(no subject)
Feb. 10th, 2008 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSome of you might be aware that this is an election year, that quadrennial circus of United States politics. It's still a horse race out there, early enough in the season that the batshit insane candidates (Hillary, I am looking at you) still think themselves in the running.
I do not feel, and it pains the fuck out of me to admit this, I do not feel that an atheist can be elected president in this country. Not because it's illegal but because too damn many people in this country will not vote for an atheist. Although we allegedly have a nation of religious freedom, we do not, in practice, have a nation of "It is OK for our leaders to not-believe-in-that-shit". Not for our leaders, not in this, our One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for All. (The "under God" part was added in 1954 and has NOT always been there. My dad remembers when it got added. We have not always been at war with Eurasia, folks.) Right here, right now, any candidate with a hope in hell of being elected has got to have a mainstream religion, which, in this nation, means some flavor of Christianity.
This really pisses me off. A lot.
Political realities are not fun, though.
I'm kind of torn on the religion issue. I mean, I understand that there are probably candidates who profess to believe without actually believing in order to get elected. It's a political reality that they can't freaking get elected if they don't believe. Admitting nonbelief is tantamount to political suicide and anybody stupid enough to do so is not aware enough of political realities to be president anyway. So, y'know, every fucking candidate believes in God whether they do or not.
I expect that there are candidates who actually believe what they profess to believe. I'm torn on that, too. Actual belief means that they are not hypocritical liars scrambling for every advantage in the voting booth. At least, they're not hypocritical liars scrambling for votes on the religion issue. Maybe they're hypocritical liars on the environment front or on the alms-for-the-poor front or something, but true believers are at least not lying about religion. Maybe. (How can you tell when a politician is lying? Its mouth is open.)
*sigh*
I don't want a politically naive president. We need someone who is aware of political realities, someone who is going to be able to swim in the river of shit and still convince us that he or she can emerge pristine from those very, very muddied waters, a Venus on the halfshell (turtle power!) rising from augean muck at the end of the day. That's a bit of sleight of hand worthy of a stage show, innit? But that's what we want from our president. (Our current president is drowning in the river of shit. I'm surprised it didn't kill him near-immediately like the pig shit lagoons of factory farms kill the folks who fall into them.)
At the end, does it matter if the candidate believes what he or she professes on the religion front? Probably not. All viable candidates must profess belief. This is the political reality of the world in which I live.
The important thing, I guess, is the place that the candidate says religion should have in his or her governance of the nation. We've not done much with that. It's handled poorly -- candidates dance around the issue when they're among a hostile audience and they trumpet it from the pulpit when they're among friends. Thing is, that's wrong. You can't be rah-rah religion when talking to your evangelical base and then pretend that it doesn't influence you when you're talking to your liberal base.
Obama addresses the role of religion in one's political life (as for the reach and stretch of one's faith AND for the places that religion cannot go) in a well-presented, cogent speech that addresses the things that I want to see addressed on this issue. "On reconciling faith with our modern, pluralistic society..." Yes. This, we need to be talking about. We need to spend some damn time finding the place between "I will live my life as correctly as I can, according to my religion or belief system" and "I accept that the American ideal of preserving the greatest freedom for the most people means that other people MUST be allowed to live in ways that offend me."
This is the great compromise of our time. It's not that thing about senators and representatives anymore. (That's so 1787...) It's the fact that being an American means that each one of us must intellectually bridge the gap between faith and public life, one citizen at a time. Everyone must find the solid footing that exists when a person stands with a broad base, one foot on the foundation of his or her own beliefs and the other foot firmly planted on the American bedrock of religious freedom. Because that, yo, that is being an American in these, our modern times. Nobody ever said it was gonna be easy, but people who can find that place to stand, ain't nobody gonna knock 'em down.
Also, if you want easy, go live in a fucking theocracy. In a theocracy, the government (who speaks with the Voice of God and therefore sounds exactly like Alan Rickman) tells you what to believe. The government tells everybody else what to believe. Then, the government kills the people who don't believe the right way.
I do not feel, and it pains the fuck out of me to admit this, I do not feel that an atheist can be elected president in this country. Not because it's illegal but because too damn many people in this country will not vote for an atheist. Although we allegedly have a nation of religious freedom, we do not, in practice, have a nation of "It is OK for our leaders to not-believe-in-that-shit". Not for our leaders, not in this, our One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for All. (The "under God" part was added in 1954 and has NOT always been there. My dad remembers when it got added. We have not always been at war with Eurasia, folks.) Right here, right now, any candidate with a hope in hell of being elected has got to have a mainstream religion, which, in this nation, means some flavor of Christianity.
This really pisses me off. A lot.
Political realities are not fun, though.
I'm kind of torn on the religion issue. I mean, I understand that there are probably candidates who profess to believe without actually believing in order to get elected. It's a political reality that they can't freaking get elected if they don't believe. Admitting nonbelief is tantamount to political suicide and anybody stupid enough to do so is not aware enough of political realities to be president anyway. So, y'know, every fucking candidate believes in God whether they do or not.
I expect that there are candidates who actually believe what they profess to believe. I'm torn on that, too. Actual belief means that they are not hypocritical liars scrambling for every advantage in the voting booth. At least, they're not hypocritical liars scrambling for votes on the religion issue. Maybe they're hypocritical liars on the environment front or on the alms-for-the-poor front or something, but true believers are at least not lying about religion. Maybe. (How can you tell when a politician is lying? Its mouth is open.)
*sigh*
I don't want a politically naive president. We need someone who is aware of political realities, someone who is going to be able to swim in the river of shit and still convince us that he or she can emerge pristine from those very, very muddied waters, a Venus on the halfshell (turtle power!) rising from augean muck at the end of the day. That's a bit of sleight of hand worthy of a stage show, innit? But that's what we want from our president. (Our current president is drowning in the river of shit. I'm surprised it didn't kill him near-immediately like the pig shit lagoons of factory farms kill the folks who fall into them.)
At the end, does it matter if the candidate believes what he or she professes on the religion front? Probably not. All viable candidates must profess belief. This is the political reality of the world in which I live.
The important thing, I guess, is the place that the candidate says religion should have in his or her governance of the nation. We've not done much with that. It's handled poorly -- candidates dance around the issue when they're among a hostile audience and they trumpet it from the pulpit when they're among friends. Thing is, that's wrong. You can't be rah-rah religion when talking to your evangelical base and then pretend that it doesn't influence you when you're talking to your liberal base.
Obama addresses the role of religion in one's political life (as for the reach and stretch of one's faith AND for the places that religion cannot go) in a well-presented, cogent speech that addresses the things that I want to see addressed on this issue. "On reconciling faith with our modern, pluralistic society..." Yes. This, we need to be talking about. We need to spend some damn time finding the place between "I will live my life as correctly as I can, according to my religion or belief system" and "I accept that the American ideal of preserving the greatest freedom for the most people means that other people MUST be allowed to live in ways that offend me."
This is the great compromise of our time. It's not that thing about senators and representatives anymore. (That's so 1787...) It's the fact that being an American means that each one of us must intellectually bridge the gap between faith and public life, one citizen at a time. Everyone must find the solid footing that exists when a person stands with a broad base, one foot on the foundation of his or her own beliefs and the other foot firmly planted on the American bedrock of religious freedom. Because that, yo, that is being an American in these, our modern times. Nobody ever said it was gonna be easy, but people who can find that place to stand, ain't nobody gonna knock 'em down.
Also, if you want easy, go live in a fucking theocracy. In a theocracy, the government (who speaks with the Voice of God and therefore sounds exactly like Alan Rickman) tells you what to believe. The government tells everybody else what to believe. Then, the government kills the people who don't believe the right way.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-10 11:27 pm (UTC)So that wont' work either.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 01:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 12:26 pm (UTC)I don't know, I don't listen to the candidates directly. I generally judge them by their proxies, supporters, and shadows in the media. As such, Barrack "Worship an Awesome God" Obama occasionally scares the crap out of me. Leftist theocrats are more worrisome to me because they generally are spared the negative attention of the civil libertarians because of their *good intentions*. Clinton is, probably, just as bad - but she's a known quantity, and we can expect a religiously sincere cross-gendered Nixon if she gets back in office. I'm not really sure what would come of President Obama. A millennial William Jennings Bryan? Or worse, Wilson come again?
I'll probably vote for Clinton in the primaries, because I'm never fond of political surprises.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 02:24 pm (UTC)Meh.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 08:08 pm (UTC)There's always McCain
Date: 2008-02-11 11:21 pm (UTC)My summary argument against McCain is that I don't particularly care to imagine him in possession of the nuclear football.
As is usually the case in the US Presidential race, it's going to be an evil of two lessers.
Re: There's always McCain
Date: 2008-02-11 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-12 12:11 am (UTC)But there are those of us out there who have thoroughly enjoyed the scenery on the Go-Bama bandwagon, pitched our tent in his greener pastures and wave in the wind of change we can believe in...