{"id":9674,"date":"2012-08-14T07:04:57","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T11:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=9674"},"modified":"2012-08-13T21:09:42","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T01:09:42","slug":"smart-people-saying-smart-things-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/14\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-59\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart people saying smart things"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Wells Tower: \u201cDesperately Seeking Mitt\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

On some level, he must know that the world\u2019s more complex than this, and that these past three decades have been very good to people like him and Harold but not so good for everybody else. It\u2019s a big, ugly truth to have to willfully ignore. Not that it\u2019s his fault. Romney\u2019s presidential bid would combust the instant he stopped talking about America as though it is a pretty hologram in a block of cut glass and that its only flaws, easily effaced, are a few thumbprints Obama left on the crystal. Still, it is lamentable that if you ever hope to get elected, your most closely guarded secret is your honest, unairbrushed vision of the nation you want to run.<\/p>\n

As I shoulder my way to the rope line, I\u2019m thinking how emotionally fatiguing it would be to spend all day, every day telling America it can be rescued by rich men and hymns and keeping secret for the quiet room his real worries for the land he wants to govern. Secrets are exhausting. Coming down the rope line, Romney looks exhausted. Haggard, bleary. He grasps my hand. A really good grip: firm, but not a knucklebuster, choked up solidly into my hand-crotch of thumb and forefinger, wholly avoiding one of those awkward fingertip-clutching situations. His skin is dry and warm. I look him in his hooded eyes. \u201cYou must be very tired,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeh, heh.\u201d Two popcorn emissions of dry, synthetic jocularity. \u201cI\u2019m doing all right.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Daniel Altman: \u201cHow Republicans Sabotaged the Recovery\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Imagine, for a moment, how difficult it would have been to land a man on the moon if half of the U.S. Congress had believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Or consider how the War in the Pacific might have progressed if half of Congress had still thought the world was flat. Or whether polio would have been eradicated if half of Congress insisted that the best cure was bleeding using leeches. Unfortunately, this was the situation the United States in January 2009, when Barack Obama assumed the presidency. The nation was trying to climb out of the deepest economic hole since the Great Depression, but the Republican Party had about as scientific an approach to the economy as medieval alchemists did to the periodic table.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Peter Montgomery: \u201c12 Rules for Mixing Religion and Politics\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

1. There can be no religious test for public office, nor a religious test for participation in the political process.<\/p>\n

2. While it is appropriate to discuss the moral dimensions of public policy issues, religious doctrine alone is not an acceptable basis for government policy.<\/p>\n

3. Public officials have every right to express their personal religious beliefs, and no right to use the power of their office to proselytize or coerce others to adopt any religious beliefs or practices .<\/p>\n

4. Government institutions must show neither official approval nor disapproval of religion, or favor one religion over another.<\/p>\n

5. Religious institutions may cooperate with government in programs supporting the common good, but public funds must not be used to support proselytizing, religious education, worship or discrimination.<\/p>\n

6. Government has a right to demand that religious institutions and individuals comply with reasonable regulation and social policy.<\/p>\n

7. Public officials cannot use their religious beliefs as a rationale for failing to uphold the duties of their office.<\/p>\n

8. Political discourse should respect religious pluralism.<\/p>\n

9. Political figures and the media should not treat religious constituencies as monolithic; political and religious leaders should not claim to speak for an entire religious community on public policy issues.<\/p>\n

10. Politicians and media should not equate orthodoxy with authenticity.<\/p>\n

11. Religious and political leaders should not \u201ccry wolf\u201d about religious persecution.<\/p>\n

12. Religion should not be used as a political club.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wells Tower: \u201cDesperately Seeking Mitt\u201d On some level, he must know that the world\u2019s more complex than this, and that these past three decades have been very good to people like him and Harold but not so good for everybody else. It\u2019s a big, ugly truth to have to willfully ignore. Not that it\u2019s his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,37],"class_list":["post-9674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-state","tag-smart"],"yoast_head":"\nSmart people saying smart things<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Wells Tower: "Desperately Seeking Mitt" On some level, he must know that the world's more complex than this, and that these past three decades have been\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/14\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-59\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Smart people saying smart things\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wells Tower: "Desperately Seeking Mitt" On some level, he must know that the world's more complex than this, and that these past three decades have been\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/14\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-59\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-14T11:04:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-14T01:09:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/14\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-59\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/14\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-59\/\",\"name\":\"Smart people saying smart things\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-14T11:04:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-08-14T01:09:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"Wells Tower: \\\"Desperately Seeking Mitt\\\" On some level, he must know that the world's more complex than this, and that these past three decades have been\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/14\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-59\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/14\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-59\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/08\/14\/smart-people-saying-smart-things-59\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Smart people saying smart things\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}