Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 03-13-2003, 11:58 PM

and secular leftist vs. secular leftist.

There is an interesting exchange of letters between Doug Ireland and Christopher Hitchens in the LA Weekly online:

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/17/news-ireland.php

Ireland:

Quote:

You have always proclaimed � and I am not aware it is a view you have renounced � that you are an atheist, and I�ve heard you over the years make some of the best arguments for godlessness one can proffer. But this administration�s politics are riddled with theocracy, and the way in which Bush has now put the fight against AIDS and sex education into the hands of the right-wing Christers and condom opponents and the abstinence-only crowd is crippling AIDS-prevention efforts, both at home (where the CDC has just reported a dramatic upsurge in new HIV infections) and abroad.

Hitchens:

Quote:

My opposition to religion and the religious is deeper than you credit. It extends to contempt for Lieberman�s fundamentalism and Clinton�s fawning on Billy Graham (now, there was a prayer breakfast for you!), . . . .

As recently as a January piece I wrote for The Wall Street Journal, which invited me to review the conservative movement, I laid the main stress on the horrors of "faith-based" politics. I could and should have said more about the swinish business of sabotaging family planning in the "tiers monde," but I have written about that elsewhere, and my whole campaign against �mother� T was based partly on the role she played in spreading disease and death in this manner.

However, Duggers old horse, you know better than to suggest any equivalence between American god-botherers and Osama. (The nearest to equivalence one could get would be Robertson and Falwell saying that America had it coming on 9/11: Chomsky and Fisk in clerical drag.) Nobody is going to escape their share of irony and contradiction here: Bush is actually forced to defend the secular state and to make secular allies, even if he fantasizes about some kingdom of heaven. Bin Laden makes a deal with Saddam even though one worships "god" and the other asks people to worship only himself. Secularists like Ramsey Clark make excuses for al Qaeda. Paul Wolfowitz, the smartest guy in the administration, is a secularist to the bones. And I, little me, the most committed anti-theist of us all, have decided that the overriding issue is the willingness of the U.S. to intervene in the civil war that�s going on in the Muslim world, and to help make sure the other side loses. This can�t be difficult to understand, surely. I don�t think the Democrats are truly serious about this, and so I accept the logical and probable consequences of my decision, some of which I know will distress me, let alone you.

03-14-2003, 02:33 PM

An interesting discussion, Toto. Thanks for posting the link. I see the POV of both of them. It must be distressingly difficult to know how to vote in the USA if you are a thinking atheist.

Toto · 03-14-2003, 03:21 PM

I admire Hitchens' writing, but I think he has just gone off the deep end on this. His reasons make sense, but he seems to have split from his leftist allies on cultural matters, and is using his intellect to rationalize things.

He really does not like Clinton, but that hardly excuses thinking that only George Bush is standing between us and a worse theocracy.

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03-14-2003, 02:33 PM	#2
DMB Guest Posts: n/a	An interesting discussion, Toto. Thanks for posting the link. I see the POV of both of them. It must be distressingly difficult to know how to vote in the USA if you are a thinking atheist.

03-14-2003, 03:21 PM	#3
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	I admire Hitchens' writing, but I think he has just gone off the deep end on this. His reasons make sense, but he seems to have split from his leftist allies on cultural matters, and is using his intellect to rationalize things. He really does not like Clinton, but that hardly excuses thinking that only George Bush is standing between us and a worse theocracy.

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