Rational People Are People, Too!
The theocrat-in-chief, with his boundless gratitude to Christianity for replacing his addiction to drinking with an addiction to the irrational belief in god, found it politically expedient to come out for the unbelieving this week, writes George Will.
In last week's prime-time news conference, he said: "If you choose not to worship, you're equally as patriotic as somebody who does worship."So Mark Twain, Oliver Wendell Holmes and a long, luminous list of other skeptics can be spared the posthumous ignominy of being stricken from the rolls of exemplary Americans. And almost 30 million living Americans welcomed that presidential benediction.
...The president, whose political instincts, at least, are no longer so misunderestimated by his despisers, may have hoped his remarks about unbelievers would undo some of the damage done by the Terri Schiavo case. During that Florida controversy, he made a late-night flight from his Texas ranch to Washington to dramatize his signing of imprudent legislation that his party was primarily responsible for passing. He and his party seemed to have subcontracted governance to certain especially fervid religious supporters.
And last Sunday Pat Robertson, who is fervid but also shrewd, seemed to understand that religious conservatives should be a bit more meek if they want to inherit the Earth. Robertson was asked on ABC's "This Week" whether religious conservatives would be seriously disaffected if in 2008 the Republicans' presidential nominee were to be someone like Rudy Giuliani.
Although Giuliani's eight years as New York's mayor, measured by such achievements as reduction of crime and welfare rolls, constitute perhaps America's most transformative conservative governance in the past half-century, he supports abortion rights, gay rights and gun control. Still, Robertson's relaxed reply to the question was, essentially: What's a little heresy among friends? "Rudy's a very good friend of mine and he did a super job running the city of New York and I think he'd make a good president."
Some Christians should practice the magnanimity of the strong rather than cultivate the grievances of the weak. But many Christians are joining today's scramble for the status of victims. There is much lamentation about various "assaults" on "people of faith." Christians are indeed experiencing some petty insults and indignities concerning things such as restrictions on school Christmas observances. But their persecution complex is unbecoming because it is unrealistic.
And remember the good old days, when you didn't hear "god bless" this and that from our elected officials every 20 minutes?
John Kennedy finished his first report to the nation on the Soviet missiles in Cuba with these words: "Thank you and good night." It would be a rash president who today did not conclude a major address by saying, as President Ronald Reagan began the custom of doing, something very like "God bless America."Unbelievers should not cavil about this acknowledgment of majority sensibilities. But Republicans should not seem to require, de facto, what the Constitution forbids, de jure: "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust."
> ...boundless gratitude to Christianity for
> replacing his addiction to drinking with
> an addiction to the irrational belief
> in god....
I'm a fan of your friend Dr Drew, OK? He's Mr. Addiction in Media America. While I myself am not an addict, I appreciate the insights his specialty offers. One of them is that the recurrent appearance of "God" in the 12 steps reflects a need for HUMILITY in the brain of the patient if the treatment is to be successful.
We need not be alcoholic to understand that the people who treat them are not fucking around: They'll go with what works in this lifetime, and quibble over technique in the next world. The stakes are that high. If you think they're not, you've never known an alcoholic.
And that's what's missing in all your complaints about the religious right... An acknowledgment that their faith gives them a humble perspective for which the left offers no analog. If you're a lefty, and you feel something, GAME ON. But that's not a good way to live.
Better to imagine that a Clarence Oddbody-like figure is looking over your shoulder, taking notes. If liberals were as concerned with decency as they were with 'studies', they'd kick ass in the voting booth, too.
Crid at May 6, 2005 6:13 PM
"their faith gives them a humble perspective for which the left offers no analog."
How about aesthetic experience? I know a few lefties who still blush during the adagio movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto in A. And rightly so!
Lena Cuisina, Devotee of Beauty and Truth at May 6, 2005 9:25 PM
What if you got an ugly baby? Conflating taste and decency is just a quick way to be snotty, ie maintain distance to others.
Crid at May 6, 2005 10:35 PM
What's wrong with distance from others?
Lena-doodle-doo at May 6, 2005 10:59 PM
IJS, there are always GOOD reasons to express alienation and loathing; no need to go lookin'
Crid at May 6, 2005 11:49 PM
No, Mr. Addiction is my friend Stanton Peele, who finds AA to be a replacement addiction, not a cure. And, like him, I find REASON essential to a cure -- for example, accepting that addiction is not a disease, but a choice -- for short-term gratification over longterm.
Here are two of Stanton's books -- The Truth About Addiction And Recovery, which he wrote with Archie Brodsky, and
7 Tools To Beat Addiction.
Amy Alkon at May 7, 2005 7:53 AM
While we're on the topic of books about booze, I highly recommend this one. It presents a lot of information for people trying to decide which program or approach to choose, and whether they should try to drinking moderately or completely quit:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618219072/qid=1115505807/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-0711443-9685514
Lena the Quitter at May 7, 2005 3:48 PM
Drew's more famouser, that's all I'm saying. He gets to work with Adam Carolla, the funniest man in showbiz today (because Pryor is so sick)
Crid at May 7, 2005 5:23 PM
I think Adam Carolla (who was a dick to me when we were on Politically Incorrect together) is one of the funniest, fastest people in comedy.
And Drew's famouser because he's telegenic-er.
Amy Alkon at May 7, 2005 5:59 PM
"liberals were as concerned with decency as they were with 'studies', they'd kick ass in the voting booth, too"
They do kick ass, but generally not in the voting booths. Leftists, without the beneficial restraint of religious humility, are all too quick to erect the guillotines, lay the razor wire, build concentration camps, or use firing squads, gas chambers, laogai, gulag, and other horrors of the unique kind of totalitarianism that comes from absolute atheitistic certainty, to achieve the ultimate end of heaven on earth, and don't want to be bothered with all that religious-based nonsense about ethics or morals.
Yeah, it's great and liberating to banish any notion of a higher power from one's moral calculus, unless you're standing on the other side of the machine gun tower wall, living in some leftist's notion of heaven on earth.
I always wonder about people who devote their energies to the denigration of those who susbscribe to a labelled religious code, when many of their views are themselves religious in derivation as well, though no one has bothered to give their particular fundamentalism a name yet. Why the need to hatefully bash people like that? You criticize people who dislike 'furr-ners' (a bigoted, hateful comment itself- obviously you do not see the irony) while spouting your hateful bile about people who do not hew to your moral code. You call yourself a libertarian. I am a libertarian, and I know many others, and I know for certain that one of the hallmarks of the philosophy is respect for the values of others. You are a particularly intolerant leftist.
I think I will add you to my "Hateful Left" section of my blog, so I can vitit once in a while.
Brian at May 9, 2005 12:43 PM
Yeah, but don't be snotty.
Crid at May 9, 2005 7:30 PM
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