> That would be funnier if Mr. Sullivan hadn't at least made a somewhat fruitful effort for a few years to separate his proclivities from his philosophy. He was, for awhile, worth reading even if your world didn't revolve around your anus.

Two jokes (well, puns at least) in two successive sentences... it's Comedy Night at Brothers Judd!

In its way, Sullivan's argument is a perfect distillation of the free-riding athiest's argument: my politics is based solely on the Constitution, it has no connection to religion whatsoever!

Well said oj. I long ago remove Mr. Sullivan from my computer. I found less and less satisfaction in his writing as time passed. I suspect a lot of others feel the same.

Andrew Sullivan responds: Mr. Judd: Harumph! My world certainly does not revolve around my anus (though I am man enough to admit my anus has made a few orbits in its time.)

This guy has Sullivan's dead-to rights. This post dissects Andrew so completely that even Dan Luskin, who is not to my knowledge a social conservative, linked to it from his website.

David:

To which religion does one need pay obeisance in order to understand the Declaration or Constitution?

Jeff:

Still stuck in your lab, eh, applying those rigorous scientific tests and concluding Christianity and Hinduism can't be squared logically and so therefore hold no truths. Keep at it. Science is self-correcting, after all.

Jeff: You don't, just as I don't need to know how to fly a jetliner to ride in one. That's the point.

September 11 was enough to scare the sex if not out of Sullivan's commentary, at least over into the corner for a while. His mantra for about two years was it's all about terrorism, until DOMA and talk of a marraige amendment brought his sex drive back into the forefront of his writings.

Andrew has admitted that maybe, possibly he was a little bit hasty in declaring post-Saddam Iraq a disaster, which helped justify his support for Kerry, but I'm sure the next big "they're failing at democracy" piece that comes out will have him back in the Cassandra mode again, in-between postings on why Benedict XVI is going to destroy the Catholic Church.

He is awfully clever with the caricatures here. The "conservative of faith" is a ill-mannered, sanctimonious busybody or worse trampling over everyone's freedom while the "conservative of doubt" resembles a man of letters musing thoughtfully in his study about life's ambiguities and seeking only to blunt the rough edges to find compromises that promote tolerant harmony.

Except, of course, when our conservative of doubt has a few personal issues dear to him, like gay marriage. Then it is: "Aux Barricades!", only the max will suffice and let's crush the dissenters.

David:

That is an inapt analogy.

An apt analogy would be more along the lines of this: Flying is preferable to, say, taking a train, regardless of whether one thinks sky fairies or Bernoulli is keeping the plane from crashing.

In other words, the included axiomatic assertion is irrelevant to the conclusion, presuming you find flying preferable to taking a train (or prefer capitalism to socialism.)

Peter:

Just what in my post prompted your reply?

Peter:

But he's right. The "conservatism" he's espousing is wholly a personal matter, fit for an atomized world not a society.

Jeff:

You don't need to know how to drive the train either, just hitch your ride.

Jeff:

I have to admit you lost me. I'm tempted to try a (very apt) analogy about floors and foundations, but lets move beyond analogy.

Americans need not believe in G-d. Nor do we need to have read John Locke. We can even reject him if we will. But whether we've read John Locke or not, the Founders did and the Declaration and Constitution were based, in part, on their understanding of his writings. If we were to say, therefore, that we support the Constitution but reject Locke and owe nothing to him, we would be wrong. (OK, I guess that is an analogy, but hopefully it is a more transparent analogy.)

Jeff;

Err, deja-vu? Ok, sorry if it was too snarky, but you have raised this argument so many times and you seem not even to notice any responses. The Declaration and Consitution were inspired by a perception of human capabilities and limitations born of religious reverence and eternal truths discoverable, at least in part, through religious sensibility and experience. They promised maximum freedom for a humanity with flaws and warts, not for "I define my own reality" types. It doesn't really matter which religion because no one argues they are theological documents, although they obviously were inspired by Christian thought. Have you ever asked yourself why, if radical, ever-increasing personal freedom for inherently good, ever-improving people was what it was all about, the Founders fretted so much about checks and balances?

David:

It was your line about atheist(/deist/agnostic/dunnoist) freeloading that got me going.

Accepting the Declaration/Constitution--and the society they beget--as preferable to all options on offer is a matter of judgment.

But having made that judgment, the underlying axiomatic assertions are not particularly important; further, other fundamental assertions can equally justify the results. And, ironically, the degree to which a particular group claims ownership of those assertions can endanger society.

OJ:

I doubt you can have seriously read what Mr. Sullivan wrote, in as much as he is primarily counseling against drinking too much of one's own bath water.

Jeff:

No, I didn't read it seriously, I read it laughing.

Jeff:

How do you figure that? What this is is an exercise in demonizing. It is the same tired liberal/libertarian whine about how a favourite cause is a fundamental human right (no matter how recent) without which no society can be said to be civilized. People who oppose them are to be tolerated for a while on the basis that either: a) they are ignorant and need more education; or b) they won't care enough to notice or react to incremental progress through the judiciary or some other vehicle. In either case, the ultimate outcome is pre-ordained and only the timing is open for debate. (A good example is our own beloved Liberal party, which likes to joke that the NDP (socialists) are "Liberals in a hurry.") Yuck, yuck.

Suddenly, these people are opposed seriously by people who dig in and organize. Then, of course, the cute little bumpkins become "crusaders" who wish to "impose" their views, especially their weird, theologically arcane "beliefs", such as that only men and women should marry and we really shouldn't be snuffing the elderly and disabled. The horror! The oppression! Time to trot out all the obligatory Nazi references.

Orrin's characterization of Sullivan as an atomist is bang on. If you cut through all the Poli Sci 101 lingo, he is simply demanding that we license, sanctify and celebrate his appetites and trying to discredit and delegitimize anyone who says no. There's a lot of it going around these days.