Terrorism, What I Wrote 10 Years Ago

vIt's not quite 10 years since I (very tentatively) ventured a prediction on terrorism.  My complete post of Sept 30, 2006:

Saturday, September 30, 2006

What Does The Future Hold?

The Times has an analysis of the new legislation on terrorism which includes these thoughts:

How the measure will look decades hence may depend not just on how it is used but on how the terrorist threat evolves. If a major terrorist plot in the United States is uncovered — and surely if one succeeds — it may vindicate the Congressional decision to give the government more leeway to seize and question those who might know about the next attack.
If the attacks of 2001 recede as a devastating but unique tragedy, the decision to create a new legal framework may seem like overkill. “If there is never another terrorist attack and we never obtain actionable intelligence, this will look like a huge overreaction,” said Gary J. Bass, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton.

The last paragraph is what I'm inclined to think.

Obviously we've had terrorist attacks since.  I think, however, if you'd told the US in 2006 that deaths in the US from terrorism would be low, we'd have been very happy.  (Can't find a handy up-to-date source for these deaths, but I'm going to say 2006 through 2015 saw fewer than 30 such deaths per year, at least for deaths from terrorists with some affiliation to Islam.)

Mr. Trump and Mr. Rogers

My father's ancestors were heavy on Presbyterianism.  I was very surprised to learn that Donald Trump  is a Presbyterian. :-(  My equanimity was restored by this Atlantic piece reminding me that Mr. Rogers was also a Presbyterian. :-(

God's Plan for Interest Rates

Mea culpa.  When I skimmed the first mention of this, I thought: there's one of those crazy Republican congressmen again.

Wrong.  It's one of those crazy Democratic congressmen, earnestly telling Janet Yellen that God's plan is for interest rates to rise in the spring.

The Virtues of Presbyterianism

Via a tweet from Noah Smith, a blog post noting two studies on the (positive) impact of missionaries in India (health) and Africa (literacy).  Presbyterians weren't the only denomination sponsoring missionaries, but they did a lot.  That's one benefit of believing one knows the truth and has the duty to spread those truths to the world.  (There's downsides to such beliefs, but that's not the subject of this post.) 

I think the denomination has lost that certitude; certainly it seems to be dwindling as its older adherents die.

Mormon Church as Typical American Settlers

Vox has a piece explaining that Ben Carson's proposal for a tax system based on tithing was tried by the Mormon church in the 19th century.  I was struck by this quote in the article:

"Essentially, the church was the government of Utah, for all practical purposes, for quite a few decades," says John Turner, a historian at George Mason University and the author of Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet. "So there was an expectation that one would pay 10 percent of one's income as taxes."

 There's an echo there of the experience of some of my ancestors.  They moved from York county, PA to Ontario county, NY in the early 1800's.  There they joined the Presbyterian church at Stanley, NY.  Based on a history of the church, and reading some of its records, the church fulfilled a lot of the governmental functions in the early years: determining when members were bad and their punishment and providing education for the children.  While American historians know that churches were integral to the founding of New England, I think they often miss how important churches were in creating new communities as the frontier moved west.

Toleration for All Religion(Except...)

From the "Boston Pamphlet", referenced in the book "The empire on the Edge", an early 1772 statement of colonists positions vis a vis Britain, following a rousing statement of toleration for religion:

The only sects which he [John Locke] thinks ought to be, and which by all wise Laws are excluded from such Toleration, are those who teach Doctrines subversive of the civil Government under which they live. The Roman Catholics or Papists are excluded by Reason of such Doctrines as these that Princes excommunicated may be deposed, and those that they call  Heretics may be destroyed without Mercy”; besides their recognizing the Pope in so absolute a Manner, in Subversion of Government, by introducing as far as possible into the States under whose Protection they enjoy Life, Liberty and Property, that Solecism [error in language] in Politics, mperium in imperio†leading directly to the worst Anarchy and Confusion, civil Discord, War and Bloodshed

Amazing Fact of the Day--Trump

The Donald is a Presbyterian!

So he says in an article in today's paper.

I've a lot of Presbyterians in my ancestry.  I find this amazing.  The only connection I can make is that both Trump and Presbyterians think they're right.

A Violation of the Religious Establishment Clause

Stumbled on this language in a treaty between the US and the Kaskasia Indian Tribe:

. And whereas, The greater part of the said tribe have been baptised and received into the Catholic church to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually for seven
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years one hundred dollars towards the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for the said tribe the duties of his office and also to instruct as many of their children as possible in the rudiments of literature. And the United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars to assist the said tribe in the erection of a church.

Not sure how modern scholars would view this.

The Decline of the Mainline Church

The statistical summary for the Presbyterian Church is out.  Not good news for anyone tied to the church, either willfully or by ancestry (me).  Between 2010 and 2013, the active church membership declined by 12.6 percent. 

[Updated: added "active"]

Mormons, USDA, and Conservatism

Back in the day there was a "Mormon mafia" in USDA--I think because Ezra Taft Benson had been Secretary under Eisenhower, which resulted in a fair number of lower level employees coming from Utah, including the guy who took me on my first trip to Kansas City, back when the airport was by the river.

Since then I worked with a few Mormons, which probably led me to click through from Brad DeLong's blog to this post by a liberal who notes that Mormons have mostly avoided the problems which other conservative areas of the country have encountered. 

Whenever I run into generalizations about American culture, I think of the Amish, the Mormons, the Native Americans, the Hasidic Jews--Americans all but often exceptions to generalizations.

Segregation in All Things

It so happens that prostitutes were segregated in San Francisco.  The first map in this interesting post shows the distribution of Chinese and white houses of prostitution, as well as joss houses.

What Happened to the Ecumenical Movement?

Reston Patch notes that "Reston Interfaith" is changing its name of some 40 odd years.  That prompts me to wonder the title.  

Back in the middle 60's the ecumenical movement was all the rage among the established denominations.  For a while it seemed all the big Protestant denominations would merge into one happy family.  Running a Google ngram viewer  shows two peaks for use of the term: one in 1964 and one in the middle 1870's.  One could argue that the movement presaged the decline of these denominations; if their core beliefs were not unique, then there wasn't much point in choosing one over another.  So instead we get the mega-churches, the service churches which don't push any specific theology I'm aware of, but which provide fellowship and community along with a diffuse spirituality.

(I wonder, from the above can one tell I'm an atheist with familial roots in a Calvinist theology?)

The End of WASP Hegemony

I remember when I was in the Army talking about the old geezers (i.e. 50-60 year olds) who spent their time at the VFW or American legion posts talking about the old days--we agreed we'd never be them. The Times had an article on the current struggles of the American Legion.

And the National Council of Churches has downsized severely.

Bottomline: the old WASP institutions which dominated the nation when I was young are fading, like Gen. MacArthur's old soldiers.

The Decline of WASP Culture

The American Spectator gloats a bit over the decline of mainline Protestantism, as represented by the National Council of Churches and the Rockefellers.

The Past Was Long Ago--Pope Pius XII and the Nobility

Via Brad DeLong, this is the speech Pope Pius XII gave to the "nobility" (I think of the Vatican, but I'm not clear on it) in 1943.  (DeLong is blogging WWII.) What struck me was how archaic the sentiments seem: the belief in the duty of the nobility, the patriarchy, the antagonism towards both the Reformation and the Enlightenment, etc.  It's a long way from this speech to Vatican II.

The Culture Which Was Victorian

This post from Treehugger on "tin pack tabernacles" captures a key aspect of Victorian Britain: a combination of  their engineering ingenuity, their religion, and their determination to civilize the world.  Oh, and their penny-pinching. They created a temporary church, made of corrugated iron sheeting, which could be shipped as a package and assembled on the spot.

Charitable Giving

The state of Utah gives over 10 percent of income to charity.  That's from this interactive website which allows you to search down to ZIP code.

Richest Adherents of Religion

It seems that adherents of Judaism tend to have the most money, but adherents of Hinduism are close behingd. 

More Moslems Than Methodists in IL?

That's what John Phipps reports.

They're With the Protestant Supreme Court Justices

That's my answer to the question John Fea uses as the title of his post.  I suspect there is some relationship between the lack of mainline Protestants on the Supreme Court and as candidates for President on the Republican ticket.