On Communication Across the Gap

I've taken to Twitter recently to see how ideas spread. Twitterfall is pretty cool if you want to follow some hash tags.

At any rate, I was involved tonight in a conversation indicative of the rhetorical divide in the country right now. The conversation eventually grew beyond the scope of 140 characters, so I've continued here.

I'm new to Twitter. I'm operating on the assumption that this conversation is OK to reproduce, since we both have public profiles.

TheLoki47: http://huff.to/cxhxNN // #teaparty and #tcot xenophobes and #gzmosque opponents make no sense, but wonder why we think they're bigots.

HRearden51: @TheLoki47 //we don't wonder. We know you're just too stupid to mount an intelligent argument.

TheLoki47: @HRearden51 // Clearly ad hominem and consistency are not your complaints, since your sensitivity argument is awfully PC! #tpp #tcot #p2

HRearden51: @TheLoki47 //Read this then get back with me. Arguments such as yours are diversionary at best. Dishonest at worse. http://bit.ly/9A8Qsn

TheLoki47: @HRearden51 // I've read that. It's still xenophobia until the argument is more than THEY attacked US. If it's a diversion drop it #gzmosque

HRearden51: @TheLoki47 //No . It's just inappropriate to build it there. Calling opponents bigots and racist is intellectually derelict.

TheLoki47: @HRearden51 // I see. THEY attacked US. Got it. #gzmosque #tcot #p2

HRearden51: @TheLoki47 //You're not making sense. Speak to the propriety.

TheLoki47: @HRearden51 // Now you're not making sense. Where's the "propriety clause" in the 1st amendment? #gzmosque #park51 #tcot

HRearden51: @TheLoki47 There you go. Diversion...or dishonest? If you want to engage me, you'll have to be more honest. 1st amendment is not at issue.

Despite the fact that we begin the conversation with greetings such as "bigot" and "stupid", there is clearly a serious attempt to grapple with the issues here. And, of course, I take HReardon51 at his word that he is sincere in his pursuit of engagement.

But the fact is there can be no engagement, due to radically different assumptions. Indeed, this debate has everything to do with the First Amendment. Since I think much of the defensiveness on both sides comes from the characterizations coming from the other, I will restrict myself to my own position (rather than trying to discern the motives behind those put forward on the other side). To paraphrase, my stance on the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" issue would run as follows:

Since the First Amendment provides for the free exercise of religion, attempts to block religious activity must be motivated by specific concerns about that activity--concerns sufficient to override constitutional protection. At the very least, this means that the burden of proof in this argument lies with those who oppose Park51 and this burden has yet to be met. Until then, there is no "issue" to be addressed.

There is little flexibility afforded to Park51 opponents in this stance. Park51 does not need to argue why they should be allowed t0 build there--opponents need to argue why they should not. To date they have not done so.

I understand that this may be frustrating to those with sharp feelings about Islam or 9/11 (or whatever it is that offends them, in particular) but that's hardly an argument to roll back constitutional protections. The First Amendment, the top priority of the anti-Federalists, protects everything from Salman Rushdie, Draw Mohamed Day and South Park's Mohamed episode to Park51 and the Scientologists. And sometimes people will be offended, but so what?

So, no HReardon51, I don't think you're a bigot. But I'm struggling to understand what your argument might actually be. Since Park51 is not al Qaeda, it is very easy for me to draw the conclusion that you are saying their rights should be abridged simply because they are Muslim. Surely that's not what you're saying. Right?

RIP Senator Byrd

For those of you who are not yet aware who we lost last night (and especially for those of you who are):




Biggest loss since Wellstone. We'll miss you, Senator.

Tribal Racism in the New Right

I've mentioned the teabagger/birther heroes "Oath Keepers" before:

Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, veterans, Peace Officers, and Fire Fighters who will fulfill the Oath we swore, with the support of like minded citizens who take an Oath to stand with us, to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God. Our Oath is to the Constitution

Our motto is "Not on our watch!"

They've got a particularly widespread fantasy that the government is about to start rounding people up and putting them in detention camps (or something ... Wooolverines!!!):

[...]

4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.

5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.

6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.

7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.

8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control."

[...]

So, I wonder how they'll react to this:

Arizona state Treasurer Dean Martin, a Republican candidate for governor, called on Tuesday for the creation of statewide tent cities to house the expected increase in the number of illegal immigrants expected to be arrested under the state’s controversial new immigration law.

I'm just kidding ... I know how they'll react. Freedom with these teabagger types is not the Negative Rights of egghead libertarians, it's local control on issues of ethnic, religious and cultural homogeneity.

25 Years since MOVE

If you have to ask, you need to watch this segment:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Great American Novel

I can't wait for the new National album, which you can preview here. (If you're expecting genius, listen to Bloodbuzz Ohio). These guys see America as it is:

It was supposed to be the National’s moment. After years of mostly anonymous struggle, the National’s two previous albums, “Alligator” (2005) and “Boxer” (2007), were so full of strangely isolated songs about friendship, romance and work that they had created for this new release the sort of expectant critical murmur that has been rare to hear since the end of the age of record shops. “Alligator” and “Boxer” did what excellent rock ’n’ roll albums did in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s: transcended the sum of their singles to offer something larger. In the National’s case, it was a powerful, probing feeling for the inner lives of average people out in the American heartland. So good was the music that with it came the promise of what might follow, the heady potential that the National would soon take things one step further, go ahead and make the great Middle American novel as music, an album for our time.

[...]

With the National, it’s never only rock ’n’ roll. Watching them record a song is like looking on as a group of skilled chefs make a sandwich together; even in a B.L.T., they can foresee endless possibilities. They are now five men in their mid- to late 30s, with mortgages, children, wives or serious girlfriends and musical tastes that have likewise settled into convictions. Each National song is a microbatch creation integrating their obsessive, often-diverging feelings about rock ’n’ roll. These range from the formally inventive, high-art aspirations of Bryce to the garage-band purism of Matt, who, Aaron says, “is all about if there’s heart or purpose in it. He has no interest if it’s theoretical.” By striving to accommodate these disparate points of view, the National gets what all bands want and few achieve, a sound of its own. Michael Stipe, the lead singer of R.E.M., told me that when he took Mike Mills, R.E.M.’s bass player, to hear the National perform in London, it took Mills only half of one song to exclaim, “This is the most amazing thing I’ve heard in years.” Stipe explains: “It’s instantaneous. It touches you.”

THE NATIONAL SOUND has a layered, seductive quality that is filled with intimate male feeling and uneasy cinematic portent: a storm coming up outside the window; leaves blowing in the road. It’s distinctive music born of an apparent limitation — Matt’s voice. His is a classic baritone with a resonant, melancholy timbre, but it lacks range and tonal variation; Matt often half-talks his vocals in the style of singers like Tom Waits and Nick Cave. Over the years, the band’s solution has been to create shifting instrumental shapes and colors just beneath the vocals. The twins’ signature is a hocketing guitar line, their instruments chiming in and out, mirroring each other as they share the melody. All the intersecting sounds mesh with Matt’s voice in a way that seems to deepen his texture, and with repeated listening the songs achieve emotional intensity. In part this is because the drums are given unusual prominence. A very good drummer controls the beat; a better one defines it. When Bryan’s cymbals splash in a song about a rainy-day loss of faith, you don’t just hear the water; you see a thousand dead umbrellas. Since Matt excels at writing about sensitive people whose lives slump within that chapfallen key, the result is songs that are rich with mood, slow-cooked all the way down. [Emphasis mine.]

Every word is true. There is nothing like it. (OK, maybe Springsteen, but not since the 80s.) Boxer and Alligator are religion. Of course, what do you expect from Midwestern expatriate Gen-Xers?

Update: Musically, very good. Viscerally, though, it falls short of Alligator and Boxer. I'll have to see how it wears with repeated listening.

Quote of the Month

"If anyone this conspicuously unintelligent has ever sought national office, I can't think of who he/she is." Benen (on Palin).

A Well-Regulated Revolution

These people are fucking retarded:

"It is our own fault that we are in this situation," Vanderboegh intends to tell those assembled, according to a draft of his remarks. "Each time these revolutionists of gradualism against the Founders' Republic took another bite out of the Constitution and shoved us back from the natural exercise of our God-given and inalienable rights, we have backed up, grumbling. We have not shoved back."

Gravelly Point, where the demonstrators will take turns going to from Fort Hunt, was chosen because it is as close to the District as they could get while carrying guns and also comply with local and Interior Department regulations.

When they stand on the river banks Monday and preach an activism that sounds to some like sedition, the armed demonstrators will have the full support of the federal government they fear, carefully detailed in the 26-page event permit, complete with the gun regulations of both Virginia and the Interior Department and a commitment to provide fencing, barricades and bike racks for the event.

"We handle tens of thousands of demonstrations of a First Amendment nature annually," said Dave Schlosser, spokesmen for the U.S. Park Police, "and we are handling this event no differently than any of the others. We assess what their needs are to allow us to facilitate a safe and successful demonstration so they can exercise their rights to free speech and free assembly without interference." [Emphasis mine.]

This would be hilarious, if it weren't so damn dangerous.