Why Mommy Is a Democrat...
Nick Gillespie | February 18, 2006, 12:19pm
Paul Wilbert sends scarifying news of the latest--and possibly the saddest--skirmish in the Red State/Blue State culture wars: A kid's book titled Why Mommy Is a Democrat, which should be subtitled Why Republicans Run All Branches of the Federal Government and Probably Will for the Next 20 or 30 Years.
From the book's pitchpage:
Kids want to know.
Kids need to know.
It's up to you to tell them...
WHY MOMMY IS A DEMOCRAT
A different kind of children's book.
Yes, it is a different kind of children's book--a really bad kind. Here's a sample page that will almost certainly drive more young 'uns into the warm arms of such cuddly father figures as Deadeye Dick Cheney (it's been known to happen!):
More--including blurbs from such political kingmakers as the mayor of Columbus, Ohio, a Utah state senator, and the long-deposed creator of The Daily Show (who makes Craig Kilborn's post DS career look like a success) here.
Note to Democrats: A two-party duopoly only works if both parties can throw a punch. I half-suspect this of being a GOP plant job.
Stevo Darkly | February 19, 2006, 7:06pm | #
I've often thought of doing a children's version of Atlas Shrugged.
Hello? Hello? Who is John Galt?
Would you please share? Please pass the salt?
To put on my green ham and egg
I need your salt, for which I beg
- I do not like you looter guys!
- You are the people I despise!
Are you inhuman? Don't you care?
Would you, could you, try to share?
Would you, if you owned Fort Knox
Give half to folks living in a box?
Would you give the needy half your wages?
(This goes on for 800 pages ...)
Would you give them half your wife?
Would you give them half your life?
- No! The motor of the world I'll halt!
- Amscray, Sam! I am John Galt!
Milton | February 21, 2006, 3:55pm | #
“. . . for you to
point out societies that have done this (and not simply "grown out" of religion, which of course none have yet done), and then say "look at all this other unreasonable stuff they did",
is intellectually dishonest . . . You're basically saying, 'the enemy of my enemy is reasonable'.”
As a matter of fact, I haven't said that the enemy of my enemy is reasonable. I certainly think it is *mistaken* for you to paraphrase my remarks as you have done, but I am not in a position to say that you're being dishonest, because I don't know you well enough to speak with such assurance about your motives.
I was originally responding to some posts which said that Christianity has had a deleterious effect on society because of its alleged irrationality, and implying that we can make our society more rational by removing Christianity from it. I pointed out that, while we haven't done experiments in laboratory conditions, those societies which *have* removed Christianity suffered adverse consequences, incurring lots of irrational results.
Of course, social experimenters who wish to remove Christianity from American society would be quite correct to say that historical experience doesn't *prove* that their ideas for rationalizing society by removing Christianity would necessarily fail. If the burden of proof was on those who *opposed* the social experimenters, perhaps they couldn't meet that burden.
But the burden of proof is actually on the social experimenters themselves. It is up to them to prove that deChristianizing the country would in fact have the beneficial effects they claim, without the side-effects which we have noticed in other countries. They have this burden of proof in part because President George Washington, without whom there may not have been a United States in the first place, made certain warnings against precisely the sort of social experiment we are discussing here. If the father of his country was wrong, then that wrongness should be made to appear from clear evidence. The evidence of other countries' experience is at least inconclusive on the benefits of deChristianization.
Let me quote President Washington's warning from his
Farewell Address:
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Milton | February 21, 2006, 4:56pm | #
Before the server cuts me off again, let me reply to zach's comments.
"so I'm not sure why you went to such lengths to attack it in your 3:55 post, unless it was meant for someone else."
It was. Check out akira's comments above.
"your irrational counter-argument"
I *would* expect the "removal of Christianity from the equation" to produce more rational societies in places where Christianity was the main barrier to rationality. Ideally, we would have laboratory conditions in which only Christianity were removed from the equation, and nothing else. Unfortunately, we don't have laboratory conditions, so to test akira's propositions, all we have to go on are the lessons of experience. If akira has the burden of proof (as I've demonstrated), he would then need to show that the gulags, the guillotine, Derrida, etc. would all have happened *even if* the Christianity had stayed in.
For another example of this sort of "irrational" argument, consult William Ellery Channing, whom the Unitarian Universalists
claim as one of their founders (The UUs are a militantly "post-Christian" group). Let's see what Channing had to say about Christian persecution in a remark rarely quoted by the Unitarian Universalists, curiously enough:
"To those who are fond of exaggerating the wars and persecutions, which Christianity has kindled, we would say, go and witness the blessings of infidel philosophy, where it has been permitted to triumph! Behold the heart hardened into stone, and all tender feelings of our nature giving place to the ferocity of beasts of prey. Behold murder, and perfidy, and rapine let loose, and scattering ruin and dismay. Behold the best blood flowing in torrents, and observe the secret tears of the widow and fatherless, who dare not utter the anguish which consumes them! God has given to all nations an awful monument to the nature and influence of infidel philosophies, and I trust he has not admonished in vain."
("Two Sermons on Infidelity delivered October 24, 1813," in William Ellery Channing, *People's Edition of the Entire Works of W. E. Channing, D. D.*, Volume II. London: Simms and M'Intire, 1851, pp. 536-552, at 537.)
