Friday, May 18, 2007
It's Spreading
While deploring the militaristic / nationalistic lurch the U S of A has taken in the years since 1994, I realize that there's an even worse interpretation of the data than that our country has been taken over by corrupt, right-wing nutcases. And that is that although our country has been taken over by right-wing nut cases, the US is simply leading the way in some sort of global infection that is spreading throughout the industrialized world. The right-wingers have had some notable political success or at least notoriety in both France and Austria in recent years, and of course Germany can never quite shed its persistent uber-nationalists. For depressing news on this front, see this this BBC article.
As a friend puts it: "Why can't people be taught to do the right thing without the props of religion and nationalism?"
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2 comments:
With all the flak the Bush administration has gotten over the Iraq war, I've never heard our country's religion getting the blame (at least not from an American). If I were to list things that have been corrupted by our religious leaders, it would look very different from yours: schools, aid to foreign countries, funds for medical research, laws concerning charitable organizations, election campaigns, etc. Do you really think that ineffective separation of church and state was the main cause for torture, spying, and the rest of your list?
Hello Ms. Frizzle, thanks for the comment.
Yours is an excellent question, and I don't think that one can PROVE a cause-and-effect relationship between the fact of the Christian fundamentalists et al gaining a great voice in national affairs on the one hand, and torture, spying and the rest on the other. So no, ineffective separation of church and state didn't CAUSE the torture, etc.
However, it's quite coincidence that they both occurred at the same time and under the direction of the same people/Administration.
So how much do we believe "it's just coincidence", versus believing that the two activities/trends are related in some integral fashion we just can't quite prove?
Obviously, I find the latter conclusion to be the more likely.
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