Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Yes, There’s A Large Population In Each Of The Fifty-Seven States

16 Comments

I’m not sure which is more disturbing — that the president believes that the US is a Muslim nation at all (let alone one of the largest ones, and while denying that we are Judeo-Christian), or that the Times is so uncritical in reporting such a belief. Kuwait probably has more Muslims (over three million) than the US does, and it’s a tiny Muslim country. We know what would be the press response had George Bush made such an egregiously nonsensical and innumerate statement.

[Update a few minutes later]

Respecting the faithful versus respecting the faith. Yes, the two can, and should be separated. And it applies to all religions, not just Islam. We can respect the right to believe something without respecting the belief itself. I for one respect no religion, other than my own, but I will defend the right to believe in any of them, at least until acting on such beliefs violates my own natural rights.

[3 PM update]

More thoughts from the Belmont Club:

By choosing to give his speech in Egypt, an authoritarian Middle Eastern country, instead of a more moderate country like Indonesia, he runs the risk of accidentally conveying the sense that democracy is on the back burner. What message does President Obama wish to project when he says “Les Etats-Unis sont “l’un des plus grands pays musulmans de la planète”? Is it of Islam as the future of America or America as the future of Islam? The President’s speech seems innocent enough, but emphasis is important. Didn’t he say, “don’t tell me that words don’t matter?”

In the interview, President Obama says one of the goals his trip is to foster dialogue between the West and the Muslim world. Maybe some communications strategist or public diplomacy consultant has advised “rebranding America” as the sort of place Muslims can identify with. That way it will be an easy sell. What better way to do it than by saying, ‘America is one of the biggest Muslim countries on the planet’. Ich bin ein Mussulman, or however you say it. That won’t necessarily fly; it doesn’t seem to work too well for India, which has a genuinely huge Muslim population. But there’s a hidden danger. His audience can say right: just look at how advanced and rich America is, and it’s one of the largest Muslim countries on the planet. See nothing is broken in Islam. America is proof. There comes a point when rebranding may become misleading packaging.

But hey, “misleading packaging” is the man’s forte, after all.

Administrative

Comments Hygiene Note

4 Comments

I finally got fed up with “jack lee” today. The last-straw comment can be viewed here. He will no longer be endimmening us with his ignorance and stupidity, at least with that IP address.

Commenting here is not a right. It is a privilege, and one that he has been abusing (as he abused our intelligence) for years. No more.

Media Criticism

“A Conspiracy of Euphemism”

5 Comments

Thoughts on selective self-censorship by the press:

The news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have “religious motivations.” She did not name the suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, or tell NPR listeners what those religious motivations might be. In other words, it could have been a radical Unitarian who gunned down the soldiers, or possibly a violent Presbyterian.

Why the shyness? Why not tell people what is actually happening in the world? We saw this a couple of weeks ago, when the press only gingerly acknowledged that the malevolent though incompetent suspects in the synagogue bombing-conspiracy case in New York were converts to Islam. How is the public served by this kind of silence?

As noted, it’s only one religion that seems to be fair game for discussion as motivation for criminal behavior.

Political Commentary

An Absurd Ruling

8 Comments

At least based on this quote: “Federalism is an older and more deeply rooted tradition than is a right to carry any particular kind of weapon.”

That seems nonsensical to me. The right to self defense is fundamental in English common law, and goes back much further than federalism. I’m as big a federalist as the next guy, and more than most, but how can the First Amendment be incorporated, but not the Second? This will be going to SCOTUS.

[Update a few minutes later]

Eugene Volokh, unsurprisingly, has some thoughts, here and here:

…it’s not implausible, I think, to treat the Court’s precedents as stare decisis on the question of incorporation via the Fourteenth Amendment generally, rather than solely of incorporation via the Privileges or Immunities Clause (though I’d probably be inclined to the other position). But it seems to me that the case is not nearly as clear as the Seventh Circuit’s analysis suggests, and that the opinion’s not discussing the difference between the two Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment is a significant weakness.

As I said, the SCOTUS will almost certainly get this. And having Sotomayor won’t make any difference, since Souter would likely rule the same way as she does. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the court does.

[Update]

A thought, based on some good comments in Eugene’s second post. When self defense is outlawed, only outlaws will defend themselves.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!