George W. Bush

Sacrificing sons — justifying war in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Via the Library of Social Science a fascinating essay by anthropologist Carol Delaney (professor emerita, Stanford University), “Sacrificial Heroics: The Story of Abraham and its Use in the Justification of War” (pdf), which is an extended meditation on the meaning of Abraham’s willingness to kill his son because God asked. Delaney argues: The story has […]

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Two dictators’ deaths — responses from Bush, Trump, and Trudeau

Consider the death of a right-wing dictator. Chile’s brutal Augusto Pinochet died in 2006: “In 2011, the Chilean government officially recognized 36,948 survivors of torture and political imprisonment, as well as 3,095 people killed or disappeared at the hands of the military government.” I was no fan of then-president George W. Bush. Yet his White

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