ISIS is Islamic, but we should still shut up about them

Islam has never been united. For one thing, there is no Muslim pontiff who speaks for the world's 1.6 billion Muslims living on six continents. Yet even the Roman Catholic Pope speaks for only about half of the world's 2.2 billion Christians; and millions of those Catholics choose to disregard him on such crucial matters of the faith as birth control, premarital sex, divorce and gay relationships. 

If we sat down and took a deep breath, we'd all admit that there is no perfect, ideal version of Catholicism, or Christianity for that matter, that exists separately from the people who call themselves Christians. Anybody who says he is Christian and practices some form of the faith, no matter how strange, is a Christian. Attempts to label practitioners on the margins of a faith as "heretics" or "not true believers" has been tried, will continue to be tried, in vain. It only comes with conflict, violent schisms, cults and new denominations.

The same is true of Islam, with its Sufi, Sunni, Shia branches... and a bunch of sects and sub-sects that I don't know or understand. It is diverse and always changing.

ISIS in particular, with upwards of 30,000 fighters, or about 0.00002 % of the world's Muslims, is Islamic, just as they claim. A dark and evil part, but a part of Islam nonetheless. Just as violent white supremacists in the KKK or Branch Davidians are indeed part of the Christian pageant, because they profess themselves to be so. You or I can stand aloof and say they're not, but Christianity is what Christians do; Islam is what Muslims do; including all the good and bad. These religions are not what some sacred texts say. We can't just define away the behaviors -- and the believers -- that we don't accept as pure or "mainstream." (Although millions of believers will continue to do just that, to the detriment of world peace and understanding....)

Likewise, the U.S. should not -- and I'm thinking of Barack Obama specifically but before him scores of prominent conservatives -- engage in pointless, unwinnable schismatic debates about who is or isn't Islamic. It's apparent why both sides are tempted to do so: conservatives want to stoke xenophobic fear among Americans that justifies, post facto, their wars of choice in the Mideast and continued spying and infringements on our civil and constitutional liberties; and President Obama, in response, wants to calm Americans' nerves, and avoid antagonizing one-fifth of the globe, including America's peaceful 2 million+ Muslims. Conservatives' anti-Islamic argument is mean and stupid on its face; Obama is stupid for engaging seriously with stupidity.

Just as our arguing that ISIS is not Islamic does not seem to affect their appeal to disaffected recruits from all over the world, nor does our paying so much attention to ISIS hurt their cause. Just the opposite. When the most powerful nation in the history of the world -- not to mention the "Great Satan" -- declares that ISIS is scary and powerful, it's the best possible endorsement for the Islamic State's recruitment and fundraising efforts.   

Keeping a cool head and maintaining perspective on global threats are responsibilities of being a superpower. We must be serious when choosing our enemies, and more serious in how we fight them. That doesn't automatically mean all guns -- and mouths -- ablazing.

I've said it before: With all of its vast power, the U.S. shouldn't say that ISIS is an "existential threat," "clear and present danger," or anything of the kind.  It's the equivalent of a well-armed huntsman hyperventilating at a swarm of mosquitoes. 

Since 9/11, almost no leaders of any political stripe are willing to say the truth: We cannot defend ourselves against every attack on U.S. soil by extremists, especially by lone wolf terrorists inspired by the Internet and driven by deep personal resentments and/or violent mental illness. (ISIS's forte.)  And especially against those attacks on U.S. soil that require very little coordination or preparation (that could tip off domestic spies), and make use of readily available weapons of mass terror: assault-type weapons, ammunition, and bomb-making ingredients.  

In October 2002, I grasped this sad fact immediately and personally during the DC sniper attacks. The terrorists, who everyone was sure must be al Qaeda, ended up being a disgruntled, mentally disturbed Army vet (the sniper) and his impressionable teenage nephew (the spotter and getaway driver).  They were armed only with a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle. They killed 17 people and wounded 10 others, and perhaps worse, caused widespread terror in several states before they were caught, by selecting victims at gas stations and shoppers in parking lots, two of the commonest places in American life. That's how easy terrorism is. And there's nothing stopping anybody today from doing exactly the same thing. Nothing. Nowadays we just have a few more cameras around that anyway wouldn't pick up snipers tucked away in the distance.... 

Our leaders continue to lie to us that by eliminating (as in 100%!) the threat of Islamist extremism "over there," and oppressing the peaceful Muslims at home, we can keep ourselves safe "over here."  In fact, by persecuting Muslims at home, and making stupid wars of choice over there, we make Americans less safe over here, in ways that we've witnessed numerous times. (In a word: blowback).  And worse, we who usually refuse to trust our leaders, who know they tell us what we what we want to hear, choose to believe their lies. (The 240,000-employee strong Dept. of Homeland Security, which didn't exist prior to 9/11, the NSA, the Pentagon's top brass, and the military-intelligence contractors getting $285 billion a year certainly thank us for our choice!)  We should know better.

When influential bloviators like Glenn Beck, and even conservatives that I know, say that radical Islam is one of America's most dire problems, nobody dares laugh at them. Yet if I said the KKK was something every U.S. Presidential candidate should propose a plan to fight, I'd be laughed out of town. Never mind that there are upwards of 3,000 Klan members in the U.S., in all 50 states, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, as opposed to 100 or fewer members of ISIS in the United States, according to the Pentagon.

Either way it's like arguing which is worse, the mosquito or the fly. The West, in particular the United States, has many more important problems to address. 

Publicly, we should ignore ISIS; outside the public eye of cameras and journalists, we should fight ISIS seriously but in proportion to the threat they pose, in the time and manner of our own choosing, and not have our actions be driven by the release of disgusting YouTube videos.

Conservatives ruining 'American exceptionalism'

Beinartfeb argues convincingly that conservatives, who say they defend "American exceptionalism," are actually doing the most to destroy Americans' feeling of having a special place in the world that diverges historically and culturally from Europe.  

How?  First, because of conservatives' politicizing religion. Feelings of exceptionalism are strongest with those who attend church regularly and identify with a particular religious denomination. By politicizing religion, starting in the 1980s, conservatives have steadily turned off generations of Americans from churchy Christianity. They believe church has gotten too political.  (They're right).  We have an increasing contingent of "spiritual not religious" Americans who never hear the pastor's or televangelist's politicized sermons.

Secondly, because of Dubya. A belief in American exceptionalism goes along with an aggressive, "unapologetic" U.S. foreign policy. Thanks to Bush's avoidable debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq, two generations have been turned off from an active, interfering U.S. role in the world; and they are less likely to believe in "going it alone" and more likely to trust the UN and international institutions.

Third, because of economic inequality. Republican policies have limited class mobility, have encouraged accumulation of wealth at the top, and have made more Americans class-conscious: they are more likely to look at their country just like any other, where the Haves rule the Have-Nots -- not the land of the "American Dream" where anybody who works hard can live comfortably and even strike it rich. 

The End of American Exceptionalism

By Peter Beinartfeb

February 3, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/the-end-of-american-exceptionalism/283540/

Limbaugh 'bewildered' by Pope Francis, Catholic teaching

I'm liking Pope Francis more and more. I mean, look at how his simple words -- they could be ripped right from the New Testament! -- make so-called "Christian" conservative commentators squirm in their seats! (Partly, this is because conservatives are much more susceptible than liberals to patriarchy and argument from authority, and you don't get much more patriarchal and authoritative than the Pope).

"Say what?" Rush Limbaugh seems to say (see below), "Jesus didn't believe in trickle-down economics? Really? Christianity doesn't teach that we should get a 'thrill' from empty consumerism; we can only find true joy in loving one another and God?"

Rush is the perfect example of a conservative who has put his Christian religion way, way, waaaay behind his politics (second) and his love of money and buying things (first).  I'm gonna quote him at length so you see what I mean [emphasis mine]:

You talk about unfettered, this is an unfettered anti-capitalist dictate from Pope Francis.  And listen to this.  This is an actual quote from what he wrote.  "The culture of prosperity deadens us.  We are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime, all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle. They fail to move us."  I mean, that's pretty profound.  That's going way beyond matters that are ethical.  This is almost a statement about who should control financial markets.  He says that the global economy needs government control. 

I'm telling, I'm not Catholic, but I know enough to know that this would have been unthinkable for a pope to believe or say just a few years ago.  But this passage, "The culture of prosperity deadens us. We are thrilled if the market offers us something new to buy.  In the meantime, all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle."  I have to tell you, folks, I am totally bewildered by this. 

Indeed, Rush is totally bewildered by Pope Francis's remarks, because Rush is completely ignorant of the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Oh, the smite the Sodomites stuff -- he got that memo from the Old Testament. But the entire New Testament seems to have zipped over his bald head. And he's not alone among U.S. Christians, especially Evangelicals.

Here's more. Take a look at these two statements from the U.S. Catholic Bishops [italics mine]:

7. In economic life, free markets have both clear advantages and limits; government has essential responsibilities and limitations; voluntary groups have irreplaceable roles, but cannot substitute for the proper working of the market and the just policies of the state.

8. Society has a moral obligation, including governmental action where necessary, to assure opportunity, meet basic human needs, and pursue justice in economic life. 

Sounds pretty leftist, doesn't it?  It's also True with a capital T! And the Catholic Church's teachings have been very consistent over the years in this regard.

Later, Rush goes into complete revisionist-history/nutjob land: he says modern-day U.S. Democrats are today's Evil Empire that the Catholic Church should be fighting.  

Never mind that there are actual, honest-to-God socialist and Communist political parties dotting Europe, supported by honest-to-God trade unions (they are nearly extinct in the U.S., by comparison), giving all those godless Euro-trash types "free" healthcare, education and old-age pensions... And the Catholic priests and bishops there gladly support all this leftism.... No, according to Rush, the Bishop of Rome should ignore Europe and concentrate on the real enemy: the U.S. Democratic Party. Or as I like to call them, 1990s Republicans.  Unbelievable:

Now, by the way, in fairness to the pope and in fairness to the Catholic Church, I will admit that communism years ago was much easier to see and identify than it is today.  And the obvious evil that was communism was easy to see.  Soviet-sponsored communism, the gulags, the First World military with the Third World economy, the blustery behavior of Soviet Communist Party bosses, the constant Soviet expansionism into Cuba and Sandinista land and Nicaragua and everywhere. 

Communism today is much more disguised. 

Communism today, in large part, is the Democrat Party.  Communism today is in large part the feminist movement. Communism today is found in most of the AFL-CIO-type unions.  As such, it seems just a political point of view.  It's just an alternative political point of view.  It's just the Democrats, and it's a much tougher thing to identify and target, because it can be your neighbor.  It's not some foreign country easily identified as "the Evil Empire." Communism has a much different face today. 

I have to tell you, what has been attributed to the pope here doesn't make sense, with 50 years of the Catholic Church.  It doesn't jibe.  But it sounds exactly like what your average, run-of-the-mill leftist would say each and every day:  unfettered capitalism, trickle-down doesn't work.  I don't know this pope, but I don't know that the bishop of Rome speaks in terms of trickle-down.

Rush and his ilk simply refuse to acknowledge the obvious truth of the New Testament that Jesus and his followers rejected the pursuit of wealth, and established as their primary mission love, aid and fellowship with society's poor and outcast.  This is nothing new.  Pope Francis didn't think this up in the shower one morning.  Rush refuses to understand that, indeed, Christian teaching is basically "run-of-the-mill leftist" thought: equality, tolerance, shared responsibility, multiculturalism, love the poor, etc.

UPDATE (03.12.2013): I'm getting lots of hits on this post so let me add a personal tidbit. I was in mass last year when the U.S Catholic Church was doing its big campaign against Obamacare from the pulpit. I hadn't been to church in a long time. The pipsqueak priest who was about 25 years old said that the Affordable Care Act was "socialism" and that the Church opposed "socialism." It totally infuriated me. I stood up and walked out. "What is this, a Tea Party meeting?" I said to the person next to me.  Never mind that "socialist" Europe has variations on Obamacare in every single country and the RCC priests in Europe aren't railing against it.... Suddenly the global RCC was coming out against it in the USA? It smacked of ignorance and parochialism. So the Church is not snow white, and there is a lot of variation.

It's Sad How Wrong Pope Francis Is (Unless It's a Deliberate Mistranslation By Leftists)

November 27, 2013 | The Rush Limbaugh Show

URL: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/11/27/it_s_sad_how_wrong_pope_francis_is_unless_it_s_a_deliberate_mistranslation_by_leftists

Atheists should pray for Pope Francis?

Oh no! Sara Palin called Pope Francis, "kind of liberal." That changes everything! I'll have to re-think my support. Popes come and go, but the Tea Party is forever!....

Seriously though, in a widely read interview with an Italian Jesuit magazine, Pope Francis said, "I see clearly that the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle" [emphasis mine].

Funny, but as a liberal, that's kind of how I see the government's role: before anything, we must reach out and protect the neediest and most threatened. We must perform triage on a deeply wounded country. If we can't manage that, then what's the use of all America's power and highfalutin ideals about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  

Likewise, Jesus started by healing the sick, feeding the hungry and seeking fellowship with society's outcasts. Jesus had zero tolerance for rules-quoting pharisees -- he condensed everything those holier-than-thou needed to know in one Golden Rule -- and he had no patience for religiosity that prevented caring for and loving other people. It was a radical approach then, just as it is today, because Jesus was a liberal; and liberals are always viewed as dangerous. Thankfully, it seems the current pontiff is a liberal, too. Let's pray he keeps it up!

You can't get girls in a Ford Focus! But I guess the Pope doesn't care....

Why even atheists should be praying for Pope Francis

By Jonathan Freedland

November 15, 2013 | Guardian

That Obama poster on the wall, promising hope and change, is looking a little faded now. The disappointments, whether over drone warfare or a botched rollout of healthcare reform, have left the world's liberals and progressives searching for a new pin-up to take the US president's place. As it happens, there's an obvious candidate: the head of an organisation those same liberals and progressives have long regarded as sexist, homophobic and, thanks to a series of child abuse scandals, chillingly cruel. The obvious new hero of the left is the pope.

Only installed in March, Pope Francis has already become a phenomenon. His is the most talked-about name on the internet in 2013, ranking ahead of "Obamacare" and "NSA". In fourth place comes Francis's Twitter handle, @Pontifex. In Italy, Francesco has fast become the most popular name for new baby boys. Rome reports a surge in tourist numbers, while church attendance is said to be up – both trends attributed to "the Francis effect".

His popularity is not hard to fathom. The stories of his personal modesty have become the stuff of instant legend. He carries his own suitcase. He refused the grandeur of the papal palace, preferring to live in a simple hostel. When presented with the traditional red shoes of the pontiff, he declined; instead he telephoned his 81-year-old cobbler in Buenos Aires and asked him to repair his old ones. On Thursday, Francis visited the Italian president – arriving in a blue Ford Focus, with not a blaring siren to be heard.

Some will dismiss these acts as mere gestures, even publicity stunts. But they convey a powerful message, one of almost elemental egalitarianism. He is in the business of scraping away the trappings, the edifice of Vatican wealth accreted over centuries, and returning the church to its core purpose, one Jesus himself might have recognised. He says he wants to preside over "a poor church, for the poor". It's not the institution that counts, it's the mission.

All this would warm the heart of even the most fervent atheist, except Francis has gone much further. It seems he wants to do more than simply stroke the brow of the weak. He is taking on the system that has made them weak and keeps them that way.

"My thoughts turn to all who are unemployed, often as a result of a self-centred mindset bent on profit at any cost," he tweeted in May. A day earlier he denounced as "slave labour" the conditions endured by Bangladeshi workers killed in a building collapse. In September he said that God wanted men and women to be at the heart of the world and yet we live in a global economic order that worships "an idol called money".

There is no denying the radicalism of this message, a frontal and sustained attack on what he calls "unbridled capitalism", with its "throwaway" attitude to everything from unwanted food to unwanted old people. His enemies have certainly not missed it. If a man is to be judged by his opponents, note that this week Sarah Palin denounced him as "kind of liberal" while the free-market Institute of Economic Affairs has lamented that this pope lacks the "sophisticated" approach to such matters of his predecessors. Meanwhile, an Italian prosecutor has warned that Francis's campaign against corruption could put him in the crosshairs of that country's second most powerful institution: the mafia.

As if this weren't enough to have Francis's 76-year-old face on the walls of the world's student bedrooms, he also seems set to lead a church campaign on the environment. He was photographed this week with anti-fracking activists, while his biographer, Paul Vallely, has revealed that the pope has made contact with Leonardo Boff, an eco-theologian previously shunned by Rome and sentenced to "obsequious silence" by the office formerly known as the "Inquisition". An encyclical on care for the planet is said to be on the way.

Many on the left will say that's all very welcome, but meaningless until the pope puts his own house in order. But here, too, the signs are encouraging. Or, more accurately, stunning. Recently, Francis told an interviewer the church had become "obsessed" with abortion, gay marriage and contraception. He no longer wanted the Catholic hierarchy to be preoccupied with "small-minded rules". Talking to reporters on a flight – an occurrence remarkable in itself – he said: "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" His latest move is to send the world's Catholics a questionnaire, seeking their attitude to those vexed questions of modern life. It's bound to reveal a flock whose practices are, shall we say, at variance with Catholic teaching. In politics, you'd say Francis was preparing the ground for reform.

Witness his reaction to a letter – sent to "His Holiness Francis, Vatican City" – from a single woman, pregnant by a married man who had since abandoned her. To her astonishment, the pope telephoned her directly and told her that if, as she feared, priests refused to baptise her baby, he would perform the ceremony himself. (Telephoning individuals who write to him is a Francis habit.) Now contrast that with the past Catholic approach to such "fallen women", dramatised so powerfully in the current film Philomena. He is replacing brutality with empathy.

Of course, he is not perfect. His record in Argentina during the era of dictatorship and "dirty war" is far from clean. "He started off as a strict authoritarian, reactionary figure," says Vallely. But, aged 50, Francis underwent a spiritual crisis from which, says his biographer, he emerged utterly transformed. He ditched the trappings of high church office, went into the slums and got his hands dirty.

Now inside the Vatican, he faces a different challenge – to face down the conservatives of the curia and lock in his reforms, so that they cannot be undone once he's gone. Given the guile of those courtiers, that's quite a task: he'll need all the support he can get.

Some will say the world's leftists and liberals shouldn't hanker for a pin-up, that the urge is infantile and bound to end in disappointment. But the need is human and hardly confined to the left: think of the Reagan and Thatcher posters that still adorn the metaphorical walls of conservatives, three decades on. The pope may have no army, no battalions or divisions, but he has a pulpit – and right now he is using it to be the world's loudest and clearest voice against the status quo. You don't have to be a believer to believe in that.

Rush misunderstands natural law

Rush: "'We hold these truths to be self-evident...' was so obvious that those truths had to be written down."

Unwittingly, Rush Limbaugh has given us another teachable moment. Teachable as in, we should avoid repeating the errors of an ignoramus.

Rush and his caller last Friday discussed natural law.  What's that?  Well let me define it for you, alternatively, as:

1. (Philosophy) an ethical belief or system of beliefs supposed to be inherent in human nature and discoverable by reason rather than revelation;

2. (Philosophy) a nonlogically necessary truth; law of nature. See also nomological;

3. (Philosophy) the philosophical doctrine that the authority of the legal system or of certain laws derives from their justifiability by reason, and indeed that a legal system which cannot be so justified has no authority.

What Rush and his interlocutor meant to say was divine natural law:

Divine natural law represents the system of principles believed to have been revealed or inspired by God or some other supreme and supernatural being. These divine principles are typically reflected by authoritative religious writings such as Scripture. 

Notice that these two are not necessarily the same.  One could be an atheist and a Darwinist and yet subscribe to natural law, because certain laws just make sense in our historical-human context.  For example, murdering somebody is morally wrong for all kinds of obvious reasons, and you don't need God in the guise of a burning bush to tell you why.  Same thing with stealing, bearing false witness against your neighbor, etc.  These immoral acts cause unnecessary conflict, strife and suffering.  

Here's a more generic definition of natural law that covers the two above: "A principle or body of laws considered as derived from nature, right reason, or religion and as ethically binding in human society."  So it's either/or/or.  

The major difference between the non-religious and religious definitions would be the concept of "inalienable rights."  Personally, I find the concept of inalienable rights awfully stupid, and it's easy to demonstrate why:

Imagine it's just you and a liberal (or a conservative, it doesn't make a difference) all alone on a deserted island.  You're fighting over coconuts to survive.  While arguing for your fair share of coconuts on the island, you remind him about your "inalienable" rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"... and in reply he hits you on the head with a club and takes all the coconuts for himself.  Your rights were easily made alienable with that club.

Meanwhile, God or Zeus does not strike him down with a thunderbolt, preventing him from taking all the tasty, life-sustaining coconuts and saving your cranium from a cracking.  In fact, he gets fat on coconuts while you become tropical fish food.  So where do your inalienable rights figure in there?  Sorry, there was no overreaching government there to protect your inalienable rights. 

So the concept of "rights" without a strong government to uphold them is just academic-philosophical flim flam.  And who are the biggest opponents of strong government?  Advocates of divine natural law, that's who.  See the cognitive disconnect?  

Non-religious definitions of natural law don't subscribe to "inalienable rights," that's why they're superior.  They rely on innate arguments from logic, experience and history, not from dry old sectarian texts.  This is not to say I'm a believer in natural law.  I'm not.  What may seem "obvious" or a "law of nature" to you may not be so obvious to me; so again, any right of yours that depends on persuading me cannot be innate or natural.  

For Rush and his caller, this discussion of natural law was just a segue to complaining about the all-fronts "assault on God" in America.  That phrase always makes me laugh.  Does God really need the American federal government to protect Him?  Is He really that weak? Aren't churches strong enough?  If not, then... what's their purpose?  Are they just non-profit conservative lobbying organizations?  (In Republicans' ideal US of A, yes, they would be.)

As a member of the Left, let me make it clear: I'm not assaulting anybody's religion.  With my politics, I'm simply ignoring it.  That's all.  If ignoring something is offensive then... Well, if you're a married man, you know it's almost a sin to ignore your wife's new hairdo, outfit, etc.  But I think with religion we should not be so overweening and sensitive, what do you say?  Any religion that's been around more than a millennium can probably fend for itself.  Agreed? 

The Left's Assault on Religion

June 28, 2013 | The Rush Limbaugh Show

URL: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/06/28/the_left_s_assault_on_religion

Catholic historian: Early Christians never persecuted

Here's another sacred myth busted:

In the 300 years between the death of Jesus and the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, there were maybe 10 or 12 scattered years during which Christians were singled out for supression by Rome’s imperial authorities, and even then the enforcement of such initiatives was haphazard — lackadaisical in many regions, although harsh in others.

... "And then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32).

The Romans did not target, hunt or massacre Jesus' followers, says a historian of the early church

By Laura Miller

February 24, 2013 | Salon

URL: http://www.salon.com/2013/02/24/the_myth_of_persecution_early_christians_werent_persecuted/

5 myths about U.S. charities

Below is a must-read article for all you far-right conservatives who believe the U.S. safety net should be torn down... and then magically replaced, somehow, by a flood of charitable, Christian giving that will meet the needs of the poor instead.

Herein I'm re-stating Stern's 5 myths in my own words, with comments that may seem very bah-humbug and un-Christian, but so be it:

1.  Charities and non-profits are founded, primarily, to meet the ego needs of the rich and emotional needs of the aggrieved, and secondarily, to help the needy. 

How many celebrities and professional athletes have their own charities? How good do you think most of them are? Enough said.

And then think about what happens when a tragedy like a deadly illness strikes a well-to-do family: they immediately establish a memorial foundation or charity to help fight that illness, or help other victims of that illness. It's more about making those people feel like their loss wasn't in vain, and that they must save somebody else since they couldn't save their loved one. Sorry for being so un-PC; and I acknowledge that such charities do some good; but such non-profits are usually more about the grief and "making sense of it all" of the aggrieved family than they are about curing diseases and social ills. The government is better at both -- the Centers for Disease Control, government-funded research universities, passing commonsense laws, etc.

2.  It doesn't really matter what your charity does, as long as it's "good," or how effective it is in its stated mission, as long as it does it cheaply (i.e., low overhead).

We don't judge businesses or government agencies by this yardstick, so why should we think that a charity's primary mission is to do things on the cheap?  I'll tell you why: because we're cheapskates who are quite comfortable with our (mostly small) private charities working on the fringes and margins of our society, making feel-good, good-faith efforts to do things but not really succeeding. 

If we really cared about effectiveness, we would acknowledge that there is way too much overlap/redundancy in charities, and that size and economies of scale matter -- and we would actually demand monitoring of results by charities! ... But if we were to acknowledge that economies of scale matter and demand accounting for results, then we'd be forced to acknowledge that our government is better in both regards.

3.  It is a truism that higher income taxes discourage charitable giving; and charitable giving should be deducted from the giver's income taxes because he is partially replacing the government safety net (that depends on his income taxes) with his wise and effective choice in how to help the poor.

Except both of these assumptions are empirically false.

4.  It's OK for a charity to have hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank as long as it's not-for-profit; meanwhile, the median salary of a U.S. charity's executive director is $133,000.

I'm not actually saying that big charities are bad, I'm just saying that most charitable givers don't like to think about it. In fact, many prefer giving to "small" charities for the exact reason that they are resource-starved. But think about that logic for a moment. Does "smaller is better" make any sense if the idea is to muster a lot of resources and deploy them in the most efficient way to achieve desired results?

Again, neither business nor governments tend to think this way. Very few analysts say that McDonald's needs to be smaller in order to feed more people cheaply. The Pentagon doesn't tell Congress it can keep us safer if our armed forces are "leaner" and "hungrier."

5.  Good luck finding an effective and worthwhile charity to support -- it ain't easy!

Since there are so many registered charities out there and scant data on their effectiveness (because no donors demand it), unless you know the charity personally and its work... you're probably just shooting in the dark, making yourself feel good.

Five myths about charitable giving

By Ken Stern

December 27, 2012 | Washington Post

The last few days of the year may be a time of celebration and indulgence, but it is also when many people think about helping others. Though much of the roughly $240 billion in individual charitable contributions comes in December, these donations are often made hastily, based on poor information. Before writing those end-of-the-year checks, here are some things to remember about how charities work and how to evaluate them.

1. Charities are principally dedicated to serving the poor and needy.

The term “charity” is associated with helping the poor and downtrodden, but American charities — 1.1 million organizations with $1.5 trillion in annual revenue — make up a large, rapidly growing economic sector that includes health care, higher education, scientific research, social services and the arts. There is incredible diversity among charities, from tiny neighborhood food banks to multi-state hospital chains boasting lavish concierge services and million-dollar salaries for executives. In fact, hospitals are the largest component of the U.S. charitable sector, but they are more likely to be profitable than for-profit hospitals and aren’t much more likely to serve the needy.

It’s also astonishingly easy to start a charity. The Internal Revenue Service approves more than 99.5 percent of charitable applications, often in very short order. Because of this, the sector includes more than a few organizations that have little connection to common notions of doing good: the Sugar Bowl, the U.S. Golf Association, the Renegade Roller Derby team in Bend, Ore., and the All Colorado Beer Festival, just to name a few.

2. Donors should reward charities that have low overhead.

The notion that charities should put as much money as possible into services and as little as possible into overhead expenses is widely accepted. Overhead ratios, which measure the relationship between a charity’s income and expenses, are one factor in popular rating systems such as Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance. Charity Navigator, for example, suggests that administrative spending greater than 30 percent is unreasonable, and it rewards its highest ranking to organizations that put less than 15 percent of their resources toward such costs.

Low overhead has become a point of pride — and marketing — for charities such as the Brother’s Brother Foundation, a Pittsburgh-based relief organization whose Web site boasts that “less than 1% of the value of donations [is] used for overhead.”

But charities need to spend on research, training and financial systems, all classified as “overhead,” to be effective. Those that shortchange these investments — and many do — are less likely to achieve their goals. The American Red Cross, for instance, struggled during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy in part because it hadn’t invested enough in the infrastructure necessary to handle complex emergency relief.

That lack of investment is partly due to public pressure, rather than a shortage of funding. When then-Red Cross chief executive Bernadine Healy tried to appropriate unused money from the 9/11 Liberty Fund to correct weaknesses in the group’s broader emergency response capacity, she was forced to resign.

3. Tax incentives are critical to charitable giving.

People with income in the lowest quintile give a higher percentage of their earnings to charity than do more wealthy Americans. This pattern persists despite the fact that low earners have less disposable income and rarely take advantage of itemized tax deductions for charitable donations. Sure, some contributions are tax-driven: Almost a quarter of online giving occurs in the last two days of the year as taxpayers rush to qualify for deductions. But Americans’ generosity may be more resistant to changes in the tax laws than most people think.

According to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, the charitable tax deduction will cost the federal government $230 billion from 2010 to 2014. Some economists believe that charities would lose less than that amount if the exemption were eliminated or modified, since people give for many reasons unrelated to tax incentives. Because of the perceived unfairness and inefficiency of the current system, many analysts, including at the Congressional Budget Office, have begun to look at substantial changes, from establishing floors or ceilings for deductions (sometimes in combination with making incentives available to non-itemizers) all the way up to eliminating the deduction.

4. Nonprofits are not profitable.

In 2010, U.S. charities reported more than $2.7 trillion in assets. Even putting aside the multibillion-dollar endowments of Harvard and Yale universities, many lesser-known charities have substantial war chests. In 2007, Ascension Health, a large Midwest charity hospital chain, reported reserves of $7.4 billion, more than twice the cash on hand at the Walt Disney Co.

Some donors look for small, underfunded charities, thinking their gifts will make a bigger difference. But that is not necessarily an effective strategy. Many of the charities with strong track records in delivering results — organizations such as Youth Villages of Memphis and the Nature Conservancy — are also quite good at building financial reserves. Charities like these identify clear goals and have third parties evaluate their work, practices that are more important than how much they have in the bank.

5. It is easy to find a good charity to support.

In fact, it is enormously difficult. Not only is there considerable confusion among charities — for example, there are more than 60,000 with the word “veteran” in their names — there is little information on groups’ effectiveness. The mutual fund industry employs 159,000 people to help investors make good choices. But there are fewer than 100 people nationwide whose jobs are to help the giving public make wise donations. So what is a conscientious donor to do?

Put in the work. On average, Americans spend more time watching television in one day than they do researching charities in an entire year. Finding good charities takes time. It means using the few organizations, such as GiveWell, that do in-depth studies of charities’ effectiveness. And it means remembering that the best organizations, charitable or otherwise, are built on more than a good story or a charismatic leader.

As Warren Buffett once said: “I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.” That’s good advice when trying to make sure donated dollars actually do good.

Dinesh D'Souza on 'transactional' Christianity and 'welfare'

What a load of baloney!  Of course there were no dissenting voices on the stage, so I'd expect nothing less from D'Souza.

"Stripping the virtue from a [charitable] transaction"!?  This is just what I've been saying: for a certain type of Christian, charity has nothing to do with the suffering person, it's just an optional opportunity for the good, well-to-do Christian giver to earn some brownie points with God, plus get that "good Christian feeling" from helping somebody else.  This view on charity totally disregards the suffering and dignity of the person in need, reducing him to an "opportunity" for the better-off person and nothing more.

Likewise, the very word D'Souza chooses, "transaction," implies an exchange of value between the charitable giver and the needy person.  Jesus Christ never spoke of helping the poor in transactional terms, i.e. "what's in it for me?"  He said it should be born of love and out of Christian moral duty, which ideally are one in the same.  

Christianity is not about a system of charitable debits and credits which add up to... Paradise, or happiness on Earth, or whatever. Christ threw the money changers out of the temple; and he certainly did not preach that God was an accountant.

Sorry to teach the Christian faith to some of you, but millions of you have obviously forgotten it, or never learned it in the first place!....

Further on, "the guy with gun" here is our duly elected representative, fulfilling our wishes. He is not some hereditary Hobbesian king. If we don't like what he's doing, we can unelect him every two years. 

So to say our taxes are "coerced" is untrue and not at all what the Founding Fathers thought about the system that they established, whereby only directly elected representatives could levy taxes and incur spending.  Which is a long way to say that: if you don't like the results of our democratic elections, then nobody is forcing you to stay in America, you can love it or leave it and find someplace you like better!  

D'Souza demonstrates that real conservatives are inherently anti-democratic whenever the result of democracy is to "steal" from the rich or lucky via the tax system. He's entitled to his point of view; but he must recognize that there are precious few countries on Earth remaining where the majority shares his view. 

And this is the problem with conservative Republicans and debates on taxes: we always start at square one, i.e., taxes are "stealing" and so how can higher taxes, i.e. greater stealing, ever be morally permissible? It's a faulty premise logically and morally to start with.

Next: "It's kind of nicer in the [welfare] wagon"?!  Yes, which is exactly the message we get from all the reality TV shows, music videos, best-selling novels and books, self-help seminars, life coaches, etc., about the joys of welfare.  What's that you say, there is no such thing?  There is no general yearning in America to be a dependent, non-working, non-productive person who barely gets by?  Well then, now you're talking sense, now you're recognizing the world as it is, and not as some professional pundit like D'Souza would like to sell it to you.  People still aspire to things, and they realize, rationally, that welfare is not the means to any kind of material or personal aspiration, it's just bare survival.  And that doesn't inspire or attract hardly anybody.  

But on to D'Souza's next point: that the people "pulling the [economic] wagon" deserve more credit from, well, government and everybody. OK, fine, they are rich, famous, comfortable and feted and on and on.... But don't try to tell me that they would willingly pay more in taxes, or support Obamacare, if only Obama would "give them more credit," if only Obama told them "thank you," more often. No, that's not what their beef is; they are not upset about being "demonized" rhetorically. They want to keep more of their money, plain and simple. 

Finally, back to Michael Whatsisname's original point that "universal coverage" or health insurance, is a political not a moral issue, in the sense that, morally, we should all be in favor of it [agreed], but politically, we should look at the "the most efficient way that everybody gets that coverage." In that case, then there's really no debate: countries with universal coverage demonstrate better health outcomes with lower costs and greater coverage than the United States. Politically, there is no debate for anybody who is not cherry-picking statistics. Morally, you can invent whatever twisted reasoning you like to avoid helping your fellow man, your fellow citizens... it's just completely disingenuous to label such moral contortions as "Christian."

No ObamaCare

Uploaded by republicunited

October 12, 2012 | YouTube

Paul Ryan is not a Catholic and he said so

Remember when the Right said that Obama had to repudiate Jeremiah Wright if he wanted to be President?  Remember how they doubt Obama's confessed Christianity, even to this day?

Why then is Paul Ryan, a self-proclaimed Catholic whose own parish priest has come out against him, and who is opposed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, getting a free pass by the media on his love for the atheistic philosopher of self-interest, Ayn Rand?  Imagine if the Mormon Church came out and said that Mitt Romney did not represent their beliefs!

Here's what Ryan said about his hero Rand in a 2005 interview:

The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.... I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are.  It's inspired me so much that it's required reading in my office for all my interns.

Note that he didn't mention the Bible, Jesus, Catholic catechism, or anything religious at all.  Ryan said his value system was formed by a dead atheist who hated religion more than Karl Marx.  

Now that Ryan is a VP nominee he's trying to back-track, saying he rejects Rand's philosophy; he just likes her economic ideas.  But not so fast.  Rand's economic ideas are based entirely on a morality of strict self-interest that is in direct conflict with Catholic-Christian teaching.

So, I'm going on the record to say I don't believe Paul Ryan is a Catholic or a Christian.  Nowadays we don't have to take a politician's word for it -- the Right taught us that with Obama.  So I don't buy Paul's recent coming to Jesus.  He was a grown man and an elected Congressman with a wife and children when he said that in 2005, and it's not like he's changed since then.  He's simply telling us now what he thinks we want to hear.  Remind you of anybody?

Ayn Rand & Paul Ryan

August 29, 2012 | The Colbert Report

URL: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/418458/august-29-2012/ayn-rand---paul-ryan

In 2012, vote for the Christian?

Just one of Mormons' weird beliefs; look it up

Maybe I'm being a bit rascally by posting this, but certain Bible-thumpers and confession-doubters deserve to hear it. After all, if they're going to doubt the confessed Christianity of our President, then they need to know that Mitt Romney is not a Christian.  

That's not an insult, that's a fact. Even Franklin Graham said so. Christianity is a club of sorts, and you have to believe certain things to be a member.  Mormons don't.  So they're not in the club.  They are their own religious sect.  (Or, "the fourth Abrahamic religion," if you want to be really generous.)  That doesn't make them bad people.  Just like Muslims, Jews, Hindus, agnostics and atheists are not necessarily bad.  They're simply not Christians.  On this point, Protestants and the Catholic Church agree.

So, our conservative Christian friends need to decide if they want a confessed Christian in the White House, or a confessed non-Christian.  (Or, gee whiz, maybe they'll come to the realization that one's religion, or lack thereof, doesn't matter?!...)  

Is Mormonism Christian?

By Matt Slick

Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

[ ... ] 

Conclusion

Why is Mormonism a non-Christian religion? It is not Christian because it denies that there is only one God, denies the true Gospel, adds works to salvation, denies that Jesus is the uncreated creator, distorts the biblical teaching of the atonement, and undermines the authority and reliability of the Bible.

CARM does not deny that Mormons are good people, that they worship "a" god, that they share common words with Christians, that they help their people, and that they do many good things.  But that isn't what makes someone Christian.  Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23, " Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" (NKJV). Becoming a Christian does not mean belonging to a church, doing good things, or simply believing in God. Being a Christian means that you have trusted in the true God for salvation, in the True Jesus -- not the brother of the devil, not the god of Mormonism, not the gospel of Mormonism.  Mormonism is false and cannot save anyone.

Study: U.S. majority is not Christian

More non-white than white, more non-Christian than Christian.... America's going to hell in a hand basket!

Most And Least Christian States In America 

By Jahnabi Barooah 

May 29, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/29/most-and-least-christian-states_n_1547045.html

Stupid is: 'Does [a Christian] God Still Bless the USA?'

Said country singer-songwriter Lee Greenwood in his tee-ball interview with FOX about his new book: "... I decided to ask the question: are we still a Christian nation?  Are we changing so much that we're not being the same people as we used to be?  ... So it [the book] kind of support [sic] the theory that Christianity was born in the nation with our patriots."  Huh?  I always thought Christianity was born with Christ in the first century, but what do I know?

Greenwood continued just as stupidly, responding to the question about what he hoped for his book: "Um, well first of all I hope it brings unity.  I mean, I hope it awakens the patriots of America who, uh, believe that, uh, that we are still a Christian nation.  If you go somewhere in another part of the world, where in Europe or wherever, you're gonna see different faiths.  But when I've [sic] always believed we're a Christian nation from the beginning."  

Yeah, telling at least 24 percent of Americans that they are not patriots, nor can they be, should certainly unite us, you moron.  Secondly, it's just plain stupid and wrong to remark that Europe has more religions than the U.S.!  We're the world's melting pot, for God's sake!  Has Greenwood ever been to New York or Washington, DC?  And speaking of our history, have the Greenwoods of the America really forgotten what was the major religion of some 654,000 odd African slaves forcibly brought to the U.S.?  (Hint: it rhymes with lip balm and psalm.)

Another thing.  The world's three major religions all recognize the same One God, although they differ on the specifics.  Does that mean, in the U.S., that Jews and Muslims can't be patriots?  And I guess Hindus, Sikhs and atheists really have no chance at all.

You can say all this is kind of harmless, silly stuff by a guy who's not polished or ready to be put in front of a mike and hold forth on his views, and maybe so, but I see guys like Greenwood as the softer side of Christo-fascist bigotry that is offered up everyday on FOX and other mainstream outlets and it elicits hardly a whimper of protest.  If we understood what our country was about then this squeaky-voiced twerp's asinine assertions would be challenged loudly, immediately.  He wouldn't be silenced, nevertheless, the majority of polite, informed society, would never give him the time of day.

And oh, for the record: Mitt Romney is not a Christian.  He's a Mormon.  None of the major Christian sects recognize Mormonism as Christian.  (Not that that's gonna stop white Evangelical voters from supporting Romney.  And not that that makes Mormons better or worse than Christians... although some of Mormons' beliefs are really out there....  Religion is basically a club; either you're in or out, that's all.)  So I'm still waiting for Lee Greenwood, Mormon Glenn Beck, and FOXNews's bleach-blonde correspondents to take on that little inconvenient fact.  

'Does God Still Bless the USA?'

May 7, 2012 | FOXNews

URL:  http://video.foxnews.com/v/1626585206001/does-god-still-bless-the-usa?intcmp=features  

Polls show depths of GOP's idiocy

This is what we normal, rational people are up against:

• More than half of Republicans aren't convinced Obama is rightfully a U.S. citizen;

• And majorities of Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi (where GOP primaries are coming soon) don't take Obama's word for it that he is a Christian.
  

In other words, most Republicans today wear their chauvinism and stupidity like badges of honor. And the smart ones are afraid to speak out for fear of being ostracized from the Clan of the Cave Bear.

What good are facts and sound arguments with such imbeciles? We'd have more luck convincing them by beating our chests and banging sticks on the ground.

KY: Raiders of the Lost Park

Two Tennessee cities didn't see any financial sense in building a Bible Park, but doggoneit, that's not going to stop Kentucky from encountering an Ark!

Who needs financial sense when you've got horse sense and Yahweh as your pitchman? $37 million in state support shall be done. God shall provide! (Philippians 4:19).

(With the benefit of 4,000 to 10,000 years of hindsight, it's amazing to think the original Ark even got off the ground without a generous subsidy, municipal bond, or at least a greenfield industrial park. It truly was a miracle!)

Biblical Theme Park Plans May Meet Different Fates In Kentucky, Tennessee

By Nick Wing

January 10, 2011 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/kentucky-ark-encounter-park_n_806734.html

Survey: Christians don't know Christianity

The truth is that most citizens of our "Christian" nation know more about the Brady Bunch than the 10 Commandments, and they crib the rest from Republicans. (And for that, at least, thank God, conservatives for once can't blame our goddamn godless public schools!)

Increasingly, political taste informs religion in American, and not vice-versa. (I actually have no problem with religion informing politics, as long as one religious sect doesn't seek advantages through our government). For instance, many Catholics could give a hoot that their Church supports social justice (code word: socialism) and believes in just war theory (code word: pacifism). Even the head of Dubya's Methodist church said that the Iraq war was "unjustifiable" but that didn't stop him: he said God told him directly to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

But who cares what churches say? It's more important what Glenn Beck, your snake-handling preacher, or radio shock jocks say about Christianity. That's what counts.

I count myself among those who know more about Christianity than most Christians. If only Christians would be more Christian!....

Survey: Atheists, Agnostics Know More About Religion Than Religious

By JJ Sutherland

September 28, 2010 | NPR

URL: http://www.npr.org/130191248

Teabagging libertarianism and Christianity don't mix

Hey you Tea Partiers and libertarians, what's more important, your politics or your God? Because your God doesn't like your politics. He said so. (Oops, wrong Jesus.) So you can have one or the other.

Wrote Gushee: "[Christian traditions] understand that we were made by our Creator not just to claim rights for ourselves but to serve one another, and that a society governed by raw libertarian individualism cannot be the best we can do. Today's libertarian resurgence is at best an uneasy fit with Christian principles."

Tea Party Libertarianism and Christian Ethics

By Dr. David P. Gushee

July 29, 2010 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-p-gushee/tea-party-libertarianism_b_660532.html

'Jesus rifles' aid Our Troops in GWOT

Gee, I guess the War on Terra is a crusade against Islam after all:

"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles."

(Not that I actually believe that; but certainly these 'Jesus rifles' will be used as PR weapons against us by jihadists, who seem to be much more image-savvy than we are).

U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret 'Jesus' Bible Codes

Pentagon Supplier for Rifle Sights Says It Has 'Always' Added New Testament References

By Joseph Rhee, Tahman Bradley and Brian Ross

January 18, 2010 | ABC News

URL: http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9575794