For the brave among you, read on!

When you receive a chain letter, keep in mind that in the vast majority of cases—and this is especially true of political chain letters from the extremes (either extreme)—the letters will be riddled with inaccuracies, exaggerations, half-truths, and outright lies. If the letter is coming from someone who shares the general views of the letter they’re passing on, they’re almost certainly suffering from an acute case of confirmation bias.

This letter appears to fit the mold perfectly. Let’s start from the top.

Begin forwarded message:

Subject: Fwd: SCARIE………….??

Telltale signs of chain letter

1) Fwd
2) All caps
3) Excessive punctuation
4) misspelling

—–Original Message—– :

Take the three minutes to read this. Maybe he is wrong, but what if he’s right?

>

Terrible formatting from going through so many different email clients causes “>” to be placed at the beginning of every line, making not only the content but also the formatting of such a letter obnoxious. I’ve taken the liberty of removing every subsequent occurrence of “>"

David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad
range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in
1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities:
Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar , Senegal .. He attended Harvard
University , graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent
several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in
1976.. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.

He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States
Naval War College . He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams
College and Harvard University . Kaiser’s latest book, The Road to Dallas, about
the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.

This is true. David Kaiser is a respected historian. Much of these paragraphs (if not all of them) come from Dr. Kaiser’s Wikipedia page. However, also on his Wikipedia page is this:

In April 2009, a viral email comparing Barack Obama to the rise of the Third Reich was wrongly attributed to Kaiser. Kaiser has stated that the email is a forgery.[1] The email does not reflect Kaiser’s actual views. Snopes.com traced the email content to an anonymous commenter on Pat Dollard’s blog.

So the first paragraph asking “what if he’s right?” is moot. He’s not anything. He’s not a part of this email. He’s just a guy whose accomplishments are being used to give the absurd paragraphs that follow it the veneer of authority and respectability.

Continuing on:

Dr. David Kaiser
History Unfolding

“History Unfolding” is the actual name of Dr. Kaiser’s blog. Nothing below this line ever appeared in this blog.

I am a student of history. and I have studied history all my life. I have come
to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is
simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these
exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only
now coming into a sharper focus..

Translation: “I’m an expert on this issue because I’m writing under the guise of a historian. All your irrational fears can now be justified historically!”

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know
how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a
perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our
country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has
dramatically quickened in the past two.

Translation: “You’re right to have irrational fear of Obama. It’s his fault. I know the bailout happened under Bush and that the spending problems were precipitated by someone you supported, but it’s ok: Obama’s the one who’s really got the ball rolling, so you don’t have to feel bad about supporting Bush.”

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive
loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?

“The crisis was caused by the Community Reinvestment Act even though the data show this to be wrong. I’m saying this so that you can blame the crisis on the Democrats and on the lower class, you loathe the former and don’t have occasion or desire to talk to the latter. I’ve therefore kept you and your friends in a bubble of blamelessness.”

We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real
oversight by anyone, has “loaned” two trillion dollars (that is
$2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or
why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three
times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past
September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms
unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a
government of “we the people,” who loaned our powers to our elected leaders.
Apparently not.

Translation: “Be angry at elected officials over the actions of the Federal Reserve Bank, even though the bank is not beholden to anyone within the government and Bush nominated Bernanke. Because hating the direction of the Federal Reserve as an independent system would mean the only elected official towards which you could direct your ire would be a Bush appointee, we’ll just ascribe to president Obama all actions taken by the federal reserve for the past 4 years.”

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our
economy… Why?

“Don’t worry, I’ll work this sentence back around to Obama. I promise.”

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no
longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are
worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or
articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards
continue to back mediocrity. Why?

Translation: “You’ve been asking yourself how an America-hater like Obama got elected. I’ll tell you. It’s because our schools aren’t teaching patriotism anymore! They’re not teaching about those good old-fashioned American values that you view as immutable! Pay no mind to slavery, internment, colonialism, etc. We need to teach ‘America: The Good parts Version’.”

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election
(violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it
simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman.Did you
ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our
sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that
radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN
and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Translation: “Judicial activism is new. Contested presidential elections are new. Read all about it in ‘America: the Good Parts Version’ (Marbury v. Madison and the elections of Thomas Jefferson and Rutherford B. Hayes omitted.) And everyone’s been talking about ACORN, so let’s throw them in there.”

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major
industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social
security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government.

Translation: “I’m strongly implying that all the problems in the news are caused by right wing buzzwords like ‘Judicial Activism’, ‘voter fraud’, and ‘ACORN’. Does this make sense? No, but I don’t have to defend it not making sense because I didn’t explicitly draw the causality. I just implied it with the structure of my paragraphs. Fun, huh?”

Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely
what I am talking about)

“I mentioned this before, but I’ll mention it again as I just remembered I’m pretending to be a college professor, so this’ll carry weight.”

– the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and
depth.. It is potentially 1929 x ten…

“I’m working my way up to something, but let me hit all the touchstones of American horror. We’ll start with the great depression.”

And we are at war with an enemy we cannot
even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn,
cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to
do so.

“And we’ll continue with some fear of terrorism through a lovely little bit of Islamophobia.”

And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who
has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla ,
Alaska ..

“We won’t talk about other people who never ran anything before becoming President (John McCain, John Kennedy, Harry Truman, and some guy named Abraham Lincoln. However, a couple of these are Republican heroes, so we’ll contrast Obama with right wing hero Sarah Palin.”

All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their
chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is
unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his
idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our
military for use inside our borders?

“I love trotting out this canard. People eat it up! This all comes from Obama’s commitment to using diplomacy as much as military might, but why let the truth get in the way of a good chain letter?”

No? Oh, of course. The media would never
play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin’s
pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)

“I know I’m dating my email with this little nugget, but people covering ridiculous but true stories about Republicans infuriates me to the same degree that making up things about Democrats excites me!”

Mr. Obama’s winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

“Are you ready? Here comes my malarkey-de-resistance!”

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever
done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along
philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a
new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes,
you will never see the same nation again.

“Be afraid! I’m about to break Godwin’s Law in 3…2…1…”

And that is only the beginning..

As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what
the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In those times, the
“savior” was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom
the average German knew next to nothing.

Nevermind that Hitler grew famous while in prison for attempting to overthrow the government. He grew rich from sales of Mein Kampf. So in the mid-30s, people already knew a) that he hated Jews and b) that he tried to violently overthrow the government.

What they should have known was that he
was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with
whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great
oratory. Conservative “losers” read it right now.

All of this was well known.

And there were the promises.. Economic times were tough, people were losing
jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot.

Translation: “He was a politician.”

And
people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his “brown
shirts” would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did – regularly.

“This has nothing to do with Obama, as I haven’t even attempted to draw parallels, but because other prevarications I’ve told have tenuous and dubious parallels, your mind will assume this one does too! Psychology 101!”

And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis
bloomed at hand – the Great Depression.

A new leader comes to power in bad economic times? You don’t say! (Hoover –> Roosevelt, Carter –> Reagan, Bush –> Clinton, etc. etc. etc.)

Slowly, but surely he seized the
controls of government power, person by person, department by department,
bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first,
encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly
what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,

“More things that Hitler did that have no corollary! But you’ve already bitten by this point and you’re not going to let go!”

How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless,
money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex.

A politician who promises jobs, an improved economy, and a strong military. Name me a presidential candidate who hasn’t campaigned on that in the last 50 years.

He did
it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all,
better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the
country, across Europe , and across the world.

Let’s break this down: a) indoctrination: no corollary. b) gun control: no corollary (gun control was never a strong plank of the Obama platform, and he has done only one thing to change gun rights since he’s taken office: he’s now allowing them in national parks). c) health care cooperatives developed first in Germany, this is true. The only trouble is that they developed (in the form that continues today) in the late 1800s under Otto Von Bismarck. So that doesn’t work. d) reinstilling pride in the country? Once again, find me a presidential candidate who didn’t promise this. It certainly would fit the campaign of Ronald “It’s morning in America again” Reagan.

He did it with a compliant media
- did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and …. . …
change. And the people surely got what they voted for.

If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It’s all there in the history books.

“Actually, I’m telling you to look it up as a derisive dare. This will reexert my authority as a (faux) historian and make you less likely to look it up. Because boy, I’m in trouble if you do even five minutes of research into this!”

So read your history books.

“But not really.”

Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were
shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill
pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lordsin
England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a
crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he
was not listened to.

Yes. He was right about Hitler. This has nothing to do with Obama. Incidentally, he also thought that England under the Labour government that came to power after the war would institute a Gestapo in England, so let’s not go saying he’s some kind of Nostradamus.

Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in
Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and
universities.

As were most western European countries.

And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two
terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing
others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors
against neighbors..

“I’m going to ignore all the historical and social factors that enabled Hitler’s rise to power, because they don’t have parallels in the modern world at all. I won’t mention the pervasive anti-Semitism endemic to all of Europe (the only thing approaching this in America right now is the Islamophobia that this essay endorses), nor with the psychological blow that Germany had suffered with its defeat in World War I.

All with the best of intentions, of course.. The road to
Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a
choice:

You’re not a practical thinker. You are prone to hyperbole and hysterics.

I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even
if they make me cringe with disgust);

“You know, the pieces of evidence I made up out of whole cloth to fit my preconceived notions!”

I can believe what history is shouting to
me from across the chasm of seven decades;

“I made some of that up, too!”

or I can hope I am wrong by closing
my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me..

Please do. For the love of truth, please close your eyes and have a latte.

I choose to believe the evidence.

“My evidence!”

No doubt some people will scoff at me, others
laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both.

I not only think that, I think you’re a fraud. No, I know you’re a fraud. And a liar.

To some degree, perhaps I am.

Finally, some truth!

But
I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I
believe-and why I believe it.

I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am.

You don’t have to pray. You are wrong. To an absurd degree.

Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the
next elections.

No, our only hope is for people on both extremes of the political spectrum to stop being so easily led around by snake oil salesmen like whomever you are.

David Kaiser
Jamestown , Rhode Island
United States

“But not really”

By passing this along, perhaps it will help to begin the awakening of America as
to where we are headed.

Or perhaps it will spread lies and idiocy around the Internet. Which, my friends, it the purpose of most chain letters.

People who send political chain letters around, I have found, are dogmatic to the point of intellectual myopia. I befriended a Tea Party guy at the Health Care protests I photographed. He sent me about 10 chain letters. All of them—to the very last one—had serious lies in them. Many of them were debunked on snopes. I replied to all that I could with corrections and exhortations for him to be more sceptical of what he reads. The funny thing is that he considers himself to be very sceptical. That’s the truly pernicious nature of confirmation bias. It blinds us to our own weaknesses.

If you ever get chain letters—especially ones like these—please forward them to me. I have a side project with a friend of mine debunking them. It’s sporadic, but we do it. And I enjoy it, strangely enough.

Stay alert. Stay sensible. Stay logical.

Andrew.

If you made it through that letter, congrats. I hope my commentary was caustic, trenchant, and amusing. OK, I actually just hope it was readable. As I read through the chain letter, I became more and more frustrated that someone I know bought into it uncritically.

In keeping with this new tradition, a friend of mine recently sent me one of the first emails I’ve gotten from him that doesn’t mention the nascent socialist takeover of the United States at all. No, this one was all Islam, all the time. Actually it was just a link to a YouTube video. Have a watch, and then read my lengthy response below the jump.

Have you watched it? Good. Here’s the email:

Below you will find my response to the video link that you sent me. It’s long, but I think it’s worth reading. A few notes, though, before I begin:

a) Islam is not monolithic any more than Christianity is monolithic. Not all Muslims ascribe to Wahhabism just as not all Christians subscribe to the Christian Identity[1] movement. Videos like this one attempt to paint the entire Muslim world as Wahhabi, when that’s not true at all. Wahhabism is a movement within Sunni Islam that has a very rich sponsor in Saudi Arabia and had a nice base of operations in Afghanistan. It is not, however, particularly common in the Muslim world.

Here’s a map of the major legal and belief systems in the Muslim world.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Madhhab_Map2.png

To which is the video referring? They’re way too diverse and divergent for it to be referring to all three.

b) It’s easy to believe the malarkey in this video at face value if you don’t actually know or interact with Muslims on a daily basis. Dehumanization of any group of people is easier if you keep your distance. I haven’t had that option. Not at college, not at work, and not in my social life. And I’m very glad I don’t. I’d be more likely to believe the lies in this video if I did.

OK. Onto the analysis:

I did not think our country, the Western World, or the World (for that matter) was at war with Islam, so I watched this video and learned.

The first thing I learned is that whoever made this video had plenty of money for a very high-value production (even if it is just text). I watched it all the way through. And then I did 30 minutes of research. It’s what I do with any article or video that makes claims but contains no evidence to back up its claims.

The second thing I learned is that it’s astoundingly false. Not just one or two of the three points it makes, but all three are AMAZINGLY misleading.

The intro talks about how people surround themselves that agree with their preconceived notions. Ironically, that’s what this video relies on. And it seems to have worked. This video managed to make it to me with absolutely no comments about the content of the video other than a paragraph of glittering generalities about the West vs. Islam.[2]

I guess I’ll issue point by point refutations of the video.

1) Abrogation.

To say that the concept of abrogation is universally accepted in the Muslim faith is incorrect. It is widely accepted, but far from universal.

To say that every peaceful phrase in the Qur’an has been abrogated by the Verse of the Sword is very, very wrong. The Verse of the Sword was temporally constrained to a battle that took place against certain Pagan tribes that had broken a treaty with Muslims and had previously slain them on a pilgrimage.

There is no universality among those who ascribe to the doctrine of abrogation as to which verses have been abrogated. In fact, in the Middle Ages, the general consensus was that somewhere in the vicinity of 200 verses had been abrogated. Nowadays, most scholars claim only a handful of abrogations. The majority of Muslims do not accept abrogation of the “peaceful” phrases by the Verse of the Sword.[3] Abrogation is meant to resolve differences in laws, not differences in the laws of war vs. the laws of peacetime.

2) Sharia.

This one is even more false than the first one. Qur’anic verse states that “dhimmi” (“people of the contract”, or certain non-Muslims living in Muslim-governed land) need not abide by and are not tried under Sharia law. In much of the Muslim world, “dhimmi” is seen to refer to any non-Muslim living under Muslim rule.

Additionally, many Muslim countries (Turkey, Indonesia, Mali, Kazakhstan) are secular. These are countries ruled by Muslims and ruling over Muslims that do not have Sharia law. In its place are a constitution and a legislature.

The video tries to scare people by saying that EVEN IN THE U.K., Muslims are trying to establish and enforce Sharia law. It’s true. If both parties agree to have their claims arbitrated by a Sharia court rather than try the case in civil court, they can do so. It’s kind of equivalent to going on Judge Judy or The People’s Court. It’s an alternate forum that can be used if both parties agree to it. The U.K. has been doing the same thing with Jewish Beth Din courts for 100 years. Where have the videos been on that issue?

3) Taqiyya

If the filmmakers wanted me not to immediately do research to figure out how full of it their claims were, they should have left this one off the list. The problem is that I already knew about taqiyya. I came across it when studying the Druze religion, which is an 11th century offshoot of Islam. It’s a fascinating religion. It’s completely closed to outsiders, proselytization is strictly forbidden, and they keep their beliefs very private.

Here’s what taqiyya is all about: if you are living under a government that persecutes your religion, you’re allowed to hide your religion from those who would persecute or kill you. Taqiyya was used by Sunnis living under Shi’a rule and even more commonly by Shi’a living under Sunni rule. These are the limits of Qur’anic taqiyya. Any claim that this doctrine is designed for political doubletalk knows nothing of Taqiyya, and those who say its intended use is to deceive non-Muslims ignore history.

So there you have it. Some facts behind the slick production values. Thinking for yourself is good; researching what people tell you is even better. It’s the best expression of skepticism there is.

You told me to remain skeptical, and I do. I hope you continue to send these email forwards you get. I enjoy learning from and researching them.

In closing,

| If you never watch another “youtube” video, you should watch this one!

The only way I would never watch another YouTube video after this one is if someone reliably told me that all YouTube videos were this spurious. If that were so, I would swear off YouTube videos at a moment’s notice.

Andrew.

PS: I hope you had a good time in DC when you were up here for the rally. I’m sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet up.

Footnotes:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity

[2] The paragraph reminds me greatly of Oswald Spengler’s book, The Decline of the West (1918, revised 1922), about how the West is doomed to fall to the “Magian” Semitic societies of the Jews and the Arabs, while the “Faustian” West withers away. The book prompted a very eloquent refutation in The Rise of the West by William McNeill, excoriating Spengler’s flawed “clash of civilizations” analysis of world history.

[3] http://www.nicheoftruth.org/pages/the_quran_and_the_theory_of_abrogation.htm

How Long Do We Have?

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

‘A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.’

‘A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.’

‘From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.’

‘The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years’

‘During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage’

First off, the Scottish writer was Alexander Tytler, not Alexander Tyler. Furthermore, the quote apparently was first attributed to Tytler by one H. W. Prentis (Wikipedia), though it is unknown where the first part came from. Tytler never wrote the book about the fall of the Athens.

Onwards!

Professor Joseph Olson of  Hemline  University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota points out some interesting facts concerning the 2008 Presidential election:

Number of States won by:

Democrats: 19 /Republicans: 29

Square miles of land won by:

Democrats: 580,000 / Republicans: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:

Democrats: 127 million / Republicans: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:

Democrats: 13.2 / Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: ‘In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..’ Olson believes the United States is somewhere between the ‘complacency and apathy’ phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation’s population already having reached the ‘governmental dependency’ phase.

First off, it’s important to note that Professor Olson of Hamline University has been trying to kill this email for years, as it mis-quotes him– he never actually wrote anything like this. Furthermore, all of these numbers are incorrect– though the populations and land area were apparently correct for the 2000 election.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message. If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE,

ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE

Please, whoever you are, do not forward this email. It is, again, a set of lies designed to divide along party lines, and is xenophobic to boot.

Awesome Senior

Here’s a quote from a government employee who witnessed a recent interaction between an elderly woman and an antiwar protester in a D.C. airport. There were protesters on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America.  I politely declined to take one.

The elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young (20-ish) female protester offered her a pamphlet, which she politely declined. The young protester put her hand on the old woman’s shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice the  young lady said, “Lady, don’t you care about the children of Iraq?”

The old woman looked up at her and said, “Honey, my father died in France during World War II, I lost my husband in Korea , and a son in Vietnam . All three died so a bitch like you could have the right to stand here and badmouth our country. If you touch me again, I’ll stick this umbrella up your ass and open it.”

This is an email I received back in July, and in this case I replied to the sender.

It sets up a situation with two characters: the naive, stupid 20 year old female protester, and the feisty old lady who knows all about life. It puts an insipid statement in the mouth of one (the “evils of america”? unlikely. sure there are extremists, but by painting all of those against the war in Iraq as being anti-American, it does a nice job of invalidating the message, because they are not in the majority), and gives the other a rude comeback meant to show how much better she is. It’s disrespectful to both of them.

First off, there’s the assumption that the 20 year old protesters are just dumb kids. It doesn’t take into account the many college students (because, let’s be honest– that’s what this is attacking; those college kids who think they’re educated but just don’t know about life. it’s another piece that appeals to the lovely trend of anti-intellectualism in this country) who may have lost fathers, mothers, siblings, etc. in the military. It ignores the fact that there are plenty of veterans in schools. That 20 year old student could be a refugee from a war-torn country, or the child of refugees. Maybe the 20 year old has given their time to something like the volunteer fire department, where she risks her life on a regular basis to help others . Maybe that 20 year old actually does know something.

Meanwhile the elderly lady: apparently while “my family has given a lot to this country” is insufficient to explain why she supports the war (indeed, I’ll agree it’s insufficient– that’s not a reason, just a statement), accusing the protester of “badmouthing the country” and threatening her is a great way to share her views. The elderly lady is apparently not capable of eloquently and politely explaining why she supports the decision to fight in Iraq, or to my firmly say “I do not want to talk to you”. Add to this that the most commonly seen anti-war protesters, in my experience, have been elderly ladies, dressed in black, holding candles, and an extremely warped idea of reality is presented. These women know very well what they are talking about, and can politely explain their views. They have a firm and sophisticated
grasp of politics, as I would actually expect from someone who has been a citizen of this country for longer than I have been alive. Furthermore, I would guess that most of them would never threaten to shove anything up someone else’s ass, not because of their age, but just because most people understand that being ugly and rude is immaturity that shouldn’t be tolerated from a 3 year old, much less someone in her 70s.

Beyond the tone, there’s the problem that this email is clearly made up: it refers to a protester on the platform at the metro station at Reagan National Airport. Soliciting is not allowed on any DC Metro platforms, and you can bet that the metro station at the airport is one of the most carefully guarded.

But my biggest problem with these forwards is that they are designed to be decisive– the entire aim is to push two sides of the debate further apart, to ridicule each other and devalue the other’s message. I hate these coming from either side of any debate, because neither ever represents my views. Our aim should always be to push *towards* agreement and compromise, never away from it. By sending on messages like this, it does nothing but to further strain the already badly stressed sense of American unity. It’s not un-American; you can write and say and forward whatever you like, at least within the limits recognized by Supreme Court precedent, but it certainly doesn’t advance the politics of our nation or improve the quality of life for a soldier who is in Iraq right now.

Personally, I think it was a terrible idea to go into Iraq, not for the sake of the “children of Iraq” (who doubtless would be better off under a non-Ba’athist government, provided there is some form of working government at all), but because there was no legitimate reason, and it could only result in more violence and our neglect of a country which we did have a good reason to invade. The invasion of Iraq was a terrible idea because it resulted in the neglect of the
Afghan invasion, and the timing of it has dragged both wars on and damaged the aim of each. It has resulted in more deaths because insufficient numbers of soldiers were sent in (even a very shallow student of defense policy, such as myself, recognized this at the start of the invasion. Rumsfeld knew it too, because he’s not an idiot, he just didn’t care). This is the most common antiwar stance– so if you’re going to send on stories that abuse the anti-war camp, at least have the 20 year old protester explain the legitimate arguments against it.

I should note that I’m writing this at the moment while a group of young Afghan students are visiting our lab– students who have been brought to the US to receive medical treatment which they could not have received in Afghanistan, for injuries received in what has been a botched war on the side of the US and its allies who were not able to commit enough troops to keep the Taliban out, because of the ill-advised war in Iraq. So, in fact, the argument I made above probably could be summarized as “don’t you care about the children”, but not those of Iraq, but those of Afghanistan, who we have let down terribly. We have also let down our own, who have not been made any safer by allowing the Taliban and Al Qaeda to regain a foothold in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This was written up before the 2004 election. A classmate of mine was waving it around like a revealed text in the days following the election. I found the argument to be so simplistic and divisive that I wanted to sock said classmate in the gut. These sorts of polemics do nothing but allow urban, educated, stereotyped liberals like us to bathe ourselves in our own self-righteousness. This classmate, in everything he did in life, reflected the smugness contained in this email. It is a smugness I find suffocating and distasteful. Not only do I have respect for many “conservative” views that I do not espouse, but I actively work to understand and analyze the bases on which they rest.

We claim the right to ridicule based on numbers, unsourced numbers at that, and bask in our superiority. I guess it’s easier for people who don’t have family in “red states.” And that’s an interesting term, “red state.” States are always in flux. Jimmy Carter won Texas but lost California. In this election, the “reddest” state saw a third of all voters vote for the Democratic candidate. Was this state a southern state? No. It was Wyoming. (Only one former Confederate state had fewer than 40% of its population vote for Barack Obama). Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan both came from “blue” California. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton came from “red” Georgia and Arkansas.

The whole red state/blue state divide is a farce. If people want to make intellectually honest, nuanced arguments about differences in culture that play into our politics and how that culture gap can be bridged, count me in. But don’t throw dishonest, reactionary vitriol at me and call it argument. It’s beneath the effete corps of impudent snobs of which I count myself a part.

Seriously, guys. Put this kind of petty crap to bed. I certainly don’t want it cluttering up my inbox.

AGREE OR DELETE

DID YOU KNOW?

As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the world’s law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view … it is Moses and he is holding the Ten Commandments!

DID YOU KNOW?

As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the Two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments Engraved on each lower portion of each door.

DID YOU KNOW?

As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see The wall, right above where the Supreme Court judges sit, a display of the Ten Commandments!

DID YOU KNOW?

There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal Buildings and Monuments in Washington , D..C.

DID YOU KNOW?

James Madison, the fourth president, known as ‘The Father of Our Constitution’ made the following statement:

‘ We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.’

DID YOU KNOW?

Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777.

DID YOU KNOW?

Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members of the established orthodox churches in the colonies.

DID YOU KNOW?

Thomas Jefferson worried that the Courts would overstep their authority and instead of interpreting the law would begin making law an oligarchy the rule of few over many.

I’ve also saved your eyes from the terrible formatting– be thankful. Italics are added.

First off, we’ll address this “since the 10 Commandments are depicted on the Supreme Court building, it means that separation of church and state is bunk”:

As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the world’s law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view … it is Moses and he is holding the Ten Commandments!

…etc…

This is handled nicely somewhere else:

• Discussion of the general topic
• Specific architectural elements

The gist of this is that yes, the 10 Commandments are present in depictions on the building but (a) architectural elements do not indicate Constitutional support; architects don’t make law, and politicians don’t design buildings and (b) contrary to the statements in this email, Moses and the 10 Commandments are not actually depicted as more important than any other ancient/historical/mythical lawgivers.  Furthermore, the third statement of the 10 Commandments appearing in the courtroom itself is erroneous.

I’m not even going to bother with the “Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal Buildings.. etc” statement. While it would be an interesting bit of research to figure out exactly which verses are etched on which buildings and monuments, and what the artistic reasoning behind them all originally was, I have to draw the line somewhere. I’m supposed to be writing a dissertation in computer science, not really blogging, after all.

James Madison, the fourth president, known as ‘The Father of Our Constitution’ made the following statement:

‘ We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.’

This one is beautiful. There is no evidence that Madison ever actually said this. See this press release by au.org. While I’m at it, here’s the snopes article on this email forward, one of my places to find the refutation of this statement.

DID YOU KNOW?

Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777.

The snopes article is again useful here. Digging a little deeper, the Madison quote from the Snopes page:

“Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them, and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does this not involve the principle of a national establishment?”

is from James Madison’s “Essays on Monopolies”. I can’t immediately find a copy of this online to confirm the quote, though, and I’m unwilling to state its legitimacy without seeing it myself.

The statement about the church membership of the “founding of the Constitution” is also debated, and is an excessively simplistic treatment. I’m just going to refer back to the Snopes page. This is outside the scope, and– quite frankly– I want to get to what I see as the major problem with this email.

First, an exercise:

Surveys by the Pew Forum suggest that roughly 16.1% of the US population is religiously unaffiliated, and if you include affiliation with religions of the book (all forms of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism), about 18.7% of the US population is not affiliated with a religious tradition that includes the 10 Commandments or the any portion of the Bible. This, of course, may include any number of lapsed individuals– we’ll say this is reflected in 71% of people absolutely believe in the existence of a god or gods. So if the assumption is made that all of that 71% of people believe that religion has a place in government– which is a pretty big assumption given that only 24% of the respondents stated that they believe “My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life”, and that 52% of respondents stated that government is too involved in morality (40% stated that government should do more) — then I think it’s reasonable to assume that at least 25% of the US population agrees that religion does *not* have a place in government.

But why is 25% a particularly special number?

Well, as of 2007, the General Social Survey found that 25% of all US adults are gun owners. This means, of course, that 75% are not gun owners. So why shouldn’t the 75% of non-gun owning Americans agree that guns are just a source of violence in this country, and so they should all be banned?

(At this point, I should clarify, I’m getting into the actual email responses I wrote to the person who sent me this forward; the individual himself is a gun owner– as am I, incidentally.)

What is most troublesome about this email is really that final quote:

It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore, it is very hard to understand
why there is such a mess about having the Ten Commandments on display or ‘In God We Trust’ on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Why don’t we just tell the other 14% to sit down and be quiet!!! If you agree, pass this on

This is what sets me off. Not the random 86% statistic which is used, not the simplistic statement of the Pledge of Allegiance reference, but “tell the other 14%” to shut up. The statement of “Why don’t we just tell the other 14% to sit down and be quiet!!!” would be found extremely offensive by Madison, though this email claims to quote him anyway. See Federalist No. 10 for Madison’s ideas on factions, and the “violence of faction”, both of majority and minority factions.

(Now fully back to an email response I wrote)

I care very much about the writings of the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights– my last year at Swarthmore, I faced a tough decision of whether to focus on computer science in grad school, or else pursue a path of work and study in political science. I am fascinated by Constitutional law, and spent a great deal of time studying the writings of not just the Founding Fathers, but also the political theory that they studied and referenced in building their own political philosophies. I find it offensive when their words are twisted to support bigotry in any form.

There is a great deal to debate about the political theory behind the Constitution, and the reasons behind every paragraph and clause. But the “tyranny” or “violence” of the majority — or of minority factions with an excessive share of power — is something on which a great deal has been written, by many philosophers and political theorists– Plato, Rousseau, Madison, Mill, and de Tocqueville, to name a few– both before our Constitution was written, and since (note Mill and de Tocqueville). Again, Federalist No. 10, written by James Madison, is devoted to this issue.

The email which was forwarded spurns the words of all of these great men, old, dead, white, olive-skinned, Greek, French, American and more (also no doubt influenced by the wisdom of many great women around them, though history fails to credit them), instead opting for a militant, xenophobic populism which denies the political traditions of compromise and acceptance which have made this country work for so long. Granted, this is also a long tradition in US history, but one which we’ve struggled against.

Still, there’s something particularly nasty about some of what’s happening now, with people refusing to show even the slightest respect to a sitting President; if the news reports are correct, keeping children home from school so they won’t be “indoctrinated into socialism” by President Obama. Is this really the way to show respect to our Constitution and the Founding Fathers? By telling children that the President’s speech encouraging them to work hard at school is malicious political engineering?

Debate on political, social, religious, and moral issues will always be heated, but as long as it’s also reasoned and builds upon the ideas of those who have gone before, rather than twisting their words to contradict those ideas, it can be productive.