McCain’s Logic of Exclusion
Wednesday, October 03, 2007 at 10:37 am
- 2 Comments
Like most presidential hopefuls, Sen. John McCain is trying to rebound from a near- catastrophic campaign by constantly refining his support base. Hence, the Arizona Republican marginalizes potential supporters along the way.
In an interview last week with Beliefnet, a website that focuses on religious issues, the once maverick and tough-talk candidate strongly implied that only Christians are fit to lead this country.
In response to a question about the possibility of a Muslim becoming president, McCain said: “I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, that’s a decision the American people would have to make, but personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith,”
He’s an Episcopalian who routinely congregates with Baptists.
A few hours after speaking in “candor,” McCain, who recently declined to participate in an African-American and Hispanic-themed debates, called the Beliefnet reporter to back-pedal.
“I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values,” he said.
Fair enough. But it sounds like an adviser-orchestrated, after-the-fact attempt to save the face of the senator’s struggling campaign.
And that’s beside the point. McCain has repeatedly exhibited signs of excluding others by narrowly defining his base. That’s a recipe for a disaster, toward which he seems to be inching.
Perhaps that explains why he trails former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon, who probably would not get McCain’s vote.
The beauty of American culture is its rich diversity. Yet when some politicians try to “Christianize” the nation it can feel unnerving to religious minorities, who often see an all-too-familiar ugly past behind the curtain.
One of the first people who endorsed McCain’s statement is Pat Robertson, the controversial televangelist once branded by McCain as “an agent of intolerance.” (The two have since resolved their differences.)
Our governor, Tim Pawlenty, serves as the co-chairman of the McCain campaign. If he didn’t give up on McCain already, maybe a word of advice would help: The logic of exclusion is doomed.
Try inclusion.
2 Comments
Comment posted October 3, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
a few points 1. There is some power in the idea that Western ideas about governance, politics, the separation of church and state, derive not just from rationality, secularism, science and so on, but also from Christianity – or from what I’ve heard referred to as the “Judeo-Christian” approach to conceptualizing the role of religion in public life. I’m no expert; but I also believe it’s nonsensical to dismiss the concept as racist or exclusionist or obviously incorrect or hateful. It’s an interesting, decent idea, that’s all – especially when I look around and realize that a whole lot of the best people I know are Christians in one sense or another, and I don’t necessarily find myself horrified by the idea that there’s some strong Christian basis for the way the nation evolved. (I also have always wondered if we would have been able to do what we did in WW2 without, as they say, the “power of prayer.’ There was a whole lot of unashamed God talk in that time, as Burns’ current documentary display almost offhandedly. We seem to just assume it while not really granting it any power as a fact.)
2. It is a little hard to deny, just based on observation, that heavily Islamic political systems have not yielded fruitful results in most such nations, in modern times anyway: whether talking prosperity or freedom. If you think that’s wrong, I’d be interested. (Some Arab states are prosperous to varying degrees, but I believe that is based almost entirely on oil as opposed to internal dynamism; and none of those states are bastions of freedom. Maybe some of the tiny ones where basically all the citizens are retired might be “free” in some sense, but they seems like substantively trivial exceptions based on – again – oil, and tiny populations. And foreign workers.)
3.In reading up on Islam, it seems to be one of the basic tenets that politics and religion should not be separated; that governance needs to be bound up in Islam. Liberals seem to assume that this line of thinking will just sort of naturally disappear among Islamic Americans as their numbers and wealth grow, but I wonder why that should so obviously be? Recent decades in Europe don’t provide much reason, for instance, to assume that’s how things will evolve.
So that’s the context in which I read, for instance, the much reported comments by individuals associated with CAIR, over the years, that of course Sharia is the ultimate goal.
This probably is the most basic point. Firm separation of religion and state is one of the basic foundations of the U.S. Resistance to that idea is one of the basic tenets of Islam. Why is this not a legitimate concern? Why is it acceptable to deride making the observation as clearly hateful, when it is actually clearly important to discuss and among the most difficult issues we face?
Comment posted October 3, 2007 @ 12:09 pm
a few points 1. There is some power in the idea that Western ideas about governance, politics, the separation of church and state, derive not just from rationality, secularism, science and so on, but also from Christianity – or from what I've heard referred to as the “Judeo-Christian” approach to conceptualizing the role of religion in public life. I'm no expert; but I also believe it's nonsensical to dismiss the concept as racist or exclusionist or obviously incorrect or hateful. It's an interesting, decent idea, that's all – especially when I look around and realize that a whole lot of the best people I know are Christians in one sense or another, and I don't necessarily find myself horrified by the idea that there's some strong Christian basis for the way the nation evolved. (I also have always wondered if we would have been able to do what we did in WW2 without, as they say, the “power of prayer.' There was a whole lot of unashamed God talk in that time, as Burns' current documentary display almost offhandedly. We seem to just assume it while not really granting it any power as a fact.)
2. It is a little hard to deny, just based on observation, that heavily Islamic political systems have not yielded fruitful results in most such nations, in modern times anyway: whether talking prosperity or freedom. If you think that's wrong, I'd be interested. (Some Arab states are prosperous to varying degrees, but I believe that is based almost entirely on oil as opposed to internal dynamism; and none of those states are bastions of freedom. Maybe some of the tiny ones where basically all the citizens are retired might be “free” in some sense, but they seems like substantively trivial exceptions based on – again – oil, and tiny populations. And foreign workers.)
3.In reading up on Islam, it seems to be one of the basic tenets that politics and religion should not be separated; that governance needs to be bound up in Islam. Liberals seem to assume that this line of thinking will just sort of naturally disappear among Islamic Americans as their numbers and wealth grow, but I wonder why that should so obviously be? Recent decades in Europe don't provide much reason, for instance, to assume that's how things will evolve.
So that's the context in which I read, for instance, the much reported comments by individuals associated with CAIR, over the years, that of course Sharia is the ultimate goal.
This probably is the most basic point. Firm separation of religion and state is one of the basic foundations of the U.S. Resistance to that idea is one of the basic tenets of Islam. Why is this not a legitimate concern? Why is it acceptable to deride making the observation as clearly hateful, when it is actually clearly important to discuss and among the most difficult issues we face?
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