Right Wing Nut House

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later.

Either out of boredom or because our society is running out of things to be outraged and shocked about, a film director has made a movie about “the last taboo” - as opposed to the “last, last taboo” that was dramatized last year. And of course, this doesn’t include the taboo that was “last” just a few short years ago. The business of taboo breaking is becoming more profitable all the time - if not in monetary rewards then certainly in being on the receiving end of the critical acclaim given out by our cultural overseers who feel it their solemn duty to see to it that breaking taboos is an accepted, indeed praiseworthy goal of art. The idea that a taboo is no longer a taboo when it is considered as normal as a walk in the park seems to elude the post modern critics who see limits on good taste and common decency as artificial constructs created by the white male power structure to oppress the artist.

Of course, pouring this kind of raw sewage into the toxic mix that has become American culture then becomes an act of courage. The artist is speaking truth to power!

Yeah? I wonder what the horse thinks about it?

Zoo,” premiering before a rapt audience Saturday night at Sundance, manages to be a poetic film about a forbidden subject, a perfect marriage between a cool and contemplative director (the little-seen “Police Beat”) and potentially incendiary subject matter: sex between men and animals. Not graphic in the least, this strange and strangely beautiful film combines audio interviews (two of the three men involved did not want to appear on camera) with elegiac visual re-creations intended to conjure up the mood and spirit of situations. The director himself puts it best: “I aestheticized the sleaze right out of it.”

Devor and his writing partner, Charles Mudede, live in Seattle and were stunned, as were many in the state, by a story that broke in 2005 about a local man who died after having sex with an Arabian stallion. Though bestiality is not illegal in Washington, the subsequent revelation of the existence of an Internet-based zoophile community (the men refer to themselves as “zoos,” hence the title) was a shock.

How does this advance our understanding of humanity? How does this elevate the soul and make the spirit sing? How does this make us question our assumptions about reality or pique our curiosity about something hidden in the dark corners of our own consciousness?

I totally reject the notion that learning about animal abusers and what motivates them contributes anything of beauty or evokes feelings of longing or touches the inner person in all of us. These used to be the artist’s stock in trade; to elicit an emotional response that teaches the consumer of art something about himself, about society, or about humanity.

Now apparently, it is enough to simply make decent people want to vomit:

Though “Zoo” is intent on allowing these men to be heard, Devor’s intention was not polemical. “I’m not in there wrestling with the legal or animal cruelty issues,” he said. Rather, he envisioned a film like his others: “I count on the natural world pulling my films through. I thought the marriage of this completely strange mind-set and the beauty of the natural world could be something interesting.”

In introducing “Zoo” at Sundance, Devor called it “a difficult film and a difficult film to make.”

The key is not “art for art’s sake” but rather “art for the artist’s sake.” In this kind of atmosphere, the artist creates not to express himself but rather to draw attention to himself:

“A lot of people looked at me as if I was an exploitative person, dredging up something for profit, and that bothered me. I was certainly asked many times, often with a wrinkled brow, ‘Why are you making this film?’ It was something I did resent; I thought artists had the opportunity to explore anything.”

In the end, Devor ended up agreeing with the Roman writer Terence, who said “I consider nothing human alien to me.”

“It happens,” the filmmaker said, “so it’s part of who we are.”

In this construct, it is not the film but the film maker that matters. He’s “daring to be different.” He’s “exploring the outer boundaries of his art.” But since those boundaries keep getting pushed farther and farther away from what is elevating or simply enlightening, it is imperative that the artist violate tenets of decency, tradition, or moral order in order to satisfy the artificial rules that have been created. He is as trapped in his little contrived universe as the artists in the past he looks so disdainfully upon and ridicules for their conventions.

Where will it end? What is the real “last taboo?”

Do you really want to find out?

UPDATE

From Libertas, the conservative film blog:

So, this is a non-judgemental look at men raping animals? That’s even possible? And the filmmaker considers nothing human alien to him? The one time I could proudly join a PETA protest and where are they? You think, “Here it is. I can finally find common ground with the Left. We can finally join hands in brotherhood,” only to discover they’re not so sure about this one. It’s like when I was ready to stand with the feminists celebrating the end of the Taliban, but they didn’t show. Or, when I was ready to march with Jesse Jackson to fight for using taxpayer money to send poor inner-city kids to private schools, and he didn’t show. I await outrage from the Left at bestiality only to be told, ”It’s part of who we are?” He just couldn’t quite bring hemself to condemn this behavior?

If beastiality isn’t condemned, no wonder the rape of Dakota Fanning is no big deal. It’s probably gonna seem like a Disney film after this.

The author refers to an upcoming film entitled Hound Dog where the young Miss Fanning is raped and brutalized while Elvis Presely sings in the background.

Sensational! Maybe we can do a sequel and call it A Hard Days Night and turn Haley Joel Osmet into a crack addled male prostitute- unless that’s been done already.

Her name is Ashley. She’s 9 years old and weighs only 90 pounds. Her parents, hoping to keep their severely disabled “pillow angel” tiny so that it is easier to care for her, elected to have radical surgery performed that will stunt Ashley’s growth and prevent her from reaching a normal puberty:

In a case fraught with ethical questions, the parents of a severely mentally and physically disabled child have stunted her growth to keep their little “pillow angel” a manageable and more portable size.

The bedridden 9-year-old girl had her uterus and breast tissue removed at a Seattle hospital and received large doses of hormones to halt her growth. She is now 4-foot-5; her parents say she would otherwise probably reach a normal 5-foot-6.

The case has captured attention nationwide and abroad via the Internet, with some decrying the parents’ actions as perverse and akin to eugenics. Some ethicists question the parents’ claim that the drastic treatment will benefit their daughter and allow them to continue caring for her at home.

University of Pennsylvania ethicist Art Caplan said the case is troubling and reflects “slippery slope” thinking among parents who believe “the way to deal with my kid with permanent behavioral problems is to put them into permanent childhood.”

Not all doctors and ethicists agree:

Dr. Douglas Diekema, an ethicist at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, where Ashley was treated, said he met with the parents and became convinced they were motivated by love and the girl’s best interests.

Diekema said he was mainly concerned with making sure the little girl would actually benefit and not suffer any harm from the treatment. She did not, and is doing well, he said.

“The more her parents can be touching her and caring for her … and involving her in family activities, the better for her,” he said. “The parents’ argument was, `If she’s smaller and lighter, we will be able to do that for a longer period of time.”‘

Reading the parent’s blog, I am also convinced they did this out of love. And one look at the pictures on their site will convince anyone that the child is happy, healthy, well nourished, and well cared for.

Still, the parent’s desire to “manage” Ashley’s care via surgery raises troubling ethical questions:

Right or wrong, the couple’s decision highlights a dilemma thousands of parents face in struggling to care for severely disabled children as they grow up.

“This particular treatment, even if it’s OK in this situation, and I think it probably is, is not a widespread solution and ignores the large social issues about caring for people with disabilities,” Dr. Joel Frader, a medical ethicist at Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital, said Thursday. “As a society, we do a pretty rotten job of helping caregivers provide what’s necessary for these patients…”

An editorial in the medical journal called “the Ashley treatment” ill-advised and questioned whether it will even work. But her parents say it has succeeded so far.

No one should sit in judgement on the parents of this little one unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Dr. Frader makes an excellent point about the gap between home care and institutionalizing someone like Ashley. In most cases, parents cannot handle the burden and must give their child over to the state to be cared for (private institutions are astronomically expensive and very few insurance plans today cover them). And while many insurance plans will partially cover bringing in an outside caregiver, that too can end up being more than almost anyone can afford over the life of someone like Ashley.

The parent’s solution solution sounds drastic - perhaps even a little bizarre - but the important thing is that the surgery has allowed them to keep their daughter at home. They explain it this way:

“Ashley’s smaller and lighter size makes it more possible to include her in the typical family life and activities that provide her with needed comfort, closeness, security and love: meal time, car trips, touch, snuggles, etc.,” her parents wrote.

Also, Ashley’s parents say keeping her small will reduce the risk of bedsores and other conditions that can afflict bedridden patients. In addition, they say preventing her from going through puberty means she won’t experience the discomfort of periods or grow breasts that might develop breast cancer, which runs in the family.

The parents are obviously sincere but their explanation dances around the ethical dilemma that has some doctors and ethicists worried; that the surgery was not done necessarily for Ashley’s benefit but rather to ease the burden of the parents as well.

Ethical questions like this will only become more commonplace as new treatments and procedures are developed that will challenge the way we think about the severely disabled and the care they require and deserve. Would we feel the same way and view the parents in the same light if say, they had asked a doctor to amputate Ashley’s legs or perform some other kind of grotesque procedure that would have accomplished a similar purpose? Of course, it is doubtful any reputable doctor would have performed such a surgery but it does raise the haunting question of how far we are willing to go in accommodating parents in caring for a severely disabled child.

We live in an age where the miraculous in medicine is commonplace. We are rapidly approaching a time when even more wondrous advances in medical knowledge and technology will almost seem magical. And along with the magic will come the question that dogs ethicists with every major medical advancement: Just because we can do it, should it be done?

In literature, Mary Shelley illustrated the question brilliantly with Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, a warning that playing God has unforeseen consequences but also the very salient notion that with scientific advancement comes a responsibility to examine the underlying ethical considerations that attend all great discoveries. As we rush pell mell into the future, I feel at times that we are in danger of leaving behind a bit of our humanity in order to be first, or to be more innovative, or simply to demonstrate our capacity to amaze ourselves. And as our knowledge grows, so will the difficulty in resolving the ethical questions that inevitably arise from that knowledge.

There will be more disagreement among ethicists in the future as the line between what is right and what is possible grows ever more difficult to resolve. Let’s hope that our ability to decide such questions never fails to outstrip our capacity to glimpse the right course of action consistent with our values and our humanity.

UPDATE

If you want some intelligent analysis on how the surgery has affected Ashley and to get the perspective of a medical professional who deals daily with the severely disabled, you can do no better than visit my blog bud Raven’s site And Rightly So.

. She has been following the story for a while and has much more background on the case.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

What do you get when you throw a stick of dynamite into a room full of nitroglycerin?

Let me rephrase that: What do you get when religion, politics, and powerful symbols of American tradition all intersect to form a combination of controversy and conundrum?

The decision by newly minted Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) to take his oath of office on the Koran rather than the bible has many conservatives up in arms and many of the rest of us scratching our heads. There has been an enormous amount of ink spilled by those who believe that Ellison’s choice of the Koran as a symbol to seal his oath somehow threatens American civilization. Columnist and syndicated radio host Dennis Prager pulled no punches:

First, it is an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism — my culture trumps America’s culture. What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book.

Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison’s favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress. In your personal life, we will fight for your right to prefer any other book. We will even fight for your right to publish cartoons mocking our Bible. But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath.

I sincerely hope that Prager was able to take something to cure whatever was ailing him the day he wrote that article. Referring to Ellison’s “culture” (he was born and raised in this country) and the Koran as Ellison’s “favorite book” was evidence of someone either suffering from a severe case of hyperbole or Prager was demonstrating a towering ignorance about the tradition and meaning of oaths.

Prager wasn’t the only one to be caught up in this hysteria over where Ellison’s hand was going to be when he swore to uphold the Constitution. Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode felt it necessary to send an email to hundreds of his constituents warning them that Ellison was just the tip of the iceberg; that unless we followed the Mr. Goode’s advice and drastically curtailed the immigration of Muslims to America, we would end up with more Congressmen who would take the oath using the Koran:

In his letter, which was dated Dec. 5, Mr. Goode said that Americans needed to “wake up” or else there would “likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”

“I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped,” said Mr. Goode, who vowed to use the Bible when taking his own oath of office.

I am glad that Mr. Goode vowed to use the bible when being sworn in. This despite the fact that no one in this country or on planet earth for that matter ever suggested that he would use anything else. Goode reassured us even more when he published a short column in USA Today where he dutifully informed us that he has a copy of the 10 commandments on the wall of his office (presumably not the original) and that he does not subscribe to any of the tenets of the Koran nor will he display the book in his office. I’m sure this comes as an immense relief to his constituents although what relevance it has to his duties as a Congressman remains something of a mystery. Perhaps Goode believes that populating the country with strawmen is in his job description.

But Goode does his level best to ignore history and generate hysteria when he tries raise the spectre of some kind of Muslim invasion that would not only overwhelm our “resources” but even worse, mean the election of more Muslim Congressmen, probably Democrats. In fact, Goode has very little to worry about. The history of every immigrant group who has come to America has shown that the same fears expressed by Goode about the newcomers undermining our values and culture were used by nativist and anti-immigration forces in the past.

For the Irish, it was questioning how they could be loyal to both Rome and the US government. For the Italians, it was the fear that their birthrate would overwhelm the “real” Americans and we’d wake up one day and everyone would have a last name that ended in a vowel. And don’t forget the mafia while your at it. Mexican immigrants in the past raised many of the same fears plus the added bugaboo of everyone having to learn Spanish in order to get by. I would argue that this has become more of a threat as the push to assimilate more recent Mexican immigrants has been blunted by many of those multiculturalists that Goode and Prager rail against. But Mexicans who have been here for generations turned out (not surprisingly) to be regular Americans who speak English, complain about high taxes, and even vote Republican sometimes.

The question is why we should expect anything less from Muslims than we did from Irish, Italians, or Mexicans? In fact, Muslims who have been here for several generations have adapted very nicely, thank you. Like all other immigrants in our history, they learn English, adapt American values, work hard, and are loyal, patriotic citizens. And like other immigrant groups, they have those who find it hard to fit in and adapt. There are enclaves of Muslims that wish to remain separate. And the lure of radical Islamism is certainly a reality that we must deal with. But are we to deny entry into this country for an entire religious sect because of the violent proclivities of the few? This has never been the American way and despite the fact that we are at war with Islamic extremists, we shouldn’t change now.

I’m sure Ellison is enjoying all the attention. It is distracting people from examining his hyper-liberal record as well as some curious connections the new Congressman has with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). For a stunning review of these connections as well as a close look at some of his jaw dropping positions on the issues, the boys at Powerline covered Ellison’s campaign so well that the local paper, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune didn’t even bother. Or perhaps what the Powerline crew uncovered would have been absolutely devastating to his candidacy which is why the liberal “Strib” never wrote a word about Ellison’s radicalism.

Be that as it may, as a political junkie I can always appreciate a good political maneuver. And Ellison has come up with a beaut. He will take the oath on a Koran owned by none other than the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson:

“He wanted to use a Koran that was special,” said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who was contacted by the Minnesota Dem early in December. Dimunation, who grew up in Ellison’s 5th District, was happy to help.

Jefferson’s copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson’s collection and has his customary initialing on the pages. This isn’t the first historic book used for swearing-in ceremonies — the Library has allowed VIPs to use rare Bibles for inaugurations and other special occasions.

Pretty shrewd. And I’ll bet Mr. Goode and perhaps even Dennis Prager are having apoplexy over Ellison’s political master stroke.

All of this ignores two salient facts. The first being that the oath taken using the bible (or the Koran or the Hindu Bhagvad Gita if you’re so inclined) is actually the second oath taken by the incoming Congressmen. It is a photo-op, nothing more. The first oath is administered in private with no holy book at all. This not only raises the question of what the fuss is all about but also just what an oath or affirmation means?

An oath is a personal guarantee. Despite Dennis Prager’s contention that the Congressional oath is somehow a rite that belongs to America, anytime someone swears - with or without a sacred text - that individual is giving a personal assurance that the terms of the oath will be upheld. Until recently, the bible was a powerful talisman to use when taking an oath because it was believed (and still is thought by some) that if you break an oath after swearing it on the bible, you go straight to hell when you die and burn for eternity with no possibility of being given a reprieve. This had the salutatory effect of assuring one and all that the individual swearing on the bible really meant it.

Times change and few would make a similar argument today. Instead, the consequences for breaking an oath are entirely secular in nature. In the case of a Congressman violating their oath to be loyal to America, one would think a very long jail term would be in the offing.

But it is the symbolic power of the oath as a reminder both to a Congressman and to his constituents that the stakes of service are high and that being true to the United States is extremely important. And if one is concerned about the Congressman holding that promise sacred by using a symbol to denote the seriousness and gravity of the moment, shouldn’t that symbol reflect the deepest beliefs of the oath taker rather than some arbitrary construct that would be meaningless in a religious sense?

This is an issue that will not go away. Someday, a fundamentalist Muslim may be elected to Congress and questions will again be raised about “serving two masters” and whether or not someone who believes in the efficacy of Sharia law can serve after swearing allegiance to the Constitution. I don’t think that day will come anytime soon. But when it does, I hope the hysteria can be kept to a minimum and we can examine the issue with reason and tolerance. For a nation founded on religious diversity, I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to manage without descending into the darkness of ignorance and bigotry.

And I just couldn’t in good conscience vote for a person who doesn’t believe in God. Someone who honestly thinks the other ninety five percent of us suffer from some form of mass delusion.
(Palmer Joss from the movie Contact)

Carl Sagan, who authored the novel on which the movie is loosely based, died before the production of the film Contact was complete. And while the film is fairly true to Sagan’s humanistic and atheistic outlook, the scientist was nevertheless fascinated by the the human mind’s need to seek out the mystical properties of the universe. It’s not that Sagan hated religion as some atheists demonstrate on a regular basis. He hated its dogmatic approach to seeking and explaining universal truths - something that offended his scientific soul to no end. More than anything however, Sagan railed against the impact of religion on politics in America, seeing the self-evident danger of connecting the zeal of the true believer in religion with any political movement or politician.

Now it’s not often that I rise in defense of a belief in the supernatural, the mystical, or simple faith in a power greater than ourselves. Being something of a befuddled atheist, I tend to look at the impact of religion on politics and how the threads of religious belief have been woven into the very fabric of our society rather than examining the efficacy of a belief in God itself. But Sagan was much too broad in his condemnation of the confluence of religion and politics in America. He consistently ignored the fact that most of the mass reform movements in America have been animated by religious fervor; abolition, temperance (which affected the nascent womens’ rights movement), “prairie” populism, civil rights, and the moral basis for the anti-war movement of the 1960’s.

The positive impact of those reform movements on American life can sometimes be described as uneven at best. The temperance movement was allied with anti-immigrant forces. The “prairie populism” of the late 19th century was hijacked by large eastern money interests and manipulated for their own ends. The civil rights movement has degenerated into a lobby of special pleaders, no different than those who advocate price supports for wheat. And the moral underpinnings of opposition to Viet Nam morphed into the moral absolutism of the new left. Nevertheless, religion’s impact on our politics has been a plus over the years, supplying a moral basis for change as well as animating and inspiring some of our most important historical figures.

Religion and politics in this country are joined at the hip. But that doesn’t mean that our citizens are drunk with it - the “drug” that Communists believed religion to be. Americans look with an equally jaundiced eye at politicians who profess their faith too vigorously as well as those who give short shrift to any kind of religiosity. Part of this is certainly due to our Puritan roots, a movement against the outward manifestation of religion, reacting against the rites and rituals of the Church of England. But it also reflects the eminently practical side of the American citizen; the majority of us don’t think about religion that much and when we do, we tend to be surprisingly tolerant of how someone else worships their god.

That there is intolerance in America of other religions among a significant percentage of the population is born out in FBI statistics of hate crimes directed against people based on their religious beliefs. But what is truly remarkable is that there so few incidents to record. Out of a little more than 8,800 hate crimes committed in America in 2005, there were 1407 victims of crimes based on religious bias. And out of those victims, by far and away the largest group offended against were Jews (364). The next largest religious sect targeted were Muslims - 89. This is down from more than 500 Muslim victims of religious based hate crimes in 2001.

I might note that there was exactly 1 atheist who was victim of a hate crime that year. And the number of hate crimes against Protestants and Catholics totalled 54. So much for persecution of us atheists.

What these statistics don’t tell us is how many American citizens stared in disapproval when a Muslim woman walked by in a Chador. Or how many people razzed a Hasidic Jew for their distinctive facial hair (payoth). Or how many articles skewering Scientology as a scam and a farce were written. Or how many websites are on the internet that write the most laughably ignorant screeds against a “Papal Conspiracy” or even how anti-Catholics have latched on to theThe DaVinci Code to prove one nefarious thing or another about Catholicism.

Committing an overt act of aggressive violence against a practitioner of a particular religion is one thing. It is the intolerance visited upon religions in the form of a lack of respect for custom and beliefs that I believe to be a more significant problem in that this aspect of bigotry is not only becoming more common, but also more acceptable to both sides of the political spectrum.

In fact, both right and left are increasingly using religion as a political club, attempting to “prove” one horrible thing or another about their opponents. What makes this a matter of curiosity to me is that not all religions are targeted. For the left, it is Christians (or more generally, historical Judeo-Christian beliefs) who have borne the brunt of some of the most vile, hate filled speech imaginable. On the right, it is the simple minded attack of equating the entire Islamic faith with terrorism and/or world conquest while raising the specter of collusion in this fantasy by the left.

This is not to say that there should be no criticism directed against the followers of these religions for their stupidities or villainies. I have taken both Christians and Muslims to task for their excesses and their fake piety on many occasions. It is not criticism that is intolerant but rather the gratuitous, unthinking, unreasonable, shallow critiques that are passed off as “analysis” or “the way things really are” that reveal a profound bigotry disguising itself as political commentary.

Both sides are equally guilty of this calumnious behavior although, perhaps being a conservative, I see the left’s gratuitous Christian bashing as more obscenely casual than the sometimes laughably earnest efforts on the right to connect the left to Muslim extremism (while denigrating the entire Islamic faith in the process).

Trying to prove that the left is sympathetic to Islamic extremists is fairly simple - as long as you ignore the facts and concentrate on the left’s lack of enthusiasm for fighting the War on Terror the way that many of my fellow conservatives believe it should be fought - by bombing any number of countries who are clear enemies of the United States or who don’t speak out vigorously enough against the Islamists in their midst. In this case, it is simply a matter of using illogic to make the charge that since liberals don’t condemn the Islamists loud enough or often enough, they somehow support them - a bit of sophistry that understandably infuriates the left.

And always present in these charges is the belief that the left is somehow complicit in what many conservatives refer to as the “dhimmification” of America - the belief that by being too tolerant of the Muslim faith, we are actually playing into the Islamist’s hands and readying ourselves for domination by Muslims. What my conservative friends mistake for submission is no more than a strain of Political Correctness toward religion that manifests itself in many ways - including bending over backwards not to offend evangelicals:

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

“In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.’”

(HT: C & L)

Having said all of this, there is ample reason for criticizing the left’s myopia regarding the real threat of Islamic extremism and their apparent sanguinity in the face of Islamists using their favorite talking points when criticizing the United States. This doesn’t make them supporters of the extremists nor does it make them any less patriotic. It only reveals them to be the useful idiots of the Islamists, a charge they refute by trying to point to all the ways in which the Islamists resemble religious conservatives. This is a laughable argument that fails to address the fact that a tape from al-Qaeda can sound very much like many a diary that appears on Daily Kos or many columns that appear in Raw Story or on Juan Cole’s ever more conspiratorial-minded blog, Informed Comment.

On the other side of the coin, it has been shocking to watch over the last few years as the left has thrown off all restraints and attacked the Bush Administration and their supporters using some of the most nauseating anti-Christian invective imaginable. It isn’t enough that the left denigrates the use of devout Christian beliefs by the Bush Administration to advance a political agenda (such as the above example regarding the Grand Canyon). Such criticism (if carefully done) is valid and necessary. The problem has been the stomach turning way in which not only the beliefs of evangelicals and Christians in general have been denigrated, but also the lifestyle, the manners, the customs, and concerns of these folks which have been turned into fodder for ruthless parody or outright hate filled rants that reek of cultural and intellectual superiority:

But there is one number that stands out among the rest as absolutely unbelievable. Twenty-five percent of Americans believe that Jesus Christ will return to earth in 2007. TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT! IN 2007!

These people are nuts. There’s no polite way of saying it. If I sound superior, too bad. Sanity has its advantages.

If some of the famed cultural warriors of the right want to take me on and defend their cherished Christian cohorts, step on up. I’ll take every one of them on and win very, very easily.

Here’s my plan for victory - wait till 2008. When Jesus doesn’t come - again, for the 2,007th time - I will be proven right. Will the people who believed he was coming in 2007 change their minds? Of course not. They’ll just say he’s coming in 2008. And on and on it goes.

I will gladly step up and defend the 25% of Americans who believe in the second coming of Christ - a belief that many protestant denominations teach is imminent and that their congregations should expect Christ’s return at any time.

How “sane” the author, Cenk Uygur, of this vicious, anti-Christian piece actually is can be gleaned from this jaw dropping passage:

You people are seriously disturbed. You think a magic man is going to appear out of the sky and grant you eternal bliss. If the man’s name was anything other than Jesus, that belief would get you locked up as a psychotic. And the fact that you have given him this magic name and decided to call him your Lord doesn’t make it any more sane.

Imagine for a second if instead of Jesus, some psycho was waiting for a magical creature named Fred to come save him this year and suck him up into the sky. Now, who doesn’t think that man needs serious counseling and perhaps medical supervision? Now, you change Fred into Jesus, and you have 25% of the country.

Sometimes the world scares me. It is full of psychotics who go around pretending to be rational human beings. You think that’s offensive, then prove me wrong. I dare you. Show me Jesus in 2007 and I’ll do whatever you demand of me.

It should go without saying that it is not “psychotic” to believe in the tenets of any religion - the operative word being “belief” which denotes that which cannot be empirically proven but rather “a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing,” according to Dr. Johnson. And as far as rationality is concerned, I suggest Mr. Uygur read Thomas Aquinas for proof that reason and faith can, in fact, compliment one another. Indeed, as Pope Benedict recently elucidated brilliantly, reason is the basis for belief in God.

Why then, should the author stop at poking fun at The Last Days? For a “sane” and “rational” person, the idea of the son of a dead carpenter rising from the dead is ludicrous, the height of idiocy. Everyone knows once you’re dead, you’re dead. And what about all those “miracles?” Helping the blind to see and the lame to walk? You’ve got to be kidding. Except that this belief has animated and inspired scientific giants, none more prominent than Isaac Newton whose faith in God and that dead son of a carpenter led to discoveries that are universally recognized as the greatest in the history of science. “I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily,” he wrote. And there is absolutely no difference between his beliefs and the beliefs that Mr. Uygur so sickeningly describes as “psychotic.”

This is but one example of the left’s despicable attack on people of faith. To find others, I suggest you Google up “American Taliban” - an outrageous, exaggerated phrase that seeks to tie the religious political right in America to the murderous tyrants who bullied the Afghanistan people until they were overthrown by American arms in 2001.

Intolerance is not confined to those with religious beliefs. As Mr. Uygur proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, the disease can manifest itself even among “sane” and “rational” bigots on the left. And the air of insufferable superiority and condescension by the Uygur’s of this country is so ripe that the stink of their ignorance permeates our politics to the point that rational discourse regarding the very real threat of religious influence affecting reason and science in society is impossible.

For I actually agree with some of the left’s critique of the religious right and their drive to impose their beliefs on the rest of us, although I think the threat is vastly overstated for purely political purposes. And the religious right’s intolerance of gays, of the teaching of science that contradicts dogma, and of the “godlessness” of the political opposition all contribute to a coarsening of political dialogue.

And it isn’t just the hard, evangelical right that exhibits this kind of intolerance. Many of my fellow conservatives, in their zeal to prosecute the War on Terror, much too often use too broad a brush in condemning Islam and, by extension, the left itself for what they see as failures to stand up to the extremists or worse, sympathize with their goals. The fact that moderate Muslims are too eager to play politics with Islamism by piggybacking their grievances on the attention garnered by the terrorists doesn’t mean that they support violence. They should be roundly criticized for their moral blindness not for the fact that they share a general belief system with the murderers.

I regret to say that even though many conservatives may deny it, their criticisms of Islam as a religion that seeks to enslave the rest of us smacks of the same kind of prejudice and ignorance exhibited by the left toward Christianity. It has the same out of control feel to it - as if by its very shallowness, it can cover a multitude of sins, both real and imagined. Both critiques should be rejected for what they are; muddled thinking born out of a desire to score political points rather than objectify the nature of the threat - be it radical Islamism or radical Christian fundamentalism.

I don’t expect any of this to change anytime soon. The echo chamber here in Blogland is a powerful instrument that enslaves adherents to a particular worldview and will brook no opposition. Apostasy on both sides is punished severely. One wonders if we’ll ever be able to get back to a place where we can all view the intersection of religion and politics with a wary but welcome attitude, seeing the moral underpinnings supplied by religion as a plus for our politics while recognizing the dangers of using politics to trash the belief systems of others.

UPDATE

Frank Martin (of the excellent blog Varifrank) in the comments points out that the National Park Service does indeed gladly give the age of the Grand Canyon on its website.

What’s more, it appears that the group of park employees who sent the letter, vastly exaggerated their charge that the age of the Canyon could not be disseminated to the public.

What they’re bitching about is that a book that posits the notion that Noah’s flood caused the Canyon to be formed is still on the shelves after a year of dithering by Park bureacrats. I can’t tell if this is bureaucratic stupidity or the imposing of religious beliefs by Bush appointees on scientific questions. Whatever it is, the book should be taken off the shelves, especially after a directive stating that Park bookstores should be akin to schoolrooms rather than libraries was handed down.

And I can’t find anywhere in the linked letter where they actually say no one is allowed to give the true age of the Canyon (about 550 million years). It appears that Frank’s belief that this is simply more BDS on display is correct.

The case against 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused to deploy with his unit to Iraq and made statements against the war and President Bush, took an unusual turn yesterday when the army subpoenaed the journalists who originally reported on Watada’s statement:

Army prosecutors have sent subpoenas to journalists in Oakland and Honolulu demanding testimony about quotes they attributed to an officer who faces a court-martial after denouncing the war in Iraq and refusing to deploy with his unit.

The Army’s subpoenas, which the journalists said they received last week, put them in the uncomfortable position of being ordered to help the Army build its case against 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who faces up to six years in prison if convicted.

“It’s not a reporter’s job to participate in the prosecution of her own sources,” said Sarah Olson, an Oakland freelance journalist and radio producer. “When you force a journalist to participate, you run the risk of turning the journalist into an investigative tool of the state.”

But Olson, who received her subpoena Thursday, acknowledged she has no legal grounds to refuse to testify, since she is being asked only to confirm the accuracy of what she wrote about Watada and not to disclose confidential sources or unpublished material.

Normally, she said, “no one, myself included, has any problem verifying the veracity of their reporting.” The ethical problem in this case, she said, is that she would be aiding the prosecution of one of the dissidents and war critics who regularly trust her to tell their stories to the public.

(HT: Instapundit)

I can understand the reporter’s reluctance to testify. But the defense attorney says he doesn’t mind the reporters giving testimony - ostensibly because he is basing his defense of the soldier on Watada’s First Amendment rights:

Watada’s lawyer, Eric Seitz, said he understands journalists’ unhappiness at having to appear in court but would not object if they complied.

“It doesn’t bother us or disturb us that reporters testify Lt. Watada made those comments,” he said. The main issue, Seitz said, is “whether he had First Amendment rights to say what he did.”

Both Olson and her lawyer, David Greene, declined to say whether she would comply with the subpoena, which requires her to take part in a hearing in January as well as the court-martial. She could be held in contempt of the military tribunal and jailed if she refuses.

I think Olson is overreacting. She’s not being asked to reveal anything. She will be asked to confirm the accuracy of her reporting, something any reporter worth their salt should gladly do whether it be to the public or a military tribunal. In fact, she appears to be setting up something of a strawman in order to justify non compliance:

Before sending subpoenas to the journalists who reported Watada’s comments, the Army asked them to verify their quotes voluntarily, but they refused. Olson said last week that free expression is endangered by both the Army’s case against Watada and its attempt to enlist journalists.

“If conscientious objectors know that they can be prosecuted for speaking to the press and that the press will participate in their prosecution, it stands to reason that they would think twice before being public about their positions,” she said. “What we need in this country now is more dialogue and not less.”

This is nonsense. First of all, conscientious objectors will never be prosecuted for “speaking to the press.” That’s ridiculous. What they might be prosecuted for is what Lt. Watada is being charged with; failure to deploy with his unit and “conduct unbecoming an officer” for his statements against the Commander in Chief. Would Watada be prosecuted if he simply stated his opposition to the war and left out his criticism of the Commander in Chief? I doubt it.

There have been plenty of examples both here in America and in Iraq where soldiers have not been shy about declaring their opposition to the war. As far as I know, none of them have been disciplined. And if they have, that too would be ridiculous. Joining the army doesn’t mean that you lose your right to protected speech under the First Amendment. But criticism of the CIC is a different story. It goes against both military tradition and common sense. You can’t have an army in the field second guessing the decisions of the CIC. This would affect morale not to mention lead to chaos in the ranks.

There is one more aspect to this case that troubles me; it appears that the Army decided to make an example of Watada. Here’s Watada’s statement - puerile though it may be - as well as an offer the young man made that I can’t understand why the military didn’t agree to:

Watada, raised in Honolulu, joined the Army in 2003 after graduating from college and was first stationed in South Korea. In public appearances and interviews, he has said he was motivated to enlist by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but had misgivings about the Iraq war from the start and eventually concluded that it was both immoral and illegal.

“As I read about the level of deception the Bush administration used to initiate and process this war, I was shocked,” Olson quoted him as saying in one of the statements cited by the Army as conduct unbecoming an officer. “I became ashamed of wearing the uniform. How can we wear something with such a time-honored tradition, knowing we waged war based on a misrepresentation and lies?”

The interview, conducted in May, was published on truthout.org on June 7, the same day Watada declined to go to Iraq with his armored vehicle unit in the 2nd Infantry Division. He said he offered to redeploy to Afghanistan or resign his commission but was turned down.

As I understand it, such requests for reassignment based on conscientious objections are unusual but have been honored in the past. As have requests to resign a commission for similar reasons been accepted. It seems to me - as completely unschooled in military procedures as any civilian - that the army wants to single Watada out and make an example of his objections to the Iraq War. If so, we can reasonably ask if Lt. Watada is being treated fairly.

Despite sounding like a Michael Moore clone, Watada is entitled to his opinions. However, his refusal to deploy based on his political opinions cannot be allowed under any circumstances. But what about his refusal to join his unit in Iraq based on his personal, moral precepts?

These are tricky waters indeed for both Watada and the army to navigate. Watada refusal of duty is not based specifically on the moral tenets of any organized religion but rather on his own personal, moral code. In this respect, Watada’s refusal of a lawful order to deploy may be seen in the same moral context as a soldier who refuses to carry out an order to shoot civilians or kill babies. It doesn’t matter if we believe Watada to be a misguided, simple minded fool. Each soldier is responsible to their own concept of morality. In this sense, Watada’s dissent may be seen as an honorable means to live up to his own personal code of moral conduct - as long as he is willing to accept the consequences of his dissent.

That last being the key to any act of civil disobedience. Because in essence, that is what Watada is doing in a very public way; he is trying to influence others by sacrificing his career and possibly his freedom. We can violently disagree with his methods and his rationale; but we can also recognize that in a democratic, civil society, this is an honorable means to disagree with the government.

UPDATE

Some may disagree with my characterization of Watada’s actions as “civil” disobedience. And they would be technically correct. But the practical consequences of Watada’s protest go beyond military justice and enter the realm of politics. For this reason, Watada’s protest impacts civil society much more than it impacts military jurisprudence.

He can’t be prosecuted a second time thanks to the double jeopardy clause in the Constitution. But if half of what the Inspector General’s report on Sandy Berger’s escapades at the National Archives can be believed, the former National Security Advisor to President Clinton has a lot to answer for - if not to the law, then certainly to history and the American people.

Berger robbed the American people of the only thing owned by all of us; our shared experiences as a nation. His destruction of documents relating to the Millennium Plot will make that event a little less understandable, a little less clear when historians 50 years from now try and pick up the thread of all that transpired during that time.

A small event in the sweep of history, yes. But no historical event exists as an island. What knowledge we lose from our incomplete picture of the response to the Millennium Plot ripples across other events and prevents us from fully understanding our past in a way that was entirely avoidable and largely without precedent.

From the Executive Summary of the Inspector General’s report, we learn that it was not simply copies of the Millennium Plot After Action Report (MAAR) and “notes in the margins” that were stolen and destroyed as we were originally led to believe. In fact, the MAAR was an attachment to each document taken. There were four separate emails with the attachment, the contents of each not being revealed (for obvious reasons).

This information throws the entire Berger incident into a totally new light. Richard Minter of Pajamas Media, who has the PDF file of the IG report available for download:

What was role of Omar Bashir, President of the Sudan, and his relationship to Berger and President Clinton during the days when he offered to cooperate in the capture of Osama Bin Laden?

What was in the ten to twenty pages of notes Berger is believed to have taken out of the reviewing room against regulations during his first session?

Who was the person or persons Berger contacted during the numerous “private cell phone calls” he was allowed to make during his active review of the classified documents?

Exactly what was in the documents Berger stole from the archives, some of which he has confessed to destroying?

Did Berger have an accomplice? If the person on the other end of those phone conversations knew what he was doing, it would seem logical that he/she would be open to aiding and abetting a crime. There is nothing in the IG report that I can see where any attempt was made to discover who Berger was making all those phone calls to.

Minter speculated on air today that one of the documents removed and destroyed by Berger was a 1995 letter from Bashir to Clinton offering to hand Osama Bin Laden over to us. What would the 9/11 Commission have had to say about this? Would it have altered their final report?

Probably not, which makes these revelations perhaps more of an historical curiosity than anything else. I doubt whether it would have altered any perceptions by the American people about whose failures were responsible for 9/11 and how much blame should be assigned to both Clinton and President Bush. Al-Qaeda would not have disappeared even if we had gotten a hold of Bin Laden. And radical Islamists would have continued plotting against America regardless of his fate.

But none of this lessens the outrage we should feel against Berger. The man might not have to face a court of law again for the crime. But the government can certainly revisit his paltry 3 year national security clearance suspension. Given the facts of the case, there should be no reason why the government shouldn’t make Mr. Berger permanently ineligible to review classified material.

And any Democratic presidential candidate who would use Mr. Berger as an advisor is opening themselves up to well deserved criticism for having such an untrustworthy person as an aide.

Berger should be banished to the outer darkness of the national security establishment for what he’s done. Unfortunately, he will still pull down five figure speaking fees and be in demand as a lecturer and talking head on cable news shows. It is we, the American people who will be poorer for Mr. Berger’s crimes - acts for which he has yet to show much remorse much less being shamed for what he’s taken from all of us.

It’s bad enough when some B-List blogger and wacko talking head like Debbie Schussel runs off at the mouth about the danger of electing Muslims. That kind of idiocy can be partly ascribed to Ms. Schussel’s desire to move up the blogging ladder, bashing Muslims being a quick way to fame and fortune when plumbing the extreme depths of the conservative sphere for audience and links.

But when a Congressman of the United States sends a letter to his constituents that raises the false specter of some kind of Muslim invasion of Congress while simultaneously warning that “traditional” values would be threatened by Muslim immigration, it forces me once again to take up the Cudgel of Righteousness (already bloodied from yesterday’s pummeling of Schussel) and give Representative Virgil Goode, Jr. a few well deserved whacks upside the head:

In a letter sent to hundreds of voters this month, Representative Virgil H. Goode Jr., Republican of Virginia, warned that the recent election of the first Muslim to Congress posed a serious threat to the nation’s traditional values.

Representative Virgil H. Goode Jr., left, said Keith Ellison’s decision to use a Koran in a private swearing in for the House of Representatives was a mistake.
Mr. Goode was referring to Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat and criminal defense lawyer who converted to Islam as a college student and was elected to the House in November. Mr. Ellison’s plan to use the Koran during his private swearing-in ceremony in January had outraged some Virginia voters, prompting Mr. Goode to issue a written response to them, a spokesman for Mr. Goode said.

In his letter, which was dated Dec. 5, Mr. Goode said that Americans needed to “wake up” or else there would “likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”

“I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped,” said Mr. Goode, who vowed to use the Bible when taking his own oath of office.

In taking the good Mr. Goode to task for this stupidity, allow me first to slap all of you lefties around a bit for once again overgeneralizing when it comes to Values Conservatives by attempting to make the bad Mr. Goode a poster boy of sorts for that constituency.

Goode isn’t even a good example of an extremist. That’s because his letter is so transparently a political calculation that it doesn’t even come off as sincere. No Congressman can be this stupid, can they?

Mr. Goode declined Wednesday to comment on his letter, which quickly stirred a furor among some Congressional Democrats and Muslim Americans, who accused him of bigotry and intolerance.

They noted that the Constitution specifically bars any religious screening of members of Congress and that the actual swearing in of those lawmakers occurs without any religious texts. The use of the Bible or Koran occurs only in private ceremonial events that take place after lawmakers have officially sworn to uphold the Constitution.

Mr. Ellison dismissed Mr. Goode’s comments, saying they seemed ill informed about his personal origins as well as about Constitutional protections of religious freedom. “I’m not an immigrant,” added Mr. Ellison, who traces his American ancestors back to 1742. “I’m an African-American.”

Goode’s spokesman has informed us that the Congressman actually is that stupid; he declines to apologize and “stands by” the letter.

Of course, such incidents help Ellison enormously. They allow him to appear the reasonable, bemused, aggrieved party while anyone who has a passing familiarity with the devastating series of articles published by the Powerline boys knows that “reasonable” is not the way to describe many of the new Congressman’s views.

But beyond the shameless, shallow pandering by Goode is a revealed truth; that too often Republican politicians are using this “traditional values” theme to capitalize on some unimagined fear as in the case of Goode and his phantom Muslims. We also see other individual groups like gays targeted as somehow being in conflict with traditional American values - as if these values are practiced by people solely as a result of their religion, sexual orientation, ethnic heritage, or any other qualifier that a politician seeks to use to drive a wedge between us.

There are plenty of gay people who practice what, by any definition would be “traditional” American values. They are as monogamous as heterosexual couples. They raise children. They are god fearing folk. The cry when the flag passes in front of them. They fight and die for their country. Aside from their sexual orientation, there is absolutely nothing to differentiate them from your average Joe American. (Don’t believe me? Visit Gay Patriot and any one of a number of Republican/center right gay blogs and read a little bit about what they believe.) And yet, because of the actions of some so-called “Gay Rights” groups - who are much more about advancing a leftist agenda then they are about advancing gay rights - most conservatives look with distrust upon gays who believe in traditional American values.

There are traditional values that are under attack - but not by gays, or Muslims, or any specific group. Rather it is leftist ideology that seeks to remove religion from public life not separate it as they claim. It is leftist cant that seeks to change the narrative of our nation’s founding, substituting the basest of motives for Independence instead of the truly heroic and improbable way our freedom was achieved. The left has spent the last 40 years degrading our culture, denigrating our heroes, altering our history, deriding the simplicity and patriotism of the most common of folk among us, and in the end, trying to tear down 200 years of tradition and decency that our ancestors fought to pass down to the rest of us.

Whether this is their intent or not is a moot point. Their actions are having this affect. Whether it is the “no holds barred, anything goes” cesspool of a culture they have created via Hollywood or, in the name of “civil rights,” erecting a structure of separateness and discrimination via “affirmative action,” the left has done its best to destroy what many Americans cherish and believe in.

But none of this excuses idiots like Goode - and many others who use the battle cry of “Traditional Values” to advance their own agendas - from responsibility for engendering fear and loathing among those who are susceptible to the siren call of nativism. This strain has a long, dishonorable history in America, going back to the first days of the Republic when the first wave of immigrants began to unload onto the docks in New York and Boston. Then it was mostly Swiss and Germans with a smattering of Scots and Irish. Later waves of Irish immigrants would raise the spectre of not only aliens who didn’t possess “American values” but arrivals who were papists to boot. And each successive wave, the nativist impulse would rear its ugly head and find something scary and alien about the newcomers.

Goode is no different. From his letter:

“We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy . . . allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country,” Goode said in the letter. “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America.”

Right out of the nativist playbook.

I’m all for controlling our borders. I’m all for enforcing the law. But I am also in favor of increasing legal immigration. If someone wishes to go through the bureaucratic rigmarole that it takes to get here legally and then work toward citizenship, that alone should denote a person’s interest in the “traditional values” of America. There are plenty of Muslims here today - second and third generation Muslims - who embrace the same values you and I do and are no more a threat to those values than my pet cat Snowball.

For Goode to posit the notion that Muslims are incapable of adopting and embracing traditional values not only flies in the face of history and everything we know about immigrants but also bespeaks a shallow and corrupt mind, incapable of grasping the shining truth about America as a melting pot that embraces all cultures and ethnic groups.

And that may be the most traditional of all American values.

Senator Barak Obama may as well save his time and money and abandon any thoughts he may have had about being President of the United States.

You see, the internet’s Mother Superior of Religious Intolerance and Hysterical Exaggeration has decided that Obama can’t pass muster when it comes to the Constitution’s well known and time honored religious test.

If you are unfamiliar with this test, don’t worry. Our Holy Mother will shine the light of extraordinary ignorance on your confusion and the obfuscated will become opaque. Just don’t get slimed by the nauseating bigotry oozing from every word:

His full name–as by now you have probably heard–is Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Hussein is a Muslim name, which comes from the name of Ali’s son–Hussein Ibn Ali. And Obama is named after his late Kenyan father, the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim.

And while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that’s not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he’s a Christian, but they do not.

How to dissect this idiocy? A better question might be, why bother?

Answering the latter question is easy; because when you ignore bigotry like this, you in effect become part of the problem. Especially if you have a voice to denounce it. This blog may be small (and getting smaller) but as long as I have one reader who will listen, I will always speak out when I believe someone has crossed the line. And Saint Debbie has proved once again that logic and reality take a back seat to unbridled fear and loathing.

To wit:

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

First of all, my middle name is David. Since everyone knows that David was a mighty King of the Jews (”Once a Jew, always a Jew”), perhaps Rebbi Debbie could explain how my Jewishness has affected my ideology and character.

What’s that? I was born a Christian so we’re talking about a different kettle of fish? Since even Ms. Schlussel doesn’t know whether or not Obama’s father was in fact, a Muslim (”the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim…”), how does she know that Obama’s father didn’t give him the middle name of one of his close relatives who may have been Muslim and hence, the appellation was passed from father to son by tradition and not as a result of any religious significance?

I know that injecting a little logic into this story might cause Debbie’s head to explode but really, what does it matter if Obama’s father or grandfather or his second cousin twice removed on his mother’s side were Muslims? Senator Obama identifies himself as a Christian. And since we’re still poring over the constitution looking for the verbiage that states no Muslim can ascend to high office, maybe we should just accept Obama at his word that he doesn’t keep a blood soaked copy of the Koran in his Senate desk nor does he attend secret meetings of al-Qaeda on his lunch breaks.

And the leap of illogic made by Schlussel that because Obama’s father may have been Muslim that we must then ask “where will his loyalties be” reeks of bigotry and is pretty damned ignorant to boot. Perhaps we should have a loyalty oath for all Muslims in America - even the armed forces. We will allow Muslims to fight and die for their country but, just to be on the safe side, make them swear that they won’t behead any of their comrades in their sleep nor will they proselytize for their religion. And if that’s not good enough for Schlussel, maybe we could assign a reliable Christian officer to keep an eye on them lest they switch sides in the middle of a battle.

One question: Will they take the oath of allegiance on the bible or the Koran? Maybe we should ask Dennis Prager. He and Schlussel should be great pals given that they see eye to eye on the “Muslim Question” in America.

I swore to myself that after the Jill Carroll nuttiness, I’d never link to a Debbie Schlussel post again. But this foolishness is so far beyond the pale of rational discourse that it merits me breaking that promise. The idea that having a Muslim father or even being a Muslim oneself disqualifies anyone from high office is so foreign to the very ideas that gave birth to this country that one wonders whether Schlussel can truly grasp the insult she does and the hurt she causes by even suggesting the idea.

Yes there are radical Muslims who hate us and wish to kill us all (not too many from Kenya, by the way). To be so ignorant as to say that Obama is “is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage” without one shred of evidence that this is so and to hint that this deserves our disapprobation in the first place puts Schlussel and all who agree with her in a very dark place where bigotry and fear rule the mind rather than reason and logic.

Enough, Debbie. Crawl back under your rock and commune with the other slugs and slimy things who would defile the body politic with unreasoning ignorance and hate. You have proven once again that appealing to the lowest common denominator among conservatives may be a path to readership and links but is a poor substitute for the light of reason and tolerance that should be the hallmark of real conservatives.

UPDATE

Baldilocks (who doesn’t write half as much as most of us would like her to) gives it to Schlussel and the paranoid right with both barrels in “A Warning to the Right”:

I’m tired of the insinuations about Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) because his dead father was a Muslim. I’m tired of the insinuations about his middle name—Hussein—and the racist/bigoted insinuations that I’ve seen on the Right that flow from there. I’m even tired of the assertion that the senator isn’t even really a black American (whatever that means to a group of people who are demonstrably of mixed-race for the most part) because he has a white mother and a non-American black—i.e. African—father and, yes, since his father and my father were/are of the same tribe and nationality, I take that last bit of information quite personally.

But Debbie Schussel determines such interest as something else. Well, guess what. I was raised as a Muslim also. My mother and (black American) step-father subscribed to the creed of the Nation of Islam back in the day. And like Obama, I went to a Muslim school—for longer than he did. I even have a high school diploma from Clara Muhammad Elementary and Secondary School, obtained when I was fifteen, since the school didn’t take summer breaks.

Baldilocks is a retired Air Force Reserve officer. Maybe Schlussel wants to question her patriotism and ask where her “loyalties” lie?

UPDATE II

With a predictability that would put a laxative to shame, the left holds up Schlussel’s severed head and proclaims her “Queen of the Conservative Blogosphere.”

I hate to bust up this self-congratulatory party fellas but if you bother to read any of the conservative blogs linking to Schussel’s piece, you would notice one curious thread that connects all of them:

Every single conservative or right of center blog that links to the piece strongly criticizes Schlussel for her bigotry and stupidity.

Duh.

TANK JOHNSON - IN BETTER DAYS

At 6′3″ and 300 pounds, Terry “Tank” Johnson is a load. His low center of gravity and massive weight allow him to stand his ground in the interior of the defensive line during run plays thus preventing holes from opening up for the opposing running back. He’s what is known in the business as a “run stuffer.”

He is also an idiot.

No, I really mean it. There is no other way to describe Johnson’s stupidity over the past 18 months, during which time he has had run ins with the law three times - twice, including this latest transgression, over illegal possession of firearms. He also scuffled with a police officer outside a Rush street nightclub and resisted arrest. The other gun charge occurred in November of 2005 when he pled guilty to the illegal possession of a firearm in Cook county - one of the more draconian jurisdictions in America when it comes curtailing 2nd Amendment rights. He received probation for the gun charge and the charges relating to his scuffling with the officer were dropped - at the request of the officer. Somehow, I don’t think if his name had been Jamal Johnson from the ‘hood, the cop would have been so forgiving.

Hey! But Tank’s a good guy. He’s just made some bad choices, that’s all. That’s what Jerry D’Angelo, Bears General Manager said after Johnson held forth for two hours at a press conference, telling everyone how sorry he was, how embarrassed the pictures in the paper of his family had made him. He apologized to his team mates. He apologized to the organization. He apologized to the fans. If the old mascot of the guy in the bear suit had been there, he probably would have apologized to him too.

Fat lot of good it did.

Less than 12 hours after that press conference ended, Johnson was down on Clark street in one of the more notorious haunts in that area, known locally as “The Ice House.” He must have been celebrating putting one over on everyone. Instead, tragedy struck.

Arrested on Wednesday with Tank for the gun related charges, Johnson’s lifelong friend, supposed bodyguard, and ex con William Posey got into a fight over what the Chicago Tribune is reporting was the harassment of his “client.”

Witnesses told police that a man repeatedly bumped into Johnson, said a source familiar with the investigation. Posey intervened, striking the man, and both fell to the floor. When club security pulled them apart, the other man pulled a gun from his pants and shot Posey, the witnesses reported.

Sources said Johnson initially denied being at the bar, but he changed his story as he talked with police at Northwestern Memorial hospital early Saturday and later in the day at his Gurnee home. Police said he was not a suspect.

There are certain kinds of bars in Chicago (and I’m sure in other big cities) where most of the patrons are packing heat. Everyone knows this which makes for an interesting evening. It is a macho world where a lot of middle class and upper middle class whites and blacks try to play gangsta from da hood. They strut and pose, daring someone to call them out. Just last April, another shooting took place at the same bar, probably for the same reason. The smell of testosterone must be palpable in places like the Ice House.

What in God’s name was Tank Johnson doing there? More bad “choices?” Or simply a bad character?

A 15 or 16 year old kid makes “bad choices.” A 25 year old adult who has responsibilities to his family, his team mates, and yes, the fans of my beloved Bears who then ends up thumbing his nose at everyone is simply a loser. Recognizing those responsibilities and then going out and partying (maybe the mother of his two children would like to know who he was dancing with when the killing occurred), bespeaks a man who allows his passions to govern his actions. And knowing what is right, then deliberately doing what is wrong is the sign of a truly weak and ignoble character.

The Bears should simply bid Mr. Johnson farewell and adieu. Clean out his locker for him and ship his effects to whatever NFL team will have him - and considering his talent, there will be a good dozen or so lining up with their tongues hanging out waiting to sign him. Wherever he latches on, a year may pass during which time his stellar play will make people forget why the Bears fired him. He will be praised for “turning his life around” - until the next incident occurs with the next police officer or perhaps some innocent who happens to get in the way. Self destructive types like Johnson rarely reform. And the best thing you can do is to stay as far away from the Johnson’s of the world lest you be close enough to receive shrapnel from his next self inflicted wound.

How this entire affair will effect my beloveds is an unknown. Coach Lovie seems to have molded his charges into a pretty tight knit group. The fact that all the negative publicity is reflecting badly on them may draw them closer together - an “us against the world” mindset that would bring out the best in all of them.

Or, it may destroy their solidarity. The Sun Times summarizes the team’s dilemma:

The Bears have a moral dilemma. With Harris out for the season with a ruptured hamstring and Johnson the best remaining interior pass rusher on the roster, do they stand by Johnson and deflect criticism until making a call on his career after the season? They know they’ll never be able to replace him this late in the season. And refusing to play him will hurt his teammates, too.

Or do they put him on the inactive list, knowing it damages their playoff hopes in a season when virtually all the decision-makers — Smith, Angelo and team president Ted Phillips — are looking for contract extensions themselves. What if they keep him up and go one-and-done in the playoffs anyway?

The question for us fans has to be; is a Super Bowl berth worth allowing an obviously flawed and irresponsible player playing time? What price victory?

I suppose the cynical among us will answer that question with some snide comment about pro sports in general being a safe harbor for all sorts of criminals and thugs so why make a big deal of of this one. Perhaps because if that’s what you want professional sports to be like in America, fine. But if you want to change the culture, alter the notion that pro athletes play by different rules and are responsible to nothing and no one save their own hedonistic and base instincts, then Tank Johnson has got to go - not just from the Bears but from the league. One arrest is bad enough. Two is an outrage. Three arrests in 18 months should finish this man as a professional football player in America. Let him play in Canada or Europe if they want him.

I suspect given the media pressure, the Bears will not play Johnson the rest of the way and release him after the season. And I’m also sure that he will have no trouble signing a huge contract with some other team who are willing to cross their fingers that he will be able to stay out of trouble for a few years to justify their gamble to the fans.

Prior to the betting scandal that nearly ruined baseball in 1919, gambling and gamblers were as much a part of the game as the infield fly rule. The riff raff who associated with ballplayers not to mention the whispers about fixing the games gave baseball a decidedly negative image.

Along came Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the new Commissioner of baseball, who shockingly banned 8 Chicago White Sox players from baseball for life after it was discovered that some of them, in league with big time gambler Arnold Rothstein, threw the World Series the previous fall against Cincinnati. Landis had the right idea:

Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ball game, no player who undertakes or promises to throw a ball game, no player who sits in confidence with a bunch of crooked players and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball

The point was made. Bad behavior was severely punished. Even the appearance of bad behavior and a player risked all.

Could professional sports act so responsibly today? Judging by the Tank Johnson episode, it’s highly doubtful.

I have spent much of the last two years on this site railing against the hysterical, exaggerated, and ultimately dishonest charges made by people like Glenn Greenwald and others that the Bush Administration was tearing apart the Constitution and trying to set up some kind of a dictatorship.

The cornerstone of their bilious rantings has always been that the Administration’s NSA intercept program was, on its face, illegal. In fact, the NSA program has been cited as reason number one to impeach the President and no amount of reasoning by those of us who cautioned against jumping to conclusions about a program that we knew so little about deflected these despicable jackanapes from wailing about our “lost freedoms” and comparing Bush to Hitler.

Well pardon my French, but the only thing I have to say to the gaggle of goofs who have spent much of the last two years in formulating some of the most vile, calumnious, and over the top charges regarding the Administration’s cavalier attitude toward our civil liberties is… BITE ME:

After a delay of more than a year, a government board appointed to guard Americans’ privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror has been told the inner workings of the government’s electronic eavesdropping program.

The briefing for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had been delayed because President Bush was concerned — after several media leaks — about widening the circle of people who knew exact details of the secret eavesdropping program.

The board, created by Congress and appointed by Bush, focused on other classified work since it was named in spring 2005, but continued to press for a formal briefing by the National Security Agency.

A breakthrough was reached in recent days, and the five members were briefed by senior officials last week.

Board members said that they were impressed by the safeguards the government has built into the NSA’s monitoring of phone calls and computer transmissions, and that they wished the administration could tell the public more about them to ease distrust.

“If the American public, especially civil libertarians like myself, could be more informed about how careful the government is to protect our privacy while still protecting us from attacks, we’d be more reassured,” said Lanny Davis , a former Clinton White House lawyer who is the board’s lone liberal Democrat.

All of that ink spilled. All of that bile vomited forth from people who didn’t know what the hell they were talking about and yet accused the President and other public servants of the most horrible violations of the Constitution. All of that outrage from people less interested in our civil liberties - not to mention our national security - than they were in scoring cheap political points at the expense of a program that not only now has been shown to be well run and sensitive to civil liberties but also vital to protecting the United States from another terrorist attack.

And let us also put to rest perhaps the most ridiculous charge of all; that the President and his people simply didn’t care about the Constitution:

“We found there was a great appreciation inside government, both at the political and career levels, for protections on privacy and civil liberties,” said Raul, author of a book of civil liberties. “In fact, I think the public may have an underappreciation for the degree of seriousness the government is giving these protections.”

Gee. Ya think? Wonder where the public got “an underappreciation for the degree of seriousness the government is giving these protections…?” Couldn’t be from leftist lickspittles like Greenwald et.al. who’ve spent much of the last 5 years trying to convince the American people that Adolf Hitler was in the Oval Office and Nazi gaulieters were staffing the Justice Department, could it?

Just thinking about the smug, self righteous louts who have hindered every single program, every single effort to protect the people of the United States by constantly raising the specter of Hitler and dictatorship makes me sick to my stomach.

I have no doubt they’ll spin this news by pointing out that there are plenty of other examples of Bush/Hitler tearing up the Constitution. But given the fact that no one in the government connected to the NSA program ever thought in their wildest dreams that any media outlet would be irresponsible enough, partisan enough, or stupid enough to reveal its existence, one can logically assume that other programs are equally careful of the Constitution and civil liberties. And this report now places the burden of proof on the civil liberties absolutists to show otherwise.

I’d say “For Shame!” except they have none. Nor do they have a case that the NSA program and its offshoots are anything except as advertised by government; as well designed as possible in order to safeguard the Constitutional protections that all of us - both liberals and conservatives - are vouchsafed as Americans.

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey, as always, puts it more delicately than I - which makes his indictment of the hysteria mongers even more devastating:

The hysteria surrounding this program might finally start receding, as long as these remarks get some significant play. After all, having a former Clinton aide wish he could reveal more about a secret program to reassure people of the good work done by it rather than to torpedo the Bush administration should raise some eyebrows among the paranoid. Former Reagan counsel Alan Raul went even further, telling John Solomon that he believes that the public underestimates the level of concern and dedication for civil liberties in the federal government.

Once again, the public’s support for a tough but necessary program has been reinforced by its careful execution by the NSA. This should not surprise anyone, as even the New York Times acknowledged that they had no information that the agency broke any laws or violated anyone’s civil rights when they broke the story. All they had were “concerns” about the program’s legality from their anonymous tipsters.

The same could be said for every single program that these guttersnipes have been using as a club to make the Administration’s commitment to the law and the Constitution suspect, undermining the public’s confidence in our national leaders during a time of war, and ultimately, giving aid and comfort to the jihadis who know that they can always depend on the New York Times and their allies to give them a heads up about any attempt to thwart their plans using legitimate, constitutional methods.

The Anchoress:

So, once again…sound and fury signifying nothing. And we’ll see the NY Times with a big headline on this assessment on page one, above the fold, right? Brian Williams will lead with this story, right? Maybe at least Jon Stewart will bring it up?

Last I saw, the forecast for hell was hot and humid with no chance of snow…

Finally, the inimitable Mr. McGuire:

Left unanswered - what terrible hold does Karl Rove have over Lanny Davis?

Ask Greenwald. Or maybe David Corn. His tin foil hat is brand new this week…