Month: August 2006

The Polarization Deepens

Moderate Republicans may lose big in the Northeast, despite the fact that their party needs them more than ever. Some of this is due to demographic shifts, and the transformation of the GOP into a religious party based in the South. But part also is the disgraceful gerrymandering of seats around the country that keeps the polarization intact, fuels cynicism and apathy, and stymies genuine democracy. I wish some candidate would make gerry-mandering reform a central plank in his or her election campaign. Ronald Reagan named it as one of a handful of issues he wanted to campaign for after his presidency. But he never got the chance. Who will take up this part of the Reagan legacy?

Rescuing Conservatism from Bush

Heather Mac Donald joins the growing band of conservative skeptics, deeply troubled by what George W. Bush and Karl Rove have done to conservatism. Money quote:

Skeptical conservatives — one of the Right’s less celebrated subcultures — are conservatives because of their skepticism, not in spite of it. They ground their ideas in rational thinking and (nonreligious) moral argument. And the conservative movement is crippling itself by leaning too heavily on religion to the exclusion of these temperamentally compatible allies.

Conservative atheists and agnostics support traditional American values. They believe in personal responsibility, self-reliance, and deferred gratification as the bedrock virtues of a prosperous society. They view marriage between a man and a woman as the surest way to raise stable, law-abiding children. They deplore the encroachments of the welfare state on matters best left to private effort.

The presumption of religious belief — not to mention the contradictory thinking that so often accompanies it — does damage to conservatism by resting its claims on revealed truth. But on such truth there can be no agreement without faith. And a lot of us do not have such faith — nor do we need it to be conservative.

This is indeed one of the main themes of my forthcoming book, although my skeptical conservatism is compatible not only with atheism and agnosticism but also with a Christianity that eschews fundamentalist dogma and psychology. I have differed with Heather on issues like torture and police power – for conservative reasons. I agree with her about heterosexual marriage, but I do not see homosexual marriage as a threat to it, but rather as a compliment and complement. Still, for all our small differecnes, I am delighted that others are seeing the danger that Christianism poses to conservatism and are beginning to marshall the necessary arguments to fight back.

You can pre-order my book, "The Conservative Soul" here. It’s a manifesto for conservative reform and renewal.

How Serious Is Bush About The War?

Here’s a question many pathetic Democrats won’t ever ask directly. Why is Bush firing dozens of trained Arab linguists in wartime? Here’s an interesting nugget from an article dealing with the success of the British intelligence agencies in uncovering the recent airplane plot:

A senior federal law enforcement official said MI5 also had a distinct advantage over the F.B.I. in that it had a greater store of foreign-language speakers, giving British authorities greater ability to infiltrate conspiracy groups. The F.B.I. still has only a handful of Muslim agents and others who speak Arabic, Urdu or other languages common in the Islamic world.

Here you have a classic test: does president Bush care more about winning this war and protecting Americans than pandering to a bigoted anti-gay base? Every day that goes by with the ban on openly gay officers in effect is a sign of where Bush’s real priorities lie. For more information on the insane policy rejected by up to 80 percent of Americans, and options on how to help, click here, and here.

Those Goat-Diapers

Nubiangoat

It’s hard to get them out of my head. Here’s the story if you missed it: Iraqi Islamists are threatening shepherds with violence if they don’t clothe their goats with diapers to avoid tempting lonely shepherds. Another facet of the "new Middle East." Yes, it’s funny. But it’s also revealing about the way fundamentalism and sex interact. What most male-run religious fundamentalisms include is a major exception for the hetero-male sex drive. Sex outside of missionary-position reproduction with legal wife/wives is officially verboten; but when frail male flesh gives in, the blame is almost always the object of desire – not the guy actually responsible. Hence: it’s the goat’s fault. The way they were dressed, they were asking for it.

So it’s not the men buggering the goats who need monitoring: it’s the goats and the shepherds for not covering them up sufficiently! As we know, holding straight men accountable for anything sexual is very tough in fundamentalist circles, be they Islamic or Christian. So Catholic priests and bishops were granted church and moral immunity for the rapes and molestations of thousands of minors for decades. The history of wayward pastors and priests getting away with sexual abuse and harassment is long and colorful. In many Islamic cultures, Women are deemed responsible for their own rape or molestation if they haven’t dressed modestly enough. Gay soldiers are to blame if straight men cannot help themselves and start buggering them in the shower. It’s never up to the straight guys to restrain themselves from getting a blow-job; it’s always up to the gay men not to offer temptation. Adultery, likewise, is almost always the woman’s fault in Islamist circles – and the women are the ones most often punished. The goat diapers are funny. But they are a function of a sexual pathology, maintained by religious norms, and all for sustaining the immunity of heterosexual males from the consequences of their sex drives – and the subjugation of women into near-slavery throughout many enclaves in the Muslim world. I don’t see much progress toward democratic culture in the Middle East until their deeply disturbed sexual culture gets healthier.

(Photo by Cassi Saari.)