Couple of things
- I don't know how to respond to this story. Yes, those two girls acted quite irresponsibly, but where is the line? That is, sure they shouldn't have been doing this, but at the same time I remember plenty of rumors running rampant back when I was in high school, yet no punishment was handed out to those who initiated those rumors. I suppose if it was really disrupting the day, then something needed to be done, but still ... something seems really off, regardless of the childish behavior of these, well, children.
- On a somewhat related note to this post, yesterday's 'Hob Nob' hosted by the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce was poorly attended in comparison with past events, which I take as a sign of two things ... the first being poor promotional efforts and the second being a growing dissatisfaction in the community with the Chamber's attitude. Athens-Clarke County Mayor Heidi Davison skipped the debate, which is understandable, and what crowd did show up loved them some Charlie Maddox. However, considering the one Maddox supporter they talked to actually works for the Maddox campaign, it makes me question how many of those 'supporters' weren't shipped in to set the scene.
- OK, here's my thing about this ... if you keep saying, whenever any dispute or crisis pops up, that you 'can't make decision for the good of all based on the wishes of a few' then eventually you've turned a collection of 'fews' into a significant portion of your population. Plus, it seems to me that the University is drastically underestimating the power of these fraternity alumni.
- Let me tell you two reasons why Jeff Emmanuel is an example of everything wrong with politics, particularly Republican politics, today ... first, the completely unnecessary references to members of the opposition for no other reason than to shock and mislead the reader (as he does by dropping Ted Kennedy's name) and second because he deliberately ignores the actual facts of the case in lieu of blind partisanship and a narrow-minded, uncritical defense of the wrongs committed by his party by saying 'well, gosh, gee everyone does it ... look those two guys from the opposition are worse!'
- Do we really think the line 'Jesus is a master of love, Muhammad a master of hate' is tantamount to criticism? While I can't at all condone the death threats, is R. Thomas Trimble so naive to believe that if someone had reversed the two figures in that sentence, the author wouldn't be beseiged by thousands of angry fundamentalist Christians, some of them probably threatening death?
- More defense of downtown, and Tim Cantrell's letter is pretty good.
- On a matter of purely proving Emmanuel wrong, he alludes to Gerry Studd's censure from his relationship with a 17-year-old congressional page. Emmanuel is furious that Studd refused to apologize for the relationship and offers this shortsighted partisan gem that is, sadly, all too typical in politics today:
When a Democrat was censured for actually engaging in sexual relations with an adolescent subordinate, he thumbed his nose at decency and legality.
As a I discussed earlier, rather than confront possible allegations surrounding the GOP with this scandal, he cited past individual transgressions to show how the other guys were worse. But, even more revealing, is what Emmanual doesn't tell you ... that after the relationship was uncovered, Studd admitted he was a homosexual, and he and the page remained together for several years. Furthermore, the page in question was 17-years-old which meant he was of the legal age of consent. Casually tossing out Studd's name made people gasp ... but actually doing some research reveals a bit more, doesn't it?
- On a somewhat related note to this post, yesterday's 'Hob Nob' hosted by the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce was poorly attended in comparison with past events, which I take as a sign of two things ... the first being poor promotional efforts and the second being a growing dissatisfaction in the community with the Chamber's attitude. Athens-Clarke County Mayor Heidi Davison skipped the debate, which is understandable, and what crowd did show up loved them some Charlie Maddox. However, considering the one Maddox supporter they talked to actually works for the Maddox campaign, it makes me question how many of those 'supporters' weren't shipped in to set the scene.
- OK, here's my thing about this ... if you keep saying, whenever any dispute or crisis pops up, that you 'can't make decision for the good of all based on the wishes of a few' then eventually you've turned a collection of 'fews' into a significant portion of your population. Plus, it seems to me that the University is drastically underestimating the power of these fraternity alumni.
- Let me tell you two reasons why Jeff Emmanuel is an example of everything wrong with politics, particularly Republican politics, today ... first, the completely unnecessary references to members of the opposition for no other reason than to shock and mislead the reader (as he does by dropping Ted Kennedy's name) and second because he deliberately ignores the actual facts of the case in lieu of blind partisanship and a narrow-minded, uncritical defense of the wrongs committed by his party by saying 'well, gosh, gee everyone does it ... look those two guys from the opposition are worse!'
- Do we really think the line 'Jesus is a master of love, Muhammad a master of hate' is tantamount to criticism? While I can't at all condone the death threats, is R. Thomas Trimble so naive to believe that if someone had reversed the two figures in that sentence, the author wouldn't be beseiged by thousands of angry fundamentalist Christians, some of them probably threatening death?
- More defense of downtown, and Tim Cantrell's letter is pretty good.
- On a matter of purely proving Emmanuel wrong, he alludes to Gerry Studd's censure from his relationship with a 17-year-old congressional page. Emmanuel is furious that Studd refused to apologize for the relationship and offers this shortsighted partisan gem that is, sadly, all too typical in politics today:
When a Democrat was censured for actually engaging in sexual relations with an adolescent subordinate, he thumbed his nose at decency and legality.
As a I discussed earlier, rather than confront possible allegations surrounding the GOP with this scandal, he cited past individual transgressions to show how the other guys were worse. But, even more revealing, is what Emmanual doesn't tell you ... that after the relationship was uncovered, Studd admitted he was a homosexual, and he and the page remained together for several years. Furthermore, the page in question was 17-years-old which meant he was of the legal age of consent. Casually tossing out Studd's name made people gasp ... but actually doing some research reveals a bit more, doesn't it?
posted by Jmac at 7:12 AM
14 Comments:
But, JMac, with these Islamic reactionaries we're not just talking about a "few death threats" via e-mail out of thousands of angry respondents. We're talking about, according to Trimble's argument, enough death threats that Redeker actually felt the need to flee for his life. Perhaps there weren't that many actual threats, and Redeker is just a nervous nelly, but this is not the only situation like this that we have for examination.
All walks of life, all philosophies and religions, have their share of crazies, of course, and you will hear from some of them whenever you speak out publically about what you believe. (You should read some of the comments I got from people after my LewRockwell piece on the Dubai Ports earlier this year...and that was a website where the vast majority of people were already sympathetic to what I was saying). I'm sure that when someone comes out and says degrading or insulting things about Christianity, that they receive some bone-chilling responses from a number of people. But how often do we read about an atheist newspaper columnist or author in America getting beheaded? Is Sam Harris living in hiding right now?
When 'radical' Islamicists are insulted, they say that the insulter deserves death, and in a number of real instances they actually back that up and attempt to kill, sometimes with success, the enforcer.
Remember that after the pope's comments a couple of weeks ago that churches were actually burned and a nun was actually killed. It wasn't just crazed letters of ill-will sent in to the local newspaper....
I don't know exactly how to "deal" with radical Islam politically (but I am very anti-war, anti-American empire, etc.), but we have to at least be able to recognize that there is a difference between the Islamic playbook and that utilized by fundie Christians. Know thy enemy, first and foremost, or we can't even begin to produce an appropriate response at the level of policy.
True enough Xon, and I think you know me well enough to understand that I am just as appalled and baffled by such behavior. In fact, I'm actually more hawkish than you, which is quite unusual given today's unfortunate and misleading stereotypical labels that pigeonhole me as the one who is the 'liberal' and you as the 'conservative.'
Anyway, I've posted my problems with such irresponsible actions on part of Islamic extremists over here on more than one occasion within the past few months, so that wasn't what I was intending at all when I posted my most recent comments.
My contention was with Trimble's choice of language and his line of argument. That is ...
1. Saying Muhammad is a prophet of hate isn't so much a criticism, but rather a stark, and quite misleading, condemnation of the spiritual leader of an entire religion;
2. That to base your argument based on that singular incident, rather than actual instances of irrational behavior by violent Islamic extremists is rather weak;
3. If we're equating it to inflammatory responses and possible death threats, crazies from the most radical sects of all religions (as you acknowledge) would respond in the same manner.
I agree with you about Trimble's letter. There are many times when people here in the United States receive death threats from other people in the United States, who claim Christ in some fashion or other. The Christian death threat may not use the imagery of sawing off a head, but it does use the same mechanism of judgment of another through the authority of God. God will judge, smite down, give cancer, give AIDS, use hurricanes, spread abortion, send airplanes into the Twin Towers, &tc. For instance, think of Scorsese after Last Temptation of Christ or Gene Robinson when he self-identified as a gay bishop. Or, we can just go back a couple of editions of the Athens Banner-Herald to see Weatherby advocating for the extermination or quarantine of Muslims. Apparently, Weatherby attends some church in the local Athens area.
It may be said that Weatherby is advocating something like a "response" to Muslim attacks on the United States or the Christian religion, but the same is entirely true of these cited terrorist attacks upon the United States.
As for Xon's account, it is true there are crazies. I do not think, though, that it is Christianity that restricts the spirit of the murderer to not murder. Given the Southern heritage of lynching, a heritage not too distant as many of its witnesses are still alive, it seems that the already pervasive sense of law enforcement and oversight keeps most people in line from acting out their sinful interests. My suggestion is that, in the absence of the law enforcement apparatus of the United States, Christians, along with any number of groups harboring its "crazies", would see a rise in the level of violence they commit. This is no unhealthy or negative estimation of human beings: the first message of the Gospel is precisely that humans are sinners, and sinful things are what sinners do.
We already know that individuals adopting a Christian framework have assaulted abortion doctors, actually shot at them, and actually killed some—this not counting the violence suffered by the LGBQT communities. The insidious thing about the subtext of violence is that "coming out" in a public space elicits in comedies the sign of frustration or danger. That suggests a darkness just beyond the light of the candle we not too often talk about.
If churches burning and one nun dead is our indictment of the whole of Islam, then the Christian wars being fought already in the Pacific islands, in Africa, in the Middle East is more than enough to condemn all of us believers.
Of course, I should add in that I think it unfortunate the economic aspect of the struggle is ignored. As was mentioned on hillary's site, it is far too simplistic to just say, "This is their religious belief; this is a religious war! Their religion wants us all dead!" Certainly, religion acts as a very powerful motivational apparatus, but again, so does religion coordinate a number of apprehensions and thoughts for late capitalist conservatives who wish to see whole groups of people in a dehumanized, objectified way. My suggestion is that we should take very seriously the comparisons of al Qaeda to a decentered, modular corporation, whose criminal economic activities are as internally regulated and codified as those of legitimate global businesses. In other words, we are dealing with a criminal problem of economic motives, which demands manuevers and techniques appropriate to foiling large scale corporate fraud, extortion, and thuggery. The religio-militaristic solution, while appealing at the level of the Hollywood fantasy of one more great conflict, only suspends engagement, in the end, with any effective means of stopping terrorism as a business practice.
For instance, al Qaeda is now attempting to recruit scientists and engineers, on the claim that they can now explore their mad scientist skills in creating deadlier and more exotic weapons, because more and more of the foreign fighters are not accepting al Qaeda's incentives to be suicide bombers or kill other Muslims. This suggests that considerations of economic motivations could have more immediate effects than considerations of theological repercussions.
This whole image of the Muslim as a third world, uneducated emotionally unstable is as much as a farce as the bumbling, redneck Bible thumper is. There is much more rational deliberation taking place in these decisions to strike or terrorize or destroy than we want to realize, but it's my claim that unless we see this and act appropriately, the animal we see in others will always have been the animal already in us.
Not to shift gears from the religion argument...but regarding this fraternity issue, I agree Johnathan...Adams needs to tread carefully here. These are some of the biggest, well-connected fraternities on campus with some pretty influential, deep-pocketed donors. Donors who already aren't all that thrilled with Adams' tenure. I completely understand the University's desire to utilize this prime real estate for academic endeavours but right now, in many ways, I believe these fraternities have some pretty big bargaining chips to play with (aforementioned donors, past letters re: leases, etc.)
One group I haven't heard much out of (or maybe I'm just behind in the news) is the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation. Say what you will about the state of some of these houses, many of them are 70+ years old and a part of Athens' history and in my view should be saved. Has the Heritage Foundation made any claims pro/con regarding the possible destruction of these homes? And if not don't they run the risk of being cast as hypocrites on this matter?
Wait...I guess that was TOTALLY shifting gears.
JMac, responding to your 3 points in quasi-random order:
3. I didn't read Trimble as basing his criticism of Islamic reaction to criticism simply on the fact that there were death threats issued to Redeker, but rather on the reasonable suspicion that a real intention to carry out the action of death often lies behind these threats. When a person is threatened for saying insulting things about Islam, there is a perceived greater likelihood that the threat might be carried out than if someone says insulting things about Christianity.
2. I haven't seen a full English translation of Redeker's article in La Fig (is there one?), but my understanding of his article is that it does constitute something in the way of rational criticism of Islam. He did not simply say "Muhammad is a prophet of hate", but his article did include (which is the word Trimble uses in his letter) that phrase. This wasn't just a vacuous criticism with no argumentative weight behind it, I don't believe. Now, that doesn't mean that Redeker wasn't being irresponsible, insensitive, and/or inflammatory when he made that statement, or that Muslims do not have any right to take the phrase as insulting their religion. Clearly it is insulting and I'm sure that was part of the intent in saying it. But the point is that I don't think Redeker just ranted that "Muhammad=hate", and so I don't think we can so easily dismiss Trimble's letter as focusing on a "weak" case. (Though certainly there are stronger cases that he could have mentioned...)
stanicek, that's actually a good point. These buildings are old, though in states of shameful disrepair for those on the North end of S. Lumpkin. Is there some legitimate community interest in historic preservation for these homes (not speaking generally on the issue)?
And, to also switch gears in another way: from what I understand of the reports of what happened at NOHS on Monday, the school did pretty much shut down socially, with students jabbering at and pushing on each other after having a whole weekend to have the animosities and jealousies and usual teen angst simmer in its juices. Enough of a blow up for the school's admin to feel that kind of social unrest must not be allowed as a possibility.
Yeah, the rumors at Westside were annoying, but Westside was not as sexually interconnected as schools are now. There's more powder in the keg, if you will.
"When a person is threatened for saying insulting things about Islam, there is a perceived greater likelihood that the threat might be carried out than if someone says insulting things about Christianity."
Oh, come on, Xon. Just because you don't perceive it as a believer does not mean that other people in the United States who are not believers do not have the perception. Look, just take people at their word when they say they are deeply troubled by the "christofacists" or "Amtaliban" in this country, by the turning back of Roe v. Wade, by the inevitable combination of church and state.
Reasonable suspicion, or irrational bogeymen?
Charles, I should have been clearer earlier. I did not mean to say that the perception of an actual threat is sufficient to think there is one, all by itself. Rather, Trimble's letter is reflecting an argument that is built on that perception, which is either reasonable or unreasonable, depending.
In my case, looking at the world through my own eyeballs, I find people who express "deep concerns" about "Christofascism" when government employees openly express their faith, or when people say that Christian principles either are or should continue to be some sort of bedrock of western civilization's political structure to be irrational worry-warts. I find people who worry about getting their heads cut off by Muslims who say they are going to do so to be a bit more rational than that.
Jmac, I had to run to class earlier and didn't get to finish my response. I don't have much to add, except to adjust my "tone" a bit so it is clear that I am not accusing you of excusing what jihadists do or apologizing for them in any way. I know you are not.
But I thought Trimble's letter was a bit more substantive than you gave it credit for. In other words, in many ways I don't think Trimble was doing anything that different from the kinds of things you said in your blog post on the pope's comments a couple of weeks ago.
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I watched some "news" show or another a couple of weeks ago and they had a segment about teens and their gossiping ways these days. It was interesting and scary. I don't remember anything happening back at WHS even close to what those young people are doing now. Especially the girls. Holy cow.
I'm sure it was overdone for TV, but by their own report the girls were moderately to severely distressed by what they have experienced and what they have perpetrated against others. And the internet was at the center of most of these activities.
Xon, I didn't take you to be saying that the perception is sufficient to think there is a real threat. I am disagreeing with your declaration that "there is a perceived greater likelihood", as though the question of who is the one perceiving these threats is irrelevant because the perception is universal. So, yeah, it is irrelevant actually whether or not the perception is itself rational or not, when the point is that many people think the Christians can be or already are as bad as the death-threatening Muslim.
But, this is precisely the problem with basing a condemnation of a category on one's perceptions.
Charles, I would be happy to debate (here or elsewhere) the silliness of those who hold that perception. Anyone who cares to really think it through should be able to see the difference between fundie politically-active Christians in the U.S. (in the West?) and fundie politically-active Muslims. The fact that a few abortion clinics have been bombed, which was followed up with rousing condemnation from the overwhelming majority of anti-abortion Christian leaders, as well as (in the case of former Presbyterian Paul Hill) execution for the heinous crime, does not compare to Christian girls being kidnapped and beheaded while walking home from school, culturual figures being assassinated, reporters being kidnapped and beheaded. And, of course the simple fact the the explicit, stated aim of jihadists is to see Islamic law become the law of everyone and to kill those who resist.
Do Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson (to pick two of the most maligned, rightfully so by the way, examples from the Christian right) say that we should kill all those who will not accept Christianity? Is this even close to what evangelicals (and certain Catholics) mean when claim that this is a "Christian nation," or that it should be again, or whatever? The difference is obvious, despite what "crazies" might do.
You might want to say that the "crazies" are outliers in both groups, and that it is my own selective analysis that makes it look like violence against unbelievers is more mainstream among fundie Muslims than it is among fundie Christians. But I'll take a lot of convincing on that point.
In any case, back to Trimble's letter, my point is just this: in general, when someone says insulting things about Christianity in the west, Christians might hoot and they might howl. Radio pundits and Fox News commentators might call the comments ridiculous and insulting, even claim that Christians are being "persecuted" simply because of these insulting words. But nobody with political or moral influence more significant than that of The Matthew Boedy Fan Club ever comes out and says anything about killing the insulters. It's not in the rhetoric, and it's almost entirely absent from any actual actions, even from the crazies. (I say "almost entirely" because I'm granting for the sake of argument your observations of violent acts that have been perpetrated against abortion clinics and against homosexuals).
But when someone says something insulting about Islam, and receives death threats in response, and not just from fringe crazies but from spiritual and political leaders from within fundie Muslim communities, I think even Rosie O'Donnell thinks "Crap, that dude better run!" in a way that does not occur to her about someone who has insulted Christians.
Or, in any case, she thinks that way if she is sane. I just don't see how you can avoid what to me is an obvious difference between the two groups and how they conduct political 'business.'
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