Here is a tough question to consider: what did it take to get the Germans to the Nuremberg Trials? The sad truth is that as low as we've sunk on the moral level, we can sink an awful lot lower, and we may have to before the terrible lesson that American exceptionalism is an evil sham penetrates our general consciousness. So far our population has been largely immune from the evils of war, famine and pestilence that have plagued most of humanity (and which our government has been content to visit on them). I fear we may have to join in the general suffering before the wrong is set right.

Posted at April 29, 2008 2:26 PM in response to Today's Must Read

Ooh . . . the Family Values Coalition, a fine Christian organization, I'm sure, is in cahoots with Jack Abramoff to cover up a system that forces poor, enslaved women forces them, mind you, to have abortions against their will. And now Mr. Schaffer is implicating them in an attempt to escape responsibility for his part in the whole mess. Keep digging, boys. See how many more of your friends you can drag down with you.

Posted at April 23, 2008 4:22 PM in response to Today's Must Read

Well, maybe they didn't happen to be doing abortions in his hotel lobby the week he was there.

Ya know, these fools just never know when to quit. Was somebody holding a gun to his head telling him he had to bring up the Marianas Islands during his campaign? I just don't understand the psychology of the thing. Here he is coasting along, and he starts blabbing making the US like the Marianas Islands, when everybody knows the next line is "they make the poor women in the factories get forced abortions," the one thing thing that's sure to inflame the very people most likely to vote for him. And now he just can't seem to get his feet out of his mouth. It's almost Freudian on some level.

Clinton is actually a good analogy because he was so self-destructive as well.

Posted at April 22, 2008 12:24 AM in response to Schaffer: What Forced Abortions? I Didn't See Any Forced Abortions

Remind me again, which party does Hillary belong to?

Posted at September 14, 2007 3:41 PM in response to Clinton vs. Clinton on Israel

It's prions that cause Mad Cow Disease, not e coli. We must protect the rights of all prions to build a free maarket environment for the meat they produce.

Posted at June 2, 2007 5:59 PM in response to A Reply to Rick Perlstein on "E. coli conservatism"

I agree. On the one hand, I can see why it's provoked by the great number of noisy fanatics who crowd the rightwing airwaves. On the other hand, it's descending to their level.

Posted at April 5, 2007 3:10 PM in response to Skepticism about Faith

If one of these people is your senator, keep up the pressure through calls and emails. Smith (mine) is facing re-election in 08, and he appears to be dancing back and forth, trying to appease all sectors of his electorate. With any luck, he'll end up alienating everybody.

Posted at February 7, 2007 8:07 PM in response to Seven Republican Senators Blast McConnell & Reid Over Iraq War Resolution Debate Fiasco

This is really a reply to the last two posts. I fully respect those who construct an ethical system without reference to theistic religion. I just think it's a big mistake to use evolutionary biology as your organizing principle. The foundation of the latter is natural selection which is a pretty poor choice for an ethical system. As far as I can see, it leads inevitably to social Darwinism, which didn't work out too well, as we all know. It works fine for biology, badly for culture and ethics. I think Stoicism provides a better model. But it's not a science; it's a philosophical system.

I do object to the implied globalization of your principles. "I believe thus and so; therefore everybody who believes differently is superstitious and/or ignorant." It's nearly as objectionable as the Christianists who apparently want to forcibly convert everyone who disagrees with them. Once again, as others have said, these lunatics aren't really Christians. What happened to the idea of constructing a public space in which people agree to disagree on matters of personal belief and live in tolerant diversity?

If we've become this polarized, then the yahoos and know-nothings have already won.

Posted at May 25, 2006 7:37 PM in response to What is to be done?

I think this is a very important point. And Republicans as they've emerged in the modern sense, not the traditional party of Eisenhower. I prefer to tag them as many are beginning to do, as Christianists, who politicize the religion and think to create a theocracy.

But frankly, to proclaim that you are able to live without ultimate meaning in life and that everyone else should, too, is to play into their hands. It's certainly your right in a diverse polity and should remain so.

But science as a system can deal only with questions concerning the material world, just as religion deals with questions of ultimate meaning. Even if you profess no religion, you can't really gain an ethical system from evolution. It leads to social darwinism. I think the philosophical mistake both sides have made in this debate is looking to their ultimate authority (be it science or religion) for types of meaning it can't provide.

The ID "debate" of course, is not a debate at all. It's a political strategy to destroy scientific authority. But I think whatever our personal religious beliefs, we should get clear on what each system can provide. I don't think they're incompatible if properly understood.

Posted at May 25, 2006 4:39 PM in response to What is to be done?

People see what they want to see. Real country music sold out a long time ago to the fake stuff that can be easily merchandised, and it's the same thing for the down-home image the Bush team cultivated. We're all used to TV and image-making and they were very good at marketing it all. The question is: Can the Dems be savvy enough this time around to start getting the message out on Allen and the other bozos before they can groom him or whatever other dumb, sadistic front man as an authentic, down-home, just-folks manly man of the people who is going to be the wise Leader of Western Civilization. Exposes like this one need all the publicity they can get.

Posted at April 28, 2006 4:36 PM in response to George Allen: Boring, and Weird