The Better Letter: A Bit of Hope
A bit of this-and-that.
An extremely robust “Totally Worth It” section put this issue of TBL close to the maximum length (really, bandwidth via Substack) before anything else went in. So, the rest of the issue is shorter than usual. I have a much more involved main piece in the works for next week. I trust you will appreciate both.
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A Bit of Hope
Axios reported recently that most people aren’t as angry, anxious, and unhinged as it appears on social media. “We dug into the data and found that, in fact, most Americans are friendly, donate time or money, and would help you shovel your snow. They are busy, normal, and mostly silent.
“The rising power and prominence of the nation’s loudest, meanest voices obscures what most of us personally experience: Most people are sane and generous — and too busy to tweet.” Axios pointed to the following statistics.
1. About 75 percent of Americans never tweet;
2. On an average weeknight, only one percent of American adults watch primetime Fox News and only 0.5 percent watch MSNBC; and
3. Almost three times more Americans (56%) donated to charities during the pandemic than those who usually donate to politicians and parties (21%).
This doesn’t mean that everything is fine, of course. But is does offer a bit of hope.
Totally Worth It
Last month, the Judds reunited to give their first awards-show performance in two decades, singing their timeless ballad, “Love Can Build a Bridge,” at the 2022 CMT Music Awards. Tragically, the performance also proved to be their last. RIP, Naomi Judd, who died by suicide Saturday at age 76.
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What follows is fantastic.
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This is the best thing I saw or read this week. The ugliest. The oddest. The sweetest. The saddest. The luckiest (for Barry Ritholtz). The most important. The most incredible. The most compelling. The most powerful. The most ridiculous. The most obvious. The most amazing. The most absurd (a close second). The least surprising. The funnies (one, two, three, four, five (Elon’s reply), six). The best retort. The best reporting. The best explainer (on the abortion leak). The best quote. Great crisis management. Good thread. Another one. Most interesting thread. The worst argument. Remarkable. Incredible. Bees scream. Our most dangerous foe. Marriage to hologram has communication problems. The Oxford comma. Who’s going to tell her? Hit and run. Playing while hurt. Elon and China. Humans are representing machines and resonant bodies, too. Perspective. Yikes. Wow. Lovely. Oh, please. I don’t think so. Texas. It didn’t work out as planned. Oops. True. This says a lot more than he thinks it does; so does this. Dude needs to get out of Austin once in a while. The power of sh*t. Why Roe v. Wade is likely to fall. Insane Ukrainian metal. There’s a sequel to the best San Diego movie. Nobody escapes inflation. Revisiting the year I graduated from high school. One million dead Americans.
Please send me your nominees for this space to rpseawright [at] gmail [dot] com or via Twitter (@rpseawright).
“[I]n my experience, there’s no faster way to clear out a roomful of friends, enemies, or paying customers than to bring up the A-word, since everybody is convinced of their own righteousness, whichever way they lean, and has been since God was in short pants.” (Matt Labash).
The TBL Spotify playlist now includes more than 200 songs and about 15 hours of great music. I urge you to listen in, sing along, and turn the volume up.
One More Quick Thing
Unless you live under a rock (and probably even then), you’re well aware that Roe v. Wade has been in the news this week. Obviously, abortion is a subject fraught with passion and difficultly. People on all sides of the issue have been arguing about it and telling their stories — many of them powerful. We’re not going to solve it here (duh).
However, there is one “argument” I’ve been seeing a fair amount this week that should easily be put to rest. Here’s one example of it.
Here’s another (item 2).
If this view were valid, and if I argued that murder should be proscribed because I think people should be protected, no problem. If, however, I think murder should be proscribed because of the 6th Commandment, my view shouldn’t be considered. Since, in each case, the views are exactly the same, apparently some sort of mind-reading would be required to determine why I came to the matter at issue before deciding if I had any basis to participate in the public square.
That’s silly.
The holders of the view that morality based upon religious values cannot legitimately be the basis for one’s policy preferences, to be consistent, must find the Abolitionist and Civil Rights Movements1, both largely supported by religious people pursuing religious values, to have been illegitimate. I doubt they do. I suspect they only view religious values to be illegitimate when they disagree with the policy preferences espoused on the basis of those religious values.
Fortunately, the obvious right answer in this regard has been clearly laid out for us by a pretty good lawyer. He and I don’t see eye-to-eye a lot on politics, but he’s spot-on here. I suggest you read it all, but I’ll provide a taste below.
“But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their ‘personal morality’ into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
“…[However,] Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
Simple. Straightforward. True.
Thanks, Obama.
Benediction
The great Iris Dement, a true American original, provides this week’s benediction.
To those of us prone to wander, to those who are broken, to those who flee and fight in fear – which is every last lost one of us – there is a faith that offers grace and hope. And may love have the last word. Now and forever. Amen.
Thanks for reading.
Issue 112 (May 6, 2022)
It was a political movement, of course, but also a religious movement, sustained by the religious power unlocked within southern black churches. One cannot read the Letter from Birmingham Jail, by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, without seeing how the movement was soaked in Christianity.