Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
President Bush spoke at the UN "interfaith dialogue" meeting sponsored, absurdly, by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. His remarks betray either a breathtaking naivete or rank dishonesty, take your pick. He said:
I know many of the leaders gathered in this assembly have been influenced by faith, as well. We may profess different creeds and worship in different places, but our faith leads us to common values. We believe God calls us to love our neighbors, and to treat one another with compassion and respect. We believe God calls us to honor the dignity of all life, and to speak against cruelty and injustice. We believe God calls us to live in peace -- and to oppose all those who use His name to justify violence and murder.Freedom is God's gift to every man, woman, and child -- and that freedom includes the right of all people to worship as they see fit.
But that simply isn't true. This was a conference sponsored by a government that engages in some of the worst forms of religious oppression imaginable. King Abdullah certainly does not believe that freedom is God's gift to every man, woman and child -- especially women. He is the dictatorial leader of a nation that employs religious police to rove the streets and beat women who dare to go out alone or, worse yet, with a man she is not related to, a nation that forbids the open practice of any religion but Islam.
The mistake that Bush makes is in believing that faith leads to common values. In fact, it often leads to exactly the opposite. Osama Bin Laden is every bit as much a "man of faith" as Bush, yet Bush wants Bin Laden dead. The fact that they are both men of faith clearly does not lead to shared values (though admittedly, one could be forgiven for thinking that they both had the goal of subverting the constitution).
He also makes the common mistake of confusing democracy with liberty:
One of the best ways to safeguard religious freedom is to aid the rise of democracy. Democratic governments don't all look alike. Each reflects the history and traditions of its own people. But one way -- but one of the defining features of any democracy is that it makes room for people of all backgrounds and all faiths. Democracies allow people with diverse views to discuss their differences and live in harmony.
How about that "democracy" in Afghanistan, the one that throws people in prison or puts them to death for daring to criticize Islam? Put religious freedom up for a vote in many places in the world and it will not only lose but lose badly. The beauty of the system our founding fathers put in place was that the bill of rights placed the religious freedom of others beyond the easy reach of democratic majorities.
Laws that violate liberty are no better merely because they are passed by a democratic majority. In fact, they may be worse because the notion of majority rule is seen by some as imbuing them with a legitimacy that a law handed down by monarchial decree would not have.
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Or how about "democracy" in the United States that permitted (and enforced) slavery? Can there be a more clear example to prove that democracy does not necessarily provide liberty and justice for all?
Posted by: divalent | November 17, 2008 9:34 AM
"We believe God calls us to live in peace -- and to oppose all those who use His name to justify violence and murder."
Didn't Bush claim to speak with god and get the "thumbs up" on the war with Iraq?
Posted by: Deepsix | November 17, 2008 9:44 AM
President Bush stated:
This from a man who implemented a policy where America tortures people, sometimes torturing them to death. This from a man who argues not for justice, but instead for the indefinite retention without hearings of those turned over to military for money where no evidence of any crime or wrongdoing is sometimes even remotely apparent.
I have little doubt that Bush is incapable of even recognizing the irony and hypocrisy between his words and his actions, a trait common among social conservatives.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 17, 2008 9:48 AM
I can't get cynical enough to believe that we let the guy run the country for almost 8 years.
Posted by: MarkusR | November 17, 2008 9:53 AM
Or the democracy that surrounds the whole Prop 8 mess in California.
Oh and i think W is both dishonest and naive plus a bunch of other things i hope he gets tried for like treason for the Plame affair. But that is a whole other thread.
Posted by: eljay | November 17, 2008 10:08 AM
Michael Heath hits the nail on the head:
Having Saudi Arabia lead a conference on religious tolerance is like having the US lead a conference on human rights.
Posted by: Soren | November 17, 2008 10:08 AM
Bush and King Abdullah informing each other about religious freedom is possibly the most surreal event of the last 8 years, a crowning cornucopia of diseased irony too rancid to be delicious.
"The beauty of the system our founding fathers put in place was that the bill of rights placed the religious freedom of others beyond the easy reach of democratic majorities."
Unless you're queer and want to get a state marriage license. That one, they left dangling within easy reach. Careless, that.
Posted by: Rick R | November 17, 2008 10:48 AM
Soren - I'd say that having Saudi Arabia lead a conference on religious tolerance is like having... erm, Saudi Arabia lead a conference on human rights. For all the (justified) criticism of the USA, there is no comparison on human rights records.
Posted by: CommiusRex | November 17, 2008 10:53 AM
Just off the top of my head:
* Bush believed terrorism was not a significant threat prior to 9/11.
* Bush believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
* Bush believed invading Iraq would deter terrorists.
* Bush believed Putin was trustworthy.
* Bush believed putting Bolton in the UN was a good idea. Who needs a Senate?
* Bush believed abusive extraterritorial prisons served the cause of justice.
* Bush believed warrantless wiretaps foster freedom.
* Bush believed that (while spying on everyone else was okay) keeping the Whitehouse as opaque as possible was part of a healthy democracy.
* Bush believed the best way to deal with staff that challenged him was to dismiss them.
* Bush believed Brown did a heck of a job after Katrina.
Bush, oh ye of little brains, have you perhaps noticed a pattern to you beliefs? Do you discern a certain tendency concerning their accuracy? I'll give you a hint. The word you're looking for starts with a "w" and ends with a "rong." Take your time...
That's right, put them together...
They spell "wrong" you retarded banana! "W" plus "rong" spells, "wrong!" You are wrong. Your beliefs are wrong. Your policies are wrong. Your actions are wrong. You. Are. WRONG! Gah!
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 17, 2008 11:14 AM
Ed wrote: Laws that violate liberty are no better merely because they are passed by a democratic majority.
This reasoning would also apply to Proposition 8.
Posted by: pksp | November 17, 2008 11:17 AM
"Faith is believing in something you know isn't true." -Mark Twain
Posted by: WTFWJD | November 17, 2008 11:20 AM
We believe God calls us to love our neighbors, and to treat one another with compassion and respect. We believe God calls us to honor the dignity of all life, and to speak against cruelty and injustice. We believe God calls us to live in peace -- and to oppose all those who use His name to justify violence and murder.
And if there's a little collateral damage along the way as we fulfill God's will, we believe God will sort them out.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 17, 2008 11:32 AM
The mistake that Bush makes is in believing that faith leads to common values. In fact, it often leads to exactly the opposite. Osama Bin Laden is every bit as much a "man of faith" as Bush, yet Bush wants Bin Laden dead. The fact that they are both men of faith clearly does not lead to shared values ...
Bin Laden (if still alive) would probably prefer to die a martyr's death, so that might be considered a value shared between him & Dubious.
The two do have a lot in common:
* eagerness to spill blood in holy causes
* complete disregard for international law & world opinion
* deriving their head starts in life from family privilege
* having most of their thinking done by nominal seconds-in-command
* staggering levels of absurd superstition
* has-been status.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 17, 2008 11:50 AM
Psalms 37:9-11,29,34,37-40
Psalms 46:8-10
Psalms 72:7,8
Romans 16:20
1 Thessalonians 5:1-4
Daniel 2:44
Matthew 6:9,10
Revelation 19:11-21
Revelation 21:3-5
Posted by: Christian | November 17, 2008 12:02 PM
"His remarks betray either a breathtaking naivete or rank dishonesty, take your pick"
These are not necessarily mutually exclusive!
Posted by: Marlowe | November 17, 2008 12:31 PM
Christian, if you have a point you should make it. You probably wouldn't like my interpretation of those passages.
Posted by: Don | November 17, 2008 12:36 PM
Rather than "a breathtaking naivete or rank dishonesty" I think it represents a remarkable propensity for compartmentalisation. Faith=good (as an article of faith); Islamic extremism=bad (and leads to some quite horrific acts); but never look at the fact that Islamic extremism is an instantiation of faith. Such thinking is apparently commonplace among Right Wing Authoritarian personality types.
Posted by: Hrafn | November 17, 2008 12:48 PM
Christian - I too do not get your point.
For example, Psalms 72 is a plea by a subject of a king for God to intervene on his peers' behalf. This particular subject asks God to deprive their king of his free will and instead request that God force their king to treat the people kindly.
Given these people had no political liberty, a very Biblical ideal, the people like the author of this plea had little to no actual recourse in the authoritarian government under which he suffered and given their ignorance of the laws of nature as we understand them, appears to believe he's left only with special pleading to a sky daddy who he hoped would be his people's sugar daddy or make their king their sugar daddy.
How this applies to the subject of this blog post thread is unbenownst to me and at least one other reader.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 17, 2008 12:55 PM
Christian, you forgot Ezekiel 23:20!
Posted by: pough | November 17, 2008 12:58 PM
Psalm 46:8-9, a couple of the verses pulled, apparently at random, by Christian.
He does? When, Christian, when? This is what the leftwingers have been asking for, but apparently God hasn't seen fit to do it yet? Perhaps because he's too busy answering the religious righters' prayers that he smite their enemies?Posted by: James Hanley | November 17, 2008 1:15 PM
Christian, those points have been debated to death for the last 1500 years or more. Talk about beating a dead horse... or messiah as the case may be. Don't you have anything original to contribute?
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 17, 2008 1:20 PM
"Osama Bin Laden is every bit as much a "man of faith" as Bush, yet Bush wants Bin Laden dead. The fact that they are both men of faith clearly does not lead to shared values..."
Au contraire. They are both lead by faith to believe that God wants their enemies dead. So you see, faith DOES lead to shared values. Homocidal values. :)
Posted by: eric | November 17, 2008 2:44 PM
Re: comments about Prop 8.
Just because Prop 8 (an amendment to the California constitution) was passed by a majority of voters does not automatically make it compatible with either the US Constitution, nor with the rest of the CA constitution. The point about the Constitution protecting us from things like that isn't that those things can't happen, but that the results are eventually corrected within the framework of the legal / political system, without citizens having to resort to force of arms. That is, assuming of course that those citizens don't all happen to live south of the Mason-Dixon line. :)
Posted by: Scott | November 17, 2008 3:42 PM
I think you twist and then over-extend your argument on Bush. There are a number of reasons why Bush wants/wanted both bin Laden and Hussein dead with no evidence Bush was compelled by his religious faith as a motivating or extenuating factor. They are the very same reasons I want both of these enemies killed.
Yes Bush made some statements that he believed his cause was justified by God, but that is a long ways from being able to create a moral equivalence with bin Laden's motivations, which weren't merely justified in his statements because of our perceived acts against Muslims, but also because we are not Muslims.
It's a rare day when I am compelled to defend Bush.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 17, 2008 4:19 PM
Well done Ed. Well done! I like the part about the difference between democracy and liberty. Great and profound statement and hits the nail on the head. Can we trust a man that wants to imprison and torture people to spread his form of democracy around the world. Stalin believed in democracy. That is until he lost his elections and then he elected a new people as they said. Meaning he eliminated enough people until he got his way. All in the name of fighting facism and promoting democracy. Bush is full of shit. Way to point it out.
Posted by: King of Ireland | November 17, 2008 11:50 PM
What is the point of a conference like this if it's just going to be a load of people spouting these hugs-and-puppies cliches at each other, anyway? I'd actually have a little respect for Bush (a position I'm not accustomed to) if he'd gone in and said "Look, doing what God tells you is right isn't always easy. Sometimes it hurts people, sometimes there are terrible consequences for the believer and for the world. But if you take your faith seriously, sometimes you have to turn your face against the world."
I wouldn't necessarily agree with all of that, and applying it to the Iraq war is dubious at best, but it's a thousand times better than just turning up and mouthing crap like that, knowing no-one will ever call you on it out of 'respect'. What is the point of saying this? What good does it do anyone to have the world's leaders gather together to sit together and pat each other on the back over how religiously tolerant they aren't while secretly thinking "This is total drivel".
Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | November 18, 2008 7:08 AM
"We believe God calls us to love our neighbors, and to treat one another with compassion and respect. We believe God calls us to honor the dignity of all life, and to speak against cruelty and injustice. We believe God calls us to live in peace..."
Irony meter. Dead.
Posted by: Christophe Thill | November 18, 2008 9:03 AM
'neighbors', apparently, is just a modern word for 'members of our tribe'
It's perfectly all right - honorable, even - to commit murder and violence against members of other tribes - who, after all, hunt our animals and steal our women.
Posted by: llewelly | November 18, 2008 10:27 AM