No Responses to “Conservatives and Civil Liberties”

1. Joe, on April 16th, 2009 at 9:03 am Said:

   John, I think Andrew might be referring to mainstream right blogs discussing yesterday’s NYT story about the NSA after having the hissy fit about the DHS radical right terror report.

2. John Schwenkler, on April 16th, 2009 at 9:32 am Said:

   Yes, I see that. But then the word he should have used was “Republican”, not “conservative” or “right-wing”. The problem here is the same as the one identified in my “Blaming Religion” post: it’s excessive partisanship that’s the problem, not excessive conservatism or religiosity, which is of course why it’s not especially surprising that the Dish has become much shriller and less interesting since the Party of Andrew was swallowed nearly whole by that of Obama. But by casually blaming conservatism and Christianity for being the source of our problems in the ways he so often does, Andrew plays right into the hands of those who want to make the kinds of false identifications that he should be fighting against.

3. Colm, on April 16th, 2009 at 2:03 pm Said:

   Mark Shea, I think, has been talking about this since 2003/4.

4. John Schwenkler, on April 16th, 2009 at 2:33 pm Said:

   Yes, he has. But once again that wouldn’t square nicely with the “blame it on religion” angle, now would it?

5. Burnsey, on April 17th, 2009 at 7:45 am Said:

   John-

   I think you totally miss what Andrew thinks about Christianity and what he calls CHRISTIANISTS. The two are completely removed from each other in thought, word and deed. He does NOT blame CHRISTIANS, he blames CHRISTIANISTS, which he defines as those who use religion to further their political or social gain, and donot fully believe in or have faith in the tenants of CHRISTIANITY. He does not think of the CHRISTIANISTS as the same thing as CHRISTIANS, who actually do believe in their religious tenants. He does not blame religion but those who would use religion for their own nefarious purposes. There is a line here that I think you might be intentionally blurring. Or do you just not see the difference?

   And by the way, his post you reference has no mention of Christian, christianist or God in any way, so not quite sure why that is a topic in this particular thread.

   and I like your new site design. It may be old, but I haven’t visited in a while…

6. John Schwenkler, on April 17th, 2009 at 8:32 am Said:

   Burnsey,

   I appreciate the distinction between “Christians” and “Christianists”, but while what you write may indeed give the official meaning of the latter, Sullivan’s actual use of the term is much wider and less discriminate than that. And in any case there’s no denying that, e.g. in his praise of Linker’s writing, Sullivan often makes it clear that he thinks the desire to have religious (i.e, “illiberal”) values do heavy work in politics is itself a key part of what’s gone wrong.

   As to topicality, I made an explicit connection between that comment and some of what I’d said in (and in response to) an earlier post (http://johnschwenkler.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/blaming-religion/); my point was just that there’s a similar sort of misdiagnosis going on in both cases.

7. Burnsey, on April 17th, 2009 at 9:43 am Said:

   John, I respectfully disagree with your definition of what Andrew thinks the word means. He states his definition here:

   http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2006/08/hewitts_confess.html

   And this is what he says, which is pretty much the same thing I said at least I believe they are the same, with the possible exception that Andrew might believe that Christianists also have some genuine Christian beliefs.

   “Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.”

   And in the same post he provides examples of his past definition of the word so you can see his repeated efforts at explanation of that term.

   And I would have to disagree that Andrew believes that religious must mean illiberal. He has great faith in the edicts and ideas of some Christian people and movements and in fact defines himself as a Christian and somewhat religious.

   So it would be a stretch to think he thinks of himself as illiberal (which would follow your logic above). He may in fact think, as I do, that there are many religious organizations that are illiberal.

   There is a huge difference between decrying the organized religious INSTITUTIONS as bigoted and against liberal ideology and practices, and claiming that all religious people or organizations are illiberal.

   It’s sort of funny because I think that many Christian people are more liberal than political liberals are. The concerns of Christ were some of the most liberal ideas ever presented in humanity. I always wondered how the term conservative (talking only politics) came to be the equivalent of Christian. Caring for the poor, about the environment, being your brothers keeper and various social concerns is very liberal at it’s heart. So much contrast compared to political conservatism which usually evokes the “You are on your own” ideology (right or wrong that is the impression the republican party and majority of conservatives give off to those of us who are not conservative). Never ceases to amaze me.

8. John Schwenkler, on April 17th, 2009 at 9:51 am Said:

   You seem to be misunderstanding me. Again, I appreciate that that’s Andrew’s definition; as I said, though, he tends to use the term much more expansively than that, and I think that it’s in the use that the meaning is embodied. Nor did I mean to attribute to him the conviction that “religious must mean illiberal” – it’s just that in his view the idea that, as it’s put in the paragraph you quote, “religion [should] dictate politics” is an essentially dangerous and illiberal one, and I think that’s nonsense; or in any case, even if it’s not nonsense it’s clearly the wrong lesson to draw from the Bush years.