Thursday Rant

I both love and weep for my country.

Why weep? Observations on a number of things being covered as news at present:

*Birthers and Truthers. Even in the face of reality, they continue to cling to delusions. Enough said.

*Tea Party zealots. They have a champion who drops lines about "Second Amendment solutions", ignoring the fact that what they're really doing is fomenting an armed rebellion against the legitimately constituted government of the United States. Can you say "treason"?

Maybe I'm mistaken, but from where I sit, these Tea Party folks don't seem to have planned anything beyond threatening to take the next election by force if necessary. Should their "Second Amendment solutions" really come to pass, as my husband has observed, the result might be far more like the French Revolution than the American Revolution. Proceed with extreme caution and think about what it is you're doing, people. This would not turn out well for the country you claim to want to protect. (As an aside, keep two things in mind: (1) when the second amendment was written, the government and the populace had pretty much the same level of weapons technology; (2) for those of you that think an armed rebellion here in the early 21st century has a chance, did you really pay close attention to the abilities of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan? Go ahead and take your deer rifles out against M1 tanks, F-16s, or drones with Hellfire missiles. I'll bring popcorn.)

The Tea Party types want smaller government. Fine, which departments do they suggest we dispense with? The FDA, which oversees the safety of both drugs and foods in this country? Surely we can trust Big Pharma and the huge food conglomerates to do what is in the best interests of the public, not their own - can't we? The Department of Agriculture, which oversees the production of crops? Perhaps the FAA - no need to control airplanes; if a few crash and burn, well, that decreases the population. Maybe the DHS; after all, no one abuses children or needs mental health services in this country, why should we waste money on that? Or the Department of Transportation - why do we need roads or railways? Maybe we should eliminate the FBI, police departments and fire departments as unnecessary.

Are there problems in government? Yes. But it is pointless to sit there and say "we must take our country back"; back to what? becomes the question. Back to the days of Jim Crow laws, slavery, and women as second-class citizens? Back to the days of a theocracy, where half of the human race were mere chattels with no rights?

Or maybe just back to the days of the fictional "Father Knows Best", where children were seen and not heard, wives greeted their husbands at the door with a drink not an opinion, people of color "knew their place", and drinking and driving were the norm.

I know I would not want to live in that version of America. It is a fantasy at best, and a lie at worst.

*The immigration foes. I don't even know where to begin on these people. Unless you are full-blooded Native American, you have immigrant blood running in your veins. Unfortunately, anti-immigration sentiment is nothing new in the history of the country:

A PROMINENT American once said, about immigrants, “Few of their children in the country learn English... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.”

This sentiment did not emerge from the rancorous debate over the immigration bill defeated last week in the Senate. It was not the lament of some guest of Lou Dobbs or a Republican candidate intent on wooing bedrock conservative votes. Guess again.

Voicing this grievance was Benjamin Franklin. And the language so vexing to him was the German spoken by new arrivals to Pennsylvania in the 1750s, a wave of immigrants whom Franklin viewed as the “most stupid of their nation."

You can find the rest of the article here. I strongly recommend reading it.

Among those "alien" immigrants have been the Germans, French, Irish, Catholics, Quakers, Baptists, Italians, Spanish, and Chinese; the "involuntary" African immigrants; and now the Mexicans, our brethren from south of the border. We do not know or understand them, therefore we fear - or perhaps hate - them. We may view them as a threat to our own beliefs and way of life, possibly even as a physical threat to our very lives. In psychoanalytical terms, they are "the Other", that which is outside of or opposite to our own identity.

Othering is a way of defining and securing one’s own positive identity through the stigmatization of an "other." Whatever the markers of social differentiation that shape the meaning of "us" and "them," whether they are racial, geographic, ethnic, economic or ideological, there is always the danger that they will become the basis for a self-affirmation that depends upon the denigration of the other group. When a group claims to be "chosen by God," the danger multiplies, not only for the "unchosen" other who may be subjected to violence, but for the chosen group itself that is at risk of being undermined. [In other words, convenient though othering is as a way of propping up one’s ego, it has an inherent fragility because it must constantly led be fed by the illusory inferiority by the Other – and is thus constantly at risk of being discredited – MU]

Notice the line beginning with 'When a group claims to be "chosen by God"'. The three monotheistic religions we as Americans are most familiar with, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, hold this to be a truism. The ancient Hebrews and their descendants, the Jews, were the People of the Covenant, YHWY's Chosen People, from whom we have the Pentateuch or Torah. From the Jewish people came Yeshua, Christ Jesus, whose followers styled themselves Christians, the People of the New Covenant, who gave the New Testament to the world. Then around 610 CE, the Word of Allah, the Qu'ran, was given to the Prophet Mohammed, and Islam was born.

What a different place the world would be if the three People of the Book, as these religions are known, could have existed together in peace. But no, as each considers their holy text to be the true or final Word of God. The most dogmatic followers of each have traditionally believed in their own religion's superiority to all other beliefs and practices. One could write a lengthy dissertation on the number of religious wars that have resulted from this Weltanschauung. (Personally, I have never understood the seeming necessity for conflict over religion; can one means of approaching or understanding Deity be inherently 'better' than another, when in truth we are all blind men attempting to comprehend an elephant? But I digress.)

*Which brings us to: The anti-Muslim forces behind the current xenophobic uproar over Muslims and the building of mosques across the United States, particularly the proposed one two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center.

No one is denying that the destruction of the WTC was carried out by terrorists, but should all Muslims to be blamed for the actions of a few radicals? Terrorism is defined as "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes". By that standard, Christians should be held accountable for the actions of those home-grown terrorists, the abortion clinic bombers. Their intent is to intimidate and coerce doctors and women to refrain from performing what is, after all, a legal act. Likewise, all Americans (or, at least, those radical anti-government, pro-militia, 'White Power' types among us) should logically be held responsible for the reprehensible actions of home-grown terrorists Timothy McVeigh and his co-conspirators. And what about those who perform violence upon places of worship, be it for political or religious reasons? That's terrorism too.

I fear we are in great danger of losing some of the most important freedoms enumerated in the First Amendment to the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.^[1]

Take particular note of the right of free exercise of religion and the right of peaceable assembly. There seem to be a growing number of people in this country who want to deny American Muslims both of these rights. This is dangerous ground, friends. If we deny Muslim citizens their rights, whose will we deny next? There are a multitude of religions and denominations in this country. (If you would like to see a listing of those denominations that have official web sites, see here.) Which of them shall we start denying the right to assemble and worship? The ones who are looked at as, ah, 'different' by the mainstream, the Scientologists, Mormons, Pentecostals, New Age Pagans, and Primitive Baptists? Maybe those who have chosen a simpler lifestyle and don't chose to live with modern technology, like the Amish and Mennonites? What about Sikhs, Hindus, and Baha'i? Maybe we should even restrict certain Christian sects, such as Greek or Russian Orthodox Christians? A radical notion would be to restrict the practice of any religion not native to this continent, and allow only the Native Americans religious rights. (Which might not be a bad thing, if you think about it.) Or maybe we should just ban churches with televangelists. Now there's a thought....

Where does it end, where should the line be drawn? If we permit the free practice of one religion, we must permit the free practice of ALL religions. Anything else is simply un-American.

Think about it.