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Theocrateaser [Dan Collins]

Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush’s program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.

At the same time, he’ll be privately reassuring the nutroots that he means no such thing. Karl’s post just below is also germane to the spectacle.

As Karl notes, the clarification has begun

75 Replies to “Theocrateaser [Dan Collins]”

  1. nishizonoshinji says:

    Dan.

    The core thesis of their book “Grand New Party” is that the working class in America — the non-college-educated half of the electorate — continues to ping-pong between the parties and is there for the taking by any group that can seriously and directly address its concerns. The authors note: “Since 1968, these voters have provided the ‘silent majority’ that elected Nixon, the ‘Reagan Democrats’ who gave the Gipper his landslides and the ‘angry white men’ who put the Gingrich G.O.P. over the top in 1994. … Yet after each Republican triumph, this working-class constituency … has become disillusioned with conservative governance and returned to the Democratic column.”

    Why have the two parties been unable to turn periodic hookups with this key group of voters into an enduring marriage? For Democrats, it is in part that they have misread working-class anxiety — this is a new body of voters, no longer the union-dominated industrial workers or toilers on family farms, but people employed in services like education, health care or office administration, with two-earner households stretched thin. Their problems will not be solved by “stronger unions, more food stamps, a war on Wal-Mart or the nationalization of a major industry or two.”

    Democrats have disdained so-called social issues as distractions from real economic problems. Douthat and Salam say to the contrary that the social issues are a major part of working-class insecurity. “Safe streets, successful marriages, cultural solidarity and vibrant religious and civic institutions make working-class Americans more likely to be wealthy, healthy and upwardly mobile. Public disorder, family disintegration, cultural fragmentation and civic and religious disaffection, on the other hand, breed downward mobility and financial strain — which in turn breeds further social dislocation, in a vicious cycle that threatens to transform a working class into an underclass.”

    What about the Republicans? The authors say they blew their chances to capitalize on their opening to these voters “by confusing being pro-market with being pro-business, by failing to distinguish between spending that fosters dependency and spending that fosters independence and upward mobility, and by shrinking from the admittedly difficult task of reforming the welfare state so that it serves the interests of the working class rather than the affluent.” If the right cannot find a way to address voter insecurities and needs, then some combination of the populist left and the neoliberal center, of Denmark-style social democracy with Clinton-style free-market centrism, will be likely to fill the void.

  2. nishizonoshinji says:

    these are the “guns and religion” people.
    also, dr. pournelle’s 40percent and Jefferson’s “yeoman farmer”.
    the democrats and the republicans just offer different solutions.

  3. TheGeezer says:

    Gad. It’s a shame that comments in a thread are unreadable.

  4. Dan Collins says:

    Different solutions?

  5. happyfeet says:

    Baracky is inherently faith-based, Dan.

  6. Dan Collins says:

    He’ll be doling out the funds, but the catch will be that the recipients (except for the Muslims) will have to swear allegiance to the tenets of proggitude. And somehow that won’t bother Greenwald(s). Then the Supreme Court will get ahold of it, and the howling will begin, and none of them will see the slightest bit of irony.

  7. Karl says:

    Gee, a lengthy comment with no condemnation of the erosion of the wall between church and state.

    It’s a Christian nation now… because O! decrees it.

    And teh HYPOCRISY!!! Natch. Bookmarked.

  8. JD says:

    Why does nishit insist on puking in a perfectly good new thread?

  9. Education Guy says:

    Will the tenets of proggitude be spelled out in advance or should we expect them to be a more ad hoc set of guidelines?

  10. Karl says:

    It’s all she knows. Would you rather hear about how Muslim dudes won’t date her?

  11. nishizonoshinji says:

    I am Teh Kourier and i am bringing you another message you dont want to hear.
    Religion is self-esteem for the 40percent.
    That is the real meaning of IDT. That “god-smart” is equivalent to “science-smart” and “academic smart”.

    Norman Ornstein writes:

    Had Obama read this book before his now-famous “cling to guns and religion” comments, he might have phrased his analysis — which is not out of sync with that of the book — differently.

    The first part may be entirely right. The second part, I’m not so sure (at least from what I’ve read of the book so far, as well as other commentary). Ornstein’s views of Obama’s “cling to guns and religion” comments may not be too far out of sync with Obama’s, but I was under the impression that the GNP thesis was somewhat different. Again, I haven’t finished the book, but I thought that social conservatism was actually a rational strategic response to economic uncertainty insofar as traditional values help protect you from the gales of globalization etc. Obama’s thesis is almost the reverse: these silly sky god worshippers need to to let go of their silly boomsticks and hatred of f’ererners and grab hold of the enlightened life raft of big government instead. Maybe Douthat or Salam can set me — or Ornstein — straight here.

    Goldberg is wrong about O!’s thesis. It is exactly the same as Reihans.
    It is the solutions that are different. O! sees the traditional prog big welfare state as the remedy.
    Reihan and Douthat want government programs that strengthen the family unit and reduce divorce. A bottom up solution, while O!’s is a top-down Big Government solution.

  12. Karl says:

    Another lengthy OT comment ignoring her shrill BS on the separation of church and state.

    Because of the hypocrisy. Fraud.

  13. nishizonoshinji says:

    There are good things about religion, and Reihan is spot on i think about his solutions.

    But religion does not belong in government.
    Not your religion, not my religion, not anyones religion.
    And the Framers deliberately used a generic “Creator” and not the xian “God” for a reason.
    and it wasn’t poetic license.
    ;)

  14. Karl says:

    Hey, look! There’s a coyote frantically flailing its legs after running off the edge of the cliff.

    (whistling sound)

    Poof!

  15. JD says:

    We already know that nishit is alright with the comingling of church and state, so long as it is her church, where she worships at the altar of Baracky. If a Republican proposed the same thing, she would be bleating about the theoconz and a theocracy. But, single the anointed and pure Baracky Hussein Obama supports it, crickets chirping. Plus, comingling of politics and religion is the underlying foundation of Baracky’s church, and that has not stopped her from deep throating the anointed one.

  16. JD says:

    ACME rockets are sure to follow.

  17. Karl says:

    Now it’s about solutions. They’re OK if O! sayeth.

    So let it be written; so let it be done.

    Fraud. Hypocrite.

  18. JD says:

    She would be more tolerable if she would just acknowledge her rampant hypocrisy. Own it.

  19. Education Guy says:

    Religion is fine in government, nishi. Sessions of Congress begin with a prayer, there is a house chaplain, and the word God appears all over the place inside the capital.

    You’re not as well informed as you think you are.

  20. nishizonoshinji says:

    edu guy, one question–is any of that in the Constitution?

  21. nishizonoshinji says:

    actually Karl, Dan, et all, I think the Douthat/Salam solution is brilliant.
    It is a grassroots solution, like the Petraeus Kilcullen model that is working so well in Iraq.
    But there is not time to start implementing anything before November.
    There will be enormous resistance by the 40percent to being defined as the 40percent for one thing.

  22. JD says:

    It is a fucking babbling idiot.

  23. Dan Collins says:

    It’s not an idiot, JD. It just doesn’t yet recognize the limitations of analogy.

  24. Spiny Norman says:

    Babble-babble-babble. Babble.

    Or, to put it another way,

    Thrippy pillywinx. Inkly tinky, pobblebockle able squacks? Flosky! Beeble trimble flosky! Okul scratch abibble-bongibo, viddle squibble tog-a-tog ferry moya sitty amsky flamsky crockefether squiggs. Flinky wisty pomm.

  25. Pablo says:

    Ohnoes! THEOCRACY!!! It’s in the Courtz!

    In the Supreme Court’s white marble courtroom, the nine sitting justices are not the only presiding presence. At the center of the nation’s legal system, high above the justices’ mahogany bench, the great lawgivers of history are depicted in marble friezes.

    From Hammurabi to Moses to John Marshall, the stone sculptures commemorate written law as a force for stability in human affairs. The larger-than-life artworks, designed by architectural sculptor Adolph A. Weinman as the courthouse was being built in the early 1930s, convey the idea that, while the law begins with individuals, its principles never die.

    The 18 lawgivers looking down on the justices are divided into two friezes of ivory-colored, Spanish marble. On the south wall, to the right of incoming visitors, are figures from the pre-Christian era — Menes, Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius and Octavian (Caesar Augustus). On the north wall to the left are lawmakers of the Christian era — Napoleon Bonaparte, Marshall, William Blackstone, Hugo Grotius, Louis IX, King John, Charlemagne, Muhammad and Justinian.

    Teh Moses! Teh Muhammad! What about Teh Constitutionz?!?

  26. Dan Collins says:

    I must say, that was lapidary.

  27. Karl says:

    Funny, suction oneself to the sphincter of a politician and you end up with a mouthful. Couldn’t have seen that coming.

  28. Pablo says:

    Dan, it calls itself a scientist and willfully ignores facts. That strikes me as idiocy.

  29. serr8d says:

    Religion was inherent to the framers, Nishi.

    In the debates of the Constitutional Convention, religion did not get a lot of sound bites. It should be noted that without exception, the Framers were Christian or, at the very least, believed in God (Deism). There were no Jews or Muslims, no Hindus or atheists, and only two Roman Catholics. There were members of more than a half-dozen sects of the Protestant side of Christianity, though. Disagreements about style and method of worship between them were nearly as vast and incongruous as any seen today between, say, Jews and Muslims, such that the Framers wanted to ensure that no one sect could ever seize control of a government and start a theocracy.

    Religion is a strong, necessary social network, and even the confused Obama realizes that. Given his reach-out to faith-based groups.

    I wouldn’t think many of those groups would buy it, or trust him though; given his last Church and minister lie crushed under The Bus&#0153.

  30. ProggHero says:

    Nishi ASL? Do you have myspace?

  31. Kirk says:

    It would be nice to be able to read one lousy thread without our resident dipstick chiming in to ruin the atmosphere. These fucking mood lights aren’t helping.

  32. serr8d says:

    “Nishi ASL? Do you have myspace?”

    Get a room.

  33. Pablo says:

    I feel you, Kirk, though this one was bait.

    “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden, or in the park, or in the backyard without cover, and the cats come to eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat?

    “The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.”*

  34. Education Guy says:

    nishi – what is in the Constitution is the following, only part of which you cling to.

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

    Notice it doesn’t say anything about those with religion being unable to participate in government. Later, when you wrap your head around the entirety of this part we can discuss the other part about their being no religious tests allowed to determine who can serve.

  35. nishizonoshinji says:

    hehe, the main problem i see with the Grand New Party, is how do you tell a 100million people they are just not college material?
    very, very tactfully.
    ;)

  36. nishizonoshinji says:

    awwww you guyz all bait me.
    admit it.
    ;)

  37. SevenEleventy says:

    Comment by ProggHero on 7/1 @ 9:14 am #

    Nishi ASL? Do you have myspace?

    Where can a regular Progg get a little action?

  38. Karl says:

    And the hypocritical fraud is back to going OT. Shut it.

    BTW, the “clarifying is already starting. Heh.

  39. Karl says:

    Also, O! is totally cool with gay marriage now. I knew the Sermon on the Mount would win out in the end. Maybe O! heard about the new Church of Chavez.

  40. nishizonoshinji says:

    They open the book with a working-class view of recent American history. Douthat and Salam write admiringly about the New Deal. They mention Roosevelt’s economic policies, but they also emphasize the New Deal’s intense social conservatism. Self-conscious maternalists like Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins ensured that New Deal programs were biased in favor of traditional two-parent families.

    Liberals write about economic inequality and conservatives about social disruption, but Douthat and Salam write about the interplay between values and economics and the way virtue and economic security can reinforce each other.

    One of Reihans favorite statements is “vibrant religious community”.
    religion has a place in the Grand New Party, in the community….not in government.

  41. Karl says:

    And while gay marriage is cool, the carefully worded statement on Title VII being appicable to the faith-based initiative ignores that Title VII does not protect gays. At this point, the spin could suck in livestock.

    COW!

  42. Rob Crawford says:

    hehe, the main problem i see with the Grand New Party, is how do you tell a 100million people they are just not college material?

    “Hey, you know, you’re not really cut out for college.”

    It’s not a moral failing, or even a genetic flaw. It’s not like telling them they’re sub-literate twats.

  43. nishizonoshinji says:

    here is your cycle Karl–

    The core thesis of their book “Grand New Party” is that the working class in America — the non-college-educated half of the electorate — continues to ping-pong between the parties and is there for the taking by any group that can seriously and directly address its concerns. The authors note: “Since 1968, these voters have provided the ‘silent majority’ that elected Nixon, the ‘Reagan Democrats’ who gave the Gipper his landslides and the ‘angry white men’ who put the Gingrich G.O.P. over the top in 1994. … Yet after each Republican triumph, this working-class constituency … has become disillusioned with conservative governance and returned to the Democratic column.”

    This time around, O! is offering them the Big Government welfare program lifeboat. A sloppy, gaudy, lifeboat stuffed with programs like wealth-redistribution and socialized medicine.
    With compassionate conservatism and no child left behind GW tried to copy the prog model.
    This time around, the repubs simply have offered nothing.
    mccain sends mixed and weak signals at best.

  44. RiverC says:

    Nishi re:

    Comment by nishizonoshinji on 7/1 @ 8:36 am #

    I am Teh Kourier and i am bringing you another message you dont want to hear.
    Religion is self-esteem for the 40percent.
    That is the real meaning of IDT. That “god-smart” is equivalent to “science-smart” and “academic smart”.

    Read this:

    Saint John of Damascus (Arabic: يوحنا الدمشقي Yuḥannā Al Demashqi; Greek: Ιωάννης Δαμασκήνος/Iôannês Damaskênos; Latin: Iohannes Damascenus or Johannes Damascenus also known as John Damascene, Χρυσορρόας/Chrysorrhoas, “streaming with gold”—i.e., “the golden speaker”) (c. 676 – December 5, 749) was a Syrian monk and priest. He was born and raised in Damascus, and died (in all probability) at his monastery Mar Saba, southeast of Jerusalem.

    He was a polymath whose fields of interest and contribution included Law, Theology, Philosophy and Music. He was the Chief Administrator to the ruler of Damascus, wrote works expounding the Christian faith, and composed hymns which are still in everyday use in Eastern Christian monasteries throughout the world. He is a Doctor of the Church, often refered to as the Doctor of the Assumption due to his writings on the Assumption of Mary.[1]

    Tell me he was Christian for the sake of self esteem? Or maybe he was just a brilliant GENIUS and SAINT.

  45. nishizonoshinji says:

    “It’s not a moral failing, or even a genetic flaw.”

    I just don’t think that will be well recieved Rob.

  46. nishizonoshinji says:

    so what rivercocytus?
    so was Jefferson a polymath, and he was one of the Founders.
    i see no point here.

  47. nishizonoshinji says:

    well, i gtg to work.

    fare-thee-well, proteins

  48. serr8d says:

    religion has a place in the Grand New Party, in the community….not in government.

    Translation: “Science can cut and dice whatever living and viable fetal cells or blastocytes we want, and clone ourselves with impunity, and there’s not a bit of your stinking faith-based morality that can stop us!”

  49. RiverC says:

    lol, that’s the point. You don’t have one. Religion is not just self-esteem for the ‘40%’, but rather, it is a way to conquer self-esteem.

  50. Karl says:

    Another OT comment and the fraud leaves. If I was as immature as she, I would know be screaming, “SHE RAN AWAY!!! PUNK’D!!! ELEVENTY!!!!”

  51. Karl says:

    “know” = “now” natch.

  52. royf says:

    I think if the Obamabots could figure out a way to market the spin they are having to go through just to keep up with BHOs ever changing policy they could open a new chain of amusement parks. Call it Six spins over the Messiah, or something.

  53. ProggHero says:

    I do not see how Obama thinks this will benefit him with religious voters when you count his position on Partial Birth Abortion. Seems to me he might as well court the NRA.

  54. nishizonoshinji says:

    “Religion is not just self-esteem for the ‘40%’,”

    it is NOW. in the bad old days, science WAS religion, and religion WAS science.
    nonseperable.

    Karl, im speaking dah truff and u knowes it!
    hahaha
    byeeee

  55. ProggHero says:

    Specially since any reference he brings up about religion automatically makes people think of TUCC. Hard to imagine him winning any votes by giving public funds to TUCC.

  56. Education Guy says:

    Seems to me he might as well court the NRA.

    That or something like it will be coming. Whether it’s the traditional picture of Obama hunting or something new we will just have to wait and see.

  57. RiverC says:

    Hardly. Man is quite as ignorant as he as been all along. It has always been his fancy that he is enlightened even as he fumbles about in the dark.

  58. serr8d says:

    O!’s position on Partial Birth Abortions? That’s mild stuff. Try his support of ‘Infanticide‘.

    But that’s just because the initial stab missed, you see. Babies can be so slippery that way.

  59. RiverC says:

    Nishi is proof of God’s sense of humor, at least.

    And irony.

  60. ProggHero says:

    Anyone know what nishi looks like she sounds hot.

  61. RiverC says:

    I’m sure she appreciates every stalker she acquires, Progg.

  62. SevenEleventy says:

    guinsPen, now I have to clean my keyboard!

  63. ProggHero says:

    So she is a bearded japanese man?

  64. guinsPen says:

    Bingo.

  65. serr8d says:

    With O!’s hairshirt, front and back.

  66. serr8d says:

    Get you some of that~!

  67. It was wrong of President Bush to start this unconstitutional extension of an unconstitutional policy and it would be wrong of a President Obama to continue or expand it.

  68. Rob Crawford says:

    So she is a bearded japanese man?

    That’s a beaver shot.

  69. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by nishizonoshinji on 7/1 @ 9:48 am #

    They open the book with a working-class view of recent American history. Douthat and Salam write admiringly about the New Deal. They mention Roosevelt’s economic policies, but they also emphasize the New Deal’s intense social conservatism.”

    The new deal was fascism with an American mustache painted on.

  70. JD says:

    Rob C – Talking about the nishit and beaver shots in the same sentence should be a crime punishable by hanging, or testicular removal.

  71. McGehee says:

    This one time, at band camp, a girl asked me if I wanted to do jello shots, so I brought a camera and a mixing bowl, and she was all like, “Dude, WTF?”

  72. Rob Crawford says:

    Sorry, JD. I’ll try to give warning next time.

  73. SGT Ted says:

    That’s a beaver shot.

    I thought it was Willy Nelson.

Comments are closed.