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It is a very interesting national phenomenon that many Obama supporters are challenging the notion that Barack Obama’s middle name is a political liability.  Over 500 have joined this Facebook group called “My Middle Name is Hussein, Too.”  The members of the group and many others from the social networking site agreed to change their Facebook middle names to be Hussein to celebrate Obama’s birthday on August 4.  Daily Kos posted an article called “We Are All Hussein,” in which the author said that he was “sick of Republicans pronouncing Barack Obama’s name like it was some sort of cuss word. It is a national embarrassment that American political discourse stretches so far to the extremes of xenophobia and puerility that a candidate’s name can become an object of propaganda.”  By far, though, the biggest amount of publicity that this grassroots effort has received came from this New York Times article, “Obama Supporters Take His Name as Their Own.”

If you want to join the effort, join the Facebook event above and change your middle name to Hussein.  Also, you can join this Flikr group and post a photo like the one to the right with you holding this sign that reads “My Middle Name is HUSSEIN.”

Although these efforts are encouraging, the overall national trend of ignorance and xenophobia is still astounding.  The most recent poll I could find on the issue (Pew Research, May 30) shows that 11% of the electorate believes that Obama is a Muslim.  Even more startling, 79% said that they had heard rumors to that effect, and a further 9% aren’t sure what religion he is because they have heard conflicting things.  I don’t think it would surprise anyone to learn that Americans have generally unfavorable views towards Muslims, and a Muslim would never have a chance at a national election at this point.  Perhaps someday we will become more enlightened, but until then, it is important that Obama’s supporters and staff directly confront these rumors and whisper campaigns to mislabel him as a Muslim.

-David Hussein Manes

McCain’s chances of remaining competitive in this 2008 presidential election hinge on his ability to distinguish himself from the wildly unpopular President Bush, and so far, McCain is failing miserably at overcoming this crucial obstacle.

To be fair, here is the McCain speech that most closely addresses this third term label, and you should read it for yourself.

McCain begins to fight this toxic label with this line: “I have worked with the President to keep our nation safe. But he and I have not seen eye to eye on many issues.” But then he provides no real distinguishing features. Two of the biggest factors that separated Bush and McCain were offshore drilling and climate change - Bush recently announced his shift to recognize climate change and fight it, and he also closed the gap with McCain by calling for an end to the ban on offshore drilling. Perhaps the only real issue that still separates the two candidates is treatment of detainees, but they have only small differences. McCain has always been a genuine opponent of torture, and I applaud him for that; however, he still agrees with Bush that blocking detainees from fair trials is good policy.

The third term tag is crucial for several reasons. First of all, it is largely true. McCain and Bush advocate similar policies on almost every single issue with few minor exceptions. Second, Obama’s campaign and its allies have latched onto this message, and it is already airing in commercials all over the country. Third, the media is giving it a lot of attention and scrutiny, and they aren’t finding cause to overturn the label. Last, the tag is taking hold with the people. A July 1 Gallup poll shows that 68% are “concerned that, as president, John McCain would pursue policies that are too similar to what George W. Bush has pursued.” Only 15% are not concerned about this possibility at all.

With Bush’s approval sinking below 30%, his image is in shambles. His major policies were clearly repudiated in the 2006 midterms, but McCain seems to have not picked up on that warning shot. If McCain wants to be competitive in this election, he needs to find a lot of really good and loud ways of distancing himself from the most unpopular president in modern history or else he will lose badly.

For our national and global readers, the four writers on this blog attend Harding University, a conservative Christian university located in Searcy, Arkansas and affiliated with the Church of Christ.  A quick glance at the posts on this blog should easily show that we are probably well outside the mainstream school of thought at this particular school, but we enjoy our discussions and we have all benefited greatly from our contact with a lot of great students and professors. Harding has a lot to reccomend it in terms of its personal connections.

That being said, Harding’s biggest shame has been its suppression of academic freedom that has come in the form of censorship and intimidation.  In the past, this blog has written about censorship and intimidation that has come from the administration, teachers, and school-sponsored organizations that clearly advocate a right-wing, close-minded approach to understanding religion as well as politics. It is understandable that a Christian institution would want to have certain ideological goals in mind, but it is inexcusable for an academic institution to actively suppress open dialog in favor of one-sided indoctrination.  One of the worst recent examples of this type of intellectual oppression is the apparent censorship of Dr. Mark Elrod, who runs one of the most popular blogs in Arkansas.

Dr. Elrod’s blog has attracted almost half a million viewers over the past few years, and recently, he attracted even more notoriety after an audio interview with downintheblog.com and some subsequent blog posts on the politics of gay marriage.  Evidently, not all of this attention was positive, though, and some individuals chose to complain to the Harding University administration instead of challenging any of the points made in the interview or the posts.  To its enormous shame, the Harding administration seems to value certain of its loud alumni over its obligations as a legitimate academic institution.  As a result, Dr. Elrod will be making his blog private.

Harding has a lot of qualified teachers and a lot of great people who make up its tightly-knit community.  Although it has great potential as an academic institution, Harding’s greatest shame is its disregard for academic freedom.  It is important that students learn how to think, not what to think.  If Harding truly desires to be a university, it must turn from its shameful habits of censorship and embrace the most fundamental value inherent in higher education: the value of ideas and continued discussion.

I recently came across a reference in a book to “RaptureReady.com,” and The Rapture Index; I knew right then that I needed to share this with as many people as possible.

This description of The Rapture Index comes from the site: “You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we’re moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.”

The Rapture Index is currently at 169 out of 225. It has increased every year for the past several, but still isn’t as high as it’s all-time high of 182 in September, 2001. The creator of this site describes his efforts as an attempt to decrease the arbitrariness involved in the study of prophetic activity that may signal the apocalypse.

Here are my top five observations about the Rapture Index:

1. Using diplomacy with Iran and getting them to open up their nuclear program looks like a definite precursor to the endtimes (see under the category of “leadership”).
2. There has been a “rash of crimes related to witchcraft.”
3. Global warming is not occuring.
4. Ecumenism deserves its own category to track those evil cooperative alliances between religious groups.
5. Under the category of “Beast Government” is this explanation for it’s 4 out of 5 rating: “EU p[ens a new treaty.” The EU is the beast government.

I hope you all enjoy RaptureReady.com. I really do wonder how many people believe in this type of eschatology and how many people follow sites like this for information about the pending apocalypse. I don’t mean to mock these people too much, but it does frighten me to think that very many of them could be in this country, voting, and even in the current administration.  But just in case they are right, are you rapture ready?

This picture is not one that will help McCain win in November.  McCain has made several attacks against Carter, most recently calling him “a lousy president.” In the past, McCain has made multiple references to Obama as “running for Carter’s second term.“  Although McCain would have at least a fifty-fifty shot if he were running against the 83-year old Nobel Peace Prize winning former President this year, he is wasting his time attacking Carter for a couple of reasons.

First, his current opponent, Barack Obama, is nothing like Jimmy Carter.  The two share very few similarities in terms of proposed policies, past histories, and personality.  If Obama shares any characteristics that Carter was known for having, they are primarily the good characteristics.  Both appear to be pure, genuine Washington outsiders who stand in contrast to particularly nasty times in Washington (Nixon and Bush have several similarities, but Bush only seems to have the bad characteristics of Nixon).  Obama doesn’t have the negative images that Carter had.  While Carter appeared to some as an intellectual lightweight, most people see the opposite in Obama.  Carter appeared weak and indecisive as a Commander-in-Chief, but Obama exudes confidence without aggression.

Second, any argument by analogy that involves Carter can only appeal to two groups: old people, and political geeks.  For anyone to have been old enough to vote for Carter when he first ran in 1976, that person would have to be 50 years old today.  Since the youngest demographic has always tended to be politically apathetic, it is more likely that the ones who remember voting for Carter back in ‘76 are 62 years old and over right now.  For almost the entire rest of the country, any comparison to Carter might as well be an argument in a foreign language.  Then there are the political geeks, but any of them should immediately recognize the flaws in the comparison between Obama and Carter.

But the worst impact that this Carter attack strategy has is that it keeps McCain talking about the past.  McCain likes to talk about the past anyway, and Carter is really really past.  Carter’s policies are really past.  Now Carter is old and McCain only looks older by going toe to toe with the former president.  That picture at the top of this post is a good summary of what this strategy is doing for McCain.

Meet the new Second Amendment, same as the old Second Amendment. Today, many people wondered, how much will the Supreme Court ruling on the D.C. gun ban affect gun control in the United States?

Certainly, the pro-gun blogosphere is popping the champagne tonight while the gun control crowd hangs their heads in shame. This ruling may change some laws in the future, but overall, its effect will probably be limited.

This country has always recognized on some level the right to own guns, whether it stems from the 2nd, 4th, 9th, 10th, or 14th Amendments or from state constitutions or laws that implicitly recognize it. Guns have always been around during this country’s history, and no serious effort has ever been made against that de facto right. We have also always recognized the need for reasonable regulations on the exercise of this right like we do any other right.

Clearly, the D.C. gun ban went too far in its unwarranted infringement of individual rights.

The opinion itself contains very interesting and very precise arguments about the specific wording of the Second Amendment and of this nation’s history, even more so than most opinions do. Scalia wrote a very convincing majority opinion, methodically building his case. But he also used a lot of qualifications, being sure to state that this opinion does not negate the need for sensible laws that regulate gun ownership.

Some pro-gun advocates may get their hopes up that this case is the watershed decision that will unleash district courts across the country to strike down gun control laws, banishing the Brady Campaign to irrelevance forever. That will probably not happen. Although Heller sets a precedent for a clear identification of an individual right to own a gun, that right will still be subject to reasonable regulation like most other rights. Legislatures and courts will decide what sorts of regulations are necessary, and they will continue to enact them. It may be seen as landmark since it is the first time the Court has directly addressed the Second Amendment, but District of Columbia v. Heller is unlikely to seriously alter the way we legislate and uphold future gun laws.

One popular theory of explaining how individuals choose how to cast their votes says that they consider their own pocketbook and vote with their personal economic interest at stake. This could be called “economic interest voting,” “pocketbook voting,” “rational economic voting,” or an exaggerated myth. If the average person really voted with her or his own economic interest as the chief consideration, John McCain would be polling around 20% right now and he would lose every single state in November unless he drastically changed his policies.

JH showed this telling graph on his blog a few days ago. It shows how people’s income would go up or down (by percent) based on their income percentile (click to enlarge).

All but the top 20% would see their net income go up more under Obama’s economic proposals than McCain’s, although McCain is typically seen as the thrifty tax-refunder while Obama is seen as the tax-and-spend-liberal. Clearly, these labels are incorrect.

Obama’s tax plans raise taxes on the top 1% or so in various ways while giving the majority of the economic help to those at the bottom of our economy. McCain gives a token amount of help to those at the bottom (who really need it!), but saves the majority of his huge tax cut for the extremely wealthy.

If I weren’t already so cynical, it would shock me that so many lower and middle class voters mistakenly believe that McCain is the best candidate for their own economic interest. This comes from a combination of ignorance and propaganda. Republicans shamelessly campaign on issues like killing the “death tax,” cutting capital gains taxes, eliminating the “double-taxation” on dividends,” enacting the “fair tax,” and other similar economic issues. One thing they do have is a seemingly endless supply of catch phrases. However, typical Americans are severely mistaken if they believe that these catch phrases translate into benefiting typical people like themselves. While Republicans campaign for the economic interest of the super-rich, Democrats fight to defend Social Security, extend SCHIP, and send tax breaks to the working class.

Why don’t voters vote in what appears to be in their economic interest? Mostly because there are other issues that get more press and are more easily understood. Also, most people are unaware of which policies are actually in their economic interest. It isn’t because people like getting the short end of the economic stick from the leaders they elect.

The evangelical Cambellite tradition from which I came emphasized the Bible more than anything else as the definitive answer to all questions. This type of thinking goes back a long time, at least back to the Reformation’s famous idea of sola scriptura (that the Bible is authoritative and clearly understandable). Although I rarely publicly criticize such a core principle of my heritage as this, I believe that sola scriptura and everything it has become is deeply flawed and extremely dangerous.

The absolute authority of the Bible must be questioned by any educated thinker. The Bible is an anthology written and compiled over hundreds of years by dozens of authors and editors. It has been further transmitted and translated by thousands of monks and scholars. Even if God directly dictated the original text of what we now hold as cannonized scripture, his dictation would look significantly different from today’s Bibles. Of course, that did not occur. People wrote, edited, compiled, transmitted, and translated the Bible into what we have today.

Furthermore, the Biblical authors were bound by their own cultures and times. Cultural and moral relativism has been discussed on this blog extensively already, but I need to emphasize that these concepts directly affect the authority modern readers should grant to the Biblical text as the sole answer to contemporary moral questions.

The Bible is also not inherently and objectively understandable. Over the centuries and across the countries, different readers have arrived at strikingly different conclusions after reading identical passages from the Bible. This occurs at the highest levels between the most educated theologians of different Christian sects and it is even worse at the level of the lay person who often resorts to proof-texting and eisegesis.

Although they might appear to be at first, the above observations are not criticisms of the Bible itself. I want to understand the Bible for what it is and then get as much truth as possible from it, but I cannot make the Bible into something it is not. Understanding the Bible for what it brings to the table is the necessary first step in applying it to anything. The above are criticisms and cautions for those who lean too heavily on the doctrine of sola scriptura and who almost go so far as to worship the Bible itself, ignoring its limitations.

If the Bible itself cannot be the ultimate authority on every moral question, then what other sources are available? There are literally millions of other sources for moral advice, many of which add something useful to any modern discussion. Philosophers, writers, poets, other religions, theologians, friends, and scholars can sometimes help illuminate the great moral issues of our day in better ways than the Bible alone can. The Bible helps point Christians to a great deal of truth and has a lot of good advice for morality, but it does not answer every question and it may have provided answers that can be seen as tailored for a specific time instead of universal. We should use everything that is useful for addressing important moral questions and leave the primitive clinging to one single text to answer all questions. Christians who place their faith in the Bible instead of in God are making a very unwise trade.

This video is from the good people at Slate, and it actually does a pretty funny job of summarizing the high and low points of this Democratic primary.

Seriously, though folks, it has been a fun ride for the past several months.  I really look forward to the general election, though.  This primary was only about personality (which is why I was glad to be supporting Obama) because the two primary contenders agreed almost completely on policy.  Now that the general election is beginning, I hope to see some more substantive policy discussions because Obama and McCain offer very different paths for our country to take in the next four years.

Speaking of debates, I am still a fan of the Obama vs. McCain town hall debate tour.  Slate (again) has an interesting article that discusses the proposed debate style and why both candidates find it so appealing.  How likely is this kind of honest, unmediated policy-centered debate?  Probably very unlikely.  But we can always hope…

Obama is trying to be very gracious with his apparent victory in the Democratic nomination, and so are many of his supporters (this blog has not gloated too much, I don’t think).  But by now, pretty much everybody  can smell what’s cooking - Barack Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee for 2008.

There are still at least a few people who are apparantly holding out hope, though.  When Kentucky voted last Tuesday, exit polls showed that 68% of Clinton’s supporters there still believed she would win the nomination.  Also, Bill Clinton suggested yesterday that a Clinton win in Montana (16 pledged delegates) could change some party leaders’ minds and shift the momentum to his wife.

On the more mainstream, conventional-wisdom side of things, most political analysts are trying to decide when would be the best time for Clinton to drop out.  I see at least a few possibilities for Clinton’s exit strategy.  Here are my brainstorms and the possible rationales for each:

1. As soon as possible.  Clinton has already invested so much time and energy into this campaign, not to mention her own personal money.  There is almost no possibility whatsoever that she could still win the nomination, so any more effort at this point is essentially wasted.  The longer she stays in, the less personal political capital she will have to continue her Senate career (which could still be long and dignified).  Also, it will just make things awkward between her and the likely next president, Obama, for her to keep going at this point.
2. After June 3.  The last two primaries in the primary, Montana and South Dakota, vote on June 3.  Even if Clinton won every single pledged delegate from both of those states (unlikely), she would still be 163 delegates behind Obama with nothing more to look forward to.  But at that point, she can say that she let all the votes be cast and counted before she decided that the people had spoken.  June 3 is still relatively soon, and it makes sense as a political landmark for her to drop out then.  I think this scenario makes the most sense, and so does Jimmy Carter.
3. After Obama clinches the nomination with 2,025 delegates.  At this point, Obama is still estimated to be about 57 away from that “magic number.”  Since he will probably do well on June 3, he will probably be within 40 or fewer just from the pledged delegates.  At that point, the pressure on superdelegates will also increase dramatically for them to make up their minds, and it is very likely that enough of them will quickly move to support Obama that he will clinch the nomination within a week after the last primary.
4. Not until Obama gets 2,209 delegates.  Clinton started trying to use this new “magic number” recently along with her argument that the delegations from Michigan and Florida should be seated at the convention.  If those delegations are counted in full, still would not bring Clinton much closer to being competitive with Obama again, but it would move the endpoint farther back by almost 200 delegates.  The only reason for Clinton continuing with this all but hopeless campaign would be if she is crossing her fingers for a pre-convention assassination or some personal scandal that would dwarf Wrightgate or Bittergate.

So what do you think?  When do you think is the best time for Clinton to drop out from her perspective, from your perspective, and from the party’s perspective?  When do you think she actually will drop out?  These will be an interesting few weeks, and then the real fun can officially begin with the general election.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is one of those pieces of law with such a great name that you wonder how anyone could ever have a problem with it; in that way it is kind of like the Equal Rights Amendment.  Who could be against equal rights or for discrimination?  Well, I seriously do wonder what arguments the opponents of ENDA are making against a law that is so clearly justified.

ENDA adds sexual orientation to the list of categories on which employers may not discriminate.  Right now, federal anti-discrimination law prohibits employers from discriminating based on race, gender, religion, age, or disability.  ENDA, in the form of HR 3685, passed the House last November by a vote of 235-184.  It is on its way to the Senate, but even if it passes there, President Bush is likely to veto it if he is still around.

In my quest to find the opposition to ENDA, I have been more successful at finding rebuttals to the opposition.  I know there are lots of people (at least 184 Representatives and several people I know in real life) who oppose ENDA, but it is difficult to find coherently formed attacks on the legislation.  But these two sites, the American Psychological Association, and ReligiousTolerance.org, have good compilations of the arguments made against ENDA and the obvious responses to them.  These sites attack some of the most frequently-used arguments against ENDA and any legislation that is perceived to benefit those with non-mainstream sexual identities.

Here were some of the top points that people seem to be making against ENDA and my responses to them:

“ENDA gives special privileges to homosexuals.” Actually, ENDA prohibits discrimination against anyone on the basis of sexual orientation.  It applies equally across the board, although it is probably true that right now there is more unjust discrimination going against homosexuals than heterosexuals.  But whatever this law does, it does not give special privileges to any group.

“ENDA will normalize deviant sexual behavior.” This is a contradiction in terms.  What is considered mainstream and what is considered deviant are defined by society, so it seems impossible to normalize deviant anything.  This bill is also not aimed at forcing heterosexuals to embrace alternate lifestyles; our country does recognize, however, that tolerance is important, even of religions, actions, words, and lifestyles with which the mainstream is at odds.

“ENDA will be applied in so many cases, it will change so many of our longstanding traditions.” There are certain exceptions in ENDA so the bill does not apply to the military, to religious organizations, or to small businesses with fewer than 15 employees.  And if discrimination is one of our traditions, I would be glad to do anything to get beyond it.

There are some even crazier arguments that I heard in real life a couple of weeks ago, but I do not think they are even worth responding to.  ENDA provides important protections to individuals who often suffer discrimination because of who they are.  It would be nice if businesses would solve this problem for themselves, but once again, it appears that the only way we can guarantee protection from sexual orientation discrimination is by passing federal legislation.

Techno-optimism is a relatively new concept, but I have heard several references to it and its underlying principles over the past few weeks, so I thought it would be worth discussing.

At its very core, the definition of techno-optimism is the belief that technology can continually be improved and can improve the lives of people, making the world a better place. In practice, there are two different kinds of techno-optimists: the good kind and the bad kind.

The good techno-optimists believe that humans can use technology for good, and can mitigate its negative effects. They believe that people can develop new technologies to address new problems as they arise. They essentially believe that technology should and will be used for good purposes. I would like to think of myself as this kind of techno-optimist in many ways (although there are some things I am pessimistic about).

The bad techno-optimists agree with all that, but they take it too far. The bad techno-optimists believe that technology can trump any problem so fervently that they tend to be apathetic to dealing with problems while they are in their early stages. One of our commenters, Jesse, posted a link to this book a while ago: The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy. The end of the subtitle - “why we will never run out of energy” - caught my eye first because it seems like such a silly statement to make. The more I looked into this book and other books and writers like this one, the more I realized that these people are serious techno-optimists, but they are often the bad kind. They put so much faith in the inventiveness of humanity that they convince themselves not to worry about the need for intense alternative energy research now. They assume that when the conditions are dire enough, that new technology will emerge from the market somewhere to save the day.

This image of a technological deux ex machina is highly improbable, and in my opinion, irresponsible. It is true that technology tends to develop and there are massive reserves of ingenuity coupled with incredible market forces that continuously drive innovation; however, ingenuity has not been able to solve every problem on short notice, and the market is far from perfect, especially in dealing with issues of long-term significance. The bad kind of techno-optimism is thinly veiled laziness that consigns responsibility for major issues to future generations instead of addressing them now. I had a teacher recently articulate a similar position when he referred in passing to global warming. Evidently he is one of many who ignore the threat of climate change as something for future generations to worry about once the problem reaches critical mass and the incentives are high enough for the market to produce new technologies to fix the problems.

The obvious problem with applying too much techno-optimism to complicated issues like alternative energy and climate change is that the solutions for these problems will require vast resources and time to develop and implement. If we wait until peak oil production comes and goes and the price of gas is in the double digits, and if we wait until catastrophic flooding and weather patterns produce enough incentives to start developing solutions for these issues, it will be too late for millions of people to save their lives and livelihoods. We must have optimism to drive us toward implementing solutions for the collective problems we face. We cannot allow our optimism to become an excuse for laziness.

Watch this short commercial by Amnesty International. Then click the link below. Then let’s talk about waterboarding.

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If we are willing to commit human rights violations in our so-called War on Terror, then what have we become? What is worth protecting if we abandon our principles? I have said before, and I will say again, if you are willing to sacrifice your principles when it is inconvenient to keep them, then you have no principles.

In a democracy, the people create the government and ultimately set policy through elected representatives. The people also bear the moral responsibility for the actions of the government.

Even if “moral principle” isn’t enough of a motivation to oppose torture techniques like waterboarding, at least we should look to international law. The United States is a signatory to dozens of human rights treaties and conventions. And although we once helped lead the “free world” in the fight for universal human rights, the United States today appears far more interested in shirking international law whenever possible. Frightening memos circulate around the White House, telling the president that he is authorized to ignore domestic and international law any time he judges it to be contrary to his view of national security.

Fortunately, it appears that our next president will switch directions, at least on this issue of torture. Those people who think that any action that perpetuates and protects the state are justified scare me. Some of the Republican primary debates scared me when the candidates kept trying to one up each other in how brutal they were willing to be with detained terror suspects in the fictitious “ticking time bomb” scenario.

Maybe this is something to pray about today, since it is the National Day of Prayer.

Today, May 1st, is the National Day of Prayer. What does something like a National Day of Prayer say about our country and our theology?

Our country, especially in times of perceived crisis, desperately wants to appear religous. In the wake of 9/11, signs proclaiming “God bless America” sprouted up everywhere and church attendence went up. Although it was initially hailed by Franklin Graham as a permanent national turn to God, the religious surge ended after about two months of superficial religiosity. Our country engages in other superficial religious endeavors as well. Conservative Evangelicals are willing to fight to the death for mere symbols like a slogan on a coin, a phrase in the pledge, or a monument in a courthouse; meanwhile, they display general apathy or open contempt for efforts to address the real ethical issues facing our world like poverty and hunger. Elrod said it well the other day on his blog: “If America were in fact the Christian nation we claim to be that there would be no need for government welfare or foreign aid. Instead, the prosperity that has made America a great nation would be unselfishly shared by the people God seems to have blessed the most with people who not been as fortunate.”

Something like a National Day of Prayer is also telling as a manifestation of modern Evangelical theology. Modern scientific Americans think they can systematically control everything through charts and hierarchies. The National Day of Prayer suggests that people want to believe that we can construct a systematic organized appeal to God, and that he will be more persuaded to “bless America” than he would otherwise. Does formal organization and assignment of coordinated prayer duties really increase the amount of pressure that humans can exert on an Almighty creator?

At Harding University, where the authors of this blog study, we had a similar event hosted on our campus. Fora 24-hour period, students signed up for 30-minute time slots during which they committed to pray about certain assigned issues. This struck me as being based upon deeply flawed and superficial theology.

All of these examples - a National Day of Prayer, God catch phrases, or a 24-hour school-wide prayer - represent superficial attempts to fulfill an identity that we think we have as a “Christian nation.” These are feeble attempts that focus on utterly insignificant symbols and modern systems of God-control that cannot possibly be theologically justified. God is not impressed with Christians who devote so much time and energy to such things. Here are some questions to consider:

• Is there any evidence to suggest or any reason to believe that God blesses America?
• Can God be convinced or prodded to action by coordinated modern systematic appeals?
• What measurement would show that America was really a Christian nation?
• Is there any deeper value in what appears to be just another superficial display of religiosity, the National Day of Prayer?

To be clear, I don’t hate Christians, God, or prayer. All of those things can be good in and of themselves. But I do have serious philosophical questions about the type of thinking that justifies mixing nationalism and prayer, and I have serious theological questions about the type of thinking that justifies constructing artificial mechanisms for bombarding God with prayer.

Everyone realizes at this point that Clinton’s only chance for securing the nomination is if she can dramatically win the superdelegate battle. We have talked extensively about this kind of “superdelegate scandal,” but now it looks like it is becoming less and less likely. According to this article from the Wall Street Journal, Obama is closing the gap in superdelegates, especially among the superdelegates who hold elected positions. Clinton still holds a decent lead among the superdelegates who are just DNC members, but that lead, too, is diminishing.

Among the reasons cited in the article for Obama’s successes with superdelegates is his “50 state strategy,” in which he plans to battle for the election in all states, including traditionally “red” states. He will certainly have the resources to carry out such a large-scale battle.

So, Hillary, how has that superdelegate battle been going?

The new popular thing to support these days is a gas tax moratorium for the summer that would begin Memorial Day and end Labor Day. There’s no doubt that supporting the tax break is good politics, but it is equally clear that it is bad policy. That is why I am very conflicted that Obama is the only candidate to oppose the plan.

Gas prices nationwide are setting records and beating them over and over. The average price of gas in most states is approaching $4.00 according to AAA. Although the price of gas isn’t as shockingly high when you account for inflation and compare our current prices to prices in the 70s and 80s, it is still pretty rough for a lot of people. What is more, the price of gas is a very tangible, real economic marker that almost all people come into contact with. To many people, reducing, eliminating, or giving a break from the federal gas tax sounds extremely appealing, and any candidate who opposes that better have a really great reason for doing so.

Rescinding the gas tax would be bad policy, though. The Federal Gas Tax of 18.4 cents per gallon goes to fund the Highway Trust fund, which distributes money to pay for highways and bridges and other infrastructure projects that we desperately need in this country. Since the number is set by law at 18.4 cents per gallon, this tax effectively goes down in its impact every year, and revenues for the Highway Fund have also decreased. The last time Congress increased the tax was 1993. Accounting for inflation, Congress should rasise the Gas Tax to 26 cents per gallon just to keep it at the same level that it was at in 1993.  If Congress temporarily lifted the 18.4 cent per gallon gas tax, it would cost the government $10 billion in revenue.  The other reason why a higher gas tax is good policy is because it uses the market forces to create incentives for people to reduce their use of gas and for companies to provide alternatives that become comparatively more beneficial.

The problem is that if anybody seriously proposed raising the gas tax, they would be tarred and feathered and run out of Washington.  No presidential candidate could possibly advocate that position, even if it makes sense from a rational perspective.  Congress needs to set the gas tax relative to inflation so it automatically increases itself without separate efforts necessary to raise it, because politicians are loathe to raise taxes, especially around election time.

In any case, Obama’s explanation of why he is the only candidate not in favor of temporarily lifting the 18.4 cent per gallon gas tax will appear weak to the average voter.  Obama claims that the tax break won’t actually help American commuters.  Although this analysis represents a much more responsible and rational approach to the issue, McCain and Clinton will pick up the political points from this one.

Evidently, McCain has the lowest score in Congress for supporting legislation that helps children. The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill. Actually, it turns out that the score is calculated by tallying how many out of 10 bills the politician supported, and McCain missed 8 of the votes. Out of the two that he voted in, he voted for a minimum wage increase (get 10%), but voted against SCHIP (stay the lowest-rated legislator on Capitol Hill).

This post isn’t seriously trying to accuse McCain of hating children. Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn’t. How can anyone sift through the mountains of negative ads and false accusations? Most people can tell that this campaign is already shaping up to be incredibly negative, even though the two frontrunners try to keep up an image of above-the-belt campaigning. Most of these attacks will probably come from the DNC and RNC, as well as from many different 527-type groups. If you are looking for a good site that compiles and dissects the various attacks, then check out PolitiFact’s Attack File.

Politifact has a growing list of attack ads made against the three remaining candidates, as well as some truth meter to rate the accuracy of the attack. Some of these attacks come from the other candidates, but a lot of them are already coming from third party organizations like moveon.org, the DNC, the RNC, and Focus on the Family Action.

I have to say, most of my favorites from the list come from James Dobson’s Focus on the Family Action. On March 26, the group published an article that accused Obama of supporting “hate-crimes expansion … potentially putting churches at risk if they preach the truth about homosexuality.” They also sent out an e-mail that claimed that “among his pet projects is a bill … which would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid.” The last Focus on the Family Action attack was the one that said Obama supports “teaching schoolchildren — in 2nd grade, no less — about homosexual relationships.”

Of course, none of those things is actually true in any way (Is anyone surprised at the amazing disregard for the truth that this “values” organization has?) . I am sure that sites like this will be full of funny and baseless attacks by the time we are done with the general election, which is still 188 days away. I’m adding it to my bookmarks.

Jimmy Carter may not have been the most effective president, but he is a good man and his commitment to the peace process in Palestine is absolute. Carter began his involvement in the region during his presidency, and continued to actively promote diplomacy and dialogue as a former president. This book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, has an inflammatory title that offended and intrigued many from the beginning. It is an interesting book that combines an in-depth analysis of the issues between the Israelis and Palestinians with Carter’s personal experiences in the middle of the two groups.

Carter’s self-identified purpose in writing this book is to to “present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks (now absent for [seven] years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors.” Since the Bush administration took office in 2001, our government and people have almost completely lost focus on the intense and growing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians; instead of facilitating long-term peace, the Bush policy has been unquestioning support for Israel, even as it committed mass atrocities against the Lebanese and Palestinians. Carter is right to observe that we need to restart peace talks and look for permanent peace.

Carter is unique among American politicians who deal with this issue for several reasons. His recent trip to the Middle East, during which he met with Hamas leaders, was very controversial. Carter is clearly willing to engage in dialogue with the parties involved to help move the peace process along while many others find reasons to avoid the dialogue altogether. Perhaps even more importantly, though, Carter is willing to be honest about how much of the fault lies with Israel for sabatoging the peace process. Most Americans and almost all American politicians side with Israel, openly and frequently condmening Hamas and other violent Palestinian organizations for their actions while turning a blind eye to Israel. Carter, on the other hand, summarizes the underlying problems of the region in this way: “Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land. In order to perpetuate the occupation, Israeli forces have deprived their unwilling subjects of basic human rights. No objective person could personally observe existing conditions in the West Bank and dispute these statements.”

Carter received a lot of criticism for including the word Apartheid in the title of his book, but it is both an accurate and provocative description of the current Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. Israel refuses to allow the Palestinians a real sovereign state of their own, and simultaneously refuses to integrate them as citizens of Israel. Meanwhile, Israel constructs walls that steal land, destroy communities, and disrupt freedom of movement all within Palestinian territory ostensibly for “Israeli security.” Carter shows how Israel has violated and flaunted international law over and over again.

While Carter is not entirely sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, it is clear that he is most frustrated with Israeli actions that are most detrimental to lasting peace. This book is insightful, and somewhat depressing; the reader can detect the tired and frustrated tone that Carter takes when describing the situation in Palestine.

It will take some time before the dust settles and we get a clear picture of what the accepted spin will be about the Pennsylvania primary. Here are some things to consider, though.

• The primary process is not even close to being over. Although some people hoped that this primary would be enough of a blow to Clinton that she would drop out after PA, that very clearly did not happen. Her 10 point victory is enough to keep her viable.
• Her victory will infuse her campaign with new funds, the lifeblood of our wonderful primary process. Clinton reported just a couple of hours ago that she has collected 2.5 million so far since the networks called the victory a few hours before that. She will probably avoid the previously impending financial crisis and she might be able to get some health care for her campaign staff.
• The ten point spread between Clinton and Obama in Pennsylvania very closely mirrors the ten point spread in Ohio 6 weeks ago. Demographically, the electorates in the two states are also close to identical in terms of race, gender, and education. If anything, Pennsylvania was even more tailored to fit Clinton’s style because it has a lot more older, rural, and blue collar voters. But these two similar states with similar results show that nothing has really changed in the past 6 weeks. Clinton mostly met expectations in Pennsylvania, although many Obama supporters allowed themselves to hope for an upset or an unexpectedly small Clinton victory.
• The New York Times’ editorial board is reprimanding Clinton in tomorrow’s paper for her incredibly negative campaign in the keystone state. Clinton’s hometown paper writes that “Clinton does more than just turn off voters who don’t like negative campaigning… She undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her.”
• Obama has already moved on to Indiana, where he gave his speech for the night. Indiana and North Carolina vote on May 6th, two weeks after Pennsylvania. Indiana will probably be highly competitive and North Carolina will probably go solidly for Obama (making up for the minimal delegate deficit from PA).

I still maintain that there is almost no chance that Clinton will get the nomination. She cannot “win” it at this point, although it is conceivable that she could sway enough of the undemocratic superdelegates to support her, usurping Obama who will undoubtedly finish out the primaries with a significant lead in both the elected delegates and the popular vote. She would have to be overwhelmingly persuasive in her appeals to the 300 or so remaining superdelegates who haven’t yet committed, and she doesn’t hasn’t exactly been holding back for the past two months. It is very unlikely that this group of individuals will all of a sudden move to support Clinton en masse at this point, especially against the clear will of the voters in the Democratic Party.

One other thing is for certain, and that is that this long Democratic primary process is good for McCain. If the Democrats had any collective sense, they would resolve this as quickly as possible before they blow the fantastic opprotunity that is the 2008 presidential election, especially against a boring establishment candidate who represents a third term of an unpopular president and who doesn’t even excite his own party.

Everybody has heard stories of plaintiffs winning tort suits that sound outrageously stupid. These come in the form of chain e-mails, blog posts, and urban legends; however, most of these stories are completely ficticious. I heard one earlier today about a person who attempted suicide by standing on train tracks and the sued the railroad for medical expenses when the attempt failed. Have you heard any of these before?

• A mother won $780,000 from suing a furniture store after she tripped over her own rambunxious toddler and broke her ankle.
• A man won $74,000 plus medical expenses for suing his neighbor who ran over his hand while he was trying to steal hubcaps off of his car.
• A robber sued the owners of a home he was burglarizing after he trapped himself in the garage and suffered emotional distress.
• A woman won $113,000 from a restaurant after she slipped on a spilled drink that she had just spilled on the floor.

These and many more are utter fabrications. Perhaps some of these stories are deliberately created to support a tort reform agenda by interested parties. Maybe others just make funny stories at first, but they are passed on like in the game of telephone and eventually people start to think they might be true. Urban legends and tall tales often have fascinating origins, but the important thing to remember is that they are not, in fact, true.

Even if there are some true stories of tort abuses out there, they are evidently very few and far between. This makes sense logically because there are so many checks in our legal system to weed out frivolous lawsuits and prevent plaintiffs from winning money for silly claims. The first check is the plaintiffs themselves; uneducated, poor, and stupid individuals are unlikely to have ready access to legal counsel and they are unlikely to even consider using the legal system to fix their problems. The second check is the potential attorney; attorneys are concerned about their money and reputation, two things that are lost if they take on clients with unfounded claims and press frivolous lawsuits. The third check is the judge; judges can easily grant motions to dismiss cases that are obviously frivolous, and they have a very strong incentive to do so so they can save their own time and preserve their reputation in the legal community. The fourth check is a jury if the case does, in fact, go to trial; juries are made up of somewhat normal people, and are unlikely to award large amounts of money for obviously absurd reasons. The last check is the appeals process; even if all the previous checks fail to prevent a frivolous lawsuit from getting through, we have an extensive appeals process that allows new courts to hear the arguments and overturn what the original trial court decided.

Tort reform involves more issues than just these outrageous stories, but it is a major problem that many people think these stories are true. The overall issue of tort reform probably deserves its own blog post someday, but here are some thoughts on the issue. We have to give a lot of credit to our legal system for its extensive checks and balances and its long history of providing reliable justice in most circumstances. For every handful of crazy stories that we hear, most of them turn out to be false, and even the one or two that might be true are still vastly outweighed by the thousands of cases that are rightly decided or rightly dismissed by our proven system.

I don’t want to preclude the possibility that there are some ridiculous examples of juries awarding huge amounts of money for completely frivolous reasons. I just haven’t seen very many of those examples. Feel free to comment with some examples if you have any, but just passing along rumors or chain-email information won’t be good enough. This is the internet, and you should be able to find some legitimate links to document it if the case really happened.

Yes, Senator Clinton should probably drop out of the Democratic presidential primary after Pennsylvania votes tomorrow. As of right now, Obama leads Clinton in the delegate race 1648 to 1508. He also leads in the popular vote, an unofficial confirmation that he has won the democratic element of the Democratic primary. Even if Pennsylvania overwhelmingly voted for Clinton tomorrow and gave her a large double-digit victory, it is still essentially impossible that she could ever catch him in either the delegate race or the popular vote. Clinton should drop out of the race for her own good, for the good of the Democratic Party, and for the good of the country.

Pennsylvania is going to be a disaster for Clinton, no matter how much she tries to spin it, for many reasons. First of all, PA should have been solidly hers based on the demographics of the state. It used to be, several weeks ago before Obama started campaigning there. But Obama brought a 25-30 point lead down to a statistical tie in a few weeks of campaigning. Also, Clinton needed a major victory here to try to reverse Obama’s long-term momentum.

After PA, unless Clinton pulls out a 20-point victory, she is going to be under a lot of pressure from major party leaders to drop out. She will be out of excuses to keep going at that point, and it will be just a matter of time.

Also, after PA, many of the undecided superdelegates will be pressured to finally make their decision, and a majority of them will go for Obama. It is possible that he could even reach the required number for the nomination in the next couple of weeks. Clinton is just too far away to get there at this point unless almost all of the superdelegates went with her, but since superdelegates are politicians too, they are unlikely to hitch themselves to the losing candidate.

At this point, it is impossible that Clinton could win the nomination; however, some people still worry that she could steal it. If Clinton became the Democratic nominee at the convention, it would be seen as a coup, not a nomination. She would push away far too many voters from her own party to be able to seriously challenge McCain in the general election. Even if she could win the nomination in a fair way, Clinton is still one of the most polarizing and hated individuals in all of politics. Perhaps that label is partially undeserved, but it is there. A nomination-coup would absolutely sink her chances of winning.

Jimmy Carter has not been a very quiet ex-president. Every once in a while, he makes the headlines for some controversial comment or book. I am reading his book now (Palestine: Peace not Apartheid) and it is pretty fairly written. I really don’t see what all the fuss was about. Carter’s current trip to the middle east has really angered some, though, because he has been meeting with high-level Hamas leaders. The U.S. government and the Israeli government have both condemned Carter for making this trip and agreeing to meet with Hamas, the democratically-elected, but terrorist-affiliated ruling party of Palestine.

Since when did ignoring our enemies succeed as a diplomatic strategy? It really didn’t work with Cuba. It isn’t working right now with Iran. On the other hand, engaging our enemies has lead to positive outcomes with nations like North Korea, the Soviet Union, and others. Perhaps the most relevant and best example occurred in the 1990s with Sinn Fein and the Belfast Peace Agreement. Of course, Sinn Fein was seen by many as a political face for the terrorist organization, the Provisional Irish Republican Army; but eventually UK officials realized that ignoring that group was not going to lead to any sort of lasting peace. Today, Sinn Fein is the largest political party in Northern Ireland and one of the largest in Ireland as a whole. The IRA is no longer seen as a threat, largely due to the fact that its enemies were willing to negotiate and resolve the disputes around a table with discussion instead of in the streets with guns and bombs.

Today, many people, including the Bush administration, think that if they ignore Hamas then it will go away. This is simply not true. We cannot ignore Hamas any more than we can ignore the larger issues that exist between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Hamas was elected because it represents the frustrated feelings of many Palestinians who are desperate to have their complaints heard and to have their problems solved. The US and Israel need to stop behaving like children and sit down to come up with some lasting agreements.

My hat is off to Jimmy Carter for beginning a dialogue with the leadership of Hamas. We don’t have to endorse all of the practices that they used in the past, just like when Tony Blair’s government met with Sinn Fein. But we do have to acknowledge that the peace process cannot be put on hold as long as the government is dominated by a party that we do not like. For a generally below-average president, Carter is actually one of our better ex-presidents. It’s too bad he couldn’t have just skipped the four years of his presidency and gone right into being an ex-president.

When the United States unifies around a goal, it can achieve incredible results.  In the 1940s, the Manhattan Project employed over 130,000 individuals including some of the best and brightest in the country, with a total budget that exceeded $23 billion in today’s dollars.  That project was able to take something that was somewhere between an idea and a theory and turn it into incredibly powerful weapons that levelled entire cities.  In the 1960s, America was inspired by Kennedy’s proposal to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and the Apollo program was born which ended up spending over $135 billion in today’s dollars.  Every generation faces its own unique challenges, and the great challenge to our generation is a looming energy crisis.  The question is what we will do to address this crisis; the answer is that we need to unite as a nation and create something like a new Manhattan Project for alternative energy.

Right now, some of the most promising solutions for the declining oil supply are still in stages of infancy.  The amount of money that our government invests in research grants for alternative energy is pathetic, and the market is not equipped to deal with such speculative projects when oil is so profitable and alternative fuel development is so risky.  But we cannot afford to wait until it becomes profitable for the market to solve this inevitable crisis, we need to preempt it with a national project using the combined resources and ingenuity of this country.

We have some technologies that have promise, but need assistance so they can be implemented on a large scale.  Some examples are:

• Wind turbines
• Cellulosic ethanol
• Solar panels

Other technologies may fall short of being currently feasible, but with some development and research, they could prove to be effective.  Some proposals include:

• Nuclear fusion
• Clean coal
• Shale oil

Up to this point, the government has relied on mild tax incentives and subsidies to gently push the market toward green and alternative energy sources.  This is not enough, and every day, the demand for oil grows from our country and from India, China, and the developing world while the finite supply declines.  Right now, we only feel the effects through slightly raised gas prices, but without drastic and decisive action, our economic future is in jeopardy.

If $23 billion (Manhattan) or $135 billion (Apollo) seems like a lot of money, think about these comparisons.  The US has spent over $512 already in Iraq with no end in sight and no strategic benefit whatsoever.  In 2001, President Bush pushed through tax cuts that will cost the US over $1.35 trillion over ten years.  We drop huge amounts of money at the drop of a hat, and right before us is the most important project that our nation could take on.  I want to hear the presidential candidates and the congressional leadership talking about this issue.  I wouldn’t mind hearing some inspiration and even some lofty goals.  Let’s make visionaries like Kennedy proud with how we confront this challenge as a nation.

I know the last post on gun control was explosive, and it wasn’t even directly promoting more control. I was just trying to observe that College Campuses Are Safe, and there is no need for fear-inducing statements about “the rising murder rate on campuses” to justify lifting restrictions on concealed weapons. For that reason, I want to tread carefully when I present what I think is the common sense approach to this particular issue of gun control: assault weapons.

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) of 1994 classified certain types of firearms as “assault weapons” and prohibited their manufacture and sale to civilians. Like any hot issue, gun control is a fight waged on dozens of different fronts, but this issue seems like it should be abundantly clear. Civilians do not need to have assault weapons, and the government has a compelling interest to limit the production and sale of them to the public.

There are several stock arguments used by pro-gun advocates against most types of gun restriction, but all of them fall when applied to the AWB.

The first typical argument is for the right to self defense. Self defense may be a valid justification for possession of some firearms, but it absolutely does not apply to assault weapons. Unless you live in Baghdad, there is no incremental benefit to your self defense if you are packing an Uzi instead of a glock or an AR-15 (pictured above) instead of a 12-gauge. There is a reason why these weapons are considered “assault weapons;” they are designed for attacking a large force of enemies in a combat situation.

The second typical argument is the right to hunt. Surely no explanation is necessary why assault weapons are not useful or necessary for hunting animals.

The third typical argument is the Second Amendment. This one has always been rather shady because most NRA members ignore the crucial antecedent to the phrase about “the right to keep and bear arms” that expresses the purpose of a “well-organized militia [national guard].” But apart from that overall weakness, it is definitely a stretch to read the Amendment to imply that the people have the right to keep and bear assault weapons. Even the most hardcore NRA supporters realize that the line must be drawn at some point; most agree that the people should not have the right to keep and bear howitzers, B-2s, tanks, or mortars. This line is usually drawn when there is no legitimate self-defense or hunting right that would be furthered by a certain type of firearm or if that right is likely to be a danger to society overall.

The last argument is somewhat less typical, but should still be addressed, and that is that the people must retain the ability to match the government’s military power to prevent tyranny. Ironically, this usually irrelevant argument becomes the most relevant when we discuss a potential AWB. It is a nice idea in theory that if only enough people had assault weapons and other guns, then we could overthrow the government if it came to that. But there are way too many logical holes in that belief for it to be sustained. With modern technology, even widespread ownership of assault weapons among civilians would not be enough to check governmental power, even if people were willing to rise up in armed revolt.

The Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004, ten years after it was implemented. Ten years was not nearly long enough to see any measurable effects of the ban, and Congress folded under lobbyist pressure and failed to renew it. The most legitimate criticism of the AWB was that it had too many loopholes. I agree with that assessment, but that makes me think that Congress should pass a new permanent AWB that closes those loopholes, making it harder for manufacturers to bypass the spirit of the law with tiny technical modifications. Assault weapons in the hands of civilians serve no legitimate purpose; they will never make this country safer, and anything we can do to limit the production and sale of them will be an overall benefit to society in the long run.

For many reasons, the UN has been a positive, stabilizing force in the world for the past half century. It will become even more important in the future as collective security and international cooperation become the norm while unilateralism is looked down upon. The UN has been very successful in dealing with lots different kinds of projects, especially in the developing world. The biggest criticism leveled at the UN, though, is its inefficiency and inability to act when a real crisis is emerging in the international community. The UN needs a rapid response force that can be deployed to deal with humanitarian crises, natural disasters, and acts of genocide.

Rwanda is typically cited as the ultimate UN failure to act. In 1994, the world and the UN did next to nothing while Hutus in Rwanda killed almost a million Tutsis in just a few months. The UN had 2,500 peacekeepers for the entire country, but most were withdrawn after 10 Belgian soldiers were killed.

One of the primary problems with the UN’s ability to intervene in situations like this is that it has no standing military force with which to do it. Every time the UN Security Council decides on a peacekeeping mission, the force must be cobbled together from the grudging member states that volunteer personnel. A United Nations Response Force (UNRF) is a much needed major step to help improve world security and to help control future humanitarian crises that develop.

This standing force should be made up of soldiers drawn from the UN Security Council permanent countries, as well as other members selected by the Council. Only the UN Security Council would be able to authorize its deployment, but as soon as they authorized it, the force would be ready to go. There would be no need to create the force out of thin air.

The UNRF would be about 25,000 people overall, and should be a completely self-contained combined arms force with supplies and transportation ready. The UNRF personnel would be on a rotation schedule similar to the one set up by the NRF (the NATO Response Force); the international units would assemble and train together for 6-12 months, and then they would serve 6-12 months on active reserve, ready to be deployed anywhere in the world.

Although the mere existance of the UNRF would not immediately solve all of the issues involved with moving the global community to action when a humanitarian crisis emerges, it would make the process much more feasible and effecient. One of the biggest obstacles to creating a permanant military force like this would probably be public opinion in certain states, especially the U.S. Even public opinion here could shift, though; many Americans are beginning to see that America cannot be the world’s police officer, and unilateral intervention is not always possible or advisable. At the same time, there is a growing sense of responsibility to the people of the world for us to help when we can to mitigate humanitarian issues. The UNRF would certainly be a step in the right direction for all parties concerned.

Editor’s note: at the Political Cartel, we want to be “an ideological roundtable.” As such, we welcome thoughtful, well-written articles relevant to the topics covered on this blog. The following is the first submission from a fellow student at HU, CJ Rivenbark. Enjoy!

For some time now, there has been an ever-increasing debate over what should be done in Iraq. There are many who focus their argument on whether we should have gone in the first place. I do agree that we should examine our past decisions, for “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” However, the fact remains that the act has been completed, and now we need to figure out what would be the best course of action to take from here.

The main two arguments that have been presented are as such: either a complete military withdrawal according to an established timetable, or a continued military presence for an undetermined length of time. The reasoning for the first argument is that we will no longer put our troops in harms way in order to save a nation that will never be able to support a democratic government. We will also be able to begin rebuilding our waning image in the world community in which more people see the U.S. as just a belligerent hegemon who is only out to further its own self interests. The reasoning for the second argument is that success in a stable Iraq means that there will be less violence for us here at home; that a stable Iraq is not just a U.S. interest, but also in the interests of the other nations within that region. If we pull out now, then the insurgency will grow unencumbered by major resistance and create instability in Iraq and the surrounding areas. With reference to the timetable, the reasoning against it is that we will let the “terrorists” know when we will be leaving. They will just wait until after the U.S. removes all of its troops and then go about attacking the stability and infrastructure of Iraq in order to obtain their overall goal—the destruction of freedom.

Both arguments have valid points that can be made, but they also have significant drawbacks that are definitely not in the interest of the either U.S. or the rest of the world. However, there may be hope for a compromise. I have had some in depth conversations on the topic of foreign relations with a very good friend of mine, Nausherwan Hafeez, and he has discovered a solution that would fit somewhere in the middle in which stability and peace can be maintained while the U.S. military can withdrawal. I have quoted his entire proposal below, since I would not want to add or detract from any of his statements. However, I have made a few, minor additions in order to bring his facts up to date.

“My view is that the US needs to have an unconditional withdrawal of all troops. This process would take a minimum of 6 months to do (due to the sheer size of resources that we have in the country and our ability to move them out) and during that process, have a new peacekeeping force–under the aegis of the UN–enter Iraq. The US has lost all credibility in the eyes of the Iraqis and our actions are viewed as that of a belligerent occupying force that is out to gain control over Iraq’s national resources (as seen by our insistence on the Iraq Oil Law, which the US drafted with the help of the major Oil companies, that basically would privatize Iraq’s oil wealth–something that no other oil exporting country in the world does–and strip Iraq of its most vital resource). The Iraqis need to settle their internal political problems, either independently or through mediation through the UN (Lakdhar Brihimi would be ideal for mediating the conflict), and we need to withdraw. Instead of wasting billions of dollars on a continuation of a failed policy (we’re spending $10 billion a month [now $15 billion a month] in Iraq) we could announce a massive reparations and rebuilding program for Iraq. We could finance the UN Peacekeepers (who should come from Muslim countries, I would say Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh…and perhaps, though I wouldn’t think this wise, Arab countries as well.) and allow for the Iraqis to determine their future. The UN is currently operating 15 peacekeeping missions around the world with over 100,000 people on the ground and have been successful in maintaining a peace (look at DROC) and preventing war (the 13,000 troops in Lebanon prevented a second Israeli-Lebanon war this [past] summer).

“The US has to back the UN to try and go down the path of multilateralism, not hegemonic unilateralism…The UN should be given an active mandate, and probably the largest ever peacekeeping force in its history should be deployed (I would say a minimum of 40,000 peacekeepers who can both keep the peace and play the vital role of rebuilding). Only time will tell what will happen in the Middle East. We can but pray for the best, and educate ourselves on the issues, so that we can prevent any further cataclysm from occurring (e.g. war with Iran).”

Many will scoff at the thought of a U.N. peace-keeping force, and I admit that there are some doubts as to the effectiveness of their presence, but I feel that it could be a necessary step towards rebuilding a battered image. We cannot just leave the Iraqi people without any hope after we have stirred up the hornets’ nest in the Middle East. We have to rebuild that society in the most effective and just manner. We would still be aiding in the rebuilding of Iraq through this plan, but we would no longer have a military presence there. Far too many target Americans (more specifically our soldiers) because of the perception that we are occupying Iraq right now. If we pull out as a smaller, peace-keeping force moves in then we can accomplish our overall mission while beginning to restore the U.S. to its preeminent position among the nations of the world.

I know that those who support keeping a U.S. military presence in Iraq will cite examples of how the troop surge, along with other internal factors, has helped to create more stability and decreased overall violence. They will point out that Baghdad has become so safe that the government there has considered tearing down the blast walls that protect the city from outside violence. Also, due to the lull in violence giving politicians the ability to make compromises with little fear of any reprisal, Iraqi provincial elections have recently been approved. One of the main reasons for this respite of violence is that a cease-fire has been declared, and extended, by the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia in order to give the government a chance to prove that it can be competent and fair. Other examples can be cited of how the most violent areas in the past have become safer, but at the expense of other areas becoming more dangerous.

Despite these signs of possible success, the fact remains that our image has been hurt, and American lives have paid the price. We cannot just give up on the Iraqi people and completely withdraw without any form of hope, but we can be replaced by a multilateral U.N. force that continues to rebuild where we have left off. If we pull our troops out of Iraq while a U.N. peace-keeping force moves in, we will be able to protect our nation’s interests while removing our brave soldiers from harm’s way. The U.N. force will hopefully be able to continue, and improve upon, the success that the U.S. has had, and the Iraqi people will be able to feel secure about a stable tomorrow.

Evidently, a lot of people are not happy with China these days, and they are not happy that the 2008 Olympics are being held in Beijing. It seems that China has been trying to toe the line to keep exactly this kind of international outcry from happening before it hosts the Olympics, but it just couldn’t restrain itself from cracking down in Tibet. Now many from average