To be honest, I don't believe in a creator God, nor, as a consequence, do I believe that Jesus is the son of God/God in the flesh. Nevertheless, I do have a soft spot for Jesus as a spiritual teacher, and I think some of the things he's reported as saying in the New Testament are pretty cool—I especially like, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone" (John 8:7), the Sermon on the Mount and his many teachings on forgiveness.
I've also found a growing appreciation for Christianity in general (although I do tend to lean more towards the heterodox), thanks in part to my dear friend, Simon (e.g., see my fairly recent blog post, "a new found appreciation").
That said, it's mainly because this day isn't just about the birth of Jesus that I find myself 'getting into the Christmas spirit.' Not only was this a time of celebration for a host of other ancient winter festivals (e.g., Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, Saturnalia, Yule, etc.), but it's the season that in modern times has been traditionally set aside for warm tidings and communion, regardless of who you are or what you believe, which is why I don't have any qualms about wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
need over greed: just say no to extending tax cuts for the wealthy
Today I was listening to parts of Senator Bernie Sanders' 8 1/2 hour filibuster (well, not technically since the vote isn't scheduled until Monday) of President Obama's tax cut deal with Republicans (calling it "Robin Hood in reverse") and found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said.
Nevertheless, there's a lot of support for the deal among Democrats since it also includes an extension of unemployment benefits for an additional 13 months, and most conservatives (as well as many liberals) believe that raising taxes during a recession for anyone, especially the wealthy, is a terrible idea. I don't necessarily agree with that, though, and here's why:
A. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession is over, and has been since June 2009.
B. The tax cuts, which were unfunded and arguably removed a substantial amount of revenue from the federal budget, were meant to be temporary. Taxes wouldn't be 'raised' so much as they'd simply go back to 2003 rates once they naturally expire at the end of this year.
C. I think some good arguments can be made for allowing the tax cuts to expire for people making more than $250,000 a year while extending the ones for those making less. For one thing, people making less than $250,000 generally spend a larger portion of their income instead of saving it (mostly out of necessity), which helps to stimulate the economy (for those of you who get excited about that kind of thing).
Conversely, according to an article in Bloomberg, tax cuts for people making considerably more don't really do much to help to stimulate the economy because, much like Plato's oligarch in the Republic, they tend to save (read 'hoard') it.
In addition, worker's average real wages (i.e., wages that are adjusted for inflation) rose every decade from 1820 to 1970, but have essentially stagnated for the last 30 years. Moreover, the majority of the increase in income there has been since 1980 (about 80%) has gone to the top 1%, and according to an article in Slate, "virtually none of the increase translated into wage growth at middle and lower incomes."
D. As Warren Buffet famously pointed out, the top 1% pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than people who make considerably less. Using himself as an example, he paid 17.7% on the $46 million he made in 2007 while his secretary paid 30% on the $60,000 she made in the same year.
I think this is mainly due to the fact that the wealthiest Americans get the majority of their income from capital gains (e.g., Gerald Scorse points out that the top 1% owns nearly 40% of all privately held stock), which is taxed at a much lower rate than wages. Plus, there are a variety of deductions and loopholes that favour those at the top.
E. According to Donald Cohen, executive director for the Center on Policy Initiatives, this is the first time in our nation's history that we've "sent troops to battle without raising the revenues needed to fight that war."
Since 1812, the US government has either raised existing rates or instituted new taxes during wartime in order to fund its war efforts; however, Bush, in the midst of 2 separate conflicts, actually cut taxes. The more than $1 trillion dollars we've spent to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is essentially money that we've borrowed, particularly from countries like China and Japan.
What all of this means to me is that, at the very least, we shouldn't allow these tax cuts to become permanent. And if there is to be some sort of extension, I think it makes more sense to extend them for the people who'll actually spend the additional income (and who arguably need it more), thereby spurring demand and stimulating the economy, rather than the people who'll most likely tuck it away (and who arguable need it less).
That's why I completely agree with Sen. Sanders that instead of fighting to extend the unfunded Bush-era tax cuts — particularly for those making over $250,000 — Congress should be focusing on extending unemployment benefits for the over 2 million out of work Americans who desperately need it.
Nevertheless, there's a lot of support for the deal among Democrats since it also includes an extension of unemployment benefits for an additional 13 months, and most conservatives (as well as many liberals) believe that raising taxes during a recession for anyone, especially the wealthy, is a terrible idea. I don't necessarily agree with that, though, and here's why:
A. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession is over, and has been since June 2009.
B. The tax cuts, which were unfunded and arguably removed a substantial amount of revenue from the federal budget, were meant to be temporary. Taxes wouldn't be 'raised' so much as they'd simply go back to 2003 rates once they naturally expire at the end of this year.
C. I think some good arguments can be made for allowing the tax cuts to expire for people making more than $250,000 a year while extending the ones for those making less. For one thing, people making less than $250,000 generally spend a larger portion of their income instead of saving it (mostly out of necessity), which helps to stimulate the economy (for those of you who get excited about that kind of thing).
Conversely, according to an article in Bloomberg, tax cuts for people making considerably more don't really do much to help to stimulate the economy because, much like Plato's oligarch in the Republic, they tend to save (read 'hoard') it.
In addition, worker's average real wages (i.e., wages that are adjusted for inflation) rose every decade from 1820 to 1970, but have essentially stagnated for the last 30 years. Moreover, the majority of the increase in income there has been since 1980 (about 80%) has gone to the top 1%, and according to an article in Slate, "virtually none of the increase translated into wage growth at middle and lower incomes."
D. As Warren Buffet famously pointed out, the top 1% pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than people who make considerably less. Using himself as an example, he paid 17.7% on the $46 million he made in 2007 while his secretary paid 30% on the $60,000 she made in the same year.
I think this is mainly due to the fact that the wealthiest Americans get the majority of their income from capital gains (e.g., Gerald Scorse points out that the top 1% owns nearly 40% of all privately held stock), which is taxed at a much lower rate than wages. Plus, there are a variety of deductions and loopholes that favour those at the top.
E. According to Donald Cohen, executive director for the Center on Policy Initiatives, this is the first time in our nation's history that we've "sent troops to battle without raising the revenues needed to fight that war."
Since 1812, the US government has either raised existing rates or instituted new taxes during wartime in order to fund its war efforts; however, Bush, in the midst of 2 separate conflicts, actually cut taxes. The more than $1 trillion dollars we've spent to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is essentially money that we've borrowed, particularly from countries like China and Japan.
What all of this means to me is that, at the very least, we shouldn't allow these tax cuts to become permanent. And if there is to be some sort of extension, I think it makes more sense to extend them for the people who'll actually spend the additional income (and who arguably need it more), thereby spurring demand and stimulating the economy, rather than the people who'll most likely tuck it away (and who arguable need it less).
That's why I completely agree with Sen. Sanders that instead of fighting to extend the unfunded Bush-era tax cuts — particularly for those making over $250,000 — Congress should be focusing on extending unemployment benefits for the over 2 million out of work Americans who desperately need it.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
re: ethno-religious race baiting needs to stop
Today, I received this comment to my relatively recent post, ethno-religious race baiting needs to stop:
To be honest, I have mixed ideas about this. On the one hand, religion is, among other things, a creative expression of our search for happiness, meaning and truth in a seemingly infinite universe. Religion can be a beautiful thing that brings communities together, as well as bring individuals closer to a happiness that transcends much of the suffering and unsatisfactoriness seemingly inherent in this fragile thing we call life.
I've heard people express their desire to "kill religion" (e.g., Dawkins et al.), and I can understand some of their reasoning for making such statements, especially when you have people using religion to justify suicide bombing and discrimination against gays, women, etc., but I also can't help but think that doing so would come at a great cost to humanity in that we'd be losing an important part of what makes us human.
On the other hand, religion is, admittedly, being used to justify and even instigate violence and oppression, and that's a real problem. Nevertheless, I think that when we dig a little bit deeper, it becomes apparent that there's a lot more going on than meets the eye. For one thing, it's not just the religions themselves that need to be scrutinized, but also the cultures that are influenced by these religious traditions and in which these religions traditions initially took shape.
I think it's fair to say that certain people and cultures are more intolerant and prone to using religious teachings to justify violence, but I'm not sure it's fair to single out a specific religion, such as Islam, for example, because, they way I see it, it's not religion that makes people dangerous so much as it's people who make religion dangerous. And the same can be said about almost anything, especially political ideologies. (It was democracy that killed Socrates, after all.)
Regardless of what certain Muslims have done, I think my point still stands that what people term 'religious intolerance and violence' more often than not has to do with cultural attitudes and influences than the religions themselves. I'm originally from Michigan, which has the largest proportion of Arab Americans in the country, and I've never seen or even heard about anything remotely like this going on there, and I'd argue that this is mostly likely due to differences in this particular community's culture than in their religious beliefs (which, of course, is predominately Muslim).
That's not to say religious teachings don't contribute to these attitudes in general (Lev 20:13 and the discrimination against gays immediately comes to mind), and I'm not saying that people and groups who follow Islam don't ever resort to violence, but I do question the reason why people automatically single out the religious identity of Muslims who commit violent acts but rarely seem to do them same when it comes to non-Muslims. For example, there's been a fairly large number of what I'd call 'Christian' terrorists throughout the world using their political and religious beliefs as a justification for violence in the past four decades (e.g., the IRA, the Orange Volunteers, the Lord's Resistance Army, the Army of God, Timothy McVeigh, the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, the National Liberation Front of Tripura, the 2002 Soweto bombings, Scott Roeder, Hutaree, etc.), yet nobody in the US really seems to be calling out Christianity because of it.
And despite the fact the Jesus never killed anyone, as the link provided above points out, his 'heavenly father,' if we believe the accounts in the Old Testament, is arguably responsible for a great number of deaths. It seems to me that to be consistent in their theology, Christians need to do one of two things: (1) accept the validity of the Old Testament and all the things that God supposedly did/said, which includes accepting that God ordered the deaths of every man, woman and child in Canaan (Deut 20:16-18), or (2) reject the Old Testament completely and stop including it as a part of their Bible. The way I see it, either God mellowed out a whole lot after the birth of his son, Jesus, or the God of the Old Testament is an entirely different deity from the God of the New Testament.
But I'm getting slightly off-point here. I'm not trying to write a polemic against Christianity, I'm simply suggesting that people, atheist or otherwise, shouldn't be going around claiming that Islam is a more violent and less tolerant religion than Christianity when Christianity's own history is, quite frankly, full of violence and intolerance as well (e.g., the various Crusades, which we against fellow Christians, Jews and Muslims; medieval pogroms against the Jews, etc.; and then there are things like Uganda's anti-homosexual bill that was inspired in part by an American, evangelical conference, held a month before, whose theme was "the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda").
This brings me to another point. I think that even beyond the cultural and religious roots of violence, there are other factors which should be taken into consideration as well. One question I think needs to be asked is whether one considers ethnic/political/territorial violence the same as religious violence if the people involved also have different religious views.
Much of the violence in Gaza and the West banks, for example, has to do with land/border disputes that's also fueled by ethnic, political and religious antagonisms, yet many people only focus on the religious identity of one side. The same applies to Darfur, where I'd argue the violence is predominately ethnic in nature, i.e., the majority Arab/Muslim north is fighting with the majority the non-Arab ('African')/Muslim south.
Then there's Somalia, which is in the mess it's in due to a variety of factors, from the collapse of its government following a bloody civil war to foreign ships dumping nuclear waste and heavy metals off its coast and overfishing their coastal waters. The consequence of all these events has been Somalia fishermen turning to piracy to survive, and extremist militants who also happen to be Muslim exploiting Somalia's power vacuum.
As for Afghanistan, which has taken centre stage in the 'War on Terror,' it has elements of all the above. Not only is it composed of a combination of competing ethic, religious and political groups, the country itself hasn't had a relatively stable and viable government since the assassination of President Daoud by the PDPA. Prior to that, Afghanistan was in the process of developing its modern industries and education system, as well as reaching out to the outside world (e.g., joining the League of Nations, establishing ties with the USSR, UK, US, etc.).
And to make matters worse, besides seeing its fair share of violent coups and civil wars, Afghanistan has experienced a slew of foreign invasions by predominately white, non-Muslims, from the Brits, to the Russians, and now us. It's no wonder that many average Afghans, who are often young, poor and illiterate, deludedly join the Taliban in an effort to defend their country and their faith. It should also be kept in mind that the US via the CIA supported the Mujahideen's Islamic/nationalist resistance against the Soviets, going so far as to help arm and train Mujahideen resistance fighters.
Certainly we can say that much of above mentioned violence has religious roots and/or underpinnings, but I think that simply blaming Islam is not only misleading, it's a serious mistake since doing so ignores many of the equally important and often overlooked causes for the continuing violence (e.g., ethnic tension, political instability, territorial disputes, etc.).
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that simply blaming everything on the Islamic religion, without acknowledging any of the other underlying factors contributing to the violence we're currently seeing, is a gross oversimplification of the problem, and the push by the right to single out Muslims is little more than a new form of red-baiting a la Joseph McCarthy. All one has to do is look at the recent comments from Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, singling out Rep. Keith Ellison's religious identity for that to be apparent:
Just replace the word 'Muslim' with 'communist,' and forget the fact that the claim by Phillips and Lynne Torgerson, Ellison's opponent, that CAIR is linked to Hamas and Hezbollah is completely unsubstantiated, and you've got the 1950s all over again.
In respect to your last paragraph, I found this webpage this morning:
http://www.markhumphrys.com/islam.killings.html
The owner of this site is an atheist, btw.
To be honest, I have mixed ideas about this. On the one hand, religion is, among other things, a creative expression of our search for happiness, meaning and truth in a seemingly infinite universe. Religion can be a beautiful thing that brings communities together, as well as bring individuals closer to a happiness that transcends much of the suffering and unsatisfactoriness seemingly inherent in this fragile thing we call life.
I've heard people express their desire to "kill religion" (e.g., Dawkins et al.), and I can understand some of their reasoning for making such statements, especially when you have people using religion to justify suicide bombing and discrimination against gays, women, etc., but I also can't help but think that doing so would come at a great cost to humanity in that we'd be losing an important part of what makes us human.
On the other hand, religion is, admittedly, being used to justify and even instigate violence and oppression, and that's a real problem. Nevertheless, I think that when we dig a little bit deeper, it becomes apparent that there's a lot more going on than meets the eye. For one thing, it's not just the religions themselves that need to be scrutinized, but also the cultures that are influenced by these religious traditions and in which these religions traditions initially took shape.
I think it's fair to say that certain people and cultures are more intolerant and prone to using religious teachings to justify violence, but I'm not sure it's fair to single out a specific religion, such as Islam, for example, because, they way I see it, it's not religion that makes people dangerous so much as it's people who make religion dangerous. And the same can be said about almost anything, especially political ideologies. (It was democracy that killed Socrates, after all.)
Regardless of what certain Muslims have done, I think my point still stands that what people term 'religious intolerance and violence' more often than not has to do with cultural attitudes and influences than the religions themselves. I'm originally from Michigan, which has the largest proportion of Arab Americans in the country, and I've never seen or even heard about anything remotely like this going on there, and I'd argue that this is mostly likely due to differences in this particular community's culture than in their religious beliefs (which, of course, is predominately Muslim).
That's not to say religious teachings don't contribute to these attitudes in general (Lev 20:13 and the discrimination against gays immediately comes to mind), and I'm not saying that people and groups who follow Islam don't ever resort to violence, but I do question the reason why people automatically single out the religious identity of Muslims who commit violent acts but rarely seem to do them same when it comes to non-Muslims. For example, there's been a fairly large number of what I'd call 'Christian' terrorists throughout the world using their political and religious beliefs as a justification for violence in the past four decades (e.g., the IRA, the Orange Volunteers, the Lord's Resistance Army, the Army of God, Timothy McVeigh, the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, the National Liberation Front of Tripura, the 2002 Soweto bombings, Scott Roeder, Hutaree, etc.), yet nobody in the US really seems to be calling out Christianity because of it.
And despite the fact the Jesus never killed anyone, as the link provided above points out, his 'heavenly father,' if we believe the accounts in the Old Testament, is arguably responsible for a great number of deaths. It seems to me that to be consistent in their theology, Christians need to do one of two things: (1) accept the validity of the Old Testament and all the things that God supposedly did/said, which includes accepting that God ordered the deaths of every man, woman and child in Canaan (Deut 20:16-18), or (2) reject the Old Testament completely and stop including it as a part of their Bible. The way I see it, either God mellowed out a whole lot after the birth of his son, Jesus, or the God of the Old Testament is an entirely different deity from the God of the New Testament.
But I'm getting slightly off-point here. I'm not trying to write a polemic against Christianity, I'm simply suggesting that people, atheist or otherwise, shouldn't be going around claiming that Islam is a more violent and less tolerant religion than Christianity when Christianity's own history is, quite frankly, full of violence and intolerance as well (e.g., the various Crusades, which we against fellow Christians, Jews and Muslims; medieval pogroms against the Jews, etc.; and then there are things like Uganda's anti-homosexual bill that was inspired in part by an American, evangelical conference, held a month before, whose theme was "the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda").
This brings me to another point. I think that even beyond the cultural and religious roots of violence, there are other factors which should be taken into consideration as well. One question I think needs to be asked is whether one considers ethnic/political/territorial violence the same as religious violence if the people involved also have different religious views.
Much of the violence in Gaza and the West banks, for example, has to do with land/border disputes that's also fueled by ethnic, political and religious antagonisms, yet many people only focus on the religious identity of one side. The same applies to Darfur, where I'd argue the violence is predominately ethnic in nature, i.e., the majority Arab/Muslim north is fighting with the majority the non-Arab ('African')/Muslim south.
Then there's Somalia, which is in the mess it's in due to a variety of factors, from the collapse of its government following a bloody civil war to foreign ships dumping nuclear waste and heavy metals off its coast and overfishing their coastal waters. The consequence of all these events has been Somalia fishermen turning to piracy to survive, and extremist militants who also happen to be Muslim exploiting Somalia's power vacuum.
As for Afghanistan, which has taken centre stage in the 'War on Terror,' it has elements of all the above. Not only is it composed of a combination of competing ethic, religious and political groups, the country itself hasn't had a relatively stable and viable government since the assassination of President Daoud by the PDPA. Prior to that, Afghanistan was in the process of developing its modern industries and education system, as well as reaching out to the outside world (e.g., joining the League of Nations, establishing ties with the USSR, UK, US, etc.).
And to make matters worse, besides seeing its fair share of violent coups and civil wars, Afghanistan has experienced a slew of foreign invasions by predominately white, non-Muslims, from the Brits, to the Russians, and now us. It's no wonder that many average Afghans, who are often young, poor and illiterate, deludedly join the Taliban in an effort to defend their country and their faith. It should also be kept in mind that the US via the CIA supported the Mujahideen's Islamic/nationalist resistance against the Soviets, going so far as to help arm and train Mujahideen resistance fighters.
Certainly we can say that much of above mentioned violence has religious roots and/or underpinnings, but I think that simply blaming Islam is not only misleading, it's a serious mistake since doing so ignores many of the equally important and often overlooked causes for the continuing violence (e.g., ethnic tension, political instability, territorial disputes, etc.).
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that simply blaming everything on the Islamic religion, without acknowledging any of the other underlying factors contributing to the violence we're currently seeing, is a gross oversimplification of the problem, and the push by the right to single out Muslims is little more than a new form of red-baiting a la Joseph McCarthy. All one has to do is look at the recent comments from Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, singling out Rep. Keith Ellison's religious identity for that to be apparent:
He has a ZERO rating from the American Conservative Union. He is the only Muslim member of Congress. He supports the Counsel for American Islamic Relations, HAMAS and has helped Congress send millions of tax dollars to terrorists in Gaza.
Just replace the word 'Muslim' with 'communist,' and forget the fact that the claim by Phillips and Lynne Torgerson, Ellison's opponent, that CAIR is linked to Hamas and Hezbollah is completely unsubstantiated, and you've got the 1950s all over again.
Monday, October 11, 2010
happy indigenous peoples' day
Screw all this Columbus Day bullshit, I prefer to call today Indigenous Peoples' Day. Why? Because Columbus doesn't deserve a national fucking holiday, that's why.
I don't dislike Columbus Day simply because he 'discovered' land that was already inhabited (Hispaniola), I dislike it for the fact that he helped to literally wipe that land of its original inhabitants, the peaceful Arawaks, through his unbelievable cruelty and that of those who followed him to the New World.
What happened to these poor people was nothing short of genocide, and there's simply no justification for it. Stealing land and killing and/or enslaving its native inhabitants isn't OK, and it's certainly not something to celebrate with a national holiday.
And for all those who are unfamiliar with the real history behind Columbus Day, I suggest checking out this excerpt from Howard Zinn's Columbus and Western Civilization, as well as this clip from The Canary Effect.
I don't dislike Columbus Day simply because he 'discovered' land that was already inhabited (Hispaniola), I dislike it for the fact that he helped to literally wipe that land of its original inhabitants, the peaceful Arawaks, through his unbelievable cruelty and that of those who followed him to the New World.
What happened to these poor people was nothing short of genocide, and there's simply no justification for it. Stealing land and killing and/or enslaving its native inhabitants isn't OK, and it's certainly not something to celebrate with a national holiday.
And for all those who are unfamiliar with the real history behind Columbus Day, I suggest checking out this excerpt from Howard Zinn's Columbus and Western Civilization, as well as this clip from The Canary Effect.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
1994 all over again
Congressional midterm elections are just around the corner, and there's a lot of dissatisfaction with the Democrats right now. That's understandable considering what little of their 'progressive' agenda they've gotten accomplished so far, not to mention their incessant pandering on the platform of 'the least worst,' but that doesn't mean things will be any better with the Republicans back in power.
Of course, getting anything useful done in Congress is like pulling teeth regardless of the party in charge, but seriously, these people are more dangerous to personal freedom than they've ever been. They might say they want to reduce the size of our government because it's such a drain on national resources and inhibits economic growth, and are totally against government intrusion, but then they turn around and try to use the very same bloated government to force their conservative/religious values on the entire country.
If the Republicans get back into power again, they'll pull all the same old tricks like trying to prevent gay people from having equal rights; telling women what to do with their bodies; go back to pushing abstinence-only sex-ed; limiting or eliminating federally-funded stem-cell research; extending tax cuts that will only add to the growing deficit; increasing an already bloated military budget at the cost of everything else they can dismantle (e.g., public education, Medicare, Social Security, etc.); you get the idea. Heck, they'll probably even start another war just for the hell of it.
While the majority of Democrats in Congress are almost as bad, I think things will be far, far worse if the Republicans manage to sweet-talk their way back into power with their Pledge to America. It'll be 1994 all over again with Newt and his Contract with America, only worse because they'll have the Tea Party Express behind them, condemning masturbation, Muslims and the evil socialists on the left who want all Americans to actually have access to healthcare like they do in every other wealthy, industrialized nation on Earth.
In fact, conservatives are already bemoaning the threat of 'big government,' and promising to repeal the recent insurance reforms passed by Congress and signed by the president, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. The question is, What would Republicans do to improve healthcare if they were in charge?
Well, at one end of the spectrum, there's Mike Huckabee. According to him, people with preexisting conditions are like houses that've already burned down, so I think his plan would be to essentially allow insurance companies to tell people with preexisting conditions to go fuck themselves since they'll just eat into their ridiculously large profit margins.
At the other end, there's Mitt Romney, who actually signed into law an insurance reform program when he was governor of Massachusetts that's similar to the reforms Obama signed into law this year, so he'd repeal 'Obamacare' and replace it with 'Romneycare,' which would basically be the same thing, but since he's a Republican, his individual mandate would somehow be more constitutional.
As for the rest, they'll probably fall somewhere in between these two positions, which means their ideas for improving healthcare in the U.S. will lie somewhere between cutting corporate taxes and letting insurance companies do whatever the hell they want, and instituting some half-assed reforms like Obama and the Democrats did, but just calling it something different like 'Common-sense Healthcare Reforms Our Nation Can Afford.' Then Fox News will hail them as the saviours of democracy and the free market. Oh, and abortion will be illegal.
Unfortunately, these things are cyclical, and each party's half-ass attempts to implement their agendas almost always seems to make things worse. It's sad and it makes me sick that the most we can do it pick the 'lesser of two evils' at any given election instead of having some real choices and the power to immediately recall our elected officials when they're not getting the job done. But I'd like it even more if I didn't have to worry about right-wing fundamentalists gaining popular support with their puritanical, anti-gay, anti-Muslim rhetoric. That stuff's poison, pure and simply.
I truly wish that the Republicans were what they purport to be—fiscal conservatives who want limited government involvement in public and private affairs. At least I can respect and tolerate that, even if I disagree with their positions ideologically. But since the GOP has allowed itself to be captured by the religious right, or at least panders to them to the point of adopting many of their stances on social issues, I'm honestly afraid of the damage they'll do if we, as a nation, allow ourselves to be duped into voting them back into power again.
Of course, getting anything useful done in Congress is like pulling teeth regardless of the party in charge, but seriously, these people are more dangerous to personal freedom than they've ever been. They might say they want to reduce the size of our government because it's such a drain on national resources and inhibits economic growth, and are totally against government intrusion, but then they turn around and try to use the very same bloated government to force their conservative/religious values on the entire country.
If the Republicans get back into power again, they'll pull all the same old tricks like trying to prevent gay people from having equal rights; telling women what to do with their bodies; go back to pushing abstinence-only sex-ed; limiting or eliminating federally-funded stem-cell research; extending tax cuts that will only add to the growing deficit; increasing an already bloated military budget at the cost of everything else they can dismantle (e.g., public education, Medicare, Social Security, etc.); you get the idea. Heck, they'll probably even start another war just for the hell of it.
While the majority of Democrats in Congress are almost as bad, I think things will be far, far worse if the Republicans manage to sweet-talk their way back into power with their Pledge to America. It'll be 1994 all over again with Newt and his Contract with America, only worse because they'll have the Tea Party Express behind them, condemning masturbation, Muslims and the evil socialists on the left who want all Americans to actually have access to healthcare like they do in every other wealthy, industrialized nation on Earth.
In fact, conservatives are already bemoaning the threat of 'big government,' and promising to repeal the recent insurance reforms passed by Congress and signed by the president, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. The question is, What would Republicans do to improve healthcare if they were in charge?
Well, at one end of the spectrum, there's Mike Huckabee. According to him, people with preexisting conditions are like houses that've already burned down, so I think his plan would be to essentially allow insurance companies to tell people with preexisting conditions to go fuck themselves since they'll just eat into their ridiculously large profit margins.
At the other end, there's Mitt Romney, who actually signed into law an insurance reform program when he was governor of Massachusetts that's similar to the reforms Obama signed into law this year, so he'd repeal 'Obamacare' and replace it with 'Romneycare,' which would basically be the same thing, but since he's a Republican, his individual mandate would somehow be more constitutional.
As for the rest, they'll probably fall somewhere in between these two positions, which means their ideas for improving healthcare in the U.S. will lie somewhere between cutting corporate taxes and letting insurance companies do whatever the hell they want, and instituting some half-assed reforms like Obama and the Democrats did, but just calling it something different like 'Common-sense Healthcare Reforms Our Nation Can Afford.' Then Fox News will hail them as the saviours of democracy and the free market. Oh, and abortion will be illegal.
Unfortunately, these things are cyclical, and each party's half-ass attempts to implement their agendas almost always seems to make things worse. It's sad and it makes me sick that the most we can do it pick the 'lesser of two evils' at any given election instead of having some real choices and the power to immediately recall our elected officials when they're not getting the job done. But I'd like it even more if I didn't have to worry about right-wing fundamentalists gaining popular support with their puritanical, anti-gay, anti-Muslim rhetoric. That stuff's poison, pure and simply.
I truly wish that the Republicans were what they purport to be—fiscal conservatives who want limited government involvement in public and private affairs. At least I can respect and tolerate that, even if I disagree with their positions ideologically. But since the GOP has allowed itself to be captured by the religious right, or at least panders to them to the point of adopting many of their stances on social issues, I'm honestly afraid of the damage they'll do if we, as a nation, allow ourselves to be duped into voting them back into power again.
Friday, September 10, 2010
ethno-religious race baiting needs to stop
I'm sick to death of all this manufactured hullabaloo about Obama secretly being a Muslim and Islam being more violent and less tolerant than Christianity. The right in America has been searching for a new boogieman since the end of the Cold War to replace the evils of communism — which, in the words of the late Sen. Absalom Robertson, "seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in an Almighty God on which it is based" — and they've found one in Islam. But I say, "Enough already!"
A recent survey shows that a growing number of Americans think that Obama is a Muslim. To begin with, a person's religious affiliation shouldn't matter, it's their actions that count. Moreover, it's completely irrelevant to public office considering that the First Amendment creates, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, a "wall of separation between church and state."
What truly bothers me, however, is that not only do people care what religion Obama professes to practice, but they can't even get it right! Either the majority of these people are so easily misled by right-wing hack-jobs that they're willing to accept he's a closet Muslim who was born in Kenya (despite the fact that he has a Hawaiian birth certificate) or they're unwilling to say that they don't know and guess (making themselves look even dumber when they get the answer wrong).
If there are 'educated' people who think Obama is Muslim, I'd seriously question their so-called education, and I'd think it's more likely they're using the label pejoratively in order to attack Obama and sway public opinion away from him, which is a disgusting and ultimately racist political maneuver if you ask me. Has the right so quickly forgotten their last contrived controversy surrounding Rev. Wright and the charge that Obama was a racist Christian attending a 'radical black church'?
As if that weren't bad enough, we have washed-up Jim Jones wannabes like Terry Jones going around threatening to burn Korans and claiming that Islam is a more violent and less tolerant religion than Christianity. Never mind that, historically speaking, Christianity hasn't been very tolerant of other faiths, either, e.g., the various Crusades, which we against fellow Christians, Jews and Muslims; medieval pogroms against the Jews, etc.; and then there are things like Uganda's anti-homosexual bill that was inspired in part by an American, evangelical conference, held a month before, whose theme was "the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda."
And if you think that the holy books of Judaism and Christianity are any warmer and fuzzier than the Koran (which, by the way, forbids persecution of "people of the Book," i.e., Jews and Christians), just read things like Deut 20:16-18, Deut 22:13-21 and Deut 22:23-24. Then there's this heart-warming utterance of Jesus: "But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence." (Luke 19:27). As Jesus said, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone" (John 8:7).
If Jews and Christians took their holy books more seriously (i.e., literally), they'd be stoning people to death as well. The real difference, I think, isn't in the substance of the three Abrahamic religions themselves, but in the cultures that are influenced by these religious traditions. Islamic society was, during the Middle Ages, arguably more tolerant and prolific than their Christian contemporaries. It was mainly Muslims that helped to preserve the works of Aristotle, for example; and the Muslims were far more tolerant of Jews in places like Spain than their Christian counterparts (for more on this, see Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, 323 & 419-31).
I think it's fair to say that certain people and cultures are more intolerant and prone to use religious teachings to justify violence, but I don't think it's fair to single out Muslims or Islam as being less tolerant/more violent than Christians or Christianity. People should be judged by their actions, not by what they chose to call themselves. Yes, the Constitution guarantees religious freedom, but singling out a particular religion like this only shows the world how intolerant we, as a country, can be.
A recent survey shows that a growing number of Americans think that Obama is a Muslim. To begin with, a person's religious affiliation shouldn't matter, it's their actions that count. Moreover, it's completely irrelevant to public office considering that the First Amendment creates, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, a "wall of separation between church and state."
What truly bothers me, however, is that not only do people care what religion Obama professes to practice, but they can't even get it right! Either the majority of these people are so easily misled by right-wing hack-jobs that they're willing to accept he's a closet Muslim who was born in Kenya (despite the fact that he has a Hawaiian birth certificate) or they're unwilling to say that they don't know and guess (making themselves look even dumber when they get the answer wrong).
If there are 'educated' people who think Obama is Muslim, I'd seriously question their so-called education, and I'd think it's more likely they're using the label pejoratively in order to attack Obama and sway public opinion away from him, which is a disgusting and ultimately racist political maneuver if you ask me. Has the right so quickly forgotten their last contrived controversy surrounding Rev. Wright and the charge that Obama was a racist Christian attending a 'radical black church'?
As if that weren't bad enough, we have washed-up Jim Jones wannabes like Terry Jones going around threatening to burn Korans and claiming that Islam is a more violent and less tolerant religion than Christianity. Never mind that, historically speaking, Christianity hasn't been very tolerant of other faiths, either, e.g., the various Crusades, which we against fellow Christians, Jews and Muslims; medieval pogroms against the Jews, etc.; and then there are things like Uganda's anti-homosexual bill that was inspired in part by an American, evangelical conference, held a month before, whose theme was "the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda."
And if you think that the holy books of Judaism and Christianity are any warmer and fuzzier than the Koran (which, by the way, forbids persecution of "people of the Book," i.e., Jews and Christians), just read things like Deut 20:16-18, Deut 22:13-21 and Deut 22:23-24. Then there's this heart-warming utterance of Jesus: "But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence." (Luke 19:27). As Jesus said, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone" (John 8:7).
If Jews and Christians took their holy books more seriously (i.e., literally), they'd be stoning people to death as well. The real difference, I think, isn't in the substance of the three Abrahamic religions themselves, but in the cultures that are influenced by these religious traditions. Islamic society was, during the Middle Ages, arguably more tolerant and prolific than their Christian contemporaries. It was mainly Muslims that helped to preserve the works of Aristotle, for example; and the Muslims were far more tolerant of Jews in places like Spain than their Christian counterparts (for more on this, see Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, 323 & 419-31).
I think it's fair to say that certain people and cultures are more intolerant and prone to use religious teachings to justify violence, but I don't think it's fair to single out Muslims or Islam as being less tolerant/more violent than Christians or Christianity. People should be judged by their actions, not by what they chose to call themselves. Yes, the Constitution guarantees religious freedom, but singling out a particular religion like this only shows the world how intolerant we, as a country, can be.
Friday, July 16, 2010
being a bit of a luddite isn't so bad after all
I guess you could say that I've always been a bit of a Luddite, but I never really realized how dependent I am on the internet (via my girlfriend's computer, of course) until I recently moved and was forced to go a week without it. I literally use the internet for everything. (Ironically, I had to google 'Luddite' to find out what it meant after I received a letter from a good friend of mine saying, "Sorry for ruining you hippie, socialist, Luddite, Buddhist lifestyle with this newfangled phone.")
I don't even know how people lived before the internet. You know, the days when you found a job through a friend who knew someone who knew someone who was hiring or an ad in the classified section of the newspaper. (Do they even have those anymore?)
I mean, we found our new apartment on Craigslist, which is where I also found my job three years ago. Instead of wasting time waiting in line at the DMV to change our address, we spent five minutes doing it online. Same with USPS. I use Moviefone to see what's playing in my area, and IMDb to see if anything's actually worth watching. (My girlfriend won't bother seeing anything rated under 7.0.) Anytime I need some computer/tech-related advice (which, admittedly, isn't all that often), I head over to Icrontic. Hungry and looking for a good breakfast place in southeast PDX (that's Portland, OR for those of you not in the know)? Yelp is good for that. (It's also good for finding dentists.) And if I'm ever in need of a phone number, directions, to know if a word is spelled correctly or a quick education on the labour theory of value, there's the all-knowing Google.
Yep, the internet has made my life a lot more convenient. Thanks to Facebook, I spent Christmas eating an amazing dinner and sipping on some Oban at a friend's house instead of alone, gnawing on a veggie burger from BK (couldn't afford to visit my family back in MI), and I never even knew their phone number. But, as I've also come to realize, relying so much on the internet has had it drawbacks as well.
I've noticed, for example, that my spelling has really gone downhill since I began relying on Google and spell check. I seem to make far more mistakes than I used to. (My theory is that my brain is using the internet like an external hard drive, dumping my vocabulary for simple HTML codes and logical fallacies to throw at people who are wrong on the internet.) I've noticed that my attention span has suffered as well. I tend to skim newspaper articles (when I bother to read them) way more than before, and I have trouble reading a book for more than an hour. (I used to be able to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy in a few days.) I even find myself getting irritated when I can't hit 'control F' to find something I read a few pages back that I want to look up again.
But it hasn't just affected my memory and attention span, it's affected what passes for my social skills these days too. As shy as I was before, I have an even harder time interacting with people in real life social situations since discovering the world of social media, where I can take hours to perfect a witty comment from the anonymous safety of my own home (or local coffee shop); not to mention the fact that in real life, I don't have the luxury of deleting the dumb things I say before someone has the time to read them. Plus, it's way easier to just 'like' something than it is to have an actual conversation.
The good news (or the bad news depending on how you look at it) is that I'm not the only one who's noticed these things. (I thought I'd simply crossed into 'old geezer' territory). Just the other day I heard a story on NPR about a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly (subtly titled, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?") that reaches a similar conclusion. And you know what, it's got me thinking that being a bit of a Luddite isn't such a bad thing after all.
As convenient as technology can make our lives, I think there's a limit to how much we can depend on it until it becomes a psychological crutch—one that we know we don't need, but one that we've become so dependent on we can't seem to function without it. Convenience is a type of pleasure, mostly in the Epicurean sense of being the absence of displeasure, and the key, I think, is to find a happy medium between technological asceticism and becoming the human equivalent of the Borg. I guess the moral of the story is that you really can have too much of a good thing; although I'm sure most people have already figured this out by now.
(A version of this post also appears as an article on Icrontic Life.)
I don't even know how people lived before the internet. You know, the days when you found a job through a friend who knew someone who knew someone who was hiring or an ad in the classified section of the newspaper. (Do they even have those anymore?)
I mean, we found our new apartment on Craigslist, which is where I also found my job three years ago. Instead of wasting time waiting in line at the DMV to change our address, we spent five minutes doing it online. Same with USPS. I use Moviefone to see what's playing in my area, and IMDb to see if anything's actually worth watching. (My girlfriend won't bother seeing anything rated under 7.0.) Anytime I need some computer/tech-related advice (which, admittedly, isn't all that often), I head over to Icrontic. Hungry and looking for a good breakfast place in southeast PDX (that's Portland, OR for those of you not in the know)? Yelp is good for that. (It's also good for finding dentists.) And if I'm ever in need of a phone number, directions, to know if a word is spelled correctly or a quick education on the labour theory of value, there's the all-knowing Google.
Yep, the internet has made my life a lot more convenient. Thanks to Facebook, I spent Christmas eating an amazing dinner and sipping on some Oban at a friend's house instead of alone, gnawing on a veggie burger from BK (couldn't afford to visit my family back in MI), and I never even knew their phone number. But, as I've also come to realize, relying so much on the internet has had it drawbacks as well.
I've noticed, for example, that my spelling has really gone downhill since I began relying on Google and spell check. I seem to make far more mistakes than I used to. (My theory is that my brain is using the internet like an external hard drive, dumping my vocabulary for simple HTML codes and logical fallacies to throw at people who are wrong on the internet.) I've noticed that my attention span has suffered as well. I tend to skim newspaper articles (when I bother to read them) way more than before, and I have trouble reading a book for more than an hour. (I used to be able to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy in a few days.) I even find myself getting irritated when I can't hit 'control F' to find something I read a few pages back that I want to look up again.
But it hasn't just affected my memory and attention span, it's affected what passes for my social skills these days too. As shy as I was before, I have an even harder time interacting with people in real life social situations since discovering the world of social media, where I can take hours to perfect a witty comment from the anonymous safety of my own home (or local coffee shop); not to mention the fact that in real life, I don't have the luxury of deleting the dumb things I say before someone has the time to read them. Plus, it's way easier to just 'like' something than it is to have an actual conversation.
The good news (or the bad news depending on how you look at it) is that I'm not the only one who's noticed these things. (I thought I'd simply crossed into 'old geezer' territory). Just the other day I heard a story on NPR about a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly (subtly titled, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?") that reaches a similar conclusion. And you know what, it's got me thinking that being a bit of a Luddite isn't such a bad thing after all.
As convenient as technology can make our lives, I think there's a limit to how much we can depend on it until it becomes a psychological crutch—one that we know we don't need, but one that we've become so dependent on we can't seem to function without it. Convenience is a type of pleasure, mostly in the Epicurean sense of being the absence of displeasure, and the key, I think, is to find a happy medium between technological asceticism and becoming the human equivalent of the Borg. I guess the moral of the story is that you really can have too much of a good thing; although I'm sure most people have already figured this out by now.
(A version of this post also appears as an article on Icrontic Life.)
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