surprise to those of us who know that despite his many good qualities, President Obama still clings to outmoded irrational beliefs (that is, religious faith) – definitely a bad habit, as corrosive to his decisions regarding public policy as cigarette smoking has been to his lungs (and, I suspect, one of the reasons why he is moving so slowly in the promotion of equal rights for homosexuals).

The decision states:

In my view of the case law, government involvement in prayer may be consistent with the establishment clause when the government’s conduct serves a significant secular purpose and is not a “call for religious action on the part of citizens.” McCreary County, Kentucky v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, 545 U.S. 844, 877 (2005).

Unfortunately, § 119 cannot meet that test. It goes beyond mere “acknowledgment” of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context. In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience. “When the government associates one set of religious beliefs with the state and identifies nonadherents as outsiders, it encroaches upon the individual's decision about whether and
how to worship.” McCreary County, 545 U.S. at 883 (O’Connor, J., concurring).

Accordingly, I conclude that § 119 violates the establishment clause.

The men who established the United States were in many respects refugees (or the sons and grandsons of refugees) who fled from several unattractive aspects of European society. Hereditary absolutist monarchies are bad; hence our democratic form of government, with popularly elected representatives. And state-sponsored religion is bad, as it inevitably leads to the oppression of religious minorities, the suppression of “heresy”, and wars both civil and international (1787 was a mere century and a half removed from the Thirty Year’s War and the French Wars of Religion, after all); hence the inclusion of the First Amendment regarding the separation of church and state and the lack of a religious test for holding public office (in other words, if President Obama actually was, in fact, a Muslim, it simply wouldn’t matter, according to our Constitution – much to the chagrin of the religious/conservative right).

People of all religious faiths have immigrated to the United States because our Constitution holds out the promise of the greatest freedom. We have yet to live up to that promise; we may never do so. But the National Day of Prayer is a step backward, not forward. It was established during the heyday of the Red Scare (yes, this “tradition” only dates to 1952), when it wasn’t just Communism that was The Enemy, it was Godless Communism, differentiated from our God-full Capitalism, I suppose. That snake-oil huckster with the forked tongue, Billy Graham, played a big part in getting it started,* which is enough in and of itself for me to call the purpose of the statute into question. Graham wasn’t exactly concealing his desire to convert the whole of the U.S. over to his brand of fundamentalist evangelical nonsense.

I’m not fooled by those, including the Obama Administration, who try to soften the National Day of Prayer by claiming it only seeks to recognize the influence of religion on American life. That’s a load of bull. There is a subtle, but important, distinction between acknowledging the significance of religious faith in American history and actively promoting religious practice, as Justice Crabb writes:

…recognizing the importance of prayer to many people does not mean that the government may enact a statute in support of it, any more than the government may encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic.

I daresay that the vast majority of those who support a National Day of Prayer would be resentful of the U.S. government setting aside the second Tuesday in October to burn the Wicker Man. And while this ruling is likely to be overruled as a bow to public sentiment (or private religiousness), it is still painfully obvious that a state-mandated religious observance violates the very essence of the First Amendment.

___________________________________________________

*Billy’s son, Franklin, was recently denied the honor of leading the Pentagon’s 2010 observances after Graham branded Islam an “evil and wicked religion” – as if Christianity in its fundamental form is any better).

Are You Fearful, Or Ego-Driven?

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:35:00 +0000

Oh, those pesky leaks! How it makes people scramble and hem and haw and, hopefully, start the process of finger-pointing and resignations.

On February 18, Rob Bickhart, Finance Director for the Republican National Committee, made a presentation to GOP fundraisers in Boca Raton. Somehow the website Politico got a hold of the Powerpoint slides. And what do we find within?

Well, Mr. Finance Director divided GOP donors into two groups: the plebeians and the patricians. The plebes are targeted for the cheap, mass-production direct marketing approach, and in order to get them to give, fundraisers should focus on the fact that they are “reactionary”, have “extreme negative feelings toward (the) existing Administration”, and they are motivated by “fear”. The patricians (i.e., the wealthy donors), on the other hand, need to be approached in a more personal way, and be promised “access” because they are “ego-driven”¹.

On the very next slide, we see this:

What can you sell when you don’t have the White House, the House or the Senate…?

Save the country from trending toward Socialism!

…because everyone knows Obama is a member of the Communist Party of America. Oh, wait, no he isn’t! At this point, anyone to the left of Tom DeLay looks like a collectivist to the Republicans. (For the record, the only socialist in Congress is Senator Bernie Sanders.)

That slide is followed by this ill-considered collection of images:

That’s Obama as the Joker, Speaker of the House Pelosi as Cruella DeVille, and Majority Leader Reid as… Scooby Doo? Other than appeals to racism and an adolescent focus on looks, it’s offensive because it isn’t even clever. (I think someone was using some of that “medical marijuana” when they put this slide together.)

And let’s not overlook the title of this slide: “The Evil Empire” – using the term used by Republicans to refer to the Soviet Union (back when there was a Soviet Union) – again making the “Democrats = Communists” connection. “Look out, Americans – Communist black men and their cartoonishly-ugly minions are coming for your money!”

Michael Steele, chairman of the RNC, was caught by surprise by this leaked document, and went on Faux News (what, you thought he wanted to field tough questions?) to try to explain how his underlings could insult not only the President and the leaders of the two houses of Congress, but also their own supporters.

If Democrats had been responsible for this piece of idiocy, there would be media outrage and resignations galore. But apparently the media expects Republicans to be racist, classist, and rude, so after a few days of RNC mea culpas, I expect this will just blow over – and the fearful and ego-driven will keep donating to the Republican Party.

________________________________________________

¹ See slide 29.

Now, Go Make Him A Sandwich

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:48:00 +0000

Perhaps this is “kick the South” week at the desk-that-serves-as-the-offices-of-the-Curmudgeon, but one can hardly help taking shots when the skeets just fly into one’s window with such alarming regularity.

In neighboring Virginia, there is a self-righteous pontificator named Bob Marshall, a member of that commonwealth’s legislature. He is an example of the kind of Neanderthal mentality that continues to permeate the religious conservative Southern Republican party. While speechifying about why he opposes state money going to fund Planned Parenthood, he said this:

The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children…

In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest -- and with the knowledge that they have in faith, it's been verified by a study from Virginia Commonwealth University -- first abortions, of a first pregnancy, are much more damaging to a woman than latter abortions."¹

So, special needs kids are (a) a punishment from God, and (b) specifically targeted on women who have aborted their first pregnancy. This is offensive on so many levels that I stand in awe of the wackaloonery of the people who would repeatedly vote for this guy (who is currently serving his seventh term) and who almost voted him as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2008.

See, he was voted back in even after he had this to say about not wanting to allow a woman to have an abortion after she had been raped:

Your origins should not be held against you. The woman becomes a sin-bearer of the crime, because the right of a child predominates over the embarrassment of the woman.²

See that? The psychological aftermath of rape is really nothing more than an “embarrassment”. Ain’t he just a sweet, empathetic old grandfather-type? (Assuming your idea of a grandfather-type possesses the emotional depth and physical cuddliness of a rabid porcupine who thinks mindless globs of embryonic tissue have more rights than a woman.)

I am sometimes taken to task by people who don’t like my anti-religious opinions in general, and my anti-Christian opinions in particular. My suggestion is for anyone who takes offense at my writings might be better off directing their outrage at religiously-inspired buffoons like Mr. Marshall, who claims the mantle of “Christian” while making some pretty vile pronouncements.

If you don’t want to be characterized by asshats, then confront them. Otherwise, the rest of us will just believe them when they say they’re part of your club.

____________________________________________

¹ Sources: http://www.newsleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20102220318 and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/24/AR2010022405546.html
² Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Marshall#cite_note-Equal_Rights_Gone_Wrong-7

Deh Crazies, Dey Jist Keep On A’Comin’

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:13:00 +0000

Here in North Carolina, there’s no shortage of religious paranoids running for (and winning) seats in government. Today’s wild-eyed Christian conservative nutcase: Tim D’Annunzio, running for the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District.

Republican Tim D'Aunnunzio speaks to a crowd at Jim's Guns during a $25 fundraising event Feb. 11 in which donors could shoot off a submachine gun magazine and eat barbecue. The Hoke County businessman has put $553,000 into his campaign. SHANE DUNLAP - THE FAYETTEVILLE OBSERVER

Mr. D’Annunzio is a former paratrooper, and apparently he enjoyed military life so much that upon his discharge he eventually set up a company that makes body armor for the military. As you might well imagine, with the U.S. military involved in two land wars, D’Annunzio’s company made quite a profit. He sold that off to start a company that trains skydivers. What does a hardcore rightist who believes we are in the endtimes do with all his money? Why, launch a self-funded campaign for Congress, naturally!

As we can see from his career choices, Mr. D’Annunzio is used to being sky-high. He’d have to be pretty high to write what he does on his blog, “Christ’s War” (and the name alone should tell you pretty much all you need to know about this Christian fanatic). “Christ’s War” is a hodge-podge of economic libertarian, political christo-fascism which D’Annunzio attempts to gild with passages from the Bible and from the Federalist Papers. He thinks there is a plan to destroy him. He is a numerologist. Liberals and Republicans who vote for Democratic bills are “Judases”. On the day George Tiller was murdered, he wrote:

The news media beast goes on to frame this as “ pro-lifers fear back lash”. What do we fear? Are they going to kill more children? Is Obama going to expand the reach of this death by extending and funding abortions further than he has already; to other planets? Are they going to kill each baby twice, like they do when the baby survives the abortion attempt?

The truth is this murderer lived by the sword and he died by the sword.

Now, you decide. Is mass murder good or evil? Is stopping someone who would mass murder good or evil? Is someone stopping further murders, by stopping the murderer(s), good or evil? You decide and you will be judged by your answer.¹

He proposes ‘dismantling programs such as Social Security and Medicare and putting the "50 pieces" under state control. He would abolish agencies such as the Department of Education and the IRS and replace the income tax with a "Fair Tax," or national sales levy.’²

D’Annunzio is a poster-child for why all elections should be subject to limited public funding. Because he’s made a lot of money in his military ventures, he’s able to buy a very large megaphone with which to broadcast his special brand of insanity.

But he’s a modest sort ³. He says:

I would and will debate the president on every, any, issue. He is defenseless.

He is not very intelligent.

Yeah, that’s right, you’re David and President Obama is Goliath. Only this time David doesn’t have a slingshot in his hand, he’s just holding his teeny, tiny…er… staff, and braying about how friggin’ huge it is.

Tim D’Annunzio. Please, please, please, Republicans: vote for this guy. You know you want to ⁴.

_______________________________________________________

¹ http://christswar.blogspot.com/2009/05/live-and-die-by-sword.html
² http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/02/20/1260107/candidate-expects-war-on-liberals.html
³ Sarcasm. This is sarcasm.
⁴ This is, too.

Racists and Anti-Taxers Ain’t Revolutionaries

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:29:00 +0000

All you need to know about the Tea Party can be summed up by two of the featured speakers at the movement’s convention in Nashville last week.

First, there was the execrable Tom Tancredo, who opened the ~~Munich Beer Hall~~ Nashville meeting with the following:

And then, something really odd happened, mostly because I think that we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country. People who could not even spell the word "vote," or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House, [whose] name is Barack Hussein Obama.¹

If you’re playing KKK Bingo, Tancredo may have given you a winning card:

Espousing Jim Crow-era literacy tests – check.
Slamming people who don’t speak his mayonnaise-flavored, vanilla-coated language – check.
Decrying “socialism” – check.
Throwing in a bonus dig against Muslims – check.

That’s right, Tommy One-tone, Obama’s landslide victory was due to all the dumb brown-skinned, illiterate, Spanish-speaking Communists exercising their Constitutionally-protected right to vote. Stupid Constitution!

Second, there was Sarah Palin’s word-salad performance, complete with notes written on her palm:

(AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

…which she used to answer questions that had previously been submitted to her staff for review²:

(YouTube)

…and who said things like this:

Do you love your freedom? If you love your freedom, thank the vets.

And the judiciary. And politicians, both conservative and liberal. And teachers. And citizen activists. The military defends our system from outside threats. But there are plenty of threats from the inside that have to be addressed, too, and we should recognize the efforts of those who stand up for liberty within our country. I’m getting so tired of this fetishization of our soldiers. And speaking of repugnant fetishes:

Happy Birthday, Ronald Reagan.

Ugh.

Now, in many ways, Scott Brown represents what this beautiful movement is all about.

He certainly exemplifies some of its worst aspects: white, male, and superficially tough and moral but actually rich, effete, and comfortable projecting his manhood into ~~softcore porn~~ politics.

The soul of this movement is the people—everyday Americans who grow our food and run our small businesses, and teach our kids, and fight our wars. They’re folks in small towns and cities across this great nation who saw what was happening, and they saw, and they were concerned, and they got involved. Like you, they go to town hall meetings, and they write op-eds. They run for local office. You all have the courage to stand up and speak out. You have a vision for the future—one that values conservative principles and common sense solutions.

All that to hide what she really meant to say, which is “You, like me, don’t like people of a certain color (chuckle, chuckle) who are politically slightly to the left of Attila the Hun trying to raise the taxes of the ~~rich people~~ ~~thieving corporations~~… uhm, your taxes so that they can give the money to the ~~poor~~ ~~destitute~~ unworthy layabouts.

I stand by my previous characterization of the Teabagger “movement”: it is the modern-day equivalent of the Know-Nothings, with anti-liberalism/anti-intellectualism replacing anti-Catholicism/pro-temperance. And the more I hear about them, the more I’m willing to ship the whole lot of them off to Texas where Rick Perry (and his wonderful hair) can lead them out of the Union, and let those of us who are sane get on with the business of adults, without the rantings of irrational children to distract us.

____________________________________________

¹Video at Media Matters.

² ‘Closer inspection of a photo of Sarah Palin, during a speech in which she mocked President Obama for his use of a teleprompter, reveals several notes written on her left hand. The words "Energy", "Tax" and "Lift American Spirits" are clearly visible. There's also what appears to read as "Budget cuts" with the word Budget crossed out.’ Source: The Huffington Post.

God Hates Puppies, Rainbows, and Haitians

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:24:00 +0000

Does Pat Robertson become sexually aroused every time a disaster strikes? Be it man made or natural, on any occasion where thousands of innocents lose their lives you can count on the Reverend Pat to blame the victim.

Following the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks, Robertson concurred with his bloated buddy Jerry Falwell that American “immorality” made god upset enough to allow such things to happen.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Robertson suggested that both it and the 9/11 attacks were divine retribution for our allowing legal abortions.

And now Robertson has made this statement regarding the massive earthquake that struck Haiti this week:

They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it’s a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another.

First, a nit-pick about the history: Haiti began to revolt against French rule in the 1790s and declared complete independence in 1804, during the reign of Napoleon I (Napoleon III ruled as emperor from 1851 to 1871).

Second, and more importantly, is there a doubt in any sane person’s mind that Robertson is nothing more than a purveyor of falsehoods, evil, and religiously-inspired lunacy?

Let’s look at the ramifications of what Robertson is saying here:

During the Haitian revolution, the Haitian people (apparently, every one of them) made a pact with satan. It would seem that the Haitians were unable to expel the French without supernatural assistance (this would come as a surprise to Toussaint L'ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines).
As a result of their selling their souls to the devil (exchanging iron shackles for spiritual ones), god has it out for Haitians, and has kept them in poverty for two hundred years.
Thus, the following must be true: the Haitians were better off as French slaves, because at least they were enslaved to good Christians, and then they would have been allowed to prosper and not be subject to god’s wrath in the form of earthquakes.

Do you believe that? Does anyone with half a functioning, rational brain?

I believe that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a good thing. I don’t want the government to kick Robertson’s ass off of the public airways. However, I am astonished that this Christian nutcase still has a television program (that’s broadcast nationally on the ABC Family channel, for non-existent-Christ’s sake) and enough donors to continue financing his efforts to spread bigotry and ignorance throughout the world.

Perhaps we should put some pressure on the Family Channel and the 700 Club advertisers to drop this hack. Government censorship is bad, but public disapproval and boycotts are themselves an exercise in free speech. Let’s use our free speech to tell Pat Robertson to shut the hell up.

I’d Even Put A Whoopie Cushion In The Casket

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:53:00 +0000

Oral Roberts, promulgator of lies and huckster extraordinaire, kicked the bucket the other day at the age of 91. There’s been a lively discussion on the atheist-leaning blogs I read, with a slight controversy over the tone of many posts expressing relief, if not outright joy, over the old fraud’s cessation of life functions. For example:

What a shame he wasted his brief time being a nasty old bigot and lying people out of their money. He left the world worse off.

Steps should be taken to make sure he remains dead.

Jesus prepares to receive Oral.

To quote the Hitch speaking of a similar event, "If they'd given him an enema he could be buried in a matchbox."

While I'm not glad the man died, I sure am glad that he's no longer alive.

I will not attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.¹

For most people, speaking ill of the dead is in very poor taste – unless, of course, the corpse in question belonged to someone that most people found reprehensible. For instance, I highly doubt that many Americans bowed their heads in somber reflection when they found out Hitler put a bullet through his twisted brain. And imagine the media reacting to the news of bin Laden’s demise (the more gruesome, the better, I assure you).

No, what squeamishness there is regarding Roberts’ death has to do with what Hitchens (and Dawkins) describes as the unjustified respect given to anyone or anything associated with religious faith. Because Roberts claimed (and probably believed) he was a “man of God”, we are expected to overlook his extortion of millions of dollars from his followers (remember when Oral said that if he didn’t meet his fundraising goal that God would “call him home”?), his attempts to re-marry bronze age beliefs with modern medicine, his fake faith-healings, and his promotion of the “prosperity gospel” (to be fair, it did work, but only for him).

Yet, the man who claimed he was a preacher of the word as spoken by the crucified carpenter of Canaan certainly suffered with the decline of his ministry:

Although his ministries were not implicated, the televangelist scandals of the 1980s also hurt the Roberts organisation.

The drop in donations forced him to downsize his ministry, including selling four Mercedes Benzes driven by family members and three holiday homes in California that were valued at $US4 million.² (Emphasis mine.)

The man was a hypocrite, a thief, and a manipulator. Quiet reverence? Nope. While I don’t rejoice over anyone’s death, I’ll agree with the comment above: I’m glad he’s no longer alive.

____________________________________________________

¹ Thanks to Pharyngula.

² Source: The Sydney Morning Herald.

North Carolina’s Official Bigotry

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:49:00 +0000

I’ve lived in North Carolina for almost four years, and yet I wasn’t aware of this little gem in the state constitution until today:

Article VI: SUFFRAGE AND ELIGIBILITY TO OFFICE

Sec. 8. Disqualifications for office.

The following persons shall be disqualified for office:

First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.

This came to my attention because of a controversy in Asheville, where Cecil Bothwell, an investigative reporter, author of “The Prince of War: Billy Graham’s Crusade for a Wholly Christian Empire”, and – presumably – an atheist, won a resounding victory in an election for a seat on the Asheville City Council. His opponents are claiming that Mr. Bothwell is not eligible to hold public office in North Carolina because of the constitutional article quoted above.

Now, of course Mr. Bothwell will take his place on the city council, because this provision of the North Carolina constitution is in direct violation of Article Six, Section 3 of the United States Constitution (“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”) and of the First Amendment. Federal courts have struck down such provisions in state constitutions when they’ve been argued against.

What bothers me is that people still think they can use this un-Constitutional, 12th-century bigotry in the modern day to deny an atheist the right to serve in public office.

The march of inclusion goes on, but two notable minorities – homosexuals and atheists – are still able to be discriminated against with impunity.

This whole episode in Asheville makes me want to run for office in my county, for no other reason than to really piss people off.

More Of Matthew 6:5-6, Please*

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:27:00 +0000

Ah, the holiday season in the South. As if the religiosity isn’t pushed on me enough during the rest of the year, the roughly six weeks of the Thanksgiving-Christmas period provide me with many reasons to gag on an overdose of religious (of course, specifically Christian) kool-aid.

It was bad enough when I was advised by my wife to remove my “Militant Agnostic” bumper sticker from my car before having it serviced by “Deedle” who, when he agreed to fix my brakes, handed me a business card with the name and address of his church and invited me to the next service.

It’s bad enough when one of the local craft chain stores is openly Christian, offering such wonders as TestaMints in their checkout lanes. (Yes, it’s a private business, and yes, an owner of a private business is free to stock his/her store with whatever; but don’t you think you’re potentially alienating any customer who isn’t Christian? Oh well, I’m not a businessman. I’m also no longer a customer of this particular craft store.)

It’s bad enough that nearly every time I go to the local supermarket, the checkout person thinks it’s perfectly all right to say “Have a blessed day!” as I’m handing over my cash. I have sometimes fantasized about replying with “Blessed be”, but I’m as much non-Wiccan as I am non-Christian.

I know that I am a distinct minority here in North Carolina, and especially in the rural region in which I live¹; and goodness knows that I have a particularly thin skin when it comes to religion and supernaturalism in general. But this constant, in-your-face religiosity just wears on me and makes me prone to making statements that would make me unwelcome at parties.

(Sweeping generalization warning.) I have come to understand that there are some things that people just take for granted down here. I have thus far identified three traits that my neighbors generally assume I share:

small-government, libertarian-style conservatism
Christianity
racism

and oh, my my, are they ever wrong. That they’re wrong isn’t the problem; what annoys me is that they simply assume that they can say, for example, something racist, and that because of my skin color² I’m just going to agree with them.

I think about how New England has become, over the last hundred-plus years, a place of great diversity due to immigration and its cosmopolitan economic and cultural history, whereas the American South has remained relatively insular and static. The homogeneity of the South has left people without a clue as to how offensive they can be – they aren’t sensitive to the differences between people because there aren’t that many people who are different.

I don’t go around assuming everyone else around me is an atheist, a democratic socialist, and a member of the NAACP. I don’t end every conversation with “Oh, and you know, there’s no non-Biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus, have a wonderful non-blessed day!” May I have the same consideration in return, please? Would it be so difficult to just wish me a nice day, rather than terminating our extremely brief conversation with a short prayer? (Also, please don’t think it’s okay to tell me that you aren’t going to vote for Obama because he’s… well, you know… because he’s black, and I can’t vote for a black man. No, it’s not okay to tell me that, because it means you are a… well, you know… a BIGOT.)

It may be odd for someone like me to say this, but would a little courtesy between strangers be so wrong?

_______________________________________________________

*⁵"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. ⁶But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

¹ Although definitely not alone; after I wrote a letter to the Greensboro News & Record regarding an article about a so-called psychic, I received supportive telephone calls and a letter from like-minded individuals. So I'm not the only one of my "ilk" around here.

² What "race" I am hasn't always been so easy for the locals to determine, however. Years ago, during my first ever trip to visit the in-laws, I was walking through a mall on a Sunday afternoon. The mall was packed with locals dressed in suits and colorful dresses; I was informed that these people had just gotten out of church, and a walk through the mall was the modern equivalent of a Sunday stroll. In those days I was a little thinner and had a long pony tail, and I noticed that every so often I would spy someone staring at me. I mentioned it to my wife, who noticed it too, and explained to me, "They're trying to figure out what you are. You're not exactly white, you're not black; they probably think you're Cherokee." What struck me as odd was that it was so important for people to categorize me; they thought nothing about openly staring at me while their minds worked at the appropriate racial classification.

I Do Not Like Vampirish Hams

noreply@blogger.com (The New England Curmudgeon) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:27:00 +0000

I will not be in the theaters to see “New Moon.” I didn’t watch “Twilight”, either. Nor do I care for all of the new vampire-themed shows on television.

I am sick to undeath of the saturation of the media markets with all things vampiric. And while I was always a little annoyed at the portrayal of vampires in popular culture, the combination of teenage trauma and blood-sucker self-pity makes me want to vomit up my bloody mary.

Come on now – what is a vampire? Consider:

Vampires are the animate dead. They have no circulation (a problem for those romantic vamps – how do you get an erection with no blood flow?), they don’t need to breathe, they presumably don’t have any firing neurons. A vampire has as much life in it as a two-by-four. A vampire is basically a zombie with a personality. And how attractive are zombies?
A vampire must drink the blood of other living creatures. What other entities share this trait? A type of bat, mosquitoes, leeches, ticks, fleas, and other assorted creepy crawlies. Is the vampire somehow more endearing because it looks like us?
Until recently, a vampire essentially killed his victims, and even with the new, “softer” vamps, the capability (and urge) to kill is still there. Am I to assume that if Charles Manson looked like Paul McCartney that he’d be as popular as the modern vampire?
At least up until Anne Rice, vampires still had to sleep in coffins. Yeah, that’s real romantic – to lie in the box where they put your decomposing corpse. In the old days the vampire even had to lie in a bunch of dirt from his grave. Yes, nothing says “sexy” like the smell of worm, maggot, and carrion-beetle infested, body fluid-saturated soil.

Let’s compare Count Orlok (1922) to Edward Cullen (2008): The original movie vampire was closer to the folkloric vampire – an ugly, parasitic creature that fed on the living. He had to use the power of hypnosis to charm his victims. Whereas the “Twilight” types just have to say “Hop on, baby,” and their willing victims will bare breasts as well as necks, freely and happily.

The modern vampire is a tortured, self-hating soul. Good. He should be. He is unnatural, he is animated by energies that defy scientific laws, he is a parasite that requires the life fluids of others to survive, and he corrupts the morals of otherwise upstanding young ladies (before draining them of their blood). He is not a hero. Please put him – and the rest of us – out of his misery.

Make no mistake: the vampire may be charming, he may even be sympathetic, but in the end, he is evil because he commits evil acts, and he must be destroyed (see Gary Oldman’s Dracula) – not taken as a date to the junior prom!