Insha' Allah.

Editor,

I've been trying to square the circle of die-hard Republican opposition to abortion on the one hand and their equally die-hard refusal to fund school lunches for poor kids, for example, food stamps, or Head Start.

It's got to do, I think, with their religion; and the way it works is this: If God wants you to be born, no one can stand in the way of that and be good with God. And if God wants you to be poor or hungry or uneducated --- or filthy rich --- then no one should stand in the way of that.

It's the same as when a Muslim says, "Insha' Allah " --- "God willing." It's a fatalistic religious doctrine. Man is powerless to change his or anyone else's circumstances.

But high speed computers to trade stocks? Private jet planes to fly thousands of miles in an afternoon? Luxury yachts to sail the seven seas?

See? If it enhances the wealth of the wealthy --- tax write-offs, or no taxes ideally --- it's God's will. If it eases the burden of poverty, it is not God's will.

It must be a huge comfort to be able to say --- for everyone else in society, mind you --- what is God's will and what is not.

I personally think that this sort of thinking is not only crazy, but it is also cynical, monomaniacal, self-serving in the extreme, anti-social, and --- above all --- cruel.

Re: "The Sexual Spirit of ’76" (8/23/2012)