In an otherwise excellent post, Randy writes:
"As to Kakki's [good] question about whether we should feel
just as squeamish about Gore's born-again Baptist orientation
(or Leiberman, who can't seem to produce a sentence that
doesn't refer to God) as we are about George W's deep ties
to the religious right, the answer is yes."
I don't think Gore is a born again Baptist, any more than Clinton is. I
suspect both men are religious skeptics who know that in order to be
electable, you should at least look like a Christian of some kind and attend
church accordingly. People are scared by atheists who are vilified as
amoral. Clinton and Gore purport to be Baptists because they descend from a
long line of them. Clinton doesn't behave like a Baptist (not a good one
anyway) and Gore doesn't think like one. Gore's book "Earth in the Balance"
is a thoughtful one, but he attempts and fails to find a Biblical
justification for the preservation of our "garden planet, oasis in space".
The Bible clearly tells us all the wrong things to do when it comes to
ecology: to be fruitful and multiply, and to subdue the earth and its
beasts. Some people think the Bible has a timeless wisdom and it does, but
it's mostly a grossly outdated and irrelevant text which to a nonbeliever is
nothing but the collected myths of the Hebrews -- it has no more veracity
than the collected myths of the Ancient Greeks or Teutons or the present day
Japanese who believe a descendent of the sun goddess Amiterasu is sitting on
the Chrysanthemum throne. Yeah, right. I may be a Democrat, but
Lieberman's constant harping on God in the campaign was totally inappropriate
and I was glad when some Jewish organizations told him to stop it.
Bush, on the other hand, credits Jesus as having helped him reach sobriety
and actually declared a "Jesus Day" as an unofficial holiday in Texas. That
Bush believes in the myth of Jesus makes me completely distrust him as it
shows his susceptibility to magical thinking. That's exactly why Ashcroft, a
fundamentalist Christian, should be strongly opposed as his conservative
politics are directly influenced by his religious beliefs. I can't believe
this won't effect how he enforces the present laws of the land including
reproductive rights and gay and women's rights.
Our nation was founded by a combination of atheists and deists who believed
in the separation of church and state. It's time to throw out all the bibles
in our courts and places of government and it's time we get rid of the word
God on our money as well as the ridiculous notion that we all do or should
place our trust in him. I don't -- it is purely human beings who are running
the show down here. God is not intervening, does not take sides, does not
have an opinion, cannot tell us what's right. We have to take complete
responsibility for what happens on the planet. As I mentioned in a previous
post, one of the ideas of the Reagan years that made me genuinely ill was
Reagan's personal belief that the Rapture was coming soon. Reagan believed
we didn't need to worry about exploiting the environment as Jesus was coming
soon to straighten out everything and recreate the world order for a thousand
years of peace. The historical Jesus died about 2000 years ago and he's
going to stay dead. He won't come back and recreate all the old growth
forests destroyed by clear cutting and revive all the animal species who are
extinct or will be extinct as a result of environmental destruction. Jesus
will not fill the hole in the ozone layer or halt global warming.
As for Chavez, I believe what was reported on CNN, that Bush deep sixed her
after learning that she had not been forthcoming. He would likely have
stood by her if she hadn't withheld this information.
The whole issue of hiring illegals is an interesting one as it is utterly
common in California and Texas. I have hired a few workers myself and never
questioned any of them about their status and have only ever paid them cash -
if you do it through an agency, they will only get minimum wage and they will
have to pay taxes on it. The old stereotype of Mexicans being a lazy people
who idle away the afternoons in siestas is utterly false. All the latinos I
work with are incredibly hard working, and more importantly, they take on
jobs that most Americans are not willing to take. I learned a few years ago
that Mexican and Central American farm workers are brought to other places in
the United States to harvest fruit and cotton because they do a better job
than local laborers. The secret that is not a secret is that the economies
of California and Texas need all the illegals we have or we would otherwise
face a labor shortage. We don't have a huge pool of welfare recipients who
can replace them.
I am sure Chavez had plenty of compassion for the woman she housed and hired,
but she also put that woman to work. Lori listed the real reasons the
Chavez nomination should be opposed -- she's no friend of labor, just as
Gale Norton is no friend of the Interior. Bush's nominee for Education is
receiving bipartisan support (although he does support vouchers) so it isn't
like the Dems are opposing everything Bush does because he stole the election
(and he did). It's a matter of fighting for what's best, and Bush's picks
for his cabinet have shown us how genuinely conservative he is. I am glad
that my own congressman and senators will be fighting this administration on
every objectionable policy, especially the wholesale exploitation of the
environment which we have seen in Bush's own state of Texas, the most
polluted in the nation.
- Clark
NP: beautiful rain
