Are you ready to rumble?
If there was any doubt that the culture war is at our doorstep, I offer two examples from the bogosphere of late:
On Kos (via Atrios via the Poor Man), we learn that at least one Baptist church has kicked out all of its Democratic members, on the grounds that non-support for Bush equals endorsement of sinful gay marriage and abortion. Excommunication from such a place might not seem that atrocious for you and me, since we probably would have left ages ago, but I really feel for those who tried to stick up for what they believe in, only to be ejected from a community they've been part of for years. On a grander scale, a purge of Baptist congregations of their political dissenters will leave the churches as perfect instruments of socialization for the remaining members and children; they'll be left in a state that Durkheim termed mechanical solidarity, bound together by sameness. That's all well and good, except the rest of us don't think like them. Defining self by sameness is cohesive if everyone is relatively similar, but in a pluralistic society it tends to be disruptive if some subgroup are doing so. Moreover, in the US, defining a religion on political grounds is bordering on illegal. I'm uncomfortable, generally, with the swelling interest in revoking tax-free status for religious congregations, but I don't see an alternative if this sort of thing becomes the norm. Otherwise, conservadox churches will be free campaign organizations for Republicans, giving them a huge advantage in tight races.
Second, via Atrios and BoingBoing, Nicholas Weaver informs us of proposed changes to Export Control Rules that would limit people born in certain countries from using controlled computers. Not foreign citizens, mind you, but people born in named countries. Seems there was a change of an "or" somewhere in the arcane language of the law. Anyway, this is further redefinition of what defines people. No longer are people free to chose their destiny by choosing their country, but are now to be forever bound to that land in which they were born.
Both of these shifts seem fundamentally anti-American to me.
On Kos (via Atrios via the Poor Man), we learn that at least one Baptist church has kicked out all of its Democratic members, on the grounds that non-support for Bush equals endorsement of sinful gay marriage and abortion. Excommunication from such a place might not seem that atrocious for you and me, since we probably would have left ages ago, but I really feel for those who tried to stick up for what they believe in, only to be ejected from a community they've been part of for years. On a grander scale, a purge of Baptist congregations of their political dissenters will leave the churches as perfect instruments of socialization for the remaining members and children; they'll be left in a state that Durkheim termed mechanical solidarity, bound together by sameness. That's all well and good, except the rest of us don't think like them. Defining self by sameness is cohesive if everyone is relatively similar, but in a pluralistic society it tends to be disruptive if some subgroup are doing so. Moreover, in the US, defining a religion on political grounds is bordering on illegal. I'm uncomfortable, generally, with the swelling interest in revoking tax-free status for religious congregations, but I don't see an alternative if this sort of thing becomes the norm. Otherwise, conservadox churches will be free campaign organizations for Republicans, giving them a huge advantage in tight races.
Second, via Atrios and BoingBoing, Nicholas Weaver informs us of proposed changes to Export Control Rules that would limit people born in certain countries from using controlled computers. Not foreign citizens, mind you, but people born in named countries. Seems there was a change of an "or" somewhere in the arcane language of the law. Anyway, this is further redefinition of what defines people. No longer are people free to chose their destiny by choosing their country, but are now to be forever bound to that land in which they were born.
Both of these shifts seem fundamentally anti-American to me.
posted by onlooker at 11:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home