Do not vote for Pawlenty in 2012

I live in Minnesota; Tim Pawlenty is our governor, and he’s got his bland and uninteresting gaze fastened on the White House. Don’t be fooled. He’s just another Republican hack who has been drifting ever right-ward towards increasing lunacy. He was interviewed in Newsweek, and this will give you an idea of what kind of waffly worthless panderer he is.

Well, you know I’m an evangelical Christian. I believe that God created everything and that he is who he says he was. The Bible says that he created man and woman; it doesn’t say that he created an amoeba and then they evolved into man and woman. But there are a lot of theologians who say that the ideas of evolution and creationism aren’t necessarily inconsistent; that he could have “created” human beings over time.

The Bible doesn’t mention Tim Pawlenty’s parents, Eugene and Ginny, anywhere, either, and neither does it mention Tim Pawlenty, so apparently the question of Pawlenty’s origins are still open. This all fits with my theory that he is merely a recent conglomeration of mindless amoeboid slime.

The privilege of authority

Peter Watts is a biologist and a science fiction author who combines the two beautifully — watch his fictional presentation on vampires to a pharmacology group to see what I mean. He’s also a Canadian who was driving from the US to his home in Toronto when he was assaulted by American border guards, apparently provoked by his temerity in asking why they were rummaging through his luggage. You can read Watts’ account of the episode, or the story on BoingBoing, and Making Light, but the bottom line is this: a writer was beaten, pepper-sprayed, arrested, and threatened with two years in jail for the crime of asking questions of police…of demanding accountability and an explanation from officials of the law. He was not interfering or hindering their work, but he was requesting what we ought to minimally expect from the police: a legal justification for their actions.

I know that some people are going to rush to defend the border guards, and Patrick Hayden has already addressed this: don’t bother. There is no defense of their actions. Watts is a big nerd, not a violent thug, and any provocation he might have offered would have been physically non-threatening, and the border guards should be constrained by the law and by an expectation of civility. They don’t have any such restraint. My general experience with US border guards is that they are privileged, sneering goons who feel entitled to treat citizens of both countries with contempt. When we cross the border, we should be expected to comply with the law…but we should not be required to cower and cringe, nor should we accept any demand of the guys with guns without question. The commenters at Watts’ blog who are insisting that it’s Watts’ fault because he was obviously insufficiently subservient have got it all wrong — they’ve already given up their freedom for fear.

I’m going to be giving a talk in Winnipeg in January, and the only thing I don’t look forward to is dealing with the paranoid jerks at the border again.

Rick Warren, finally

By now you’ve all heard about the heinous Ugandan bill that would lead to the imprisonment of homosexuals and the execution of any with AIDS, and you’ve probably also heard that it was promoted by American right-wingers. There’s a curious phenomenon going on right now: people are trying to stir up some principled opposition to the bill, and the religious right is dragging their heels. It’s strange because once they’ve been cornered, wrestled to the ground, and forced to face a camera, they all quickly repudiate the bill — unless you’re Fred Phelps, it’s pretty much impossible to support it, it is so barbaric — but you can also tell they aren’t happy about having to make a public denial. Weasely ol’ Rick Warren has finally spoken out against it, but as archy analyzes Warren’s statement, it’s not very impressive:

By my count, about twenty percent of his message is a direct condemnation or call to opposition to the bill. About thirty percent of the message is self-promotion or promotion of his groups. The other half of the message is his greeting to the pastors and a Christmas message. The latter part should have been sent as a separate message an waters down the most important part of his message, but that’s quibble on my part.

This stuff isn’t hard. When someone announces that they want a legalized hunting season on gay people, you reject it, plainly, clearly, and loudly. It’s revealing when it takes you this much time to decide it’s a bad idea.

Keep the godless out of office

Cecil Bothwell was elected to the city council of Asheville, NC. Cecil Bothwell is an atheist. Now some kooks want to deny Cecil Bothwell his seat on the council because the North Carolina constitution forbids atheists from taking public office.

Amazing. I know that several states have these laws on their books, but I thought they all avoided enforcing them, since they’re clearly unconstitutional. In this case, it’s one crazy right-winger, H.K. Edgerton, who wants to impose the law to selectively block someone he doesn’t seem to like. We know he’s crazy because he’s threatening the city and…well, see for yourself.

“If they go ahead, then the city of Asheville and the board of elections could be liable for a lawsuit,” said Edgerton, who is known for promoting “Southern heritage” by standing on streets decked out in a Confederate soldier’s uniform and holding a Confederate flag.

Oh. One of those guys.

I’m already sick of her

This is going to go on for years and years, isn’t it? Sarah Palin is going to keep on saying stupid things to keep herself in the news.

No one person has all the right answers. It takes a united nation, and it does take godly counsel, and it takes prayer and answers to prayer – and a collective humble heart of a nation seeking God’s hand of protection and his blessings of prosperity.

I think if we can get back to that, our country will be a safer, more prosperous and healthier nation.

No, it won’t. God does not provide, OK?

More Obama bashing

Michael Moore wrote a friendly letter to Obama before his announcement to expand the war in Afghanistan. It’s worth reading.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you’re doing it so you can “end the war”) will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you’ve said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone — and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout “tea bag!”

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

It’s Wednesday morning. I don’t see his corporate backers fleeing him just yet, but the people who voted for him are turning away in disappointment.

Obama regret

I had my reservations before the election, but I voted for Obama as the better choice (and I have not changed my opinion on that at all). I had hopes that he’d get in office and stand up for some principles…but no such luck. There are several reasons for my dissatisfaction.

Looking at his record (which isn’t just his problem: the Democratic Party has failed to promote a Democratic agenda), I see the real problem. Despite all the screamers on the right accusing him of being a socialist, what actually happened here is that we elected another Republican to office. A moderate Republican, to be sure, but not someone who has the kinds of priorities I want in my president.

We’re going to be marking time until the 2012 campaign starts up. I’m hoping their will be some viable, liberal alternative to our crappy incumbent, because I really don’t want to have to choose between Republican Lite and Republican Lunatic in the next election.

Mike Huckabee killed Maurice Clemmons

Clemmons was the Jesus-loving lunatic who murdered four police officers in Tacoma, and was shot and killed by the police. He was also the recipient of a pardon from Mike Huckabee, governor of Arkansas, egotistical god-walloping incompetent.

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m all for mercy, I reject the abuse of our penal system as a vehicle for vengeance, and I oppose the death penalty without reservation. A governor’s clemency can be a good thing, as when it should be used to correct miscarriages of justice (isn’t it odd, though, how the most Christian of governors avoid using it for that purpose?). But there are also cases where justice and mercy are best served by incarceration or mental care, not by turning killers and dangerous psychos loose on the streets.

Clemmons was a monster. He murdered people and he raped children. He was insane. He believed he was Jesus Christ. Yet Mike Huckabee pardoned him. Why? Because Huckabee did not care about the evidence. What he thought was sufficient was a profession of piety and the testimonials of religious men. Clemmons played him.

No doubt word spread among the prison population that the affable governor was vulnerable to appeals from convicts who claimed to be born again. Clemmons too was among those who benefited from Huckabee’s tendency to believe such pious testimonials. “I come from a very good Christian family and I was raised much better than my actions speak,” he explained in his clemency application in 2000. “I’m still ashamed to this day for the shame my stupid involvement in these crimes brought upon my family’s name … I have never done anything good for God, but I’ve prayed for him to grant me in his compassion the grace to make a start. Now, I’m humbly appealing to you for a brand new start.”

Mercy is not a wicked thing, and there are good people in prison who could turn their lives around if given an opportunity. There are also evil, damaged people in prison who would use freedom as an opportunity to do harm. What is necessary is the rational analysis of evidence to determine who deserves freedom in those cases, and Huckabee does not and cannot do that; his religiosity short-circuits his capacity for critical evaluation, and his ego makes the pardon a tool for feeding his own delusions of christ-hood. Tristero has an excellent summary.

First of all, it is Huckabee’s delusion that he is Jesus Christ, not genuine compassion, that spins the Clemmons case as a miscarriage of justice against a hapless juvenile. It is clear from the record that Clemmons was then, and continued to be, an extremely troubled person with a propensity for extreme violence. Huckabee ignored this, focusing – Christ-like – on an opportunity to show mercy towards a young sinner who showed what Huckabee misapprehended as signs of redemption. The issue is Huckabee’s lack of judgment.

If you argue that it is unfair to sentence a juvenile to life in prison for an armed robbery committed when he was 16, I won’t disagree with you. But that is not the issue here. The issue is Huckabee’s spectacularly bad judgment and his failure to take responsibilty for his behavior. The justice system, for all its incredible faults, has numerous mechanisms, including but not limited to commuting a sentence, for dealing with mitigating circumstances, like the age of an offender, signs of redemption, and an unfairly long sentence. Flawed they surely are, imperfect and inadequate no doubt, but they exist. Huckabee, imitating Christ, chose to deal with the Clemmons case in a very particular way, showing not mercy, but simply awful judgment that set into motion further tragedy.

The incredibly cruel, incredibly unjust way that juvenile offenders are treated in the United States has nothing to do with the fact that Huckabee behaved the way he did. It simply gave him an excuse to exercise his egomania, his delusions of grandeur, and his incompetence. As a result, innocent people died.

Huckabee wants to be our president. I wouldn’t trust him to be my dishwasher.