Religion of Palin

Published December 8, 2009 Politics 3 Comments
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For some people, their admiration for Sarah Palin becomes such a cult of personality that it approaches religion.  This is especially ironic because a lot of those people accused Obama supporters of worshiping him like some sort of “savior.”  While it is true that Obama’s supporters, well, supported him, the messianic/religious rhetoric was all invented by conservatives.  Almost half of Obama’s supporters were initially Clinton supporters, but they cared about the policies Obama represented. Many of those criticizing conservatives spontaneously worship Palin in the same way they imagined Obama’s supporters thought of him.

Exhibit A: Nick Horton meets Sarah Palin.  This conservative icon traveled 5 hours and camped outside in the freezing cold for another 12 hours to meet Palin for a few moments at a book signing.  Here is an excerpt with some emphasis added:

It was amazing to see the hospitality of the community–the free cocoa, the donuts, the restroom accommodations, the evangelism.  Is this typical for every book signing?  Or is there something special about Sarah?  The obvious joy and surprise that Sarah brought to even the staff of Border’s indicated that things were a bit out of the ordinary.  They were visibly impressed with her friendliness and genuine concern for her supporters.

Friends and family continue to ask me if Sarah was as nice, as pretty, and as sincere as she seems on television.  Not even close, I tell them–she is above and beyond.

It was truly an honor to spend just a few moments with such a courageous leader.  More and more I am convinced that she is the new Ronald Reagan.  She is that once-in-a-generation, charismatic, conservative stalwart.  But better yet, she is simply a real person–an average American who answered the call when she saw corruption in her city government; an average American who has inspired me to do the same.

God bless you, Sarah.

Pearl Harbor and Iraq

Published December 8, 2009 Random 1 Comment
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Yesterday was Pearl Harbor day, and Pearl Harbor day always bothered me for some reason.  The thing about Pearl Harbor is, it was not all that bad of a thing.  World War II included scores of really bad things including the firebombing of Dresden (25k dead), firebombing of Tokyo (100k dead), atomic bombing of Hiroshima (140k dead), and atomic bombing of Nagasaki (80k dead).  Compared to those staggering casualties, the 3k US fatalities at Pearl Harbor seems morally insignificant, especially considering that Pearl Harbor was a military target while most of the above casualties were civilians.

The other thing about Pearl Harbor is that it is completely understandable and justifiable from the perspective of the Japanese.  Imagine if the Bush administration’s justification for the 2003 Iraq invasion had been truthful.  Those same arguments could easily justify Japan’s preemptive attack in 1941.  The US was uncooperative and belligerent toward Japan’s strategic aims.  It was aiding Japan’s enemies by providing them equipment and support. It could easily be seen as an imminent threat.

Actually, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is a lot more justifiable than the US attack on Iraq.  Why do some in America (like Sarah Palin, apparently) continue to irrationally bemoan the injustice of this attack?

Law School Reading pt. 2

Published December 2, 2009 Books , My Life 7 Comments
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Since the midterm of my first semester at law school, I have spent more time studying, blogging, and reading.  I’m not sure what got squeezed out (maybe sleep?) to make room, but it has been a great semester.  I read eight books during the first half of the semester, and eleven books in the second half.  When I am reading them, I have lots of thoughts that sometimes get translated into articles for Political Cartel, but I rarely feel like reviewing them after I am done – I am too antsy to move on to the next book.

These are my latest books and my quick thoughts on them:

  • Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk – Palahniuk is always a clever writer and this was one of my top three favorites of his.  Everyone knows Fight Club, at least the movie, but they have no idea how disturbing his writing really is.
  • Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller – Lots of people loved this book at Harding, but I don’t know why.  It was poorly conceived, poorly organized, poorly written, and poorly edited.  Miller is apparently a full time writer, and he frequently complains about it in his book – no wonder, he is not a good writer.
  • The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins – Dawkins is a leader in the aggressive atheist movement.  There is a possible shift now among atheists from merely avoiding religion to openly attacking it.  Dawkins’ approach is based partly on biology and partly on philosophy.
  • The Evolution of God, Robert Wright – Wright describes how religion evolved from pre-historic to modern times, and makes a good argument for the value of religion at a time when defending religion is not intellectually fashionable.  It started out very good, but got a little goofy at the end.
  • The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,  Bobby Henderson – This is a cleverly satirical mockery of intelligent design and religion by the prophet Bobby.
  • Republican Gomorrah, Max Blumenthal – This was a great book that describes the Religious Right’s destructive obsession with sex, tying together lots of stories and scandals.
  • The Bible: A Biography, Karen Armstrong – It is a short summary, not of the Bible itself, but of its compilation and interpretation.  It is a combination of source criticism, literary criticism, and historiography, and it is good.
  • What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell – I’m glad he calls these stories “adventures,” because each one feels like that.  It’s a different format from the Tipping Point and Blink, but it is good.
  • The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling – It made me feel like a kid again.  So much that I rented the Disney movie from the library and watched it multiple times afterward.
  • The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine – It was really interesting to see his arguments and how relevant his criticism of religion still is.
  • True Love, Tich Nhat Hanh – Heather gave me this because she loves me and knows that I love Tich Nhat Hanh.

If I can read 15-20 books per semester and a few more over Christmas and summer, then I can finish more than a hundred during my three years at law school.  That would be cool.

If you have read any of these, you may have your own insights.  I’m wondering what to read next.  I have the new Dan Brown book and a book my mom recommended, The Road.  I also have the Koran and the Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran.  I want to get a book by Ray Kurzweil because my undergraduate debate professor was obsessed with him and I enjoy his talks on TED.com, and I want to get some book about primatology.  Any other ideas?

The Winner of the Searcy Mayor Poll is…

Published November 25, 2009 Politics 3 Comments
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…not Mayor Belinda LaForce, who achieved 48%, which was between17%-33% more than the two closest runners up.  This poll was posted at the Arkansas Patriot, a very funny site that discusses local politics in Searcy, Arkansas in terms of a cosmic battle between elitist big government liberals and Joe the Plumber type folks.  The blog owners constantly moans about the mayor and her extremist liberal policies, like collecting a small A&P tax which mostly affects visitors to the city, making local elections nonpartisan, and limiting the number of yard sales per year to eight*.  They were evidently not pleased when Belinda LaForce came in first on their online poll.  So they decided that she didn’t really win it.

In fact, one commenter went so far as to extrapolate:

it should be pointed out that the mayor did not receive a majority of the votes. Much like Blanche Lincoln , Vic Snyder, etc. anyone with a pulse is projected to beat them in a head to head election.

So, the take away from this 48-31-15-3-1 slaughter is that the 48% will lose because it wasn’t 51%?  Not only that, but any of the others could easily beat the 48%.

There is so much craziness in that comment, it may take some time for it to sink in.  The writer cites Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Vic Snyder (D-AR2) as further examples of this phenomenon.  Senator Lincoln won 56-44 in 2004 and 55-42 in 1998.  Vic Snyder won 77-23 in 2008; 61-39 in 2006; 58-42 in 2004; 93-7 in 2002; 57-43 in 2000; 58-42 in 1998; and 52-48 in 1996. No polling is available for the congressional race, but Senator Lincoln recently defeated the top two challengers in head to head polls, according to Zogby (41-39 and 45-29).  It is unclear where the earlier prediction came from.

I read this blog in my spare time because it’s funny to see how people like that think.  The primary writer for it is running for city council in Searcy, and appears quite likely to lose.  That isn’t stopping him from covering the internet with frenetic tweets and blogs about the big-government liberals in the Searcy city government.

*The yard sale thing was really one of my all time favorites.  The city council proposed limiting the number of yard sales for each resident to 8 per year.  To most normal people, this appeared to be an effort to limit citizens from operating businesses through never-ending yard sales in their front yards in residential-zoned areas.  Nobody wants to live next to those neighbors who always have junk out on their lawns.  If they want to run a business, let them open one.  To some observers, it appeared to be the end of yard sales in Searcy.  The writer later wrote:

As predicted, the Searcy city council passed the yard sale ordinance on Tuesday night. This is a sad day for freedom in Searcy. If freedoms so basic, so essential as the right to enterprise can be stripped away at the whims of elitists, what else are we in danger of losing?

Too weird to comment on.  Congratulations to the mayor for winning the ridiculous poll on the Arkansas Patriot.

Forsaking Peace of Mind

Published November 14, 2009 Books , philosophy , religion 1 Comment
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Steve Denney pointed me to a book that is on the top of my list to buy now: When Nietzsche Wept. He wrote a short entry about the book as Another Reason God Won’t Die,” following up on his earlier article for Political Cartel.

This quote from the book really spoke to me and made me want to read it even more:

There [is] a basic division of the ways of men:  those who wish for peace of soul and happiness must believe and embrace faith, while those who wish to pursue the truth must forsake peace of mind and devote their life to inquiry.

Restrictive Laws?

Published November 6, 2009 My Life , law Leave a Comment
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When I took Constitutional Law in undergrad, my professor asserted something like:

Every law involves some restriction of freedom.

He challenged us to come up with a law that did not restrict citizens’ freedom in some way.  I suggested that the Motor Voter Act may not have restricted anybody’s freedom, since the law made it mandatory for DMV offices to offer to register citizens to vote when they came to get their drivers licenses.

Later, I thought that he probably came to that conclusion because of libertarian anti-government influences.  I tend to view the government in more positivist terms.  I don’t think it is a necessary evil because I don’t think it is necessarily evil at all.

I understand the anti-government libertarian position in the abstract, and I have to respect it for being one of the most consistent modern political philosophies.  But I really wonder if its adherents have thought about what their system would look like in reality.

FSM on Christianity

Published November 5, 2009 Random , religion 1 Comment
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“Christianity appears to be the Rambo of religions, with the Crusades, the Inquisition, various bloody rebellions, the Conquistadors… the list seems nearly endless.  Suffice it to say that when Jesus Christ stated, in his bewitching and Yoda-like manner, “But those enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me (Luke 19:27).”

- The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

No Religion or Politics?

Published November 3, 2009 My Life , Politics , religion 4 Comments
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There are a lot of people who cannot tolerate any discussion of religion or politics.  There are entire families of these people.  What do they talk about?

I know not everyone has a debater personality type, but it still seems like anyone should be able to tolerate discussion on these things.  I can understand people who are passionate about their political or religious beliefs and I can understand others who are apathetic.  It is the people who are passionate but repressive who baffle me.

How do they know what they actually believe and why do they believe it so strongly?  Maybe they would change their minds if they allowed themselves to hear new ideas?  Maybe that is what they are afraid of.

My family always had religious, philosophical, and political discussions at the dinner table.  Nothing is off-limits because nobody gets offended just by discussing ideas.  We have a blast.  Maybe that is why I am the way I am…

Blog Graveosphere

Published October 27, 2009 Blogging , Random 6 Comments
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The blogosphere is full of abandoned blogs floating around the internet like space junk.  I have known lots of people who started a blog at some point, but failed to keep it updated.  As far as I know, there is no mechanism for most of the major blog hosts (WordPress, Blogger, etc.) to remove inactive sites.

Just from the people I knew at Harding, I know of at least four blogs that began as great ideas but fizzled out:

What’s Left Now -A group blog for left-leaning students to comment on political and other topics

Libertas Exemplar -A group blog for ultra-conservatives (because Harding needed a conservative voice!  Haha)

Hobson’s Buffet – A group blog on random topics

I still have these and other inactive blogs on my Reader, so if they ever get fired up again, I will be there to read them. I love reading what my peers and friends are thinking about (there is a good chance that I am the weird one here).

It’s kind of sad to see blogs fall silent and grow cobwebs when their owners stop writing.  It takes a certain kind of person to keep writing and it is understandable that a lot of blogs fail.  I do wonder if the abandoned blogs floating around will ever make the internet as crowded as space junk makes space dangerous.  Perhaps, but unlike space, the internet has essentially infinite real estate for expansion.

RIP, abandoned blogs…

Old Man Justifications

Published October 25, 2009 My Life 5 Comments
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It’s my birthday today.  I usually try to fool myself into thinking that every birthday is a milestone in some way, even though lots of them are not.  This was my attempt for 23:

People think of 22 as just one year away from twenty one.  Twenty three is “in your twenties” for real.

That’s nice, but the truth is I still get carded at Wal-Mart trying to buy things like rated-R movies and super glue. My license has a bright red band on it that says “Under 21 until October 25, 2007.”  That was a long time ago, but sometimes the cashier (or whoever) takes an embarrassingly long time to analyze it.

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This work by David Manes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.