Jesus Saves, Gretzky Scores

You have got to be fucking kidding me:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/28/AR2006032801632_pf.html

‘War’ on Christians Is Alleged
Conference Depicts a Culture Hostile to Evangelical Beliefs

By Alan Cooperman

Washington

Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 29, 2006; A12

The "War on Christmas" has morphed into a "War on Christians."

Last December, some evangelical Christian groups declared that the religious celebration of Christmas — and even the phrase "Merry Christmas" — was under attack by the forces of secularism.

This week, radio commentator Rick Scarborough convened a two-day conference in

Washington

on the "War on Christians and the Values Voters in 2006." The opening session was devoted to "reports from the frontlines" on "persecution" of Christians in the United States and Canada, including an artist whose paintings were barred from a municipal art show in Deltona, Fla., because they contained religious themes.

"It doesn’t rise to the level of persecution that we would see in

China

or

North Korea

," said Tristan Emmanuel, a Canadian activist. "But let’s not pretend that it’s okay."

Among the conference’s speakers were former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) as well as conservative Christian leaders Phyllis Schlafly, Rod Parsley, Gary Bauer, Janet Parshall and Alan Keyes.

To many of the 400 evangelicals packed into a small ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, it was a hard but necessary look at moral relativism, hedonism and Christophobia, or fear of Christ, to pick just a few terms offered by various speakers referring to the enemy.

To some outsiders, it illuminated the paranoia of the Christian right.

"Certainly religious persecution existed in our history, but to claim that these examples amount to religious persecution disrespects the experiences of people who have been jailed and died because of their faith," said K. Hollyn Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

"This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position," said the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a minister in the

Church

of

God

in Christ and professor of social ethics at

Emory

University

.

White evangelicals make up about one-quarter of the

U.S.

population, and 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But three-quarters of evangelicals believe they are a minority under siege and nearly half believe they are looked down upon by most of their fellow citizens, according to a 2004 poll.

In a luncheon speech yesterday, DeLay took issue with the "chattering classes" who think there is no war on Christians.

"We are after all a society that abides abortion on demand, that has killed millions of innocent children, that degrades the institution of marriage and often treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition. Seen from this perspective, of course there is a war on Christianity," he said.

Much of the conference revolved around the difficulty of Christian parenting in a culture of sexual permissiveness. Don Feder, founder of a group called Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, urged the crowd not to blame "the liberal, self-hating Jews in

Hollywood

."

"Remember, the people in this audience are more Jewish than people like Barbra Streisand, because you embrace Jewish values, she doesn’t," he said.

Another Jewish speaker, Michael Horowitz, told the conference that the "Christian decency of this country" saved him from becoming "a bar of soap" in Nazi Germany.

"You guys have become the Jews of the 21st century," said Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in

Washington

, just before a false alarm interrupted his speech. Several attendees called the fire alarm suspicious, though a hotel spokesman said it resulted from a mechanical problem in a distant location.

In the session on recent cases of persecution, Navy Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt brought the crowd to its feet by introducing himself as a military chaplain "who prays in the name of Jesus."

Klingenschmitt said he was punished by a commander for offering sectarian prayers at a memorial service for a fallen sailor, and he compared himself to Abdur Rahman, an Afghan man who until this week faced possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity.

"What do these two Christians have in common?" Klingenschmitt asked, showing slides first of himself, then of Rahman. "Perhaps we are persecuted. Perhaps we are no different than most Christians throughout history."

Lloyd Marcus, a painter, said he entered three paintings in a Black History Month art show at the

City Hall

of

Deltona

last month. But because the canvases showed a man wearing an "I love Jesus" cap and a minister holding a Bible, city officials deemed them inappropriate until the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, threatened a lawsuit, he said.

The Rev. Tom Crouse, pastor of a Congregational Church in

Holland

,

Mass.

, said that after hearing about a gay beauty pageant in

California

, he decided to hold a "Mr. Heterosexual Contest" in

Worcester

,

Mass.

, on Feb. 18.

"It was just an event to proclaim the truth that God created us all heterosexual," he said. But to his surprise, he said, he received anonymous death threats, local officials condemned the contest, and "even Bible-believing churches were not on board. They said it wasn’t loving."

On the one hand, this shit is just downright offensive to me personally, and it should be to the vast majority of Americans who don’t identify with the views of dangerous religious extremists like these people. In a society where they have successfully shifted the social/political discourse to take place entirely on their end of the spectrum (witness the debates on gay marriage, abortion, sex education, birth control, etc), and when I have to read about this shit in the paper and listen to it on the radio and hear otherwise sensible people actually discussing them in a serious way (when all we should really be doing is ignoring them and hoping they go away), it’s just absolutely ludicrous for them to then go and claim that they’re being persecuted.

And then on the other hand, the claim that Christians are being "persecuted" is completely offensive on a big-picture level:

"It doesn’t rise to the level of persecution that we would see in China or North Korea," said Tristan Emmanuel, a Canadian activist. "But let’s not pretend that it’s OK."

Oh, really?

Not as bad as China or Korea?

Are you sure?

Want to think about it for a second?

OK then.

Wow. What a conference. I would have paid like a million dollars to be there. Look at some of the characters that they had out. First, we have the delusional Navy Lieutenant:

Klingenschmitt said he was punished by a commander for offering sectarian prayers at a memorial service for a fallen sailor, and he compared himself to Abdur Rahman, an Afghan man who until this week faced possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity. "What do these two Christians have in common?" Klingenschmitt asked, showing slides first of himself, then of Rahman. "Perhaps we are persecuted. Perhaps we are no different than most Christians throughout history."

Really? Most Christians throughout history have been persecuted? You mean like this guy?

And this guy?

That makes sense. It also makes sense for him to compare his situation, in which he was reprimanded by his commanding officer for an obvious violation of military policy, to that of Rahman, who faced POSSIBLE FUCKING EXECUTION for his religious beliefs. Talk about a false analogy fallacy. (There’s this thing called "logic." You should learn about it before you make arguments. It’s important.)

Moving on, we then have the "Mr. Heterosexual" guy:

The Rev. Tom Crouse, pastor of a Congregational Church in Holland, Mass., said that after hearing about a gay beauty pageant in California, he decided to hold a "Mr. Heterosexual Contest" in Worcester, Mass., on Feb. 18. "It was just an event to proclaim the truth that God created us all heterosexual," he said. But to his surprise, he said, he received anonymous death threats, local officials condemned the contest, and "even Bible-believing churches were not on board. They said it wasn’t loving."

OK, so the idea of a "Mr. Heterosexual Contest" is admittedly hilarious. Big up for that. Although what’s more hilarious is that he thought this idea would fly in Massachusetts, notoriously the most reasonable (or as some people say, "progressive") state in the country. But is the concept of a "Mr. Heterosexual contest" really all that different from the concepts of "white rights" or "reverse racism"? Isn’t it equally ignorant? Obviously death threats aren’t called for, but I’m going to go out on a limb and agree that "not loving" is a pretty accurate description of this whole idea.

And don’t you love how the religious people love to hammer away on the word ‘truth’? Webster’s defines ‘truth‘ as "the property of being in accord with fact or reality." What part of believing in things that can’t be proven through objective evidence is "in accordance with fact or reality" exactly? Do they even know what words mean? Should I buy all of these people a dictionary? Tell me what to do here.

And, finally, we have the token Jewish guy:

Another Jewish speaker, Michael Horowitz, told the conference that the "Christian decency of this country" saved him from becoming "a bar of soap" in Nazi Germany. "You guys have become the Jews of the 21st century," said Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

With the "Jews of the 21st century" comment, Horowitz is obviously referring to the numerous concentration camps that godless, atheist, Christphobic heathens like me are herding Christians into by the millions in this country. I think there’s one in Fargo. Or perhaps he’s making some sort of deeply ironic point about how it’s actually the conservative Christians who completely control the economy and media of this country, despite what the anti-Semites would have you believe. Although I doubt that’s the case. What an Uncle Tom (and hey, speak of the devil–Alan Keyes was at this conference too!).

As an aside: anytime an article cites an "expert" like Horowitz, do yourself a favor and Google them and the institute or whatever that they work for. The Hudson Institute, as it turns out, is an openly conservative think-tank with lots of whacked-out opinions on things ranging from affirmative action to human rights to national security. Read up and be amused. Never ceases to amaze me that respectable newspapers like the Post will cite people like this without even hinting at their obvious bias. Which is a huge part of the problem that I’m about to explain.

This is exactly what conservatives and Christians love to do–take a few isolated incidents, like the two (repeat: two) examples they can cite where artists were barred from art shows because of Christian themes in their work (which I agree is stupid), and then extrapolate from there to some imaginary broader cultural trend. Other examples would be the "war on Christmas" alluded to in the article; the whole Terri Schaivo debacle (where they managed to spin a literal handful of protestors into an alleged "nation-wide movement"; and just about every other conservative cultural flashpoint that’s arisen in recent years. I’d love to just chalk it up to them being completely paranoid (witness the "suspicious fire alarm" in the article), but it’s obviously much more orchestrated and devious than that.

So how do these sorts of things get taken seriously? How does the Washington freaking Post (although I shouldn’t single them out, this story ran absolutely everywhere) report something as ludicrous as a "war on Christians" when every available fact proves that it simply doesn’t exist? Why can’t the media recognize these completely baseless claims for what they are? The answer hearkens back to a phenomenon described by Eric Alterman in What Liberal Media? as "working the refs"–a reference to certain whiney basketball coaches who bitch and moan after every whistle against their guys in the hopes that their constant complaining will subconsciously sway the refs’ calls in their favor, despite the fact that they rode MJ and Shaq’s coattails for their entire career and couldn’t carry Red Auerbach’s jock. Ahem. The conservatives and the Christians are brilliant at doing just this with the media. They completely fabricate some "bias" (whether it’s the "liberal media" claim that Alterman described, the idea that white men are an oppressed minority in this country, or the "war on Christians" in this article) and complain about it so loudly and so consistently over such a long period time that finally the media gives in and begins reporting on the existence of this bias, just so they don’t seem guilty of having it themselves. Read Alterman’s book for a much better analysis of this phenomenon than I could ever put come up with.

I was reminded of this whole concept when I read a recent Time cover story on global warming (Yes, I read Time magazine, whatever, get over it) that included a poll of people’s perceptions of the issue. Despite the fact that there is overwhelming, basically-unanimous consensus among the scientific community that a) global warming exists, b) it’s being caused by humans, and c) it’s a big fucking deal, 64 percent of Americans believe that there is "a lot of disagreement" amongst scientists on this issue. Why would people believe that? Because Republicans, prompted by industry lobbyists, have been claiming for years that there’s a lot of disagreement in the scientific community about global warming, despite the fact that this isn’t true at all. It’s a lie. They are liars. When they say that, they are lying. And the media knows this. But they report it anyway, because all the media is these days is a delivery vehicle for party soundbites, and every time a newspaper prints a blatantly false quote from a Republican party hack talking about scientific disagreement on global warming, it cements the idea in people’s heads that this disagreement actually exists–regardless of whether or not the paper also prints an opposing viewpoint (which they don’t even do consistently).

So what’s the point? The point is that respectable media outlets like the Post shouldn’t report things that are patently untrue and unsupportable, like the idea of "war on Christians." Because no matter how many opposing viewpoints they include or how much they ridicule the idea (which, in fairness, I do think the writer is trying to do in this article), it still cements the idea in people’s heads that it’s somewhat reasonable to think that Christians have it rough in this country. And if they keep on working the refs, and if general public keeps on reading articles like this, in a few years we’ll be reading Time magazine polls about how 64 percent of American people believe that Christians are a persecuted minority in this country. Don’t think it won’t happen.

In the interest of optimism, I’d like to close with the only three reasonable things said in this article:

"Certainly religious persecution existed in our history, but to claim that these examples amount to religious persecution disrespects the experiences of people who have been jailed and died because of their faith," said K. Hollyn Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

Excellent analysis.

"This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position," said the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a minister in the Church of God in Christ and professor of social ethics at Emory University.

"Spoiled-brat response." Brilliant.

And finally, Tom Delay, in a rare visionary moment, describes a society that "treats Christianity like some second-rate superstition."

Amen, brother. We can only hope.

Like, for reals. I’m trying to search for photos of the Falun Gong (see upcoming entry), and it won’t let me access images on the Falun Gong site. Why not? Evidently they’ve categorized that site as "Cult or Occult" (their term) and as such don’t think I should be able to access it. I tried doing a few "controversial" Google Image searches, and here’s some other websites that it won’t let me access photos from because they fall into certain categories:

FunBox.org — "Games"

MenStuff.org — "Nudity"

AnythingButStraight.com — "Adult Materials"

Rotten.com — "Militant or Extremist"

GoFugYourself.com — "Internet Communication" (WTF?!?)

PETA.org — "Advocacy Groups"

So let me get this straight. I’m paying some ridiculous amount of money to stay in this hotel. I’m also paying an extra $10/day to use the internet here. I’m 26 years old and a fully-recognized adult in the eyes of the law. But evidently this fucking hotel has the fucking audacity to tell me what I can and can’t research on the fucking internet based on these completely arbitrary categories they’ve come up with? Who’s to say that the Falun Gong is a cult? And hey, even if they are, who’s to say that I can’t look up cult on the internet–let alone games, porn, gay websites, or god forbid, advocacy groups? Does this seem completely insane to anyone else?

Oh, and for the record, I AM allowed to access photos from Family.org– the official website of Focus on the Family, only the single biggest hate group in the country. But evidently neither a "cult," "militant or extremist," nor an "advocacy group." Big Brother is watching you.

(I Google "big brother" for some sort of Orwellian photo that I could include as a sign-off here, but guess what? Everything that wasn’t about the reality show was blocked.)

The following article appeared on CNN.com not too long ago:

Dating in cars: Things people notice
Survey says cars can play an important role in dating, so keep it clean and don’t ask for gas money.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Men and women agree that cars play an important role in dating, but they don’t always agree on what should happen once things get rolling.

Eighty-nine percent of males and 95 percent of females said they were extremely or somewhat likely to notice their date’s car, according to a survey conducted by Ford Motor Co. The survey was conducted as part of a program, including "speed dating" events in various cities, to promote the company’s new Fusion sedan. The survey polled 400 single men and women.

It’s not just the make and model of a car that’s getting noticed, according to the survey. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed said the condition of their date’s car would at least somewhat impact their attraction to the person. Women felt more strongly about their date’s car condition than men with 69 percent saying it would at least somewhat affect their attraction to their date compared to 47 percent of men.

"You often get one chance to make a right impression and, many times, your car is one of the first personal things your date sees about you. Similar to your clothes, your car says something about you and your style," said Ellen Fein, dating expert and co-author of The Rules.

About 20 percent of respondents said they had been "asked to chip in for car-related expenses by their date." Of those that had been asked to chip in, 15 percent said they were asked to spring for gas followed by parking (9 percent) and tolls (6 percent).

When asked to recall their "most embarrassing car date moment," 22 percent of respondents said it was being told by their date that they were a bad driver. Far more women suffered this insult than men. Second overall was suffering an "upset stomach," followed by being pulled over for speeding, and getting in to a fender-bender. Just barely making the list was "getting caught fooling around."

Sixteen percent of those surveyed ranked kissing as their "favorite car date activity." But, only 8 percent of females surveyed chose kissing versus 24 percent of males.

Aaaaand go:

“Eighty-nine percent of males and 95 percent of females said they were extremely or somewhat likely to notice their date’s car…”

OK. So. I think we can all agree that there’s a world of difference between being “extremely” and “somewhat” likely to notice something. I’d be “somewhat likely” to notice that I was getting a sunburn, but “extremely likely” to notice that I was being burned alive. Fairly large degree of differential. So lumping “extremely” and “somewhat likely” together doesn’t really tell us anything, since I’d probably be “somewhat likely” to notice a girl’s car, but I could list about a million things I’d be more likely to notice, and more importantly, I’d be “not at all likely” to make any sort of judgment about her based on it. The inference the article makes is that most of those 89% were “extremely likely” to notice—but the fact that they conspicuously don’t tell us how many are “extremely” vs. “somewhat” leads me to believe that the opposite is true. So basically, this study just tells us that a car is one of a bunch of things that people might notice on dates—far from the argument the article goes on to present. Hmm. I wonder why the results would be so blown out of proportion like that?

“…according to a survey conducted by Ford Motor Co.”

Ah. I see.

“The survey polled 400 single men and women.”

Any reputable polling firm will tell you that your study needs to have a minimum of 1000 respondents in order to provide you with any sort of reliable data. Anything less than that is statistically insignificant. Several years ago, I conducted a survey of approximately 1000 people and pitched it to various media outlets far less prominent than CNN, and was told by every single one that it would be below their journalistic standards to publish the results of a survey with so few respondents. CNN, apparently, has no problem with that. Then again, they also have no problem continuing to employ the desiccated corpse of Larry King, so perhaps I’m expecting too much.

“’You often get one chance to make a right impression and, many times, your car is one of the first personal things your date sees about you. Similar to your clothes, your car says something about you and your style,’ said Ellen Fein, dating expert and co-author of The Rules.”

I googled Ellen Fein and learned that she “graduated from New York University and is now studying for her Master’s degree in Social Work. She has been married for 11 years, has two children, and lives on Long Island.” So someone who ostensibly hasn’t dated in over a decade is a “dating expert” Does that makes me a Little League expert? Can CNN call me for comment on the psychological repercussions of the slaughter rule and the importance of orange slices in ensuring proper hydration? My mother shares Ms. Fein’s qualifications—except that she actually earned her Masters. I guess I should be telling her about my girl problems more.

Before mercifully ending, the piece goes on to share such tidbits as “8 percent of females surveyed chose kissing” as their “favorite car date activity”—a grand total of 16 people. Fascinating! Call CNN. Oh wait.

This article would simply be a waste of valuable seconds if it weren’t so indicative of larger problems with the corporate-owned media. The obvious question here is: why would CNN publish something with so little informative value? Maybe for three reasons. One, because in the age of American Morning infotainment, cute human-interest stories like “Is your car affecting your love life?” take precedence over, you know, actual news. Two, because with Ford Motor Company being the #6 advertising spender in America, and CNN’s parent Time Warner being the #1 media company in the world, it’s no stretch to assume that some ad dollars have changed hands and Time Warner might be in the mood to do Ford a favor. And third, as a consumer-driven corporation, Time Warner has a strong vested interest in maintaining the perception that the things that we consume define us as people and that we can better ourselves by spending more money, which this article bends over backward trying to do.

So is it a stretch to think that CNN ran this meaningless fluff piece to encourage people to run out and buy fancy new cars to impress their dates like the good little consumers we are? Check out the CNN-sponsored “Research a New Car” toolbar running directly to the right of the article and decide for yourself.

This… is CNN.

OK. So.

Virginia

is in the midst of a heated race for governor between Tim Kaine (D) and Jerry Kilgore (R). There’s also this sweet Independent named Russ Potts running, but he’s kind of a whackjob and doesn’t really factor into the fun here. So anway, Kilgore is running what have to be the most over-the-top attack ads that I’ve ever heard in my life—they’re truly an amazing exercise in hyperbole. The radio ads all follow the same format:

Tim Kaine says that he eats human fetuses in his basement with mustard and sauerkraut.

Tim Kaine: too liberal on eating fetuses; too liberal for Governor.

And it’s really not that far removed from that. He has these flyers that people have been going door-to-door with that show a row of mug-shot looking photos of Tim Kaine, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Howard Dean (all the photos look like they were taken from an airport security camera) with the caption “Tim Kaine and his liberal friends want to bring their values to Virginia.” (I thought liberals didn’t have any values?) He even ran a TV spot that claimed “Tim Kaine says that Adolf Hitler doesn’t qualify for the death penalty.” Amazing.

The reason I bring this up is that a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to volunteer for the Kaine campaign, so my role changed from being merely an amused spectator to being a potential participant in the proceedings, and I figured I should educate myself a little bit about what Kaine stands for (other than eating fetuses and “liberal values”). So I checked out his website and learned that:

·         [Tim Kaine] believe[s] that marriage is between a man and a woman and that marriage is a uniquely valuable institution that must be preserved.

·         [Tim Kaine has] a faith-based opposition to abortion.

·         [Tim Kaine supports] fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education.

·         Tim Kaine strongly supports the Second Amendment. As the next Governor of Virginia, he will not propose any new gun laws.

·         [Tim Kaine] was also a leading advocate for a

Richmond

tax relief initiative that gives a 15-year real estate tax break to residents who make substantial improvements in their homes.

·         [Tim Kaine] wants the federal government to enforce its own laws–such as cracking down on companies that employ illegal immigrants.

·         [Tim Kaine] took a year off from law school to work with a great Christian missionary.

·         [Tim Kaine is] committed to protecting that constitutional right to hunt and fish.

(All taken from www.kaine2005.org)

So basically, this guy is running as a Democrat, and is even being lumped together with the leaders of the liberal wing of the Democratic party by his opponent, but he’s just your typical moderate Republocrat douchebag. I sent that list to my friend and told him thanks but no thanks, I didn’t want to volunteer to help make gay marriage illegal, and he launches into the whole “how can you not vote for a Democrat when a Republican might win?” and makes the same old tired Democratic accusation that by refusing to vote for compromise candidates, I’m too concerned with my own personal philosophical purity and not concerned enough with people who’s lives are going to be affected by the outcome of the election (i.e., the working poor). 

I think the debate over third-party politics is very much not philosophical. It’s about very concrete issues that will have a very real impact on people’s lives, not just now but for a long time in the future. My objection to voting for Kaine (and to other Democrats from the same mold) comes not from a desire to be personally pure, but rather from a broader opposition to the direction the Democratic party is moving in and a profound fear that we are someday going to live in a country with no liberal voice in politics at all, let alone a progressive one. That’s the concrete issue at stake here—the future of progressive politics in this country. And in my view that’s just as important as “worker protection laws, environmental regulations, and the meager safety net of the poor,” which my friend cited as reasons to vote for Kaine (without any indication that he’d do anything on these issues, I might add)—because question becomes not whether these things are ensured right now, but whether or not they’ll be insurable at all in the future.

So Tim Kaine plays to the middle to win votes from moderate Republicans, progressives all vote for him too, and he wins the election. Then what happens? The state of Virginia, particularly the working people of the state, will probably be somewhat-to-moderately better off than they would be under Jerry Kilgore. And that’s certainly a good thing. But future Democratic candidates in

Virginia

will look back at his victory and think “Kaine won by playing to the middle. The moderate Republicans voted for him, and the liberal/progressives weren’t turned off by it. So if we want to win even more votes, we’ll play even more to the middle, since obviously the liberal/progressives aren’t going to stop voting for us.” So then we have a candidate in 2009 or whenever who’s even worse on progressive issues than Kaine. And that process will repeat itself. And 25 years down the line, we’ll end up in a place where the Democratic candidates look like the Republican candidates of today, and the Republicans look like a bunch of totalitarian theocratic Nazis (um, moreso). Try getting someone to stick up for “worker protection laws, environmental regulations, and the meager safety net of the poor” then. And then try telling the working poor that you were being pragmatic.

Basically politics is a supply and demand industry. And if we vote for moderate candidates, we create demand for moderation, compromise, and playing to the middle, so that’s all they’ll ever do. Our other option is to vote for progressive candidates. And no, they aren’t going to win elections-so we run the risk of creating a bad situation for a lot of people right now. But we also create demand for progressive issues-and the more votes the Kerrys and Gores of the world lose to the Naders, the more likely the Democrats will be to add progressive issues to their platform. In order to secure the future of progressive politics in this country, we need to show Democratic candidates that they’ll win votes by becoming more progressive, not more conservative—and we don’t send that message by voting for Kaine.

I think there’s a pretty good historical precedent in the Republican party over the past few decades. True economic conservatives (small government, “fiscal responsibility,” all that) formed an alliance with the religious right and a bunch of other nutjobs so that they could win elections with a unified front-and they did, and their candidates made some policy changes that the true conservatives were happy with. But, as the push to the right continued, it led to the birth of the neocons and their hijacking of the Republican party-which, as I understand it, most of the true conservatives are pretty frustrated with, since the neocons obviously aren’t standing up for small government, “fiscal responsibility,” and the other values of the true conservatives who helped them get into power. So I think liberals presenting a unified front, as the Republicans have, will just get us to a place where liberals don’t even recognize the Democratic party as their own anymore, much like true conservatives don’t right now. And that has real affects on real people’s lives, in terms of our ability to pass progressive policy changes, as I noted above.

Ultimately it’s a case of winning the battle (except not even, since the Democrats still can’t win an election) but losing the war. Just like every other reasonable person, I don’t want to live in a country that has someone like George Bush as president, or a state that has someone like Jerry Kilgore as governor. However, what I want even less than that is in 25 years to live in a country/state/etc where we have no choice but to have someone like that as president/governor/etc, because both parties have moved so far to the right of the spectrum that there’s not even a viable moderate candidate, let alone a liberal or even progressive one. So basically the choice is yours: you can choose to vote for compromise candidates like Kaine who may be a bit better in the short term but screw our chances for real change in the long term; or you can choose to vote for candidates who represent a truly progressive ideology, and admittedly run the risk of getting a worse outcome in the short term, but ultimately encourage a future in which progressive ideals are taken seriously by the mainstream and policy change that can have a profound impact on people’s lives is a real possibility. This former approach has been described as "pragmatic"—but I don’t see anything pragmatic about setting our country up for a future with no candidates to support policies that will make people’s lives better.

I heard people make the anti-Nader argument in 2000 and 2004 as: "What do you tell the poor single mother when Bush takes away her welfare because you voted for Nader?" But what do you tell her grandkids when they’ve never even heard of welfare because you voted for compromise?

Someone posted this reply to the last post:

I too, have oftened pondered whether there is any way to actually create an objective organization to serve as a national or international benchmark for fact-checking. I know there are sites that supposedly help to find the "real" story for people, but how (if you have any ideas on this subject) could we find a way to apply that type of fact-checking as a mandatory screen or quality-control measure to apply to what the media reports to us? The way it works now seems to be an after-thought… you can check the facts if you feel like it. But most lazy people don’t bother.

Would a screen or filter impede free-speech rights? Or are mis-truths or flat-out lying protected now in some way that I have missed as "free speech"? I have thought about this on numerous occasions but have yet to think of a way that something like this would work in our current environment (but I’m hopeful).

It’s an interesting point that you raise. I guess in a capitalist society (and I’m not a capitalist, but hey, when in Rome) the "filter" that you’re proposing would in theory be the free market–i.e., if a media outlet consistently fails to report the truth, people will stop consuming their media and they’ll go out of business, just like Nike or Microsoft would if they produced a lousy product. However, I guess the difference is that with the media, we have no way of knowing the relative quality of their product. If I buy a pair of lousy shoes, they fall apart, and I know they’re lousy. But if CNN tells me that the entire country is up in arms about Terri Schiavo, I have no reasonable way of knowing that’s completely untrue and that really it’s just a handful of fundamentalist whackos who have good PR people. So is the answer that the media needs to operate differently than other industries–that, like the education system (and the health care system in Canada), it’s fair operation is so essential to the public good that it can’t be trusted to the free market, and needs to be operated by the government? Or does that just lead to state-sponsored censorship? Would we really be better off right now if the Bush Administration were monitoring the airwaves? I think the answer is to return to the old approach to journalism. Once upon a time, the purpose of the media was seen as being to provide the public with the truth. Now, it seems to be just to repeat whatever the talking points are from whatever two sides are embroiled in controversy this week, making sure that both sides get equal time and not showing a "bias" towards either side (with the obvious exception of FNC). Maybe the media needs to not be afraid to take a stand and say to the Swift Boat Veterans of the world: "we’re not going to repeat your talking points because they aren’t true." That would certainly be a start.

Can something be “debated” if one of the positions is objectively incorrect? Can we be said to be having a debate if I’m arguing that circles are square and that two plus two equals eight trillion? Is it possible for anyone to be just plain wrong anymore?

Time magazine writes that the “debate” over intelligent design raises an important question: “Does God have a place in science class?” Sigh. This question has already been raised. And answered. Remember? They wrote a play about it. It sucked. Evidently feeling that our national dialogue has not yet been sufficiently watered-down, our president weighed in on the matter. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas,” Bush said, “the answer is yes.” Regardless of the validity of those ideas. Obviously. Follow that line of reasoning to its only natural conclusion.

This whole relativism thing is really getting to me these days. Free and open consideration of divergent ideas is all well and good, but there needs to be a filter of some sort. If only we had some way to determine which ideas are valid and should be taken seriously, and which ones we should pee on. Hmm. Oh, I know: objectivity. Instead of just saying “oh, great, you had an idea, congratulations, here’s a cookie,” maybe we should actually analyze people’s ideas and figure out if they stand up to scientific scrutiny and, you know, make any goddamn sense before we go taking them seriously. It’s like there’s no longer any obligation to be right.

This, like everything else, is all the media’s fault. Here’s a case study. A while back there were all these studies being done in the UK that proved that fish can feel pain. (Studies, for those of us who grew up in the post-science age, are these things that people do where they observe situations and collect data, and then form opinions based on that data. I know, why don’t they just look in the Bible, right?) The story went everywhere too, with a little help from PETA, but just about every single article had a quote from a guy named James Rose refuting the study. Why did they all quote the same guy? Because he’s the ONLY FREAKING SCIENTIST IN THE WORLD who claims that fish don’t feel pain. And the media, rather than just write the guy off as a crackpot, feels the need to include a quote from him in every story they write. Of course the media needs to present both sides of a controversial issue—but only if there are actually two legitimate sides. It would be like me issuing a statement saying that I don’t believe in North Dakota, and then anyone who ever does an article about North Dakota writing “There is a growing national debate about the very existence of North Dakota.” No there isn’t. It’s just me. And I’m an idiot.

Sometimes there is no other position. Sometimes things are just objectively true and that’s OK. One guy claiming that fish can’t feel pain in the face of a pile of evidence that they do is not an opposing viewpoint. Personal opinion versus scientific fact does not constitute a “debate.” And a bunch of stupid religious people complaining about the fact that everyone disagrees with them just because they’re, um, wrong does not warrant the cover of Time fucking magazine. Honestly.