Religion and Politics II

Here's another good quote, this one from Matthew Yglesias on religion in the public square:
"For whatever you may say about Europe's relative lack of religiosity, it's not a lack of entanglement of religion in public life that led to it."

Quote of the Day

Matthew Yglesias calls out Christopher Hitchens for talking about the "war" he was "waging" or some such nonsense:

"Now say it with me: which war, exactly, was Hitchens waging? He's not waging a war at all, he's sitting at a desk writing magazine articles and Slate columns and drinking just like the rest of us. He isn't waging war, he's advocating that other people wage war. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but he's saying that part of the reason he's advocating that other people wage war is that he enjoys imagining himself as a warrior."

Not as bad as claiming that working on an election campaign may be equated with military service, but Hitch does have a horrible tendency to pretend he is a warrior (see pic). Dennis Perrin posted a story about Hitchens' tough-guy poses last year as well:

"Hitchens often played the butch card when I was around him, acting as if he might go off on any enemy, real or imagined, at a dime's drop. The funny thing was that Hitch was (and still appears to be) physically out of shape, wheezing when walking too fast down the street, his soft gut poking out of his cigarette-burned shirt. Unless he knew some kind of secret fighting system, or simply packed heat, this hardcore pose was patently ridiculous. But that came with the price of admission, and I went along, smiling and nodding my head."

Perrin continues on about Hitchens demanding some kind of martial arts demonstration, it's really worth reading. It's funny because I imagine that there's great deal that mainstream liberal Yglesias and much-more-radical Perrin would disagree about, but in their own ways they both have fingered Hitchens as a poseur.

Quote of the Day: Private Health Insurance Edition

From Matthew Yglesias:

"It's the logic of the system and on some level it's no different from any other business. But whereas Apple or Toyota or Starbucks make money by delivering their products to people, insurance companies make money by not delivering health care to sick people."

It sort of reminds me of Crash where Matt Dillon's character can't get his dad the medical help he needs. Of course part of the movie is that Dillon's character is a racist jackass and therefore his own worst enemy in dealing with the system, but regardless his nemesis (the black woman he offends) is merely playing by the private health insurance rules by not approving care not included in the father's coverage.

It's the same anywhere in the insurance business, not paying a claim is the way to profit - even if the claim is 100% legitimate. Members of my family attempted to make a perfectly legitimate homeowners claim a few years ago and sure enough, the insurer attempted to use language that was patently absurd to re-categorize flooding as "seepage." I'm just glad it was over a carpet and not, say, cancer that this problem occurred.

Stabbed in the Back: A Cross-Border Meme

As I'm checking Google Reader today I see that Matthew Yglesias has post on how American conservatism has started attributing military failure to "national will" or rather the supposed lack thereof implied in the "stabbed in the back" meme. Meanwhile Red Tory points out that Andrew Coyne is looking to very same meme to shore up Canadian support for the ongoing mission in Afghanistan. Usually Harper is a couple years behind mimicking the GOP machine, he appears to have caught up.