Letters to the Editor
AJCalhoun
Published Letters: 964 Editor's Choice: 127
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Hey Jonathan
[Read the article: Gospel according to Judas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hope you're still following this insanely long thread so we can continue here. (Did somebody just holler "Get a room!"?).
I very much appreciate the enlightenment. I'm not sure I'm even a theist in any strict sense. Still, I do have a history of indoctrination by Christians (even though it was a crazy-quilt group of Christians) as well as the western Judeao-Christian mindset, so I honestly don't give as much thought as I ought to the evolution of atheism (and it is important - I realize that when I am given pause as in this thread). It's also very true, as you point out, that being an atheist, regardless of type, can bring a lot of crap down on your head if you don't step carefully. Lord, do I ever know it. As you can imagine, there are several branches of my family tree composed of the most mindless sorts of "Christians" that it makes my head spin like Linda Blair's. I have to remind myself of William Bradford Huie's definition of a "good" person (from his great novel "The Klansman") that it is a person who is more good than bad, on balance. This of course does not preclude such a "good" person doing one terrible thing in his life that can have repercussions of tsunami proportions. So far, with my tribe, so good. I think they are mostly all talk. I surely do hope so, because some of the talk can get pretty ugly sometimes.
All that having been said, they are, at least, whether they know it or not, pretty good stewards of the planet.
And as you point out, this nation is both vociferously Christian and simultaneously a huge mass of idiots when it comes to that Sword of Damocles hanging over our collective heads - the one we put up there with our loutish and consumptive ways. News of the honeybees' sudden decimation scared holy hell out of me. I agree with you that is probably our "canary in the coal mine" and it may be too far back to the mine's entrance already. If that's the case (and somehow I have to believe it's not, but only fools would keep moving further from it) the least we can do is exercise those "heroic measures" so often dismissed in medical circles. There is a time for heroism and this is it.
I'm no socialist either - at least not in the Marxian sense - but I am what Erich Fromm dubbed communitarian socialist and before him the Twelve Southerners called, simply, agrarian; Wendell Berry would call me an agrarian socialist. I have nothing against the basics of capitalism, but capitalism run amok is most definitely "a destructive force" and when a nation is in thrall (as we have been, even those of us who intensely dislike their politics) to a certain group whose primary motivation is to "unfetter" capitalism utterly, we are most assuredly in "deep do do" and we are also not living any Christian ideal (something "They" have appropriated for their own sick purposes) nor any other sort of ideal. One doesn't have to be an atheist to see that Christianity has not served us well as wielded by the current, very cynical administration, and that, above all other things, I think we need to tackle first.
This is getting both very long and pretty off-topic, but then again, when is the survival of the planet really off-topic?
A pleasure talking to you as well. Thank you!
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First Kill the Defectors
[Read the article: Another conservative has a change of heart]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You can trust them least. Just as the wildly irresponsible often wind up getting religion and going off the deep end of that bottomless pit, disaffected pols who jump party instead of trying to fix what they've got, more often than not are simply trying to rehabilitate their images. While it is somewhat gratifying to hear Bob Barr piling on now that the quarterback's spine is about to snap, I still find it difficult to feel trust for this man. Yes, I'm glad he's saying the things he's saying. No, I'm not especially impressed that he's joined up with the Libertarians. They are, bottom line, more problematic than anything else, and while I always look for some Third Way, I don't think that's the one, nor do I think Bob Barr is a changed man.
I'm an old-school conservative and a lifelong Republican and I'm ashamed of my party in its current condition, but I'm not gonna throw in with the Libertarians just yet. I think this can (and should) be fixed, even (and especially) if it means working in close cooperation with the Democratic party to bring about a true Third Way. Meanwhile, I welcome any stones anyone wants to pile upon the dogpile that is the current administration, but I got my eye on Barr and anyone else who gets religion this far into the fourth quarter.