Jesse Helms, and my first link to another blog

Jesse Helms died. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, so it goes. I'm somewhat fond of a Latin phrase whose origins I've never checked: de mortuis nihil nisi bonum. Of the dead [say] nothing but good. I shall therefore say nothing further about Senator Helms.

However, if I were going to say anything, it would be something along the lines of what my friend Ben says over at his blog. If I actually have any readers, I highly recommend Ben's blog to them. He mostly writes about politics, and he bothers to be a bit more informed on the subject than I usually am. In fact, before forming an opinion on a political matter, I usually check Ben's blog to see if he's said anything about it, and then I pretend it was my idea. Go thou and do likewise.

"All other ground is shifting sand"

I've seen several articles in the last few days commenting on, analyzing, lamenting, or lambasting Obama's recent moves toward the center. Thankfully, I do not have cable at the moment, so I have been spared the impassioned nonsense and trivialities they will certainly have been spewing nonstop over all of this. The main question raised in most discussions of the matter seems to be whether the Republicans will be able to create the image of Obama as a "flip-floper" like they did with John Kerry (fires of hell consume them). I have been rather annoyed with Obama over many of his proposals for the past few weeks, particularly his support for immunity for telecommunications companies that have assisted the minions of Satan Bush administration's domestic wiretapping program. He calls it a compromise to get certain protections codified. Fair enough, but I'm not happy about it. The faith-based funding stuff doesn't actually represent a change in his platform, and it might actually be a good idea. The Iraq thing, I think, is mostly a cosmetic change. But in terms of the media narrative and the Republican rhetoric, it matters very little whether any of the recent shifts are shifts in substance or merely in emphasis. It matters even less whether they are changes for the better. And even more irrelevant is whether McCain has changed his positions more often and more drastically than Obama ever has or will.

I was asked at a party yesterday if I would refuse to officiate at a wedding if the couple declined to undergo premarital counseling (assuming I ever make it out of the limbo that is the Methodist ordination process). My knee jerk response was that there is no way in hell I would ever officiate at such a wedding, and I would admit no exceptions, because once exceptions are allowed, everybody thinks their case merits one. No sooner were the words out of my mouth though that I imagined a couple of cases where I would probably throw out the rule book and open up the missal (in honor of the holiday, the case involved a soldier about to go on a mission from which he would not likely return). Would I be a hypocrite in such a case? Maybe, but I'd be a real asshole if I acted otherwise.

The point is that some flexibility is absolutely essential in real life. And with a politician, I think that the best that can be hoped for is that his or her campaign promises will indicate the sort of person he or she will be in office, and perhaps the policies that he or she would implement under ideal conditions. I voted for George W. Bush in 2000, when I was more conservative than I am now. Even if I still held the opinions I held back then, I would consider the first Bush administration a betrayal. There was a rather vast difference between compassionate conservative George Bush and nation building George Bush. Obama's recent shifts hardly deserve mention in the same breath. At worst, they confirm the long held suspicion of many that Obama is not the messiah. I believe Obama would be the first to agree. In the meantime, McCain has also been reinventing himself a bit, which in itself is not something I begrudge him. However, the particular direction he is going leads me to the conclusion that the John McCain I enthusiastically voted for in the 2000 primary (my first election ever-and unlike my vote for Bush, not one I would take back) no longer exists, and I don't like the new guy so much. The BBC's got a good list of both candidates' recent shifts/flip-flops/refinements.

Edit: It occurs to me that the lyric I attempted to quote in my title, the refrain of Edward Mote's hymn "My Hope is Built," is actually "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." Doesn't serve my point quite as well, but I wouldn't want to build on either.

Dear Ehud Olmert,

If your government does things like this, it shouldn't come as too big a surprise that nobody likes you. Demolishing a house where 20 people live because one person who lived there did something terrible is the worst sort of arbitrary, collective punishment, reminiscent of all those colonial and dictatorial regimes with which you would not like to be associated. This is especially true when your own law enforcement believes the man acted alone. For all I know, he could have been mentally ill. I would like to see the State of Israel exist peacefully for many, many years; I would even like to come visit. But you are making that difficult. The 20 or so people you will displace are now going to be much more sympathetic to terrorist groups, as will any number of people who know them or happen to be walking by when your bulldozers show up. Have you noticed that even my idiotic president, for all his watery-eyed pronouncements about the population of Israel in the Knesset, still favors a two-state solution? Take the hint! Play nice, or not even the other bullies are going to want to play with you.

New Hyde Park/Woodlawn Coffeehouse

http://backstorycafe.com/home.html

For those in the Hyde Park/North Woodlawn area, this place is worth checking out. I would describe it as kind of like Third World Cafe, only the music is less obtrusive. Also, since it's new and somewhat out of the way for most of us (and kind of hard to find even if you know it's there), you have a much better chance of finding a table. The menu is somewhat limited, but the sandwiches are good, as was the soup I had today. They also brew coffee by the cup using one of those fancy slow-drip mechanisms, making it very strong. It's part of a whole community activism agenda, which for me is just a side benefit. I'll go there from time to time for the atmosphere, the coffee, and perhaps a sandwich. It's on Blackstone between 61st and 62nd, though Blackstone is little more than an alley at that point. At least today, there was ample parking on the nearby streets.

This Just In: Nelson Mandela Not a Terrorist

I was just looking over the news websites looking for something else when I noted that Nelson Mandela isn't a terrorist anymore.

A bill signed by Bush today "authorizes the Departments of State and Homeland Security to determine that provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act that render aliens inadmissible due to terrorist or criminal activities would not apply with respect to activities undertaken in association with the African National Congress in opposition to apartheid rule in South Africa." To give you a bit of a time frame, Apartheid ended in 1994, the same year that Mandela became President of South Africa. He won the Nobel Prize the previous year. He retired from the Presidency in 1999. It is now 2008.

My point in bringing this to your attention? I don't really have one. Though I suppose I should point out that by most definitions, the militant wing of the ANC does technically qualify as a terrorist qualification. Of course, if terrorism is taken to mean acts of violence committed against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological ends, then most governments should probably add themselves to their terrorism watch lists.

Oh sure, blame the middle ages

N.T. Wright appeared on The Colbert Report the other night. I didn't see, but I've found it embedded in several blogs, and I now add it here. I've only read part of one of Wright's books, but my impression is that I agree with him on the big picture but differ on the details (for example, I appreciate his treatment of classical Christian doctrines, but think he's being a complete ass in his efforts to save the world from partnered gay priests and bishops). Anyway, here's the video. Everything he says about heaven and the resurrection is theologically sound. It's not particularly entertaining, which is a disappointment, though as the guy I stole the link from says, it's always a good thing when theology is being discussed in public. My one complaint is where he resorts to the old trope of everything having gone great in the apostolic and patristic eras, and then the middle ages screwed everything up. I'll admit that many medieval theologians saw the resurrection (not to be confused with the immortality of the soul) as something of an afterthought, but counterexamples abound. Maybe I'll tell you about some of them later if the mood strikes me.

The Second Amendment

So as it happens, the urge to offer travel commentary in Germany didn't strike me all that often, and this blog might have been forgotten after its first post. I'm sure that anyone who may have ever found their way here through my facebook profile or whatever has certainly given up on this blog by now. And yet, as I re-read my first post, I've decided that it's simply too clever not to merit some follow-up. So, now that I am back in the United States, I am going to try this again. Perhaps I'll manage to regain a bit of an audience. Failing that, someone has to provide those archaeologists with their material!

This being the second post on this blog, it seems fitting to offer a few thoughts about the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. I notice that the Supreme Court has recently interpreted this amendment to mean that individuals have the right to keep loaded and assembled handguns in their homes, striking down a Washington D.C. law prohibiting this. The responses of persons quoted in the yahoo article to which I have linked are rather predictable. The White House is fairly measured in its praise of the decision, but the idiot beloved child of God who brought the suit and the NRA are overjoyed. Senator Feinstein (D-CA) believes the ruling will make the American people less safe.

I am entirely in agreement with this sentiment of Sen. Feinstein. I think that keeping loaded and assembled weapons in one's home is just asking for trouble, especially if there are children who reside there. If it were up to me, people would take martial arts instead of buying handguns. That would probably make us both safer and healthier. That said, I think the majority opinion in this case is correct. I'm no lawyer, of course, but the arguments based on the "well-regulated militia" clause have always seemed a bit of a stretch to me. I wish it were not the case, but it seems to me that it is. I felt the same way a couple years ago when the more liberal justices ruled that eminent domain could be invoked by a municipality to take a property for private use. I really hate that decision (my family's livelihood comes mostly from real estate), and I cared enough about it to actually read the text of the majority opinion. And though I think the world would be much better if eminent domain could only exercised for public use, I couldn't argue with the logic.

I point all this out because whenever the Supreme Court (or any court, really) hands down a controversial decision, the spokespersons for the organizations for and against the matter at hand almost always go on about how good or bad idea whatever has been prohibited or allowed is, but they almost never say anything about the constitutional merits of the case. It seems that outside of legal circles, most people are unable to make a distinction between what is right and what is constitutional, and this probably makes our discourse much less productive than it might otherwise be.

I am not advocating any sort of strict constructionism, by the way. I favor a very liberal interpretation of the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment, for example. Unfortunately though, the document that I believe guarantees Americans equal treatment and basic civil liberties also seems to guarantee the freedom of handgun ownership and gives governments more latitude than I would like in the exercise of eminent domain. It should be amended on both counts, but in the meantime, we need to work on our ability to distinguish a constitutionally sound opinion and a good or wise law.