Tolerance

Blame doesn’t help anyone. Understanding what is, what was, what could be, what can be. I guess understanding is really what is all about.

Two things of monumental significance happened in 1492. And they both happened on August 3rd. Christopher Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain just up the Guadalquivir river from Seville. Undoubtedly, Columbus had some Jews with him because August third was the first day of the second diaspora. A 737 year long period of mostly religious tolerance had come to an end.

Beginning in 755 with the arrival of Abd al-Rahman, the sole survivor of the ruling caliphate of the House of Islam, after a massacre in Damascus, in Cordoba in what is now Spain and ending in 1492 there was a period of tolerance where the “Peoples of the Book,” Jews and Christians who share Abrahamic monothesim, lived in peace and harmony with the Islamic world.

What happened in 1492? How does a culture of tolerance come apart? Why does social and religious purity become paramount? Those are questions that I cannot answer. But what is obvious to even a casual student of history is that with the rise to power of the Roman Catholic Church in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ became the mantra of the rulers.

This particular brand of intolerance has been going on for 516 years. Far, far too long.

Now, referring to today’s Thought of the Day, no one person can bring tolerance to the country. But by golly, when I listen to Barack Obama speak I believe that tolerance and brotherhood are a possibility.

More of the Best

Professor Paul Krugman’s New York Times commentary is here. I take away two points. First

When George W. Bush first ran for the White House, political reporters assured us that he came across as a reasonable, moderate guy.

Yet those of us who looked at his policy proposals — big tax cuts for the rich and Social Security privatization — had a very different impression. And we were right.

The moral is that it’s important to take a hard look at what candidates say about policy. It’s true that past promises are no guarantee of future performance. But policy proposals offer a window into candidates’ political souls — a much better window, if you ask me, than a bunch of supposedly revealing anecdotes and out-of-context quotes.

And, Second

All in all, the candidates’ positions on the mortgage crisis tell the same tale as their positions on health care: a tale that is seriously at odds with the way they’re often portrayed.

Mr. McCain, we’re told, is a straight-talking maverick. But on domestic policy, he offers neither straight talk nor originality; instead, he panders shamelessly to right-wing ideologues.

Mrs. Clinton, we’re assured by sources right and left, tortures puppies and eats babies. But her policy proposals continue to be surprisingly bold and progressive.

Finally, Mr. Obama is widely portrayed, not least by himself, as a transformational figure who will usher in a new era. But his actual policy proposals, though liberal, tend to be cautious and relatively orthodox.

Do these policy comparisons really tell us what each candidate would be like as president? Not necessarily — but they’re the best guide we have.

The bottom line? We need to pay attention. Details matter.

Thought of the Day

I am only one, but I am one.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.

Edward Everett Hale