American Taliban

It's the new book by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos fame. From what I can tell, the thesis of the book is:

...in their tactics and on the issues, our homegrown American Taliban are almost indistinguishable from the Afghan Taliban.

Provocative.

A number of liberal voices have taken issue with Kos' book, arguing that it's an intellectual analog to the odious Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism. I myself haven't read the book and don't plan to read the book; I read my share of polemics during the Bush years, and I'm done with it.

I want to point out this post on the subject from Ta-Nehisi Coates, though. Coates et al. are right: there are substantive differences between the American Right and the Taliban, those differences being pretty much everything the Taliban does that make them our enemies. Even if they reflect similar values, believing that women will be sluts if we allow them birth control is a far cry from believing that women will be sluts if we don't throw acid in their faces. Believing that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry is hardly the same as believing that gays should be executed. And of course, the Christian Right pretty rarely engages in violence in furtherance of its cause.

That being said, though, there is a grain of truth here, and that's where I'm not sure if this book does its greatest service or disservice. I can't help but think that the reason Kos is taken so much flak for this comparison is his decision to use "jihadists" instead of "Islamic fundamentalists." The two are often conflated, but they're different in the same way that (to break my own rule and use an analogy) Christian fundamentalists and abortion clinic bombers are different. Just because there are Christian fundamentalists who bomb abortion clinics, it doesn't mean that Christian fundamentalists as a rule want to bomb clinics or agree with bombing clinics. For all the right wing bluster about "the left" being in bed with Islamists, the group in America with the most in common with Islamic fundamentalists is undeniably Christian fundamentalists.

The difference between our fundies and their fundies is one of degree rather than one of quality. So yes, the Christian Right does not believe gays should be executed, but they do believe that they are undeserving of the full rights of straight people. They may not force their women to wear hijabs or burqas, but they do believe in patriarchy, teaching their daughters that a woman's place is in the home and that the husband is the king of the household. They may not want Sharia law, but they do want more religion in our laws. They share very similar views of "decadent" liberals and atheists. They both approve of the use of torture. They agree that Iraq and Afghanistan are battles in the great clash of Christianity vs. Islam. They both agree that we should go to war over Israel.

Does Kos' book "move the Overton window" allowing for discussion of these similarities in respectable circles, or does it delegitimize any and all comparisons by association in the same way that Dan Rather's false documents rendered any discussion of Bush's special treatment in the Texas Air National Guard verboten? I'd like to see the former, but I fear the latter.

remember, kids, he's pro-life!

Rick Warren refuses to condemn a bill to make homosexuality (or even support for gay rights) a crime in Uganda, sending gays to jail for life, and executing HIV positive gays:

The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.

Unsurprisingly, the author of the bill is considered a "core member" of The Family, the Christian conservative organization on Capitol Hill. When he started catching some flak for this remark, Warren replied that, "Globally last yr 146,000 Christians were put to death last year because of their faith. No one, except Christians, said anything."

Nevermind the highly suspect and unverified nature of Warren's number, what's the lesson here from the good pastor for the kids at home?

1. that one cannot be Christian and gay at the same time;
2. that it's ok to stand by and watch evil happen, saying nothing, if your people were wronged on some previous occasion;
3. that gays can be punished for other people's crimes.

These political pastors, they really live the Word, ya know?

don't apologize to me, apologize to her!

John Ensign is a hypocrite and a douchebag. He browbeats people for engaging in the same behavior he engages in. His efforts to prevent other people from gaining equal rights have apparently failed to protect his own marriage.

Of course, it's kind of amazing this story ever made it this far. What are the chances that the swindler son of a casino mogul would become a United States senator by painting himself as the paragon of Christian morality?

I will give him credit, though: he's the only politician I've seen admit to infidelity without dragging his wife up onstage with him while he apologizes to everyone else. Kudos. I guess.

Liberty University bans Democratic Club

This is actually very interesting, I think. We often chide religious organizations and universities for their partisanship, but in truth they've often done a good job fostering branches of both parties on their campuses (or inhibiting both parties from getting much of a foothold). This really is an aberration, and a line that I never really thought any university would cross.

Mary Ann Glendon shivs the President

If you haven't heard yet, you probably will: this year's Laetare Medal recipient, Mary Ann Glendon, is boycotting Notre Dame's commencement because the Dark Lord, Barack Obama, will be there. Glendon served as Ambassador to the Vatican from '07 to '09, and it's not like this is the first time we've seen Bush Administration officials turn around and attack the new president after serving in that trainwreck. Nevertheless, it's particularly rich coming from this Great Moral Arbiter who, so far as I can tell, was hunky dory with her old boss' frequent, gleeful, and unrepentant use of the death penalty, not to mention sanctioning of torture, mendacity, and killing of hundreds of thousands of people in an unjust war. Barack Obama being pro-Roe, however, totally crosses the line.

I know it may seem like I'm spending a lot of time on this subject, but what can I say? This really sticks in my craw. Ths kind of double-standard makes practicing Catholics (and Christians generally) look a little, well, "weird" to everyone else, especially the inflation of gay marriage and birth control and stem cells and, yes, abortion to the status of absolute moral sine qua nons, when these same people have no comment or waffle or find some sort of "nuance" on torture, preemptive war, child molestation, worldwide poverty, etc. Where was Glendon when George W. Bush was accepting the very same degree from Notre Dame in 2001, with the blood of dozens of prisoners fresh on his hands? Where was Bishop D'Arcy when Catholics were clamoring for someone in the clergy, anyone at all, willing to say that any priest caught molesting children should be cast from the Church and left to the mercy of the American legal system?

From what I can tell, she's also very fond of calling herself a feminist while lecturing other women on what they should be doing with their bodies, so I'm not exactly crushed that she won't be gracing the stage this year.

Pope Benedict reinstates Holocaust-denying schismatic bishop

The new face of the Catholic Church, same as the old face of the Catholic Church. With every passing year, I become less impressed with the moral compass of Christ's vicar, the Pope.

Warren-mania: throwing God's pit bulls a bone

This morning I heard someone on NPR refer to those angry with Obama for choosing Warren to lead a prayer on Inauguration Day as "activists." What, exactly, makes them "activist?" The act of being disappointed? Why are they "activists," but those who fought to pass Prop 8 are merely "social conservatives" or even worse, "family advocates?"

While we're at it, it's not like liberals and liberal-leaners don't have a legitimate beef with Obama's choice; after all, he now has more Republicans in his administration than avowed liberals, and does so even if you concede that Hillary Clinton is a liberal. You can't swing a cat in Obama's cabinet without hitting a blue dog or three.

Nevertheless, it's worth considering that apparently there will be 2 preachers at Obama's inauguration, and the one giving the closing benediction is GLBT friendly. That, I would imagine, is a first, while every previous preacher probably had views similar to Warren. Furthermore, for all Warren's faults, he's willing to lead the evangelical community back to sanity on aid to the poor, HIV/AIDS work, and climate change. Obama and the Democrats have an interest in seeing Warren's influence over the evangelical community further increase for those reasons. Obama wants to send a message to the evangelical community that they matter in an Obama Administration, that they don't have to go Republican to have leaders who listen to them, and gay-friendly evangelical pastors just don't have much credibility within that community.

Plus, let's face it, this isn't exactly a cabinet position.

UPDATE: And as I write that Obama has appointed hardly any progressives, he names Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, who's almost as solidly pro-labor as you can get.

it would be irresponsible NOT to speculate!

The liberal media asks if Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ.

Luckily the sources, a learned and utterly balanced mix of right-wing Christians and religious conservatives, keep this story's feet firmly planted on intellectual terra firma:

Strandberg says Obama probably isn't the Antichrist, but he's watching the president-elect carefully. On his Web site, he has something called the Rapture Index, a calculation based on signs and prophecy of the proximity of the end. According to Strandberg, any number over 160 means "fasten your seat belts." Obama's win pushed the index to 161.

God may try to hide his plans from the ever-vigilant eyes of the blogosphere, but, by golly, if Dan Rather couldn't fool them,...

Lord Jesus, save me from your followers

From Wonkette:

Did you know that some Christian dingbat has dubbed today the “Day of Prayer for the World’s Economies?” The dingbat has explained, “We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the ‘Lion’s Market,’ or God’s control over the economic systems.”

In case you are failing to picture what it looks like when a bunch of Christians go pray at the site of the Wall St. bull, it looks a little something like this.

Irony is dead.

the best ad of the cycle

You are not prepared to tackle the feared Village People lobby, Roger Wicker. YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!

Palin: more disgusting by the day

Hekebolos at dKos puts 2 and 2 together to figure out why Sarah Palin made victims pay for their own rape kits as mayor of Wasilla: rape kits include emergency contraception.

pandering on abortion

Sometimes candidates give answers to questions that are clear cut cases of pandering. Blatant, pathetic, eye-rolling pandering. Such was John McCain's answer to the question of when life begins at the faith and politics forum over the weekend:

At conception.

Interesting answer in light of his opinion that embryonic stem cell research should continue. I guess Christians get no straight talk from Senator John "my Veep may be pro-choice" McCain.

Atrios makes a good point:

While the Villagers seemed to object, and it didn't go well with the audience, I was quite pleased with Obama's response that the question of when life begins is above his pay grade. I remember Pastor Tim Russert asking, I think, Claire McCaskill a similar question and she was like, "What are you asking? When does an embryo become ensouled?"

Believe what you want, but the important question for politicians is how such things get translated into... policy. And when McCain says he believes life begins at conception (cheer!) it's pretty meaningless unless he's asked to explain how that would be translated into policy.

You want some straight talk on when life begins? Here it is: the position that life begins at conception is utterly and completely untenable from a policy perspective. If the government proceeds from the assumption that life begins at conception, then all abortion becomes ipso facto felonious, not just criminal, no matter what trimester or under what circumstances the conception occurred or what damage, short of death, the pregnancy could do to the mother. It is only an extremely tiny minority of Americans who would agree with this policy (over 60% of Americans, for instance, agree with Roe v. Wade as it stands, and how many more don't agree but still think rape and incest qualify as extenuating circumstances?), and yet it would require a tremendous investment of police and judges and whatnot to enforce it while further diminishing the already dangerously low number of doctors in this country. "Enforcing" in this case has to mean charging doctors and women with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, because in this context abortion is simply a woman paying a doctor to murder her child. And if you think the percentage of people who want to ban abortion is low, wait 'til you see the number that want women charged with murder.

For that matter, did you know that scientists think the pill, at least on occasion, prevents implantation of a fertilized egg? How could such a pill possibly stay legal?

And what about the non-abortion ramifications of this law? Suddenly every miscarriage would have to be issued a death certificate. Embryonic stem cell research would clearly be illegal, as would any life-saving medical procedures that require those cells. In vitro fertilization often ends with the discarding of a number of fertilized eggs, which, obviously, kills them. How can that not now be multiple homicide? Atrios once brought up another point: would this mean that blastocysts are entitled to child support?

You can believe whatever you want personally (and for what it's worth, I'm sympathetic to the opinion that life begins at conception/implantation/whatever), but policy positions have to be sensible and pragmatic, or else they spin off uncontrollably into a maelstrom of unforeseen side effects. The ideological forces these decisions unleash can make landfall in unexpected places while rushing to impose "consistent application" upon the legal code and law enforcement.

millenarianism, or just politics absorbing religion?

If Obama were the Anti-Christ, wouldn't Christians want him to be elected, since that would prove that the End Times were upon us and God's Justice finally made manifest on earth, complete with the Rapture and eternal bliss for all true Christians?

For that matter, if Obama were the Anti-Christ, wouldn't it be futile to try to prevent him from rising to power, since it is prophesied in the Bible, which is supposed to be inerrant?

And while we're at it, if Obama loses, that would be pretty definitive proof that he is not, in fact, the Anti-Christ. Are any of these so-called "Christians" prepared to apologize for spreading such a scurrilous rumor about a man who clearly did not deserve it?

some people have no integrity

Many of you may have heard here and there among your more gullible friends and family (typically those who pass up newspapers, preferring instead to get their news from chain emails) the suspicion that Barack Obama is the Antichrist. A buddy of mine has actually heard it from 2 or 3 independent sources, all claiming that a description matching Obama is right there in "Revelations" (oy):

Wanker: "Seriously, it says that he'll be a charismatic man who comes from the East."

Buddy: "East, eh? You mean like Hawai'i?"

Wanker: "No, you know, the Middle East, where his family comes from."

Buddy: "Middle East? You mean Kenya? Or are you talking about his mother's family from Kansas?"

Wanker: [getting increasingly exasperated] "C'mon, you know what I mean... his spiritual homeland, where his religion comes from..."

Buddy: [smirking, clearly unimpressed] "Massachusetts?"

Anyway, so despite it's painfully glaring logical flaws, the Dumbest Rumor Ever Forwarded continues to gain traction, such that the McCain campaign sees fit to respond to it in some way. A candidate with integrity would at least want to have no part of a rumor this vile, especially a candidate who's been sunk in the past by a vile and scurrilous rumor.

And then there's John McCain, happy to defecate on the national debate table if it scores points. Are any of you readers old enough to remember a Republican campaign that didn't rely on crass innuendo as its primary rhetorical tool?

evolution, in some more than others

Amanda Marcotte links to an email exchange between Phyllis Schlafly's idiot son and founder of internet laughing stock Conservapedia, and microbiologist Richard Lenski. The long and short of it is that Lenski has been working a dozen cultures of e. coli for 20 years now and triggered a beneficial mutation in one of the cultures-- meaning, of course, that they evolved-- allowing them to absorb a nutrient called citrate that e. coli normally can't use.

Lenski, I should mention, is no mean scholar; he is a "Distinguished Professor" in the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Dept. at Michigan State (it tells you something about the caliber of MSU's microbiologists that Microbiology and Molecular Genetics has its own department there; generally universities have one dept. for the full spectrum of biology). He is also a former MacArthur Fellow and current member of the National Academy of Sciences.

So when I tell you that Andy Schlafly emailed Herr Professor and rudely asked for "the data supporting your remarkable claims so that we can review it, and note where in the data you find justification for your conclusions," you can appreciate how far li'l Andy and the He Man Lernin'-Haters Club has waded from the shallow end of the intellectual swimming pool. The first sign it won't go well: Schlafly, in an attempt to burnish his academic credentials, appends the letters of his pedigree to the end of his name, including his Bachelor's degree. Ouch.

It appears, judging from PZ Myers' synopsis of the events, that scientists typically just delete the emails of cretins looking to garble their work and make a scene of it, but Dr. Lenski's inner educator won out, and he decided to make this a teachable moment (the whole conversation is available on Conservapedia's website). He wrote an unnecessarily polite letter very gently pointing out that, ahem, "the data" is all included in the paper he published on the subject and is widely available from a little-known place called "most university libraries" as well as online from his own website!

When Andy writes again requesting "the key underlying data" behind Lenski's paper (and presumptuously CC'ing the journal that published the paper!), Lenski sends a second, much less measured, reply that I strongly suggest you take a look at. The post-scripts are a real dandy.

Jesus Camp

I actually put this movie into my Netflix queue expecting something more. It's shot well enough, and the filmmakers focused in on 2 kids, Rachael and Levi, that are at times frightening or heartbreaking, and always sympathetic. We all knew kids at some point that share Rachael's adorably frenetic way of speaking and Levi's earnest desire to please the adults in the room. Also, the focus at the end of the movie on Ted Haggard was, of course, prescient.

That being said, I think there's an element of scaremongering in the movie's billing that bothers me. The previews imply that Jesus Camp exposes the bible camps of "evangelical Christians" as places where they brainwash their kids into becoming the terrorists of the future. First of all, the movie doesn't focus just on generic "evangelical Christians”; it's a movie about Pentecostals, a pretty radical evangelical denomination. Yet they are used to represent all "evangelical Christians,” even though most evangelicals would find thing like prophecy and speaking in tongues and collapsing in church pretty bizarre. The willingness to stretch such an egregious example into a representation of the whole of evangelicalism makes me wonder to what degree the bible camp shown here is also anomalous.

Admittedly, just Pentecostals, or even just this woman, preparing kids for terrorism would be scary, but the movie doesn't deliver that, either. For all the military imagery used by the adults and kids, for all the uses of terms like "soldiers of Christ" and being prepared to die for God, the movie never establishes that these kids are willing, or taught to be willing, to do violence in the name of their religion. Anyone familiar with evangelicalism knows that the evangelical martyrdom fantasy involves not killing Muslims or bombing abortion clinics, but having a gun put to your head and being told to recant or die, and there's no evidence these people are picturing anything different. The woman running the camp even mentions at one point that she's NOT talking about violence.

What you're left with is a movie about parents with quirky religious perspectives who indoctrinate their kids with all their radical beliefs and political views without any respect for the children's freedom of thought or psychological well-being. That, however, is hardly peculiar to "evangelical Christians," and though sad, is not exactly something worth staying up at night worrying about.

learning to pick your battles

Via Cristina Page there's news that people opposing birth control are planning to protest the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the court decision that guaranteed the right for married women to use birth control by recognizing an implicit constitutional right to privacy. Frankly, this is a protest that I just don't understand, and I mean that in the strategic sense. I don't understand why anyone would take up this fight.

Now I can understand, tactically speaking, waging a campaign to ban abortion, even though I don't agree with it ethically or politically. The procedure is visually disturbing and the idea of people having it done "wantonly" offends a lot of people. Even for the people who want it to be legal, it's not something you could ever call "popular," and virtually nobody is willing to mount an unqualified defense of the practice. It's pretty easy to gin up support for a movement to "get the sluts to take responsibility for their actions instead of killing their children."

Birth control gets a might trickier, though, as you're now talking about something that just about everyone uses or has used at some point in their lives. Condoms, for all that can be said about sensitivity and having to apply at awkward moments and whatnot, have saved a lot of people a lot of heartache, not to mention a lot of lives, and that's before we even bring up The Pill. We didn't pass over medications curing all manner of diseases and helping us sleep and focus and stop seeing hallucinations in favor giving the oral contraceptive the moniker of "The Pill," for nothing: The Pill is a magical thing. It prevents pregnancy with extremely high efficiency. Using The Pill lessens the need to stop in the middle of the warm-up to fiddle with other contraptions and jellies and whatnot (assuming, of course, you two are safe STD-wise). It regulates menstrual cycles. It decreases your chances of developing ovarian and endometrial cancer. It can even reduce acne, for Christ's sake! I mean, my God, the only people who love The Pill more than men are women! Trying to get people to support a movement banning The Pill is no easy thing.

But the pro-lifers and the anti-"judicial activism" people aren't stopping there; they are even waging a rhetorical assault on the right to privacy. The right to privacy. In a time when people are chaffing against the government's ever increasing desire to monitor our phone calls and web activity and library records, when people on the Left decry the "police state" and people on the Right rail against "big government," the pro-lifers are trying to convince people to support laws and politicians who will take away their right to privacy. Anyone wanna place bets on the outcome of this battle?

stupid is contagious

From a local Orlando station:

A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.

The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.

State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida's abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported.

It's worth repeating that there's a strain of conservatives-- call them "pro-STD conservatives" or "Christians for the Clap"-- who are not at all bothered by the evidence that abstinence-only sex ed engenders ignorance, proto-folksy magic rituals, and increased incidences of STDs, nor will they be sad when some of these kids inevitably contract something, because abstinence-only sex ed is not about saving kids from the STDs or pregnancy or AIDS: it's about using fear to keep kids from sinning.

Think about it: if these conservatives were really out for fewer STDs and teen pregnancies, then they’d be on board with comprehensive sex ed, seeing as pretty much every study shows that it’s effective at lowering the frequency of said conditions, while abstinence-only is not. They would similarly be on board with mandating HPV vaccinations, which would save countless lives of women who will otherwise die from cervical cancer.

They’re not on board, though, and appeals to the efficacy for both programs (comprehensive sex ed and HPV vaccinations) fall on deaf ears because that’s not really the objective of the Right's moralistic sociopaths. The objective is to make kids stop having sex, and safer sexual practices and medical breakthroughs are actually an impediment to that objective because it makes sex less dangerous. Furthermore, STDs separate the wheat from the chaff because those who contract STDs “deserve it” for engaging in wicked acts.

The difference between social liberals and social conservatives is that liberals see abstinence as a way to keep kids from contracting deadly diseases, and conservatives see deadly diseases as a way to keep kids abstinent.

if it's holy, then why does bad stuff happen on it?

From Rawstory:

According to CNN, the small contingent of churchgoers believe that Interstate 35, a sprawling highway running from Texas to Minnesota, is specifically mentioned in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 35.

"A highway shall be there, and a road," reads a portion of the chapter's verse eight, "and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it..."

But if I-35 is indeed the place, some Christians believe there's a lot of work to be done before the road can fulfill it's saintly destiny, according to CNN's Gary Tuchman, who was on the scene in Texas as believers launched an effort to pray for the road.

"Churchgoers in all six states recently finished 35 days of praying alongside Interstate 35, but the prayers are still continuing," reports Tuchman. "Some of the faithful believe that in order to fulfill the prophecy of I-35 being the 'holy' highway, it needs some intensive prayer first.

Eh...what?

City of Humanity vs. City of God

I remember growing up in the evangelical community that it was pretty common for people to assert that they are "a Christian first and an American second." Sure, people sometimes just said it in public as a way to show off the size of their faith, but judging from some polls a lot of Christians genuinely feel that way, and are likely to minimize the faith of a person who doesn't agree. I wonder if Mike Huckabee believes that? I'm pretty sure that, if he did, people would want to know that.

Think that might make a good debate/interview question? Why do you think no one's ever thought to ask him or any other candidate for any office whatsoever?