Bush: All China needs is some religion

OK, I realize that China has some religious freedom problems and that they need to improve on that point, but from the sound of President Bush when he was being interviewed just now on NBC, it sounds like Bush thinks that freedom of religion is one of the most important if not the single most important thing to help promote freedom in China.

First, he said something close to “once religion takes hold, you can’t get rid of it.”  Apparently China has never had religion before.

Second, freedom generally brings freedom of religion, not the other way around.  In fact, most religions are inherently anti-democratic since they focus on a single higher being which dictates everything to you (not very democratic about that), thus why we have separation of church and state in the US: the founders realized that freedom of religion comes from having freedom generally, but that religion can also threaten the very freedom that allows you to worship as you wish in the first place. (just listen to some of the more radical evangelicals in the US if you want confirmation of this).

Third, even ignoring the 2nd argument, I’m not sure how freedom of religion means freedom in other areas, necessarily.  While religions are typically anti-democratic, they’re also anti-secuar state authoritarinism, which is why authoritarian governments usually try to step on it, but it’s rather an unusual argument that freedom of religion would naturally lead to freedom of speech, or freedom to protest, freedom of the press, or other things, since those things are often, if not largely, secular in nature.

Oh yeah, as an added bonus, the US doesn’t have any problems either.

Media Thought of the Day

Despite the fact that:

1) Hawaii is indeed still a US state,

2) Obama was born in and spent a good deal of his childhood in Hawaii, and

3) Obama’s grandmother lives in Hawaii

Apparently visiting the state just proves that he’s elitist.

Here is a question: is there some place Obama could vacation that wouldn’t be elitist?  Don’t people go to vacation in exotic places because they’re exotic places? About the only place he could go would be Disney World, and I’m sure they’d find some way to make that elitist as well.

Of course, exotic is in the eye of the beholder.  Myrtle Beach may be exotic for one person while it’s not for another.  East Coasters may see Hawaii as elitist as much as West Coasters may see going to the Virgin Islands as elist.  However, neither are necessarily all that elistist of vacation spots, especially if one takes into consideration that someone may have been born there and/or has family there.

Vacationing in Italy may sound elitist until you learn that it’s someone homeland and they have family there.

Thus all this new blathering about Obama going to Hawaii is elitist is just stupid.

McCain to only serve one term?

The new thing from today is the rumor that McCain may announce at the GOP convention that he’ll only serve one term.  The argument for this is that it would neutralize the age issue.  Of course, they could just be blowing around rumors just to get people to watch their convention as well.

One interesting nugget is that McCain actually brought up this possibility all the way back in January (though the campaign was even confused about that back then).

However, instead of eliminating the age issue, I think it just accentuates his age.  Instead of making people think “oh ok, he’s only going to serve for 4 years, so his age isn’t important,” I think they may start thinking “if even he thinks he’s too old to be president for 8 years, is he too old to be president for even 4 years?”

And there is the fact that even John McCain has said in the past that he thinks it’s a bad idea:

Some of Senator John McCain’s advisers suggested last year that he take the unusual but dramatic step of pledging to serve only one term as president if elected, but he decided it would be a mistake to do so, campaign aides said Monday….

But he was more categorically opposed to the idea of running for one term when he was asked about it at a Fox News candidates’ forum in January.

‘’No, because I think then you’re the lame duck, you’re quacking on Inauguration Day,’’ he said.

So, is this going to be yet another McCain flip-flop?