Sunday, November 30, 2003

Two brave Republicans

According to Drudge, Hagel and McCain are crying foul over government waste. Two points: first, they're both in the President's and majority party; second - most important - they're both in mild "taker" states, Nebraska (taking $1.09 to every dollar sent, down from $1.12 in 1990) and Arizona ($1.18, from $1.25).

It is good that their states are not outrageously riding us piggy-back (like Arizona's neighbour, New Mexico), and it is even better that the two are improving. Still, I'd like these two distinguished gentlemen to discuss federal water policy. Hagel can further talk about ending farm subsidies, and McCain can help us privatise Social Security.

[crickets]

I suppose when someone else does it, it's pork. But when we do it...

posted by Zimri on 19:53 | link |

The (too) well regulated Militia

The update to this post explained that I do not see a need for a Militia anymore.

I do not know why the Founders put in a Federal allowance for a cross-border armed force, of no loyalty to any State and of under-defined loyalty to the Union itself. The US seems retrospectively fortunate to have avoided a Maoist peasant revolution.

I assume that this Amendment derives from days when there was a cross-state population which was closer to enemies than to the Union's standing army. Those enemies would have been Southern slave populations, mobile Indian tribes, Joseph Smith's Mormons, and the armies of Great Britain, Spain, and, later, Mexico.

We don't have those enemies anymore - except potentially. It may happen one day that, say, Utah will secede and start striking out to expand its God-given territory; in which case, populations in Idaho and Wyoming may decide to team up. Or, local populations in the Southwest might decide to go vigilante: one side might start striking out against immigration and/or targets in Mexico proper; another might blow the horn of Aztlan. Both events are examples of local populations banding together across states in well regulated Militiae to counteract a common threat. Both are valid implementations of the "Militia Clause" of the Second Amendment.

They are also both disasters that the Union must avoid - and would avoid, nullifying the Amendment.

The first case is unlikely, and the Union would be better positioned than a Militia to counteract a Mormon resurgence. If it weren't, then the Constitution itself "hangs by a thread" (to cite the Mormon prophecy) and the Second Amendment wouldn't apply anymore anyway. As for the second case, that would result in an international pie-in-the-face for America. Again, in practice America would squelch the vigilantes and end the Second Amendment de facto.

The Militia Clause is a false liberty, a bluff waiting to be called. If 1860 is any guide, the Federal government will crush any insurrection, the instant a Militia invokes that Clause in the spirit with which the Founders intended it. The whole Amendment ought to be revoked by Constitutional process before this terror befalls us, and then it should be replaced with an Amendment better suited to present circumstances.

UPDATE: Just to make this clear: when I mentioned enemies of the Union in various points of its history, I did not say whether those enemies were or were not morally superior. That was because any such stance wouldn't have been relevant to the essay.

For my two cents, I think it goes both ways. The native tribes, however badly they failed, were correct in their assumption that the Union was ought to destroy them. Some tribes (the Apache come to mind) were brutal thugs who deserved it; others (like the Cherokee) weren't and didn't. The slave population was even more justified in rising up, but I suspect Nat Turner would have become a murderous tyrant had he succeeded and stayed on as leader.

posted by Zimri on 19:35 | link |

The three worst Amendments

And now, the House of David is proud to present the Constitution's Bill of Anti-Rights. Drumroll, please.

Amendment 16 allows the government to keep tabs on our income. It amounts to a repeal of the Fourth Amendment for law-abiding taxpayers. It should never have been implemented, and it needs to be repealed ASAFP. That's all I need to say on that topic; almost any other libertarian can tell you this and more.

Amendment 23 allows DC a say in our Electoral College. DC's prosperity is parasitic on the prosperity of the other States. I mean, $6.49 taken for every dollar given - come on, people. DC does not deserve statehood, and should not have anything approaching statehood: including, especially, the deciding say in who becomes the President.

Amendment 24 grants non-taxpayers the right to vote. And not just in a government election: it grants them the right to vote in a "primary". A "primary" is not defined in the Constitution, and that is for a simple reason: it is an election of officers for a free association of men. Since when does the Constitution define how a political party is to run its affairs - oh yes, since Amendment 24. This Amendment is a repeal of the First Amendment's "right of the people peaceably to assemble". As for poll taxes: if the Feds have a problem with poll taxes, they can jolly well put that in a separate Amendment.

A party of fiscal conservatives, such as the Whigamores, could oppose #16 and #23 out of principle. But it would have to oppose the 24th, because that Amendment would kill the party. The party would have to let in exactly those people whom fiscal conservatives are sworn to weaken: net takers from the Federal till.

These Amendments have expanded the Federal government's power over individuals and over unions of individuals. They have made a mockery of the liberty which the Constitution was written to protect.

posted by Zimri on 18:06 | link |

Greater DC

The District of Columbia has something in common with: Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. These states all form a contiguous block of land with no enclaves within it.

They share another feature. They are all on the Federal dole. Big time: the lowest of these (Tennessee) gets $1.20 on each dollar it gives.

All these pork-consuming beggar states in the Bandit Belt ought to be threatened with revocation of Statehood. They can all join "Greater DC" until they quit running such lopsided deficits against the Federal larder. Don't they know there's a war on?

posted by Zimri on 17:49 | link |

Premature Amendments

The Amendments granting the vote to women (#19) and to 18-year-olds (#26) are both premature.

As they stand, they assume that voting is a right, that women and the young have been denied. This franchise is not a right; it is part of the contract between Commonwealth and Sovereign. Some members of the Commonwealth are not fulfilling their part of the contract, be it taxes or military-service.

Given that much, it would indeed be unfair to deny the vote to female wage-earning taxpayers and to young veterans of a Federal military campaign. And revoking those Amendments is impossible now anyway. But the debate over at least the 19th Amendment ought to have set us to rethinking why we have a vote, and who gets to exercise it.

My personal take: I agree with Robert Heinlein, that the Union should grant the vote only to those individuals, or perhaps even States, which contribute to the Union. (Not necessarily as far as military service.)

posted by Zimri on 17:18 | link |

Good Amendments

I was looking at this list again.

I'd already mentioned the 17th Amendment as probably unnecessary, although it hasn't actively hurt us. In this post I will look at the more positive Amendments. Some of it I don't understand, but seems sensible; some of it is poorly worded, but came out all right in the wash; and some of it has proved its worth over the years.

Articles 2-12 of the Bill of Rights (Amendments 27 and 1-10) are of course Good Things, as are Amendments 13-15. I don't really understand Amendment 11 but it seems fair enough too. Amendments 12, 20, and 25 deal in part with sorting out accession and succession of Federal officers, including the President; otherwise, again, I don't understand them, but I can give them the benefit of the doubt.

Amendment 18 (Prohibition) was awful; but Amendment 21 repealed it, so I needn't go into 18 here. As for Amendment 21, it didn't get to the root of the issue - which is that a free adult has the right to whatever mind-altering chemical s/he can afford. But I will grant that Amendment 21 can be construed as a "Rights Amendment", if a badly worded one; in that, it is no worse than Amendment 2. (Like Amendment 2, it's worth a post of its own.)

Amendment 22 - Presidential term limits - has been tested twice in my memory. Ronald Reagan would have won if he had run a third time, but he would not have tried. Bill Clinton would have won a third term, too - and he would have tried. Amendment 22 spared us a self-perpetuating, triangulating machine in the Executive office as of 9/11. If only it had been there in 1940! So I am, finally, convinced the Amendment was a good one.

So that is 20 out of 27 Amendments that have expanded our liberty and fastened our stability. Another Amendment didn't hurt (#17) and yet another got chucked out (#18). That leaves us with five problem Amendments. Not bad, given two centuries of evolution; most democratic republics have, historically, collapsed in a quarter that time.

posted by Zimri on 15:53 | link |

A new "Second Amendment"

As noted below, I don't like the currect First or Second Amendments as written. The Second Amendment is so impressionistic as to be meaningless. A "well regulated Militia" may well be vital to the defence of a State, but how isn't that covered as a Tenth Amendment "State's Right"? And if we want to protect individual gun rights, why not say so?

Allow me to say so:

• Section 1. The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
  
• Section 2. The right of each Household to keep and employ Arms, for the protection of Self, Kin, and Property therein, shall not be infringed; except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.
  

For gun owners, this prevents any State from taking their personal arms away. It allows for laser sights, for so-called "cop killer" bullets, and for silencers: if someone breaks into your home bearing a Kevlar jacket; then you have the right to take careful aim and to fire at him while protecting your ears. In addition it allows for the transport of (unloaded!) personal arms from the dealer to the household. Local authorities might try to ban guns on the pretext that their police force has provided adequate protection; if so that should be laughed out of court for the humbug it is. This proposed amendment makes all that as clear as I can make it.

But there are restrictions, too. It allows States to enact "concealed-carry" laws, and to keep guns away from liquor-serving establishments. It allows States to keep outlaws from owning guns. It allows States to restrict weapons that are ill-suited for domestic protection, such as rocket-launchers and long-range rifles. Most importantly, it lifts Federal protection from any "well regulated Militia" that a State may distrust.

UPDATE: Provided the missing link to the earlier essay - which had specifically suggested Sections. I notice here that I didn't really use Sections. That is because, after thinking about it, I didn't see the national interest in a "well regulated Militia" that must, in a Union-constitutional context, bear arms for offensive use and span multiple states.

posted by Zimri on 15:31 | link |

Liberal Christianity, the Bible, and Heraclius

"Non-Fundamentalist Christianity" is a fall-back tactic of Protestant apologetics.

Most Christians don't consider themselves Fundamentalists. Many of these belong to ancient Churches like the Russian Orthodox or the Roman Catholic organisations. Others are Protestants who live with the faith but do not live by it. For different reasons, both sides downgrade the Bible: the Churches because the Church reasons that it is the Body of Christ, and the moderate Protestants because the Bible simply isn't that important to them.

Those who rejected the Church but remained Christian required another unifying outside force. Some enshrined the Christian Bible as the Word of God, eventually declaring it a "fundament" (foundation) of the faith.

The "Fundamentalists" face the problem of defending a canon which, their opponents charge, contradicts itself, the archaeological record, and modern science. Accordingly they are on a continual hunt for evidences that a secularist might accept: scientific critiques of Darwinian evolution, parallels between Biblical prophecy and historical events, and a neutral definition of the canon that must keep the current books in and secondary books out.

But any definition of canon that is not a priori must allow for books that are more fundamental: books that (1) are not in the canon (2) meet the criteria of the existing canon and (3) are demonstrably inspirational to canonical books. Daniel in the Old Testament and John in the New Testament now have "alternate editions" in manuscripts dating before the canonical books' first attestation (Epistle of Nabunai, and Egerton Papyrus, respectively). Secular scholars suspect these alternates are actually first editions, which then begs the questions (for Christians): why aren't they in the Bible now, and (more importantly) why should the Bible keep their secondary versions instead.

Moderate Protestants and the ancient Churches do not have the Fundamentalists' logical problems, but are still affected by them. Secular scholars have now made it very difficult to defend the ancient canon, which had for millennia sufficed for the faith.

Liberal Christian theologians do not believe that a broken canon is proof against Christianity. They believe (alongside all non-Fundamentalists) that the point of Christianity is Christ. What sets them apart from most moderate Christians is that they have a doctrine: that Christianity needs to be defended, and that Fundamentalism will not work as a defence. They are hoping to rally the moderates under this doctrine.

These theologians have therefore elected to protect the centre of their faith (Christ), and the centre only. To do that they are willing to abandon whatever peripheral doctrines can be abandoned. This has granted them the bonus of cutting out some of Christianity's more apocalyptic and intolerant texts, which had posed problems on moral grounds for all Christianity.

It's a bit like Emperor Heraclius's strategy against Caliph Umar: fall back to a defensible position, and abandon the less important sectors. Heraclius did manage to save the Empire, for a time.

posted by Zimri on 12:07 | link |

Friday, November 28, 2003

Clark and Waco?

This blog has endorsed anyone-but-Wesley-Clark for his federal idolatry alone. To that, we could add his un-endorsement from his fellow generals, his cozying up to Mladic, his near-provocation of Russia... the list is extensive.

Now some are trying to add Waco to this impressive résumé. Personally I find this a bit more second-hand than his other crimes.

Not to say that Waco wasn't a total fiasco. It was. Janet Reno took a matter of religious debate and turned it into a military extermination. Reno has her own dubious résumé; and if it were up to me, she'd be in prison for life.

But Clark can't be blamed for following the specific orders that his Commander In Chief gave him.

posted by Zimri on 15:55 | link |

The gift of the Greens

I'd suggested that PO'ed fiscal conservatives ought to form their own party, to run candidates in select states (like Illinois and New Jersey), and to ignore the rest (like Texas and Maryland). I read in the paper today that the Greens are doing it already.

Massachusetts is a lost cause just like Texas. But the Greens are also going after California and New York (nos. 11 and 12 on the list of net givers to DC).

If the Greens take from Dem margins in NY and CA, if Dem turnout is low, and if the Repubs do as badly as they're expected to... we Whigs have a serious shot at those two states.

What the hell are we waiting for?

posted by Zimri on 15:23 | link |

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Gloves off

Those last two posts dealt with Taranto's mistakes and then, because I needed a counter-argument, I explained the theocrats' long-term strategy. Hopefully I was civil enough in those two posts. I warn the reader in advance that I will be less civil in this one.

Taranto fancies himself a comedian, and he is not above distorting a quote for a cheap thrill. His concluding snicker at an article on "great tits" is a case in point; the article was about a species of bird.

But he also said this: "All [Reich] does is denounce those on the other side for being evangelical Christians. That this should serve as a substitute for argument shows just how prevalent is anti-Christian bigotry on America's liberal left."

That is not a humourous distortion. That is a lie.

First, Reich was denouncing the "other side" not for what they "are", but for what they are doing. Reich does not deny that Evangelical Christians are free to believe what they want. Reich does not deny that they are free to bang church bells, go door to door, run websites, or do whatever they please to spread their faith on their own dime and in their own time. Reich takes exception to their well-documented attempts to insinuate their faith into the official speech of the State. Does Taranto imagine that Reich is going to set up a reverse-Inquisition, to change who these guys are? Him and what army?

Second, the side which Reich is opposing does not - cannot - speak for "Christianity", and Reich has not denounced all Christians as people, so Reich cannot be accused of being anti- the Christian religion, let alone "anti-Christian". That much is slander.

Third, even if Reich did argue against a given religion or a subset of it, it is not "bigotry". Reich must oppose general Christianity, in his heart, or else he must apostasise from his own religion, which is incompatible with Christian doctrine. Reich was humble enough to stop short of saying that (see "Second", above). He didn't even argue from the Christian standpoint of allowing Caesar his due. And at no point did Reich say that he could never be talked into converting to Christianity through logic and reason. Since there is no "bigotry" in Reich's article, any accusation of it amounts to one of crimethink. Isn't the Right supposed to be, you know, kind of against that sort of thing?

Taranto wants us to associate Reich with "bigotry" because he knows that for liberals, being a "bigot" makes you automatically wrong, and not worth any thinking person's time. Given that Reich is Jewish and that Taranto is Christian, Taranto smearing Reich of being "anti-Christ[ian]" is particularly perilous.

Taranto and his editors, if he has any, ought to be ashamed of this stain on an otherwise great newspaper.

posted by Zimri on 18:27 | link |

Theocratic drift

I mentioned earlier a concept I called "theocratic drift".

The theocrats in our culture know they can't take over the federal government and declare a Mormon nation. They also know they differ amongst themselves. But what they can do is weaken the Wall of Separation, and work for a more theocratic state in a few generations. The exact doctrinal details can wait.

That is what America's theocrats are doing.

Going back to Taranto: "his complaints deal with two areas of policy: laws involving moral questions (sodomy, marriage, abortion) and the use of religious rituals and symbols in public functions (here he cites only school prayer, but we're guessing he agrees with the ACLU agenda of banning things like Ten Commandments memorials, crèches and menorahs in public parks)." The theocrats use the moral questions to quell the confusion and doubts that are plaguing Middle America. They set themselves up as the men with the answers. When they get a popular majority of sympathisers, they attempt to establish their icons (school prayer, "under god", "standard" 10-commandments, what have you) into the State. And then they repeat the process, trying to insinuate as much of their belief(s) as they can into the nation's social, ritual, and ultimately legal doctrines.

I know this first-hand. I've been through the fundamentalist mill. I've been fed the lies they peddle to insecure and impressionable people. And I've been to their rallies. The common Christian may well be a swell guy, but he isn't alone; he has a group, his group has a leader, and the leader wants what any leader wants - more power.

Yes, Taranto is right that "There are reasonable arguments on both sides of the debates over such things as abortion, same-sex marriage and school prayer. But Reich doesn't even bother making a case for his own positions." But why should Reich? That's not his point. More importantly, it's not the evangelists' point. "Jesus said so" is no more an argument than "it's evangelical". In fact, it's the same argument, only different factions are employing it for different ends. Reich's point is that we're drifting to theocracy. The evangelists know it too, because they're the ones driving it.

Perhaps Taranto is right that the denominations can't agree on the form and extent of theocracy right now. Well, Wahhabis and Shi'ites and Baathists and monarchists can't agree on the form and extent of the Islamic Caliphate, either. That doesn't stop them from uniting against their common opponents - coincidentally, the chief enemies of the New Testament, Jews and unbelievers. That doesn't stop their extremists from uniting, either. As for America: the 1857 "Mountain Meadows" incident in Utah, and the 1974 Textbook War in West Virginia, suffice to show that even here, even for Christians, we are not immune to factional riot.

posted by Zimri on 17:50 | link |

Theocracy and its enablers

Robert Reich hath spoke, saying: "Today's evangelical right detests that [religious-liberal] tradition and seeks nothing short of a state-sponsored religion. . . . Democrats should remind Americans that however important religion is to our spiritual lives, there is no room for liberty in a theocracy."

Taranto replied with a three-paragraph-long, irrelevant explanation on why America will never institute one of its existent religions as the official one. They boil down to that "the Constitution expressly forbids it" and, if it didn't, "Who would be in charge?". But Reich never said that the Religious Right were trying to foist any particular denomination upon the body politic. Taranto admitted as much when he added, "When you look at Reich's bill of particulars, it turns out what he really objects to is not theocracy at all." This is one of the most impressive own goals I have yet seen in punditry.

Reich's worry is that evangelicals are expanding their influence in government, and hope to weaken the government's Constitutional immune system against theocratic drift. Again, in Taranto's own words: "Rather, his complaints deal with two areas of policy: laws involving moral questions (sodomy, marriage, abortion) and the use of religious rituals and symbols in public functions (here he cites only school prayer, but we're guessing he agrees with the ACLU agenda of banning things like Ten Commandments memorials, crèches and menorahs in public parks)." Taranto imagines, or pretends to imagine, that if the ACLU were to roll over, the likes of Roy "God's law supercedes the Constitution" Moore would simply retire to their homes and sing hymns. Not bloody likely.

I can't speak for Taranto, but I count myself fortunate that America is not - yet - mired in theocracy. That does not diminish that there are many Americans who would like it to be. Taranto does us no favours by pulling the veil over our eyes.

posted by Zimri on 17:02 | link |

Recruitment

So... whom can we induce to join the crusade?

Forget John McCain; he's from Arizona and that's one of the states on the take. But if he wants to resign and run against the pork barrel, we can surely find a spot for him at the executive level.

I notice Presidential-candidate and Senator Joe Lieberman is from Connecticut. And he's a "conservative Democrat" who is already running on a free trade platform. He stands no chance for the Dem nomination. So let's pull him in as our Whig candidate instead, so he can be free to follow his real principles.

According to bipartisan ratings, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California is considered less liberal than many in her caucus. Same goes for Carper and Biden of Delaware. Torricelli (D-NJ), too, but he is a crook and we don't want him.

On the Republican side, Nighthorse Campbell famously switched from the Dems in 1995. The Democrats consider him on par with Zell Miller, but the Republicans love him. I am not sure what the Whigs can offer him, though, that wouldn't (from his perspective) just be "Repub-lite". His fellow Senator Allard is more conservative; but he just got re-elected last year. Likewise Coleman of Minnesota, and he owes his victory in large part to Bush, so he'll want to stay whatever his views. We have to let them be.

John Fitzgerald, as an anti-pork and independent Republican Senator, would have been an excellent recruit. Too bad he's retiring.

I don't know enough about Ensign (R-NV) or the New Hampshire delegation.

As far as governors: Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Republican governor of California now. He's well to the social left of the GOP in that state - but he's still got that Republican cross about his neck. Switch him over, too. The others haven't made as much an impression of nonpartisanship and fiscal responsibility, because they haven't had to (yet). But New York's Pataki has been notorious in this regard and should face a Whig opponent at the first opportunity.

posted by Zimri on 01:30 | link |

Monday, November 24, 2003

Neo-Whigamores

The faction I have in mind would start with a platform of fiscal conservatism. It should therefore appeal to those states which currently give to Washington more than they receive.

Those states getting most egregiously ripped off are, in order:

• Connecticut (getting back 62 cents for every dollar they give out; 7 Electoral College votes)
  
• New Jersey (66 cents; 15 votes)
  
• Nevada (69 cents; 5 votes)
  
• New Hampshire (71 cents; 4 votes)
  
• Illinois (74 cents; 21 votes)
  
• Minnesota (76 cents; 10 votes)
  
• Michigan (81 cents; 17 votes)
  
• Wisconsin (83 cents; 10 votes)
  
• Delaware (84 cents; 3 votes)
  
• Colorado (85 cents; 9 votes)
  
• California (86 cents; 55 votes)
  
• New York (86 cents; 31 votes)
  

That's 187 votes right there, for the "we want our money's worth" platform alone.

So who lives there? I note that they don't much like partisan Republicans. This set includes Cali, the Tri-State Area, the Sin State, and the Great Lakes. New Hampshire and Delaware round it out - not exactly liberal, but by no means Bible Belt. Colorado's about the most conservative state in the lot, and it's a vacation hotspot.

Most of these states lean anti-Republican already for social and historic reasons. These are the places where the metropolitan elite live and play, for a start; those are the gay, single, and secular populations which don't vote Republican because they (we!) want to keep state and church separate. The middle classes in the Great Lakes have a legacy of unionism and progressivism, and remember Republicans as Gilded Age plutocrats. In all these states, the Black populations have rawer memories of the GOP as the final home of their Dixiecrat persecutors. The GOP is already in trouble for all the above.

From that, the fiscal conservative party can round out its platform to appeal to anti-Republican voters on local concerns.

A fiscal conservative party in those locales would be free to support anti-federal measures that reduce the burden Washington imposes on minorities and the poor. These measures include school vouchers, repeal of textile tariffs, and an end to farm subsidies. Michigan will want repeal of steel tariffs; in fact, many of these states are coastal and will benefit from free trade in general. This new Whig party can promise all the above at no cost to its integrity.

The California coast, New York City, and Las Vegas are the most likely Ground Zeroes for any new terror attacks. Michigan has an additional motive to ensure a steady and inexpensive flow of oil. The Whigs will support a hawkish line against militant Islam and socialism in oil-producing states.

Most importantly for me: this party won't be calling for Ten Commandments monuments, prayer in school, creationism, or a Federal Marriage Amendment. None of that resonates in those states. That also means that gays and secularists won't need to hold our noses anymore.

The Whigs would attract those people in liberal states who are socially liberal yet fiscally conservative. Right now they vote Democrat because up 'til now they have had no alternative. It is time they had one.

posted by Zimri on 23:59 | link |

A proposal for fiscal conservatives

I've been too depressed about Washington oinkery to comment. So I'll let Drezner do it and say "me too".

So who else will enact our fiscally-responsible policies, if not the Republicans? I mean, we can't run a libertarian version of Perot; even if he got another 19%, he'd just spread it across the board and ensure a Demo gets in. That Demo wouldn't be a triangulator like Clinton; we'd probably end up with a Demo who believes what he preaches. No offense meant to honest liberals, which whom I have much sympathy; but the current far Left is running the show on that side of the fence right now, and their victory would result in an international disaster.

I suggest instead that we libertarians and fiscal conservatives run a slate of candidates locally. Find some likely states and run the candidates there, including a charismatic one for President. But here is the tricky part: don't run these guys in the other states! That way, we can ensure the Republicans will still get whatever Electoral College votes and congressional seats they were going to get anyway in states like Texas, and we won't be wasting resources on Democrat sure-things like Maryland.

If we can get enough of these states on board, we could drive bargains with both parties, and support the candidate closest to our ideals. We could also get influence in the upcoming Cabinet and advisory positions. The new party might even retain a wedge in Congress between the two existent ones.

posted by Zimri on 23:10 | link |

Sunday, November 23, 2003

Site pests begone

ColdFury posted about the Michael Jackson mess. In response, he got this from a "JadeGold":

As odious as Jackson's alleged crimes are, I'm curious why rightwingers aren't equally outraged by Tom DeLay's fundraising efforts which involves soliciting funds for "neglected and abused children" but using the proceeds for campaign fundraising and lobbying efforts.

Oh well. I guess it's all in how you define "molestation."

If my blog still had comments, I would have banned that IP.

First off, to split up poster Slartibartfast's response, "Some of us are sticklers for the actual meaning of words, Jade. I doubt any of us are dumb enough to confuse ... dishonesty with ... molestation." (He also said that the dishonesty was "alleged" and the molestation was "actual", when in fact both charges are technically "alleged" and also most likely "actual".) DeLay's actions, however wicked, aren't relevant.

Second, it is not as if "right-wing" sites leave DeLay alone. DeLay is despised by secularists (like me), and distrusted by civil libertarians. That is true even for people who support Democrats only when they run to the right of Republicans (again, like me) . I worked hard to keep Culberson in my area and DeLay out. In short, I have nothing to do with that corrupt asshole DeLay, and I refuse to deal with anyone who insinuates that I do.

Last, and most important - if you have a problem with DeLay, then make that point on your own damned blog. If you feel like you must get the word out, go write mail to anti-DeLay right-leaning websites; they'll be only too glad to make a stink and let it bubble up to the more major bloggers.

If JadeGold had wanted to argue the point that was actually ON THE BLOG HE'D REPLIED TO, and to keep it on topic, that could have been done. The poster could have defended Jackson, or could have said it wasn't a big deal. One principled Left position that I would love to read might be an investigation into how the Neverland scandal happened, and if the local government deserves its share of blame for not shutting down that den of iniquity earlier.

But that wasn't JadeGold's intent, was it? That poster wasn't directing the post at DeLay. DeLay was an afterthought. It wasn't at Michael Jackson either. It was aimed at ColdFury's right to criticise Michael Jackson (of all people). And its point was just to proclaim what eeevil hypocrites all right-wing moralists are.

JadeGold's post wasn't a blog comment; it was pure site vandalism.

posted by Zimri on 16:15 | link |

DeLay the swindler

I just ran across a story that relates: that Majority Whip Tom DeLay's aides admit the man used a childrens' charity foundation as a prop to line his own pocket. I guess the DeLay Commandments won't be including those bits about "thou shalt not steal" or "thou shalt not bear false witness".

posted by Zimri on 16:10 | link |

Dubious endorsement

The NY Post reports (link from Junkyard Blog and, now, Cold Fury): Arafat is planning to "stall peace" because he wants to lower Bush's ratings.

I'm not sure how Arafat's tactics will lead into this. On the one hand, his underlings are praising Iraqi bombers, saboteurs, and snipers as warriors in an intifadah. That will rally whatever Hizbollah and Palestine sympathisers there still are in Iraq. But on the other, he is trying to get the Islamic Jihad and Hamas to sign yet another truce-so-we-can-retrain-and-reload with Israel.

Also, how can Arafat stall a peace which never got started? How much authority can he hold over a people who near-unanimously want Jews to die?

Arafat may decide that being violent now will impact American politics. But is he going to do nothing under a Dean presidency? Hell no! He's going to use that to be even more violent, to demoralise the Jews.

I think it is clear to most Americans that the party in office in Washington has little bearing on whatever happens in Israel/Palestine.

But hey, it's a nice endorsement for those campaign ads. Not sure which party though...

posted by Zimri on 15:27 | link |

Amendment Sections

I was looking at the US Constitution's list of Amendments. A few features came to my attention:

First, the Bill of Rights originally had twelve "articles". The last ten of these ended up in the Constitution immediately as Amendments. The second one finally arrived as Amendment #27 in 1992. The first one was a tweak to limit the number of voters per representative, and can never be implemented in its 1700's form.

Second, apart from Amendments 27/"0"-12, most Amendments have "Section" headings. These clarify the points of the Amendments. This practice was instituted for the "Second Bill of Rights", Amendments 13-15, after the Civil War.

Not all Amendments need Sections. Amendment #27 is short and sweet, as is Amendment #3. Amendment #5 could have Sections; but its divisions are clear enough (double jeopardy, self-incrimination).

But then there are the first and second Amendments: the right to opinions, and the right to arms. Only anarchists believe in unfettered access to both. And many people, including Americans, don't believe in the first, the second, or either of these rights - although most of these would-be tyrants are cynical enough to deny it.

The amendments literally read:

• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
  
• A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
  

Both mention a number of rights, but do not elucidate what they mean nor suggest how (or if) they are to be guaranteed. The first bundles too many clauses at once and denies them to Congress. The second is incoherent. In an Impressionist manner, they do allow rights of conscience and of self-defence. But legal analysts can parse them in many other ways. This provides a field day for ideologues of every stripe.

Citizens should understand more clearly what the Amendments allow the people, and what they allow the government to restrict from the people. I think the first two Amendments would be much improved if their clauses were divvied up into Sections.

posted by Zimri on 14:16 | link |

Saturday, November 22, 2003

Ukraine: Never forget

The winter of 1933 was a harsh one in my great-grandfather's ancestral homeland. His immediate family had managed to escape before the Ukraine went Communist; his relatives - my relatives - did not.

In our family, we remember Stalin as a worse monster than Hitler. My relatives survived Hitler. They did not survive the snows of Kolyma.

We also remember Lenin's "useful idiots", like Reed and Duranty, who saw the future in Lenin's terror-state and proclaimed that it works.

Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for his Ukrainian "journalism" in that year. The Pulitzer committee refuse to revoke it to this day.

posted by Zimri on 23:39 | link |

No Paradise to Lose

The edu-bloggers Joanne Jacobs and Erin O'Connor are complaining that teachers are not teaching Milton properly. Apparently they concentrate on Milton's alleged sexism and not on his place in literature.

I looked up "Milton" and "sexist" and I found an explanation, courtesy the pink monkey. (Huhuhhuh... I said "monkey". Glad I got that out of my system.) I suppose Mr Milton would be considered stuffy in our time, but why does that matter?

Hell, at least students are now reading Milton. I wasn't so fortunate. When I was taking college English Lit, the prof took it upon herself to give equal time to scribblers like Margaret Cavendish. We didn't get to read any Dryden or Milton or Spenser. By the end of the semester, I was bored literally witless and scored a "D". And I doubt the students' esteem for female authors improved much as a result of the class.

In any English class covering that era, you should be studying Milton; and you should be concentrating on his influence on English literature and language, and only tertiarily (if that is a word) for his imprint on English / European social attitudes. That last is better suited for the History department.

As for whether Milton-era "sexism" was good or bad for that time or this time - that's Philosophy-fodder. At best.

posted by Zimri on 22:04 | link |

Bad blogs

Editor Tom Mangan frets that a bad man might use the blog medium, and get himself elected. Excuse me for saying this, but... how like an editor, to think the bleating masses believe everything they read.

Chances are, the person who has an Internet connexion and the means to one political blog, will get tired of that one blog, and will scout around for others. The first person says something, then someone else says something else, then a community has a general discussion; the reader makes his decision based on the value system he started out with. Where information is free, blogs just grease the wheel and make information more available more quickly. Bad blogs, including the House of David, either don't get read or else get laughed at.

Mangan's scenario only holds when there isn't contrary information. Where I see blogs becoming malign, is if they come from a little-known territory where there are factions that have a motive to mislead the general public.

Like Iraq. Lots of blogs in Iraq now. The fear I have is that some Baathist will masquerade as a pro-American blogger - ArminioPundit, perhaps - and finger political rivals (like popular Shi'ite clerics) as enemies of America. Bloggers and opinion-meisters around the world loudly question why we're not doin' nuffin', and then we do the wrong thing.

posted by Zimri on 21:12 | link |

Pious blowhards

Bill Hobbs would like you to know that, by contrast with those eeeevil Muslims, "My religion is different. My God doesn't threaten me."

Aww, how sweet! I guess that means he's changed his mind from what he said on 15 November, that Michael Williams was "standing up for truth" when he agreed with John 14:6 that "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."".

posted by Zimri on 19:38 | link |

The Spam Tower

As mentioned earlier, I spent Thursday night reading the fifth "Dark Tower" book, Wolves of the Calla. After finishing it, I did something I've never done before: I tore out the "Author's Afterword". After this post, I'm consigning it to the fire.

The afterword concerns Stephen King's friend Frank Muller. Muller had done the voiceovers for the audio version of the first four DT books. King says that he had listened to those audio books in preparation for book #5, and that he owes Muller a debt of gratitude. About two years ago, Muller got himself into a motorcycle collision, and now he needs rehabilitation. King has helped set up a foundation to help Muller, has promised Muller the profits for the audio version of the book, and has explained to us Muller's role in building the Dark Tower.

So far so good. Unfortunately, the last paragraph tells us where to find this "Wavedancer Foundation"; and requests "if you've got a few bucks that aren't working" that you should chuck them thataway.

I don't know Muller. But I do know that motorcycle accidents are inherently more dangerous than vehicular accidents. Muller could have taken a Toyota Camry through those roads and been a little more careful about how he drove it. If he'd done that, he would have avoided the problem entirely, or at worst got himself a broken arm and a busted car. (This assumes he didn't cause the crash, about which King is silent here.)

Muller is not suffering from a disease nor from an unpreventable accident. Many people do, people who cannot afford sailboats named "Wavedancer". (My charitable donations tend to go to diabetes research and mental-health facilities. I also voted for more funding for the local community-college system, and I pay city taxes, so that ought to count too.) For that matter, King was in a car collision that was not his fault. In that case, someone was wrestling his mutt in the front seat and swerved off the road, hitting King on foot.

If the Dark Tower strikes a chord with you, by all means reward the franchise. Buy the books, buy the CD, buy the merchandise. Check out King's website and hunt around for whatever foundations he approves of. Give to Muller if that makes you feel better.

I will say this much. I deeply resent King's pitch for my time and resources, within the book itself, to subsidise a man who got into his position through unsafe behaviour. King should have left the plea for his website, or else promised the Muller family a larger cut of the DT profits.

No doubt I will be flamed for this. That's the problem with unsolicited solicitations. One in a thousand will give in, half will sympathise (but not lay away their own funds - o no), and the remainder will not care. So we get spam, spam, spam until we don't care about anything anymore.

His "afterword" is a blot on his book. So I am removing it.

posted by Zimri on 19:03 | link |

Endorsement: Ronald Christopher Green

Here follows another post on Houston politics, with national repercussions...

There is a fascinating matchup buried in next month's city runoff. For the At-Large Position 4, the "conservative" Bill Keller (from mine own District G) is running against a "Democrat" Ronald Christopher Green. Keller is White, Green is Black.

Here's where it gets interesting. Keller proved himself a RINO when he voted down a tax rollback. Green on the other hand has been courting conservatives.

Green has been endorsed by right-wing radio station KSEV, and his opponents have already threatened to pull out the Clarence Thomas card.

If Green wins, he will owe his victory to the progressive Right, and not to the ethnic / partisan machine. Assuming he dances with what brung him, he can be counted on to slow down whatever boondoggles our presumptive mayor Bill White is dreaming up.

Ronald Christopher Green has my enthusiastic support in this election. I may have to volunteer...

posted by Zimri on 10:01 | link |

Friday, November 21, 2003

It's not true; it's not possible

I had writer's block yesterday, so I took that time to finish up "Dark Tower V".

But look what happened on my absence: John C. Dvorak is ranting about blogs again.

I have to disclose a personal secret. One I've been keeping for a year and a half. That bane of the Blogi Knights, Darth Dvorak, is... my father.

Dvorak's first rant, and the universal ridicule that followed it, was the seminal event that founded the "House of David" blog. (Compare the dates between Dvorak's article and my first ever post.)

I've noticed that in Blogistan, when Blogger AbePundit begets Blogger IsaacPundit, AbePundit considers IsaacPundit his "blogson". Alas, Dvorak will never recognise the indisputable bonds between us. I am fated to remain only Dvorak's blogbastard. Cruel fate!

posted by Zimri on 16:48 | link |

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

The smoke-filled room

Commenter "erp" at VodkaPundit believes the smoke-filled room is looking better and better for the Democratic Party. The rest of this post is an explication, as I see it, of erp's post.

erp says:

Don't be too concerned about a victory for Dean on the first ballot. Heaven and earth will moved to keep that from happening.

Four or five states are already talking of canceling some primaries as being too expensive. Some posters may be too young to remember that the whole primary system was invented so that Kennedy could by-pass the smoke-filled room method of choosing a candidate and appeal directly to the Democrat voter.

Now the DNC/Clinton cabal is trying to reverse that and go back to the figurative smoke-filled room. An unknown number of young geniuses from the Ivies are thinking up road blocks for Dean. The rules will be scrutinized and changed. There will be some strategy for denying Dean the nomination. If I were Dean, the closer I got to a primary win, the more I'd watch my back.

To nitpick: according to their history, the Dems cooked up their primary system to elect a different Catholic candidate - Alfred Smith in the 1920's. But certainly in the old days, there were no set dates for a primary; the candidates went to the convention with their delegates, and the party leaders worked out a deal.

If the Demos are to bring back the smoke-filled room, they then need to decide who gets the key to it. I personally think the Demos should choose a likeable guy who can help recapture some Senate seats (Edwards?), and there are surely other decent options. But right now, the people most keen on an un-seen Dean scene are those who run the party - and that party is run by Terry McAuliffe. He's a Clinton man and is most likely to nominate Hilary!. McAuliffe and his entertainment / socialite brethren don't particularly want the unglamourous Congress, preferring the powerful executive branch.

Hilary! by herself is a sure vote-loser all around. But maybe Hilary! won't run by herself...

I'm more worried about [anti-Bush financier George] Soros bankrolling [egotistical "Republican" Senator John] McCain into running as an independent perhaps with Dean on the ticket. That would be a sure ticket back to the White House for President [Rodham]. She'll dump bubba [Clinton] as soon as the election is over.

This is my nightmare.

And yes, McVain would be the spoiler. He can't garner the local appeal needed to win over a whole state, in the way of Wallace in '68. But he can do a Perot (or a T Roosevelt) and split up the conservative vote.

UPDATE 2/21/2004: Harold Ford can't be president because he's too young. Replaced his name with John Edwards.

posted by Zimri on 21:56 | link |

What evil lurks in the hearts of (white) men

Eminem's fall was not due to present racism; nor was it due to past racism, really. Kim Osorio primarily worries about Em's "ability to influence millions of minds". Eminem is being accused of latent racism.

As it happens, just last week medical science has come up with a diagnostic tool for this very disorder. Parents and teachers, if you are worried that your little Haley or Marshall will grow up to be a... well, you know... then run the lil' hitlerjugend through one of those puppies and you'll get the results back in a week. It'll be a must for the office, too: can't have potential conflicts, lords no, and we all have a commitment to diversity just like we wouldn't tolerate drug use. If the test comes up positive - don't worry: we have treatment for that.

Latent racism. Dear Gods. Rarely has Derbyshire been proven so right so fast:

I need to do some serious thinking about my future. I hold a lot of incorrect opinions about all sorts of things; and, having grown up in the age before PC, I have never internalized the necessary restraints nor mastered the necessary techniques of double-think. Looking at this new "hate-crimes" legislation coming up — bipartisan, of course! — I find myself wondering how much longer I shall be able to stay out of jail, much less be employable by any respectable organ of opinion.

I am perfectly serious. A friend of mine, a brilliant, well-educated, and civilized man with opinions very much like my own, is currently having his tax records demanded by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a federally funded organization dedicated to stamping out Bad Thoughts. My friends is suspected of having Bad Thoughts, you see. He is therefore obliged to forfeit several hundred hours of his time, unpaid, to the SPLC busybodies, and may very well end up forfeiting his property and freedom.

posted by Zimri on 20:26 | link |

Groupthink 2004

And that brings me to the main topic, what started all today's posts. Eminem's career is very probably over. (I found this out via lucianne.com; but it's on Drudge now.)

By all accounts, he's not racist; or at least does not make a career out of it. But like many people, he has entertained racist thoughts. Ten years ago, he stupidly committed some hotheaded comments along those lines to tape. Now his enemies have the tape and are using it.

Ten years ago I did and said some hotheaded things in print. Ten years is a long time when you are young, and I like to think I have made amends since then. I don't know how or if I should come clean about them now; if I ever became really popular or famous then I suspect some of them will see print again. As far as I am concerned, Eminem has said the right thing in admitting to and disavowing a recording that is several years older than his daughter.

But here is Kim Osorio, doing the same weasel-work I detest so much: "These are racist remarks by someone who has the ability to influence millions of minds".

As with Bond, the two halves of Kim's statement are technically true. But the statement's implication is a lie. When "Eminem" made those remarks, he wasn't Eminem. Marshall Mathers III did not have the ability to influence anyone or anything. That is, in fact, why he was so frustrated that he turned to rap in the first place. And he did not make those remarks in the recent past, and he is not in the slightest bit likely to make any such remarks again. He has had five years to screw up like this, most of which time was spent f0rqed up on MDMA, Vicodin, and coke - and since then, what racism have we heard from him?

Ditto publisher Mays's justification, "this is the key unlocking a much bigger picture." "Much" bigger. That is: he wants us to think racism might be the subtext behind Eminem's music and personality.

Kim is, like Julian Bond, riling up the masses. She wants Eminem's fans and Blacks in general to worry that he might turn racist. She wants to sow distrust and hate. And the worst of it is that her comment was so carefully constructed that no jury would ever convict her of slandering Mathers's name.

posted by Zimri on 20:19 | link |

Groupthink 2000

I wasn't a blogger when I read about this. Dick Armey had presented to the NAACP a valid point about race-baiting in Democratic politics. The President of that organisation, Kweisi Mfume, took the point in the spirit Armey had intended. So far so good, right?

Uh, yeah, except that the NAACP, like the Hydra, has more than one head. Its chairman, Julian Bond, had this to say: "this is a typical complaint of those who oppose justice and fairness".

Let's just Fisk that, word for word.

• Start with the first word, "this": Bond did not quote or even cite the offending letter. That would have distracted him from the task at hand. So Bond slipped over it and summed it as "this".
  
• "typical complaint": a composite of words that are more neutral on their own. Bond is saying that Armey's letter was firstly redundant and, as a "complaint", moreover mere whining.
  
• "of those who": no-one is named. Armey is not being accused of what follows, but he is in their company.
  
• "oppose justice and fairness": on principle? It takes a very skewed morality to oppose justice and fairness; usually such people mean to oppose it for people other than themselves. In context, Bond means that "those" people are racists.
  

Bond did not say that Armey was a racist opponent of justice and fairness who had offered - could offer - no proposal worth a good man's time. But he sure as hell implied it. He wanted his backers in the NAACP to believe it. And he wanted to cow Republicans from ever complaining about NAACP tactics again.

We all know that guy in school who cozies up to received opinion for a high grade and higher status; who doesn't address opposing viewpoints, but manipulates the classroom's prejudices to shut such viewpoints down and to destroy the people who hold them. He's a bully, a coward, a liar, and a cheat - all wrapped up in one invincible smug little package.

These people write newspaper columns; they sit at Congressional committees; and they lobby the government.

Not making waves is a lesson that reaps dividends throughout one's life.

posted by Zimri on 19:51 | link |

Groupthink 1992

In my first semester in college, I witnessed firsthand how consent is manufactured.

I had ended up in a mandatory "Humanities 101" class alongside a couple dozen other math/science nerds. This course was run by a Professor Gudrun Klein. Dr Klein had an ideology, but did not let her ideology slant the course or our grades. Of the "Great Books" which she selected for us, I admit I don't recall much beyond their names; except for one, Plato's Republic, which saved my bacon in another class's final exam (more on that another time). I also received much-needed feedback on my essay-writing skills. And I got a "B+" at the end of the semester, greater than or equal to what I deserved. To sum up, Dr Klein took a class full of people who had pre-judged it a waste of valuable computer lab time, and managed to get some of us to learn something about the reading and writing of literature.

Dr Klein's ideology happened to be Feminism. I only remember it becoming an issue during one class-related discussion (on Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" - she asked why / complained that we weren't upset enough at the rape scene), but even there she didn't harass us or ding us GPA points.

So while the lessons were going on, she did as well as any other prof would in that position. But she did not always stick to the lesson plan...

That semester was the inaugural year of a new major for the "interdisciplinary" folks: "Women & Gender Studies". Dr Klein was pleased about this new major and brought in some handouts for the class. I'd been eyeing an extra interdisciplinary major myself - "Ancient Mediterranean Civilisations" - but I didn't see the merit in W&GS. I also didn't see why it was for Women and Gender; and not just "Women Studies" (alongside an equal "Men Studies"), or else "Gender/Sex Studies". I made these reservations known to the prof, and she chuckled nervously and muttered something about controversy, which I can't otherwise remember.

But one of the students in the class, who had already taken a personal dislike to me, saw his opportunity. (Yeah, "his".) He flashed a grin around the class and opined that some people just have problems with women, with progress, with equality. When I challenged him to explain himself, he wouldn't meet my eyes; he just kept mugging for his audience.

By the way, this man was no "Sensitive Joe"; he was tall, well-built, and certainly a fairer speaker than I have ever been. I seriously doubt he would have ventured anywhere near a W&G classroom unless it were to hit up progressive chicks.

It was perfect, really. He didn't have to provide an argument for his position. He got to make me look stupid in front of the teacher, and like a boor in front of the female classmates. And in so doing he shored up his own stock with the teacher.

His ploy didn't affect my grade, which was high enough without him; nor my social standing, which was low enough without him. I doubt it much helped him, either. But whether it worked or not isn't my concern. The point is that everyone let him get away with it. The professor, too, kept out of this; despite that the student had launched an unprovoked personal attack against me (however slyly done).

People learn quickly not to make waves.

posted by Zimri on 19:30 | link |

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

If he knows what is good for him

The Houston Press is advising Sanchito that he best go run and hide:

Mayoral contender and former councilman Orlando Sanchez came in second behind front-runner Bill White, but the real shocker was his poor performance in Latino neighborhoods. Whereas Sanchez had carried a majority of Hispanic voters in his losing 2001 runoff against Lee Brown, an Insider survey of eight key precincts in last week's election showed a dramatic reversal.

In Magnolia Park's Box 11, Sanchez had beaten Brown by 294 to 183, a 63 percent majority. Last week Bill White took the same precinct 279 to 160, a 58 percent majority for the leader. Likewise, in Denver Harbor's Precinct 560, a Sanchez majority of 77 percent over Brown was reversed with White receiving 127 votes to 103 for Sanchez. Sanchez carried only two of the key precincts surveyed.

"The Hispanic community figured out that Orlando is a Republican," analyzes [Democrat consultant Craig] Varoga.

"I think the Republican outreach effort to Hispanics has a lot of explaining to do," agrees Marc Campos, who worked for Sylvester Turner's mayoral campaign.

As we went to press some big-bucks Sanchez supporters were reportedly chewing over the idea that their candidate might be better off dropping out of the runoff in a unity gesture. If that happened, Orlando would in defeat have made Houston political history.

Varoga is out of bounds to imply that the Hispanic community ought to oppose Orlando simply for belonging to the Republican Party. If one-party states like Venezuela and Cuba are so great, then how come the Hispanics who live in them keep running away and showing up in Houston? Campos is closer to the mark, in that Republicans didn't offer anything to Hispanics this year other than the candidate's last name.

Ultimately, it's not that "Orlando is a Republican". It's that Orlando isn't anything else. In the last two years, he could have set down roots in this town and perhaps run for some other office. But now, two years later, he is still just The Guy Who Shoulda Won. The Houston conservative Al Gore.

As far as I know, Sanchez is still running. And he still stands to lose. Badly. And when he loses, he will take the hopes of minority Republicans down with him.

The Republican Party's best hope in Houston is that Orlando Sanchez quits graciously.

posted by Zimri on 22:04 | link |

Seeds on foreign ground

Below, I pointed at religions that were culture-based, and would lack "resonance" outside the land and people. I denied that Christianity counted as a White culture-based religion. But Christianity is nonetheless a culture-based religion.

Christianity depends on the Jewish scripture and on the Jewish royal line. It also depends on the culture of the lands around three bodies of water: the Mediterranean, the Nile, and the Tigris-Euphrates system. If you are a heathen from, say, Iran or Ireland or Norway, you're not going to care that so-and-so died on a cross in southern Syria. You may not have heard of Syria, and you certainly won't accept the Garden of Eden mythology upon which Christian "salvation" relies.

Once the grip of Rome loosened in the outlying territories, it became possible for laymen to question the Christian myth. Once this happened, Christianity began to fail as a rallying cry in northern European communities. Other religions, like Wicca and Nazism, are taking its place.

I bring this up because in Bad Eagle's comments, a poster asked of the 'Eagle, "How do you reconcile the conflict between following the "white man's religion" and being an Indian? What do you think of those Indians who stayed with, or readopted, the beliefs of their ancestors?". As of the time of posting, he hadn't had the time to answer.

The statement "White man's religion" is false only because it gets the specific race wrong. The average aborigine won't particularly care about the difference between Jew and Greek, or for that matter Dane and Berber, as long as all are united in taking his farm. Native America knew nothing of Christianity until Spain brought it over with the Inquisition. America produced no prophets and received no missions until the tail-end of Europe's Middle Ages. And, yes, many Natives have turned back on Christianity. In Native America's strongest cultural regions - the Maya and Quechua - the indigenous faiths are reasserting themselves. Christianity's roots in Native American culture are - necessarily - thin.

Bad Eagle thinks Christianity is what made and makes America great. But America's religion isn't precisely Christianity. Certainly Jesus wouldn't recognise it! I've argued instead, that as America has developed, it has been creeping slowly but surely toward something else. Something not unlike 'Abd al-Malik's Islam; but with the 1954 Pledge, the Declaration of Independence, and a "standard" Ten Commandments as its primary Scripture. Ultimately America, too, will apostasise from its too-Semitic faith.

posted by Zimri on 19:57 | link |

Old World religions and Old World peoples

Every now and again one hears a complaint that Christianity is a "white man's religion". I hardly need mention that this charge is bogus. Jesus never said a racist word in his life, and Galatians 3:28 looks to ethnic harmony between Jew and Greek.

Normative Christianity and Judaism do not believe the mark of Cain has aught to do with skin colour, and do not believe Africans are of the seed of Canaan. The Jewish scriptures instead look fondly on the Blacks they do know: the Kushites who saved Jerusalem from Assyria and, indirectly, from Egypt. The Christian scriptures for their part approve of a Kushite who converts (Acts 8:27).

In its own context, Christianity is an outgrowth of contemporary first-century Judaism. This Judaism had its roots in the Fertile Crescent (Babylon through to Gaza), with plenty of admixture from Persia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean.

Islam exists in the same context, albeit to the side of the Jewish chain of succession. Early Islam had its own African slave trade, culminating in the Zanj rebellion; after which, Islamic slavery became more humane and less, well, racist. Islam and Christianity are therefore in the same position relative to Africa - except that Christianity with its polyglot Book does not demand a sacred non-African language. Right now, Christianity is doing rather better in that continent.

"Whites" - meaning, the Northern European peoples - do have their homegrown religions. There were the pagan faiths of ancient Northern Europe, of which Lithuania's perhaps lasted longest. There is the modern-day Wiccan revival. On the darker side, there is also Nazism; which borrowed from Christianity but was primarily a spiritual "crisis-cult" of the German Volk. These "white" religions needn't be racist, but they will have no resonance for those not of European ancestry.

No, Christianity isn't a "White" faith, any more than Islam or Judaism are.

(This post is entirely redundant and better essays can be found almost anywhere. It is just a statement of my current beliefs, and a foundation for a real argument that is forthcoming.)

posted by Zimri on 19:30 | link |

Monday, November 17, 2003

Oh, the storm...

Okay, since I've made obvious that I live in Houston, and since Drudge mentioned in red the T-storm that just swung by, I may as well blog about it -

Yeah, it was nasty. I've not seen rain fall so hard and so long since... well, I would say since Allison, but Allison didn't do much around here. So it was worse even than that, for my part of town. Our boss let us go home early, and then the company sent out a mail letting us out at 4 pm. Personally I stuck it out until 4:30, but then I saw stormfronts and started worrying about tornadoes.

I was right. Luckily they didn't hit here. I'd also unplugged everything this morning before work (yey me!). When the lightning died down, I was able to get started on this blog again.

Ordinarily, I don't blog about the weather. Last year my house flooded, to no comment here. That came from slow and steady rainfall, alongside poor drainage from my roof and from my neighbour's yard, and exacerbated by leaks which the builders had deliberately installed into the house (for water to leak OUT of, if you can believe that). I had to re-install the gutters, re-side the house, put in tile instead of carpet, and move all my books upstairs. But when Drudge calls...

posted by Zimri on 21:41 | link |

The London street

Sully had worried about an anti-US frenzy in the British media. Now the leftist mayor of my birth city is ranting about something I'm not even going to read.

Here is something to put all that into perspective. In the Grauniad, no less, it turns out that most Labour voters are pro-American still. Even after these months of war and occupation abroad, and protest at home - America and Britain are, deep down, not enemies. As a Briton, I am glad to see that some media and most voters are keeping a stiff upper lip.

As an American, yes it's annoying to see assholes celebrating our humiliation (Fallujah anyone?); but we need to keep in mind that said assholes do not necessarily speak for the majority.

posted by Zimri on 21:23 | link |

Bill White for mayor

This is something of a moot point, because White is going to win the runoff anyway. I'm endorsing White because I haven't heard that he is awful.

Sanchez is awful.

In the last week of the main election, Sanchez put out flyers that said "anyone but White". This strategy was designed to drive down White's numbers without hurting Turner. But that is strange - why would Sanchez want to risk Turner winning the election? Do Republicans really think Turner would make a better mayor than White?

The answer is that Sanchez knew he wasn't risking anything. He wanted to face Turner in the runoff and not to face White. He wanted to run against a left-of-centre Black Democrat. Then he might get enough of Houston's "moderates" on board to swing the election.

I believe elections ought to be about a choice between the best candidates. Sanchez tried to poison the well, which suffices to show that he is not the best candidate. Those voters who believe in morals and ethics should not reward people who play these games.

posted by Zimri on 21:10 | link |

Houston's Jindal

Some may be asking: why post so much about Bobby Jindal, if you're Texan? The thing is: I'm not only Texan, but a Houstonian - and we have the same issue over here that they had in la Louisiane. Meet Orlando Sanchez: the airbrushed, blue-eyed face of the New Texan.

The man is cute, young, non-Anglo, and conservative. The Republicans need a figure of national stature who isn't White. The Republicans therefore want the candidate to win so badly they won't think of running anyone else.

But Sanchez and Jindal have something else in common: they're losers.

Sanchez has already lost one runoff, in which he had been polling ahead of then-Mayor Lee Brown.

Note for non-Houstoners: if any Mayor was ever in need of being unelected, it was Brown. I first noticed this clown in 1991 as the Crown Heights police chief. Somehow he wormed his way into the Mayor's office here, where he has bankrupted the city on Pharaonic boondoggles, whilst leaving roads unpaved, streets dug up, and neighbourhoods flooded. Brown was such a disaster for this city, that the next Black candidate for Mayor, Sylvester Turner, had to disavow him on the campaign trail. It is fair to say that if Sanchez couldn't beat Brown, he can't beat anyone in this city.

And Sanchez isn't running against Brown this time. He's running against Bill White, who isn't Republican but is at least competent.

posted by Zimri on 20:53 | link |

Louisiana ain't Alabama

The Louisiana campaign wasn't about Blanco; she ran that classic Clinton campaign of "I'm a cute, warm, and cozy moderate who cares". Any Demo who does that is guaranteed at least 45% in the polls in any state with a partisan split.

And "it's not about race", as Jindal said (at least not directly, as ws.com implied). He also said, "it's about which candidate has the qualifications and experience to lead our state forward" - except that the campaign wasn't about that, either.

No, this campaign was about Jindal's personal beliefs. Jindal tried to run as a born-again good ol' boy. He couldn't do that being a 32-year-old Indian. That is pouring old wine into a new wineskin, and it doesn't ring true in the sticks.

His act didn't fly downstate either. Sure he got some endorsements from prominent "Black leaders", and real leaders who happen to be Black (like Nagin) - but when a Republican starts hectoring the faithful about Traditional Values and Being Born Again and Our Way Of Life, Southern Blacks bolt the doors and vote Democrat. They remember what Dixie "Traditional Values" have done for them in the past. So they think the Republican is speaking racist code even when he isn't.

Not to mention that Louisiana isn't even in the Bible Belt. Okay, maybe the north half. But sheesh, haven't the Republicans ever even visited Nawlins? The New Zion it is not.

Silly, silly Republicans. Thinking every Southern state is Ole Miss.

posted by Zimri on 19:57 | link |

Sunday, November 16, 2003

Jindal's trap

The Republicans advised Jindal to run on his support of the Old Testament code of law. This much, his opponent Blanco was happy to let him do, adding that he'd earlier been "harming the poor by enacting budget cuts when he served as Foster's health secretary". In general, she was "depicting Jindal as a heartless numbers cruncher".

So there it went for awhile, compassion versus competence. Jindal became more and more confident in his strategy while Blanco kept retreating. And then in the last week, according to NRO, she delivered the killing blow: a negative ad starring a wheel-bound Republican.

NRO says Jindal didn't come up with a riposte in time for the Election. But what interests me is why Jindal did not counter this attack, which his people must have been able to see coming.

I would argue that by then, Jindal's campaign had too much momentum behind it. Jindal had already defined himself as an old-school Dixie bible-thumpin' conservative. Blanco made the electorate realise that such a person wasn't what they wanted. So Jindal, in his overweening pride, rushed headlong into the trap.

posted by Zimri on 20:01 | link |

The most deadly sin

Jindal lost. Hah!

I will admit the news report includes a rotten sentence: "He campaigned far to the right, running radio ads extolling the Ten Commandments, deriding gun control, and promoting his strong Catholic faith". Excuse me: gun liberty isn't far right, it's in the Constitution. And last I heard, being Catholic wasn't illegal here either. Even "extolling the Ten Commandments" isn't far right. Their proofreader needs to lay off the bourbon.

But Jindal was far right in how he dealt with the Ten Commandments - he opposed the court ruling that got their monument off the courthouse. Plus, in so doing he opens himself to charges of selling out his Catholicism (if he opts for the Bible's version) or else of alienating Louisiana's "Huguenot" community (if he stays with the Catholic brand); not to mention the arrogance in daring to decide between them.

Jindal said last month that the victory party in New Orleans "is just the first one and we'll have the second one in Baton Rouge". A very, very prideful man indeed.

When he goes to confessional, I hope the presiding priest informs him of the above, and finds suitable redress; not just a dozen "Hail Mary"'s, but something that will teach him the humility he so obviously lacks.

posted by Zimri on 19:38 | link |

Hillary!

Lots of speculation about whether Hillary! Clinton will join in. The Dems need an intra-party unifier, and Hillary! is certainly one such figure.

If they do that, they can kiss off the Senate and House. If the Dems are in touch with the American male voter at all, they'll know that she's a loser.

And no, not because we "don't like strong women". (The opposite is true.) It's because we don't like to be accused of not liking strong women. We don't want to be on the defensive in our dealings with them (including in a marriage).

If Hillary! is nominated, the Left will spin our opposition to HRC's policies as sexism, or else White Male Insecurity. The instant a Hillary!-supporter lobs THAT stinkbomb into the body politic, the backlash and division it will unleash will rival 1860.

I pray even the Democrats will learn sense enough not to go that route.

UPDATE 2/21/2004: Double oops... I deleted the closing paean to too-young Harold Ford Jr., and re-spelled "Hillary".

posted by Zimri on 18:54 | link |

The dangers of disorganised posting

Mark Byron outlines what he sees as an example of Constitutional failure, a subject of particular interest for me (click here, and scroll up). He envisaged terrorists targetting Dem and RINO Senators who come out of Repub-run states. The states then send enough Republican replacements to break the judicial filibuster.

Scary stuff - very Tom Clancy, as a commenter noted; although I was thinking more Margaret Atwood. And it is indeed worth a post. I'll probably post on that topic myself, whether the scenario counts as Constitutional failure; and perhaps I'll even suggest some remedies for it.

Problem was that Byron used the same post to take the "Bonhoffer option" seriously as a potential route for committed Christians. He does reject it, but only after he'd (1) terrified the reader just by describing the scenario, (2) made clear that the terrorists agree (in the short term) with Byron's aims, and (3) brought the nation's majority religion into it. Because the essay covered so much at once, most readers don't know which part to oppose; they're just scared and want to lash out.

This isn't the kind of "side-comment" I was railing against earlier; I will not forgive those who do that, for they know well what they do. What I'm talking about is a common mistake in essay-writing. I'm kind of waiting for that day myself, when I stuff my foot in it. Actually, I already have, but no-one noticed.

Quite often I too find myself saying too much in one post. That is a primary reason I've been posting so much lately. I can't explain why people "cover their bases" according to belief, without discussing the effect of Pascal's Wager; I can't dis a pro-American-but-still-illegal foreign national without offering better ways he could have helped us. If I'd kept those posts together, I'd have ended up looking like a bigot who can't think straight. (I might well be as bad as that, but I'd rather be condemned for something I meant to say, rather than for an offhand crap posting.)

That's just the way it is with hasty posting. I do feel bad for Byron, though; he got caught making the same mistake I've made maybe a dozen times in the past month, before reposting (thank Allah for reposting!).

posted by Zimri on 17:38 | link |

Saturday, November 15, 2003

The foundations of the Dome of the Rock

The First Amendment is under attack, and not just by state Senators and Democratic presidential candidates (both of whom should know better). Most Americans don't want free speech when the wrong person offends their core beliefs. And they think that the oath to the country ought to include acknowledgement of the unitary Deity: i.e. that atheists and pagans can't be Americans.

In particular, there is a general movement toward acceptance of religion in "public life" - code for government subsidy. This much the current President endorsed while he was running in 1999:

Bush endorsed last week's House of Representatives vote supporting public display of the Ten Commandments, despite objections it would violate the constitutional separation of church and state.

"I have no problem with the Ten Commandments posted on the wall of every public place," he said.

Asked if he favored the Protestant, Catholic or Jewish version of the Commandments, which differ slightly from one another, Bush replied: "The standard version. Surely we can agree as a society on a version that everybody can agree to."

In other words: America is now casting about for a state bedrock orthodoxy.

Lately, the Alabaman justice Roy Moore got kicked out because he set up a huge Ten Commandments monument. What is less well known, is that the real reason was that the monument exceeded the limits for orthodoxy. His Attorney General is Catholic, and struck them down because it retained the "extra" commandment against idols. But Bush, for one, hopes for a Ten Commandments that will meet with Catholic approval. Muslims will want input too, of course, and Jews, and there may be a consensus in the next decade or so if they want one.

Moore's attempt was not the first time bibliolators have set up a monument to orthodoxy. Some decades after Muhammad, a certain caliph 'Abd al-Malik designed a temple to the polemic works then extant in Islam, which (I think) included suras 3 and 4. This monument, built on the ruins of Herod's Temple, is the Dome of the Rock and reads thus.

The interesting feature of the Dome is that those suras were not cited as suras. They were also not for only the Muslim to read, in the way of sura 5: the Dome's quotes were to be read as standalone critiques of Trinitarianism. Christianity as such was fine; the Dome even allowed that Jesus died and rose alive (19:33). This contradicts the Islamic belief that Jesus only "seemed" to be crucified (4:157), unless one posits a second time for Jesus to die and arise.

The point wasn't to get the Christian reader to convert to full-fledged Islam; but to accept the suras' arguments against Trinitarianism, and to accept Muhammad as a prophet. It was Christians "of the Book" who "exceeded in their faith" (4:171). Likewise the Muslim reader had to accept the death and resurrection of Christ; to put it off to the future, perhaps, but still to accept it.

The Dome of the Rock, then, was an assertion of the limits of orthodoxy. 'Abd al-Malik wanted all his subjects to be on the same theological page.

When (not if) America accepts Bush's standard version, it will be set up in an imposing monument, alongside the "under God"-version of the Pledge of Allegiance. That will be America's Dome of the Rock. Our established state religion. The death of that naïve and outdated First Amendment.

posted by Zimri on 15:06 | link |

Treason against Texans

That reminds me of something I'd been meaning to post 17-22 November last year...

I didn't vote for Cornyn in 2002, and my reasoning for that was that Candidate Cornyn promised to repeal the First Amendment. But that was a Union reason; there is an even more potent Texan reason to keep him out of federal service.

Flag desecration is free speech, pure and simple. And as mentioned here, the right to protest the Union flag is vital for those of us in states for whom the Union is foreign.

Texas was an independent country for fifteen years: once by itself, and soon afterward as part of the Confederacy. We could argue as to the legal, political, and economic degree of independence in either case. But whatever the status of the government, the individual Texan felt himself free of the Washington government.

A state should send its representatives to Washington to represent state interests. Cornyn is instead ignoring Texan interests in favour of Washington's. He should recall those comments, or else good Texans should recall him.

posted by Zimri on 14:01 | link |

Flag desecration: the penultimate states' right

Wesley Clark doesn't want us to protest the Union of States. Indymedia notes that Wesley Clark's supporters would be first against the wall. A letter to Andrew Sullivan calls this idiotic. The 'Net seems to be in a flurry about it.

Quite right, too. Clark is insulting states' rights.

A flag-burning ban is no big deal for places which owe their existence to the Union, like West Virginia, which I note remains a freeloader to this day (thanks, Chris, for the link). And I've never been too partial to the grievances of the American South, given their reasons for succession. But many states entered the Union with cultures and nations of their own. Utah and Vermont were largely settled by ethnic Whites and so joined voluntarily; Hawaiians, Louisianans, New Mexicans, and Oklahomans were home to native populations and so joined by varying degrees of force. Texas is split: Texas proper joined voluntarily; south Texas was a spoil of the 1848 war.

I know the rest of y'all probably don't care about "ancient history". You should. If the Union turns against Texas, or for that matter Louisiana or New Mexico, those states have the right to protest against Union policies. Even to protest the Union itself, which could include desecration of its symbol. (Although New Mexicans would be wise not to do it, given their vast federal subsidies...)

If the Union must enforce respect for its Flag via law and arms, then we owe no respect to either the Union or its Flag. Or, for that matter, to grandstanding politicians who would sacrifice our rights to win votes from Unionists foreign to our culture.

posted by Zimri on 12:19 | link |

Into decade III

At 6pm tonight I will be 30!

See, I was born at night in London on the 15th. By the time all the shouting and hullabaloo was over, they looked at the clock and it read sometime not far after midnight on the 16th. My parents basically figured that since they thought it was the 15th the whole time, and since Mom did all the real work on the 15th, that they may as well mark me down for "15 Nov. 1973 midnight".

That always used to bug me: should I have the birthday on the 15th or 16th? But then I moved over here and learnt about time zones.

So now I celebrate a birthhour depending on where I'm currently at.

posted by Zimri on 11:22 | link |

Friday, November 14, 2003

Wormtongues

I can take people being wrong. I can take people not using logic. I can even take straw-man arguments and flames.

I can tolerate a principled anti-war argument; a call for evangelicals to live their faith; a request to divert AIDS funding to other worthy causes; or an alternative to Bush's foreign policy. They are simply positions in an argument, which may be proven or disproven.

What I cannot stomach are mealy-mouthed propagandists. I loathe, despise, detest those who insinuate their views into a piece which claims to be about something else.

I'm calling you out, Timberlake.

I'm calling you out, Shiflett.

I'm calling you out, Derbyshire.

And I'm calling out ALL of you - and you know who you are - who sneak in terms like "steadily worsening" to a report about a conflict that you have not proved is worsening; who call terrorists "resistance" and Palestinian schoolbus-bombers "terrorists-in-scare-quotes".

These are people who so lack faith in their assumptions, that they cannot argue for them; but they seek to spread them anyway. So they sneer, and insinuate, and pretend "that wasn't the point of the essay, why are you getting so upset". No! that WAS the point of your essay, liar!

posted by Zimri on 23:33 | link |

Shiflett sneers again

Dave Shiflett, tireless sneerer at any lapse in Christian orthodoxy, is now poking fun at mainstream American belief:

Perhaps the biggest surprise in Barna's survey is that half of atheists and agnostics believe that people have souls and that there is life after death. "One out of every eight atheists and agnostics even believe that accepting Jesus Christ as savior probably makes life after death possible," says Mr. Barna, who considers this to be "further evidence that many Americans adopt simplistic views of life and the afterlife based upon ideas drawn from disparate sources, such as movies, music and novels, without carefully considering those beliefs."

There's another explanation as well. Most Americans continue to cling to another old teaching: Cover Thy Bases.

That's right - Mr Shifty just called most American believers cowards. Despite his preening bigotry against all of us who would rather NOT made the Invisible Pink Unicorn the centre of our lives, he turns out to be right: we can't describe this "agnostic doctrinal position" as either brave or thoughtful.

Not that I blame them. As documented below, most Americans have been exposed to the (orthodox) Christian conception of the Deity, which is one that smiteth the unbeliever. Since they would rather not be bothered in this life, and have seen quite enough scary hellscapes in the movies, they hedge their bets by - gasp - being nice to people. Yanno, like Jesus said?

But Shiflett doesn't believe in that sissy rubbish: he found "that 50% [of evangelicals] believe a life of "good works" will get you through the Pearly Gates" a "optimistic and expansive" diversion from the "traditional teachings of their faith". This faith, implies Mr Shifty, must do without the Epistle of Saint James, excommunicate the heretic, and preach al-nar upon the kaffir.

Shiflett's piece drips the blackest contempt for the mushy middle. To be a tolerant and righteous Christian is to follow the (false) "modern orthodoxies of tolerance and inclusion". He wants Christians NOT to be tolerant, NOT to be inclusive if it conflicts with the fundamentals of Christian faith.

It seems he is daring American evangelicals to take this disgusting doctrine over to Iraq. They've already got plenty of religious loons, thanks, it's doubtful they'll want more. But if Shiflett wants to take himself and his attitude over there to preach at the benighted natives, I won't be shedding any tears for what is likely to happen.

posted by Zimri on 22:38 | link |

Pascal's Wager: Cowards for Christ

Back in my UseNet days, I would often see a comment like this one:

>1. I bet there is no God and there is. Bad for me in the end.
>2. I bet there is no God and there isn't. Neutral Result.
>3. I bet there is a God and there is. Good for me in the end.
>4. I bet there is a God and there isn't. Neutral Result.
So if I bet there is no God, I will have a neutral result or a bad result.
If I bet there is a God, I get a neutral result or a good result.

Yes, I answered it then; but I notice I haven't blogged it, so here is "Version 2.0".

The above "bet" is known as Pascal's Wager. It assumes that there are only two choices: (1) belief in a god who punishes unbelievers and (2) anything else.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work - or shouldn't. In the case of #2 you have bravely faced the consequences of your actions and thereby come to a correct conclusion. You would have lived as a free thinker, at least in terms of religion. In the case of #4 you have bet on a falsehood based on cowardice. This will affect your whole life and you may sucker others into believing as you do. Good Result for the con man and the trickster- bad result for you.

As for #1 and #3: the problem is that any religion can claim to be the One True Faith, and thereby bifurcates the choice into belief in god A or god B, equally cruel and intolerant.

It therefore boils down to which god is an impostor - A or B. How to solve this? Herem / Crusade / Jihad of course - the true god will support His own.

Both A and B reward slavish obedience and cowardice over anything we might call morality. A man who chooses a faith on Pascal's Wager is both a fool and a coward.

Admittedly, we've all been fools and/or cowards over something. Most people pay lip service to the above, and hope to overcome any doctrinal shortcomings with good works. "By their fruits" and all that. It does seem to give a lot of people meaning to their lives, and as long as it encourages them to do good unto others, there is hardly any need to dissuade them.

Right deeds and right intentions are what is important. The right faith isn't. People who follow the latter one to its logical conclusion always end up bypassing the former two.

posted by Zimri on 22:26 | link |

The American Foreign Legion

Right now it's something of an army of one. But I think we ought to set up a recruitment program for foreign nationals. If Latin American citizens do want to serve, sign them up, and grant them citizenship upon honorable discharge or armed-forces recommendation. There should be military attaches at our embassies abroad. Put some recruitment outposts along the Mex / US border to screen out the chaff, and send the more likely recruits from there into better-equipped US facilities for further testing.

If these foreign nationals are here illegally, then the recruitment centres here ought to make sure they're serious. If there is no use for them in the Army, they get sent back to their own country (their fault, yanno). But if the Army can use them then, yeah, amnesty's the way to go.

posted by Zimri on 21:33 | link |

"Willingness to risk his life"

I'm uncomfortable about the guy and his relatives forging green cards and coming here illegally. Am I to believe his family never visited a hospital, or else always paid cash whenever they did get sick? If not, who paid for it? What about other social services?

These questions need to be answered before uninformed opinionators start saying things like, the greencard-forger "has shown a willingness to risk his life for America". Well, the rest of us social-services users haven't shown a willingness to risk OUR lives in hospital queues, insufficient sanitation etc. etc. for the sake of people who've already broken our laws to get here.

posted by Zimri on 21:26 | link |

Not so shocked and awed

If the terrorists had our allies down as weak, cowardly, and disloyal; and if they assumed that one blow would make them all cut and run... they were right; and they succeeded. Not with the army they actually targeted (Italy), but what with Italian politics who can predict?

Sad day. It does show the mettle and depth of our alliances, though. I especially note, once again, we're not getting anything out of South Korea (now THERE's a fifty-year quagmire!). Just saying, is all.

posted by Zimri on 21:08 | link |

Yo, Clinton-haters: STFU

I'm sick and tired of insecure, partisan bloviators. Something occurs in the news in which a right-wing religious whack-job ends up making an ape of himself and monkeys of all his supporters. The news is so big that the righty echo-chamber cannot avoid it. And then some windbag on that side of the aisle spews out some bilge about Clinton.

Dude, shut up about Clinton already. Clinton had nothing to do with this! He wasn't there! Just because you can't get any intern tail doesn't mean you have to get all pissy all the time. This goes for ALL the rest of y'all Clinton hataz: you won! get over it! I don't even want to think about this shiyat anymore so I'm'a drop the subject myself.

posted by Zimri on 20:40 | link |

The good, the bad, and the Catholic

From the AP: "Whether we agree or not with a court's decision, at the end of the day, when the courts resolve controversies, we respect those decisions," said Attorney General Bill Pryor, who prosecuted Moore.

Taranto subsequently commented: "Pryor, of course, is one of President Bush's judicial nominees who are being filibustered by Democratic senators because he is a right-wing ideologue who can't be trusted to put his biases aside when interpreting the law. Or is it just because he's Catholic?"

Yeah, Pryor's Catholic. Moore put up a version of the "Ten Commandments". Here's the rub, though: The Ten Commandments are anti-Catholic.

Let s/he who hath eyes to see, see. Note especially the Protestant prohibition: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" or idol, omitted in Catholicism despite that it has backing not only twice in Exodus but also in Deuteronomy 5.

We can have a discussion about whether Catholicism practices idolatry or not, some other time. Quite frankly the point is moot because the Pope is the Vicar of God on Earth, and can abrogate this Scripture or any other Scripture any time he pleases. Infallibility, baby - extra ecclesiam nulla salus! Yew don't like it, jest run along now and find y'se'f a new church.

Those Ten Commandments which Moore posted are Moore's way of announcing Protestant Christianity as the state religion of Alabama. Very, VERY cute. It didn't fly with Pryor, though.

I have to say the jury is still out - pardon the expression - over whether Pryor will be biased toward Catholicism. In Alabama, he did the right thing; but it was also the Catholic thing. The true test will be over government support of religious schools ("vouchers", "rebates" - it's all a shell game, everyone knows it).

posted by Zimri on 20:19 | link |

Most Offensive Comment of 2003

"When you check into the Paris Hilton, Lord only knows what you take with you when you leave." - NC (from Dawn Olsen)

posted by Zimri on 13:50 | link |

Win-blows' open door for hijackers

I noticed this week that I've been getting booted from a number of websites I like to visit. Some sites, like Drudge, started crashing me out of Windows such that I had to send bug reports to them. Other sites, like Pejmanesque, threw me a pop-up message right after loading the page saying that Windows couldn't open it.

Today, I noticed that my browser was hyperlinking the word "books" and "flowers", and sending the link to www.runsearch.com's lists for same. This happened on my site and on others, like Corsair's. There was a parasite in my browser!

I downloaded AdAware (Google search) - and there was all sorts of crap on my machine. "runsearch" in particular is associated with the CoolWebSearch family of parasites, which relies on Microsoft's now-defunct JVM.

So... if you have this problem, get AdAware and then get rid of the MS JVM, and replace it with Sun's.

posted by Zimri on 12:33 | link |

Thursday, November 13, 2003

Lot the righteous, gentile and/or prophet

The two prophetic post-Christian religions, Islam and Mormonism, faced the same problems in the Torah that preceded them. Here is an example where the two came up with different solutions.

In Torah, Abraham had a brother called Lot. Lot is the ancestor of Moab and Ammon, and so lies outside the Jewish line of succession (as does Abraham's son Ishmael). The Torah is ambiguous toward Lot: on the one hand, God did save him from Sodom; but on the other, Lot chose to live there in the first place (Gen. 13:7) and besides he lay with his own daughters (Gen. 19:36). Perhaps worst of Lot's crimes, from a modern perspective, is 19:8 - "And Lot said, Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you; and ye shall do unto them as seemeth good in your eyes". Yecch!

Jewish tradition has been mixed. Starting with Wisdom 10:6-8, some traditions saw Lot as a good man who walked with Abraham (Pirqei deR. Eliezer 25), at least up to the time of his rescue. But other traditions see Lot as saved not for his own sake but for Abraham's, starting with the first-century BCE Philo (On Genesis, 4:54) and Genesis Apocryphon 21:5-7.

Lot's righteousness became doctrinally important for Christianity. Justin Martyr in the early second century of that era insisted on the righteousness of Lot precisely because he was outside the Abrahamic covenant - "uncircumcised" (Trypho 19:4). The forgery "2 Peter" in 2:6-8 claimed that Lot was distressed "day after day", and on canonisation this commentary has become retroactive Torah for those Christians who believe in it. Genesis as "midrashed" by 2 Peter provided Christianity with a Gentile saved by God, a fitting example for all Gentile Christians (which was most of them).

But 2 Peter does not attempt the burden of this man's cowardice. Christianity's two prophetic successors do attempt this burden.

Islam's main theological problem was that it firstly insists it belongs to the Torah tradition, and secondly that its prophet was of the seed of Ishmael. One of the Qur'an's tasks was to find other prophets that lay alongside but outside the line of Abraham and Isaac. Accordingly it made Lot into a Prophet (sura 21:74); and his city remained an example of great sin (22:43, 50:13). 6:86 counts Lot in the company of Ishmael, uncoincidentally in my view. 29:26 has Lot follow Abraham's example. 26:160-175 // 27:54-58 insist that Lot had made his displeasure with his city public, and that the city tried to expel him. Such is the choice of the Qur'an.

There is one craven act which the Qur'an does allow through: Lot's attempted sacrifice of his daughters to the Sodomites (11:78). But in the Qur'an, that was not a sin. Sura 11 has Lot point out, "they are cleaner for you". This was not cowardice, but Lot's misguided sacrifice, that if it had worked would have cured the city and saved it. In Genesis, Lot had explicitly promised the Sodomites that they could do whatever they wanted, and there was no question of saving the rest of Sodom.

The Mormons chose another path: Joseph Smith re-wrote Genesis 19. First, Smith added some verses claiming that the Sodomites had demanded Lot's daughters, too. 19:8 is thus 19:13 in his version: "And Lot said, Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, plead with my brethren that I may not bring them out unto you; and ye shall not do unto them as seemeth good in your eyes". Smith preserved Lot's righteousness whilst also preserving his weakness.

Rewriting the Torah is of course sacrilege. Not even the Muslims dared that in this case (they just annotated it...). And there are no pre-Smith texts that would permit the Mormon "translation". But Christians, right now, are stuck with 2 Peter and thereby Lot's righteousness. If they are to keep 2 Peter and the Torah, they may have to add an explanation to the New Testament to explain why Lot wasn't a coward.

Again, Christians ought to erase 2 Peter from their New Testament... or else they might want to add the Qur'an's Sura 11 beside it.

P.S. The Bible As It Was by James Kugel was essential to the above. I wholly recommend it to all interested in Biblical midrash, of whatever religion.

posted by Zimri on 16:55 | link |

Saudi jihad

What got Tacitus's dander up was this:

"They can no longer say they are more or less raising the banner of jihad," said Saad A. Sowayan, a professor specializing in Bedouin poetry at King Saud University, sipping orange juice in a hotel coffee shop. "Jihad is not against your own people."

The fact that the targets were fellow Muslims lent the sense that the attackers might just be pursuing pure chaos. "If they were really seeking change they would resort to actions that would win them the support of the people," the professor said. "Before, people could find excuses. It is getting so irrational that you cannot explain it, you cannot defend it, you cannot understand it."

Tacitus correctly identified one of the problems with the Saudi mindset: "Morality is not a Leninist construct, determined by who is doing what to whom. Yet both these antagonists subscribe to exactly that dictum". He also made the right conclusion: "in the long run, we -- as Westerners, as Americans, as non-Muslims, as free people -- cannot coexist with either of these actors, whatever short-term alliances we may form."

What Tacitus didn't do, was to identify this contextual jihad for what it is - Wahhabi jihad. That was deliberate - because in this context, he doesn't care: "What matters to people like me -- and to most non-Muslims -- is that jihad is almost always invoked as an injunction to kill, enslave, or convert us." As for intra-Muslim debates on which traditions and exegeses are fit for doctrine: "You're going to have to forgive me if I dismiss this as irrelevant to most non-Muslims. Usurpers or not, those subsequent caliphs and their Sunni descendants represent the majority of Muslims in the world today."

Aziz points out that he should care. The jihad of the Saudis is a bastard child of notoriously unreliable Bukhari traditions that overrode the (clear) Qur'anic meaning of the term. The Saudis follow a "sabîl-Osama" rather than the sabîlullâh. Tacitus ought to be helping Muslims make that distinction, which he won't be able to do as long as he makes such sweeping and erroneous generalisations about their shared religion.

posted by Zimri on 12:14 | link |

"Jihad is evil" - discuss

Tacitus got himself into hot water last week when he announced that Islamic jihad was morally wrong.

I don't view struggle to promote Islam as a moral good, because I do not believe that Islam is the true religion. In that respect I agree with Tacitus.

But Tacitus isn't complaining about Islam, but about the means to promote it. According to the Qur'an, the approved method to spreading the faith is jihâd. The Qur'an's jihâd is deliberately vague; it can be fighting, but that's not the only or even the best way. So Tacitus is asking everyone to stop struggling for anything. Or maybe he's just asking that of Arabic-speakers.

To say "jihad" is wrong is silly.

posted by Zimri on 11:58 | link |

Jihad

Last year in July, the Shi'a Pundit proclaimed a Jihad - against misusers of the term:

He goes on to link the arabic word qitaal (fighting) to jihad, and claims that jihad is a conditional form of qitaal, despite the fact that they have different roots. It's worthy to note that the Qur'an quite explicitly discusses qitaal, and jihaad, and does not synonomize these two terms. I am sure that Adil's library of Islamic Analysts have many volumes on the "functional equivalence" but as far as I am concerned as a Muslim, if the Qur'an meant qitaal when it says jihad, it would say qitaal, not jihaad.

I wanted to post about this last year, but I didn't know enough about the Qur'an then. Now that I know more, I can vouch that Aziz is right.

jihâd and qitâl are both connected with the sabîlullâh, the "Path of God". The Path of God is a pillar of the Qur'an, and suras like 3 and 47 only consider it in terms of qitâl, which in those suras' context means fighting. Seventh-century fighting. Chasing-off-nonbelievers-with-sharp-objects fighting. You know the drill.

Sura 47 does not mention jihâd but the whole thing is about fighting according to the sabîlullâh. Sura 3 uses jihâd once (3:142), and in a context of warfare; but its immediate context is alongside the sâbirîna (steadfast), and like it cannot bear an exclusive meaning of battle, the way it uses sabîlullâh. Conversely, sura 5 links the jihâd with the sabîlullâh (5:35,44), but never qitâl with the sabîlullâh, so it does not help.

The key to the puzzle is sura 4. It uses sabîlullâh for both jihâd and qitâl. If sura 5 is the farewell sermon (as Muslims believe) then sura 5 is assuming we already know suras 3 and 4.

And what does sura 4 say? Well, it mostly speaks of fighting (4:74-76, 84), and in 4:95 it does speak of mujâhidûna fî sabîli Allâhi with high praise. But 4:95's non-exclusive nature is even more explicit than sura 3's: it blessed those who struggle "in wealth as well as in lives".

Sura 4 established that jihâd and the sabîlullâh can mean fighting; but ultimately it is the struggle to defend and promote the faith. That is why Aziz calls qitâl the "lesser jihad"; he does not believe that violence ought to be the first resort, nor that it is always the best resort.

As an Epicurean, I am not on a sabîlullâh, but I am on a path for truth and for the clear meanings of terms. This post is jihad, too.

posted by Zimri on 11:23 | link |

The next data medium

The CD killed the vinyl analogue record, and the recordable CD (alongside the car CD-player) ended the reign of cassette tape. Twenty years after the first CDs, we still have CDs.

DVDs have not replaced CDs, and never will. A CD is still adequate for playing in the car and on the stereo; 70-odd minutes is long enough for most attention spans, and for the rest of us it is long enough to go without changing the CD. And CD sound quality is still adequate. DVD music does exist, but of course DVD also works for movies and so we use it for that instead (DVD is currently wiping out the VCR format, which is tapes for movies). The new-improved DVDs, such as the "blue-ray disc", will be convenient for data storage and maybe for epics like "Kill Bill"; but it is unlikely to replace even the standard DVD, let alone the CD. No-one is going to throw out his or her CDs on account of music length, sound quality, or even vast differences in both - because CDs are already good enough.

The problem with the CD (and DVD) is convenience, which absolutely blows. I have to gingerly remove the disc from its case without breaking either: I particularly fear cracking the disc's central ring in my Star Trek DVDs, which the manufacturers all but glued in place. Then I have to keep my greasy fingers off the surface, gripping it by the edges. Somehow I have to keep from dropping it on the way to the CD player. According to that player's design, I must then: 1. aim the thin sliver of disc edge at the CD slot, and push until the player pulls the disc in; 2. or else push the EJECT button on the CD player, and gently place the CD on the tray. Uh, and just try doing all that in a moving vehicle.

I bring this up because we may have a way to store CD quality onto cheap data cards. I don't think anyone wants a fingertip-sized communion wafer to lose between the cushions any more than they want a hard-to-handle spinning disc. But hopefully they can agree on a standard; something squarish that everyone knows which end is up and which way to insert it, and that we can grab almost anywhere. Something like the cassette tape format.

That, I'd buy.

posted by Zimri on 10:32 | link |

Hi, Mom

I just finished reading this piece by the Onion.

That guy waited until he was 28-29 before trying X? God DAMN that's old. Where did he find a place with like-minded people his age? That makes me wish his blog was real. Er - I mean - I so can't believe he did that!

Seriously, I think most of us are having two reactions to this: "man, I'm glad I don't post about my personal life as much" and "man, I'm glad I didn't have the blog 3-4 years ago". But maybe even that's telling too much. AAAUGH!

posted by Zimri on 09:50 | link |

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Joseph Smith's translation

O happy me! A disgruntled ex-Mormon just unloaded their official Bible into the local Half Price Bookstore.

For those who know, the "Church of Latter-Day Saints" owes its founding to that prophet of Palmyra, Joseph Smith (Junior). Smith produced the Book of Mormon first, and then turned to Old Testament times to come up with the Book of Abraham. In the meantime he received additional revelations on this or that contemporary issue, many of which are now canonical scripture for Mormons. Last of all he wrote what he called a "new translation" of the Christian Bible. To this day, the above scriptures are equally canonical... in theory.

In practice, the Bible comes out worst. For Christians, the New Testament abrogates the Old; for Mormons, the new scriptures abrogate both. Mormons additionally believe the Bible's text cannot be trusted - which brings them more in line with Muslims and liberal Christians than with their allegedly-fellow Protestant Christians.

The "Inspired Version" until recently was in the hands of Mormonism's "Shi'ite" faction off in Independence, Missouri (who also differ over which Doctrines & Covenants are valid; no polygamy for them). Apparently the main branch of Mormonism off in Salt Lake City finally got around to publishing an annotated version in 1979, although they did not use all of Smith's ideas (according to this site). What I seem to have is the 1992 printing.

This Bible is not of course a fresh translation, but a revision of the KJV according to Joseph Smith's personal whimsy. Here is an example in which Smith's change does not affect Christian doctrine, Jonah 3:9-10:

9 Who can tell _if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did _it not.

9 Who can tell if we will repent, and turn unto God, but he will turn away from us his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way and repented; and God turned away the evil, that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did it not.

In 3:9, Joseph Smith has made the Ninevites propose repentance, rather than suggest that God may repent. He has also prevented the Ninevites from assuming that God had the emotion of anger that He might turn from; instead they fear the Wrath of God that He might visit upon the city, which is not a state of mind but a Biblical term for disaster. In 3:10, God sees that the Ninevites (and not He) have repented, and turns away (and not repents) the evil.

This is not translation. Had Joseph Smith retranslated the verses ethically, he would not have introduced the theme of Ninevite repentance, nor of God's wrath / "evil" as a force rather than as an emotion. There were more literal ways of relating the book's concepts which would not have involved these above tweaks to the narrative.

Now, it is unlikely that the Book of Jonah intended to imply that God was evil nor that He needed to repent. The terms make sense otherwise in pure English. In the 1600's, "evil" could include existential evils like plague and violence; and "repent" then meant to change one's mind from doing that sort of "evil".

But by the 1800's, in large part because of the King James Bible, "evil" came to mean what we mean by it today, which is intentional malice. The verb "repent" evolved in parallel: to change one's mind from being evil. That wouldn't serve for Holy Writ. But Joseph Smith loved the language of the KJV so much that he couldn't erase the primary words. So he kept those words, transferring them to the appropriate actors.

Expanded and explicatory reworkings of Scripture are known to Judaism; there were a number of expanded Old Testament documents in Qumran, and some survive as Scripture for Samaritans.

The above example respects the language of the King James Version, agrees with its doctrines as a whole, and does not alter the plot of its narrative. But it does not know the original meaning of the text, and about such details it does not ultimately care.

posted by Zimri on 17:59 | link |

Good for EU

Let's change the subject for a minute. I applaud the European Union's decision to stick it to the Bush (huhuh.. Beavis?), or his steel tariffs anyway. (Off Drudge.)

Yes, its posture is more anti-American grandstanding than a statement of principle (c.f. Euro farm policy). Yes, it is a corrupt and decadent empire. And yes, we ought to be helping it along its way to reform. But forcing their economic collapse is probably not the way to do it, especially not if we are seen as complicit in it, and above all not if we are doing it for selfish reasons. At any rate, I suspect that Bush & Co weren't concocting the tariffs out of malice to foreign interests but out of pandering to local ones.

In the case of commodity imports, their costs to the consumer are "marginal". That means that a steel fork, say, might sell for 20 cents but cost 14 to make. With tariffs down, it now costs the "Forks, Utensils, Cutlery, and Knives Unlimited" company 9 cents. Since there is not a steel fork monopoly in this country, competitors are likely to slash their prices too - so the unabbreviable company ashamedly mentioned above will now have to charge 15 cents per fork. That's more money in YOUR pocket to spend that nickel on something else.

Also, prices are reduced on items made here. We were already importing Chinese forks for 10 cents. Their factories AND steel don't employ anyone here. So importing foreign steel means we don't have to import foreign implements. So not only do average Americans get a better deal, but there are more profits for American manufacturers. They won't have to lay anyone off.

The question is, how does Bush spin it so that if he finally does the right thing, he can cover his political booty outside the foundry...

posted by Zimri on 16:36 | link |

Why don't Muslims have a Pope?

There are a number of factors leading to a legitimate Papacy in the West, while in the East it died with ibn al-Zubayr.

Rome's apparent extirpation of the "Beyt Miriam" ended that rival to the Church's legitimacy (there were Gnostic churches that claimed descent from Mary Magdalene, but they were easily dismissed as fraudulent). In the case of Islam, the Prophet's House survived, allowing the continued survival of Shi'ism. Shi'ism forced Rashidi partisans to keep watch for their flank while they battled Umayyads and heretics.

The lack of a Beyt Miriam in Christendom, coupled with the calamitous end of the Jewish heriditary priesthoods, also resulted in the lack of legitimacy for any dynastic tendencies in the Christian priesthood. Eastern Orthodox priests may marry and their children may become priests, but only in the way of a Jewish rabbi: their families are not inherently holier than others. And Catholic priests can't even marry. Islam of course is full of religious dynasties to this day.

The Christian Jesus also upheld the tradition of Church-State separation. Not so the Islamic Jesus, who is the Masih, the rightful King of the House of Israel. In Islam, the caliph was supposed to rule over men as well as guide them, keeping his mind on earthly matters as much as heavenly. This was incidentally another factor tempting Islamic rulers to set up dynasties rather than to give up the succession to others.

Also, in the West, the canon of Scripture was open to the books of several of the early Disciples, but not to Jesus himself. The New Testament did not even allow second-hand sayings collections like the Gospel of Thomas. This filtered Jesus's pronouncements through the Church's canon and stalled the rise of fundamentalism; the canon's contradictions serve to hamper Christian literalism to this day. To this day the Pope claims "infallibility", including the right to set Church tradition (divine prophecy by any other name). The East on the other hand accepted the unfiltered Word of God through the first suras, from the earliest days of Islam. Even a later sura had to defend itself before abrogating a prior one (16:100-103). This made it difficult for even a Rashid or Shi'a caliph to adopt additional revelations.

By the time of the Abbasids, the "Islamic Protestant" alternative in the schools of Sunna was already too powerful, and there was a khatam on future prophets (sura 48). A Sunni Papacy would have had nothing to do. The Abbasids chose instead to reserve arbitration rights for itself, but otherwise to act as a political office.

posted by Zimri on 14:00 | link |

The way to legalist religion

The canon of scripture is a way of life for many religions that own a scripture. But it cannot do so alone. There are contradictions, obsolete customs, and often a different language. The believer requires mediation in addition to a holy text.

The Church wants to retain its authority, and the believers want that authority for themselves. Scriptures are never created in a vacuum, as stated below. Churches and individual fanatics write the books. Communities ratify them into Scripture when they tire of anarchy, and so the canon will always include a token work of popular revelation (like Daniel or Revelation). But a canon never permanently solves the problem; and when the Church becomes corrupt, freedom becomes more attractive.

But most believers don't want anarchy either. So they take the Scriptures from the Church and attempt to make them their own. They hammer out rules of argument, and a general philosophy (whether there is a "fence around Torah" or if Torah is a mere guideline; to what extent are we justified by faith or by works). In cases like this contradictions are actually helpful, because the Scripture can then be shared among otherwise-incompatible groups.

By the time the legal experts are done, they have created a canon and shared understandings of the canon, or at the least points where all sides can agree to disagree while staying in the same fold.

Protestantism and Sunnism both started out as Scriptural alternatives to a ruling clerical hierarchy. For Protestants, this hierarchy was the Church, and for Sunnis it was the Umayyad dynasty.

posted by Zimri on 13:48 | link |

The way to a scripture

Scriptures accrue to a Church for two reasons. The Church may want to put about a scripture reminding its followers that it holds the keys to Paradise, that God has promised victory, and that God will revenge defeats. But at the same time, charlatans and visionaries create books of their own, and sometimes these books become too popular to be ignored. The early Church famously distrusted the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Revelations, but it had to accept them anyway because they were popular. But likewise, bishops wrote up the Second Epistle of Peter, and forced it into the canon over the objections of many believers who saw it for what it was.

Judaism, too, had a problem on its hands when apocalypticists "discovered" books of "Daniel", "Levi", and "Enoch" in the second century BCE. In this case Levi and Enoch got hustled back out of the canon in a few centuries (except in Ethiopia). Pharisaic Judaism did keep Daniel as a "Writing" but that entails limited scriptural authority.

Once the Church has created a canon, it deliberately forgets how the books got there. In place of history, the Church demands belief in a myth of divine origin; scattered through centuries in the cases of Judaism and Christianity, or years in the case of Islam.

It is inevitable that there will be contradictions internal to the canon. In the Old Testament, the Chronicler tried to replace the current version of the Books of Kings; since he failed, we still have Kings and Chronicles. The founding myth has to explain these somehow. The Jews solved that one by boosting Kings to the rank of "Prophets" and demoting Chronicles to "Writings" status. The Catholics simply banned anyone from reading the Bible. The Protestants try to rationalise that there are no contradictions.

posted by Zimri on 13:32 | link |

Sunday, November 09, 2003

Divergent evolution

Had the "anti-caliph" ibn al-Zubayr of Mecca defeated the Umayyads, Islam would have evolved very differently than it has done. For a start, there would have been no Dome of the Rock; and Islam's capitol would have ended up in Medina or Mecca rather than in Damascus or Baghdad.

There is also a chance that ibn al-Zubayr would have set up a council of electors for his succession. Before that, remember, the caliph was generally whichever general ended up as top dog in a fitnah. If so, Rashidism could have evolved into a Muhammadan papacy.

There is an analogue in ancient Christianity. James the Just was one of Jesus's brothers, and ran the first Christian community from Jerusalem. But Saint Paul spread the gospel throughout Greece and Asia Minor, installing bishops who owed no homage to Saint James. These bishops cared little for familial ties with Jesus and created their own means of succession. Certainly the Church and probably James too agreed the Christian canon of scripture was a creature of the Church, and the churches held onto the untranslatable sacred books through the Middle Ages. Biblical fundamentalism - scriptura sola without a bishop's mediation - arose during the Protestant Reformation, once everyone was able to read the books.

The community of James is analogous to Shi'ism: founding members quickly sidelined by the majority of believers. Protestantism is analogous to Sunnism: a scriptural challenge to the hierarchy. And the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are analogous to Rashidism, under local jurisdiction in the East. The Pope even calls himself the "Vicar of God", just as the first caliphs did.

The main difference between them is that in Christianity, there was no family dynasty outside that of James (Borgias notwithstanding). Accordingly when Protestantism rebelled, it did so against a "Rashidist" Church. In Islam, the last Rashid was ibn al-Zubayr, and that is stretching it. Sunnism's rebellion was against the House of Umayya.

posted by Zimri on 16:53 | link |

Rashidism: the heresy of Abu Bakr?

Shi'ism is much like Rashidism, because both accept the title of khalifat Allah and allow it for 'Ali. But Rashidism does not restrict the title for 'Ali's family. Therefore Shi'ism must always be Jacob to Rashidism's Esau, twins in an eternal struggle.

But likewise, Sunnism cannot return to its Rashidist roots. Sunnism simply does not believe in a "Caliph of God" anymore. They may allow that Abu Bakr and 'Umar, and maybe 'Uthman, 'Ali, and 'Umar b. 'Abd al-Aziz, could have claimed the title, because they helped collect and standardise the Qur'an and sunna, besides providing hadith of their own (how else could they claim the authority?). But after the second 'Umar, Sunnis have been clear that only the Qur'an may speak for God. As a result, whether a modern-day Sunni caliph is elected or not is a moot point, theologically; their sort of caliph acts under the Prophet's political authority. He cannot "correct" the old suras, much less write a new one.

A modern-day Rashidist movement would therefore be outside the Sunni umma and opposed to the Shi'a. It would be treated as heresy by both parties, if those parties stayed true to their traditions.

posted by Zimri on 16:22 | link |

From Sunna to Sunni

According to tradition, Islam began as the enterprise of a single Prophet, Muhammad. His followers had to sort out a succession crisis immediately on that Prophet's death. One faction proposed following a leader whom the (theoretically) best members of the community would choose. The other faction rallied around Muhammad's family; specifically, his daughter Fatima and her husband (another Muhammad relative) 'Ali. The former faction and its successors persecuted the latter faction, culminating in Yezid b. Mu'awiya's reign c. 680 CE. The latter faction are now the Ahl al-Bayt, the "People of the House [of Muhammad]", also known as the Shi'at 'Ali.

I did not provide the name of that former faction. This was deliberate on my part - because that faction no longer exists. Sunni Islam is only its grandchild, and not necessarily its rightful heir.

One has to remember firstly that Islam then was unlike Islam today. The Ahl al-Bayt were not yet a shi'ah. They were a faction within the system; and for a decade they were the ruling faction, installing 'Ali himself into the Caliphal seat. In addition, the title "caliph" was then an abbreviation for khalifat Allah - "vicar of God". There was little sunna (that is, jurisprudence) independent of the caliph. Each of these caliphs, at least in theory, bore the religious authority of Muhammad himself.

When 'Ali took over from 'Uthman, he did so as the father of the Prophet's grandsons. 'Ali's rule threatened to bind Muhammad's religion with political support for a single family lineage. Anti-'Ali dissidents rallied around a nephew of the previous caliph 'Uthman, the Macchiavellian governor Mu'awiya of Syria.

This dissident movement was the heir of the ideal by which the Muslim community had selected Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthman, and even 'Ali. It was only a "faction" in the most ad hoc fashion. But it nonetheless possessed a consistent theory of governance, and was one of the two founding factions of post-Muhammad Islam. I call it Rashidism: that Islam requires a Caliph of God, and that this Caliph must be a rashid (rightly-guided). Such a one is determined by the umma (community) of believers, and need not belong to Muhammad's family.

Mu'awiya did not however support Rashidism for his own family. He nominated his own son Yezid to succeed him. On Mu'awiya's death, the Hijaz seceded, and the 'Alids nominated their own candidate, Husayn. Yezid ended that latter rebellion almost as soon as it started; but while Yezid was in Iraq, the Hijaz counter-nominated 'Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr, another (non-'Alid) relative of the Prophet.

By then most leading Arabs could claim some familial connexion to the Prophet. Ibn al-Zubayr's claim was primarily anti-monarchical. But a third nephew of 'Uthman and Mu'awiya, 'Abd al-Malik, put an end to Ibn al-Zubayr in 692 CE / 71 AH, and installed an "Umayyad" monarchy for the next sixty years.

These wars and intrigues killed Rashidism, the closest Islam has come to democracy until the modern age. In its place, one had to choose between support of the monarchy, apostasy, or adherence to a heresy (of which there has never been a shortage). And of course Shi'ism survived.

The average Muslim chose to work within the system. The Umayyads allowed schools of sunna, to codify laws based on religious and secular precedent. These schools eventually came to rely on the Qur'an and extra-Qur'anic traditions of the Prophet, with less and less reliance on Caliphal pronouncements. The canon of suras closed; and the Qur'an became the official collection of suras, and a holy book above even the Torah. By the end of Umayyad rule, jurists had created an Islam that could mediate between man and God even in anarchy. Even Shi'ites embraced portions of the sunna, including the 'Umayyad-approved recension of the Qur'an. The monarch could no longer be honestly called a Caliph, and soon enough there ceased to be Umayyad Caliphs in the Near East.

The succeeding Abbasid dynasty redefined the ruling office to "vicar of the Apostle of God". The post-Abbas caliph could adjudicate between rival interpretations of sunna, but could no longer even attempt to overrule the Qur'an or the more commonly-accepted hadith, now associated with the core of Islam, to which even a caliph must submit.

The Umayyads had based their legitimacy on the idea that a royal house not of the House of Muhammad might rule over Muslims without their consent. In the words of the Dome of the Rock, "God creates what He will". (King James I of England would later call this the "divine right of kings".) Sunni Islam subverted and destroyed the Pharaonism of the House of Umayya, much the way the Umayyads had earlier undermined and destroyed Rashidism.

If Rashidism and Shi'ism are first-generation Islamic movements, Sunnism belongs to the third generation.

posted by Zimri on 15:25 | link |

Friday, November 07, 2003

Global warming post

I've just read an astonishing claim by the New Scientist, that the Sun's been flaring up more than it has done since the first millennium CE.

I assume this is a general trend and not a single event. As far as I know the 1859 flareup (replace "1.shtml" with "2"-"5.shtml" to see the whole thing) is still the worst on record. Those flares showed up on 19th-century tech, and subsequently wrought havoc on 19th-century telecom. We haven't got that far yet.

Naturally, humanity wasn't looking that close at the Sun prior to, oh, 1700's-era telescopes and light-filters, so the current researchers have been sifting through Greenland ice cores for traces of a beryllium isotope.

I note that this is right on time for the new disaster flick, "The Day After Tomorrow", which based on the previews looks like a dramatisation of Art Bell's "The Coming Global Superstorm". According to that book, global warming will lead to the end of the North Atlantic Current a.k.a. Gulf Stream, which keeps the Arctic away from northern Europe. (Look at a map and compare Europe's latitude with North America, and you'll see what I mean.) According to Art Bell, the end cometh riding upon the clouds of a vast blizzard. Europeans do have an interest in keeping the stream flowing, while at the same time ensuring the rest of the planet doesn't get so cold that the stream is moot. It's a delicate balance over there. But at least now they won't be blaming it on American industry.

I knew about this already, and I didn't have much to add beyond the most obvious snark. Burchismo couldn't resist the temptation: "I'm sure the Greens will blame the Bush Administration for this, but I haven't yet figured out how". Yeah, yeah. Too easy a target, dude.

Back when I was in the UK, the Private Eye satire mag had a regular column called "Down on the Farm", whose primary focus was political manure in the Euro farm industry, of which there was and is a real shitload (to lapse into Americanism). DotF liked to poke fun at the global warming / ozone depletion alarmists too; it attributed the phenomena to sunspots. On every such occasion you could count on the local hippies, druids, and broom-jockeys to mail off irate letters to the editor. They may end up looking pretty silly if this is true.

Still, it is worrying, especially since it's not Bush's fault. How do you calm down a star?

posted by Zimri on 20:26 | link |

Dude, now you've got herpes on your lap

It's early November and that means it's time for the annual shingles rash. Just for variety it's decided to run around the upper-thigh/lower belly region, making it extremely hard to stand up, sit down, walk etc.

Just so you know, in case you care, (1) why I'm so grouchy and (2) why I'm not doing something else, like work.

A cure can't come soon enough...

posted by Zimri on 12:38 | link |

Vindicating the hadith?

The German scholar Harald Motzki wrote The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence, Islamic History and Civilization, 41: Meccan Fiqh before the Classical Schools in the early 1990's. Since it was in German, only Germans knew of it for awhile, but soon rumour of it reached the Islamic world. There it attained a reputation, to quote this guy, as a "vindication of the hadith". Last year Motzki had the book translated into English, and it is now making its way through the Anglosphere.

I read about half of it on Tuesday night, and it is a truly ground-breaking study. I had to take down this site as a result.

I would have read the whole thing but it was already 1 AM when I got as far as I did, and by the laws of the library I wasn't even supposed to be there after midnight. I daresay I was too tired to drive home that night to boot, but I somehow managed. And then I was late to work. So I've already broken a number of rules, laws, and codes of conduct.

Outside the academy, most laymen know of two schools of thought concerning Islamic origins. One is the view that Muslims themselves put about. The other is a revisionist view, that Islamic history must be pieced together from any source but an undated Muslim one.

The second view relies on the assumption that undated Islamic traditions are worthless. That many traditions are tendentious - or, as Protestant Christians say, "apocryphal" - is not exactly news. The largest sects in Islam, Sunni and Shi'a, have been bickering over whether this or that hadith was forged at least since the Abbasid dynasty (750 CE). Goldziher had noticed this, and sounded the alarm, a century ago. In 1950 CE, Joseph Schacht wrote a book that investigated primitive Islamic law as found in such pre-/proto-Sunni compilations as the Muwatta, and uncovered the motives and origins for many hadiths.

It turned out that many hadiths sported broken chains of transmission in their early stages, and that most of these somehow acquired complete chains when later authorities cited them. In addition, the early texts trod gingerly around traditions of the Prophet; but later texts of the late second century AH onward (800's+ CE) used many hitherto unknown such traditions. Given the (then) paucity of available texts that might have cast light on the first century AH, Schacht declared this gap a significant absence. He deduced that, as now, so earlier: that there were no traditions preceding that gap. As a general rule: if the isnad is complete, and the protagonist is Muhammad, it is fake. The less complete and the further from Muhammad, the more likely the hadith.

Motzki first noted that "in Schacht's earliest sources, incomplete and unbroken isnâds are found side by side". Schacht had argued too many of his points from silence. Motzki has broken that early Islamic silence, by presenting the Musannaf: another work of jurisprudence, contemporary with Shafi'i but not Shafi'ite, by an 'Abd al-Razzaq of San'a (d. 211 AH). Schacht hadn't read this one. The 200's AH is late - Abbasid, actually - but still earlier than al-Bukhari and other compilers of hadith.

Motzki then picked out a random-ish sample of the Musannaf's volumes and did an overview of the top layer of isnâd. That sample is largely taken up with a student questioning a teacher called 'Atâ. Motzki notes there is no reason to suspect forgery. In addition, the Musannaf apparently broke apart some of 'Atâ's lecture notes, implying these notes were already in written form when 'Abd al-Razzaq wrote his book.

Whenever those notes were written, they came from the memory of a man who himself remembered 'Atâ, an old man when he died in the mid-second century.

Here, too, there is no reason to assume that the student or 'Abd al-Razzaq invented 'Atâ. 'Atâ occasionally admitted ignorance, and on other occasions his successors disagreed with him. In addition, 'Atâ had a different appreciation for Islamic canon than did his students. Atâ cited the Qur'an 6% of the time, and the Companions also 6%; and he deferred to his own contemporaries and to hadith of the Prophet 1% each; leaving 86% of his sayings based on his own legal opinion. As far as hadith go, Atâ's students asked him less about the Companions and more about the Prophet. (p. 107-8)

By that token there was already pressure on Atâ to verify dubious traditions, or to invent them. But 'Atâ did not take the bait. This implies that 'Atâ was honest; and therefore that the traditions (and suras!) which he knew were authentic as of the early second century AH. That means Hisham's reign or even earlier: mid-Marwanid.

This is sufficient as a refutation of Schacht, and thereby all his successors: Wansbrough, Crone, Cook, Nevo, Koren, ibn Warraq - whichever. We now have a secular, duplicable, and non-circular means to research the first ahadith. The hadith can be disregarded no longer.

Or, at least, it can be relegated to the third century AH no longer. The hadith may yet remain stuck on the hither side of the Dome of the Rock, not significantly improving our knowledge of the Prophet. But we have to start somewhere, and Motzki has shown where.

posted by Zimri on 11:45 | link |

Wah, wah, wah

Daschle is saying that CBS's decision under pressure to yank that "Reagans" show was "a clear victory for the far right".

Blah blah Reagan blah blah blah far right blah blah right wing blah blah Nazi fascist blah blah I'm very disappointed. Thank you for that inestimable contribution to the national discourse, Tommy. Enjoy your last year in the Senate.

posted by Zimri on 00:29 | link |

Thursday, November 06, 2003

Now, about that nominee...

By now the entire righty blogosphere has already read this report, which shows that most Americans would rather vote for "Random Q Democrat" than for George W Bush. The Dems aren't celebrating, because GWB beats the real live cancidates that are actually running. So in a three-way contest between nobody (D), Dubya (R), and - say - Clark (D since Tuesday), Clark earns what we Brits like to call the Wooden Spoon.

What I think we're seeing is a polling sample full of anti-Republican whiners who nonetheless end up voting Republican anyway. (I would've given the same answer, if only to force this administration to pay attention to the deficit.) But I can't prove it so I'm not going to get into that. Also, if first is a Gold Cup and third the Wooden Spoon then what is second? How about "the Porcelain Bowl". Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night...

Speaking of silly jokes, James Taranto came up with one on Wednesday: "Maybe the Dems should give up on the nominating process altogether and just run slates of uncommitted electors next November." Unless he wasn't joking. I took it seriously enough for a few minutes, despite its lack of precedent. I decided against it when I realised that any party needs a warm body to help out the more local, downstream races (prompting the post below). And even if Random Q. D.'s protest vote swung the election, it would stick us with a flurry of electors bickering over which Dem to support, a media circus, and probably a sizable set of disgruntled "faithless" running over to George's side.

Also speaking of silly jokes, there are those who want Terry McAuliffe to ring up Hillary! or maybe Gore at the last minute before the primary filing deadline, once the current crop have made decisive jackasses of themselves (which, I know, was four months ago, but give it time to sink in). But those guys have had eight years worth of baggage. So much for the Senate.

A better idea would be a throwback to ye gilded 1800's tradition: the Dark Horse candidate. This could happen if no candidate gets a clear majority of delegates by Convention Day. It works like this: at the convention, the chief party elders get together in a smoke-filled room, choose someone who hasn't been running, who is presentable if not electable, and voilà. Then results an immediate bounce, a drive for momentum, not enough time for a proper scandal - maybe eking out electoral-college victory by November. It worked for James Garfield.

UPDATE 2/21/2004: No more Harold Ford Jr. He's too young -sigh-

posted by Zimri on 23:55 | link |

More advice to Democrats

The libertarian/centrist faction of the blogosphere (which, I guess, includes me) is currently busy providing free advice to the Democratic Party, after the most recent spanking which Dubya & Co. have administered to them.

(I'm not sure about the psychological need for us to do this. (a) we're even less Dem than Repub - especially now (b) the Dems don't listen anyway and (c) anything I could say will be better said and better reasoned elsewhere. I guess I'm doing it because I quite like the idea of a sensible second party in American politics. That and I feel like another good rant this evening.)

The problem with the Dems right now is that their leadership is amoral. Terry McAuliffe, the Senate Democrats, and some of the Presidential candidates are angling for short-term tactical advantage. Rather than get anything done, they've chosen to peck at Bush at every turn: scuppering (for a few weeks) his grant to Iraq here, tying down his judicial appointments there, carping at his conduct of the war everywhere. This works to cut down Bush's approval ratings and it also helps to weaken Bush's performance. But the Dems aren't giving us voters any alternative to Bush. I have to conclude their leadership doesn't have one.

When Bush is wounded nihilistically, it wounds the entire nation. By now we've all seen that the Democratic base is prepared to wound the country if it meant Bush's ouster. The voting populace isn't stupid - at least, the motivated voters aren't - and they can see that destructive politics lead to actual destruction. They are also coming to distrust Democratic loyalty.

This isn't good for the Democrats. And it's even less good for the nation. So I have advice for the Dems:

• Aim for the other races. You can still staunch the bleeding in Congress and the states. Go all out on those races. Promise that the state will be better off with your guy representing you. Run locally. On no account should you federalise the election.
  
• Accept that Bush is going to win. Trying to weaken him now is folly. You will only hurt the economy; and voters are going to notice this and vote against your guy, and then move on to your downstream races and punish the candidates there.
  
• But still: find a likeable candidate. Don't offer up too obvious a sacrificial lamb, like Mondale in 1984. Gods no; the voters will laugh your downstream candidates right out of public service. But the right candidate - a centrist who supports the war, guns, and tax cuts; disagrees humbly on minor tactics yet has a consistent plan; and concentrates on the budget deficit - will bring in lots of guys willing to vote for your party's picks elsewhere. In addition a national deficit-hawk candidate will provide moral cover for voters to elect any local candidates who promise the pork. (Yeah, that's an appeal to hypocrisy - but who cares?)
  

Do this and Bush will receive a victory with no coattails. Or, the Dems could keep doing what they're doing. We'll see whose advice was better come 2004...

posted by Zimri on 22:15 | link |

CATO and NRO to taxpayers: pay for my church or else

In the post below, I dealt with the general tax-credit versus voucher debate (in summary: vouchers = specialised departments, credits = IRS). I deliberately didn't touch on the ethical question of whether we should even have a credit/voucher subsidy for education. Here, we'll have a fair and balanced look at Oman's more obvious humbug, "for parents to decide how their children are educated is a fundamental, constitutional right".

For this, read: a constitutional right to the contents of my pocket. That is ultimately where public spending comes from - taken by force of government - and I do not have children, so I'm not even getting anything back for it. I am paying for someone else's kid to go to school. Granting freedom for the parent not to pay for a child's education, means taking away that freedom for the taxpayer.

I am willing to do this (breaking from libertarianism here), but in that case I should like a say in which school. Otherwise I am paying for a school I don't believe in, which alters the current situation exactly zero, from my standpoint.

Sounds selfish? Okay, I'll make another concession - I'll agree to share my vote with my fellow citizens, in accordance with this nation's Constitution. That contract I have made, collectively, with the government, includes the First Amendment. This amendment guarantees that my tax monies do not go toward government-approved religious sects.

But apparently private schools are crying foul over that idea:

In a recent nationwide survey of over 1,000 private-school directors, more than 90 percent of Christian schools (including Catholic schools) said they would not support or participate in a school-choice program that would require the school to exempt some students from religious activities. Also, more than 80 percent of all private schools — religious, non-religious, elite, and low-tuition alike — said they would not participate in a school-choice program that would prohibit them from denying admission to students with behavioral problems. What good are vouchers if hardly any private schools will accept them?

(I honestly couldn't give a shit about "students with behavioral problems", which a less enlightened world labelled "brats". It's not a day care; it's a school. If they don't want to learn then they ought to stay home. This is no argument against vouchers, but a powerful argument for them. So much for that.)

That 90%+ is a wonderful argument against unrestricted vouchers. It's not a church; it's a school. A school is for learning, which includes critical inquiry. If it becomes a church then I'm not paying for it. If they bring up a voucher program without a religion test: I'll be voting against it.

Now that that's settled, the rest of Oman's column is irrelevant. "Regulating private schools that utilize vouchers undermines both competition and freedom" - the freedom of someone else to take my money and blow it on something unconstitutional. Next! "It is also unnecessary. As long as the voucher or tax-credit amount is large enough to cover the realistic cost of educating children, schools will develop to meet the variety of demands that parents place upon them" - Spirit-filled parents with demands on my money. Next! "Schools will have to please parents, not regulators, to stay in business — the purpose for which choice programs were implemented in the first place" - parents who want my money, and want to blow it on something unconstitutional. Next!

If those 90% of religious schools don't want to exempt their voucher students from religious activities, then they won't get vouchers. If anyone complains, I'd just tell them: "that school discriminates; so take it up with them or else find another one".

Or, once Oman is through with her audit, she can retire to a small southern Utah town among the pretty mountain meadows for which the region is justly famed. I'll agree for the feds to subsidise but ignore the local schools for 20 years or so. We'll see how libertarian the local government - the local society - becomes by the end of it.

posted by Zimri on 18:21 | link |

CATO and NRO to taxpayers: the IRS knows best

I notice today on NRO, H Lilliam Oman at the CATO Institute is proclaiming this: "[school] choice is needed for two reasons: competition and freedom. Competition leads to higher quality schools, and freedom for parents to decide how their children are educated is a fundamental, constitutional right. Unfortunately, some school-choice programs fail to increase either." Oman's answer? Let the IRS handle it!

Specifically, Oman wants parents to write portions of their education budgets off their taxes. This is supposed to be superior to the current, limited voucher systems that dot select cities around the nation. But as every libertarian ought to know, targeted tax credits are equivalent to vouchers-after-the-fact. You present your receipt to the Internal Revenue Service; the IRS decides if that receipt is valid; and they either stamp it, or they stamp you in an audit. Plus any money that the government can't take from you, they're going to take from the rest of us.

It's interesting that the CATO Institute, not elsewhere much of an IRS booster, thinks it such a groovy idea to transfer enforcement of education spending to them, and away from the Department of Education. Great. Let's give the CATO Institute what they want; and then set the IRS to give them all a good solid audit to make sure that the schools they chose are, you know, appropriate. Who decides what's appropriate? Oh, you'll have to go to the Post Office and fill out Tax Credit Form 1069-Q, section Viii-Aleph-Vega. That has to be mailed to the Washington office of the Department of Education, and it'll help to call them (they'll be back on Tuesday at 10 AM). By the way, there's a deadline on all this or else you're going to Club Fed. Yeah, Oman. Nice one.

It's also interesting that CATO is supporting even more little tweaks to an already indecipherable tax code. Didn't they, like, not approve when a Democrat was thinking up stuff like this? Oh but when they do it, it's pandering; when we do it, it's compassionate conservatism.

Oman's either an idiot or a weasel. I can't believe anyone in CATO or NRO is even considering this balderdash. What a naked pander for the mommy vote; what a copped-out and clapped-out Parliament of Whores.

posted by Zimri on 17:46 | link |

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