Commentary

Where do atheists in America stand?

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged atheism liberty religion on by

Atheists in modern America enjoy a high level of religious freedom. In New England, where I live, we also enjoy a good level of acceptance. I don’t encounter hostility for being an atheist. Once the Eagle Tribune in Massachusetts mentioned on its front page that I am one; no one minded. But conditions can change, and there have been some signs of growing hostility to people who don’t think there’s a deity.

Pausing for a definition: I define “atheist” as a person who does not believe in a deity, not as a person who affirmatively believes there isn’t a God. Arguing for the non-existence of a vaguely defined being is a hopeless task; let those who claim there is one define their terms and offer their arguments.

There has always been hostility to atheism. Lately, though, it’s become a bit bolder, with backing by the White House. On June 24, 2023, Donald Trump said, “Together, we’re warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, the atheists, globalists, and the Marxists.” In 2025, Trump formed a so-called “Religious Liberty Commission” with the ostensible purpose of identifying threats to religious freedom. Every member appointed to it was Christian or Jewish (with an overwhelming Christian majority). No Muslims, atheists, Hindus, or pagans. That’s like having a coastal flooding commission whose members are all from Colorado, North Dakota, and Kansas.

A White House report on domestic terrorism claimed that “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” animate violent conduct against American institutions.

At a White House Faith Office luncheon, Trump threatened any atheists who might be in the room: “Is there an atheist in the room? Any atheists? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t want to raise my hand if I were. You’d be in big trouble.”

Eight state constitutions, mostly in the South, specify religious tests for holding office. They’re dead letters at present, but it was only in 1961 that the Supreme Court ruled that states couldn’t require a statement of religious belief before a person could hold public office.

What are the actual risks? Outright denial of religious freedom isn’t likely to become a major problem. There are always bigots in local offices who abuse their power, but they’ll lose when challenged in court. A greater risk is that views outside Christianity may be lowered in some ways to second-class status. In some ways, they have been for a long time. The currency says “In God we trust” and the pledge to the flag says we’re “one nation, under God.” Those are just annoyances, though. It’s more ominous that a large minority wants to turn the US into a “Christian nation.” The First Amendment and mountains of legal precedent stand in their way, but a determined government can make life difficult for the non-religious without explicitly targeting them. The non-profit status of irreligious organizations and non-theistic churches can be attacked for made-up reasons. Religious affiliation is often a de facto qualification for high-level appointments, and the situation could get worse.

I’m not particularly worried at present, but things can change with alarming speed. It’s important to watch for signs.

The special nastiness of the left 1

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged culture liberty psychology on by

There’s no shortage of nastiness from either the left or the right these days, but it’s always seemed to me that the flavor coming from the left has something special, which is especially good at driving people away. This is separate from whether their aims are a greater threat. What I see a kind of elitism. What I’m saying here is based on my own impressions, not systematic study. Although the attitudes I’m discussing are elitist, I’m talking about ordinary people, not ones in high positions.

A lot of people on the left can be pleasant to deal with. The points I’m making here don’t apply to them all, by any means. It just doesn’t take a lot to make a lasting bad impression. I grant that if I were Mexican, Arabic, or trans, I’d experience vastly more hostility from the right.

Elitism, like populism, is tricky to identify. We all think we’re better than other people. Elitism is more than that; it’s an attitude of inherent superiority. It divides the world into the virtuous few and the despicable outsiders, and it polices its own members.

This attitude is the opposite of the populism I discussed last time. It’s manifested in attitudes of superiority to the masses. When people act this way, they’re effectively saying no one else is worthy to talk with them. However, both take a static view of people; everyone is a certain way and can’t (or had better not) change. People on the left often boast that “everyone is welcome” among them, yet in practice they have little tolerance for deviant ideas. The left and right can both come down hard on full-blown opposition, but people on the right are less likely to denounce people for limited disagreement.

Many throw accusations of “racist,” “fascist,” and “Nazi” around as freely as Joe McCarthy issued accusations of Communism. Some use the threat to keep people in line. One person threatened that people would start calling me racist if I disagreed with a proposal of hers, and she admitted the accusation would be false. Others have skipped that step and gone straight to the accusation.

People of this type like to build accusations out of nothing. The word “Gypsy” used to be commonly applied to the ethnic group now generally called Roma. It may not have been the best choice, but most people who used the term didn’t intend it as an insult any more than “Mexican” or “Chinese” is an insult. However, the notion that it was a nasty slur caught on. I recall a singer who used to have a song in her repertoire about “gypsies.” One day she came out and apologized in the most abject terms for having ever sung it. I know enough about both her and the song to know she meant nothing derogatory about it. She must have been threatened with ferocious denunciation if she didn’t get down on her knees.

I wrote a few years ago about how SFWA smeared a prominent writer by claiming she used an unspecified “racial slur.” The word she used, it eventually came out, was “colored.” Does SFWA claim that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) engages in racial smears on all its letterheads?

Giving people the benefit of the doubt and letting others defend them against accusations are basic principles of fairness. Sometimes, though, they’re unpopular ideas. A Mastodon site still bans defending people against accusations, even if they’re just “devil’s advocate” arguments. In that respect, the site is less tolerant than the medieval Catholic Church. Access to what others are saying isn’t always popular; a popular Mastodon client “rickrolls” attempts to access servers that the developers disapprove of.

Conservatives have sometimes reached out to libertarians, while the left has more often been fiercely hostile. This helps to explain why so many self-proclaimed “libertarians” have taken Trump’s side. Supporting Trump is dumb, but was it really necessary to drive us away?

In a sane society, the MAGA movement would be denounced almost everywhere, and the politicians who have pinned their careers to it wouldn’t be comfortable showing their faces in public. But that would require people who disagree on many things to agree that the current situation is so bad we need to put our differences aside for a while. Instead, there’s often a sense on the left that their purity comes above all else and anyone who isn’t fully with them deserves denunciation. That goes a long way to account for where we are.

Flavors of populism

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged ethics philosophy on by

Nailing down populism is difficult. Merriam-Webster says it’s “a political philosophy or movement that represents or is claimed to represent the interests of ordinary people especially against the Establishment.” The idea that “the people” should rule sounds left-wing, but we tend to think of populism as right-wing. It sounds like another way of saying “pro-democracy,” but that doesn’t get to its core.

Cas Mudde’s idea hits the target better. It’s as an ideology that divides society into two antagonistic camps, the “pure people” versus the “corrupt elite.” The elite isn’t necessarily the party in control of the government. The MAGA movement is populist, even though Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress. What it sees as the corrupt elite is the academic institutions, the news media, the entertainment industry, all those who deal with information on a large scale. The “purity” of the people also plays an important role; immigrants and children of immigrants don’t count, at least until they’ve undergone a purification process of many years.

Another form of populism in the US comes from the left. It emphasizes “the people” above all else, stressing the first three words of the Constitution rather than the “inalienable rights” of the Declaration of Independence. It sees the elite establishment as one of wealth, often claiming an “oligarchy” runs the country while the president and Congress are just their pawns.

Populism is opposed to liberalism because it takes the Will of the People (or what it claims is their will) as the highest standard. People have no rights that the People can’t legitimately take away. When populists succeed, they establish their own ruling elite, directing the economy, and above all controlling information. It’s called “socialism” or “fascism” depending on which side runs it, but there’s little difference. It’s almost always illiberal because it places the popular will ahead of individual rights. Liberal democracy regards the democratic process as a tool for keeping any single faction from dominating the government and suppressing minorities; populist democracy treats the will of the “pure people” as an end in itself, entitled to stomp on outsiders and minorities.

In principle, populists should yield if they think the majority opposes them. In practice, they think the majority always supports what they want. We’re all inclined to overestimate the number of people who agree with us, because we talk to such people so often. Populist leaders, though, need to shape the popular will to match their own. This means using their power to promote their views and suppress opposing ones. Populists are rarely big on free expression for anyone but themselves.

Today we’re caught in a battle between the left populists and right populists, and the liberal alternative often has a hard time getting heard. This doesn’t bode well if either side ultimately gains full power.

Speech limits on your property

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged ethics SanityProject on by

The First Amendment applies only to governments. You are free to banish people from your property if you don’t like what they say, provided the law otherwise allows it. That doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea, though.

A few years ago, some stores posted announcements that they’d banish customers who expressed racist ideas. This was a bad idea, and it’s rare today. Untrained employees would have to eavesdrop on conversations, and they could easily misunderstand what they overheard. And once you start going down that road, is there any reason to stop with just one idea? Banning people for expressing socialist ideas would make as much (or little) sense. Best not to try to police people’s opinions. People can still be kicked out for being disruptive or harassing people, regardless of what opinions motivate them. It’s bad business to 86 customers for their ideas.

In your home, you have more leeway, but courtesy imposes some limits. If someone expressed ideas I strongly objected to, I might explain why I thought they were wrong, or I might say that I don’t want to have that discussion here. If the visitor persisted, I might have to say, “Drop it or take it outside,” and follow through if necessary. Be careful about debating such people. A well-prepared person with lots of memorized arguments can often out-debate a more reasonable person who doesn’t have a stock of comebacks and citations at hand.

I’d object less strongly to abstract ideas than to proposals for violence. Anyone who advocates direct violence except for defensive purposes will be lucky to get a warning from me. Supporting racial pseudo-science in the abstract would annoy me, but I’d be more polite about it.

On the Internet, I can block, mute, or ignore people who say disgusting things. I make frequent use of this option, though I try to remember that letting them see what I say may lead them to better thinking. My own peace of mind has to come first, though.

Standard Reader and the Decentralized Web

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged Internet standard.site technology on by

Thanks to Debbie Ohi, I’ve found a reader for sites that use Standard Site lexicons. Appropriately enough, it’s called Standard Reader. It’s still rough, but I like what it’s aiming for. You can search for publications from various sites and subscribe to them. Once you have some subscriptions, your recommendations are based on them and nothing else.

Supposedly you can log in with an existing Bluesky account. I couldn’t figure out how to do that. The first time I tried to register, I got a Captcha with incomprehensible instructions. The second time I got one that made sense. Here’s what I’ve subscribed to so far.

  • Debbie’s Blatherings – by Debbie Ridpath Ohi
  • Aaron Ross Powell
  • Standard.site
  • Atmosphere Community
  • Connected Places

Supposedly I can change my handle to my own domain, and there ought to be a way to add my site to the index; I haven’t figured that out either. Some of the tools I’ve seen are tied to Bluesky, which they shouldn’t have to be.

I’m still working on publishing this blog to the ATmosphere, as the network of AT protocol services is called. A lot of this stuff is still at the experimental level. Some of the approaches being taken won’t scale up; you can have a list of a thousand sites, but not a million. Better discovery tools will be necessary, and their maintainers will have to defend them against spammers.