Lately, I have stumbled across some weird people calling themselves Christians. First it was the Christian Atheists, who believe worship and ritual are beneficial for the psyche, but that there is no god. Yeah, real good for the soul, just like plopping down in front of an empty fireplace with a hot cup of nothing, and cozying up inside a lack of blanket to read your favorite air novel.
Then there’s this guy Justin Cannon, who set up a Christian dating site … for gays. They call themselves, ‘Rainbow Christians’. Why do these people go through such odd contortions to keep hold of their faith?
I suppose the latter example is at least encouraging evidence that, in some circles, the bible is gaining a more moderate and tolerant interpretation. But in my opinion, they should go for the gold and call it the fairytale that it is.
It hit me this morning what a socialist enterprise the military is. The government decides — usually without the consent of the taxpayer — what munitions will be manufactured, where troops will be sent, and what operations will be carried out on his/her dollar. Not only that, but our troops receive all kinds of benefits we would deem “socialist” if they were provided to the population at large: medical care, housing, childcare, education assistance, pensions etc. Now, you may be quick to point out that maintaining a military is vital to securing the freedom and prosperity of our nation, and that we should be obliged to take care of our troops — I am inclined to agree — but that doesn’t negate the fact that the military is by definition a socialistic institution.
America actually tolerates a great deal of such institutions: the post office, public schools, unemployment benefits, social security, medicare, emergency services and so on. However, no one but the most hard-line libertarian would suggest we do away with these programs. In this regard, we are all what I’d like to call “convenience socialists.” We are to socialism what Ted Haggard is to gay.
That said, I’d like to point out that we socialists differ from the mainstream only in where we draw the line. Most people see no ideological conundrum in publically funded defense against threats to our freedom. We socialists count the downhill slide to plutocracy among those threats.
Six years ago today, Bush announced we were going to war with Iraq.
Listen to the language he uses:
“…to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.”
“…Saddam’s ability to wage war…”
“We have no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat, and restore control of that country to its own people.”
“[we] will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.”
“We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters, and police, and doctors on the streets of our cities.”
“…the dangers to our country, and the world, will be overcome.”
Today we look back, and we can say there was no threat. Yet the Bush Administration clearly whipped up support for the war by implying impending attacks on the American people. We were duped, and it can be very hard to admit that.
It’s especially hard for the families of the troops still over there. Faced with a lack of justification, many of them have understandably substituted a new rallying call: the liberation of the Iraqi people. Don’t get me wrong, spreading freedom is a noble cause, but this gripes me for two reasons.
First, the American people are not generally preoccupied with this kind of thing, and if we were, there would be far more worthy subjects for our attention. I don’t mean to downplay the atrocities committed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but North Korea, East Timor, Rwanda, Darfur, and Cambodia are all instances where someone should have stepped in to end brutally oppressive regimes or mass murder, and the U.S. didn’t step up to the plate. We shouldn’t be allowed to wear the ‘liberator’ hat unless we are out there indiscriminately liberating.
Of maximal relevance is Saddam’s gassing the Kurds. There was no palpable threat to the American people at that time, so we let him have at it. When we went to war in 2003, it was because we were made to fear him. Make of that what you will — our obligation to peace and freedom as a superpower is another debate entirely — but we are not liberators, and that is not why we went to war in Iraq.
The second problem is that we were not spreading freedom. Freedom would entail allowing the Iraqis to choose their own goverment and economic systems. We essentially installed your standard western Executive/Parliamentary/Judicial representative republic, which we assume to be the most highly developed form of government (debatable). It was certainly better than the dictatorship they had before, however what concerns me is that with American style democracy, came American style economy. We didn’t separate the two concepts, we just set up a capitalist market and called it done.
Nowhere is it written that Democracy = Captalism, which is one thing that frustrates me so much about the American political environment today. One could imagine a capitalist dictatorship, a socialist democracy, or a communist republic, but in practice we don’t distinguish economic system from political system — we mistakenly think it’s a package deal.
The Iraqis very well may have wanted to be socialist country like France, but we didn’t give them the option. Instead, we opened their market to all of our ridiculously cheap American products and services, so they will never be able to develop industry of their own. We won’t let them institute tariffs on our goods, so they will be perpetually suckling at the teat of American hypercapitalism; without economic autonomy, they will remain a third world country forever.
We are quick to “bring ‘em what we got,” but we soon forget how we got here: a century of sky-high tariffs and economic isolation, which fostered growth of our own economy. Only then did we open up our market to foreign goods. We are denying this to the Iraqis.
Some ‘freedom.’
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One last thing Bush said:
“…coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.”
I have recently been deeply pondering the relationship between morality and society. The question driving me is whether society defines its moral precepts, or whether morality exists independently. In the end, I think it’s some combination of the two: the trolley car tests point to a universal moral compass, but in other cases we have more liberty to define boundaries — sexuality and drug use, for example.
Anyway, the conclusion I am leaning towards leaves no room for morality from god, or other supernatural source. This flies in the face of those who think god’s law is a moral standard, and that without it, our world would be some frightening combination of The Garden of Earthly Delights and Mad Max. These religious types equate god with morality, and therefore maintain that a world without the former entails a world without the latter. However, I think their line of reasoning is fallacious.
The religious person first looks at the world around them, and sees it is governed by moral principles, and then looks for a source for these principles. However, unlike a sociologist, anthropologist, or biologist, they default to “goddidit” immediately, and say “mystery solved.” They then say, “if you don’t acknowledge my hypothesized source of morality, morality will cease to exist.” This is insane.
If you know anything about history, it is readily apparent that the so-called “moral absolutes” of religion are bent to the trends of the era. Things like slavery, which the bible permits, are thrown out and judged immoral when society says they are, and things like divorce get reclassified as permissible when the bible cleary says they aren’t. This is strong evidence that our morals do not derive from god.
Further evidence that morality is not indexed to religiosity is the atheist, like myself. I am not running through the streets raping children and stealing VCR’s, and neither are my buddies over at Unreasonable Faith. The atheist understands perfectly well that morality just is. You don’t kill and lie, because it’s a dick thing to do, not because your imaginary sky-papa told you not to.
I know that what it really comes down to is religious people are unsettled by the “just is” part. Morality has to come from somewhere, they’re right, but we don’t have to immediately identify the origin, and build it an altar to keep it from forsaking us. Leave it to the philosophers and social scientists, and in the meantime, just be happy I won’t steal your cookies.
