Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

The only thing worse would be if - hypothetically - Ronald Reagan fought to revoke the IRS denial of charitable tax exemptions at Bob Jones University during his administration.

And, the only thing worse than that would be if - hypothetically, again - SCOTUS offered an 8-1 decision against Reagan, stating that racial segregation at Bob Jones University allows the IRS to deny charitable tax exemptions.

And, the only thing worse than all of this would be if - hypothetically - no conservatives remembered it or noted it when discussing current events; particularly those involved with education or the law.

Hey, BJU puts on a GREAT spread for Repiglican candidates and the journalistic community that’s willing to go to their quasi-fascist events, Mark Twain, you un-American you!

Haven’t you heard?  Discrimination is the third-best American value after low taxes and guns for everyone.  Join the GOP!

Here is the dilema for McCain, he can reject Hagee outright and build momentum for a third party far right Christian canidate movement which could doom his campaign (you know Dobson is contemplating that having said he would never support McCain), or McCain could just polietly say thank you, acknowledge openly he does not agree with Hagee’s views, and shut up. 

McCain does not go to Hagee’s church.  I do not believe McCain actively courted Hagee.  Barak Obama does actively attend Jerimiah Wright’s church, however, and even adopted Wright saying for his book Audacity of Hope (including the title).  With trips to Tripoli with Farakhan and lots of anti Semetic rhetoric of his own, Wright is just as controversial (and just as bigotted) as Hagee. 

If we are going to hold candidate’s feets to the fire, at least hold them all to the same standard.

I am no fan of Hagee, at all.  But I do understand McCain’s dilema.  He cannot fracture the Christian vote.  But if we are going to criticize McCain for Hagee, at least hold Obama to the same standard for Jerimiah Wright (who unlike Hagee is Obama’s pastor and mentor).  Here’s a snippet of some of Wright’s statements:

Jerimiah Wright attracted controversy for his association with Louis Farrakhan. Wright travelled to Libya with Farrakhan in the 1980s. In 2007, Wright addressed this by saying “When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli to visit Colonel Gadaffi with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.  Jerimiah Wright has said that Zionism has an element of “white racism”, and that the attacks on 9/11 were a consequence of violent American policies and proved that “people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West went on its merry way of ignoring Black concerns.”

McCain does have to distance himself from this joker, though politicians are well aware that Catholics are “forgivey.” On the other hand, this is special pleading on Glenn’s part, as usual, considering that he doesn’t seem to find any trouble with the hateful, anti-American, racist views of the pastor of the church that Obama has been a member of for many years.  A concentrated dose of this vomitous bile is available here:

http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com/watch?v=HfNEfEBYIZs

When Glenn expresses his outrage over that, where the connection is considerably less casual, I’ll listen to him more attentively about this.

Let us hold their feet to the fire!

After all, a certain presidential candidate gave his first campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

By sheer coincidence, Philadelphia, Mississippi is the location where three civil rights workers were murdered in the 1960’s.

During the speech, the candidate stated “I believe in states rights”.

Amazingly, in the south, “states rights” is considered a place-holder for allowing states to hold back on progress towards racial equality.

The candidate brought our attention to the welfare queen driving her Cadillac, time and again, even years after the story had been proven false.

However, the candidate was just unaware - for many years - that the story was untrue.

In earlier years, the candidate said that working people were angry because of the “strapping young bucks” who were buying steaks with food stamps.

It was common in those days to refer to white people as “strapping young bucks”, so it is obvious that he didn’t mean it to be racist.

As president, he attempted to disband the Commission on Civil Rights, though not for racist reasons.

But, he fell short because the racist Congress, at the time, overruled him.

Do you want to have an honest discussion about holding their feet to the fire, or were you just using this as an opportunity to say “But...Obama is worse than McCain!”?

No, I want the potential implications regarding the beliefs of both candidates explored in full.  I would like to see McCain have to respond to Hagee’s idiocies and Obama to Rev. Wright’s.

Sound fair?

Your videos don’t work, Dan.  Sort of like your hamfisted attempts to link Obama to Farrakhan.

Meanwhile Hagee has been a hateful bigot for decades and McCain both sought out his support and embraced him and has used him at at least one campaign appearance and on his campaign website.  Deal with it.

Ahhh, I understand.  You want equality of examination.

Should that equality of examination include a look at the history of the parties of the candidates?

Should that equality of examination include a look at the favored candidates of recent history (for each party)?

Should that equality of examination include an analysis of some of the primary voting blocks for each party?

Should you not also include a link to the “vomitous bile” of Hagee, in the interest of equality of examination?

Could these additional questions help in evaluating the “potential implications regarding the beliefs of both candidates”?

There are many humorous things in the world: among them the white man’s notion that he is less savage than the other savages.

- Mark Twain, “Following the Equator”

Obama is already on record denouncing and rejecting Farrakhan and saying that he doesn’t agree with some of the controversial sayings and actions of his pastor. On the other hand, McCain actively sought and received the endorsement of the religious extremist Hagee. If the media is at all fair, they will demand that McCain denounce and reject Hagee and his overt homophobic, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish, pro-war views.

Hagee has advocated that the U.S. and Israel use nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike on Iran to facilitate the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ. Why does McCain court the support of such dangerous extremists? While Farrakhan is a marginalized, virtually irrelevant figure, Hagee is one of the most influential right-wing evangelical religious leaders in this country. Why must Obama condemn Farrakhan and Wright for their beliefs while McCain actively courts the most extreme religious fundamentalists in this country?

No worries, McCain lovers. The only people who idolize St. John the Straight Talker more than you are the mainstream media, so press questions about Hagee will not be forthcoming anytime soon.  Nothing to see here, no nothing at all.

Since when are anti-Catholic views controversial or unacceptable? 

If they are, the left in the US is in real trouble.

Thomas writes: “Since when are anti-Catholic views controversial or unacceptable?

If they are, the left in the US is in real trouble.”

I guess you don’t recall how the wingnuts hounded the Edwards campaign into firing two staffers who’d made so-called anti-Catholic statements on some obscure blogs.  Or if you do, you’re pretending you don’t.

It’s a pleasure watching the GOP cannibalize itself.  This is going to be a very good year.

Does Obama believe that AIDs was inflicted on Africa by the US?  Is that hateful enough?

Amanda got what she deserved.

I’m going to do my best to make sure that Obama has to answer for this bullshit.

Deal with it.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

But, then again, I don’t put much stock in religion.  It always seems that those with a religious bent are quick to throw stones, yet slow to check their own tally of sin.

The Bible is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.

- Mark Twain, “Letters from the Earth”

I’m betting Obama is just scared to death of the great Dan Collins and his propaganda machine.

Let’s face it, the GOP has been sucking up to insane morons like Hagee for over two decades.  Saint Reagan started it, and Dumbya Bush’s complete incompetence has finally given rational people a voice - and we’re saying that it’s time to kick the dingbats out of the seats of power.  No more Robertsons or Dobsons or Hagees.  (Falwell isn’t missed at all.)

Go ahead, try to link Obama to Farrakhan.  It won’t work.  All of your wingnut fantasies have been stripped away, and this is the year you’ll pay for ever entertaining them in the first place.  I can’t wait for November.  It will be glorious on Election night.  I’ll have two TVs going - one on Fox so I can watch the Great Wingnut Meltdown.

Moe, I don’t remember the Edwards controversy that way. 

The way I remember it, the campaign didn’t respond to the initial criticism.  Then Edwards said that the antiCatholic writings of his campaign staffers offended him, but he wasn’t going to fire them.

The NY Times said that “critics” thought that these staffers had crossed the line; whether they in fact had was an open question.

Finally, when the controversy didn’t just go away, the staffers resigned.  They weren’t fired. 

Say, should we go check the archives to see where Moe stood on that question? Would anyone here be surprised to find that Moe’s an antiCatholic bigot?

That’s the best you’ve got, Moe?  This is what it means to you to be principled?  This is an ethical argument?

Bah.  You are intellectually and ethically bankrupt.

Grow up, Danny.  McCain has a direct relationship with Hagee.  Obama has no such relationship with Farrakhan.  Anyone who isn’t a member of the ever more delusional GOP Reactionary Guard can make the distinction.

McCain sought out Hagee’s support to suck up to evangelicals and it bit him in the posterior.  You can grunt and moan all you want but Obama has never sought out Farrakhan’s support - and such support would be worthless.  Hagee’s isn’t, but it may well have a cost.

What’s the most fun is that it’s a pissing match between conservatives - so rational people win no matter which wingnut loses.  Isn’t it great?

Thomas writes: “Say, should we go check the archives to see where Moe stood on that question? Would anyone here be surprised to find that Moe’s an antiCatholic bigot?”

My entire family is Catholic, chuckles, and I’m certainly not bigoted against Catholicism.  I’m an atheist and I think all religions are very amusing and often fascinating in an academic sense. If you have a problem with that, I can’t begin to impress upon you how much I don’t care.

Y’know, folks, there’s another dog in this fight. Fleabitten or not, it may have teeth.

John Hagee thanks you. He thanks you profusely. He won’t do it in public, of course, but you may have just handed him the keys to the kingdom.

His church will be full tomorrow, and the parking lot will overflow. They’ll do some hymns and some church business, announcements will be made, the organ music will swell, then fade as the lights go down and the spotlight comes up, and a funny little fat man in a rumpled suit, with a Bible under his arm, will walk up to the podium, lay the Book down with a thump that reverberates through the sound system, lean into the microphone, and begin:

Christians,
you
have been cast out!

There will follow half an hour or so of development of that thesis; if you can’t write a fairly adequate outline, it’ll be because you aren’t familiar with the subject. The collection plates will be full, the word will be passed, and next Sunday will be more of the same, only bigger.

Nothing galvanizes a religion like persecution. There are something upwards of five million people who think and believe more or less as Hagee does, and another five or so who can go along with reservations—plus roughly three times that many who clearly understand that the message is intended for them, too. All of them assume, a priori, that the Media hates them. All of them vote.

You just told them they aren’t eligible to participate in the American political process. What do you reckon they might do?

Regards,
Ric

Amusing, religion, Moe?

Once you age a bit and find your life running, running, spent, like grains of sand, you may appreciate more the purpose of religion: as the frail, weak, oh-so-transient human’s hamburger helper.

Your atheist’s advantage? not so much, as help, towards the end.

Oh, Great and Powerful Oz (whose microphone we are using), in your estimable wisdom and knowledge, have you nothing to say regarding the history of conservative politicians courting the endorsements of racists and bigots?

Is there no parallel between McCain and Reagan?

Your silence on the matter of Reagan’s record is remarkable.

I certainly expected a better discussion than what has been offered so far.  Perhaps my expectations of honest discussion from conservatives (and conservative law professors) are a bit too high.

A lack of response will be taken as “Go Away!  We don’t talk about Reagan’s horrific record of racism”.

I will go away, but I will remain puzzled how those years of racism under Reagan were “the 8 best years of [your] political life”, Professor Bainbridge.  Your current moral outrage about Hagee rings hollow.

It has always been a peculiarity of the human race that it keeps two sets of morals in stock - the private and the real, and the public and the artificial.

- Mark Twain, “Mark Twain in Eruption”

Serr8d writes: “Amusing, religion, Moe?

Once you age a bit and find your life running, running, spent, like grains of sand, you may appreciate more the purpose of religion: as the frail, weak, oh-so-transient human’s hamburger helper.

Your atheist’s advantage? not so much, as help, towards the end. “

Who’s asking for help, chuckles?  As for your condescension about my age, I’m 46, old enough to agree with you that religion serves as a mental analgesic to many people.

It still amuses me, though.  I also wonder at how people find comfort in something which promises eternal torture to non-club members, but I guess I’m not enlightened enough yet.  I’ll bet if I had a god, though, it could beat up your god.

Ronald Reagan was no racist. As for the Neshoba incident specifically, even left-liberal Kevin Drum who claims that “Ronald Reagan’s record on civil rights was pretty abysmal” admits that Reagan gets “a (slightly) bum rap on one particular subject: his speech at the Neshoba County Fair in 1980.” Indeed, your side’s record is no better. As the NY Times reported on August 4, 1988:

Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, bringing his campaign today to a sweltering Mississippi town that is at once in the heart of the conservative South and a place resonant with the anguished history of the civil rights movement, had to confront the region’s enigmatic political character.

While he pledged to ‘’bring down the barriers to opportunity for all our people,’’ he made only passing reference to the problems of American minorities in a speech to an almost entirely white crowd at the Neshoba County Fair, 24 years to the day since the bodies of three slain civil rights workers were found under an earthen dam nine miles from here.

Mr. Dukakis mentioned that he was near the birthplace of Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd, a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox who was born in nearby Meridian. But he did not mention the three young civil rights workers: Andrew Goodman and Michael H. Schwerner, both whites from New York, and James E. Chaney, a black who was born in Meridian. The three were slain on a back road by a gang of Ku Klux Klansmen on the night of June 21, 1964, and found 44 days later, on Aug. 4.

As for you, using my bandwidth to post your bile under a cowardly pseudonym, a phony email address, and a phony domain has worn out my patience.

Ric Locke writes: “Nothing galvanizes a religion like persecution. There are something upwards of five million people who think and believe more or less as Hagee does, and another five or so who can go along with reservations—plus roughly three times that many who clearly understand that the message is intended for them, too. All of them assume, a priori, that the Media hates them. All of them vote.

You just told them they aren’t eligible to participate in the American political process. What do you reckon they might do? “

Now there’s a great example of the paranoia and absurdity of the current far-right mind - being DISAGREED WITH now amounts to PERSECUTION.  Hell, run for the catacombs!  Bring the kids and the radio, so y’all can still listen to Rush and Hannity and the very astute and sane Michael Savage - and, of course, Saint Reagan’s son Michael!

Sheesh.  You’d think Hagee was being crucified upside down or something.  This hoohaw will probably double the con-man’s income.  Some persecution.

Giving a speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi is one thing.  Giving it and yapping about “state’s rights” is another thing entirely, despite what a particular “left-liberal” might say.  Given Saint Reagan’s humongous exaggerations about “welfare queens with Cadillacs,” his use of race-baiting tactics (as admitted by Lee Atwater and Ken Mehlman) is well-established.  Sure, his disciples think he was a man without flaws, but they’re blinded by the orange glow from his hair.

Well, young Moe, I’m older than you, and wiser it seems. While you yap on about “wonder at how people find comfort in something which promises eternal torture to non-club members” you ignore the great help that religion has traditionally provided to humans suffering from that all-too-fleeting condition: shortlife ending. An example of the good such ‘mental analgesics’ perform is to help widows who’ve lost their husbands after some 60 years (or more) of marriage, find comfort. Let’s see you sit with your book of Hitchens and provide comfort such as I have; whether or not such is actually truth means little, at those stages.

I laugh at your chuckles.

"Disagreed with?”

It is the conclusion of our host, here, that Hagee’s input must be repudiated—that McCain should run as far and as fast from the endorsement as he is able. Your only disagreement is that the stricture is insufficiently forceful.

Being declared anathema is something rather different from “disagreement”.

Regards,
Ric