{"id":3473,"date":"2009-11-30T13:39:49","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T21:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=3473"},"modified":"2009-11-30T13:39:49","modified_gmt":"2009-11-30T21:39:49","slug":"huckabee-and-the-tacoma-police-massacre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/huckabee-and-the-tacoma-police-massacre\/","title":{"rendered":"Huckabee and the Tacoma police massacre"},"content":{"rendered":"

A specious leftist belief <\/a>that the criminal justice system is racist has undoubtedly led to more disastrous criminal justice decisions than a specious religious belief that one is in touch with one\u2019s favored divinity.\u00a0 And perhaps Mike Huckabee\u2019s high rate of sentence commutations resulted from his best efforts to empirically evaluate the evidence presented to him by parole boards, rather than, as has been speculated upon<\/a>, religious inspiration.\u00a0 Still I am never reassured to learn that an elected representative may be praying for guidance or consulting the bible in making political decisions.\u00a0 Though this line is impossible to enforce and certain not to be followed, the only valid materials for political decision-making\u00a0 in my view are publicly-enacted laws and as much actual knowledge about the world as a politician can get his hands on.\u00a0 I doubt whether a Christian would take much comfort in learning that a politician with power over his life\u00a0is consulting with Allah in deciding upon a public line of action, since he does not regard the Koran as a valid source of either divine revelation or political authority.\u00a0 Nor would the Christian be wholly confident that the Allah-inspired politician was moved by rational evidence in constructing his belief system or in reaching the conclusions that he drew from it.\u00a0 Though prayer may merely consolidate a leader\u2019s existing inclinations, it could also give them a zealotry or dubious certitude that they do not deserve.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A few years ago, one of the neo-con-theo-con movement\u2019s most revered religious figures lectured me on overincarceration, a subject he clearly knew noting about, during a black-tie dinner.\u00a0 It was hard to escape the suspicion that his prim self-righteousness about the prison rate was fueled in large part by his belief that he had a particular in with God, though perhaps I do him an injustice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A specious leftist belief that the criminal justice system is racist has undoubtedly led to more disastrous criminal justice decisions than a specious religious belief that one is in touch with one\u2019s favored divinity.\u00a0 And perhaps Mike Huckabee\u2019s high rate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[422,421],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3473"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3478,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473\/revisions\/3478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}