Monday, December 29, 2008

Goal-setting

By John Bertosa
I know resolutions have become a little overdone for the New Year but not for me. I am a big goal-setter so I've got New Year's resolutions, Half-Year resolutions (for July 1 through the end of the year) and then the pre-New Year's resolutions (from the end of October on) that get me lined up for next year's New Year's resolutions.

In fact one of last year's resolutions was to be more knowledgeable of what was going on in politics so when Dan approached me with this blog idea I happily said yes and crossed it off my To Do list.

So, here are some of my resolutions I hope to accomplish in the coming new year:
JANUARY: I really need to build up my stomach muscles so I don't vomit too much over the fawning coverage of Obama's inauguration. Perhaps a daily dose of hot pepper juice and raw octopus will get me ready.
FEBRUARY: Convince Dan that he should name his child Sarah Palin Holt.
MARCH: Umm, really no resolutions for March. Such a boring month, the only thing really to do is to hear about Spring Training baseball and look forward to summer.
APRIL: Write letters to all Democratic congressmen on the 15th daring them to raise taxes (y'know just on the rich, or is the phrase now "super rich"?)
MAY: Run Cleveland Marathon
JUNE: Try to walk from couch to kitchen.
JULY: Make out a 24-month to do list in preparation for my 40th birthday.
AUGUST: Try to avoid TV at all costs as one of the traditional hottest months of the year will generate plenty of Global Warming cries from people who weren't able to shout it during this cold winter.
SEPTEMBER: Mark one-year anniversary of Subject to Debate and my attempts to enlighten Patriotic and Open-Minded Liberals.
OCTOBER: For Halloween, buy prison uniform and masks of either Hillary, Richardson or Rahm.
NOVEMBER: I need to hone my personal coping skills. After a year of enforced personal savings due to the recession, people will be ready to start spending again on the holidays and we will hear all about the Great Obama instead of realizing the U.S. economy is a very complicated machine relying on millions of vital factors. Perhaps if I shout out "Serenity Now!" one thousand times that will do the trick.
DECEMBER: Make a list of all my non-Christian acquiantences and the go out and wish each of them a "Happy Friday" on Dec. 25.

See you all next year!

A Moment For Change

By D.T. Holt

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to approach this final posting of the year. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, there’s no denying that this was quite a year for politics. It is equally true that the coming year has the potential for greater challenges and more change than most of us have ever experienced. So, what to do, 2008 in review or preview the coming year? After careful consideration I’ve decided to sort of do both and actually do neither. Instead, I would like to talk about the opportunity that this moment in American political history affords liberals and conservatives alike to work together to face the uncertainties our future holds.

There are those in the liberal camp who have had sharp criticism for many of President Elect Obama’s proposed cabinet appointments. As a card carrying liberal (okay, we don’t really carry cards but, you get the idea) I have been concerned about the moderate nature of most of his choices. Many conservatives have expressed displeasure about the number of Obama appointees who played a major role in the administration of President Bill Clinton. Amazingly, these feelings are echoed by the liberals. I realize that to many conservatives, Bill and Hillary represent the very pinnacle of liberalism in America but, those of us who actually are on the left know that the Clintons are card carrying moderates.

So what should we do with our concerns? Should we give voice to our criticism? Absolutely, however we should also give the new president the benefit of the doubt. He does not seem to be surrounding himself with “yes men” but instead is making his appointments based on the expertise and ability to challenge of those he has chosen. It is often said that a smart leader should surround himself with smart people who disagree with him and on some level, this seems to be President Elect Obama’s agenda. Whether we agree or disagree with his political viewpoint, Obama’s willingness to embrace reasoned debate should serve as the bar that we should all strive to reach in the coming year.

My point isn’t that we should all put our beliefs aside and rally around the president. Nor is it that liberals and conservatives should stop fighting and “just get along.” In a few weeks we will inaugurate a new president and swear in a new session of congress. Given the current economic and social climate, we can no longer afford to weigh the decisions of our political leaders based purely on conservative or liberal ideology. We owe it to ourselves to strive for a more inclusive form of political discourse. We should demand and accept nothing less than reasoned debate from our leaders, fact based, intelligent criticism from the press and informed, active participation from our fellow citizens.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Have A Happy Thursday!

It's the holiday season, what the hell are you doing trying to read about politics? We're taking the week off and will both be back next week with our final thoughts for the year. In the mean time, enjoy Christmas or Hanukah or Thursday or whatever it is you do or do not celebrate, but for Pete's sake,take a week off from politics!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Logic gets its fingernails pulled out

By John Bertosa

From Webster's Dictionary:
torture. 3: distortion, overrefinement or perversion of a meaning, argument, or a line of thought or reasoning.

Now, liberals love to use the phrase "freedom from religion" but that is simply being overly dramatic. No one is forcing them to adopt a religion, to get down and pray at the call of an imam or face imprisonment, or be required to go to temple on Saturday or church on Sunday. What they mean is "freedom from religious speech."
Well, too bad.
America doesn't operate like that. It emphasize the speaker's right, not the listener's right. And our society does that in every other aspect of Freedom of Speech.
If an evangelical sees a library display about Gay Pride Day, the government doesn't order it taken down when the evangelical says "Ooooh I'm offended," when a military veteran sees another patriot burning the American Flag on the town square he can't count on the government stepping in on behalf of the offended party.
But liberals counter there is no double standard.They say that it is two separate situations because unlike other forms of free speech the U.S. Constitution has set up a separation of church and state.
Wrong.
Here is exactly what the Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,"
That's ALL it says.It does NOT say anything about a separation of church and state. It says NOTHING specifically about religious speech. And it definitely does NOT say anything about freedom from religion.
The clause stems from King Henry VIII abandoning the Catholic Church so he could get a divorce. He ESTABLISHED A RELIGION -- the Church of England, setting himself up as head of the church as well as head of state. Archbishops and other church leaders could be picked by the King or Queen and a proportion of bishops get to sit in the House of Lords.
To connect that situation to a librarian voluntarily putting up a Christmas tree or nativity scene for her 5,000 patrons is utterly and completely tortured logic. A person would have to pass over a lot of steps to connect buying a $10 plastic light-up Jesus to establishment of a religion. It's pull-out-fingernails, electric-shocks-to-the-nipples torture.
As for the thought that government funding equals endorsement, well you might as well strap logic to The Rack while Barbra Streisand music blares all night long.
The government gives tax money to all sorts of groups not because they are seeking to endorse a certain way of life but because public groups should have some access to the public's money. The government made February Black History Month and provides some funding for related educational programs in schools and libraries. That does not mean government is establishing that skin color as America's official skin color.
And on an individual level, someone celebrating Black History Month should not be accused of an unwillingness to acknowledge the trials and success of those with other skin colors. Just as someone who says Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah is not showing an unwillingness to consider other viewpoints. Maybe, just maybe, they are hoping someone has a happy holiday like the well-wisher has experienced in the past.
Congress is clearly forbidden by the Constitution from passing a law demanding a City Hall or library put up a manger but they should not be prevented from voluntarily doing it because that would be a violation of their freedom of speech.
So here's hoping liberals set logic free like they are trying to do with their political prisoners at Gitmo and support a nativity scene on Public Square as graciously as they defend a public museum hanging a Mapplethorpe photograph of someone urinating into another's mouth.

Monday, December 8, 2008

‘Tis The Season For The War On Christmas

by D.T. Holt

From where I sit, the very notion that there is some sort of an attack being waged on Christmas and that Christians, who by any count are in the majority in this country, are somehow a persecuted minority is laughably ridiculous. Yet every year at this time, conservative radio personalities and conservative Christians alike lament the growing threat to this venerable religious holiday.

Some point to the very idea that those of us who are more sensitive to the multitude of faiths and belief systems in America, choose the slightly more generic “Happy Holidays” over the more specific “Merry Christmas.” A woman I know insists on defiantly wishing everyone she meets a “Merry Christmas,” usually following it up with “did you notice I said MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Christians often proclaim things like “I wouldn’t be offended if one of my Jewish friends wished me a Happy Hanukah” but that is completely missing the point. The problem isn’t that a non-Christian may take offense. It’s not about hurt feelings but instead about an unwillingness to acknowledge other viewpoints.

Another front in this so-called war, involves the nativity displays that appear in the public squares of virtually every town and village in the country. Invariably a few advocates for the separation of church and state will enjoin court action to remove one of these ubiquitous, publicly sanctioned religious displays. The Bill O’Reillys of the world will then rave about the traditions of Christmas and the supposed traditional Christian values that this country was founded on. Again, this is missing the point. The Constitution grants us freedom of religion, but it also grants us the freedom to not have a religion, in effect, the freedom from religion, if we so choose. A Christian specific display on public property, often paid for and maintained by public funds amounts to government sanctioned religion, which is a clear violation of our Constitutional rights as citizens of this country.

Because most of us will be celebrating Christmas, the idea goes, public displays and Christian-centric greetings are to be expected. Those who are either non-Christians or choose not to celebrate this holiday should just casually look the other way. When the first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” it doesn’t specify an exception if the religion in question is in vogue with a majority of the population. The fact that most Americans celebrate Christmas has no bearing on the appropriateness of religious icons or celebrations in the public domain.

While I am one of the many Americans who celebrate Christmas, my celebration of it is more about fellowship with family and friends that it is about my religious beliefs and I suspect that this is true in varying degrees for a large percentage of us. With this in mind, it is important to remember that American culture is a patchwork quilt that encompasses a multitude of viewpoints and belief systems. Far from being seen as an attack, efforts to confine this holiday to the private sector of our places of worship and homes should be applauded as an example of American’s ability to embrace the true spirit of religious freedom granted to us by our Constitution.

Happy Holidays.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

John Stewart, Rush Limbaugh and The Sinister Purpose

By D.T. Holt

There is no doubt that political comedy, like that of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, has an agenda beyond merely making us laugh. As far back as Mark Twain, and possibly much further, satirical comedy with a political bent has been part of our culture. In and of itself, this is in no way a bad thing. A comedian who is attempting to go beyond the usual banal banter that passes for comedy in America is a welcome thing and comics like Bill Mahr and John Stewart have honed their “thinking man’s comedian” routine to perfection. It becomes a problem when the audience for these entertainers begins to see them as legitimate news sources.

There is also no doubt that the influence of political comedy has gone far beyond anything we’ve ever seen. The question we must ask ourselves is, are the comedians themselves responsible for this influence? I would argue that the onus is on a news media that has become far more concerned with ratings and infotainment than it is with actually, you know, reporting the news. Americans now have more diversions at their fingertips than at any other time in history and the bi-product of this is a populace with a short attention span and a penchant for quick, easy answers. This makes the pseudo informed persona of Bill Maher seem like a reasonable place to look for stances on political and cultural issues alike.

I don’t believe that there is a sinister purpose behind the plethora of left leaning political comics. For the most part, the tradition of political comedy has been from a liberal viewpoint and none of these shows purport to be anything other than comedy. On the Daily Show, John Stewart constantly pokes fun at the idea that the show is an authority on anything and in interviews seems genuinely aghast at the idea that anyone is looking to his show for their political news. Whenever I see a survey about the droves of college students who see Comedy Central as their primary news source, I find myself wondering how they can possibly get the jokes. Good political comedy, like that of John Stewart or Bill Maher, requires a certain level of knowledge in order to work.

When criticizing a public that relies on liberal comedians for it’s news, it is also important to point out the conservative counterpart. Radio personalities such as Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Mark Levine and especially Rush Limbaugh have made a cottage industry of attacking the left in a way that exploits the political ignorance of our populace. Websites like Media Matters for America have long pointed out the level at which the right wing noise machine is willing to mislead, mischaracterize and outright lie to lead their loyal minions to the alter of so-called “conservative principals.” However, the conservative talk show hosts are still seen by their listeners and, in some cases, the news networks that employ them as legitimate, informed political commentators on the level of George Will or Katha Pollit.

Sean Hannity spent the final weeks before the election raving about Barack Obama’s alleged lack of a birth certificate and his listener believed every word. Never mind that this story has been debunked by numerous fact checking groups. The constant repetition of the story, coupled with an audience that is listening in a vacuum that only includes viewpoints with which they agree, make a ridiculous fabrication seem not only plausible, but actually true.

There is one major difference between the liberal comedians and what I prefer to call conservative radio personalities. The comedians make no effort to convince anyone that they are anything but comedians. They also make no effort to hide that they have an axe to grind and an agenda to further but, at the end of the day, they are presenting themselves as comedic entertainment. The fact that a large segment of the public has assigned them a loftier role is, to be sure, a sad commentary on our lack of an informed electorate but is not an indicator of some sort of conspiracy to win the hearts and minds of young Americans. Limbaugh, Hannity and the others present themselves and are perceived by their public as bona fide political commentators, which is at the very least a disturbing deception.

The effectiveness of right wing talk radio relies on and in fact encourages an audience which mistrusts all other sources of news. If liberal political comedy requires an audience that is at least slightly informed in order for the jokes to work and conservative talk radio encourages it’s audience to look only to them for their news and opinions, which side has a sinister purpose?