Over at NRO, Dave Konig has a good column up on various religious controversies. He moves from The Da Vinci Code to Madonna to South Park. He even manages to fit in The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre. (For the record, I remain agnostic about The Da Vinci Code. The title of this post refers to my feelings about the whole manufactured controversy. I’m irritated enough at both sides of the debate that, while I’ll probably skip the movie, I’ll probably take Javert’s advice and read the illustrated book—as soon as I can find it used.) Money quote from Konig:
The king of anti-Christian imagery this season was the recent episode of South Park that deliberately depicted a particularly vile and offensive image of Jesus. Far more offensive than anything in Da Vinci or Madonna’s act. But, of the three, the most defensible. Here’s how it worked: The episode centered around the Danish Mohammed cartoon controversy. In the episode, there was a harmless depiction of Mohammed purchasing a snack from a vendor. The image lasted for a couple of seconds and was completely uninteresting. There was also a depiction of Jesus—wildly offensive and awful. Guess which image Comedy Central refused to air?
Using diabolical double-backwards-reverse psychology, the South Park creators made the most pro-Christian pop-cultural point of the season by forcing the question: Why is it okay to offend every Christian on the planet earth—but we can’t even mention Mohammed in polite company?
Christianity has been around far longer than modern American pop culture (even including Madonna, who’s been around an awfully long time). For Christians, the eternal truths of Christ and his teachings are just that—eternal. The Billboard Top Ten, and the weekend box-office numbers in Variety are very, very important—but next week they’ll change.
Madonna, South Park, Da Vinci—it’s all very important. Not quite as important as the fact that the Iranians are about to drop an atomic bomb on Israel and kill all the Jews, but very, very important.
Meanwhile, it’s been 820 days and counting since the release of The Passion of the Christ, and the search continues for the one Jewish guy who got beat up because of that movie. If you were in the pack of crazed Catholics who saw The Passion then swarmed out of the mall theater to beat up that Jewish guy, contact me through this website. Somehow I missed that story.
Read the whole thing.
Hubbard posted this at 12:33 PM HKT on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 as Amer-I-Can!, Another Great Victory For Jihad, Kulturkampf, Uncategorized
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Harold Meyerson’s column today ties in with my post last night. But he makes a significant error. He’s right to note that classic neoconservatism, so to speak, is skeptical about remaking society; he’s wrong to call Bush’s policies neoconservative. Consider this quotation:
Bolsheviks in the cause of their vaporous intentions, so bent on ignoring reality that they dismissed and suppressed all intelligence that prophesied the bloody complexities of the post-Hussein landscape, [neocons] conjured from nowhere and guaranteed the world an idealized postwar Iraq.
Given the staunch anti-communism of neoconservatives, “Bolshevism” seems an odd charge. The reason why many on the right—like the neoconservative The American Interest—are upset is that Bush’s policy are not neoconservative but are nonconservative.
Meyerson also makes one factual statement that leaves me curious. He claims:
And now, just as middle-class Americans fled the cities in the wake of urban disorder, so middle-class Iraqis are fleeing, too — not just the cities but the nation. In a signally important and devastating dispatch from Baghdad that ran in last Friday’s New York Times, correspondent Sabrina Tavernise reports that fully 7 percent of the country’s population, and an estimated quarter of the nation’s middle class, has been issued passports in the past 10 months alone. Tavernise documents the sectarian savagery that is directed at the world of Iraqi professionals — the murders in their offices, their neighborhood stores, their children’s schools, their homes — and that has already turned a number of Baghdad’s once-thriving upscale neighborhoods into ghost towns.
Contrariwise, Amir Taheri in Commentary recently claimed:
When things have been truly desperate in Iraq—in 1959, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1980, 1988, and 1990—long queues of Iraqis have formed at the Turkish and Iranian frontiers, hoping to escape. In 1973, for example, when Saddam Hussein decided to expel all those whose ancestors had not been Ottoman citizens before Iraqs creation as a state, some 1.2 million Iraqis left their homes in the space of just six weeks. This was not the temporary exile of a small group of middle-class professionals and intellectuals, which is a common enough phenomenon in most Arab countries. Rather, it was a departure en masse, affecting people both in small villages and in big cities, and it was a scene regularly repeated under Saddam Hussein.
Since the toppling of Saddam in 2003, this is one highly damaging image we have not seen on our television sets, and we can be sure that we would be seeing it if it were there to be shown. To the contrary, Iraqis, far from fleeing, have been returning home. By the end of 2005, in the most conservative estimate, the number of returnees topped the 1.2-million mark. Many of the camps set up for fleeing Iraqis in Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia since 1959 have now closed down. The oldest such center, at Ashrafiayh in southwest Iran, was formally shut when its last Iraqi guests returned home in 2004.
A second dependable sign likewise concerns human movement, but of a different kind. This is the flow of religious pilgrims to the Shiite shrines in Karbala and Najaf. Whenever things start to go badly in Iraq, this stream is reduced to a trickle and then it dries up completely. From 1991 (when Saddam Hussein massacred Shiites involved in a revolt against him) to 2003, there were scarcely any pilgrims to these cities. Since Saddams fall, they have been flooded with visitors. In 2005, the holy sites received an estimated 12 million pilgrims, making them the most visited spots in the entire Muslim world, ahead of both Mecca and Medina.
Over 3,000 Iraqi clerics have also returned from exile, and Shiite seminaries, which just a few years ago held no more than a few dozen pupils, now boast over 15,000 from 40 different countries. This is because Najaf, the oldest center of Shiite scholarship, is once again able to offer an alternative to Qom, the Iranian holy city where a radical and highly politicized version of Shiism is taught. Those wishing to pursue the study of more traditional and quietist forms of Shiism now go to Iraq where, unlike in Iran, the seminaries are not controlled by the government and its secret police.
Meyerson and Taheri paint pictures of Iraq that seem incompatible. Given that Meyerson botches the reader’s understanding of neoconservatism, I’m inclined to side with Taheri. Perhaps the increase in visas mean that Iraqis now are free to visit other places. Does anyone have any other ideas?
Hubbard posted this at 8:01 AM HKT on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 as Conservatism, Iraq, Journalism, Uncategorized
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Over at The Malcontent, Robbie sends gay activists a wake-up call. I bet they’ll sleep through it; they usually do.
Hubbard posted this at 8:52 PM HKT on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006 as Dirty Hippies, Politics
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Jamie gets us started on a topic we tossed about in our earliest posts. But first, I’d like to snark at him over definitions. Specifically, on neoconservatism. Read the rest of this entry »
Hubbard posted this at 8:34 PM HKT on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Conservatism, Philosophy, Politics
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I agree with, and am sympathetic to, a lot of what Jamie said. Really, I am. But there are, in the entire country, exactly two dozen people who base their voting decisions on “fiscal responsibility.” Economists and sundry experts have been screaming bloody murder for decades about the deficit/debt, yet the sky has not fallen. We’re fabulously wealthy, unbelievably powerful, and produce the most vibrant, infectious culture on the planet. And we’re becoming more wealthy, more powerful, and our cultural dominance shows no signs of letting up. Man is a rational animal, and it takes an awful lot to convince them that what he sees isn’t so. If you can figure out a way to convince people–real people who daily bear witness to America’s oppulence and power–that we’re really on the road to economic collapse, and that we should change our ways, then, well, you could probably get elected to something. Right now, if there’s a national consensus in America, it’s this: Low taxes (visible) and moderate government spending (visible), even if it means increasing this mythical “debt” (invisible). Politicians might talk the talk on the issue, but give us low taxes and nice roads, and we’re all cheap dates.
As for religious conservatives, I’m less sympathetic, largely because most of the criticisms of this group seem to be more about style than substance. Their main issue right now is same-sex marriage, which is not a fight they started. Since same-sex marriage advocates have chosen the courts as the primary means of advancing their agenda, the gloves are off in this fight; constitutional amendmendments are fare more legitimate tools of social policy. The other issues religious conservatives deal with are a few symbolic issues of church and state. There’s really not much of a proactive agenda here; these people are reactionaries. And despite the liberal bent of a few “mainstream” denominations and the talk of some Democrats hoping to get votes, religious conservatives really do understand limited goverment better than most groups; they’re not big for government charity, and they’re conscious of civil liberties. Don’t take cues from the The One True Conservative™ on this matter; his differences with this group are more theological than political.
Finally, I must quibble about the “unbelievable increases in the scope and power of the president.” The relative power of the three branches ebbs and flows over time, as well it should. Different situations need different sorts of leadership. George W. Bush is less powerful relative to Congress than were Lincoln and FDR. He’s more powerful than were Reagan and Bush the Elder. After Watergate Congress enacted a bunch of rules that shifted the balance in its favor. The present notion of ubiquitous Congressional oversight of executive functions is more appropriate for a monarchy than for an elected presidency. The executive is right to chafe at Congressional power grabs; while I like a balance of powers, I would err toward a more powerful executive than a more powerful legislature as less likely to take away important liberties. Certainly that was Hobbes’s view (one person picking your pocket versus hundreds picking you pocket), and of the Federalist (less obliged to regional interest than legislators, and probably a more talented and effective leader). I would say this is especially true in times when there are threats to national security. But the present increase in executive power is not unprecedented and it is nowhere near what FDR had.
Senatui delenda est.
Apollo posted this at 10:33 AM HKT on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006 as Conservatism
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Casino Royale will be a great Bond film, and Daniel Craig is going to be an awesome 007.
Tom posted this at 1:02 AM HKT on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006 as Nerdom
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Sandefur notes an unfortunate typo regarding the court’s preparedness; I think a better typo is this one regarding disc surgery.
Hubbard posted this at 11:07 AM HKT on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 as Edjamacation, Humor
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Most of the time, George McGovern spends his days sucking up to anti-American dictators, proposing tax increases, and generally making Nixon look good. So when he gets it right, attention must be paid:
It can be galling to hear companies argue that they have to cut wages and benefits for hourly workers — even as they reward top executives with millions of dollars in stock options. The chief executive of Wal-Mart earns $27 million a year, while the company’s average worker takes home only about $10 an hour. But let’s assume that the chief executive got 27 cents instead of $27 million, and that Wal-Mart distributed the savings to its hourly workers. They would each receive a bonus of less than $20. It’s not executive pay that has created this new world.
I understand the attraction of asking business — the perceived “deep pockets” — to shoulder more of the responsibility for social welfare. But there are plenty of businesses that don’t have deep pockets. And many large corporations operate with razor-thin profit margins as competitors, both foreign and domestic, strive to attract consumers by offering lower prices.
The current frenzy over Wal-Mart is instructive. Its size is unprecedented. Yet for all its billions in profit, it still amounts to less than four cents on the dollar. Raise the cost of employing people, and the company will eliminate jobs. Its business model only works on low prices, which require low labor costs. Whether that is fair or not is a debate for another time. It is instructive, however, that consumers continue to enjoy these low prices and that thousands of applicants continue to apply for those jobs.
Maryland recently passed a law aimed at requiring Wal-Mart to spend more on health insurance. This is an extremely flawed path to healthcare reform.
He then pushes for universal health care, which has been problematic at best in Canada, and which is being abandoned in Sweden. But McGovern is getting something right. Hopefully the left will follow him at least partway on this.
Hubbard posted this at 8:26 AM HKT on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 as Commie Recrudescence, Politics
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To the few, the proud, our readers: Bruce over at GayPatriot and I were e-mailing back and forth, and our debate seemed like enough fun (in a right-wing dorkish way) to share with y’all. So, in the tradition of Slate’s debates, we’ll be posting back and forth. I volunteered to start; Bruce will respond; we’ll keep going until we’ve driven each other nuts. Since both of us have day jobs—unlike the folks at Slate—it might be a while before we respond to each other. Please remember that this is an experiment. Enjoy!
Dear Bruce,
Thank you for agreeing to debate on term limits. We’re both unhappy with the state of Congress, though what to do about the bums is a big debate. Some of my co-bloggers might recommend boiling in oil; I think vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience would do the trick. Knowing congressmen, they may well prefer my co-bloggers’ approach. I think it’s more reasonable, if less satisfying, to start pushing for term limits. You weren’t a fan of them, arguing that people should be free to elect whomever they want. You argued that people should be free to eat steak or lobster every night if they want. I argue that you’re using the wrong metaphor; Congressmen supply steak and lobster (and pork!) out of somebody else’s wallet.
Congressmen and Senators (henceforth to be referred to as bums) are problematic not because they are Democrats or Republicans, but because they are human beings who soon assimilate to bureacracy. They usually come to Washington intent on cleaning out the Aegean stables; soon enough, the bums start liking the mess and then start adding to it. The war on bureacracy needs fresh troops, and term limits are the best way to get new people in the Hill.
An additional benefit of term limits is that it would make it easier for people to throw the bums out of office. After a few terms, it becomes difficult to toss a bum out of office because he’s accumulated seniority, and voters understand that John Dingell (elected 1955) can get more pork for them than, say, Mike Sodrel (elected 2004). So voters make a rational decision to reconcile themselves to the senior bum they have. Term limits would force out people, since Congress was never meant to be a lifetime job. Further, if you elected a bozo (I’m being redundant, I know—let’s say he’s a bigger bozo than you’d realized) voters would be more willing to throw him out of office: after all, he’d be gone in a few terms anyway, but throwing him out sooner means a better person can start representing them. Term limits cut down the warping power of seniority.
As it now stands, seniority allows bums to use pork to buy job security. Seniority turns people into nuts. Under sane circumstances, nobody would vote for the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska. But bums know that if they offend committee chairmen (Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young), they won’t get pork, which means they won’t get job security. So they pork off. A billion here? Sure! A billion there? Why not? Anything in the name of reelection!
But with term limits, a challenger can tell potential constituents: “Your current representative wastes your money. Remember how you worked overtime to buy baseball equipment for your children, and saw a third of it go to taxes? Well, $700 million went to rebuild an already rebuilt railroad in Mississippi. Your current congressman voted for it. He’s got four more terms before he’d have to go anyway, but I say he shouldn’t waste your money for 8 more years. Throw da bum out!”
Term limits encourage American citizens to throw the bums out. Hence, we need them. Bruce, the ball’s in your court.
Yours,
Hubbard
Hubbard posted this at 6:31 AM HKT on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 as Conservatism, Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!, Philosophy
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I go through my daily life working here in Hollywood often wondering why my fellow conservatives bitch about us so much. These are nice people, fun people, smart people. Then I read something like this.
‘Shortbus’ sex bonanza a slap to Bush, Cannes director says
May 20 4:24 PM US/Eastern
A US film featuring actors performing real sex is a “call to arms” against President George W. Bush, the director told journalists at the Cannes film festival.
“Shortbus,” an explicit, largely improvised arthouse flick that includes a rendition of the American national anthem during a gay sex scene, is a direct provocation, director John Cameron Mitchell admitted.
“It’s a little bit of a cri de coeur to us, a little bit of a call to arms” against the prevailing conservatism, he told a media conference, adding that his country was living in “the era of Bush, which is about clamping down, being scared.”
The 43-year-old, whose previous work was “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” about a transsexual rock singer, said the film was his own small act of defiance against Bush.
“If you can’t do elections you might as well do erections,” he said.
What a giant douchebag. I mean come ON! At least make it hard for Rush and Sean to make fun of you on Monday. Or better yet, at least make it seem like you’re not a completely arogant, self-important, preening liberal artiste.
Sometimes I hate every single person in my business – this is why.
Jamie posted this at 1:19 AM HKT on Sunday, May 21st, 2006 as Amer-I-Can!, Pop Culture Is Filth
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No, really. This report about Lionel Ritchie’s popularity in Iraq is of a type that we should see more often.
Grown Iraqi men get misty-eyed by the mere mention of his name. “I love Lionel Richie,” they say. Iraqis who do not understand a word of English can sing an entire Lionel Richie song.
[snip]
Richie says he was told Iraqis were playing “All Night Long,” on the streets the night U.S. tanks rolled into the country in 2003.
Other peoples often pick up on strange aspects of our culture, and it’s always interesting to see that. Iraqis can hate our president, but if they’re singing Lionel Ritchie songs, well that’s a victory of sorts.
Apollo posted this at 8:56 PM HKT on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 as Journalism
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In the early days of this blog, before we amassed our readership (thank you Jason, Geoffrey and Biggles), the motley crew or writers behind this internet juggarnaught made posts definining what conservitism meant to them. I would like to revisit that topic in light of the supposed looming Conservative Crackup and establish where I think the New Conservative Majority has betrayed its core principles. Read the rest of this entry »
Jamie posted this at 3:47 PM HKT on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 as Brave New Worlds, Conservatism
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Lowell Weicker might run for Senate again. This thought reminds me of Bill Buckley’s formation of Buckpac, dedicated to helping then Attorney General Lieberman win. The 1988 Connecticut Senate race was unusual, in that many if not most Republicans backed Lieberman, and many if not most Democrats backed Weicker. George H.W. Bush was winning the presidency that year, so Lieberman squeaked in.
In today’s terms, Weicker had the Lincoln Chafee’s voting record combinded with John McCain’s chutzpah. But all you really need to know about Weicker’s politics is that in 2004 he endorsed Howard Dean for president. Buckley gave the following interview about Weicker, a liberal Republican. A sample:
Q. You mean to say you would challenge the legitimacy of a Buckley who announced his intention of voting for Weicker?
A. This is a very serious business. The future of self-government depends on retiring such as Weicker from the Senate. Correction, there is no such thing as “such as Weicker.” He is unique.
Q. How do you propose to establish that?
A. That is the responsibility of the Horse’s Ass Committee.
Q. The what?
A. The Horse’s Ass Committee.
Q. What are its purposes?
A. To document that Lowell Weicker is the Number One Horse’s Ass in the Senate. The committee, which is engaged in research, is absolutely confident that it will win any challenge, from anywhere, nominating any other member of Congress: Lowell Weicker will emerge as the winner.
Q. Just how do you define a … horse’s ass?
A. Oh, you know. The kind of person who says dumb things dully.
We could still use a degasification committee. Read the whole thing.
Hubbard posted this at 12:15 AM HKT on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 as Dirty Hippies, Humor
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I guess the theory is that the higher profile a topic is, the less people pay attention to what’s actually going on in Congress. First there came the news of the conflicting amendments on English as an official language. Now Kate O’Beirne is reporting something even crazier:
The Senate’s handiwork this week deserves far more attention than it has received, and if President Bush intends to contribute to the final product, his engagement is already overdue. Among the little-noticed provisions in the Senate bill is one that shatters the economic rationale for millions of new unskilled, affordable foreign workers. When a bill depends on Democratic votes for passage, the unions are empowered to transform the business community’s demand for “cheap labor” into a guarantee that guest-workers will be among the most costly labor in the workforce.
The bill extends Davis-Bacon “prevailing wage” provisions—typically the area’s union wage that applies only to construction on federal projects under current law—to all occupations (e.g. roofers, carpenters, electricians, etc.) covered by Davis-Bacon. So guest-workers (but not citizen workers) must be paid Davis-Bacon wage rates for jobs in the private sector if their occupation is covered by Davis-Bacon. Presumably because Senate Democrats’ union bosses thought this provision too modest, an amendment by Senator Barack Obama, approved by voice vote, extended Davis-Bacon wages rates to all private work performed by guest workers, even if their occupations are not covered by Davis-Bacon.
Again, I call shenanigans. This whole thing is a farce.
Senatui delenda est.
Apollo posted this at 1:55 PM HKT on Friday, May 19th, 2006 as Politics
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Too often this is how the immigration debate is covered.
conor friedersdorf posted this at 12:18 PM HKT on Friday, May 19th, 2006 as Uncategorized
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