The Christian Nation We Never Were

 

Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, disaster chow pitchman, is concerned that the Pride celebration at the White House means that the US is no longer a Christian Nation.  I would like to be very reassuring while I say this to him: We never were.  The original inhabitants of this nation were not Christians, and despite all the Christians who came to this land seeking refuge from their Old World persecution, you have to understand, actually being a "Christian nation" or the product of any one religion is a weirdly wrong idea to have about our founding. 

We are by no means a Christian nation. John Adams said as much in the Treaty of Tripoli.  There's a lot wrong with assuming that our founders were all of a mind about religion--which is exactly the reason to presume we are not founded on religious principles, but practical ones. There are ample statements from our founders that attest that freedom of religion was the only way to maintain an already-diverse religious population, Thomas Jefferson was proud enough of his religious freedom edict in Virginia that he had it made a part of his final epitaph. 

Whether to Bury or Praise

There is something fortuitous in the historical placement of George Bush in wherever he happened to be in the course of his long life. He was fortunate in being born privileged, he was fortunate in surviving a brutal war. He was fortunate in politics, after a fashion. He married the love of his life, and one of his sons followed him in the White House. As lives go, it wasn't half bad. He was surrounded with admiration and love at the end of his life, and that's nothing to scoff at. We could all hope to do so well. 

He also benefited by being neither so wretched as Nixon or crass as Trump, and the halo of his dedication was in part burnished by the haplessness of his son's time in office, and the bar of doing politics had dropped to where service and decency, just by being part of one's make-up, were all that needed to be present to gloss over really harsh truths. But his record was mixed, and a pretty damn comprehensive blog post of the not-great bits was served by Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns, & Money, so I'd say check that out for the stuff already said, and better than I would have, by him. 

As for me, I still simmer over 1988. This was the first presidential election I paid attention to, occurring after Iran-Contra, and in some way, my innocent soul thought Republicans should have been over, for at least this round. How in the world does a country accept Bush was "out of the loop" as a former head of CIA, and not think his principal job in taking office in the White House was to tidy up loose ends? I was all of sixteen and livid at the "pledge of Allegiance" nonsense and the entire crock of referring to Dukakis as an "ACLU card-carrying liberal" as if sticking up for the Bill of Rights was something to sneer at. Stupid wedge issue content (and maybe not the most competent campaign waged by Dukakis and Bentsen) dictated a win, and a pardon for several folks who participated in that debacle of literally extralegally arming a country that we considered a supporter of terrorism, to also extralegally support a faction in a war that wasn't any of our business. And cite the reason for these pardons as "patriotism". 

I still to this damn day don't know what American principles or interests were served by this thing. As with Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, it sits poorly with me as a violation of the concept that no one should be above the law. 

And the nomination of Clarence Thomas, whatever we think of his qualifications today or his sexual harassment concerns, was a slap in the face of civil rights legend Thurgood Marshall, whose seat he filled. As if this bland patrician looked on this black conservative, and gave no fucks for the vast difference in viewpoint but saw a certain blatant commonality, and rolled with it. 

I do not know the family or personally, any friends of George Bush. I knew I was slipping as a blogger when I tried to silver-lining the life of his beloved spouse. The War on Drugs,  and whatever crap example he set that made George W. Bush and Jeb Bush the politicians they were,  his poor response to the AIDS crisis, his feints to hardcore conservatism to try and obviate the claim he was a "wimp" which in some ways proved it--all stay in my memory as things that were part and parcel of his legacy, that should not be forgotten. 

And yet, in retrospect, he could have been so much worse. And he wrote lovely notes, and his family doesn't all suck, and his friendship with Clinton and Obama....? 

He was human, and we are all a mixed lot, and have redeeming features. He did his thing for charity, and I will allow I consider some of what people say about Carlyle Group and the defense industry and drawing arrows here and there from Halliburton/Dressher to the exploits in Iraq seems a bit paranoid. I can't dispute that the end of the Cold War would have been something difficult for any president to navigate. 

His family will bury him, and they can praise him as well. As well as can any of his loved ones. I am not in that circle, and I will tell the truth if I please. His civility was admirable. But we should not hurry to polish the reputations of those who have died when their legacies are still ongoing. And the stupid political postures of 1988 still resound in 2018. I can't shrug that off, or forget that Roger Ailes, who made Fox News, was one of his campaign advisors back in the day, and of course, the episode of peak Les Atwater--the Willie Horton ad. 

I am dry-eyed and unromantic about his legacy. We are here in it. And my Trump obit will definitely be even worse, come the day. I wish peace of mind to his surviving loved ones. (But not without clear memories.)

UPDATE: And just one other damn thing--he was for Brett Kavanaugh, and fuck him and his son and Brett Kavanaugh. But not the all the way, because none of them deserve the satisfaction. 

This Escalated Quickly

Immigration ban not sitting well with America. pic.twitter.com/PV6NQZml10

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) January 29, 2017

When Americans started to hear about people getting detained at the airport, heard the stories of people who had visas pulled, whose families were being separated, whose lives were being disrupted, whose careers were getting held up, by President's Trump's foolish, arbitrary and cruel Muslim ban, they turned out in force. If Trump was feeling a little something about crowd envy, well, he draws crowds now--to protest his bullshit. Lawyers and protesters came to assist people whose very lives were being played with for no justifiable reason.  And some degree of victory was even obtained on the behalf of people whose future had been disrupted while in transit.

It's a start. But this is the level the US has to stay at, and while it is very good that we saw Rep. John Lewis (who certainly, contrary to what Mr. Trump says, is not "all talk") come where this injustice was happening, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren came to Logan airport, and many other figures came on down, while the support of religious groups is welcome, it's not just about showing up this time--it's about legal challenges, and throwing the Constitution back into the face of this Administration over and over again. It's about sustained outrage that never settles for the short term victory--but keeps protesting until it's Trump and Co. that feel overwhelmed. Calling your representatives to voice concerns or give support to the resistance they give to the White House. The WH is in denial that the slimmest of electoral margins and a serious popular vote deficiency does not give them a mandate for every poorly-thought out promise Trump made in his gonzo campaign bid.

So we'll just have to let them know.

Because this is what it's all about, not the scare-tactics of equating people from other countries and other religions with terror.

Anatomy of a diss denied--ACLU almosts snubs atheist donation

This has to do with the story of Constance McMillian, a very nice girl in the Itawamba School district in Mississippi, who managed to get the whole prom cancelled just by being herself. This problem was supposed to be remedied by two organizations that I actually have been a supporter of for a long time.

It's a nice thing that I got the updated story from Friendly Atheist or I would have been a bit disgruntled with the ACLU in Mississippi from reading this article from The New York Times that indicated that the generous $20,000 donation from Todd and Diana Stiefel via AHA might be denied for a fairly silly reason:

The gift, to sponsor one of several privately sponsored alternate events, came from the American Humanist Association, an advocacy group whose mission is to promote “good without God.”

“Although we support and understand organizations like yours, the majority of Mississippians tremble in terror at the word ‘atheist,’ ” Jennifer Carr, the fund-raiser for the A.C.L.U of Mississippi, wrote in an e-mail message to Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the humanist group.

According to Matthew Sheffield, a spokesman for the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition, the organization arranging the event, the A.C.L.U. of Mississippi did not have authority to decline the gift.

“We asked someone at the A.C.L.U. to assist us in handling all the donations, and that person told them we were not interested and that is not true,” he said.

Mr. Sheffield said that after getting answers to a few questions, their board would decide whether to accept the gift.

(The part I emboldened is the part that made me choke on my peanuts for a moment. "Tremble in terror at"? I need to throw my atheism around a bit so I can be more tremble-worthy. I am doing this atheism thing wrong!)

Anyways, the grown-ups figured out how not to suck, and the ACLU apologized. Now they just have to accept the money, and get on with giving the kids a nice time--or something like that. You only get senior prom a couple times, if you're lucky.

(I'm not really sure where the "trembling in terror" about godless money or a prom with gay kids even comes from. Either people are raising kids to live in the real world or to be so many "bubble-children", insulated from anything different. And I'm still wishing all the Itawamba kids a nice prom.)