My guilty pleasure, alas, is to see a simpleton faced with a complex issue choose to arrogantly celebrate their own simplistic mind.

But MJ, let's not get carried away...electing a man who is half black would be but one step (albeit a big one) on a very long road. But hey, it's good to savor it every now and then, even at the expense of perspective.

Posted at May 21, 2008 10:37 AM in response to Obama Does It!

Though it's unclear what Dean can do to force a resolution of the Florida and Michigan situations,

Please, Greg, don't repeat that meme. The situations are resolved. FL and MI were warned that if they tried to stomp on the NV and SC primaries by moving theirs up, they would lose their delegates. Plenty of warning, clear as day. They did it anyway, and lost their delegates, a position agreed to by all the candidates. How is this anything but resolved?

Posted at April 18, 2008 4:49 PM in response to Top Hillary Fundraisers Rip Into Howard Dean For Saying Super-Dels Should Announce Support "Starting Now"

Those are three of the best examples of lazy contempt I've ever seen at TPM to start a comment thread. Waldman starts by engaging a comment, but gets a condescending lecture on not engaging commenters. He begins with "sometimes progressives" and gets another condescending lecture on generalization. He tries to clarify what he thinks the convictions of the founders were, and gets a frothing rant on tatooed brides.

If on were looking for a data point to support the notion that progressives are weak on the discussion of religion in public life, this discussion here would be a good place to start.

Posted at March 12, 2008 11:49 AM in response to Militant Unitarians

I'm not sure a disinterested empirical study of violence in the 20th century would support that belief.

Posted at December 7, 2007 8:30 PM in response to Faith in the Public Sphere, Part 2

The idea that an embryo is a full human being in itself separately from its mother is a semantic farce,

That's not even close to an argument. It's perfectly reasonable to judge: an organism with a unique DNA identity that has begun developmental process that -- if it proceeds like yours and mine -- will continue until adulthood is a human person with all the attendant rights.

Calling it a farce tells everything about your bias and nothing about the position. Calling it religious imposition just tries to ratchet up the tension in lieu of making an argument. It also implies that non-religious folk come to these decisions from rational foundations, which is demonstrably false.

Civil marriage and religious marriage should be completely separate.

Posted at December 7, 2007 8:26 PM in response to Faith in the Public Sphere, Part 2

It's unclear how this is analogous or even related to the subject of the speech. Something from Nietzsche (on the last men, maybe?) would be fine if it supported the policy, though it would not be politically expedient in a nation that has far more Bible fans than Nietzsche fans.

In your example, it's the policy that's ridiculous, not the symbolic text reading.

Posted at December 6, 2007 2:33 PM in response to A Speech that was Never Heard

I don't believe that by getting rid of religion we'd all happily agree on anything, but in my opinion, religion is the impediment to any kind of agreement for many reasons.

Care to give some? You also said religion killed curiosity, which Dan K disproved rather conclusively, leaving you with the weak re-iteration of "it's my opinion" and hiding behind Azimov [sic].

Your talk of "superimposition" reveals that you believe there is no God. Not that you are unsure -- you are sure that there isn't. That's a religious conviction. Other people have other religious convictions. Of all these people many have political ideas that are called progressive. Thus, they are called "progressives." Some are Christian, some are Jewish, others are atheist, some haven't a clue. There is no "religionist-progressive" alliance being proposed, an the fact that you try indicates that you think no progressive can also be "religious". You don't get to define that.

There are a lot of people with Christian convictions who would like to be more active in enacting a progressive agenda, but are faced with the open hostility of many people like you. That your hostility seems so irrational makes it all the more ironic.

Posted at December 5, 2007 2:59 PM in response to Faith in the Public Square, part 1

Bev, that's very stirring stuff. In fact it sounds very religious, in that your take on what humanity is and should do is grounded in non-rational foundational convictions about the world. I mean, "progress" toward what? And why that? How do you prioritize our problems, and what convictions do the criteria arise from?

So why is it right for you to "reserve the right to define and determine the priority of humanity's problems according to your own particular lease on morality," but it's not ok for McLaren to do the same thing? He believes he's right, you believe you're right. But there's a lot of political action that you both agree on, so why not cooperate?

I accept that you don't hate "religionists", but you certainly to seem to regard them with contempt. But it's not clear on what basis you're claiming the moral high ground, or how what you do is any different than what those awful religionists do.

Posted at December 5, 2007 9:59 AM in response to Faith in the Public Square, part 1

I fear I'm not overly optimistic about this. The Senate bill would be almost worse than nothing for Louisiana -- it would block any further negotiation on the onerous federal royalty scam because they had "done something." If Dems control the House but not the Senate after Novermber, then I still think we're in trouble.

Posted at September 13, 2006 2:48 PM in response to I was afraid of this

Since I have not taken the pledge not to respond to you (you are addicted to cleverness but not devoid of insight):

Page is wrong on a number of levels. Read Rosemary's "Slow Dancing" post again. Slowing things down in that respect might be as important as getting things done. Many of the neighborhoods have come up with their own plans, and this piecemeal approach may well be the best thing for the city if it is to keep from losing everything that's worth keeping. The magnitude of the task is underestimated by know-nothings such as Page (who thinks the lower 9th can't rebuild -- his opinion has little meaning). Cutting people off at this point may well be premature.

Posted at September 1, 2006 7:31 PM in response to Flooding and Ignorance