News and Notes: 11-20-05

It's a Boy!

Alex Nunez at The Noonz Wire welcomed a new baby boy into his family last week!

Blog Roundups

My cat, Miss Maple, made her blogospheric debut this week in The Carnival of the Cats, hosted at Scribblings.

This week's Around the Web posting by yours truly, won an award of "ten wingnuts" for Ego, where I cross-posted it. In other words, Martin Lindeskog got splattered with some moonbat droppings meant for me!

Morris to the rescue!

On a more serious note, I discussed this article earlier as an example of what is wrong with the left today.

Another Entrepreneur

Philip B. Pape has started his own business.

Blog Elections

The Stupid Shall be Punished (which marked its 250,000th page view today) and Ultraquiet No More are in the running for the 2005 MilBloggie Awards. Polls close at the end of the year.

Also I noticed that Meryl Yourish and the Gaijin Biker (who got Instalanched yet again today) have been nominated for positions in the spades suit of the Deck of Bloggers. I know that fans of each read this blog, so go over there and vote if you haven't already.

Mil Bloggers React to John Murtha

Chap points out, beautifully, that "Buddy" is, in some contexts, only half a word. Keeping in mind that "Chap" is not half a word, let me say, "Thanks, Chap!" (Update: He has a very interesting update here. Click on the word "heh".)

Robert Tracy, who has served in the Marines, adds, "I would not call Murtha one of my brothers in arms." Pictured at left is what he thinks Murtha looks like.

Though more of a political blogger than a mil blogger, I am glad the House voted down immediate troop withdrawal. It will be interesting to see what becomes of the withdrawal plan handed to Rumsfeld recently and spun by the media.

Shadow, RIP.

My good friend Blair at Secular Foxhole is mourning the death of his beloved dog, Shadow. If you haven't been by to offer your condolences, you should. Shadow sounds like a great pet who was treated very well.

Three Pieces on Religion and Politics

This piece by Glenn Reynolds pretty much correctly characterizes what I think is the popular American consensus on religion in the political sphere today, while these two articles via Glenn Reynolds, despite one having come from the Roman Catholic Church, reflect a popular "middle ground" on the evolution versus Creationism (AKA Intelligent Design) debate.

From Reynolds:

Religious -- but not too much. (Both of these provisions are no longer operative, because they violate the provisions of the Federal Constitution, but the point stands -- and, in fact, as the Supreme Court noted in overturning the ban on clergy in the legislature, which the Tennessee Supreme Court interpreted as an effort to limit religious influence -- quite a few states had similar provisions at the time of the Framing. This is, I think, part of our inheritance from the English Whigs of the 18th Century, who valued religion, but whose recent experience with the religious fanaticism of England in the 17th Century made them suspicious of overenthusiasm.)

Likewise, I think there's a lot of sentiment in favor of people being able to practice their religion, and talk about their religion, without discrimination or ridicule. And I think there's some support (though less so) for efforts to inform legislation with religious values. There's also a commonsense attitude toward de minimis expressions of religion: Americans are not, for the most part, offended by references to God, or by things like prayers at football games.

But Americans really don't like busybodies telling them what to do. The decline of the Left as a political force in America coincided precisely with its shift from a politics of individual freedom to that of tut-tutting politically-correct nanny-statism. I suspect that if the religious Right decides to emulate the Left in this regard, its influence will evaporate in similar fashion.

Ayn Rand has discussed the ambivalent nature of religion.

PLAYBOY: Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?

RAND: Qua religion, no -- in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very -- how should I say it? -- dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith.

So I think that Reynolds correctly identifies where religion stands with many Americans, but therein lies the danger posed by the religious right: religion represents to them the font of morality, giving its promoters more credibility than they deserve.

But like government control of the economy, government "control of virtue" would be lethal to our republic. Can we learn from the fact that our economy is far from purely capitalist today? Yes. Most Americans not only would balk at an established church, they also oppose pure socialism. And yet,as on the matter of religion, they on the whole want their leaders to be, shall we say, "nanny-statists, but not too much". As we have seen with the welfare state (and will see with an increased role for religion in the public sphere), people will get more and more used to government interference in their lives in this sphere and will resist it less and less. Most importantly, notice that despite the left having been mostly discredited, the welfare state lives on.

It is one thing to recognize that "too much" of something in the government is bad. It is quite another to realize that "just a little" of that same something will make it very difficult to avoid the "too much". This arises from the difference between the public's overall possession of some vague notion of "common sense" (i.e., a good sense of life) versus a sound, explicit philosophy. One of Reynolds's points is that the religionists will discredit themselves quickly if they "push too hard". But look at how high income tax rates got after that "temporary tax" was first introduced. His argument points to a possible way for the religious right to overplay its hand, but it does not mean that the religious right could not gradually come to power over a span of decades.

This is good news in the short term only.

As for the other two articles, they each are attempts to "reconcile" opposite epistemologies: reason and faith.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: (1) Added updated link on Murtha. (2) Linked to today's earlier post. (3) Added carnival link.