Ezra Klein has an interesting take on the Kaine/Kilgore election that I had not followed.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.
“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly
There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.
Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard
Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.
Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.
All hail the time of the bunny!
This blog will pay for itself.
The willow is too close to the house.
There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.
The lights are all blinking red.
“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”
The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.
How stupid are these people?
Let me file that under fuck it.
Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.
If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.
I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.
Consistently wrong since 2002
We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.
Shygetz
Yep. As an agnostic, I am tired of being repressed. No taxation without representation! (And I’m only partly snarking–it does piss me off a bit).
Lines
With the right wing of the political landscape setting up the system as “Religion = Morals” there really isn’t much of a way to get around the problem. There is a belief in this country that someone who goes to church regularly could never be a bad person, despite all the evidence debunking that whole line of thought.
Want to hide your perversions? Appear to be a loving, caring activist/self-help guru in public while hiding your perversion behind a picture in your living room (Donnie Darko). According to today’s popular belief structure, Satan can take any form, why would he take the form of the serpent when he can take the form of a holy man? Thats not to say you can trust the serpent, its just to say that no one deserves blind trust because of their outward public appearance.
Lines
I left out part of my rant, which is that now that the right wing has set up the religion=morals parallel, the left has been all too willing to follow that path, instead of calling it what it is.
Steve
Thing is, Kaine is Catholic, and there is a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in Virginia. It’s not that Kaine passed some electoral litmus test by being religious; it’s just confirmation that voters want to see a candidate who believes in SOMETHING, whether or not it’s the same thing they believe in.
It’s true, a non-religious candidate has to convey that he has a moral center in a different way, but that doesn’t mean he can’t do it.
metalgrid
Why would the left call it for what it is when the right will just turn around and say that the left hates all the religious people? I think the left has the right idea on this – match the right at the same game. Of course, that will leave a small marginalized chunk of the population without a party to call their own, but that’s really no different for the rest of us who’ve been voting for the LP.
Geek, Esq.
It really should come as no shock that candidates for office near the Bible belt need to believe in the Bible.
Lines
Geek: Believe in it or at least appear like they do? Seems to be a pretty poor way of selecting a candidate. Is there a way to get around this in the future other than eliminating religion?
Geek, Esq.
You really can’t tell folks how to vote or why.
I suspect that the NASCAR crowd isn’t really all that religious or pious–Desperate Housewives is bigger in Red American than in Blue America.
So, if you’re going to eschew the religion angle, you should at least have some sort of populist traction.
aop
The Ezra Klein piece makes it sound like he thinks we’re (the Democratic Party) headed in the wrong direction as regards this. But hasn’t it always been this way? Who was the last major atheist/agnostic American politician? Has there ever been one? I ask this as an atheist…
Lines
aop: If you look through a lot of the 2004 Kos pieces and Atrios diatribes, you will find a lot of reference to the lack of spine by non-religious candidates. So many seemed willing to turn their backs on their beliefs and suddenly become “Catholic” or just “Christian”.
John Kerry, who has always been a regular attender of Church, as far as I was able to find (I thought he was pulling the same stunt) was labelled by some Republicans as a fraud.
Right now, I feel that to give up on what you believe in a “win at all costs” mentality reduces the real success of such wins. But at the same time, this country requires balance in government in order to stop its constant corruption and one-sidedness. Should atheist leaning Democrats give up thoughts of higher offices or should they falsly set themselves up as “religious” and “moral”?
Sorry for the train-wreck-of-thought, I hope someone gets something out of it.
aop
Lines –
I don’t know. I just know that outside of a few extremely liberal enclaves (San Francisco, Manhattan, and some college towns spring to mind), if you’re a self-proclaimed atheist, forget about holding public office. It’s a total prerequisite.
I guess an atheist/agnostic running for public office might just say, if asked what their religion is, “none of your business.” And really, that should be the standard response. Advertising one’s own religiosity is one of the more unseemly spectacles in politics, if you ask me.
Krista
Shygetz – Let’s form an Agnostics Association. Get enough memberships, and we can give the Christian Coalition a real run for their money!
Steve
George H.W. Bush said during his campaign that he didn’t think atheists could be considered citizens, or patriots. It’s awfully hard to imagine what other ethnic or religious group a national candidate could make that statement about – including Muslims.
George W. Bush, whether or not his electoral strategy is based around rallying the religious right, nonetheless takes pains to emphasize that you have the right to believe what you want in America, including the right not to believe. That’s the appropriate tone for the President to set and I’m glad he can see past his father’s prejudices.
Shygetz
Ok, we’ve got two members. Are there any others? I nominate Krista as president. I will take care of the dirty tricks. Ummm, I mean the Super Moral Fun Time Hour.
Mr Furious
Can we bring Krista’s ass in the discussion here, already?
SeesThroughIt
Answering as an agnostic, I can’t think of a single one. Which makes the Christian persecution complex all the sillier.
I do think it’s rather stupid/disgusting that the right wing has set up the religion = morals/ no religion = no morals (with the secret code that “religion” means “Christian,” as most of these peopple don’t think much of any other religion) equivalency. Of course, any sane person can see that it’s total bullshit, but since when has proving a talking point to be bullshit ever made any difference to people whose minds are already made up?
I still like referring people who try this line of thinking to this article and watching their heads spin as they try to argue out of it.
ppGaz
Sorry, the religion thing smacks of those phone calls that take credit for a terrorist attack after the fact. I’m gonna need some corroboration.
I think the Bush effect in elections for the forseeable future is going to be the — THE — issue. The man is a 500 lb anvil around the neck of any politician who cannot distance himself from this walking, talking disaster.
Pb
Lines,
Not only does Kerry go to church regularly, but Bush doesn’t. That didn’t seem to score Kerry any votes though. It might be instructive to look at the history of Presidential church attendance and professed religiosity, seeing as how the two are apparently correlated.
Pb
Sign me up for the Agnostics Association too–I could use something else to not believe in, a place to share my lack of faith. :)
Mr Furious
I read Sullivan’s piece yesterday morning, then Ezra’s. My initial comment is over in Ezra’s thread. I then posted on it at my place and expanded with this…
I then had a reader (!) ask me “… why you think religion should not play a role in an election campaign…Surely bringing religion into the hoopla will not degrade the debate?”
To which I replied:
Now I know that is a blatant cross-post/blogwhore move, but I thought Ezra’s piece was good, and the exchange at my place was good, and Lord knows no one is going to further the debate over there, so…
Cyrus
It’s hard to calculate something like that, because non-believers aren’t as organized and dogmatic as religious organizations, despite what some theocrats would say. But according to Wikipedia… between four and ten. The list includes Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln, and they’re the ones counted as definite.
Of course, I’m making a logical leap in going from “deist” to “atheist/agnostic”. But it’s not that big a leap, because I think those are relatively new terms and the difference isn’t that big anyways, and because until Darwin and Hubble the Biblical account of creation was the only one available to believe in. Wikipedia’s Deism page has a lot like that. And some of the names on their list of deists might be surprising.
The biggest difference between then and now, I think, is the power of the executive. In Washington’s day, zealots were happy to dominate their state or county governments and didn’t care about the federal government as long it would leave them alone, and an atheist/agnostic/deist is more likely to do that than someone of a competing faith. Today, not so much.
ppGaz
Snort. It works fine for a lot of Republicans. You don’t think all that posturing on the right is real piety, do you?
Defense Guy
It’s a huge leap, and all the examples you provided are men who attended church regularly, discussed religion frequently, and believed in G-d absolutely.
aop
Yeah, Ben Franklin, I believe, was an agnostic. It’s not like non-believers didn’t exist back then.
slightlybad
Uh, there’s a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in Virgina? Really? Where? I’ve lived here most of my life and never seen a bit of it.
As far as Kaine’s win having anything to do with religion, I doubt it. As far as I can tell, people were voting for a continuation of the Warner years, whose theme can be summed up as “good governance”.
I really think the Dems have overestimated the effect of religion on the electorate. I get pissed off enough at the Republican Bible-beaters without having to listen to some Democrat blab on about their touchy-feely version of it. What’s up for the next election? Fire & Brimstone v. Kuumbaya? Phlegh.
I would really be more interested in hearing which one of whatever jerkoff is running would do about balancing the freakin’ budget.
stickler
It’s hard to imagine an out-and-out atheist being elected to much of anything in 1776, although some of the Founding Fathers came pretty close. More people ought to be aware of Jefferson’s Bible (he edited all the miracles out of the Gospels), for example, or the fact that Washington refused religious counsel on his deathbed.
Regarding more modern Presidents, it’s not entirely clear just how religious LBJ was, and Nixon was theoretically a Quaker, though you wouldn’t know it from his policies (cf. Cambodia, bombing, et al).
Well, sort of. In the 1780s, most states still had established churches of a sort (Virginia was still paying Episcopal priests’ salaries into the 1820s), but the experiment was already a mess. Too many competing branches of Protestantism. Try getting a Unitarian, a Baptist, and a Lutheran to agree on what “faith” means. Then tell them they’re paying taxes to support a Presbyterian state church.
And that’s still the problem today: should the religious Right actually enact some kind of policy change that “brings religion back into the public square,” then you’ll see their coalition come under enormous strain. Just look at the Ten Commandments: Protestants, Catholics, and Jews all revere somewhat different versions. Which one should be engraved on the granite rock in the courthouse?
Davebo
Guess it depends on your definition of God.
“The Christian God can be easily pictured as virtually the same as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, evil and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed, beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of the people who say they serve him. The are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
— James Madison
“Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man”
— Thomas Jefferson
Defense Guy
As to the religion of Kaine being a supposed major reason for his election, I really don’t think so. Sure religion is important to the people of VA, but having lived through this election, I can say that there were more important reasons why Kaine won, such as:
1) Being the lt. governor of the very popular Mark Warner.
2) Actually communicating to the people what he was going to do.
3) An absolutely abysmal campaign run by Kilgore who never really communicated what he was going to do and spent most of his time trying to convince us why Kaine was ‘too liberal’.
4) A much lauded (by Kilgore) and very weak in effect ability to get Republican voters to the polls.
In my house, the sum votes ended up cancelling each other out. My wife actually ended up voting for more winners this time around.
One last thing, an interesting note, the voters saddled Kaine with a republican lt. governor (whom i did vote for). Should be an intersting 4 years, or hell if taxes go up like some fear they will.
stickler
Never? Tell you what: go up to your friendly neighborhood Baptist or Pentecostal, and ask them if Catholics are going to heaven. Then, ask them what they think of the Pope.
Mr Furious
Oh, I realize that. It’s plain to anyone that fuckers on their third marriages don’t really have a place to act pious. It’s just that “religious” is an allowable default position or starting point for Republicans, and it’s not allowed scrutiny.
Whereas any Dem who tries to relate faith is viewed with skepticism.
The last election is not a good example, because Kerry looks fake on just about everything, but the guy who grew up and still goes to church every week was cast as a poseur while the former drunk who actually doesn’t attend service and makes vague (unverifiable) claims about finding Jesus gets to bask in the glow of faith.
My point is, even if genuine, it is likely to be viewed as disengenuous and won’t work for Dems. Not as a broad strategy anyway. It’s like a picher tipping his pitches…everyone will see this “curveball” coming a mile away.
Davebo
And of course, one of my favorites.
“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.” – Thomas Jefferson
ppGaz
Dems have made the mistake of not learning how to bash the stupidity on the right without making it look like we were bashing religion. It isn’t the religion that’s stupid, it’s the people who are stupid. (It’s UD — Unintelligent Design).
slightlybad
Stickler — they probably would say the same thing that they say about me (an atheist): you’re not going. Quite a few religious sects believe they’ve got the one true answer. It doesn’t mean that they’re anti-Catholic. Hell, if you want to take that line of reasoning, you might as well accuse all Christians of being anti-Jew.
Joey
I’m in. And Defense Guy, without getting into another historical debate, a large portion of the Founding Fathers were atheist/agnostic. There’s a reason why God is only mentioned once in the Constitution, and that’s the part that say you can worship whatever god you want. They knew that it had no place whatsoever in our government or electoral processes, and that it would only lead to the idiocy that has currently enveloped our nation. Religion should carry no wait as to whether or not one votes for a candidate or not. I couldn’t care less if the guy (or gal) worshipped Satan, as long as that person was a good leader and worked for what’s best for the country.
Steve
Reagan didn’t go to church, either, and he was seen as a very devout guy.
Joey
Good point. This gets me too, along with the religion=morals, things. If you don’t go to church every day, then you can’t be religious. I don’t understand that in the least. I’m agnostic, but I don’t call out people who don’t go to church/temple/mosque/etc. as agnostic too. I always considered religion to be a personal thing. To each his/her own.
Defense Guy
Indeed, in fact there is no need for a debate. We end up being fortunate that the founders lived when they did, and because of this, understood the importance of a seperation between the chruch and state as imperitive for the survival of both.
As to whether they thought religion should carry no weight, well we will have to disagree on that. There were some atheists/agnostics among the founders, but to state it was a large portion is simply not true. Mostly, I believe that they applied the same rule to religious doctrine that they applied to other areas, freedom of individual thought on the matter was of the utmost importance.
Just please don’t try to make the claim that deist means athiest, because it doesn’t.
Defense Guy
Because he did not want to interrupt other people in their expression of faith, as a sitting president showing up to service would be apt to do. Instead, he had private service in the WH every sunday.
The guy was very devout.
ppGaz
Oh, God forbid.
Joey
Then we agree, as that was not my intent. But it is very, very closely related to agnosticism. Some, as the TJ quotes above show, even had an apparant hatred for organized religion and its effects on people (and I agree, but that’s beside the point).
Defense Guy
Indeed, and given the history of some organized religion at the time, it’s not hard to see why. Jefferson is an interesting one when it comes to religion, IMO, because he was opposed to the oppressive nature that organized religion can take, didn’t believe in the miraculous parts, spent a lot of time at church and discussing religion/G-d, and created his own bible (whereas a non-believer might just have chucked the thing in the trash).
I think agnosticism is closer to deism than atheism in that both agnosticism and deism believe in G-d, but agnostics are simply non-participants and deists believe G-d takes a hands off approach to the world he created. So I guess you could be both agnostic and deist at the same time.
Geek, Esq.
Jesse “The Body” Ventura.
aop
Agnostics don’t know whether there’s a God or not.
les
Then there was the dyslexic insomniac agnostic, who woke up in the middle of the night wondering if there was really a dog.
ppGaz
Reading stuff like this is like watching a dog figure out electronics.
And what’s with the G-d thing? How did this affectation become standard?
Defense Guy
I was thinking of something else, my bad.
Near-perfection is not something you can hope to reach until you are around your ripe old age. Unfortunately by then you become too senile to realize it.
It’s a jewish tradition that I happen to like, so I adopted it for my own nefarious purposes of showing respect for my creator.
Cyrus
Put it this way: philosophically they’re very different, you are correct. But practically, in terms of positions on issues, it seems to me that there are few if any differences. (I’d describe myself as a deist if anything, by the way.) They would have no place for government establishment of religion, their personal codes of ethics would have similar roots, both belief systems have no dogma, hierarchies, leaders or established scriptures, (yes, Jefferson rewrote the Bible to his liking. But the important word in that sentence is not “Bible,” it’s “rewrote.”) they’re both ideologically incompatible with all but the most liberal forms of other religions…
An atheist and a deist could probably spend even more time arguing philosophy and theology with each other than they could with a Christian. But when it comes to spending a budget or voting on policy, I can’t think of any way the influences of an atheist’s belief system would differ from those of a deist’s.
aop
Yes, but what we’re discussing here goes back to my initial question of how many atheist/agnostic politicians have historically been elected, with the current answer being “Jesse Ventura.”