Blogcritics: Comments on Why Bush Will Win, pts 12 and 35

Comment by Vic

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:35:31 EDT

JR, What I meant was that people might tend to vote that way. I'm not saying anything about an official mandate or change to any laws. :-) Didn't know about the Lebanon thing... Vic

Comment by JR

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 13:21:55 EDT

Oops, sorry about the mispelling.

Comment by JR

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 13:20:47 EDT

Eric Olson: I do not in any (way) support (Bush's) allowing personal religious beliefs to blur the line between church and state, or to pursue a specific religious agenda via the power of the state. You do if you vote for him.

Comment by JR

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 13:17:50 EDT

Most people in the US believe in Christ, so it makes sense to me that most people would vote against someone who does not,... It may make sense, but it would be un-American. Article VI, Clause 3: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." ...just as I would not expect a Christian to win an election for President in a Muslim majority country (if such an election ever takes place). I believe that's happened in Lebanon.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 08:13:31 EDT

As a very strong believer in the separation of church and state, I find religious campaign rhetoric distasteful unless it directly applies to the personal experience of the politician and explains some attitude toward public service. Rather than it being a negative, I actually admire those like Kerry who have a personal stand on an issue like abortion due to religious/moral beliefs, yet don't feel it is appropriate to force the ramifications of those beliefs on others via the state. that is one "nuance" I fully support. In Bush's case, a religious epiphany seems to explain a personal transformation, which appears to be sincere, and that is fine as far as explaining who he is and how he changed; but I do not in any support his allowing personal religious beliefs to blur the line between church and state, or to pursue a specific religious agenda via the power of the state.

Comment by Bob A. Booey

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 06:43:07 EDT

Olsen, I appreciate the discussion. Your thoughts you quoted above I addressed at length on that same topic and I don't want to quote myself in response to your original quote since we'd get caught in an endlessly self-referential loop and wouldn't make any progress in this discussion :) The discussion on religion is interesting. It's clear that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and that the major social cleavage in global relations will continue to be religion. We can all agree on that. You just can't decide to "take on" a religion with billions of adherents and achieve peace. That's the error of the misguided terrorists and radical clerics as well -- they mistakenly think they can go to war, basically, with modernity itself, the entirety of Western technology, religion, and culture. These are primitive, deep-rooted, even tribal sentiments that are being resurrected from both sides of the divide. For what it's worth, I think the Bush administration had a more limited focus than many of you in their strategic choice of Iraq (oil, extended military presence in the region, revenge upon Saddam). I don't think the Bush administration is willing to embark upon a further crusade -- they just used that sentiment among the public post 9/11 to pick Iraq as a politically acceptable (but increasingly less so) target for their strategy. So all of you would-be crusaders will be sorely disappointed to realize that much of the Bush administration's rhetoric is just that. Otherwise, despotic, backwards regimes like Saudi Arabia wouldn't enjoy our friendship. The undercurrent of antipathy toward Islam in general served its main purpose as political cover for aggression in Iraq. The worst effect of the war that I haven't even mentioned yet is its prospects for peaceful resolution of the Palestinian question. We're clearly seen as siding with Israel and Sharon by virtually all the Arab League nations and have probably lost any ability to be the honest broker in negotiations over withdrawal from settlements and the establishment of a Palestinian state. One of the best examples of the Bush administration's early pragmatism overlooked by most rabid conservatives was its strong, historic support of the idea of a separate Palestinian state (the first adminstration to ever take that stance). Clearly, the primary problem in the entire region and the primary recruiting point for terrorists has been the Israeli-Palestine dispute (with American occupation now an equal motivation). Without a resolution of a Palestinian state, the prospects for peace in the region are likely to be very poor. The Bush administration's continuing, overt military aid to Israel (including massive recent arms shipments of non-conventional technology) amidst ongoing violence only contributes to the instability. But then, I don't know that it's a particular strategic loss since the Bush administration did not seem particularly inclined to try to broker negotiations between Palestine and Israel to begin with. I highly doubt Bush would roll up his sleeves and begin peace talks on a Palestinian State, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights even with four more years in office. The point is that if he chose to do so, the war in Iraq has destroyed our trust and credibility among even moderate Arab leaders and made it impossible for us to have a positive effect on negotiations. About American political candidates: I think most of them are religious because it's expected. I don't think very many politicians take the ethical mandates of religion very seriously or exhibit much humility -- I think that has a lot to do with the kind of compartmentalization you'd need to achieve your ambitions for high elected office. Saints don't become Presidents. I doubt very seriously that most politicians we've known were deeply religious and I don't think it's their religion per se that makes them successful, although social policies like abortion and gay rights that are heavily tied to religion CERTAINLY matter. It's just that being Christian is a sine qua non prerequisite for electoral success in America. I was going to get into a discussion of Lieberman in 2000, but I think I'll save that since I'm not sure if I want to get into that or what I believe. That is all.

Comment by Vic

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:57:44 EDT

Most people in the US believe in Christ, so it makes sense to me that most people would vote against someone who does not, just as I would not expect a Christian to win an election for President in a Muslim majority country (if such an election ever takes place). Vic

Comment by Mac Diva

Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:48:49 EDT

True, Clubhouse. Funny, huh? Reagan broke the divorce barrier. We now have a supposedly cured alcohol and drug abuser. We've had adulterers, men who got rich from corruption, misogynists and racists in the White House. But, no one should say he is an agnostic or atheist if he wants to run for the president of the U.S.

Comment by ClubhouseCancer

Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:15:35 EDT

I don't think the issue comes up much in local elections, but you're surely right about the regional differences. "I'd walk all the way from Berkeley to Birmingham... " I vote for Emmylou. By the way, Mac, I think William Howard Taft had some very anti-Christian comments, but I'm not sure if he saved them for after his Presidency.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:05:40 EDT

I don't doubt that, I was going down to the local level: there's a world of difference between Berkeley and Birmingham

Comment by ClubhouseCancer

Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:47:29 EDT

Eric, your last comment strikes me as naive. No national politician nor governor (nor even state legislator, according to some sources) has been elected who is openly atheist or even agnostic in the last hundred years or so. Believing in ghost stories is as much a prerequisite for office as having a white penis once was.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:06:41 EDT

that is certainly true in some areas, though in others I don't think religion has much to do with the perception of a candidate - there are still very strong political and cultural regional differences in the U.S.

Comment by Mac Diva

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 20:32:11 EDT

The figures in Comment 27 are intriguing in a way. I suspect that a much greater number of people worldwide are not religious than is reflected. What is being reported is probably being born into a religion, not actually believing in a god(s). But, particularly in regard to politics, it is often unwise to say one is not religious. Thomas Jefferson went as far as any president, saying he was a deist. Even that might have been a problem if more voters had been truly literate. Today, whatever a candidate really thinks, he had better say he is some variety of Christian who believes in an interventionist God. Deism, agnositicism, atheism, can sink a candidacy for most offices.

Comment by RedTard

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 19:38:47 EDT

Must have pulled that play from the Democratic playbook. Just took black and replaced it with Jew.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 19:36:48 EDT

Actually, Christianity has the largest number of adherents by a wide margin, although that margin is shrinking: Christianity: 2 billion Islam: 1.3 billion Hinduism: 900 million Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million Buddhism: 360 million Chinese traditional religion: 225 million primal-indigenous: 150 million African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million Sikhism: 23 million Juche: 19 million

Comment by Eric Olsen

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 19:32:40 EDT

Bob, to be more specific, I will quote myself, one of my favorite sources - this is a very blunt and not particularly politic, nor sensitive statement of what I perceive the reality of the situation to be, as more than one person told me: the "real" reality is that after the overthrow of the Taliban, in order to reinforce our seriousness of purpose, to convince all who would dismiss our resolve, revert to business-as-usual, and fail to understand that violent Islamist exceptionalism is an unacceptable worldview, we had to take further aggressive action in the greater Middle East and the situation in Iraq was amenable to such action. We had to go in there and throw our weight around, blow shit up, as it were, and overthrow something, which we have now done. I do not believe the presence of WMD in Iraq was intentionally fabricated as a casus belli, but neither do I doubt that the intelligence seeming to indicate their presence was greedily seized upon as a rationale for what had to be done regardless. You simply can't announce to the world, or to your own people for that matter, that you are going to invade a nation and overthrow its government because you have to prove your viciousness. But that is the reality. Problems have ensued and the aftermath of the blowing-shit-up phase has not been handled particularly well; this is indisputable, but the bottom line is Saddam is out, the world knows we are no longer fucking around, there will be a roughly democratic government in Iraq one way or the other, and the behavior and attitudes of other nations in the region have been altered in myriad salutary ways, seen and unseen. Surely our relationships with Libya and Pakistan have changed dramatically for the good, and it has been made clear throughout the region that the spewing of anti-Western hatred from the mosques and madrassas is no longer acceptable. A reasonable case can be made that it would have made more sense to blow shit up and kick the fuckers to the curb in Iran, Syria, North Korea, even Saudia Arabia, but everyone who lives on this actual planet knows that not one of these countries presented feasible targets for any number of political, logistical, military, geographic, diplomatic reasons. And Iraq really is better off without Saddam. You do what you can, where and when you can, and it is my hope that the invasion of Iraq removes the need for direct military action against these other nations. The region had to be transformed, and the process has been very tangibly begun - this is not nothing, and effort and steadfastness in the face of adversity and opposition count.

Comment by Vic

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 19:30:38 EDT

Islam is the largest religion in the world. That is indeed, a scary thought. Radical Islam is tightly woven into what people call "moderate" Islam. Despite what the apologists say, Jihad is a core tenet of Islam and those who do not convert are to be either converted, given second-class citizen status as long as they pay a special tax, or killed. Vic

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 18:29:53 EDT

I agree, Bob, that there has been some actual honest-to-god anti-Semitism against the neocons, going back at least a few decades. But what I object to is their twisted attempt to say that objecting to them and their policies is of itself anti-Semitic. That's as bad as the right-wing cries that it's traitorous to object to the invasion of Iraq and the way it's going. And the neocons apparently decided to put this anti-Semitic defense into their playbooks, as several of them used the same approach approximately coevally. As in the instance in this thread, it's an attempt to scare off critics. Screw that.

Comment by Bob A. Booey

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 18:19:35 EDT

Olsen, I appreciate your comments (as always), but they're quite general. What do you see as the broader vision? I do think that vision is important to how we approach the Middle East and part of the reason we're in the situation we're in now. What do you mean Kerry's returning to a 9/10 approach? That's a sweet little campaign stump line Bush and Cheney use (and it's obviously working in the great state of Ohio), but I think that charge needs to be fleshed out. Islam is the largest religion in the world. If our vision is that we're going to take the fight to a large part of that population of billions (multiple countries, cultures, nationalities, ethnicities) indiscriminately while giving up on the possibility of dialogue, we're in for a world of trouble for a very long time. We can't win another Crusades. And finally, warfighting should never be thought of as a game. That's when we lose connection with what we value and what our objectives are. Game theorists and military psychologists talk about how commanders can get caught up in unnecessary risk and escalation under stressful situations when they lose perspective and judgment. That's another reason we conduct military exercises and war games -- not because we treat war lightly, but quite the opposite: we go through the worst-case scenario to make sure it never happens and so that it can be avoided at all costs (and the costs are always huge). It makes the least sense for civilians discussing war (like ourselves) to fantasize about huge conflagrations and wars that wouldn't ever happen since we have no reason to willfully numb ourselves to tragedy and the loss of human life. There's no reset button when you're talking about real troops on the ground and, as we're seeing in Iraq, things almost never go as planned in war. I welcome good discussion from the rest of you as well. RJ, stop being childish. Hal, I actually think there is a significant element of anti-Semitism directed toward the neo-conservative movement -- that's one reason it was always somewhat marginal within the conservative foreign policy establishment until Wolfowitz and Perle got Rumsfeld's ear. However, I think there's a great irony in conservatives' newfound appreciation for Israel and the Jewish people post 9/11 -- traditionally, conservatives have not been the most hospitable to Jewish concerns (here or abroad) and it'll be interesting to see how long the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" sentiment prevails. For what it's worth, a lot of Jewish commentators and intellectuals seem awfully skeptical of the new foreign policy hawks and their strategic embrace of Israel. That is all.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 16:01:43 EDT

no it isn't a game at all - it's very real, but ironically, it has to be played like a game. A certain distance is required to make strategic decisions that are matters of life and death for hundreds, thousands, or even millions. But inaction is also action and can have just as grave consequences. We are not fighting Islam, but we are fighting a mindset of a quite substantial portion of the Islamic world, and we have tried to avoid that fight through appeasement, averting our eyes, diplomacy, etc. It hasn't worked, to put it very mildly, so it is now time to try another course, which Bush is doing, with some serious blunders along the way, but doing nonetheless. As stated in this post, I, and others, see Kerry returning to the 9/10 approach, which I see as disaster. It's hard to disagree with most of your individual points, but I see that perspective as revealing a telescope with a much narrower focus than I think is necessary and more "true."

Comment by Hal Pawluk

Sat, 25 Sep 2004 10:18:57 EDT

Now that, RJ, is the kind of neocon bullshit that really pisses me off. Raising the idea that objecting to neocons is somehow anti-Semitic is despicable. I wrote about it in What the heck is a 'Neocon': Part II [opens in new window] and here's a bit from that piece

[The neocon script reads:] Calling us "neocons" means you're calling us Jews [sub-text: the whiff of a taint of anti-Semitism]. Max Boot: 'When Buchananites toss around "neoconservative"--and cite names like Wolfowitz and Cohen--it sometimes sounds as if what they really mean is "Jewish conservative." This is a malicious slur on two levels.' [What the heck is a 'Neocon'] David Books: 'In truth, the people labeled neocons (con is short for "conservative" and neo is short for "Jewish") ... '' [The Era of Distortion] Max Boot again: '"Neocons Are Jews Who Serve The Interests Of Israel" [his 'myth']
'A malicious myth. [He follows with a list of people and media who] ... have used neocon as a synonym for Jew, focusing on Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Eliot Cohen, and others with obvious Jewish names."

That's all an attempt to intimidate by raising the taint of anti-Semitism, but calling a neocon a neocon is not anti-Semitism. Your question:

RJ: Does this mean "super Jew?"

seems to be more of the same slime.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Sat, 25 Sep 2004 10:16:58 EDT

it's never too late, I'll be back, it's never over

Comment by Greg

Sat, 25 Sep 2004 00:31:06 EDT

I guess it's too late for response...

Comment by Greg-B

Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:46:27 EDT

Let me be clear--I think George W. Bush is an amiable enough type that I might want to invite to my backyard cook-out, and with whom I would partake of an iced tea. However...I think Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, and, to some extent Bush Sr. are manipulating their marionettes- both W., Jeb and the media. Colin Powell has been sold out and Condoleeza Rice is too sharp to put up with this travesty...

Comment by RJ

Fri, 24 Sep 2004 23:26:30 EDT

"We have no moral authority to dictate whom may or may not have nuclear capability. By what moral right do we sanctimoniously proclaim that we can have nukes, but no one else can? Because we'll use ours first? How sophomoric......" An anti-American speaks...