Saturday, August 14, 2010

NINE MONTHS SINCE BRAIN SURGERY (AND IRONY)

Yesterday was the nine month marker since I had my skull opened and the "mass" removed and a titanium plate put back on and screwed in with titanium screws (I can feel them) and slowly re-acquired the capacity to read and then write (though I still struggle a bit with typing the letters and words I'm actually intending to type).

The way my mind works has definitely changed. A lot has returned, but some things seem gone forever, like the compulsion to make lists, as I have mentioned many times. This blog was more lists than anything else pre-op and now I can hardly muster the interest and mental focus to come up with the lists on my profile, let alone the kind of laser focused lists that dominated my thinking since childhood (just look in the lists archives on this blog to find alphabet lists of favorite one syllable titled movies etc.).

But here's a list that seems relevant to the rightwing chorus of un-nuanced thinking and lack of logic or reason in many of their positions and arguments inspired by my having to delete a comment on a recent post, a comment that actually claimed Obama, by supporting the principal of religious freedom embedded in the Constitution regarding the proposed building near Ground Zero that would contain a prayer room for those of the Islamic faith, is advocating Sharia be the law of the USA! Sharia being the rightwing fundamentalist version of placing tenets in the Koran above government and law, ironically much the way many rightwingers in the USA call for (or falsely believe our Constitution calls for) placing the Christian religion and various Christian fundamentalist versions of the Bible above our government and laws.

So I thought I'd try to come up with a list of the top ironies, or at least the ones I can think of, in recent news:

1. The head of the "Museum of Tolerance" in New York City has come out against the so-called "mosque" being part of a proposed building near Ground Zero.

2. The rightwingers who constantly claim that somehow what Obama and Democrats propose as their policies or laws are always somehow against The Constitution and say they believe the Constitution—like the Bible the way many of them see it—has to be taken literally, want to change the Constitution to exclude Islam from religions that fall under the Constitution's "freedom of religion" tenet.

3. And ditto for the rightwingers calling for the abolition or rewriting of the Fourteenth Amendment (that anyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. Citizen) after claiming for years that The Constitution is sacrosanct and cannot ever be changed. (But isn't that typical of the right's selective adherence to anything they claim to believe in? They pick out the one reference to what might be construed as "homosexuality" in the Bible and claim that proves God is against homosexuality, but then leave out the many more references to how the rich are an abomination or slavery is permitted, even encouraged, or adulterers should be stoned to death etc. Actually when you examine them comparatively, which I did as a young man, the Bible is much more bloody and savage and intolerant and militaristic and etc. than the Koran...)

I'm exhausted already from the effort of coming up with that short list, but know somewhere in my mind I could go on for days with the endless ironies inherent in almost every objection the right makes to Obama and his attempts to change (or not change, as many of his critics from the left point out) what came before that led to the disastrous situation(s) we're in now. Maybe in the future I'll have the mental capacity to pull that off.

19 comments:

Elisabeth said...

Nine months is a gestation, and to be able to produce such a list since is marvelous.

JIm said...

One does not need to be a "Right Winger" to read the Ground Zero Imman's speeches advocating Shariah Law. Even a "Left Winger" should be able to recognize
that the US Constitution can not survive Shariah law. Obama, Bloomberg et al advocate the building of the ground Zero mosque in the name of religious freedom. Abraham Lincoln, when suspending habeas corpus, during the Civil War, said "The US is not a suicide pact". Given a choice Lally/Bloomberg/Obama vs Lincoln, I'll go with Lincoln.

JIm said...

I left out "Constitution" from the Lincoln quote. Oh well, that's what happens when blogging in the middle of the night.

By the way, has anyone noticed Obama's ratings of mid 40% approval on the way to the 30's, The radical Iman's scheduled ground breaking for the mosque is on September 11th. The ground breaking plus Obama's support is a wonderful way to open the mid term election season. I dream of a veto proof congress. Maybe Obama will deliver it.

-K- said...

FYI - "The Constitution is not a suicide pact" is *not* a quote by Abraham Lincoln.

Google the quote and you will find it has a more subtle history than what the above comment suggests, especially the very debatable premise that "the US Constitution can not survive Shariah law."

JIm said...

K,

I feel fine with the level of subtleness standing with Lincoln and Jefferson.

Sharia law which requires the unequal treatment in law of women and non muslins is in direct conflict with the founding documents and the Amendments. One would have to give way. Even a Huffington Post writer should be able to see that.



"History
[edit] Jefferson's formulation

Jefferson offered one of the earliest formulations of the sentiment, although not of the phrase. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson's ambassadors to France arranged the purchase of the Louisiana territory in conflict with Jefferson's personal belief that the Constitution did not bestow upon the federal government the right to acquire or possess foreign territory. Due to political considerations, however, Jefferson disregarded his constitutional doubts, signed the proposed treaty, and sent it to the Senate for ratification. In justifying his actions, he later wrote: "[a] strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means."[1]
[edit] Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus

Under the United States Constitution, habeas corpus can be suspended pursuant to the constitution in cases of rebellion or invasion. See United States Constitution. The Confederacy was rebelling, thus suspension of habeas corpus was both legal and constitutional—but only if done by Congress, since the Constitution reserves this power under Article I, which pertains solely to congressional powers; Lincoln, meanwhile, usurped the power under his own executive order. After habeas corpus was suspended by General Winfield Scott in one theater of the Civil War in 1861, Lincoln did write that Scott "could arrest, and detain, without resort to ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous to public safety." After Chief Justice Roger B. Taney attacked the president for this policy, Lincoln responded in a Special Session to Congress on July 4, 1861 that an insurrection "in nearly one-third of the States had subverted the whole of the laws . . . Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?"

Later in the war, after some had criticized the arrest and detention of Congressman Clement Vallandigham of Ohio, Lincoln wrote to Erastus Corning in June 1862 that Vallandigham was arrested "because he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertions from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. . . . Must I shoot a simple-minded deserter, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?" Lincoln did not comment on the proper channels of due process regarding such "agitation."
[edit] Jackson's Terminiello formulation

In the Terminiello case, the majority opinion by Justice William O. Douglas overturned the disorderly conduct conviction of a priest whose anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi rantings at a rally had incited a riot. The Court held that Chicago's breach of the peace ordinance violated the First Amendment.

Associate Justice Robert Jackson wrote a twenty-four page dissent in response to the Court's four page decision, which concluded: "The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."

Lally said...

When the "Know Nothings" justified their intolerance and bigotry including lynchings of Irish Catholic "Papist" immigrants because supposedly Catholics would put the Pope's orders above the U.S. government and laws, their reasons sounded almost word for word what the rightists are now parroting from the media leaders regarding Muslims. When it is clear that it is the rightists who refuse to accept the Constitution and the laws of land, and in fact democracy itself, because they lost an election and cannot abide anyone other than themselves having any power in any form be it media, government, laws, freedom of speech and religion etc. The very definition of the contemporary rightwinger is of a person who refuses to accept anything other than rightwing orthodoxy as reality, so when reality contradicts the orthodoxy, they rewrite reality, whether past or present.

JIm said...

Mike,
Hopefully, Democrat candidates follow your advice.

-K- said...

Well, Jim, at least these two quotes seem to actually exist.

But I don't see how either of them specifically supports your contention that "the US Constitution can not survive Shariah law."

As you say, they may be in conflict and one may have to give way but what is your factual evidence that the US Constitution is the weaker of the two laws?

JIm said...

K,
Islam is both a religion and a political movement. A strong case can be made that support for Shariah law is treason, since it necessitates the overthrow of US Constitutional law. US elective officials pledge to protect the constitution. To support the implementation of Shariah law is treasonous. The support of the Ground Zero Mosque and it's Iman who has spoken out in favor of Shariah law is a threat to US Constitutional law. Lincoln and Jefferson had it right.


"Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]." In many nations, it is also often considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government, even if no foreign country is aided or involved by such an endeavour."

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

Didn't Bush have the bin Laden family flown safely out of the U.S. after the Twin Towers attack?

Anonymous said...

when fear and doubt guide our public policy we truly are no longer a country commited to the rights of the minority, or the principles stated in the political philosophy that this nation trusted in when it was formed.

Anonymous said...

when fear and doubt guide our public policy we truly are no longer a country commited to the rights of the minority, or the principles stated in the political philosophy that this nation trusted in when it was formed.

JIm said...

Ground Zero Mosque - Obama and Hamas

Obama and the terrorist leader of Hamas stand together in support of the 9/11 Mosque. It would be helpfull if they could be photographed together. Pictures speak ....etc.

"We have to build the mosque, as you are allowed to build the church and Israelis are building their holy places," stated Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas who is regarded as the chief of the group in Gaza.

Zahar said that as Muslims, "We have to build everywhere."

-K- said...

Jim - if we are in such dangerous circumstances, it is all the more reason to stand behind the values of the Constitution and not abandon them.

And not to make statements like "the US Constitution can not survive Shariah law."

JIm said...

K,
If Shariah law is instituted, it necessarilly abrogates the US Constitition. Should killing a wife by a husband have a different sentence for a Muslim than for anyone else. Should non Muslims be required to pay a different tax and or have different rights than Muslim's. The American Left seems to hold more sacred Sharia than the US Founding Documents. Lenin had it right when he said, there are "Usefull Idiots" in the West that will help the Communist cause. The "Usefull Idiots" are alive and well and now assisting Islam in it's takeover of the West.

-K- said...

"If Shariah law is instituted..."

Really? This is where you think we're headed?

You can continue to assert the weakness of the Constitution if you'd like but if you believe Shariah Law is soon to be the law of the land, I can see now we're just too far apart to continue talking.

Anonymous said...

I've kept mum about this whole "mosque" thing because I don't fully know who wants what for what reasons. However, I came across this on a friends facebook page and liked it a lot!

http://daryllang.com/blog/4421

Caitlin (and anonymous it has to be because I can't figure out my google account thing anymore so I gave up).

Lally said...

Thanks Cait, that's perfect. (I had also read that there's an "adult" store in the neighborhood as well.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

All this talk of Shariah Law reminds me of the Lorena Bobbitt thing where the talking head, aka gossip-casters, got to say the word "penis" repeatedly, though we'd never heard it before on tv like that. "Shariah Law" is the "penis" of today. We never heard it before, but now, you love saying it all the time repeatedly as if it's some common thing you talk about and know about all the time. Be careful when you sleep, someone might cut off your shariah! and hey, what happened about that old thing of when you fall off a bike, the best thing to do it pick it up and start riding again as soon as possible. I will say this, though - I don't follow the news alot so it may have already been said (someone please inform if it has been said) - it would be damn good pr on the American (and world) Islamic community to very publicly proclaim "Salaam" and acknowledge the families of 9/11 victims and even welcome them to the Mosque.