Sitting Bull: Original Tea Partier

Fox News is raising some hackles with its "Obama Praises Indian Chief Who Killed U.S. General" headline, but that's what Fox does. It seems to me, though, that Sitting Bull would actually be a Tea Party hero. This is a movement, after all, that not-infrequently raises the specter of "Second Amendment remedies" to government overreach and trots out the now-tired "tree of liberty must be refreshed by the blood of tyrants" quote (I'm paraphrasing) at every opportunity.

Well, Sitting Bull was somebody who actually walked the walk. He took arms against a literally encroaching federal government that, by any rational standard, was robbing his people of their property rights. From an ideological standpoint, this guy should be a Fox News hero! What makes him different, I wonder...

The Beatles Are Already On My iPod

Apparently Apple's big announcement today is that they'll finally be selling Beatles' songs through iTunes. Hard for me to get excited about. I've had the Beatles on my iPod ever since I've had an iPod. Legally, of course: the digital files back up physical CDs that are in my storage closet somewhere. It's nice that the music is now available for legal download, but given the nature of 21st century music consumption, I doubt many people who wanted to listen to the Beatles on an mp3 player have been unable to do so.

TSA Backlash Week: New Jersey!

Inky:

"TRENTON - The use of full-body scanners at airports should be reconsidered because the machines are ineffective, are overly intrusive, and open the door to further invasions of privacy depending on how the images are retained, New Jersey lawmakers said Monday as they announced a resolution urging Congress to review the program.

The effort brought together members of both political parties and both houses of the state Legislature as well as the American Civil Liberties Union. The resolution calls the scans a 'gross violation' of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure and says the machines' effectiveness has not been sufficiently proven."

TSA Backlash Week: Twitter Edition

#TSASlogans is trending on Twitter right now. A couple of favorites:

TSA Backlash Week: Fox News Strikes Back!

From my friend Ben, fresh video from Fox News:



The security folks seem unwilling to backdown. That's why TSA Backlash Week must continue.

Are Mennonites Becoming Too Influential?

At The American Spectator, Mark Tooley writes an article mocking Mennonites for their victimhood and for the perniciously liberal influence they're having in evangelical circles. He writes:

"All these neo-Anabaptists denounce traditional American Christianity for its supposed seduction by American civil religion and ostensible support for the 'empire.' They reject and identify America with the reputed fatal accommodation between Christianity and the Roman Emperor Constantine capturing the Church as a supposed instrument of state power. Conservative Christians are neo-Anabaptists' favorite targets for their alleged usurpation by Republican Party politics. But the neo-Anabaptists increasingly offer their own fairly aggressive politics aligned with the Democratic Party, in a way that should trouble traditional Mennonites. Although the neo-Anabaptists sort of subscribe to a tradition that rejects or, at most, passively abides state power, they now demand a greatly expanded and more coercive state commandeering health care, regulating the environment, and punishing wicked industries."

First: Tooley never really grapples with whether Mennonite pacifism is theologically correct. I think that's telling. Who wants to argue that Jesus wants us to drop fragmentation bombs on foreign countries?

Second: Tooley's right that martyrdom -- literal and metaphorical -- is at the foundation of the Mennonite story. He neglects that that's true of pretty much the entirety of Christianity. The founder died on a cross so that his followers could live! It's silly to act like Mennonites are particularly vulnerable to the self-pity that accompanies the theology.

Third: as has been much-noted, I'm no longer in the church. If I were to return to Christianity, though, I'd probably return to the Mennonites. And though it's not really my place to make this observation, Tooley might have a point that many active peace-and-justice Mennonites have put too much faith in politics, and in the Democratic Party in particular, to bring about a just world they believe Jesus points to. (It's not a uniform leaning, though. I grew up partially in the Mennonite Brethren church, where most of the people who surrounded me were far more interested in supporting the GOP's pro-life policies than the Dems' anti-war positions. I don't see Tooley complaining about that. )

I don't think that means Mennonites should absent themselves from politics. I think it's good to have a segment of society that offers principled resistance to American hawkishness. But Mennonites shouldn't expect to find salvation in politics. None of us should.

UPDATE: A friend suggests should make the point I made on my Facebook account, in response to the Spectator's "Mennonite Takeover?" headline: "Today, rural Kansas! Tomorrow: slightly more expansive areas of rural Kansas!" Demographically, Mennonites aren't and never will be all that strong a force. But I don't want to discount that Mennonite ideas can seep into the broader discourse without being joined to Mennonite identity, which still tends to have a very strong ethnic component. (Apologies to all my Desi Mennonite friends.)

TSA Backlash Week: Invading Your Privacy Is Good Business

Washington Examiner:

"If you've seen one of these scanners at an airport, there's a good chance it was made by L-3 Communications, a major contractor with the Department of Homeland Security. L-3 employs three different lobbying firms including Park Strategies, where former Sen. Al D'Amato, R-N.Y., plumps on the company's behalf. Back in 1989, President George H.W. Bush appointed D'Amato to the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Also on Park's L-3 account is former Appropriations staffer Kraig Siracuse.

The scanner contract, issued four days after the Christmas Day bomb attempt last year, is worth $165 million to L-3.

Rapiscan got the other naked-scanner contract from the TSA, worth $173 million. Rapiscan's lobbyists include Susan Carr, a former senior legislative aide to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee. When Defense Daily reported on Price's appropriations bill last winter, the publication noted 'Price likes the budget for its emphasis on filling gaps in aviation security, in particular the whole body imaging systems.'"

Wait for it...

Deploying these naked scanners was a reaction to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to blow up a plane on Christmas 2009, but the Government Accountability Office found, "it remains unclear whether [the scanners] would have been able to detect the weapon Mr. Abdulmutallab used."

Your government in action.