Henry Imler January 9th, 2008

I am still working through the reason why I believe. I talked earlier about how modernist conceptions are not adequate for judging the merits of a particular religion because we don’t have access to the data needed to verify the claims of religion. In the second installment, I try to talk about another way of viewing this problem, from the postmodern perspective.

Theology for the Masses :: What is Postmodernity?

I basically claim that it is possible (and I think more profitable) to engage the world through a postmodern framework while remaining true to the tenants of Christianity. The post is explorational for me, over there I am kinda feeling my way around - if you decide to read it and have any insights or problems with what I am saying, please let me know in the comments.

The next post in the series will deal with the topic of narratives, why they are important and how they interact.

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Henry Imler December 9th, 2007

The sometimes funny WuzzaDem looks at Hitchens’ reply to Romney’s Mormon speech: Shocker: Christopher Hitchens Bashes Mitt Romney Speech

According to the admittedly very contradictory scriptures of the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth warned his disciples and followers that they should expect to be ridiculed and mocked for their faith. After all, how likely was it that God had decided to reveal himself to only a few illiterate peasants in a barbarous backwater?

What better way to make this point than by mocking and ridiculing Christians?

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Henry Imler October 13th, 2007

Hillary Derangement Syndrome by Parableman.

I’d like to make a prediction. If Hillary Clinton
becomes the next president of the U.S., I expect we’re going to see a
parallel to Bush Derangement Syndrome: Hillary Derangement Syndrome.
(I’d call it Clinton Derangement Syndrome, except that’s ambiguous.)

Anything that’s bad will be attributed to her, whether she’s
responsible or not. Anything she says will be treated as uncharitably
as possible, no matter how out-of-context it has to be taken. The
consequences of her policies will be greatly exaggerated, and any other
contributing factors to bad outcomes will be ignored. And what’s worst
about this is that the people who will be doing it will be mainly
evangelical Christians.

I don’t think we’ve ever seen a phenomenon quite like this until the
current president. A lot of people who didn’t like Bill Clinton said
lots of nasty things about him, especially evangelical Christians who
should have obeyed the Bible a little more carefully with regard to
respecting those in governmental leadership under God. But I don’t
think it was anything like the kind of irrationality I’ve seen over the
current president. Nonetheless, I think the standard has been set, and
these things tend to cross party lines once control shifts to the other
party. I would be very surprised if we don’t see many of those have
been so upset at Bush Derangement Syndrome doing exactly the same thing
with President Hillary Clinton, if it turns out she ends up holding
that position.

Unfortunately, I think Jeremy is dead on.

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Henry Imler July 23rd, 2007

Contempt and Congress

Rather than run from this fight, supporters of the
constitutional system ought to stand firm with the president.
Presidents, Congresses, and the courts have long accepted a president’s
right to keep internal executive discussions confidential. Even when
the Supreme Court ordered Richard Nixon to hand over the Watergate
tapes, it recognized “the necessity for protection of the public
interest in candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opinions in
Presidential decision making.”

Without secrecy, the government can’t function. No one thinks
conversations between federal judges and their clerks, or members of
Congress and their staff, ought to be aired publicly without good
reason. The same goes for presidents–even if their poll ratings are
low.

Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Polk, Lincoln,
both Roosevelts, Truman, Eisenhower (whose administration invented the
phrase “executive privilege”) Kennedy and Reagan, among others, have
kept executive deliberations secret from congressional inquiries,
usually over matters of diplomacy, national security and law
enforcement. Courts have recognized that discussions among their senior
advisers, not just meetings when presidents are in the room, also
receive protection. So why aren’t Republicans fighting to defend
executive privilege now?

Those who made their bones investigating the Clinton
administration’s misdeeds might squirm over Mr. Bush’s assertion of
privilege today. But then, Democrats who supported President Bill
Clinton’s assertions of executive privilege in the ’90s are being
hypocritical by jumping all over Mr. Bush now, too….

The Supreme Court held in 1959 that, “Since Congress may only
investigate into those areas in which it may potentially legislate or
appropriate, it cannot inquire into matters which are within the
exclusive province of one or the other branches of the Government.” In
the 1974 Watergate tapes case, the Supreme Court said that the
president’s right to protect information is strongest when law
enforcement, national security or his other constitutional powers are
involved. Under that rule, Mr. Leahy has no right to see the
president’s communications about the firing of federal attorneys, the
nomination of John Roberts or Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court or the
reduction of Scooter Libby’s sentence.

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Henry Imler July 18th, 2007

Is it let them win?

Should there be any physical, political resistance at all to Islamist¹ (or any other) terrorists?

I am not sure if there should be any, from an communal and individualistic perspective.

Now, I would also say that from a secular political perspective, it
is appropriate to respond with the best interests of the state in mind.
As a matter of fact, a state should always operate in its best
interests and in a relatively selfish manner. However, this is
different from what the Christian response should be.

Ed. Note: Clarified the original post.

^{1) No one has come up with a good name for the loosely
connected terrorist organizations and political structures that are at
war with that which is different with them. Islamic is too broad,
Islamo-fascist is a misnomer, and individual groups such as Hezbollah,
Al-Qaeda and even movement names such as Wahhabism are too exclusive.}

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Henry Imler May 10th, 2007

When the shootings happened, the first person to tell our department
was a fellow TA. He started the conversation with, “Guess what is going
to be on the news for the next month.” The terrible thing was that
everyone rolled their eyes before they even heard what happened. Sure
enough, instead of focusing on the tragedy, the commentators and the
news shifted and tried to uncover the great unrecognized flaw in the
system that lead to the attacks. Never mind that a crazed person
decided to kill people, if only there were more safeguards in place
(and less liberty), this never would have happened. Politics, politics,
more guns, less guns, politics, real people died, Politics, politics,
positioning for elections, real families lost real people, ratings,
ratings, ratings.

When I saw this in the mail, my stomach turned.

There was also a weird attempt to nationalize the tragedy. It was
not a tragedy of mine, nor yours (probably), nor America’s. To make it
so robs something from the real people that lost real loved ones. It
bothers me somehow. Perhaps it is some sort of denial on my part. Who
knows. What I do know is that we should not make it about us when it is
really about them.

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Henry Imler April 30th, 2007

Anyone know if Steve Chapman is correct with his criticism of a AAUW report?

The Truth About the Pay Gap

Buried in the report is a startling admission: “After
accounting for all factors known to affect wages, about one-quarter of
the gap remains unexplained and may be attributed to discrimination”
(my emphasis). Another way to put it is that three-quarters of the gap
clearly has innocent causes — and that we actually don’t know whether
discrimination accounts for the rest…

The divergent career paths of men and women may reflect a basic
unfairness in what’s expected of them. It could be that a lot of
mothers, if they had their way, would rather pursue careers but have to
stay home with the kids because their husbands insist. Or it may be
that for one reason or another, many mothers prefer to take on the
lion’s share of child-rearing. In any case, the pay disparity caused by
these choices can’t be blamed on piggish employers.

Read the article for the specific issues. I just don’t know enough about the study to know if his criticisms are correct.

* Yea, it’s a made up word.

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Henry Imler February 13th, 2007

In the architecture of nationhood, the United
States had achieved something quite remarkable…. Americans had
erected their constitutional roof before they put up the national
walls. Hovering there over a divided people, it aroused wonder and awe,
even ecstasy. Early historians rewrote the past to make the
Constitution the culminating event of their story…. Orators plundered
the language in search of fitting praise. Someone may have even put the
document to music. This spirit of Amazement, this frenzy of
self-congratulation, owed it intensity to the terrible fear that the
roof could come crashing down at almost any time. Indeed, the national
walls have take much longer to build.

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Henry Imler January 18th, 2007

Mahdi Army Leaders Arrested
It is beginning to look like the Iraqi government is going to hold up
their end of the deal, a huge factor in whether or not the new plan
will work.

Bush gives ground on domestic eavesdropping program

The
Bush administration said Wednesday it has agreed to disband a
controversial warrantless surveillance program run by the National
Security Agency, replacing it with a new effort to be overseen by a
secret court.

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Henry Imler January 13th, 2007

Ron Rosenbaum :: Haunted by Cambodia

If the Iraq : Vietnam comparisons are true, then would not Post Withdraw Iraq : Cambodia?

Ever since the news of the genocidal scale of mass
murder in Cambodia reached the West, I’ve been trying to figure out how
to relate it to my previous opposition to the Vietnam War.

At first it was self-exculpatory: No Vietnam War, no Nixon illicit
secret bombing/destabilization of Cambodia, thus no Khmer Rouge
take-over, thus no genocide. That was my story and I tried sticking to
it for a long time.

But it’s more complicated than that isn’t it? Especially if you’re
familiar with what’s come to light in the past decades from former
Soviet archives about Vietnam. (You have read the Soviet archival
documents haven’t you? Otherwise spare me your comments). When 2 or 3
million are murdered, it’s worth examining the causes further,
especially in light of current potential parallels…

The Vietnam war, like the current one, was horribly mismanaged,
yes. The war was, like this one, productive of horrific number of
casualties among innocent civilians, but Vietnam wasn’t all as simple
as I thought of it in college. One could still call it the wrong war at
the wrong time fought by the wrong tactics, but one can’t portray the
“foe” as somehow virtuous.

And Cambodia: the genocide there was as unimaginably horrific as any
genocide in that genocidal century. Would that genocide have happened
if the U.S. hadn’t so precipitously scurried out (under the aegis of a
funding cut), leaving behind one half a nation hosting Stalinist
gulags, and a good portion of a neighboring nation, Cambodia, rotting
away in mass graves. Was the Cambodian genocide an inevitable
consequence of the Vietnam war? Would it have happened however we
managed to leave Vietnam? I don’t know, but it’s a question worth
thinking about.

The “world community” did nothing to prevent genocide in Cambodia,
in Rwanda, nothing to stop Saddam’s mass murder and the ethnic
cleansing that bordered on genocide (did you hear his tape recorded
cold blooded dismissal of the murder of thousands in the “Chemical Ali”
trial?) in Iraq. And of course it’s doing nothing to stop it in Darfur.
Whose responsibility will the aftermath of the (I think inevitable)
U.S. pullout from Iraq be? …

But does the fact—that it’s our responsibility for getting into this
position (my view of the “surge” plan is the same as my view at the
opening of the war: things are likely to get worse)—does that exempt or
exculpate us from the responsibility to prevent the possible
genocidal—certainly ethnic cleansing—consequences that will follow our
withdrawal? Is there any way we can prevent those consequences?

There are more than just US and British soldiers over there. There
are 50 Million other just as real people there. The soldiers are real
people and there are 50 Million other real people in Iraq. No matter
how or why we went in - we broke it. We should stick around long enough
to fix it. Damn us if we don’t.

If you listened to the President’s speech, he identified reasons why
things have not worked in the past and announced modifications to try
to correct them so that it will work in the future.
As he reiterated in his weekend radio address:

First, we will help the Iraqis execute their aggressive
plan to secure their capital. Eighty percent of Iraq’s sectarian
violence occurs within 30 miles of Baghdad. The new plan to secure
Baghdad fixes the problems that prevented previous operations from
succeeding. This time, there will be adequate Iraqi and U.S. forces to
hold the areas that have been cleared, including more Iraqi forces and
five additional brigades of American troops committed to Baghdad. This
time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter
neighborhoods that are home to those fueling sectarian violence. Prime
Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference
with security operations will not be tolerated.

And you know what? If the Iraqi government does not follow thru on
their end of the deal , then like I said on Dave’s site, then it might
be time to leave. But there is still hope to fix it. And as long as
that lingers, I think it would be extremely irresponsible to leave.

On the diplomacy issue - I really think that is a big part of what
needs to happen to get the best possible senerio. However, what I don’t
know is how to use diplomacy to work.

Also, from the weekend address:

Fourth, America will expand our military and diplomatic efforts to
bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the
Middle East. We will address the problem of Iran and Syria allowing
terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of
Iraq. We will encourage countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and
the Gulf states to increase their economic assistance to Iraq.
Secretary Rice has gone to the region to continue the urgent diplomacy
required to help bring peace to the Middle East.

People say the UN should take over - we’ve tried that. No one wants
to should the responsibility of helping with security. Iran and Syria
are agging on the sectarian violence. Iran is giving support to both
sides. The last thing they want is a strong, peaceful Iraq. Same with
Syria. How does one engage them when they are in effect fight a proxy
war within Iraq? I am not saying that they should not be engaged and
one of the parts of the updated plan that the president layed out that
I did not like was a lack of diplomacy with those two countries. He
wants to get others involved, it is on them to help.

Update - Added several things to expand scope of the post from the dangers of leaving.

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