Awwww, isn’t that sweet? Not content to express his hate for America’s First Black President™ in prose, skinhead Johnny Logan Spencer Jr. wrote Barack Obama a hate poem called “The Sniper.” According to the First Amendment Center, the poem included these lovely, lyrical lines:

The bullet that he has chambered is one of the purest pride,
And the inspiration on the casing reads DIE negro DIE

If you can stomach it, you can search for “pain1488″ (Spencer’s online handle) and these lines, and find a full copy of the poem. I won’t link directly, as the only copies I could find are on white supremacist sites, and, well, fuck them. But you’ve got the gist. Spencer isn’t making a direct threat against the President, but describing a fictional assassin. Whether Spencer is the kind of white racist asshole who would turn verse into reality ought to be a separate question. But federal prosecutors believe the poem is a “true threat” exception to the First Amendment, and are arguing that Spencer should stand trial for violating 18 USC Sect. 871, which prohibits direct threats against the President and Vice President.

But this isn’t a direct threat. It’s obscene and vile, but so are many things covered by the First Amendment (*cough*MichaelAndDebiPearl*cough*). What’s the difference between this poem and Death of a President, a fictional movie about the assassination of George W. Bush? I’m with Jonathan Turley: absent additional evidence of malice or planning, Spencer should walk.

Uncategorized barack obama, first amendment, free speech, johnny logan spencer, politics, us president

“I will die for the people of America!” Sarah Palin declared in exchange for a hefty fee at last night’s Tea Party Convention. To which my immediate response on Twitter was, “Well hell, lady, get busy!”

Uncharitable, sure. It’s as charitable as Palin’s statement was realistic. This woman lives in a country that has seen peaceful transitions of power for 150 years, yet she talks like she’s about to face down Deng Xiaoping’s tanks in Tiananmen Square. Indeed, her lecture in front of an adoring crowd was chock full of frightening, over-the-top statements, only a few of which she had to write on her palm. Take this gem:

We need a commander-in-chief not a professor of law standing at the lectern.

Right! Who needs that pesky Constitution anyway? Not Palin, who declared to the crowd that it is time for “another revolution,” and that America’s future lies in “seeking divine intervention again.” Did she mean “divine intervention” in the same way that Pastor Wiley Drake called for “divine intervention”? Or “divine intervention” in the sense of “It’ll take an act of God to get Sarah Plain in the White House?” Either way, it was an odious declaration in the midst of a terrifying evening. Sarah Palin declared jihad on Barack Obama last night, with all the fervor (and logic) of a holy warrior.

What a contrast to the man who currently occupies the White House. In a Washington Post article on Thursday that I didn’t stumble across until last night, Anne Kornblut documents how President Obama likes to keep his strong faith in God private, even though there are days when it’s the only thing that sees him through:

When Obama appears at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday morning — a regular presidential ritual — it will mark the rare occasion when he puts religion in the foreground. In that appearance, he will discuss “the need for civility in the public square, and how Americans can work together in a spirit of goodwill,” a senior administration official said.

Now that’s leadership. Obama, in private, has a very strong, personal Christian faith. In public, however, his message is ecumenical and inclusive.

Paid pundits like Roland S. Martin are in a tizzy about Tim Tebow, and how courageous it is for a superstar pulling down millions of dollars to express his faith in Christ and his belief that women are chattel. Sorry, not impressed. What’s impressive is someone like Obama, who weds a strong personal belief to a public secularism that stands on its own foundation of logic and empathy. The atheist creed that religion is a cancer that must be excised from the human politic is a load of bunk. We need to recognize that religion’s place is our souls and our homes, not our civics. (And yes, “religion” includes the religions of “no religion” and “none of the above.”) Good ideas can come from religion, but their appeal has to be broad; they have to translate into the language of reason and humanism, and not be grounded solely in personal religious fervor or – worse – blind faith.

Obama gets that in a way that Sarah The Divine Interventionist never will. As Andrew Sullivan notes, she’s making a play for the Presidency because she believes God is in her corner.

And just for the record, God? If you make a play in 2012 on her behalf, your ass is sleeping on the couch.

Uncategorized barack obama, politics, president, religion, sara palin, spirituality

Since I’ve stopped drinking, I’ve striven to be more respectful of the variegated means by which people order their world. This is hard when you’re a smartass. Cynicism is intellectual ketchup: it’s much more satisfying to coat the taste of everything with a spicy sauce than to enjoy the world’s own rich, subtle flavors.

I examine spirituality through a Jamesian prism: if a belief helps someone better engage with the world, who am I to mock? The world’s religions are full of silly yet useful ideas. Tibetan Buddhists take their mothership religion’s belief in reincarnation and turbo-charge it: because you have been reborn across aeons, they argue, you have at some point been everyone else’s mother. Qua metaphysics, that’s ludicrous. Where’s the proof? None’s forthcoming; it’s an object of faith. But if you do believe it – man, think of the implications! Your mother was, in some era, your son; your most hated enemy was your beloved daughter. What if you treated everyone around you as if this mere belief were truth? How much happier would you be? How much happier would you make those around you? Suppose we go The Full Mormon: how would your relationship with your spouse alter if you were convinced you’d be wedded (yoked?) to this person for all eternity? How would you treat the homeless man on the street – or the alcoholic a few houses down – if you truly modeled your life after Christ?

Whether we can believe such things in a techno-centric digital age is a matter of debate. Some people obviously can, because they do. And I admire the hell out of them for it. If statistics are any judge, skepticism will win the Religion War, even if belief stakes flags in a few hills. But perhaps what we’re losing is not belief per se, but a belief in systems of religious thought. Perhaps those of who can’t swallow religious texts whole can still find meaning in beautiful ideas like the Tibetans’ “Everybody’s Your Baby” or the Mormons’ Celestial Marriage. Instruction manuals may wane, but tools thrive. We could learn to opt for what’s useful as opposed to what’s True.

This is a long way of saying that none of the above applies to the ideas of David Icke.

I’m no Ickeologist. I know a few scattered facts about the man. He is a conspiracy theorist par excellence. The pronunciation of his name is as obvious as Ralph Fiennes’. And he believes the President of the United States is a lizard. Whether this is better or worse than believing that the President is a Kenyan-born crypto-Communist Muslim would make great dinner table talk. One thing’s for sure: Icke’s upped the ante. He makes the Birthers look all Amateur Hour. (“Kenya? Try NOT FROM THIS PLANET, BUDDY!!”) The idea is so insane – yes, this is me judging, but I think I’m on stable ground here – that you have to wonder. David Icke: crazy? Or most outrageous political performance artist since Ann Coulter?

Whether Icke believes himself is irrelevant, given the number of people who believe Icke. I had forgotten that he would be in Bellingham until I walked past the Mount Baker Theater on Commercial Street on Sunday, where it was speculated that he would talk to a near-sold-out crowd. “DAVID ICKE 11AM-8PM,” the marquee blared in Apple-IIe-green LEDs. A nine-hour presentation seemed painfully superhuman. Perhaps Icke was the Reptile-Man, and this was all a ruse engineered by the lizards, and scripted by David Mamet. (What would Mamet call this – “The Chameleon Con”?)

Icke must have taken a break for water and small rodents, as a small crowd was milling outside. They appeared…normal. Like any other group or cult I’ve ever belonged to. Several female members were far more attractive than one would expect of people who believe in a poikilothermic Illuminati. Some have said that Icke’s theories are attractive to a fragment of the extreme right. Aside from a few older gents with “Don’t Tread on Me” grimaces, most of the men I saw were libertarian-looking, flimly constituted types whose potential dating pool was a subset of the women who find David Icke fascinating.

The temptation to go reporter was great – or as great as it can ever be for a quaking introvert. I suspected that, once I gave someone permission to board the Conspiracy Train, we wouldn’t be making any stops until Doomsday Island. So I ushered past. I’d only be in Bellingham for two days, and who has that kind of time? I pondered what value there was in the Reptile Overlord paradigm, beyond the usual cult-reward culled from the conviction that one has spied the man behind the curtain. These were, after all, people who had effectively removed themselves from the democratic process. How do you vote when every candidate for office is a cold-blooded shape-shifter? There are no politicians campaigning on an Anti-Reptilian platform. (And even if there were, who’s to say they’d remain true to their convictions once they seized office and that sweet Reptile Lobby money started pouring in?)

Icke’s ideas don’t ingratiate you to your fellow man; they alienate you from him. But maybe that’s a good thing. Negative utility. Social Darwinism at the polls. Do I trust someone who follows David Icke to make an informed decision in the privacy of a voting booth? That’s not to label these people stupid. Some of them are undoubtedly hyper-intelligent. Smart people can believe the most outrageous shit (cf. Jack Parsons). But if they’re at the point of believing in the authenticity of The Protocols of The Elders of Zion, perhaps a structured time-out from participatory democracy isn’t a bad idea.

I took Peggy Noonan’s advice and kept on walking. Perhaps I lost out on an eye-opening opportunity. But it was a gorgeous day in Bellingham – low 60s with a cloud-barren sky, and that crisp northern air, undercontaminated, that fills the lungs and fuels the blood. By 7:15pm the sun would be glowering below the horizon, casting a fan of golden orange across Bellingham Bay. If there were a gargantuan Reptile Conspiracy afoot, it’d have to wait for crappier weather.

Uncategorized barack obama, belief, bellingham, david icke, religion, spirituality, superstition