Mark Byron

Inverted Yield Curve, Meet Inverted Trope

For years, a common dig at American Jews was that they supposedly had "dual loyalty" to both the US and Israel. The same dig was made of American Catholics in days of yore; JFK had to suffer through that. I recall the classic quip credited to Harry Truman, who said "It's not the Pope that bothers me, it's the pop" referring to shady-dealing Joe Kennedy.

Nowadays, conservatives like Israel and (at least pre-Francis) the Vatican . They'd prefer a devout Catholic to a lapsed one and a pro-Israel Jew to a BDS-backing one. It helps that the current Israeli government takes a hard line on Iran and jihadi terrorists, making them geopolitical allies. 

These days, that trope is trotted out more on the left, where Israel is often seen as the last European colony abusing the Palestinian natives and trotting out Nazi and apartheid South African comparisons. For them, being pro-Israel makes one as a geopolitical neocon to be shunned.

Thus, we have the bizarre turn of the president turning that dual loyalty trope on its head yesterday.

"I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat -- I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty," Trump said. 

So, they're either dumb or double-dealing. Classic name-calling, making your foes either ignorant or evil. If they knew better and were good people, they'd agree with us.

I've seen more than one piece over the last year noting that Trump's minority-bashing hadn't extended to Jews...yet. Your classic right-wing redneck will be anti-non-white and anti-Jewish, but only the hard-core alt-righter will trot out anti-Semitic rhetoric given the conservative bias towards Israel. Trump's Jewish son-in-law and convert daughter seemingly helped prune some of that out of  The Donald if it was there to begin with.

It seems that Trump might have reverted to form on this one, that old traditional antisemitism might have bubbled to the surface;  growing up in NYC, he could well have been exposed to those tropes as the gentiles around him let their inner Archie Bunkers out. Either that, or it might be that bashing liberal Jews as part of his domestic Axis of Evil (Reformed Jews as the  henchmen of The Squad?) was coolly calculated; beating up on liberal Jews is a common parlor game on the right.

The downside is that it gives ammunition to liberals who will look at the philosemitism of the modern right as a smokescreen for the "real" anti-Jewish core, that Israel is only useful for either attacking Muslims or expediting the Second Coming.

 

 

 

Dialogue of the Hard of Hearing

Pope Francis made news last week with a video promoting interfaith dialogue. Here's my stab at a transcript.

Most of the planets inhabitants declare themselves believers. This should lead to dialog between religions. We should not stop praying for and collaborating with those who think differently.

{Argentinian Buddhist leader Rinchen Kandro}I have confidence in the Buddha

{Argentinian Jewish Rabbi Daniel Goldman}I believe in God

{Catholic Priest Guillermo Marco} I believe in Jesus Christ

{Argentinian Muslim leader Omar Abboud} I believe in God. Allah

Many think differently, feel differently, seeking God or meeting God in different ways [shot of Pope with Buddhist-looking monk]. In this crowd, this range of religions [shot of Pope with an Eastern Orthodox-looking priest], there is only one certainty we have for all [Pope in group hug with a couple of Jews], we are all children of God.

        {Kandro, Goldman, Marco and Abboud} I believe in love. (spoken separately)

I hope you will spread my prayer request this month: that sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce the fruits of peace and justice. {Shots of a hand-sized Buddha, a hand-sized menorah, a baby boy doll and some (Muslim?) prayer beads]. I have confidence in your prayers.

Let me unpack that one. It's interesting that Francis called upon some of his contacts from his days in Argentina to have cameo roles in this video.

Should we take with people of other faiths? Yes, it's called evangelism, one thing the Pope wants to stress.

Should we pray for those folks? Yes, including that they see the Light of the gospel.

Should we collaborate with them? In ways that don't subvert the gospel, yes. There are any number of things that we can find ourselves in common cause with non-Christians.

Are we all, believers or no, children of God? Yes. One can nit-pick that we have more than that one certainty to offer the world, but the idea that everyone is a child of God worthy of respect doesn't seem off the reservation.

Can we have increased peace and justice through interfaith dialogue? It wouldn't hurt. As long as the Gospel isn't watered down or some sort of universalist creed gets called upon as part of the process, talking about what we have in common could reduce tensions and misconceptions.

In and of itself, this doesn't reek of the Mark of the Beast. Note that Francis never mentioned that they were praying or worshiping the same God, just that they were all children of God. He is a bit cozier with folks of other faiths that I'd be comfortable with, but diplomacy is generally a papal strong-suit.

A number of folks, mostly of a hawkish evangelical bent, cast this as a call for one world religion. The closest he comes to that is the second paragraph's "meeting God in different ways." I'm not up to digging into the Spanish nuance, but the translation seems to give a nod to the idea that there are different ways of "meeting God." The problem is that a lot of ways of meeting God won't have Him in the best of moods.

Yes, there is a Catholic idea that good folks of other faiths can be following Jesus without knowing it. However, I don't see that coming into play here.

The mood of the day is to be belligerent towards the "other", especially Islam. That's not the most helpful witness; you'll likely get farther with respect and caring than doing a Triumph the Insult Dog imitation.

When in Rome, Don't Do as the Classic Romans Did.

Could I see Minutemen reenactors banned from Revolutionary War sites or Civil War reenactors banned from Gettysburg? If they were making a nuisance of themselves, yes. Rudy-era New York banning overly-pushy windshield-washers comes to mind.

That's the best American analogy to this story out of the Eternal City-

Impersonators of soldiers from ancient Rome have been a common sight at the Colosseum, Forum and other major sites, posing for photos in return for cash.

But from Thursday, the Centurions are outlaws - along with bicycle-drawn rickshaw drivers and ticket touts.

City commissioner Francesco Paolo Tronca issued the decree ahead of the Catholic Jubilee year, an important tourist event starting on 8 December.

There's also a possible religious angle here. The centurions could well be case as heavies in the Gospel, being in charge of crucifixions, although one asked Jesus for a healing miracle. I don't see too many people wanting to do an imitation of Peter in Gethsemane (it was a good squad rather than a Roman legion in that passage, but the crazed person might ask for some poetic license) but if the focus of 2016 is Roman Catholic Rome rather than Imperial Rome, the centurions would be spoiling the mood, both thematically and from their pushiness.

It's likely more the pushiness that is at issue here, making it a Rudy-esque move by the city fathers.

One interesting thing that just came to me as I was writing is that they are marking the 50th anniversary of Vatican II with said jubilee. Tridentine mass mavens and other conservatives might not be thrilled with that celebration, especially when Francis has leaned to the left on a number of fronts, although mostly on style than substance; his environment encyclical being one exception, and even that didn't upend core Catholic doctrine as best as this Bapticostal can tell.

 

Pauline Sharia?

"If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment?" That sounds like the kind of logic that creates Sharia Courts that this Newsmax piece is afraid of.

An Islamic Tribunal of four attorneys is operating in Dallas where it issues voluntary rulings on civil disputes, Breitbart Texas reported Tuesday.

Taher El-badawi, one of the lawyers who call themselves "judges," told the conservative website that the tribunal applies Shariah law to litigants who voluntarily accept their rulings on disputes involving family and business issues.

Actually, my opening quote wasn't from the Koran, but from 1 Corinthians 6:1. Christians, generally of a more evangelical bent, will sent up comparable arbitration settings to avoid taking things to court. Newsmax would likely not be worried about those.

However, if we want to ban the kind of Islamic arbitration above, we're going to wind up banning any Christian or Jewish or secular arbitration service as well if the First Amendment is honored. Free exercise of religion should cover both our Dallas Islamic tribunal as well as any Christian analogs in the Metroplex as well.

In this context, "sharia law" is the Muslim analog of "biblical principles". Catholic "canon law" might be a good analog as well. Sharia evokes the vision of ISIS or the Taliban running a whole region by their harsh take on Islam, especially in conservative American discourse, but it also has a more mundane application in this case.

"I Hope They Pull You Through"

That's what the tot was told to tell Grandpa while visiting him at the hospital. Grandpa then said "I'm lying at death's door."

"I hope they pull you through!"

That old joke came to mind when I saw this piece of trash-talk from our vice president-

The United States will pursue the killers of two American journalists "to the gates of hell," Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday.

"As a nation, we are united, and when people harm Americans, we don't retreat, we don't forget," he said at an appearance in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

"We take care of those who are grieving. And when that's finished, they should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice because hell is where they will reside. Hell is where they will reside."

It's good that VP Biden is accepting the un-PC concept of Hell, but not so good that he promotes himself to God and condemns ISIS folks to reside there. Odds are very good that Biden's right on that, but that's not his call.

Biden's at least a nominal Catholic, but if he wants to get a promotion to godhood, he might want to check out Mormonism. His running mate seems to be assuming he's Louis "L'État, c'est moi" XIV, so a promotion to godhood isn't that much of a reach for him.

Little Mosque on the Holler

Fair play rules in TN. That Murfreesboro mosque is finally going to open, although they need to do some final touches before they can use it; that means they'll get to do their end-of-Ramadan feast there but miss the beginning.

It's common to Muslim-bash in conservative circles, but this is a broad religious liberty issue; if rednecks and anti-jihadists (equal measure, for foreign policy hawk Frank Gaffney was in with the anti-mosque crowd) can block a mosque, big-city liberals can block conservative churches or fans of church X can block church Y.

That's why I was against the folks trying to block the Ground Zero mosque a while back; while tacky, there is no good grounds for making an area a Islam-free zone. Try doing that, and San Francisco goes evangelical and Catholic-free (I have to do it in that order, for having SF going Evangelical Free would be an improvement).

On loosely related grounds, German politicos are looking to roll back an anti-circumcision ruling. The Germans were getting flak for a children's-rights decision  (the kid doesn't get a say in getting his plumbing trimmed) that echoed old Nazi law. However, the religious freedom issue trumps the ounce of flesh a boy loses there.

Are We Not Men? No, We Are Rhino.

Here's an interesting passage from a Dana Milbank WaPo piece on Newt Gingrich from last week. Here's what the Newt's eye is on-

"I believe the most important question in the United States for the next decade is: 'Who are we?' Are we in fact a people who claim that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights?" Or, are we "just randomly gathered protoplasm -- and lucky for us we're not rhinoceroses -- but that in the end our power is defined by politicians and their appointees? Once you decide on this, almost everything else gets easier."

That choice of animal, rhinoceros, is interesting, especially when Newt was on the wrong end of a intra-Republican dustup in the NY-23 bi-election, where he backed the center-left "RINO" (conservative pejorative for Republican in Name Only- pronounced "Rhino") Republican nominee rather than the Conservative Party upstart. The RINO dropped out as she fell into third place and endorsed her Democratic challenger, who has won a squeaker pending a count of absentee votes.

However, lets talk about Rhinos rather than RINOs.

I'm still coming around to a coherent reply to the Patrol piece dancing on the Evangelical grave that Michael Spencer has commended. Strangely, I find this Gingrich paragraph a good starting point to get an edge to approach things.

The Patrol editorial castigated modern Evangelicals as being "[c]onfined to the paramaters (sic) of liberal rationalism" and "blinded by its symbiotic relationship with the Enlightenment." I'll hit the theology of the piece a bit later, God willing, but we are talking some form of "rationalism" if we talk truth.

The Wikipedia for Rationalism states that "the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive." If there is a capital T-Truth, it isn't left up to what we feel physically or mentally. Jefferson was no theological conservative, but even he had a vision of a set of moral truths that weren't up for modification.

If that Enlightenment rationality that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution is founded on gets tossed out the window, so do Jefferson's unalienable rights that Gingrich references. If we're ruled by the emotion of the day rather than timeless truth that can be found, all bets are off, both politically and theologically.

The post-modern doesn't buy the concept of Truth and especially don't like it when other people think they have it; if I have the idea right, truth is not fully knowable and we can only talk and observe our way towards something resembling it. 

That's a dangerous place to be.

Coexist or Coequal?

Lexington is interesting, a college town in an old-school area. You've got churches galore, but have an openly-gay judge elected here without much contention, and a lot of left-of-center bumper stickers.

The one that I've seen multiple copies of as of late is the Coexist sticker. When I Googled for that, I ran into a little blow-up in Milwaukee last fall when someone came up with a un-PC version of the sticker.

The problem with the underlying attitudes of the coexististas is not that we should get along peacefully; that few Americans would disagree with. A few jihadis would like to wipe out all the infidels and a few white supremacist types would like to wipe out the heterodox folks among us, but the remaining 98% of us aren't in the market to beat up folks that disagree with us, at least not on a wholesale basis.

There are a few folks who are of a violent mind-set who might punch out someone who is radically different from them. However, such a chip-on-the-shoulder guy isn't the target audience. The target is the well-meaning fellow public library denizens (the one I saw this afternoon was at our library, driven by a young mom with an early-elementary-aged daughter in tow) who don't want to be narrow-minded and provincial.

However, what often happens is that the urge to coexist winds up morphing into an urge to consider each other's world-view as co-equal. The churches that do get into "interfaith" dialogs tend to be of the more universalist wing of Christendom, where the uniqueness of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins gets downplayed or ignored in the name of interfaith politeness.

Coexistence is fine. Just don't ask me to say that we're both right when we're not both right. If you believe X and I believe not X, one of us is wrong and we need to hash it out. Politely and without violence, mind you, but if we're "all praying to the same God" we might want to work on getting on the same page.

The problem becomes what that "same page" is and whether it even exists. Some will go off into relativism and argue that we can't know stuff with certainty. Some will want to ignore the things that aren't PC and some will want to ignore the things that don't mesh with their world-view or take away their favorite vices, whether it be illicit sex or free market economics.

However, an orthodox Christian will work from the world-view that there is a Truth that is knowable and well defined. That's going to get us into trouble with a lot of relativists or ad-hoc theologies. We can coexist with them, but we're not going to intellectually play as nice as the coexististas would like.

Talk Radio: Church of the Poisoned Minds?

I'm not quite sure where to go with this factoid, but quite a bit is being made of Knoxville church shooter Jim Adkisson's having books from a trio of combative conservative talkers, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and the very aptly named Michael Savage.

I don't spend much time listening to any of those three. I'm usually teaching when O'Reilly's show is on at 8PM and am more likely to watch Good Eats or Sportscenter during its 11PM rerun if I'm winding down from a night of teaching. I'm usually in my office when Hannity is on the radio, and I can live without his recitation of conservative talking points. I just miss the end of Hannity and Colmes by getting home about 10.

Savage raises my blood pressure more than any talker with the possible exception of Neal Boortz; his bile at anything that disagrees with him wears out its welcome in very short order. Liberalism is a Mental Disorder? I'm heading into pot-calling-the-kettle-black territory, but I'd venture that Savage would be more in need of therapy than Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi. I have people that are in my clan who like him, and that worries me.

Not everyone in the right-wing talk brigade is as caustic as Savage, but most will be quick to dismiss foes on the left as either corrupt, crazy or stupid. I wound up pulling the plug on Michael Reagan, usually one of the classier right-wing talkers, when he dissed one of the main lefties (either Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, if memory serves) as either "stupid" or "an idiot;" they may be misguided frequently, but they aren't dumb.

Such dismissal and dehumanizing of one's political foes makes the prospect of killing them less problematic. That doesn't mean all those folks are supporting such actions, but it makes it easier for troubled folks to go over the edge when you're demonizing and dehumanizing your foes.

Some of the talkers are church-goers (Hannity is a practicing Catholic; yes, he does need a lot of practice) and others like Savage and Boortz are essentially secular, but most come at things with an essentially godless take; it might be the nature of the talk-radio beast, but you hear very little love on talk radio and a lot of bile. Calmer, saner, and more caring talkers don't get the ratings.

There were angry conservative guys before talk radio came of age in the 90s. They just hear people echoing what's in their gut these days.

If doesn't seem that conservative Christian thought was driving Adkisson; Adkission had stated his hostility to Christianity to his neighbors. It was secular conservative thought that seemed to be a driving force. Some of that thought may have come from Irish Catholics like O'Reilly and Hannity, some from backslidden Protestants like Rush and others from Jews like Savage, but it was a largely secular hatred of the other that seemed to drive Adkisson.

He took out his frustration on a church that protected minorities, including gays.

Did those conservative talkers cause him to go over the edge? Probably not. We've had similar attacks prior to talk radio.

However, these guys don't help the cultural climate; angry folks might decide to take the concept of a "culture war" literally.