Criticizing Obama’s friendship with a self-confessed domestic terrorist is “racist.” Apparently because the terrorist is white. Add this to the criticism of him that shows his friendship with black people. If that criticism that has white women in it. Or the Washington Monument.
Glad we got that squared away.
No word, as yet, whether criticism of the transracial candidate that has black women or Asians of any gender is also racist. So stay tuned.
Jules is on the case, by the way. Thanfully. God knows I can’t keep the plot.
Update: Jeff Goldstein decodes the coding of the coded language. Trust me. Or else, you know: Read the whole thing.
You know the really dorked up part about all this? It trivializes actual racism, just as the Duke lacrosse fiasco trivialized actual rape. Racism in this country still exists, lamentably, and it is in fact a continuing stain on our national honor. But if everything is racist, then nothing is.
OP, I’m not going away any time soon (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise). Given Michelle and I have had a fine time discussing health care over at The Flight Deck, perhaps that might be a place where regulars can hash out this topic without needlessly churning the waters of Lex’s blog?
David, would you mind providing a link to American Catholic if you open a topic on this? I’d like to read what others add to the debate.
The thrust of my comment on the Catholic vote was that while faith guides many in their daily lives, we seem to have a case where those without faith take the position that faith not only over-rides reason, but that having faith makes us, by definition, unreasonable beings.
When called irrational, it’s not terribly long before that term ceases to have any meaning.
I believe there was a book, something like “What’s Wrong with Kansas” whereupon the author determined that Kansans were too stupid to vote their own interest. Which might be a chortle in Manhattan, but I doubt had much of a sales history in Kansas. Or garnered many converts.
I’m not an expert on religion, nor claim to even have that much faith. I just find the attack interesting.
Take Psalms 91:11-12 (thanks to Google). Angels are here to protect us, from falling and injuring ourselves in effect. Using logic alone one might look upon this as an outsider and think, “Max believes he has invisible friends who will keep him from stubbing his toe when he walks. Max is, therefore, insane.” You and I would find this conclusion laughable.
Consider how much faith the Left (thinking the Bolsheviks here mainly) had in, say, planned economies and the inherent worth of labor a la communism and socialism, this being the same Left that thought faith a opiate for the masses and did all they could to outlaw religion and turn the State into a diety. The history of the early 1900’s is full of such trappings, even here in the US. They had faith too, you see.
Don’t even get started on the eugenics movements.
I also have personal friends who’ve told me of visions, of feeling a presence, some of seeing angels. I may personally think they ought to lay off the pepperoni pizza before retiring but I wasn’t there, I can’t prove it didn’t happen, and why should I care if Gabriel himself showed up and raided my friend’s fridge if it doesn’t affect me one iota?
Point being, we may all be taking ourselves a little too seriously in this argument. Until that belief directly infringes upon our freedom, it’s not much to be concerned about.
I ask these same folks (and I hang out with a bunch of them) why they disparage religion so when it was out of religion that we grew the rule of law? From the Ten Commandments to the Code of Hammurabi, to the Halakha, Sharia, and even Canon law, these faiths provided a framework for social interaction, for trade to flourish, for appeals to authority in the case of disputes, and for individual rights. Seems like a pretty good thing to me, but apparently having an invisible friend makes my opinion easily dismissed.
The Gail Collins article is what happens when you’ve a point to make, no editor, and are starting on beer #3 and it’s just not coming together towards a conclusion. Kind of like this posting, actually, though I’m only on my second.
As for Kristof, I was unaware that all birth control had to be approved by the Bush Administration. Now I can certainly imagine that when My Good Wife goes into the pharmacy her script is wired to the White House, at which point George Bush pauses from his Gas Price Manipulation machine and decides if he will accept or reject her choice of contraceptives. Probably sends a copy to the White House Office of Demographics, who will crunch the numbers and report back that we’ve too many Ethnic-0 and not enough Ethnic-1 and before you know it all the cars will have little crystals hanging from the rear-view mirror and you won’t be able to find a decent lutefisk anywhere so start denying a few!
Somehow I don’t think it’s all that clear-cut.
Kristof does have a good point, contraception does have a vital role in family planning, but he concludes that if your standard of living is low and you can’t afford to eat you need to have fewer kids.
That’s what Europe is doing and they have plenty to eat. Contrast with a mere 50 years ago when we easily had 5 or 10 children per family. The answer isn’t to reduce family size, though I agree having a family should be a choice and not necessarially chance, but to increase food and the economy. Africa doesn’t need a pack of Trojan’s, they need steady government with respects to land deeds and a container ship full of seed and tractors so they can actually farm that land to feed their populace.
I won’t presume to tell them what to do, but force condoms on them they’ll limit their workforce. Give them tools and they, like people everywhere, will through industry raise their own standard of living. Better yet, lease them farm tools and make a buck so you continue to have a farm tool manufacturer.
Kristof sees unemployment and sees a need to have fewer people to match the jobs. He never seems to grok that a bunch of unemployed are a readily-available, low-cost workforce ready to start that economic engine.
Which, as an economist, he’s kind of suprising that way.
— Max
Max, OP and any other interested parties,
My reply to your posts can be found here http://the-american-catholic.com/ under the heading “Not Just for Catholics: Pro-Live Secularism and the Preservation of Our Republic.”