The Delusion of American Exceptionalism

I know I’m not the first to say it, but American exceptionalism is an idea that really just needs to die. I’m sure that would seem unpatriotic to a lot of people, but I think that it’s actually the most patriotic thing one could propose at this point. I’d first like to explain, though, just what the problem with American exceptionalism is, and before that, even, just what American exceptionalism is.

American exceptionalism is, obviously, the idea that America is exceptional. Now, I want to emphasize that is not the same thing as just asserting America is unique—that would imply nothing in terms of its quality, just that it’s different from all other countries (and it is, that much is true). No, American exceptionalism would perhaps more accurately be called American supremacism, because, like every form of supremacism (white, black, male, female, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) the idea is that We are better than anyone else. Now, not surprisingly, this attitude runs rampant among (so-called) conservatives, but (so-called) liberals’ hands are not exactly clean either. Take the “inspiring” speech from then-candidate Obama back in 2008, when he stated that “in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.”

The first problem with this is that it’s utter bullshit. You’d be hard-pressed to find one category that the US leads the world in that’s even remotely positive. We don’t offer some unique opportunity for every American to succeed (we’re awful when it comes to social mobility) we haven’t been some great benevolent harbinger of democracy throughout the world (the truth is diametrically opposed to that), and Americans as a people are absurdly backwoods compared to any other similarly developed country. So, anyone who actually thinks we should be honest with ourselves just on principle is automatically obligated to oppose the idea of American exceptionalism.

America is, in fact, in a lot of ways, exceptional, but they’re not especially good ways. We lead the world in military spending and incarcerated citizens per capita (meaning we imprison more of our population than any of the authoritarian dictatorships we supposedly stand in contrast to), our healthcare system is an international embarrassment, and the number of creationists we have pretty much blows every other first-world country out of the water. Furthermore, we don’t have a good excuse for any of this; we’re essentially the richest country on Earth, so there’s no good reason for us not to be the best educated, most enlightened, most livable country on Earth—and yet, we’re none of those things. Not even close, really.

But besides from being dishonest, promoting the idea that we’re the best country in the world is counterproductive and dangerous. Every parent recognizes that if their kid has a report card full of C’s, the way to help them improve is not to tell them that they’re the best student in the whole school, and the same principle applies on a larger scale. For the idea that America is the greatest country on Earth to be coherent, one has to think there are legitimately fundamental aspects of our country that are better than any other in the world, which keeps us from addressing the obvious flaws that we have—it’s hard to address the lack of social mobility in the United States when you’re promoting the idea that we offer our citizens the best opportunities of any country out there.

American exceptionalism also prevents us from learning from other countries; so many people (both on the “left” and “right” of our political spectrum) reject the idea that the social welfare models of the Scandinavian countries and other European countries could possibly be the right approach here, because, of course, we’re America, and they’re not. While right-wingers virtually never promote a program or an idea on the basis that it’s been successful in other countries, “liberals”—at least those who are actually holding political office—don’t seem to do it all that much, either. At the heart of the problem is the fundamental arrogance that still exists in America and that results in us categorically rejecting the idea that we might actually be better off following the examples other countries have set.

Worst of all, though, is the easy cover American exceptionalism provides for the barbaric foreign policy the United States has consistently championed. For instance, in a completely deranged column, Dr. Keith Ablow advocated an “American jihad” of imposing governments based on our own, on the basis that “our democracy [is] superior to all other forms of government.” That overlooks the minor fact that our current system is, for all intents and purposes, a corporate oligarchy. In less extreme ways, the same idea, though, has been promoted by President Obama, who stated last year that America’s role has been that of “the anchor of global security.” True, if he means the security of corporate and government interests—as for the security of democracy and human rights, the counterexamples are too numerous to list here.

 I’m not asking for some gratuitous hatred of America or embarrassment to be American, but it’s time to outgrow the downright childish idea that we really are somehow better than any other country on Earth. There are no facts to back the idea up whatsoever, and it’s an idea that damages both us and everyone else. There are parts of American history to admire, and Americans throughout history to be inspired by, but unless we recognize the numerous ways in which we diverge from the ideas of democracy and individual rights that we’re supposed to represent, we’re going to keep down the same path we’ve been on for a long time. And it’s not a path that leads anywhere worth going.

In Defense of Russell Brand

I don’t want to seem as if I have a one-track mind, because I very recently responded to an article from Forward Progressives, but the one I came across this time was probably one of the worst articles I’ve ever read, so the opportunity was too much to pass up. In fact, I’m not even responding, for the most part, to make a broad political statement (as I have before), but mostly just because this article is legitimately so awful I feel compelled to elaborate on it somewhere—and hey, that’s kind of why I have a blog to begin with. In any case, the article in question is from a guy named Manny Schewitz, who I once actually thought was (unlike his colleague Allen Clifton) a relatively credible voice on Forward Progressives. He’s writing about “Why the Left Needs to Reject Russell Brand.” That struck me as sort of weird to begin with, but believe me, it gets downright surreal as it goes on.

After noting Brand’s popularity among left-libertarian types, he goes on to say that he doesn’t “see the big deal about a guy whose greatest accomplishment otherwise is being married to Katy Perry.” Ouch—that’s a pretty brutal remark to make. I mean, granted, I didn’t really know about Russell Brand before he was married to Katy Perry, but that was mostly because I was in grade school for a lot of his career in comedy and TV. Obviously, it’s one thing if you don’t like the guy’s style—I personally don’t have much of an opinion, seeing as I’m not very familiar with it—but it’s a little harsh to say his biggest “accomplishment” is marrying a pop star.
Right afterward, Schewitz talks about a popular video where Brand rants against Fox News, and compares them to ISIS. Not surprisingly, Schewitz sees this as an absurd false equivalence. But I have to go with Brand on this one. Fox News devoted itself loyally to supporting the Bush administration, including the Iraq War—a war that killed, even by lower estimates, at least around a hundred thousand civilians. Oh, right, and which created ISIS. So yes, convincing the populace to go along with that sort of action is, in fact, worse than ISIS. You’d think as a so-called progressive Manny Schewitz might be eager to agree with that, but apparently he’s too caught up in his inexplicable vendetta against Russell Brand to care.

Next, Schewitz talks about a recent stunt where Russell Brand filmed outside of Fox News’s studio after his interview scheduled with Sean Hannity was cancelled. Schewitz complains, “I’m pretty sure that just about everyone on the left has realized that Fox News is little more than a conservative fear and disinformation machine, so why are we subjected to the latest ridiculous thing said on Fox on a daily basis?” Um, really? This from a guy who writes for a website that has an entire archive full of articles—sometimes multiple ones in a single day—mocking the stupidity of Fox News? If Schewitz has such a problem with people talking about the “latest ridiculous thing said on Fox on a daily basis,” he might want to bring it up to his pal Allen Clifton, who seems hell-bent on reminding everyone almost daily that dumb things are said on Fox News.

Schewitz then accuses Brand of using attacks on Fox News as a way to bolster his credibility among liberals and leftists. But he’s completely missing the fact that maybe, just maybe, Russell Brand isn’t talking about Fox News just for the sake of “everyone on the left,” but for relatively apolitical, maybe even conservative-leaning, people who might watch his videos and listen to what he has to say. It may be hard for Manny Schewitz to believe, but not everything written with a liberal or left-wing viewpoint is intended to be read by those who already agree with that viewpoint. I say it might be hard for him to believe because Forward Progressives is the source of endless, downright masturbatory articles for liberals to read and agree with without requiring any sort of thought.

Schewitz’s next charge against Brand? That “the conspiracy nuts love this guy.” Okay. And? Charles Manson loved the Beatles—does that mean Paul McCartney should be in prison? Furthermore, even if Brand is one of the “conspiracy nuts” himself (and Schewitz offers no convincing evidence that he is), if his views on society, politics, etc., are still good, who cares if he believes in some bizarre but essentially harmless conspiracy theories? As a non-religious person, the Christian belief that God became His own son, turned bread and wine into his body and blood, and then died and came back to life, seems like a pretty strange thing to believe (even if I used to believe it myself), but I would never avoid associating myself with Christians because of that.

Next, Schewitz quotes a passage from a column Brand wrote last year, where Brand says he doesn’t vote because he views it as “a tacit act of compliance.” Schewitz angrily (at least it sounds angry when I’m reading it in my head) counters, “Guess what? The same people who watch Fox News – which Russell Brand has used to continue promoting his image – those people also vote.” Fair point, I guess, but it’s not like Russell Brand is advocating just sitting at home and eating Cheetos instead of voting—he pretty clearly supports other forms of activism. And the people he’s really addressing aren’t mainstream liberals—obviously, the people who watch Fox News will go out and vote, but so will Democratic Party loyalists like Manny Schewitz; he’s addressing people who really do want the whole system thrown out, and who are willing to in some way be active for that cause. Plus, it’s a little hard to really hate someone because they advocate against voting—George Carlin did, and does anyone hate George Carlin? Because if there is anyone who hates him, they seriously suck. I’m just gonna throw that out there. 

And then comes the really low point of this article—yeah, it seemed pretty bad up to this point, but here’s where things go from stupid to reprehensible: “If we were to actually take this pretentious, narcissistic former heroin addict who was fired from his job at MTV for dressing up as Osama Bin Laden after 9/11 seriously…” I’m not sure what’s worse, trying to insinuate that Russell Brand deserves to be ignored forever because of something potentially offensive he did literally thirteen years ago, or attacking him because he used to have a drug problem. Oh, wait—yeah, I am, it’s the second one. Maybe it’s just because Philip Seymour Hoffman, an actor who I both liked and admired, died earlier this year because of his problems with drug abuse, but I can’t help but be offended on a pretty deep level when you insult someone because they once had a heroin addiction. I’m just going to hope Manny Schewitz just got caught up in his vitriol against Russell Brand and didn’t think that through when he was writing it. 

Schewitz wraps up by going on about how voting is important, things will just get worse if we get apathetic, and so on, but even though I’ve filled out an absentee ballot for the upcoming election, I don’t really buy what he’s selling. Russell Brand is onto something when he talks about the system being fundamentally rotten, and voting really isn’t about to fix that. That old quote about how if voting changed anything it would be illegal might not be entirely accurate, but it seems pretty close at this point. I myself do vote, and I don’t advocate against it, but it’s hard for me to blame anyone who stays home at this point.

But, to get back to the article—well, I didn’t really ever think I would say this, but this doesn’t even meet the standards I’ve come to expect from Forward Progressives, and that really says something. This article is downright baffling in how mean-spirited and unfair it is. I’ve honestly only read/watched a couple things from Russell Brand, but I still feel the need to defend the guy just because of how absurd this attack is. I don’t really know what Manny Schewitz’s problem with Russell Brand is, but he might want to talk to a professional about it. Because he sounds like he might have some issues he should discuss, and not the ones that’ll be on the ballot in November. 

EDIT: An earlier version of this post was edited to correct a misspelling of Schewitz's name as "Schweitz" throughout.

UPDATE: I've removed an accusation that Schewitz himself inserted a hyperlink in the part of the article when he mentions Brand's heroin addiction, as I don't know that he himself inserted the hyperlink. I apologize to Mr. Schewitz for the potential inaccuracy.

We Are the Problem

Courtesy of Paul Smith's blog, link http://www.dasmirnov.net/
blog/religious_fundamentalists_and_anti_homos

While I’ve already taken on the more stridently anti-Islam viewpoint from the recent Maher-Harris-Affleck controversy, there remains a more generally anti-religious viewpoint that I think should be addressed, which has come from some of those defending Maher and Harris but who appear to disagree with them that Islam is necessarily uniquely bad as a religion. It’s essentially the attitude that, “If only organized religion didn’t exist, humanity would be so much better off.” It’s a common attitude from the secular movement today, best captured by a popular picture: the Twin Towers with the caption “Imagine a world without religion.”

 

And, to be honest, it’s a tiresome, annoying attitude that needs to go away. I don’t say that out of some great love for organized religion, but just in the interest of intellectual honesty. The fact of the matter is that people don’t need organized religion as an excuse to commit the worst atrocities. For instance, millions die each year from starvation. This isn’t a necessary evil, either; we have the capacity to grow enough food to feed everyone. So why do allow this major atrocity to continue? Is it because of some religious belief? No. It’s because of greed. It’s because of corporatism.

And, to all the atheists out there who haven’t yet accepted this fact, here’s a newsflash for you: atrocities have been committed in the name of atheism, too. The reason religious people have been persecuted in Communist countries is not because their religion was some direct threat to the existence of the state, it was because those governments were militantly atheist and set forth as their goal the destruction of religion. When you are persecuting people because you want everyone to be atheist and they’re religious, you’re persecuting in the name of atheism. I’m sorry if this is a fact that some atheists are uncomfortable owning up to, but it’s a fact.

But it’s time to stop blaming atheism, or Christianity, or Islam, or anything else for the atrocities people have committed. You know who’s really to blame? People. And I don’t just mean the people who commit the atrocities, I mean humanity as a species. For millennia, humans have been able to come up with some deranged justification for whatever horrific action they want to perpetrate against some other group of their fellow humans. So the violence and hatred and misery in the world isn’t the fault of religion, or government, or capitalism, or any of those things. Those are just ideas, and we’re the ones who had them. So, as a species, we have only ourselves to blame.

The biggest issue we face as a species is not that we are plagued by external problems; it’s that we are the problem. We have the resources to overcome virtually any issue in the modern world, and it’s our fault that we haven’t done that. Instead, we’ve devoted huge amounts of resources, time, and energy killing each other, oppressing each other, exploiting each other, and so on and so forth. As Arthur Schopenhauer put it, “human existence must be a kind of error.” As Bill Hicks would remark later, “We’re a virus with shoes, okay?” No ideology or lack thereof is going to solve that. It’s really that simple.

We just need to own up to the fact that we, as a species, do not want peace. We might claim to, but our claims are unconvincing. We have wars constantly, we put in place systems that oppress and persecute others, and we just generally devote a lot more of our time to materialistic, self-centered bullshit than to anything that’s going to achieve some kind of peace for humanity. At the very least, there’s a minority large and powerful enough within humanity that it’s always kept us from achieving peace.

So that’s reality. Enough with fantasy worlds where we’d all live in some utopia if there weren’t religion, or governments, or capitalism, or whatever else. Those things weren’t handed down to us by some external entity; we made them. And, in spite of all the reasons to do so, we’re not abandoning them. And guess what? Even if we did, we’d probably find some new excuse to start killing each other over. The only solution to humanity’s ills is probably some kind of benevolent tyranny that keeps everyone from murdering each other while it develops medication against all of the worst traits people have, but of course, realistically, that wouldn’t work either, because tyrannies don’t tend to stay benevolent for all that long.

So all I can really say is, let’s acknowledge the real problem here. As they say, the first step to solving your problem is admitting you have one, so maybe if enough people can actually come to grips with the fact that we are the problem, we can at least move toward bettering humanity itself, however we end up doing that. I’m sure there’s a way. We’re a very innovative species, and if we didn’t devote so much of that innovation into finding new ways to terrorize each other, we might have actually accomplished something by now, aside from an environment that’s becoming increasingly worse and world where injustice runs rampant to this day. Just a thought.

5 Unpleasant Truths About Obama's Presidency

I’ve mentioned Allen Clifton a couple times before in this blog, because he kind of epitomizes everything about mainstream liberals that I find annoying, and the article I’m responding to here—one of his recent ones—only reinforces that point. Once again, Allen Clifton has decided to defend President Obama from criticism not just from the right, but at least as much from the left. In an article where he purports to give five reasons why Obama will be remembered as being highly underappreciated during his presidency, he starts off by noting how many “far-left liberals” have turned against the president (a “far-left liberal” is anyone who thinks Democrats should govern to left of Richard Nixon, I guess). They blame him for not being “liberal enough,” but naturally that’s not his fault at all given that there are Republicans in Congress (never mind how many authoritarian and right-wing moves Obama has pulled with no help from Congress whatsoever). Just as a reminder why Obama does not, in fact, deserve to be remembered as a highly underappreciated president (even if Republicans have been entirely unfair to him, which they have), let’s just go through and rebut all of Clifton’s arguments.

First is the economy. Clifton’s argument is basically that the economy was plummeting into a deep hole when Obama came into office, but it’s growing now. True, and he deserves some credit for that—the stimulus did, I believe, help prevent another Great Depression, even if it was smaller and weaker than it should have been in the name of “bipartisanship.” But there’s a less pleasant aspect of the economy that’s also growing: inequality, and Obama has done virtually nothing to effectively address that. Rather, he’s bailed out Wall Street with essentially no strings attached, sold every last bit of General Motors that was publicly owned as a result of the auto bailout (missing a huge opportunity to actually reorganize the business in a more worker-friendly and environmentally friendly way), sent just one single banker to jail for the massive fraud that caused the financial crisis, and readily offered up cuts to social programs that help lower-income Americans. A modern-day FDR he is not. Yes, a stubborn and partisan GOP has had a big hand in making sure no meaningful reform is passed (Dodd-Frank doesn’t count, seeing as it’s basically toothless), but even in carrying out already-existing laws, Obama has done far less than he could have to try to reverse the corporate oligarchy that’s been emerging for decades.

Clifton’s second item is “combating terrorism.” He spends most of his time pointing out how many Americans died under Bush versus under Obama, which is sort of a weak argument in Obama’s favor, seeing as George W. Bush was sort of one of the worst presidents ever, by any measure. The only accomplishments he actually cites are the killing of Osama bin Laden and that Obama supposedly got Syria to surrender its chemical weapons. As has been said before, the bin Laden’s killing was a serious violation of international law, and could have provoked a war with Pakistan; it’s nice to have bin Laden out of the world, but there were better ways to go about it. As for Syria’s chemical weapons, it was Putin that succeeded in pressuring Syria into handing over its weapons, as Obama had essentially given up diplomacy and was moving toward airstrikes—but, according to Clifton, it was all part of Obama’s elaborate plan to shelve negotiations, threaten airstrikes, and have his Secretary of State make an offhand comment in order to get Syria to surrender the weapons (no, seriously). Clifton asks how a president could otherwise have combated terrorism as much as Obama has without starting one or two more wars, but that ignores the drone war expanding into Pakistan and Yemen that Obama dramatically escalated, and which experts have said is likely to create far more terrorists than it kills. Then, of course, there’s the fact that raining death out of the sky in order to scare people away from joining groups that hate your country sort of is terrorism.

Clifton’s third point is Obama’s record on gay rights, which is Clifton’s most reasonable assertion. Obama has helped make historic strides for gay Americans, which is laudable. But even here, it’s hard to say Obama’s exactly living up to the standards one might hope for—take his judicial nominee Michael Boggs, who’s known for taking socially conservative stances. Boggs was nominated well after Obama came out in support of gay marriage, too, which leads one to question just how devout Obama’s pro-gay rights views are, and to what extent they may be to appease his base. The best president for gays so far, yes, but that reality is owed more to the American people, who have recently taken a far more favorable view toward gay rights than they did not so long ago, than any deep conviction on Obama’s part.

Pro-Obama point number four is the healthcare law he championed and signed into law, whose benefits Clifton reminds us of. A good thing, yes, but, yet again, Clifton misses Obama’s sellouts to big business and capitulation to the right; he even cut a deal with the for-profit hospital lobby to abandon the public option. Perhaps the current healthcare bill is the best that could have passed, given the circumstances, but one might have hoped for a bit of a stronger fight from the White House. There’s also a key point that should be noted: Obama did not somehow achieve universal healthcare by being more forceful than previous champions of the idea (FDR, Truman, Kennedy, etc.). Rather, he settled for less than they would—Richard Nixon proposed a healthcare law to the left of Obama’s, and Ted Kennedy refused to back it because it was still too conservative for his tastes.

The fifth and final item on Clifton’s list is the extreme partisan opposition Obama has faced, which Clifton admits isn’t really an accomplishment on Obama’s part rather than just an extenuating circumstance. As I said before, there’s truth to this—Obama’s opposition has been far more reactionary and inflexible than that under previous presidencies. But that’s an excuse, not an accomplishment, and it’s not a very good excuse, given how readily Obama has kowtowed to corporate interests all on his own, and how the worst aspects of his presidency (the drone war, the support for Egypt’s dictatorship, the war on whistleblowers, and so on) have nothing to do with what Obama was prevented from doing, but rather what he wasn’t prevented from doing.

Clifton goes on to mention in his conclusion that he could discuss, were he writing something longer, accomplishments including “credit reform, women’s rights, student loan reform, income inequality, the minimum wage, immigration reform.” There may be some validity to arguing Obama has made progress with credit reform, student loan reform, and the minimum wage (though the impact of anything Obama’s done in those three areas is probably is much more marginal than Clifton seems to think), but, as previously stated, he has failed to do much of anything to reverse the widening gap between the rich and the middle class, and as for immigration, his “accomplishments” include opening new detention centers for families and children (to the condemnation of both human rights groups and some congressional Democrats) and (as of late 2013, at least) deporting more people per year than any other president in history.*

Clifton states in his final paragraph that “I do get a little annoyed when I see so many people act as if Barack Obama has been this horrible president who hasn’t accomplished anything.” That much we can agree on; Obama is a president whose “accomplishments”—radically escalating the drone war, expanding the security state, the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen—are anything but insignificant. It really is unfortunate that they haven’t gotten the attention they deserve.  

 

*[Addendum 9/27/2020]: Due to the distinction between between "removals" and "returns" (with only the the latter generally being counted as deportations) and the shift away from the latter and towards the former, one could argue that saying Obama deported more people than any other president doesn't give a full picture; however, even if it's only technically true, it still seems worth considering before praising his record on immigration. 

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post erroneously said that the Obama administration had not prosecuted any Wall Street executives for the financial crisis; this has been corrected. 

 

 

How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Big Brother

For anyone around my age who casually follows politics, this fact might seem a little odd and confusing, but not all that long ago, “anti-government” sentiment came mostly from the left. Back in the 1960’s, it was the New Left that threatened the social order and wasn’t on what you’d call great terms with government on any level, given their opposition to the Vietnam War, their views on drugs, and their treatment at the hands of the police (outside of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, most prominently). Accordingly, when the New Left scored something of a posthumous victory as anti-war ultraliberal George McGovern was nominated, the attack against him was not that he’d be a “big-government socialist,” but rather that he believed in “amnesty, abortion, and acid”—all of which would involve less, not more, government interference in people’s lives. Nixon’s 1968 campaign, on the other hand, had focused on a return to “law and order” and appropriately so; it would have been a huge fraud if Nixon had run as someone promising to make government smaller, given his declaration of the “War on Drugs” and generally fascistic handling of his presidency.

The 60’s-70’s period was not entirely an anomaly, either; the American left’s intellectual heritage goes back to Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, among others—all of whom were, to say the least, extremely skeptical about government, and very wary of it gaining too much power. This tradition of distrusting government as an institution continued well into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; Henry David Thoreau, a pacifist, abolitionist, and environmentalist, was the one who originally coined the phrase that “the government is best which governs least.” Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), a radical for his day and age (and, to some extent, by today’s standards as well) wrote in one of his pieces that “the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.” His derision of politicians rivals that of Tea Partiers today. Henry George, a popular social reformer of about the same era who helped influence the later Progressive Movement,  promoted limited government while at the same time indicting the inequality of wealth that existed.

This tradition of distrusting the government extended into the twentieth century with figures like Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, a staunch proponent of limiting government power, who warned that we should “be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.” Clarence Darrow, the famed lawyer and another notable liberal, fought tenaciously against every encroachment of government upon the people’s freedoms; he even went so far as to say that “every government on earth is the personification of violence and force.” Pretty much as anti-government a quote as you could ask for. 

 It was, then, not without precedent that the New Left waged its war on “The Establishment”—a war that, while not really successful, managed to bring into the spotlight new issues, such as an opposition to the Vietnam War, a desire to reevaluate “traditional” American values, and a support for drug policy reform, all of which helped propel George McGovern to capture the 1972 Democratic nomination over the sort of Cold War liberal candidates that had dominated the party for the past decades. Rather, the New Left had a long history of high-profile and even relatively mainstream left-wing and liberal figures to draw off of (even if the New Left detested “liberals”, meaning hawkish party insiders like President Lyndon Johnson).

 While “liberalism” from the forties to the sixties often referred to an ideology that was all too eager to suppress civil liberties and start wars in the name of “fighting Communism,” liberals could generally be counted on to be at least slightly less eager to destroy the Bill of Rights, and there were moments when liberals did speak out against the Red Scare that was going on, such as when reporter Edward R. Murrow said that “we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.” And, wisely, from FDR to LBJ, Democratic presidents framed their economic programs in terms of the evils they were intended to avoid—such as corporate oligarchy—rather than trying to portray government as some objectively good institution; on the contrary, despite their, shall we say, checkered records in terms of actually protecting individual rights, these presidents and their allies and supporters were wise enough to portray themselves as being enemies of tyranny (such as when Harry Truman accused his opponent of being a front man for a fascist movement, among other instances). Even when right-wingers accused liberals of promoting some kind of economic tyranny, the response was to paint them as being in line with corporate interests and enemies of the common man, rather than just the government.

After Nixon soared to reelection over McGovern, things fell apart pretty quickly for him, as the Watergate scandal ultimately resulted in his resignation. This and the Vietnam War had shattered Americans’ view of their government. This should have been good news for a left wing that had renewed its anti-authoritarianism with the nomination of McGovern, and, in fact, Jimmy Carter capitalized off of it pretty effectively, notably saying in his acceptance speech for the Democratic Nomination that “It is time for the people to run the government, and not the other way around.”

However, after four ineffectual years (due largely to bad luck more than any fault of his own), Carter was ousted by Ronald Reagan, claiming to represent some kind of “small government conservatism.” His time in office was characterized by anything but a reduction in government, as spending increased, wars were started, terrorists were armed in foreign countries, the military-industrial complex spun out of control, and civil liberties were put in danger by measures such as Executive Order 12333, which the NSA uses to this day to justify its domestic spying.

In the decades after Reagan’s presidency, Republicans have continued to claim they support limited government while promoting an increasingly fascistic agenda. And for some reason, liberals have decided not to challenge their absurd claim to be for small government. Instead, they’ve embraced it and, apparently, believe it themselves—take Forward Progressives, a popular liberal website where “anti-government” is used frequently as an epithet against Tea Partiers, or when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid compared them to early twentieth century anarchists on the Senate Floor.

There are a couple problems with this, the first being that it’s not true. There’s no conceivable way a movement that endorses the sort of radical social conservatism and theocracy that the Tea Party does can be called “anti-government”—Tea Partiers dislike government run by Democrats, but not government as an institution (unlike Jefferson, Paine, and actual anarchists). They were all too happy to rally behind Rick Santorum, whose “small government” views included supporting a ban on hardcore porn and talking about the dangers of free speech, and Herman Cain, who thought cities should be able to ban mosques from existing within their borders.

The second problem with pro-government liberalism is that it’s a strategically idiotic stance to take. Americans would be lunatics to trust their government at this point, and, accordingly, they largely don’t. There are about a thousand valid reasons to hate the United States government, so trying to smear your opponents by calling them anti-government is about as likely to be effective as attacking them for being pro-puppy. When Tea Partiers try to use George Orwell against liberals, the correct response would be to point out how there’s nothing more Orwellian than a group of ultra-reactionary theocratic social conservatives saying they stand for “freedom” and “limited government,” not just saying, “oh, that’s silly.”

The third problem is that reinforcing the idea that liberalism is in favor of government actually impacts the views that liberals have. A Washington Post poll from last year showed that liberals support the NSA programs by a 2-1 margin (a greater level of support than they enjoy from conservatives or moderates); only about a third of liberal Democrats believe what should be an obvious truth, that the government is a threat to their freedoms (just about every other ideological group believes so at a higher rate), and thirty-two percent (based on a Pew poll from 2013) believe the absurd idea that government will do the right thing “most or all of the time.” Allen Clifton, a self-described progressive, recently busied himself complaining about how everyone is trying to make the police look bad and it’s not fair, even defending a police officer who decided to arrest a man for talking to him while he was writing a ticket (the man was trying to tell the officer that his son, who was receiving the ticket, is autistic). He attacked those criticizing the police as “anti-government” (predictably) and “far-right.”

There’s this thing liberalism is supposed to be about: liberty. It’s sort of what the word is named after. It’s a bit lacking in a lot of the modern movement. Even when it comes to the issues where liberals are promoting freedom from government interference, a lot of them can’t seem to admit it—gay marriage is about tolerance and equality, abortion and contraception are about women being treated fairly, etc. That’s not to say that those aren’t good points, but they essentially hinge on the idea that actions should be permitted because we want to be nice to the people doing them.

While it’s absurd that Tea Partiers are ready to claim we’re headed toward a tyranny when President Obama does virtually anything, that doesn’t mean that It Can’t Happen Here and it’s silly to worry about government tyranny at all, as some liberals have argued, or at least implied, including President Obama. Obviously, there are liberals who this description doesn’t fit at all (Glenn Greenwald, most prominently), but those are people outside of what we might call mainstream liberalism, and they know it. The idea at the core of liberalism—that government’s role should be to protect and assist its citizens, not oppress them—has been violated time and time again by those claiming to be liberals. But what we’re looking at here is something fundamentally different, and perhaps more dangerous: an attempt to redefine liberalism as an ideology that loves big government (as evidenced by numerous love-letters written by liberals to big government, sometimes disturbingly literally) and scoffs at those who think tyranny could actually happen in the United States. That’s not an ideology that deserves to call itself liberalism. And it’s not one that’s smart on any level in the country we live in today.

Defending Moral Relativism

Whether or not they’re well-educated enough to know the phrase “moral relativism,” there are a lot of people—the fervently religious in particular—who are absolutely terrified of the concept. Supposedly, if there’s not some objectively right morality (usually, but not always, dictated by some kind of god), then there’s no way of condemning the Holocaust, rape, or whatever else the opponent of moral relativism can come up with. This argument is particularly popular by religious fundamentalists as a supposed criticism of atheism. In reality, there are quite a few atheists who believe in objective morality (Sam Harris, for instance)—but, really, regardless of religiosity, I think moral relativism is not something to be wary of, but something to embrace, and stand up for.

Moral relativism, in my view, is the idea that everyone is free to decide on their own set of moral rules. What are considered fundamental values differs radically from person to person, and so it only makes sense that each person should be at liberty to decide what sort of moral rules logically follow from their personal values. Without this principle, the idea of being an individual or “choosing your own path” becomes meaningless. Objective morality is the demand that each person adhere to a certain set of rules, and it grants no right to challenge those rules. Moral relativism, on the other hand, offers everyone the opportunity to reflect on what they stand for and devise their own rules and guidelines from those principles.

As for the objections to moral relativism, a close examination proves them to be completely without merit. Most people, I think, can agree that there’s no objective code for what makes a good movie or good book—sure, there are guidelines, but they aren’t rigid or unquestionable. Even those guidelines weren’t handed down by God; they were just arrived at by a sort of general consensus. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no way to criticize 50 Shades of Gray or Troll 2—the fact that there’s no objective definition of a “good movie” or “good book” doesn’t mean I have to accept these works as good, or even that I can’t view them as bad. Whether a movie or a book is good or bad in my opinion depends on my own personal taste, and my personal beliefs on what makes a movie or book good or bad. The same concept applies with moral relativism; there’s no objective right or wrong, but that doesn’t mean you can’t condemn actions if you find them to be abhorrent. Furthermore, no one needs some abstract moral code to oppose mass murder, or rape, or torture; they just need some amount of interest in the well-being of others. To imply it’s impossible to care about other people’s welfare without being commanded to do so by some set of divine rules is downright insulting to any concept of human decency.

I suppose the great fear here is that if everyone is allowed to base their morality on their feelings rather than some kind of unquestionable maxims, then we’ll have a societal breakdown as everyone acts on whatever whim they have at the moment. Ultimately, that idea is just kind of silly. In fact, moral relativism affords us a great opportunity as a society: to actually evaluate whether the values we teach our children and (theoretically) abide by ourselves are actually effective at maintaining a happy and stable society, or whether they’re outdated and should be done away with. For instance, the only reason some of our more prudish sexual mores have hung around so long is probably just because society shuns anyone who tries to question them, rather than actually listening to their arguments. Moral relativism doesn’t dictate that our society can’t hold to any values, but rather that the values it does hold to should be thought out properly instead of being clung to out of some blind faith in their veracity.

In rebuttal to those who try to argue that moral relativism is dangerous and enables the worst and most damaging behaviors, I’d like to argue the exact opposite: moral absolutism is what’s truly dangerous and what often justifies the worst things in history. For instance, it’s a common narrative that Hitler’s rise was due to moral relativism, but the exact opposite is true: some of the groups Hitler targeted—homosexuals, for instance—were chosen out of some twisted idea of protecting public morality. At least, that’s how he and his cronies portrayed it, and that’s why the German population went along with it.

The danger of moral absolutism is that when you’re convinced you’re enforcing some morality that can’t be challenged, it’s easy to justify the worst atrocities, because anyone who stands in the way of your moral crusade is immoral ipso facto, and therefore whatever happens to them is well-deserved. Moral relativism doesn’t have this issue; no principle or value is above criticism, and you have to evaluate your actions by their actual effects, not whether they’re promoting some sacred cause. For a moral absolutist, it’s easy to explain why they and their followers can commit heinous crimes and not be just as bad (or worse) than those they oppose: “We’re the ones fighting for what’s right.” It’s the same attitude Bob Dylan described when he sang, “you never ask questions when God’s on your side.” For a moral relativist, though, the question is quite a bit more difficult, because they recognize that if they’re harming others as much, or more, than those they’re fighting against, there may be no rational way to claim some moral high-ground.

Lastly, I’d like to argue something that might seem counterintuitive to many people: moral relativism, at least in the practical sense, is not at all incompatible with religion. For instance, one can look at the philosophy of the devout Christian Søren Kierkegaard. In Kierkegaard’s view, ethics are just rules set up for the benefit of society, but it’s ultimately up to each individual to decide their own morals, based on who they are. Kierkegaard believed that the only legitimate relationship with God was an intensely personal one that superseded any human institutions, such as churches, for instance. And, Kierkegaard believed, what’s right from a religious or teleological perspective (which was up to each person to divine from their relationship with God) sometimes runs completely contrary to all of the ethical rules society holds dear. This is, for all intents and purposes, a belief in moral relativism.

Ultimately, the choice is clear: if we value the idea that each person should be able to be true to themselves, to choose their own way—that is, if we actually believe all the clichés we have about “being yourself”—moral relativism is the only rationally consistent choice. If we believe the chief virtue a person can have is an unwavering obedience to rules—necessarily, the rules of man (who wrote all those holy books, after all?)—then moral absolutism is the appropriate position to take. It’s a choice for each person to make, but I thought I’d do my best to dispel any illusions about the options.

Bill Maher's Attack on Islam (and facts)

When uneducated, socially conservative, Christian fundamentalists attack Islam and Muslims, I am neither surprised nor particularly interested. It’s inevitable that among the ignorant and the bigots in America (of which there are many) opinions like that are going to be held. Likewise, when far-right political parties in Europe take anti-Muslim stances, it’s to be expected. It doesn’t interest me that much because I don’t have much respect for the opinions of those groups. However, when intelligent people who call themselves liberals, and with whom I agree on a number of issues, start attacking Islam in ways that go beyond any rational justification, I do feel some need to speak out, and that’s what I’m doing right now.

I want to take as a particular example Bill Maher’s recent anti-Islam rant, because it nicely captures the phenomenon I’m talking about. It’s already been pretty well refuted by Reza Aslan, so I might end up reiterating some of his points, but I’d like to expand on what he said a little. Now, I like Bill Maher, and I agree with him the vast majority of the time—I think his recent reaction to our new war in Iraq was spot-on, for instance. But when it comes to Islam, he starts to sound like people I agree with a lot less of the time, like Sam Harris or the late Christopher Hitchens, both defenders, at least to some extent, of the Iraq War (the second one, that is). Now, before I dissect his tirade, I’d like to make it clear that I’m not arguing for holding Islam to some standard other than any the one I’d hold any other religion to; I’m not a Muslim, nor do I agree with Islamic orthodoxy. But Bill Maher and some of the other outspoken atheist personalities are painting a picture of Islam that’s absurdly oversimplified, and are using criticism of Islamic dogma as a pretense for attacking Muslims as people.

Maher starts by arguing that due to its views on apostasy, adultery, etc. the “Muslim world” has not only common ground with ISIS, but too much common ground. He

casually claims that “vast numbers of Muslims” believe in the death penalty for apostasy. He cites absolutely nothing to back this up, but that’s not even really the point. The real issue is that he fails to take into account the various countries and cultures from which these “vast numbers” of Muslims hail; take Turkey, a country of over 76.5 million people where Muslims make up over 98% of the population; in that country, support for making Sharia law the law of the land is a paltry 12%, based on a Pew poll released in 2013; among that twelve percent (half of whom think Sharia should only be applied to Muslim citizens even if it is made the law of the land), support for stoning as a punishment for adultery is only 29%, and support for the death penalty for leaving Islam—i.e., apostasy—is only seventeen percent. That means among the whole population, support for either of those is in the low single digits. Let’s keep in mind that in America’s golden age during World War II, around thirteen percent of our population supported the extermination of the Japanese race, man, woman, and child; Turkey suddenly seems pretty enlightened, doesn’t it? And, if you look at the poll yourself, you’ll find the results are similar in plenty of other Muslim countries.

But that’s just the beginning. Maher goes on, talking about how the “rule of law” is better than theocracy—okay, fair enough. But what evidence is there that Islam necessitates theocracy? Lebanon, Turkey, Kosovo, and Albania (just to name a few) are majority Muslim states run as parliamentary democracies. As said before, support for making Sharia the law of the land in countries like these is often quite low. So in what way is it fair to equate Islam with theocracy? The fact that there exist Islamic theocracies is no more indicative that Islam promotes theocracy than is the fact there exists atheist states that repress religion indicative that atheism necessitates state suppression of religion.

Maher’s talk of “rule of law” is just another part of the problem; he talks about “liberal Western values” earlier in the segment, too, but there’s sort of an issue with that whole idea: those “liberal Western values” are for Us, not Them. That’s been true from early on, when everyone had unalienable rights except for slaves or Native Americans, naturally. Granted, the “Us” has expanded from propertied white males to all citizens of the United States (to at least some extent), but the United States’ sphere of influence has expanded even more. Our “liberal Western values” have resulted in us supporting—sometimes personally installing—autocratic, authoritarian, and even genocidal regimes. Oh, and probably the worst Islamic theocracy, Saudi Arabia? We support them. The Taliban? We created them. It’s fine if Bill Maher wants to say the Muslim world doesn’t live up to the values that he holds dear—it doesn’t live up to the values that I hold dear, either—but if Maher honestly thinks the values the West has historically represented, and continues to represent, are better than the Muslim world’s, he needs to learn about American history from somewhere other than high school textbooks.

Maher goes on to talk about how in order to count as a liberal, you have to stand up for liberal values—again, fair enough. He then comments that “It amazes me how here in America we go nuts over the tiniest violations of these values while gross atrocities are ignored across the world.” Let’s take a look at the examples he cites. First, he cites how homosexual acts are punished by death in ten countries. True. But let’s keep in mind that anti-gay laws aren’t exactly exclusive to Islamic countries; Uganda—an overwhelmingly Christian country—recently passed a harsh anti-gay law. Further, while in every Muslim country there’s certainly progress to be made in terms of LGBT rights, there are promising events in some of them. In Albania, for instance, gays and lesbians were granted the right to serve openly in the military in 2008, when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still in effect for the United States, and a hate crime law has been passed which surpasses anything in effect in the US as well. Albania—a country where almost six out of ten people are Muslim—has also signed onto a UN Declaration supporting LGBT rights. Granted, Albania’s rights and protections granted to LGBT people extend beyond most of the other Muslim countries, but there are similar protections in some, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.

Maher’s homophobia accusation provides a particularly interesting chance to examine the real origins of homophobia in many Islamic cultures. The Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim world notes:

Whatever the legal strictures on sexual activity, the positive expression of male homeoerotic sentiment in literature was accepted, and assiduously cultivated, from the late eighth century until modern times. First in Arabic, but later also in Persian, Turkish and Urdu, love poetry by men about boys more than competed with that about women, it overwhelmed it. Anecdotal literature reinforces this impression of general societal acceptance of the public celebration of male-male love (which hostile Western caricatures of Islamic societies in medieval and early modern times simply exaggerate).

In fact, it appears the current homophobia may be the legacy of intervention from those Westerners Maher is so fond of.

Maher’s next point is the supposed sexism of Islam; he cites Saudi Arabia as an example of Islamic oppression of women. Again, Saudi Arabia (a US ally as mentioned before) is probably the worst Islamic state, so using it to indict Islam is about as fair as using Uganda to indict Christianity. There are Muslim countries that have substantial numbers of women in government right now, and have had women as their heads of state. How many female heads of state has the US had? Oh, right—zero.

He then moves on to discussing female genital mutilation, ignoring the fact that that’s a problem that happens throughout Africa, including in Christian countries, and is by no means prevalent in every Muslim country. A particularly outlandish remark is made here, when Maher ridicules the argument made by Yale’s atheist group that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of FGM, doesn’t “represent a totality of the ex-Muslim experience,” by asking whether they mean the women who like mutilation. Perhaps worse than this remark is the utter non-response that it has elicited. Imagine that Bill Maher had mocked the idea that someone who had been molested by a clergyman doesn’t represent the ex-Christian by asking, “Meaning what? The people that liked being molested?” The outrage would have been enormous. Or what if he’d sarcastically asked if representing the ex-Jewish experience fairly meant finding someone who “had liked having his foreskin cut off?” The Anti-Defamation League would have pitched a fit.

Furthermore, there’s a better explanation to the lack of liberal outrage at these facts than some refusal to criticize Islam—these things aren’t happening here, in the country we’re supposed to be in control of. I haven’t heard a great deal of outrage from Bill Maher about North Korea’s prison camps—is that because he refuses to criticize an atheist country? Or is it maybe that what’s happening across the world, and which we have little, if any, control over, isn’t worth pointlessly raising hell about?

Maher accuses his fellow liberals of siding with people who “hold women down and violate them,” but this is just utter nonsense. There are no liberals defending female genital mutilation or oppression of women; there are just liberals who recognize that the attitudes of people like Bill Maher and Sam “at war with Islam” Harris will do nothing but hate-monger. You don’t defeat an ideology by attacking those who abide by it. The anti-Islamic sentiment of people like Harris and Maher is demanding that every Muslim abandon their religion if they want to fight against Islamic extremism and terror groups like ISIS. But convincing the Muslim world that the West really does hate their religion and want to wipe it out is not a recipe for some secular paradise; it’s a recipe for failure. Maher might think he’s being boldly truthful and politically incorrect, but he’s actually just incorrect, and he might want to consider doing research before he gratuitously attacks the religion of 1.6 billion people.

Note: This blog post was edited to change the description of Harris and Hitchens as "avid supporters of the Iraq War" to the current description as "defenders, at least to some extent, of the Iraq War." This was done after research on the subject revealed that Harris has not so much voiced support for the Iraq War (let alone avid support) as much as he has simply tried to argue it could be justified in some way on humanitarian grounds, and generally attacked those who opposed it. I apologize for the error.