The best way to unify the blogosphere against you, it would seem, is to come out in favour of shariah laws in Britain, as Rowan Williams did this week.
In a thoughtful piece on the subject, Cranmer concludes: “God forbid that Britain should ever return to the days when religious leaders should determine guilt or innocence, or legislate on matters of crime and punishment. For some of us, those memories are all too acute and dreadfully painful.”
The news brought a swathe of imaginative post titles. Iain Dale comes up with “Who will rid us of this idiotic priest?” Chris Paul responds: “Archbishop: who will rid us of this ID-iotic blogger?”, while Obsolete’s contribution is titled “Opening your mind so much that your brain falls out”.
In one of the few posts that supports Williams’s position, Brian Sloan writes: “It is an issue that calls for informed debate if we are to have a genuinely pluralistic society, and I admire the Archbishop for raising it. Given the ill-informed and immature reactions of some, such a debate seems a long way off.”
Apparently there have been some elections over the pond. At Harry’s Place, Gene serves up some Super Tuesday afterthoughts, including praise of John McCain: “Although I can’t help liking McCain (if it wasn’t such an insult in certain circles, I’d call him a decent man), I’m quite aware that on many of the social and economic issues I care about, he’s far to the right of me. I actually was moved last night when he referred, non-sarcastically, to ‘our friends’ on the Democratic side.”
Danny Finkelstein calls the caucus voting system “ludicrously undemocratic”, highlighting some of the winning margins (e.g. Mitt Romney winning 25 seats in Montana on the back of 625 votes, while Mike Huckerbee needed 120,776 votes in order to win just 26 Arkansas delegates).
While acknowledging it may appear hypocritical judging American democracy as a Brit, Finkelstein states: “Romney, Huckabee and Obama all gained delegates as a result of this system that they otherwise might not have won. Caucuses (and state conventions) clearly favour the choice and enthusiasm of activists over those of ordinary voters.”
And finally, on the 90th anniversary of women winning the right to vote, Jon Bright at Our Kingdom assesses how far we have come in terms of equality of political power between both sexes. He concludes: “I hope that in another 90 years we are able to celebrate the equal access of men and women to positions of power, whilst also celebrating the anniversary of when change first began. Sadly, even today, this is a hope rather than a certainty.”
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