Why two standards for good and evil?

MySA.com | Jonathan Gurwitz:

“Invariably in politics, someone comes along to declare that his party has a monopoly on virtue while the opposition has the sin syndicate. And invariably in public discourse today, the presumption is that conservatives are dirty, rotten scoundrels while liberals are pious, incorruptible angels.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Jonathan Gurwitz rehashes every criticism and scandal of the past quarter century. The Democratic "sins" should come as no surprise to anyone who wasn't on the dark side of the moon for that whole time. It's all there, Carter's ties to "money-laundering, terrorist-financing Bank of Credit and Commerce International", Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal, John Edwards' $400 haircut, Bill Richardson's exaggerated Major League Baseball resume, and Barack Obama's real estate deals. None of this has exactly been swept under the rug by the media. Yet Jonathan Gurwitz brazenly claims that it's Republicans who are singled out for criticism. He ought to reread his own column for evidence that it just isn't so.

National politics is a blood sport that makes little distinction between political parties. All politicians in the public eye are fair game. Jonathan Gurwitz, playing up Republicans as victims, just took a few potshots at Democrats himself.

Gov. Perry's gun position reminiscent of Archie Bunker

Pegasus News | Larry James:

“Last week, Texas Governor Rick Perry told us that he thinks anyone who is licensed to carry a gun in Texas should be able to carry it anywhere, including to church, in a bar or a courthouse. ... Sort of reminds me of Archie Bunker's strategy to end airline high jacking in the 1970s: 'When passengers board, just pass out the 45s and no one will have a problem.' ”

Ed Cognoski responds:

One problem would be exchanged for another. The number of hijackings might go down. The number of mass murders, like at Virginia Tech, might go down. But the number of heated arguments that end up in murder would probably go up. Whether society would be better off is debatable.

But if we're going to go down this route anyway, we ought to at least consider an approach that I haven't seen discussed anywhere. The Second Amendment states,

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Gun-rights advocates play this as their trump card whenever gun control regulations are proposed. Gun-control advocates usually raise the opening clause about a well regulated militia, but that never is enough to blunt the plain wording at the heart of the amendment.

I propose an approach that plays to both arguments. Because the Constitution clearly says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, we ought to let people keep and bear arms. Period.

At the same time, I propose that we implement that part about a well regulated militia. The states let their militias disband and disappear a century or more ago. Maybe the Constitution doesn't require that our government organize militias, but it certainly warns us that our security is at risk without one. There is certainly no Constitutional barrier to re-establishing militias as an integral part of modern society.

So, how about requiring all US citizens, all of us, join a militia, be given regular firearms skills and safety training, and be assigned regular duty protecting the Republic against all threats, foreign and domestic? Militia duty might include a requirement to periodically bear guns, very visibly, in public places as a deterrent to those who might threaten our security, with a beneficial side effect of augmenting law enforcement as well.

Because many people might be unwilling to perform such duty, we could grant exemptions to any citizen who does not own a gun. After all, there would be little need for gun training if you neither own a gun nor ever intend to bear one.

This proposal addresses all the usual arguments. It doesn't infringe on the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms. It ensures that Americans are well trained in gun use and safety (at least those Americans who care to exercise their right to own guns). And it restores the Militia that our Founders warned us is necessary to the security of a free state. What's not to like?

Marriage - Who Needs It?

Dallasblog.com | Caroline Walker:

“There are two pretty simple things we could tell young women right now that would practically guarantee their upward mobility: 1) Finish school, and 2) delay childbearing until you have a spouse with whom to set up house.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

I don't know what planet the conservative Caroline Walker lives on, but on planet Earth liberals have been advocating that advice for as long as I can remember. Maybe she is upset because liberals also concern themselves with women who are struggling because maybe they didn't finish school or ended up as single mothers, for whatever reason.

Caroline Walker criticizes a forum on "The Feminization of Poverty" because it seriously discussed the increasing rate of poverty experienced by single women. For the likes of Caroline Walker, the solution is simple — find a man to save you. She calls this "strengthening marriage". She has no use for those who concern themselves with women victimized by abusive husbands or women raising a family abandoned by their father. She has no use for those whose focus is on engineering equality for women. She dismisses the goal of a society that grants equality to women as being nothing more than "a plumbers' union comprised equally of men and women." For her, marriage is one-sided in favor of the man. In her world, equality for women is a threat to family. She should not be surprised why this notion never comes up at an event dedicated to the empowerment of women. It's because many people no longer believe that a man is the solution to every problem a woman might have or that marriage has to be an unequal partnership. At least people on this planet no longer believe that.

Baptist Standard follows up on Kimball controversy

DallasNews Religion | Sam Hodges:

“Charles Kimball is the Wake Forest professor and author who spoke at a Texas Baptist conference in February. His comment that Christianity and Islam talk about the same God has gradually become controversial within state Baptist circles.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

In the beginning, Abraham and his family worshipped God, and it was good. After begatting upon begatting, Abraham's descendents moved apart and grew apart in their understanding and memory of God. Eventually, these micro changes reached a point where the descendents of Abraham could no longer have theological intercourse with fertile result. Cumulative micro changes had resulted in divine speciation. Yahweh, Jesus, Allah were the common names given to the new species of supreme beings worshipped by the children of God. God saw this and was not pleased. But scientists nodded their heads knowingly.*

* This lesson of evolution was unwittingly made possible by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Unlike the religious, they can't threaten one other with eternal damnation

DallasNews Religion | Bruce Tomaso:

“Christopher Orlet, writing in the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, observes that there's now a sectarian split among... atheists. There are 'soft atheists,' he explains, those who want to quietly, inoffensively not believe; and 'fundamentalist atheists,' those who are 'passionately antireligious' and want to let everyone know it.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Atheism will never be organized, let alone unified. Atheism is defined not by what a person believes, but by what he does not believe. It makes no more sense to organize a church of atheism than it would to organize a church of non-believers of unicorns or leprechauns or the tooth fairy or the flying spaghetti monster. There would be an infinite number of such churches for the non-believers to join. Why set up a special one for non-believers in omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent supreme beings who care deeply and personally about my sex life?

Honeymoon over for laptop learning?

Dallasblog.com | Caroline Walker:

“A story by Winnie Hu in Friday’s New York Times should serve as a cautionary tale for true believers in the miracle of high-tech classrooms. The Liverpool Central School District, just outside of Syracuse, New York, is scrapping its cutting-edge laptop program. ... What school districts like Liverpool’s are discovering is that one-to-one laptop learning doesn’t come anywhere near to measuring up to the hype that preceded it.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Those who thought laptops were going to unleash an education miracle were duped. And those who think that you can turn back the clock on high tech in the classrooms are equally wrong. Computers are a tool, just like calculators were a tool, and slide rules before that. Students who are taught how to use tools wisely will surpass those who are kept from learning how to use tools at all. The sooner the so-called experts in the media realize that, the sooner we can put such sophomoric, all-or-nothing debates behind us and children in the classrooms can benefit from the best that high tech can offer.

By the way, if you think you might have missed the Dallas Blog coverage of the related story of the study that shows that abstinence-only sex education also "doesn't come anywhere near to measuring up to the hype that preceded it", you didn't miss anything. Dallas Blog picks and chooses the stories it covers to fit its preconceived notion of what the world should be, not the world as it is.

Senate backs tax swap

Dallas Morning News | Terrence Stutz:

“Texas cities and counties would each be able to increase their sales tax rates one-fourth cent to reduce property taxes under legislation passed by the Senate on Friday – the first bill of the 2007 session that aims to offer relief from soaring property taxes.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Everyone seems happy that property tax relief is in sight. No one seems to be paying enough attention to sales tax burden that is about to hit. This bill doesn't lower overall taxes one bit. It only shifts the tax burden from property taxes to sales taxes. Any such shift has winners and losers. The winners are the property rich. The losers are the property poor. Sales taxes tend to be regressive; the poor are hit harder than the rich. Property taxes tend to be progressive; the rich are hit harder than the poor. Property taxes are very visible. Each year, you receive a (big) tax bill that hurts to pay. Sales taxes nibble away at you, a little at a time, each hit too small to notice, but the cumulative effect can more than offset any property tax relief that the poor and middle-class will receive from a tax shift.

In short, be careful of the tax relief you ask for, you just might get it.

Overnight ratings for the Republicans

The Republican candidates for President "debated" Thursday evening at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. In fact, it was more like a game show lightning round than a debate. Just about everything about the format was wrong. There were too many contestants (sorry, I just didn't see them as candidates). They were given too little time to answer (30 seconds). The questions were unimaginative and unchallenging. And unfairly distributed (throw softballs to some; keep throwing high and inside to McCain about Iraq). And some were just plain weird (asking the Mormon a question about Catholicism, for example).

Here, for those who missed the debate, is my condensed version. Not much of substance has been left out. Trust me.

• America's Mayor Giuliani, tell us how much you are like Ronald Reagan. ("Lots")
• Senator McCain, the public just hates Iraq. Why do you insist on dragging out the war? ("Grumble, grumble, gates of hell, grumble")
• Governor Romney, would you care to tell us how much you, too, are just like Reagan? ("Lots")
• President Bush, uh, I mean Senator McCain, back to you. How soon will you expand the war to Iran? ("Soon")
• Mayor Giuliani, same question. ("Reagan made the Iranians piss their pants in two seconds. Can I say again how much I'm like Reagan? Lots")
• Governor Romney, what kind of guy is Osama bin Laden. ("Bad")
• Mayor Giuliani, what kind of people are Christian conservatives? ("Good")
• Governor Romney, tell us about America's mountains and streams and how great the American people are. ("Great")
• Congressman Ron Paul, is the IRS bad? ("Yes")
• All of you, what do you think about abortion? ("Bad", "Bad", "Bad", "Bad, but it's a state matter", "Bad")
• Governor Romney, did you flip-flop? ("No, I changed my mind")
• Governor Thompson, Governor Huckabee, Congressman Tancredo, Congressman Hunter, Governor Gilmore, Senator Brownback, and any other potted plants I might have missed, I'm sorry but we don't have time for you. We will be giving you the home edition of MSNBC Presidential Debates for you to take with you tonight. Thanks for playing. We'll be back in a minute to talk to tonight's winner, former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee.

Listening to God is an American Tradition

Dallas Blog | Jeff Turner:

“Revolutionary War hero Rev. Ethan Allen recorded an instructive incident he had with President [Thomas] Jefferson. The President was walking one Sunday morning carrying a large red prayer book. Rev. Allen greeted him and inquired which way he was walking. The President answered, 'To church, sir.' Rev. Allen was surprised, 'You going to church, Mr. Jefferson. You do not believe a word of it.' The President offered this bit of wisdom: 'Sir, no nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man and I, as chief Magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example. Good morning, Sir.'”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Instructive incident, indeed. There is much we can learn from this apocryphal story. The story appeared in Historical Sketch of Washington Parish, Washington City, 1794-1857, by Reverend Ethan Allen (1796-1897).

First, is the story true? According to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Jefferson's home, Monticello:

"This is a sticky one, since Jefferson was supposedly overheard saying this, rather than having written it. ... Reverend Allen would have been a child at the time this statement was supposedly uttered, and the anecdote actually came to the Reverend through the filter of several other people. We remain skeptical of its authenticity."

Chris Rodda, at Talk to Action, explains further:

"What we have is the account of two men who heard a story about an encounter between Jefferson and a stranger that occurred when they were children, recalling this story over fifty years later - hardly a primary source. Nevertheless, the words allegedly uttered by Jefferson have become a popular Jefferson quote, misrepresented in various ways on religious right websites, in their books, and even in amicus briefs filed in several court cases - most recently the McCreary County, Kentucky ten commandments case, heard by the Supreme Court in 2005, in which the quote was claimed to be found not in Rev. Allen's third-hand account of an unsubstantiated story, but in a letter from Jefferson to Allen."

That last part about misrepresenting where the story comes from is fitting. Because Jeff Turner, in his own Dallas Blog posting, claims the story was told by "Revolutionary War hero Rev. Ethan Allen." The Rev. Ethan Allen who wrote down this third-hand story wasn't even born until more than a decade after the Revolutionary War ended and didn't record the story until more than a half century after that. Obviously, Mr Turner is confusing one Ethan Allen with another. And it wasn't even the latter Ethan Allen who had that "instructive incident" with President Jefferson. It was an unidentified stranger who supposedly recounted it to two boys who, fifty years later, recounted it to the Rev. Allen. This incident is instructive alright. It teaches us how little to trust right wing religious advocates in search of a good quote.

Last, but not least, it takes audacity to choose Thomas Jefferson, spurious quotations or not, in support of the 56th annual national Day of Prayer. It's no coincidence that such an observance wasn't established until over a century after Jefferson himself was no longer alive to comment. Can you imagine a President Jefferson speaking instead of President Bush, perhaps repeating this famous Jefferson opinion about Christianity?

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter."

Banned books

DallasNews Religion | Bruce Tomaso:

“Here's a story by Ron Grossman of the Chicago Tribune, about a Loyola University exhibit of books that were once on the Catholic Church's 'Index Librorum Prohibitorum,' or list of banned works. The list was created in 1557 by Pope Paul IV. 'Virtually all the giants of early modern science wound up on the Index, as is represented in the Loyola exhibit,' Grossman writes. 'The show includes several volumes of the works of Copernicus, the Polish astronomer who held that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The church taught that the reverse was true, a theory seemingly backed by the biblical account.' ”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Last week at a Vatican conference, Cardinal Renato Martino said global warming was natural and good for us. The Index may be gone, but anti-science attitudes still thrive among the ultra-religious. Old habits die hard, I guess.