If you have not read Ryan T. Anderson's "Huckabee And Social Conservatives" first published at First Things (and then reprinted in the Wall Street Journal's online Federation), then you should.
Of course, I know "should" is a strong word these days. Perhaps I should -- there I go again -- say that "If you feel inclined, then you might want to perhaps possibly consider the possibility of reading it for yourself."
Seriously, it is a very provocative piece.
Blessings.
BG
Showing posts with label Conservatism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservatism. Show all posts
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Jamie Glazov & Dinesh D'Souza On Islam, 9/11, And The Radical Left (Updated)
We all hear a lot about "dialogue" and "debate"; about talking together through difficult issues. Currently we are hearing this sort of rhetoric coming from the "new" US Congress; some of us Episcopalians in New Hampshire are STILL waiting for the great dialogue promised three years ago by our controversial bishop.
I must say that the sort of dialogue exemplified between Jamie Glazov and Dinesh D'Souza in their two-part conversation at FrontPageMag is reassuring and inspiring: here are two thinkers, conservative and academic, who disagree profoundly. And yet there is a gentlemanly quailty that prevails throughout; and there is no shortage of interesting parries and thrusts. Both men score points; and I give the win to Mr. Glazov. Part of that small victory, unfortunately, comes as a result of Mr. Glazov slipping into a monologue for which, it appears, Mr. D'Souza is absent. But that hardly matters, since Glazov is amazing on his own.
This really is an excellent series. Take time to read it if you are at all interested in Mr. D'Souza's thesis that it is American liberalism, the radical leftist sort, that led to 9/11 and America's current standoff with Islam. Mr. Glazov issues a very serious and compelling challenge; Mr. D'Souza makes a few worthy rebuffs. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is found here. From Abu Ghraib to sexual immorality, from Moses to Muhammed, this series offers key insights.
And make sure you take time to read Mr. David Forsmark's challenging review of Mr. D'Souza's new book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left And Its Responsibility For 9/11.
Peace.
BG
I must say that the sort of dialogue exemplified between Jamie Glazov and Dinesh D'Souza in their two-part conversation at FrontPageMag is reassuring and inspiring: here are two thinkers, conservative and academic, who disagree profoundly. And yet there is a gentlemanly quailty that prevails throughout; and there is no shortage of interesting parries and thrusts. Both men score points; and I give the win to Mr. Glazov. Part of that small victory, unfortunately, comes as a result of Mr. Glazov slipping into a monologue for which, it appears, Mr. D'Souza is absent. But that hardly matters, since Glazov is amazing on his own.
This really is an excellent series. Take time to read it if you are at all interested in Mr. D'Souza's thesis that it is American liberalism, the radical leftist sort, that led to 9/11 and America's current standoff with Islam. Mr. Glazov issues a very serious and compelling challenge; Mr. D'Souza makes a few worthy rebuffs. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is found here. From Abu Ghraib to sexual immorality, from Moses to Muhammed, this series offers key insights.
And make sure you take time to read Mr. David Forsmark's challenging review of Mr. D'Souza's new book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left And Its Responsibility For 9/11.
Peace.
BG
Monday, October 16, 2006
Andrew Sullivan And Conservatism: A Cry For Help
I am thinking of writing at length about writer, pundit, and blogger extraordinaire Andrew Sullivan. But before I do, I was wondering what Contratimes readers thought about the man. Perhaps some of you watched the C-Span interview with him last night on Q & A. If you did see it, what do you think? I came away with something approaching confusion. How is this man a conservative? How is it that he is even considered a spokesman for conservatism?
Part of me wonders, not so much that he is some sort of charlatan, but whether he subsists solely on stereotype: he is the elegant, reasonable, open, and so-very-humble conservative much in demand these days. He is not like the many blockheads out there -- Bible-thumping and finger-wagging -- who call down brimstone on all things untoward and lynch personal privacy on the town common. His is an erudite, thoughtful conservatism; fashionable in its unfettered secularism and yet blithely tolerant of most things religious, even, I dare say, Catholic. He is gay with circumspection and restraint, but he is not politically restrained by religious precept nor is he given to radicalism. He defends gay marriage with soft-spoken ease; and he supports abortion only in the first trimester of pregnancy. In short, he is perceived as balanced; his poise makes him popular.
And he claims to be a good Catholic. I have no doubt that he is, at least in the Holy See of his own mind. He supports abortion, homosexual marriage; he believes that the Bible is fallible, errant. And yet to believe in these things he must doubt other elementary Catholic teachings as well. He must deny papal infallibility, for instance, which should be no real problem, since it is hardly an essential Catholic tenet. I can understand his jettisoning such tangential stuff, and can applaud his accepting the really important matters, like being nice to one's neighbors. What I find most curious, however, is how often people like Mr. Sullivan seem to land on the truth that the Bible and the papacy are always fallible on matters of sexuality and sexual holiness and yet are never fallible when it comes to love. After all, if the Bible and the Church are fallible, then surely we must conclude that both could be wrong about being kind, tolerant, loving, and merciful. Perhaps, for instance, we are NOT supposed to care for the poor; nor are we to be kind to our neighbors. Such teachings are mere corruptions of Christian teaching, rooted in so much ancient bias. I have never met a person who can tell me why anyone should care for the poor for purely secular reasons; and yet I do find many folks, like Mr. Sullivan, suggesting that religion has no place in politics. Mr. Sullivan abhors fundamentalism, it is clear. Yet he is apparently blind to that fundamentalism to which he holds so tenaciously: he is ignorant to the fact that everyone holds certain truths as fundamentals. Some truths, of course, are not one whit fun and are rather mental. But there is something rather fundamentally flawed in those who believe they are able to transcend religion and exist in some sort of political neutral zone, where religion does not reside. Religious faith resides everywhere. There is no escaping this fact. Any position that denies this is futile and pretentious. A man who theorizes we can fully partition the atmosphere can only exist in a vacuum: he may be a fine writer at a fashionable journal but he will be smothered should he put his theory into practice. Politics can exist independent of religious precepts about as well as nature loves a vacuum.
Well, perhaps I have already written about Mr. Sullivan; one could hardly think this post is a mere preamble, though it could be criticized, I am sure, as something of a ramble. Whether rant, ramble or preamble, I would like to know what you think, especially those of you who have a better sense of Mr. Sullivan's broad contributions to political and theological discourse.
Peace and mirth,
Bill Gnade
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Part of me wonders, not so much that he is some sort of charlatan, but whether he subsists solely on stereotype: he is the elegant, reasonable, open, and so-very-humble conservative much in demand these days. He is not like the many blockheads out there -- Bible-thumping and finger-wagging -- who call down brimstone on all things untoward and lynch personal privacy on the town common. His is an erudite, thoughtful conservatism; fashionable in its unfettered secularism and yet blithely tolerant of most things religious, even, I dare say, Catholic. He is gay with circumspection and restraint, but he is not politically restrained by religious precept nor is he given to radicalism. He defends gay marriage with soft-spoken ease; and he supports abortion only in the first trimester of pregnancy. In short, he is perceived as balanced; his poise makes him popular.
And he claims to be a good Catholic. I have no doubt that he is, at least in the Holy See of his own mind. He supports abortion, homosexual marriage; he believes that the Bible is fallible, errant. And yet to believe in these things he must doubt other elementary Catholic teachings as well. He must deny papal infallibility, for instance, which should be no real problem, since it is hardly an essential Catholic tenet. I can understand his jettisoning such tangential stuff, and can applaud his accepting the really important matters, like being nice to one's neighbors. What I find most curious, however, is how often people like Mr. Sullivan seem to land on the truth that the Bible and the papacy are always fallible on matters of sexuality and sexual holiness and yet are never fallible when it comes to love. After all, if the Bible and the Church are fallible, then surely we must conclude that both could be wrong about being kind, tolerant, loving, and merciful. Perhaps, for instance, we are NOT supposed to care for the poor; nor are we to be kind to our neighbors. Such teachings are mere corruptions of Christian teaching, rooted in so much ancient bias. I have never met a person who can tell me why anyone should care for the poor for purely secular reasons; and yet I do find many folks, like Mr. Sullivan, suggesting that religion has no place in politics. Mr. Sullivan abhors fundamentalism, it is clear. Yet he is apparently blind to that fundamentalism to which he holds so tenaciously: he is ignorant to the fact that everyone holds certain truths as fundamentals. Some truths, of course, are not one whit fun and are rather mental. But there is something rather fundamentally flawed in those who believe they are able to transcend religion and exist in some sort of political neutral zone, where religion does not reside. Religious faith resides everywhere. There is no escaping this fact. Any position that denies this is futile and pretentious. A man who theorizes we can fully partition the atmosphere can only exist in a vacuum: he may be a fine writer at a fashionable journal but he will be smothered should he put his theory into practice. Politics can exist independent of religious precepts about as well as nature loves a vacuum.
Well, perhaps I have already written about Mr. Sullivan; one could hardly think this post is a mere preamble, though it could be criticized, I am sure, as something of a ramble. Whether rant, ramble or preamble, I would like to know what you think, especially those of you who have a better sense of Mr. Sullivan's broad contributions to political and theological discourse.
Peace and mirth,
Bill Gnade
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Friday, April 15, 2005
A foolish consistency
Recently, I rode a chairlift up a mountain with a woman I hardly knew. That itself might be interesting, were I single and irresponsible but, gratefully, I confess that I am neither (well, maybe I am irresponsible, but that fact has not left me single).
Nearly the second I began my uphill journey, my chairmate launched into a criticism of President George Bush.
"The plain fact is that he is a very stupid man. And his only interest is in appeasing the big corporations who run this country," she said with the boldness of an oracle.
I held my tongue and listened as she went from one Bush weakness to the next. Then, once we disembarked at the lift's terminus, the woman switched from corporate greed to the right-to-die.
"This whole Schiavo thing is just absurd. What is this President thinking? He's obsessed with just one person, bringing the whole government to a stop because one person's on her deathbed. What about straightening out the Iraq War, or Social Security? Why does he care so much about one person when he doesn't seem to care about whole groups of hurting people, like our soldiers?"
I politely interjected that only a few weeks ago Democrats were insisting that Social Security was fine.
"Why should the president fuss over something that isn't broken?" I asked. "Or did it break a few days ago?"
She looked at me bemusedly.
"And besides," I added, "I love it that President Bush and Congress are obsessed with one person. That's what this country is about: it's about the individual over the collective, and how the two must be kept in harmony through law. What a great country, where one individual could have her name mentioned in Congress! Wouldn't you want that for yourself? I know I do. I WANT to live in a place where people care about just one person, especially that person who is the weakest among us."
The woman replied with a surprising statement.
"That's a very interesting take on it, but I don't buy it."
At that, we skied off in separate directions.
I share this for no other reason than to illustrate a disturbing, nattering consistency. It is that consistency which is always inconsistent: it is like a predictable anomaly.
Perhaps I can make myself clearer by pointing out the obvious: My chairlift companion at the very beginning of our ride berated President Bush for caring solely about big groups of people - corporations. Moments later she was lynching him because he cared solely about one person.
Isn't that amazing?
That corporations are composed of individuals - that most corporations consist of individual Americans - is somehow irrelevant to the progressive critic of the Bush Administration, like the woman with whom I spoke. There is apparently something intrinsically nefarious to the 'corporation'. Something un-American and illiberal.
But alas there is nothing wrong (at least to the progressive) with the corporations of state, like soldiers; or the groups of poor people or those disenfranchised by Social Security cuts. No, these kinds of corporate needs are OK, even lovely, to the liberal mind. To that mind, it is bad for the President to care about large groups, unless they are the right groups. And it is bad if he cares about one woman, unless she is the right kind of woman (preferrably a woman who needs an abortion but can't get one). THAT kind of woman should bring a government to a stop.
Thus the foolish consistency of liberalism is to be found on a ski hill in southern New Hampshire. Such foolishness consistently reproaches the President of the United States with arguments that are anything but consistent.
Welcome to the cold desert of the real.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Related Post: A Central (Yet Not Comedic) Irony
Nearly the second I began my uphill journey, my chairmate launched into a criticism of President George Bush.
"The plain fact is that he is a very stupid man. And his only interest is in appeasing the big corporations who run this country," she said with the boldness of an oracle.
I held my tongue and listened as she went from one Bush weakness to the next. Then, once we disembarked at the lift's terminus, the woman switched from corporate greed to the right-to-die.
"This whole Schiavo thing is just absurd. What is this President thinking? He's obsessed with just one person, bringing the whole government to a stop because one person's on her deathbed. What about straightening out the Iraq War, or Social Security? Why does he care so much about one person when he doesn't seem to care about whole groups of hurting people, like our soldiers?"
I politely interjected that only a few weeks ago Democrats were insisting that Social Security was fine.
"Why should the president fuss over something that isn't broken?" I asked. "Or did it break a few days ago?"
She looked at me bemusedly.
"And besides," I added, "I love it that President Bush and Congress are obsessed with one person. That's what this country is about: it's about the individual over the collective, and how the two must be kept in harmony through law. What a great country, where one individual could have her name mentioned in Congress! Wouldn't you want that for yourself? I know I do. I WANT to live in a place where people care about just one person, especially that person who is the weakest among us."
The woman replied with a surprising statement.
"That's a very interesting take on it, but I don't buy it."
At that, we skied off in separate directions.
I share this for no other reason than to illustrate a disturbing, nattering consistency. It is that consistency which is always inconsistent: it is like a predictable anomaly.
Perhaps I can make myself clearer by pointing out the obvious: My chairlift companion at the very beginning of our ride berated President Bush for caring solely about big groups of people - corporations. Moments later she was lynching him because he cared solely about one person.
Isn't that amazing?
That corporations are composed of individuals - that most corporations consist of individual Americans - is somehow irrelevant to the progressive critic of the Bush Administration, like the woman with whom I spoke. There is apparently something intrinsically nefarious to the 'corporation'. Something un-American and illiberal.
But alas there is nothing wrong (at least to the progressive) with the corporations of state, like soldiers; or the groups of poor people or those disenfranchised by Social Security cuts. No, these kinds of corporate needs are OK, even lovely, to the liberal mind. To that mind, it is bad for the President to care about large groups, unless they are the right groups. And it is bad if he cares about one woman, unless she is the right kind of woman (preferrably a woman who needs an abortion but can't get one). THAT kind of woman should bring a government to a stop.
Thus the foolish consistency of liberalism is to be found on a ski hill in southern New Hampshire. Such foolishness consistently reproaches the President of the United States with arguments that are anything but consistent.
Welcome to the cold desert of the real.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Related Post: A Central (Yet Not Comedic) Irony
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