Scrambles

copernicus,

Just because the owner is australian does not mean that the news style is common in australia. (I'm not australian so I can't say you are wrong, just that you seem to be doing the same thing you are being critical of...making conclusions based on incomplete information).

Maybe if the vast majority that worried about all that stuff voted it would make a difference. They can't be too worried now can they?

The fact that anti-evolutionists got that much leverage shows that on the scale of fundyism, america is very very high. Maybe not everyone is a fundy, but there are enough people who will side with the fundies or not oppose them that the fundies can make stuff happen.

In the runup to the presidential elections, the candidates were quoting from the bible (or at least alluding to something in the bible) on at least one occasion!! If that happened in australia, NZ or britain they would probably get hammered in the elections.

Also, your "right" seems to be pretty fucking far to the right from the viewpoint of other countries. I doubt your "left" would be considered left by many other countries.


Scrambles

copernicus

I don't see how you drew that inference from my comments. My point was that it is hypocritical to blame Americans. We draw from the very worst of all nations.

I don't think that Americans are very good about voting their political preferences. The conventional wisdom is that their elections have more to do with personality contests than the politics of the candidates. Winners get to impose their political agendas, but voters just do not seem to hold them accountable. I do not think that it would help to have more people vote. That would still not necessarily make them think through the political consequences of their votes.

Wait a minute. This didn't happen in "America" as a whole. It happened in Oklahoma. And the voters did correct the problem, once it became clear that religious nuts had taken over the school board. As I said before, Americans rarely pay attention to future political consequences. They follow charisma. Once those consequences become evident, they pay attention.

I'm not so sure, but that doesn't bother me. I think that voters would find other reasons to make stupid choices in those countries. If Australia, NZ, or Britain suddenly became the sole superpower in the world, I suspect that the voters' egos would rise to the occasion.

So what? All you are saying is that the scales are different. Nobody is absolutely right or wrong. Democracy is all about maintaining political stability over time. It doesn't guarantee smart voters or voters that always define "liberal" and "conservative" on the same scale.

Scrambles

copernicus,

Just a couple of points

Ok, in Oklahoma. The fact that it happened in the first place is damming. The fact that it was rectified doesn't nullify the fact that it was allowed to happen.

This doesn't have anything to do with the original statements that you took issue to. The statements you really took issue to were...
and...
We're talking about the religiosity and conservitism of americans.

So what?... you failed to recognise that the scales were different when you took issue with the statement that the political leanings of americans are very conservative. To whit:
The fact is that your "right" is very very far right from the point of view of most other countries and that your left, while being socially more liberal, would still be on the economic right in alot of countries. See how people from other countries can see the leanings of americans as quite conservative?


Scrambles

copernicus

Nonsense. That is exactly what democracy is all about. The religious right, not to mention other well-organized fringe groups, has had a history of sneaking stealth candidates into office. The Republican Party is not a fundamentalist organization, but there are states and locales where fundamentalist religious groups have infiltrated and taken over. My own state of Washington is a case in point. The Republicans have had very public internal battles between religious extremists and more mainstream Republicans.

My point was perfectly on topic, and you are now the one who is trying to obscure the real point. When I brought up the Oklahoma case to argue against the claim that the majority of Americans are fundamentalists, you used the Oklahoma issue to argue that the level of "fundyism" was high in the US as a whole. You apparently didn't read what I said very carefully. The Oklahoma incident didn't even show that the level of "fundyism" was high in that state, one of our more conservative Republican-dominated states. When the people became aware that the school policy on evolution had changed, they promptly voted the fundamentalists off the board. The national press reported it as a stinging rebuke to the fundamentalist minority.

Exactly so.

I agree with the claim that the American scale is shifted further to the right in the US than in most European countries at this point in time. I disagree very strongly with the remarks that attributed a fundamentalist religious mentality to the majority of Americans. That is patently false, and most people who have had direct experience with America know that. Not even most fundamentalists would claim that they are in the majority. Have you ever even visited the US? You talk as if you haven't the slightest idea of what politics is like here.

Actually, I agree that the American scale is now right-shifted in comparison with most of Western Europe. Given your previous observations on American politics, I would have to disagree that our scale is "very far right". I think that you have no idea of the political spectrum in America. Moreover, I think that educated Europeans such as yourself (I'm guessing here that you are European) tend to underestimate the strength of right-wing conservative sentiments in Europe. There are no small number of fascist and religious fundamentalist groups in Europe, and I have met some really whacky types there--every bit as whacky as the American lunatic fringe (which is, sadly, less of a "fringe" these days than it used to be). Americans are not that different from Canadians, Europeans, or Australians. Beware of complacency.

The decline of liberalism that has been happening in the US can just as easily happen elsewhere. Adolf Hitler and Stalin were European, not American. The staunchest critics of US policy in Iraq--France--has its right-wing lunatics, e.g. Jean-Marie Le Penn. Russia has its Zhirinovski, and the American Ku Klux Klan has very strong ties to neo-Nazis in Germany. Britain was not a minor participant in the invasion of Iraq. You can point the finger at us, but that doesn't mean your own house is in perfect order.

Scrambles

Copernicus,

I agree with you that the majority of americans aren't fundamentalists. But the religious climate allows fundamentalists to gain a foothold. I disagree that the oklahoma case is a demonstration of how democracy works. It was a failure of democracy that allowed it to happen and a success that it was overturned.

When I said you were off topic it was because you said something to the effect that NZ/Aus/Europeans would find some other reason to vote stupidly other than religious issues. This is off topic.

You agree that the scales are different. Yet I talk as if I haven't the slightest idea what politics there is like because I think that the majority of americans are fundies? Well...

I don't think the majority of americans are fundies but that it is obviously easier for the fundies to get a foothold in politics in the US that in other countries. The only explanation I can think of is that on a sliding scale of religious belief the US is closer to fundy than other countries.

I'm from NZ... We have a centre-left government (which would probably be too far left for most american voters) and an atheist prime-minister... .

Anyway: Yes the decline of liberalism can happen just as easily in other countries but since it has happened in the US and has become a problem for the rest of the world, it affects more people that just US citizens.

I wouldn't give a shit if the US weren't so powerful. But the political climate in the US can affect the whole world.



Scrambles

copernicus

Yes, we disagree quite strongly. I do not expect democracy to prevent such aberrations. Apparently, you do. I expect democracy to correct them. Apparently, you consider it a failure if democracy even permits them to happen. Perhaps your standards for democracy are higher than mine. Even with the flaws that I perceive in democracy, I can still not see any better form of government to replace it. So we at least share a common support for democratic government, although I seem to be more of a pessimist than you.


Sorry, but this is perhaps a cynical observation on my part. Nevertheless, I still believe it, and I still consider it on-topic.

Thank you for your grudging admission that the majority of Americans are not "fundies". From your previous posts, I had drawn the opposite conclusion. When you say "other countries", I suspect that you have fairly narrow range of countries in mind. Mind you, I'm not disagreeing with you on this point. However, the term "other countries" is too broad to make much sense of.

I can express nothing but envy for you. I doubt that many countries could have heads of government that were explicitly "atheist" in orientation. Moreover, I suspect that your perceptions of the world outside of New Zealand may be a bit skewed. I realize that this may sound condescending, and I don't mean it to be. It just strikes me that you ought to realize that most democratic countries in this world would be conflicted about electing an avowedly atheistic politician into high office. It is certainly not the case that Tony Blair, for example, claims to be an atheist. That's an interesting question for another thread. Could an admitted atheist become Prime Minister of England? Anyway, congratulations on your atheistic head of government, but the US is not that unusual in electing a pro-religious head of government (and state). I wish that the opposite were true, but it isn't.

I hope that I have not given you the impression that I believed otherwise. My own personal view is that the US should make every effort to behave responsibly toward other nations.

No disagreement there. I only wish that you would understand how difficult it is for ordinary human beings to see the rest of the world through altruistic-colored glasses. Americans are ordinary human beings. IMHO, they behave no differently than New Zealanders would, if the situations were reversed. Indeed, I am confident that most New Zealanders who immigrate to the US assimilate the same political attitudes that native citizens have. My only point here is that it makes no sense to stigmatize a country just because it happens to be rich and powerful. If it weren't America, it would be some other country. Jingoism is not unique to America, and it makes no sense to blame Americans as if they were a different breed of animal than New Zealanders.

Scrambles

copernicus,

I didn't mean to come across as if I thought the majority of americans were fundies. My impression has always been that the level of religious belief in america is quite high (compared to other countries) and that this is the reason that the fundies are allowed to exert some pressure politically.

"other countries" = Other "western" countries

Religious affiliation does not really factor ino politics in NZ. The reason I say the prime-minister is an atheist is because she didn't say grace when the queen came to NZ and following that there was some news item after the last national elections where it showed members of parliament giving some sort of pledge. It showed some christians pledging, some muslims even (i think)...and the prime-minister was stating some other pledge which I assume was secular.

Maybe the jingoism in america isn't so bad at the moment. But from the outside it seems pretty bad. If someone said you weren't patriotic, would you tell them to fuck off or would you try to explain why you were patriotic?


Scrambles

copernicus

The earlier discussion was over Evangelion's claim that fundies are or "appear to" represent the majority. That claim is not based on any responsible news source such as the BBC. It does show the lengths to which the anti-American sentiment can lead people to spout absurdities. As for fundies being "allowed to exert some pressure politically", I wonder by what means you think they could, or ought to be, prevented. Every democracy has fringe groups with big mouths.

Interesting. I wonder how all of this came to your attention, if "religious affiliation does not really factor into politics". It clearly does in the minds of reporters, but not in the same way that it does here. I think that there are probably some large demographic differences that make comparison between US and NZ an "apples and oranges" issue.

BTW, my own state of Washington is second in the nation for numbers of citizens who declare themselves unaffiliated with any religion--25% of the population. Oregon, just to the south of us, is Number One. The Pacific Northwest seems to favor rational thought. Maybe it's because we drink a lot of coffee that is imported from New Zealand.

I believe that the perception from outside is greatly distorted. To answer your question, I would not tell them either. I would use the famous misquote from Samuel Johnson: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." (Johnson was actually referring to the Patriotism party rather than patriotism in general, but I agree with the popular misunderstanding of that quote.) I also like George Bernard Shaw's observation that Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. The concept is ultimately an aburdity.

Scrambles

copernicus,


It could be prevented by the non-fundies being less religious, so that the fundies seem more stupid and hence get less leverage politically. When you can get a fundamentalist president like Bush, then there is a problem. I don't know how to fix it. It looks like a lost cause from here.

The not-saying-grace-when-the-queen-wanted-to event was not reported widely. I only heard about it through an NZ poster on II and through letters to the editor in my local newspaper. Wasn't much fuss at all. There was more attention given to the fact that the prime-minister wore pants (as opposed to a dress) when having dinner (or something) with the queen. (Stupid obsolete british figurehead!!)

I'm glad that you think this way. But I have seen instances on this board where posters start off by saying "I love this country" etc before they criticise the actions of the US government. People should not feel the need to do this. (I can't find specific instances at the moment, so call bullshit if you want. I remember thinking at the time of reading that they should not have to justify themselves but can't recall the poster or the thread ).


Scrambles

copernicus

Bush is a methodist, not a fundamentalist, but he does seem to think of himself as the country's religious leader. He is really quite far to the right of most Americans. He needs moderate Republicans to win re-election, and signs are beginning to appear that he is in trouble. There is a good chance that the tanking economy will make Americans sober up in time to boot the scoundrels out. It is too soon to tell.

Well, there you go. Americans like to indulge religious nuts, and New Zealanders have a weak spot for clothing fascists.

I understand what you are saying, but that kind of response is very natural. Right-wingers are self-appointed defenders of the nation. So being critical of them is characterized as attacking the nation nowadays. I have been surprised and gratified at the number of Americans who stand up for free speech and who defend the rights of dissenters. Even Bush has had to moderate his tone towards his critics.