Ann Coulter (for Anton)
This idea was suggested, if inadvertently, by my friend Anton's comments on my (now second) most recent post. In a recent (at this writing, current) piece on Ann Coulter's web site, we can read a list of things that she apparently feels are unworthy of government money, all in order to put the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the Ten Commandements in "perspective." Let me address a couple of the more heavily spun pieces and present a brief list of my own.
— Korans distributed to aspiring terrorists at Guantanamo. — U.S. military
This is an interesting idea. Apparently we only gave these holy books to some of the prisoners, since not even the U.S. government has managed to prove that all of the people currently being held at Gitmo are now aspiring or ever did aspire to be terrorists. We can forget about those who have already been released. History is written by the victors, indeed.
— "Anglos consolidated their control of New Mexico, acquiring huge holdings from the original owners through fraud and manipulation." — Smithsonian exhibit
Yeah, too bad we paid for a history lesson here. Were eminent domain and violence never used in land grabs while building railroads, too? Some of this nation's history is offensive. Deal with it. Maybe, though, it was the use of "Anglos" in this context. I'm still puzzled by why this is a misuse of taxpayer dollars.
— Christ submerged in a jar of urine. — NEA-funded exhibit
I'm sorry, but we paid the salaries of troops who have done much worse over the decades, though perhaps Coulter only finds desecration of Christian symbols unfair or offensive. I really should get back into teaching Sunday School.
— A play titled "Sincerity Forever," depicting Christ using obscenities and endorsing any and all types of sexual activities as consistent with Biblical teaching. — NEA-funded exhibit
And it is OK for the U.S. military to supply aircraft for movies like Executive Decision? After all, that film only portrays the followers of Allah as hellbent on harming others. Good Christians and evil Others does not fairness make.
She goes on to write that the United States was "founded on a compact with God, forged from the idea that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Hmm. Let's review the two core documents of this nation: The Declaration of Independence and The United States Constitution. The word "God" appears precisely once between the two documents (in the Declaration of Independence), and that is in the following sentence:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Note that there is no specification of which God, and despite attempts some continue to make that it is the God of the Christian Bible (is that Catholic or Protestant, by the way?), there is, in the end, not merely a dearth but a complete lack of evidence to suppport any such definitive claim. Heck, "the Laws of Nature" get top billing; "Nature's God," which sounds incredibly druidic to me, comes in second.
"Creator," which also appears but once, and in the same document as "God," is no clearer. Indeed, if person X believes that god A is her creator, and person Y believes that god B is his creator, what distinction does this document make?
Better still, of these two documents, only the Constitution has any legal or governmental value. The Declaration—important and historic though it is—does not establish this nation's government, yet it is the only one to mention "God" or a "Creator."
Coulter eventually comes to her (apparent) point, which is to mention the possible horror of banning the Pledge of Allegiance. I suppose there are those who want to ban it, but most cases ask the Court to rule on the "under God" portion, which was addedonly during the Cold War so that we might distinguish ourselves from those "godless" Communists (note the use of a capital C, indicating the party, not the people who espouse Marx and Engel's economic theory—there is a difference).
In any case, here is my mercifully short (though why I should make it short after this long of a post is beyond me) list of questionable taxpayer-funded boondogles:
The "Star Wars" missile defense shield. We have yet to have one fully functional test on a system that has been twenty years in development. Worse, not a one of our serious enemies has ICBM capabilities, though commercial aircraft, a poisoned milk supply, or a few X-ray-activated explosive devices could cause more economic havoc, if not exactly as much loss of life, as one nuke.
$200,000 in 2000 for one city in Pennsylvania to get all of its streets re-paved with sparkling asphalt. Yeah, because the driveways at theatres aren't bad enough that we have to put this into a federal highway spending bill? If this post has already pissed you off, you really don't want to know which elephantine party claims the offending Senator.
Franking privileges that may be used to run political campaigns. 'Nuff said.
Ann Coulter's law school education. Yes, that was a silly one, but given the level of pointlessness of some of Coulter's listed items, maybe this should be a serious entry.
Iran-Contra. Let me see, we paid people to use backdoor methods to deal with people we didn't like but were allowed to deal with so they could deal with people we didn't like and we were banned from dealing with. This was done so that we could achieve an end that was not achieved by these means, and now a member of the so-called "Axis of Evil" has weapons we supplied via this mess. Oh yeah. That's a promotional bell ringer!
I think that's enough for now. I'm sure I will hear something about this, despite the dedication of the post to my friend. Honestly, had he not mentioned Ann Coulter, I would not have thought to go to her site. It was only once I was there and reading her list, however, that I felt the need to write something about it here.
posted by Andrew Purvis @ 1:34 PM
3 Comments:
Unfortunately for those of us in the Keystone State, we have two offensive Senators, an even more offensive governor, and a few Representatives who leave much to be desired.
While I’ll continue to question the existence of any god or religious figure – from the Christian ones to any other faith – I would like to be so bold as to debate the issue of NEA funding. It’s obvious that Coulter targeted Serrano’s “Piss Christ” due to the “sacrilegious” use of a crucifix, but it’s valid to question the use of public funds for “artistic” projects of any persuasion – religious or otherwise.
Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude showed us in February that art can thrive in the private sector, having raised $20 million by selling their work to fund “The Gates.” The artists who haven’t been able to garner such appeal have had to resort to public funds to stay afloat.
Since these artists have little widespread appeal, several questions arise. First, what merits a society having to pay for exhibits with tax dollars when that same society has already shown that the exhibits have such little appeal? If the marketplace has placed little value upon the art in question (and the marketplace is created by the aforementioned society), what or who determines the art’s “worth”?
Since you’ve mentioned the Constitution’s legal value, it’s important to note that the only thing dealing with the arts is Section 8 of Article I, which allows for copyrights and patents. It then can be said that using public monies for just funding artists is unconstitutional, can it not?
This is why I agree with you completely when you offer the example of using military aircraft for Executive Decision. According to the Constitution, the military is to “suppress insurrections” and “repel invasions.” It’s not supposed to help a private sector movie studio make money at the box office.
Such a situation creates a minor dilemma for the comparison of paying troops to paying artists: Soldiers, no matter how evil they might become, are doing a job that has been outlined in the country’s founding document; artists are not.
I think, perhaps, that the point of my list was not clear. I am not suggesting a direct comparison between the value of any items on Coulter's list and those on mine. I simply wanted to point out that there are many things out there revered by the right wing that are at least as bad as those she lists.
I have a problem with the valuation of art at the hands of the marketplace. The number of works that might have been lost ages ago simply because they were not seen as valuable in their respective times is staggering. That said, I am not sure how I feel about the full extent of arts funding, or perhaps more accurately the decision-making process behind it.
I did not make reference to the paying of troops for carrying out national defense duties. The closest I came to that was the mention of Iran-Contra, which included no active-duty personnel paid through the DoD payroll (North was not active, Poindexter was non-military, and others were in similar positions). I do not now have, nor have I ever had, any quarrel with the people who serve in the military, as such; this includes friends and family. Where I have objected to the use of the military, it has been because of decisions made at the higher levels (probably little below the level of an colonel, or in the Navy a captain), though individual cases of bad conduct are plentiful at all levels.
She was merely pointing out a discrepancy:
1. we are funding all these questionable things as free speech
2. yet we ban expression of the 10 commandments
In your second example the problem is not with the word “Anglos” but with the words “fraud and manipulation.” That’s a big claim. People shouldn’t throw those words around without some solid evidence. Mind you, that evidence would have to show that every single “Anglo” committed fraud and manipulation. Otherwise, how is it fair to blame a whole group (Anglos) for the misdeeds of some individuals?
I don't know where you're going with your third example, comparing funding of expression with some unspecified actions of paid troops.
I think that Protestants and Catholics worship the same God.
The framers of the constitution were almost all Protestants. They shared a common idea of God. I don’t see why they would be talking about some other people’s God.
And Ann Coulter doesn’t expressly specify which God she’s talking about either. Why do you infer that she is talking about the Christian God while the framers were not?
Maybe you're right, I might agree that “there are many things out there revered by the right wing that are at least as bad as those she lists.”
But this point doesn’t contradict Ann Coulter at all, unless you include the 10 commandments within your category of bad right wing things.
As to art funding, the government represents the people. Maybe the people want to support art through government rather than through commercial channels. Neat point about constitutionality of art funding Abnormal, though I think the federal governemnt has great discretion with the power to tax and spend.
Neat post.
Post a Comment
<< Home