The Best Route to Liberalism

“I’m a libertarian because I’m a liberal.  In other words, I support small-government, free-market policies because I believe they provide the institutional framework best suited to advancing the liberal values of individual autonomy, tolerance, and open-mindedness. Liberalism is my bottom line; libertarianism is a means to promoting that end.” -Brink Lindsey

I’ve been contemplating this sentiment for some time now, and just stumbled across Lindsey’s words today. That about sums it up.

Swiss Ban Steeples on Christian Churches

That’s not true, but it would make you mad wouldn’t it?

They actually banned minarets, tall spires that stand near Muslim places of worship.

Still angry?

Close Enough

Happy Thanksgiving.

Why Politics Make Me Sick Sometimes

The “killing” of U.S. census worker Bill Sparkman that was “motivated by right-wing radio and television hosts” has turned out to be a suicide. When news broke a few months ago that Sparkman was found dead in Clay County Kentucky, the netroots went off, blaming any and all right leaning commentators for the man’s death.

Here are a few things major players in the netroots said:

MyDD

If conservative politicians and opinion leaders keep stoking fears about the government using census data to steal from or perhaps even round up law-abiding citizens, I am concerned that mentally unstable individuals will commit further acts of violence against census-takers next year. Republicans should condemn the hatemongers and make clear that the census is not only permitted, but required under the Constitution.

Andrew Sullivan

“No Suicide: That’s the one thing we know for certain now in the case of the Kentucky lynching….But the most worrying possibility – that this is Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts – remains real. We’ll see.”

ThinkProgress

The gruesome lynching of this Census worker seems to bear a disturbing similarity to some of the worst hate crimes committed across this country. Regardless of what the motive for the killing may have been, why would a murderer(s) take such pains to so blatantly convey anger, fear, and vitriol towards a Census employee? Perhaps because some on the right have created an impression that Census employees are terrifying.

Earlier this summer, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) waged a high-profile, wildly-dishonest campaign against the Census.

Huffington Post

Others, namely the type to kill a Census worker and string up his body as message to the government, may call it a retraining camp run by the “Feds.”

This is the kind of violent event that emerges from a culture of paranoia and unsubstantiated attacks.

Andrew Sullivan

From this profile of the cancer survivor and volunteer, it appears suicide is unlikely. We’ll find out. But at some point, unhinged hostility to the federal government, whipped up by the Becks, can become violence. That’s what Pelosi was worried about.

True/Slant

Send the body to Glenn Beck…Is it possible that the time has come for the FCC to consider exactly what constitutes screaming fire over the publicly owned airwaves? And what if Mr. Sparkman’s murderer(s) is never found? How many other lunatics will be emboldened to make their own anti-government statement as the voices of Beck, Limbaugh and Dobbs echo in their ears?

Nobody ever intended our public airwaves to be turned over to irresponsible voices. Maybe the time has come for the FCC to worry a bit less about wardrobe malfunctions and a whole lot more about those who would use our airwaves to make a name for themselves at the expense of the public they are suppose to serve–particularly when the expense comes in the form of blood.

Thanks to Michael Moynihan for pulling those.

You would think that an apology would be in order for jumping so quickly to conclusions. But mark my words, you won’t hear it. Sure, some might come out and say, “Okay, sorry, but it could still happen!” That’s the best you’ll see.

For anyone interested in getting into politics: If you have any regard for intellectual honesty, this is the most bankrupt industry you can get yourself involved in. You can say whatever you want about whomever you want, and you won’t be held accountable for it. You will use dishonesty in any way to make sure your side wins. If that sounds like you, hop a plane to Washington. This the only place in the country hiring anyway.

UPDATE: MyDD apologizes in the way I said they would:

Because of the way Sparkman’s body was found, I wrongly assumed he had been murdered. Apologies for jumping the gun on that one.

I stand by my view that conservatives should stop making paranoid allegations about the census and avoid the rhetoric of armed rebellion when talking about political opponents.

Approximately 1 million temporary workers will be hired next year to conduct the census. They will be trained to deal calmly with people who express hatred for the government.

Update [2009-11-24 21:00:02 by Nathan Empsall]: Well this is big news. And I’ll echo what desmoinesdem said: mea culpa and apologies for jumping the gun myself as well. I too stand by my point that the behavior of the fringe can lead to violence, but thankfully this was not, as we had each assumed, an example of such. Sometimes it’s nice to be wrong.

UPDATE: Sullivan, too:

For stating it wasn’t a suicide, based on eye-witness accounts and my own common sense, I apologize. It was premature. For directly accusing far right extremists, as opposed to thinking it was a worrying possibility, I plead not guilty. Because I didn’t.

Rings around Earth

Ever wonder what Earth would look like with Saturn-like rings around it?

HT Sullivan

A Dispatch from Alaska

I just picked up my old copy of Audacity of Hope, which I read while commercial fishing in Alaska.  I forgot to bring my journal one day, but had the book with me, so I wrote a short entry in the back pages.

July 18, 2007

Bear Island, Alaska

For the first time since I arrived, the captain has given us a mid-morning break. We have been working ridiculously hard for the past few days, pulling up the nets, clearing the mess of kelp from the North Pacific and loading them back into the boats. In a few minutes we will head back out to the water and do it all over again.

I left my journal up in my room, so the only thing I have to write on is the back cover of Obama’s book. It just seems like the perfect day to sit and write. The air is cool and a soft rain is falling on the beach in front of me. I sit quietly on the make-shift swing that hangs in the warehouse down by the water.

The sound of the ocean is soothing after a hard morning’s work. All the other guys have abandoned their gear and run up to their rooms for a quick nap. I chose to stay near the water. It isn’t so often that we get any type of break like this. There is always more work to be done around here.

Alaska is a place of both magnificent beauty and great fury. It is that very majesty that can both marvel the senses and take your life at the same time. The dark Alaskan sea that flows before me is a mysterious beauty that is to be severely respected. I will leave here with a far greater admiration for nature (and her power) than when I arrived nearly two months ago.

These are formative times in my life. I came to this frontier knowing that time is both on my side and working against me at the same time. Before I leave this small island, I will turn 22 years old. Still young, but quickly growing old. I am already asking myself where the time went. It feels like just last week I was 18. Heaven only knows what it must be like to wake up 40 years from now with the same feeling I have today.

But I want at least to be able to look back on these days when I had the freedom to drop everything and move to a tiny rock 4,000 miles from everything I know and love.

For who knows what tomorrow shall bring?

At least for today, I am free.

Too Good to Pass Up

When asked to sign a copy of the Constitution, Al Sharpton responds…

Well, just watch:

Catholics Going Galt?

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to discontinue social service programs in DC in response  to a proposed law that would not exempt religious organizations working with the city from discrimination laws involving hiring gays and lesbians.

In other words, the Catholics are (sort of) going Galt:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

…Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”

The problem here is that the Archdiocese has partnered with the city for a number of years on social programs, and they are having to play by the government’s rules. So when Gibbs says that you must be secular to provide social services, she’s leaving out a major part of the story. If you want to provide social services with public money, then you may have to sacrifice certain things.

It’s sort of like Wall Street CEO having to take government-mandated pay cuts after receiving taxpayer funding. When you leave the private life and slip a toe into the public sphere, you give up certain things. As one supporter of the new law says in the article, “The issue here is they are using public funds, and to allow people to discriminate with public money is unacceptable.”

Of course, the legislation that DC is proposing won’t affect religious organizations that provide services on their own, and it shouldn’t. Civil society should be allowed to continue on in a spirit of free association. But it just goes to show you that if you want to keep your independence, don’t partner with the state.

 

 

On ‘Home Grown’ Extremism

Anne Applebaum reviews a new book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West, and arrives at some startling realizations. The author discusses Europe’s openness to immigrants, mainly of Middle Eastern and north African descent, and how their over the top “tolerance” actually increased the propensity of extremism within their countries.

But if the immigrants were not going to be German or Dutch or British, but were no longer Turkish or Moroccan or Pakistani, what were they going to be? The answer, as it turned out, was that many of them were going to live in ghettos, where their identity as “Muslims” would matter far more to them than it might ever have done in their country of origin, and where many of them would begin to practice the politics of fundamentalism. Finding the fuzziness of the European project unappealing, they returned to–or, among the young, discovered–their Islamic roots. And here is the tragedy of the story: for all its well-meaning secular earnestness, for all its determination to avoid the mistakes of the past, the European project wound up creating an angry and alienated religious minority where none had existed before.

Proactive efforts to carefully assimilate new immigrants must be taken in any immigration policy. In the case of Europe, when it came time for them to learn from their own mistakes, it was too late.

When Soldiers Come Home

Jason English put together a compilation of videos showing how dogs react when their masters return home from war. It’s touching.

Now, the human version. Perhaps even more touching:

Happy Veterans Day.