A Question to Christians

I am truly curious as to how a Christian would answer this question.

The Dalai Lama is generally recognized as a humane individual, a spiritual man, and a person who acts ethically and with humility towards the world and other humans. He is not, however, Christian and does not, as far as I know, accept Jesus Christ as his savior.

When he dies, is he going to Hell?

If so, why? If not, why not?

If comments are not giving you enough space, please post your answer in your own LJ or blog and put a link to it in the comments. While all perspectives are appreciated, this really is a question to Christians.

Anglachel

My Simple Wish

Th ghoul-fest surrounding Terri Schiavo finally appears to be winding down, now that her parents have realized that Jeb Bush is not going to impose martial law and snatch Ms. Schiavo away from her husband.

I have a simple wish for the Schindlers and for everyone who has been involved in exploiting Ms. Schiavo for their own pathological reasons:

I wish that each and every one of you who is claiming that Ms. Schiavo is alive shall wake up tomorrow to find yourself in the condition you believe her to be in. That is to say, I wish for each and every one of you to be 100% conscious of your surroundings, fully able to feel pain, cold, hunger, and despair, hearing every word said around you, lying in your own shitty diapers and hitched up to a catheter for your urine, getting all your food and water from a tube sewn into your gut.

I want for you to never be able to touch you spouse, parents, and/or children of your own volition. Never eat a bite of solid food. Never pick up the phone and talk to your friends. Never go shopping, drive a car, pick flowers, jump in a pool, attend your church, pet the dog, turn on the TV, sing a song, cook dinner, clean the house, or send an email.

I am merciful, however. Unlike you, who wish this for Ms. Schiavo in perpetuity, I only wish it for you for as many years as Ms. Schiavo has lived it since her parents decided to fight allowing her to die until the moment when she finally goes to her god and is at peace.

What's that, 10 years or so?

In short, I wish for you to be in perfect possession of your own will and beliefs, and to experience first-hand what you have declared in your moralistic arrogance to be the fate Terri Schiavo must endure so you can pat yourself on the back for your moral purity.

I do not want Ms. Schiavo to die. Neither do I want her to endure suffering for decades. The only consolation I have as I watch the ghoul-fest is that Ms. Schiavo no longer possesses consciousness and is not suffering. She is beyond your psychopathic obsessions.

Anglachel

What Mark Kleiman says...

My revulsion at the fascists right's behavior surrounding Terri Schiavo keeps me from speaking in reasonable terms, so I provide Mark's excellent summation on situation morality:

In war and politics, take the high ground

The key political fact about the Schiavo case so far is that it's being reported as "morality v. pragmatism." The notion that it might be immoral to tell lies about Terri Schiavo's condition and prognosis, or to keep the body alive when the self is gone, or to make a public circus out of a private tragedy, or to make up and spread horrible rumors about Michael Schiavo's actions and nasty insinuations about his motives, or to slander Judge Greer, seem to be too complicated for the typical reporter to understand.

As long as the right wing is seen as standing up for moral values, they're going to continue to win elections.

What Digby Says

Courtesy of Digby at Hullabaloo, a clear statement on what is really happening with the Terry Schiavo case:

By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.

Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are aware that the bankruptcy bill will make it even more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.

And those of us who read liberal blogs also know that this grandstanding by the congress is a purely political move designed to appease the religious right and that the legal maneuverings being employed would be anathema to any true small government conservative.

Those who don't read liberal blogs, on the other hand, are seeing a spectacle on television in which the news anchors repeatedly say that the congress is "stepping in to save Terry Schiavo" mimicking the unctuous words of Tom Delay as they grovel and leer at the family and nod sympathetically at the sanctimonious phonies who are using this issue for their political gain.

This is why we cannot trust the mainstream media. Most people get their news from television. And television is presenting this issue as a round the clock one dimensional soap opera pitting the "family", the congress and the church against this woman's husband and the judicial system that upheld Terry Schiavo's right and explicit request that she be allowed to die if extraordinary means were required to keep her alive. The ghoulish infotainment industry is making a killing by acceding once again to trumped up right wing sensationalism.

This issue gets to the essence of the culture war. Shall the state be allowed to interfere in the most delicate, complicated personal matters of life, death and health because a particular religious constituency holds that their belief system should override each individual's right to make these personal decisions for him or herself. And it isn't the allegedly statist/communist/socialist left that is agitating for the government to tell Americans how they must live and how they must die.

One of the things that we need to help America understand is that there is a big difference between the way the two parties perceive the role of government in its citizens personal lives. Democrats want the government to collect money from all its citizens in order to deliver services to the people. The Republicans want the government to collect money from working people in order to dictate individual citizen's personal decisions. You tell me which is the bigger intrusion into the average American's liberty?

Just when I thought the Rethuglicans could not stoop any lower, they prove me wrong again. And the TV talking heads and media poodles run along beside, yipping and yapping.

Ang

What Kevin Drum Says...

For the love of God, can we stop this? Democrats would be delighted to rescue Social Security by keeping the inheritance tax or undoing Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. It's Republicans who won't hear of it. Democrats are also happy to support add-on private accounts. You can hardly swing a dead cat without hearing some Democrat saying so. But that's not what George Bush is proposing. And I imagine Democrats would be open to the idea of reducing the payroll tax and replacing it with something more progressive, too. But Bush's plan contains nothing of the kind.

As happens so often, the journalistic community has decided that they're required to say that both sides are being equally irresponsible, regardless of the facts. The way to do this, apparently, is to (a) condemn Democrats for opposing a plan they all acknowledge is a bad one, and (b) then condemn them further for not supporting their own favored alternatives, even though they know perfectly well that the obstacle to these alternatives is not Democrats but Republicans.

It's George Bush who's insisting on a private account plan that even his own people admit won't do anything to shore up Social Security's finances. It's George Bush who's insisting that the only cures he'll consider are ones that include huge — but quiet — benefit cuts. It's George Bush who has publicly refused to even consider proposals to increase Social Security revenue in any way. It's George Bush who has run up the unconscionable deficits that are far more responsible for our deterioriating finances than anything in the Social Security system.

The facts: Social Security has modest problems that are many decades out. They could be easily solved with small benefit cuts combined with small tax increases. A bipartisan solution could be hammered out in a few days if it weren't for one person: George Bush.

The problem isn't that Democrats aren't willing to negotiate. The problem is that Democrats don't have anyone to negotiate with. That ought to be the story.

I'm watching the Social Security debate with the horrified fascination of someone watching an on-coming train, knowing I can't get out of the way. The Rethuglican ideologues are determined to return American to the Gilded Age. This is clearly stated in every policy paper coming out of the Cato Insitute and other think tanks of that ilk. Like, DUH.

The only solace in all this is that the morons who voted for King George, the poor ones, that is, will pay the price of their stupidity far more than I will. Your children will die and be maimed in war, your health care support will be ripped away, your daughters will bear children they don't want and can't afford, your retirement benefits will be zero. You voted for your own impoverishment and degradation.

Me, I voted for good jobs, better living conditions, an end to stupid, pointless war, and a return to real ethical standards.

Hope you're happy with losing your Social Security checks.

Anglachel

Spending Political Capital

Just a short quote from Frank Rich's new column in the New York Times:

Alas, there were no Fox News cameras to capture what may have been the week's most surreal "salute" to the troops, the "Heroes Red, White and Blue Inaugural Ball" attended by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The event's celebrity stars included the Fox correspondent Geraldo Rivera, who had been booted from Iraq at the start of the war for compromising "operational security" by telling his viewers the position of the American troops he loves so much. He joked to the crowd that his deployment as an "overpaid" reporter was tantamount to that of an "underpaid hero" in battle. The attendees from Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital, some of whose long-term care must be picked up by private foundations because of government stinginess, responded with "deafening silence," reported Roxanne Roberts of The Washington Post. Ms. Roberts understandably left the party after the night's big act: Nile Rodgers and Chic sang the lyrics "Clap your hands, hoo!" and "Dance to the beat" to "a group of soldiers missing hands and legs."

Forget Armor. All You Need is Love.

You folks voted for this group of idiots. The suffering of these soldiers is due to your stupidity. You voted into office people who simply don't give a rat's ass that they are killing American citizens - and even more Iraqi citizens - for no other reason than to enrich themselves.

Bets on the US death count by the end of the year? On the US crippled and mained count?

Ironic, ain't it, that liberals care more about soldiers than conservatives.

Ang

A Christmas Carol

I

The shepherds went their hasty way,
And found the lowly stable-shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:
And now they checked their eager tread,
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,
A Mother's song the Virgin-Mother sung.

II

They told her how a glorious light,
Streaming from a heavenly throng.
Around them shone, suspending night!
While sweeter than a mother's song,
Blest Angels heralded the Savior's birth,
Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

III

She listened to the tale divine,
And closer still the Babe she pressed:
And while she cried, the Babe is mine!
The milk rushed faster to her breast:
Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn;
Peace, Peace on Earth! The Prince of Peace is born.

IV

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
Poor, simple, and of low estate!
That strife should vanish, battle cease,
O why should this thy soul elate?
Sweet Music's loudest note, the Poet's story,
Didst thou ne'er love to hear of fame and glory?

V

And is not War a youthful king,
A stately Hero clad in mail?
Beneath his footsteps laurels spring;
Him Earth's majestic monarchs hail
Their friends, their playmate! and his bold bright eye
Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh.

VI

Tell this in some more courtly scene,
To maids and youths in robes of state!
I am a woman poor and mean,
And wherefore is my soul elate.
War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,
That from the aged father tears his child!

VII

A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,
He kills the sire and starves the son;
The husband kills, and from her board
Steals all his widow's toil had won;
Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away
All safety from the night, all comfort from the day.

VIII

Then wisely is my soul elate,
That strife should vanish, battle cease:
I'm poor and of low estate,
The Mother of the Prince of Peace.
Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn:
Peace, Peace on Earth! The Prince of Peace is born!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Lie To Us

From Fafblog, the best political reporting in America:

After years of losing the the battle for hearts and minds to the Islamist menace, leaders in the Pentagon are finally planning to fight back with a plan sure to win the trust and confidence of the Arab street: a massive propaganda campaign.

The notion of seeding foreign nations - enemy, neutral and allied alike - with misleading information and outright lies may appear unseemly, immoral, and unwise, especially given the possibility that such false information will be picked up by credulous American news outlets to misinform the domestic populace. But one must consider the vast forces arrayed against the United States: in Iraq alone, America faces electricity, oil, food, and medical shortages, overstretched and overworn troops, a population incensed at ongoing and systematic torture and abuse at the hands of American occupiers, an escalating insurgency energized rather than deflated by recent counterstrikes, and the inescapable tug of civil war. With the facts solidly turned against the war effort, the war effort's last option is to officially declare war on the facts.

Facts - and the transmission of facts - have consistently proven to be a deadly opponent in the global war on terror. When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, it was photographic proof - indisputable, hard evidence - that outraged the Arab world and forced a stunned America to ask the question, "Why did they take those photos?" When a missile crashes into a marketplace in Baghdad, or a child picks up a cluster bomb, it is television cameras - often from the despicable al-Jazeera network - that record the aftermath. And it was evidence of weapons of mass destruction - more hard facts - that failed to show up when most desperately needed, that deserted the proud coalition as quickly and as fiercely as Jacques Chirac.

The solution is obvious: if facts will not join the fight in the war on terror, then America must supply its own facts. If reality will not aid the United States, then lies will. New, friendly, manufactured news will counteract old, natural news of brutal slaughter and human rights abuses, overtake them with superior counterfactual force, and terminate them with extreme prejudice to win the hearts and minds of Muslims everywhere.

A lesser nation would consider changing its more hideous policies to win over the rest of the world, but the Pentagon realizes that the better response is to simply lie to it. The Bush Administration has successfully used this policy on America for the last four years, and the country, the Medium Lobster is told, is safer than ever.

Real War, Real Veterans

In belated honor of Veterns Day, here is a link to much needed presentation of those who have fallen in Iraq:

Faces of the Fallen

It's on the Washington Post so you may need to register to see it. The current administration may not wish us to see them coming back in their coffins or know what respect they are given at their funerals, but we can see them here. They died in a war that was pursued to make the Chimperor look tough for domestic voters.

Decision to Invade Iraq Decided Before 200 Election

Read the article and then think about the reasons politicians send our men and women in uniform into battle. Think about how veterans are treated once they get home. Think on who is getting the money the Congress allocates for the military - is it going to support our soldiers or does it disappear into the black maw of war profiteers?

Why is it unpatriotic to question the rush to war and to demand that these people's lives be put in danger only for clear and unequivocal reasons? How am I not "supporting our troops" by questioning whether the White House is lying about this? How do I fail to honor service men and women by denouncing Pentagon political appointees like Paul Wolfowitz being in league with Iranian spy Ahmad Chalabi?

Ang

Real Iraq

Danziger cuts to the chase:



Please be sure to visit Jeff Danziger's cartoon site.

I thought I was going to write about electoral reform, but current events got in the way. Given the invasion of Fallujah, I thought this an excellent reminder of what the war is *really* about - George W. Bush making political hay.

The invasion of Iraq was on the Chimperor's agenda before he seized the White House in 2000. It has always been his obsession, and the WTC attacks gave him the opening he wanted to conduct his glorious little war. Now that he did win an election (however much money had to be spent, however low the Turd Blossom Rove had to go), he figures Iraq is his playground. The lives of our soldiers and of ordinary Iraqis are his to spend as he sees fit.

W has no respect for life, and neither do those who voted for him. They'll "save" 2 month old US fetuses, and turn a blind eye to the butchery of 2 year old Iraqi children - how else can I look at their claim to respect life except as cynical mockery? These people did nothing to us. Iraq had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden or the WTC attack. The terrorists who killed the contractors are not even *from* Fallujah - it was a carefully staged event. But W and his supporters will praise the killing of those children anyway.

Those of us who actually judge the efficacy of the administration's foreign policy are called traitor and un-American for pointing out the truth - invading Iraq was done for short-term domestic political gain, and it will reap long-term intrnational and, yes, domestic grief. Have no doubt - we'll "win" the battle in Fallujah insofar as we will flatten the place and butcher the inhabitants. In the longer run, every dead child from that city will raise a dozen jihadists who each will wish to kill a dozen US children in revenge. And a few will probably succeed.

Ang

Reality Check

Nope, I haven't disappeared nor am I the slightest bit daunted by the Chimperor's win. Let's be clear - W. won this round. There are a lot of reasons why, but the biggest one is that his supporters are ignorant of the world and voted for him under false assumptions about what he is doing in office. This is something that can be corrected in the next few years, and I don't think the Left will have much work to do on that count. Reality can be suppressed for only so long, after all.

1. Stingers missing in Iraq
2. High power explosives also gone missing
3. Osama bin Laden untrammeled and gaining prestige in the Muslim world
4. Increasingly few allies for the US
5. The coming collapse of the dollar (hat tip - Brad Delong)
6. The battle over privatizing Social Security
7. The growing deficit and debt (the fundamental root of the collapse of the dollar)
8. Rising interest rates and their effect on the housing market
9. The looming US draft to back imperial military adventures
10. Lack of any substantive homeland security coordination at a federal level (hat tip - Phil Carter, Intel Dump)

and other lesser issues that will percolate to the top of the swamp over the next four years. Chimpy thinks he won a mandate when he won with a narrow majority. He will over-reach.

Now, let's talk about this values nonsense. Please take a good look at amileoj's analysis at Granfalloon Junction on how the pollsters are missing the point. First off, "values" is not the issue that drove people - Iraq/War on Terror is. The way the questions were asked split this into its (correct) constituent parts (The Iraq invasion having nothing to do with fighting bin Laden), but most people see it as two sides of the same coin. They are linked as the debacle in Iraq is increasing the strength of jihadists around the world, but Saddaam Hussein and his Baathist regime had nothing to do with bin Laden.

But that's a secondary issue. What has pissed me off most is the talking heads and media heathers and pundits instantly agreeing that somehow I don't have morals because I'm not a member of some mega-church in the "heartland".

'Scuze me?

I'm a progressive liberal, and I have some very powerful values. I believe in human equality. I fight for substantive justice. I uphold the laws of my land, pay taxes to support my country, and serve in a public job. I protect the division of church and state, for the benefit of each. I refuse to watch or pay for exploitative, crude or vulgar entertainment (haven't owned a TV in years). I don't patronize places that exploit or demean other people, like Hooters restaurants. While I do not believe in an afterlife, I have been raised in the same judeo-christian ethos as most Americans of European descent, and my sense of right and wrong comes right from the Good Book. I live my life simply and responsibly. It goes on, but you get the picture.

Before declaring morality and values to be the private possession of a particular sub-group of Christians, the media might actually want to do some leg work on substantive ethical behavior.

Ang

Did We Really Expect Anything Else?

The Rethugs know they cannot win in a direct vote, so they are trying to use court orders to stop people from voting in Ohio.

Sorry, anyone who retains Republican Party membership after tonight's behavior is declaring themselves to be in active support of criminality to stay in power.

This is the kind of thing we shake our heads over in third world countries, you know? It will be interesting to see how the international press reports on the American elections tomorrow. I wonder how they will compare us to the recent elections in say, India or Venzuela?

I don't think we'll quite measure up...

Ang

Kerry/Edwards - the choice of the voters, regardless of Carl Rove's fascist tactics

Faith in America

PAUL KRUGMAN

"Florida's early polling was designed to make voting easier, but enormous voter turnout swamped the limited number of early polling sites. Over the weekend, people in some polling places had to stand in line for four, five, even six hours, often in the hot sun. Some of them - African-Americans in particular - surely suspected that those lines were so long because officials wanted to make it hard for them to vote. Yet they refused to be discouraged or intimidated.

Here's what a correspondent from Florida wrote to Joshua Marshall, of talkingpointsmemo.com: "To see people coming out - elderly, disabled, blind, poor; people who have to hitch rides, take buses, etc. - and then staying in line for hours and hours and hours ... Well, it's humbling. And it's awesome. And it's kind of beautiful."

Yes, it is. I always get a little choked up when I go to the local school to cast my vote. The humbleness of the surroundings only emphasizes the majesty of the process: this is democracy, America's great gift to the world, in action.

But over the last few days I've been seeing pictures from Florida that are even more majestic. They show long lines of voters, snaking through buildings and on down the sidewalk: citizens patiently waiting to do their civic duty. Those people still believe in American democracy; and because they do, so do I.

In truth, I wasn't sure what would happen in Florida this year. After all that has gone wrong with voting in that state, it seemed all too possible that many people would simply give up and stay home.

But it's already clear that the people of Florida - and, I believe, America as a whole - have refused to give in to cynicism and spin.

Far from being discouraged by what happened in 2000, they seem to realize more than ever - and better than those of us in the chattering classes - what a precious thing the right to vote really is. And they are determined to exercise that right.

And it's not just in Florida. Similar stories are coming in from across the country, wherever early voting is allowed: everywhere, huge numbers of voters are coming to the polls, determined to exercise their democratic rights.

Of course, most Americans won't get their chance to vote until today, but I have no doubt that they will turn out in record numbers. I don't think the rain that will blanket some parts of the country will deter them. Regardless of their politics, most Americans understand that this is a crucial election, and that never before has their vote mattered so much for the nation's destiny.

The talking heads on TV will no doubt frame all of this in partisan terms: light turnout favors one party, heavy turnout favors the other. True enough.

But this isn't a zero-sum game: the more people vote, the more vital is our democracy.

By coming to the polls, citizens are literally giving a vote of confidence in American democracy. And in so doing, they are proving themselves wiser than some of those they elected.

Those who govern us seem to have learned little from the 2000 electoral debacle: voting machines are still unreliable, voting officials are still unforgivably partisan.

But the public seems to have learned a lesson. Instead of becoming cynical, people seem to have become motivated. After an election in which a few hundred votes determined the fate of the nation, after four years of an administration that has demonstrated, for good or ill, that it matters a lot who becomes president, citizens know that their votes matter. And they are determined to cast those votes.

What will happen when they do cast those votes? I don't know; neither does anyone else. That's how democracy works.

Regular readers won't be in any doubt about who I want to win, though New York Times rules prevent me from giving any explicit endorsement. (Hint: it's the side that benefits from large turnout.) Above all, though, I want to see democracy vindicated, and the stain of 2000 eradicated, by a clean election in which as many people as possible get to cast their votes, and have those votes counted.

And all the evidence says that's what the American people want, too. May all of us get our wish."

The Reality of Voting - Rethugs Hate Democracy

Much though some people want to pretend that there is an equivalence between the "dirty tricks" played by Democrats and Republicans as concerns voting, the facts simply won't bear them up.

I received one claim of voter registration fraud concerning ACORN, and there evidently really was somone in Pennsylvania who fraudulently filled out some registration cards with Disney cartoon characters - allegedly for some cocaine in exchange. Farhad Manjoo on Salon has demonstrated that the ACORN story is, in fact, a fabrication of the Florida Republican party. There was only ever one source for the news, a Rethug astroturf operation that fights against unions and living wages for ordinary Americans. So, folks, before you send me links to "proof" do your homework and see if the information can be sourced to more than one location.

However, the jerk with the cocaine habit is a true loser.

What the apologists for the Rethug tactics keep overlooking is that the Republican National Committee, state Republican parties, and local Republican party chapters are knowingly conspiring to destroy voter registrations and intimidate voters at the polls. There was Sproul's multi-state fraud effort, there are the guys under indictment in South Dakota for voter registration fraud are working for Bush in Ohio, another guy indicted on felony charges for crimes in the *last* presidential election is working for Bush in New England, and the increasing number of scams in swing states to bully and threaten Democrats into not voting.

They aren't worried about double voting - they are worried about voting period. They are deliberately targeting African-Americans, revealing the deep committment of Republicans to racist disenfranchisement of 12% of the population. After all, when the Dixiecrats finally abandoned the Democrats after the Civil Rights victories of the 60's and 70's, they ran their racist butts right over to the Republicans. They engage in elaborate schemes to find anything to challenge a Democratic voter's right to vote - like saying the lack of an apartment number on a registration should invalidate the voter.

It is a sorry state of affairs when the only way you can win is by being anti-democrats, not by promoting your own policies and true successes. Even with the Media Whores cheering for them, BushCo doesn't have a damn thing to say for itself. So they engage in voter intimidation, in the finest Southern tradition.

But it is backfiring. Voters aren't intimdated - they are mad. 30% voter turnouts already in states with early voting, disproportionately going for Kerry.

Ang

Kerry/Edwards - Not just Democrats, democrats

OT, but Real

The hubby surprised me yesterday with a present. He bought me Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I have been wanting since I read a review of it in Salon.

I'm only a few pages into it, and I love it. I'm going to have to dole this out.

Back to our regularly scheduled program of commentary on America.

Ang

Kerry/Edwards - Less than 24 hours now....