Pat Buchanan and the death of American culture

In his most recent column, "Is America Disintegrating?" (read the whole thing here), Pat Buchanan laments the passing of his vision of America.  No more, he says, are we a nation of a common blood, faith, language, history, customs and culture:

I argue that the America we grew up in is disintegrating, breaking apart along the fault lines of politics, race, ethnicity, culture and faith; that the centrifugal forces in society have now become the dominant forces...  We are not now and will not (in thirty years) be "descended from common ancestors."  We will consist of all the races, cultures, tribes and creeds of Earth — a multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual stew of a nation that has never before existed, or survived...  The moral consensus and moral code Christianity gave to us has collapsed...  There was a time not so long ago when the nation was united on a common faith, morality, history, heroes, holidays, holy days, language and literature.  Now we fight over them all.

I question this on a variety of grounds.

First, his bemoaning of the increasing multiculturality of America ignores the fact that a little over a hundred years ago, a significant chunk of citizens -- including my wife's ancestors and my own -- did not speak English.  My ancestors spoke French -- both on my dad's side, where they were recent immigrants, and on my mom's, on which they had lived in North America since the 1600s and in what would become the United States since the 1780s, resisting the forces of assimilation and acculturation by sheer stubbornness.  My wife's ancestors spoke Yiddish, and maintained their cultural identity even in that enormous mixing vat that is New York City.  Far from threatening the fabric of American society, they enriched it.  And more of us today are of mixed ancestry -- of a really homogenized genetic background -- than ever before.

Second, and more importantly, Buchanan's idealization of life prior to the most recent influx of immigrants -- the apogee of the white middle class, the Leave It To Beaver squeaky-cleanness of the 1950s -- was hiding a good many ugly secrets.  The unity of a common set of morals, standards, language, and the rest came at a significant cost.  This "moral consensus" was at the root of the assumption of inferiority of those of other races and religions, leading within our borders to bigotry, persecution, and denial of basic rights to African Americans, and outside our borders to colonialism and exploitation.  It was at the root of "keeping women in their place," denying them the opportunities that men had in every venue.  It was the root of the demonization of those who were different -- of atheists, of homosexuals, even of free-thinking men and women who simply elected not to marry or pursue traditional careers.

Would you really return to the 50s?  Would you return to a time when being of a different race meant that you couldn't eat in the same restaurants, work in the same offices, even drink at the same water fountains as whites?  Would you return to a time when talented, brilliant women had only two choices -- to buck a system that was set up to keep them from succeeding in the career of their choice, or to cave in and become secretaries, lab assistants, or wives?   Would you return to a time when conformity was the gold standard for behavior?

I'm not saying that our society isn't facing problems.  I'm no sociologist, capable of teasing apart the causes of immigration (legal or otherwise) and proposing policy for governing our nation's response.  I understand that the changes we will undergo to respond to shifts in culture, language, and religion may well be painful and difficult.  I'm merely saying that this is hardly the first time we've had to face these kinds of problems, and that the shifts we've seen in morality since World War II have not all been negative.  Americans are freer now than they have ever been to express themselves, to pursue careers they find meaningful, to practice the religion of their choice -- or no religion at all.  Yes, there problems with poverty, crowding, and resources stretched too thin and too far.

But I think, to paraphrase Twain, that rumors of America's death will turn out to be vast exaggerations.

The paws that refresh us

New from the “You’ll Think I’m Joking, But I’m Not” department, news has just come in that the Calvary Episcopal Church in Danvers, Massachusetts is offering a worship service for dogs.

The program, called the “Perfect Paws Pet Ministry,” is alleged by Reverend Thea Keith-Lucas to “give area pet owners a greater likelihood of their dogs going to heaven.”  Owners will receive communion at the service, and dogs will receive dog treats and blessings.  Barking will be allowed.

While this has all the hallmarks of a story from “The Onion,” I assure you that it’s 100% true.

You have to wonder what the bible reading is going to be.  Maybe a few verses from the Letter of St. Paul to the Dalmatians: “And the Lord said unto them, ‘To the Good Dogs shalt be given biscuits and squeaky toys and pats on the head, and there will be much wagging and playing of Fetch-the-Stick.  But unto the chewers of shoes, biters of mailmen, and those who pee on carpets shall be said, ‘No! No! Bad dog!’ and they shall they be cast out into the Back Yard, even if it be raining, and lo, there shall be no biscuits.’”

It’s not that I don’t understand the desire of pet owners to hang on to their pets.  If you believe in an afterlife, it’s kind of a sad prospect to think that you are going to live in eternal bliss, and Rocky the Black Lab just… won’t.  Many people feel as close to their pets as they do to their friends, and it’s natural to project onto them our hopes and fears for the future, and to want for them what we want for ourselves.

It does open up some potentially iceberg-strewn theological waters, however.  If we decide that dogs have an eternal soul, then what about other animals?   I own two dogs and two cats, and I can state that from my perspective, the cats’ niche in the religious world seems to fall more into the “Possessed by Evil Spirits” category.  But if pets, why not other animals?  Do cows have an eternal soul?  What about pigeons?  What about slugs?  I don’t know about you, but if there are Japanese beetles in the gardens of heaven, I’d have second thoughts about going there.

The other problem I have with all of this is one that I have with a lot of religious thought, and that’s the idea that because something appeals to you, it’s likely to be true.  A friend of mine once told me, “I can’t imagine a universe where there was no god to guide things and give purpose to life.”  Well, it may well be true that you can’t imagine it, but I can’t see that that has the least bearing on whether or not god actually exists.  Honestly, I’ve found that there seems to be little to no correlation between my finding an idea appealing and its being true.  So it may seem sad to picture heaven without dogs, but it’s hard to see how that has any impact on (1) whether heaven exists, and (2) if it exists, whether dogs are allowed or not.

On the other hand, like many things, I suppose that attending a worship service with your dog isn’t doing any harm, even if the basic theological underpinnings of the idea are a little shaky.  So, if it makes you happy, by all means bring Rex along to church with you.  If it gives him some encouragement to be a Good Dog, all the better.  Me, I think I’ll stay home until Reverend Keith-Lucas hosts a Rite of Exorcism for the cats.

Atheism, morality, and Newt Gingrich

In the Republican debate Tuesday night, Newt Gingrich made clear his views that an atheist does not belong in a position of public trust.

"How can you have judgment if you have no faith?" he said.  "How can I trust you with power if you don’t pray?  The notion that you are endowed by your creator sets a certain boundary on what we mean by America."  On other occasions, he has stated that he fears a "secular atheist America," dominated by people for whom "morality means nothing," and who have "no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

My response:  How dare you question my morality, you smug, self-righteous, holier-than-thou, sanctimonious prick.

The charge that atheists have no moral compass is one I hear levied all too often.  If you don't acknowledge a deity, what's stopping you from lying, stealing, cheating on your significant other?  Your morals must be arbitrary, a thing of convenience that will slip the first time they're pressed hard.

In point of fact, there's no such correlation.  I defy you to show evidence that atheists are any more likely to act immorally or unethically than the religious.  And actually, if you look at the last few years' worth of American political scandals, nearly all of the culprits have been amongst self-professed Christians.  (Of course, that may be because the distrust the general public has for atheists makes it damn near impossible for people to get elected unless they espouse some form of theism, so I'll admit that it's a skewed sample.)

You have to wonder, given that we don't think there's Somebody watching us, keeping track of every time we transgress, why we atheists aren't running around, wreaking havoc, committing immoral acts right and left.  I can't answer for anyone but myself, but for me, it's because correct moral action is what gives society cohesiveness.  I act morally because it makes my family life run happily, and it gives my children a role model for growing up to act the same way.  It makes me a valued part of my community.  It gives me pleasure to be known as someone who is ethical, who considers others' needs and desires as equivalent to my own.

Far from devaluing my morals, my lack of belief in an invisible supreme authority makes them nobler.  I act morally because I choose to, because it's the right thing to do -- not because I'm under threat from some all-powerful Cosmic Gatekeeper.

And what about you, Newt?  Where has your high-flung, god-given morality gotten you?  Oh, yeah, I believe you're the one who is on his third wife, after having cheated on the first two (cheating on the first one while she was undergoing chemotherapy, as I recall?).  And when the facts of the matter became public, you admitted it -- and then said, "There's no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate."

So, let me get this straight; you cheated on your wife because you were passionate about America?  You were sitting there in your office one day, and thought, "Man, I've been working hard to keep the country that I love functioning.  I think I'll run right out and have an affair!"

So, I'll reiterate; until you can demonstrate that your ethical standards are superior to my own, don't try to claim that we atheists are destroying the moral fiber of America.  You smug, self-righteous, holier-than-thou, sanctimonious prick.

Oh, yeah, and "arrogant."  I forgot "arrogant."

Good vibrations

As if we didn't have enough to worry about, what with the world ending on Friday (recall that October 21, 2011 is Harold Camping's revised date for the Rapture, given that it didn't happen the other two times he's predicted it), the Blue Aliens descending upon us on June 21, 2012, and the world ending again on December 21, 2012, now we have to worry about the Earth being bombarded by "4th dimensional energy" on November 11, 2011.

It is, says noted wackmobile Alfred Lambremont Webre, not a coincidence that this will all happen on 11-11-11.  Despite the fact that most of us just figure that going through November 11 is the most convenient way to get to November 12, Webre thinks this has colossal significance.  Why?  Because, of course, he was told about it by a representative of the Galactic Governance Council, an alien named "Tolec."

Here's what Tolec told Webre, and I quote this directly from his website.  Webre's, not Tolec's.

The official beginning of 4th dimensional energy will affect Earth's solar system on 11.11.11 as it encounters the galactic equatorial plane region - as a universe & galactic wide harmonic frequency - will open and affect this whole area of space. The saturation of this higher frequency energetic vibration will continue through all of 2012, reaching full strength during the time frame of December 2012, through March 2013 when the final rotation of the 90 degree shift of Earth's crust happens with the present day East/West orientation of the continents moving into their new North/South orientation.

Which should make total sense to you, as long as you've spent the last half-hour doing sit-ups under parked cars.

Me, I'm pretty upset about the whole geographical shifting thing.  I have a hard enough time finding my way around as it is, being that I was seemingly born without a sense of direction.  If all this crust-rotation stuff happens, and Canada ends up west of us, Louisiana east of us, and so forth, I'm probably just going to give up and never leave home. 

The good news, Tolec says, is that if we can make it through all the cosmic wackiness and shifting around of the Earth's land masses, then we will settle down into our new "4th dimensional vibration existence" by January 2014, at which point we will all be offered an "opportunity to evolve."  I don't know about you, but I want to evolve wings.  Great big feathery wings, like a giant falcon, so I could fly to work and avoid the traffic.  It might be hard to find shirts to fit, but I'm willing to take that risk.

In any case, we will all have to make a bunch of adjustments to being 4th dimensional.  Tolec says that amongst the things we'll have to get used to is 4th dimensional money, because "there won't be any."  This seems unfortunate, but not really all that different from what most of us are dealing with already.  On the brighter side, we will be able to teleport, and use telepathy.  He also said that we'll have to get used to having "4th dimensional sex," which sounds like it could be fun.  I was disappointed not to get any further details on this point, so I can only speculate that it will have to do with giving a somewhat new twist on the what Tolec said about "energetic vibration."

Be that as it may, it'll give us all something to look forward to, if we can make it through all of the other stuff that probably isn't going to happen first.  At least this sounds like more fun than Camping's predictions of the unholy being roasted on Satan's George Foreman Grill.  Given that I'm clearly one of the unholy, I think I'll opt for wings, telepathy, and 4th dimensional sex instead.

Today's sermon: justifying genocide

I find it simultaneously amazing and appalling the lengths to which fundamentalist Christians will go to defend the bible.  And I’m not even talking here about my usual subject for ranting, the astonishing, evidence-defying circular reasoning that it takes to accept the creation myth over the theory of evolution.

I’m thinking about other parts of the bible, the exhortations to violence by “the god of love” – from execution by stoning for minor offenses (such as collecting firewood on the sabbath), to treatment of women (if a woman was raped, and would not marry the man who had violated her, she was stoned to death), up to and including genocide (as only one of many examples, consider the lovely passage from 1 Samuel 15:3 which reads, "Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them.  But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.").

Then there’s Psalm 137, which includes the charming lines, "O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed, happy the one who repays you as you have served us!  Happy the one who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock!"

Initially, I thought that most fundamentalists must be unaware of these lines.  After all, how many people, even devout Christians, read the bible that thoroughly?  I grew up in a traditional Catholic parish, and when (as a teenager) I started to actually read the whole bible rather than just the selected passages we got in mass on Sunday, I was astonished at how much there was in the bible that the priest wasn’t telling us.  His sermons revolved around only a handful of Old Testament stories, some of the nicer psalms and more edifying bits of history, and of course vignettes from Jesus’ life and various bits and pieces of Paul’s letters.  But there was a lot in there I hadn't realized, including some seriously weird stuff.  Who knew that it was a sin to wear cloth made of two different kinds of thread woven together?  I didn’t, until I read Leviticus.  Then there is the bad acid trip that is the Book of Revelation (the evangelicals love that book, but the Catholics seem to be mostly embarrassed by it.)  But it wasn't the goofy or trippy passages that bugged me; being Catholic, no one was asking me to accept the bible as literal, factual truth.  Out of it all, it was the violence that appalled me the most.  "Does the priest even know about all of this stuff?" I remember asking myself.  If he did, he certainly didn’t talk about it much.

Tragically, it appears that I was giving the Christians far too much credit.  It’s not a matter of ignorance over what their own scripture says; they know about it, all right, and what’s worse, they embrace it.  "The Amalekites deserved it," said one person, on an internet discussion group.  "They were evil people.  They sacrificed children, they practiced bestiality.  The bible says so.  That’s why god ordered their destruction."

So, let me get this straight; because they occasionally sacrificed one of their own children, god told the Israelites to go and kill all of them, including the children?  This is supposed to make sense?

What the Israelites did to the people of Canaan, Amalek, and various other Middle Eastern civilizations is the same thing as what Hitler tried to do to the Jews.  So why is one an atrocity and the other the justifiable command of god?  I’m sorry, genocide is genocide, whether it’s committed by a megalomaniac or by someone who was ordered to do so by his Invisible Friend.

You would think that today’s devout Jews would at least get that point right, considering what they went through only seventy years ago.  You, sadly, would be wrong.  I was beyond appalled when I found an article in which a Jewish writer actively defended the actions of the Israelites against Amalek and Canaan (this story is part of the Torah as well as the Christian Old Testament).  The author states, apparently with a straight face, “As opposed to other religions, Judaism never pursued a religious crusade to impose on others its beliefs,” and goes on to describe how the Israelites destroyed all of the neighboring tribes because they were pagans.   The passage ends with the nearly unbelievable line, “Tell me if you find any benevolent parallel in our entire human history!…  Was there ever a war fought with such high standards?”

High standards, my ass.  If you accept the biblical account of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and religious zealotry as high standards, as the basis of our morality, I want to know what the hell we have against Al Qaeda, which seems to operate by much the same principles.  Or does the “god of love” now consider the Americans “his chosen people,” casting the whole rest of the world in the role of the Amalekites and Canaanites?

How far we’ve come in three thousand years.

Psychic vampire attack

Are you feeling run down lately?  Low in energy?  Does the face that greets you in the bathroom mirror in the morning look pale and tired?  Is it hard to make it through the working day?

You might be experiencing stress, or maybe you need more sleep.  You might have some kind of physical condition causing your fatigue, and need a visit to your doctor.

Then again, maybe you're just the victim of an Energy Vampire.

I didn't know about Energy Vampires until I was sent a link by a loyal reader, who said, "Get a load of this."  At first I was expecting more nonsense about people who are way too much into Twilight, but then I was sent to the website of Dr. Bruce Goldberg (here).  The website goes into great detail, not about blood drinking monsters, but about people who extract the energy from people around them.  At first I thought he was speaking metaphorically; we've all known people who are demanding, exhausting, draining of energy.

But no.  Dr. Goldberg thinks that there are people who can literally, honestly suck out your energy.

For those of you who would rather not risk having your energy drained by even reading this stuff, Dr. Goldberg classifies Energy Vampires into five types: the Paranoid Type, the Ethereal Type, the Insecure Type, the Passive-Aggressive Type, and the Robot Type.  Each of them, however, is a "psychic parasite," capable of "initiating a psychic attack" on you, resulting in your "psychic energy" being depleted.  The only option is to avoid any kind of contact, especially physical, with these people.

Then, I found that Dr. Goldberg's stuff is only scratching the surface.  It gets way more ridiculous than that.  The Psychic Vampire Resource and Support Page (here) contains links to literally dozens of sites that go into tremendous detail about Energy Vampires, who, they say, are people "who can't create their own energy" and so need to drain energy from others.  Some Energy Vampires are more benevolent of nature, and simply go around and handle objects that ordinary people have handled, subsisting on traces of used energy left behind, sort of like a psychic version of the folks who feel compelled to frequent garage sales.  But others, apparently, prefer fresh energy straight from the source, and will try to touch you so as to establish a "psychic link," and then they feed on your energy, leaving you listless and depressed.

Then, there's the Vampirism and Energy Work Research Study (here), which has enormous amounts of data, including pie charts and bar graphs, detailing the responses to questions like "Do you consider yourself a sanguinarian, psychic, or hybrid vampire?" and "What blood substitutes do you use when you can't feed on real blood?"  And thousands of people responded to these surveys. 

I don't know about you, but this worries me.  I'm willing to believe that at least some of these people (1) participated because they thought it was funny, or (2) belong to the aforementioned Twilight fan club, but that still leaves at least a few people who really, honestly think they're vampires.

And my general response to that is, "You people are loons."

So once again, we're up against a phenomenon that seems to skirt the line between role playing and insanity.  As I've mentioned before, I don't want to be perceived as ridiculing someone who is mentally ill, so I'll just end by saying: Dear vampires, psychic or otherwise: I don't think you want my energy.  My energy is probably all sour and thin from the fact that I don't get nearly enough sleep, so I'm sure you wouldn't enjoy it much anyway.  If you're really desperate, however, you can come by and touch my mailbox, which probably has traces of my psychic energy on the handle.  That way, you wouldn't need to get out of your car, or actually even come to a complete stop.  Thank you.

Avataricide

In news of people taking revenge in odd ways, a woman in Japan is currently in jail after killing her ex-husband's character in an online role playing game.

That's right.  She didn't kill her actual husband; she got into his virtual reality game, called "Maple Story," and killed his online "avatar" -- the individual in the game who represents the player.

Apparently these sorts of games are extremely popular.  Who knew?  I am, as I have mentioned previously, a techno-Neanderthal, and while I had some vague idea that such games existed, I didn't know how common (nor how elaborate) they are.  In "Maple Story" you can form relationships with other players' avatars -- in fact, you can even get married there.  As with many role-playing games, each player has a career -- teacher, military leader, magician, elf, and so on. 

And I thought, "'Elf' is a career?  Why didn't anyone in the Career Counseling Center at my college tell me this thirty years ago?  Here I am being Bill Nye the Science Guy when I could have been Legolas."

In any case, once you've selected your career, you proceed to interact with other characters, forming alliances and having relationships, all the while battling evil and defending your territory against the onslaught of monsters. 

It did momentarily occur to me that if what you really enjoy is the idea that you are a valiant warrior defending the world from the Evil Monsters from the Outside Lands, it'd be simpler and easier just to join the Republican Party.  Then I realized that being from Japan, perhaps this option did not appeal to him.

But I digress.

So, anyhow, this fellow in Japan was a devoted "Maple Story" player, and he described his online persona as his "beloved avatar."  And when his wife discovered that he was cheating on her (for real, I presume, not just in "Maple Story") his wife got into his game, and killed his character.

If I belonged to law enforcement, and a man came up to me asking me to arrest his wife because he'd cheated on her and she'd responded by killing his online avatar, my exact response would have been: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.  I'm just compassionate that way.

But no; in the actual case, police were sent out, and they arrested the woman.  She is currently facing charges of hacking, which in Japan could potentially carry a five-year jail sentence.

Now, let's be clear on this; she has not harmed, nor even threatened to harm, her actual real ex-husband.  She is being jailed for killing a character in a game, despite the fact that the character is not in fact a real live human.

This last point seems to have been lost on Japanese legal officials.  I seriously doubt that laws against hacking were put in place to prevent two overgrown ten-year-olds from "killing" each other's computer-generated imaginary friends.  You would think, in these days of computer piracy, stolen identities, viruses, and the tsunami of spam that clogs all our bandwidth, that the people in charge would have better things to do than to jail a woman who has basically done the equivalent of an elementary school bully stomping on another kid's teddy bear.

Now, I think that as far as most things go, the Japanese seem like a fairly sensible people, and I'll bet this woman is freed with a slap on the wrist ("you go and apologize to him RIGHT now and don't you DARE do that again!") within a few days.  But it still highlights a couple of interesting facts about humanity, to wit: (1) some people take role-playing games WAY too seriously, and (2) you need to be nice on the playground or you can get into some serious trouble, even as an adult.