Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2612
August 26, 2010
Christianist Watch
by Chris Bodenner
"We have two competing world views here and there is no way that wecan reach across the aisle -- one is going to have to win. We are either going to go down the socialistroad and become like western Europe and create, I guess really agodless society, an atheist society. Or we're going to continue downthe other pathway where we believe in freedom of speech, individualliberties and that we remain a Christian nation. So we're going to haveto win that battle, we're going to have ...
"It's Just A Cat" Ctd
by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes:
The story about that poor woman who was foolish enough to screw withthat cat reminded me of one of my biggest "Everyboy Else is Crazy"things: The way that most people are far more concerned about thewelfare of animals than the welfare of children. On the same day thiswoman shut a cat in a garbage can, how many children were abused inBritain? Why haven't any of those become international news stories?It's not just the presence of video. Here's another example...
Can Church Be Hip? Ctd
by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes:
These posts made me thing of the second track from Neutral Milk Hotel's In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, "The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three." While the rest of the album is more jarring in nature and supposedly written after Jeff Mangum soaked in Anne Frank's diary, the second track starts out with a pretty straightforward "Jesus Christ I Love You."
From the 33 1/3 book about the album, I guess other people in the (uber hip) Elephant 6 crew at the...
Dialogue Plus Pressure
by Conor Friedersdorf
Ross Douthat takes on the controversy about how non-Muslim Westerners should relate to spokesmen for a moderate Islam.
I hold no particular brief for Tariq Ramadan, and his critics have provided ample evidence of his slipperiness over the years. But we have to be able to draw intellectual distinctions on these matters, and if we just lump a figure like Ramadan — or any Muslim leader who has one foot solidly in the Western mainstream but a few toes in more dangerous...
Mitt, The Plastic Man
by Patrick Appel
Frum pinpoints a Romney weakness:
Romney has had many fewer abrupt changes of mind than, say, NewtGingrich, who (you may recall) used to be an environmentalist, amongother things. Yet Newt escapes the flip-flopper charge, becausewhatever view he is expressing at the moment, he expresses ferociously.There's an old Hollywood saying, "The secret of success is sincerity.Once you can fake that, you've got it made." Romney's problem is thathe cannot fake sincerity. When he panders...
America's Cultural Endowment
Will Wilkinson writes:
There is no form of libertarianism that simply falls out of our cultural endowment, as American moral culture has never been remotely libertarian. The average Tea Partier is, like the average voter, a collection of reflexes, prejudices, resentments, and demands that add up to no coherent philosophy at all. The heritage of the progressive managerial social insurance state is no less an authentically American one than is the heritage of Jim Crow...
Why Mehlman Matters
by Chris Bodenner
With partisans pouncing on the former chairman's record of impeding gay rights (and rightly so), this reader's perspective is crucial to understanding the full scope of this historic moment. He writes:
Like Mehlman, I also came out in my early forties. Although my partner, who came out in his teens, does not understand how it is possible to remain closeted and clueless so long, having folks who everyone thinks they know suddenly come out of the closet is critical. Having...
"Victory"
by Patrick Appel
Andrew Exum provides an interesting definition of success:
[W:]hile Iraq continues to be wracked by violence and suffers from
political instability, U.S. interests have been served in the sense
that the conflict in Iraq is now an Iraqi conflict that will be largely
settled and fought by Iraqi actors. It's a curious, tragic and selfish
definition of victory, I know. But it's victory.
Iraq - United States - Iraq War - Middle East - Violence
A Strange Place to Focus
by Conor Friedersdorf
Daniel Larison writes:
...what I find remarkable about this mosque controversy is how blatantly, narrowly political the opposition to this particular construction project has been. It has been an exercise in manipulating public anger and using it for the purpose of waging an ostensibly anti-Islamist political campaign by organizing against harmless Muslims and their organizations. A distinctive American culture isn't under threat from this mosque, the Cordoba Initiative...
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