Click here for all of Jonathan Kay’s posts from the Tea Party convention in Nashville.
I’ve spent the day listening to speeches here at the Tea Party National Convention, and talking to some of the other delegates. For the most part, no big surprises: The folks are sociable, middle-aged, white (I think I counted two black adults in the whole room — though, interestingly, both of them ended up on the podium, giving speeches) and mad as hell that Barack Obama is conspiring with the United Nations to turn America into a socialist province of a One World State.
I think the one thing that really did surprise me was the high level of explicitly Christian social conservatism on display here. One of the “breakout sessions” featured a speech from Pastor Rick Scarborough — who is most famous for trying to get America’s preachers more politicized. (“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I’m a Christocrat.”) After his speech, a middle-aged female delegate with a twang stood up and said, during the Q&A, “All the media types are asking us why we’re here. Here’s what I say. We’re all here for a little R&R — revival and revolt. If you’re not a Christian, and a person of faith, you just can’t understand what we’re doing!!” She got a standing ovation.
At the time, I thought this might be just because this particular session was self-selected by Christian attendees. But an hour later, the lunch speaker was Roy Moore: the “10 Commandments Judge” who was fired from his position as Alabama Chief Justice when he refused to remove a 5,000-pound 10-commandments sculpture from his court building. (He’s now running for Alabama Governor — his volunteers are a big presence here.) Anyway, he gave a fire-and-brimstone speech that peeled the paint off the walls. He sounded, at times, entirely indistinguishable from an Evangelist at Sunday service, listing off the many reasons America is going to hell (militant gay activists, naturally, figured prominently). And the guy brought the house down.
During his whole speech, I kept thinking to myself: And to think that this guy used to be mandated by the state of Alabama to pass judgment on non-Christians, gays, and all the other heathen. Tea Party types tend to be strongly pro-Israel. But that aside, it’s not a particularly familiar place for a nice Jewish boy from Canada.
50 responses so far
1 teabag // Feb 5, 2010 at 7:31 pm
“The assembly of Tea Baggers kicked off with a surprising omission in their Patriopathic™ zeal to commence the festivities. They neglected to praise the Lord with an opening prayer. They also decided to forego the Pledge of Allegiance. In one fell swoop they dissed both God and country. And that’s not all. There were no American flags flying in the convention hall.”
They blamed the hotel for the lack of flags. Way to go
2 msmilack // Feb 5, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Why do you suppose they are pro-Israel? B/w, I have wondered about the Israel connection to the James O’Keefe affair also i.e. when I read that part of Stanley Dai’s training included two weeks in Israel (whenDai was supposedly studying to become part of the Intelligence community). But I still don’t get it: why would these Christian militants support Israel? My gut reaction and worst case scenario would be that it’s because of the racism in certain elements of Israeli society (against Arabs) but maybe I”m missing something. And I do not mean by that comment to in any way generalize about Israeli society; the majority of people living there do not agree with the government and oppose the way the Palestinians are treated though that is rarely covered in the press; nonetheless, like this country, Israel has a political fringe (the settlers) that they cannot control. Forgive me if I’m way off in making these connections but I can’t come up with any other commonality.
3 Shawn Summers // Feb 5, 2010 at 7:53 pm
msmilack -
The traditional reason why American Christianists are so vocal in their support for Israel is because, according to their interpretation of scripture, the state of Israel needs to physically and politically exist in the Holy Land in order for prophecy to be fulfilled and Christ to return.
There are other reasons, of course – there’s definitely an “enemy of my enemy” situation regarding Israel’s constant fight against Islamic terrorism, and Israel is, after all, the only thing even resembling a modern Western-style democracy in the whole region. But, at least for the theocrat types, the necessity of prophetic fulfillment and hastening of the End Times is the big one.
4 GOProud // Feb 5, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Yep, isn’t it great that the Founding Fathers original impulse to create a society where freedom of religion can flourish without gov’tal interference or secular statists telling the citizens what to think, pray or believe? And to think that liberals and the farLeft that Obama, the Democrats and the ACLU represent would STILL try to subvert that impulse into “freedom from religion” is a testament to the Founding Fathers’ foresight and to the failure of the farLeft to marginalize God, marginalize moral conduct and marginalize America’s true Judeo-Christian heritage.
Good for the Tea Party followers who may not believe but have the civic decency to let others pray in public. The liberals and farLeft nutroots here could learn a great lesson from this –but they won’t. For most of them, “No 2 God” is a religion worthy of equal dedication.
Jonathan Kupitsky offers: “But that aside, it’s (the Tea Party meeting) not a particularly familiar place for a nice Jewish boy from Canada.” Care to look past your differences and maybe find reasons to be a little more charitable to others?
For me, Mr Kupitsky, I never feel very comfortable in the synagogue or in the midst of secular, anti-religion Jews, but I will still honor their American right to pray in groups and I would argue that prayer is one of the most important things that saved the Jewish culture from the ravages of secular anti-religionists in WWII… that, and a big helping of ass-whoop from the US Army & Navy.
And, frankly, I still wonder why Canada even exists.
So you aren’t alone in your quixotic muse.
5 msmilack // Feb 5, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Shawn Summers,
Thank you very much for answering my question; somehow I can’t help but think there is nothing in it for the actual Israelis, but I suppose that is neither nor there for true believers. Again, I thank you for your excellent explanation,
Marcia Smilack
6 anniemargret // Feb 5, 2010 at 9:19 pm
oh yes. The tea party that tolerates homophobia and racism is the party of ‘morals.’ But they are ‘moral’ because they pray. What was that that Christ said about praying where you cannot be seen?
They pray to ‘christianize’ the government of the USA. No doubt about it. They will tell you how to live your life, in a heartbeat. They pray for Israel because it gets them something. They can then prove biblical prophecy to pave the way for the Rapture. Armageddon.
Scary.
7 rbottoms // Feb 5, 2010 at 9:27 pm
God bless the Republican party and its Wingnut base.
8 Carney // Feb 5, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Oh no! Not a twang! Not conservative Christians! Not white people!
9 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 2:43 am
To confound, annoy, and confuse you. We Canadians are actually perpetrating an immense practical joke on the planet, but particularly the USA.
What, you think we actually eat poutine? Staging those Québec referenda was a lot of fun, too.
10 chicago_guy // Feb 6, 2010 at 10:51 am
“Good for the Tea Party followers who may not believe but have the civic decency to let others pray in public”
Hmmm….What would Jesus say about that? Oh yeah – THIS is what he’d say:
“Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you”
BTW, there are no laws against praying in public. Did you know this and choose to ignore the fact, or do you really not know it?
The Tea Partiers are nothing but this period’s version of the Moral Majority from the 80s and 90s. Republicans are doomed to failure if they think that this group of old, rural, white folks is the future of American politics, since in 20 years, half these Tea Partiers will be dead, and those Americans who’ll be replacing them don’t have a lot in common with the TP’s simplistic, cultural values.
The battle ground for conservative thought is in states like Illinois, California and New York, where conservative politicians need to be able to enunciate a small government philosophy that still recognizes the complexities and realities that go in to shaping public policy, and taking a “mind-your-own-business” approach to social questions. Embracing that type of realistic approach would mean distancing themselves from the Tea Party crowd, calling them out for having unrealistic beliefs re: the ways of the world. I might not agree with Obama on some things, but I never think he believes that there are simple answers to every problem; for that, I respect him, even when I disagree with him.
The Tea Partiers, and their ilk (Palin, Tancredo, etc) , I don’t respect, for exactly the same reasons.
11 sinz54 // Feb 6, 2010 at 11:50 am
msmilack:
These Christians believe that in the End Times, all Jews will be given another chance to accept Jesus.
And I take issue with your suggestion that anti-Arab racism has anything to do with it. Rather, it’s the natural attitude of Christians that Islam is a false religion.
12 balconesfault // Feb 6, 2010 at 12:01 pm
ChicagoProud: BTW, there are no laws against praying in public. Did you know this and choose to ignore the fact, or do you really not know it?
Welcome aboard, Chicago. You’ll come to realize that facts don’t really mean much … you can tell him that there are no laws against praying in public, and the same canard will be thrown up out of context in the future.
Personally, I’m looking forward to a field goal kicker in tomorrow nights game signaling for a 4th time out so he can pray before a critical last second game-deciding FG attempt, and then screaming that the liberals are abusing the Constitution when he gets a penalty called on him.
13 balconesfault // Feb 6, 2010 at 12:03 pm
And I take issue with your suggestion that anti-Arab racism has anything to do with it. Rather, it’s the natural attitude of Christians that Islam is a false religion.
So it’s not racism. It’s religious bigotry?
Thanks for the clarification!
14 mpolito // Feb 6, 2010 at 12:40 pm
With all due respect, I can see why a Canada has trouble appreciating this. America, thankfully, has resisted the secularism that currently eats away at Europe and Canada. It is one of the things that keeps America great, and it is something I hope continues for a long time.
The narrative about the “tea party people” keeps changing to suit changing way people want to portray them. We hear about how they are actually libertarians who are not socially conservative; then, we hear about how they are crazy theocrats. I do not think it should be news that there are lots of Christians who -gasp!- want to be involved in politics. Most, although not all, are of the right, not the left. Well, we cannot have that, can we?
A quick note to chicagoguy- why do you accept the narrative that liberals are so nuanced and thoughtful while conservatives think in black-and-white? To quote Jonah Goldberg, “the truth is almost exactly the opposite.” Obama thinks “government” is basically the answer to most human problems, and if they are not yet solved, we keep adding more government. Conservatives have all sorts of debates about balancing liberty with other values, like equality, virtue, security, etc. So while I am not a Palin person, I am not going to say that Obama is somehow thoughtful in a way that she and others are not. He can give a good speech (or at least he used to be able to). That is his merit as a politician. His supposed brilliance, meanwhile, is greatly exagerated.
15 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Obama does not think that government is the answer to most human problems, or he would have been full-throatedly in favour of full bank nationalization, and—post-bailout—it would have been popular. The American right simply edits reality to match their preconceptions.
The Tea Parties express a valid angst at the impoverishment of the American working and middle class, but it is an anger apparently very easy to channel at cultural enemies that often have had very little to do with that impoverishment and lack of control, in reality.
16 Sean Linnane // Feb 6, 2010 at 1:54 pm
This is the United States of America; one country, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All. You are welcome to come here, do whatever it is that you do – but keep in mind that you are guest in our house. If you don’t like it down here, don’t be sounding off; pack your sh*t and move back up above the 49th parallel.
17 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 2:01 pm
That’s from the Pledge of Allegiance which was invented in 1892 and has no relationship to the wishes of the Founding Fathers, especially the “Under God” part. The rest is macho nonsense at which most of the American Founding Fathers (esp. Franklin, Jefferson, etc) would have sneered.
18 Shawn Summers // Feb 6, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Mpolito,
I’m curious what you mean regarding secularism “eating away” at Canada and Europe. Do you mean that Europeans have suffered, in any measurable way, because of their secularism? Even in the US, the Bible Belt, by far, has the worst education, the most poverty, the highest rates of divorce, etc., etc., of any place outside an inner city or a reservation. Obviously, correlation doesn’t imply causation, but it seems like their faith hasn’t done them much worldly good, has it? If, on the other hand, you mean to imply that being conservative requires the same kind of faith in unprovable propositions that believing in God does, then I’d say that’s no way to run a country – or a political movement.
You’re right about the narrative changing, but I think that’s because there’s an element of truth in both portrayals. The Tea Parties are a very large, very nebulous, leaderless movement, and they’re not all one thing or another. Some are, certainly, respectable libertarians who are rightly concerned about the size and scope and out-of-control spending of the federal government. Some, however, are “crazy theocrats”, and if the TPC has proved anything it’s that the theocrats are being given a platform and a seat at the table, just as they have been in the GOP. Or, to paraphrase an old saw about politicians, 90% of Tea Partiers make the rest look bad.
19 Sean Linnane // Feb 6, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Benjamin Franklin was a Freemason. George Washington was a Freemason. Alexander Hamilton was a Freemason. Thomas Jefferson was not, but he approved of the fraternity. As Freemasons, the Founding Fathers would never embark upon any enterprise without first seeking guidance from Deity.
References to Deity in the Declaration of Independence:
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness . . .”
“. . . And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”
Reference to Deity in the US Constitution:
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth
Reference to Deity in the Gettysburg Address:
“. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
These are the sacred documents of our Nation.
“In God We Trust” is codified as federal law in the United States Code at 36 U.S.C. § 302, which provides: ‘”In God we trust” is the national motto’.
As far as macho nonsense goes; bear in mind that after the Revolution, the Founding Fathers kicked a LOT of British Tory sympathizers OUT of America. They sent them to Canada, actually. A more recent example would be in 1952, when Charlie Chaplin was uninvited to stay, for expressing Communist sympathies.
When you are a guest in somebody elses’ country, you should not sound off about their politics. The ironic thing about Chaplin is that if he’d shot his mouth off in the Soviet Union, they’d have sent him to the Gulag.
20 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Yes, they were Deists, which was the closest position to atheism extant in a pre- or barely scientific world. There was no intent to create a religion-based loyalty oath certainly not the one penned in 1892 which didn’t even have the phrase “under God” until the mid-20th century—it was edited in later.
Nor was there an intent for you to worship their words. This is basically a contemporary political conceit.
21 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Blockquote fail. *facepalm*
22 Sean Linnane // Feb 6, 2010 at 3:28 pm
MANDOS: If you have followed my posts where they have appeared in this blog, and explored my blog STORMBRINGER ( http://seanlinnane.blogspot.com/ ), you would know that I immigrated to this country from abroad and that I earned my citizenship the Roman way – via military service. Although this is not a requirement, it is certainly a shortcut. America is full of citizens like me; my neighbor John T. did a hitch in the French Foreign Legion before coming over and doing 20+ years in the United States Marine Corps. John T. is the author of that line “If you don’t like it here, pack your sh*t and ship out.”
Shawn Summers: The poverty of the South is not due to the location of the Bible Belt -if anything, the relationship is vice versa. The South was traditionally the poorest region of the United States due to a historical event we refer to as The War of Northern Aggression.
Interestingly, the 25 year wave of prosperity that Ronald Reagan ushered in manifested itself more in the South than any other region. Charlotte, North Carolina not only became the banking capitol of North America, but also the headquarters of NASCAR – the fastest growing sport in the USA. For a long while, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle was the fastest growing region in the country. None of the car manufacturers located throughout the South – Toyota, Mercedes, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan – have required a penny of government bailout money.
My work takes me above the Mason-Dixon Line, and I guarantee that a private citizen like myself enjoys more prosperity and freedom in the South than any other region in North America, to include Canada. I own a business in the South, that I would not be able to operate if I lived in the North, due to prohibitive government intrusion.
It is not unusual for a business in the South to have the Ten Commandments, or similar Scripture, displayed at the reception area. This does not mean we are inbred rednecks “clinging to our guns and religion.” It simply shows that we have not forgotten the example set for this country by our most famous Southern leader, George Washington.
23 Sean Linnane // Feb 6, 2010 at 3:46 pm
MANDOS:
OK we’ll give you Canadians a pass – you can sound off about our politics because the truth of the situation is we would have annexed you years ago, except for the fact that we don’t want to have to absorb the costs of your government healthcare system.
FYI there is no American “Empire”, and the only American who is allowed to shoot his mouth off politically overseas is the current occupier of the Whitehouse when he’s badmouthing his own country, and bowing and scraping to a bunch of despots and potentates.
I’ve studied history but I don’t recall an event where the British were kicked out of South Asia. I do recall an attempt was made which resulted in Sepoys being strapped to the mouths of cannon. Independence was granted to the Indian subcontinent by the British when they dismantled their Empire; they weren’t kicked out. You’re thinking of the French, obviously.
24 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 3:48 pm
STORMBRINGER??? Are you kidding me? Do you mean that ironically, at least? With a Nietzsche quote, probably not. *sigh* Do you paint Warhammer figurines too? Well, some of my best friends paint Warhammer figurines, but still.
Anyway, it does not exactly surprise me that the world is full of militarists, just as it should not surprise you that the world is also full of dissenters. Even the USA and Canada (where my opinions are not much more mainstream).
25 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Americans shoot their mouths off all the time when they visit other countries, and against the locals too.
There is, in fact, an American Empire. When you are able to project power into wars in multiple countries at once, you are an Empire. When the world is full of local satrap governors granted only nominal sovereignty (that includes Canada, as you correctly point out), you are an Empire. All Empires behave in exactly this way. When you have a loyal immigrant writing speeches for the Pontifex Maximus and coining grand sweeping terms like “Axis of Evil”, you are an Empire.
You think it was just magically granted in some passive dismantlement and not crucially dependent on agitators? That liberation is only achieved at the point of a gun (which the British knew would eventually have been threatened)? I mean, seriously.
26 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 4:00 pm
The War of Northern Aggression? You mean, the war instigated by the anger of the South at the North’s refusal to acknowledge their property rights over black people? This your conservatism? Do you fly the stars and bars too?
27 Sean Linnane // Feb 6, 2010 at 4:27 pm
If this is an Empire, then it is the only Empire in the history of the entire world that has gone overseas and shed it’s own blood for the liberation of other people’s countries.
You may be correct about the struggle for Indian Independence being punctuated by the threat of violence; there were numerous incidents, especially during the course of World War II. However, I thought the unique feature of the struggle for Independence was Mahatma Gandhi’s theme of nonviolent passive resistance.
About the Founding Father’s spirituality, you could not be more wrong. There were atheists about in those days, just as there were unbelievers, pagans, and freethinkers. The Founding Fathers were NOT atheists – you do not have to be a Christian to be a Freemason, but you CANNOT be an atheist. America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. It is when we have strayed from those principles that we have failed; the tax code is a good place to begin your research.
As far as the conflict known as the Civil War, but more correctly referred to as the War Between the States, the issues were more complex than the slavery dilemma. I say dilemma because the Haitian Slave Revolution dominated America’s debate over slavery. While both the North and the South agreed that slavery should be ended, Southerners and a large percentage of Northerners universally opposed having a large population of freed slaves living in their midst . . . the estimated 24,000+ whites and 100,000+ Mulatto and other blacks that died in the Haitian “Revolution” was fresh in every one’s mind.
I fly the American flag, and I love it. I am an American first, a Conservative second, and Republican a distant third. I am not a revolutionary, I do not espouse violent overthrow of the United States. The only revolution I follow is the only true revolution in the history of the world; the American Revolution.
By the way, since you expressed an interest – “STORMBRINGER” is the name I stenciled on the front of that Humvee you see in the opening graphic on my blog. I got the Nietzche quote from a friend of mine, a Recon Marine; it is tattooed on his bicep. You are the only person who ever asked, by the way.
Please do not insult my intelligence, Mandos. I am capable of swearing in Urdu or Hindi. Also French, Spanish, Thai and Arabic, if required. As far as Warhammer figures go (whatever that is) the toys I play with include my firearm collection, my tractor, my chainsaw, my boat and my golf clubs. Little dinky action figures are for kids.
28 Sean Linnane // Feb 6, 2010 at 4:36 pm
By the way, we are not ‘militarists’ – you are confusing us with some kind of military cult, like the Prussians or the Samurai. We are not that. We are citizen-soldiers, a tradition that dates back to the Roman Republic.
Whenever you practice Freedom of Speech, you can thank the soldiers who fought and died for your right to be a dissenter. Just remember, without their sacrifice, there would be NO freedom.
29 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Every empire talked like that including Alexander claiming to liberate Egypt from Persia. Other people talked about saving souls, rescuing the poor heathens, the “white man’s burden”, etc, etc, etc. All variations of the same song. The USA is hardly unique.
It was one of many historical factors, of course, and the most famous. I thought you were suggesting that these activities didn’t constitute “kicking out”. I had lots of relatives who were civil agitators against the British of one kind or another.
Re atheism vs. Deism. From the perspective of the time—and even for religious people now—it was a distinction without a difference. Rejection of a personal god and rejection of any god becomes merely an argument over cosmology, because in either case morality is a matter of reason. WIthout a personal god, there’s no reason to tie the acceptance of a god to loyalty to the state.
But the point is that the Pledge of Allegiance text is a 20th-century object from a 20th-century spirit.
We will have to disagree as to the motives behind the secession attempts of the South. I enter in evidence the SC Declaration of Independence, which says, emphases mine:
And so on and so forth. There was no “dilemma,” there was a full-throated intransigence against abolitionism.
This is what you would like to think, but then you would not stencil a religious metaphor on a piece of military hardware and name your blog after it. The Roman empire, anyway, is overrated as an example. The citizen-soldiery disappeared and was eventually replaced with a professional Imperial army.
These same soldiers defend a government that props up—with indirect and direct military aid—the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, neither of which allow for much dissent. It’s a distinction of convenience. I don’t believe liberty has that much to do, usually, with how many professional soldiers are employed by the state.
30 JonF // Feb 6, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Re: America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles.
This is like saying America was founded on the grammar of the English language. It’s somewhat true that its founding documents were written in English, but the observation is really contentless: there’s nothing significant in that fact. Ditto for the fact that the Founding Fathers were (culturally if not fervently) Christian. Moreover there is no “Christian politics”. Unlike Islam or Confucianism, the Christian religion is theologically apolitical: it fits in with pretty much any political system that is not openly hostile to it (and it can survive and triumph even in systems that are hostile).
Re: As far as the conflict known as the Civil War, but more correctly referred to as the War Between the States, the issues were more complex than the slavery dilemma.
Well, yes, but: Slavery was the sine qua non. Certainly there were thers points of contention but none of them would have led to secession or war, since they all admitted of compromise. Slavery (like abortion tiday) did not. Without slavery there wuld have been no Civil War, period.
Re: Every empire talked like that including Alexander claiming to liberate Egypt from Persia.
Right, but Alexander appointed his friends and generals to rule his territories. He didn’t stand aside and let the provinces set up their own governments and elect their own leaders. Also, he required taxes and tribute. If America is an empire, it’s a very dysfunctional one, since the cash flow has been from metropole to province, not the other way aound.
31 anniemargret // Feb 6, 2010 at 9:36 pm
sinz11: and the ‘natural attitude of Christians’ is that Jews are not ’saved.’ And if you are not ’saved’ you go to hell. And their interest in Israel is totally motivated by conversion and biblical prophecy, not politics.
But then again, they also don’t believe agnostics or atheists or anyone else not of their particular brand of faith are ’saved’ either. Even as Catholic, I was told I wasn’t Christian!
No, not all of them feel that way. But most.
32 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 10:45 pm
This depends. Conservative Catholics, for instance, are often pretty clear that there is an overall political template for society that has the earthly Church somewhere near the top. Other sects have varying degrees of theocratic demands.
The cash flow has only been from metropole to province in a very limited way. A lot of the cash flow is in the form of aid that is spent on American goods, and an even larger chunk of the cash has gone to American industry. The rest was intended to be an investment; the return in the most recent cases was measured by Frumian neoconservative historical theories which eventually turned out to be wrong. It’s clearly not the *intention* for the cash flow to be that way. Otherwise a Happy Invasion would have happened to Haïti long before this earthquake tragedy; God knows it needed it.
33 Sean Linnane // Feb 6, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Mandos:
You’ll have to explain to me how ‘STORMBRINGER’ is a religious metaphor? I got it from that Deep Purple song, which in turn is based on the science fiction series by Michael Moorcock, about an enchanted sword which drinks souls. Oh, never mind – I just got the religious connection. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
OK, now explain to me how on Earth the Roman Empire is overrated by ANYBODY’s yardstick? The Roman civilization is all around us – we’re using the Roman alphabet right now, in fact. I know the history of the Roman Empire; I’ve studied it for over three decades. Everybody knows how Imperial Rome declined; I was referring to the citizen-soldiers of the Republic, the ‘Golden Age’ of Rome.
I’m not going to get sucked into the slavery thing – my family never owned slaves, the Anglo-American culture is the only one that ever did anything to end the slave trade, and the bloodiest war in American history was all about liberating the slaves. That entire chapter of our history was deplorable, almost as bad as what we did to the American Indians.
Slavery is against the laws of nature and the Christian way. But having said that, I stand by my point that the Civil War was not about Slavery. It was about States Rights – specifically, the Right to Secede. Proof positive is what happened after the war when they captured Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. He was held while the government of the United States conferred on how to prosecute him. In the end the government’s legal team concluded that if they took Davis and his confederates to trial, they stood a good chance of prevailing in the courtroom, and if this happened then the whole war would have been fought and won for naught. Hence, Jefferson Davis and the Confederate leadership was never tried for treason.
“These same soldiers defend a government that props up—with indirect and direct military aid—the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, neither of which allow for much dissent. It’s a distinction of convenience. I don’t believe liberty has that much to do, usually, with how many professional soldiers are employed by the state.”
Huh? How many military bases do we have in Egypt or Arabia? FYI when I took my oath it was “to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. Our American government is the people, not the State. But our freedom DOES have a LOT to do with our military – the American eagle holds the olive branch of peace in one claw, thirteen arrows in the other. The symbolism here is that freedom isn’t free.
The Europeans have the same confusion you expressed: first we liberated them from the Nazis, then we defended their freedom for fifty years against the Reds. In the end, they used the freedom American soldiers guaranteed to march in the streets on behalf of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
It must really suck to be a dissenter; I cannot imagine the state of confusion you go about every day, hating the very system which allows the freedom to express your dissent. Tell you what – read the interview I posted about the young thirteen-year-old girl who escaped the Taliban:
http://seanlinnane.blogspot.com/2010/02/freedom-fighters-or-terrorists-you.html
Then explain to me how it is the Americans are the bad guys in the world.
Sorry – does not compute.
34 Mandos // Feb 6, 2010 at 11:59 pm
I never said that the Roman Empire was overrated as such. I said its use as an example is problematic—doesn’t prove what you think it proves. The trajectory of Rome was away from citizen armies to professional armies heavily supported by provincials; the civic role of military service eroded. Also, ritual military cults such as Mithraism arose.
Your position on the Civil War is completely contradicted by the testimony of the time. That a post hoc prosecution may or may not have failed on the question of secession was never an issue in the minds of people who instigated the Civil War. It’s like saying that the motive of a thief for stealing is that he might get away in a court case on a technicality. Could be; but the main motive is obviously the thing he’s stealing. The motive for secession was always slavery, and more importantly, it included the passive refusal of the North to abet Southern slavery.
The US does actually have a base in Egypt, and it did have bases in Saudi Arabia until a few years ago as I recall. However, that’s not what I was referring to. The US government supplies military aid to Egypt and Saudi Arabia to the tune of billions. So, you cannot claim that the USA is uniformly a supporter of liberty—it is only so when it suits it interest. American soldiers now largely serve to validate the bad theories of people like David Frum.
35 Mandos // Feb 7, 2010 at 12:00 am
US soldiers are human beings and some of them will do very nice things for people in the world, no doubt at all. However, in the aggregate, the US is not a cartoon “bad guy” as such—it is simply an amoral imperialist, and amoral empires have a body count and do not necessarily act in the interests of all humanity, and are sometimes themselves victims of bad theories as we’re seeing unfold.
36 Sean Linnane // Feb 7, 2010 at 12:15 am
WHAT BASE IN EGYPT???
You talking about that battalion perimeter down there at the bottom of the Sinai peninsula? I served there – that’s not a U.S. base, that’s the Multinational Force and Observers. All we did there was serve as a speed bump if the Egyptians or the Israelis ever decided to do a re-hash of ‘67 or ‘73.
That’s a real stretch to say that outfit, or the setup we had in Saudi, were there to prop up any kind of regime.
If the United States is an imperialist operation, then we’re the imperialists who people greet with open arms. They like us, they love us. They all want to smoke Marlboro cigarettes, drink Coca-Cola, wear Levi jeans, listen to Van Halen, watch American movies and eat MacDonalds Big Macs while they’re driving around in Mustangs and Dodge Ram pickups. What evil overlord oppressors we are . . .
You must be a lawyer; you’ve talked your way into Double Extra Stoopid. I should introduce you to the other trolls who prowl this site . . .
37 Mandos // Feb 7, 2010 at 12:22 am
People also loved the products of the Roman Empire, and we still eat (well, I do) Turkish delight and watch BBC shows. What does watching/using US cultural and industrial products have to do with war and imperialism again? I don’t get the connection you’re trying to draw.
38 balconesfault // Feb 7, 2010 at 3:30 am
For what it’s worth … we use the Phoenician alphabet just like the Romans did. On the other hand, Western Culture tossed aside Roman Numerals because they were a far poorer tool than the Arabic numeral system.
39 Sean Linnane // Feb 7, 2010 at 11:21 am
We use the Roman alphabet, our system of government is directly based on the Roman Republic (inspired by the Greek Plato), our military is still formed upon the basic Roman model, and Washington DC is described as the greatest city of Classic Roman architecture anywhere in the world. The Latin language is still in use in religion and science, and is still spoken in dialect form. The numeral system seems confined to clock faces, tables of contents and Superbowls, on account that it is unusable for even the most simple arithmetic, which makes one wonder how on earth did they construct all those aqueducts and stadiums, and provide logistics across their wide empire if you can’t even add up a string of Roman numbers? (Obviously they used the abacus.) The longest continual sports event in history was Roman chariot racing, which went on for 600+ years and still exists today: every single aspect of Ancient Roman chariot racing, to include corporate sponsorship and advertising, is present in our modern day chariot racing, i.e. NASCAR.
S.P.Q.R.
40 Mandos // Feb 7, 2010 at 12:09 pm
I’m STILL not sure what the list of Roman accomplishments has to do anything at this point. We started at some kind of false analogy about Roman citizen-soldiery and ended up at chariot racing…
41 balconesfault // Feb 7, 2010 at 12:25 pm
JonF: If America is an empire, it’s a very dysfunctional one, since the cash flow has been from metropole to province, not the other way around.
You got that right. But you may note that much of the cash flow from the metropole to the province has been stipulated to enrich some very specific pockets. You see it in a combination of payments to preferred contractors from America to do everything from serve dinner to our troops to rebuild power plants and bridges and airfields that our bombs blew up. You also see it around the world in payments from our government to foreign governments for them to use both to purchase weaponry from our corporations, or to grant favorable terms to our corporations for resource extraction.
Now, if we aggressively taxed those corporations which greatly benefit from our global military footprint in order to pay for that military, this could actually make sense. But ironically our tax receipts from those corporations is shrinking, rather than growing.
42 balconesfault // Feb 7, 2010 at 12:28 pm
I’m pretty sure that the Greek Olympiad outdoes chariot racing, but that has nothing to do with the price of pasta in Venice.
43 JonF // Feb 7, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Re: The cash flow has only been from metropole to province in a very limited way.
Um, the Mashall Plan? The Free Trade regime? Most empires do their best to milk the provinces, even if in the long run they spend more on their military to hold territories in subjugation than they make off tribute. The US not only rebuilt its enemies after WWII but threw open its economy to all comers. Yes, this tended to reward foreign elites (latest beneficiaries: the Communist Party of China) not the great mass if people, but the point is that the reward went to people overseas, rather than accruing locally. We have no equivalent of the Roman provincial governors who amassed fortunes by essentially stealing everything in their provinces not nailed down or red hot, then spent lavishly on bread and baths and circuses to protect their popularity at home, and their good name for the ages.
ERe: Conservative Catholics, for instance, are often pretty clear that there is an overall political template for society that has the earthly Church somewhere near the top.
Well, yes, you can find the occasional odd theologian (or self-justifying ruler) who will claim to find a template for worldly affairs somewhere in the Christian faith, but these efforts have never been widely accepted. There have been multiple such systems over the centuries: from the “God-guarded” city of Constantinople, to Holy Mother Russia, to Innocent III’s grandiose claims, to Calvin’s theocracy in Geneva, to the propagandists for absolute monarchy, to the assorted Dominionists and Reconstructionists in the US today. None of this gained permanent and universal credence, in the same way that all Confucianists agree about the proper conduct of the state and all Muslims see a caliphate as the proper (if perhaps only eschatological now) governance of Islam.
44 Sean Linnane // Feb 7, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Mandos:
I was countering your point that the Roman Empire is “overrated”. That’s right up there with your ludicrous claims that the Founding Fathers were atheists.
Anyway I wasn’t even referring to the Roman Empire; I was referring to the citizen soldiers of the Roman Republic. The United States of America is a Republic, we are not an Empire. There is no Emperor, we extract no taxes from foreign colonies or provinces.
You are confused because we are a Superpower. Not the same thing; not the same thing at all. We do not conquer and take territories in the name of the USA; but we DO liberate the oppressed. George Bush liberated millions during his time in office. Try to get your head around that.
Balconesfault:
The Olympics are amatuer, my point was professional sporting events. Anyway NASCAR outdid the Modern Olympics in the first 25 years of it’s 53 year history; never mind going back to professional chariot racing’s 600+ year continual history in ancient times.
45 balconesfault // Feb 7, 2010 at 3:31 pm
The Olympics are amatuer, my point was professional sporting events.
The Greek Olympiad was quite professional, and lasted for over a thousand years.
46 Sean Linnane // Feb 7, 2010 at 3:40 pm
The Ancient Olympic Games were usually held every four years, or olympiad, as the unit of time came to be known, from around 776BC until 393 AD, so yes this covered one thousand years but it was not continual, divided by four it comes to around 250 years. The Olympics were not professional in the sense of professional team sports, to include chariot racing. The prizes for the victors were olive wreaths, palm branches, sometimes even food for life, but there were no professional “Olympic athletes” other than state-sponsored champions, similar to modern athletes of the Communist countries.
47 Mandos // Feb 7, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Sean: Read what I wrote. I didn’t say it was overrated as a society or in absolute terms. I said it was overrated as an example of what specifically you were pointing out. We went down a long digression because of the word “overrated” being used in two senses.
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