--- Dave Land <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Did someone give you a wedgie today or something? > > I mean, welcome back, but sheesh! > > Dave
No. not at all. I'm going to repost something I wrote a while ago, which got _no_ response from you or Nick, about why the way you two argue bothers me so much. "I'm going to make one rather more delicate point, I think. Two of my best friends on this list are devout Christians. In Real Life, several of my best friends are devout Evangelicals, Orthodox Catholics, or even Fundamentalists. I have never felt uncomfortable with their way of explaining how their faith informs their beliefs about politics, even when that meant that we very strongly disagreed in our views on government policies. I, as a non-Christian, find President Bush's expressions of faith and how it informs his policies to be remarkably welcoming, in fact. But, to be blunt, the way in which you use faith - stripped, so far as I can tell, from rational analysis of means and ends - makes my skin crawl, which is one of the main reasons I think you often get such an emotional response from me. The conflation of all types of moral analysis with that that of your own particular religious principles is one thing - the second is the consistent failure to acknowledge that just having faith that something will happen is not a policy. God does not, so far as I can tell, intervene to make the government policies I want successful just because I believe in Him. The best I can do is support policies that history and political science and every other type of knowledge and analysis tell me might work and that are as ethical as I can make them, in the hope that, as Lincoln said, this puts me on His side. But arguing that I should - in this case - not go to war because God is opposed to war (maybe he is, but I think and pray that He is opposed to other things far more than He is to war) and therefore I should do other things (like your council of churches plan) that could work only if He directly intervenes on this earth in a way that He certainly didn't in the last fifty years for European Jews, or Guatemalans, or Cambodians, or Russians, or Chinese, or Rwandans, or Kosovars, or Bosnian Muslims - that, it seems to me, is arguing that your faith dictates specific policy in a way that I have never seen (for example) the President do. I can't really see how it's different, in fact, from saying we should do this because God told you that's what to do, and that's not an attitude that's healthy for democracy, or safe for those of us who are religious minorities in the world's most tolerant and diverse democracy." In this case, here's what I hear you and Nick doing. You are right to oppose the war. You are as sure that you are right as you are sure of anything. So anything anyone who opposes the war does is okay. Make the hoariest of anti-semitic slanders? No problem. You're right, everyone else is not just wrong, they're going _against the will of God_. Now, if moral authority comes from dying in Iraq, then I don't have any. Neither does anyone else on list, for obvious reasons. But let's be clear. I volunteered to work as a privatization advisor in Baghdad who would spend most of their time outside the secured areas. My PhD advisor (very well connected in the military and government) initially supported my decision to volunteer to go. When he found out what job I was up for, he did everything he could to stop me, because he thought "You'll probably face more than a 5% risk of being killed." I still tried to go. I am not amused at being told that we went to war because a bunch of Jews in the government were loyal to Israel. I'm not clear how the uncle of someone who died there gets exclusive claim to opine on the war either. I am deeply sorry for your loss, Nick, but I don't think that the above gives me any special claim at all on the war, so I don't think you get one either, and I don't appreciate being told that I'm not even allowed to disagree with you. I don't think it's too much to ask that people who disagree with my position on the war don't support figures who make anti-semitic statements, and don't claim that their position is the only moral one, and I certainly don't think it's inappropriate to be wary at those who (so far as I can tell) claim the endorsement of God Himself for their beliefs later on. Particularly when this is my second time explaining this, since the first effort got exactly no response. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
