Man on Fire--Russ Has Had Enough

When I first read this:

I'm amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president's numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide...too many Democrats are going to do the same thing they did in 2000 and 2004. In the face of this, they'll say we'd better just focus on domestic issues...[Democrats shouldn't] cower to the argument, that whatever you do, if you question administration, you're helping the terrorists.

I assumed Atrios was linking to comments from another blogger.

He wasn't. The remarks came from a sitting member of the U.S. Senate. You'll forgive my surprise. It's been a long time since I'd heard anything with this much starch coming from a party spokesman. Are Democratic party officials allowed to speak like this? Are they allowed to speak at all?

Just about as I was recovering from the shock of a Democratic spine running amok in the nation's capital, I came acrossed this:

It seems to me appropriate, when the spin machines are out there and people are using various language, to come out and reiterate my reasons for doing this.

I think that the press decided immediately that somehow this was a bad thing for Democrats and a good thing for conservatives. The facts don't bear it out. You don't have the polls to prove it. The way my colleagues are responding to me suggests to me they're thinking about this, that they feel that there has to be some accountability.

So the instant decision about what the story is, actually, I think is going to backfire on those who made up the story. I don't get the feeling that I had on Monday about this -- yes, people were concerned -- I'm not getting that.

And if the right wing really believes in this country that -- Rush Limbaugh and others -- that they can somehow turn the president's reputation around by saying, "You're darn right he violated the law, and it's a good thing," I think they're just as confused as they are about their Iraq politics. People aren't buying it anymore.

So not only do I not regret it, I felt an absolute obligation to do it.

Dude's on fire. He's mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore.

Speaking of Network, I think Digby makes about as good a case as any as to why Feingold apparently didn't consult with the party elders before introducing his resolution to censure:

It's apparently true that Feingold didn't consult with the party. But considering the response I can sort of see his point. They are so unimaginative and so sluggish that he didn't see the use in playing the party game. If party coodination means being forced to wait for them to hold plodding press conferences about x-raying cargo boxes, then it's hard to see why anyone who wants to take the fight to the Republicans would bother.

I also got a gas from this comment by someone apparently embedded in the Democratic Party's inner sanctum:

First, a lot of Dems were bothered by the fact that Feingold took the party off-message.

bwwwouuuuuhgauwujjweeoelo!!!!?!??!?

Off-message??!?!?! There's a message?!?? Really?!!?

Republicans characteristically responded that Feingold's resolution was a political show and that the Senator was auditioning for the '08 nomination by playing to the Democratic crazies in the blogosphere.

Despite the snark, this depiction of the resolution and Russ's speech makes some sense at first glance. But I don't think that's it. I think this guy just does what he wants based on what he believes. That's pretty much been his M.O. Votes to confirm the president's cabinet appointments. Stands alone against the Patriot Act.

And besides, since when did speaking out and making waves endear anyone to the media establishment that tells us who is electable and who isn't?

No, I don't think this is a political stunt in the usual sense of that concept. But he's making a believer at this site, nonetheless.

Hillary's Milk Carton

and other illustrations of compassionate conservatism from the conservative "culture of life".

The "Hillary's face on a milk carton" made an appearance at this weekend's "Southern Republican Leadership Conference" as well.

Why are Democrats so shrill and hate-filled?

Going on the Offensive

From Publius via LG&M:

I'd actually go a couple steps further. I would ask every single Republican candidate up for re-election in 2006: "Do you support imprisoning doctors for performing abortions following rapes, as South Dakota’s new law demands?" If they hid behind the rape exception, then you could follow up with Oliver’s question about whether doctors should be thrown in jail for performing abortions more generally.

The combination of the Alito and Roberts confirmations along with the South Dakota law is, I think, a watershed moment in the abortion wars. The South Dakota law in particular should serve as a wake-up call to the pro-choice movement that its tactics aren’t working and that it needs to make some changes in its long-term strategy. To develop Oliver’s point, if I were a consultant, I would recommend that the pro-choice movement make two major changes: (1) It should shift its emphasis from a defensive legal strategy to an offensive political strategy; (2) It should shift the debate away from abortion itself – and the abstract questions of when life begins – and focus on crime and punishment. In other words, the movement should aim to make an abstract debate more concrete by focusing on criminal sanctions and the imprisonment of doctors and women.

This sounds about right to me, and long overdue. This Fox News poll seems about on par with most others I've seen in terms of capturing the public sentiment on abortion. Those favoring (albeit restricted) abortion rights tally about 55% and the no-abortion crowd gets about 40%. I don't think adding the criminal penalties for abortion providers and receivers is going to increase the odds for the anti-abortion crowd. Indeed, as Digby as documented, even the most radical anti-abortionists haven't even thought about it.

Republicans have skillfully put Democrats over the barrel on the abortion question for about two decades now. It's high time Democrats started to fight back. And while it's heartening that after some hemming and hawing Sherrod Brown ultimately posed this question in his interview with Matt, I wasn't reassured that the Ohio Senate candidate seemed locked-in to an economically populist campaign strategy in '06. Like many Democrats, Brown seems scared of confronting cultural issues. As long as Democrats are defensive about this, they'll continue to lose seats and power, and what's worse, they'll continue to struggle with articulating a political philosophy and party rationale.

Nevertheless, I don't think Democrats should at the same time be required to back an abortion-at-any-cost strategy either. I think this has hurt the party both in immediate terms for having to oppose very late trimester abortion procedures that most feeling people consider repugnant--and with the availability of birth control--unnecessary as well as in more deeply seated views of the party's cultural sensitivities nationally.

Speaking of birth control, you might remember I penned a post a week or two back highlighting a religious freedom statement put together by 55 of the Catholic Democrats in the House, some officially "anti-abortion" and others "pro-choice". I caught an article in the Catholic Standard the other day that had Theodore McCarrick of the Washington, D.C. Archdiocese responding to the Democrats' effort. McCarrick sounded what seemed to me a nuanced reply, noting that he and the group were likely to agree on some things, disagree on others, but which put the abortion issue in a broader light, seemingly not making it an article of faith that Catholic legislators oppose any and all abortion restriction bills. I wish I had the actual article on hand because I couldn't find it online.

Anyway, and regrettably, yesterday's Post had a short item with the headline "Catholic Democrats Scolded on Abortion":

Top U.S. Roman Catholic leaders told Democratic lawmakers yesterday that there is no wiggle room in church teaching on abortion and that they are duty-bound to work against "the destruction of unborn human life." The statement by three top leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is a response to 55 Catholic Democrats in the House who issued a public statement Feb. 28 asking for room to disagree on abortion.

The bishops, in turn, said they were willing to work together on issues affecting the "poor and vulnerable" but would not budge on church teaching that says abortion is gravely immoral.

"While it is always necessary to work to reduce the number of abortions . . . Catholic teaching calls all Catholics to work actively to restrain, restrict and bring an end to the destruction of unborn human life," the bishops said.

The three bishops who signed the statement were Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, head of the bishops' Pro-Life Activities Committee; Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington, who heads a task force on Catholic politicians; and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, chairman of the bishops' Domestic Policy Committee.

Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), who spearheaded the letter on Capitol Hill, said in a statement that she appreciated the bishops' response but did not address the bishops' rejection of Catholic lawmakers' request to respectfully disagree with the church on abortion.

The bishops note the Catholic legislators responsibility to "work actively to restrain, restrict and bring to an end the destruction of unborn human life". Maybe destroying born human life is OK. In any event, one way to of course bring about the "restraining, restricting and ending" of abortion is to provide and practice birth control. But the Roman Catholic church opposes this, too.

It's beyond the author's ability and space of this website to attempt to dissect the Roman Catholic church's opposition to birth control. But according to Garry Wills, himself a lifelong and continuing Catholic, the church's reasonings have varied over the years, being consistent mostly for the fact they feel the need to reaffirm whatever was taught by the church for centuries, even if the underlying rationale for the doctrine changes and even if science and common sense has debunked the myths and superstitions of past eras.

Writing in Papal Sin, Wills notes that the great church father, Augustine of Hippo, opposed the contraception methods of the time--what would be called in later years, the natural "rhythm method". This largely had to do with the fact that groups and broader heresies Augustine opposed practiced this method. The early church also opposed contraception due to the magic and potions that were believed to be used in its behalf.

By the time of revered Catholic theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, the church condemned, on natural law grounds, the interference with the "integrity" of the sex act that any form of contraception was believed to prevent. Aquinas, in the logic of the era, considered masturbation worse than incest since the latter preserved "the integrity of the act" (that is, fertilization). The church did, however, authorize the coitus interruptus method of contraception in order to placate the lust of the woman and the man's responsibility in marriage.

Still later, the coitus interruptus method itself came under fire, linked by Pope Pius XI in the 1930's with the grave sin of Onus in Genesis 38 where God is said to have killed the son of Judah for not marrying his deceased brother's wife and bearing his brother's seed through her, instead ejactulating on the ground.

The "natural rhythm method", opposed by Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries, gained greater favor in the church as a natural means of contraception after its science was published in greater detail in the 1940's. After a Vatican commission set up by Pope John XXIII during the Vatican II conference in the 1960's recommended that the church's reliance on the natural rhythm method and its natural law origins be abandoned, due in part to the now presence of oral contraceptives, Pope Paul VI responded by instead affirming the church's opposition to contraception in his encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, a widely derided document that many bishops felt obliged to ignore. Despite the fact that the Vatican commission had received survey data from devout catholics indicating the flaws, natural and relational, from the rhythm method, Pope Paul VI helped ensure the practice's at least official blessing and authority.

Paul VI's successor, Pope John Paul the First, who lasted a month in office before dying in 1978, issued a statement praising the in-vitro-fertalization (IVF) of a couple, leading Wills to conclude that had he lived, Pope John Paul the First would have revised the church's teaching on contraception. Instead, his passing led to the election of Pope John Paul II, and the rest, as they say, is history. Pope JPII, more than his predecessors, understood the need to stack the deck, so to speak, by appointing as bishops and cardinals, those who shared his philosophies, ensuring that in his aftermath, conservative popes would continue into the 21st century.

Hence, we have, the conservative Catholic opposition to both abortion and "artificial" contraception. So Democratic Catholics are damned if they do, damned if they don't. To "restrain, restrict and end" abortion, they could back greater efforts to educate and provide for means of birth control, but this the church also opposes. The Democratic Catholics who support birth control but would allow--for reasons Publius, Matt, Digby and others have pointed out--some abortion choice, could of course, leave the church and cease to be catholics.

But the church would then be left with still declining numbers and shrinking parishes, and a clash between conservative political correctness and the advances of modernity and progressive governance in the war of civilizations so embraced by leading figures on the right, but one not just between Islam and the West, but within the West itself, as radical Islam and radical Christianity find common ground.

Bored with Bush

Probably the only thing sadder than the spectacle of Tweety, Chuck Todd, and MSNBC's Softball going all orgy on the Southern Republican Leadership Conference's 2008 straw poll this weekend is me writing another post on the subject.

But as the Daily Kos and Atrios have noticed, even for Tweety, his enthusiasm for this weekend's faux show--with 40% of the "delegates" from Tennessee, and with the majority leader's having bussed in a load of "supporters", this was designed as a Frist! coronation, his last apparently given that his speech bombed--seems a bit too neurotic given the fact that WE HAVEN'T EVEN REACHED THE 2006 CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS YET.

What could be the cause for such a fixation, so early?

I suppose the best explanation lies in the hang-over Tweety and the boys are experiencing as the Bush presidency has pretty much collapsed three years before the finish line, its Rovian faux heroism and machoism all spent up, leaving its male fans scrounging in their pockets, wondering where all the money went, like an onleave soldier's monthly pay ravished in the pit of Los Angeles's Tropicana female oil-wrestling strip joint. But now that the auctioned money has been spent, the girls aren't around, and the club has just closed for the night, the boys suddenly realize they've been had. The party's over.

Their Bush infatuation started with the bullhorn moment at Ground Zero and crescendoed with the Top Gun attired, jet-landing on the air-craft carrier. The drunken binge inspired by Rove's minions has left the president's media admirers in a sad stupor, feeling left behind at the alter, alone on the prom night while somewhere, somebody else is getting over.

As Wolcott noted a while back in discussing another Bush groupie suckered in by the Shock and Awe Iraq campaign--Don Imus--the president's former boosters are bored now. The fun with Iraq has long worn off, the president's once shining gloss given a rough sanding.

2006? Well, the GOP already controls both chambers so this fall's elections don't promise to give Tweety's gang anything to get excited about.

But the 2008 race offers the potential for the boys to become infatuated with someone else, to be born again if you will, dreaming of when a new hero can take over; Heck, they're ready to annoint someone already so they can start with the new story-line. Tweety already has his eyes on the new dish in class--John McCain--and breathlessly announced on the 9pm special tonight that coming up he had an "exclusive" interview with the Senator, who finished at the bottom of the pack and who if you watch any TV "news" programs at all would have an impossible time missing, he's on so much. An "exclusive" interview with McCain? Is this what the media has come to?

Meanwhile, after a month of having the UAE ports deal lead on every cable outlet, and just when the Dubai company's withdrawal was thought to give the president some breathing room, his former top domestic policy advisor, who left the WH last month "to spend more time with his family" has been arrested for fraud and theft in Montgomery County, MD, accused of stealing from local Target stores.

You can't make this stuff up.

Tweety Hearts Republican Candidates for President

I watched Softball tonight, with Tweety and the gang broadcasting from Memphis where the first Republican cattle-call for '08 is taking place, courtesy of something called the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Most of the 2008 prospects are scheduled to speak.

Tweety was on with Charlie Cook and Howard Fineman, although I bet those two were sorry they put themselves through the spectacle, as any insightful analysis they might have wanted to offer was drowned out by Tweety's panting after John McCain. Tweety reminded us about 59 times how McCain had instructed his supporters to write in a vote for President Bush in tomorrow's straw poll, as if this was somehow another chain in the link establishing what a magnanimous fellow this John McCain is, what a straight-up guy, teamplayer.

He also managed to point out that McCain's move had irritated the other candidates, especially Senator Frist who was aiming for a landslide in his backyard tomorrow.

Cook and Fineman did manage to counter, though, that the McCain gesture seemed rather, well, calculating, and not at all like the straight-shooter, authentic guy they've been telling us about for the last 6 years.

Tweety did get Cook to admit that he basically saw the GOP nomination as coming down to Mass Gov Mitt Romney, VA Senator George Allen, and McCain.

From there Tweety went all aflutter, gushing about the grand old time they all were going to have down there in the volunteer state observing the GOP hopeful review their future candidates. Apparently Romney had already spoken today, and the biggest lines of applause he got were in reference to--wait a minute now--gay marriage and making immigrants (I suppose Mexican ones) learn the King's English. Kind of makes you wonder what someone like Andrew Sullivan sees in this crowd that makes him continue to want to identify himself as a conservative Republican.

Anyway, Tweety did flag down Trent Lott and George Allen for interviews, too, forcing them to talk about his man, McCain (he later interviewed Lindsay Graham, one of McCain's most prominent backers in the U.S. Senate--are you catching a theme here?) and McCain's magnanimous act of calling on his supporters to write in a vote for George 37% Bush tomorrow, and gee, ain't McCain swell.

This really was Tweety at his worst. In the regular studio when there's an issue at hand, he can sometimes come through, but tonight he was like an overwrought adolescent boy at movie audition hoping to get the part of Lindsay Lohan's love interest. He appeared so enthused with the Republican line-up I hope he manages not to explode before the straw poll tomorrow.

I imagine that whenever the first Democratic one of these rolls around, Softball will either not bother with it, or Tweety and the crew will cover it from their perches in Washington, ensuring to bring the usual cast of characters on the panel to bash Hillary or whatever other sad sack of a Democrat is needing of roasting at the moment.

In any event, beyond the McCain salivating (I have a hard time understanding why after all these years there hasn't been anything resembling an objective portrait of the man) by Tweety and his entourage, the crew seemed eager to push George Allen as a contender for reasons that also remain unclear to me. Allen has scored well with the conservative blogosphere (which again sort of begs the question), but I think he's a much less substantive candidate, and far less intriguing than Sam Brownback or Arkansas Gov Mike Huckabee. For their part, Tweety and the boys seemed pretty dismissive of Brownback, perhaps not stopping to consider that a Senator from the Ike state, especially one with such a fundy rep, might play pretty well in border state Iowa's first in the nation caucus, where another Kansas Senator, Bob Dole, won in 1988 (and in which televangelist Marion "Pat" Robertson came in second, ahead of Poppy Bush). Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee's from nearby, too, and as a Baptist minister, and a governor, might also show some strength in Iowa.

But no mind, tonight was the night for Tweety to extol the virtues of his man, John McCain. And if that fails, to make sure George Allen gets some facetime in front of the cameras (to be fair, CNN did an interview with the son of the late Redskin coach as well).

What's the compelling rationale behind an Allen candidacy? He sounds, if possible, even more oblivious to the world than W. It's hard to believe that after the government ineptness of the last year and a half in particular, that the electorate would be in the mood for another empty suit. Then again...

Abortion Debate on Demand

There have been some very good posts on abortion over at the Daily Kos, FireDogLake, Digby, LG&M, and Lance Mannion in the past several days.

The Lance Mannion post is particularly interesting in that it represents a lefty blogger admitting to feeling conflicted about abortion and of even more significance is the almost reasoned debate that gets carried out in the comments between advocates and opponents of abortion rights. There are a number of comments with the post and if you're interested in a healthy debate about the topic I heartily encourage you to go on over and give it a read.

For those more inclined towards the snarkier side of things, I would recommend the other postings. Digby discusses the contradiction inherent in the fact that anti-choicers claim that abortion is murder, but yet don't seem to have ever thought about what the penalty should be for women who illegally obtain an abortion, or in the case of policymakers, such as the ones in S.D., who haven't even bothered writing them into the anti-abortion law they just passed. Digby provides several good links regarding this. Note especially the Tweety interview with Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey from 2004.

The other point of interest is the tendency of those on both sides of the debate to refer to the most extreme situations to demonstrate their opponents' unreasonableness.

For anti-choicers, the favored highlight reel is the partial birth abortion, with their emphasis, real or hypothetical, on cases where the doctor basically punctures the infant's head with scissors after withdrawing it from the womb.

For pro-choicers, its the overstretched logic on the part of anti-abortionists that demands that life begins at "conception" and that any abortion, or contraceptive that interferes with this is tantamount to murder. So, for the most rigid anti-abortionists, an infant, or a living adult, is no different than the zygote or blastocyst. So if abortion has to be outlawed, so do IVF and s stem-cell research. FireDogLake has a pretty good riff on this:

Whenever I hear wingnuts arguing about stem cell research I always get the feeling that they are doing so under duress, like reluctant Visigoths who’ve been forced to carry the battle into a town they really don’t care about sacking. But having made the argument that women should not have control over their own bodies and be entitled to an abortion because even the littlest zygote amongst us is sacred, and not because they hate and fear women and want to relegate them to the social role of biological functionaries, they have to naturally extend the argument and oppose embryonic stem cell research as well. You know, for consistency’s sake and all.

But Lance makes the point that the decision on when life begins is an ambigious one, putting both supporters and opponents of abortion rights in a difficult position. Tring to take it back to the moment of fertilization-conception (see PZ Myers' discussion at the Daily Kos for more detail) results in the argument that the zygote or blastocyst is a person, while abortion rights advocates basically end up demanding abortion access at any point in time for any reason. Lance seems to feel, and I tend to agree, that the extremes here are equally hard to identify with. And I'm afraid I can't agree with LG&M that a partial birth abortion--regardless of what it is called--is morally neutral.

But if life isn't a life at "conception", it certainly seems to be one by at least by the third trimester, making the middle periods the time of doubt and decision. At the same time, I've come to feel as if the trimester demarcations, and the viable-not viable delineations are problematic. Yet they may be all we have if we don't want to make abortions or contraceptives illegal at the zygote-blastocyst stage but want to restrict the practice nearer to birth.

Which brings us to one of the columns that kick-started some of the discussion, the column by William Saleton, which appeared in the WashPost Sunday and may have been cross-posted on Slate. Saleton, whose critics think he's too much an appeaser of the anti-abortion right, seems eager to dispense with the rationales of Roe with the hope that education and contraception access will do the job of eliminating most abortions, giving both sides some of what they want.

But it does beg the question that if contraception here in the U.S. is basically widely available, and if contraception access is what has limited abortion in Europe, why does the U.S. still have relatively high rates of abortion? While unapologetic pro-choicers don't seem to have a problem with this, much of the public may, particularly if the anti-abortion movement continues to make, however temporary, gains in state legislatures and state houses in dramatically restricting abortion rights. Because if they do, and if the actions taken by S.D. and those under consideration in Mississippi have ripple effects, access to contraception will emerge with even greater importance.

One final point. Some pro-choicers are making the point that although illegal, abortions in Latin America are much higher than in the U.S. The point being that even if abortion was to be outlawed in the U.S. it would undoubtedly still continue, probably even at high levels, but just more widely available to wealthier women.

I'm not sure this conclusion is warranted. I don't know a lot about the media or pressure group politics in Mexico, but if anti-abortionists succeed or have succeeded in reducing the availability of abortion providers, the remaining ones could easily be isolated by many of the same groups that have laid seige to abortion clinics in the past, making abortion access much more difficult. Add to that any influence right-wing media outlets might provide in isolating and highlighting abortion providers, and the illegalization of abortion in the U.S. could in fact be more enforceable than in other countries where it is currently illegal but in which abortions continue to be obtained at high levels. Call it the new case of American Exceptionalism.

A No Point Agenda

By now you've probably heard about or read yourself, this NYT--frontpage--column detailing, again, that although the Republicans are in trouble, Democrats don't have an alternative plan to present to voters, thanks to Howard Dean the party is short of cash on hand, and the party leadership and its 2006 candidates are divided on Iraq, health care, taxes, and whether or not to campaign on George Bush's rug fetish.

No doubt articles like these, which seem to be used as regular page A1 filler about every other day now, have got you down, and combined with the rather underwhelming efforts to enumerate a Contract with America like document by the DNC and the CAP, have you ready to go hunting with Dick Cheney.

But fear not.

Read this. And this. And what E.J.Dionne says, too.

I've come to believe, as these authors have, that there's no great need, and very little utility in, having Democrats come up with a national plan of bulleted items for its candidates to campaign on.

Why not? Well, the Democrats main objective needs to be to blunt the Republicans' agenda. Electing Democrats is the best way to do that. And if the Democratic Party is going to return to majority status someday, it probably is going to do so by assembling a weird patchwork of coalition partners spread across different regions, united by its diversity. The Republicans are the party whose ideology over the long run demands conformity and uniformity. The liberalism of Democrats, I would argue, does not.

But there are some more immediate reasons why trying to assemble a unifying message right now is unlikely to work. For one, the issues, and the various messes the country finds itself in right now--exploding deficit and national debt, the war in Iraq, cleaning up from Katrina, rebuilding FEMA as well as the Gulf Coast, brewing conflicts in Iran and North Korea, the election of Hamas in Palestine, etc--don't lend themselves to quick or simplistic solutions or slogans. And they don't necessarily carry the same weight across every state or congressional district. Finally, when the enemy is drowning, don't throw them a life-line. The public seems to have gotten the message that the Iraqi conflict has not gone as planned, and is not close to being resolved peacefully, without the aid of an informative, unbiased media, and without the aid of a visible anti-war movement. The Democratic Party doesn't have to help by giving the Republicans an easy target--such as would be the case for example if the party decides to run with a "bring the troops home now" kind of message (more about this later). Letting individual candidates decide on the best strategies for their campaigns and their regions is a more likely key to success than any awkward attempt to establish some kind of consistent theme or themes equally relevant and compelling to all the country's voters.

So, let's not take the bait being offered here to force the party or any of its particular candidates into a box of the media's, or the Republican Party's, liking. We're ahead--but the media is intent on lowering the expectations bar for Democrats. Let's keep it that way.

Syllabus of Errors

Ever wonder what the Golden Age of church supremacy was like? Try this papal document from 1864 on for size.

Some statements the encyclical condemned as false include:

"human reason... is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil" (No. 3)

"...hence reason is the ultimate standard by which man can and ought to arrive at the knowledge of all truths of every kind." (No. 4)

"in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship." (No. 77)

"Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church" (No. 18).

"the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church." (No. 55)

"every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true." (No. 15) and that "it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship." (No. 78)

"the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization." (No. 80)

It may seem unfair to bring up material from almost two centuries ago, but keep in mind church apologists are attempting a little "historical revisionism" to rehabilitate the church's image in the West. The church is particularly anguished about the downturn in its hold over Europe, where attendance at, and support for, the Roman Catholic church, and Christianity in general has been in sharp decline for decades. The turning away from the church in states where the church is given official status should be a hint and a half for today's rabid evangelicals, dedicated to eradicating the separation of church and state. Meanwhile, today's conservative church spokesmen tend to attribute the church's decline in the West to a sufficient lack of orthodoxy among its leadership (among conservative Catholics, the modifications in the lurgy resulting from Vatican II are brought in for particular scorn) rather than the church's documented history of hostility to democracy, freedom and human rights.

On a somewhat related not, I've picked up a book about Opus Dei, the strict, secretive Catholic sect portrayed in The Da Vinci Code, but also known for its real life wealth, and the elites that comprise its membership, including Robert Hansen, the FBI agent caught spying for Russia a few years ago, as well as U.S. Senators Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, both of whom have been mentioned as presidential candidates in '08. The case of Sam Brownback is particularly interesting, since he was until recently a devout evangelical, and hails from a part of the U.S. that is likewise strongly protestant.

The Hits Keep on Coming

Army Opens Criminal Probe of Tillman's Death

Probably not going to help rehabilitate the President's public standing.

Facing Religion

Regular readers of this blog know I've been wringing my hands waiting for leading Democrats to put together some type of response regarding the role of religion in public life, rather than letting Republicans and their "tear down the 'wall' between church and state" interest groups hog the spotlight with only one highly distorted view of faith and religion.

Well, E.J.Dionne has a column in today's Post outlining just such a statement by Catholic Democrats in the House, 55 of them to be exact who have signed on. If the excerpts reflect the document's content, I think it could prove a useful blueprint for other Democrats and media pundits:

"As Catholic Democrats in Congress," the statement begins, "we are proud to be part of the living Catholic tradition -- a tradition that promotes the common good, expresses a consistent moral framework for life and highlights the need to provide a collective safety net to those individuals in society who are most in need. As legislators, in the U.S. House of Representatives, we work every day to advance respect for life and the dignity of every human being. We believe that government has moral purpose."

The statement is only six paragraphs, which gives it clarity and focus. After a paragraph on Catholic social teaching about the obligations to "the poor and disadvantaged," the writers get to the hard issue, insisting that "each of us is committed to reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and creating an environment with policies that encourage pregnancies to be carried to term."

What's significant is that this is not a statement from pro-choice Catholics trying to "reframe" the abortion question. The signatories include some of the staunchest opponents of abortion in the House, including Reps. Bart Stupak, Dale Kildee, Tim Holden, James Oberstar and James Langevin.

In other words, Democrats on both sides of the abortion question worry that it is crowding out all other concerns. And in very polite language, the Catholic Democrats suggest that their bishops allow them some room to disagree. "In all these issues, we seek the church's guidance and assistance but believe also in the primacy of conscience," they write in an echo of Kennedy. "In recognizing the church's role in providing moral leadership, we acknowledge and accept the tension that comes from being in disagreement with the church in some areas."

With any luck, this statement will provoke two debates, one outside the Catholic Church and one inside.

One of the troubling aspects of 2004 was the extent to which partisan politics invaded the churches and seemed to enlist them as part of the Republicans' electoral apparatus. But there is a difference between defending the legitimate right of churches to speak up on public questions and the hyperpoliticization of the church itself.

For Catholics with moderate or liberal leanings, the argument from some bishops that they could vote only for staunch foes of abortion posed a wretched dilemma. It seemed to demand that such voters cast their ballots for conservative or right-wing candidates with whom they might disagree on every other question -- social justice, war and peace, or the death penalty. All are areas where liberals are often closer to the church's view. "Our faith does and should affect how we deal with issues," DeLauro said. "But we're rebelling against the idea of a one-issue church."

If nothing else, these Catholic Democrats will haul out into the open a discussion with their bishops, with their fellow Catholics and with their constituents that has been festering underground. "We were silent for too long," DeLauro said. "And that meant you were defined by others, not by yourselves."

These excerpts reflect what appears to be strong, yet wide-spanning statement, one that acknowledges differences of opinion about sexual issues, such as abortion, and that affirms the church's right, indeed urges it, to speak out on those as well as other issues of moral significance. Yet it asserts the rights of parishioners and church members to make decisions based on freedom of conscience, reminding church leaders, and other politically motivated members, of the wide array of moral choices that parties and candidates espouse, and from which church members are able to choose.

Even were I to hold a staunch anti-abortion position, it hardly seems reasonable to make that the one issue upon which to vote, a decision that would in effect give conservative Republican mizers a pass on every other matter of public policy, from tax cuts and health care, to worker and consumer rights, voting rights protection, the right to privacy, war and foreign policy, and a host of other important matters.

Even if one issue were to carry significantly more weight than any other, an important element or elements in making a voting decision on that issue would be the matter of whether government policy requires or allows a questionable action and what the balance of power in the relationship is. This is particularly important regarding abortion, where the "actor" or "oppressor" is either left undefined by anti-choice advocates or is misdefined to infer that the government, in the form of the courts or liberal Democratic members of Congress, is morally responsible for the behavior of medical providers and the private decisions of women. Since anti-choice legislation either penalizes no one or penalizes only the doctor (see the S.D. legislation for an example) and leaves the person getting the abortion uncharged, the anti-choice movement is essentially disregarding the moral choice of the woman, a strange policy decision in the sense that the woman is not regarded as being a relevant actor in the situation, although because penalizing the woman would no doubt cause a firestorm of protest, this decision by anti-choicers is at least somewhat understandable, however illogical.

For a church hierarchy to make this one issue (or any one issue) essentially the only one of importance for its members is to do a great disservice to parishioners and the public. Considering the backtracking church leadership has had to do on a number of issues and decisions over the course of history, from the burning at the stake of people innocent of any crime other than doctrinal heresy (such as John Huss) to the punishing of scientists such as Galileo for daring to pursue knowledge apart from the church's belief in scripturally revealed "truth", and the support of Protestant churches in the south for slavery and segregation, the church, in its Catholic and Protestant manifestations, has good reasons to be careful in the area of public policy, at least in so far as it threatens to restrict its membership to one political party or on the basis of any one issue.

This isn't to say that the "church" should only speak out on economic issues, or only on behalf of the poor, or that the church should otherwise shut up about issues of sexual morality. I doubt the church would or could be restricted in that way, and even for those of us who may vigorously disagree with conservative bishops or theologians on any particular issue, I believe its vital that the churches give us the benefit of their study and reflection.

I also recognize that churches and doctrinal belief systems are inherently conflictual and controversial, and I don't expect religious leaders and believers to avoid any and all offensiveness. Most moral choices of necessity carry with them such offensiveness and conflict. I'd hope the church would eventually start siding with have nots rather than the haves of society, but I will welcome their contributions to the realm of public policy in any case. But Democrats need to come prepared to debate these issues and provide their constituents with the information and advocacy they deserve. These issues have been forced underground, not the least of which by Democrats themselves. It's time to bring them out of the closet, and for Democrats to be more assertive about discussing, and criticizing where need be, institutions and principles of faith.

In any event, bravo to Rep. DeLauro and her co-sponsors. I look forward to reading the document in its entirety.

Stop Me Before I Read Joe Klein Again

You know, as much as I want Democrats to win in 2006 and 2008, there's a vindictive part of me that hopes the GOP stays in control. Joe Klein, like many members of the media, is a Republican addict: He won't admit he has a problem until "he has hit bottom", as attendees of 12-step groups say. It isn't enough that you and I are feeling the pain. The Republican addict still doesn't get it. It may take another 2 to 4, maybe even six years for them to truly admit their problem, the first step in any successful recovery program. Of course, the world may be on fire by then. But if that's what it takes...

Fighting the Iraq War with "One Arm Tied Behind Our Backs"

Along with the "blame the left" theme that will be trumpeted by conservatives in and out of the media when Iraq crumbles into oblivion and civil war (as if it hasn't already), prepare to hear another Vietnam era line as well: we didn't win in Iraq (Vietnam) because we had to fight the war "with one arm tied behind our backs".

If we had just dropped the bomb on them...if we had just been allowed to incinerate their cities, mosques, and oil lines...if we had been allowed to torture them at will...if we weren't just so darned concerned about morals and treating the enemy nice...if the media hadn't...if the politicians had just stayed out of it and let the military run the war...if the Democrats in Congress had just...if we had just ignored Abu Grab...if we had had a draft...if...if...

Conservatism's Legacy

Mcjoan at the DailyKos says:

As exemplified by the moment Dick Cheney said the United States would be "greeted as liberators" in his March 2003 interview on Meet the Press, never in the history of U.S. governments has an Administration been as consistently and wildly wrong and incompetent.

While most Democrats and other thinking people would undoubtedly agree with this statement, the fact is that the administration's "wildly wrong" judgments and "incompetent" managing doesn't come from anyplace strange.

Consider the recent comments by Arnold Schwarzegger at this weekend's California Republican convention:

One of the biggest rounds of cheers came when he reminded the delegates that he had blocked efforts to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses. And going forward, he promised, he would show "bold" leadership, invoking Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower and, naturally, for the California crowd, Ronald Reagan.

"We Republicans have a history of boldness," Mr. Schwarzenegger said. "I love that. Abraham Lincoln struck down slavery. Teddy Roosevelt fathered the environmental movement. Dwight D. Eisenhower built the Interstate highway. And Ronald Reagan tore down the wall and defeated Communism. This is a time in California's history that calls for similar boldness."

First, consider the line that got the most applause at the convention (according to the article): driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. If the high point for conservative Republican government has been reduced to preventing people from getting driver's licenses, than conservatives, and thinking people everywhere, might reasonably question the movement's usefulness, intellectual heft, and democratic motivations.

Second, the governator reaches into the past for examples of Republican "boldness" and comes up with ending slavery, "fathering" the environmental movement, building the interstate highway system, and defeating Communism. Of the four, the first three of these are "bold" only in the sense that they are clearly, liberal, progressive policy goals and accomplishments. The institution of slavery resided in what was then, and remains so today, as the nation's most violently conservative region. Slavery's defenders included the most reactionary conservative elites in the country, namely the South's wealthy plantation owners and the Christian Church. The ending of slavery was that era's most radically liberal and progressive initiative; and conservatism's vision ultimately lost.

The second, "fathering" the environmental movement, is, needless to say, anathema to today's conservatives. Supporters of maintaining the environment that enables life, such as Al Gore, are regaled by conservatives of nearly every stripe today as "fanatics"; the science of global warming denied and ridiculed as "loony" and anti-business. In some quarters, environmentalists are the de jure "terrorists of choice" for the media and the right when fires consume new housing developments, for example (the fires in southern Maryland were found to have been initiated by dis-satisfied racists wanna-bes).

Meanwhile, "internal improvements", such as interstate highway systems are equally blasphemous to movement conservatism. If you think I'm wrong, consider this comment by a conventioneer:

Mr. Schwarzenegger defended his plan to spend $222 billion on public works, including highways and schools, as an example of bold leadership.

But conservatives have criticized the plan as costly spending, and Jon Fleishman, a former state Republican Party executive director and editor of the widely read Flashreport blog, said, "I thought the speech was a safe double when he could have hit a home run." Mr. Fleishman called it short on specifics and a missed opportunity to say he would fire the chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, and roll back his public works plan.

The only item of the four that could be considered a genuine conservative aspiration is the "defeat" of Communism. Although most thinking people and students of history would point out that Soviet Communism fell on its own accord, and that U.S. "containment" policies such as the war in Vietnam and the toppling of the Iranian government (among other interventions against democratically elected regimes) were spectacular failures that, particularly in the latter case of Iran, have spawned decades of Islamic revolution and international terrorism, it should at least be conceded that the ending of global communism was a genuine conservative goal.

But in any event, one out of four ain't very good.

Moreover, Schwarzenegger would undoubtedly have enjoyed being able to claim other examples of bold leadership over the past two centuries of American politics--the dramatic expanding of the voting franchise, first to propertyless whites in the nineteenth century, than to women early in the 2oth , the establishment of Social Security, college student loans, Medicare, Civil Rights, and Voting Rights protection for blacks, for example, he can't very well point to these because these were not only Democratic initiatives, they were extremely liberal ones to boot.

The governator could have mentioned Theodore Roosevelt's trust-busting policies, but that would have been another "liberal" policy goal I'm guessing his crowd would just as soon not recall.

Fast forward to the present, it shouldn't be surprising that, having been wrong about virtually everything else over the past two centuries, conservative Republican leadership, elected in substantial part by regressive elements of the American body politic, would soon make short and catastrophic work of the budget and international terrain.

Time for another Truthiness Tour?

Remember this?

"The reason why we are doing it is we are sick and tired of seeing and hearing headlines by the mainstream media about our defeat in Iraq," Melanie Morgan, a talk radio host for KSFO Radio in San Francisco and co-chair of Move America Forward, said.

Morgan said the media is "imposing a Vietnam template on this war."

"This is not Vietnam," she said. "War is war, and it's dangerous, and the killing is taking place all of the time. At the same time, where there is danger, there is success and there is a mainstream media that is determined to shut out that success."

It's hard to believe that the infamous radio-escapade to Baghdad's Green Zone was only last July. Seems like a million years ago.

If that isn't enough to tickle the funny bone, you can always cue up this oldy-but-goody from March 16, 2003:

MR. RUSSERT: The army's top general said that we would have to have several hundred thousand troops there for several years in order to maintain stability.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I disagree. To suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement.

Bwwaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!

Meanwhile on Fox's Beltway Boys, Mort and Fred were left whining today that Democrats "want to see us fail in Iraq."

Now, if your occupation is going swimmingly, my bet is you aren't going to be making statements like that. So that probably tells you all you need to know about our "success" in Iraq. And as the condition deteriorates there, we can expect the "blame the left" chorus to elevate.

Then again, for some people, the mosque bombing and subsequent rioting and assassinations last week actually indicate Bush's strategery is working.

Brave New Year

It wasn't long ago that the media was pronouncing Bush's bad 2005 a thing of the past and prognosticating a brighter year in 2006.

So how's that working out?

And, geez, I know it's NewsMax and Dick Morris, but good gosh, man:

Katrina has the capacity to shape the second Bush term in the same way Sept. 11 shaped his first term — not only in rebuilding New Orleans but in taking preventative steps around the nation to bolster our defenses against natural and manmade disasters and terror strikes. Responding to disasters is a source of presidential strength and popularity, and Bush is about to show how it is done.

Update: Wouldn't you know it? The Carpetbagger was thinking just like me:

Never fear, the Bush gang said, 2006 is when everything gets back on track.

Two months in, how's that working out for the White House?

In lieu of the near identical language, I should like to point out, however, that my post came up Yesterday (02/25), and the Carpetbagger's on 02/26. True, he or she at Carpetbaggerreport writes better than me and does better research, but I still think this near simultaneous blog posting, using almost identical language, is a perfect excuse to call for another Blogger Ethics Panel.

I'm Special

You can be, too. Stop by Ciro Rodriguez's place and a drop a dollar or two in the bucket.

Is the "Port Controversy" Good for Democrats?

It's hard to understand the Bush administration's tactics here, even if the substance on the ports issue is not as dire as many in the media and party leaderships are making it out to be. Of course, I didn't and have never quite understood it's motivations in going to war in Iraq so what else is new? But the administration's baffling strategery and rhetoric is threatening to split its party, endanger its media-bestowed "national security" advantage, and thereby hand desperate Democrats a gift horse in the mouth that it would do just as well not to look at. Not surprisingly, some Democrats have jumped head first into the apparent breach, hoping to gain something from the spectacle.

While we would hate to throw the sinking Bush Administration a line, this squabble, and the Democrats' contribution to it, could have unforeseen, and negative consequences for Democrats.

For one, the media reaction I've seen is starting to remind me of the worst pandering and fear mongering we saw between 9/11 and March 2003. For liberal blogs happily linking to Lou Dobbs' rantings and railings against the administration over the past week, be careful. Dobbs is not a friend to liberalism and would just as soon stab it and us in the back as he would be to do anything.

Second, by harping on port security, Democrats run the risk of making it appear as if such a thing as total port security and total fool-proof protection against terrorist attacks exists or could be established. While it's undoubtedly true that "we could do better" on ports and in other areas of securing the homeland, it's hard to foresee the circumstances that would allow us to prevent any and all security threats.

Many Democrats and pundits have correctly made the link between Bush's post 9-11 fear mongering and the backlash such antics have had for his interests in this case. When we say things like "you're either with us or against us" and "bring it on", it's hard to suddenly decide to be cautious and deliberate, fair-minded and rationalistic towards a particular race of people or foreign country.

But Democrats might well corner themselves by echoing the same tough talk and reactionary tactics we've heard and seen from Republicans and their media mouthpieces. When the next attack comes, or when the next security threat appears, Democrats may find as a result of their pandering on this issue, that the public is in no mood to be reasonable or rationale.

On the other hand, is their a risk for Democrats if they don't appear to be taking a strong stand on the issue? If they allow the Republican Congress to buck their president on this, Democrats may feel the GOP would reap the rewards of public support, leaving themselves behind. Again.

I report. You decide.

Happy Conservatives

Lacking anything else to write about, George Will adds a chapter to the press's War on Liberalism. This one contends that conservatives are happier than liberals, based on a public opinion poll.

You probably think I'm going to rail on Will and the column, froth at the mouth at such a blasphemous allegation.

But I won't. For one, if I did, it would prove Will's argument. Second, the column is just too stupid to be legitimately angry over. Third, despite it's stupidity, I don't doubt that at least some conservatives are happier than some liberals, and that therefore, Will may have a point.

I'll get to the column's empty-headedness later, but for now, let me offer some evidence for why conservatives may be happier than liberals. While I don't know any happy conservatives, there are some sound theoretical reasons why they could be happier. First, let's consider some conservative typologies. One type of conservative is the religious fundamentalist conservative. Religious conservatives could be happy people because they have allowed themselves to jettisone all reason. If you don't worry about reason or evidence, if as Sam Harris notes in The End of Faith, there is no evidence that would cause you to change your religious beliefs, than reason really is of minimal importance for you, and you could conceivably be a pretty happy person, believing you go to heaven when you die, to live throughout eternity with your friends and family. As the famous Christian apologist and novelist G.K. Chesterton says in his book Orthodoxy, "an insane person is not someone who has lost his reason, he is someone who has lost everything except his reason". So reason may be holding us liberals back. I'll concede that. Of course, because faith also tends to be joined by strict and, by most measures, unreasonable rules, in real life faith does not always lend itself to happiness. Particularly if church teaches you to be insecure in your salvation. Roman Catholicism and Weslyian Protestantism tend to emphasize the role of works in salvation and the importance of always staying on guard less you lose your faith. Calvinistic Protestants, on the other hand, who preach a version of pre-destination, hold that certain people, believers, are pre-destined to be saved and for them, salvation is assured because God's grace covers us. The latter would theoretically be happier than the former.

The other type of rabid conservative is the racist conservative. I know racism is a heavy charge to levy, but these are the conservatives you will find pushing for English only laws, building a wall on the Mexican border, "invading Muslim countries and making them convert to Christianity"*, and otherwise expressing displeasure when the "other" is benefited by government policy. These people, from my experience, are rarely happy, believing as they do that the world is conspiring against them.

Mainstream conservatives (you might be wondering if I think any exist) are essentially moderate liberals, and probably hold generally libertarian view points, preferring the government not be involved in either the economy or a person's bedroom. Maybe these are the conservatives Will knows. By his column I'm forced to conclude he doesn't know either the religious or racist conservatives.

Which brings us, I suppose, to the moronic parts of Will's column today.

You might be wondering, if, as Will claims, conservatives are just a happy go lucky bunch of folks, where do the Rush Limbaugh's and Michael Savages of the world fit into this picture of conservative utopia? You know, the ones that talk about exterminating liberals, and how "liberalism is a mental disorder"?

Good question. Mr. Will?

Nevertheless, normal conservatives -- never mind the gladiators of talk radio; they are professionally angry -- are less angry than liberals.

Ah. The "gladiators" get a pass. They don't count. Sounds a little selective for this social scientist. If you subset the conservative sample by deleting Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Little Green Footballs, John Gibson, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Bennet, and the WSJ editorial page, then how many conservatives are left?

Anyway, after dismissing the influence of "the gladiators of talk radio"--who only have millions of listeners by the way--Will wraps up the column by charging liberalism with being "scoldish".

You see? Liberalism is a complicated and exacting, not to say grim and scolding, creed. And not one conducive to happiness.

Liberalism as "exacting" and "scoldish"? I thought liberals were "moral relativists". How can we be indifferent, morally relativistic"libertines"** and be "exacting" and "scoldish" at the same time?

Part of the problem we see in Will's worldview is the conventional wisdom of labeling conservatives as defenders of traditional values, as advocates of moral absolution, while labeling liberals as moral relativists. This view denies that both ideological extremes are highly moralistic, "exacting" and "scolding". Conservatives and liberals just care about different stuff. For conservatives, being gay is morally evil. For liberals, saddling our descendents with our debt, and bombing innocent civilians are morally evil. Both philosophies are heavily moralistic.

But the conventional wisdom, spoon-fed to the Deborah Howells and Jim Brady's of the world (Abramoff "directed" money to both parties) by the Republican Noise Machine*** is undeterred.

So when liberals are found to be concerned about an issue and desiring political action, they are labeled as "scolds", while when conservatives mount a challenge to the behavior of others, they are labeled as "conservatives" concerned with "traditional values".

Anyway, my job is done here. After watching some moral relativism on TV, I'll be off to my anger management session.





*see Coulter, Ann
**see O'Reilly, Bill
***see Brock, David

Paradoxes of Modernity

It's rare I find the Wash Post op-eds thought provoking, but this column by David Ignatius offers two inadvertent, and counterintuitive consequences of globalization, and the worldwide information technology revolution.

The question Ignatius poses is why with the increase in "connectiveness" between world governments and the global community, is U.S. foreign policy continually beset with messiness, be it the aftermath of the "cartoon" riots, the election of Hamas in the Palestinian territories, the insurgency in Iraq, or the resurgence of fundamentalism, or at least international hostility from the regime in Iran, and so on.

Based on conversations with two international and communications specialists, Ignatius relates two major elements of blowback from increasing international communication and expanding technology.

The first is a tendency for increased trade, technology and communication to widen the divide between the governing and the governed. Governmental, economic and intellectual elites become disconnected from the mass of their populations, setting the stage for major upheavals. Ignatius points back to Iran in 1975 as an example of a country that appeared to be heading successfully into the modern era, only to fall back into medieval Islamic fervor and control. Although Ignatius doesn't go there, and it may not be the case in every society, but the increase in trade and technology has undoubtedly helped widened the gap between the haves and have nots of a society as well, providing an additional source of, yes, class conflict.

The second element is the sad reality that increased technology has too often served as a means whereby ignorance and hate gets spread faster than ever before. Hence the cartoon riots. Ignatius also points readers to the "American blogosphere", having in mind no doubt the responses that poor ombudswoman, Deborah Howell experienced several weeks ago when the Washington Post was caught peddling GOP talking points regarding Jack Abramoff.

Ignatius's complaints about the "American blogosphere" aside, I couldn't help but think that not only do these two elements of connectiveness apply in a negative way just on the "Arab street" or in other parts of the world, but that America itself is a confusing picture of modernity and medievalism colliding. I'm thinking in particular of the rising influence of Christian fundamentalists. Conservatives have been quick and happy to point out that so-called liberal or moderate denominations are stagnating while conservative evangelical churches have been t thriving. While education is increasing, consumer goods more abundant, and developments in science and medicine increasing exponentially, America is at the same time becoming more ignorant and paranoid. The events of 911 obviously had a great impact on the American mood, much for the worse. The dominance of Fox News and her cable imitators have poisoned the well further, although Roger Ailes might validly argue that his network's success is the result of the public mood, rather than a cause of it.

In any event, we seem to be faced with both rapidly expanding technological prowess and education wherewithall at the same time we're busy reverting to 13th century feudalism in our religious dogma and international reactiveness.

A disturbing confirmation of this troubling trend and paradox is China. It's a gospel tenet of utmost sanctity in educated circles that free markets and capitalism lead to greater economic growth and prosperity, which in turn begets political pluralism and democratic freedoms.

But while near enough to truthiness in some cases, China has been a glaring exception, as recent reports about the roles played by Internet giants Yahoo! and Google in China have indicated. Although loosening the grip of the Communist Party's rigid economic dogma in China, Beijing's leaders appear more determined than ever to prevent the next evolution of political liberalization to accompany its economic one.

The disturbing implication is that the U.S. could continue to get richer and more technologically savy, free trade, globalization and all, and still takes steps backward politically, back into the pre-modern era that so many conservatives, especially religious ones, seem only too eager that we embrace at their behest.

One final area of discomfort concerns The Emerging Democratic Majority thesis put forward a few years ago by political scientists John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. The authors basically contend that demographic and labor force trends are moving the Democrats way; the proportion of minorities is increasing, the shift to a knowledge-based economy, and increasing levels of education, among other factors, will help liberalize the future electorate, if not in name, at least in partisan outcomes.

While there is undoubtedly some basis for optimism from increasing education, urbanization, and so on, a political scientist observing the political scene in the 1970's could have been forgiven if he or she had forecast much of the same thing for our own era. Civil Rights reforms had enfranchised large numbers of African-Americans. The voting age was just about to be lowered to 18. Women would continue to enter the labor force better educated and in greater numbers than ever before. More people, thanks to federal aid, were going to college. More people were waiting longer to marry and have children, and on and on. But the last three decades have been, at least in partisan terms, Republican instead of Democratic. Meanwhile, while Republicans have gained across the country, the culture, thanks in part to a changing economy, has gotten more liberal. As Thomas Franks notes in What's the Matter with Kansas?, the conservatives' cultural war has been a bust. Abortion continues. Gays are more accepted. Trashy TV still sells (just ask Fox).

Everything is Paradoxical.

Religious Tolerance:What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

Over the weekend I happened upon a "religious" program, one of the ones usually dedicated to the spreading of conservative politics, but which on presidential weekend, was conservative politics and theocracy to the nth degree.

The guy's remarks went something like this:

The puritans came over on the Mayflower to get away from religious intolerance in the old world, but then were intolerant themselves of religious minorities, such as Roger Williams who was exiled off to Rhode Island to start a new colony of religious dissidents. Later, congregationalists, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Mormons, and other religious minorities came in for their own persecution. Then came intolerance for the atheists and secularists.

So far so good, right? Sounds about accurate.

But then the double kicker: the guy proceeds to say something to the effect that, hey, you know, Christians are always hearing how intolerant they are, but the fact is that even though Christians in America were intolerant towards other factions of Christians and other minorities, these groups eventually became accepted, so that proves how tolerant American Christians are. Or something. But now it's conservative Christians who are facing intolerance from other religions and atheists. Intolerable.

So even though conservative Republicans dominate all three branches of government, and an increasing share of state and local governments as well, and despite the fact that conservative evangelicals are said to comprise 35%-40% of the Republican Party, conservative Christians are under seige in America, afflicted, scorned, hated, chased from their homes, disowned, deprived of their churches and bibles, barred from home-schooling, and imprisoned for their faith.

How, despite all the seeming evidence to the contrary, do claims such as this one find an audience? Like the myth of the "liberal media", the myth of the persecuted conservative Christian grows by leaps and bounds by the minute.

Undoubtedly these myths persist because they are incubated within the realms of very secluded, narrow social groupings and associations, whose members are urged to listen only to approved sources of information, not that many members need the urging. The language and psychology of victimization, which the Right is so normally and loudly condemning of, has been adopted by the Right to aid its organizational cash-flow and its political agenda. The fact that the religious persecution myth is trumpeted from a well-to-do establishment of radio networks and cable television stations aids in this process, and may in fact, suggest a vast over-representation of financially and politically induced paranoia among religious conservatives.