Category Archives: My (largely correct) political views

Political rhetoric

3 Replies

A really smart friend of mine asked, “For my liberal friends only: when we’re objecting to cross-hairs, should we maybe feel a little bit bad about ‘somewhere in Texas, a village….’?”   The question made me think, as all of her questions do.  So here are my thoughts on four kinds of political rhetoric.

Juvenile name-calling.  Somewhere in Texas . . .; Bu$h; Busshit; Nobama.  Calling Bush or Palin stupid or Obama an elitist, or candidly using the words “socialist” or “fascist” as epithets these days has precisely the substantive content and rhetorical impact as calling someone a poopyhead.  Yes, it cheapens the dialog, but it wasn’t very expensive to start with.  The key effect of language like this — at least on me — is to make me turn the page or click away from the site, confident that I’m not missing anything enlightening or even funny.

Gun-related words.  I’m in favor of generally giving people credit for metaphor.  Crosshairs over congressional districts was at worst bad taste, and probably pretty banal.  I’ve described an opponent’s brief full of silly arguments as a “target-rich environment” and plaintiffs’ lawyers who make silly arguments as “friendly fire” without the remotest connection to an actual firearm.*  Indeed, when Rand Paul came out against the ADA and enthusiastically in favor of the Second Amendment, I joked that he might have arrived at a more efficient remedial process:  access at the point of a gun.  “My friend Glock and I would like you to install a ramp.  Now.”   Again, no intent to replace my Westlaw subscription with a semi-automatic, but I thoroughly enjoyed the mental image.

Of course, actually calling for someone’s death crosses a very important line, and calling for “second amendment remedies” or  explicitly for political violence comes damn close.

De-legitimizing language.  Now, this sort of rhetoric really bugs me.  Throughout the Bush years, there were liberal bloggers who insisted on calling Bush the “Resident” rather than “President,” and  asserting that “he’s not my president.”  These days we have “birthers” — folks who think Obama was not born in the US and therefore not legitimately qualified to hold the office.  Assertions that a president from either party is a tyrant or a dictator may fall into the juvenile category, but they also suggest that he is trying to change our political system, rather than simply implementing policies the speaker disagrees with.  The country thrives when the loyal opposition is both loyal and opposed.  We need people in every administration who believe in the country and its system, but disagree with the current guy’s policies.   Rationally, reasonably, preferably civilly.  Arguing that the president isn’t legitimate is completely unhelpful, whether from the left or right.

Knee-slapping hypocrisy.  People from Alaska criticizing federal spending.  Anyone who supported the Patriot Act complaining about over-regulation.  This type of discourse may be the most pernicious, because it doesn’t go away once we’ve all had a good laugh.  But damn, I love it!  It’s an excellent reminder that, as human beings, we’re all about 97% full of shit, with the differences at the margins.

***********************
* However, when I propose to engage in kitchen remodeling using a flame-thrower, I intend to be taken very, very seriously.  I will be exonerated by a jury of my peers.

Happy and/or Merry

3 Replies

I’m going try to do two possibly contradictory things in this post:  (1) urge everyone to wish each other merriness and/or happiness in a spirit of joy and celebration; and (2) unleash just a little bit of snark on the whole war-on-Christmas baloney.  Here goes.

New rule:  No one gets to be indignant when someone else expresses the wish that they be happy or merry.  Unless someone is wishing you something truly bizarre like Happy Dog Shit Day,* the proper response is “thanks!” and possibly, “you too!”  The following is an incorrect response:  “Dude, you just wished me to be happy and/or merry for the wrong reason.  You must have some sort of weird political agenda.  Let’s bail on this whole joy and celebration thing and really annoy each other!”

For the record, as a half[assed] Jew, I have no problem with being wished a Merry Christmas.  It’s not a holiday with religious meaning to me, so I feel the way I felt when my Chinese friends wished me Gong Xi Fa Cai on Chinese New Year.  And that feeling is:  Happy.  Instead of the human interactions that fill up my average day — bizarre italicized accusations from opposing counsel, middle fingers from other drivers,** depressing political commentary — someone is just telling me to be happy.  Or merry.  Or in the case of Gong Xi Fa Cai, congratulating me and wishing me to prosper.  This is all good.  All.  Good.  Did I mention good?

Let’s practice:

Jewish person:  Happy Chanukah!
Christian person:  Thanks!  That’s so nice of you!

Wasn’t that easy?  And fun!  How about this:

Christian person:  Merry Christmas!
Jewish person:  Thanks!  You too!

See!  Don’t you feel merrier and happier already?

Random person #1:  Happy Holidays!
Random person #2:  They’re not “holidays.”  There’s only one real holiday, that is, MY holiday.  Please don’t wish me happiness unless you’re doing it for the right reason.

ZZZZZT!  Wrong.  Remember the rule:  whatever merry or happy you are wished, the proper response is “Thanks!”  Seriously, try it.  My prediction is:  you might actually feel merry and/or happy.

But I do want to say a quick word about the “put the Christ back in Christmas”***/”Reason for the Season” crowd.  I’m perfectly fine with putting Christ back in Christmas if that means, on December 25, focusing on the religious meaning of the birth of Christ instead of acquisition of new and better electronic devices and fleece sweaters.  Indeed, I enjoy focusing on the Christian religious meaning of Christmas, and each year find myself learning and reflecting on important things from and with my Christian family and friends.  And, happily, acquiring cool electronics and fleeces.

But if “put the Christ back in Christmas” means the only merry or happy we all get to say starting after, say, Halloween or perhaps Labor Day is “Merry Christmas,” I’m afraid I have to (merrily and happily) dissent.  And because I’m a complete nerd, I have to point out that the “reason for the season” is not, in fact, the birth of Christ, but the need of early Christians to promote their new religion by attaching their observances to existing pagan solstice celebrations.****  So technically the reason for the season is the circuit of the earth around the sun, the beginning of the lengthening of days, and the need of people in the cold and dark to eat fun high-carb foods and drink enough to forget the cold and dark.

Still, snarkiness and nerdiness aside, I really think there should be more merries and happies rather than fewer, and that when someone wishes you a merry or happy that doesn’t line up with your particular views, just go with the merriness and happiness.  And feel free to wish others merriness and happiness for whatever reason strikes you.

Or if you want to try for more calendrical accuracy, here are some suggestions:*****

Dec. 1       Rosa Parks Day
Dec. 2       Chanukah
Dec. 3       International Day of People with Disabilities
Dec. 4       National Cookie Day
Dec. 5       First Sunday in Advent
Dec. 6       Finnish Independence Day
Dec. 7       Islamic New Year
Dec. 8       National Brownie Day
Dec. 9       Jeff’s Birthday
Dec. 10    Constitution Day
Dec. 11    International Mountain Day
Dec. 12    Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe
Dec. 13    National Cocoa Day
Dec. 14    National Bouillabaisse Day
Dec. 15    Bill of Rights Day
Dec. 16    South African Day of Reconciliation
Dec. 17    National Maple Syrup Day
Dec. 18    International Migrants Day
Dec. 19    National Oatmeal Muffin Day
Dec. 20    National Games Day
Dec. 21    Winter Solstice
Dec. 22    National Date Nut Bread Day
Dec. 23    Festivus
Dec. 24    Chinook’s Birthday
Dec. 25    Christmas
Dec. 26    Boxing Day; beginning of Kwanzaa
Dec. 27    St. Stephen’s Day
Dec. 28    Card Playing Day
Dec. 29    Pepper Pot Day
Dec. 30    Festival of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute******
Dec. 31     New Year’s Eve

* There have been circumstances in which that would have been an appropriate greeting in our house, but I’ll spare you the details.

** Unpleasant even when justified.

*** But do remember to “Keep the Han in Hanukkah.”  (h/t Laura R.)

**** There are a couple of other theories too.  http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp

***** Recipients of our 2006 holiday card will recognize that I’m recycling material here.  And yes, Mom, I corrected the typo.

****** Not a lot of documentation for this one, but I really liked it.

Health Care Elites

4 Replies

I love a good Cultural Elitism Contest as much as the next guy, but after poking fun of white people in green golf pants calling other people elite, I’d like to get serious and talk about Elitism with Real World Consequences, for example, Health Care Elitism.  As in, do you even know anyone on Medicaid?  Charles Murray:   I’m looking at you.

Murray recently had a column in the Washington Post asserting that there is a New Elite taking over America.  The Tea Party is warning us about this, and they’re right.  Seriously — all of what I just wrote is in his article; I’m not satirizing it.  Now put aside the general hilarity of a billionaire-funded astroturf movement warning us about any other elites than the one that took over their movement.  And the specific hilarity of the man who believes that white people are a genetic elite warning us about other elites.  The whole thing is just wrong.  As in incorrect.  It’s a bunch of lazy-ass cultural stereotypes repackaged as opinion commentary.

For example, Murray seems to think it’s elitist to identify Jimmie Johnson as an NFL coach rather than a NASCAR racer.  Because the NFL is only watched in the salons of the Upper West Side.  Or that it’s more elitist to go mountain biking than RVing, when the latter costs several hundred times more than the former.

Murray used these and other cultural stereotypes to announce that “[t]he members of the New Elite may love America, but, increasingly, they are not of it.”

As one commenter noted:

Time and again, this essay describes as “mainstream” or “quintessentially American” things that the vast majority of Americans don’t do: living in a small town (80% of Americans don’t), reading Harlequin romances (85% don’t), watching The Price Is Right or Oprah (more than 90% don’t), belonging to Rotary or Kiwanis (99+% belong to neither.) It isn’t just “elites” who don’t do these things; the average person doesn’t do them. (Nor follow NASCAR.) They’re not even majority behaviors among the groups where they’re more prevalent: the rural-and-small-town, the poorly educated, the old. So Murray’s quarrel is actually with the REAL mainstream America, is it not?

In fact, the elites who are trying to take over the country — including the ones who just poured hundreds of millions into the last election — are the ones with no real experience relevant to many of their fellow Americans. The don’t know about, don’t care about, and largely disdain the experience of being African-American or gay, of risking everything to come to this country to find work and raise a family (can there BE a more quintessential American experience?), or of struggling with employment, health care, and other family crises that require a government safety net.

Herewith a set of questions to match Murray’s.  Test to see if you are a Health Care Elitist.

  • Do you know what DME is?
  • Have you ever had to choose between paying a doctor or paying for some other household essential?
  • Have you ever made a career choice based on the availability of health insurance?
  • Are you on Medicaid?
  • Do you know anyone on Medicaid?
  • Have you ever had to forgo paid employment to ensure that you don’t lose the benefits you need to function in the world?
  • Have you ever had to forgo marriage and shack up with your sweetie because your combined incomes would kick you both off benefits?
  • Have you ever had to hold a fundraiser to cover a loved one’s health care costs?
  • Have you ever gone to the emergency room with an illness that could have been addressed by a family doctor because you don’t have a family doctor because you can’t afford a family doctor?
  • Have you ever had to fight with an insurance company to get medical treatment you need?
  • Have you ever read the very common headlines about state budget cuts knowing that would directly affect your ability to get out of bed in the morning?  Perhaps to survive?

I would argue that if you don’t have any of these experiences or know anyone who does, you are too distant from the experience of Real America to be permitted to opine on health care policy.

Finally, just for laughs, my Murray Elitism Quotient revealed.  I’ll let you decide if I’m fit to try to take over America:

Do you know who replaced Bob Barker on “The Price Is Right?” Yes but only because I read People magazine every time I have to fly somewhere.

Have you watched an Oprah show from beginning to end? No.  I’d prefer to kill brain cells with alcohol.

Can you hold forth animatedly about mountain biking or skiing?  Mountain biking sounds dangerous and exhausting.  Love to ski — gravity does most of the work.  I generally prefer my sports spectator.

Does the acronym MMA mean nothing to you? Yeah – it’s that show where buff men in shiny underpants grapple with each other.  Tim claims it’s a sport.

Have you ever read a “Left Behind” novel or Harlequin romance? No – but only because my browsing is limited to the “Not Crap” section of the bookstore.

Would you be caught dead in an RV?   Tim and I talk all the time about seeing the country in an RV… if they made one that was accessible.

Would you be caught dead on a cruise ship?  No, but not because I’m elitist, because I hate being around other people.

I really liked yesterday’s rallies, but if you didn’t, that’s ok too.

2 Replies

I realize the Rally to Restore Sanity has been criticized from the left (what’s the point?  all those folks should be getting out the vote) and right (this is really just a bunch of elitists counterprotesting Glen(n?) Beck (not sure how many ns; not willing to Google him.)). But I thought it was a great idea for the simple reason that while parties and elections come and go, we have to keep living together as Americans, and sometimes it’s just really really good to remember that there are lots of people who would rather have fun together than yell at each other.

I wasn’t there, but I’ve really enjoyed seeing photos both of the general atmosphere of letting your freak flag fly, and of the excellent signs.  My favs:

No more us vs. them.  We are all us.

I disagree with you but i’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler.

I’m a Muslim and I don’t hate you.

You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own spelling.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself and spiders.

Americans for the Responsible Use of Hitler Comparisons.

Paved roads are socialism.

The founding fathers were elitists (and American happened)

Education doesn’t make you elitist.  It makes you smartist.

He’s black.  Get over it.

8 years of silence and now you’re mad?

Real patriots can handle a difference of opinion.

Hyperbole is the greatest threat of all time!!!!

If God had wanted us to think, he would have given us brains.

Gay parents have a 0% abortion rate.

Where are the moderate Muslims?  Right here.

Stop teaching kids the theory of gravity.   It keeps them down.

And my absolute favorite:

Beezus, Ramona, and Sharia

5 Replies

One of my favorite characters in fiction  is Ramona Quimby.  And one of my favorite things that Ramona did was to announce “I”m going to throw up!” when she wanted to get out of a crowd and go home.  “Instantly everyone standing near her managed to move a few inches away.”*  I’ve often thought of that when I’m stuck in a crowded situation:  perhaps if I just announced that I was about to throw up, others would move away and give me the space my misanthropic, claustrophobic self needed.  But I think conservatives have given me even more effective and up-to-date tools:   I just have to wear a turban or invoke Sharia and I’ll have the place — any place — to myself.

I came up with this plan initially in response to an article I read about a passenger asking to be moved out of an airplane seat next to a guy in a turban.  Put aside the fact that,  if the turban-wearing dude is going to blow up the plane, being in a different row won’t really save your narrow-minded ass.  This is true but secondary.  Most important:  I now have an excellent device for getting an airplane row to myself.

More recently, we have the excellent spectacle of conservatives calling for a boycott of Campbells products because they are manufacturing a line of halal soups.  Now this is the type of political hypocrisy I just love:  free-enterprise-loving conservatives boycotting a company for making a rational cost-benefit decision to manufacture a product that people will buy.  But more than that, it suggests an excellent way to clear out the riff-raff.  And, as GOP senate candidate Sharron Angle has demonstrated, if it’s useful, you can assert that Sharia law governs almost anywhere without actually being — as a technical matter — correct.

In that spirit, conservatives, please note the following:

  1. The Safeway will be selling only Halal foods this morning, and all other weekend mornings, as well as any time within two hours before and after Bronco games.
  2. The DMV will be implementing Sharia during the month of November when I have to renew my driver’s license.
  3. Our flights to and from San Francisco this week will be known as “turban days” on Frontier.
  4. I-25 will be governed by Sharia, but only between the hours of 7 and 9 a.m. (northbound) and 4 and 6 p.m. (southbound).

Let this system work for you!  Don’t like the annoying fans in the opposing team’s stadium?  Make it know that the stadium is halal!  Find yourself in a slow-moving line?  Put on your turban and get served immediately!  And if the country ever drifts back toward rationality, you can always just announce that you’re going to throw up.

*********
* Note that I was able to recite these lines from memory but cannot remember the plot of the grown-up novel I read last week.

Things That are Inexplicably OK

4 Replies

I’m not talking about things that are bad but widely acknowledged to be bad like, murder or the Dallas Cowboys.  And I’m not talking about things that I’m confident are bad but as to which I grudgingly acknowledge that marginally reasonable minds could differ, like mayonnaise or light beer.  I’m talking about things that allegedly smart people in allegedly polite company seem to have no problem with but that are completely morally indefensible.

Peter Singer.  This guy is a philosophy professor at Princeton who advocates killing infants with disabilities.  Seriously.  I’m not sure this guy is on anyone’s radar outside the black-turtleneck-and-tweed world and the disability rights world, but now you know:  Princeton has on its faculty a professor who favors infanticide for disabled kids, largely based on his utilitarian approach which is based, in turn, on the sound philosophical principle that upper class white guys with tenure can judge the quality of life experienced by the rest of the world and make life and death decisions based on that judgment. I’m all for academic freedom and the First Amendment, and I don’t advocate that this guy be fired or punished for these absurd views.  I’m just wondering why on earth he’s taken seriously.  It’s like Princeton deciding to hire a Holocaust denier or “intelligent design” advocate — or really someone who offered a principled, philosophical defense of slavery.  I would defend any of those hires in the name of academic freedom, but I really think that many more people would join me in puzzlement as to why the hell such a person has a chair at Princeton.

The Tomahawk Chop. Atlanta Braves fans spend a large part of each game making gestures designed to mimic a tomahawk and humming a tune designed to mimic what antediluvian Hollywood thought was Native American music.  This is just gross racial mockery.*  I have to confess (sorry, Bruce) that I feel the same way about “Redskins.”  I don’t have a problem in general with Native American team names — Braves, Indians, Seminoles — because there are plenty of other groups-of-people names:  Padres, Vikings, Patriots, Mariners, Royals, Twins, Pirates, Rangers, Canucks, Canadiens, Packers, Texans, Buccaneers, Cowboys, Raiders, Senators, Kings, Celtics, Cavaliers, Trail Blazers, Warriors.  And, um, Wizards?  But “Redskins” is an epithet, not a generic group-of-people name.  Sorry.**

Flying the Confederate flag. What part of treason is unclear to these folks?  Seriously.  I love the fact that throughout the south “United We Stand” bumper stickers are pasted side-by-side with the stars & bars.  Again, I have no problem, as a First Amendment matter, with flying whatever flag you want.  Just don’t asked to be taken seriously when you display the Confederate flag and question other people’s patriotism.

“Free Mumia.” Give the man a fair trial, but damn, it sure looks like he shot a cop.  Let’s not free him til we’ve tried him fairly and he’s been acquitted.

This is a very very partial list.  Feel free to share your contributions in the comments!  (Really!  I LOVE comments!)

******************
* I always loved that Jane Fonda, during her Ted Turner period, could regularly be found in the Braves’ audience chopping away.  For you conservatives who hate her for being a liberal, the joke’s on you:  she’s just another shallow celebrity looking for attention — and you give it to her!

** I predict that this will engender more brotherly ire than all my liberal political rantings put together.

“Not pretty . . .”: a follow up

2 Replies

I’ve gotten some feedback on the former post that I should name the stylist or at least the salon.  After thinking about it, I’ve concluded that that makes sense.  God knows I don’t have the readership to affect his business, but I don’t think he gets to make statements like that anonymously.

It was a guy named Marvin at the Matthew Morris salon.*

If I had had my wits about me — and the ability to freeze time for 18 hours while I composed my response — this is what I would have said to Marvin instead of just waving my civil rights lawyer cred at him.

Marvin, I wish I’d said, I’m guessing you said that because the people in the group home make you uncomfortable.  It’s very clear — since you told me this — that the recovering alcoholics scare you, and make you concerned that the fears of any family to whom you might want to sell your gorgeous house would drive down the sales price.  As you thought those things through, and came to conclusions about how you viewed the developmentally disabled and recovering people who wanted to live in your neighborhood, did you ever stop to think that discomfort and fear are exactly precisely what cause many people to discriminate against gay men and lesbians?  Change the setting and characters, and we can both easily imagine a group of homeowners in a conservative community talking about their gay neighbors in exactly the tones and words you used.

Don’t just “take them food at Christmas.”  Knock on the door.  Introduce yourself.  Get to know your neighbors.  Try to include them in your community as you would hope gay men and lesbians would be included in any community in which they chose to live.

**********************
* One of the reasons I hesitated to name the salon was because its owner just won some sort of reality show contest.  Don’t know which way that cuts.  (Sorry!).

“Not Pretty…But Harmless”

3 Replies

Subtitle:  Drinking with white people, part deux.  Went to a new hairdresser today.  Turns out — I know this will come as a shock — he’s gay. [**] Within the first few minutes of our conversation, I learned that he had a husband to whom he’d gotten married in Vegas.  Awesome!  I’m a huge fan of marriage equality!  We had a grand ol time discussing the California Prop 8 case, how cool it was that he got married, what it was like to work with your husband (something we had in common), the comparative virtues of Lady Gaga’s meat outfit vs. Bjork’s swan outfit, and his penchant for (another surprise!) decorating.  Little did I know, my drinking-with-white-people experience had begun.  I learned about his fantastic historic house, in his fantastic historic neighborhood right downtown, where he and his husband could walk to many incredible restaurants.

But!  They were going to turn the historic property across the street into a 40 bed alcohol rehab facility!  Luckily he and his neighbors got together and raised hell, so they rejected it.  (Still not clear who the “theys” were.)  I weighed the pros and cons of explaining the Fair Housing Act and NIMBYism* at this point, but honestly I really liked the haircut and … well this is the sort of compromises you make when you really like the haircut but the stylist is an asshole.

Then it got worse.  Of course, he said, there are already two of them in the neighborhood.  Two facilities.  One is for, you know, mentally challenged people.

“You know, not pretty… but harmless.”

At this point, thank God, he was through cutting and was putting some sort of styling glop in my hair.  I rubbed my eyes and explained that I was a civil rights lawyer, that we did fair housing cases, and that all of these people and facilities had just as much right as he and his husband did to live there.  Of course, he sighed, you know we take them food at Christmas.

I guess I’m especially bummed because I’m guessing this guy has been on the receiving end of prejudice in his life but still could not see past his own prejudices.  This is, of course, not uncommon, but every damn time it depresses the hell out of me.

And I really did like the haircut.

Update:  I guess I should be clear on what was implicit in the last sentence.  NFW am I going back to that stylist or salon.  Oh well.

***************************************************
*Not In My BackYard.

** Update:  A friend quite properly pointed out that this sentence itself — in its attempt at humor — is pretty stereotyped, like saying “I know this will come as a shock” that my banker is Jewish or an African-American is a good athlete.  All I can say is: yup.  I screwed that one up.  In the tradition of blogging (funny to have a tradition for something that has only about ten years of history), I’m not deleting it.  Rather in my own tradition, I’ll just go forward feeling stupid about it.

More on the Islamic Community Center – a response to a conservative friend

3 Replies

A friend who is also a lawyer wrote this challenging question:  do I think that everyone who is uncomfortable with the mosque/community center is racist or Islamophobic.  Since my draft answer ended up being sort of long-winded, I figured I’d just post it.

Dear Friend –

Thanks for challenging me.  I like that — our views are meant to be challenged.  The answer is:  I think folks may be uncomfortable with the community center for a large variety of reasons, many deeply personal, many non-racist.  As I mentioned in a previous post, my father died in an ICU in Orlando and I haven’t been willing to visit Florida in the 13 years since.  It’s painful and it’s irrational, but I get it.

While there are many personal reasons for differing reactions to the proposed community center, I think the people who are getting loud about it are largely political opportunists, with a smattering of bigots and Islamophobes.

We’re both trained as lawyers, which means we know how to cross examine and impeach a witness.  Does an answer make sense?  Is it consistent with the witness’s other answers?  Here is what I see with respect to this current manufactured controversy:

  • The Imam we are now supposed to suspect was sent by the Bush administration to promote religious tolerance around the world.
  • The area near but not in Ground Zero has never before been hallowed.  There is an existing mosque almost as close, as well as a large number of random, un-holy uses:  a strip club; stores; restaurants; etc.
  • The other 9/11 site — the Pentagon — contains a mosque.  No one cares.
  • No one has previously had much respect for the feelings of victims of tragedies.  When the NRA hosted its convention in Denver after the Columbine massacre, it was the right wingers standing up for their constitutional right to do that, and explaining that the depraved actions of two boys could not be blamed on a larger group with whom they claimed affinity, that the pain of the Columbine families should not dictate where they held their convention.  No one cares that there is still a gun store a mile from the high school.   No one cares that there are Christian churches near the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.
  • Those who question the presence of Saudi money do not seem to have a problem that the same Saudi guy owns a big chunk of News Corp, Fox’s parent company.  If it’s bad for the Saudis to hurt our feelings architecturally, isn’t it worse for them to have the power to blast propaganda into our living rooms?  And the people who are now complaining about the mosque never raised their voices about the Bush family’s close ties to these same people, and the fact that they were all secretly flown out of the country when the non-Saudi Americans were grounded and grieving.

None of the reasons we are hearing for the anger being directed at the community center holds up to cross-examination.  That doesn’t make the objectors racists; it makes them opportunists.  When the political identities were different (the Bush administration; NRA; Christian churches) there was no objection.  When Sarah Palin hadn’t yet tweeted about it, there was no objection.  That’s not racist, it’s political.

But another thing we lawyers are trained to do is to work with hypotheticals.  So let’s take the hypothetical that you’re right, that this building is being built with evil intent and dirty money.  I think by protesting we are missing an enormous opportunity, the opportunity that is being seized so eloquently by Michael Bloomberg, the opportunity that your examples of European bigotry cry out for.  WE’RE BETTER THAN THEY ARE.  This is our chance to say to the world:   We can choose tolerance.  We can embrace this community center.  We can DEFINE this community center.  It will become part of OUR message,  not some intuited message of Moorish victory.  And note, we have not heard from Al Qaeda that this is a “memorial to victory.”  The only people saying that are Americans!  We are shouting from the rooftops the precise message we profess to fear.

What if, from the beginning, we had all embraced the community center in the name of American patriotism.  It would crush any alternative meaning.  (Candidly, I keep imaging America as the Whos Down in Whoville, holding hands and singing songs, with the evil terrorist Grinch looking down from his perch, disappointed that he could not steal the true spirit of Christmas.)

When the world looks at us, do you want them to see the whiners on Fox and the screamers at Ground Zero?  Or do you want them to see Michael Bloomberg saying:

Just as we fought communism by showing the world the power of free markets and free elections, so must we fight terrorism by showing the world the power of religious freedom and cultural tolerance. Freedom and tolerance will always defeat tyranny and terrorism – and that’s the great lesson of the 20th century, and we must not abandon it here in the 21st.

I encourage you to read his whole speech. And I challenge you not to burst with pride and patriotism when you do.  But you also ask that moderate Muslims denounce terrorism.  Many have, over and over.  Here is what Imam Rauf had to say at a memorial to Daniel Pearl, who died at the hands of terrorists.  It is generally a very moving tribute to religious harmony.  But specifically, he said:

We are here especially to seek your forgiveness and of your family for what has been done in the name of Islam.

My views on how we should respond to this come from a deep pride in our country and a conviction that we are better than the rest of the world.  We are a nation of immigrants.  It’s our strength.  We are a nation of people who can disagree with each other and live side by side. There’s no synagogue in Mecca because WE’RE BETTER THAN THEY ARE.  Do the people making that comparison really want to measure our religious tolerance against that of the Saudis?

The common ground I hope we can find is that, while some people regard the community center as benign and others as suspicious, we all agree that “Freedom and tolerance will always defeat tyranny and terrorism – and that’s the great lesson of the 20th century, and we must not abandon it here in the 21st.”

I hope you don’t mind that I blogged in response to your question.  Please feel free to use the comments to tell me how full of shit I am!

Your Friend,

Amy

We Did Not Build this Country on Sensitivities

Leave a reply

I’m becoming a huge fan of Michael Bloomberg. He has the brains to understand our constitution, the balls to support it even when it’s complicated or hurtful, and the words to explain to the rest of us that

if we say that a mosque or a community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, we would compromise our commitment to fighting terror with freedom. We would undercut the values and principles that so many heroes died protecting.

Amen. Read the whole thing.

The Muslim-community-center-somewhere-in-lower-Manhattan-just-around-the-corner-from-the strip-club-and-BBQ-joint controversy is quickly becoming one of my favorites of all time, and not only because I’m having so much fun reading Bloomberg’s latest rhetorical demolition of the chickenshits who would enshrine fear and prejudice so close to the site where our enemies tried send the very same message.

No, this one rocks — with apologies to the unfortunate African-American construction worker who got heckled for simply being Black in the vicinity of Ground Zero — because it is so rife with right-wing hypocrisy.

For example, one of the righties’ new talking points is that they’re not prejudiced (no! no!), they’re just questioning the source of the money. You know, it comes from that Arab guy, the one who, oops, owns a large chunk of News Corp, and hangs out with the Bush family.

OK, yes, I get my news from the Daily Show. Laughing at the news is the only way it’s bearable these days. But I challenge any mosque-fearing righties to explain why Saudi money is scary when it’s funding a community center but not when it owns a big piece of a major right-wing propaganda machine.

I’m also loving the fact that my gun-shop-near-Columbine example turned out to to be not only snarky but (almost) TRUE!! The NRA was asked to move its convention from Denver the year after Columbine based on (wait for it) sensitivities. Charlton Heston explained, correctly, that “American must stop this predictable pattern of reaction.”  (It’s at the 7:24ish mark, though Jon Stewart is pretty funny, t0o.)  We can’t blame the NRA for the acts of two disturbed kids, and we can’t blame an entire religion for the acts of thugs who profess its beliefs. And most of all, we can’t compromise our laws and values in the name of sensitivities.  We are tougher than that. We did not become a beacon to the rest of the world by whining every time someone did something that hurt someone’s feelings.

Update: No longer funny. “A city cab driver is in the hospital after being stabbed by a passenger who allegedly asked if he was Muslim, police tell NY1.” It’s a pogrom. Suck on that, Abe Fucking Foxman.

Update 2:  This appeared on the Facebook page of someone I don’t even know, but I thought it was cool.  After subjecting the question to quantitative analysis, the clear conclusion is:  Get A Grip!