TAM 4: If I Only Had a Brush: Christopher Hitchens
January 27, 2006

The Amazing Meeting: Day 2.

8:30 AM

Is it just me, or does Christopher Hitchens always look like he just rolled out of bed?

He pops up on Jon Stewart or PBS, looking like he nabbed whatever was clean, stuck his glasses in pocket, his smokes in his coat, and his notes in his wallet. I need to learn that art. I don't have the hair, and I don't smoke, and I can't write like he can, but still.

Hitchens opening speech played off of Jefferson's efforts at ending the Barbary Coast Piracy during the first years of his presidency. Hitch drew parallels between Jefferson's action and Bushes, both men in his estimation taking bold steps to oppose the evil of religiously directed fascism. He argued that, unlike Jefferson, liberals had lost the "moral high ground" to the conservatives over the war effort and the need to stop the advance of militant Islam.

He wove through his presentation the need to oppose religious extremism wherever it may be -- with the Muslims in the Mideast or the Religious Right and their faux "War on Christmas" right here at home. One of the things he was quite sure of was that the Founders, and Jefferson particularly, didn't do what they did so that every shopping mall throughout the land must have, 200 years later, a Christmas Tree next to the cash register and clerks who were required to say "Merry Christmas" on pain of condemnation.

He gave many examples of Jefferson's opposition to religous tests, pointing out the varring discriminatory standards of Colonial times, religious tests that Jefferson went to great pains to circumvent with the secular language he included in the Virginia constitution, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and his famous letter to the Baptists of Virginia outlining the wall of "separation between Church and State."

Religion has managed to prosper in the USA, Hitchens said, because of the secular state that was founded, not in spite of it.

In reference to the whole NSA domestic spying controversy he was quite clear that in his view "Powers once given [to the government ] won't be given back." And I found this odd in light of his praise for the unilateral actions of both Jefferson and Bush. I believe, like Hitchens does, that Militant Islam must be opposed wherever it is. That's why fighting in Iraq is the most boneheadedly stupid idea I've ever seen. Part of the reason why Bush can even have the NSA do what it did is because of the misleading war in Iraq. Supporting his (lack) of reasons and rational for the invasion is supporting a grab for power by the Executive. Complaining about it now, seems to me, like sour grapes.

But damn he can still write better than I can.

Posted by Jody at January 27, 2006 10:33 PM

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