'Tis the Season in Pictures

 

A time for rebirth and renewed hope?  And a promise of protection?

The 25th consecutive day of protests in Georgia. The "Georgian Dream" might just be heading towards a "Romanian Christmas". pic.twitter.com/oNkhkwvZYq

— Daractenus (@Daractenus) December 22, 2024

The End of Assad

 

I haven't really known where to start this week. Tblisi? Romania? But it's Syria. Good gracious if I were ever to believe, God. The rebels took over everywhere. Everything, after so many years, fell. And Bashar al-Assad's Russian friends have been run off, too. And he has fucked off to Moscow. (Actually, I know he was in Moscow last week and never noticed him leaving. When the heck did he leave to fuck off on back?)

I don't know if Assad-cheerleader and avid consumer of RU agitprop, Tulsi Gabbard is at home crying into her Putin shaped comfort woobie, but the quality of her often-offered pro-Assad and pro-Putin opinions are about to take an uncommon beating.  Which she totally has earned. 

I also don't know how Trump and them feel about what Romania has done with respects to their dodgy election. I personally think Trump should have been disqualified as an insurrectionist, but we just don't do stuff like that here, regardless of what our Constitution says. 

I do winder if some of the people who voted for him are feeling the buyer's remorse yet. And what exactly would happen if we tried to stage a "do-over" here. 

But this post isn't about the US--it's about this:

It's Up to Us

 

I spent the last few days putting off writing about the "Pass the Torch" movement. Oh, I was getting ready. I was going to sit down and take names and call out the fuckery. People didn't start one minute from the first question during the debate before I think the "drop Biden" movement started, in a way that felt coordinated and desperately shitty to me. 

Who the fuck treats a decent man who just gave us an astonishingly successful 3.5 years like this? Why are Democrats even airing our laundry in public? I'm a fan of transparency on one hand, but on the other it felt disrespectful to the man and his honorable public service. 

Every dumb horserace "Here's what a contested convention would look like" article, every "who might we see in a blitz primary?" thumbsucker, seemed to be a repudiation of the primaries we just had. 

The last straw wasn't the has-been campaign mahoffs of yesteryear who have displayed the political savvy of brain-damaged lemmings in the rush to shaft the incumbent Democratic president, though, that was going to make me bleed my frustration all over the internet--it was the distilled self-parody of Sorkinism: suggesting Democrats nominate Mitt Romney. 

Big "not The Onion" energy, but why did my eyes water? 

Because much as my feelings about Mitt Romney have moderated from 2012--he still isn't a Democrat, and it felt defeatist. One major party is captured by racist, violent authoritarianism, and the other is consigned to irrelevance and mere "Never Trumpism"?  Fuck that. 

Memorial Day

 

In memory of those who have served and lost their lives in the name of freedom, this grateful nation should never forget that sacrifice, nor support tyranny abroad, or support the rule of tyranny here. For those who would support and commend dictators from the land of the free or wish for a day-one dictator in this nation themselves, desecrate the sacrifices of the brave.

A Sacred Cause

The significant thing to keep in mind about President Biden's speech yesterday is that he referred to the commitment to democracy of our founders as the sacred cause that we share to this day. He reminded us that the violent, unlawful events of January 6, 2021, were the result of selfishness. 

It wasn't about patriotism, but the cult of personality that surrounds one man: Donald Trump. The United States of America, the great experiment of democracy, the rejection of rule by kings and tyrants could all just be casually tossed aside by people who did not care about the Constitution, our institutions, our history.

They cared about Trump, and he only cares about himself.

The founding mission to form a more perfect union is our "sacred cause".

And on that same day, yesterday, the adjudicated rapist and fraud posted an ad on his failing Truth Social telling us he was basically God's gift to America. Because in Trump's mind, the sacred cause is himself. 

This tracks the messaging that comes from his rally stages from pastors - that God has chosen Trump to battle the Deep State. This is also a ripoff of the ad Casey Desantis made for Ron’s reelection campaign. This also says Trump goes to church on Sundays when he never goes. pic.twitter.com/OFcBsk5w3W

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 5, 2024

 I've written so much about Trump's appeal to evangelicals as God's chosen, and the blasphemy of it still shocks even little old agnostic me. 

The choice could not have been made more clear.

Looking Forward to 2024

 

Another new year greets us. I'm no believer in destiny and as for me, I choose to look ahead, with the warning that when looking ahead, it helps to know what you are looking at. We have many choices ahead of us, and it's easy to be overwhelmed and slide into a kind of fatalism, an abandonment of choice because no option is "perfect". 

No options ever are. There is always, however, the specter of worse. The watchword is: "Vigilance."

The Minivan Taliban Are Being Fascist Again

 

Oh hey! Um, the freedom mommies went fascist again, and this time, they singled out Jewish people as if the Jewish people who are Americans weren't really Americans because they think this is a Christian nation and I guess they think all the Jews should go live in Israel and be Meggido'd. But I'm also going to be exactly the kind of person who points out that the last thing the quote says is seriously 14 words-compatible. 

They are talking about the survival of the Christian nation and their kids not being exposed to information that makes them doubt the cult of anti-science bullshit they are about to be raised in. 

The freedom mommies started by being bullshit about vaccinations, masks and school shutdowns (and I could go on a rant about fascist eugenics and the cult of clean blood but I could write a book about that and won't), probably because having kids at home impacted on their ability to daydrink and parent badly. Now, these assholes want to be fucked up because they have to explain complicated facts to their kids like gay people just love people who are the same sex as them and transpeople also use bathrooms. You know--easy explanations for shit that isn't hard. 

This is why they decided Jews are scary and probably pogroms will have to happen. Because they got momentarily inconvenienced into caring for their fucking kids, and they still don't, because they are doing this signifying shit, and probably have no idea where their kids are while they are being about FREEEEEDUMB!. But they RILLY RILLY care about their kids so much. They won't do anything about like, school shooters or poor kids getting fed or shit like that. But they will totally stop your LGBT kid from feeling like a loving community exists and probably make your POC child feel like something is missing from their history lesson, but not from their schoolyard bullying. Also too, they love quoting Hitler and being Hitler adjacent. Apparently.

(We love this game. Conservatives get to be fascists, and pretend that when you call them out on the fascism, they were only playing. It has never been cute.) 

These idiots are the reason I will never, never feel like a selfish monster for not having kids. These special beings squirted out kids and suck so hard. 

This Looks Really Fake to Me

 

Astonishing footage of last night's drone attack on the Kremlin pic.twitter.com/3rghCHdIed

— Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) May 3, 2023

This is definitely not an attack on Putin as in an assassination attempt.  I mean, look at the drone hitting the least little spire bit of that building that Putin doesn't even live in. If that was supposed to demonstrate anything about whether Putin has the means to protect himself from the Western weapons Zelenskyy has thus far amassed, this looks like, wow, Russia ain't shit at recognizing and stopping drones, really, because whoot, there they are! 

Do I think this is false flag? Ok, If so, it is stupid. It looks like Russia is so incompetent that wee little firework-enabled airborne gizmos can totally invade their airspace from Ukraine. Why would any competent military want to pretend they are helpless to defend the capitol city structures from literal children's toy-level technology? 

I would be offended if my government pretended this kind of thing, but I would be lying if I said I understood Russia propaganda networks and how battered their citizens' brains are to maybe think this is Ukraine doing this. Maybe they really would see the connection and believe Ukraine capable of this dumb drone thing. 

Maybe. 

But it looks fake. I mean damn dumb fake. Who are they trying to get over with this rubbish? I don't deny Putin is capable of pulling off some kind of stupid set up and this looks like one. Is this to get sympathy ahead of some push? Or the victory day parades? 

It just looks like some timely signifying to me, from the government that thought Ukraine would be a walk in the park,, and turned out to be a woodchipper for Russian conscripts.  I'm just saying. 

The War at Home

 

Tonight on ⁦@11thHour⁩ with ⁦@SRuhle⁩: Kansas City shooter was “…fully buying into the Fox News, OAN kind of line”. Grandson says Andrew Lester influenced by conservative media | The Kansas City Star ⁦@MSNBC⁩ https://t.co/IJivWs9Yxx

— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) April 21, 2023

A kid was shot because he knocked on the wrong door.  A girl got shot because she turned into the wrong driveway.  Cheerleaders were shot because they approached the wrong car. A little girl and her family were shot at because a ball rolled into the wrong lawn. 

I try to not just blame the guns--our violence problem is exacerbated by the availability of guns, but that isn't the whole problem. There is a synergy between some kind of overly defensive mindset, some kind of near-paranoia, and the access to weaponry, that is the problem. Something has gone terribly wrong with the basic American brain that it looks for enemies everywhere.

Our gun-related violence statistics are something to behold. The grandson of Andrew Lester talks about the viewpoint of his grandfather and you almost wonder how such shootings aren't more prevalent. 

Even while I understand how the AR-15 became a fetish for certain people, I don't blame the weapons--not entirely, even though I think we should keep them out of the hands of people who have previous assault charges, domestic violence, and restraining orders against them. That just seems logical to me. But we have a whole narrative, an NRA/gun lobby voice, saying having guns is your masculinity and your freedom. It's a solution to problems. The rhetoric isn't just home defense--it's payback and civil war. 

The fixation on violence as a front line tactic is disgraceful and damaging to civil peace. The gunhumpers who facilitated this POV need to understand their bullshit is why so many progressives want to ban various weapons. 

I get that the thing (any long gun, automated or not, any handgun, anything that goes boom and fires a projectile) is just a tool. But the rhetoric of gun nuts has weaponized the people for the sake of selling guns. 

And the people go off, hurting people and sometimes killing them. And that is not acceptable. 

A US President Speaks From Poland

 

"One year ago, the world was bracing for the fall of Kyiv... Kyiv stands strong, Kyiv stands proud, it stands tall, and most importantly it stands free"

US President Joe Biden makes a speech from Poland following his visit to Ukrainehttps://t.co/p8IyttSPuL pic.twitter.com/ENI188uyBS

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 21, 2023

Just as with President Biden's speech yesterday in Kyiv, he again spoke meaningfully to the world on behalf of the fight for democracy and liberty against the oppression and malignance of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the inhumanity of their tactics, and the unity of the western world against Putin's imperialism. 

This is well-understood in Poland, who know that the words of Putin's pet attack-Chechen, Kadyrov, is telegraphing a possible future front in a sick man's bucket-list war. It is understood in Moldova that the threat of Russia is real--and part of their attack is very indirect. Putin, as in his boring and long and wrong speech earlier today, can pretend to misunderstand history, but the people he threatens know well what he is and why NATO has expanded while he has been in charge of Russia. 

"Kyiv Stands. Ukraine Stands. Democracy Stands."

 

The United States stands with Ukraine--it must.

The ambition of Russia's tiny tyrant, despite his rhetoric, is sheer imperialism. The methods he is using to impose that imperialism are inhumanity--crimes against humanity.  As VP Kamala Harris made clear last week:

"No nation is safe in a world where one country can violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another where crimes against humanity are committed with impunity, where a country with imperialist ambitions can go unchecked," Harris said.

And we understand and have understood* that Putin's aggression if Ukraine is lost may well turn elsewhere in Europe. 

Today, considered Presidents' Day in the US, President Biden took the incredibly symbolic step of visiting a nation at war to demonstrate the faith he has in the people and government of Ukraine in their struggle to preserve their sovereignty and their democracy. This was an example of true American exceptionalism--to demonstrate leadership in the cause of freedom because this is a value we want to share with the world. 

A Solemn Anniversary and the Ongoing Coup

 

Today, President Biden bestowed one of our nation's highest honors, the President's Civilian Medal, to people who held the line for democracy and the truth regarding the Big Lie in the face of the violence promulgated by the promoters of the voter fraud canard and those who did their part to prevent the coup attempt of 1/6 from prospering. 

His words bear some listening:

And let me close with this.  Eighty-two years ago, on this very day in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union Address that became known as his famous “Four Freedoms” speech, as he defined America’s place in the world. 

He reminded the American people of, quote, the “strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America.  Things that have toughened the fiber of our people, renewed their faith, and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.”  End of quote.

Eighty years ago, after that speech, on this day two years ago, we were reminded about the most fundamental of things: democracy itself. 

As I’ve said before, we face an inflection point in our nation’s history.  On January 6th, it’s a reminder that there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy. 

There is nothing guaranteed about our democracy. It's a truth our Founding fathers knew. They knew that the price of freedom (the "part where freedom isn't free") was eternal vigilance (regardless of who gets attributed the sentiment). Vigilance against the would-be tyrants, the demagogues, the inciters of crowds and promoters of smashed windows and shot-up homes.  The space where liberty is safe is where truth can gain on a lie even if the lie had a head start, where honest people don't fall for malarkey even when it comes with side-order of strong-arming, where people charged with the duty to protect and serve understand full well what to protect and who is served by it. That liberty isn't the mad abandon of a ravening crowd, but the peace of any citizen under their fig tree and vine, and none shall make them afraid. 

The saboteurs of our democracy want to anoint themselves as "patriots", and they may very well have the money and the barrels of ink behind them to try and rewrite the near-past to create a kind of "lost cause" mythos where maybe the rioters had a point--but they never did. This was not a Civil War, this was just brainwashed thugs supporting Trump because they wanted a reality show host to have another disastrous term because they don't understand how fucking government works. 

Look at right-wing media, or even just the bullshit going on with the Speaker of the House decision--the coup is ongoing, There is a significant part of the Republican milieu that opposes the concept of good government, democracy, that sees partisanship as a religion and opposition to Democrats as part of a holy war.  

Ideally, we would be better than this. It wasn't necessarily true in FDR's time, and it isn't now.  But we must be vigilant, and we must nevertheless hold the line. Just as these good folks who were awarded today had done. 

UPDATE: In a separate ceremony on the Capitol steps, only one Republican showed up to commemorate the day and the efforts of law enforcement in protecting those members and our democracy.  

And in separate news, Trump is still defaming Ruby Freeman, who had done absolutely nothing to him, and whose safety is impacted by his lying words.

These actions seem very revealing to me. The coup isn't over.

Freedom's Just Another Word For....

 

Now that the Delta variant of Covid-19 is ripping through red states, some of the elected officials are just nonplussed at the gosh-awful irresponsibility folks are showing about not getting vaccinated. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey would like people to get vaccinated and show some common sense because they "are letting us down". Well, she's right as far as that goes--grown people should take responsibility for themselves and understand the risks their behavior poses to themselves and others. But it doesn't count for a lot when you consider she knows that there is a certain population that has no choice about getting vaccinated whatsoever, and she would not impose one necessary requirement that would reduce Covid-19 spread.  Vaccine passports were prohibited. And she certainly doesn't think people should be going door-to-door proselytizing the Good News of the vaccine to people. 

But otherwise she's done all she can--what the heck? 

The problem is, folks are still thinking freedom means also being free from responsibility, and that just isn't the case. It doesn't come home to them that there are consequences for what they do sometimes until it is too late. And sometimes even after rueful experience, people convince themselves they still want to persevere in their unique denial--posing a health risk to others. 

The "mask hysteria" remains, for me, the most puzzling aspect of GOP signifying, Margarine Tater Grease recently went off on the subject of children being masked even though a child (too young to be vaccinated) recently died in her district. She's obviously doing not one single thing to mitigate the illness and death her constituents and their families may face. Because "freedom".  She's indignant people even ask her about her own vaccination status, because she would not dare to be a good example for others. She wants the power of being a member of congress and the attention it brings, but appreciates none of the responsibility. 

Cages Where Sick Babies Sleep on the Floor

There's a weird familiarity I feel with regards to the recent argument over whether the term "concentration camps" should be used regarding the detention centers where the US government is currently holding undocumented migrants. It's not that long ago, really, that former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was raked over for disputing whether "cages" was the right term for the wire holding pens in which children were being kept. 

But leaving aside the semantics of "dog pound" and "freezer" and all that, the facts are, themselves, very grim. There are children without their parents in filthy, miserable conditions, being asked to watch after younger, more miserable children.  Conditions that children (and adults) are being held in are ideal for the spread of disease and the potential for preventable deaths.  The family separations, and even the process of reuniting families are handled indifferently with shitty logistics and negligence bordering on the insane. Whatever one might prefer to call the conditions under which human beings are being kept, they are inhumane. 

And yes, despite what no less an expert on inhumane activity as Rep. Liz Cheney is might claim, it is very reasonable to call these shelters "concentration camps."

The messengers, here, are part of the problem for me, too--this is where the familiarity really sets in. It wasn't that long ago that Liz Cheney was extolling the virtues of what she would call "enhanced interrogation" techniques, and simple bloggers like myself would call "torture", with its embrace of tactics like "stress positions" and "rectal feeding."  Euphemizing horrible things to try to make them palatable is. itself, a form of abuse. It's gaslighting. It's telling all of us that our eyes and ears and minds aren't working right--that we are crazy for thinking there is something seriously wrong with seeing a problem with cages where sick babies sleep, or try to, on the floor, or that a system that hides the deaths among its inmates is trying to minimize its violence, or that is staffed with people who use dehumanizing language is unable to humanely deal with a humanitarian crisis.

What I can see is that when the Trump Administration argues that soap and toothpaste and bedding are too much to provide detained children, we are seeing people who have no concept of duty of care regarding their fellow human beings--even the smallest and least offending among us. And while it is true that facilities are overwhelmed, how can it be that this much is not viewed as inhumane--when it is asked of children that they rest on the concrete on as much space as a severely overcrowded area affords (sleep deprivation has been used as a form of torture) and somehow stay healthy when little basic hygiene exists?  When people are denied their reproductive rights for political reasons?

The US is housing migrants now where we once kept Japanese-American citizens during WWII. The Trump Administration has also considered keeping migrants at Guantanamo Bay.  The number of migrants coming to seek asylum or work or anything else here has not abated because of the administration's deterrence approach, and the decision to cut aid to Central America only seems likely to make things worse.  (And I'm not saying the Obama Administration had superb answers about what to do with detained migrants and asylees either--they deported at a greater rate than currently, conditions in facilities were also not ideal.)

The argument over whether to call the facilities "concentration camps" just seems to be one of throwing words at a physical and immanent issue. There are some people who can be moved by words. The people who most need to be, will perhaps already be beyond shame.  And have been for a long time.

It is useful, however, to see who falls into which group.

I Swear Barack Obama Gave one of His Best Speeches

All I know is that in this second term, a lot of what President Obama has been saying plays on the themes of Stonewall, Selma and Seneca Falls. He returns to the essential idea that freedom and justice alike are woven into the multicolored tapestry of our history as a nation, forged in the steely ink of our founding documents, tested again and again whenever Americans have faced trials and struggles. He weaves once again this great notion of a strong nation, made more perfect by the work of many hands, in offering support to someone who can take up the banner and go forward with it.

It was an encouragement that the successes (which are very real) of his administration have a chance to continue under great, Democratic leadership. It's an exhortation to participate in our democracy to keep it strong. It was a paean to our diversity and the many ways it gives us strength, and should not be feared. It was uplifting, and a rebuke to people who don't grasp what the essential greatness of our country is--its potential, and the portability and timeless nature of our values and dreams, that are transmissible and easily the greatest export, the finest product we can ever peddle and which are free to any man, woman, being that wants to become a part.

It was about patriotism, and more--it transcended ideas about "left" and "right" labeling, explicitly revealing how individual freedom and progress was up to everyone as a part of our civic heritage.

I know I am going to miss the hell out of President Obama--although I am looking forward to seeing what a still-young man might do in his post-presidency. But he also made me look forward to what Hillary Clinton might accomplish in office. It was the highlight of the evening. A jewel.

(I know I skipped over mentioning VP Joe Biden and VP-to-be Tim Kaine's speeches--and it's a shame, because I think these are actually two of the most compassionate, sincerely nice and decent people in politics today and they both did excellent--it's just, seriously? Barack Obama's speech took my damn breath away.)

Another Bangladeshi Blogger Has Been Murdered

A Bangladeshi blogger known for his atheist views has been hacked to death by a gang armed with machetes in the capital Dhaka, police say. Niloy Neel was attacked at his home in the city's Goran area. He is the fourth secularist blogger to have been killed this year by suspected Islamist militants in Bangladesh. Imran H Sarkar, head of the Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network, told the Daily News Videonel that Mr Neel had been an anti-extremist voice of reason. "He was the voice against fundamentalism and extremism and was even a voice for minority rights - especially women's rights and the rights of indigenous people," he said.

I despise the fundamentalists who willfully murder such intelligent voices, and feel even more strongly that I should speak out against fundamentalism in my own country. Any impulse that views dissident voices as in need of being extinguished is an impulse of tyranny. Wherever the argument is silenced by force of arms--we have a true failure to communicate. But the failure is on the end of those who use force to silence--not those who use their voice for reason. One more voice was silenced--let a thousand others rise.

UPDATED: Bangladesh Home Minister Kamal in response has made a very strong statement: Don't go writing things that hurt religious sentiment. So the priorities here are clear. You can maybe have people hacked to death in the street, but let's not hurt those religious sentiments.

Religious Extremists Killed Avijit Roy

Avijit Roy was an atheist blogger who was brutally hacked to death for being an atheist blogger.

Being an atheist is not reason for being hacked to death--I hope.

Being a blogger is not reason to be hacked to death, I hope.

Being an American atheist and blogger a couple days younger than Roy, I realize I haven't challenged religion in the in-your-face way he did, but I feel no less like the kind of religious movement that would kill him, would kill me. And am, not surprisingly, very much against that kind of extremist--the same kind that made a fatwa against Salman Rushdie, that follows Lars Vilks to this day, and that slew several contributors to Charlie Hebdo magazine.

The willingness to slaughter people for words is the weakness that will make religious extremism collapse, because they lead people to the gallows, and there is, no kidding, a humor for that. And this little humor of mine, this bile....this little bile of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Political Correctness and its Discontents



 

Today, Jonathan Chait was in the tumbrils for a bit over a column critical of the apparent resurgence of "political correctness", which could loosely be defined as dissent against certain speech deemed to be derogatory towards protected classes, generally of gender, gender ID, sexual orientation or affection, race, ethnicity, nationality or religion, or lack thereof.

 

I won't lie. There are times when I do suspect that there is an "itchy trigger finger", if you will, behind certain storms of internet-based outrage. Sometimes I really feel like there is a need for a "Devil's Advocate" on behalf of some otherwise well-intentioned ally who has bumbled over this or that rail and is getting raked over. And yeah, I have certain people whose writing or work I follow and find or have found serious disagreements with, whom I nonetheless wouldn't write off because of those disagreements. I make no secret of my issues with Bill Maher, Naomi Wolf, Andrew Sullivan, or the late Christopher Hitchens, but I still keep up with the former and retain a kind of admiration for the latter on the basis of not only the bits I agree with, but the way I am challenged to reform, restate, or review my understanding of my own position when I do disagree. To me, the arena of ideas is where our shit gets thrashed out, and some ideas get discredited, and for me--it's not really any skin off my nose when I don't see eye-to-eye with someone.

 

But then again, I have a lot of white, cis, straight (appearing), middle-class, able-bodied privilege. This is why I recognize that while I can take a lot of things impersonally--this isn't really the option for everyone. It's one thing to scoff at the concept of "microaggressions". It's another to really grasp that those microaggressions take place on top of or alongside the actual systemized macroaggressions of racism, homophobia, sexism, transphobia, disablism, or some intersection of the same. The sentiments, and the life experiences that they arise from, are real. They shouldn't be dismissed.

 

Now, I think some things aren't at least, for me, practical or practicable. At one stage in my blogging, around 2010, I tried trigger warnings and the application of more gender-inclusive language to "break out of the binary". It felt forced.  The former I found to be condescending, because I credit people interested in my content with being able realize within a paragraph or two whether that content is something they prefer to engage with, and the latter simply felt awkward and distracting. But the overall goal of not being rude and not stereotyping whole groups of people because of my learned cultural biases is necessary and actually liberating and honest. People are just people. Shedding assumptions and trying to speak from a place of authentic observation and genuine criticism of lazy "proofs" that some marginalized group "really is" lesser than is not "political correctness" so much as being on the right side of a battle against bullshit.

Ecrasons L'Infame!

 

If I read the cover of the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo correctly, all is, actually, not forgiven, any crocodile tears regarding what happened from the usual intolerant suspects aside. And that is how the spirit of the magazine would have it, after all. If satirists can't roast the odd sacred cow, why not pack it in? It's hard to ignore that some of the leaders clasping arms in solidarity claiming "Je suis Charlie" pretty much are no such thing. 

 

I take issue myself regarding the curtailment of free speech--I am for countering speech with more speech, for having an argument, and for hearing out people I don't agree with so that I really know where they stand. There are hurtful words I don't use myself and would prefer others not use, but when I hear them said, it tells me something about the speaker.

 

This is why I take a little exception about what the Pope said regarding insulting or criticizing the faith of others. He says that one can not--or if one does, one should expect hurt feelings, if not reprisal. Andrew Sullivan beat me to the punch at picking a comparison of quotes from the current Pontiff, and a relevant section from the sayings of a certain Palestinian Jew of antiquity, who was, if Mark was right, sentenced to death for blasphemy.  To go a little further, I would say, the beliefs of the wide variety of people on the earth being what they are--one can't help sometimes offending or contradicting the beliefs of others. One man's heresy is another man's article of faith.

 

It also strikes me as a mistake to have some inviolate box that ideas we don't want criticized can be placed in with the label "religion" pasted on. What can't fall under religion's rubric? There's an amorphous quality to the idea that leaves it subject to the determination of whoever is in power. So to go beyond considering Raif Badawi, let's also consider his lawyer, Waleed Abu Al-Khair.  To the theocratic government of Saudi Arabia, simply being a human rights lawyer is a kind of heresy. Blasphemy laws are what gets Egyptian atheists thrown in jail. The question of how free speech should be, and whether blasphemy laws should really exist, must be considered--everywhere sooner or later. 

 

As for me, I am only interested in nailing up complaints, not people. Don't we wish everyone was?

Postphoning the GOPerdammurung?

It seems that whenever there is a Republican setback lately, whether electoral or politically in general, there are a spate of thinky pieces about what's going wrong in the Republican Party and how they might fix it. I don't despise the impulse, even while I find it overly optimistic and paradoxical. Many of the premature postmortem-writers aren't ostensibly fans of the Republican party, to begin with. And rather than consider how whatever rupture between the party and the mainstream can be repaired, I know my gut instinct is to reach for a lever and pull like a mad mother. Political writers are, for the most part, I think, bright people and problem-solvers at heart. We are generally not rooting for armageddon. There is a code of honoring bar tabs and not kicking even bastards in the slats when they are down. 

And I am a political writer and not immune to the zeitgeist, so why don't I carve into this still-wriggling corpus and see what political wisdom may be extracted? (Let's get it down first. And maybe a kick to the slats? And while we are here, a shiv and that lever. Thank you.)