The Evangelical Take-Over Of the Military
Or:
Mikey Weinstein, My New Hero
Oh, I am serious as a heart attack, you have got to read this.
Weinstein's no-bullshit brand of clear-headed patriotism is just the kind of thing we need to fight this problem.
More on this later.
[HT: BethTheSociologist]
Or:
Mikey Weinstein, My New Hero
Oh, I am serious as a heart attack, you have got to read this.
Weinstein's no-bullshit brand of clear-headed patriotism is just the kind of thing we need to fight this problem.
[HT: BethTheSociologist]
posted by Winston Smith at
4:37 PM
40 Comments:
And all those wacky Christians fighting and dying for your country is bad because...?
And the military is not overpopulated instead by secular progressives because...?
And you believe that those are legitimate responses to this article because . . .?
You first.
Tom, you reached into a grab-bag of 'standard conservatron bullshit responses' and posted them without even having read the linked article.
Nobody complained about the presence of evangelicals in the Military. They complained about things like: "My kids were called 'fucking Jews' and accused of complicity in the execution of Jesus Christ."
Now, you can feel free to claim that the mere presence of evangelicals in the military means that they're going to accuse the Jewish servicepeople of being Christ-killers if you like. That's on you.
Barring that, though, your responses were ignorant non-sequiturs at best and probably deliberately obfuscatory.
I didn't expect an answer, and was not disappointed. We shall consider my questions rhetorical, then.
I was familiar with the issue, having read on similar charges at the Air Force Academy some years back. There is obviously something real to the phenomenon, however, I cannot get terribly worked up that our rugged fighting men are whining about losing theological arguments or being called nasty things. Life is tough.
As for Mr. Weinstein, he's a lawyer, which might explain why he finds it a surprise that the military has a different culture than the ACLU. I found his essay vulgar (undisputably) and sophistic, as if any of us, of any stripe, puts country before conscience.
The concept of God and country that sustained much of Western Civilization is another matter entirely, and beyond our customary lobbing of mortar rounds at each other.
But Myca, Jeez. My conservative bullshit wasn't standard at all. I thought it up all by my ownself.
As for Mr. Weinstein, he's a lawyer, which might explain why he finds it a surprise that the military has a different culture than the ACLU.
This is so incredibly wrong it's astonishing. I've worked at human and civil rights organizations similar to the ACLU and I've talked with JAGs, and believe me, I can tell the difference. JAGs are servicemembers, for the love of God -- why on earth would an officer be more comfortable in a civilian legal advocacy organization? And I have to say that I find the contention that a member of the military a priori doesn't fit into the culture because he's a lawyer to be incredibly disrespectful of our military and its commitment to the rule of law, pluralism, and our constitutional values.
That said, after having glanced at the video in question, I don't find the claim that the video in particular violates the Establishment Clause very convincing (to say nothing of the religious test clause argument). I'm not familiar with the regulations he mentions, though I have heard that the military's internal rules on this sort of thing are pretty stringent. But any rate, Tom, you're way, way off on this one.
Yup. Not even in the ballpark on this one, Tom.
Tom, I didn't respond to your questions, because they were trolling bullshit. Roughly, the equivalent of responding to an article about attacks on blacks in the military with "So you don't want white people defending your country?"
Mike,
Yeah, I haven't even watched the video yet, and I was skeptical about the Establishment Clause claim...
Well, it's easier to vote me wrong then it is to defend Mr. Weinstein. I find him no gentleman, and his filthy salon.com article is conduct unbecoming an officer, even a former one.
However, his conduct is entirely becoming a lawyer, hence my snark. But I don't hold him a very convincing one, for reasons I and others, in their honesty, gave. He is promoting a book however, and has started an institute to battle the Evangelicals.
If there was misconduct toward his children and others, and I don't doubt there was, then the individuals involved should be disciplined. However, Mr. Weinstein and his supporters are obviously acting out of animus toward Evangelicals, and at this I protest.
As for God, country and the Evangelicals, that is clearly beyond the purview of this blog and its denizens save one. That the regular military attracts more than its share of religionists, and the ACLU is more congenial to the sensibilities of secularists, I think could be supported by proper statistics, or failing that, common sense.
Dude, the ranting about secularists gets old when you're referring to someone who is Jewish.
"Secularist" and atheist are not synonymous. It's a political term. The Naked Public Square. God and county or country, no God. The Faith of our Founding Fathers. Buncha stuff you might be unfamiliar with.
Weinstein is the topic, and your voice is more productively lifted in support of him rather than against me. Dennis Prager is Jewish and took the opposite principle. Depends on your definition of multiculturalism. Or more simply, culture.
No more time for remediation. Thanks for the abuse.
It never ceases to amaze me how Christianist apologists such as you, TVD, pretend they can't tell the difference between government-sanctioned hostility toward any other expression than evangelical Christianity on the one hand and driving Christianity underground on the other. Do you think it denies your religious freedom to prohibit your use of the power of the government to evangelize others?
Again:
You're not even in the ballpark on this one, Tom. You could refute your own arguments with five minutes of honest reflection.
In fact, it's your responsibility as a rational member of the polity to consider the glaringly obvious objections to your own assertions.
And I'm not going to do your job for you.
The power part is a good point, LL. But Weinstein's animus is toward their expressions of faith. It's a good rule that uniformed personnel don't talk partisan politics, but do we extend that to the free expression of religion?
Moreover, can the military, or any society, survive stripped of its culture?
It's a good rule that uniformed personnel don't talk partisan politics, but do we extend that to the free expression of religion? Moreover, can the military, or any society, survive stripped of its culture?
As a descriptive matter, yes, we do. Your constitutional rights to free exercise are dramatically curtailed when you're in the military, just as they're restricted when you're in prison (I am in no way comparing soldiers to criminals, of course -- but in both cases individuals surrender much of their liberty to the state in order to serve an important governmental purpose, and as a result the legal doctrines are similar). If soldiers have no right even to wear a yarmulke or a beard for religious reasons (and you don't), it's very hard to say that you somehow have a right to proselytize while in uniform. [As a personal note, I think soldiers should have greater religious rights than they actually do -- albeit more in the realm of practice than evangelizing -- but that's not the society we live in]
I'm not familiar enough with the regulations at issue here to know how close to the constitutional minimum protection of free exercise they cut, but the policy reasons for wanting to keep proselytization out of the military are hopefully clear enough not to require detailed explanation (and I think we agree that hostility to particular expressions of religion has very little to do with hostility to religion as such or hostility to particular religions).
Separately, I think the contention that the culture of the military has more to do with evangelical Christianity than with a broad-minded commitment to tolerance and secular values is historically incorrect, but I sadly don't have the time and ready sources necessary to back this up.
Neither am I inclined to research my opposing opinion, Mike, altho I think the questions of culture and ethos are far more important than the specifics of this issue. I don't see the willingness to give the full measure of devotion to tolerance and secular values as much as to God and country in human history.
Look, I find some (many?) evangelicals overbearing and have no doubt that the characters in question have crossed the line numerous times. I defend them only in principle, and have no objection with them being disciplined as individuals for inappropriate conduct. (They would probably be more hostile to me personally as a Papist than to many others.)
But I think Mr. Weinstein has a Cause that goes beyond a love of the military, and his conduct in advancing it is also inappropriate.
Mr. Weinstein has a Cause that goes beyond a love of the military
Something to with love of the Constitution, maybe?
Officers, even more than mere managers in ordinary businesses, have to be careful of the coercive power of their rank when raising politics or religion.
LL, I like the Constitution, a lot.
I cannot love it, as I don't see it or any set of laws or social contracts as anything more than a stab at truth, human or otherwise. Some are better than others, and our constitution is so far apparently the best, but I will not give my life for a set of words and the Supreme Court's current interpretion of them.
I will not die for it or any of it in defiance of my conscience, and I don't think anyone ever has. I do not think you would either, unless you're some sort of psycho.
Although we admire Voltaire's apocryphal quote
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,"
reality-based persons like you and I would be inclined to call it sheer nonsense. I would not expect you to die for the Air Force Evangelicals, nor die for my reputed standard conservative bullshit. And I cannot imagine either of us would die for David Duke's right to speak. In fact, if he had anything like Hitler's influence, I hope you and I might be thymotic enough to get together and kill his ass, in defiance of any and all laws of this land or any other.
Simple table-turning thought experiments often help to clarify our thinking on such matters.
A few relevant ones:
1. Suppose the Pentagon machinators in question were e.g. scientologists. How should one judge in that case?
2. Suppose they were evangelical atheists, harassing and persecuting theists and agnostics?
3. Suppose they were Mormons?
4. Suppose they were Islamic?
etc.
Yes, I had already experimented with the thoughts. The idea is that we're a bit stuck with those who are willing to defend us, especially when reticent to do it ourselves. We might (and must) demand individual accountability, but we would not declare such a jihad, on say, Islam, or even mere brutes.
I think Kipling put it best.
I find Mr. Weinstein's approach a bit of a broad brush, and the target selected because of its lack of esthetic appeal to him. It is the conduct that is relevant, not the reasons for it.
I'm not sure whether you are genuinely confused about the point at issue, Tom, or just trying to be a dialectical pain in the ass.
Don't take the above as anger--I'm just trying to be straight with you here.
1. I'm a huge Kipling fan, and that adds to my annoyance that you'd so badly misapply his point. NOBODY here--ESPECIALLY Weinstein--is anti-military. Kipling's point, of course was that it is common in some times and places to disrespect soldiers, or to only value them instrumentally rather than as persons. I suppose I AM a little ticked off that you'd suggest that such attitudes are at work in ANY part of this discussion.
2. Weinstein's objections are IN NO WAY aesthetic objections, but, rather objections having to do with matters of moral, professional, military, national and constitutional principle.
This is not "well, you like chocolate ice cream and I don't."
Jesus, Tom, these are serious matters and they deserve to be treated seriously.
After thinking about this more, I AM pretty ticked off that you'd write stuff like that. Who the hech do you think you're talking to here? I'd say that our little community of inquiry has earned more respect than that.
And, finally, re: the thought experiments suggested above, you don't answer the implicit question. Would you be willing to engage in the same kind of contorted apologies for evangelical atheists, scientologists, Mormons, etc. if THEY were basically trying to take over the Pentagon and harassing, say, Catholics, Jews, Baptists, etc.?
Let me answer that: of course you wouldn't.
Sorry, I think that sounds madder than I am/it should.
TVD, I was about to make an argument regarding the synecdoche in the "Voltaire" maxim, but maybe I should find out what you really mean first.
Are you saying this? "Yes, Col. Jessup, you and your few good men are protecting me, which I won't risk myself in doing, so whatever you do or say is fine with me."
It sure sounds like that. Is there anything for which you are willing to risk your life? Anything other than a beloved person? Any principle or right?
"I will not die for it or any of it in defiance of my conscience, and I don't think anyone ever has."
OK, so we know you'd never become a US servicemember, or that if you did, you would potentially betray your sworn duty:
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/oathofenlist.htm
So what?
Major Asshole: You know, son, according the the Book of Revelation, the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon.
Lt. Van Dyke: With all due respect, bite me, sir.
Col. Mohammed: As an infidel, you have eternal torment waiting for you.
Major Tom: Thanks for the tip, sir. And that was really cool when you blew up Zarqawi. Nice shooting.
That's how a man handles things. Yes, I get Weinstein's principle. But I think there's nothing heroic about running to salon.com and calling them c-cksuckers, even though they probably are. Certainly everyone involved deserves at least an afternoon in the clink.
As for Voltaire, etc., I haven't seen anyone here ever defend my right to say anything, let alone show an inclination to die for it. It's a nice sentiment, but I don't think it holds water.
As for Kipling, my point is that I think the military tends to draw a certain type of person, and some of this nonsense goes with the territory.
As for refusing to violate conscience in the performance of military duties, I thought that was something everyone could agree with.
And it's untoward to post twice in a row, but I missed LL's very good question. (What I consider my own very own good questions have vanished into the ether, of course, but I'm used to that. I realize I'm speaking of alien things, and the shorthand necessary for comments sections is often inadequate to pose them. I unfold them as best I can, when good persons like yourself engage me in dialogue and not shooting wars.)
Would I die for Mr. Weinstein's right to not be harassed by thymotic (truly in the CS Lewis sense) assholes or for his secular Cause?
No, I would not. I disagree with WS that this is a serious thing. Neither do I find Mr. Weinstein's thumos over it serious, but more an abstract exercise. I find the language of "rights" frequently abused and applied to most everything with maximum fervor. This may serve truth, but to lack perspective is a violation of wisdom.
Would I die for Mr. Weinstein as a Jew, something that as a whole the secular and entirely reasonable denizens of the Weimar Republic and Vichy France manifestly refused to do?
I would hope I'd have the courage. I wish I knew. What I do know is that the evangelical assholes in the Air Force would do so, beyond a reasonable doubt.
Thumos is what makes us go---it isn't so much about whether it's good or bad, but whether it's deep or shallow. If I were Mr. Weinstein, I would rather be defended by the graduates of Liberty University than Harvard's, a man with a bible in his pocket over the Constitution.
The Constitution is an idea and perhaps the best one that man has ever had, but as like all human concepts, comes up short of reality. The Constitution is, after all, whatever the Supreme Court says it is at any given time. The Boland Amendment was never constitutionally litigated, but regardless, I would not die for it, nor would I let anyone else fall victim to it.
Weinstein's central thesis, as he sniffs at God (and we may secularly substitute "conscience" here), family, and country as the order of priority of his ideological enemies and places "country" first, argues the artificial against what I believe is man's nature and therefore reality. I object on those grounds.
I acknowledge this is heretical to the secular religion and even perhaps the civil religion we've all been taught and is promulgated hereabouts. I'm a rebel, a danger to the state, what can I say?
Splitting for MO.
Just thought I'd throw in one last wee point here, but don't know why.
There's no incompatibility between the following two things:
1. Expecting solidiers to stand up for themselves (to some extent) in the face of religious intolerance and harrassment.
2. Trying to reform the institution so that religious intolerance and harrassment are minimized.
Thing is, Tom, you just don't seem to really be bothered by the substance of the problem. There's no doubt in my mind that you'd be singing a different tune if it was the Scientologists doing this.
If that were happening, you'd point out that the hierarchical, authoritarian structure that is essential to the military makes puts 1 (above) in a different light.
The more an institution demands that individuals follow orders and view others as their superiors, and the less opportunities they have to speak freely and opt out of participation, the more important it is to focus on 2 rather than 1.
That's what you'd point out if the shoe were on a different foot.
And you'd be right about it, too.
I dunno what I'd do. But in principle, of course you're correct, WS. Of course.
Once again, I'm taking the "is." How well do secularists fight? Scientologists?
I realize it's another heresy against the contemporary received wisdom to link God and country, and specifically the biblical God and the US. But there it is, too.
IMO, of course.
I'm reminded of the quote by Lincoln to the effect that instead of saying that God is on our side, let us hope that we are on His side.
As for heresy, lets' keep in mind two facts:
The Treaty of Triopli contains the statement:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion
and remember the motto of the German Wehrmacht until the end of WWII:
"Gott mit uns"
Linking God and country has worked out so well in the past, hasn't it Tom?
Playing the reductio ad Nazium card so soon, DA? Godwin's Law demands a little patience, so we could at least get some decent dialogue in before we muck the hand.
No matter. Aside from a brief flirtation with the steady-state polemic (by Mr. Neiwert's own account) that is Orcinus, the only blog besides this one I habituate at all is Jon Rowe's, which is devoted to the question of faith, religion and politics in the US.
The issue and history are quite complicated, and unfit for our own custom of exchanging mortar rounds. Jon and I teach each other, he me more than I him. Jon's excellent, and well worth anyone's time. We seldom agree, but that's secondary to the spirit of inquiry. I think you would enjoy him.
Your citation of the Treaty of Tripoli is nonetheless fascinating, DA, although it is usually wise not to confuse rhetoric with reality.
Tom, the article in question stated that the motto predated the Nazis, so I used it as an example from German history, a portion of which included the Nazi era, rather than something that the Nazis came up with on their own.
Did you mean for your attempt at invoking Godwins' Law to be a drive-by?
As for rhetorical, you should be aware that treaties are considered to be as binding as the Constitution itself in American law.
Would you consider Article 6 merely rhetorical when it states:
no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.?
I don't understand why going to another blog would make a difference, although I would term your responses more as blanks than as mortar rounds.
My objection to mixing God and Country is that it does a disservice to both concepts, especially when used as a basis for American exceptionalism.
O.k., it's a clear TKO against Tom on this one...
Need we really keep battering him?
DA delivered something awful close to an actual knock-out there...
And, Tom, if you've got to fall back on arguments questioning the entire principle of the separation of church and state to defend your position on a point like this....well, that ain't good.
Quick, somebody think of a different topic...I'm tapped out...
I'm from Philadelphia. Didn't you ever see Rocky?
I realize I'm speaking of things that don't exist in your world, but matters you've been taught are settled are by no means so.
For the record, Jon Rowe's blog pretty much takes the side you're offering and does it persuasively; my demurral is that a society (or even a nation) is not synonymous with its government.
FWIW, my first name isn't Apollo :>)
It's OK. Rocky lost, if you recall, and the movie wasn't about winning and losing anyway. And they hugged in the end.
I had several more points to make, but screw it. If you had no Hitler in mind with Gott mit uns, then I'll take you at your word and hope you'll accept my apology.
Philosophy should not be a bloodsport, or so a great man (not me), once so linked. Besides, the result of a proper inquiry is almost always a split decision, depending on who the judges are.
Gimme a hug, you big lunk, you.
You're a native of the Keystone State?
That explains it somewhat.....
I once had a girlfriend from Point Marion, PA.
When I would sing "Sweet Betsy from Pike" as natives of the Pacific Slope from time to time, she would correct me that Betsy crossed the mountains with "her husband Ike", not "her lover Ike", the former being the version she had learned in the public schools there.
But I digress.
As for bloodsport, if there were a better quality of argument presented in the first place, perhaps the impluse to deploy bolos, machetes, etc., would be weaker or absent in the first place.
That is when patience and forebearance are most required, as I illustrate every time it comes to respond to you, DA. >;-D
But to flesh out the point, it is not fruitful to set about proving the other fellow wrong, to negate or invalidate, which is bloodsport. Advancing what one considers a stronger argument is the true spirit of inquiry, dialogue, and colluquy. This is a forum, not a colisseum, and one seeks to please any and all potential buyers, not a majority of self-appointed judges.
I get a collective thumbs down from them on virtually every occasion here, and the sword subsequently put through my throat. Meanwhile, I make a sale now and then. Everybody goes away happy.
Tom, can you explicate how your first comment in this thread is an example of
Advancing what one considers a stronger argument is the true spirit of inquiry, dialogue, and colluquy?
it is not fruitful to set about proving the other fellow wrong, to negate or invalidate
If the other fellow is stating a proposition that is falsifiable, then it would be intellectually incompetent not to subject it to analysis to see if in fact it can be proven true or not, after determining that the proposition inquestion can be falsified(unlike "God is dead", or "God (is) with us").
This is a forum, not a colisseum, and one seeks to please any and all potential buyers, not a majority of self-appointed judges
I'm not interested in pleasing a majority of self-appointed judges, or a minority for that matter, I'm interested in using facts, logic, and the experience of a life (so far, praise Wotan!) more than 4 decades in discussing the matters that WS brings to his readers attention here.
You want the "Tom, you have a valid point, but what about X?" approach to things that you perhaps unwittingly sabotage by your attempts at evasion, sophistry, and occasionally trying to generate sympathy for position, as in your last post here.
to set about proving the other fellow wrong, to negate or invalidate, which is bloodsport.
This is not a definition, even a metaphorical one, that I recognize of 'bloodsport', though it does line up quite well with the 'sacrifices' made in war by the 101st Fighting Keyboarders and with the 'persecution' faced by Christians in today's America.
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