Wow! Remember the Dean scream? Here’s the Huckabee version. He’s smiling and looks OK but you can tell that his brain has melted down to goo. Listen at around 9 minutes where he starts talking about who’s behind whom and what’s ahead. You think you know what he means to say but he sure doesn’t say it!
Archive for January, 2008
Huckabee Meltdown
Sunday, January 6th, 2008Does the Bible have a Position on Illegal Immigration?
Sunday, January 6th, 2008First let me say that I don’t have a position on this issue. I really don’t. I don’t know a lot about it and most of what I read gets into, or at least alludes to, the economics of employment and how that affects prices of everything from warships to consumer goods. This kind of stuff makes my head hurt. Besides, ideologues on both sides of either issue can point to an economic study and declare that it supports their positions.
Here is one idea that I’ve heard discussed that seems to make a lot of sense. Why don’t we enforce the existing labor laws as they apply to employers as well as individuals? I know that this will cause a lot of financial heart-ache across the country but it is the law, after all. But I’m not here to discuss that. Like I said, I know very little about it.
I want to talk about the Christian Coalition’s position on this issue. You can find it here. The short piece starts out by mischaracterizing the position of the left on this issue. Truth be told, people within both parties take very different positions on this issue. While the writer of this piece can profit with her audience by oversimplifying then bashing the opinion of the left, her logic falls apart based on the facts in her article alone. She claims that 82% of the population of the US wants to keep aliens out of the country then she assigns the opposite opinion to that pesky left wing. In our two-party system a “left-wing” couldn’t survive with only 18% of the population.
But even that isn’t what I want to focus on here. (I’m having trouble staying on track!) My issue is that, rather focusing on the facts and figures of the present to support her argument, the author thought that it would be a nice touch to throw in something from the bible. The passage she chose is Deuteronomy 27:17. I’m going to quote it below but I want to you to stop reading this right now and go get a copy of the bible. Look up the passage and read it for yourself. Read the whole chapter so you can get the context.
This is something that politically active Christians love to do. They scour their book for any verse that can be read in a way that supports their argument. It matters not a bit if the actual contextual meaning – you know, the author’s intention – has anything to do with the argument that the Christian is trying to support. That’s one of the beauties of a book packed with parables, verse, obscure law, and traditional history. It can be made to support anything. It has been used to support slavery, oppression of women, human rights, peace, war, gay bashing, gay rights, creationism, evolution and almost any other political issue you care to come up with.
But I’ve drifted again. If you did as I told you to do then you’ve read that passage by now. My NIV says “’Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.’ Then all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’” That version makes discussion of context less vital. But other versions replace boundary stone with things like boundary or landmark. So, the argument goes, God wants us to protect and respect our borders.
This is obviously a discussion of rules governing individuals’ actions. Also included in this list of don’ts is don’t lead blind people down a road that they don’t want to take, don’t build idols, don’t dishonor your parents, don’t sleep with your dad’s wife and, my favorite of this lot, don’t kill your neighbor secretly. I could go on but you get the point. “Neighbor’s boundary stone” has nothing to do with national borders.
The other verse that the author sites is Romans 13:1-2 – that tired bit that says that you should follow the law because it wouldn’t be the law if God didn’t allow it. (Remind me again why it’s OK to fire bomb legal abortion clinics and murder abortion doctors?) I’m surprised that she didn’t fall back to the even tireder “render unto Caesar…” When Christians whip out these verses you know it’s because they couldn’t anything more relevant to their argument.
But let’s, for a moment, embrace the idea that the Bible really does support the idea of national boundaries. The obvious argument is that most of the folks living in America should head back to Europe, Africa, and Asia because we didn’t respect the boundaries of the Native Americans. And even they need to hustle on out because they supplanted another people with a more ancient claim to the land when they arrived. Should all nations return to the borders they occupied when these verses were written? Since most of what’s described in the Bible is mythical that would be impossible but it might be fun to try.
Of course these arguments are insane and trying to apply anything in the Bible directly to the immigration debate is impossible. It is an issue inhabited almost entirely by grey areas and trying to find the answer within the narrow tenants of a black and white religion like Christianity is impossible. This complex issue needs patient debate, human wisdom and compromise; things to which Christians hate turning.
Huckabee Scaring the Bejeezus out of Republicans
Friday, January 4th, 2008The big wheels in the Republican Party got a scary wake up call yesterday. Huckabee’s win in Iowa makes the possibility his nomination as their candidate a little too real for comfort. So long as they stay members of the House of Representatives or governors of unimportant states, the party is glad to throw a few crumbs to the Evangelical Christian politicians in their party. But when they start knocking on the doors of real power it’s time to release the hounds.
While the true believers are heralding this as a sign that the Republican Party will at last be theirs, the Republican machine wants to shut Huckabee down. When Giuliani started to implode at the end of 2007 the leaders in the party were horrified to see Huckabee of all people start to rise in the vacuum left. Rich Lowry of the National Review and Nachama Soloveichik, spokeswoman for the Club for Growth, have both been speaking out against Huckabee since December. Hell, they’ve even dusted off Bob Dole to give him a go at the Huckster.
What the Evangelicals don’t get is that the party only wants them for their votes. They don’t even want their money; they get plenty from their corporate masters. All that they want from the Christians is for them to show up on Election Day, vote for the anti-abortion party then go home and shut-up. But now that Huckabee, the first real evangelical with a real shot at the candidacy, is suddenly really real they’re scared.
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of a Huckabee administration scares the bejeezus out of me, too. But a Huckabee nomination? Well, that’s a different story altogether. Huckabee winning the nomination would virtually lock in any of the three Deomocratic front runners. It would also signal the end of Republican Party as we know it and perhaps altogether. With Huckabee in the race the Bloomberg third party run that we’ve been hearing about would be assured and the corporate wing of the Republican Party would flock to his side. All the horrors and delights of a split ticket would then ensue.
But, as lovely as that sounds it’s not going to happen. The GOP will come to its senses before they crown Huckabee. My prediction? I see McCain as the man standing when the dust settles.
Why I’m Watching Christians
Friday, January 4th, 2008I’ve been thinking about this first entry for a few days. When I start reading a new blog and want to learn what it’s about – its mission and the blogger’s vision – I generally skip to the first entry where these things are laid out. Assuming others will do this too I want to very clear about what I have in mind for Christian Watch.
First let me say that I don’t have a problem with Christians. The very nature of this project may seem to communicate something else. But I tell you that as an American most of my friends and family are Christians and I love and respect them. I was raised a Christian, a Southern Baptist to be exact, so I understand from where they are coming.
The second thing that you should know about me is that I’m an Atheist. This isn’t something that I spend a lot of time dwelling on but it’s there. I’m not a Satanist, Pagan or Witch; I simply believe that there is nothing beyond our physical bodies or death.
The third thing about me that you should know is that, despite those first two facts, this isn’t about some bitter, personal thing for me. I’ve already passed through that phase and, fun as it was, I don’t wish to return.
Now that I’ve said that, here’s why this blog exists. It seems to me that a very particular brand of Evangelical Christianity has grown at a disturbing rate in the US. It concerns me and I think that someone should be keeping an eye on it. I’m volunteering myself for that job.
This brand of Christianity has certain recognizable characteristics. As you read this list you will begin to recognize certain Evangelical Christians in it; some that you know personally and some national figures.
- It is almost completely American
- It is mostly Protestant though not all Protestant churches are part of it and some independent Catholics are a part of it
- It prefers to see itself as persecuted
- It celebrates financial gains above all others
- It is intensely political and has been fantastically successful at using grassroots techniques to reach its political ends
- It embraces only certain, convenient teachings from the Bible
- It is quick to forgive even the most vile sins of its members while relentlessly condemning those that it perceives as “outsiders” of every foible
- It considers a devotion to its tenets as necessary to patriotism
Having said all of that I now say this: The vast majority of these Evangelicals are truly sincere. At their core they are committed, dedicated people who believe that the movement they are involved in is good and will benefit humanity.
They are also dupes. I’m sure that most of them would be offended by this assertion – most people would be. But that’s the truth. Ever since Nixon’s Southern Strategy whereby he succeeded in embracing the Dixie-land white racists who felt alienated by a Democratic Party after it helped put the civil rights movement in motion the Republican Party and Evangelicals have continued to move closer and closer. While Nixon’s Southern Strategy was obviously a cynical (and smart) move to appeal to racism, it also had an element of overt Christianity that appealed to not only the Baptists in the South but Evangelicals across the nation.
The joining of these factions was consecrated by Rev. Jerry Falwell in the ‘80’s when he oversaw the marriage between the Republican Party and Christian Evangelicals by wholeheartedly inserting himself into the current administration, despite Reagan’s many transgressions of the code that would come to define the evangelical political movement.
And they were strange bedfellows, indeed. The Republican Party had for a long time been the friend of big business and was, mythically, the standard-bearer for hawk-ism in American. Neither of these conceits fit in any comfortable way with the New Testament’s vision of Christianity. One can point out the Calvinist/Protestant wealth-is-good philosophy but there is really little basis for it in the Bible. Sitting that aside I don’t believe that corporate personhood or favoring the global economy over the American worker are supportable by Calvin. Environmentalism, right to life (which used to mean anti-death penalty), equality among races, and fiscal responsibility – all issues that had once been issues of the Republican Party at one time or another and to varying degrees of universal acceptance – were abandoned for a few very narrow goals.
Since the marriage the Republican Party has been about very few issues. The main thrust of their governing when they’ve been in power has been creating and maintaining instability and suppression throughout the world. They accomplish this by supporting iron-fisted dictators and through war with a goal of keeping America at the top of the heap in an uncertain and dangerous world. Their second purpose has been the relentless support of big business. Their third concern has been the contentment of the American Evangelical Christian. These three things all work to keep Republicans in power. While some of the small time Republican politicians may be sincere people who are trying to support their daddy’s party, most are simply gathering power for power’s sake.
This is why the Christian Evangelicals that have done so much to support this party are dupes. They have supported the power hungry mad-men at the top because they believe that they have common beliefs. While many evangelicals have become increasingly uncomfortable with this marriage as they see it’s manifestations in the atrocities of the G. W. Bush administration one issue keeps them in the party – abortion.
I won’t drag you through the familiar history here except to say that it’s amazing that in a plural society such as ours where nobody can agree whole-heartedly with everything that is allowed that the Christian Evangelicals would allow one issue to make them embrace a party that in almost every other way represents the antithesis of their core beliefs. I get that they view abortion as murder and I can understand their fervor to change the law that allows it. But what I don’t understand is that they choose to join a party that joyfully embraces so many other forms of killing and suppression of human rights and dignity to reach their goal.
But they do and in their fanaticism that, though grounded in sincere and admirable beliefs, leads them to unquestionably support the party and its insane positions. Thus we have Christians doing bizarre, irrational and unchristian things. They believe that when the corporations whose autonomy they support instruct their greeters to say happy holidays instead of merry christmas that this is somehow a manifestation of a left-wing assault on christmas. They believe that harassing and murdering abortion doctors is right. They believe that blurring the lines between church and state is a good thing to do not realizing that their church may one day be found unfit for the state.
I could go on with this list but that is why I’ve set up this blog. These irrational acts of these evangelical dupes are what I plan to monitor here.
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