Posted on 03/21/2002 10:00:24 AM PST by edmundburk
screams the 3.25.02 cover of The New Republic.
The New Republic editor Peter Beinart had a vision: Neither Bush nor Atty. General Ashcroft have mentioned nonbelievers since 9-11, meaning they are trying to write atheists out of America’s moral community. That’s what The New Republic editor Peter Beinart claims in his TRB (The Real Bologna? Tom Robinson Band? ).
It’s impossible to prove a negative, so we must take his assertion on faith, as it were. Among Beinart’s non-corporeal evidence: After 9-11,
“Muslim dignitaries were invited to pray in the East Reception Room before listening to Bush tell the assembled that ‘America seeks peace with people of all faiths.’ And with that line, Bush exhibited the same moral blindness as his attorney general. Of course the United States seeks peace with people of all faiths. But what about people of no faith at all? In fact, the Bush administration never mentions nonbelievers….And when he and his top advisers, in hundreds and hundreds of statements, never miss an opportunity to exclude nonbelievers, it's hard to believe the exclusion is purely accidental….for this administration, celebrating the dignity of all believers has become a way to impugn the dignity of those who believe in no religion at all.”
But 9-11 has nothing to do with atheists or agnostics, God bless’m. Why bring in atheism when discussing a holy war pitting a Muslim jihad against a Jewish state and a majority Christian country?
“If Bush and Ashcroft really think that, then they should have the courage to say it, and open up their arguments to scrutiny and rebuttal. What they are doing instead is worse: implicitly writing atheists and agnostics out of America's moral community. When they describe the country they love, they describe a place where people of different faiths live in harmony and equality, and where people who follow no faith simply do not exist.”
So Beinart takes his opinion of what “many cultural conservatives believe,” projects it onto Bush and Ashcroft, then accuses them of not owning up to “writing atheists and agnostics out of America’s moral community.”
Beinart’s God-like assurance that he can see into Bush’s and Ashcroft’s hearts makes Justice William O. Douglas’ constitutional “penumbras and adumbrations” look positively modest.
Besides, mature adults (atheist or otherwise) don’t rely on a presidential pat on the head to reassure themselves of the rightness of their teleology. Where that leaves Beinart I don’t presume to know. But then, I don’t have a hotline to Heaven.
Oh that's deep. Only way you could be any more deep is to fart after you say that.
William Flax
In order to be a part of a moral community, you have to have morals to start out. Atheists are people that lack faith and without faith, you cannot have morality.
What should Bush say, "people of faith and of non-faith"? Imagine how the Arabs would misinterpret that line...
Couldn't care less. What I'll remember him by is that he's a Constitution-destroying traitor.
Neither Bush nor Atty. General Ashcroft have mentioned nonbelievers since 9-11, meaning they are trying to write atheists out of America’s moral community.
Typical Liberal non-sequitur.
I guess this is the pony-tailed liberal allegorical extension of the President being a national father (see 1992 Presidential debate): he feels like the problem child, jealous of his siblings who believe and receive all the attention.
Hey, Pete! Grow up!
Seamole did you link/index this incredible essay?
I wish that we could bookmark replies!
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