Surely you’ve all heard by now that Sufjan Stevens has released a new EP online. This is exciting news for Sufjan fans everywhere, but I would urge you to think twice before paying the 5 dollars to download the music. It was not even 10 years ago when Islamic radical extremists destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11th, and already we’re going to support a man named “Sufjan” as if nothing happened on that tragic day?
It may sound like a good idea at first. Many believe that supporting this man’s music will help heal the wounds left by the terrorists, but come on people, we do not live in a vacuum. The fact of the matter is that this album should be released under another name, something with less Islamic connotation than “Sufjan.” Or, the album should be released in a different format. EP also brings to mind other Islamic names. Ep Shiraa. Ep Sadaar. It just hits a little too close to home.
Up at The American Scene is the first installment in what I hope will be an occasional series about the politics of France, for the purpose of following the country’s progress in opening up to the modern world, and as a comparative study to the American issues we get so fed up with.
This one is about pension reform. What do you do with a government that can’t pay for its system and an electorate that would rather imagine the problem will go away if it’s ignored thoroughly enough?
Rand Paul, Senate candidate from Kentucky and the first official, openly Tea Party-affiliated candidate in U.S. politics, has caused quite a stir with his comments on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And in typical fashion his opponent has seized on these remarks and will likely exploit them to his benefit throughout his campaign.
But reading through the transcript linked to above, it seems pretty clear that Paul is applying libertarian ideas in a philosophical way, not trying to overturn this landmark legislation. Even in the transcript, it’s obvious that he senses a trap, that these remarks will come back to haunt him. He gives all sorts of qualifiers, hesitating and stalling before answering the question.
What Paul, as a libertarian, likely believes is that market forces would have inspired business owners to open their restaurants to people of all races once they discovered how profitable it would be, and that, therefore, the legislation was ultimately unnecessary. Morality is a market force after all, as is evidenced by the growing fair trade industry.
But it was a gaffe, nonetheless; a result of ideological consistency trumping political reality. I think David Brooks put it well when he explained, “When you have got insurgents, when you have got outsiders, they come in, A, not knowing when to shut up, and, B, sometimes with weird ideas.” Basically, Rand Paul wasn’t thinking like a politician when he made these remarks. And that will probably come back to bite him.
One of my friends addresses the new Arizona immigration law with his typical candor and perspective, drawn straight from his own life. Enjoy and discuss.
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I have a story, a true story, about police asking for papers, which has a great deal to say about Arizona’s highly controversial new immigration law. Before anyone makes any more assertions about showing your papers to police officers without any experience on the matter, please listen to this story.
Is the political evangelical a mythical creature? It’s become a truism and a source of angst that non-Christians see the evangelical church as too political. But Mark Chaves points to a survey that says white mainline Protestants, black Protestants and Roman Catholic are overall more politically active than white evangelicals.
Odd, given the image. Andrew Sullivan weighs in, quoting Joe Carter, who says “the typical reaction at the grassroots level to almost every political initiative in the ‘religious right’ is “lot’s of talk; little to no action.”
Let’s aside the eternally tedious “young evangelical” and look at the old evangelical. It’s true. When I really think about it, not a lot of the white conservative evangelicals I know are all that politically involved. They vote Republican, of course. They get CitizenLink emails but don’t call the Congressmen like it tells them to. I don’t know anyone who went and rallied against health care. They sympathize with Tea Partiers but have never rallied there, either. They’re pro-life, but that basically means voting Republican.
However, when I look at my own parents and their friends, the nature of their political involvement has changed.
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