Red Light, Green Light: Engineer Bill R.I.P.
When I heard that Bill Stulla, known to us L.A. area boomers as TV's Engineer Bill, had died the other day at age 97 I promised myself that this weekend I would blog a fitting tribute to him.
Fortunately, the very talented critic Robert Lloyd has beaten me to it. And he's eloquently expressed why those of us who grew with up such characters wax so nostalgic for that era. Back in the 50's and well into the mid-60's as a matter of fact, even a massive market like Los Angeles had a number of local, home-grown personages on the air...something quite intimate and accessible and personal. Engineer Bill was only one of them. Add to the list, Tom Hatten's Popeye, John Rovick's Sheriff John, and --later-- the inimitable Soupy Sales. Says Lloyd:
Engineer Bill: Green light, dude! Here's a glass of non-fat milk hoisted high for you.Every city with its own television station had their counterparts, some Cowboy This or Captain That, famous within broadcasting range and completely unknown outside of it. On a national level there was "Captain Kangaroo" and eventually "Mr. Rogers," with their higher budgets and perhaps loftier ambitions, but they came from somewhere else. It was clear to me that Engineer Bill lived in my town, and not some imaginary Neighborhood, and that there was the real possibility that I could get him to read my name on the air, or even invite me onto his show, were I to do the necessary groundwork -– there were always a couple of live tykes on board for Stulla to play off. I was never going to do that groundwork -– you had to write a letter, at least -– but I saw him once, at a supermarket personal appearance.
Anyone who remembers Engineer Bill remembers Red Light/Green Light -- or Green Light/Red Light -- a play-along-at-home milk-drinking game that was his show's main gift to Southern California culture and parents. I have a clear image of myself participating in this bit of nutritional behavioral psychology -- though past the milk and the model trains, and the image of Bill himself in his stripey overalls and cap, it all begins to blur. He played cartoons -– the name of the program was "Engineer Bill's Cartoon Express" –- but everybody played cartoons.
There was nothing particularly brilliant about any of these shows or these performers, apart from the way they were available to their audience. Not to get all cracker-barrel about it, but the fact that we won't see their loose, modest like again doesn't strike me as progress. The loss is symptomatic of a greater loss: We have entered an age of remote consolidation, of absentee landlords, of the online marketplace that kills the corner store. (Perhaps it's time for a local media movement to mirror the local foods movement –- to frame it as the environmental issue it actually is.) The new matrix promises a "deeper" experience of its perfected products by throwing them at you from different angles and on different platforms. But the human touch gets lost.
August 16th, 2008 at 1:40 am
As long as it’s locally-grown milk. Non-fat, but straight from the udder.
August 16th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Seriously, how many television stations today have this kind of programming? The shows may have been similar from city to city, but individuals hosted them. In Las Vegas, before I was around here, we had a kids show host named Jack Lehman. Eventually, he headed off to law school and became a local judge. People still come up to him and talk about seeing him on TV in the 1950s. We have lost something in all of the “choices” that modern cable television was supposed to bring us.
August 16th, 2008 at 8:14 am
I never could distinguish how it was that in the milk drinking contest, somebody who did too well was a “gulper” and got the lead bell, whereas somebody who drank milk at a slower pace but finished in front of the other kid won. I also can’t remember what the reward was for winning. There was also Sheriff John, although I never would have associated him with the name of a real person.
I had a chance to meet Tom Hatten one time back in the 1950s or so, and off camera he was a nice person pretty much the way he came across on camera. I met him again a couple of years ago (like half a century later) and explained to him that he had been nice to a kid way back when and I appreciated it.
August 16th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Don’t forget Hobo Kelly!
August 16th, 2008 at 10:49 am
The reward for winning was a rail-car kit – I sort of remember logging cars but also Ulrich hopper cars (all metal). And you could get on by submitting a railroad themed model.
Two weeks ago the National Model Railroad Assn (NMRA) had its national convention in Anaheim at the Disneyland Hotel and the Convention Center. I’d like to think Engineer Bill made it there.
Happy Highball and Green Boards, Bill!
August 16th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Imagine pushing your government to regulate broadcast media to ensure local content. We havethat here.
August 17th, 2008 at 5:03 am
Sometimes I think DeVito’s “Smoochy the Rhino” bombed at the box office because it referred to a line of work in the entertainment industry that had almost vanished: the local children’s TV performer, a person you could be sure was real because you’d seen him at some shopping center appearance, or a friend of yours had seen him, or maybe you even had a friend who’d been on his show. If you don’t know that that means, how can you make real sense of that movie?
If you watch it closely, you’ll notice something odd — yes, there’s sex and violence, but it’s all off-screen and abbreviated. The R rating was basically for profanity alone. I guess DeVito got some warning from marketing that a PG-rated film like this wouldn’t have parents bringing their kids in, because without this sort of local content as a basis for relating closely to the premise, neither the humor nor the style of moral instruction would make much sense — not to the kids, maybe not even to the parents. So perhaps it got reworked with some foul language simply to notch it up to an R rating, to get other age brackets up to the cash register. If so, that gambit obviously failed.
It wasn’t like you could angle the movie at a Christian audience either, despite its heavy plot-plagiarism from the Bible. (Every review I’ve seen seemed to miss almost heavy-handed parallels to the New Testament. In the scene where Smoochy is tricked into appearing on stage at a neo-Nazi rally, there’s even a swastika-like logo just behind him on a banner at the back of a stage — so you get an obvious image of crucificixion that’s also used to crucify his public image. After a few days, it’s revealed he was set up, so he gets “resurrected”. Ascension into Heaven? He goes back on TV, and preaches his secular version of the gospel.) It’s all done in a way that the bible thumpers would probably find trivializing somehow. As it was, Christian-content movie review sites only counsel staying away, largely because of the profanity.
I think what DeVito was trying to say there (if he was being serious at all) was that it’s easy to laugh at local children’s TV figures as bottom-feeders in the entertainment business, but they really were important and influential figures in children’s lives, the moral part being hardly insignificant. The character playing Smoochy the Rhino on TV is a Christian, but you find this out only from a smattering of lines given to Edward Norton (including the cliche of the time “What would Jesus do?”), and he never says anything religious on the air. He preaches gospel without quoting gospel, without even saying “Jesus” to the camera.
Children’s TV as an early source of secular moral instruction with a light touch — and, perhaps just as important, with its complementary encouragement for the difficult belief at that age that there are, and will be, flesh-and-blood adults out there not constantly condescending to you, or directly telling you what to do, or simply ignoring you — this kind of programming really had its place. I don’t know what’s filling the gap now. It’s hard to imagine that it’s better, whatever it is.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:01 am
sorry about changing the subject, but the ObamaCain godfest here in LA made me want to move to France. We are starting a three month festival in which the candidates piss all over the US Constitution and the first principles of democratic government by parading their religiosity. To the extent their religious beliefs are relevant to the election at all, the more religious they are, the less likely I am to vote for them. That dragging sound is Thomas Jefferson coming to crucify both of them.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:19 am
If you listened to the Saddleback forum, the difference between Obama’s religion and McCain’s is vast. Obama is Niebuhrian – which puts him squarely in the best tradition of American liberalism while McCain’s religion is obviously sophomoric and rooted in nothing more than platitudes and a rather shocking hubris.
Your kneejerk “anti-religion” stance strikes me as almost as sophomoric and unexamined as McCaiin’s meager “faith.” You must have really hated the civil rights movement, with all of that preaching and gospel singing.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:20 am
MT – it was “Death to Smoochy” – very funny movie.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:37 am
>Obama is Niebuhrian – which puts
>him squarely in the best tradition
>of American liberalism while McCain’s
>religion is obviously sophomoric and
>rooted in nothing more than platitudes
>and a rather shocking hubris.
Obama’s “I walk with Jesus” sounded just as dumb to me as McCain’s “I’m saved.” That said, it doesn’t matter what the theological subtleties of their beliefs are, religion has no place in politics. It’s an attack on the spirit of the first amendment to have a presidential debate in a church and moderated by a minister. This isn’t Iran, Israel, or Saudi Arabia, we are supposed to have a secular government.
Polticians should keep their religion out of the campaign and out of government. If these two thought it was more important to go to a church and talk about their imaginary friend Jesus than about the economy or the war, they should both quit politics and go to divinity school.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:48 am
“It’s an attack on the spirit of the first amendment to have a presidential debate in a church and moderated by a minister.”
Think about that one for a minute…
August 18th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Stu>>“It’s an attack on the spirit of the first >>amendment to have a presidential debate
>> in a church and moderated by a minister.”
Reg>Think about that one for a minute…
You don’t think it borders on establishment of religion to have our Presidential candidates give a little pageant in a church, moderated by a minister, in which they vie with each other to see who is more Christian?
August 18th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
My fifteen minutes of fame happened rather early in life, courtesy of the `Bozo the Clown’ show
When I was six or seven, I was picked out of the audience to be one of three kids to try and hit a badminton birdie into a barrel to win a really cool bike.
Bozo: “Where you from, little Jimmy”?
Me blinking, uh, uh, looking in panic at my Mom, who mouths `Westchester’. “Westchester!”, I say.
I then take studied aim, and with brow furrowed, let that birdie fly.
And damned if that birdie didn’t hit off the rim of the barrel before bouncing out.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I’m reposting this slightly modified to avoid “moderation” – an earlier reply to Stu:
“religion has no place in politics”
Tell it to John Brown – and (see Karl Lowith) your Marxist friends…
What you’re really saying is that most people’s conception of universal values, a greater meaning than one’s self or rationale for human existence has a place in politics. Good luck with that.
You’ve got to toss out the Declaration of Indpendence, most of the abolitionist movement, Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural, the populist-progressive campaigns of William Jennings Bryan, Norman Thomas and A.J. Muste (both ministers who went from Union Theological Seminary to become “peace and justice” leaders and organizers) and, of course, most of the effective leadership of the civil rights movement.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
The Wisdom of Total Morons from Georgia:
NEWT GINGRICH: “…most tire inflation is done at service stations and you pay for it. And it’s actually a higher profit margin than selling gasoline. So Sen. Obama was urging you to go out and enrich Big Oil by inflating your tires instead of buying gas.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Stu: “It’s an attack on the spirit of the first amendment to have a presidential debate in a church and moderated by a minister.”
reg: “Think about that one for a minute.”
Me: I fear we’ll have to do Stu’s thinking for him. He’s emphasizing some “spirit” of the first amendment, but let’s first look at the letter of it, on this topic: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
That wording is clearly inspired by the idea of church-state separation, but it glances at other rights and takes its place. Zealously championing the “spirit” supposedly embodied in such explicit, careful and limited wording has you trampling on other rights pretty quickly, if you don’t think about where you’re going. If Congress were to make some law expressly forbidding presidential candidates from convening at a church and talking about their faith, it would be an actual VIOLATION of the right of free speech (and assembly, while we’re at it.) If you go there, why not go further: rule that no elected official should ever attend church, or even go to a funeral service at which the name of God is uttered. Well, hey, now, that’s not going nearly far enough with separating church and state, is it? After all, in a democracy, every voter is part of the government. So let’s be absolutely clearcut about this: no registered voter should set foot in a church, or talk about his or her religious belief in public. And no priest or minister should be allowed to register to vote. There: I think we’ve got what Jefferson wanted!
But forget what any particular framer wanted. (The “spirit” of a stronger executive branch? Whoa! After all, Alexander Hamilton wanted presidents elected for life. We should be glad he lost that fight.) Essentially, the First Amendment says nothing more about keeping religion out of government except that there should be no church(es) favored in any legally defined way by the federal government. That has worked amazingly well in keeping church and state separate, for a nation like America that you’d think would otherwise be very much at risk for theocratic takeover. I bet if you look at the state constitution of Utah, you’ll see nothing in any draft about Mormonism, even though they probably could have done it within the letter of federal law.
Yeah, maybe Jefferson would have curled his lip in disgust at the Obama-Warren-McCain encounter. I reserve the right to curl my lip in disgust at Jefferson owning slaves and responding to slanderous campaign charges by returning fire with equally ridiculous charges.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
reg, I disagree with you on a lot of stuff, and I don’t always enjoy when your temper flares.
But… in honor of your, er, spirited defense of religious individuals’ involvement in politics, I’m adding an extra dash of Tabasco to the chili I’m fixin’ for dinner tonight.
Kudos to you too, Mr. Turner.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
CORRECTION: “What you’re really saying is that most people’s conception of universal values, a greater meaning than one’s self or rationale for human existence has NO place in politics. Good luck with that.”
August 19th, 2008 at 12:54 am
I’m personally very hostile to religion, but Stu clearly has no grasp of what the U.S. Constitution is for, and no grasp of the First Amendment. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government, but neither Barack Obama, John McCain, or Rick Warren are the federal government, nor are they exerting any powers of such by voicing their religious views in a public forum. And the First Amendment, in addition to guaranteeing freedom of religion, but also freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. So the only one spitting on the spirit of the First Amendment is Stu.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:10 am
>If Congress were to make some
>law expressly forbidding
>presidential candidates from convening at a church and talking about their faith,
>it would be an actual VIOLATION of
>the right of free speech (and assembly,
>while we’re at it.)
Michael, your little straw man reminds me of the creationists who claim that their right to free exercise of religion means that they are free to teach the Bible in a public school biology class. I’ll leave it to anyone who read my post to decide whether I advocated banning Presidential candidates or anyone else from going to church. I suggest you go back and read what I actually said, and perhaps try to argue with that.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:16 am
>The Constitution limits the powers of the >federal government, but neither Barack >Obama, John McCain, or Rick Warren are the >federal government, nor are they exerting >any powers of such by voicing their religious >views in a public forum. And the First >Amendment, in addition to guaranteeing >freedom of religion, but also freedom of >speech and freedom of assembly.
Hooey. I did not suggest for a second that Tweedledumb and Tweedledumb should not be free to join any religion they choose, as long as they don’t hurt anyone, don;t spend tax dollars on it, and keep it out of politics.
This was not two individuals who happened to be politicians going to church, it was a *Presidential campaign debate.* The puprose of the event was to try to convince us to vote for one of the candidates to get the most powerful office in the world, *on the grounds that he was more Christian than the other.* That is completely inappropriate in a secular republic.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Stu, when you refer to a display of religiousity by presidential candidates “pissing on the Constitution”, you deserve whatever literal “misinterpretation” might rain down on you. After flashpoint rhetoric like that, it hardly matters what you literally said or didn’t say — you’ve established yourself as being as much a troll as Woody.
As for the issue of being “free to teach the Bible” in a public school biology class, you might not know that a sometime contributor in this forum, Michael Balter, wrote a rather interesting op-ed on this issue that appeared in the NYT and the LAT. Before you read it (and to me it’s obvious you should), let me put it to you a certain way:
(1) IF you believe in the scientific method
(2) AND you believe that the efficacy of teaching methods in public schools should also be determined scientifically wherever possible,
(3) THEN: isn’t the way the best way to resolve the dispute about what to teach about Creationism in public school biology classrooms best resolved by putting it to a scientific test, to see which approach yields the best understanding of what evolutionary theory really is, and what its status is scientifically?
If your answer is something like “No, we should just teach currently known scientific truth” (perhaps with “I can already tell that reading Balter’s essay is a waste of time, so I won’t read it”), I’ll be satisfied as to who the real dogmatic zealot is in this exchange. In this long, vast waste of time and energy called the Culture Wars, any such response identifies you as just another one of those tedious Scientism Jihadis, rather than a true champion of science.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:53 am
“The puprose of the event was to try to convince us to vote for one of the candidates to get the most powerful office in the world, *on the grounds that he was more Christian than the other.*”
Really? I thought the purpose was for these two Christian candidates to express the role that Christian faith plays in their lives, so that people to whom this clearly matters (including, obviously, the Stu Nimms out there) can make their own decisions based on what they see and hear. I’m sure a lot of Christians didn’t watch (partly because it doesn’t matter to a lot of them, they vote based more on other criteria) and I’m sure a lot of non-Christians did watch and got something out of it that’ll help them make their decision in November.
I’m also pretty sure that the vast majority of Americans, Christian or not, upon hearing someone call this sort of event “pissing on the Constitution”, would think: “Well, that’s one voice I can write off as not being worth listening to.”
August 19th, 2008 at 10:44 am
>THEN: isn’t the way the best way to
>resolve the dispute about what to
>teach about Creationism in public
>school biology classrooms best
>resolved by putting it to a scientific
>test, to see which approach yields
>the best understanding of what
>evolutionary theory really is, and
>what its status is scientifically?
Since I doubt there are any creationists on this board, I hate to start up this much rehashed topic, but here goes. What you suggest has already been done. Nearly all credible biologists think that evolution is the theory that best explains the data we have as of now. The theory will change over time and maybe one day be replaced by a new theory that matches the evidence even better. If a credible alternative scientific theory emerges, it should be taught.
Not every claim about the world is a scientific theory. Theories are formulated by hypothesis testing and empirical observation. Creationism is a dogma derived from religious mythology. It has the same scientific status as Rastafarians’ belief that God wants you to smoke marijuana, Hindus’ belief in reincarnation, and any other of the thousands of religious myths available around the world.
Science classes are for science, not for every imaginable belief. If we are going to teach the six day creation, Flying Spaghetti Monster, and orbiting teapot “theories” in Biology class, which topics are we going to drop to make room? Maybe photosynthesis?
Anyone who wants to teach whatever particular religoius beliefs he chooses is free to do so when he is *not on the taxpayer’s dime,* and any politician is free to believe any religion he wants, but should keep it out of politics in a country that is supposed to have a secular government.
>“pissing on the Constitution”
Michael, that’s what they did, metaphorically. They sought votes by detailing their specific religious beliefs. Madison and Jefferson would have found this contemptible and repulsive. If you don’t believe that, try checking out Saudi Arabia, Israel, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and on and on for a practical view of what happens when religion and politics mix.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:46 am
“Michael, your little straw man”
“That is completely inappropriate in a secular republic.”
Talk about a strawman. The question isn’t whether the Rick Warren event was “inappropriate”, which is your personal judgment, but whether it is in any sense a violation of the U.S. Constitution. It isn’t. You lose.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:53 am
“isn’t the way the best way to resolve the dispute about what to teach about Creationism in public school biology classrooms best resolved by putting it to a scientific test, to see which approach yields the best understanding of what evolutionary theory really is, and what its status is scientifically?”
Oy. You couldn’t have picked a worse analogy, thereby making *yourself* look like someone who can be written off. Balter advocated public debates between scientists and creationists; that has nothing to do with “putting it to a scientific test”.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:56 am
“They sought votes by detailing their specific religious beliefs. Madison and Jefferson would have found this contemptible and repulsive. ”
But not unconstitutional, which is why Jefferson didn’t claim that Adams violated the constitution in 1796 when he made Jefferson’s religious beliefs a keynote of his campaign.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:05 am
“Anyone who wants to teach whatever particular religoius beliefs he chooses is free to do so when he is *not on the taxpayer’s dime,* and any politician is free to believe any religion he wants, but should keep it out of politics in a country that is supposed to have a secular government.”
Taxpayers didn’t pay for the Rick Warren event. And “you shouldn’t do X” is nothing like “it’s unconstitutional to do X”. Candidates discussing their religious beliefs is nothing like the government passing laws impinging on religious freedom. You say the latter is a strawman, but that’s absurd and grossly dishonest, since you are claiming that the latter is a “metaphor” for the former.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:51 am
>Taxpayers didn’t pay for the Rick Warren event. And “you shouldn’t do X” is nothing like “it’s unconstitutional to do X”.
I said they were “pissing all over the Constitution,” meaning that they treated the principle of secular government with contempt. I’d say holding a Presidential debate over religion, in a church, moderated by a minister, abuses a loophole in the First Amendment, not that it violates the letter of the law.
And, yes, the taxpayers did pay for some of it if the McCain campaign accepts public funding. More indirectly, they are running for an office that draws a tax-funded salary. If I interviewed for a job as an imam
I wouldn’t expect to have the interview in a bar.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
“I’d say holding a Presidential debate over religion, in a church, moderated by a minister, abuses a loophole in the First Amendment, not that it violates the letter of the law.”
I’d say you’re a fool.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I wrote “isn’t the … best way to resolve the dispute about what to teach about Creationism in public school biology classrooms best resolved by putting it to a scientific test, to see which approach yields the best understanding of what evolutionary theory really is?”
I did NOT write “isn’t the best way to resolve the dispute about *evolutionary theory* ….”
See the difference?
Here’s a way you’d do that experiment:
“First-year biology majors were divided into four sections. Two groups were assigned portions of Dawkins’ “The Blind Watchmaker,” a pro-evolution book, as well as a book advocating intelligent design called “Icons of Evolution.” These groups also viewed a short animated creationist film and read an online rebuttal of creationist ideas, as well as materials on the nature and history of science. The other two groups read only evolutionary materials.”
And here’s what happened:
“At the end of the course, the students were invited to take a voluntary, anonymous survey about possible changes in their outlooks. The results, published in the November 2005 issue of the journal BioScience, found that 61 percent of students exposed to both creationism and evolution changed their outlooks, while only 21 percent of students exposed only to evolution did so — and nearly all of the changes were from the creationist to the evolutionist direction.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/31/opinion/edbalter.php
The gist of opposition so far to trying this in high schools seems to be that high school students aren’t smart enough. But … isn’t that yet another hypothesis that ought to be tested by experiment, not simply declared “obvious”?
Creationism *used* to be the scientific consensus on the origin of species. Now it isn’t. What happened? Science happened. Science is a process, not Revealed Truth. Expose students to the actual process by which scientists entertain and discard hypotheses, and students come out with more respect for it. But teach it as Revealed Truth, and students will just learn what it takes to pass exams. Which is better? Which approach produces citizens with more capacity for critical thinking?
August 19th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Loophole, Stu? Identify it.
Oh, I see: “loophole” is a metaphor, “pissing on the Constitution” was a metaphor, so they were pissing through a loophole.
Once you’re in metaphorland, you’re never wrong. You might be mistaken, but not wrong.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
“…. try checking out Saudi Arabia, Israel, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and on and on for a practical view of what happens when religion and politics mix.”
Religion and politics will mix for as long as we have religion and politics. What you don’t want is mixing religion into LAW. It’s the Constitution that limits doing that, in our case.
All of the above countries *legislate* based on religious beliefs — though in the case of India, they legislate to accommodate *different* religious beliefs, which is arguably not the same thing, and arguably not nearly as bad. I’m against it in any case, at least at the federal level.
In the U.S., despite waves of religious fanaticism, it hasn’t mattered how religious the President has been, or how religious Congress has been. It says right there in the Constitution, “Congress shall make no law ….” And that seems to have been quite enough of a bulwark against theocratic takeover. In case you haven’t noticed.
McCain and Obama did not “piss” on the Constitution because nobody, not even a sitting President, can even let the tiniest urine drop fall on it without breaking the law. And even sitting Presidents are (ultimately) not above the law. They might (and have) dangled above it briefly, but they fall, and the jaws snap on them, one way or another.
In this case, there were no laws broken. I doubt there ever could be. The prohibition against Congress making laws “respecting an establishment of religion” probably also prohibits it from making laws telling politicians (or anyone else) what religious events they can or cannot walk into and participate in. Call this a loophole if you want; I call it good constitutional design.
I am not religious. I’m just not an anti-religion bigot. Has religion been a net negative thing for humanity? I’m with Daniel Dennet on that question: I don’t know, I think it’s something that should be considered scientifically. Should Creationism (including ID) be taught in biology classrooms, along with standard evolutionary theory? I’m with Michael Balter on that issue: I don’t know, I think it’s something that should be tested scientifically. From what I can see from what few experiments have been done so far, Creationists should actually *fear* the discussion of Creationism in biology classrooms, because it helps students reproduce the real scientific thinking processes that led to the acceptance of natural selection, and that tends to lead more students to accepting standard evolutionary theory. And from what I’ve seen so far, the First Amendment continues to provide protection against theocratic take-over, even after almost 8 years of a president who thinks God told him to run for president.
Screw your “metaphors”, Stu. I’m an empiricist. Just empirically: you’re full of it.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Mistake in the above: I missed the “Northern” in Stu’s “Northern Ireland”. The Republic of Eire still does not allow divorce, last I checked, and probably has other laws on the books reflecting Catholic dominance. Sorry, but I keep gravitating back to the legal perspective because the First Amendment is part of a legal document. I keep forgetting we’re in Stu Nimm Metaphorland, where there are no rules about right or wrong except as he makes them up.
In any case, my point stands: we can’t avoid the mixture of religion and politics, but we can avoid having a religious legal system, and that seems to have worked pretty well.
I might add: what Stu sees as “mixing politics and religion” with such disastrous results all seem to have a lot more to do with frictions between antagonistic nations or tribes, or with imperialism, or with autocratic governments bumming some legitimacy off the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the dominant religion. Religious differences can become a lever, a wedge, or a chain, in those scenarios, but it is still ultimately secondary to the political forces. If something can be divisive in a conflict or binding in an autocracy, it will be used. If it isn’t, substitutes will be found — e.g., Marxism and ethnicity in the case of the Tamil Tigers, language and ethnicity if you’re an Ossetian or a Basque, etc., etc. One might as well say “differences in general don’t mix well”. Often, they don’t. That’s a job for the principle of equality under the rule of law.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:20 am
>I’d say you’re a fool.
I’d say you apparently don’t have an argument to make.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:21 am
>though in the case of India, they
>legislate to accommodate *different* >religious beliefs,
>Republic of Eire still does not allow
>divorce, last I checked, and probably
>has other laws on the books reflecting >Catholic dominance.
India does not have a sectarian system of law, but it is in contention with ex-Yugoslavia as the country where the most people have been killed in religion-inspired pogroms in the post-WWII period. Religion doesn’t need legal sanction to be violent, narrow, provincial, and oppressive. However, the last round of anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat were directed by the party then in power in the state and national government, the “Hindu Nationalist” BJP.
As for the Republic of Ireland, you’re a little out of date. Ireland is actually a good example of of a country that is overcoming the baneful effect of religion on the state. Divorce and contraception were legalized in the 1990s, although abortion is going to remain illegal for the foreseeable future. There are several reasons for the liberalizing process. The first is the general mind-opening effect of the EU and of Ireland’s amazing transformation into a developed country. there is also an unrealistic belief that the island may be reunited in the medium-term future, so the Republic may need to absorb a large non-Catholic minority. The third is the clerical sex abuse scandal, which was much worse in Ireland than in the US.
As for Northern Ireland, many people there do think the conflict is really over religion. Most of the Protestants vote for Rev. Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, for whom the issue is plainly a theological one.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Stu, the basic outline of your argument still seems to be from correlation: “Look, violence and oppression! Look: religious differences (in my cherry-picked cases)! QED.”
Yet, the factors I cite above are present and obviously important in the cases you mention, and it seems we would differ on what constitutes a “religion-inspired progrom”. Serbian slaughter of members of former Yugoslav states didn’t seem to have anything to do with the Serb’s taking exception to Islam (muslims in the former Yugoslav republics weren’t particularly traditionalist or devout anyway). Rather, the Serbian onslaught seemed to have everything to do with combating or punishing separatism.
I looked at the platform of the Democratic Unionist Party to find what, if any, “plainly theological” differences are at issue, and couldn’t find anything specific. What’s the beef, then? The DUP wants to stay with Britain. Again, you’ve looking at something a lot more like a tribal/national affiliation, one that just happens to correlate with religion: the Irish are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, the British Protestant; ethnicities culturally and politically affiliated with empire naturally gravitate toward the church of the empire, in empires that have a dominant church.
You mention India, and that is a problem. Oddly, though, you put Yugoslavia and India neck and neck in some ranking of the number of people killed in “religion-inspired pogroms”. Since we’re talking about the characters of whole societies vis-a-vis their sectarian politics, wouldn’t it be more fair to talk about proportions of the population, not raw numbers? Also, shouldn’t we be talking about where India stands in terms of development? Ignorance and poverty can make people violent about differences they’d tolerate or even embrace if they were better educated and wealthier.
I still don’t see how you get from “mixing politics and religion is bad” to “Obama and McCain appearing in an overtly Christian debate context is pissing on the Constitution.” You don’t seem to understand what the Constitution actually says about religion, or why it says what it says. Probably both candidates understand a lot more about what’s at stake here than you do, and especially Obama, a constitutional scholar.
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