{"id":875,"date":"2008-12-15T22:48:14","date_gmt":"2008-12-16T06:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=875"},"modified":"2008-12-16T13:00:37","modified_gmt":"2008-12-16T21:00:37","slug":"miscellany-december-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/miscellany-december-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Miscellany, December 15"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Someone has called us the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/thras.blogspot.com\/2008\/12\/secular-right.html\">world&#8217;s most boring blog<\/a>&#8220;. I think not everyone must agree, because in the three and a half weeks since we launched we&#8217;ve had more than 100,000 page views and, remarkably, 2,300 reader comments.<\/li>\n<li>Confirming the descent of the whole topic into absurdity, Fred Phelps&#8217;s Westboro Baptist Church of funeral-picketing infamy <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com\/thebigblog\/archives\/156716.asp\">has<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/insolence\/2008\/12\/i_cant_believe_it_the_westboro_baptist_c.php\">jumped<\/a> into <a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=481\">the<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=622\">controversy<\/a> over the Christmas display at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia by demanding that it be allowed to put up a sign saying &#8220;Santa Claus will take you to hell&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Another occasion for mirth: in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nomobveto.org\/\">full-page Times ad<\/a> promoting the anti-anti-Prop 8 cause, the Becket Fund announces that the undersigned &#8220;commit ourselves to opposing and publicly shaming anyone who resorts to the rhetoric of anti-religious bigotry&#8221;.  So who&#8217;s prominently featured among the signers? Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, <a href=\"http:\/\/chuckcurrie.blogs.com\/chuck_currie\/2004\/12\/catholic_league.html\">famous<\/a> for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/buckley\/wfb200412211408.asp\">such<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/rightsfield.com\/2007\/02\/07\/donohue-other-people-bad-in-general-actors-jews-and-muslims-in-particular\/\">outbursts<\/a> as &#8220;Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity, in general, and Catholicism, in particular. It\u2019s not a secret, okay?&#8221; along with other noted voices of moderation like <a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=766\">Chuck Colson<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/is.gd\/bUmH\">Alveda King<\/a>. [<strong>P.S.<\/strong>: Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=875&#038;cpage=1#comment-2357\">Ken in comments<\/a> for pointing to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popehat.com\/2008\/12\/08\/ambiguity-rushes-in-where-candor-fears-to-tread\/\">this post<\/a> exposing the dodginess of the actual content of the Becket statement.]<\/li>\n<li>Yes, the phrase was floating around long before we appropriated it for a blog title. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/articles\/2006\/08\/the_secular_right.html\">Robert Tracinski in 2006<\/a> with a column entitled &#8220;The Secular Right&#8221;, which begins:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>We all know the basic alternatives that form the familiar &#8220;spectrum&#8221; of American politics and culture.<\/p>\n<p>If a young person is turned off by religion or attracted by the achievements of science, and he wants to embrace a secular outlook, he is told&#8211;by both sides of the debate &#8212; that his place is with the collectivists and social subjectivists of the left. On the other hand, if he admires the free market and wants America to have a bold, independent national defense, then he is told &#8212; again, by both sides &#8212; that his natural home is with the religious right.<\/p>\n<p>But what if all of this is terribly wrong?&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Tracinski goes on to engage with Heather&#8217;s writing, mostly favorably, but argues against her embrace of &#8220;skepticism&#8221; as a basic posture.\n<\/li>\n<li>I think Ken Silber is right to <a href=\"http:\/\/quicksilber.blogspot.com\/2008\/12\/anti-left-gibberish.html\">express frustration<\/a> with the nowadays standard bit of traditionalist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reason.com\/news\/show\/30727.html\">Unified Kvetch Theory<\/a> that makes much of the &#8220;accusation that the left is all about &#8216;the self,&#8217; as if collectivism and egalitarianism were not leftist tendencies.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Someone has called us the &#8220;world&#8217;s most boring blog&#8220;. I think not everyone must agree, because in the three and a half weeks since we launched we&#8217;ve had more than 100,000 page views and, remarkably, 2,300 reader comments. Confirming the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/miscellany-december-15\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[17,107,27,66,126],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875"}],"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\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":885,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions\/885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}