(Via The Daily Show.)
This is why I think politicians destroy honest and open public discourse. The stupidty, hypocrisy and disingenuousness is palpable.
Tag: Politics
Palin: Iraq war ‘a task that is from God’ – Yahoo! News
Palin: Iraq war ‘a task that is from God’ – Yahoo! News:
“ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a ‘task that is from God.’
In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it ‘God’s will.'”
(Via Yahoo! News.)
I love God too, but last I checked, pipelines and war weren’t among his top priorities.
Faith based Politics
Today, I learned an important lesson: faith is a great ally and great threat in politics. When discussing a recent article on the Internet titled, “How to Disagree,” with some friends, I took the opportunity to correct past mistakes at being ineffective, intemperate, or just plain disagreeable when discussing contentious topics. I decided to revisit a particular discussion on homosexuality and examine the mechanics of the back and forth. I wanted to highlight my reasoning, how I was trying to make a point, and so on, to show that I was refuting (and this is important) logical claims by providing evidence that supported my refutation.
I received a couple of responses that greatly frustrated me at first. Technically speaking, my friends had simply restated a contradiction to a point I had painstakingly proven with biblical evidence, evidence that I found incontrovertible. It was right there in black and white, after all. Yet, here they were simply restating the opposite! My ego was stung and information not conforming to my worldview was imposed on me and like most human beings, anger was the predictable first and thankfully internal response. Aren’t they listening?!? Don’t they respect me?!? Are they boneheaded??! And so on. To be clear and concise consider this conversation:
What is the wavelength of blue light?
550 nanometers.
What is the wavelength of light scattered from the sky on a sunny day?
550 nanometers.
What is the color of the sky?
Green.
It hadn’t yet occurred to me that they were simply confessing faith. Confessing one’s faith comes in many different forms and is often disguised, as it was in this situation. Faith is also emotional and deeply multivalent in one’s life. It doesn’t fit in a nice neat box. It is often ineffable and a reflection of the person who has it rather than a reflection of some abstract or objective reality.
Back like Jack & Breaking Faith
As recent entries indicate, I’m back after a short hiatus. This summer has been an eye opener and a rejuvenator. I was losing my desire to speak or write because I didn’t have much I really wanted to say. I felt I hadn’t really read enough or thought enough about certain issues, but all that has changed.
As recent entries indicate, I’m back after a short hiatus. This summer has been an eye opener and a rejuvenator. I was losing my desire to speak or write because I didn’t have much I really wanted to say. I felt I hadn’t really read enough or thought enough about certain issues, but all that has changed.
I’ve become much more impassioned, mostly because of Bush and his neo-con antics. For most of Bush’s presidency, it was about disagreeing with the Republican agenda, but now it’s much more personal. I don’t just disagree with his ideology, I think the the man is wrong.
A recent conversation with a good friend highlighted this for me. He is a staunch Republican whose opinion I respect because he is extremely intelligent and a good person. We talked about Iraq and he gave me a persuasive, reasoned rationale for regime change in Iraq. None of his argument had anything to do with WMD or any subterfuge to execute the American agenda in support of those interests.
I thought to myself, “Why didn’t Bush say this to the American people?” The answer came in short order: too complex and strategic. Gathering the political will would be difficult, but at least it would be based on truth. So the administration’s solution was one of political expediency: to layer a false, surface agenda (the so called “immediate threat”) on top of what I view was the real agenda in Iraq: the neo-con agenda. When spelled out, this agenda doesn’t garner much public support because of its blind ideological support for moneyed power to the exclusion of just about everything else. Hence, the lies, half-truths, and the constantly changing reasons for going into Iraq from the Administration. (See transcript and video of Rumsfeld on Face the Nation getting caught in a lie.)
And this is where Bush broke faith with America. You simply do not lie, dissemble, or distort facts to move a people. You make a persuasive, truthful case like my friend did. This is where I was done with Bush as a person who doesn’t have the integrity to take the hard road, as all great leaders have. That may not make him a bad person, but it does make him a weak one. Too weak for his Office and these trying times.