Tired of Dem pres. candidates blathering on about their faith?

Stacey Melissa

Junior Member
Jun 26, 2007
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If you've been paying much attention to the U.S. presidential campaign - particularly the Democrats - you've probably noticed (OK, more like "you've probably been clubbed over the head with") the sudden effort that the candidates have been making to show how oh-so-faithful they are. It's gotten so bad now, Time Magazine did a cover story on it for their July 23 issue.

There is a Dem presidential debate coming up on July 23, and for this one, the facilitator, CNN, is calling for questions from the general public. CNN will select 20 or 30 questions they think are appropriate and timely, and present those questions to the candidates. On (what I consider) a gimmicky note, the questions will come from a pool of YouTube video submissions. Several hundred videos have already been submitted, and there is still time for more prior to the July 22 deadline. As I said, CNN has final editorial say over which questions will air. However, we can still vote on which questions we think should be answered by the candidates. Our votes make certain videos stand out to CNN's editors, so videos with more community approval do have a better chance of being aired.

The video I'm hoping y'all will vote for is in the lead as I write this. It's by "Lunch4lyfe", and he asks "We all have heard how you will appeal to religious voters. My question is - unlike George - how will you appeal to non-religious voters?" You can vote for or against this and other videos at the Community Counts website. As noted at that site, please remember that you're voting for which questions you want the candidates to answer, rather than which questions you agree with.

If you already agree with me that the candidates should leave their faith out of the campaign, go vote for Lunch4lyfe's video. If not, read on, and I'll try to persuade you. (Or don't; I suppose there's nothing I can do to stop you from voting against it.) There's been plenty of other stuff written about Lunch4lyfe's video. Namely, he started a thread over at IIDB.org, where he goes by "UnsavedSinner". Also, due to the popularity of his video, Newsweek interviewed him last week, and is currently running a story in their July 23 issue. That IIDB thread goes into quite a bit of detail about the pluses and minuses of the video, and also what sort of answers we'd like to see from the candidates.

OK, so why is faith in politics so bad? Lots of reasons. First though, you should know what I'm talking about when I say "faith". There are several different definitions for the word, and the one I'm talking about is the one regarding stronger belief in a proposition than the available evidence actually justifies. I am not talking about trust, as in "I have faith in my friends". That's actually inductive inference, and relies on past evidence to predict future events. Nor am I talking about a religion, as in "JFK was a follower of the Catholic faith."

Just what use might faith have in politics? Typically, it's employed by politicians to help market themselves and their ideas. They start out with an idea for say, increasing taxes on certain people, while decreasing them for others. The plan has various merits and drawbacks. They need to market the plan to the public, so what do they do? They present facts, figures, and calculations. So many billion dollars will go to X, and come from Y, and so on. So far, so good. But perhaps the merits of the plan aren't quite good enough to convince the public that it's a good idea. IOW, it's probably not a very good plan. That's no problem for the politician, though. He just has to tack on a bunch of language about faith, and suddenly the public seems more pliable. The faith part gets people to stop paying so much attention to the evidence. Oh, Mr. Politician shares our faith, so he must be looking out for our best interests; faith makes people good, they think. Faith-infused marketing is a great way to pass off a lot of poor legislation on a faith-dazed public.

If a candidate or his idea is a good one, there will be no need to include talk of faith in the marketing plan. Good candidates/ideas stand on the basis of the evidence. Bad ones ask you to believe in them despite the insufficient evidence.

Have you ever noticed how much fundamentalists Christian Republicans stand by Bush, just because Bush is a Christian? I haven't heard it quite so much recently, but from 2001 to 2005 or so, I'd hear from Average Joe voters that they thought Bush was a good president. When asked why, they would typically say that although they didn't know much about his policies (or disagreed with those policies), they knew he was a good Christian man, and thus, a good president. That, folks, is the main reason why we need to reassert the primacy of reason and evidence over faith in politics. A bad politician with bad policies should not suddenly become a good politician when you find out he shares your supernatural beliefs.

But there is more. Evidence brings convergence, while faith fosters division. Why? Simply put, evidence can be shared with anyone who requests to see it, but faith is personal. Evidence is objective, but faith is subjective. If you're having a debate with someone (as politicians often do with each other), you can persuade them to your side using evidence, but you cannot debate using faith. People can say "I believe in my heart..." all day, but until supporting evidence is presented, no one else will be convinced of the position.

Something I'm less worried about with Dems than with Republicans - but that nevertheless bears mentioning - is the constitutional separation of church and state that we're supposed to have in the U.S. Neocons have been trying to foist sectarian, faith-based laws on the population at large. But the law must serve everyone - not just those who want to impose their personal faith on the rest of us. "God says so" is not a sufficient basis for lawmaking. We don't all share faith in your god, or what your god supposedly says. Our laws must have a secular purpose to pass constitutional muster. Good laws are based on evidence and the common good of the people. They do not need backing from faith if they have evidential support. Nor do they need backing from faith if they have support from a wide variety of the common people. This sort of support comes with evidence, not with faith. Convergence of evidence, versus division of faith, remember.

Finally, there's the slime factor of campaigning on faith. Campaigning on faith is slimy because it's cheap, calculated grandstanding. As the Time article says, candidates have strategists who tell them whether and/or how to present their faith while on the campaign trail. Nothing could be more disingenuous, more phony. Dems saw how Bush exploited Christian conservatives for cheap votes in 2004, and now they want a piece of the same pie. Ironically, Jesus specifically forbade such practices. In Matthew 6:5-6 Jesus said, "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." The supposedly pious Christian candidates are systematically ignoring Jesus' instruction to avoid grandstanding. Luckily for the candidates, the preachers who know this verse can usually be bought, and the congregations who should know this verse don't, because their preachers don't cover it in church.

Ok, so how do all these arguments about how faith doesn't belong in politics actually relate to a video that asks the candidates how they'll appeal to non-religious voters? Simple. That which appeals to non-religious voters is that which appeals to anyone who can agree that politicians should use evidence, and be reasonable and inclusive, rather than faithfully divisive. United we stand; divided we fall.

Will you vote for the video now?
 

Stacey Melissa

Junior Member
Jun 26, 2007
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You can consider the first three paragraphs the cliff notes. The rest is optional, in case you need more convincing.

No, wait, here's something even shorter: The Dem. presidential candidates' use of faith in campaigning is bad. Help put a stop to it by voting for Lunch4Lyfe's video debate question at the Community Counts website. His video is currently at the top, so should be easy to find.

Sorry for making it so long. I didn't realize it was that long when I wrote it.
 

Stacey Melissa

Junior Member
Jun 26, 2007
12
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Originally posted by: alchemize
How about I just don't vote Democrat? ;)
You can do that, too, for all I care. In fact, I'm considering doing it myself, if the Dem candidates can't pull their heads from their sphincters before 11/08. The current field actually makes me long for the days of the Kerry campaign, if that says anything.

But what I'm trying to do here is to help change the course of the debate. I want to see the debate pulled out of the gutter it's currently in, and eschewing talk of personal faith is one of the major steps in doing that. It seems like Dems are currently campaigning pretty much solely on how faithful they are, and how bad Bush is. Neither of which particular makes for a good campaign.
 

jonks

Lifer
Feb 7, 2005
13,918
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Originally posted by: Stacey Melissa
Originally posted by: alchemize
How about I just don't vote Democrat? ;)
You can do that, too, for all I care. In fact, I'm considering doing it myself, if the Dem candidates can't pull their heads from their sphincters before 11/08. The current field actually makes me long for the days of the Kerry campaign, if that says anything.

But what I'm trying to do here is to help change the course of the debate. I want to see the debate pulled out of the gutter it's currently in, and eschewing talk of personal faith is one of the major steps in doing that. It seems like Dems are currently campaigning pretty much solely on how faithful they are, and how bad Bush is. Neither of which particular makes for a good campaign.

Well, say the dem candidate is, gasp, actually religious, and religion plays a large role in the shaping of his belief system, moral and otherwise. You're advocating that he speak to issues, but just don't mention that the position he reached included consideration based on the his religious beliefs? Would we be happier as a country if we didn't know GW was a religious whack job until after he got into office? I like when the candidates pony up on their level of religiosity since it allows me to judge how likely I think they are to make important decisions based on it.

Agree with the marketing comments btw.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,774
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Originally posted by: Stacey Melissa
Originally posted by: alchemize
How about I just don't vote Democrat? ;)
You can do that, too, for all I care. In fact, I'm considering doing it myself, if the Dem candidates can't pull their heads from their sphincters before 11/08. The current field actually makes me long for the days of the Kerry campaign, if that says anything.

But what I'm trying to do here is to help change the course of the debate. I want to see the debate pulled out of the gutter it's currently in, and eschewing talk of personal faith is one of the major steps in doing that. It seems like Dems are currently campaigning pretty much solely on how faithful they are, and how bad Bush is. Neither of which particular makes for a good campaign.

Why do you believe in your opinions? You know, do you not, that nothing you believe is truly your opinion, that you have been brainwashed since childhood to think in confinement and rigidity? You make all kinds of absurd assumptions and from them reach preposterous conclusions. You are free to do so, but what about raising the level of your own internal debate? You too have your head up your butt, no? How do you propose to be rational without a massive and years long battle to free your own mind?

Well, of course the prior paragraph will doubtless be useless to you because you are blind to the areas where you are blind, so you will not see how anything I said relates to you. So I guess I should give you some particular points where you are blind, so that at least others will see them even though you still won't.

Why do you think you need to help change the course of the debate? Why assume your vision to be God like. Maybe the debate is on the right track.

Why assume the debate is in the gutter? When did you become the God of right and wrong? Why is a religious emphasis by Democrats wrong? 70% of Americans express a belief in God and these folk are of that 70% and are looking for their votes. Why would they, therefore, pay attention to your obviously stupid (certainly by the numbers) advise? You are a nobody and these people have campaign managers and experts advising them. Surely you should get such a job if you really know anything.

I think one good thing about religion, at least for some people, is that they learn to be at least somewhat modest and not assume they know everything. You certainly hid behind the door when that was passed out.

It isn't too late, however, to try to season your opinions a bit with a modicum of crow, no?

In my humble opinion, I am glad those Democrats animated by a spiritual belief are presenting their faith to us in the fore. I see no reason at all to cede the spiritual to the Republicans who have relied on fundamentalism as their core. Spirituality is vastly larger than fundamentalism, in my opinion, and vital to an integrated and healthy self.
 

imported_Shivetya

Platinum Member
Jul 7, 2005
2,978
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Originally posted by: Stacey Melissa

If a candidate or his idea is a good one, there will be no need to include talk of faith in the marketing plan. Good candidates/ideas stand on the basis of the evidence. Bad ones ask you to believe in them despite the insufficient evidence.

Your talking about leadership of the country here, as such their faith is actually very important. It is important to both those who share a similar faith and those who do not. To claim otherwise is pure ignorance.

If you do not know all facets of whom you are voting for then why are you voting for them? You can assign personal weight to one facet or another but you should never discount any of them completely.

One reason I like to hear about a candidates faith is watching how they demonstrate it throughout the campaign. Its quite easy to identify the hucksters. That is important, because if they are willing to feed you line just because a pollster says so then it means you cannot take them at their word ever.


Something I'm less worried about with Dems than with Republicans - but that nevertheless bears mentioning - is the constitutional separation of church and state that we're supposed to have in the U.S. Neocons have been trying to foist sectarian, faith-based laws on the population at large.

Well you lost me. I automatically discount anyone who uses the term neocon to brand the Republicans. That is a code word for "this is beyond debate" and as such diminishes the user immensely. You might just have said "hate speech", "for the children", "fascist", or other such key-word nonsense.

Finally there is NO Constitutional separation, that was established by the courts. Of course someone as ignorant to think the faith of a candidate is irrelevant isn't exactly expected to know anything. Hell, your just as bad as the people you claim are the problem.

Refresher, if you do not let candidates reveal all they can you are doing yourself a disservice. To ask others to do the same is arrogance.
 

Hacp

Lifer
Jun 8, 2005
13,923
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Originally posted by: Shivetya
Originally posted by: Stacey Melissa

If a candidate or his idea is a good one, there will be no need to include talk of faith in the marketing plan. Good candidates/ideas stand on the basis of the evidence. Bad ones ask you to believe in them despite the insufficient evidence.

Your talking about leadership of the country here, as such their faith is actually very important. It is important to both those who share a similar faith and those who do not. To claim otherwise is pure ignorance.

If you do not know all facets of whom you are voting for then why are you voting for them? You can assign personal weight to one facet or another but you should never discount any of them completely.

One reason I like to hear about a candidates faith is watching how they demonstrate it throughout the campaign. Its quite easy to identify the hucksters. That is important, because if they are willing to feed you line just because a pollster says so then it means you cannot take them at their word ever.


Something I'm less worried about with Dems than with Republicans - but that nevertheless bears mentioning - is the constitutional separation of church and state that we're supposed to have in the U.S. Neocons have been trying to foist sectarian, faith-based laws on the population at large.

Well you lost me. I automatically discount anyone who uses the term neocon to brand the Republicans. That is a code word for "this is beyond debate" and as such diminishes the user immensely. You might just have said "hate speech", "for the children", "fascist", or other such key-word nonsense.

Finally there is NO Constitutional separation, that was established by the courts. Of course someone as ignorant to think the faith of a candidate is irrelevant isn't exactly expected to know anything. Hell, your just as bad as the people you claim are the problem.

Refresher, if you do not let candidates reveal all they can you are doing yourself a disservice. To ask others to do the same is arrogance.

The candidates are just pandering to faith groups. I get sick to my stomach and want to turn off the TV when I see a candidate, Democrat or Republican, spend 2/3 of an interview talking about faith. Ok, you're religious, you were brought up in a religious family, we get it! Lets talk about the issues, stop wasting time!
 

Lemon law

Lifer
Nov 6, 2005
20,984
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When it comes to pandering to the religious right, democrats can't even come close to competing with Republicans. But in the collective 2008 Presidential field, hypocrisies
seem to be standard fare on the spectrum of all issues---and why should religion be any different?
 

Stacey Melissa

Junior Member
Jun 26, 2007
12
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Someone must have tampered with the voting on this video, since it's no longer on the Community Counts website. It's still on YouTube itself, though, here.

Edit: the video is back up at Community Counts.
 

Stacey Melissa

Junior Member
Jun 26, 2007
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Originally posted by: sirjonk
Well, say the dem candidate is, gasp, actually religious, and religion plays a large role in the shaping of his belief system, moral and otherwise. You're advocating that he speak to issues, but just don't mention that the position he reached included consideration based on the his religious beliefs?
Yes, that's something I'm advocating. I think it's fine for politicians to have faith, and be inspired by that faith, similar to how one might be inspired by the writings of John Locke or Aristotle. However, when it comes to policy-making they had better be able to back up their proposals with sufficient evidence to effectively market those proposals to the common people who may or may not share that faith, but can certainly all consider the evidence presented. If a proposal can be sold on the evidence alone, there is no need to use faith in marketing it. At that point, faith becomes superfluous. Only when proposals are insufficiently grounded by evidence do politicians have to resort to marketing with faith terminology.

Would we be happier as a country if we didn't know GW was a religious whack job until after he got into office? I like when the candidates pony up on their level of religiosity since it allows me to judge how likely I think they are to make important decisions based on it.
If we could actually trust candidates to accurately divulge their level of faithfulness, that would perhaps be useful for some voters. But we can't trust them. We know that most, if not all of it is merely pandering for votes. And that little bit of public religiosity that may not be mere grandstanding is indistinguishable from the rest that is. So statements of religiosity are of little use in helping us decide who to vote for/against. Even in Bush's case, I think it's mostly just cynical pandering. Did you notice how quickly he dropped the gay marriage amendment thing after the 2004 election? Yeah, that was just for votes.

I figure the truly religious candidates won't be able to hide it. Well, most of them, anyway. I recall reading awhile back about one such politician. Can't quite remember who it was, though. Might have been Sam Brownback. Anyway, I don't think there's any real way for us to root out Trojan horse type candidates of any agenda, short of extensive background investigations. With presidential campaigns, and perhaps some senatorial and house campaigns, that does, in fact, happen. So you do raise a valid concern, but I think it's something that can be at least fairly effectively dealt with via normal campaign checks.

This concern is further mitigated by the fact that any one Trojan politician is relatively powerless on his own. He has to work with all the other elected politicians. In order for a Trojan to obtain any substantial power, he would have to collude with plenty of other Trojans, who would then launch their agenda once they're all in office at the same time. This is possible, and has happened before in the history of civilized government. It just hasn't happened often, and when it has happened, it has happened because a whole lot of people were feeling incredibly disenfranchised from their government. The U.S. isn't in any sort of situation like that. Relatively speaking, we've got a pretty decent government, and people have the luxury of paying attention to Paris Hilton instead of their congressperson.

So let me just repeat that I do think you raise a valid concern. Your concern is hypothetical and a long-shot, however, while mine is actual and prevalent, as evidenced by the widely reported campaign strategies currently in place.
 

Stacey Melissa

Junior Member
Jun 26, 2007
12
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Originally posted by: Lemon law
When it comes to pandering to the religious right, democrats can't even come close to competing with Republicans.
The Dems are sure trying to outdo the Republicans in '08, unfortunately. Whether voters will actually believe in their pandering is another question.

But in the collective 2008 Presidential field, hypocrisies seem to be standard fare on the spectrum of all issues---
True enough.

and why should religion be any different?
Because we can help fix this one particular hypocrisy. This is one particular topic on which we have the power to meaningfully affect the campaign just by making our voices heard.
 

Stacey Melissa

Junior Member
Jun 26, 2007
12
0
0
Originally posted by: Shivetya
Originally posted by: Stacey Melissa

If a candidate or his idea is a good one, there will be no need to include talk of faith in the marketing plan. Good candidates/ideas stand on the basis of the evidence. Bad ones ask you to believe in them despite the insufficient evidence.
Your talking about leadership of the country here, as such their faith is actually very important. It is important to both those who share a similar faith and those who do not. To claim otherwise is pure ignorance.

If you do not know all facets of whom you are voting for then why are you voting for them? You can assign personal weight to one facet or another but you should never discount any of them completely.
I vote based on policy proposals. If they want to convince me that those policy proposals are good ones, they'll need to back them up with evidence, not empty platitudes of faith. If they can market their proposals on the evidence, their faith or lack thereof becomes irrelevant.

One reason I like to hear about a candidates faith is watching how they demonstrate it throughout the campaign. Its quite easy to identify the hucksters. That is important, because if they are willing to feed you line just because a pollster says so then it means you cannot take them at their word ever.
Then I hope you recognize that all the candidates who jump at the opportunity to speak of their faith are hucksters. All the Christian ones, anyhow. Perhaps other religions take a different stance, but the Bible expressly forbids religious grandstanding in Matthew 6:5-6. Grandstanding cheapens politics and religion as well.

Well you lost me. I automatically discount anyone who uses the term neocon to brand the Republicans.
I lost you, eh? It looks like I never had you to begin with.

I don't use the term for all Republicans. I use it for a particular faction of Republicans, of which you're apparently a member. As I said elsewhere recently:

Originally posted by: Stacey Melissa
I just use the term to refer to anyone who tries to use government to push their socially conservative pet issues on the population at large. That includes the true believers, and also the cynical politicians who pander to them just for votes. I don't limit its use merely to reconstructionists.

Originally posted by: Shivetya
That is a code word for "this is beyond debate" and as such diminishes the user immensely.
Oh, it is not. The only one who's given up debate here is you. You're the one doing the automatic dismissal by employing a logical fallacy. I'm the one detailing my arguments with the reasoning I base my conclusions on.

Finally there is NO Constitutional separation, that was established by the courts.
The courts have long recognized that separation is a necessary implication of the 1st Amendment's establishment clause.

Of course someone as ignorant to think the faith of a candidate is irrelevant isn't exactly expected to know anything. Hell, your just as bad as the people you claim are the problem.
The oldest logical fallacy in the book.

Refresher, if you do not let candidates reveal all they can you are doing yourself a disservice. To ask others to do the same is arrogance.
I'm trying to help elevate the level of political discourse by taking policy marketing back to the topic of evidence, where it belongs. If candidates want to mention in passing that they're Catholic or Methodist or whatever, that's fine. But they shouldn't be using religion to further their political career, and they shouldn't be using their political career to further their religion.