One Response to “Corrosive Secularism?”

1. Hank says:

   January 13, 2008 at 8:09 am

   Although this is over a month old, this was my initial reaction to Yglesias’ December 5 posting “Assimilating to Secularism”. I found it in my phone archives (no iPhones here yet, kids), and it seemed worth a post or a read for those interested.

   HNB

   I didn’t read Yglesias’ post all that thoroughly, but I guess what bothers me is that it seems like there’s a backlash among the American left to secularism. Maybe the strident tone of those like Christopher Hitchens has been a bit too much to bear lately, but as someone who grew up in the town that is the seat of the great mental disease that is the Southern Baptist Convention, I can assure you that most of their people are not the folksy, god-loving mom and pop types that they might be portrayed as. There are seething demagogues with repressive beliefs, even for Baptists, and their alliance with the current administration should not be forgotten. Do a quick Google search on ‘a Day in the Life of the President” to find them glowingly following the current Commander in Chief around. [note — I was thinking of http://www.freerepublic.com

   Back to Yglesias’ point, it is definitely easier to be an immigrant in the US but simply because it’s a bigger country with great diversity and tradition of assimilation, not because it’s home to more extreme religious groups. I’d much rather be an immigrant in the USA than in my adopted home of Veneto, where I have a hard enough time as an American. Undoubtedly Europe is ill-prepared to deal with immigration and with a culture of assimilation and if enough economic slowdowns plague Europe and the current immigration continues, I would not be surprised at all to see the election of right wing, anti-immigration governments in several countries.

   Composed on my Nokia 3100

   8:48 AM 09.12.2007