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Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Many is the time I have lambasted US Senator Scott Brown on this blog. I didn’t buy his “I’m gonna be different!” shuck-and-jive one bit. I expected him to be just another politician (not Republican, politician) who blindly followed his party overlords.
Now it’s time to give the man his due credit and, yes, even speak in his defense.
Friday, January 8th, 2010
Happy New Year, everyone!
Normally I would only now be welcoming everyone to the triumphant return of my weekly political column, but thanks to the US Senate special election this puppy has been rolling for a few months now. Yet, in about two and a half weeks that election will be over and, hopefully, the state and local races will start to pick up.
And this year stands to be fairly active as all our constitutional officers – governor and lieutenant governor, secretary of the Commonwealth, attorney general, treasurer, and auditor – are up for re-election along with all state legislators. More locally, the positions of Barnstable County sheriff and Cape & Islands district attorney are up for grabs, along with one seat on the Barnstable County Board of County Commissioners. (more…)
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
Joking (somewhat) aside, I’ve been inspired to go OLD old-school with my holiday greeting this year in response to the latest surge of people pushing “Merry Christmas” is THE only acceptable greeting.
This morning I read a piece by Howie Carr — a man who embodies Jesus in his unconditional tolerance and acceptance of all people — encouraging State Senator Scott Brown (R – Wrentham) to use “Merry Christmas” relentlessly in order to draw some quick and easy attention from the media (and ire from liberal “moonbats,” because they universally hate Christmas). I also read a piece extolling the “historical” attachments of the birth of Christ to Christmas (as detailed in that most respected of historical texts, the New Testament).
If we’re going to embrace the “true origins” of Christmas, then Jesus has to move over and make room, because Christmas owes a lot to pagan celebrations that pre-date his birth. The Christmas tree, for example, itself finds its origins in the Roman practice of bringing an evergreen plants into the home as part of the winter solstice celebration.
It’s also been hotly debated that early Christians, seeking to eradicate pagan faiths, reoriented Christmas and other key celebrations to coincide with pagan holy days in order to make assimilation of the godless heathens easier.
So, in summary: Jesus is not THE reason for the season; it’s A reason for the season, so Christians: ease up a bit, huh?
And before you start whining about the “war on Christmas” and society’s alleged efforts to eradicate all Christian elements of the holiday, take a moment to consider the irony.
Happy Yul(e)!
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D – Rhode Island) seems to be the latest victim of a growing effort by the Catholic Church to ram its views down the federal government’s — and by extension, the general public’s — collective throat.
Kennedy told the Providence Journal that Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned the congressman, a Roman Catholic, from receiving communion, which is the church’s equivalent of “No soup for you!” He said this decision was punishment for his continued support of abortion rights, most recently for his vote against an amendment to the House health care reform bill that sought to restrict funding for abortion services…he later voted for the final bill, which included that provision.
A provision, notably, that critics claim the church bullied through by putting pressure on Catholic Democrats, much like the church is trying to bully the District of Columbia into dropping a push to legalize same-sex marriage by threatening to end its support for human service programs in the D.C. area. — a move that would affect thousands of residents, including many homeless individuals, who rely on those services.
Church officials say they are simply exercising the church’s right to protest initiatives it finds morally disagreeable and in conflict with its philosophies. I have to question what sort of self-proclaimed benevolent organization would throw thousands of people in need under the proverbial bus over the right of homosexuals to marry? Or would deny their followers the ability to fully express their faith because they don’t slavishly adhere to every last word of Catholic dogma? And why our government officials kowtowing to their will? The Catholic Church does not represent a majority view and shouldn’t hold such sway over local or national public policy.
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
I don’t know how many readers are on the T on any kind of regular basis, but you might have heard about a new ad campaign hitting trains on the red and green lines. It is, simply, a series of posters that read: “Good Without God? 40 Million Americans Are.”
The posters are funded by the Boston Area Coalition of Reason, part of a nationwide network that, according to its website, “share a worldview grounded in reason over superstition, and scientific truth over revealed truth. We are freethinkers [sic], humanists, skeptics, atheists and agnostics that hope to provide a larger sense of community and to be a central clearinghouse for information on all like minded groups in the area.”
There’s been surprisingly little furor over this that I’ve heard. Most people seem to be taking the attitude I have: other religious and faith organizations take out such ads all the time, so why not the non-faith folks? Fair is fair.
On a surface level, I’m glad to see such an awareness campaign. I am what you’d properly call an atheist-agnostic: I do not believe in any kind of higher power, but I do not claim that one does not exist. On rare occasion people inquire into my beliefs (or, if you prefer, lack thereof), and the revelation that I don’t believe in God (or, for that matter, Jehovah, Yahweh, Allah, Odin, Zeus, Ra, Marduk, Cthulhu, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster) strikes them as utterly shocking. It’s like I’ve told them I hate ice cream or have never seen “Star Wars”; it’s so ingrained in people that a belief in God is the norm and everybody does it, so a statement to the contrary is difficult for them to fathom.
My admittedly graceless retort at times when the inquirer’s response is so ridiculously outraged or scandalized that I can’t hold my tongue: “Oh, sure…you believe in a magical man who lives in the sky and I’m the weirdo.”
More reasonable minds will ask how I came to this mindset. The details are, frankly, no one’s business but my own, but I will summarize it thus: as I grew older, it became increasingly difficult for me to reconcile the notion of an omniscient, omnipotent, all-good God (as portrayed in the Judeo-Christian faiths — in my case Methodism, in which I was raised) with the randomness and senselessness of life. It was the age-old question of how God could allow bad things to happen to good people, and none of the answers I received satisfied me. Over time I grew to become rather appalled by how some people of faith could so blithely throw logic out the window to retrofit their beliefs to their situation: a child has cancer, the family prays for his recovery, the kid recovers, it’s God reaching down from Heaven to cure him; another kid has cancer, the family prays, the kid dies anyway — well, that’s just God’s ineffable will and we are not meant to know the mysterious ways in which God moves.
Yeah, I call B.S. on that.
The only reason I am not 100 percent atheist is because I do believe in a level playing field — by which I mean, people can claim until they’re blue in the face that God DOES exist and they have proof of some sort, but the fact of the matter is: no one has proof. They have evidence, which is subjective and debatable and far from authoritative, whereas proof is objective and indisputable. That goes for me too; I can point to a million things that say, to me, there’s no Ultimate Big Cheese, but I cannot definitively prove my stance. In short: I could be wrong.
And, people of faith: so could you.
The refusal by many (if not most) people to embrace the Russell’s teapot theory and allow for the possibility that their way may not be the only way is the source of most conflict between various religions — and the one thing that worries me about the Coalition of Faith campaign is that this is, intentionally or unintentionally, an effort to codify atheism and its related philosophies into a single organized entity, complete with an explicit or implicit mission to not just reach out to people of like mindsets, but to actively promote their way of thinking to people outside of this school of thought.
In other words: a religion.
Let’s savor that tasty irony for a minute or two.
If I believe in anything, it’s that every human being has his or her own spiritual path to follow. No single path is right or wrong in an ultimate sense — there is no one true faith — only the path that is right for the individual. I find life is easier for me and nicer for everyone else if we just run with that. I have friends who are Christian, Catholic (active and lapsed), Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist, Wiccan, Pagan (rooted in everything from Egyptian to Norse cultures), Unitarian, agnostics, atheists, Pastafarians (see above Flying Spaghetti Monster reference) — and none of that matters to me.
They are what they are, and as long as they respect that I am what I am, all is cool in the world and everyone is happy…and isn’t that really the end goal of most faiths?
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
Earlier this week I read an article entitled 50 Things That Are Being Killed By The Internet. Number one on the list: the art of polite disagreement. It said:
While the inane spats of YouTube commenters may not be representative, the internet has certainly sharpened the tone of debate. The most raucous sections of the blogworld seem incapable of accepting sincerely held differences of opinion; all opponents must have “agendas”.
It seems this entry was tailor-made for the current atmosphere in which we discuss health care reform…or, as it’s more commonly known, Screaming Sound Bites At Elected Officials Without Ever Asking A Question Or Presenting Facts Or Letting The Guy Respond BECAUSE HE’S A SOCIALIST!
Yes, recent town hall-style meetings have been a real low point in the history of intelligent discourse, but as ridiculous as some of those forums got, even with the Hitler-mustachioed Obama pics, I think on some level we must have not only penetrated the bottom of the barrel, we started digging to China when Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina last night shouted out “You lie!” at Barack Obama during his address to Congress.
(Dunno about you, o readers, but I thought Nancy Pelosi was going to unleash the full fury of her heat vision on the dude.)
I’m already hearing the argument: he was exercising his right to free speech. True enough, but as I like to say, having the right to say whatever you want does not mean you have to say it…and it certainly doesn’t obligate you to act like a total arse when speaking.
I’m very relieved that instead of following his lead or trying to defend Wilson (as I’m sure some of the more whackadoo conservative commentators will — Glenn Beck, lookin’ at you), the GOP has roundly decried his behavior as unacceptable.
Wilson has since apologized and is now saying emotions got the better of him, and that he really wants to have a civilized conversation about this thorny matter. Oh, NOW he wants to be civilized…
I truly hopes this marks the official end of our modern Age Of Belligerence, but I’m somehow skeptical.
Y’know, I think I had a better point to make in this post, but I’m functioning on about two hours of sleep so I’ll just count myself lucky that this diatribe even vaguely resembles a coherent thought.
Saturday, September 5th, 2009
As I’ve heard and become involved in debates over health care (see my previous post) I’ve noticed that some opponents take an interesting tack in stating their opposition to any kind of government-run health care program.
You mention the public option and their take is that the government will royally screw up such a system. America already has the greatest health care system in the world, they’ll say, so why fix it if it ain’t broke?
Well, first of all, if there are people in this country who cannot receive basic health care because they cannot afford to pay for it, it’s not the greatest. And if the private companies are refusing to provide coverage to those who can afford it (even with the assistance of their employer) because of a pre-existing condition, it’s not the greatest. And if the companies refuse to pay for a procedure because it’s “unnecessary” despite the recommendation of a doctor — the person who is ostensibly the best judge of such things — it’s not the greatest. I could go on, but you get the point.
But to my main beef. Many reform foes will neatly contradict themselves in their arguments, claiming America is already A-number-one in the health care department and doesn’t need a government-run program. Yet you point out that we already have such programs in the form of Medicaid and Medicare, and that the health care program for American military personnel is government run, those programs suddenly become exceptions to the rule. Those things? Aw, they suck and are proof positive that Uncle Sam would make a poor Dr. Sam.
Yet, did not Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard recent say that Medicare and the military health care systems were in fact top-of-the-line? He did, in a discussion with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Yet he could not reconcile that statement with his belief that a government-run system for the general public would be a mess.
And I might remind the GOP opposition in particular, our own former governor Mitt Romney wholeheartedly approved of a state government-administered health care system in Commonwealth Care? And so far Mitt has yet to completely reverse his stance there (so far, but give him time).
What I’m saying, health care opponents: let’s have a little consistency.
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
I recently became embroiled in a war of words with a guy on Facebook. I know, I feel a little dumb too.
It came about because a friend of mine (a real one, not a “Facebook friend”) posted something about the health care reform debate. A friend of hers (a “Facebook friend,” which means she in fact barely knows the person to whom he’s responding) responded in what I would describe as an unnecessarily belligerent manner. He wasn’t out to start a lively but civil debate or offer a contrasting opinion. He was just out to be a jerk.
You know the kind of kid who, in school, responds to everything other students say with mockery or derision because he cannot differentiate between “good” attention and “bad” attention? You know the kind of person who goes to a concert for a band he knows he doesn’t like for the express purpose of heckling them? You know the kind of person who yells “FIRE!” in a crowded building for the sole purpose of creating chaos then excuses his behavior by claiming he has the Constitutional right to free speech? That’s the kind of person this guy is.
The “discussion” degenerated quickly. He threw out patronizing cracks and accusations of socialism (which has become the modern-day equivalent of “Commie”). When I didn’t back down he apparently went and checked out my profile so he could make some more personal (yet still quite superficial) attacks. He resorted to ad hominem strategies (wherein one of the parties attempts to devalue his opponent’s information by claiming fault with the speaker or source of information; the information itself is not directly challenged or disputed). Y’know: the usual.
Then he hit rock bottom: he whipped out a Nazi reference (Josef Mengele, specifically).
Did I mention my friend is Jewish? Kind of important to the story, really.
Which brings me to my point. During this debate, a lot of people have alluded to Hitler and the Nazi regime. Let us recall that woman who showed up to a hearing with Barney Frank (a Jew) with a poster of a Hitlerized Obama. The allusions have been flying pretty freely, I’d say far too freely.
Unless the individual on the receiving end of such an accusation is directly or indirectly complicit in the murder of six million human beings, resorting to a Nazi comparison means you automatically lose the debate. It shows that you have exhausted all rational fact-based avenues of argument (if you had any to begin with) and are now so desperate you have to reach out to push one of the hottest of hot buttons to provoke a visceral emotional response and demonize your opponent/garner cheap sympathy for your point of view.
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