The Dish

One of the darkest developments of many dark developments in the Bush years has been the slow ascent of Christianism as a core value of the military. The promotion of Christianists throughout the armed services, the insistence by the president that no public institution be regarded as a place where religion should be silent, clear discrimination against Jews and atheists in military educational institutions: the possibility of a secular military dedicated to defending all Americans regardless of their faith or lack of it has been called into question under the current administration. The resilience of the ban on gays – while the military has granted a record number of waivers to criminals – can only be understood if one sees the US military as an increasingly religious institution at this point, and not a rational secular one. The latest story of an atheist soldier being threatened by superiors is believable in this context. Volokh has details from the complaint.

Many people don’t realize just how serious the Christianists are in this respect. If America is a Christianist nation, its military, drawn disproportionately from regions where Christianism holds sway, must be also. It follows that non-Christianists can be a threat to unit cohesion and morale. The first commenter on Volokh’s post spells out the emerging Republican consensus:

The military, that is, is a place where any reduction in unit quality literally costs lives; it is not a place for ‘equal opportunity’ or social engineering.

I would argue that the presence of atheists in the military is vulnerable to that very same argument. Never mind the question of whether an atheist can feel any genuine loyalty to a Christian nation, given that he rejects the core principles on which our nation was built;

never mind the unlikelihood that someone who denies an afterlife would sacrifice his own life for any reason, instead of cutting and running like John Kerry; never mind the fact that atheism correlates with all manner of other moral degeneracies – "[Those w]ho changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections […] Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful…" (Romans 1:25-31) – and so speaks to the moral character of the soldier; the simple fact is that we are a Christian nation with a Christian army, and our soldiers’ strength and willingness to sacrifice their lives for the good of the United States and their fellow soldiers comes, in large part, from their Christian faith. An atheist cannot, by definition, share in that faith or that culture; he cannot pray with his troops or empathize with their worries and inmost beliefs; and how can a Christian soldier trust his life to someone who, the Bible makes clear, is hated by God and condemned to Hell? How can a Christian trust the leadership of someone who refuses to be led by God?

I’m sure (some) atheists would be able to serve with distinction in the military, just like some women could. But, again, the army is not a place for social engineering; the answer to prejudice in the military is not to forcibly integrate – with the attendant costs to unit cohesion and morale – and expect them to ‘get over it’ in situations when their ‘getting over it’ will cost lives. If (God forbid!) atheism becomes acceptable to the vast majority of the United States’ civilian population, then it will be time to permit atheists to serve. Until then, our army is – and should remain – Christian.

My take on three new revelations that reveal how far the United States has abandoned the Geneva Conventions it once constructed. And how far this president has trashed the rule of law.

Mickey’s take:

McCain will have trouble beating the Obama who showed up on Fox News Sunday, giving a highly effective interview to Chris Wallace. It included this bait for Hillary: "I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea."  Obama cited not just "merit pay" but also "experimenting with charter schools," which he said has gotten him "in trouble with the teachers union."

The trouble is Obama’s unevenness in campaigning. For every great day, there is a total clunker (like the Philly debate). Of course, part of what appeals to me in Obama is the fact that he still seems like a normal human being, and not one of the drone-machines that Clinton has become, running on fumes, utterly resistant to normal human failings, a pure political persona. But normal people also have off-days, make gaffes, stumble and sigh. In today’s media world, all people care about are the off-days, the friends you have, and the gaffes. Policies? War? Debt? Torture? Zzzzzzz. True media-pros think these subjects are very retro.

Imagine the fuss if Barack Obama had pledged to "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel. He’d be regarded as green, unready for the presidency, prone to hyperbole, untested and unvetted. If his comment had rattled key allies, from Saudi Arabia to Britain, the critics would have pounced. And yet Senator Clinton’s extreme rhetoric in the Philly debate was barely noted by the media. And some say she gets no respect.

Phillip Carter writes:

The Bush administration has essentially adopted a consequentialist legal calculus for its detention and interrogation system. But if you’re going to be a consequentialist, then you need to be a good one, and accurately assess the costs and benefits of a given policy choice before adopting (or continuing) it. Senior officials in the White House, Justice Department, Pentagon and CIA may honestly believe that torture (or coercive interrogation, or whatever label you choose) is necessary. They may honestly think these policies are in the national interest. But if so, they’re wearing blinders — and totally oblivious to the strategic blowback from these policies.

At this point, they’ve gone too far into criminality to turn back, I fear.

A record-setting mentos-coke explosion by students in Belgium. Story here. Fuck yeah.

Joe Klein evaluates the McCain campaign thus far:

McCain gives you something to admire and loathe almost every day. He did some terrific things this week on his anti-poverty tour: He gave a lovely tribute to Congressman John Lewis in Selma, he called out Bush’s Hurricane Katrina non-performance in New Orleans. (Of course, he also voted against the Katrina relief funds.) The very fact that a Republican would take such a tour is significant–but his willingness to go into the muck on Hamas and Obama’s "friendship"–or whatever it is–with the American terrorist Bill Ayers is gutter crap.

So the jury’s still out on what kind of campaign McCain runs. I hope my colleagues in the press will call him out everytime he succumbs to sludge tendencies. I certainly plan to do that.

The smears by association do work, however, which is how you prevent someone with popular policies and a brilliant speaking style from becoming president:

Four in 10 registered voters (41 percent) say they have a less favorable opinion of Obama based on his association with his former pastor, Rev. Wright, whose racially and politically inflammatory sermons have been circulated on the Internet and covered in the media. A similar number (42 percent) say they will not vote for Obama because of comments he made about "bitter" small-town residents clinging to guns and religion.

My biggest disappointment with McCain, so far, has been the moronic gas tax holiday and his support for a massive new increase in the debt in order to suck up to Larry Kudlow’s crew. Sigh.

Tyler Cowen writes that free trade could help solve the food crisis:

Poor rice yields are not the major problem. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that global rice production increased by 1 percent last year and says that it is expected to increase 1.8 percent this year. That’s not impressive, but it shouldn’t cause starvation.

The more telling figure is that over the next year, international trade in rice is expected to decline more than 3 percent, when it should be expanding. The decline is attributable mainly to recent restrictions on rice exports in rice-producing countries like India, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Egypt.

Obama’s unruffled campaign is quite a contrast with Bill Kristol’s and Karl Rove’s beloved Clinton.