Archive for July 2008

The Perils of Site Titling: a Different Kind of “Candid”

As you’ll know if you’ve read beyond the first post of this site, this site’s namesake is the Declaration of Independence, in which Thomas Jefferson asks that King George’s atrocities against the American people be “submitted to a candid world” for judgment. Jefferson’s phrasing is a statement of his trust in the ability of common people, average citizens of the world, to know political evil when they see it. “A candid world” meant to Jefferson a world free of spin, a world willing to listen, and a world willing to reason.

However, “a candid world” has a different meaning on the internet, most likely because 90% of the internet is porn. I know this because, thanks to WordPress, I can see what Google search strings lead to this site, and I dare say that some of the searchers didn’t get what they were looking for. I’ll let you decide. Some recurrent search strings:

• candid oops girls
• candid girls
• candid what boys want law

Okay, the first two I get, but the third has me completely lost. Regardless, I don’t think the searchers were looking for smoking hot-off-the-presses politics from the perspective of young professionals/recent college students, or passionate debates on the constitutional basis for gay rights and anti-sex discrimination legislation.

Perhaps Avenue Q is right:

The internet is for porn. Or at least Google is.

McCain, Desperate, Drops the Maverick/Uniter Facade and Guns for Barack Bush-Style

For the Republicans, intelligence is elitism, and populists are out of touch.  Also, as corollaries, ignorance is strength, and we’ve always been at war with Iraq.

It’s been said that a man shows his quality only when his back is to the wall.  If that’s the case, America is about to get its first good look at the soul of John McCain, and it isn’t pretty.  Pushed by a new crack team of ex-Bush, Rove-educated political hitmen, McCain has decided to stoop to comparing Barack Obama’s popularity at home and abroad to the mindless celebrity of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.  How Obama can be a vacuous, ditzy celebrity suit, while simultaneously being a book-smart elitist is beyond me, and that’s not the worst thing about this ad campaign, either.

No, the beatific smile at the end isn’t the worst part, either.  The worst part is that McCain, by taking on Bush’s PR team and its style (hit the enemy where he’s strongest, turn his strengths against him) has completed his fall from straight-talking politician to Rovian double-talker and spin-master.  “McSame” indeed.  The Senator has just proven again that, when push comes to shove, the McCain we loved in the Senate is not the McCain we’ll get if he makes it to the Oval Office.

Gleefully, this latest attack has all the signs of flopping.  Although the ad is outrageous enough to get him more than a little free play on the networks – likely from commentators mocking it – the Rovian tactic of strength inversion (make a plus a negative) may not work in this case.  While the ad attempts to turn Obama’s popularity on its head, (1) the comparison drawn to Britney/Paris is too preposterous to pass the laugh test, blunting the ad’s overall force, (2) the ad has nothing new to say otherwise, and (3) the ad has to mention Obama’s rabid popularity to attack it.  “Draw the sting” tactics like that have a way of backfiring – all many will see is, “oooh, Obama’s so popular!” – and then there’s the persistent problem of running a negative campaign.

Most importantly, though, this ad is just a shock-jockey’s repackaging the old “Obama’s an empty suit” meme, the useful lifetime of which is drawing to a close.  With Obama’s vice-presidential pick around the corner, fears of an inexperienced Obama White house should start to ring a little hollow.

Fast-Food Jesus: How Commercialized Christianity Reduces Faith to a Label and Polarizes Politics

What would Jesus buy?

When I was in high school, The Prayer of Jabez, a book professing to teach the devoted to use a simple prayer to bend God to their will and cure their life’s problems by nothing more than prayer, swept the nation and rocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. I was disgusted at the time, and I retain that feeling today. Jabez represented an attempt – even worse, a successful attempt! – to dress up a crummy self-help technique (repetitive ritual and positive thinking, hurray!) as religion and sell it to needy, adrift, disadvantaged people in need of real help. Jabez-style Christianity is practically Scientology: “Are you sad? Give me money, do a ritual, you’ll feel better, I promise.”

I don’t want you to think that I discredit or mock the power of religion to heal and make whole. Quite apart, I’m a firm believer that, for some people, the powerful feeling of belonging and higher purpose flowing from organized religion are just what they need. But that’s not what Jabez offered. Jabez took the religious label – the Christian “brand,” if you will – gutted it of faith, purpose, and meaning, left in a hollow ritual, called it religion, and promised salvation. If religion has power, its power and moral authority flow from its ability to ask the tough questions about human nature, morality, and our life’s purpose, and compel good action upon those questions. Religion’s positive force, like so much else in the world, flows from thought: by abandoning thought and reducing religion to mindless doctrine and repetitive, empty, hopeful deeds, Jabez began the modern process of divorcing faith from thought and reducing religion to a mere label devoid of meaning, a process continued by the transformation of religion into a modern “business.” Buy this fish emblem, come to our megachurch to speak in tongues…

...buy this ringtone...

…join our pop culture. Commercialism imports mainstreaming, and mainstreaming imports conformity, and a dearth of independent thinking fatal to the potential for good that religion carries. When religion becomes mainstream, a trend, and commercial, it loses its effectiveness as a force for social good. When religion becomes a “popular trend,” and an icon, the potential for introspection, philosophizing, and personal moralizing dies.

Meaningless trend.

Take the “Silver Ring Thing.” No, please, take it (alas, I overuse that line). The practice started as a way of getting girls to publicly commit to abstinence until marriage, but became a social statement, lost meaning, and lost effectiveness accordingly. Meaningful social statements rarely survive the transition from a discrete personal belief and cause to a mainstream, widespread, advertised, marketable craze. And religion is no different. Commercialized religion is de-personalized, and discourages the personalization needed to make it meaningful. It becomes a badge, a trend, a label, and nothing more.

Actually, that’s not entirely accurate. If commercialized religion comes to divorce the label from thought, it popularizes the label nonetheless. And a personal label – “I am X” – is a dangerous thing in the hands of a demagogue. While “a man will not have himself killed for a petty distinction,” religion as a decontextualized label retains its forcefulness as a strong point of identity, and, by virtue of its lack of substance, is easily appropriated by the demagogue to convince one to act a certain way. And since the label, once commercialized, loses its anchor in independent thought and reason, it becomes dogmatic, unflinching, and even more dangerous. Hence unchristian, immovable, shallow fundamentalism: a religion composed of talking points.

Again, I draw a line between good religion and bad religion, and laud good religion for its continued contributions to society. Good religion encourages thought, a personal commitment to act “good,” and a personal commitment to decide what “good” means. Bad religion, though – religion without reason, without a grounding in learning and a philosophy open to debate – is a scary thing. And that’s what commercialized religion produces. When religion becomes more of a status symbol or a pop sub-culture, and less of a personal commitment, we have cause to worry indeed.

The Latest Carnival of the Liberals, from Fundamentalism to Health Policy, and Plans for Hosting the Next Carnival

Thanks to “Cult of Gracie” for including us in the latest Carnival of the Liberals, an agglomeration of selections from the best of liberal blogs.  Gracie’s chosen to highlight, out of apparently quite a few submissions, articles on the paradox of fundamentalist “family values,” along with posts on political denialism, the trouble with torture, and McCain’s health plan.  As always, it’s worth more than a look.

Also, I’ll be hosting the next Carnival of the Liberals in two weeks right here.  I’ve already received two entries, and you can submit yours through the Carnival’s submission form here, by e-mailing me a link with a description of the article, or by commenting to this thread with the same.

I’ll try to include all submissions, but from what I hear from Gracie and other carnival hosts, there tend to be quite a few to choose from, so I might have to pare them down.   Accordingly, in keeping with the themes of this site, I’ll give special attention & preference to articles covering the intersection of politics and the law or politics and science, and articles with an in-depth treatment of political symbolism & spin will be almost guaranteed inclusion, regardless of how many submissions I get.  I’m looking forward to it!

Civil Disobedience: Pirate Expelled

Ben Stein’s use of Lennon’s “Imagine” in the creationist (no-)think-piece, Expelled, pushed the limits of copyright law. Maybe it’s time to push back. Now that the DVD is up for pre-order – kudos to “The Lay Scientist” for a lovely agglomeration of reviews – let’s ask ourselves, faced with a positively dangerous, offensive, and categorically wrong piece of film, what would Thoreau do?

Pirate it. I submit that Thoreau might fire up his uTorrent and, if anybody out there on the internets ever wanted the movie, provide it to them free of charge, thus denying Ben Stein a dime, if he could help it. While undoubtedly contrary to copyright law, piracy would deny Stein the right to profit from the exploitation of the weak of mind, and correct – or, weigh against – a defect in the marketplace of ideas, by which rich fools pollute the thought of the rest of us.

While I *ahem* don’t urge or “expressly incite” others to follow this course of action – nor do I declare my own intention to do so – I express my sympathies for those that take the marketplace of ideas into their own hands. I also imagine that even abstract advocacy of unlawfulness in defense of science might play into the ID creationists’ persecution complex. At any rate, I suppose we have until October 21, 2008 to decide.

Selling Pseudoscience and False Hope to the Voters: John McCain & Offshore Drilling

According to the polls – as reported by our friend Progressive Conservative – John McCain is making headway by all of a sudden backing offshore drilling, and blaming Barack Obama directly for rising oil prices.

McCain’s latest talking point packs on layer after layer of dishonesty, deception, and fraud. First, and most importantly, blaming a global energy crisis on one man is the very definition of scapegoating & misdirection. Second, McCain is building false hope: any real scientist (don’t take my word for it) will tell you that drilling in ANWAR, or off the coast, is a money-losing proposition that won’t show any results – not even bad ones – for at least another decade. And third, McCain’s sudden support for offshore drilling, and the elevation of the issue to his campaign’s sole winning PR point, are stunning reversals, considering that McCain has opposed offshore drilling as being motivated by “special interests” since 2000. To reverse course on a belief he’s held for eight years, just when the going gets tough, suggests insincerity and a lack of convictions at best, and a willingness to sell out to the same “special interests” at worst. In short, it’s the very opposite of straight talk. It’s curved every which way.

While we’re used to political trickery like points one and three (slanderous spin and cunning reverals) from most politicians, it’s a bit surprising from McCain, and suggests that perhaps he and Mitt Romney were made for each other. This is the same McCain who stood in Detroit in the winter and told autoworkers that there were no easy answers. For McCain to now give America empty promises of easy answers on a difficult issue is a disappointing reversal, to say the least.

More disappointing still, though, is McCain’s reliance on false hope and selective science to make his point. While “drill more” is an easy answer to the oil problem, and likely to convince those that don’t know any better, more drilling is just a feel-good answer with no substance. While drilling in our own country may send the right message to foreign countries – i.e., “we don’t need your terror-financed oil” – it’s empty symbolism and empty “hope,” the very things for which McCain and Republicans deride Obama.

The utilization of false hope, bad science, special interest group’s money, and baseless accusations to score political points are Rove-era tactics, and woefully out-of-step with the straight-talking maverick McCain that the media and the American people have come to love. Alas for the McCain of 2000; you were too good for the Republican party.

RationalWiki 3.0: the Internet for Rationalists

RationalWiki, the wiki-sphere’s response to pseudoscience and radicalized religion, has reinvented itself to cover the world, and the good and bad of the blogs, from a rationalist perspective. Originally the community at RationalWiki developed as a home for intelligent Conservapedia expatriates, enraged and ready to speak out against the sidelining of science in the broader culture, and I’m thrilled to see the site focus that energy on tackling the larger problems of pseudoscience and irrationality outside of the context of Conservapedia.

But you can’t go wrong with a re-invention of the basics, either.  RationalWiki’s original claim to fame (its Conservapedia coverage) faces integration into the site’s broader context in the form of a blog-style, week-by-week focus piece on the worst of the fundamentalist side of the internets – including, occasionally, Conservapedia. First on the hit parade: Conservapedia’s “article” on “the theory of evolution,” less an article than a glorified cut-and-paste job of decontextualized (“mined”) quotes strung together with permutations of the phrase “in regards to,” and Google-bombed to the top of the Google rankings.

The only redeeming quality of a site like Conservapedia, as RationalWiki has proven, is that such compilations of idiocy occasionally have the effect of getting a group of hitherto unaffiliated people together, and giving them a good cause to fight for. A bad act may inspire such a response as to dwarf the initial evil. Cheers to RationalWiki for giving voice to the minds of a dedicated group of rationalists. May their influence continue to outstrip that of the Conservapedias of the world.

Since So Many Republicans Use Facebook…?

…the Republican National Convention apparently decided to create a parody Facebook website, mocking Obama’s connections with allegedly shady characters.  They didn’t do very well – for the better half of tonight, the site was down.  Nota bene to the RNC – pay your server bills!

And, a second note to the RNC: your target audience, Republicans and moderates, won’t get the joke, and the ones that do get the joke won’t be convinced.  Youth, especially youth on Facebook (our friend Matt once hypothesized that Facebook and MySpace membership broke along class lines, with young professionals making up the majority of Facebook) overwhelmingly support the Democrats, and especially Barack Obama.  Facebook-friendly Republicans are few and far between.  The RNC might as well talk to a brick wall, and the numbers bear this conclusion out.

On a quick survey of Facebook groups, the group “I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush!” was safely over one million, and “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)” was well on its way to its goal (at 600,000), while “John McCain for President” lagged at 30,000, and “Stop Barack Obama (One Million Strong Against Barack)” remained stalled at 1/10th of its target membership.  The RNC is cracking a joke to an audience that’s bound to do nothing but sneer, while the rest of America looks on in confusion.

Managing the Message: What McCain’s VP Choice Will Say About His Campaign

With Obama back from the world tour, and the TV blackout of the Olympic games just a few weeks away, we’ve entered an open, undefined expanse of airtime, devoid of any major presidential campaign milestones, just waiting to be “won” by the appropriate public relations stunt. To me, that says just one thing: it’s vice president time. If Obama wants to keep his momentum, he’ll decide in the next two weeks and reap the ensuing media frenzy to his campaign’s enduring benefit: another freeze-out could well be fatal to McCain. But if McCain hopes to steal that momentum, he will almost literally get no other chance to do so.

Especially for a campaign in peril – like McCain’s, sleepy and adrift – choosing a vice president is like choosing a message. What messages, then, does McCain have to choose from? What will McCain be telling us with his picks?

• Charlie Crist (Gov.-FL): “I want Florida, and I don’t want to take a risk. Best to go for another guy with white hair.” Aside from speculations as to his, errr, sexual preference, Crist is the safe man’s bet. He’s respectable, white, and popular in Florida. But, if McCain dares to put two white-haired white guys against the young, charismatic Obama, and provided Obama chooses his vice presidential candidate wisely, Crist is a “safe” ticket to nowheresville.
• Mike Huckabee (Fail-AR): “I have nothing left to lose, and no judgment, so I might as well have fun.” Even putting Huckabee in the spotlight is a danger to democracy. But, he’s charismatic, and he’s crazy, and a lot of crazy people like him. A McCain/Huckabee ticket would be the sign of a truly desperate man.
• Bobby Jindal (Gov.-LA): “I need Huckabee to get the religious right, but he’s too openly crazy. Thank God for Indian Huckabee!” Just about says it all. Jindal offers nothing other than fundamentalist/exorcist street cred, and picking the man would be another sign of desperation, proof positive that McCain can’t succeed without the “agents of intolerance.” Luckily, Jindal has already said no.
• Joe Lieberman (Sen.-CT): “My party is a wreck. Time to go left, and grow up with the country.” Crazy, right? No. Lieberman’s public bear hug to John Hagee was a superfluous gesture, unneeded but to shore up his support among the religious right. And why would Lieberman need to do that? Yes, that’s it. However, if McCain chose Lieberman, he’d stand to gain a fairly small group of moderates, while reaping the tenfold wrath of the far right for his betrayal, and appeasing none of the Democrats who vote on the Iraq War issue. Epic fail.
• Sarah Palin (Gov.-AK): “I’m in trouble. Time for a risk.” Sarah Palin is brilliant. She’s popular. She’s a woman. And she kind of looks like the President Roslin from Battlestar Galactica (compare – no?). Up-and-coming Republican members of the Republican intelligentsia adore her as the future of their party… but she has two problems. First, she’s a rising star, likely to eclipse the man she would have to serve behind. And second, she’s a risk: if the Republican party is ever to transition away from being dominated by the religious right, it hasn’t happened yet. If Palin belongs to the Grand New Party, we’re not there yet. We’re still stuck with the Grand Olde Party. If McCain picks her, he’ll nab his best chance to win, but he’ll also be taking a hell of a risk.
• Condoleezza Rice (Sec. State): “I need women voters more than I need to distance myself from Bush.” Frankly, that’s unsurprising. McCain has publicly and doggedly pursued women voters disenchanted with the loss of Hillary Clinton, but what McCain giveth (recognition of the existence of women voters), he taketh away five times over (reproductive rights). But if McCain’s willing to risk tying himself to an otherwise intelligent woman who proved herself to be little more than Bush’s lapdog, he must be desperate for diversity indeed.
• Mitt Romney (Gov.-PA): “Maverick? That’s so 2000.” I’ve said enough about this jerk before. The man oozes slime from his greased hair; he stands for everything in politics that McCain nominally opposes. And McCain hates him… but he is the Republican establishment, and McCain needs that help. If we see a McCain/Romney ticket, we’ll know indeed that Maverick McCain has “sought the Havens,” and passed on into living memory.

A good number of these picks are sheer duds. But, luckily, the GOP seems to be leaning to the biggest dud of them all. Fine by me.

Foray into the Fundamentalist Blogs: Cruciform Molecules Prove Creationism!

Or, “Fundamentalist Christian Bloggers Read Too Much Dan Simmons.”

According to Jason of “The Real Jesusland,” a protein in the human body, bearing a shape reminiscent of the cruciform, proves that the Christian God is the one true God, and that He “intelligently designed” the human body to bear witness to Him with its… molecules.

Wow. This is the face of fundamentalist science: coincidence become canon, poetry become proof. While I can’t deny the saccharine quality of the symbolism Jason puts forth, neither can I defend his logic. Jason assumes causation from coincidence, reasoning that will just as soon have you believe the clouds are conspiring against you. Is that dagger-shaped cloud a strategically placed water vapor formation, or a message from God?

Interestingly, Jason can’t defend his reasoning either: his best defensive argument in the comments appears to be an inappropriate burden shifter – “prove that it’s not a sign from God!” – and he screens and discourages commentary on his “spiritual journey.” Ignorance plus vehemence plus denial of debate: the trademark signs of religious fundamentalism, be it Christian or Muslim