Questions of the Day: Buffet, Rapoport, Koch, Sanders, taurus feces

What if all  wealthy business people were like Warren Buffet and Bernard Rapoport?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/us/politics/bernard-rapoport-liberal-donor-in-texas-dies-at-94.html?hpw

Suppose all Senators voted like Bernie Sanders and all House members voted like Louise Slaughter. 

 Now suppose all business leaders and super-wealthy folks were like the Koch brothers.

Head still swimming?

Then try this: Suppose that politicians began to tell the truth (within the limits of human fallibility). Given the fact that most  Americans believe that 93.3% of what politicians they oppose say is taurus feces, would anyone believe them, given that 93.3% of Americans believe taurus feces from politicians of their own persuasion 93.3% of the time?
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Tuscon and the Bountifulness of Confusion

The commentariat has become a cornucopia of speculation about why Jared  Loughner committed mass murder in Tucson. All this  (and more) is being repeated since Newtown.

Two types of theory can be enumerated: (1) monocausal and (2) polycausal.

The monocausal theories come in two extremes: (a) individualistic and  (b) social. Some monocausalists claim that it was the act of a solitary individual with a deranged mind. Explanation is to be sought  solely in the psychology, life-history, and proclivities of the killer.

Other monocausalists look for social sources. His outrage was the product of the sick political climate of our time. The individualistic theories come mainly from the right side of the political spectrum, the social theories primarily from the left.

No particular individual commentator is likely to fit perfectly into one of these categories as sharply defined, but they do help to locate the vicinity in which he or she  can be located.

I have long been fond of polarities and ideal types. But, alas, they are more useful for  analysis and than for discovery of truth. But perhaps a beginning can be made.

I am a polycausalist -- along with many others.

To say that there is  not a  simple, direct causal connection between current social factors or his individual psychology and the the murderous deed is not to say that there is no connection at all. In the last analysis it was the finger of Jared Loughner that pulled the trigger. The fact that he may be schizophrenic, e. g.,  is not predictive of his outrageous behavior (most mentally ill people do not commit murder), but it may be part of the total  ensemble of operative dynamics  in his specific case.

The fact that current political rhetoric is excessive and vitriolic does not necessarily imply that it caused him to do what he did, but his mental derangement may be part of the total configuration of factors involved. Causality may be too strong a term from the outset. Perhaps it is better to think of a complex network of dynamic interacting influences with many levels and dimensions  become concrete over time in this particular person as a self-determining  center of activity expressive of his formed character.

We are dealing with the mysteries and complexities and perhaps contradictions and shifting tendencies that form this individual person as an agent of action. That we do not and perhaps cannot fully understand with the resources available to us. What we can do is remember two of Alfred North Whitehead's dicta:

"Seek simplicity--and distrust it."

"Philosophy may not ignore the multifariousness of the world--the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to a cross."

In Reference to the Two Posts to Follow

"The chief danger to philosophy is narrowness in the selection of evidence. This narrowness arises from the idiosyncrasies and timidities of particular authors, of particular social groups, of particular schools of thought, of particular epochs in the history of civilization. The evidence relied upon is arbitrarily biased by the temperaments of individuals, by the provincialities of groups, and by the limitations of schemes of thought.  . . . Philosophy may not neglect the multifariousness of the world—the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross." Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, 337-338.

Happy Thoughts on a Bright Day

Millions of people got up this morning, ate a nourishing breakfast, had a productive day at work with congenial colleagues, and were greeted by adoring children who stay active, work hard at school, and have ambitions to make a positive contribution to society. Uncountable acts of spontaneous kindness occurred all over the country.  Bystanders spring into action to disarm a mass killer. Volunteers showed up at a myriad of organizations designed to help people in need. Name a good cause that benefits people or animals, and organizations galore are active in working on them. In the far flung places of the globe, some of them dangerous and violent, professional groups sponsored by gifts give aid to the hungry, the sick,  the homeless, the helpless, and the afflicted of every sort imaginable. Members of churches, synagogues, and mosques every day are at work doing good deeds  to relieve human misery and to make things better. Conscientious public servants do their best within the constraints of bureaucracy to render service in the name of local, state, and federal governments. Even elected officials frequently do things because they are right and promote the general good, independently of whether it helps them politically or not.

And so the list could grow much longer reciting deeds of love, justice, mercy, compassion by every day folks, celebrities, and all sorts of people who turn good intentions into helpful acts reducing suffering in people and animals. Duties are done routinely without regard for reward or attention but because they need to be done to keep life going and for the good order of families, communities, and societies. Children are loved, husbands are responsible, and wives are busy earning money and keeping the family sane. Thus does the world go round and round, and the sun rises and sets on people doing the best they can with what they have to make the best of life and are content with what they have and generous in sharing it with others while being helpful to friend and stranger along the way.

Thoroughly Acerbic Comments on a Gloomy Day

These observations apply only to those who are correctly described  by them:

• We are rearing a fat and lazy generation whose members have been assured since birth that they are "awesome,"
•  who have absorbed the notion that anything that requires effort should be fun or one can opt out, 
•  who have little capacity for delayed gratification and self-denial, 
• whose educational achievements  (not  totally the fault of their schools) are meager compared to the Chinese (and many others) whose Confucian values have important similarities with the largely defunct Protestant ethic
•  in a society transformed by globalization  and communication technologies that leave those with little  or the wrong kind of education and few marketable skills with low-paying jobs or none at all,
•  especially if they are young, male, and black or otherwise handicapped by region  or ethnicity
•  in a society that lives complacently in a plutocracy that has gamed the system (consider, e. g.,  the health care bill) to serve the  interests of the wealthy (though a large percentage of the wealthy and super-wealthy vote Democratic these days) who benefit from a compliant Congress,
•  resulting  in obscene economic inequalities  (from many causes) and lack of opportunity that corrupt democracy, 
• whose economy is too-much sustained by consumption and too little by productive investment, 
• whose citizens by and large want greater  government benefits, lower taxes,  and deficit reduction hardly realizing that we can have any two of these but not all three, 
• who accept a situation in which presidents can fight wars not paid for with volunteers who do the suffering and dying leaving the rest of us--if we have jobs--free to buy fancy cars, big houses, and all the consumer goods voracious corporations seduce us into buying by reassuring us that we are awesome and deserving of everything our money and credit cards will temporarily sustain
•  while corporations invest abroad reducing jobs for Americans as our old and decaying infrastructure threatens our safety
•  while terrorists plot our destruction in a world in which hundreds of millions go hungry, suffer from curable diseases, and live in fear of violence from blood-thirsty, power-hungry agents of darkness who care not for justice and are undeterred by the suffering they cause, 
• while storms, earthquakes, and floods add  more misery to helpless parents, children, and families the world over.

Otherwise, except for all the other things that are wrong or out of joint, things are great as another year begins in which  large sections of the world are cursed with anti-humane and cruel  religious and cultural practices right out of the dark ages that especially  hurt women and children as we continue to pay culturally backward Saudi Arabia for oil with funds borrowed from the Chinese in order to sustain our idolatrous love affair with the automobile whose wastes poison the atmosphere and warm the global climate.

 http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Companion Volume to Born into the Wrong World Published

https://tsw.createspace.com/title/3498756 
 
The Beauty of Ordinary Lives is a 42 page tribute to my parents, a companion volume and supplement to my autobiography Born into the Wrong World. It is  available at Lulu.com and  at

https://www.createspace.com/3498756

http://www.createspace.com/3490587

Buy at Lulu.com: 

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kencatfrontiernetdotnet

From the Preface:

       I was fortunate in that I chose my parents well. John Wilfred Cauthen and Nancy Beulah Harris Cauthen were ordinary folks from rural Georgia. They taught me what unconditional love was by their words and actions.  I will be forever grateful to these wonderful people who demonstrated the beauty of ordinary lives. This little booklet is a loving tribute to them. I focus on their last years as they confronted the necessity of giving up the home they loved and moving to a nursing home to spend the rest of their days.
Excerpt:
        Suitcases in the car, it was time. Mother held the kitty and said a long, sad, lingering farewell to her "Baby." My Dad gave me a big, tight hug, flung wide his long, skinny arms, and exclaimed with passionate resignation, "Goodbye, old house." I led one and then the other to the car, put the old, ugly wheelchair that had been Rosalie's in the trunk, and got in beside them. We all took one last look at their home place and drove off. When we arrived, Mother remembered something Rosalie had said when she came to make this her home years before. "This is the place where you come to wait to die."
    Some time ago my Mother told me about a couple several years ago stopping in their driveway and coming to the door. They asked directions to the nursing home where we now sat. In the back seat of that car sitting very still and drawn up was a sad, unsmiling old grey-haired woman looking very scared and downcast. It took little imagination to figure out what was going on. Now I sat at the door of this same unwanted but needed refuge, somewhere to live that was not and could not be home, a place both forbidding and welcoming, a sanctuary that promised care and safety without ceasing to be dreaded as the place you go when nowhere else will do, where you don't want to go but go anyway because you have to, the place where you come to wait to die.

Announcing the Publication of the Revised Standard Version of My Autobiography

The revised standard version of my autobiography is available now at Lulu.com  and at CreateSpace.com

https://www.createspace.com/3490587

If you buy from CreateSpace please enter discount code 

6XQY8WZW

at checkout  (worth $3)

The Lulu version is described below:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/born-into-the-wrong-world/13394968

Born into the Wrong World

By Kenneth Cauthen

Paperback, 240 pages

$11.58 You Save: 20%

List Price: $14.48

The life and thought of Kenneth Cauthen. Born in the rural South in 1930, he was a pastor, professor of theology, and author of twenty books. Cauthen describes his life in the context of the times from the Great Depression to the current Age of Terror. He describes his personal life, marriage, divorce, remarriage, life in a rural Baptist Church, and Professor in a theological seminary.

  Add to Cart  

The author has lived through momentous times. Born in 1930, his life covers a span from the Great Depression to the Age of Terror. Born into the Wrong World tells the story of a country boy from the segregated South who grew up among farmers and mill workers and spent his life trying to make sense of life and its mysteries, wondering why there is so much suffering and injustice and why so few share the conviction that something radical needs to be done about it.

All is here – his life experiences, his inner struggles, suffering, early sexual trauma, his career as pastor who almost got thrown out over the race issue and as professor of theology, his marriage, episodes of depression, and devastating divorce, his theological development and mature thought, his ambivalence about the church, his social and political views – everything.

The author says, “I wanted to end the story with an account of my funeral, but I was not willing to meet the publisher’s deadline.
Kenneth Cauthen

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

What's Wrong with this Country Anyway?

Let's get one thing straight:  By and large, generally speaking, for the most part, what the American people want is increased governmental benefits,  lower taxes, and deficit reduction.  You might be able to get two out of three, but nobody knows how to achieve all three. This helps explains the contradictions, absurdities,  and confusion seen so widely today.

Some rave and rant about the deficit and want a smaller government that spends less. But when asked what they would cut, they are short of specifics that would make a significant difference. Well, of course, there is always the tried and true waste, fraud, and abuse, and  there may be inefficiencies in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, etc. 

But the big bucks are elsewhere. We could cut Social Security Benefits.

Oh no, either we or our parents or grandparents depend on that.

What about Medicare? No, of course not, for the same reason that we can't deeply touch Social Security?

Medicaid? Well, no, too many poor people depend on that.

Ah, then, you want to cut the mammoth defense budge?

Hell, no, are you crazy?

OK, you want to reduce the deficit but don't want big cuts in either of the Big Four -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense. Your only alternative is to raise taxes!

Now you are getting crazy even weird. Taxes are too high now.

So it goes, The swingers who have voted against the ins in the last two elections and put Democrats are poised in 2010 it appears to turn out the ins once again. Independents and others in this class apparently have no defined ideology so they go back and forth between parties and persons apparently based on how the world is treating them at the moment, gut feelings, self-centered sentiments --presentism and selfishness, I call it. Because Obama came in promising change, hope, and a politics transcending party in the midst of the greatest depression since the 1930's not of his own making and did not make us all prosperous in two years, these fickle, confused, gut-driver party switchers want to be rid of the President and a Democratic Congress.

They can't get what they want--smaller government with lower taxes, greater benefits, and deficit reduction--so they act out of anger, rage, full of contradictions, confusion, ignorance, and incompatible demands.

As the most colorful New York  gubernatorial candidate summarized  his platform, "Rent is too damn high."  That's about as good as it gets in 2010 as I prepare to vote shortly.

Hooray for American democracy!

Quasi-acerbic Comment for the Day

A certain segment of the Republican party appears not to accept the moral and political legitimacy of Democrats, especially Barack Obama, to govern. It is contrary to the grain of the universe, a cosmic mistake. In their eyes Republicans clearly represent the powers, principles, and people that should be in charge. All this gives intensity, even rage, to the very fact that a Democratic President and Congress are presently in office.

Theological Question of the Day: Was Jesus saved?

Is there any New Testament evidence that Jesus ever accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior?

Obama's Folly

President Obama seems determined to do what  many others over the centuries have failed to do: win in Afghanistan.

 The obstacles are many and formidable:
an enemy that  retreats into sanctuaries in Pakistan;
an offense limited to stealth drone attacks in these sanctuaries;
a Pakistani military that is unable or unwilling to destroy them;
a Pakistani government that is obsessed with India, unstable, and
     limited in what in can do to attack fellow Muslims without risking
     overthrown by militant extremists;
an American public that is tired of the endless conflicts with Muslim 
     nations and losing confidence in our ability to restore peace, order,
     and justice in that troubled, complex land;
billions spent in these wars in Muslim nations that badly needed
     at home;
a partner in Karzai who is corrupt and surrounded by corruption---we   could go on.

The larger context is that we fight these wars with volunteers and deficit financing, a situation that costs the rest of us very little at the moment. But I worry about a situation in which presidents can wage wars which are personally costly for a few but with little or no personal burden for the rest of us.

My impression of the military is that for the most part their standard line is the same as it was in Vietnam--give us more troops, a clear definition of our mission, and a little more time.

We face a cruel dilemma. On the one hand, our leaving might result in another Taliban and disaster for the masses of Afghan people, especially women and children. On the other hand,  we face the prospect of staying there indefinitely with no assurance that we can ever make things right.

There is no good solution, only bad, worse, and catastrophic options. But which is which? If we knew, would the political situation allow its implementation?

Is this a glimmer of hope?
http://www.salon.com/news/afghanistan/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/09/27/afghan_taliban_talks

Or is it like all those false hopes when Israel has talks with Palestinians?

Obama: Intellect Over Feeling, Being Cool Over Being Passionate

Consensus: When Clinton said he felt our pain, he appeared to be really hurting. When Obama says it, we don't doubt his truthfulness, but he does not come across as feeling it deeply in his heart. This jibes with my frequent criticism that he sounds too much like a professor and not enough like a politician. I don't expect him to be a prophet. That is another vocation.

I wonder sometimes if deep in his heart he is an idealist who wants everybody just to get along, despite his schooling in and sometimes practice of  "Chicago politics." He does not want to offend anybody-- Republicans, big business--remember FDR who said they hate me; I welcome their hatred. He wants everybody to like him--generals, bankers, school kids, dogs, and canaries. Now cooperation in ventures that promote the national interest and the common good is a wonderful thing. But sometimes one has to get nasty in the spirit of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove to be successful. 

Would it help if we saw more of the latter in Obama's pragmatic political practice?  I wonder.

What's Wrong With These People Anyway?

Johnny came home with a black eye, a bloody nose, and a few loose teeth. His Mother was horrified, but Johnny said, grinning from ear to ear, "Yeah, Mom, but you should see the other guy!"

That appears to be what the Democratic message gets boiled down to this fall. "If you think we are bad, the other party is worse."  Although it convinces me, that is not an inspiring slogan. But will it work for independents and swing voters?

Please explain to me why these coveted voters swing back and forth tossed about by "every wind of doctrine." (1) Why would folks who voted for Obama and Democrats in 2006 and 2008 say they plan to vote Republican this November?

I have voted for one Republican in my entire life beginning with 1948 until now. I preferred  Republican Russell Peterson to be governor of Delaware in 1968. He was by far the most progressive candidate, whose like are totally extinct today. Every other time the Democratic candidates were more in line with my ideology and values, although sometimes I have had to hold my nose while pulling the lever.

I suppose that many people are less ideologically oriented than I am or have an outlook that is more in the middle, since admittedly I am  well toward the left and got paid while I was articulating a point of view in some detail. Folks in the middle could more easily than I tilt between parties as circumstances and issues change.

I suspect however that a lot of swingers react on the basis of what is happening to them at the moment, what they feel in the gut. The "in party" must be responsible if I can't find a job, pay my mortgage, or send my kids to college. So I will vote them out. If unemployment were at 4.8% and their incomes were rising, and times were good  all around,  presumably they would reward the party in power. So a president and his  majority party are in large measure victims or beneficiaries of fate  but with limited control over what is going on in the world during their tenure.

So despite all the good things Democrats have done, the times have not been kind to them, and they may get punished come election day.

"Yeah, I know, but I have seen the other guy."

_______________________________________________

(1). . .  so that  we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Ephesians 4:14.  (RSV)

Average Americans and America's Problems

Decades ago a prominent historian noted that we have contradictory attitudes about the great mass of the American people. On the one hand, we think of them as gifted with common sense, full of practical wisdom, fair-minded, and of sound character, who--given all the facts and sufficient time-- usually make reasonable political decisions. On the other hand, we see them as driven by emotion, short on knowledge, subject to demagogic appeals, and capable of great mischief in the voting booth. I confess that both of these conceptions are resident within me.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that at the moment the latter, less flattering posture dominates. Tea Party success is only the beginning. Voters are angry with incumbents, the government, the direction the country is going, and are in an ugly, rebellious mood. However, this outlook is generating something less than a rational, effective political response. Folks don't know, don't believe, or have forgotten that the consensus of economic experts and knowledgeable analysts  was that, while the bailout of banks was regrettable and distasteful, it was necessary to rescue the economy from disaster. It was done primarily not because the  elite bankers were worthy but in order to save the rest of us as well. The hole was in their end of the boat, but all of us would have drowned if the ship had gone down. But the outrage in the guts of the masses--for good reasons from a limited perspective (theirs)--expresses the feeling that we had a bailout for Wall Street but not for Main Street.

The deficit is widely decried, but it may be impossible to rescind the Bush tax cuts  that disproportionately benefit the rich and super-rich, although their continuation would  would greatly  increase the deficit over time and would not generate the kind of economic growth defenders claim.

Have people forgotten that under Bush two wars were started and put on a credit card? The same was true of the prescription drug bill for seniors. All these contributed mightily to the deficit Republicans now scream about.

Voters prefer Democrats and their economic policies to Republicans and their economic policies but say they they will vote for Republican candidates this fall.

An article in a political journal today warns us not to underestimate the vote-getting power of Christine O'Donnell because she comes across as an "average American!"

An Illinois Senator years ago said that his constituents want lower taxes and greater benefits. So far as I know, this is still true of voters.

We could go with this listing of examples that do not commend the rationality and virtue of the masses in our present context, but let us move on.

Apparently voters think that if the players are replaced, things will get better. Depending on  the replacements, there may be a grain of truth in this. But the deeper, more intractable reality is that the political system is tainted with corruption. Wealthy corporations and the rich generally have far too much influence.  Out of necessity for reelection purposes, members of Congress lust for money and prostitute themselves to get it. Powerful lobbies, often representing parochial interests inimical to the common good,  e. g., the NRA, shape legislation, inordinately charm regulatory agencies into furthering their interests, and threaten and cajole legislators into doing their bidding. Yet the great masses show no inclination to support the fundamental transformation of the political system that justice and their own economic interests require. People rightly vote their values too, but some of them--like the attitude toward gay and transgendered people--are reactionary and stubbornly resistant to progressive change.

Witness the fact that although presidents since the time of Teddy Roosevelt  have advocated universal health insurance, only this year was this goal nearly accomplished and only in a deeply flawed manner at that.

A one-payer system--some kind of Medicare for all that would be the most efficient and effective way to assure coverage for all--is nowhere in sight.

Oh practical, fair-minded, wise, reasonable, virtuous masses, where are you when you are so badly needed.

Do Religious Nut Cases Deserve Global Attention?

So, an extremist pastor of a congregation of 50 is going to burn copies of the Koran on 9/11, what is the big deal? Why is he being interviewed? Why is this world-wide news? OK, profit-driven, audience-seeking, sensationalist-loving media know that this is a good way to arouse emotions, get viewers, and attract advertisers. OK, it is a bad, bigoted, foolish thing to do, but why give this fanatic a global audience with interviews, pictures, and repeated exposure day and night.

Do we not remember that in the early 1950's when the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published, burning parties were held by fundamentalists  all around whose allegiance was to the REAL Bible, the King James Version, which transliterated the original term as  baptism instead of rendering its English meaning as immerse, to dip -- a clear instance of theological bias Baptists tolerated without protest.

A Duke professor who was on the translating committee called this Bible burning progress because in the old days they burned the translators! Holy Book burners, flag burners, bra burners, and the like are--like the poor--always with us. Such folks are generally a small minority whose historical and social influence is minimal.

So how should we deal with the Koran burners? Condemn them but give them no more press than is absolutely necessarily. Now if 10,000 churches and synagogues, the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, the President of the United States, and other such notables around the world should preside over mass burnings of the Koran,  then that is news, big news, bad news. But one pastor of half a hundred or less in Florida? Let's have some sense of proportion about all this.

Drugs, Drug Czars, and Bad Policy

Bob Bennett was the first Drug Czar. Yesterday on TV he said that  he (the first) and all subsequent Drug Czars were opposed to the legalization of marijuana. Stronger forms are now, he reported, and concluded that use would increase if it were legally available. OK, but I would like to know by his logic why alcohol and cigarettes should not be made illegal too.  They both do far more social harm than pot ever did or ever will, yet they are legal.

The reason that pot is illegal and alcohol and tobacco are legal is that the latter two are socially accepted, while marijuana is not.

We tried outlawing alcohol and found that it spawned widespread flaunting of the law by otherwise decent citizens and a crime wave run by underworld gangs who got rich. We abandoned the experiment because it did not work and kept only timid or unusually scrupulous folks from consuming the forbidden fruit.

The logic and experimental evidence are clear. But social and political readiness lag behind. Maybe one day we will get rational about all this, but don't hold your breath.

A more extensive case is made at:
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/drugpolicy.htm
This essay was written about ten years ago, but the arguments remain essentially the same today.

To All WHo Think the Free Market is Self-Regulating.

OK, if all the bad medicine being sold, all the products being recalled, including cars, eggs, baby cribs -- all with potential to injure or kill were not enough to justify government intervention to protect people from greedy or careless capitalists, here is another reason why laissez faire capitalism is dangerous.

The fact that so many medical instruments used in hospitals look alike and are interchangeable leads to errors that can and has killed patients or made them much sicker. Efforts to force manufacturers to design tubes, e. g., for a distinctive purpose -- feeding or introducing fluids in veins, etc. are being resisted because it might affect their profit margins.

Advocates in California got legislation passed in 2008 that would have mandated that feeding tubes no longer be compatible with tubes that go into the skin or veins by 2011. But in 2009, AdvaMed, the manufacturers’ trade association, successfully pushed legislation to delay the bill’s effects until 2013 and 2014 or until the international standards group reaches a decision. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/health/policy/21tubes.html?hp

Three cheers for an interventionist government to protect life, health, and to promote the common good. 

Phooey on you, Milton Friedman, and all your kind.

Is Obama a Muslim? Cultural Idiocy Running Wild

That perhaps one in five Americans believes that Obama is a Muslim  boggles the mind. It ia monument to prejudice, unscrupulous political opportunism, willing ignorance of the invincible sort,  downright lying, and deliberate deceit.

Have the professors and perpetrators of this nefarious falsehood forgotten that  two summers ago Obama was being excoriated for belonging to the Christian church pastored by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

He is not a Muslim, but what if he were? The Constitution forbids a religious test for office. Thank goodness the Constitution was written when it was. Such a marvelous document would never be accepted today.

Prudence might suggest that the President join a church, not that that would quell the idiocy abroad, but it might help a little. As Mark Shields said tonight on the PBS News Hour, Americans want their president to belong to a church but to wear their religion lightly.

Senseless Furor over Building a House of Worship

Even more exasperating than the media frenzy every summer about what Bret Favre will do  (I don't give a %$@!) is the near hysteria in some quarters over the building of a mosque near the site of the 9/11 attack. The objections have no basis whatsoever unless one assumes the identity of the Muslims who attacked with Islam as a whole. Many critics who protest that they do no such thing end up doing it anyway de facto,  or else their objections are groundless and silly.



A compromise is that they they have a right to build, but it is unwise and insensitive to do so. Why? There are mosques all over New York City that nobody objects to them. Yet some, including the governor of the state, seem to think that just placing the house of worship a little further away would honor both the First Amendment and the sensitivities of those who are offended. Perhaps in sheer pragmatic terms that is the best way to resolve the issue, but it ignores principle in favor of feelings and misguided conceptions.

Some of the analogies are just plain dumb as well as committing at least one logical fallacy. The notion, e. g., that it would be like building a memorial to the Nazis next to Treblinka or Auschwitz is paraded by politicians more interested in political effect that rational soundness. But Nazis were evil as a whole, while Islam as a whole is not identical with a few radical extremists whose interpretation of the Koran is generally regarded by scholars as an insult to a great religion. Would we accept the identity of the Ku Klux Klan, whose symbol was a cross, with Christianity?

President George W. Bush took a sensible view and called Islam  a religion of peace that could not be identified with a terrorism. I wish the former president would emerge and say a strong and healing word to the  protesters, among whom are many Republicans.

By the way have we forgotten that the US has been killing Muslims on a regular basis in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003, amounting to hundreds of thousands of combat troops and civilians. Leaving aside Afghanistan for the moment, every person killed in Iraq by Americans is a horrible and unnecessary tragedy completely unjustified by either moral principle or national self-interest.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/10/iraq.iraqtimeline

Opinion Research and "the Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion"

Twice in recent days I have been called and asked to participate in an opinion survey. The first time I agreed, and soon I was being asked things like "Do you think the country is going in the right direction?" At first I protested that my opinion was more complicated than that but soon learned that the caller would accept only the answers on the survey. We proceeded a while until I finally asked how many more questions there were. She answered that she would read faster! In exasperation I said I did not intend to answer any more question. What is wrong here?

By insisting that all answers be of the yes or no type or at best a multiple choice option, the fullness of the whole is distorted. Reality  (or at least my opinion about it) does not conform to these categories. The assumption behind them  commits what  A. N. Whitehead called "the fallacy of misplaced concretion (FMC), to wit, an abstraction is made from a totality and the abstraction is identified  with the whole concrete reality in all its complexity and with all its ambiguities, paradoxes, and contradictions (a paradox is a contradiction when used by a theologian).

My refusal to answer in the simplistic terms offered annoyed me and frustrated the questioner, who was only doing what she was told.

The second time I just said no and ended the matter.

Is the country going in the right direction? Yes, in my opinion, in some respects, e. g., the changing attitudes toward gays and lesbians. In other respects, in my view, we are going in the wrong direction, e. g., toward a more dysfunctional politics and  a meaner  less civil society. A mere yes or no will not suffice, unless we are willing to commit the dreaded fallacy. In letters to the editor, radio talk shows, TV punditry, sermons, and daily conversations, the FMC is committed a lot!

The best these surveys can do is to assess a general mood regarding what the respondents feel is the most important factor to them at the moment, a sort of  universalized gut feeling about things.

The next time I am called, I think I will say just say no and refer them to my blog site.