I'm sure the liberal media just doesn't want us to know about Afghanistan.
Also, Atrios is right about the religious opposition to torture, but you can't just cherry-pick religion when it suits you and sneer at it the rest of the time.
No problem if you stop sneering though, religion's been hijacked by a bunch of loons who think praying to the American flag is what the Republican Party God intended for people.
DA: Can you find a Newsweek there? Probably same as ours but might be a bit different. My sense of the content laws, and Canada-editions is probably decades out of date. I am, as you suggested, the voice of the Laurier administration. I'm hitching up my Bennett Waggon to have lunch with Stephen Leacock and Morley Callaghan right now.
Exclusive: Left on the cutting room floor at Newsweek was the following quote from Watson, which originally appeared right after the "huge production" remark. It was not clear at press time whether the additional quote will appear in the Director's Special Edition of this week's Newsweek.
"Plus there's that whole debate over at Unfogged about whether it's too early to perv on Hermione," said Watson. "I mean, eeewww."
Also, Atrios is right about the religious opposition to torture, but you can't just cherry-pick religion when it suits you and sneer at it the rest of the time.
Who's sneering? I, for example, am not religious. I don't believe the things that Christians (or any other theists for that manner) believe -- I disagree with them, rather than sneering at them. Nonetheless, I have a degree of intellectual understanding of what various Christian sects believe, and for most such sects, their publicly stated beliefs should be incompatible with support for, or condoning of, torture. I don't think expecting Christian political groups to step up on the issue is cherry-picking -- it's just a statement of what it takes for me to believe that whether or not I agree with them religiously, I can respect and trust them politically.
Uncharacteristically, I hope this thread goes with substance over perve. I've been wondering what the collective take on the religion/GWOT issue is since I read this post of Hilzoy's on the Bible, torture, the Traditional Values Coalition, etc. IANAC and all that, but still, I can't understand evangelicals siding with more draconian treatment of prisoners.*
*By this, I mean I understand it in the identity-politics way, but I suspect that it is incompatible with the actual content of the evangelicals' purported beliefs.
*By this, I mean I understand it in the identity-politics way, but I suspect that it is incompatible with the actual content of the evangelicals' purported beliefs.
Absent a fairly fixed sense of interpretation, is content ever stable enough to use in this sort of judgment?
Where does the religious right stand in all this? Following the revelations that the U.S. government exported prisoners to nations that have no scruples about the use of torture, I wrote to several prominent religious-right organizations. Please send me, I asked, a copy of your organization's position on the administration's use of torture. Surely, I thought, this is one issue that would allow the religious right to demonstrate its independence from the administration, for surely no one who calls himself a child of God or who professes to hear "fetal screams" could possibly countenance the use of torture. Although I didn't really expect that the religious right would climb out of the Republican Party's cozy bed over the torture of human beings, I thought perhaps they might poke out a foot and maybe wiggle a toe or two.
I can't understand evangelicals siding with more draconian treatment of prisoners
I think I know what you mean. One looks for some sort of doctrinal consistency to be able to keep from thinking that these people are simply craven, but I honestly don't see it here.
I think Tim is saying that because texts can be interpreted just about any old way, we can't say for sure that torture is incompatible with evangelicals' purported beliefs.
Try replacing the word "prisoners" with "Muslims". It becomes easier when you have 100% certainty that neither you nor anyone you love or anyone who is going to heaven has any chance of being subjected to the torture.
19: right. It's of a piece with the fact that the people who are most publically committed to "live free or die" or "freedom isn't free" or "liberty, huzzah" statements are the ones apparently most willing to give up freedoms or liberties in exchange for diminished risk. For a while I was hoping someone would macho up with an ad saying hey, we're Americans, we value our freedom more than our very lives, but whatever.
My guess is that a lot of the rank and file serious evangelicals are going to have a problem with the support of torture. The religious issues are pretty clear, and sincere believers are, I think, likely to be troubled.
I don't think that's going to have much of an effect on the political landscape, though, for two reasons. First, I think a lot of evangelical political leaders -- the Ralph Reeds of the world -- are cynical powerbrokers rather than sincere believers, and they don't get anything for breaking with the Republicans. Issues of personal loyalty will keep other evangelicals from a noisy break with the cynics.
Second, I think that the political appeal of right-wing evangelicalism (or whatever you call it) extends well out beyond churchgoing Christians. The 'red state' people I know tend to think of themselves as religious Christians, but aren't churchgoers and don't think a lot about their faith. They respect and follow evangelical political leaders, but don't necessarily have the sort of active religious opinions that would get in the way of advocating torture.
18: The evangelicals are famous for taking the text of the Bible as the Revealed Word, and it seems unlikely to me that they've simply dispensed with that belief for the purposes of becoming pro-torture. So I assume there are sufficient inconsistencies in the Bible, or at least exclusions of broader moral rules, to allow them to make a textual case for torture or a broader rule that could encompass torture. And if it's true that (a) they can make that case reasonably, and (b) Christians on our side can make the case in the other direction, what's the content on this issue that you're talking about.
LB, we've had this discussion before somewhere on here. Lemme try to say what I mean more clearly.
Religious motivations aren't always welcome in politics. This is often because they are espousing very hateful policies. Fair enough. But it would be surprisingly common, in a debate on gay marriage or abortion, to hear something like 'That's just your religious belief and it shouldn't have any place in the public domain when we're interested in rights and the good of society.'
But if you want to take a religious argument against torture seriously, that does, I think, open you to not being able to dismiss some of the other hateful arguments on the grounds that 'your religious delusion shouldn't ground a policy decision.' Presumably you're (general you) enlisting the support of religious groups because you want them to make a religous argument, and I think it is cherry-picking to say 'Religious reasons are okay here, but not here.'
On the subject of evangelicals supporting torture, it's because they're a bunch of idolators worshipping the Republican party.
a lot of the rank and file serious evangelicals are going to have a problem with the support of torture.
This seems really plausible. When I spent more time in evangelical circles (as a result of some dating-related program activities) I was impressed that a lot of people took the faith seriously and made serious efforts to understand it and to live by it. I can't imagine people like this thinking extraordinary rendition is ok.
23 is right, and excellent. Those individual consciences need leadership to organize and be effective. When it arrives, you're not likely to have seen it coming, and it's not always there when needed.
Anyway, the debate among the Fundiebots will go something like this. "Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord." The Lord made W President and talks to him. Therefore, if W says that vengeance is his, then that's the word of the Lord.
15- As an ex-evangelical, I would say that most have no more difficulty justifying this than their ardent support for the death penalty, and on the same grounds: these people had it coming. For some reason, evangelicals have decided that although it's bad for me or you to kill, it's very much okay for the state to do so in our collective defense (one of it's primary functions). Torture is arguably different, as you're not just killing someone but instead intentionally inflicting pain, and also of course since these people haven't been tried and found guilty in court, but bringing in all that I think just introduces more nuance than most evangelicals are comfortable with. Combine this with the fact that they have an instinctive trust of Bush (he prays!), and well -- if he says we're not doing anything that's really torture, and anyways certainly nothing not absolutely necessary to keep us safe, and you have your defense. Also, ever notice that it's always DEMOCRATS criticizing Bush for this? (Plus the liberal media, plus that liberal traitor John McCain.) None of those people can be trusted -- they're all proven liars, who want nothing more than to lie to you and deceive you because they hate you and they hate your faith and they hate your God and they hate America. (Their three great loves are taxes and terrorists and abortions.) Seriously, if there were anything unsavory going on, the REPUBLICAN party would be speaking up about it, since that's where all the good, God-fearing Christian folk are.
Anyway, the debate among the Fundiebots will go something like this. "Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord." The Lord made W President and talks to him. Therefore, if W says that vengeance is his, then that's the word of the Lord.
I think we also get the usual "it's not really torture" and "we only do it to the really bad guys* in order to find out where the ticking bomb is hidden" arguments as justification.
* and of course we can tell the difference between the really bad guys and the innocent guys: we only take the bad guys into custody. I mean, why would we have them in custody if they hadn't done something really, really bad?
If anyone wants further insights into the evangelical mindset, though, I'm happy to share. Seriously -- I was very committed, and know the community well.
But if you want to take a religious argument against torture seriously, that does, I think, open you to not being able to dismiss some of the other hateful arguments on the grounds that 'your religious delusion shouldn't ground a policy decision.'
I don't think atheists do want to take it seriously -- not in the sense of thinking that "God wants us to not torture" is an additional argument for not torturing within our own minds. We want to take it seriously in the sense that it is a point on which secularists and Christians can agree on goals, if not reasons (although somewhat on reasons: the atheist thinks "We should not torture because torture is cruel", the Christian thinks "We should not torture because torture is cruel and God wants us not to be cruel".)
And we want to take it seriously as an argument for convincing Christians not to support torture. I, as an atheist, can say "Christian: I disagree with you about your premises -- that God exists and the Bible is a guide to what he wants us to do. For the sake of this argument, I will accept those premises, and argue that an acceptance of those premises requires you not to support torture." If I am accurate about the nature of the Christian's premises, and make a valid argument from those premises, I should be able to convince him regardless of the fact that I explictly do not share his premises. This does not require me, to avoid inconsistency, to accept that homosexuality is an abomination because it also flows validly from the Christian's premises (assuming that it does) -- I never said I accepted those premises, just argued from them for the purpose of convincing the Christian.
On the subject of evangelicals supporting torture, it's because they're a bunch of idolators worshipping the Republican party.
This is possibly true of some big-name evangelicals, but it's not true (I think) of Joe Churchgoer.
The reason that evangelicals aren't talking about torture is that they don't know, and they don't care.
Politics, and what's happening to other people (especially non-Christians) is just not as important to them as their personal religious journey. When I asked my evangelical carpool-mate to please call his senators about the torture bill, he said, "Oh, that's terrible," and promised that he would. But he didn't know it was going on until I told him, and he won't make any further effort to find out more unless I spoon-feed it to him.
Religious opposition to torture is lacking because of a special kind of the same apathy that affects most of the electorate.
24: ok, I see that point. It just seems to me, from the outside, that the text is pretty clearly pointing in one direction rather than another, much more so than, say, on the death penalty, since there are just executions in the Bible but not a lot of just torturings.
I hope Brock is wrong, but I have little reason to think he is (cf slol's link).
"Christian: I disagree with you about your premises -- that God exists and the Bible is a guide to what he wants us to do. For the sake of this argument, I will accept those premises, and argue that an acceptance of those premises requires you not to support torture."
This is exactly right, although in my experience (datapoints: one!) it works tactically (call your senator tomorrow!) but not strategically (vote Democrat in November!).
"Difficulty of empathy, of genuinely entering into the mental and emotional values of the Middle Ages, is the final obstacle. The main barrier is, I believe, the Christian religion as it then was: the matrix and law of medieval life, omnipresent, indeed compulsory. Its insistent principle that the life of the spirit and of the afterworld as superior to the here and now, to material life on earth, is one that the modern world does not share, no matter how devout some present-day Christians may be. The rupture of this principle and its replacement by belief in the worth of the individual and of an active life not necessarily focused on God is, in fact, what created the modern world and ended the Middle Ages.
What compounds the problem is that medieval society, while professing belief in renunciation of the life of the senses, did not renounce it in practice, and no part of it less so than the Church itself. Many tried, a few succeeded, but the generality of mankind is not made for renunciation. There never was a time when more attention was given to money and possessions than in the 14th century, and its concern with the flesh was the same as at any other time. Economic man and sensual man are not suppressible." ...Barbara Tuchman, Distant Mirror
One of the funniest stories is the army of Condottieri outside Avignon, besieging the Pope, threatening to sack the city and kill all the inhabitants unless they got X million florins and forgiveness of their sins. They sincerely and passionately followed the Prince of Peace while locking the gates of cities and burning them to the ground.
The only place Tuchman fucks up is claiming some kind of difference between them and us.
You're all missing the obvious point: evangelical Christians get erections over torture. Witness the busloads of them spilling out at theaters to see one of the most realistic and graphic torture and execution films ever made, then buying copies to watch at home. Check out artistic depictions of the Crucifixion through history. Torture is completely central to the faith.
44- "endorsed coercive interrogation"? Probably nothing. But a-okay mistreatment/torture of enemies of the state is basically the whole of the Old Testament.
The goal posts will have been moved significantly from "torture" by the time the pamphlets are printed and mailed or the political endorsement is delivered. Certainly right-thinking religious people will never endorse torture, but there's no problem here, since no one is torturing anyone. It really doesn't matter what the text says about torture; the question will not come up.
LB, I really don't want to get into this 'cause I have a lot going on today. Suffice it to say that 'taking it seriously' doesn't mean 'accepting that homosexuality is an abomination.'
You're also right about the procedure. No one's saying atheists have to believe in God in order to understand Christian arguments and refute them with Christian premises. It's about whether Christian premises are useful premises to have around, and if they're the sort than can get admitted into public debate. And if they are, I don't see an easy way to draw a line that isn't with 'when I need your argument, I'll rattle your chain.'
Sort of like this. Ogged and I have an argument, and he enlists B to make a feminist point against me who he disagrees with on different grounds. But later, when B brings up a feminist point, Ogged says shush, shush, feminism isn't good grounds for argument.
I'm thinking that it's not going to do much for ogged's professed support of feminism if he only calls on B when he needs to score points. And that's sort of my beef with Atrios.
46: gah, I knew we'd have this problem of "but what OT lessons do Christians endorse" sooner or later. Maybe I'm just reading the thing through the wrong lens.
It's about whether Christian premises are useful premises to have around, and if they're the sort than can get admitted into public debate. And if they are, I don't see an easy way to draw a line that isn't with 'when I need your argument, I'll rattle your chain.'
But all the non-Christian is really doing is asking you to be consistent as regards the principles you claim to hold. He's not saying that he has those same principles, or that he should be allowed to be inconsistent on the basis of the principles he believes.
45: Torture is indeed central to Christianity; but it's pretty clear that torture by the state (Rome) is bad and evil, and those who condone it are the evilest of the evil (the blood curse). And the middle eastern guy who got tortured, along with the criminals who were tortured with him, are martyrs and saints. Really, the story of Christ's trial and execution is practically tailor-made to oppose the US patriot act: the mock trial, all of it. I'm amazed it hasn't occurred to me before, and I bet it hasn't occurred to a lot of people. A commercial or two pointing this out would make huge waves among evangelicals.
Agree with SCMT -- someone who loudly and publicly professes a set of beliefs and principles can be called upon to act on those prinicples by someone who doesn't share them.
40 pretty much gets it right and says what I'm trying to say.
Also, I think the torture/stealing/etc themes in the Old Testament are ones that a lot of theological work has been done to reconcile that with later ideas of God. So it's not as simple as 'point to a place in the Bible where there's torture, that means God likes it.'
Catholicism's position on torture would get you no torture, but the same argument against torture knocks out abortion, euthanasia, the Iraq war, and um, capitalism. It's hard to pigeonhole a religion developed by philosophers.
52: OT, but a British friend asked what "booty call" meant. I assume the notion exists in the UK by a different name ("fanny ring" or summat like tha'), but my luckless, clueless friend was no help. Anyone know?
I'm thinking that it's not going to do much for ogged's professed support of feminism if he only calls on B when he needs to score points. And that's sort of my beef with Atrios.
But I don't (and atheists of my political beliefs generally) don't support or purport to support Christianity. We tolerate it, and feel strongly that it should be tolerated and will fight for its right to be tolerated, and we can ally with Christians on issues, but we wouldn't feel bad if twenty years from now there were no Christians in the US. C-Ogged has a problem in the case you describe because he's a hypocrite -- he's saying that he's a feminist when he really isn't. If what c-ogged says, explicitly, is "I'm not a feminist, but even B, who I think you accept as a feminist authority, disagrees with you on feminist grounds here," he isn't doing anything wrong at all. His argument may be weak -- you may not accept B as an authority -- but he's not wrong or hypocritical for making it.
Also, I think the torture/stealing/etc themes in the Old Testament are ones that a lot of theological work has been done to reconcile that with later ideas of God.
Not to mention shrimp. And bacon. And the wearing of two different fabrics, etc.
All this talk of how to debate with fundamentalists (Yoo hoo, here we are! Come to Unfogged!) is somewhat interesting to we liberal, um, navel gazers. But it's a pretty pointless exercise. We shall not meet Jerry Falwell on some stage and go back and forth with pointy points and convince rational spectators. Many churches (offices, unions, gas stations) are the personal fiefs of control freaks and their flock of submissives (sorry, Tia). If we really want to combat this we're just going to have to follow Kotsko to the seminary and engage in a long campaign of infiltration. Then, when we're all pastors we can spoonfeed our own message one congregation at a time.
I guess I'm saying that it would be hard, if I were serious about my faith, for me to ally strongly with someone whose position is 'We tolerate you, but we wouldn't care if you disappeared, but wouldn't you mind jumping up and making this argument for us, thanks so much.'
69: What more enthusiastic attitude do you expect an atheist to have toward your religion? I mean, I expect the reverse is true -- a Christian would be not merely indifferent, but delighted, to hear that in 20 years all the atheists had become Christian.
I can see your beef in general but I don't know if it's a fair characterization of Atrios's position. He wasn't addressing himself to people whose minds he wants to change, but to people who are already Democrats and to people who presumably do oppose torture. So he's saying, "guys, tactically, this would be a good thing to talk about," not, "guys, given your premises, these conclusions should follow."
I don't know what the right attitude is, LB, but I know enough people who vote Republican, knowing all of the shit that the party pulls, because the Democrats are hostile to religion. Presumably, the Republican party has some atheists and manages not to have the same vibe.
but I know enough people who vote Republican, knowing all of the shit that the party pulls, because the Democrats are hostile to religion.
There's a little bit of chicken-egging going on here. I'm not sure that Democrats as a whole are hostile to religion. And those that are usually have some specific religious policy or tendency at which to point when explaining their hostility.
But mostly I doubt that Dems are hostile to religion.
Hate that I missed the perving on Herminone thread. I had a crush on her in the first movie, when she dissed Ron in the rail carriage en route to Hogwarts.
Not a sexual crush, of course, but a crush nonetheless. Bossy girls are a weakness of mine.
--As for Christians and torture, the fundie evangelicals are so deep into their us/them mode, they can't even understand their own gospels any more. The idea that God is equally dissatisfied with (1) James Dobson and (2) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that they are both sinners unworthy of grace, is beyond them.
79, 81, 83: I think this stems from the fact that the Republican Party makes a concerted effort to appeal to evangelical Christians; the Democratic Party, in contrast, is not hostile to evangelical Christians per se but does take positions contrary to those many evangelical Christians hold dear, and this is interpreted by them as hostility to religion.
85: The Republican Party also takes positions contrary to those many evangelical Christians hold dear - for example, torture, and not caring even a tiny little bit about helping poor people. This isn't interpreted as hostility to religion because the Republican Party is constantly saying "We are the Christian party," and has bribed evangelical leaders into saying "Yes indeed, if you are a good honest person who finds wisdom in my radio show, there is absolutely no chance that I want you voting for the Democrats."
The Democrats try to demonstrate their goodness by good deeds, rather than good words, which obviously doesn't work.
Neiwert on Torture ...Tristero at Digby's calls out Yglesias for MY's arguments from disutility or consequentialism; some of T's commenters defended MY
Rape & Torture ...Beyerstein ponders whether attempting to argue about torture is like trying to marshall useful arguments against rape. Discussing why rape is a bad thing I think damages me.
Somebody with power comes to me and talks torture I pull my gun. Just because I can't build a political action program around that doesn't mean I am wrong.
Bushco has deliberately, intentionally put us and our opponents into this position. Pur opponents have to defend atrocity and we have to somehow, with patience and restraint and magnanimity, try to stay rational.
I'll be rational when they get their boot off my neck.
85- this is it. And note that such a "concerted effort" is something the Dems *could* do, if they wanted to. I mean, it's not like the Rep. party agenda matches the religious agenda down the line -- there're only a few areas of true overlap. (The areas of overlap seem to have grown over the last few decades, as many religious have come to associate Rep. policies -- low taxes, etc.-- with Christianity itself, although there is no necessary or historic connection there.) Dems have the latitude to play this card as effectively as the Republicans --they could be catering to religious voters, emphasing anti-poverty policies, human rights, etc. Some do, but they seem more the exception than the rule.
82 is exactly right, but why don't the Democrats have people willing to do the same? (And please don't answer with anything like honor or somesuch nonsense -- this is electoral politics, and there are plenty of cynics for both sides. A "pure" party is a losing party, guaranteed.) I can tell you the answer to this question -- they'd (mostly) not make it through the primaries, because the sorts of democratic voters who vote in primaries mostly *are* rather hostile to religion. So the Dem. Party's hostile reputation is, in that sense, not wholly undeserved.
79: 74 was brusque, but I didn't mean it to be hostile, just clear. The 'secularist hostility to religion' meme bothers me, because it seems so powerful, but the sort of behavoir that bothers you, for example, who I'm taking as the least touchy and most reasonable of believers, seems unavoidable without massive hypocrisy. Anyone who does not themselves believe in but nonetheless actively 'supports' Christianity, rather than tolerating and being willing to ally with Christians, seems to me to be a contemptible cynic. I'm hoping to hammer out a position an atheist can hold that is neither offensive to Christians nor revoltingly hypocritical.
I can tell you the answer to this question -- they'd (mostly) not make it through the primaries, because the sorts of democratic voters who vote in primaries mostly *are* rather hostile to religion.
This is just nonsense. We elect god-bothering evangelicals all the time.
Okay 91, then you tell me your answer to the question. I stated that in strong language, but should have made clear it was only a hypothesis. Off the top of my head, even. (But I don't think it's just nonsense.)
Okay, just nonsense was rude and I'm regretting it, but what do you mean? The Democratic electorate ate up Obama telling us about the Awesome God we worship in the blue states; Clinton talked about his faith all the time... what evidence of the Democratic primary voters' hostility to religion do you see?
Heh -- 93 wasn't a response to 92; I hadn't seen 92 yet.
One thing that might be going on isn't a hostility to religion among the Democratic hard-core, but a high value for expressed religious toleration. Non-hostile secularism. I don't think there's any significant percentage of Democratic primary voters who would have a problem with an outspokenly religious candidate. I do think there's a significant percentage of Democratic primary voters, including churchgoers, who would have a real problem with rhetoric that they understood as claiming "I and other Christians are better citizens than the non-Christian due to our Christianity." It is possible that it's going to be hard to attract the evangelical vote without making those sorts of claims.
It's okay, LB. I understand you were just being rude because I'm religious and you hate me.
Look, if you're going to ask for evidence, my theory will fall apart. My only evidence is the fact that the Democratic party does not seem to make a concerted effort to embrace the Christian community. Which is something they would normally be expected to do in an electoral system, as Christians are a significant presence in this country (for better or for worse). Obama is an exception, as was Clinton, and Carter too. And plenty of others. But that's somewhat beside the point, as I think even you'd admit that the Republicans do much more active courting of the Christian community. (Right?)
the Democratic party does not seem to make a concerted effort to embrace the Christian community.
This seems like a good explanation. By and large, all Dems can offer Christians (and, in particular, evangelical Christians) are allies. Republicans can offer Brothers in Christ. If your faith is sufficiently important to you, the choice seems clear.
But that's somewhat beside the point, as I think even you'd admit that the Republicans do much more active courting of the Christian community.
I am literally unsure on this point. Republicans have closer relationships with the evangelical community -- there are more Republican Christian organization than Democratic Christian organizations. It's my sense that the Democrats do put a fair amount of effort into outreach to religious groups -- they just have an uphill battle as far as results go.
This is the program, and I can think of examples going back centuries.
The "Right" says or does something outrageous, offensive, illogical, unsupportable. Their followers are forced out of reason into emotion, appeals to and the comfort of tribal loyalty.
The opponents(us, the left) are forced to devalue and reject their own feelings, to rationalize and intellectualize their positions. They say:"Bush is a strong leader" We get all empirical, and say:"Dude, the evidence really does not support that assertion."
We get depressed. desperate, frustrated, withdrawn. Senators remain silent during torture debates.
Maybe I could go throught those threads of ogged and Tia to see what's going on in the torture debate. Maybe I should take another look at the "ten points."
100: We probably ought to bother to define our terms. We're good with African-American Christians, I assume we own the Episcopals, and, as I understand it, we used to be quite good with Catholics. We suck with evangelicals. And that might be just the way it is.
101 - okay Apo. I accept the statement exactly as you've written it. Given that this is a very significant electoral block, why don't the Dems do more to court it?
(Cynically, if necessary. Not all of the Republican courtship is heartfelt, I can assure you.)
when there's a "perception of X" that makes the Democrats look bad, we can't assume X. Maybe we just have to change a false perception.
On the other hand, as an individual I'm hostile to religion, and I'm a Democrat. If there are people who will vote for Bush, knowing what he is, because someone like me is a Democrat, what should we think then?
On the one hand, I think that they're being deluded and used. And frankly, they seem like hypersensitive, silly, intolerant tools. I absolutely don't run the Democratic party. Even Kos and Armstrong barely spoke to me when I met them.
As far as Obama goes, he's made a lot of noise about his faith, and people like Atrios and I have found it annoying, but we let it pass, pretty much, even though it's Liebermanesque. So Atrios is saying, "Fine, Obama. You're a Democrat, I'm a Democrat, here's a place where we can agree. Here's a chance for your faith to do some good." I can't see a problem with that.
As for the evangelicals, it's hard to underestimate their limited horizon, their fear, the way they can cherrypick the Bible, and in many cases their smug self-satisfaction. They have the angry God, the destruction of Sodom, and so on to draw on.
As I've said in the past: Christians will be judged too. (A lot of them feel exempt because they're saved, like Jesus is their connection in the county courthouse).
And some Christians, but not all, can be saved. Go ye therefore.
When this, violence and christianity, was brought up on Real Time with Bill Mahr, the christian Fox News lady brought up Revelations. Evangelicals are really big on that book, I understand.
Yeah, the Dems have much of the atheist vote locked up, so we get the hostility rap. But it's more than that. The fundies are not just the only true Christians, they're the only true Americans (same thing?).
Like the letter to the editor I never wrote: no we don't hate America, John Q. Letterwriter. We hate you. You're fucking up our country. Please stop.
95:"Look, if you're going to ask for evidence, my theory will fall apart." ...BL
Bob, all-meta, all the time. Even started talking about myself in third person.
Hermione:Natalie Portman went off to college. Ms Watson might be wise, I wouldn't give up the years 15-20 for a million pounds, especially if I already had a million pounds. I suspect she will regret either decision for the rest of her life.
Given that this is a very significant electoral block, why don't the Dems do more to court it?
They do a fair amount of courting, but there are some tactics that would give them trouble with their base. What I said in 94 -- anything that conveys that Christians are necessarily better citizens than non-Christians? That's going to be a problem. And a lot of the symbolic issues: 'Under God' in the pledge, the Ten Commandments in the courtroom, fall into that category. There's no reason to fight for them unless Christianity is a necessary aid to civic virtue. If Democrats are ideologically locked out of that position (and I think we are), then while we don't have to care a lot about these issues -- ignoring them is fine -- once anyone's fighting about it, we can't consistently be on the "Christianity=civic virtue" side.
Of course then Bradley Whitford asked her if she really believed in the literal truth of teh bible (she did) and then whether Dick Cheney was going to hell or was the camel going through the needle's eye. She was stumped. Hilarious!
This seems like a good explanation. By and large, all Dems can offer Christians (and, in particular, evangelical Christians) are allies. Republicans can offer Brothers in Christ. If your faith is sufficiently important to you, the choice seems clear.
This is pretty much it. I think I have a better response to LB's 74 now, and I don't think it requires an atheist to be hypocritical. It's just that toleration is an awfully weak endorsement. I can tolerate someone or something I find repulsive. I ain't gonna vote for someone who finds me repulsive.
And while the Republican leadership I'm sure is just as cynical, there's a difference between 'We respect and value your beliefs and hope you contribute in society by turning those good beliefs into votes and policies, and we'll be allies whenever our coalitions overlap' and 'We'll tolerate you, but you're really not welcome here.' I think the Dems could sell the former successfully.
We're not going to win over evangelicals, but fuck them, we don't need them and we won't get them. I'm thinking here mostly of my home parish. Lots of people that are moderately religious: use birth control, go to Sunday Mass, try to be nice, not particularly anti-SSM but not foaming against it, concerned about the Iraq war but not sure what to think, want their kids to use condoms but aren't sure they want the schools to promote it but could probably be talked around to it.
These guys are voting Republican. Why? Because good religious people vote Republican. Because the Democrats are anti-religion. Stupid, maybe, but that's how I see it, and I really think that the moderate religious vote is completely winnable.
Evangelical Christians have certain policy preferences. They vote for pro-life candidates. The "respect" issues are a sideshow. It isn't a matter of outreach, Evangelical Christians are not going to seriously consider switching parties until democrats switch their policies.
This would be stupid for democrats to do. For one reason, there are more pro-choice voters than pro-life voters.
Cala, I know you're partly kidding but I ain't gonna vote for someone who finds me repulsive
is that "theater-critic politics" that so upsets me. It's about policies and outcomes, and to vote in ways that lead to bad outcomes for the sake of some kind of cultural or religious solidarity seems...idunno, bad? Wrongheaded?
Competence, not ideology!
Now the oral sex!, and back to the political discussion.
If "not being willing to endorse the claim that being Christian makes you a better citizen than being non-Christian" is the same thing as "hostility to religion", then yes, that's basically what you said.
I don't see the two statements as anywhere near equivalent.
If, to not appear hostile to religion, Democrats have to endorse the position that Christianity (with a pass for observant, but not secular, Jews) is necessary to civic virtue, then that's what Democrats have a problem. I just want to get clear on what Christian believers require as a standard of non-hostility.
I don't believe that people vote based on outcomes. I am perfectly willing to accept that this is bad, wrongheaded, and stupid, and I point to the American citizenry as evidence on this point.
More charitably, a lot of people don't have strong opinions on most issues because it's sort of confusing what policy works to get what outcome. So they vote for the policies & issues by proxy, or vote on the one issue they do have a strong opinion about.
'We respect and value your beliefs and hope you contribute in society by turning those good beliefs into votes and policies, and we'll be allies whenever our coalitions overlap' and 'We'll tolerate you, but you're really not welcome here.' I think the Dems could sell the former successfully.
See, I think Democrats can do this. I think we try to do this. I think we are unfairly seen as not doing this when we actually are. I keep on bringing up all of the devout Christians Democrats elect, but it's a real thing. Of course we (as a party) don't find Christians repulsive, and it's incomprensible how you could think that we do. We adore Clinton. We treat Obama like a rock star. We elect far more devout Christians than members of any other religious or non-religious group. The toleration I'm talking about is toleration and alliance, and I'm not holding it out as something that might happen in the future, it's the current state of affairs now.
We're just committed to not claiming that being a Christian makes you a better citizen than anyone else.
White evangelicals are too deeply intertwined with Republican policy to win back at this point. It doesn't even make sense from a strictly religious standpoint - we're talking about people who are overwhelmingly pro-death penalty who worship a man who was wrongly executed - but there you have it.
To attempt to prod this thread back to the original subject, I do think liberal Christians could do a lot of good in the torture debate. Right now I think the only resistance to this abomination are secular groups like the ACLU that seem to exist to get ignored by bullet-headed thugs like Bush and McCain, and we could seriously use some fire and brimstone on our side.
We're just committed to not claiming that being a Christian makes you a better citizen than anyone else.
I don't know why I bother. Yes, that was exactly the point of everything I wrote. The Democratic party should say that Christians are better than everyone else, because that's the only viable alternative to 'We'll tolerate you, but we wouldn't care if you disappeared in twenty years.'
people who are overwhelmingly pro-death penalty who worship a man who was wrongly executed
I have heard this argument but never quite got how it should cut against pro-death penalty Christians. I mean if the death penalty had been abolished in ancient times, or even if the contemporary safeguards like habeas and appeals and stuff were in place, then no wrongful execution for Christ, so no forgiveness of Our Sins. Christianity and opposition to death-penalty reforms seem totally compatible to me.
LB, I'm not just trying to fight with you on this. I want Democrats to win! Perhaps some of your frustration is that this seems inconsistent, or illogical, or unfair. If that's it: agreed. We could all use some physical affection at this point.
Basically, 112 is right, although I for one am not at all sure the evangelical comminuty need be written off. (Though acknowledge that they are perhaps an inappropriate starting place.)
I don't think Christianity & being pro-death penalty are compatible, but the reason they aren't compatible has nothing at all to do with the Crucifixion, and the lack of Roman due process, &c.
The Democratic party should say that Christians are better than everyone else, because that's the only viable alternative to 'We'll tolerate you, but we wouldn't care if you disappeared in twenty years.'
I'm not the whole Democratic party -- I'm an atheist. There aren't a lot of us. I vote, enthusiastically, for Christians. I respect the things Christians have done on the issues I find important (e.g., the Civil Rights movement). I am a member of the Democratic Party most of whose members are Christians. It's not an organization of atheists, just one that welcomes atheists.
My attitude toward the institution of Christianity is indifferent -- it wouldn't bother me if it faded away. I don't see that you have any reason at all to find that offensive, unless it is offensive to you that I do not believe in its truth. My attitude toward the Christians I know, and work with, and am related to, and am politically allied with, is not indifferent -- it's affectionate and respectful.
I don't think Christianity & being pro-death penalty are compatible, but the reason they aren't compatible has nothing at all to do with the Crucifixion, and the lack of Roman due process, &c.
I just thought it was an obvious irony. Who Would Jesus Execute? Why, Jesus, obviously.
I am humorless, but not particularly annoyed. But I am bowing out of the major portion of this debate because frankly, I don't care that much and I'm supposed to write a chapter.
Fuck the chapter, too. Actually, pretty much fuck the world. The world can get back to me when it doesn't suck.
I mean if the death penalty had been abolished in ancient times, or even if the contemporary safeguards like habeas and appeals and stuff were in place, then no wrongful execution for Christ, so no forgiveness of Our Sins.
Or more realistically, no wrongful execution for Our Christ, and Our Christ goes on to do some other stuff, and an entire theology doesn't form around the concept of martyrdom.
125: I'm arguing with you and Cala here because I think you are asking the impossible, and that you stand in for a lot of Democrats and moderates who believe (in my opinion wrongly) that the Democratic party is, as an organization, hostile to religion.
I think you may be right that we can't get the evangelicals back, but we can get Cala's people back -- liberalish Catholics, Protestants not in strongly political denominations -- and this belief that what the Democratic party does now is hostile to religion is what's keeping us from getting them back. I don't think the Democratic party has room to embrace religion much more fervently than it does without ceasing to tolerate the non-religious and members of other religions. As an atheist, I'd like to maintain that tolerance. So I really want to change the perception that tolerating me means being hostile to religion.
Not that I'm necessarily being effective about it, but that's what I'm trying to do.
I don't believe that people vote based on outcomes. I am perfectly willing to accept that this is bad, wrongheaded, and stupid, and I point to the American citizenry as evidence on this point.
I'm with Cala on this point, except that I'm completely unwilling to (a) describe it quite this way, or (b) accept that it's stupid or wrongheaded. You elect representatives as agents. Accordingly, you want them to vote as you would, had you the time and information that they will. Using a few policy matches as a proxy for finding such agents isn't crazy. Neither is matching up core principles. It's what we all do. Pretending that this can all be resolved by reference to "competence" pretends, it seems to me, that we understand the world much better than we actually do.
Our problem, with at least some Christians, is that we disagree with them. With Catholics--eh, we should constantly decry evangelical denunciations of "papists," whether or not evangelicals actually make such an attack.
132 -- Right but if an entire theology does not form around the concept of martyrdom, then you have no Christianity, so no modern Christians, so nobody to be opposed to or in favor of the death penalty on Christian grounds.
128: I assumed since we were talking about party politics & Democratic strategy that when you said way upthread that atheists have no obligations to support the truth of Christianity that you were conflating 'atheist' and 'healthy smart Democratic party line', where everyone else was someone to be tolerated. We weren't talking about individuals. And while I don't give two goddamns if you personally don't believe in God (and I think you know that), it is different if it's the position of an organization that atheists are right, but others can be tolerated, especially when they're useful.
Now, you seem to think that the Democrats are pro-Christian enough. I'm saying that from what I've observed, that message isn't getting through to the average swing voter.
Matching up your core principles with their political speeches which completely betray their core principles is a load of shit, though, and it's exactly what is happening.
Most Christians believe Bush when he says 'we do not torture.' If the Republicans said "Yes, we support torture because it's fun!" then they probably would suffer severe repercussions.
LB, in my opinion your 128 is the most effective thing you've said, because in it you admitted your own marginality, minority status, within the party largely made of people who think and feel differently from yourself.
By contrast, See, I think Democrats can do this. I think we try to do this. I think we are unfairly seen as not doing this when we actually are. I keep on bringing up all of the devout Christians Democrats elect, but it's a real thing. Of course we (as a party) don't find Christians repulsive, and it's incomprensible how you could think that we do. We adore Clinton. We treat Obama like a rock star. We elect far more devout Christians than members of any other religious or non-religious group. The toleration I'm talking about is toleration and alliance, and I'm not holding it out as something that might happen in the future, it's the current state of affairs now... ...We're just committed to not claiming that being a Christian makes you a better citizen than anyone else
speaks for a "we" which imagines the party as being much like yourself. That party is more a wish than a fact, but a lot of people vote against that party, as if it were real, perhaps because of the vividness and passion with which you project it.
Sorry, I can see how that could have gotten confused. I was talking for myself "and atheists of my political beliefs generally", which I believe includes Atrios, and making the point that indifference to the institution of Christianity doesn't imply hostility to or revulsion for Christians.
The Democratic Party isn't an atheist party. The atheists tolerated within the party work with Christians. They ally with Christians. They vote for Christians. And the party's position on them is that they are as good citizens as Christians are.
You found Atrios's post hostile to Christianity. I think you were wrong to do so. It was written from a non-Christian perspective, but that's not hostility to Christianity. I am hoping that you and people of your political views can be convinced that people like Atrios and me aren't hostile to Christianity, and that the Democratic Party, made up overwhelmingly of Christians, doesn't become hostile to Christianity by tolerating us.
137: Now, you seem to think that the Democrats are pro-Christian enough. I'm saying that from what I've observed, that message isn't getting through to the average swing voter.
See, I don't think that this is, or ought to be, the message, which would explain why it isn't coming through. The Democratic Party is not "pro-Christian" but rather "pro-policies which ought to resonate with moral people of all faiths, as well as those whose morality is not grounded in religion".
LB, I think you might be conflating secular Christians, like myself, with (wc?) committed Christians, like those in Cala's parish. Those are two related but distinct groups, and I think most public Dems probably fall in the former category.
We probably don't have to say that Christians are better Americans. We probably don't have to say anything about Democrats at all. Just put our brand on how they like to think about theirselves. Just "You, you, you, Democrats. You, you you, Democrats."
143: Well, yes. I don't think the Democratic Party should be 'pro-Christian', in the sense of favoring Christianity over any other religion or non-religion at all. I think we should be, and are, not hostile to Christianity. I think as a matter of fact we mostly are Christians -- our elected officials overwhelmingly so. But it is not the business of the Democratic party to favor one set of religious beliefs over any other.
135: Alright, well then, a response to 124 that doesn't rely on counterfactuals:
It's silly to argue that Christians should be grateful for the institution of capital punishment for its role in the death of Jesus, because historically speaking Christians have never done anything but villify and smear everyone even tangentially involved in Jesus's death, regardless of the theological rewards of that death (see, for example, centuries' worth of persecution of the Jews, the historical villification of Judas, Caiaphas and Pilate, The Passion of the Christ, etc.). The only notable exception to this is Rome itself, which officially converted to Christianity a couple hundred years after much of the New Testament had been written. The point being: Christians do not actually, generally see the death of Jesus Christ as a good thing.
Isn't Easter supposed to be the actually good part about it? If he just died, it'd kinda be a downer. He dies and then comes back; that's why it's the feel-good religion of the millenium.
I know. Just razzing you. 135 is otherwise quite right, and it would be a pretty stupid justification for capital punishment on the grounds that Jesus was executed unjustly and therefore we must continue the tradition.
You can't go and run the massive Prison Break without dying first, so it's a sad day, but a good day, and basically four days of incessant church services.
LB, in my opinion your 128 is the most effective thing you've said, because in it you admitted your own marginality, minority status, within the party largely made of people who think and feel differently from yourself.
and it would be a pretty stupid justification for capital punishment on the grounds that Jesus was executed unjustly and therefore we must continue the tradition.
Not that I wouldn't bet that someone hasn't made it. For bizarre Biblical justifications for capital punishment, though, this is the one I hear the most often.
it would be a pretty stupid justification for capital punishment on the grounds that Jesus was executed unjustly and therefore we must continue the tradition
I was thinking more along the lines of, the state should continue to persecute the innocent in hopes that this will serve continually to expiate the sins of humanity.
157: It's still a stupid justification unless you follow the rest of the Old Testament code. And it's an even stupider justification if you try to use it in support of our current capital punishment system: 'If any man be suspected of shedding blood, and he hath not the shekels to purchase the lawyer to defend him, and be born of an unrenowned family and displayeth a dark skin tone or a mind such that he knoweth not who he ith, let his blood be shed.'
158: Not unless they're all little godlettes, too.
156, 128, et al: The reason I personally prefer the Democratic Party to the Republican Party is that, despite my marginal, minority status within the party with regard to belonging to the same religious group, the party is largely made up of people who who do not think and feel differently from myself when it comes to policy issues. And since policy issues, not religious issues, are the raison d'être of political parties, I am not in the minority on the issues that matter.
I'm pretty marginal myself, and vote for and support candidates whose policies are different, and differently motivated from my own. And while my views are also used to unfairly characterize, and slander the Democratic Party — under the name Socialism even though that doesn't describe my views either — that charge seems to have lost its bite, for the most part, even though you still hear the Republicans use it to fire up the base. Maybe the same will happen with religion.
Yeah, I'm not hostile to religion per se, but I am completely and irredeemably hostile toward the (minority) bloc of Christians that the GOP spends so much time courting. If they perceive that, their perceptions are spot on. I consider it my civic duty to keep their dirty little hands off the levers of government as much as I can.
The funny thing about the video Apo links in 162 is that it's marketed as a sort of expose -- a "gotcha" documentary, as if it was footage from inside one of the CIA's secret prisons in Afghanistan. But the camps are not secret at all, nor are they in hiding. You could attend one and they'd be very open and welcoming. (I've not attended the camp featured in the video, but several that were practically indistinguishable from it.)
I don't believe the problem lies with christians who percieve others as hostlie to religion. As far as I can see, it lies with chrisitans who insist that we should be hostlie to other religions (with a little lip service paid to judaism, sometimes), and to the non religious. What can you really expect to gain with people who are actively hostile to a secular democracy...
So Cala, what do the main Democrats (not LB) have to do to win back the people in your parish? This is a real question; I'm not sure how they're supposed to demonstrate lack of hostility to religion. Cave in on abortion? Make anti-atheist pronouncements? Is it just a matter of doing better PR about how all the Democratic Party leaders are in fact Christians except for a few Jews? (And hey, Specter.) I'm just not sure what you're saying Democrats should do to counter the perception that good religious people are Republican, when I don't know what that perception is based on.
166: Which is why redefining "Christian" around optics -- the War on Christmas and the Ten Commandments and prayer in the schools -- and issues of marginal theological relevance (which pretty much starts and ends abortion, which for decades was an issue only among Catholics, and I'm kind of shocked that nobody examining why Democrats are thought of as anti-Christian has mentioned it) rather than any kind of reference to the values espoused in the Gospels has proved to be such a winning move for the Christian right. These are emotionally resonant issues, but Democrats can't, or at least shouldn't, simply yield on these issues.
I'm not Cala, except insofar as we're all actually LB, but I'll offer some thoughts on 170: it's really tough. Because the real shift has come from the fact that religious leaders have swung hard towards the Republican side of the aisle. The parishoners are mostly just taking their cues from the man up front (who -- being their religious leader -- they trust immensely).
So what do Democrats need to do to change this perception? Get some religious leaders on their side. Catholic bishops and Cardinals. Evangelical pastors. Television evangelists. Etc. And I don't think that's going to be easy, mostly because I think the primary motivator for their collective swing towards the right has been abortion, where Democrats are obviously not willing to compromise by and large. (Abortion in recent decades. Things like gay marriage have become as or perhaps even more important in the last half-decade, although by then of course the swing was already nearly complete.) I don't know how Democrats get past this. But at the same time I don't think it's impossible. As mentioned upthread, there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the Republican party -- a feeling that all the flowers and sweet poems during courtship were really all about getting in my pants, and you never really cared for me at all you fucking bastard. Maybe that gives the Democrats an opening. But they need to stand boldly for those policies that could appeal to the religious electorate -- it's wrong to torture people, it's wrong to neglect the poor, etc. And it would help if these appeals were laced with explicitly religious rhetoric, not as a ruse but because that is rhetoric that a lot of poeple understand, and with which they identify, and that they find persuasive. (But again-- not persuasive if their pastor is saying the opposite.)
I think it's mostly PR. Maybe it would help if there were well-publicized Democratic-religious partnership initiatives on the common ground stuff that went on all the time, just not before elections. Part of the problem seems to be that the pro-life rhetoric goes on all the time, 24/7, and the Democratic counter is what, Clinton attending a church service during the campaign? It's very easy to spin that as a cheap attempt to win votes (let's clap out of time with the gospel music once every four years).
(And come on, we may love Clinton & Obama, but it's not because they go to church.)
Basically, we'd have to break the connection between 'authentically religious' and 'Republican.' And I think it would go along well with what Emerson's always saying about the Democrats organizing in between elections and keeping people on the payroll in between elections and quietly promoting the religion-friendly service stuff in between elections so that when it comes to election time, it doesn't boil down to 'Well, I don't really know about the economy, but abortion is an important moral issue to me.' but instead 'Well, I don't know about the economy, and the Democrats are authentically in line with my moral beliefs and the Republicans are for killing people.'
166: Stop calling the "Jesus freaks" behind their backs, stop bitching about Casey, and start finding politicians who sound at least mildly sincere (e.g., Clinton) when talking about either their own faith or the good works that have been the result of faith.
Yes, I realize that I'm not Cala either. Except in the sense that we are all one in Cala, and thus partake of the Calahood.
Abortion is a weird issue, but I think the Democrats could still support abortion rights and make inroads in some conservative circles.
The reason I believe this is just stupid anecdotal experience, but quite a lot of my college friends are Catholic conservatives. Several of them voted for Kerry in the last election, and their answer to 'what about abortion?' wasn't that they weren't pro-life -- they are -- but simply that what really matters is not killing babies, and that during Democratic administrations there are fewer abortions due to better, more caring economic policy (& probably birth control, but my friends are pretty practical on that front when it comes to other people, even if they all try NFP themselves.)
Were I asked, I'd say that the Democrats are too nice to Christians. But I am not likely to be asked, and a good thing too. I think that Cala's parish has a wrong impression, maybe because their priest wants them to, maybe because they read a crappy newspaper. If they're strong anti-abortionists, that might be the reason too.
I think that torture and crucifixion are wrong, and I don't believe in capital punishment in any form, but we have to face the possibility that Jesus was guilty. My feeling is that he should have been kept in custody indefinitely, in case exonerating evidence showed up proving that he neither was, nor claimed to be, the Son of God.
If he really was the Son of God, though, you might as well crucify him, because you were dog meat the minute you took him into custody.
178: The pro-life Senate candidate, I think. But how many people are bitching about that outside of the Kossodrome? Harry Reid is a pro-life Mormon -- do people hear Dems going, "hrrm hrrm, let's take that funny underweared ancestor baptiser out behind the woodshed"? Of course not (which is not to say a few pro-life politicians in high places who don't show a great deal of commitment to the cause can or should appease people for whom abortion is the most important thing to vote on).
For my dad, who voted for Carter(!), when the Democrats didn't let Bob Casey, Sr. speak at the convention in 1992 because he was pro-life, it cemented for him -- and I'm guessing a lot of other people -- that Democrats are rabidly anti-religion. For what it's worth, he's also pretty impressed by Obama.
184: It wasn't because Casey was pro-life; it's because he wanted to give a pro-life speech in contradiction of the party platform. Other pro-life politicians spoke at the convention on topics other than abortion. (Casey apparently considered running in the 1996 presidential primary; he was not a fan of Clinton.)
"Stop calling the 'Jesus freaks' behind their backs, stop bitching about Casey"
Look the Democratic Party is not going to become a lovefest. Not while I'm in it, anyway. Political parties don't really work that way. And Jesus freaks can continue to say mean things about me and mine if they want. Half the democrats do already anyway. The whole premise that hurt feelings is a major factor strikes me as way off.
Casey had opposition, but he did get the nomination. Where's the problem?
I think that the only way Democrats can change the voting pattern is to push new, different issues in front of queers and abortion. Discrediting the Republicans, which can be legitimately done from a Christian POV, is also something that will help. If the Christians go back to staying home on election day that helps us.
180- I'm fairly militantly pro-life and I voted for Kerry. (Although not, I should say, without a lot of hesitation, over this very issue.)
One thing that I think could be effective is to just take abortion off the table, even if that's a little bit disingenuous. Just repeat, again and again and again, that Mr. Elected Politician's views on abortion do not matter (or even better- that he's "personally opposed"), because it's not an electoral issue. It's been declared a fundamental right REPEATEDLY by the Supreme Court, and thus it's been taken out of Mr. Politician's hands. "So at this point, all we can do to end the plague of abortion in this country is get down on our knees and pray." And do our part to persuade our friends and neighbors, etc. It's no longer a matter of legitimate public policy, and not an issue for political debate.
Just repeat this over and over and over. Give no other answer to the question.
[Related: the fact that this is actually true (more or less) is the justification I used myself in deciding to vote for Kerry.]
184: I thought that was a myth -- didn't Casey get disinvited to speak because he refused to endorse the ticket, not because he was pro-life? I mean, he refused to endorse the ticket because they were pro-choice, but that's not anything they could have done anything about.
185: Well, if we're going to get all factual about it, my sources say that no historical Jesus who actually existed had much of anything to do with the Christian Jesus. I believe that the Biblical indictment is blasphemously claiming to be God or to have a special relationship to God.
You know, maybe he was guilty and had it coming to him. Isn't that what the Protocols tell us?
This strikes me as a better way to lose women voters than to gain evangelical ones.
Really, fuck conservative Christians and their whiny we're-so-oppressed bullshit. They aren't coming back to the Democratic Party and there's no reason to chase them. Good riddance, y'all can go hang out with the segregationists that flocked to the GOP in the 70s and 80s. Large overlap between those crowds already.
The best way to approach conservative Christians is to convince the rest of the country that the GOP is beholden to a bunch of religious nutcases cheering for a holy war. They really aren't as popular as they (or apparently, most of the people here) believe them to be.
I also wouldn't mind if Pat Robertson's screeds against Catholics received some more airplay. I have no idea why anyone Catholic would ally with that rat.
The fact remains that Mumia, known to have pro-black views, was executed. It's the "for the sake of" relation that matters here.
Also, I note with some pride and some shame that I once took a detour of moderate length for the sake of visiting Searchlight, NV, the home town of Harry Reid.
The point remains that Casey, known to represent a view at odds with liberal elite opinion, was not permitted to speak.
But the view was that he didn't support the ticket because of his disagreement with it! How would it have made sense to have him speak at the convention? The point is a silly point.
198: It's not that he "represented views at odds with liberal opinion", it's that he wanted to give a firebreathing pro-life speech. How many speakers at the 2004 Republican convention got to give stemwinders about the immorality of the Iraq War?
I'll note on the "Dems are hostile to religious people" front that when the Ted Strickland, an ordained Methodist minister, was nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, the Republican candidate Ken Blackwell and his allies at World Harvest Ministries started telling evangelicals that he wasn't really a minister and that he didn't attend church enough. When that didn't catch on, they started a rumor that he was gay and that his marriage was a sham and hinted that he was a pedophile, but that's just disgusting dirty politics; the relevant part here is that people with liberal politics, concerned with poverty and child welfare, can't be "real" Christians, and contrawise that liberals can't be real Christians. There's a website, truthabouttd.com, where you can see a checklist explaining that Strickland -- again, an ordained minister -- isn't a Christian because he's not against abortion, human cloning, and homosexuality.Who's hostile to religious people?
189: This is piling on you, and putting pressure on you, and it's unfair, but we need help from the liberal Christians like you on the PR. I'm thinking of whatsername, Amy Goodman? at Washington Monthly, who's all about scolding Democrats for being hostile to religion but she never tells us what, specifically, she wants us to do differently, or what, specifically, we did wrong. (And to the extent I've been snappy with you about this, I've been visualizing you as Amy Goodman, which is unfair of me.) And then the stuff she writes is out there as 'Even liberal Christians recognize that the Democratic party is hostile to religion.'
It would make me happy if people like you, and her, would be out there saying 'Actually, the Democratic Party isn't hostile to Christianity. That's kind of a myth.' It means a lot more from a Christian insider than from an atheist insider like me. Be the PR you want to see in the world.
But what about the Dems' unfriendliness towards professional wrestling? When they didn't let Ted Dibiase speak at the 2000 convention--despite his considerable wealth--that's when my dear old pops decided, enough with this abuse.
fuck conservative Christians...They aren't coming back to the Democratic Party and there's no reason to chase them.
Mmm.. I'm pretty sure this is wrong. In my own personal experience, conservative Christians of my generation have moved considerably left of their gen x counterparts, especially concerning matters of social justice.
I came over, for example. (Largely due to Kotsko, incidentally.)
I've been skimming this thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating or interrupting, but the Democrats have a substantive dilemma with religion. There are lots of Christians who are concerned with peace and social justice who tend to vote for Democrats. But those people tend to be more socially conservative (not crazily so, but not trivially so either), and Democrats are always trying to balance hanging on to their votes with not alienating the die-hard socially liberal base.
(It's also worth noting that evangelicals, as Republican shock troops, go out of their way to paint Democrats as anti-religion, no matter what Democrats actually do. If there's going to be Democratic PR on religion, it shouldn't be "message: I care about Christ," but increased use of words like "mercy," "compassion," and "justice." And you can talk that way about almost any issue.)
Yeah, I echo 218. (Although I don't think I'm of the same generation.) I'm not really a "Democrat", but I've certainly undergone a significant right>left shift and now vote generally democratic. Choosing between the major parties is generally about choosing who is less incompatible with my beliefs. Democrats could go a long way towards making that case to voters.
218: Yeah, I have the sense we have a few raised evangelical and conservative, now kinda leftish types around here. Brock, for one, Kotsko, AWB (she seems more of a conventional apostate, although come to think of it I don't actually know that she doesn't still think of herself as a member of her church of origin) and I think I'm missing some others. The leaders have stayed on the right, but there's a trickle of people coming over.
Who was it that was talking about leaders? They were right. I don't see why people would believe absurd-on-their-face things like Democrats being anti-Christian if they weren't being told these things by people they trust.
For Democrats to try to persuade voters that they're not anti-Christian would be a mug's game. They need trusted people to make this argument on their behalf.
226: That was my guess, but I realized that I didn't actually know. BTW, anyone who would be inclined to sympathize with AWB but hasn't looked at her blog in a bit, she's having a bad day and might appreciate some friendly comments. (Not that there aren't plenty already, but more can only help.)
Kotsko doesn't want his blog to become too Christian. I'm not the only non-Christian who posts there.
I also don't hate all Christians, except conservative political Christians when they're being aggressive and vicious, which they often are. I had tons of Christian education and can speak the language up to a point.
And in general, when people say that Democrats need to change their issues to appeal to hostile group X, or that they need to do more to appeal to hostile group X, I bridle at that.
What the Democrats need to do is get their message out more effectively, especially between elections, nominate candidates that are capable of campaigning, and create some new media along the lines of Air America..
What the Democrats need to do is get their message out more effectively, especially between elections, nominate candidates that are capable of campaigning, and create some new media along the lines of Air America.
And a pony.
(Sorry, but this AWOL on the torture bill last week has me *really* pissed off.)
The problem with the "take the abortion issue off the table" argument is that it will never work, and indeed will backfire horribly. If the Party takes an issue that has been a central plank of the platform for decades and says, "We don't have any opinion on that," it does nothing but reaffirm the Democrats' image as opportunists that don't stand for anything. In fact, it won't just be an image; it will be reality.
If abortion is the issue that trumps everything else for you at the ballot box, then you have a party: the Republicans. Democrats pretending not to have a stance on that won't change the way you vote. You'll vote for the actively anti-abortion party.
In the meantime, it's the sort of mealy-mouthed, half-assed, poll-driven stance that would likely make me give up on the Democratic Party altogether, and I'm pretty certain I wouldn't be walking out alone.
One point that was briefly addressed, but that I think has merit in re torture is that many conservative Christians are making a value judgement based on what has been presented in the press and by Amnesty Intl. as being done by "our boys" is not "torture". For example- making a video of cutting off a captive's head would qualify, whereas putting panties on a detainees head does not. Talking about habeus corpus for unlawful combatants causes a discontect for your average churchgoer, and he/ she sees the politician making that argument as not serious about GWOT. That having been said, "that which you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me." I think this is the approach that the Dems must take to be considered by the conservative religious types. The ACLU going after nativity scenes, school prayer, Waco- it's all of a piece. But my local Episcopal Church is in trouble with the IRS, so who exactly is hostile to religion?
I think maybe that's where "They got these torture techniques from Soviet Russia!" might help. It's true -- the KGB pioneered torture by sleep deprivation. And didn't Jesus basically die from having his arms pinned high, like this guy?
Maybe it requires "that which you do unto the least of me" to get around the unlawful combatants issue, although maybe it just requires publicizing that lots and lots of the torture victims are innocent.
242: See, I think those sorts of arguments are likely to make things worse, not better. My sense is that Democrats sometimes come off as smart know-it-alls who try to bludgeon people into positions through argument, and (in the past, at least) sometimes through sloppy/erroneous/appeal to authority argument. All that does is (a) make people feel slightly stupid, (b) make people suspect we're baffling them with crap while we pull something off. Result: they go with the guy they trust to be a "good guy," whether or not they agree with his policies. (I think Sommersby has written a few nice paragraphs about this phenomenon, in connection with the Clinton autobiography.)
Apo- but my point is that it *is* off the table, as a practicle matter. We can elect all the pro-life legislators in the world, and it won't do anything to make abortion illegal. Sure, they could pass a few laws to trim away at the rights along the margin, which may or may not be struck down in court, but these are mostly symbolic gestures that pro-lifers don't in their heart of hearts care about so much anyway. All the talk about abortion in election campaigns is just that -- talk -- since abortion is a judicially-recognized fundamental right. I really think *that* should be the talking point, instead of jabbering on (by both sides) about how much one does or does not support the right to choose. It doesn't fucking matter -- it's all rhetoric.
The 'that which you do unto the least of my brothers, etc' I don't think would sell well; it's sort of got the ring of 'but your god died of a bad capital punishment practice.'
But story of nice Innocent Guy Accidentally Swept Up and Tortured would appeal to the same values.
It does matter, though, Brock, because we elect people who appoint justices who decide how to interpret these rights. And I think that if the Republicans make abortion an issue and the Democrats say 'leave it to the judges', then we hear screeching about judicial activism, blahdihoho.
Maybe better to remove some of the focus on abortion by stealing the pro-family stuff. Sure, we support legal abortion. But we also want to make it so that pregnant teenagers can still go to school, have health care, make it to college, &c so they don't feel that they have to choose an abortion in order to have a fulfilling life. The Republicans force women to hide and be shamed and panic, and their idea of a fix is outlawing it and hoping it goes away.
Sleep deprivation is torture when done to Americans by non-Americans. That point shouldn't be a hard sell -- there's a lot of information out there.
Rather than taking abortion off the table, something else has to be pushed in front of it. In other words, change the terms of the argument, instead of always playing by Republican rules. Make them respond to us, instead of always responding to them.
I say this a lot, but anyway: I think that a lot of the Democratic weakness comes from the fact that the centrists were committed to their policy agendas (Israel, war, free trade) even if they meant that the Democrats would lose.
since abortion is a judicially-recognized fundamental right.
With all due respect, are you on crack? I count at least four solid anti-Roe votes on the Supreme Court right now. And the anti-choicers have done an excellent job of making abortion inaccessible to poor women in a lot of places.
246: Dude, please. We're one Supreme Court justice away from overturning Roe v. Wade. The GOP has been packing the courts for decades in preparation for the legal assault.
If Stevens stroked out tomorrow, Roe would get challenged almost immediately. Democrats would try to filibuster the nominee and the Republicans would invoke the nuclear option and install him. The Court sends the whole kit and kaboodle back to the states and the 2008 presidential election takes place amid raging abortion battles in nearly every state in the country.
Yes. As some of you know, I have issues with Obama, his reputation, and his faith, and I say that as a person of faith. Step up indeed.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 8:38 AM
Obama needs to step up and get Hermione to sign on for the rest of the series. A man of faith, indeed.
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 8:40 AM
I don't even know how to describe my reaction to that Newsweek link.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 8:48 AM
I'm sure the liberal media just doesn't want us to know about Afghanistan.
Also, Atrios is right about the religious opposition to torture, but you can't just cherry-pick religion when it suits you and sneer at it the rest of the time.
No problem if you stop sneering though, religion's been hijacked by a bunch of loons who think praying to the American flag is what
the Republican PartyGod intended for people.Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 8:56 AM
DA: Can you find a Newsweek there? Probably same as ours but might be a bit different. My sense of the content laws, and Canada-editions is probably decades out of date. I am, as you suggested, the voice of the Laurier administration. I'm hitching up my Bennett Waggon to have lunch with Stephen Leacock and Morley Callaghan right now.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 8:59 AM
Exclusive: Left on the cutting room floor at Newsweek was the following quote from Watson, which originally appeared right after the "huge production" remark. It was not clear at press time whether the additional quote will appear in the Director's Special Edition of this week's Newsweek.
"Plus there's that whole debate over at Unfogged about whether it's too early to perv on Hermione," said Watson. "I mean, eeewww."
Posted by Doug | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:04 AM
No no Doug. I told you that you didn't have much time left to perv on Hermione, and I was proved fucking right.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:05 AM
Has the logical problem with "too early to perv" been noted before, i.e. the earlier the pervier?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:06 AM
But there's acceptable and unacceptable perving.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:11 AM
I'm hitching up my Bennett Waggon to have lunch with Stephen Leacock and Morley Callaghan right now.
That was beautiful.
I'm going down to the mall later so I will definitely take note of what's on the cover here.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:12 AM
No no Doug. I told you that you didn't have much time left to perv on Hermione, and I was proved fucking right.
One can never run out of time to perv on Hermione, only on the actresses who portray her.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:16 AM
9: Acceptable perving?? Good god, man, what's the point?
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:18 AM
Also, Atrios is right about the religious opposition to torture, but you can't just cherry-pick religion when it suits you and sneer at it the rest of the time.
Who's sneering? I, for example, am not religious. I don't believe the things that Christians (or any other theists for that manner) believe -- I disagree with them, rather than sneering at them. Nonetheless, I have a degree of intellectual understanding of what various Christian sects believe, and for most such sects, their publicly stated beliefs should be incompatible with support for, or condoning of, torture. I don't think expecting Christian political groups to step up on the issue is cherry-picking -- it's just a statement of what it takes for me to believe that whether or not I agree with them religiously, I can respect and trust them politically.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:21 AM
Yes, to 13.
Posted by nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:25 AM
Uncharacteristically, I hope this thread goes with substance over perve. I've been wondering what the collective take on the religion/GWOT issue is since I read this post of Hilzoy's on the Bible, torture, the Traditional Values Coalition, etc. IANAC and all that, but still, I can't understand evangelicals siding with more draconian treatment of prisoners.*
*By this, I mean I understand it in the identity-politics way, but I suspect that it is incompatible with the actual content of the evangelicals' purported beliefs.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:27 AM
*By this, I mean I understand it in the identity-politics way, but I suspect that it is incompatible with the actual content of the evangelicals' purported beliefs.
Absent a fairly fixed sense of interpretation, is content ever stable enough to use in this sort of judgment?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:29 AM
Not likely:
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:33 AM
I don't understand, Tim.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:33 AM
I can't understand evangelicals siding with more draconian treatment of prisoners
I think I know what you mean. One looks for some sort of doctrinal consistency to be able to keep from thinking that these people are simply craven, but I honestly don't see it here.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:34 AM
I think Tim is saying that because texts can be interpreted just about any old way, we can't say for sure that torture is incompatible with evangelicals' purported beliefs.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:37 AM
Try replacing the word "prisoners" with "Muslims". It becomes easier when you have 100% certainty that neither you nor anyone you love or anyone who is going to heaven has any chance of being subjected to the torture.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:38 AM
19: right. It's of a piece with the fact that the people who are most publically committed to "live free or die" or "freedom isn't free" or "liberty, huzzah" statements are the ones apparently most willing to give up freedoms or liberties in exchange for diminished risk. For a while I was hoping someone would macho up with an ad saying hey, we're Americans, we value our freedom more than our very lives, but whatever.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:39 AM
15: Now I'm going to sneer at some people.
My guess is that a lot of the rank and file serious evangelicals are going to have a problem with the support of torture. The religious issues are pretty clear, and sincere believers are, I think, likely to be troubled.
I don't think that's going to have much of an effect on the political landscape, though, for two reasons. First, I think a lot of evangelical political leaders -- the Ralph Reeds of the world -- are cynical powerbrokers rather than sincere believers, and they don't get anything for breaking with the Republicans. Issues of personal loyalty will keep other evangelicals from a noisy break with the cynics.
Second, I think that the political appeal of right-wing evangelicalism (or whatever you call it) extends well out beyond churchgoing Christians. The 'red state' people I know tend to think of themselves as religious Christians, but aren't churchgoers and don't think a lot about their faith. They respect and follow evangelical political leaders, but don't necessarily have the sort of active religious opinions that would get in the way of advocating torture.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:39 AM
18: The evangelicals are famous for taking the text of the Bible as the Revealed Word, and it seems unlikely to me that they've simply dispensed with that belief for the purposes of becoming pro-torture. So I assume there are sufficient inconsistencies in the Bible, or at least exclusions of broader moral rules, to allow them to make a textual case for torture or a broader rule that could encompass torture. And if it's true that (a) they can make that case reasonably, and (b) Christians on our side can make the case in the other direction, what's the content on this issue that you're talking about.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:42 AM
LB, we've had this discussion before somewhere on here. Lemme try to say what I mean more clearly.
Religious motivations aren't always welcome in politics. This is often because they are espousing very hateful policies. Fair enough. But it would be surprisingly common, in a debate on gay marriage or abortion, to hear something like 'That's just your religious belief and it shouldn't have any place in the public domain when we're interested in rights and the good of society.'
But if you want to take a religious argument against torture seriously, that does, I think, open you to not being able to dismiss some of the other hateful arguments on the grounds that 'your religious delusion shouldn't ground a policy decision.' Presumably you're (general you) enlisting the support of religious groups because you want them to make a religous argument, and I think it is cherry-picking to say 'Religious reasons are okay here, but not here.'
On the subject of evangelicals supporting torture, it's because they're a bunch of idolators worshipping the Republican party.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:42 AM
Emma Watson's just trying to get more money.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:42 AM
a lot of the rank and file serious evangelicals are going to have a problem with the support of torture.
This seems really plausible. When I spent more time in evangelical circles (as a result of some dating-related program activities) I was impressed that a lot of people took the faith seriously and made serious efforts to understand it and to live by it. I can't imagine people like this thinking extraordinary rendition is ok.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:43 AM
27: I think virtually all of them would be swayed by the argument "Oh, like the Democrats would be any better."
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:44 AM
evangelicals...a bunch of idolators...
Cala, don't make me bring up your football preferences.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:45 AM
Mary, Queen of Victory, pray for us!
(Seriously.)
It's not idolatry if you have Touchdown Jesus.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:46 AM
23 is right, and excellent. Those individual consciences need leadership to organize and be effective. When it arrives, you're not likely to have seen it coming, and it's not always there when needed.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:47 AM
Dang, is it too late to perv on Obama?
Anyway, the debate among the Fundiebots will go something like this. "Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord." The Lord made W President and talks to him. Therefore, if W says that vengeance is his, then that's the word of the Lord.
Posted by Mo MacArbie | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:47 AM
Oh, and 26 is exactly right. Buzz, publicity, millions of little girls begging Hermione to stay on, etc.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:47 AM
15- As an ex-evangelical, I would say that most have no more difficulty justifying this than their ardent support for the death penalty, and on the same grounds: these people had it coming. For some reason, evangelicals have decided that although it's bad for me or you to kill, it's very much okay for the state to do so in our collective defense (one of it's primary functions). Torture is arguably different, as you're not just killing someone but instead intentionally inflicting pain, and also of course since these people haven't been tried and found guilty in court, but bringing in all that I think just introduces more nuance than most evangelicals are comfortable with. Combine this with the fact that they have an instinctive trust of Bush (he prays!), and well -- if he says we're not doing anything that's really torture, and anyways certainly nothing not absolutely necessary to keep us safe, and you have your defense. Also, ever notice that it's always DEMOCRATS criticizing Bush for this? (Plus the liberal media, plus that liberal traitor John McCain.) None of those people can be trusted -- they're all proven liars, who want nothing more than to lie to you and deceive you because they hate you and they hate your faith and they hate your God and they hate America. (Their three great loves are taxes and terrorists and abortions.) Seriously, if there were anything unsavory going on, the REPUBLICAN party would be speaking up about it, since that's where all the good, God-fearing Christian folk are.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:48 AM
Anyway, the debate among the Fundiebots will go something like this. "Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord." The Lord made W President and talks to him. Therefore, if W says that vengeance is his, then that's the word of the Lord.
I think we also get the usual "it's not really torture" and "we only do it to the really bad guys* in order to find out where the ticking bomb is hidden" arguments as justification.
* and of course we can tell the difference between the really bad guys and the innocent guys: we only take the bad guys into custody. I mean, why would we have them in custody if they hadn't done something really, really bad?
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:53 AM
I see I was badly pwned.
If anyone wants further insights into the evangelical mindset, though, I'm happy to share. Seriously -- I was very committed, and know the community well.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:54 AM
But if you want to take a religious argument against torture seriously, that does, I think, open you to not being able to dismiss some of the other hateful arguments on the grounds that 'your religious delusion shouldn't ground a policy decision.'
I don't think atheists do want to take it seriously -- not in the sense of thinking that "God wants us to not torture" is an additional argument for not torturing within our own minds. We want to take it seriously in the sense that it is a point on which secularists and Christians can agree on goals, if not reasons (although somewhat on reasons: the atheist thinks "We should not torture because torture is cruel", the Christian thinks "We should not torture because torture is cruel and God wants us not to be cruel".)
And we want to take it seriously as an argument for convincing Christians not to support torture. I, as an atheist, can say "Christian: I disagree with you about your premises -- that God exists and the Bible is a guide to what he wants us to do. For the sake of this argument, I will accept those premises, and argue that an acceptance of those premises requires you not to support torture." If I am accurate about the nature of the Christian's premises, and make a valid argument from those premises, I should be able to convince him regardless of the fact that I explictly do not share his premises. This does not require me, to avoid inconsistency, to accept that homosexuality is an abomination because it also flows validly from the Christian's premises (assuming that it does) -- I never said I accepted those premises, just argued from them for the purpose of convincing the Christian.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:57 AM
On the subject of evangelicals supporting torture, it's because they're a bunch of idolators worshipping the Republican party.
This is possibly true of some big-name evangelicals, but it's not true (I think) of Joe Churchgoer.
The reason that evangelicals aren't talking about torture is that they don't know, and they don't care.
Politics, and what's happening to other people (especially non-Christians) is just not as important to them as their personal religious journey. When I asked my evangelical carpool-mate to please call his senators about the torture bill, he said, "Oh, that's terrible," and promised that he would. But he didn't know it was going on until I told him, and he won't make any further effort to find out more unless I spoon-feed it to him.
Religious opposition to torture is lacking because of a special kind of the same apathy that affects most of the electorate.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:57 AM
24: ok, I see that point. It just seems to me, from the outside, that the text is pretty clearly pointing in one direction rather than another, much more so than, say, on the death penalty, since there are just executions in the Bible but not a lot of just torturings.
I hope Brock is wrong, but I have little reason to think he is (cf slol's link).
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 9:59 AM
"Christian: I disagree with you about your premises -- that God exists and the Bible is a guide to what he wants us to do. For the sake of this argument, I will accept those premises, and argue that an acceptance of those premises requires you not to support torture."
This is exactly right, although in my experience (datapoints: one!) it works tactically (call your senator tomorrow!) but not strategically (vote Democrat in November!).
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:00 AM
Here are some past Newsweek cover shenanigans.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:01 AM
"Difficulty of empathy, of genuinely entering into the mental and emotional values of the Middle Ages, is the final obstacle. The main barrier is, I believe, the Christian religion as it then was: the matrix and law of medieval life, omnipresent, indeed compulsory. Its insistent principle that the life of the spirit and of the afterworld as superior to the here and now, to material life on earth, is one that the modern world does not share, no matter how devout some present-day Christians may be. The rupture of this principle and its replacement by belief in the worth of the individual and of an active life not necessarily focused on God is, in fact, what created the modern world and ended the Middle Ages.
What compounds the problem is that medieval society, while professing belief in renunciation of the life of the senses, did not renounce it in practice, and no part of it less so than the Church itself. Many tried, a few succeeded, but the generality of mankind is not made for renunciation. There never was a time when more attention was given to money and possessions than in the 14th century, and its concern with the flesh was the same as at any other time. Economic man and sensual man are not suppressible." ...Barbara Tuchman, Distant Mirror
One of the funniest stories is the army of Condottieri outside Avignon, besieging the Pope, threatening to sack the city and kill all the inhabitants unless they got X million florins and forgiveness of their sins. They sincerely and passionately followed the Prince of Peace while locking the gates of cities and burning them to the ground.
The only place Tuchman fucks up is claiming some kind of difference between them and us.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:02 AM
since there are just executions in the Bible but not a lot of just torturings.
Read the Bible much?
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:02 AM
43: no, unabashedly. There's mistreatment of prisoners galore, right, but what counts as an endorsed coercive interrogation?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:04 AM
You're all missing the obvious point: evangelical Christians get erections over torture. Witness the busloads of them spilling out at theaters to see one of the most realistic and graphic torture and execution films ever made, then buying copies to watch at home. Check out artistic depictions of the Crucifixion through history. Torture is completely central to the faith.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:09 AM
44- "endorsed coercive interrogation"? Probably nothing. But a-okay mistreatment/torture of enemies of the state is basically the whole of the Old Testament.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:11 AM
45 is pretty offensive, honestly.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:14 AM
The goal posts will have been moved significantly from "torture" by the time the pamphlets are printed and mailed or the political endorsement is delivered. Certainly right-thinking religious people will never endorse torture, but there's no problem here, since no one is torturing anyone. It really doesn't matter what the text says about torture; the question will not come up.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:14 AM
LB, I really don't want to get into this 'cause I have a lot going on today. Suffice it to say that 'taking it seriously' doesn't mean 'accepting that homosexuality is an abomination.'
You're also right about the procedure. No one's saying atheists have to believe in God in order to understand Christian arguments and refute them with Christian premises. It's about whether Christian premises are useful premises to have around, and if they're the sort than can get admitted into public debate. And if they are, I don't see an easy way to draw a line that isn't with 'when I need your argument, I'll rattle your chain.'
Sort of like this. Ogged and I have an argument, and he enlists B to make a feminist point against me who he disagrees with on different grounds. But later, when B brings up a feminist point, Ogged says shush, shush, feminism isn't good grounds for argument.
I'm thinking that it's not going to do much for ogged's professed support of feminism if he only calls on B when he needs to score points. And that's sort of my beef with Atrios.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:14 AM
46: gah, I knew we'd have this problem of "but what OT lessons do Christians endorse" sooner or later. Maybe I'm just reading the thing through the wrong lens.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:16 AM
Ogged can be a real jerk sometimes.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:17 AM
he only calls on B when he needs to score
Yeah, I've gotten some late-night drunken phone calls from Ogged, too. Pretty demeaning.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:17 AM
It's all the Word of God, FL.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:17 AM
53 to 50.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:18 AM
It's about whether Christian premises are useful premises to have around, and if they're the sort than can get admitted into public debate. And if they are, I don't see an easy way to draw a line that isn't with 'when I need your argument, I'll rattle your chain.'
But all the non-Christian is really doing is asking you to be consistent as regards the principles you claim to hold. He's not saying that he has those same principles, or that he should be allowed to be inconsistent on the basis of the principles he believes.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:19 AM
45 is pretty offensive, honestly.
This is your way of telling us you have a woody, isn't it?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:20 AM
45: Torture is indeed central to Christianity; but it's pretty clear that torture by the state (Rome) is bad and evil, and those who condone it are the evilest of the evil (the blood curse). And the middle eastern guy who got tortured, along with the criminals who were tortured with him, are martyrs and saints. Really, the story of Christ's trial and execution is practically tailor-made to oppose the US patriot act: the mock trial, all of it. I'm amazed it hasn't occurred to me before, and I bet it hasn't occurred to a lot of people. A commercial or two pointing this out would make huge waves among evangelicals.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:20 AM
54: Works better as a response to 52.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:20 AM
Agree with SCMT -- someone who loudly and publicly professes a set of beliefs and principles can be called upon to act on those prinicples by someone who doesn't share them.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:20 AM
40 pretty much gets it right and says what I'm trying to say.
Also, I think the torture/stealing/etc themes in the Old Testament are ones that a lot of theological work has been done to reconcile that with later ideas of God. So it's not as simple as 'point to a place in the Bible where there's torture, that means God likes it.'
Catholicism's position on torture would get you no torture, but the same argument against torture knocks out abortion, euthanasia, the Iraq war, and um, capitalism. It's hard to pigeonhole a religion developed by philosophers.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:20 AM
52: OT, but a British friend asked what "booty call" meant. I assume the notion exists in the UK by a different name ("fanny ring" or summat like tha'), but my luckless, clueless friend was no help. Anyone know?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:20 AM
I'm thinking that it's not going to do much for ogged's professed support of feminism if he only calls on B when he needs to score points. And that's sort of my beef with Atrios.
But I don't (and atheists of my political beliefs generally) don't support or purport to support Christianity. We tolerate it, and feel strongly that it should be tolerated and will fight for its right to be tolerated, and we can ally with Christians on issues, but we wouldn't feel bad if twenty years from now there were no Christians in the US. C-Ogged has a problem in the case you describe because he's a hypocrite -- he's saying that he's a feminist when he really isn't. If what c-ogged says, explicitly, is "I'm not a feminist, but even B, who I think you accept as a feminist authority, disagrees with you on feminist grounds here," he isn't doing anything wrong at all. His argument may be weak -- you may not accept B as an authority -- but he's not wrong or hypocritical for making it.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:20 AM
Brock, this is exactly why Muhammed, may peace be upon him, had to clear things up.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:22 AM
45 is pretty offensive, honestly.
You got a better explanation for the persistence in the belief of Hell?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:23 AM
Also, I think the torture/stealing/etc themes in the Old Testament are ones that a lot of theological work has been done to reconcile that with later ideas of God.
Not to mention shrimp. And bacon. And the wearing of two different fabrics, etc.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:24 AM
"in the belief of Hell" s/b "of the belief in Hell"
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:25 AM
54 was unnecessary, since 53 works very well indeed as a response to 52.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:25 AM
All this talk of how to debate with fundamentalists (Yoo hoo, here we are! Come to Unfogged!) is somewhat interesting to we liberal, um, navel gazers. But it's a pretty pointless exercise. We shall not meet Jerry Falwell on some stage and go back and forth with pointy points and convince rational spectators. Many churches (offices, unions, gas stations) are the personal fiefs of control freaks and their flock of submissives (sorry, Tia). If we really want to combat this we're just going to have to follow Kotsko to the seminary and engage in a long campaign of infiltration. Then, when we're all pastors we can spoonfeed our own message one congregation at a time.
Posted by Mo MacArbie | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:27 AM
I guess I'm saying that it would be hard, if I were serious about my faith, for me to ally strongly with someone whose position is 'We tolerate you, but we wouldn't care if you disappeared, but wouldn't you mind jumping up and making this argument for us, thanks so much.'
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:27 AM
67 SO PWNED by 58
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:27 AM
We shall not meet Jerry Falwell on some stage and go back and forth with pointy points
Given that interlocutor, I'd prefer pointy sticks, myself.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:29 AM
Falwell can only be killed by something tipped in silver, I'm sure of it.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:31 AM
49/62: Wait. So are you saying I'm being played, or not? Is Ogged just using me?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:32 AM
69: What more enthusiastic attitude do you expect an atheist to have toward your religion? I mean, I expect the reverse is true -- a Christian would be not merely indifferent, but delighted, to hear that in 20 years all the atheists had become Christian.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:32 AM
when I need your argument, I'll rattle your chain
making this argument for us
But it's not about arguments. It's, "make this phone call," or "put this in your newsletter" or whatever. That makes all the difference in this case.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:32 AM
And that's sort of my beef with Atrios.
I can see your beef in general but I don't know if it's a fair characterization of Atrios's position. He wasn't addressing himself to people whose minds he wants to change, but to people who are already Democrats and to people who presumably do oppose torture. So he's saying, "guys, tactically, this would be a good thing to talk about," not, "guys, given your premises, these conclusions should follow."
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:35 AM
I am pwned by ogged.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:37 AM
That can't be good.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:40 AM
I don't know what the right attitude is, LB, but I know enough people who vote Republican, knowing all of the shit that the party pulls, because the Democrats are hostile to religion. Presumably, the Republican party has some atheists and manages not to have the same vibe.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:40 AM
I am pwned by ogged.
Tia is going to have millions of ogged's pwnbabies.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:40 AM
but I know enough people who vote Republican, knowing all of the shit that the party pulls, because the Democrats are hostile to religion.
There's a little bit of chicken-egging going on here. I'm not sure that Democrats as a whole are hostile to religion. And those that are usually have some specific religious policy or tendency at which to point when explaining their hostility.
But mostly I doubt that Dems are hostile to religion.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:45 AM
Presumably, the Republican party has some atheists and manages not to have the same vibe.
They do it by combining true-believers with those willing to cynically exploit them. At least we're upfront about it.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:45 AM
But mostly I doubt that Dems are hostile to religion.
Not individually, and maybe not even party-wide (for a tight enough definiton of hostile) but that's certainly the perception.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:48 AM
Hate that I missed the perving on Herminone thread. I had a crush on her in the first movie, when she dissed Ron in the rail carriage en route to Hogwarts.
Not a sexual crush, of course, but a crush nonetheless. Bossy girls are a weakness of mine.
--As for Christians and torture, the fundie evangelicals are so deep into their us/them mode, they can't even understand their own gospels any more. The idea that God is equally dissatisfied with (1) James Dobson and (2) Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that they are both sinners unworthy of grace, is beyond them.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:56 AM
79, 81, 83: I think this stems from the fact that the Republican Party makes a concerted effort to appeal to evangelical Christians; the Democratic Party, in contrast, is not hostile to evangelical Christians per se but does take positions contrary to those many evangelical Christians hold dear, and this is interpreted by them as hostility to religion.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 10:57 AM
85: The Republican Party also takes positions contrary to those many evangelical Christians hold dear - for example, torture, and not caring even a tiny little bit about helping poor people. This isn't interpreted as hostility to religion because the Republican Party is constantly saying "We are the Christian party," and has bribed evangelical leaders into saying "Yes indeed, if you are a good honest person who finds wisdom in my radio show, there is absolutely no chance that I want you voting for the Democrats."
The Democrats try to demonstrate their goodness by good deeds, rather than good words, which obviously doesn't work.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:02 AM
Neiwert on Torture ...Tristero at Digby's calls out Yglesias for MY's arguments from disutility or consequentialism; some of T's commenters defended MY
Rape & Torture ...Beyerstein ponders whether attempting to argue about torture is like trying to marshall useful arguments against rape. Discussing why rape is a bad thing I think damages me.
Somebody with power comes to me and talks torture I pull my gun. Just because I can't build a political action program around that doesn't mean I am wrong.
Bushco has deliberately, intentionally put us and our opponents into this position. Pur opponents have to defend atrocity and we have to somehow, with patience and restraint and magnanimity, try to stay rational.
I'll be rational when they get their boot off my neck.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:05 AM
85- this is it. And note that such a "concerted effort" is something the Dems *could* do, if they wanted to. I mean, it's not like the Rep. party agenda matches the religious agenda down the line -- there're only a few areas of true overlap. (The areas of overlap seem to have grown over the last few decades, as many religious have come to associate Rep. policies -- low taxes, etc.-- with Christianity itself, although there is no necessary or historic connection there.) Dems have the latitude to play this card as effectively as the Republicans --they could be catering to religious voters, emphasing anti-poverty policies, human rights, etc. Some do, but they seem more the exception than the rule.
82 is exactly right, but why don't the Democrats have people willing to do the same? (And please don't answer with anything like honor or somesuch nonsense -- this is electoral politics, and there are plenty of cynics for both sides. A "pure" party is a losing party, guaranteed.) I can tell you the answer to this question -- they'd (mostly) not make it through the primaries, because the sorts of democratic voters who vote in primaries mostly *are* rather hostile to religion. So the Dem. Party's hostile reputation is, in that sense, not wholly undeserved.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:13 AM
Totally pwned by 86. But the last line of 86 is bullshit, IMO.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:15 AM
79: 74 was brusque, but I didn't mean it to be hostile, just clear. The 'secularist hostility to religion' meme bothers me, because it seems so powerful, but the sort of behavoir that bothers you, for example, who I'm taking as the least touchy and most reasonable of believers, seems unavoidable without massive hypocrisy. Anyone who does not themselves believe in but nonetheless actively 'supports' Christianity, rather than tolerating and being willing to ally with Christians, seems to me to be a contemptible cynic. I'm hoping to hammer out a position an atheist can hold that is neither offensive to Christians nor revoltingly hypocritical.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:19 AM
I can tell you the answer to this question -- they'd (mostly) not make it through the primaries, because the sorts of democratic voters who vote in primaries mostly *are* rather hostile to religion.
This is just nonsense. We elect god-bothering evangelicals all the time.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:20 AM
Okay 91, then you tell me your answer to the question. I stated that in strong language, but should have made clear it was only a hypothesis. Off the top of my head, even. (But I don't think it's just nonsense.)
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:24 AM
Okay, just nonsense was rude and I'm regretting it, but what do you mean? The Democratic electorate ate up Obama telling us about the Awesome God we worship in the blue states; Clinton talked about his faith all the time... what evidence of the Democratic primary voters' hostility to religion do you see?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:24 AM
Heh -- 93 wasn't a response to 92; I hadn't seen 92 yet.
One thing that might be going on isn't a hostility to religion among the Democratic hard-core, but a high value for expressed religious toleration. Non-hostile secularism. I don't think there's any significant percentage of Democratic primary voters who would have a problem with an outspokenly religious candidate. I do think there's a significant percentage of Democratic primary voters, including churchgoers, who would have a real problem with rhetoric that they understood as claiming "I and other Christians are better citizens than the non-Christian due to our Christianity." It is possible that it's going to be hard to attract the evangelical vote without making those sorts of claims.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:29 AM
It's okay, LB. I understand you were just being rude because I'm religious and you hate me.
Look, if you're going to ask for evidence, my theory will fall apart. My only evidence is the fact that the Democratic party does not seem to make a concerted effort to embrace the Christian community. Which is something they would normally be expected to do in an electoral system, as Christians are a significant presence in this country (for better or for worse). Obama is an exception, as was Clinton, and Carter too. And plenty of others. But that's somewhat beside the point, as I think even you'd admit that the Republicans do much more active courting of the Christian community. (Right?)
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:31 AM
the Democratic party does not seem to make a concerted effort to embrace the Christian community.
This seems like a good explanation. By and large, all Dems can offer Christians (and, in particular, evangelical Christians) are allies. Republicans can offer Brothers in Christ. If your faith is sufficiently important to you, the choice seems clear.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:36 AM
My only evidence is the fact that the Democratic party does not seem to make a concerted effort to embrace the Christian community.
Aside from the Jewish members of the caucus, can you name ten Democratic members of Congress or one Democratic governor that isn't a Christian?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:36 AM
"I and other Christians are better citizens than the non-Christian due to our Christianity."
Well, this sounds offensive as stated, but break it into two parts and I think it's exactly what they need to be doing/saying:
(1) I and other Christians vote Democratic due to our Christianity.
(2) Persons who vote Democratic are better citizens.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:37 AM
all Dems can offer Christians
See 97. The Party is OVERWHELMINGLY Christian.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:38 AM
But that's somewhat beside the point, as I think even you'd admit that the Republicans do much more active courting of the Christian community.
I am literally unsure on this point. Republicans have closer relationships with the evangelical community -- there are more Republican Christian organization than Democratic Christian organizations. It's my sense that the Democrats do put a fair amount of effort into outreach to religious groups -- they just have an uphill battle as far as results go.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:38 AM
"the Republicans do much more active courting of the [part of the] Christian community [that thinks it and it alone represents true Christianity]."
There, now your statement is true.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:43 AM
This is the program, and I can think of examples going back centuries.
The "Right" says or does something outrageous, offensive, illogical, unsupportable. Their followers are forced out of reason into emotion, appeals to and the comfort of tribal loyalty.
The opponents(us, the left) are forced to devalue and reject their own feelings, to rationalize and intellectualize their positions. They say:"Bush is a strong leader" We get all empirical, and say:"Dude, the evidence really does not support that assertion."
We get depressed. desperate, frustrated, withdrawn. Senators remain silent during torture debates.
Maybe I could go throught those threads of ogged and Tia to see what's going on in the torture debate. Maybe I should take another look at the "ten points."
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:43 AM
100: We probably ought to bother to define our terms. We're good with African-American Christians, I assume we own the Episcopals, and, as I understand it, we used to be quite good with Catholics. We suck with evangelicals. And that might be just the way it is.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:45 AM
101 - okay Apo. I accept the statement exactly as you've written it. Given that this is a very significant electoral block, why don't the Dems do more to court it?
(Cynically, if necessary. Not all of the Republican courtship is heartfelt, I can assure you.)
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:47 AM
103 -- We're also big with the Congregationalists.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:48 AM
when there's a "perception of X" that makes the Democrats look bad, we can't assume X. Maybe we just have to change a false perception.
On the other hand, as an individual I'm hostile to religion, and I'm a Democrat. If there are people who will vote for Bush, knowing what he is, because someone like me is a Democrat, what should we think then?
On the one hand, I think that they're being deluded and used. And frankly, they seem like hypersensitive, silly, intolerant tools. I absolutely don't run the Democratic party. Even Kos and Armstrong barely spoke to me when I met them.
As far as Obama goes, he's made a lot of noise about his faith, and people like Atrios and I have found it annoying, but we let it pass, pretty much, even though it's Liebermanesque. So Atrios is saying, "Fine, Obama. You're a Democrat, I'm a Democrat, here's a place where we can agree. Here's a chance for your faith to do some good." I can't see a problem with that.
As for the evangelicals, it's hard to underestimate their limited horizon, their fear, the way they can cherrypick the Bible, and in many cases their smug self-satisfaction. They have the angry God, the destruction of Sodom, and so on to draw on.
As I've said in the past: Christians will be judged too. (A lot of them feel exempt because they're saved, like Jesus is their connection in the county courthouse).
And some Christians, but not all, can be saved. Go ye therefore.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:49 AM
FL in 15:
When this, violence and christianity, was brought up on Real Time with Bill Mahr, the christian Fox News lady brought up Revelations. Evangelicals are really big on that book, I understand.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:52 AM
Yeah, the Dems have much of the atheist vote locked up, so we get the hostility rap. But it's more than that. The fundies are not just the only true Christians, they're the only true Americans (same thing?).
Like the letter to the editor I never wrote: no we don't hate America, John Q. Letterwriter. We hate you. You're fucking up our country. Please stop.
Posted by Mo MacArbie | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:53 AM
95:"Look, if you're going to ask for evidence, my theory will fall apart." ...BL
Bob, all-meta, all the time. Even started talking about myself in third person.
Hermione:Natalie Portman went off to college. Ms Watson might be wise, I wouldn't give up the years 15-20 for a million pounds, especially if I already had a million pounds. I suspect she will regret either decision for the rest of her life.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:54 AM
Given that this is a very significant electoral block, why don't the Dems do more to court it?
They do a fair amount of courting, but there are some tactics that would give them trouble with their base. What I said in 94 -- anything that conveys that Christians are necessarily better citizens than non-Christians? That's going to be a problem. And a lot of the symbolic issues: 'Under God' in the pledge, the Ten Commandments in the courtroom, fall into that category. There's no reason to fight for them unless Christianity is a necessary aid to civic virtue. If Democrats are ideologically locked out of that position (and I think we are), then while we don't have to care a lot about these issues -- ignoring them is fine -- once anyone's fighting about it, we can't consistently be on the "Christianity=civic virtue" side.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:54 AM
Of course then Bradley Whitford asked her if she really believed in the literal truth of teh bible (she did) and then whether Dick Cheney was going to hell or was the camel going through the needle's eye. She was stumped. Hilarious!
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:56 AM
This seems like a good explanation. By and large, all Dems can offer Christians (and, in particular, evangelical Christians) are allies. Republicans can offer Brothers in Christ. If your faith is sufficiently important to you, the choice seems clear.
This is pretty much it. I think I have a better response to LB's 74 now, and I don't think it requires an atheist to be hypocritical. It's just that toleration is an awfully weak endorsement. I can tolerate someone or something I find repulsive. I ain't gonna vote for someone who finds me repulsive.
And while the Republican leadership I'm sure is just as cynical, there's a difference between 'We respect and value your beliefs and hope you contribute in society by turning those good beliefs into votes and policies, and we'll be allies whenever our coalitions overlap' and 'We'll tolerate you, but you're really not welcome here.' I think the Dems could sell the former successfully.
We're not going to win over evangelicals, but fuck them, we don't need them and we won't get them. I'm thinking here mostly of my home parish. Lots of people that are moderately religious: use birth control, go to Sunday Mass, try to be nice, not particularly anti-SSM but not foaming against it, concerned about the Iraq war but not sure what to think, want their kids to use condoms but aren't sure they want the schools to promote it but could probably be talked around to it.
These guys are voting Republican. Why? Because good religious people vote Republican. Because the Democrats are anti-religion. Stupid, maybe, but that's how I see it, and I really think that the moderate religious vote is completely winnable.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:56 AM
Evangelical Christians have certain policy preferences. They vote for pro-life candidates. The "respect" issues are a sideshow. It isn't a matter of outreach, Evangelical Christians are not going to seriously consider switching parties until democrats switch their policies.
This would be stupid for democrats to do. For one reason, there are more pro-choice voters than pro-life voters.
Posted by joeo | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 11:59 AM
They do a fair amount of courting, but there are some tactics that would give them trouble with their base.
Wait, I'm confused -- this was basically what I said and you yelled "nonsense!" at me.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:00 PM
Cala, I know you're partly kidding but
I ain't gonna vote for someone who finds me repulsive
is that "theater-critic politics" that so upsets me. It's about policies and outcomes, and to vote in ways that lead to bad outcomes for the sake of some kind of cultural or religious solidarity seems...idunno, bad? Wrongheaded?
Competence, not ideology!
Now the oral sex!, and back to the political discussion.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:03 PM
If "not being willing to endorse the claim that being Christian makes you a better citizen than being non-Christian" is the same thing as "hostility to religion", then yes, that's basically what you said.
I don't see the two statements as anywhere near equivalent.
If, to not appear hostile to religion, Democrats have to endorse the position that Christianity (with a pass for observant, but not secular, Jews) is necessary to civic virtue, then that's what Democrats have a problem. I just want to get clear on what Christian believers require as a standard of non-hostility.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:06 PM
Now the oral sex!
thank you.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:06 PM
I don't believe that people vote based on outcomes. I am perfectly willing to accept that this is bad, wrongheaded, and stupid, and I point to the American citizenry as evidence on this point.
More charitably, a lot of people don't have strong opinions on most issues because it's sort of confusing what policy works to get what outcome. So they vote for the policies & issues by proxy, or vote on the one issue they do have a strong opinion about.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:10 PM
'We respect and value your beliefs and hope you contribute in society by turning those good beliefs into votes and policies, and we'll be allies whenever our coalitions overlap' and 'We'll tolerate you, but you're really not welcome here.' I think the Dems could sell the former successfully.
See, I think Democrats can do this. I think we try to do this. I think we are unfairly seen as not doing this when we actually are. I keep on bringing up all of the devout Christians Democrats elect, but it's a real thing. Of course we (as a party) don't find Christians repulsive, and it's incomprensible how you could think that we do. We adore Clinton. We treat Obama like a rock star. We elect far more devout Christians than members of any other religious or non-religious group. The toleration I'm talking about is toleration and alliance, and I'm not holding it out as something that might happen in the future, it's the current state of affairs now.
We're just committed to not claiming that being a Christian makes you a better citizen than anyone else.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:11 PM
hey this is like a way cool conversation we're having here.
And each of you *has* phoned both of your Senators today, right?
And maybe phoned Leahy's office just to thank him for speaking out against the bill?
'cause it just might make a difference.
Posted by kid bitzer | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:11 PM
Wait I'm supposed to call again today? Cause I did yesterday and the day before. Is there a new development?
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:13 PM
White evangelicals are too deeply intertwined with Republican policy to win back at this point. It doesn't even make sense from a strictly religious standpoint - we're talking about people who are overwhelmingly pro-death penalty who worship a man who was wrongly executed - but there you have it.
To attempt to prod this thread back to the original subject, I do think liberal Christians could do a lot of good in the torture debate. Right now I think the only resistance to this abomination are secular groups like the ACLU that seem to exist to get ignored by bullet-headed thugs like Bush and McCain, and we could seriously use some fire and brimstone on our side.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:14 PM
We're just committed to not claiming that being a Christian makes you a better citizen than anyone else.
I don't know why I bother. Yes, that was exactly the point of everything I wrote. The Democratic party should say that Christians are better than everyone else, because that's the only viable alternative to 'We'll tolerate you, but we wouldn't care if you disappeared in twenty years.'
Christ on a stick.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:16 PM
people who are overwhelmingly pro-death penalty who worship a man who was wrongly executed
I have heard this argument but never quite got how it should cut against pro-death penalty Christians. I mean if the death penalty had been abolished in ancient times, or even if the contemporary safeguards like habeas and appeals and stuff were in place, then no wrongful execution for Christ, so no forgiveness of Our Sins. Christianity and opposition to death-penalty reforms seem totally compatible to me.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:19 PM
LB, I'm not just trying to fight with you on this. I want Democrats to win! Perhaps some of your frustration is that this seems inconsistent, or illogical, or unfair. If that's it: agreed. We could all use some physical affection at this point.
Basically, 112 is right, although I for one am not at all sure the evangelical comminuty need be written off. (Though acknowledge that they are perhaps an inappropriate starting place.)
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:20 PM
Unfogged: now even more humorless than before!
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:20 PM
I don't think Christianity & being pro-death penalty are compatible, but the reason they aren't compatible has nothing at all to do with the Crucifixion, and the lack of Roman due process, &c.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:23 PM
The Democratic party should say that Christians are better than everyone else, because that's the only viable alternative to 'We'll tolerate you, but we wouldn't care if you disappeared in twenty years.'
I'm not the whole Democratic party -- I'm an atheist. There aren't a lot of us. I vote, enthusiastically, for Christians. I respect the things Christians have done on the issues I find important (e.g., the Civil Rights movement). I am a member of the Democratic Party most of whose members are Christians. It's not an organization of atheists, just one that welcomes atheists.
My attitude toward the institution of Christianity is indifferent -- it wouldn't bother me if it faded away. I don't see that you have any reason at all to find that offensive, unless it is offensive to you that I do not believe in its truth. My attitude toward the Christians I know, and work with, and am related to, and am politically allied with, is not indifferent -- it's affectionate and respectful.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:23 PM
127 -- right, sorry, when I said "totally compatible" I was thinking "as far as this particular argument goes".
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:24 PM
I don't think Christianity & being pro-death penalty are compatible, but the reason they aren't compatible has nothing at all to do with the Crucifixion, and the lack of Roman due process, &c.
I just thought it was an obvious irony. Who Would Jesus Execute? Why, Jesus, obviously.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:25 PM
I am humorless, but not particularly annoyed. But I am bowing out of the major portion of this debate because frankly, I don't care that much and I'm supposed to write a chapter.
Fuck the chapter, too. Actually, pretty much fuck the world. The world can get back to me when it doesn't suck.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:28 PM
I mean if the death penalty had been abolished in ancient times, or even if the contemporary safeguards like habeas and appeals and stuff were in place, then no wrongful execution for Christ, so no forgiveness of Our Sins.
Or more realistically, no wrongful execution for Our Christ, and Our Christ goes on to do some other stuff, and an entire theology doesn't form around the concept of martyrdom.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:28 PM
125: I'm arguing with you and Cala here because I think you are asking the impossible, and that you stand in for a lot of Democrats and moderates who believe (in my opinion wrongly) that the Democratic party is, as an organization, hostile to religion.
I think you may be right that we can't get the evangelicals back, but we can get Cala's people back -- liberalish Catholics, Protestants not in strongly political denominations -- and this belief that what the Democratic party does now is hostile to religion is what's keeping us from getting them back. I don't think the Democratic party has room to embrace religion much more fervently than it does without ceasing to tolerate the non-religious and members of other religions. As an atheist, I'd like to maintain that tolerance. So I really want to change the perception that tolerating me means being hostile to religion.
Not that I'm necessarily being effective about it, but that's what I'm trying to do.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:31 PM
I don't believe that people vote based on outcomes. I am perfectly willing to accept that this is bad, wrongheaded, and stupid, and I point to the American citizenry as evidence on this point.
I'm with Cala on this point, except that I'm completely unwilling to (a) describe it quite this way, or (b) accept that it's stupid or wrongheaded. You elect representatives as agents. Accordingly, you want them to vote as you would, had you the time and information that they will. Using a few policy matches as a proxy for finding such agents isn't crazy. Neither is matching up core principles. It's what we all do. Pretending that this can all be resolved by reference to "competence" pretends, it seems to me, that we understand the world much better than we actually do.
Our problem, with at least some Christians, is that we disagree with them. With Catholics--eh, we should constantly decry evangelical denunciations of "papists," whether or not evangelicals actually make such an attack.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:34 PM
132 -- Right but if an entire theology does not form around the concept of martyrdom, then you have no Christianity, so no modern Christians, so nobody to be opposed to or in favor of the death penalty on Christian grounds.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:35 PM
131: 126 was to 120. Hike!
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:37 PM
128: I assumed since we were talking about party politics & Democratic strategy that when you said way upthread that atheists have no obligations to support the truth of Christianity that you were conflating 'atheist' and 'healthy smart Democratic party line', where everyone else was someone to be tolerated. We weren't talking about individuals. And while I don't give two goddamns if you personally don't believe in God (and I think you know that), it is different if it's the position of an organization that atheists are right, but others can be tolerated, especially when they're useful.
Now, you seem to think that the Democrats are pro-Christian enough. I'm saying that from what I've observed, that message isn't getting through to the average swing voter.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:38 PM
Matching up your core principles with their political speeches which completely betray their core principles is a load of shit, though, and it's exactly what is happening.
Most Christians believe Bush when he says 'we do not torture.' If the Republicans said "Yes, we support torture because it's fun!" then they probably would suffer severe repercussions.
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:39 PM
LB, in my opinion your 128 is the most effective thing you've said, because in it you admitted your own marginality, minority status, within the party largely made of people who think and feel differently from yourself.
By contrast,
See, I think Democrats can do this. I think we try to do this. I think we are unfairly seen as not doing this when we actually are. I keep on bringing up all of the devout Christians Democrats elect, but it's a real thing. Of course we (as a party) don't find Christians repulsive, and it's incomprensible how you could think that we do. We adore Clinton. We treat Obama like a rock star. We elect far more devout Christians than members of any other religious or non-religious group. The toleration I'm talking about is toleration and alliance, and I'm not holding it out as something that might happen in the future, it's the current state of affairs now...
...We're just committed to not claiming that being a Christian makes you a better citizen than anyone else
speaks for a "we" which imagines the party as being much like yourself. That party is more a wish than a fact, but a lot of people vote against that party, as if it were real, perhaps because of the vividness and passion with which you project it.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:46 PM
Sorry, I can see how that could have gotten confused. I was talking for myself "and atheists of my political beliefs generally", which I believe includes Atrios, and making the point that indifference to the institution of Christianity doesn't imply hostility to or revulsion for Christians.
The Democratic Party isn't an atheist party. The atheists tolerated within the party work with Christians. They ally with Christians. They vote for Christians. And the party's position on them is that they are as good citizens as Christians are.
You found Atrios's post hostile to Christianity. I think you were wrong to do so. It was written from a non-Christian perspective, but that's not hostility to Christianity. I am hoping that you and people of your political views can be convinced that people like Atrios and me aren't hostile to Christianity, and that the Democratic Party, made up overwhelmingly of Christians, doesn't become hostile to Christianity by tolerating us.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:47 PM
140 to 137; 139 makes a useful point.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:49 PM
"You" of course only takes you as representative, not to imply you, personally, have alienated millions.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:49 PM
137: Now, you seem to think that the Democrats are pro-Christian enough. I'm saying that from what I've observed, that message isn't getting through to the average swing voter.
See, I don't think that this is, or ought to be, the message, which would explain why it isn't coming through. The Democratic Party is not "pro-Christian" but rather "pro-policies which ought to resonate with moral people of all faiths, as well as those whose morality is not grounded in religion".
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:50 PM
LB, I think you might be conflating secular Christians, like myself, with (wc?) committed Christians, like those in Cala's parish. Those are two related but distinct groups, and I think most public Dems probably fall in the former category.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:50 PM
We probably don't have to say that Christians are better Americans. We probably don't have to say anything about Democrats at all. Just put our brand on how they like to think about theirselves. Just "You, you, you, Democrats. You, you you, Democrats."
Posted by Mo MacArbie | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:51 PM
143: Well, yes. I don't think the Democratic Party should be 'pro-Christian', in the sense of favoring Christianity over any other religion or non-religion at all. I think we should be, and are, not hostile to Christianity. I think as a matter of fact we mostly are Christians -- our elected officials overwhelmingly so. But it is not the business of the Democratic party to favor one set of religious beliefs over any other.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:53 PM
135: Alright, well then, a response to 124 that doesn't rely on counterfactuals:
It's silly to argue that Christians should be grateful for the institution of capital punishment for its role in the death of Jesus, because historically speaking Christians have never done anything but villify and smear everyone even tangentially involved in Jesus's death, regardless of the theological rewards of that death (see, for example, centuries' worth of persecution of the Jews, the historical villification of Judas, Caiaphas and Pilate, The Passion of the Christ, etc.). The only notable exception to this is Rome itself, which officially converted to Christianity a couple hundred years after much of the New Testament had been written. The point being: Christians do not actually, generally see the death of Jesus Christ as a good thing.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:55 PM
We do call it Good Friday.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:56 PM
We do call it Good Friday.
Ha ha. "Good" in that sense is an archaic synonym for "Holy."
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:58 PM
But we don't get our biscuits and wine that day. And no sex. So despite the name, it's not so good.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:58 PM
Christians do not actually, generally see the death of Jesus Christ as a good thing
Indeed they do not, generally, agree that it ocurred.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 12:58 PM
But the kickoff for the Harrowing of Hell, one of my favorite bits of (probably obsolete these days) doctrine. So good in that regard.
I just really like the picture of Jesus running a jailbreak. "Everybody -- run!!!"
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:00 PM
Why no sex?
Isn't Easter supposed to be the actually good part about it? If he just died, it'd kinda be a downer. He dies and then comes back; that's why it's the feel-good religion of the millenium.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:00 PM
I know. Just razzing you. 135 is otherwise quite right, and it would be a pretty stupid justification for capital punishment on the grounds that Jesus was executed unjustly and therefore we must continue the tradition.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:02 PM
You can't go and run the massive Prison Break without dying first, so it's a sad day, but a good day, and basically four days of incessant church services.
I didn't know about the sex thing.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:03 PM
LB, in my opinion your 128 is the most effective thing you've said, because in it you admitted your own marginality, minority status, within the party largely made of people who think and feel differently from yourself.
True, but ouch.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:04 PM
and it would be a pretty stupid justification for capital punishment on the grounds that Jesus was executed unjustly and therefore we must continue the tradition.
Not that I wouldn't bet that someone hasn't made it. For bizarre Biblical justifications for capital punishment, though, this is the one I hear the most often.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:06 PM
it would be a pretty stupid justification for capital punishment on the grounds that Jesus was executed unjustly and therefore we must continue the tradition
I was thinking more along the lines of, the state should continue to persecute the innocent in hopes that this will serve continually to expiate the sins of humanity.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:07 PM
157: It's still a stupid justification unless you follow the rest of the Old Testament code. And it's an even stupider justification if you try to use it in support of our current capital punishment system: 'If any man be suspected of shedding blood, and he hath not the shekels to purchase the lawyer to defend him, and be born of an unrenowned family and displayeth a dark skin tone or a mind such that he knoweth not who he ith, let his blood be shed.'
158: Not unless they're all little godlettes, too.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:11 PM
156, 128, et al: The reason I personally prefer the Democratic Party to the Republican Party is that, despite my marginal, minority status within the party with regard to belonging to the same religious group, the party is largely made up of people who who do not think and feel differently from myself when it comes to policy issues. And since policy issues, not religious issues, are the raison d'être of political parties, I am not in the minority on the issues that matter.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:13 PM
I'm pretty marginal myself, and vote for and support candidates whose policies are different, and differently motivated from my own. And while my views are also used to unfairly characterize, and slander the Democratic Party — under the name Socialism even though that doesn't describe my views either — that charge seems to have lost its bite, for the most part, even though you still hear the Republicans use it to fire up the base. Maybe the same will happen with religion.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:21 PM
Yeah, I'm not hostile to religion per se, but I am completely and irredeemably hostile toward the (minority) bloc of Christians that the GOP spends so much time courting. If they perceive that, their perceptions are spot on. I consider it my civic duty to keep their dirty little hands off the levers of government as much as I can.
Because they are fucking insane.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:29 PM
"Eye babies" is good though, you have to admit.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:34 PM
The funny thing about the video Apo links in 162 is that it's marketed as a sort of expose -- a "gotcha" documentary, as if it was footage from inside one of the CIA's secret prisons in Afghanistan. But the camps are not secret at all, nor are they in hiding. You could attend one and they'd be very open and welcoming. (I've not attended the camp featured in the video, but several that were practically indistinguishable from it.)
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:40 PM
No, they're quite open about their insanity. Proud of it, even.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:43 PM
Christians do not actually, generally see the death of Jesus Christ as a good thing
Indeed they do not, generally, agree that it ocurred.
Um, Clown, which Christians would those be? Anybody of significance since the 4th century? Just checking.
---The problem with "Christians" and the Democrats is how few "Christians" are Christians. It's become a team, not a religion.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:43 PM
I don't believe the problem lies with christians who percieve others as hostlie to religion. As far as I can see, it lies with chrisitans who insist that we should be hostlie to other religions (with a little lip service paid to judaism, sometimes), and to the non religious. What can you really expect to gain with people who are actively hostile to a secular democracy...
Posted by soubzriquet | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:45 PM
You could attend one and they'd be very open and welcoming.
Right up to the point where you mention voting for John Kerry and planning to marry your lesbian girlfriend in Boston next summer.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:45 PM
Oh christ. My nieces and nephews are completely going to end up like this and I have no idea how to stop it.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:45 PM
So Cala, what do the main Democrats (not LB) have to do to win back the people in your parish? This is a real question; I'm not sure how they're supposed to demonstrate lack of hostility to religion. Cave in on abortion? Make anti-atheist pronouncements? Is it just a matter of doing better PR about how all the Democratic Party leaders are in fact Christians except for a few Jews? (And hey, Specter.) I'm just not sure what you're saying Democrats should do to counter the perception that good religious people are Republican, when I don't know what that perception is based on.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:52 PM
I have no idea how to stop it.
Get them marijuana first.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:57 PM
Is it just a matter of doing better PR about how all the Democratic Party leaders are in fact Christians except for a few Jews?
Yes.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 1:59 PM
I wasn't asking you, heathen.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:01 PM
166: Which is why redefining "Christian" around optics -- the War on Christmas and the Ten Commandments and prayer in the schools -- and issues of marginal theological relevance (which pretty much starts and ends abortion, which for decades was an issue only among Catholics, and I'm kind of shocked that nobody examining why Democrats are thought of as anti-Christian has mentioned it) rather than any kind of reference to the values espoused in the Gospels has proved to be such a winning move for the Christian right. These are emotionally resonant issues, but Democrats can't, or at least shouldn't, simply yield on these issues.
Posted by Steve | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:10 PM
I'm not Cala, except insofar as we're all actually LB, but I'll offer some thoughts on 170: it's really tough. Because the real shift has come from the fact that religious leaders have swung hard towards the Republican side of the aisle. The parishoners are mostly just taking their cues from the man up front (who -- being their religious leader -- they trust immensely).
So what do Democrats need to do to change this perception? Get some religious leaders on their side. Catholic bishops and Cardinals. Evangelical pastors. Television evangelists. Etc. And I don't think that's going to be easy, mostly because I think the primary motivator for their collective swing towards the right has been abortion, where Democrats are obviously not willing to compromise by and large. (Abortion in recent decades. Things like gay marriage have become as or perhaps even more important in the last half-decade, although by then of course the swing was already nearly complete.) I don't know how Democrats get past this. But at the same time I don't think it's impossible. As mentioned upthread, there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the Republican party -- a feeling that all the flowers and sweet poems during courtship were really all about getting in my pants, and you never really cared for me at all you fucking bastard. Maybe that gives the Democrats an opening. But they need to stand boldly for those policies that could appeal to the religious electorate -- it's wrong to torture people, it's wrong to neglect the poor, etc. And it would help if these appeals were laced with explicitly religious rhetoric, not as a ruse but because that is rhetoric that a lot of poeple understand, and with which they identify, and that they find persuasive. (But again-- not persuasive if their pastor is saying the opposite.)
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:14 PM
I think it's mostly PR. Maybe it would help if there were well-publicized Democratic-religious partnership initiatives on the common ground stuff that went on all the time, just not before elections. Part of the problem seems to be that the pro-life rhetoric goes on all the time, 24/7, and the Democratic counter is what, Clinton attending a church service during the campaign? It's very easy to spin that as a cheap attempt to win votes (let's clap out of time with the gospel music once every four years).
(And come on, we may love Clinton & Obama, but it's not because they go to church.)
Basically, we'd have to break the connection between 'authentically religious' and 'Republican.' And I think it would go along well with what Emerson's always saying about the Democrats organizing in between elections and keeping people on the payroll in between elections and quietly promoting the religion-friendly service stuff in between elections so that when it comes to election time, it doesn't boil down to 'Well, I don't really know about the economy, but abortion is an important moral issue to me.' but instead 'Well, I don't know about the economy, and the Democrats are authentically in line with my moral beliefs and the Republicans are for killing people.'
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:17 PM
166: Stop calling the "Jesus freaks" behind their backs, stop bitching about Casey, and start finding politicians who sound at least mildly sincere (e.g., Clinton) when talking about either their own faith or the good works that have been the result of faith.
Yes, I realize that I'm not Cala either. Except in the sense that we are all one in Cala, and thus partake of the Calahood.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:17 PM
bitching about Casey
?? The abortion case, or what?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:20 PM
Stop calling the "Jesus freaks" behind their backs
I've always been more of a to-their-faces kind of guy myself.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:20 PM
Abortion is a weird issue, but I think the Democrats could still support abortion rights and make inroads in some conservative circles.
The reason I believe this is just stupid anecdotal experience, but quite a lot of my college friends are Catholic conservatives. Several of them voted for Kerry in the last election, and their answer to 'what about abortion?' wasn't that they weren't pro-life -- they are -- but simply that what really matters is not killing babies, and that during Democratic administrations there are fewer abortions due to better, more caring economic policy (& probably birth control, but my friends are pretty practical on that front when it comes to other people, even if they all try NFP themselves.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:23 PM
The secret camps are in places like Poland, IIRC.
Were I asked, I'd say that the Democrats are too nice to Christians. But I am not likely to be asked, and a good thing too. I think that Cala's parish has a wrong impression, maybe because their priest wants them to, maybe because they read a crappy newspaper. If they're strong anti-abortionists, that might be the reason too.
I think that torture and crucifixion are wrong, and I don't believe in capital punishment in any form, but we have to face the possibility that Jesus was guilty. My feeling is that he should have been kept in custody indefinitely, in case exonerating evidence showed up proving that he neither was, nor claimed to be, the Son of God.
If he really was the Son of God, though, you might as well crucify him, because you were dog meat the minute you took him into custody.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:24 PM
178: Casey .
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:24 PM
178: The pro-life Senate candidate, I think. But how many people are bitching about that outside of the Kossodrome? Harry Reid is a pro-life Mormon -- do people hear Dems going, "hrrm hrrm, let's take that funny underweared ancestor baptiser out behind the woodshed"? Of course not (which is not to say a few pro-life politicians in high places who don't show a great deal of commitment to the cause can or should appease people for whom abortion is the most important thing to vote on).
Posted by Steve | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:25 PM
For my dad, who voted for Carter(!), when the Democrats didn't let Bob Casey, Sr. speak at the convention in 1992 because he was pro-life, it cemented for him -- and I'm guessing a lot of other people -- that Democrats are rabidly anti-religion. For what it's worth, he's also pretty impressed by Obama.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:26 PM
181: I doubt he got crucified for either being or claiming to be the Son of God.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:27 PM
when the Democrats didn't let Bob Casey, Sr. speak at the convention in 1992 because he was pro-life
Ok, this proves it's PR, because this is false. They didn't let him speak because he wouldn't endorse Clinton. Other pro-life Democrats spoke.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:28 PM
Can I have a calahood too? It will protect me from the elements. I prefer it to the calabat.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:28 PM
184: It wasn't because Casey was pro-life; it's because he wanted to give a pro-life speech in contradiction of the party platform. Other pro-life politicians spoke at the convention on topics other than abortion. (Casey apparently considered running in the 1996 presidential primary; he was not a fan of Clinton.)
Like I said, optics.
Posted by Steve | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:30 PM
Then get the PR machine in order. Seriously, if it's broken that badly that everyone missed it, including Casey, Jr., then fix the PR machine.
Everyone will have calahoods in the restored calaphate.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:31 PM
"Stop calling the 'Jesus freaks' behind their backs, stop bitching about Casey"
Look the Democratic Party is not going to become a lovefest. Not while I'm in it, anyway. Political parties don't really work that way. And Jesus freaks can continue to say mean things about me and mine if they want. Half the democrats do already anyway. The whole premise that hurt feelings is a major factor strikes me as way off.
Casey had opposition, but he did get the nomination. Where's the problem?
I think that the only way Democrats can change the voting pattern is to push new, different issues in front of queers and abortion. Discrediting the Republicans, which can be legitimately done from a Christian POV, is also something that will help. If the Christians go back to staying home on election day that helps us.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:33 PM
There is something deeply malfunctioning about the dems' p.r.
I don't want to have to wait for the calaphate; I need my hood now.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:33 PM
180- I'm fairly militantly pro-life and I voted for Kerry. (Although not, I should say, without a lot of hesitation, over this very issue.)
One thing that I think could be effective is to just take abortion off the table, even if that's a little bit disingenuous. Just repeat, again and again and again, that Mr. Elected Politician's views on abortion do not matter (or even better- that he's "personally opposed"), because it's not an electoral issue. It's been declared a fundamental right REPEATEDLY by the Supreme Court, and thus it's been taken out of Mr. Politician's hands. "So at this point, all we can do to end the plague of abortion in this country is get down on our knees and pray." And do our part to persuade our friends and neighbors, etc. It's no longer a matter of legitimate public policy, and not an issue for political debate.
Just repeat this over and over and over. Give no other answer to the question.
[Related: the fact that this is actually true (more or less) is the justification I used myself in deciding to vote for Kerry.]
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:35 PM
184: I thought that was a myth -- didn't Casey get disinvited to speak because he refused to endorse the ticket, not because he was pro-life? I mean, he refused to endorse the ticket because they were pro-choice, but that's not anything they could have done anything about.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:35 PM
I want to be the Calaban.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:36 PM
Oooh, multiply pwned.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:37 PM
185: Well, if we're going to get all factual about it, my sources say that no historical Jesus who actually existed had much of anything to do with the Christian Jesus. I believe that the Biblical indictment is blasphemously claiming to be God or to have a special relationship to God.
You know, maybe he was guilty and had it coming to him. Isn't that what the Protocols tell us?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:38 PM
is to just take abortion off the table
This strikes me as a better way to lose women voters than to gain evangelical ones.
Really, fuck conservative Christians and their whiny we're-so-oppressed bullshit. They aren't coming back to the Democratic Party and there's no reason to chase them. Good riddance, y'all can go hang out with the segregationists that flocked to the GOP in the 70s and 80s. Large overlap between those crowds already.
The best way to approach conservative Christians is to convince the rest of the country that the GOP is beholden to a bunch of religious nutcases cheering for a holy war. They really aren't as popular as they (or apparently, most of the people here) believe them to be.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:43 PM
The point remains that Casey, known to represent a view at odds with liberal elite opinion, was not permitted to speak.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:43 PM
I also wouldn't mind if Pat Robertson's screeds against Catholics received some more airplay. I have no idea why anyone Catholic would ally with that rat.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:45 PM
The fact remains that Mumia, known to have pro-black views, was executed. It's the "for the sake of" relation that matters here.
Also, I note with some pride and some shame that I once took a detour of moderate length for the sake of visiting Searchlight, NV, the home town of Harry Reid.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:49 PM
The point remains that Casey, known to represent a view at odds with liberal elite opinion, was not permitted to speak.
But the view was that he didn't support the ticket because of his disagreement with it! How would it have made sense to have him speak at the convention? The point is a silly point.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:49 PM
The fact remains that Mumia, known to have pro-black views, was executed.
No he wasn't.
Fucking analogies.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:51 PM
Mumia is still alive.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:52 PM
The fact remains that Mumia, known to have pro-black views, was executed.
Mumia is still alive.
Miracle of miracles! He's alive, he's alive!
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:54 PM
you know, I think Mumia isn't dead.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:56 PM
198: It's not that he "represented views at odds with liberal opinion", it's that he wanted to give a firebreathing pro-life speech. How many speakers at the 2004 Republican convention got to give stemwinders about the immorality of the Iraq War?
I'll note on the "Dems are hostile to religious people" front that when the Ted Strickland, an ordained Methodist minister, was nominated as the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, the Republican candidate Ken Blackwell and his allies at World Harvest Ministries started telling evangelicals that he wasn't really a minister and that he didn't attend church enough. When that didn't catch on, they started a rumor that he was gay and that his marriage was a sham and hinted that he was a pedophile, but that's just disgusting dirty politics; the relevant part here is that people with liberal politics, concerned with poverty and child welfare, can't be "real" Christians, and contrawise that liberals can't be real Christians. There's a website, truthabouttd.com, where you can see a checklist explaining that Strickland -- again, an ordained minister -- isn't a Christian because he's not against abortion, human cloning, and homosexuality.Who's hostile to religious people?
Posted by Steve | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:56 PM
189: This is piling on you, and putting pressure on you, and it's unfair, but we need help from the liberal Christians like you on the PR. I'm thinking of whatsername, Amy Goodman? at Washington Monthly, who's all about scolding Democrats for being hostile to religion but she never tells us what, specifically, she wants us to do differently, or what, specifically, we did wrong. (And to the extent I've been snappy with you about this, I've been visualizing you as Amy Goodman, which is unfair of me.) And then the stuff she writes is out there as 'Even liberal Christians recognize that the Democratic party is hostile to religion.'
It would make me happy if people like you, and her, would be out there saying 'Actually, the Democratic Party isn't hostile to Christianity. That's kind of a myth.' It means a lot more from a Christian insider than from an atheist insider like me. Be the PR you want to see in the world.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:56 PM
He lives on in each of us.
And inside a cell somewhere.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:56 PM
He is Risen! Free Mumia!
You know, I thought I'd check that, because I wasn't sure, but then I thought, well, it'd been so long. Crap. The point stands, though.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:56 PM
truthabouttd.com s/b truthaboutted.com. Try "Ted vs. the Bible".
Posted by Steve | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:57 PM
"Be the PR you want to see in the world."
My dear mum tucked me in with this advice each night. She was rather insincere.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 2:59 PM
Fontana Labs: willing to kill a black man, just to make a point.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:01 PM
It's Amy Sullivan at the Monthly, LB.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:02 PM
But what about the Dems' unfriendliness towards professional wrestling? When they didn't let Ted Dibiase speak at the 2000 convention--despite his considerable wealth--that's when my dear old pops decided, enough with this abuse.
My father is Ted Dibiase.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:02 PM
"Who's hostile to religious people?" in 206 is a PR line I wouldn't mind seeing disseminated with vigor.
Posted by redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:02 PM
213: Dammit. That's why I said Whatsername. I knew I had it wrong. Amy Goodman is the radio person?
I hate names.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:03 PM
Amy Goodman is the radio person?
Yup.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:04 PM
fuck conservative Christians...They aren't coming back to the Democratic Party and there's no reason to chase them.
Mmm.. I'm pretty sure this is wrong. In my own personal experience, conservative Christians of my generation have moved considerably left of their gen x counterparts, especially concerning matters of social justice.
I came over, for example. (Largely due to Kotsko, incidentally.)
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:15 PM
I've been skimming this thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating or interrupting, but the Democrats have a substantive dilemma with religion. There are lots of Christians who are concerned with peace and social justice who tend to vote for Democrats. But those people tend to be more socially conservative (not crazily so, but not trivially so either), and Democrats are always trying to balance hanging on to their votes with not alienating the die-hard socially liberal base.
(It's also worth noting that evangelicals, as Republican shock troops, go out of their way to paint Democrats as anti-religion, no matter what Democrats actually do. If there's going to be Democratic PR on religion, it shouldn't be "message: I care about Christ," but increased use of words like "mercy," "compassion," and "justice." And you can talk that way about almost any issue.)
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:19 PM
I came over, for example. (Largely due to Kotsko, incidentally.)
Oh. My. Gawd.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:20 PM
Uh, I hate to sound totally cynical: the Democrats might also want to demonstrate mercy, compassion, and a sense of justice, but you know, baby steps.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:21 PM
Yeah, I echo 218. (Although I don't think I'm of the same generation.) I'm not really a "Democrat", but I've certainly undergone a significant right>left shift and now vote generally democratic. Choosing between the major parties is generally about choosing who is less incompatible with my beliefs. Democrats could go a long way towards making that case to voters.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:24 PM
Although I don't think I'm of the same generation.
I am of the generation after generation X.
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:27 PM
218: Yeah, I have the sense we have a few raised evangelical and conservative, now kinda leftish types around here. Brock, for one, Kotsko, AWB (she seems more of a conventional apostate, although come to think of it I don't actually know that she doesn't still think of herself as a member of her church of origin) and I think I'm missing some others. The leaders have stayed on the right, but there's a trickle of people coming over.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:27 PM
224: I think it's a prerequisite for posting at Kotsko's.
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:30 PM
I'm reasonably sure I'm accurately representing AWB's views when I say I don't think she considers herself a member of her church of origin.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:38 PM
Who was it that was talking about leaders? They were right. I don't see why people would believe absurd-on-their-face things like Democrats being anti-Christian if they weren't being told these things by people they trust.
For Democrats to try to persuade voters that they're not anti-Christian would be a mug's game. They need trusted people to make this argument on their behalf.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:40 PM
Also, when Apo says, "fuck conservative Christians; they're a lost cause," some of us are probably hearing, "fuck your parents; they're a lost cause."
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:40 PM
Would it reassure the Christian commenters to realize *why* the Dems have a contradictory and confused position on religious belief?
Because they're Dems. That's how they are about *everything*. It's not like they're picking on *you*.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:40 PM
some of us are probably hearing, "fuck your parents; they're a lost cause."
Um, no, I don't think anybody heard anything about fucking their parents. That was just you.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:41 PM
Don't fuck your parents, that's illegal.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:42 PM
But did any of them come over due to a softening of the Democratic Party's (non- and never-has-been-existent) harsh rhetoric on religion?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:42 PM
226: That was my guess, but I realized that I didn't actually know. BTW, anyone who would be inclined to sympathize with AWB but hasn't looked at her blog in a bit, she's having a bad day and might appreciate some friendly comments. (Not that there aren't plenty already, but more can only help.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:42 PM
Also, when Apo says, "fuck conservative Christians; they're a lost cause," some of us are probably hearing, "fuck your parents; they're a lost cause."
To be fair, though, mine really are. Sorry, mom and dad!
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:42 PM
You! I knew I was missing someone.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:44 PM
Actually, to be fair, the Repubs are contradictory, confused, and strident, while the Dems are contradictory, confused, and pusillanimous.
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:47 PM
Haven't seen AWB around lately.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 3:49 PM
Kotsko doesn't want his blog to become too Christian. I'm not the only non-Christian who posts there.
I also don't hate all Christians, except conservative political Christians when they're being aggressive and vicious, which they often are. I had tons of Christian education and can speak the language up to a point.
And in general, when people say that Democrats need to change their issues to appeal to hostile group X, or that they need to do more to appeal to hostile group X, I bridle at that.
What the Democrats need to do is get their message out more effectively, especially between elections, nominate candidates that are capable of campaigning, and create some new media along the lines of Air America..
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 4:22 PM
What the Democrats need to do is get their message out more effectively, especially between elections, nominate candidates that are capable of campaigning, and create some new media along the lines of Air America.
And a pony.
(Sorry, but this AWOL on the torture bill last week has me *really* pissed off.)
Posted by Anderson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 4:29 PM
The problem with the "take the abortion issue off the table" argument is that it will never work, and indeed will backfire horribly. If the Party takes an issue that has been a central plank of the platform for decades and says, "We don't have any opinion on that," it does nothing but reaffirm the Democrats' image as opportunists that don't stand for anything. In fact, it won't just be an image; it will be reality.
If abortion is the issue that trumps everything else for you at the ballot box, then you have a party: the Republicans. Democrats pretending not to have a stance on that won't change the way you vote. You'll vote for the actively anti-abortion party.
In the meantime, it's the sort of mealy-mouthed, half-assed, poll-driven stance that would likely make me give up on the Democratic Party altogether, and I'm pretty certain I wouldn't be walking out alone.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 4:59 PM
One point that was briefly addressed, but that I think has merit in re torture is that many conservative Christians are making a value judgement based on what has been presented in the press and by Amnesty Intl. as being done by "our boys" is not "torture". For example- making a video of cutting off a captive's head would qualify, whereas putting panties on a detainees head does not. Talking about habeus corpus for unlawful combatants causes a discontect for your average churchgoer, and he/ she sees the politician making that argument as not serious about GWOT. That having been said, "that which you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me." I think this is the approach that the Dems must take to be considered by the conservative religious types. The ACLU going after nativity scenes, school prayer, Waco- it's all of a piece. But my local Episcopal Church is in trouble with the IRS, so who exactly is hostile to religion?
Posted by Tassled Loafered Leech | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:04 PM
I think maybe that's where "They got these torture techniques from Soviet Russia!" might help. It's true -- the KGB pioneered torture by sleep deprivation. And didn't Jesus basically die from having his arms pinned high, like this guy?
Maybe it requires "that which you do unto the least of me" to get around the unlawful combatants issue, although maybe it just requires publicizing that lots and lots of the torture victims are innocent.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:21 PM
this guy
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:22 PM
242: See, I think those sorts of arguments are likely to make things worse, not better. My sense is that Democrats sometimes come off as smart know-it-alls who try to bludgeon people into positions through argument, and (in the past, at least) sometimes through sloppy/erroneous/appeal to authority argument. All that does is (a) make people feel slightly stupid, (b) make people suspect we're baffling them with crap while we pull something off. Result: they go with the guy they trust to be a "good guy," whether or not they agree with his policies. (I think Sommersby has written a few nice paragraphs about this phenomenon, in connection with the Clinton autobiography.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:33 PM
Matt- that is exactly my point. Sleep deprivation as torture is a hard sell. Holding a guy up by his arms until he sufffocates- torture.
Posted by Tassled Loafered Leech | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:35 PM
Apo- but my point is that it *is* off the table, as a practicle matter. We can elect all the pro-life legislators in the world, and it won't do anything to make abortion illegal. Sure, they could pass a few laws to trim away at the rights along the margin, which may or may not be struck down in court, but these are mostly symbolic gestures that pro-lifers don't in their heart of hearts care about so much anyway. All the talk about abortion in election campaigns is just that -- talk -- since abortion is a judicially-recognized fundamental right. I really think *that* should be the talking point, instead of jabbering on (by both sides) about how much one does or does not support the right to choose. It doesn't fucking matter -- it's all rhetoric.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:49 PM
The 'that which you do unto the least of my brothers, etc' I don't think would sell well; it's sort of got the ring of 'but your god died of a bad capital punishment practice.'
But story of nice Innocent Guy Accidentally Swept Up and Tortured would appeal to the same values.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:49 PM
But story of nice Innocent Guy Accidentally Swept Up and Tortured would appeal to the same values.
Only if they believe it.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:53 PM
practicle? Geez.
Posted by Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:54 PM
It does matter, though, Brock, because we elect people who appoint justices who decide how to interpret these rights. And I think that if the Republicans make abortion an issue and the Democrats say 'leave it to the judges', then we hear screeching about judicial activism, blahdihoho.
Maybe better to remove some of the focus on abortion by stealing the pro-family stuff. Sure, we support legal abortion. But we also want to make it so that pregnant teenagers can still go to school, have health care, make it to college, &c so they don't feel that they have to choose an abortion in order to have a fulfilling life. The Republicans force women to hide and be shamed and panic, and their idea of a fix is outlawing it and hoping it goes away.
Hell, I dunno.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:55 PM
Sleep deprivation is torture when done to Americans by non-Americans. That point shouldn't be a hard sell -- there's a lot of information out there.
Rather than taking abortion off the table, something else has to be pushed in front of it. In other words, change the terms of the argument, instead of always playing by Republican rules. Make them respond to us, instead of always responding to them.
I say this a lot, but anyway: I think that a lot of the Democratic weakness comes from the fact that the centrists were committed to their policy agendas (Israel, war, free trade) even if they meant that the Democrats would lose.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:56 PM
since abortion is a judicially-recognized fundamental right.
With all due respect, are you on crack? I count at least four solid anti-Roe votes on the Supreme Court right now. And the anti-choicers have done an excellent job of making abortion inaccessible to poor women in a lot of places.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-26-06 5:56 PM
246: Dude, please. We're one Supreme Court justice away from overturning Roe v. Wade. The GOP has been packing the courts for decades in preparation for the legal assault.
If Stevens stroked out tomorrow, Roe would get challenged almost immediately. Democrats would try to filibuster the nominee and the Republicans would invoke the nuclear option and install him. The Court sends the whole kit and kaboodle back to the states and the 2008 presidential election takes place amid raging abortion battles in nearly every state in the country.
It isn't a settled matter.
Posted by