Gimme that ol' time religion...or not

The problem with blogging is that it allows people to put their ignorance on public display which is still, even in this post-Jerry Springer, Oprah-era, embarassing.

So William Saletan writes:

If this suggestion [i.e., the genetic mental inferiority of Africans] makes you angry—if you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable—you're not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going through a similar struggle over evolution. Their faith in human dignity rests on a literal belief in Genesis. To them, evolution isn't just another fact; it's a threat to their whole value system. As William Jennings Bryan put it during the Scopes trial, evolution meant elevating "supposedly superior intellects," "eliminating the weak," "paralyzing the hope of reform," jeopardizing "the doctrine of brotherhood," and undermining "the sympathetic activities of a civilized society."

Um...no. Neither my belief (it isn't an article of faith) in human dignity, nor that of William Jennings Bryant, ever rested on a literal interpretation of any book of the Bible. First, Bryant admitted at the Scopes trial that he read Genesis allegorically, not literally. More importantly, Bryant wasn't attacking Darwin's theory of evolution, he was attacking Social Darwinism. To quote Huston Smith:

Bryan was first and foremost a passionate humanitarian. He was an irrepressible evangelist for social reform, and social Darwinism (which would soon be discredited) was then in its heyday. Bryan had seen the survival-of-the-fittest theory used to defend the robber barons in America, and in Germany to justify the brutal militarism that led to World War I. This had led him to the belief that 'the Darwinian theory represents man as reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate, the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak." (Smith, 107)

Does Mr. Saletan really want to argue that evolution equips "the intelligent" to destroy the "unintelligent" if they are so inclined? Or return us to the days of the Robber Barons? Probably not; so he needs to reconsider his example of Mr. Bryant.

As for reading Genesis literally, well, that didn't start until after Darwin. It's a chicken or egg issue, and on this history is quite clear: "The Fundamentals" were published between 1910 and 1915 and were :

written as a response to the modernism and liberal theology of the latter part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. They were written in order for ministers of the gospel, missionaries, Sunday School superintendents, etc. (see volume prefaces) to have at their disposal articles which would be useful in affirming and reaffirming the fundamental truths of Christianity in the face of ever increasing attacks against it.

19th century Biblical scholarship had already dissected the Bible as a series of texts just as philologists (like Nietszche) would examine Greek and Roman writings, finding in them remnants of folklore, multiple authors (the "JEPD" authors of Torah), formulating the "Q" hypothesis, etc. The 19th century was a rich time in Biblical scholarship, and it, not Darwin, turned the religious world upside down. The Fundamentals were an attempt, as Martin Marty would say, to establish that: "there was a moment in history when a particular book, leader and original social community was perfect...." Not when the world was perfect, or knowledge was complete, but when the interpretation of a book or the beliefs and ideas of a group of believers. The focus was not on the world and the non-believers. The world, in fact, was simply not that important. As Marty points out:

The biggest mistake the casual observer makes about fundamentalisms is that people think this is the ''old-time religion.'' In fact, no religious forces are more effective at using the technical instruments of modernity. They will preach sermons against science and technology, but they will seize these instruments, which is why we see them as very modern movements.

So the religious world didn't change because of Darwin's theory, and it didn't challenge religion all that much. What challenged religion was religious, not scientific, change. Again, quoting Dr. Marty:

The average person doesn't understand that Catholicism and most of Protestantism and Judaism are developing faiths -- development is built into the first generation. Islam has a loyalty to every word of the Koran, but its history has unfolded in different ways in different social climates.... In the period of the early Christians, Paul and Peter are fighting like mad in Acts already. But fundamentalists teach that there was that perfect moment, and in their selective retrieval they go back to that perfect moment. They say, ''We don't change at all,'' and people say, ''Yeah, while all the other people are compromising with modernity, these people really reach deep.'' But the hymnity, the songs, the scriptural base -- it's all a very particular interpretation, and the fundamentalist convinces us that it's always been there.

When, of course, it hasn't.

The fight of the fundamentalist, you see, is not against modernity; it's against co-religionists. It's a fight for identity, and identity is always defined by those who are almost like me, but enough un-like me to make me worry about my identity. It's widely reported that what upset Osama Bin Laden was neither the freedom nor the modernity of the United States; it was the placement of US, i.e. non-Muslim, bases in the "holy land" of Saudi Arabia. The offense was that his co-religionists, other Muslims, would not see this as much an affront as he did. So the "Fundamentals" were written, not to oppose science or even the march of technological change, but to rebut co-religionists who had taken the Enlightenment project seriously. Thomas Jefferson has never been seen as a threat, despite his "Jefferson Bible," because he's never been seen as a co-religionist. But Biblical Scholars, well...that's another matter. That kind of action requires a response.

Saletan proves that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. As for the rest of his claims, Josh Marshall has links to rebuttal of those. The details of that I can't be bothered with because while science can establish what an angstrom is and how to use it to measure a light wave, it can't establish what "intelligence" is or tell me what unit of measure assesses it. Einstein, for example, is now regarded as not the smartest physicist of his day, but the most imaginative. Which is better? And how do we measure "imagination"? Do we even consider it a part of "intelligence"? Why? How? What, in fact, is "imagination"? Science can define an element. Can it define "thought" well enough to assess it and determine who has more of it, who has less? Can science really determine which thoughts are more valuable? What is the scientific measure for artistic, or even spiritual, achievement? As Wittgenstein said (following Plato, actually): "You cannot lead people to what is good; you can only lead them to some place or other. The good is outside the space of facts."

Anyway....

Easter Monday: The God Who Wasn't There

A little knowledge is a wonderful thing:

The heart of the controversy revolved around the cultural, intellectual, and technological changes that were sweeping through American society at the turn of the century, and how these changes impacted traditional Protestant modes of faith. Religious conservatives, in particular, felt threatened by what they saw. Darwinism offered an account of the origins of the universe at odds with the biblical account of creation, while the German model of higher criticism treated the bible as a collection of ancient myths and folklore, enabling biblical scholars to read the sacred text, like any other ancient writing, against the backdrop of its own social and literary context.

For liberals like Harry Emerson Fosdick, the proper Christian response to these new discoveries in science, history, and literature was to combine them with received Christian truth—exactly, according to Fosdick, as Christians had always done in the past when they encountered new truths. “The new knowledge and the old faith [have] to be blended in a new combination,” Fosdick argued in his famous 1922 sermon, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”—a new combination that for Fosdick demanded a Christianity without a virgin birth or literal second coming of Christ (among other things), which, he argued, were impossible to believe in, in this new scientific age.

Conservatives, on the other hand, viewed the new discoveries in science and higher criticism as attacks on traditional truth of the bible; where the former conflicted with the latter, it was the Christian’s duty to place him or herself under the authority of received biblical truth, most especially those truths directly assailed by the secular forces of Modernism. Five “fundamentals” of biblical truth were initially proposed in 1910 to which all Christians should assent (the inerrancy of the bible; the virgin birth; the substitutionary atonement; the historicity of the miracles; the second coming). Others would soon follow.

I've spent too much time among the happy ignorati at Slate and Salon (in the comments; and they are happy in their ignorance), the ones who, Dan Mathewson puts it, are "pissed at religious conservative pissiness!" (A lovely thought in its own right.)  Here we get analysis of history and a recognition that, like it or not, religion is a reality in the world.  Among the happy ignorati, religion is a thing to be abolished because reason will set you free.  It is, of course, a simple identity/boundary issue: if "they" are religious, how can I be rational?  Not unlike the argument that is "they" are gay, how can I be straight, or if "they" accept black people as people, how can I continue to be "white"?

But don't point that out, or you'll REALLY piss 'em off.

I am actually more interested in the source of the five "fundamentals," and in the idea that without these, one is not a Christian.  I learned in seminary that the only recognized traits of Christianity were baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (even Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, the "inclusive" version of the Trinitarian formula, is not acceptable), acceptance of baptism and communion/eucharist as sacraments, and affirmation of Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God.

To be honest, I only vaguely remember the last two.  The baptismal formula is the only one a practicing pastor has to get right; how one conducts the eucharist, and how often, and to whom, is up to the pastor and his church judicatory.  Even who you let join the church as a member is a denominational matter.

I'm not sure Fosdick was wrong, by the way, though I don't use language like "no one can believe that anymore," because it puts too much emphasis on "belief" as "believing what you know ain't so." (Crossan on metaphor here).

And I'm still curious as to why atheists, on-line anyway, are so obsessed with ideas about religion.  They aren't trained in philosophy of religion, or in philosophy at all (such as Jewish philosophy, a field it would surprise most of them to learn is out there).  I'm bemused by arguments that the Hebrew Scriptures are about a war-God who wants blood sacrifice and destruction of one's enemies, a sort of cosmic Conan the Barbarian.  Don't, of course, point out this doesn't speak well of Judaism, lest you be accuse of injecting anti-semitism into the argument as a red herring.  And above all don't mention this view of those scriptures ignores almost 90% of them, which teach justice for the widow, the orphan, and the alien (i.e., non-Hebrews).  It ain't worth the trouble to tell the pig it doesn't know anything.

I have spent too much time in the wrong places; again.

This obsession with religion is a curious thing.  It is a kind of theomania, perhaps:  an obsession with thinking about God that is itself a form of idolatry.  The term is Martin Buber's, and new to me, but I'm grateful to have it:  it is a useful corrective in Christianity as well as Judaism.  And it is useful to remember Judaism has philosophies, but no proper theology (which is why Buber would coin a term like that); Christianity could learn something from that now, at long last.

And maybe it could start here:

Early on, I was also struck by the apophatic dimensions found in Hinduism, Taoism, and some forms of Buddhism. My study of kabbalistic and Hasidic texts only reinforced this interest. Based on the many years of reflecting on the apophatic, I came to the conclusion that recent attempts to harness the apophatic tradition of Western Neoplatonism together with Derridean deconstruction in order to construct a viable postmodern negative theology— a religion without religion—are not radical enough!

Not only are these philosophies of transcendence guilty of a turn to theology that defies the phenomenological presupposition of an immanent phenomenality, but they fall short on their own terms, since they persist in employing metaphorical language that personalizes transcendence and thereby run the risk of undermining the irreducible alterity and invisibility attributed to the transcendent other.

The logic of apophasis, if permitted to run its course without the intervention of preexisting theological beliefs, would surpass the metaphysical dyad of presence and absence in the atheological unmasking of the mask and the consequent transcending of the need to posit some form of transcendence that is not ultimately a facet of immanence, a something more that is not in fact merely another expression of the totality of what there is, provided we understand that totality as the network of indefinite and ever-evolving patterns of interconnectivity rather than as a fixed system of predictable and quantifiable data.

Apophatic theologies, accordingly, must be supplanted by a more far-reaching apophasis that surpasses the theolatrous impulse that lies coiled in the crux of theism, an apophasis of the apophasis, based on the acceptance of an absolute nothingness—to be distinguished from the nothingness of an absolute—that does not signify the unknowable One but the manifold that is the pleromatic abyss at being’s core, the zero gravitational energy of empty space, the effluent emptiness that is the womb of all becoming.

On this score, the much celebrated metaphor of the gift would give way to the more neutral and less theologically charged notion of an unconditional givenness in which the distinction between giver and given collapses. To think givenness in its most elemental phenomenological sense is to allow the apparent to appear as given without presuming a causal agency that would turn that given into a gift.

This, I hope, will be this book’s contribution to the philosophy of religion at large, and it is with respect to this ungifting of the gift that my indebtedness to Heidegger (and to Derrida, who is similarly indebted to Heidegger) is most discernible. As I suggest in the sixth chapter, Heidegger’s idea of es gibt, “it gives,” implies a giving without any agency of givenness, that is, a giving that gives with no will to give and no desire to be given.

Now THAT is a mental scrub brush that reaches into the deepest corners and clears out the cobwebs!  Avanti!  The game is afoot, again!

Drill, Baby, Drill?

 Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen:

Burkhard and Stewart added that the U.S. remains on track to register its first year-on-year oil production decline in roughly a decade, with total U.S. crude oil and condensate production (including offshore) expected to fall 600,000 barrels per day from mid-2025 to the end of 2026.

“The price of oil and Wall Street remain the de facto regulators of U.S. crude production. The onset of conflict in Iran briefly injected a fear premium into oil prices, and fresh uncertainties do remain. But the fundamentals are the fundamentals, and the oil price trend remains the same — downward,” Jim Burkhard wrote in the report.

There is no market incentive to increase domestic oil production, even if Trump opens ALL federal land to drilling with free leaseholds and a free MAGA cap for every roughneck.

Momentary price spikes aside, Burkhard wrote that the recent conflict and now uneasy ceasefire between Israel and Iran has done little to alter the trajectory of global oil markets. S&P Global expects supply to outstrip demand by 1.2 million barrels per day in the second half of 2025, contrary to the second half of 2024 when demand exceeded supply. A surplus of 800,000 barrels a day is expected for the entirety of 2026.

“A year or more into the future, could a focal point in the market be how much Iran could increase production rather than attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz or damage oil infrastructure in other countries? Perhaps. In the meantime, expect more oil supply from the Middle East, regardless,” commented Ian Stewart, associate director at S&P and co-author of the report.

The two have base projections for Dated Brent prices to be in the $50-$60 range later this year and into 2026. That equates to between the upper $40s and the upper $50s for West Texas Intermediate.

It's a global oil market. Biden controlled it by using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to control how much was on the market. I’m guessing OPEC decided they could play that game, and Trump cluelessly abandoned it because “Biden did it.”

At any rate, demand is slack and supply is plentiful, so Trump might as well declare authority over the tides. Trump taking credit for gasoline prices is like Trump taking credit for the sunrise.

"We Are All Elmo"

So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020

China shutting down manufacturing in Wuhan, and Italy closing down Milan and other cities in the region, and people cancelling flights and Austin closing SXSW and Google and Microsoft and Amazon telling workers to work from home, all fake news?  Besides, in the grand scheme of things, what's 23 people? (Death rate is up, POTUS hasn't caught up. Besides, let 'em go!  Fewer people to account for in the census, amirite?  Trump is a businessman, it's all about keeping costs down, right?)

Word pic.twitter.com/TYJNrJYzxr

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) March 9, 2020

But I thought there was nothing to worry about.  I also thought Trump was "germaphobic"?

I was literally talking on the phone about coronavirus with a former Secret Service agent who said: "Forget about rope lines. Those are the ultimate threat given hand-to-hand contact is the way this spreads" ... when this @robcrilly pool photo of Trump in Florida hit my inbox. pic.twitter.com/VhSFvXldf4

— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) March 9, 2020

Saudi Arabia and Russia are arguing over the price and flow of oil. That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020

Yes, and...?

Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020

World economy thrown into crisis but hey!  Gas prices will go down.  Eventually.  For a little bit.  Maybe.  Meanwhile, focus on the fundamentals!

“The fundamentals in this economy are unbelievable.” —HHS Secretary Azar to reporters just now at the White House.

The Trump admin’s top health officials took no questions, said nothing about the health issues around coronavirus and spoke only about the economy.

— Michael C. Bender (@MichaelCBender) March 9, 2020

And Larry Kudlow is going to tell us how often to wash our hands?

HHS Sec. Alex Azar on Fox News: "This is a very serious health problem. Nobody is trying to minimize that."

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) March 9, 2020

Actually, somebody is.

we are all Elmo https://t.co/nojthjaelk

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 9, 2020

Yes; yes, we are.

"Let's get ready to rumb-ullllllllllllllllllllllllllllll !

Pastor Dan swims back in to my ken, and what brings him to attention is an interesting topic:  a fight between 9 churches in Phoenix, Arizona; although in this case, it's 8 against 1.

It seems the pastor of The Fountains UMC has annoyed several other churches in Phoenix.  I'm getting the story from one of the links in Pastor Dan's post; admittedly, it's the website of The Fountains, but you can find other links there (if you're curious) and there are photos of the banners, the ads, and the article that has sparked 8 churches to preach in unison against...well, against modern biblical scholarship and 20th century theology, essentially.

Pastor Dan professes no sympathy for "progressive" Christianity, but I cannot but disagree with him.  Especially since the cause of this brouhaha doesn't seem to profess any desire for either a fight, or for "victory":

While this all may seem scary, it has already proven to be tremendous publicity for our church that “Prays Well With Others” with Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Doors. Our strategy is to not be defensive or argumentative, but to keep articulating the positive attributes of Progressive Christianity and always err on the side of grace as we move ahead. There are many who are hungry for the message The Fountains offers – we look forward to this situation helping us reach more and more of them!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us or Pastor David directly. We’re looking forward to an amazing Sunday with lots of new friends and supporters in attendance as we Reach, Touch, and Teach by living and sharing the stories of Jesus!

The 8 churches make their stance rather plain in the ad.  "Progressive," used to modify "Christianity," is in quotes, and the topic is whether this kind of Christianity is "Fact or Fiction."  In my experience, people so concerned about the statements of belief or understanding of another group are trying to reassert their own boundaries.  They are, in essence, trying to reaffirm who they are, by denigrating someone who looks too much like them.

Sort of like "New Atheists" who think all religion is fundamentalist American Christianity, which they must strain every effort to prove they have nothing in common with.  They doth protest too much, in other words.

What I wish I knew was:  what's going on in Phoenix?  The pastor of The Fountains wrote a book on "Progressive Christianity" (that's part of the title), but that was 3 years ago.  The Fountains supports LGBT rights, but so do several UCC churches here in Houston* (of course, we're too small to notice, here).   There is a UCC church in Dallas which made its focus the outreach to the gay community, and I don't think it prompted an organized backlash like this.  Is The Fountains getting local attention for their stance?  Is it attracting new members who like this theology?  Clearly it represents a threat to these 8 very conservative churches (one of the 8 is a Presbyterian church, which denomination has been beset with battles over LGBT rights; the other mainline, non-Baptist church is a MO Synod Lutheran church, an extremely conservative branch of the Lutheran brand).  The question is:  why?

Pastor Dan worries this is a sign the church is both shrinking and becoming more threatening:  it will, he fears, become "more conservative and more liberal."  Eh, I guess.  Seems to me that trend got started with the publishing of The Fundamentals in the early 20th century.*  Or with shifts in thinking in Europe which frightened immigrants in this country who preserved "the Old Country" in amber and held to an unchanging ideal of Europe which, of course, had to change.  As much as American immigrants were supposed to melt away in America, they were allowed to keep their religious practices as a relic of home (hence we have only had one Catholic POTUS, and he had to reassure the Protestants that he wouldn't take orders from Rome).  And home had to stay the way immigrants remembered it; except it refused to, and that, too, was apostasy.

So this is an old and deep divide, and it's working out, or at least the struggle with it, is inevitable.  This is, as far as Diana Butler Bass can see (cited at The Fountains website, but no further), unprecedented.  But since we can't republish "The Fundamentals" again, I suspect this may become a trend around the country.

Which could have ironic results.  Several years ago a UCC church in Texas, the largest in a small Texas town (yeah, still....), decided the UCC was "too liberal" (I guess now we'd say "Progressive") and it left the UCC to start a new denomination, one more to its liking.  It expected many UCC, and other disaffected, congregations to join it.  I don't know that any ever did.  The other UCC church in the town gained members after that split (those who left that congregation to stay in the UCC), and proclaimed itself the "largest UCC church in town."  And it was, of course.  Was that a split between "progressives" and "true Christians"?  If so, history since Luther nailed up his 95 Thesis is replete with such examples.  I pastored a church that had split, decades earlier, over the decision to spend money re-carpeting the main worship space.  The "new church" was a few blocks down the street.

Same as it ever was.

Could the answer to the question "Why"? be the fight over gay rights and gay weddings?  Yeah:

At The American Conservative, Rod Dreher warned that Bush “can’t avoid forever the greatest threat to religious freedom in our present moment: the advance of gay rights.”
.....
According to the trial court’s decision, finding that Stutzman had violated the state’s anti-discrimination law, Stutzman testified in her deposition that Ingersoll “came in and we were just chitchatting and he said that he was going to get married. Wanted something really simple, khaki I believe he said. And I just put my hands on his and told him that because of my relationship with Jesus Christ I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t do his wedding.”

Which is funny, because it was Jesus himself who was criticized for associating with prostitutes and tax collectors.  "More Catholic than the Pope" doesn't begin to express it.

Same as it ever was, indeed.

*if you read all of those posts, you'll find that Henry Emerson Fosdick (who I still think gave his name to "Fearless Fosdick."  Al Capp was very conservative.) in 1922 was already questioning the necessity of the virgin birth, or a literal second coming of Christ, as a part of Christian belief.  Neither of those tenets, by the way, have to be affirmed for one to be considered a Christian, according to the accepted definition of "Christian" among the mainline denominations.   The minimal requirements of  of Christianity are baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (even Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, the "inclusive" version of the Trinitarian formula, is not acceptable), acceptance of baptism and communion/eucharist as sacraments, and affirmation of Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God.  The rest is optional.

But:  1922.  As I say, this stuff is still "trickling down."  No doubt Fosdick was looking at the small number of Americans who were members of a religious organization (it had risen slightly since 1920 or so, but been flat since 1906) and trying to do something about it.  When does it ever change?

Of angels, candles, pins, and darkness

Starting, for no particular reason, with this:

And I was recently rereading James Fitzjames Stephens, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Stephens is obviously the ‘conservative’, rebutting Mill, the ‘liberal’. But in a lot of ways their positions don’t track contemporary notions. For example, Stephens is very opposed to the state tolerating lots of little heterodox churches. No. The state should do its best to figure out which one is best and sponsor it. (Theological spin on industrial policy and ‘picking winners’.) The proof, offered in passing: anything else and you’ll end up having to tolerate Mormonism. Which is obviously not on.

Well, there is a particular reason, which I'll make plain in a moment.  But first, I want to tie it into this.  And raise the seemingly unrelated point that the reason we are seeing religion in decline around the world (to the extent that we are, and I'm still not in despair or even discouragement over that "decline") is for the very reason that theology has been deposed by science as the source of all that is reasonable.

In other words, it's a simple matter of education.  What you teach people is what they will consider a valid baseline; and if you no longer teach them that theology is the mother of all the sciences, then eventually religion itself will lose any allure it might once have had.  Which, to the ignorant and small minded, is an improvement.  But look again.

Children
In the ancient world children were routinely left to die of exposure -- particularly if they were the wrong gender (you can guess which was the wrong one); they were often sold into slavery. Jesus' treatment of and teachings about children led to the forbidding of such practices, as well as orphanages and godparents. A Norwegian scholar named Bakke wrote a study of this impact, simply titled: When Children Became People: the Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity.
Education
Love of learning led to monasteries, which became the cradle of academic guilds. Universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard all began as Jesus-inspired efforts to love God with all ones' mind. The first legislation to publicly fund education in the colonies was called The Old Deluder Satan Act, under the notion that God does not want any child ignorant. The ancient world loved education but tended to reserve it for the elite; the notion that every child bore God's image helped fuel the move for universal literacy.
Compassion
Jesus had a universal concern for those who suffered that transcended the rules of the ancient world. His compassion for the poor and the sick led to institutions for lepers, the beginning of modern-day hospitals. The Council of Nyssa decreed that wherever a cathedral existed, there must be a hospice, a place of caring for the sick and poor. That's why even today, hospitals have names like "Good Samaritan," "Good Shepherd," or "Saint Anthony." They were the world's first voluntary, charitable institutions.
Humility
The ancient world honored many virtues like courage and wisdom, but not humility. People were generally divided into first class and coach. "Rank must be preserved," said Cicero; each of the original 99 percent was a personis mediocribus. Plutarch wrote a self-help book that might crack best-seller lists in our day: How to Praise Yourself Inoffensively.
Jesus' life as a foot-washing servant would eventually lead to the adoption of humility as a widely admired virtue. Historian John Dickson writes, "it is unlikely that any of us would aspire to this virtue were it not for the historical impact of his crucifixion...Our culture remains cruciform long after it stopped being Christian."
Forgiveness
In the ancient world, virtue meant rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies. Conan the Barbarian was actually paraphrasing Ghengis Khan in his famous answer to the question "what is best in life?" -- To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women.
An alternative idea came from Galilee: what is best in life is to love your enemies, and see them reconciled to you. Hannah Arendt, the first woman appointed to a full professorship at Princeton, claimed, "the discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth." This may be debatable, but he certainly gave the idea unique publicity.
Humanitarian Reform:
Jesus had a way of championing the excluded that was often downright irritating to those in power. His inclusion of women led to a community to which women flocked in disproportionate numbers. Slaves--up to a third of ancient populations--might wander into a church fellowship and have a slave-owner wash their feet rather than beat them. One ancient text instructed bishops to not interrupt worship to greet a wealthy attender, but to sit on the floor to welcome the poor. The apostle Paul said: "Now there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free, male and female, but all are one in Christ Jesus." Thomas Cahill wrote that this was the first statement of egalitarianism in human literature.

There are all kinds of problems with these kinds of sweeping generalizations.  But the fact that these changes in Western culture spring from religion, not science, is undeniable.  I'm not sure science per se has anything to say about humanitarianism, forgiveness, humility,  how to treat children as human beings, or even the value of education, beyond the value of understanding science.

And on that point, does anyone else feel like they're listening to the Catholics and the Lutherans argue over the substance of the host in the Eucharist when they listen to climatologists arguing with meteorologists arguing with physicists about exactly what "global warming" means?  This morning alone a scientist on Diane Rehm assured me climate change is real, but at the same time we're insufficiently skeptical about what is real about it, and we really shouldn't do anything about it until we can be less skeptical (and he left me skeptical about his facts, since the journalist on the program corrected him on a few of the non-science ones, such as what treaties President Obama has signed).  Immediately after on Fresh Air a member of climate central assured me global warming is both real and must be responded to.  Now certainly reasonable people can reasonably disagree, but the technicalities of the discussions are all concerned with the consequences of which particular shading you give to which particular interpretation of a set of facts which are themselves not established (one argument against climate change is that the data from reporting stations is inconsistent.  No, seriously); and all the while Al Gore assures me that Rome is burning.

Is this really fundamentally different from quibbling over the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin?  Perhaps in theory it is; but in practice, we're still quibbling.  What has changed here?  That we're discussing climate models v. weather models, rather than sizes of pins and degrees of angelhood (and, to be fair, this was never an argument of the medieval church; the Renaissance made up that cliche as a jape against the medievalists.  Of course, much of what obsessed the Renaissance would seem farcical to us now, too; also; as well.  Anyway.....)

But you see, science is sciencey, and even the arguments over what are really fundamentals (do we do nothing? do we do something?  It was said on Diane Rehm this morning that if we had done something 10 years ago, it would have been the wrong thing, because we were interpreting the wrong data in the wrong way, and it was better to have done nothing?  As the pragmatists taught us a century ago, not to act is to act.  Whither now?) are not considered arguments over fundamentals because we all agree that science=truth!  Well, at least the truth that will solve all our problems and keep the affluent society....affluent.  (Honestly, when we're arguing about climate change, what else are we arguing about?)

Do I mean that religion has an answer to this problem,  a solution that will resolve all?  No.  It's just interesting that religion is completely excluded from any consideration, except as to how religion causes problems, which, of course, science never does.  Or if it does, well, bitter with the sweet and all.  The science that gave us weapons of mass destruction and assault rifles and bombers, also gave us penicillin and air conditioning and skyscrapers, so whaddya want, eggs in your beer?  And religion, on the other hand, makes people wear turbans and other people shoot them for wearing turbans, and is the cause of all the strife in the Middle East (funny how nothing else is the cause of that strife), and anyway more people died in religious wars than any wars evah, as any fule kno.

Or something.

People today decry the ignorance of science that leads to claims for "creationism" and calls for teaching something other than the Darwinian theory of evolution in biology.  But ignorance of religion leads to the same end (creationism is born of ignorance in both realms), and religion is a more enduring aspect of human culture (and probably human nature) than science.  Indeed, as much as there is clearly a "language instinct," I think there is a "religion instinct."  The old 19th century model of "progress" whereby we will all advance beyond "superstition" and "belief" is belied by the very language used in the climate change debate.  I didn't hear one scientist or hard-nosed journalist this morning who didn't speak in terms of belief in the data about climate change, as if the sine qua non of scientific reasoning was to believe the data, and so finally to come to the true conclusion as to the state of reality; or at least, of the world's climate.

And anyone who wants to tell me "belief" in that context is completely and utterly different from "belief" in the context of religion, is going to immediately mark themselves as ignorant of the fundamentals of both fields, and of the proper use of langauge.  Especially if you want to equate "belief" with "faith," and then say you "trust" the data of science (whatever data and whatever science.  And one of the debates in the climate change argument is over what set of data to trust.), because "faith" means very little more than "trust."

Which is so unreasoning when it is applied to things traditionally religious, and so reasonable when applied to things traditionally scientific.  But the fundamental dichotomy between them really doesn't stand up to scrutiny:  you accept one, and not the other, because you trust one, and not the other.  And at that point you're dealing with the "live option" that William James wrote about, not with what is "true" and what is "false."  Because if you still believe in "true" and "false" in that simplistic way, I'll introduce you to the David Hume, the greatest of the empiricists.  And I'll leave you there to figure your way to Kant and modernity; if you can.

I'm not making a truly cohesive argument here so much as jabbing argument against ignorance, and there is a great deal of that in the world.  Why do you trust science, and distrust religion?  Because you have learned science from the first grade, and learned religion, if at all, at home or in "Sunday school."  You haven't, in other words, learned religion at all to the degree you've learned science.  Which, in part, takes us back to the opening quote from Crooked Timber:  there's a damned good reason we don't teach religion as we do science, because: MORMONS!  Or some other such nonsense.  The reason we don't teach religion is that, on the surface, there is so much disagreement between religions.  But, as is apparent, while on the surface there is so much agreement between sciences, in reality, there is nothing but disagreement.  The physicist who thinks the climatologist is misinterpreting the data and the meteorologist who sees a snake where the climatologist tries to see an elephant, are all arguing over basic understandings.  Why isn't this seen as schismatic, rather than simply bewildering? (and don't even get me started on what physicists think of psychiatrists or anthropologists!).   Perhaps because we teach religion as specific (and so don't teach it at all), while we teach science as general (and so miss the problems of the specific entirely, and don't know what to do with them when they arise.).

Should we teach religion in schools?  Yes, but no more specifically than we teach science.  We teach students who don't specialize in college "science."  Not physics, or biology, or psychology, or anthropology, or chemistry...although we may teach any and all of those subjects.  But chemists don't come from American high schools, nor physicists, nor meteorologists.  We teach, in other words, the general tenets of science, the general principles of science, as they apply to living things, to rocks, to weather, to physical things.  What if we taught, as religion, the basic tenets of religion.  Things like, oh, I don't know:  humility; compassion; education; humanitarianism.  These could be taught as values in themselves, and as values arising from religions beliefs.  Perhaps we could even teach religious tolerance, instead of a new version of religious intolerance championed by the "new atheists."  We could teach it by teaching religion as a thing worth understanding, just as science and mathematics are worth understanding.  Worth understanding even if you'll never be a scientist and don't really need to know how your computer works or why a phone rings or what keeps the food in your refrigerator cold.  For all of those I know the basic principles; but if I can't identify them according to the basic laws of physics, or in terms of electrical theory, am I any the poorer for it?  I always understood I was taught those basic principles not so I could design an internal combustion engine from the ground up, or replicate the telephonic communication system or even design a laptop from scratch, but just so I could understand.  I know basically why a light bulb gives off light, but do I need to understand it as an engineer does, or a physicist?  No more do I need to be  devotee or even a priest in a religion, to understand something more basic to human existence than modern technology.

Being ignorant of it really hasn't done the world a great deal of good, and arguably has contributed to the rise of religions fundamentalism and religious fanaticism.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the vacuum created by our modern ignorance of religion a whole host of demons has found refuge.  Maybe, instead of cursing the darkness, we could start lighting a few more candles?

  

"If I had my way...."

Very interesting stuff here:

When fundamentalists and evangelicals rally against abortion or same-sex marriage, for example, it’s not primarily about their right to stand on a street corner and preach good news to the unconverted. It’s about their right to authoritatively define the fundamentals of truth and public morality, based on an authoritative interpretation of an authoritative Bible.

But the really interesting part is the idea of the paradox at the heart of fundamentalism:

It’s important to understand, as I argue in the book, that fundamentalism is a paradox. Fundamentalists describe themselves as both marginalized and a majority. They speak of national revival and theocratic dominion, but both are always deferred. They celebrate local victories while announcing imminent national destruction. This paradox is rhetorical—meaning that it’s constructed in and through language. I’m a student of rhetoric and, in this book, I’m not particularly interested in whether fundamentalists “really” represent localism or really speak as an oppressed minority. What’s important is that they say they do, and this paradoxical claim drives and justifies political action.
In the book, “superchurch” is one of the words that speaks to this paradox in fundamentalist rhetoric. There was a big push for Protestant unity in the immediate aftermath of World War I, and many of the early fundamentalist leaders denounced ecumenical organizations like the Federal Council of Churches and the Interchurch World Movement as elements in a “super church confederacy” that would eliminate denominational distinctions and eventually destroy “Bible-believing” churches altogether.

There was a kernel of truth in these arguments; some ecumenical leaders were pushing, for example, to consolidate under-staffed rural churches by merging congregations from different denominations. But this kernel of truth became part of a much larger narrative in which national religious and political leaders were joining together to crush local churches and outlaw fundamentalist belief. This narrative, in turn, has continued in different guises over the past century—linked with apocalyptic fears of communism, secularism, environmentalism, socialism, and so forth.

The flip-side of this narrative, however, was that of churches that resisted. Magazines published anecdotes about local pastors who stood up to ecumenicists and local churches that broke away from their corrupted denominations. Fundamentalist publications began celebrating large, independent churches as islands of local resistance. By the 1960s, pastors like Jerry Falwell had begun arguing that local, “superaggressive” churches could “capture” their communities for Christ, reform local politics to reflect fundamentalist authority, and become media centers for global evangelism. These fundamentalist “superchurches” would eventually provide the foundation for national political organizations like the Moral Majority in the late 1970s.

Of course, even as fundamentalists have become more nationally visible and politically active, the paradox remains. Just a couple of months ago, for example, when Senator Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for president at Falwell’s Liberty University, he encouraged Christian conservative voters to think of themselves as both an oppressed minority and an untapped majority. He described the federal government as a monolithic and mischievous force that crushes the dreams of small business owners, the relationships between individuals and doctors, the rights of parents, and the freedom of religious believers. At the same time, he spoke of “millions of courageous conservatives” and “born again Christians” whose votes could restore an idealized constitutionalism and drive the big-government bureaucrats out of the American temple.

That is a history I did not know; and apologies for the long quote (something I always tell my students never to do!), but I'm less interested in the ecclesiology there than the paradox of the soteriology, perfectly captured in this story:

A pastor in Kings Mountain, North Carolina is coming under fire for telling a group of graduating seniors at a public high school that, if they belong to the LGBT community, they are going to hell, WBTV’s Sarah-Blake Morgan reports.

The interim pastor of Temple Baptist Church, Scott Carpenter, spoke before a group of students at King Mountain High School’s annual baccalaureate service. The service was optional, but most students chose to attend.

Carpenter told WBTV that he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong. “Nobody got bashed or anything,” he said, “all I did was simply speak biblical truth.”

He insists that his comments were motivated by love, not homophobia. “Do I hate anybody?” he asked rhetorically. “Absolutely not. I just love them too much not to tell them the truth.”

A paradoxical sense of love, to use it to judge people.  I don't remember that model in the gospels; but maybe my memory isn't so good.  Still, a representative example of yet another paradox of fundamentalist thinking.  If you are going to insist on the "right to authoritatively define the fundamentals of truth and public morality, based on an authoritative interpretation of an authoritative Bible," you're going to sound like a judgmental ass.

Unless, of course, you do it in love.

I went looking for something to close this with; I found something better.  First, Julian of Norwich, from chapters 27, 29, and 33 of the Shewings:

But I did not see sin; for I believe it has no sort of substance nor portion of being, nor could it be recognized were it not for the suffering which it causes. And this suffering seems to me to be something transient, for it purges us and makes us know ourselves and pray for mercy; for the Passion of our Lord supports us against all this, and this is his blessed will. And because of the tender love which our good Lord feels for all who shall be saved, he supports us willingly and sweetly, meaning this: 'It is true that sin is the cause of all this suffering, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.' These words were said very tenderly, with no suggestion that I or anyone who will be saved was being blamed. It would therefore be very strange to blame or wonder at God because of my sin, since he does not blame me for sinning.

And I wondered greatly as this revelation, and considered our faith, wondering as follows: our faith is grounded in God's word, and it is part of our faith that we should believe that God's word will be kept in all things; and one point of our faith is that many shall be damned--like the angels who fell out of heaven from pride, who are now fiends, and men on earth who die outside the faith of Holy Church, that is, those who are heathens, and also any man who has received Christianity and lives an unChristian life and so dies excluded from the love of God. Holy Church teacmes me to belive that all these shall be condemned everlastingly to hell. And given all this, I thought it impossible that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord revealed at this time. And I recived no other answer in showing from our Lord God but this: 'What is impossible to you is not impossible to me. I shall keep my word in all thing and I shall make all things well.'

...the more anxious we are to discover [God's] secret knowledge about this or anything else, the further we shall be from knowing it....

And then Merton, on a  different subject altogether, but still applicable here, as well:

We are living under a tyranny of untruth which confirms itself in power and establishes a more and more total control over men in proportion as they convince themselves they are resisting error.

Our submission to plausible and useful lies involves us in greater and more obvious contradictions, and to hide these from ourselves we need greater and ever less plausible lies. The basic falsehood is the He that we are totally dedicated to truth, and that we can remain dedicated to truth in a manner that is at the same time honest and exclusive: that we have the monopoly of all truth, just as our adversary of the moment has the monopoly of all error.

We then convince ourselves that we cannot preserve our purity of vision and our inner sincerity if we enter into dialogue with the enemy, for he will corrupt us with his error. We believe, finally, that truth cannot be preserved except by the destruction of the enemy-for, since we have identified him with error, to destroy him is to destroy error. The adversary, of course, has exactly the same thoughts about us and exactly the same basic policy by which he defends the "truth." He has identified us with dishonesty, insincerity, and untruth. He believes that, if we are destroyed, nothing will be left but truth.

Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, "Truth and Violence: An Interesting Era," (New York: Doubleday 1989), p. 68.

A few (hopefully) last words on guns

Jim - could you please return to attacking me (or really any grownup) instead of the courageous #Parkland students? Thank you. https://t.co/t8ngiLllS6

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) February 20, 2018

Well, last words for awhile, anyway.

1)  That teenagers anger about what adults have done (or not) about gun control is perfectly valid.  As Anderson Cooper pointed out, the bullets from an AR15 shred human bodies.  People don't die neatly and discretely the way they do in movies (and when Quentin Tarentino shows us how much damage bullets do, we denounce him for reveling in gore.  Funny, that.).  Cooper's solution is to make people see what guns do, though I'm not sure putting the whole nation into PTSD is going to improve our attitude about gun laws.

2)  It's only, as Van Jones pointed out, a "mental health" issue when a white man wields the weapon.  Black people are proof we need more prisons, or even that they need to be shot in the streets.  "Mexicans" are proof we need a border wall.  White people?  Well, that person must have been crazy, because no true white person.....

Will this change?  I'm not sanguine.  Massive areas of Harris County flooded after Harvey; but equal portions of the county suffered no damage at all.  While I was enduring 5 hour traffic jams trying to make a trip that should have taken 30 minutes, because of street flooding that lasted for weeks, other parts of town were unaffected.  While in that traffic jam I was listening to people on the radio talk about how little damage Harvey did to Houston, how quickly the city had returned to normal.  "Normal," especially in a city as sprawling as Houston, is very much a matter of location.  I know people whose entire neighborhoods were destroyed by the release of water from the reservoirs designed 80 years ago to protect the city from flooding.  Other parts of town, however, suffered no such damage.  And now over 50% of county residents, per a poll, don't want to pay higher taxes in order to enact flood control.  If we don't, of course, we'll go down in popular opinion as the city on the flood plain, and our economy will start to decline as companies and people decline to move here.  But even after Harvey, taxes are anathema.  Which is partly understandable, as the only tax the local governments can raise is property taxes, and people whose property has been reduced to bare ground aren't anxious to pay more taxes on that property.  But, of course, we made this bed for ourselves decades ago, consistently refusing to allow any other basis for taxes (such as income).  We created this dilemma for ourselves, in other words, and three years of consecutive 500 year floods, capped in the third year by over a year's worth of rainfall in 36 hours, is still not enough to make us look up and around and think fundamentally about what we are doing.

So, will the kids make us reconsider our political and governmental and societal (it's not a Constitutional issue, despite what you've heard) fundamentals?  Well, my generation thought it would change the national attitude about war and race, and now we have one of the most openly racist Presidents in American history in the White House, and consider a movie about a science-fiction African country directed by an African American to be, not just a major cultural event, but a major world event, largely because it is proving popular outside of America.  No shade on "Black Panther," but it's success ain't exactly the equivalent of Obama's first election to the Presidency or the end of, and certainly doesn't erase the election of Trump after him.

I'd like to see things get better.  I want them to get better.  But this mad identity of guns with life itself, with the reason to exist and the basis of our freedom, did not spring sui generis from the brow of Wayne LaPierre, and it won't be blown away by the righteous indignation of teenagers who have seen first hand what bullets do to bodies.  They are standing up to the obscene nonsense that they are actors and dupes in a "deep state" conspiracy.  Constituents are reacting to the shooting in Florida in Pennsylvania and Colorado.  Even CPAC is feeling the heat.  Will it be enough this time?  Only if we make it so. Heat burns, but heat doesn't last.  The NRA knows this, which is why they are quite now.  We can't rely on heat alone, on anger, on outrage.  If we end up satisfied that "the kids" are alright and "the kids" tried but, after all, what can you do?; we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

It's going to take much attention to what got us into this mess, and such a commitment to changing fundamentals because we can't continue to live this way.  Can we do that?  Yes.  Will we do it?

Aye; there's the rub.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

 

“I am concerned that some federal courts are succumbing to the temptation” to rely on standing as a way of “avoiding particularly contentious constitutional questions,” Alito wrote.

Plaintiffs sued because their school district had a policy on transgender students which might affect their children. The issue was whether they had an injury the court could recompense. Did they have standing, in other words. Except in very specific circumstances, the courts do not make orders regarding what some party may do at some time unspecified.

“The issue in the Wisconsin case is less about the underlying question of parental rights, and more about what plaintiffs have to show before they’re allowed to challenge government actions that may not have happened and may not ever happen,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

A speculative claim, in other words, precisely the kind courts leave to legislators. If a rule needs to be formulated in this instance, that’s how government works. It’s a classic, almost a textbook example of, standing. And Justice Alito doesn’t like it.

“In that respect, it’s a bit ironic that Justice Alito is publicly dissenting from the Court’s denial of review, since he authored the 2013 ruling that makes it harder for plaintiffs to sue in such cases. Then it was because plaintiffs challenging allegedly unlawful governmental surveillance couldn’t prove that they were likely to be surveilled,” Vladeck added.

You see, I hope, the similarities between the 2013 case and this one. Plaintiffs couldn’t show they were even likely to be surveilled, much less that they had. The bedrock issue for invoking the court’s authority is that you have been damaged. The possibility that someday you might be inconvenienced is not enough to do that. But Justice Alito seems to think that rule should apply in cases where he’s comfortable with the outcome. 

If you can’t prove you’re a victim of unlawful government surveillance, well, you can’t sue because you might be. No government can function where such conspiracy theories can turn into actionable claims. But the possibility government might support transgender care? Not the ridiculous claim by Trump of surgery occurring in the school building, but mere consideration for individual students:

Eau Claire Area School District officials counter that gender support plans are included in a student’s record and are available for parents to see. The policy, school officials said, is intended “to provide support to students who express concern about their gender identity.”

This risk, this possibility, that students might get answers to questions about gender identity, rather than being told never to think such things, is a risk Samuel Alito cannot abide. He can accept the risk of unlawful government surveillance, however attenuated that risk; but he cannot tolerate the risk that a student might consider an alternative to their birth gender.

He is the worst thing a judge can be: one who will undo even the fundamentals of the law for the sake of the outcome he prefers. It is the outcome that matters to him; not the rule of law.

No judge should be on the bench who is guided by that irresponsible and injudicious idea.

🫥

 The life of blacks in my hometown was a complete void to me. Not a mystery, or an enigma. They simply didn’t exist. I saw them, from time to time. But they were separated from me by law and custom. I didn’t have a class with a black person in it until I was 16. And after three years I went to college. I think there were fewer blacks in my four years in college, three years in graduate school, three years in law school, and four years in seminary (yeah, it looks completely nuts when you put it like that), than in three years of high school. At least that’s the way I remember it.

I’m watching “experts” on MTP describe the 19th century (while referring to the 21st) and the use of propaganda in America. Propaganda thrived in America without AI (the topic on MTP). Including the propaganda that blacks should lead separate, but equal, lives.

So much of the language about authoritarianism and Trump makes me think of the invisibility of blacks in my childhood. Because so much of the concern is how Trump wants to affect the lives of whites. What non-whites in this country have known as the norm throughout American history is suddenly a frightening prospect when it might apply to whites. To, of course, affluent whites. Economic class is as much a source of invisibility in American culture as race is. Poor whites matter little more than non-whites do; maybe even less.

We have rendered whole populations invisible, denied them access to public fora and denied them voice or value. My earliest political memories are of anti-war activists quoting (I found out later) Ike Eisenhower, and being ridiculed for outlandish ideas I know consider, if anything, a bit quaint. But if you listen carefully you can recognize the same form (not, though, substance) in the critique/complaints of MAGA. When I was a boy I wore a burr haircut or a flattop. One way of rebelling was long hair (like classic Jesus long) on men. Rednecks and “country boys” (even those I grew up around, who drove pickups that never left the ride and wore cowboy hats that never saw the rain) wore very short hair. When “hippies” turned into yuppies, country boys grew their hair long and picked up electric guitars and continued ‘60’s rock as Rick turned into disco into punk into New Wave into…

The forms transferred, if not the substance.

Of course, civil rights upset a lot of apple carts which we all assumed was permanent.  I’m waiting now for the “N” word to resurface, because we’re already seeing discussion of repealing Brown v Board, which means declaring “separate but equal” perfectly legitimate, and completely unwinding the idea in law that race is a pernicious category. All because the status quo had to snap back (what, you bought that bullshit that America was actually a liberal, or just center-left, country? Please.), and it did so with a vengeance. But also with the cultural norms established by the radicals of the ‘60’s.

So some things changed; just not the fundamentals.

We rendered all the non-white non-hetero males visible, and now the fringes who want all of that to be invisible again (ending no-fault divorce, same sex marriage, etc.). I’d boldly say we’re not going back, but the Supremes seem to think their name makes them supreme in authority, and I don’t see Congress stepping up to do much as make them subject to the oversight of even the President. Much less exercising their clear Constitutional authority to remind the 9 who holds the whip hand.

In the meantime :

Veteran's microphone cut off when he discusses Blacks' role in establishing Memorial Day https://t.co/iRVs2akqyb via @beaconjournal

— James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) June 3, 2021

Gotta keep them invisible 🫥.

"What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear...."

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article269954192.htmlDeSantis: "Today, I'm announcing a petition with the Supreme Court of Florida to enpanel a statewide grand jury to investigate any and all wrongdoing in Florida with respect to covid-19 vaccines." pic.twitter.com/zcNeFCrPhH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 13, 2022

A) Is DeSantis campaigning for President on this?

B) Does he think anyone still cares about the covid vaccine? (I understand the rates of people getting the third booster are very low, contributing to the continued rise in covid hospitalizations.  Well, that and flu patients who won't get that vaccine.)

C) Is that a thing in Florida?  The state Supreme Court can empanel a statewide grand jury?  Seems to me that's the job of a prosecuting attorney, not a court.  This ain't France, after all.  I'm pretty sure they don't do that even in Louisiana.*

D) I know DeSantis' surgeon general just plays a doctor on TeeVee.  Now DeSantis is playing a lawyer, as well.

E)  I suspect Florida's constitution is similar to that of Texas in some fundamentals.  Even New York state doesn't give the state AG the power to conduct criminal investigations, something also true in Texas.  So Ken Paxton couldn't empanel a statewide grand jury if he wanted to.  Maybe the Florida AG could (seems odd and unlikely, to be honest), but it would require evidence of violation of specific criminal laws, not just this "LOCK 'EM UP!" brand of nonsense.  I don't see how the state Supreme Court has any role in it at all (separation of powers, and all).

Quite a contrast today between science at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and anti-science at the Ron DeSantis Quackatorium in Florida. https://t.co/qSQQXRISze

— RSchooley@socel.net (@Rschooley) December 13, 2022

F) I guess that explains why DeSantis did it.

Republicans have gone from running on taking away healthcare to challenging the basic concept of health as too woke. No wonder they had such a fantastic mid-term.

— RSchooley@socel.net (@Rschooley) December 13, 2022

G) Florida voted for this.  Have fun with it.

P.S.

“Stage this to emphasize what a tiny man I am.” pic.twitter.com/mtTd9ZLgL4

— RSchooley@socel.net (@Rschooley) December 13, 2022

Ron DeSantis' staff hates him. The truth continues to be revealed.

like i keep saying, DeSantis is a sincere crank and I think it will be off-putting on a national stage. https://t.co/C0HvOSb8Xi

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) December 13, 2022

Exactly.

The primary difference between Trump and DeSantis is that Trump is a lazy narcissist who wasn't interested in doing the job of president, while DeSantis is a hard-working authoritarian with well-thought out plans to remake the United States in the image of Viktor Orban's Hungary. https://t.co/lNGTz9StV0

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) December 13, 2022

No, no! Be afraid! Be very afraid!

DeSantis is going to campaign on replacing the CDC with the "Public Health Integrity Committee of Florida"?  And this is supposed to be scary and authoritarian and win the hearts of people who love Viktor Orban? (Most of whom go to CPAC on the regular.  Quick, when was the last time CPAC put somebody behind the Resolute Desk?)

I'm pretty sure the national reaction to DeSantis is going to be:  "Sell crazy somewhere else.  We're all full up here."

*Turns out Florida does have a statute allowing the governor to ask the Supreme Court to impanel such a grand jury. Which is just supremely weird to me. It has to be for “good and sufficient reasons,” which frankly you could drive a truck through; sideways. The reasons DeSantis gives are that the Feds persuaded people to get vaccinated, and the vaccines were not 100% effective so maybe there was fraud?

In light of the foregoing information, Petitioner has determined that there are good and sufficient reasons to deem it to be in the public interest to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate criminal or wrongful activity in Florida relating to the development, promotion, and distribution of vaccines purported to prevent COVID- 19 infection, symptoms, and transmission. 27. Specifically, such investigation should consider any crime or wrong listed or described in section 905.34 that relates to the following:

“The following” is basically any individual or company DeSantis can connect to Covid vaccines in Florida.

A fishing expedition, in other words. There is no basis presented for a criminal investigation. Does this statute contemplate an investigation illegal under any other authority, including the Constitution? I doubt the court will think so.

I think DeSantis is jealous of the attention Georgia is getting. But there’s no way what’s alleged (I use the term loosely; think Kari Lake’s “make me the winner!” lawsuit.) is anything close to criminal fraud (Grand juries don’t investigate civil cases.). If the Florida court grants this petition, that’s on them. Because this is a waste of government and legal resources, and any indictments coming out of such an investigation would be thrown out on at least a dozen grounds I can think of.

"Yet at the coming of the king of heaven/all's set at six and seven"

Alright, so, I wandered over to Crooked Timber for lack of anything better to do, and found myself in the middle of a conversation apparently concerned with John Rawls' Theory of Justice, a theory I've never found particularly satisfactory anyway. The critique cited is one new to me, but the conclusion reached at the blog was what was interesting:

The difference principle may tell you how not to get either justice or fairness while still doing the right thing. This is so different from what Rawls thinks he is giving us that it is really striking.

I'm not trying to wade too deeply into this discussion, because the last time I bothered to read Rawls was in law school (lo these nearly 25 years ago!), and I understand he has revised some of the Theory since then. But the basic ideas of Rawls' theory are these:
no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance."

This is known as the "original position." From it, Rawls determines the best course for any society is to maximize the position of the least well-off, since that could be you. The principles chose, then:

...are the principles that rational and free persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamentals of the terms of their association.

This leads to the first principle of justice, or the "liberty principle:"

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others.

And that, in turn, leads to the "difference principle," where social and economic inequalities are arranged to benefit the least-advantaged members of society. One response to the vision of such a world was Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron"(although, to be fair, that wasn't the society Rawls' envisioned). Another response is the "kidnapping" scenario discussed at Crooked Timber, where it might be prudent to pay off kidnappers, but it's hardly fair or just. As Crooked Timber points out, the same can be said for bailing out Wall Street. It may be doing the right thing; but it hardly seems fair or just.

Why doesn't this critique surprise me? Because Rawls' is working within a constraint that ends his effort before it begins. He begins with the assumption that a utilitarian model is the most ethical social model imaginable; and yet it isn't ethical enough, because it isn't fair enough. So all he's trying to do is to tweak the model until, at least in theory, it is more just. But the central problem is that justice is both ideal and real, both metaphysical and imminent. In fact, this is why Aristotle placed metaphysics as the first subject above the physical, and made it superior. Metaphysics, said Aristotle, is the realm of the cause of the physical. It is, in other words, metaphysics, be it merely the realm of the abstract or the Kantian Ideal, which gives rise to any production or even effort toward, justice in concreto. Rawls' theory, like utilitarianism itself, starts with the concrete and then seeks a justification for it that will suit an ideal. Neither theory pushes society toward an ideal, or even holds out that ideal as a reality to which it should strive even if it can never be achieved. Instead, both theories describe the present situation and propose a few minor adjustments which will inconvienence no one, but can be used to reassure us that we are doing something for someone; or even better, for society at large, maybe even (albeit unintentionally) for ourselves.

And yet we don't have to so much as turn a hair.

The basiliea tou theou sort of resembles the original position, and would seem to reinforce the difference principle, except the basileia tou theou posits a metaphysical cause which provides a living purpose which makes it at the very least a Jamesian "living option," and that turns Rawls' "difference principle" on its ear. Rawls' wants us to act, or better establish a system (which will act for us) that recognizes the reality of the least advantaged. The basiliea tou theou sets before us the telos of being the least advantaged, and tells us not to rely on some system to seek justice for us, but to do justice by living the race to the bottom, to being last of all and servant of all (which will require a constant effort, once you get there, just to stay there). Then justice will be served not because everyone has as equitable a distribution of goods as society will tolerate, but because everyone is taking care of everyone else.

What else, after all, does a servant do, except serve?

And yet what a lot of activity that would incur; and what a lot of effort; and what a lot of doing for others, rather than expecting a society, a system, a government, a set of laws, even a church or a charity, to do it for us. As Crooked Timber puts it:

At best, the difference principle points out a correct (plausibly appealing) policy path in an environment in which you can’t get justice or fairness. More specifically: it points out a correct path in an environment in which securing justice and fairness would be prohibitively costly in terms of other genuine values.

It's very much a question, then, of what other genuine values require Christians (and no one else carries this burden) not to seek the bottom of society, to be last of all and servants of all. Because that's the one genuine value of the basileia tou theou; the one that makes all the others genuine, or not, in relation to is. Which would make the kergyma of the gospels the most prohibitively costly value of all.

But how else do you get justice or fairness at all?

New York Times PROVES Trump is a Billionaire!

Donald Trump reported $52.9M in interest income in 89. The number is BIG, according to IRS data we examined. We don't know what Trump owned that could produce this type of $. The answer is on schedules we don’t have & underscores the importance of seeing Trump’s full tax return

— Susanne Craig (@susannecraig) May 7, 2019

See?

“Every year from 1985 through 1994, Donald J. Trump reported a negative adjusted gross income on his tax returns. That number grew as new losses were combined with those from prior years,” the newspaper noted. “The 10-year total: $1.17 billion in losses.”

Just in the wrong direction.

And what is wrong with a system that keeps this man afloat and lets him fail upwards into the White House?  Do we want to face that question?  Or would we rather demand the Democrats impeach Trump so Mitch McConnell can declare the Senate too busy to take up the issue?  Or just generally campaign on what a grand waste of time it is throughout 2020?   Does Trump challenge our Constitutional system?  Or does he call into question the fundamentals of the system we all pledge our fealty and labor to?

Because this is the vaunted expert of deal-making who somehow has managed not to wind up selling pencils on a street corner:

“But in the granular detail of tax results, it gives a precise accounting of the president’s financial failures and of the constantly shifting focus that would characterize his decades in business,” the report said.

“Year after year Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual taxpayer. In just two years, he lost more than double the next biggest loser in this country,” [CNN's Erin] Burnett said.

“That’s right. There’s a database the IRS compiles of high-income earners like Mr. Trump. Most of them are business owners like him. They show revenue from businesses on their tax returns. Year after year in this cycle he is on the outer limits of people who are recording those kinds of losses. Then rolls it over into the next year. He gets this massive loss for the decade of over a billion dollars,” New York Times reporter Russ Buettner said.

“He’s literally the biggest loser,” Burnett added. “There’s quite an irony there. This is something that isn’t normal.”

I remember (I've mentioned it before) a story from the '60's, in a science fiction anthology, about a man who arrives at work to be informed he's been summoned to "The Top."  It takes him most of the short story to navigate the bureaucracy and elevators it takes to make the trip, proof of how important it is "up there" because it is protected by so many layers, keeping it far from "ordinary people."  When he gets there, the elevator opens on a vast, empty room, covered in dust, with windows looking out on a wasteland.  This is from memory, mind you.  As I age, it becomes a more and more compelling metaphor about the systems we pledge our sacred honor and our sacred trust to devote our lives and energies to; and nothing exposes the whole thing for a fraud and a hollow shell than the news that Donald Trump is a "negative" billionaire, kept afloat by a system the rest of us kill ourselves to keep running for the sake of people like him, and his enablers.

We don't need them; but boy, do they need us.  And when we get to the top, and find it lifeless, empty, and looking out on a blasted heath; who do we hold accountable then?

Is Donald Trump Stupid? Or Venal? Or Stupidly Venal?

"To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle."

-- George Orwell

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 19, 2017

According to Der Spiegel, Donald Trump said this:

“The Germans are evil, very evil.  Look at the millions of cars they sell in the US, and we’ll stop that.” 

This, of course, is because the Germans sell cars:

“If you want to build cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States, but for every car that comes to the USA, you will pay 35 percent tax,” he said. “I would tell BMW that if you are building a factory in Mexico and plan to sell cars to the USA, without a 35 percent tax, then you can forget that.” 

Trump's comments raise two problems.  One, the Germans, like the Asians, make the bulk of their cars here in America.  4.6 million cars are made in America with Asian nameplates.  The largest BMW factory is not in Bavaria, Germany, but in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  Mercedes-Benz produces an average of 25,000 cars a month in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  TIME has a convenient list of cars "Made in America."  No American manufacturer outside of Tesla makes all its cars here.  Trump says its about bringing jobs back to America; but is it?

Another German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, reported that E.U. representatives felt their U.S. counterparts did not understand that the E.U. negotiates trade agreements as a single entity, rather than on a country-to-country basis. That is, the U.S. can negotiate trade deals with the E.U. as a whole, but not individually with the separate members of the E.U.

Der Spiegel reported that Gary Cohn, the director of Trump’s National Economic Council, appeared to believe that the U.S. could negotiate different trade deals with Germany and Belgium.  

Yes, Angela Merkel has this conversation with Trump before:

Angela Merkel was forced to explain the “fundamentals” of EU trade to Donald Trump 11 times after he repeatedly asked to do a deal directly with Germany, a senior German official has claimed.

The US President reportedly exposed "very basic misunderstandings" of how EU trade works during a meeting with the German chancellor last month.

“Ten times Trump asked [Ms Merkel] if he could negotiate a trade deal with Germany. Every time she replied, 'You can’t do a trade deal with Germany, only the EU,'" the official told The Times.

"On the eleventh refusal, Trump finally got the message, 'Oh, we’ll do a deal with Europe then.'" 

Not only did Trump not get the message, but now Gary Cohn needs to be educated on the basics of international trade.  Or is that the problem?

Trump goes to NATO and lectures them about paying up (as if, per Jake Tapper, NATO was a country club), barely acknowledges that NATO members actually employed Article 5 of the treaty to support the U.S. in its invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, doesn't pledge fealty to Article 5 (as Fred Kaplan noted, the equivalent of the President stating "The State of the union is sound" in a SOTU; a throw-away phrase, in other words).  And then he attacks the European Union by attacking Germany's trade deficit with the U.S.  Stupid?  Or venal?

As Josh Marshall points out, this ain't simple stupidity:

Each of these aims, each of these goals lines up more or less perfectly with the strategic ambitions of the Russian Federation, which sees NATO as a bulwark of Western/US military strength hemming Russia in behind borderlands it sees as within its proper sphere of influence and with the EU, representing a liberal internationalist order which it has set itself against. A lot of this thinking comes from the Bannonite/”nationalist” part of the Trump crew, though Trump has espoused elements of this vision for years. That group, in turn has deep ties to various European rightist parties which share this anti-NATO, anti-EU, politically illiberal stance. Many or most are funded by Russia. Whether or not this is being done on Putin’s behalf, it clearly lines up within Putin’s and Russia’s aims. Putin wants a fragmented Europe; Trump does too.

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.