Archive for July, 2011
Elizabeth Warren for Senate, Really?
Here is another short contribution as I blog from an undisclosed and inconvenient location.
It was announced this week that Barack Obama passed over Elizabeth Warren to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In response, Daily Kos, among other progressive outlets, is pushing to get Warren to run for Senator from Massachusetts.
Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE Elizabeth Warren. With so many children trying to run the show, Warren stands as the adult in the room. I find her non-partisan and no-nonsense. She was perfect for the CFPB job. Apparently Obama felt she couldn’t get confirmed. Why do you think she couldn’t get confirmed? Because she was ready to change things and no one in Congress, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, wants anything to change.
So the alternative is to place Warren in the very dysfunctional body that would not confirm her nomination? What difference will she make as a Senator? Absolutely none. What difference can any ONE Senator make? Absolutely none.
If you’re a gifted plumber who can’t find work and are also a total klutz, do you decide to pursue a career in Major League Baseball? Warren is not a politician. That is what makes her great. She will not move the Senate one iota and at worst, the Senate will ruin her.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Photo by David Shankbone
The Need for a New Muslim Narrative
Several weeks ago a representative from Unity Productions Foundation sent me a video and asked me to feature it on this blog. After viewing it, I told her I would indeed write about the video but there was a missing ingredient that had to be addressed.
The video juxtaposes images of every day Americans who happen to be Muslims with a soundtrack of Islamaphobic hate speech. To anyone with an ounce of empathy, the video is extremely powerful.
There is only one problem. The empathetic folks who would find the video powerful are not the folks who need convincing. Islamaphobia is not the byproduct of some psychosis. It is the byproduct of seeing a small but conspicuous minority of one particular religion use violence as a “normal” reaction to achieving political ends and addressing grievances. The folks featured in the UPF video are not the folks inspiring fear of Muslims.
So what is missing from the video? What is missing from the video is the condemnation of religious violence by Muslims from Muslims. You see, after years on this blog defending Islam, the one thing I can no longer defend is the sound of crickets from the lawful Muslim community every time a follower of Islam blows himself up and kills innocents. If UPF wants to really make a difference they need to publish videos of Muslims denouncing the violent aspects of Sharia law as well as the reprehensible behavior of radical Muslims worldwide.
Very simply and with all due respect to Unity Productions Foundation, fair-minded people know that the grocer, cab driver, research scientist, teacher and soccer coach might be Muslims and they live and love and cry and bleed just like any non-Muslim. What remains to be seen is will they work toward a more peaceful religion and publicly condemn their brothers and sisters who have brought shame upon their religion? That is the new Muslim narrative that we must see if minds and hearts are going to change.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A New Nation, Conceived in Liberty Without Respect to Religion
On this anniversary of our declaration of independence from Great Britain I stumbled upon two articles. The first, written by my friend Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere starts off looking like a reminder that our founding fathers associated liberty with a warning against government overreach and this notion would have been fine but then BiW had to go back to the historical revisionism of the Declaration of Independence being a “Christian document”. This is a sad trend in current political discourse from conservatives who would like to see prayer in the classroom and creationism replace evolution in the science curriculum.
So it was with great pleasure that I tripped over an article on CNN’s Opinion page by historian Kenneth C. Davis entitled, “Why U.S. is not a Christian Nation“. Some choice excerpts:
While president in 1802, Jefferson wrote: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State … “
As president, Jefferson was voicing an idea that was fundamental to his view of religion and government, expressed most significantly in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he drafted in 1777.
Revised by James Madison and passed by Virginia’s legislature in January 1786, the bill stated: “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened (sic) in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief …”
– In 1797, with President John Adams in office, the Senate unanimously approved one of America’s earliest foreign treaties, which emphatically stated (Article 11): “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, — as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims) …”
No one can argue, as “Christian Nation” proponents correctly state, that the Founding Fathers were not Christian, although some notably doubted Christ’s divinity.
More precisely, the founders were, with very few exceptions, mainstream Protestants. Many of them were Episcopalians, the American offshoot of the official Church of England. …
But the founders, and more specifically the framers of the Constitution, included men who had fought a war for independence — the very war celebrated on the “Glorious Fourth” — against a country in which church and state were essentially one.
They understood the long history of sectarian bloodshed in Europe that brought many pilgrims to America. They knew the dangers of merging government, which was designed to protect individual rights, with religion, which as Jefferson argued, was a matter of individual conscience.
And that is why the U.S. Constitution reads as it does.
The supreme law of the land, written in the summer of 1787, includes no references to religion — including in the presidential oath of office — until the conclusion of Article VI, after all that dull stuff about debts and treaties: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” (There is a pro forma “Year of the Lord” reference in the date at the Constitution’s conclusion.)
Original intent? “No religious Test” seems pretty clear cut.
The article goes on to discuss the Bill of Rights vis-a-vis establishing a secular government. Blackiswhite reminds us that our framers were Christians. But as I reminded him at his blog, if a Mexican runs a Chinese restaurant it does not mean you are going to find Mexican food there. A Christian who fully understands the danger of a new nation establishing an official religion will make sure this does NOT happen. It is the founder’s very experience with Christianity and discrimination that prompted them to establish a secular government.
To paraphrase Lee Greenwood, I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free to practice whatever religion I want or no religion at all. I’m proud that in my country the government stays out of my spiritual life and sticks to governing. That is how we were founded. It is fundamental to our country and we must protect this tradition from all those who might hope to change it.
Happy 4th of July, my friends, and Happy Birthday, America!
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Image: Paul Martin Eldridge / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Thank You Sincerely. I REALLY Mean That. Really, Really I Do!
I walked out of the hotel elevator and noticed for the first time a small rug emblazoned with the phrase “we love having you here.” My heart swelled from the appreciation. I thought to myself “what a nice sentiment.” Then I made the mistake of taking a closer look at the rug. The phrase was followed by ™. Excuse me? You need to trademark that you love having me here? What are you afraid of, that someone else might tell me they love having me there? Do I now need to amend your message to say “we love having you here but if you tell anyone else that you love having them here we will sue your pants off”?
Needless to say that tiny trademark symbol drained any possible sincerity right out of that message and just reminded me that my hotel is part of a huge artificial corporate machine that cares about me only to the extent that I keep coming back and giving them more of my money.
I think when I check out on Saturday I’m going to hand the nice lady at the front desk a sheet of paper with the following message on it:
I am so happy to be getting the hell out of this hotel and going home. ™
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Photo by Trixie Lawson
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July 21, 2011 at 4:28 pm Rutherford 522 comments