I rather liked this excellent article by David Harsanyi explaining the rise of the Tea Party:
Do I wish that Colorado senatorial candidate Ken Buck hadn’t declared that being gay was a choice (as if there’s something wrong with choosing to be gay)? Yes. Do I wish he hadn’t followed up by comparing a gay genetic predisposition with alcoholism? I do. If you were brainy enough to watch “Meet the Press” instead of wasting time in church last Sunday, no doubt you cringed at this primitive lunacy.
After all, what’s more consequential than a faux pas about nature and/or nurture? Who cares that Democrat Michael Bennet was busy moralizing about the cosmic benefits of dubious economic theory and science fiction environmentalism – ideas that have already cost us trillions with nothing to show for it?
Just as long as we stay focused on what’s important, right? We’re so easily distracted.
Those who believe being gay is a choice are Neanderthals. The enlightened trust science. That’s why the president appointed a science czar, people. A science czar who co-authored a textbook arguing for mass sterilizing of Americans to prevent an imagined population bomb. You know, “science.”
Read the whole thing.
I’m so looking forward to the comments from people who will get every end of the stick except the right one on this. The word “gay” is a bit like “gun”: it’s a trigger word that deranges people.
Rather a dumb thing to say in a state where an openly gay libertarian (and a lawyer, but I will forgive him for that) ran a strong campaign and even broke the media barrier to some extent.
Conservatives and libertarians are uneasy allies but that is what the Tea Party is… sorta 🙂
And I suspect David Harsanyi understand both the reason for the alliance… and the unease!
I thought it was an awfully snarky piece. Damning with faint praise and all that. Frankly, I don’t particularly want “friends” like that.
The only part I liked was the “science fiction environmentalism” phrase. Nicely turned.
Huh. Ann Althouse remembers when it was abominable heresy even to allow the possibility that sexual preference was not a choice. That was back in the dark ages of 1985 or so, in the benighted precincts of the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Then perhaps you missed the point of the article, or at least the point I think he is making. The article is *about* snarkiness.
Frankly I find elements of most of the Tea Party gathering that I have seen video of as eye rolling as the people David Harsanyi alludes to… but that does not mean I do not wish them well.
I do not have to want to share a beer with people who want a smaller state to accept they may nevertheless be fellow travellers even if their motives are not mine… and I may find the whole ‘God-thing’ some Tea Party folks blather on about hard to listen to without groaning but one takes one’s allies where one finds them, no?
It’s interesting that the writer has got the O’Donnell witchcraft thing wrong, as everybody seems to. It does amaze me how little most people seem to understand the various “social change” forces in our society, both left and right wing. Just to say this again; the issue isn’t that O’Donnell was a witch, it is that she believes in witches, because she’s a protestant fundamentalist. That is, her outburst on that TV show was a revelation of her mediaeval religious ideas; she believes in witchcraft and that she was nearly drawn into it. Much like somebody believing in space aliens and that that they were nearly abducted. I can only presume that the reaction to the O’Donnell thing- the “she was a witch in her teens” reaction- is a demonstration of how full America is of religious crazies who also believe in witchcraft. It must be a strange way to live, thinking your next door neighbours are in personal contact with Satan, really it must.
As to the gay thing, I think we should look at it from the point of view of my loathing of tomatoes, those ghastly fake vegetables that infest central london sandwich bar fayre. Why does Ian B hate tomatoes? Normal people like tomatoes. I doubt that many people would think that there is a “hate tomatoes” gene, and that I was born with it. Neither however would it be very easy for me to make myself like tomatoes. I have actually tried liking them, in order to be able to purchase commercial sandwiches and salads and not have to pick all the red slime out. But I can’t, however much I try. I doubt even a preacher praying over me could make me like tomatoes. Was I born this way? Why have I always just felt “different” in this way? From as far back as I can remember? Could it be just possible that people pick up various tastes in life, which are not “choices” but neither are they “born that way”? Could there be a “third way” in this analysis?
It makes no difference whatsoever. He is writing about the ‘official mainstream’ attitude toward two sets of people… the trivial “witchcraft” things gets vast coverage, the very relevant and vastly damaging ludicrous economic and questionable scientific theories get accepted with a nod.
THAT is what he is writing about: not witchcraft, not gayness, nor nature vs nurture, not environmentalism, not ‘faith’. It is about a comprehension gap that in no small part springs from cultural disdain.
He’s rather good. Skins of the onion when it comes to what is meant?
I think he is goading dishonesty where ever it may be found.
It’s harder to accept one’s own but he seems to have a fair handle on that too – Accepting that one can be so outré and intelligent, and have such an open mind you can fall through it.
Well, I guess that I’m still missing the point of the article. If it’s a sendup of snarkiness it’s so well done that it’s over my head. Whatever.
But I do agree that conservatives and libertarians are uneasy allies, and one takes one’s allies where one finds them. Just don’t get too comfortable in that bed.
I’d like to hear the learned and lettered comments of Samizdata readers on the burning Tea Party issue. If you please.
Does the constitution of the United States demand the ‘separation of Church and State’ as it is commonly understood?
You think THAT is the ‘burning issue’? Oh boy. Yes, best not get into any entangling alliances with God-squaders wanting less overarching government.
If I was not an atheist I would probably throw a Bible at your head right about now, so I guess a copy of Atlas Shrugged (hard backed of course) will have to do.
Perry, my online hero, you may have misunderstood me!
I was referring to the story that has collated around the ‘debate’ between O’Donnell and her Senate rival, Chris Coons. Clarification on the above issue will inform us about the intellectual pedigree of the Tea Party.
I have no idea, myself, not having looked very closely into American constitutional matters. Hence my appeal!
No, it is not a send up of snarkiness. It is about how snarky social values (which in some ways I happen to share… I am an cosmopolitan atheist) makes some people fail to see (1) what really matters about the Tea Party (2) blind to the egregious views of people more ‘culturally sympathetic’ to the ‘official mainstream’.
It seems rather obvious to me but then it is probably aimed at people with sensibilities somewhat like to mine looking at the Tea Party from the outside.
Ah, I see… yes I did misunderstand you then, oh most delectable of porcine foodstuffs.
Perry, there is a lot of weird and wonderful stuff out there that does not make sense in any terms we can deal with it.
A spiritual realm is not so pathetic nor freaky.
Go gently, because in my experience (having had a friend who dabbled in witchcraft) it can sometimes take bites out of you.
Fortunately the forces of benevolence are spiritually stronger.
I quite enjoyed the remark about the “pagan lobby”. I suspect that depends on the state, there are quite a few here in Maine. As a tea party activist I can tell you quite a few pagans (and at least one leader) has come up to expressing his pleasure that the tea party movement has mostly resisted the “social” issues that obsess the so-cons.
I suspect the reason that Beck had his Beckapalooza is that he wanted to be the guy to bring social issues into the tea party movement. Despite rather intense pressure it has resisted going down that road so far. Unlike many so-cons, tea party activists realise for us to have real effect we need the broadest coalition possible.
Social issues drive people away, they do not unite.
This piece by the head of GOProud makes the case rather well.
<>Ah, I see… yes I did misunderstand you then, oh most delectable of porcine foodstuffs.
That’s blasphemy. Everybody knows the most delectable of porcine foodstuffs is bacon. Particularly chocolate-covered bacon.
Ham asked:
‘Does the constitution of the United States demand the ‘separation of Church and State’ as it is commonly understood?’
Well, how is it ‘commonly understood?’
The phrase ‘(wall of) separation between church and state’ comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson, which reads, in relevant part:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
I think we may rely on one of the Original Dads to express the meaning that they intended when they wrote the First Amendment.
What Jefferson (and many of the others) expressed was the belief that the state should never either support nor suppress any form of religious observance What So Ever, so long as it comports with a reasonable expectation of public order and general tranquillity. Religious observance, he opined, is a matter between a man and his God only, and the state has no business becoming involved in any way in that relationship.
This original idea has now become somewhat fractured into the concept that the state cannot allow anything that has any religious connotation of any sort to occur in any way that is connected, however remotely, with any state function or agency. The application of the relevant part of the First Amendment has now become skewed such that any religious activity which touches on the state in any way is somehow an exceptional ‘establishment’ of that religious preference – as though a Christmas tree on the town square somehow chills the rights of Jews or Muslims to worship in their own fashion. So we have the ludicrous situation where State employees may not send each other Christmas cards because this somehow constitutes an ‘establishment of religion’. It’s actually no longer about religion per se, but about the wants of a small minority of the incredibly-easily-aggrieved – so often the case in the US. We now have to suspend disbelief and accept that the presence of a cross on public land, or the words ‘In God We Trust’ on a nickel, is somehow deeply destructive of the rights of those whose belief are otherwise.
The ODs were concerned that there be no State religion, because they feared the intrusion of religion into civic life that was the effect of the Established Church in England. They wanted to be sure that no man could suffer any civil incapacity as a result of his religious belief. So they established a tension between ‘establishment’ and ‘free exercise’ – the state can’t establish any one religion, nor can it suppress any other. That tension may have gone too far, so now we have silliness like chidren being disciplined in school for reading the Bible, because the state has become conditioned to believe that any religious expression whatver that takes place anywhere near it is somehow prohibited or suspect.
I have no religious belief at all. The fact that some folks want to print the words “In God We Trust” on the dollar bill, or erect a sign with the Ten Commandments in the public square, or recite a prayer before a football game (in the words of Tommy J) neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg – so long as my tax monies are not used in any real way to do so. Free exercise means just that.
llater,
llamas
Ham,
Refer to the establishment clause of the first amendment – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”
That’s it. In totality.
Individual states may, if they so wish, establish an official state religion, or even become theocracies, but not the federal government. Although the fourteenth amendment muddies the waters.
By the way, Tom Tancredo a Constitution Party Traditional Conservative with small government leanings is liekly to pick up the seat in colorado.
I knew that someone here would take up Ham’s challenge, even though I was too lazy to do so. Llamas said it beautifully.
“Likely” is too strong a word. Tom is a polarizing figure and is running against a current mayor of Denver who is quirky and charming, at least in his own commercials. Tanc is in a “statistical dead heat” with Hickenloser, but that’s a polite way of saying “he’s down but by less than five points.”
I like Tom. I’m voting for him. But, if I had to call a bookie right now I’d put my money on HickenRitter when it’s over.
He was also part of what passes for a Republican “establishment” here up until the Republican candidate for Governor (Dan Maes) turned out to be a delusional one-man walking clown college.
As for Buck…it’s his race to lose but I wish he’d stop trying to lose it. I’ve been a huge fan of his, long before the current election cycle. And someone should have sewn Gail Norton’s mouth shut before that slimy RiNO hoolyhoo could spout that fairy tale about Buck’s “prosecutorial misconduct” as an AUSA[1].
As for “Separation of Church and State:”
Llamas will correct me if I err, but IIRC the first place that the statement appears in law in the US is a 1948 SCOTUS decision. At issue was whether school buses owned by a public school district could also be used to transport parochial school students. Eight of the justices said that “There is a high and impenetrable wall of separation between Church and State” (or words to that effect) but that the use of the school buses in question would not breach it. Prior to that there was an 1880’s essay by Theodore Roosevelt (who does not get nearly the kicking from the right that he deserves IMHO), and prior to that I think it showed up in one of the Federalist papers but don’t quote me on that.
BTW, fellow Coloradans, don’t forget to clear the bench while you’re at it.
[1] Then-US Attorney Tom Strickland was preparing to run for Senate as a Democrat. He wanted a high-profile gun prosecution to grab some headlines. Buck was, at the time, a civil service prosecutor in that office. Buck disclosed to the defense some flaws with the prosecution’s case and some inside baseball about the case being politically-motivated. That skeezy fraud Norton claimed that Buck’s acts were an ethical failing. I personally think that Ken was exactly right to disclose relevant exculpatory material to the defense and that a refusal to do so would have been far the greater sin.
“Do I wish that Colorado senatorial candidate Ken Buck hadn’t declared that being gay was a choice”
Apparently I missed something. For at least a decade while I was in school 1976-1987, homosexuals bellowed loudly and often about “being gay is my free choice and you must respect it.” Why would someone wish that Buck not follow the homosexual party line?
” Do I wish he hadn’t followed up by comparing a gay genetic predisposition with alcoholism?”
I’m sure there are genes for pedophilia, homosexuality, rape, alcoholism,… actually, for every behavior. What kind of behavior isn’t rooted in genes?
Well I’m not so sure.
However the article was not about nature vs nurture and the reason he said “Do I wish he hadn’t followed up by comparing a gay genetic predisposition with alcoholism?” probably has nothing to do with which side of the nature vs nurture debate Harsanyi is but rather the inconsistency between the two positions.
As regards the meaning of the Establishment/Free Exercise Clause, I take the position that it relates only to ‘establishments of religion’ (i.e., state-sponsored churches), not to religious freedom. The first section of the clause forbids the establishment of a federal church; the second section forbids Congress from “interfering with the free exercise” of the individual states’ established churches. There were three states with established churches when the Bill of Rights was written, the last one being disestablished in 1833.
If we interpret the “thereof” in “the free exercise thereof” as referring to religion generally, there’s no way for Congress to forbid religious human sacrifice in the District of Columbia – nor for anyone else to do so, since Congress has exclusive authority to govern there. Besides, there’s nothing for the “thereof” to refer back to besides the preceding “an establishment of religion.”
This is admittedly a perverse argument – but fun, and not illogical (if possibly ahistorical).
Ken Buck broke two basic rules for this campaign.
First – never talk about social issues, this campaign has to be about economic issues.
“But I was just expressing the mainstream view of every religion in the world, not just Christianity” – does not matter, do not let yourself be dragged to such matters. As anything you say will be twisted into you wanting to send people who commit homosexual acts to prison (although that never even entered your mind).
Second – never talk to the MSM about anything (even economic matters). Just say (sweetly if possible), “I am sure you can think up negative things to say about me – without me helping you”.
Stick to direct appeals to the voters (and interviews with people you know beyond all reasonable doubt are on your side – there are no “objective” people) – do not let yourself be diverted by MSM questions.
You do not need to dodge their questions – if you do not go on their shows, and if (when they ambush you) you simply say “the voters know you are in the tank for my opponent” (again, say that sweetly – if possible).