The news of the world has been sort of a downer lately, what with the Ugandan pogroms and Islamic revolutions and nutsack bombers and all. At times like this, we can take comfort in knowing that we live in America, where individual freedom and religious neutrality and non-exploding nutsacks rule the day. The United States is the planet’s longest-running democracy, founded on the enlightenment principles of reason, individual liberty and generous-if-occasionally-roughhouse tolerance, and we still enjoy the highest standard of living in the world. Coincidence? I think not. It’s our values that make us strong, and our commitment to rational inquiry and logical discourse that separates us from countries where they get all their science from one 2000 year-old book and make their women walk around with bags over their heads and nobody has a damn car. We have cars, and our women expose their underwear at the mall. It’s what makes America great, or at least what makes us rule. Of course, if you ask a large segment the country why we’re so awesome, they’ll say it’s our special relationship with God. They’re the nascent theocracy that believes we have always been a Christian nation, that our strength comes from our strictures and not our rights, and that any sentiment that can’t be read off the back of Toby Keith’s truck is probably the elitist babble of the overeducated. They are, in this sense, the Bizarro America, running around in a Superman outfit with the S backwards and fighting for what the rest of us consider crime. Maybe there are as many of them as there have always been, or maybe they’re on the rise. They certainly seem to have been particularly active lately, and this Friday’s link roundup is devoted to their weird, inverted vision for the country. So stand up, solder a can of beer closed again and do whatever the opposite of enjoyment is to the stories of their efforts. Outrage—that’s what the opposite of enjoyment is. Funny how it feels so similar lately.
Cultural difference alert: In Uganda, they don’t just say stuff
Gutsy.
For those of us generally committed to cultural relativism, Uganda’s proposed anti-gay legislation raises some difficult issues. On the one hand, different cultures hold different values, and tolerance has little meaning when we only apply it to things we agree with. On the other hand, what the fuck is wrong with you people, people of Uganda? While they’ve backed off a little from the initial draconian bill—currently proposed legislation has abandoned the death penalty for repeat offenders in favor of life imprisonment, which, just for reference, never turned anybody straight—Ugandans still seem intent on eradicating homosexuals from their society. The question is, why now? Presumably, there have been gay dudes in Uganda forever, and it’s not like they’ve just had an Islamic revolution or anything. What could possibly have prompted the Ugandan government to declare homosexuality a threat to the nation in April of 2009—oh, hello, consortium of American evangelicals. You’re looking exceptionally tan. Is it because you just got back from leading a series of talks in Uganda about how homosexuals undermine Biblical values and threaten the traditional African family? What a coincidence—I was just talking about how Uganda has begun enacting legislation to systematically exterminate homosexuals. So, um, want to use the men’s room with me?
Stronger than reason: David Brooks on the Tea Party
Dear god, please let there be a punk rock branch of the Tea Party.
He’s been wrong before, but when David Brooks says you’re a nationwide movement, you’re either Soccer Moms in the 2004 general election or a real thing. In Monday’s New York Times, Brooks alleges that the Tea Party movement is the latter. After opening with his usual overview of the prevailing sociopolitical winds for the last thirty to 100 years, he gets to the money shot. “Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year,” he writes. For the moment, Brooks has declined to enumerate which instruments he uses to measure the popularity of ideas, but he at least sounds right. “The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise,” he says. “The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.” Those committed to responsible argument will object to Brooks’s questionable use of the word so, which makes his theory the cause of his evidence, but as and statements his list still draws an unsettling connection. When Brooks points out that the Tea Partiers are defined by what they are against, and that most of what they are against can be grouped under “the concentrated power of the educated class,” he introduces a framework as useful as it is terrifying.
Brit Hume seizes the moral high ground against Tiger Woods
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgMr_Zc3OtA
Corpse eating crackers Brit Hume appeared on Fox News this Sunday to pass judgment on Tiger Woods’s extramarital affairs, opine that his children might never be able to love him, and demand that he change religions. I direct your props to Ben Fowkles for the link, and your attention to William Kristol at the :40 mark. You know you’re talking crazy when you discombobulate Bill Kristol—the man was chief of staff to Dan Quayle, for crissake. After offering the generous assessment, “It’s not clear to me that he’ll be able to have a relationship with his children,” Hume goes on to speculate that Woods’s professed Buddhism does not offer “the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.” Okay, but will it make me a sanctimonious asshole? Because that’s the last piece of my asshole puzzle.
Brit Hume is not completely oblivious to how he comes off on TV, and he’s aware that certain segments of the Fox News viewing audience—specifically the 40% that watches solely to capture video and criticize it on the internet—took exception to his remarks. That’s why he went on Bill O’Reilly to address the heart of the issue: the way that people in this society immediately freak out if you so much as mention that you’re a Christian. Behold:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2MB8boLWZc&feature=player_embedded
For my money, the best part of this interview is when O’Reilly, after showing Brit Hume a videotape of himself saying that they only way Tiger Woods can ever recover is if accepts the love of Jesus Christ, asks, “Was that proselytizing?” and Brit Hume says no, he doesn’t think so. Does Brit Hume not know what that word means? After reiterating his suspicion that Tiger’s family doesn’t love him anymore, Hume opines that what made Woods so notable is not his skill as a golfer, but “the content of his character.” See, I don’t follow golf, so I thought that it was because he was the best player in the history of the sport, but actually it’s because he was such a good guy. But in fact, Hume points out, he wasn’t a good guy at all! In addition to seeing you when you’re golfing and knowing when you’re awake, it turns out that Britt Hume also knows if you’ve been bad or good, so convert for goodness’s sake.
Hume seems unaware that calling on a man to change religions after you’ve gone on national TV to speculate on the state of his marriage might be seen as a little presumptuous. Instead, he ascribes any indignation over his remarks to the taboo on mentions of Christian faith in our national dialogue. “It has always been a puzzling thing to me,” Hume says. “The Bible even speaks of it. You speak the name of Jesus Christ, and I don’t mean to make a pun here, but all hell breaks loose.” I think we can all agree that the worst thing a public figure can do in this country is speak the name of Jesus Christ. That’s why the religious faiths of both candidates for President in 2008 remain unknown, and why evangelical Christians wield absolutely no power in American politics. In a country where 83% of the population identifies as Christian, mentioning Jesus is just too risky.
If a mode of rhetoric has defined American culture since 1967, presenting the majority position as if it were a rebellious minority is it. Consider the quote-unquote rogue who is America’s second-most admired woman, or the vast, decrepit sales team that calls itself rock ‘n roll. Americans like to think of themselves as bold nonconformists, especially when they’re safely in the majority. It’s no surprise, then, that Christians in a position of power should trot out this argument when they need to excuse crass behavior. What is surprising is that people still buy into it. A marketing strategy that has come to be derided as a means of selling Mountain Dew or Jeeps still works as a means of selling bad behavior—maybe because 83% of the country has a vested interest in believing it’s true. Thank goodness for the internet, which gives us access to the Cypress Times outside of Houston, and their response to the flap: “Mr. Hume may have been speaking metaphorically, but his words were literal and they were the perfect explanation as to why he is now being vilified.” I’m not sure what the actual words in that sentence could possibly mean—although, being words, they are probably literal—but the implication is that the country is somehow persecuting its Christian majority.
I say a majority cannot be persecuted. Like those frat boys in Borat who lament the inordinate advantages enjoyed by black people and homosexuals, people who claim majority-group persecution are usually trying to cover up personal failings. In the case of Britt Hume, he didn’t fail by saying the J-word on national television; he failed by being a dick. He treated another man’s vulnerability as an opportunity to take charge of his soul. Personally, I’m an atheist. If I saw a man crying in the bar because he lost his job, and I went over there and said that the thing he needs to do to get his life in order again is to abandon his misguided belief in the existence of gods, I would rightly be regarded as the biggest asshole who ever lived. We don’t do that kind of thing here. This is America, where we shut up about religion—not because we’re embarrassed or because people persecute us or because we’re not sure about it, but because it’s decent.
Glenn Beck ties with Pope on list of most admired Americans
"Fuck you too, dicks!
If you’re eating something, spit it out right now. Don’t swallow it, because you’ll only see it again seconds later. Gallup has released the results of its annual poll to determine the men and women Americans most admire, and Glenn Beck has tied with Pope Benedict XVI for fourth place. That’s right: the man who made this video (and this video explaining that video) is as well-regarded, among Americans, as God’s official representative on Earth. Barack Obama crushed his division for the second year in a row, topping the list of most-admired men with a healthy margin over the second-place finisher, George W. Bush. Are you beginning to appreciate the sheer insanity of this poll, yet? Arguably legitimate human being Hillary Clinton topped the list of most admired women, but she only beat Sarah Palin by one percent. Maya Angelou remains deadlocked with Margaret Thatcher.
The takeaway from all of this is that Americans respect—or at least claim to respect—a former morning zoo DJ whose television show started four years ago more than the head of the Catholic church. Those of you concerned that people in the office like one of your coworkers better than you might consider, for a moment, of what value the esteem of the mob. Whatever you do, don’t consider what values Beck’s ascent alludes to in the hearts of the American people, or how long such a people can successfully operate a representative democracy. That’s what Dana Milbank at the Washington Post did, and he was forced to draw some ugly conclusions. “All ages have their charlatans,” Milbank writes. “The fact that Beck’s stew of venom and fabrication has been such a triumph probably says less about Beck than about us. He has merely captured the moment.” Zing!