Framed

Christianist

Wow--it's a territorial arglebargle of regional qualms right here in the blogosphere.

All the bloggity biggities are consumed with the propriety, meaning and etymology of the term "Christianist": Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, Atrios, Andrew Sullivan and presumably many others.  The original idea under discussion has been lost, and what is being posted now is a discussion about the discussion. 

Yuck.

The two questions that ought to be under discussion are 1) what does the term "Christianist" mean? and 2) is it an effective frame for liberals to employ?

I take a Christianist to be a person who believes

a) that Christian dogma and biblical injunctions should form the intellectual basis of our laws and government;

b) that the United States is or ought to be a nation based on Christian dogma and biblical injunctions; and

c) that people who are themselves Christianists (or at the very least, Christians) should be our leaders.

If you replace "Christian" with "Islamic" and replace "biblical" with "koranic," you have what I think is the commonly understood definition of an Islamist.  Thus this definition seems symmetrical and fair.

As to whether the term is useful in framing the choice between liberal, secular society and conservative, religious society, the answer is clearly yes--precisely because of its similarity to "Islamist."  The idea that our country should be run along  lines parallel to Iran or Taliban-era Afghanistan is not going to get much traction in the U.S. of A.  The term is effective, then, in illuminating what lies at the bottom of the slippery slope of Christian conservativism.  Let's use it.

Heckuva Job

Bush today:

"He's the right guy for Iraq," Bush said of al-Maliki after the two met Thursday."He's the right guy for Iraq," Bush said of al-Maliki after the two met Thursday.

Leno last week:

Ken Mehlman has stepped down as the Republican National Committee Chairman. And yesterday, President Bush said that Mehlman did a whale of a job! A whale of a job. Which would be a real compliment, until he realized -- he said Brownie did a heck of a job running FEMA, and Rumsfeld did a fantastic job in Iraq.

Hope Nuri's resume is up to date.

Delayed/Denied

This is good news, but it's a little late:

A federal judge struck down President Bush's authority to designate groups as terrorists, saying his post-Sept. 11 executive order was unconstitutional and vague.

Some parts of the Sept. 24, 2001 order tagging 27 groups and individuals as "specially designated global terrorists" were too vague and could impinge on First Amendment rights of free association, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said.

The order gave the president "unfettered discretion" to label groups without giving them a way to challenge the designations, she said in a Nov. 21 ruling that was made public Tuesday.

The fact that it took more than five years for a court to make a ruling upholding fundamental American legal principles is disturbing and sad.  We like to take comfort in the idea of judicial review as a barrier to tyranny.  However, any system that allows plainly unconstitutional policies to continue for more than half a decade before a trial court (never mind an appellate court!) could decide the issue offers pretty cold comfort to those of us who love civil liberties.

This reminds me that in another context, Glenn Greenwald has noted that

As always, it is the most basic constitutional principles -- which were previously beyond challenge -- that are placed in doubt by the most rabid Bush followers. And these attacks on our constitutional values are, with no sense of irony, waged in the name of defending "America."

This is yet another reason why liberals and civil libertarians need to wean themselves away from reliance on the judicial branch and instead go out and agitate in the political sphere.

 

Yikes

Question for Mr. Gingrich, who said recently that a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message:

Which part of "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" would you make different?

History

Here's a little history that Nuri al-Maliki might want to review, especially now that Bush has changed his mind about meeting with him, due to doubts about the way he is handling the "insurgency":

On orders from U.S. President John F. Kennedy, Henry Cabot Lodge, the American ambassador to South Vietnam, refused to meet with Diem. Upon hearing that a coup d'etat was being designed by ARVN Generals led by General Doung Van Minh, the United States gave secret assurances to the generals that the U.S. would not interfere. Doung Văn Minh and his fellow plotters overthrew the government and executed President Diem and his younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, on November 2, 1963.

*  *  *

When Madame Nhu, visiting the United States at the time, learned of the coup d'état, she immediately identified the United States as the perpetrator. She later said, "Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need enemies."

Sleep well, Mr. al-Maliki.

Frenzy

So let me see if I have this right.  The president-elect of the Christian Coalition has resigned because the organization is resisting his calls to embrace Christian values (such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, etc.).  Instead, the Coalition wants to continue to focus on What Jesus Really Wants, which is apparently to end abortion and gay marriage.

Making fun of this kind of hypocrisy is almost too easy.  On another level, though, this story isn't  about religious values.  Note that CNN classifies this story under POLITICS.  The story, then, is about power.  It's simply easier to whip the congregation into a foaming frenzy about gay marriage and abortion than it is to deal with the messy problems of poverty, justice and the environment.  That frenzy keeps the checks rolling in and the Christian Coalition leadership in power.

Progressive types would be wise to point this out.

Competition

Glenn Greenwald notes the political impossibility of reforming U.S. drug laws:

But what does seem clear is that the greatest impediment, by far, to being able even to discuss the issue of drug prohibition is the moralistic opposition to drug usage coming from the "religious conservatives" on whom the Republican Party depends.

It was Karl Marx who called religion the opiate of the masses.  To my mind, this explains the religious right's opposition to drug law reform even more clearly: organized religion sees drugs as the competition.

Drift

Josh Marshall asks:

Is it just me or has George W. Bush checked out of the stumbling national crisis we know as 'Iraq'?

*  *  *

Back when he was riding high President Bush used to say that he 'didn't do nuance' -- a point on which he was unquestionably right. And that being the case, there's just nothing left for him to say. No more chest-thumping or rah-rah or daring his opponents to say he's wrong. So he's just gone silent. Like it's not his problem any more.

Atrios says that this means it's "[g]onna be a sad couple of years."   I fear, though, that this understates the problem.  It may be worse than sad.  It may be dangerous.  By appearing directionless, clueless and detached, Bush may embolden Al Qaeda, North Korea, Iran, Hizbollah and other states and organizations that do not wish us well.

Recall the state of Bush's leadership back in September, 2001.  He had accomplished the two key items on his meager agenda--tax cuts and No Child Left Behind.  He was coasting and detached.  Al Queda took advantage of that and a lot of people died.  I hope it doesn't happen again.

Answers

Atrios asks a good one:

Why wasn't Afghanistan enough? Why were people who tried to point out that maybe we should stick around and try to fix that country before we went and busted up another one considered to be unserious dirty fucking hippies?

We had a chance to do all the things the Quiet Americans wanted us to do. Invade a country, get rid of their bad leaders, pave the streets with gold, and create a wonderful paradise which could be an example for the world.

Why couldn't we do that in Afghanistan?

I wish I could do one of Atrios' Simple Answers to Simple Questions things, but I think anyone looking for One Big Answer to this question will be disappointed.  I think that a lot of "little" things combined and tipped the scales (in the minds of Bush's inner circle) toward invading Iraq.  These include:

1) Hussein turned his survival of the Gulf War into a great victory in the minds of some parts of the Muslim world.

2) Hussein tried to assassinate Daddy Bush 41.

3) Iraq has oil and a highly  strategic location.

4) Iraq was more urban, educated, secular and sophisticated than Afghanistan and was therefore supposed to be even easier to conquer.

5) The neocons really believed that they could remake the Middle East by refashioning Iraq.

6) Hussein was identified in the American mind as a Real Bad Guy in a way that, say, Mullah Omar was not.   

Niqab

I hate to say it, but Theodore Dalrymple may be right.

Writing behind a subscription wall in the National Review, he tackles the case of Aishah Azmi, the woman who insisted on wearing a niqab--a black sack that leaves only the eyes of the wearer visible--while she worked as a teaching assistant at a Church of England school.

Dalrymple argues that

1) the Niquab is degrading to women;

2) the wearing of the Niqab is socially divisive and hinders the integration of Muslims into British society;

3) women who profess the desire to wear the Niquab are often instructed or compelled to do so by Muslim men;

4) there is a double standard in the Muslim world concerning dress and modesty; and

5) school and workplace dress standards are often based on sensible rationales, and at any rate do not forbid the wearing of any type of clothes when one is off duty.

The first four of these arguments are pretty compelling.  It has long seemed to me that the way some significant segments of the Muslim male population treat women is abusive and inhuman.  In fact, I agree with this analysis by Dr. Sanity:

If there was ever in history a better example of the paranoid fear of female sexuality, I can't think of it. I don't pretend to be an expert on Islam, but it appears to me that much of Muslim culture (particularly in the Middle East) has evolved into a structure for the sole purpose of containing female sexuality.

*  *  *

Enormous effort goes into veiling women, dressing women modestly, silencing women, covering women's bodies, punishing women, controlling women, reviling women, humiliating women, beating women, subjugating women, avoiding the dishonor of women, keeping women uneducated, policing women, infantilizing women--in short, dehumanizing women -- all under the guise of "protecting" and "honoring" them as they relegate them to animal-like status.

The part of Dalrymple's argument that gives me pause, however, is the you're-free-to-dress-how-you-want-just-not-here argument.  Most people are compelled by law or the economic system to be present at work or at school.  It's therefore somewhat disingenuous to claim that telling people they can't dress according to their religious dictates (however pathological) doesn't impinge on their freedoms of expression, religion and conscience.  That's why Cohen v. California (affirming the right of a man to wear a jacket proclaiming "Fuck The Draft" inside a California courthouse) and Tinker v. Des Moines (affirming the right of public school students to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietman War to school) were correctly decided.

As strong as these freedom of expression arguments are, though, they do not outweigh the right of some institutions to impose dress requirements on their staff.  If you want to be a police officer, you must wear a police uniform.  If you want to be a maitre d', you must wear a suit or other prescribed attire.  And if you want to be a teaching assistant, it is reasonable to be required to show your face to your students.  Azmi's case is distinguishable from Cohen, because convicting the defendant in that case would have meant the end of the right to wear a Fuck The Draft jacket anywhere in public.  It's distinguishable from Tinker, because  the law compelled the Tinker children to attend public school.    Harsh though this  sounds, no one has compelled Ms. Azmi to work  for a C of E school.  If she chooses to do so, it is not unreasonable to require her to  dress accordingly.