A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

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The first one is simply an irritant. But I consider foisting email onto people who don’t want it and haven’t asked for it to be rather unethical. Kos has one of the highest trafficked websites on the web – he could just put a post on the front page and leave it there. But to start a “Daily Kos action email list” and assume that people who have already signed onto a site will: 1) want to see it, and 2) actually agree with it; is the height of conceit. I suppose it also points to the fact that he doesn’t believe his faithful followers will respond in enough numbers to actually use his site for what it was intended to do.

The second point shows that he and his mindless minions actually are a threat to our country – in exactly the same way that the mindless minions of FOX News are. Both badly misinterpret the design of our government and the fact that our Founders wanted it to be difficult to enact legislation. Both want to get 50% plus one and then claim they have the authority to enact massive legislative agendas (the “mandate”).

John Adams:

To remedy the dangers attendant upon the arbitrary use of power, checks, however multiplied, will scarcely avail without an explicit admission some limitation of the right of the majority to excercise sovereign authority over the individual citizen… In popular governments [democracies], minorities [individuals] constantly run much greater risk of suffering from arbitrary power than in absolute monarchies…

James Madison:

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true.

Alexander Hamilton:

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.

In fairness, I have to say that these men would be horrified that eight or nine Senators can grind the business of government to a halt. But they foresaw such an event and believed the best prevention was simply to expose those obstructionists for what they were and trust the voters to turn them out. Unless, of course, the voters wanted their representatives to obstruct that particular measure.

The problem with the Senate isn’t that the vote for cloture is set too high – it’s that the Democrats simply can’t manage to reach that number. So what happens if they lower the magic number for cloture to fifty-one and they find they only have forty-eight reliable votes for it (due to either electoral changes or personal intransigence)? That reality exposes the real belief at the heart of the measure.

Progressives simply don’t believe that they can forge a governable majority. They understand that they can’t win if they play by the rules, so they want to change the rules. I’m not necessarily against changing the rules, but the email is rather vague about “reform” – other than needing fifty-one votes to change a rule.

Our government was designed to make it difficult to pass legislation, because the Founders understood that it is easier to block bad legislation than to try and reform it later. In other words, it is often better to do nothing now and wait for the election cycle to turn out a stronger majority. Democrats made use of this idea when they started referring to the Republicans as “the party of no.” But, apparently, they believe they are going to lose and lose badly in November.

They would do well to remember that just a few short years ago, it was the Democrats who were in the minority. Back then, it was Democrats using legislative procedure to hold back the tide on the Bush agenda. I can’t, for the life of me, understand why any coherent and rational person would want to remove their last line of defense for getting steamrolled – unless they believe they will never be in the position of being steamrolled. But then, if Democrats believed they were a permanent and growing majority, they wouldn’t need to change the rules of operation, would they?

I\’m done with this now

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The filibuster serves a real purpose in legislative proceedings. It prevents a mere majority from trampling over the concerns of a minority. It forces even a majority to build consensus – to appeal to the public and across partisan lines to forge agreements on important issues.

The problem that Democrats face in the Senate is threefold: 1) Republicans have locked arms in simply opposing everything put forth; 2) Their inept messaging lets Republicans frame things like the denial of unemployment benefits as a positive thing (or allows it to be ignored entirely); and 3) Their own partisanship is too weak, and their majority too small, to overcome Republican efforts. But not the filibuster.

And, yes, better messaging would have led to a very different political landscape in 2010. Democrats allowed Republicans to bottle up unemployment benefits for millions of Americans while our economic recovery was held in stasis by its “jobless” nature. What was the overriding news story? Lindsey Lohan going to jail. Under-regulation and under-enforcement of the oil industry led directly to the debacle in the Gulf. What is the news meme? “Is this Obama’s Katrina?” Republicans kill the campaign disclosure bill and Democrats’ messaging is no where to be found – meaning that Republicans can openly say that they are willing to denying corporations the ability to buy elections hurts Republicans and Democrats are too feeble – while holding a majority – to even put out a competing message.

There has been a complete lack of messaging and outreach on everything Democrats have undertaken since George W. Bush left office. Can anyone actually believe that Americans were protesting having the ability to see a doctor if they actually wanted to see one? Death panels – that was where the meme went. The Obama Cadillac of Messaging that drove him to the White House stayed in the garage. No one in the House or Senate has done anything, either.

So Democrats will likely lose this November, and they might even lose their majority in both Houses. But it won’t be because of the filibuster. It will be because they let a crippled and crumpled GOP dictate the public tone of the debate…while they stamped their feet and said, “But we have a majority!” and mocked anyone that pointed out their own failures.

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This deserves its own window or Wish I could read all of this

It’s a story that is unusual in its candor and its topic. First, to have a public official of any level admit to ever having had a racist thought is practically unheard of – even when they are caught doing and saying things that are blatantly racist. Second, it’s a story about black against white racism, which is also a topic that is practically taboo. Third, it’s a story where a poor white person went to the government for held (more taboo). Fourth, it’s a story where the person involved comes to understand that racism is a double-edged sword that damages the person wielding it as well as the person on the receiving end.

In short, it’s the type of story we, as a nation, need to hear more of so we can understand ourselves better. It’s the type of candid conversation on race that can actually move us forward rather than having the same stupid arguments again. Unfortunately, it has turned out to be nothing of the sort because a nitwit with an agenda was looking for something he could manipulate, rather than a story to tell.

It’s one thing to fabricate things to use as a general illustration – as long as the audience is told that it is a fabrication. It’s quite another to purposefully ruin a person’s life because they happen to say or do something that fits into a political agenda. It wouldn’t even matter if the other side had done the same – it is wrong, bordering on evil to shatter someone’s life for a cheap moment in the sun.

Almost as disgusting as the origination of the non-story has been the right-wing’s reaction to the revelation of a hoax. It is filled with equivocations and hyphenations and parenthetical remarks that make it clear they are really hear to bury Ceasar, not praise him. No one needs to say that the activist’s future work might stand on its own merit – let us see it and judge it in the light of this atrocity.

It’s a statement on our total inability to see the other political side as people rather than as pawns. And it’s a statement on how some people on the left are still stuck in reacting to those on the right rather than in doing the hard work of public education and framing. In other words, it’s an example of everything that’s wrong with our political system, and our nation.

I\’m done with this now

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Michael Gerson thinks that may be changing. But it will not be the ascendancy of Obama that causes it, so much as it will be the self-destructive realization of the disparate parts of the Republican coalition…specifically, the anti-government tea-party segment that has given the long-standing libertarian segment a popular voice.

Gerson cites Sharron Angle (GOP Senate candidate in Nevada) and Rand Paul (GOP Senate candidate in Kentucky) as being prime examples of this – and he’s right. Both are being severely limited in their press time because they don’t want their actual beliefs to come under public scrutiny. It isn’t that they make good old fashioned gaffes, like Joe Biden – those can be explained away and tend to become endearing in an odd way. And it’s telling that both of them are running well behind where they were expected to run.

If they go down in defeat, then more moderate elements may regain power in the GOP. If they win, they will be seen as THE path to victory. And THAT, more than anything else, may actually cause the realignment that political scientists have been looking for.

But I’d note – it’s a change of parties, not of ideology. A failing GOP will lead to a more conservative Democratic Party. The ideology realignment, if it happens, will happen later.

I\’m done with this now

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Debra writes: “Virtually all faith traditions affirm the sanctity of life.” As someone who deals a lot with political rhetoric, I have to take exception to the term “sanctity of life.” It has entered the public lexicon to an extent that no one ever bothers to think about what it means – and what it’s place in theology might actually be.

Simply put, “sanctity” is the quality of sacredness, or being dedicated to a deity. I believe a blanket statement as to whether or not all life is dedicated to God is going a bit far. One does not have to dig into the Bible very deeply before one finds many an example of life being held as rather mundane. The Old Testament laws demanded forfeiture of life for a whole range of misbehaviors…and endorsed slavery, which has to be considered a loss of life of sorts.

I’ll make a slight digression as a means of trying to shift the focus and then come back. The Nativity – the birth of Jesus in a filthy manger – is often interpreted as showing the humility of God. I think that sells short the wonder of a simple manger. Consider the billions of life-forms that are sustained by dung, not to mention the billions more that go into creating dung. A dung-laden stall is pretty impressive from a basic standpoint. Think of it this way – what has man created that can compare?

If a filthy stable is as worthy of wonder and astonishment as the Taj Mahal (or whatever man-made wonder you want to substitute); then how might God look at life and death? According to basic theology, God exists beyond life and death. In fact, most Christian theologies teach that death functions as a means of bringing us closer to God. Why, then, would life be devoted to God when it, in a sense, stands in the way of coming closer to Him?

I think one way to interpret the teachings of Jesus is, “This life of yours that you hold so precious is really nothing. Only when you lose it will you understand what life really is.” This is often used as justification for following a career in the clergy, but I think that is also short-sighted. If humans can exist after death, then death is but a portal through which we pass to become what we are actually meant to be.

None of this means that we should embrace death or try to move towards it quickly. We each have a bit of time in which we are alive, and we can use it to help take care of each other – which the Bible makes clear is what we should be doing – or we can use it to do whatever we want and squander the gift. The choice is ours.

So, from God’s point of view, is an abortion “squandering the gift” (as I put it) or is it embracing that gift? The same question needs to be asked of any health decision. Organ transplant, for example, often kills the donor. Squandering or embracing? Turning off life support for a person – squandering or embracing? Giving a terminally ill patient enough pain killers to overdose and end their suffering – squandering or embracing?

Answering those questions takes a radical reworking of the theology of death – and therefore the theology of life. It also depends very heavily upon the exact application of that theology. The details matter and no blanket statement as to right and wrong can be offered. By engaging on the idea of the “sanctity of life” and “defending life” and any of the other variations of the right-wing framing of the abortion issue, we give up ground that demands so much more of us as individuals and believers.

In a way, it can be an intellectually lazy way of brushing aside some very difficult questions. It can also be theologically lazy, because it casts God in terms of human public policy. I’ve heard it say that theology seeks to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable – and, in that sense, those who are the surest about what God wants in terms of abortion policy are not that different from those who are the surest about what God wants in terms of foreign policy. It is those who are the surest of their theology who lead the headlong rush into fanaticism – and that isn’t something limited to abortion.

In the end, I believe we are left with the decision that abortion needs to be left in the hands of the women themselves. Some will make bad choices. Some will make morally reprehensible choices. That is the way life is. But, just as Pakistan cannot make people stop joking about Muhammad by banning Facebook, we cannot make a better world by giving people fewer choices. If an eternal God dispenses justice at the end of time – as most fundamentalist Christian doctrines teach – then there is nothing to fear from doing so.

I\’m done with this now

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The Boston Tea Party was an act of sabotage in protest for the British government awarding a monopoly over colonial trade and for taxing the colonies without allowing them representation in Parliament. Compare that with today when the protest is…kind of muddied. But no one can accurately say that they don’t have representation in Congress. It may not be good or the kind of representation they want, but it is there.

In short, the Boston Tea Party didn’t happen because people had some input into the government and were rebuffed, or lost an electoral cycle. It happened because they had absolutely no input, by design, in their political system.

These sorts of things are easy to dismiss. Except that we are confronted today with two examples of how self-deception can have deadly consequences.

The first is from Kansas City. The short version is that a man, known to be violent and use weapons, was confronted by the police. He grabbed a woman and held her hostage, putting a knife to her throat. The cops shot him.

If you read the story, you’ll discover the tragic fact that the hostage was also the man’s mother. She was, understandably, distraught at her son’s death by police sniper. But, honestly, only someone lost in the depths of self-deception could have seen any other outcome. I know it was her son, but this guy was a career criminal. Anger at the police is simply misplaced…better to be angry at the dead son who willfully decided to cause destruction in the lives of those around him (what sort of son takes his own mother hostage?). It doesn’t change the tragedy, but the way it ended shouldn’t surprise anyone. Sadly.

The same is true for Joseph Andrew Stack. His manifesto is riddled with self-deception, leading to blaming other people for his own shortcomings. This isn’t to say he didn’t get a raw deal a time or two. He did. Tellingly he riffs on the “taxation without representation” issue…all the while neglecting the fact that he did have a representative.

He talks about how hard he worked to get a Congressman, any Congressman, to talk to him. This shows his political ignorance. No Congressman other than your own ever wants to talk to you. They aren’t there to represent people outside of their district. He’d have been better served to simply trying to elect a more responsive person in the single district in which he lived.

A bit later on, we find that he willfully entered into a tax evasion scheme, believing it was legal, but with the purpose to keep from paying taxes. Only the self-deceived would take that action and then be surprised when they earned the ire of the IRS. Yet, it seems, he was exactly that.

Ignorance has consequences. And mixing ignorance with flammable rhetoric is irresponsible because it leads to predictable tragedy. My friends from Armenia once told me that a wise man has the duty to share his wisdom, otherwise all of society will end up run by very likable fools. I think it’s time the wisdom was shared a bit more broadly. Even if it angers a few people to tear down their self-deceptive calves of gold.

I\’m done with this now