Darkness: Two of our young adults were mobilized to leave for the Middle East this fall. I sing with their father on the worship team and I know that they will be thoroughly encassed in prayer during their time in Iraq, regardless of whether or not people support the war.
Light: Draft Registration. My friend Noe posted the link in her Livejournal while I was in California and my in-laws and I were falling out of our chairs laughing as we filled out the draft registration.
I figured since I’m a guestblogger, and a guestblogger at Jen’s blog, and Jen being someone who happens to like to post about politics and things of a political nature, I’d venture into a political post. However, I’ll warn you, I’m not very political. I was wondering if it’s maybe because I’m Canadian, or maybe because I’m of a younger generation (I’m 26). I don’t know if Canadians in general are less political or less caring about politics, but I do know that Canadians of the ages 18-29 demographic are less politically informed (from CBC News television).
Canada is electing a new national government June 28th. We just found this out for sure yesterday. I’ve only voted once before in a federal election. I think I’ve been of age for two, but the first one I had just moved and therefore was not able to vote.
My understanding of Canadian politics is somewhat elementary, but I will venture forth into explaining it to you because I think the majority of Jen’s readers are probably American or from elsewhere. In Canada, we vote for Members of Parliament in local ridings. A riding contains X number of people… I’m not exactly sure what number “X” is, but ridings vary greatly in size geographically but not population-wise.
In each riding, people run to be the MP. Usually each national party has a candidate that runs. Our major political parties are currently the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDP, and the Bloc Quebecois. The BQ only run in Quebec, but because of population, Quebec has a lot of ridings.
The party that has the most number of candidates who win in their ridings becomes the majority… and their leader becomes our Prime Minister. The last several elections have seen a Liberal majority, with Paul Martin as the current leader and Prime Minister, and Jean Chretien before him.
I was watching a news report on CBC news this evening on the “apathy” of younger voters. Only 33% of Canadians ages 18-29 knew who the leader of the opposition (the party with the second most number of candidates in parliament) when asked. I admit, I did not know who it was (it’s Steven Harper, the leader of the Conservatives). I fully admit I’m not very informed about Canadian politics.
CBC news interviewed the student union president of a maritime university about why this is… why younger voters are less informed. Do we care less?
Yes and no, I think. Political parties don’t go out and target us. They don’t inform us who they are. The Alliance Party (formerly the Reform Party) was a big player in the last several elections. Now, they’ve joined the Progressive Conservative Party and together they are called the Conservatives. I think. I’m not 100% certain on this. See what I mean? I have to actively seek out that information in order to know it. I think many are still wondering what happened to the Alliance Party.
Political parties just assume we know who they are. They flash their leaders out front and want us to vote for them.
But we don’t vote for leaders, we vote for the local candidates. Ideally, we vote for the local candidate who will represent our riding’s interests most well.
I’ll let you in on a secret… if we were just voting on a leader, this is who I’d vote for.
I wouldn’t vote for Paul Martin, the leader of the Liberals, the ones who’ve been in power the last while. I wouldn’t vote for him because I think he started a wishy-washy word-throwing campaign. He doesn’t talk about what he thinks is important to Canada or Canadians, instead he talks about what another leader said and how he thinks that is bad. (and after you’ve checked out that website, check out this one, because I think it’s hilarious… http://www.stevenharpersaid.ca).
I also wouldn’t vote for Steven Harper, the leader of the Conservatives. I wouldn’t vote for him because he’s throwing it right back at Paul Martin.
I’d probably vote for whoever the leader of the NDP party is, because he’s not throwing names around or saying Paul and Steven said this and this is bad, and because he looks like a nice guy. I don’t know his name though.
Canadians are uninformed and don’t trust politicians.
I’m just another uninformed voter. This election could really go any way, because there are an awful lot of us out there who don’t really know what the issues are or what the parties stand for. If any of the parties figure this out, they could sway us all their way just by telling us what they stand for and why really we should vote for them.
(I am, by the way, not making excuses for uninformed voters. I think voters should inform themselves and make an informed vote… But I also do think that the parties could do a lot more to inform people of what they are about).
– Michelle
While Jen is on vacation, a handful of folks have been selected as competent and trustworthy enough to keep Meditatio running as interim bloggers. It’s a humbling thing to be asked to write for someone else’s blog. Jen and I don’t see eye to eye on many things political, but we seem to have a connection when it comes to animals. She loves cats, and I hate them – but really, I think it’s that extreme emotion that builds alot into a relationship.
Just kidding. Maybe.
We do chat about politics a good bit, and it’s mostly about how everyone out there is a lying thieving crook. My big statement is that there’s no one worthy of my vote: the fact that a person runs for political office at all probably reveals a deep character flaw that should remove them from consideration. The turmoil this week over the DOJ’s handling of the prison abuses, followed by the deplorable murder and video of Nick Berg – and the subsequent political “discussion” that’s going back and forth – is enough to make me take all my talk radio presets off of my XMradio. Honestly, yesterday morning I got so irate at one commentator from AirAmerica, saying that the upcoming court-martials were “show trials” and that no one was really doing anything. It was a comment made out of hand, as the left-wing marshalls are complaining that nothing is being done and that the things being done are now the wrong things, or are now just for “show”. There are no right answers here – someone made mistakes, which led to others making mistakes, and people will have to account. But the idea that the other side – from whichever side of the political fence you’re on – is not only wrong but also evil and ignorant: that idea has no place in a society built on what we think we’re founded upon.
I don’t mind disagreement. Most of the time, a good debate or confrontation can get to the truth. But the partisanship that abounds arbitrarily around here is only bringing more division, more stress to the people who are paying attention. The people who actually are ignorant and apathetic? They’re probably a pretty brainlessly happy bunch.
peace – rick
guest blogger
I was doing a Google search on my name today and came up with this article on my “arrogance and ignorance on behalf of God” because of this sermonette I posted on blogs4God. I didn’t realize that atheists read sermons on Christian blogging sites. 🙂
I don’t know whether to be proud that I hit a nerve or amused that I’m sort of famous. Austin Cline (the person who is listed on the site as the webmaster) didn’t make any strong arguments — mostly ad hominum attacks and it sounded more like a form letter than anything else.
To be fair, I’ll respond to his whole rant instead of selecting parts out of context as he did with my article. (One thing that irritates me: everything has a context and unless you put words in it, they are meaningless.) The only editing I’ve done has been to remove my last name.
What fuels the efforts of conservative and evangelical Christians to defend the inclusion of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Arrogance and ignorance seem to me to be two of the primary driving forces: arrogance in that they think their beliefs deserves a privileged status and ignorance about history, law, and religion.
Uh huh. So Newdow’s attempt to denude the POA of religious words isn’t arrogance and ignorance or demanding a privileged status for his beliefs? Riiiiight…
Jen seems to be one of those many Christians who are under the perception that so long as people can opt out of some activity, then it is constitutional for the government to encourage and endorse it. By that reasoning, government-written and government-endorsed prayers to Allah in public schools would be constitutional so long as students are allowed to refrain from joining in. Of course, when stated in such stark terms, the lunacy of that a position is manifest. The government has no authority to endorse or support the acknowledgment of any gods, much less prayers to them. The fact that students or other citizens can opt out of participating in such endorsement or support doesn’t suddenly make it all OK.
That wasn’t my point at all. I am not in favor of state-sponsored and mandated prayer in school. This also assumes that the POA is a prayer, which it is not. Bad reasoning on the part of Cline because I did not say or imply that at all.
For someone who claims to have known at an early age what Supreme Court ruling gave students the right not to join in saying the Pledge of Allegiance, Jen has a really poor knowledge of Supreme Court history with regards to religious liberty decisions. Prayers were never outlawed. Students, acting as individuals, can pray all they want. What was outlawed were state-written, state-sponsored, state-endorsed, and state-encouraged prayers. The reason wasn’t that they might “offend” someone. The reason was that the government has no authority to write, sponsor, endorse, or encourage prayers and that doing so sends the message that certain people are more privileged members of the community while others are outsiders – all because of their religious beliefs.
Again, he assumes that the POA is a prayer, which it is *NOT*. It is an oath of loyalty being expressed to the flag of the United States of America. If it was a prayer, God would not be the party it was directed toward — it would be the flag. According to his reasoning, we should ban the POA because it’s worshipping a flag. The words “under God” were added to distinguish us from the “godless Communists” by President Eisenhower and reflect the fact that our culture *is*steeped in at least the belief in a higher power which may or may not be the Christian god.
Conservatives like to play on people’s ignorance of the Supreme Court by pretending that a prohibition on a government action is the same as a prohibition on individuals’ actions – that restricting state-written prayers is the same as restricting individuals’ prayers. The question we are faced with here: is Jen one of those who has been misled and doesn’t know any better or is she one of those who does know better and is trying to mislead others? I’d love to see examples of where “other faiths” are given rights and freedoms denied to Christians.
Let’s see… the fact that no mangers can be posted in schools though menorahs can as well as any other religious objects. If we’re going to do multiculturalism in terms of religion, ALL need to be represented. This means that I should have the right to read my Bible during lunchtime, which is something that kids have gotten in trouble for doing. If someone was reading the Rig Vedas during study hall, I doubt anyone would make a big deal out of it.
A lot of people, not just Jen, have decried the 9th Circuit Court decision – but I doubt that they have read it. If they had, they would find a very careful, very cautious decision that relies heavily on Supreme Court precedent. The 9th Circuit Court judges went to a lot of effort not to stick their necks out and they based every one of their points on something already decided by the Supreme Court.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is a joke. Over half of their decisions are overturned in higher courts. Relying on a Supreme Court precedent? You’ve got to be kidding me. The judges on the court exist as entertainment for the legal system on the West Coast. Pat Robertson would have done better to focus his mafia-prayer methods on them than on the Supreme Court.
Jen appears to be one of those defenders of the Pledge of Allegiance who thinks that daily recitation of the affirmation “this nation is under God” is somehow equivalent to the neutral observation that “in the past, many political leaders have believed in God.” How ridiculous is that? Michael Newdow isn’t fighting to remove neutral references to religion in historical or cultural lessons, he is fighting to remove a state-written and state-endorsed approval of a particular theistic belief.
I actually didn’t say that at all. I said in my article that our Founding Fathers were deists. That was progressive for the time period. The phrase “under God” is not a tacit endorsement of anything other than the possibility of a higher power. I have never seen anyone be penalized for not uttering those two words and the Supreme Court has even upheld a person’s right *NOT* to say it. Pushing for the words to be removed is doing what Newdow is trying to fight against: infringing upon the beliefs of others.
There’s a world of difference between the two – one which even conservative Christians like Jen would recognize if it didn’t involve their own beliefs. Imagine the contrast between pledging belief in Allah and a history lesson which described in influence of Islam on the Middle East. Is the former unconstitutional? Absolutely. Is the latter unconstitutional? Absolutely not. Would opposition to the former logically entail opposition to the latter? Not at all. But of course, conservative and evangelical Christians don’t believe in the Islamic conception of God, so they are able to see (or at least acknowledge) the distinction here. When it comes to their own beliefs, however, such good sense seems to evaporate.
This involves the assumption that I know nothing about Islam (which totally explains why I want to do a dual M.Div/Master of Islamic Studies degree). It also involves the fallacy that all Christians are ignorant as to the fact that “Allah” is the Arabic word for God. (Ever pray with Arabic Christians? They pray to “Allah” — it’s the word for God.) Islam is a supercessionist religion — they believe that they worship the same god as the Jews and Christians but that they worship God correctly. I have never said that it was a separate deity.
Oh, the irony – by acknowledging that making room for his beliefs would “limit the belief systems of others,” Jen doesn’t seem to recognize the corollary: when the government endorses her beliefs, it essentially “limits the beliefs of others.” That, of course, is exactly why the inclusion of the phrase “under God” is being challenged. I’m sure that she wouldn’t approve of it being changed to “under no God,” but that of course just underscores the hypocrisy of the Pledge’s defenders.
What Newdow wants is a total absence of religion in the government and in society. My argument is that his desire is contrary to the guarantee of freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights. The extreme degree to which he is taking this would limit the practice of religion for everyone else. Freedom OF religion does not equal freedom FROM religion.
Chris posted the following:
So this morning I watched a very little bit of Rumsfeld’s testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, during which he offered an apology, and took full responsibility for the events at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It’ll be interesting to see if he winds up falling on his sword over this. If he does, though, the pundits on the right might not agree that the right person took the fall. According to this analysis, the groups to blame for the prisoner abuses are either women or feminists or Muslims or the academic left.
But one factor that may have contributed — but which I doubt investigators will want to even consider — is whether the presence of women in the unit actually encouraged more misbehavior, especially of the sexual nature that the pictures reveal. –FOX News political analyst Linda Chavez
The image of that female guard, smoking away as she joins gleefully in the disgraceful melee like one of the guys, is a cultural outgrowth of a feminist culture which encourages female barbarians. GI Janes are kicking around patriarchal Muslims in Iraq? — The American Spectator managing editor George Neumayr
Some Arab commentators are repeating the myth that the West has, once again, humiliated Muslims. If there has been humiliation, it isn’t the fault of the West. It is Muslims’ fault. –Cal Thomas, columnist and host of a FOX News show
[I]ncreasing the quality of military recruits would probably help avoid future Abu Ghraibs. One constructive step toward that end would be for elite universities to drop antimilitary policies, so that the military would have an easier time signing up the best and brightest young Americans. — James Taranto, editor of OpinionJournal.com
My thought: [sarcasm] Yes… let’s blame everyone from feminists to universities. Better yet, let’s blame the people who protested this war. I mean, if they actually supported sending people over there to be used as human targets, this wouldn’t have happened, right? [/sarcasm]
I have a really novel idea: why don’t we blame the troops who committed these abuses? It seems like everyone is trying to put the blame on someone besides them. They acted on their own brutal impulses and they should be punished.
And yes, I am in favor of Rumsfeld resigning. It would be the honorable thing to do because it happened on his watch and he did not act on it at an appropriate speed. When the WTO riots happened in Seattle in 1999, Police Chief Norm Stamper resigned because it happened on his watch and he took responsibility as the one in charge. Technically, Dubya is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and *HE* should resign; but I seriously doubt that it will happen (mostly because simple logic and chain of command is lost on most people) because he was only informed about this a few days ago. Rumsfeld, on the other hand, knew about this for a few months and didn’t act on it — a very bad mistake on his part. Dubya apparently “showed his displeasure to Rumsfeld” but that isn’t enough. This kind of abuse should cost Rumsfeld his job and if he has any integrity or honor, he *WILL* resign.
Closing thought: Could we also muzzle Rush Limbaugh?
I know this sounds utterly weird coming from me (who criticizes Bush every chance she gets) but I’ve seen some things that are completely over the top recently and I’m getting sick of it. I have been critical of Bush from Day 1 but I’ve backed up my criticism and praised him for things I think he did right. (Those entries do exist. Really. They do.) Here are some rules I think all bloggers should follow in discussing politics, regardless of where they stand on issues.
1.) Do not apply labels of “God’s chosen party” and “Satan’s party” to the U.S. political system. No party has a monopoly on the truth and no party is all good or all evil.
2.) Do not claim that Jesus was a Democrat or Republican. This goes along with #1. No party has a monopoly on Christianity and likewise Jesus. Jesus is not a Republican or Democrat — He is the Son of God and God does not discriminate between the two parties.
3.) Do not refer to members of either party as “the embodiment of evil”, “the Great Satan” or anything like that because it just stirs up more divisions. No person is that evil nor their ideas insidious enough that they should be called “the embodiment of evil” unless they have done one or more of the following:
a.) taken over a sovereign nation and created a dictatorship
b.) killed off all of their political enemies in the attempt to do a.
c.) caused the genocide of a minority of the population or of the opposing ethnicity after committing a and b.
d.) rigged an election and taken over the government in a bloody coup attempt involving a,b, and c.
4.) Name the news source from which you have taken the evidence to back up your claim and said news source shall be judged on the basis of its leanings. Let’s face it: the Drudge Report is garbage, FoxNews is hardly fair and balanced, and AirAmerica is leftist in response to the other two. Let’s try to find impartial news sources, mkay?
5.) Agree to respectfully disagree with those who do not share your views. I am not going to call you a “fascist pig” if you disagree with my somewhat Democrat leanings , so please refrain from touting how evil left-leaning people are, OK?
6.) Do not morph the name of the hated political candidate into a string of profanities. I think we’re all out of high school and don’t need to engage in such behavior as it is sophomoric and really does not help your case or argument. 🙂
If we could get bloggers to follow these rules, perhaps politicians would follow suit.
StarTribune.Com: Some newspapers pull, edit Doonesbury for language in strip about wounded soldier
Click here to see the uncensored strip. As far as profanity goes, it’s mild and it is at least in context.