No Greater Social Significance!

In local news, my band is playing the Fort Reno concert series tomorrow (Thursday). Fort Reno is a park in NW DC across the street from Wilson High School, about a block or so from the Tenleytown metro stop on the red line. They throw free rock concerts there every Monday and Thursday all summer, so that folks who are too young to go to bars or too poor to pay covers or too free as a bird, man, to go indoors and/or ever stop playing frisbee can go see some of the sweetest local shows in a friendly, safe, and all-around pleasant environment, twice a week if they so choose. Apparently this has been going on now for about 40 years, but our paths didn't cross until last week, when I managed to get there in time to see Greenland and pick up their recently released debut gem, Call/Message.

As far as I can tell, the protocol is as such: everybody sits around on the grass or on blankets, smiling, chatting, and glistening a bit, and picnics are consumed but no booze. Those guys from those local bands look around and nod at each other across the grassy expanse. A throng of underage kids packs in right up against the stage like pigeons around a bread machine and many a minor adolescent drama plays out almost imperceptibly in their midst. The cops sit on the hillside overlooking the stage like shepherds, lights slowly flashing. The stage itself is lit by a pair of streetlights, and the performers sweat like pigs. Everyone has a good time, from about 7pm till just shy of ten o'clock.

Sounds nice, right? It is. Just so you know, they survive off of donations and volunteers.

Nicomachean Efforts

Michael "Axis of Evil" Gerson wrote an interesting editorial today that I believe bears addressing. He attempts to designate morality as a purely religious idea, one that exists outside the confines of religion (and let there be no doubt about which faith he assumes in his arguments) only as a fluke, a "cruel joke of nature -- imprinted by evolution, but destined for disappointment." He pretends to give ground by saying he can't prove the existence of God, but then asserts that atheists have no objective way to judge the goodness of other people. What? Yeah, seriously. He is actually saying that without religion, human beings would have no impetus to behave in an ethical manner. Let's examine this claim.

I wrote him a brief note informing him of the existence and writings of one Immanuel Kant, who similarly, if more effectively, pitted his own intellect against this very quandary. Kant, as I'm sure you (as a high school graduate) are aware, articulated a sort of Golden Rule that formed the basis of deontological ethics, known as the categorical imperative. It attempts to transcend situational or hypothetical ethics by stating: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." In practice, it encourages respect for the rights of others, equal treatment in matters of law, and a general acknowledgement of the dignity of man. Not bad, right?

Well, what if you don't believe in ethical behavior? What if you have no interest in morality, but are driven by and given over to personal lusts and covetings? Is there any external force that can compel you to observe and respect the rights of others? Not really. And this is the elephant in the room, because while Gerson says that a person who is religiously motivated to be a moral actor does so out of a desire for "love, harmony and sympathy because [he or she is] intended by a Creator to find them," note that he does not invoke the threat or fear of punishment. He indicates that love, harmony, and sympathy are not inherently good or pleasurable, but are designated as being good by God, and therefore the pleasure that one feels from those states is actually the joy of pleasing God. He is pasting the veneer of religion over love, harmony and sympathy, and then using that as a springboard to give religion credit for the pleasures that anyone else would recognize as inherent in those things. Clever. Because the alternative to declaring that goodness is the desire to please God (which is, in the mind, in no way different from the desire to please oneself) is to admit that religiously-motivated goodness is the desire to avoid God's wrath, which is NOT a moral code, but a response to the threat of reprisal, the old knee-jerk self-preservation impulse.

So let's parse this out. If one desires to be a moral person, and one chooses to base one's moral code on, for instance, a Christian sect, let's say evangelical protestantism, can one justify the repression of outward expressions of homosexuality in one's fellow man or woman, whether by law, violence, or any other means of compulsion, if those expressions cause no manifest harm to other people? What about under Kant's version of ethical behavior? I would contend that the answers to those two questions are different and contradictory, because one code is beholden to the subjective determinations of its inceptors, while the other one is self-contained.

How about a second example: does Christian morality prevent the seizing of occupied territory and the enslavement of the indigenous peoples? Not if that land is granted you by God. And what is the difference, to the conquered and enslaved people, between an aggressor who attacks for God and an aggressor who attacks for his own personal enrichment? Not a whole hell of a lot, right? And on the other hand, what is the difference to a poor and bedraggled beggar if he is given soup and a warm bed by a Christian or by a morally upright atheist? Not a whole hell of a lot, right? Because kindness is objectively good and cruelty objectively bad for the recipient, no matter the motivation.

So if you come across a moral actor and he tells you he has no religion, you can be sure that he is a moral person. But if you come across a moral actor and he tells you that he has a God who tells him to do right, you cannot be sure if he is a moral person or a profoundly immoral person who is deathly afraid of being burnt by the everlasting fires of Hell or smitten by the angry right hand of the Lord and cast into penury for twenty moons. Which means, of course, that religion is a crutch for the immoral. It is the goad that keeps those who are not inherently righteous on a socially acceptable path (or a reasonable facsimile). It promotes, to quote another of Mr. Gerson's speechwriting gems, "the soft bigotry of low expectations" insofar as it encourages immoral behavior by not holding human beings to the standard of ethically defensible behavior in the absence of the sword of Damocles.

Now factor in confession and absolution, and tell me which one you would rather hire as a babysitter. Right. Checkmate, Mike. Please stop assisting those who run religious sects in their quest to expand their power and influence via taking undeserved credit for the good and noble qualities of man. It's unseemly and it restrains the potential of the human race for the enrichment of an over-reaching few. Like, for instance, certain other employers of yours.

Do The Math.

Yesterday, on the subject of Iraq, the President said this: "Al Qaeda is doing most of the spectacular bombings, trying to incite sectarian violence. The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is the crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims, trying to stop the advance of a system based upon liberty."

The intelligence community says this: "Al Qaida in Iraq didn't emerge until 2004. While it is inspired by Osama bin Laden's violent ideology, there's no evidence that the Iraq organization is under the control of the terrorist leader or his top aides, who are believed to be hiding in tribal regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan... the main source of violence and instability is an ongoing contest for power between majority Shiites and Sunnis, who dominated Saddam Hussein's regime."

Title 18, section 1001, paragraph (a) of the United States Code says this: "Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully--(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; (2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or (3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry; shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both."

Oh, if only I had pursued that degree in rocket science, I could get a handle on this complicated situation! I could tie together these disparate and seemingly unconnected threads! Ah well, better leave well enough alone. I think I'll go watch Wayne Brady laugh at people who forget song lyrics on TV.


(Tip of the hat to Dan Froomkin and Jonathan Landay for doing their jobs when no one else would.)

Another Turd In The Punchbowl, or "All Your Laws Are Belong To Us"

We're going to start by assuming that Americans are not too stupid to figure out when and how they are being abused by their leaders. I know, but bear with me. We're going to continue by stipulating that the failure of the American people to overthrow their current government stems from their ignorance of the seriousness of the situation. We're blaming the delinquency of the press for that. By way of remedy, right here and now, we at the Fiery Sword are going to try to put President Bush's statement on Monday in a format that the proud and sturdy yeoman farmers of de Tocqueville's journals can understand and digest:

Oh noes! I'm in ur x-ecootiv, bailin' out ur felonz!

There. It's done. I can hear the torches lighting now, the sharpening of the pitchforks. Like Paul Revere before me, I have alerted the citizenry. Remember, when casting your bronze plaques, to spell my name correctly.