Can the war on women, please!

Maybe it's the election, but am I seeing more and more attacks - physical, mental, and political - being perpetrated on women?  From that horrible Rape-is-a-joke page on Facebook, to the attack on a 14 year old girl in Afghanistan for her secular attitude and working to get girls back into school, to the Australian PM's response to the daily misogyny of the Opposition Leader, to the continued attempts by Republicans to outlaw abortion, contraception and to defund Planned Parenthood to end the access by poor women to regular preventive health care, the attacks just keep on coming.

What is so hard about equality?   Is your precious manhood so threatened by women having equal access to health care that could save lives?  What is so bad about women having access to contraceptives so they can control their own reproductive lives?

Guys, you do realize that a woman's health issues affect you too, right?  If your wife or daughters have to pay for contraceptives like Romney wants you to, that'll get bought before that six pack o' Bud, or  you'll end up with an extra kid or two you didn't count on.  If that happens, you'll never be able to afford that really big screen TV, or the cool new truck, cause you'll be buying a bigger house instead!  The War on Women will have collateral victims, and you'll be one of the main ones!

I am a cis gendered male, 60 years old, married with three wonderful daughters.  Believe me, that is an experience I'd just hate to go through if I had a misogynistic attitude towards women - it would be torture.  Having done that, though, I have a better appreciation towards women's issues that I otherwise would have had.  I'm not perfect (as I am reminded occasionally by the better half) but I do try harder, and definitely have my own internal arguments over the various aspects of life today vs. how I was brought up.

In short, I don't feel that my manhood has been, in any way, threatened by living with four women and offering them as much of an equal shake as I would have offered guys. (This tempered by, naturally, the belief of my daughters, at the time, that I did no such thing and tortured them throughout their teenaged lives... but I digress.)

Note here that I recognize that my attempts to "offer that fair shake" is what I tried to do, not how I actually succeeded, as I am sure those four women will have differing opinions of my success or failure.  But I did try, and still do.

Point being that I am today no less a man for having done that and fail to see how any self secure male could feel otherwise.

But, apparently, some do.

So, folks, it is time for the rest of us, the "normal" people, to stand up and take up the standard for equal rights for women and to oppose misogynistic attitudes and actions which harm them - and us guys.

Yes, I said us guys.  A paternalistic society hurts us too.

"Man up!"  "Take it like a man!"  "Who wears the pants in your family?"  "Men don't cry."

Yeah, we've heard 'em all.  I got hit with every one of them in my life and I hated it every time.  Men do cry.  Heck, I cry at the drop of a hat at sad movies, listening to heart wrenching stories on the news or on the internet.  I haven't noticed any affect on the size of my penis, thankyouverymuch.

My wife and I make decisions about finances, vacations and real estate purchases together, as a team.  Sometimes she cooks (wonderfully!) and sometimes I do.  While she does a nice breakfast, frankly, she loves mine enough she'll actually volunteer to shovel snow while I stay in the nice warm kitchen to make breakfast!  (Plus, my chili would beat hers hands down, if she ever tried to challenge me.  On the other hand, I would never try to do German food, I'd be an idiot.)

Some guys like sports.  I hate 'em.  'nuff said.  I've put up with enough duff over the years because of it, too, and in high school, I was the only guy in gym who could hide on the football field by standing sideways - I was too skinny to be seen!  But, hey, real men play and enjoy sports!  If you don't, somehow, that makes you less of a man.

How many kids have been hurt by these idiotic myths about being a man?  Guys by being called "sissy" if they didn't fit the stereotype and girls who were called "dykes" for being too man-like.

It's time to stop.  It is time to start teaching our kids that they can be who they want to be, whether that fits a stupid stereotype or not.  If the girls want to play with toy trucks, let 'em!  Maybe she'll grow up and own a construction company and have enough of a fortune to make your retirement very comfortable.  Would that be so horrible?  Or your son, if he wants to play with dolls, so what?  Maybe that'll just make him a better dad.  And if it does turn out that he's doing that cause he's gay, it's not the end of the world.  Gay kids grow up to be pretty cool adults too, if you just raise 'em to be.  They even have kids, so it doesn't even mean you won't have grandkids.

So chill folks.  It's time to get real and start playing fair.

Let's start by tossing out the cruel, misogynistic Republicans, and we can get a bit further down the road a bit faster.

How about that Republican Party?

A while back, I started a key category of “Just Plain Crazy” to tag some of the crazier stuff Republicans have been saying in the campaign so far.  And, true to form, they’ve just been pumping out the crazy, although I’ve just not been able to keep up!

But so far, this week they’ve turned on the afterburners!

US House Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia recently told an audience at Liberty Baptist Church:

God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.

And:

Charlie Fuqua, candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives, recommended child execution in his book, “God’s Law: The Only Political Solution”:

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. … 

He goes on to recommend the Biblical death sentence, with explicit references to the manner in which it does so in such an admirably Judicial manner:

Even so, the Scrpture [sic] provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. 

Or, hear what this guy has to say:

And, finally, this article from Think Progress:

After Arkansas Republicans disavowed a book by state representative Jon Hubbard (R-AR) claiming slavery was “a blessing in disguise” for African Americans, Hubbard’s colleague, state Rep. Loy Mauch (R-AR) has been outed by the Arkansas Times for his pro-slavery, pro-Confederacy letters to the editor over the past decade. Mauch’s run for reelection this year is backed by the Arkansas Republican Party.“In letters to the Democrat-Gazette, Mauch vehemently defended slavery and repeatedly suggested Jesus condoned it: 

If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861? The South has always stood by the Constitution and limited government. When one attacks the Confederate Battle Flag, he is certainly denouncing these principles of government as well as Christianity. 

His other letters call Abraham Lincoln a Marxist and celebrate the Confederate flag as “a symbol of Christian liberty vs. the new world order.” He also organized a conference in 2004 praising John Wilkes Booth and calling for the removal of an Abraham Lincoln statue. Mauch has been supported mainly by contributions from the Republican Party and other Arkansas candidates. Now, the state GOP is pulling all funds from Mauch, Hubbard and another state legislative candidate, Charlie Fuqua, who wants to expel all Muslims from the country and thinks rebellious children should receive the death penalty.
Though the party committee has cut them off, the three candidates are still receiving support from other Arkansas politicians, including U.S. Reps Steve Womack (R) and Tim Griffin (R). Mauch has also been endorsed by the National Rifle Association and the Arkansas Right to Life PAC.”

This last one in particular is telling to me.  It shows clearly that the Republican Party is splintering.  If the fact that a far right group, paid for by Koch Brother money took over the reins of the Party two years ago isn’t enough, the fact that the RNC can cut off money to these clowns, yet their local and/or State Party keeps supporting them should be enough to tell you that.  This isn’t the first time this has happened, either.  Remember Akin and his “women can’t get pregnant from rape” thing?  The Republican response to that was mixed, and now that he can’t be forced out, the RNC is forced to support him anyway, just to try to keep his seat Republican, even though their first reaction was that his wingnuttery would hurt the Party nationally.

There is no doubt to me that the Republican Party is in the midst of a huge internal struggle.  On one side, you’ve got the traditional Party leadership. Backed by the wealthy movers and shakers, they comprise the “old” Party faction. Next is the Religious Right.  A long time ago, it made a deal with the Republicans to back their game if the Republicans would bring god “back” into politics.  And finally, you’ve got the new guys, at least partially represented by the Tea Party and financed by the Koch brothers.  They are, in reality, the new version of the oligarchs who weren’t happy with the timid way the Traditional folks were pushing their favorite policies on making this country an oligarchy in their favor.

But, remember the posts I’ve written about that group called the Dominionists?  They’re the fourth side here, and they’ve got some heft also.  It is from these guys that the crazy is coming from, and it indicates why the campaign is getting so crazy.

The “old” Party was being run by the Traditionalists and the Religious Right.  On the other side are the Tea party and the Dominionists. Both sides have, essentially, the same pact with each other - scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

The problem is that not only do neither side have full control yet, but there really aren’t any people at the top who are calling the shots.  There is a broad outline of consensus on both sides as to how to proceed - both in winning the election and with dealing with their internal opponents - but there aren’t any true leaders with anything like full control, so disagreements over particulars from State to State are inevitable.

One would think that this is odd, coming from an authoritarian group, but remember, this is a battle for the heart of the Republican Party.  At the same time, they’ve got to develop and run a campaign to elect one of their own as President, when really, neither side is happy with the guy they ended up with.

The campaign is getting so crazy because the real wingnuts live on another planet, and they think that enough people in this country think like they do, so they are safe in broadcasting their nuttery as they try to attract enough voters to their guys to decimate the “old” Party folks.

If the rest of us are lucky, the general election voters will shut their asses down completely.  What is more likely is that within their own ranks, the issue will be split and neither side will come out on top, but Obama will win the Presidency.  How much the GOP is damaged by this and whether it sinks into a battle royal after the election depends on how the Congressional and State elections turn out.

If the voters throw the wingnut bums out, things might work out in the long run, but if they win more seats than the old guard yet keep the House and fail to win the Senate, it is likely, in my opinion, that the Party will split.  If the Republican Party gets shut down completely, look for it to simply implode.  How that will work out, nobody knows, it’s been over a hundred and fifty years since a major Party in this country died.

All in all, this election is turning out to be a fun time for all!

We descend further into the abyss of right wing craziness.

Well, folks, just as you thought it couldn’t get any worse, and the right wing just couldn’t possibly come up with something even more depraved and barbaric, they find a way to dig the hole even deeper.  If this keeps up, we’ll have a shortcut to China before long…

Charles Fuqua, a Republican (what else?) candidate for Congress from the great State of Arkansas, has suggested that to stem the tide of rebellion in our children, we should use a biblical solution - the death penalty!

According to the Arkansas times, he wrote:

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21:  This passage does not give parents blanket authority to kill their children. They must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children. I cannot think of one instance in the Scripture where parents had their child put to death. Why is this so? Other than the love Christ has for us, there is no greater love then [sic] that of a parent for their child. The last people who would want to see a child put to death would be the parents of the child. Even so, the Scrpture [sic] provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they would have taken their child to a court of law and asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.

While there are so many ways this is wrong and I could have a blast cutting it down to size, I really only have one question:

What’s the age limit?  I mean, I’m off the hook, but my wife’s mother is still alive and kicking, so could she go to court and ask for my wife to be put to death for putting her in a nursing home she hated?  Or maybe for not bringing her mail fast enough?

And how about your in-laws?  Now, us guys are probably in good shape, I mean I’ve always gotten along pretty well with my mother-in-law (thankfully!), but our wives?  Look out, folks, that’s a whole ‘nother can o’ worms!

I mean, parents have always had the ole will to keep the kids in line, but this?  This is the nuclear option!  “Get that hair cut, Junior, or you’re toast!”  “Sally, wear that dress one more time, and the hanging Judge will hear about it!”

Besides, who sets the standards for what is disrespectful?  State law?  Local Law?  Or the Feds?  I can see it now, the family is going through security to visit Gramma, and one kid gets a bit unruly about taking off the shoes, is the TSA going to haul the kid out of line and throw him in the hoosegow for talking back?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Why I Blog.

With some new folks coming by, I thought I’d make a few notes regarding why I do this. 

I am a pretty ordinary guy.  Just turned sixty, married, three kids now out on their own (yay!), house, car, dog, cat.  Federal worker (IT work) with the FDA for 38 years.

What isn’t ordinary is that I am an atheist.  I have been for over five years now (at least I’ve been aware of it for that long or more), and I am active in a local secular group, the Washington Area Secular Humanists, or WASH for short.  The blog Secular Perspectives is the WASH blog, which I occasionally cross-post to.  Photography, some gardening, travel and especially Apple computer equipment are among my interests.

Atheism is one of the reasons I started, but in the end, the reason why I do is simple.

I believe that it is important for people to do what they can to get their views into the national or even the world-wide conversation about, well, anything.  I want to add to that conversation, and if, by coming by here and reading my musings, it gets you thinking, then, well, I’ve done my job for the day.

If you then discuss what you’ve seen here with another person or persons, even better, and if you then link back to this blog in order to get others talking too, well, then I can be no less than delighted.

And it doesn't matter whether you agree, disagree or just want to pick a few nits.  If it gets you talking and discussing the topic, I’m happy.  I want to be informative, interesting and sometimes, even funny.  Simply amusing is ok too, and you’ll see the occasional serious rant.  I won’t always talk about atheism, because that doesn’t define me.  There are a lot of things that do, and each one defines merely a facet of my personality and what makes me tick.

I try to do my best in writing, but it won’t always be formal, college level writing.  Sometimes it’ll be colloquial, informal and/or simply profane if I get riled up enough.

I just hope you enjoy reading, even if what I write is something you disagree with or even hate that makes you angry.  Either way, I have done a decent job as a blogger.

Please feel free to comment, either with your real name or anonymously.  There’s nothing wrong with conversation, and I tolerate disagreement fairly well, although I’ll warn you, if we do disagree, I won’t hesitate to engage you in a discussion, and I have no trouble with a bit of raucousness in an argument!

Just don’t start quoting religious texts to me, as I do not consider them to be actual proof of anything.  Using a quote of one as a reference is ok, but a mere quote as “proof” won’t fly.

If you see me saying something you know is false, please don’t just say so, please link to another website where I can see exactly what I have said wrong and what the right thing is.  Citations are better then mere assertions, you know!

But above all, please enjoy.  I get a lot of satisfaction and pleasure out of this, and if I can spread that around, then life is good!

More about Religion in Politics

This election is getting more and more nuts.  Specifically, the statements being made by Republicans running for office in Congress just seem to be descending into the abyss of religious extremism.

Now, if you are reading this as a person with an honest religious belief, understand that this is NOT an attack on your religion.  I just wanted to get that out of the way.  I believe that everybody has a right to believe in whatever they wish.  Flying Spaghetti Monsters, Zeus, Athena, Earth Mother, Gaia, Jewish god, Christian god or Allah.   Whichever one floats your boat or whichever one you got raised with, that’s fine, its your choice and your right to believe, worship and live your life according to the strictures of your belief system to whatever level of strictness or leniency you see fit.  Go ahead, and I’ll do my best to defend that right - as long as you afford me that same right.

This is the way I grew up, with this message of tolerance and a belief in the First Amendment that, I thought, always has protected us from the crazies and the religiously insane.

But America has been changing since the 1980’s and the advent of the Moral Majority.  That group heralded the beginning of the right wing reaction to the 1960’s, and what a reaction it has been!  Without diving too far into the weeds, the main point is that there have been several movements designed to bring religion “back” into the public sphere - specifically, into politics.

Their aim is not really to bring it “back”, but to bring their influence into politics with the excuse that they are bringing back something that us liberal atheists have forced out - which is a laugh, since we’ve never had that power and still don’t.

This is alarming to more than just atheists or agnostics - many of the more liberal denominations of christianity in this country are also unhappy, since they are fully aware that it is the First Amendment which has been responsible for the huge success of religion in this country, by preventing either politics or religion from cross-contaminating each other.

Allow me to explain.

James Madison made the statement,

“Prior to the Revolution, the Episcopal Church was established by law in this State. On the Declaration of Independence it was left, with all other sects, to a self-support. And no doubt exists that there is much more of religion among us now than there ever was before the change, and particularly in the sect which enjoyed the legal patronage. This proves rather more than that the law is not necessary to the support of religion.” (Letter to Edward Everett, Montpellier, March 18, 1823)

And:

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

After centuries of State sponsorship, since the Second World War European churches today have seen the greatest loss of membership in history.  Church membership is down across the board, and in some countries, church attendance is at historically low levels, too, in places as low as 10%.  At least one country in the last ten years has severed State sponsorship of the traditional church.

In the US, where this movement is strongest, the one most obvious thing about what has happened to religion is its involvement with the Republican Party.  The Republicans have traditionally been a conservative group, and religion has never been far away.  But in the years since WWII, Republicans have been increasingly controlled by one of their traditional power bases, the wealthiest Americans and big business.  When the wealthiest Americans, business and the religious right decided that a wedding of their three interests would be a winning political combination, the Evangelicals never saw the train coming.  Their contamination by politics has been so slow and gradual, many Republicans, even among the working class and the poor, cannot see, even today, how their religious movement has been torn away from the roots of christianity.

But the fact that the Religious Right takes political positions which undermine this country’s Twentieth Century’s advances in caring for the poor, the elderly, the sick, women and children, is lost to these people.  Even the Catholic Church has scolded the Republicans for their mean spirited policies which ignore and actually harm the poorest of Americans.  These policies are in direct opposition to christianity’s most basic tenets, laid down in the Bible as spoken by Christ!  And yet, if you confront a Republican about this, the denial you will hear is amazing.

Since the 1980’s and the Religious Right’s start of their fight to bring religion into politics, church support by Americans as a whole has dropped.  In just ten years, the numbers of Americans self-identifying as not religious has gone from less than 3% to over 15%, and is the largest and fastest growing category thus measured.  I attribute this, at least in part to a reaction by Americans to this radical movement and its attempts to bring religion to national prominence.

In the other direction, what damage has been done to the political sphere by injecting religion into it?

Just look at the Middle East.  Until the 1980’s, one can see some real-politics in action in US foreign policy there, as we used Israel as a foil against the Soviet backing of Arabic nations, giving us access to the area through land based air fields and friendly ports for US ships.

But after that time, as the “peace process” got more and more muddled and the whole thing eventually got mired in something resembling molasses, one sees, off on the sidelines, this christian movement at work, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of its sponsorship of the Arabic States.

Normally, one would think that the importance of a cold war surrogate nation would slack off as the cold war between the US and the USSR ended.  Surrogates were used by both sides to either protect their own interests or to attack the interests of their opponent, and with the end of that cold battle, the usefulness of those surrogates should diminish.

Indeed, one could easily see the change in the relationship between many nations and the US when their former adversarial status no longer made political sense.

But not Israel.

Many Arabic countries were brought “into” the fold of US friendly status after the USSR’s influence disappeared.  In spite of the US’ continued support of Israel and the obvious tension that relationship brought to the new relationships we fostered with nations like Saudi Arabia, those new relationships still grew closer with time. (and with the injection of large amounts of American cash…)

But the one thing which never changed was the standoff between the Israelis as the Palestinians, fueled by the refusal of the US to pressure Israel to end such things as the illegal settlement program.

Why?  Why does the US still back Israel in spite of that nation’s refusal to even consider a more even hand in negotiations with their Palestinian adversaries?  In spite of the damage it does to our relationships with Arabic countries and the resulting birth of the Islamic extremist movement which targets American interests, the US refuses to take a more pragmatic position which would be more in line with the real US interests in that region.

There is some controversy about this, but to many in the secular movements in the US, the answer is simple.  Religion and a belief in a religious prophesy of the future.

In the last book of the Bible, The Revelation of John, some say that the Second Coming of Christ is predicted.  The End of the World.  Capitalized, of course, and according to a religiously based TV network, soon to be televised - Live, and in Color!  Which shows how much wide spread interest is engendered by the right wing focus on this subject.  Evangelical groups all over the US preach it, and US politicians have been talking more and more about it.  George Bush even noted that he was given a vision by god to invade Iraq!

For those not aware, the prophesy involves a series of sub-prophesies, each one noting a milestone which will point the way to Jesus’ coming, including such things as the AntiChrist and his Thousand year reign, the final rebuilding of the jewish temple in Jerusalem and so on.  This hope was reignited by the establishment of the State of Israel, since obviously, the Temple could not be rebuilt unless that State existed and the Jewish people were brought back.

Groups financially supported by Evangelicals exist which try to work towards this end, and many current politicians now either belong to these groups or pander to the leaders of them.  Rick Perry, the current governor of Texas, is one such politician.

Of course, to us secularists, this is ridiculous, as the Second Coming couldn’t be anywhere near this era, because there has been no AntiChrist, and no Thousand Year reign!  But, who ever said religious extremists ever had to make sense?

Which is the whole point.

The entire foreign policy apparatus of the US is contaminated with this religious fervor about making Jesus’ Second Coming a reality, when modern scholars will tell us that their entire reading of that book is in error and it is largely about the Roman era and the predictions (about christian-Roman relationships) of a mad bishop imprisoned by the Romans on an island in the Mediterranean Sea!

These people are hijacking the foreign policy of the US on the basis of the ravings of a Second Century madman!

This illustrates perfectly the point that religion, when injected into the political process, seduces secular policies into supporting religious motivations, just as religion, contaminated by politics, loses its adherence to its own basic tenets.

Our world is getting smaller.  Travel and communication is so easy compared to even a few years ago, that events occurring at any point on the globe are known almost within minutes world-wide.  Information is global, accessible easily and virtually universally.

The time when dictators could isolate their populations from outside influence is over.  Even the most oppressive cannot entirely close off the internet, due to satellite phones and computer connections through those links.

In time, the mixing of religion and politics will go the way of the Dodo bird, extinct as dinosaurs.  In the meantime, it is something to be fought against as hard as possible.

The future of this country depends on it, and through us, the rest of the world too.

Where I use harsh, vexing language to describe the Republican Party and its traitorous actions.

There is a commercial on MSNBC featuring Chris Hayes, where he talks about voting.  He makes a statement at the end that says something about how there's something "profane" about preventing someone from exercising their basic right to vote.

That has sparked this post, along with the news this week that, after recent court losses in almost every State where the Republican Party has tried to suppress minority voting rights by enacting voter ID laws, the Republican-led State governments are using underhanded tactics to misinform voters in their States about voter IDs being required to vote - even if the courts have overturned or stayed enforcement of the laws.   The idea being, of course, that regardless of what the actual law is, if people think an ID is required and they don't have one, they just won't bother to show up, thus getting around those pesky court rulings.

Chris has it right.  The suppression of voting rights IS profane.  Even where it is legal, it is still profane. I think Chris (or whomever wrote the copy for that commercial) got the right word.

Even before this country began its fight for independence, while the struggle with England was not over independence, but over representation (or lack thereof), the American people have valued their right to vote and to choose their leaders.  Beginning with that struggle, people around the world, not just the US, have died to gain the right to vote.

Think about that.  Died.  Murdered, really, as anti- democratic forces resisted their efforts, violently.

I won't pretend, like the right wing does, that every American soldier in every war since this country was founded died to protect that right, because plenty of our fights were about seizing territory, or over economic issues.  But, on the other hand, there have been times and places where they did, and you cannot denigrate the willingness of every US soldier to die in defense of that principle, even if they are never called to do so.

Outside of the US, as recently as this year, people in countries such as Yemen, Libya or Egypt, have fought an oppressive government for the right of self-determination.  These have been (and in Syria still is) real struggles against real dictators who have every determination to remain in power and deny their people that right.

Literally hundreds of people around the world as recently as this last year have died in the struggle to gain the right to vote.

Just to be sure you got that, here it is again:

Literally hundreds of people around the world as recently as this last year have died in the struggle to gain the right to vote!

It IS profane to deny the right to vote in the face of the deaths of these people.  It would be profane if only one person had died in the effort to gain that right, yet today, in the US, in the Twenty-first Century, members of the Republican Party are taking actions which are designed to deny the right to vote to people with whom they disagree.

This is PROFANE!  This is WRONG!  This is UnAmerican!  This is anti-democratic and disgustingly twisted and - well - profane!  (Damn, I love how that word sounds in this context...)

To take these actions is to insult the memory of every American who has worn the uniform of this country and of those who lie in cemeteries around the world having defended our right to vote or fought for the right of their countrymen to gain that right.

If you are an American who has done anything, and I mean anything, however small, to support the actions of the Republican Party in this effort, you should be ashamed.  You should beg the forgiveness of all the ghosts of all the people who are dead today because they fought for your right to be politically active for the candidate of your choice, because without those people, you wouldn't be able to.

Have I repeated myself adequately enough to get the point across?

The principle over which these people have fought and died is that an election is a way to find out how the majority of a people in a country want to run their government.  Who their leaders should be in order to perform the kinds of activities they want to see enacted or performed in moving their country into the future.  In that process, it is important that every person have the right to participate.

If your particular Party and its ideals are so unpopular that you cannot win outright, and you feel you must cheat to win, then you have already lost the fight.  You may win through cheating, and you may gain temporary power, but in the long run, when you lose - and you will lose - your lose will be greater, your credibility will be tarnished more and in the end, any respect you may ever have had will be lost and you will be remembered as a disgusting loser.

You and your party may believe that God himself anointed you to win and rule, but if you have to cheat to win, where is your victory?  Where is the glory in covering yourself with the mud of dishonesty?

Once your favored policies have lost, you have two choices, either continue to push a losing cause, or reconsider your positions and re-examine the facts and see where you went wrong.  Not where you went wrong in losing the election, but where you went wrong in losing the argument and why your side's solutions failed.

Cheating doesn't help you do that.  It merely perpetuates the already lost cause, which after enough time, begins to stink, just like the rotten corpse it is.  If you stay with that cause, then you will be tainted by that stink, and you might as well get a day job sorting garbage, just to cover up the smell.

The right to vote is just about the only thing this country's secular government guarantees that can be truly called sacred.  Yes, we honor the flag, and liberty and freedom.  But it is the right to vote which, as much as any of the Armed Forces, protects those other things and keeps them alive.  Without the right to vote, the others all fade into history and become footnotes in obscure cobweb covered tomes in dust laden libraries in forgotten corners of abandoned citadels of a lost civilization.

The Republican Party, as long as I remember, has prided itself on its support for, its love for, and its defense of freedom, liberty and democracy.  Today, by taking the actions it is and has done, it has violated the basic principles those things stand for, and has dishonored its past and the people who founded that Party so long ago.  By continuing to publicly support those things while defiling the basic principles of democracy in suppressing their opponents' rights at the ballot box, they have revealed themselves for the disgusting, nasty traitors they are.

There just aren't any other words for it.

The Debate (what else?)

Yesterday, Romney and President Obama squared off in the first debate of this campaign.  Two more are planned.

There are several things that seem to be coming out of this event.  First, the left wing media seem to feel that Romney won.  They decry Obama’s sluggishness, distraction, and almost withdrawn demeanor and claim that Romney’s energy and bullishness simply walked away with it.

Second, almost everybody says Romney lied.  About virtually everything.  Rachael Maddow, after the debate last night said that Romney blindsided everybody by backing off from his claims about taxes and budget, as he denied that his budget would add another 5 billion smackers to the debt, and promised not only that he would “never” let a tax cut add to the debt, but also denied that he would cut taxes for the rich.  In fact, he flip flopped on almost every subject they talked about, reversing himself from positions he’s been campaigning on for over a year in some cases.

He ran roughshod over Lehrer, not only changing the subject at every turn, but taking extra time and on one occasion, refusing to relinquish the floor even over Lehrer’s protests.  He was at turns, rude, condescending, and arrogant.

Obama, for his part, as I noted above, seemed distracted, at times looking as if he was thinking about anything but the debate, with his mind seeming to wander to some far off place only he could see.  He missed several very obvious places where he could have sunk Romney with a single statement, and seemed to back off from a more aggressive approach more than once.

His most obvious places, to me, to have hit Romney where it would have hurt were involving health care.  When Romney claimed that private industry could provide cheaper health care, Obama’s immediate rejoinder should have been something like, “So, why then have health care costs been going up instead of down?”  

When he noted that Republicans wanted to let the States do their own health care, Obama should have made two points:  First, if we are going to be using Federal money to pay for health care, why give it to a middle man, where the administrative costs will be higher, since that administrative bureaucracy would have to be repeated 50 times, and second, that, “We know why Republicans want to let the States decide, since Republicans want to kill it, and what better way to do it than State by State where they control the legislature, and often, the governor’s office too?   If you can't kill it outright n Congress, you want to do it by sneaking in the back door!

There were numerous opportunities to bring Ryan and his budget, which Romney has promised to sign over and over, into the debate, and Obama made no mention of Romney’s 47% video - a major failure, in my opinion.  Another failure was his not mentioning Republicans’ constant obstruction over the last four years, beginning with that now famous meeting the night of the Inauguration to plan that campaign.

Romney had weeks to plan and prepare for this debate.  He has no day job besides running for office.   Obviously, his experience in the primaries has prepared him well.

Obama, of course, has that day job.  Not the best of excuses, but when it is paired with an overseas crisis brewing in a very volatile part of the world, he deserves a bit of slack.  Seeing as how the Turks and Syrians are trading artillery shells (not safely encased in packing material) and the Iranians are putting down riots in Tehran over a fast moving currency collapse, he probably did have something else on his mind.

Borowitz was right, had I not been angry over Obama’s missed opportunities, I’d have fallen asleep, it was that bad...

Two updates from Yesterday's Posts

Yesterday, I posted two short articles, one was about Thomas Jefferson and a Smithsonian Institution article regarding new research into his private life and the slaves he owned at Monticello, and the other one was about the Celebrate Mercy project asking muslims to send statements and letters of support and condolences to the family of Ambassador Stevens, who was killed in the recent attack in Libya.

I promised to post my reactions to the Jefferson article, and I will below.  

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But first, I’d like to comment on the wonderful response from the Celebrate Mercy folks, who both commented on my post yesterday and sent me email, thanking me for helping to spread the word about their project.  Thank you for the kind comments and email, I do like hearing that my efforts are being read and appreciated!

As I mentioned on my comment, though, I’d like to ask a favor of you.  Should your web site, Celebrate Mercy, become involved in similar efforts in the future, please consider letting me know.  I would be happy to post about any future efforts on your behalf, and will also share that information on my Facebook page, as well.  It is cross-cultural efforts like this, at the grass roots level, which will go much further than any government led program ever could to help foster friendship and understanding between our people.

By doing this together, we can work to reduce the levels of hatred, mistrust and violence around the world.  A worthy effort, indeed!

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Now, on to Mr. Jefferson!

After reading the article, posted on the Smithsonian Website, I am now at a quandary, and feel very conflicted.

On one hand, one cannot negate the very influential part he played in the birth of this country, and by extension, all of mankind, with his then new-fangled idea of universal equality.  (Yes, I know, his idea of “universal” equality only extended to free white guys, but you know, baby steps - it didn’t take women long to get into the act, in the greater scheme of things, and don't even think about the sticky-wicket slavery presented, just in getting the Constitution ratified!)  He really did stick his neck out, and took a very real risk of getting a noose thrown around it.  The British were never very forgiving of people who flouted the authority of their aristocracy.  I think the only two who may have had the “honor” of a beheading were Lafayette and Washington, both of whom were of real noble birth.  The rest, a simple noose.

The influence of that ideal is a profound one that still rings out today, encouraging the birth of liberty around the world, most recently in the Arab Spring, as it’s been called.  I think his influence will be felt for centuries to come.

The revelations about his private life and how he apparently really handled his slaves and ran his plantation are shocking.  One cannot emphasize enough the brutality of the practice, and the fact that he hired violent, brutal thugs to oversee his slaves is merely one clue that he bought into that practice in all its cruelty.  Telling, too is the incident of the slave he sold in punishment for an attack on another slave, sold “down the river”, or out of the area, probably southwards into Georgia.  Far out of reach, forever, of that poor man’s family.

The popular picture of a man conflicted with himself over a practice of brutality and cruelty which was at odds with his new ideal of liberty and equality for all, is now sullied forever by a picture of a wealthy, powerful man increasingly, as he aged, forsaking that ideal for hundreds of his slaves, in favor of retaining the wealth and power that came with a system which fed off of the misery and unpaid labor of men, women and children, forced into that labor by the cut of the lash and the blunt violence of the cudgel.

On the other hand, his intellectual brainchild, the Declaration of Independence, will ring down through history for as long as people are free, and that freedom can be rightly laid at his doorstep as a product of the combined efforts of him and his fellow Revolutionaries of 1776.

But, his actions dovetail perfectly with the picture we still have of the rich and powerful, sitting comfortably in their mansions, served by minions making a relative pittance, ignoring or even laughing at the misery of those unfortunate enough not to have been born in the aristocratic classes.  The 99%, if you will.

How can I continue to respect a man who so thoroughly sullied the ideal of his brainchild with such a selfish attitude and such horrible actions?

But given the brightness and the beauty of that ideal, how can I not?

Muslims can be horrified, too.

Here's something you rarely see in American media:  a reaction by ordinary muslims to a terrorist attack, especially one on Americans.

This one is in reaction to the attack in Libya, where the American Ambassador was killed.  As I noted in an earlier post, this man was not only respected by Libyans for what he did for them, but he was loved for it.  He exemplified to them what a good man should be.

From the Celebrate Mercy Website:

Chris Stevens, the United States Ambassador to Libya, was wrongfully killed on September 11, 2012. His killers were extremists who were angered by an obscure film that aims to insult the Prophet Muhammad's character. By killing an innocent man who had nothing to do with this film, they did more to offend the Prophet Muhammad than this film could have ever done. Their actions go against the mercy, love, patience, and justice he embodied on a daily basis.

Go read the article on the Huffington Post's website.  It will open your eyes and encourage you in the goodness of people everywhere.

Feet of clay, redux.

We live in an era of history in which things technological change quickly.  My mother was born in 1914 - a period in which electricity was rare over much of the country, automobiles were for the well to do and such things as radio and TV were unheard of.  She died in 2005, two years before Apple introduced the iPhone, which brought into reality the Dick Tracy video watch, albeit as a phone instead, but as a piece of technology that allows people across the globe to not only talk to each other, but view each other as well!

But all these technological changes bring with it social changes, too.  The forces of social change are bringing changes to our world that many people are finding hard to stomach, and the battles over these changes are ongoing and bitter beyond belief.

Over and over in the recent past, we've had to learn about various "new" things about many of our American heroes,  and about our history, that have changed what we thought we knew about our past, and not often in a good way.   Again, these differences with our childhood's views about this country are hard for many, especially conservatives, to believe.   It isn't easy for those of us who live without blinkered world views, either.

Today's revelations are brought to you by the Smithsonian Institution, so we aren't talking about some fly-by-night "scholar".

And it is about one of America's greatest Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson.

You will recall that I recently wrote about a trip my wife and I took to Monticello, his home.  I wrote about, among other things, his apparently waffling views about slavery, given that he wrote our Declaration of Independence, yet owned over 600 slaves throughout his life.

Don't look now, but the latest news from the world of history scholars is that as time went on, he stopped waffling.  I am about to link you to the whole sordid story, quite a few pages worth of reading, and worth every single word and second of your time.

On the first page, the author writes these words:

We can be forgiven if we interrogate Jefferson posthumously about slavery. It is not judging him by today’s standards to do so. Many people of his own time, taking Jefferson at his word and seeing him as the embodiment of the country’s highest ideals, appealed to him. When he evaded and rationalized, his admirers were frustrated and mystified; it felt like praying to a stone. The Virginia abolitionist Moncure Conway, noting Jefferson’s enduring reputation as a would-be emancipator, remarked scornfully, “Never did a man achieve more fame for what he did not do.”

The article is entitled, "The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson", and you can find it here.

Blasphemy, Heaven, Hell and your First Amendment rights...

Huh?  How can those three things be at all related?

Trust me, we'll get there, keep reading.

First, for your listening pleasure, a video of a priest (Bishop, really) telling an interviewer that hell is a construct of the church for the purpose of controlling people, and that instead of rescuing you from sin, christ was really trying to help you become more of a full and better human being...really, watch it here:

Isn't that amazing?  Anybody want to take bets over how long it takes him to get muzzled by the Episcopal authorities?

Actually, this video reveals an idea that is very close to some interpretations of humanistic ideals.  Ideals that try to help people see how humanism can make them better humans and more devoted to the common good.  Who knew that the Protestant Reformation would ever get so far?

Second, on Freethought Blogs, Ed Brayton has a story about how Egyptian authorities have arrested a man under their blasphemy laws for destroying...wait for it...yes, really...a bible!  There's more at the Saudi Gazette.

Quite amazing, actually, when seen in the isolation of looking at the past.  Once you realize that Egypt (and the UN) is under pressure from Islamic groups to convene a group on a world-wide ban on blasphemy, it makes a certain sinister sense.  The Saudi story, amazingly enough, even covers this aspect of the situation:

In the wake of the anti-Islam video, many clerics and politicians in Egypt have called for an international law criminalizing contempt for religion. Egypt’s new government, headed by Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, may be under pressure to show that it is applying Egypt’s contempt law evenhandedly.

Ed's take on it has a distinctly American viewpoint:

This is just as unjust as prosecuting someone for anti-Muslim speech. Blasphemy laws are wrong, period, no matter what religion is being offended or what country it takes place in.

True, insofar as it goes, and I have no complaints about that, in fact I wholeheartedly agree.  But this doesn't stop there.

These two things are linked to your First amendment rights, not only because blasphemy laws are wrong in that narrow sense, but because both blasphemy and the heaven/hell construct are invented for one purpose and one purpose only:

To control YOU, to prevent you from dissenting against the Religious Powers That Be.  To ensure that those Powers can remain in power and in Authority over you and the rest of humanity, for as long as they can.

This relates to the Separation of Church and State, and eventually, to every right protected by the constitution.

Why? Because the Islamists have one purpose:  Bringing the world under their domination.  Also, because there is a group of christians, called, aptly enough, Dominionists, who have the same goal, although they are happy to begin with the US - why, after all, should one start small?  Both groups, in line with their separate goals, subscribe to the same tools:  Religious rules and being able to use the power of a national government (and eventually, the UN) to enforce those rules.

Why should this alarm you?

Because, as I've written here before, when one mixes religion with politics, both get confused and muddled.  Religion gets tied to secular causes that violate their most basic tenets, and politics gets so constrained by religion that their opponents are equated with Satan, and so can no longer compromise - who, after all, can compromise with Satan?

I hope, after this, you can recognize the Republican Party.  They haven't bought into the blasphemy thing yet, but they are and have been full on with the heaven and hell thing!  They've already had at least one Catholic authority tell people they'll go to hell if they vote for Obama.  Any bets over how long they buy into making blasphemy illegal in the US?

After all, one has to shut up those pesky bloggers...

No, I will not sit down and shut up!

Last night, a religious commenter on a thread on Facebook made the following statement in response to my comments about the Pledge of Allegiance:

“You know what, get over it. If you don't like the way something looks, don't look at it, if you don't like what someone is saying, don't listen. Just because a handful of people "may" get offended, don't ruin it for everyone else.“

In other words, sit down and shut up.

You know what?  No.  I will not shut up. Atheists have been shutting up for centuries just to save their lives, their jobs and often the lives of their families as well.  Christians have burned us at the stake, thrown us out of our jobs, refused to rent to us, and so badly demonized us that most Americans still won’t vote for an atheist running for public office.

Today, the latest polls showed us (the non-religious) as being as many as 15% of the population.  That is in an atmosphere of intolerance and intimidation, where most atheists won’t admit it, still in fear of losing jobs, friends and family.  I’d bet that the official figures are half the reality.  But even if they aren’t, we are, in numbers, greater than the muslim, jewish, hindu or buddhists - combined!

In recent years, we’ve gotten tired of sitting down and shutting up.  With these numbers, we are beginning to stand up and be counted, and that is what scares people like the commenter last night.  So, I’ve got news for her:

“Once social change begins it cannot be reversed.  You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read.  You can not humiliate the person who feels pride.  You can not oppress the people who are not afraid any more.”  Cesar Chávez

Atheists are not as afraid as we used to be.  We are learning to support one another.  We are getting the word out that there are others like us who can and will help and support other atheists to stand up for their rights.

Those rights are all we want.  The right to be ourselves without having to pretend to be something we aren’t, just to keep our jobs.  The right to get involved in the political process and have our views listened to and discussed, even if not completely accepted.  We want the rest of the country to begin following the law and stop pushing their religion on us with our own tax money.

We are not trying to prevent you from having the same rights.  You’ve just been abusing those rights and laws by doing things which are blatantly illegal and unconstitutional.  All we want you to do is to stop the illegal stuff and accept that your rights aren’t above and superior to the rest of us.

So, read this comment again:

“You know what, get over it. If you don't like the way something looks, don't look at it, if you don't like what someone is saying, don't listen.”

Lady, listen to your own words, and pay heed to them, or in other words, “physician, heal thyself”.  You are living in a multi-cultural world.   

They used to call the US a melting pot, but it is really more like a vegetable soup.  While each ingredient adds its own unique flavor to the soup, it still retains its own character while absorbing some of the flavors of the other ingredients.  Tolerance is a necessary and useful skill in a multi-cultural society.

So, get used to it, we atheists are here to stay (we’re finally coming out of the closet), and we are not going to be quiet anymore.  

I am not sorry to change the flavor of our soup.

Will Anybody Care? Hell, no.

The National Park Service has removed a Buddhist display from the Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico.  It has cited First Amendment concerns in the removal.

 A New Mexico radio station has reported the removal on its website, and you've got to go see the comments to believe it.  One commenter even had to question whether Buddhism was even a religion...

Here's what KUNM of Albuquerque had to say:

The National Park Service said Monday that park service will remove the ten-foot structure containing Buddhist relics  from the park this week after getting an opinion from the Department of Interior's solicitor general. The solicitor general ruled last month that keeping the Buddhist stupa violates the Constitution on established religion.

Now, I just want to know - how long will it be before christians in the local community stand up and oppose this move and protest in front of the local National Park Service Headquarters?  When will the first lawsuit get filed by a local christian group on behalf of these poor "oppressed" Buddhists?

Yeah, I didn't think so, either.

Government officials and crime

Interesting article about that TSA Officer who was caught by ABC News stealing an iPad purposely left behind at an airport.

As many of you know, I am a government employee.  Have been now for over thirty-eight years, as of today, as a matter of fact.  Over the years, I've seen story after story about misbehaving government employees.  Federal, State and local, there is simply a breed of person who cannot avoid taking advantage of a position of power or opportunity.

Politicians are a favorite target of our outrage, but others are just as susceptible.  TSA officers, like the man today, are up front and center, because of the public's anger and outrage at TSA policies and procedures at airports.  But there are others.  Inspectors of various stripes and types often have golden opportunities to demand bribes, as do police officers, parole officers and, hey, judges do it too!

As I've said before, don't take this wrong.  I am not trying to paint all of us with that same broad brush.  Personally, I've never seen such corruption occur.  I've never been exposed to it, nor had an opportunity to report something like it, either.  But I know it happens.  I've cleaned out the occasional office of a coworker who disappeared suddenly more than once.  I've delivered at least one CPU to the Office of Criminal Investigations.  It happens.

But what burns me up is when they get off.  Many don't.  A lot get fired, lose their pensions and I have no idea what they'd do for a job after that!

But especially the higher ups, and often the cops, get off.  There's a good ole' boy network in these places that protects them from the worst of it.

And it burns me up.

I am a firm believer that there oughta be a law (remember that comic strip?) that adds a premium to the sentence of any public servant who is convicted of a crime.  Lesser in scope if committed on private time, but escalating depending on severity as it happens on public time or in the course of performing their regular duties.  An addition to the regular sentence - just like we do for the use of handguns in the commission of a crime.

I believe that because I believe in public service.  I believe that performing a job for the government is serving my fellow Americans.  It is participating in the conduct of that agreement we all have in the existence of the constitution.  It is doing my part to support and defend that constitution.

But breaking the law is a violation of the oath I took when I accepted this job.  I cannot be expected to support and defend a concept if I violate the concept's most basic principles!  And for doing that, there should be a separate and harsh punishment.

Throw the book at the bastards.

Ann Coulter

Man, did you guys see Ann Coulter on The View today?

Now I'll say to start out that appearing there took a lot of guts.  I'm sure that even if it didn't look like it, she must have had a bulletproof vest on, because what she was saying got those ladies so riled up, she had to be seconds away from having something bad happen to her!  The director had to be on the ball on that one...

But damn, I don't blame any of them, every word that came out of her mouth was designed to antagonize, and all of them were not just false, but meant to be.  Right wing dog whistles.

I've gotta say, though, it was probably worth it, The View gets a lot of attention, and getting them to promote her book was probably worth some big bucks.

Political pandering pays...

Time for another rant!

Ok, sometimes this just ticks me off.

I know that this election is different.  I've been watching elections since the Kennedy win in 1960.  There's always been an unspoken, but mostly observed agreement in politics, at least in the twentieth century, and that was that we are all Americans, and it is acknowledged that we all have America's best interests at heart.  Different approaches, different ideas, different pathways, yes, but always there was the agreement that, at the end of the day, we could all go out and have a beer together.

Not anymore.  You hear people, often on both sides, but mostly on the right, carrying on about how the other guys are out to destroy America.  The attitude that goes with that statement is poison, hatred.  The right wing uses such dog whistle phrases as marxist, socialist, foreigner, unAmerican and all sorts of things which hint at Obama's race to excite their base and it gets downright nasty.

As the campaign move on and gets closer and closer to election day, the polls have been slowly moving towards a trend - one which shows Obama in the lead in most if not all of the swing States.  Some more, some less, but it seems to be a trend.  The right wing now has this new meme, that pollsters have been sampling more Democrats, so "of course" they'll be biased towards Democrats.  Geez, if you don't like the polls, you can just drown 'em out, right?  It fits the other trends in Republican tactics where reality just doesn't seem to be on the list anywhere.  What they're not telling you is that Fox News - that darling of the right wing - agrees with these polls!

Now at some point, somebody out there, maybe that "anonymous" which used to object so much to my  posts, will point out that I've posted things here which accuse some Conservatives of being "un-American" and out to "destroy America".

Yep and you'll see 'em again, too, because there's proof.  Hell, they're even saying it!  I don't have to make things up, all I've got to do it quote them and link to their statements, which I've done more than once.

The difference is, when some bonehead on Facebook accuses Obama of being out to destroy America,  he's never able to actually tell you how.  He can't prove that Obama is a foreigner, or a socialist, or a muslim, or an atheist (yes, they've accused him of all of those - at the same time, no less), but they are convinced that if they can just convince the country of these things, he'll be impeached and thrown out of office and all of his socialist laws (that started out as right wing ideas) would get overturned as being signed by an illegal President, thus are illegal.

All of this is simply due to the right wing being unable to see that their ideas are being roundly rejected by America.  We don't like making abortion illegal, we like the idea of gay marriage, we like contraception, we don't want women to be restricted from needed health care, we don't want them to be kept barefoot and pregnant, we want them to be able to have full and fulfilling careers of just about anything they want to be! We don't want others' religion to be forced down our throats, we don't want ours to be forced on anybody else, either.  We believe in helping others through a government safety net which is designed to help people in trouble get through that trouble, we want every American to have access to health care, even if they can't afford their own insurance - and we don't want that health care to be solely 911!

We want the right wing to stop being bigoted, to stop being mean, to stop being a bunch of lying, nasty bullies that will call anybody who disagrees with them unAmerican or a socialist.  (We want them to go to school and learn what those things really are!)

Get it?  Stop being fools who have been snookered and dog whistled into supporting a Party that only cares about the rich and can't wait to throw all you poor Conservatives (especially those who are on welfare) out on the street so they can reduce their taxes to zero.

The least you can do is just start being civil again.

Apologies or Regrets? Weakness or Strength?

Today, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were hosted on The View in a wonderful interview.  I mean, not even Elizabeth was able to spoil it with her twisted little right wing question.  I’ve seen them both there several times, but this is the first time they’ve both been on simultaneously.  Each time, they’ve been warm, likable, and feel as honest as one can be.  You can hardly keep from liking them when its over, especially when they’re talking about the kids!

So, they’re there, and each of the ladies of The View are taking turns asking questions.  The subject turns to the Middle East and the recent ugliness there sparked by the anti-muslim film.  The President gave a good answer, but while he spoke, it sparked something I’d like to talk about.

He mentioned the protests this past week supporting the US and telling the militias to get out of town.  Now, those protests have been the subject of a lot of right wing political talk on Facebook since they happened, almost always saying something like, “Go, Libyans!  Throw the bums out!” and such.

Good sentiments, and yes, I’d like to see more of that - regular people getting mad at the extremists and telling them to bug off.  But I’ve got news for the right wing, and they’re not going to like it.

You know all those regular Libyans who marched last week?  Do you know why?  Because the terrorists killed a man they respected.  Yes, he was an American Ambassador, but that wasn’t why.

They respected him because he helped them.  He stood by them in a time of terrible strife and hardship, representing this country, but doing it in a way that showed he cared.  He didn’t do it just because it was US policy.  He did it because he cared for them as people, and because they needed our help.  Not because it was over a larger policy thing or because of overall American interests.   He did what he did because he gave a damn about them, and they could clearly see that from his actions and his words.

And they loved him for that.

The part the right wing won’t like is that this is Obama’s policy.  He has shown this by making those speeches the right thinks were apologies.  He has told the people of these countries that we respect them as a people, and we respect their culture and regret instances where we seem to show otherwise.

Contrary to what the right thinks, expressing regrets like that isn’t a weakness. It shows strength, and it shows respect.  A weak country, like Iraq under Hussein, can’t apologize, because then it does sound weak.  A small country like that needs to show strength to protect itself from its enemies. A warlord like Hussein cannot show any weakness or his political enemies will eat him alive.

A big country like the US not only shows respect by expressing regrets, but shows strength as well, because doing what, in a small country, would be weakness, a big one shows it isn’t afraid of weakness.  It shows our confidence in our own power and ability to defend our interests that we can express regrets or even an outright apology when someone who works for us (like the military) makes a mistake that insults another country.  Such a gesture goes a long way in mending fences and showing others that we respect them and want to be friendly.

It is fine (and necessary) at times to be seen as strong and forceful when one’s core interests are under attack or being threatened.  To do otherwise would be to invite further attack and eventually, defeat.  But one also cannot be seen as too strong or overbearing.  Forgoing the opportunities to show respect or regret over mistakes is not only terrible diplomacy, but is seen as being arrogant and aloof.

That’s why we employ professional diplomats.  So they can advise us of how to act towards other countries in accordance with their culture and social mores to avoid insult or to show respect.

By showing the people of these countries that we respect them and their culture, and by providing support and assistance when it is needed most, we gain friends in a part of the world where we desperately need them.  The message that Bush tried to send, that we are not at war with Islam, is an important one.  In spite of the attempts of extremists (of both religions) to make this conflict a religious one, the kind of policy that Obama has  followed has borne fruit, proven by the supportive protests in Libya this week.

If we can show the people of the middle east that we support them and not the dictators who have oppressed them for so long, we have a chance to salvage something from the past sixty years and the wreckage of Bush’s misguided war, perhaps laying the groundwork for a future Islam which is more Enlightened than today.

It certainly can't hurt.