{"id":180435,"date":"2017-04-19T21:12:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T02:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/04\/19\/why-do-i-even-bother\/"},"modified":"2017-04-19T21:12:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T02:12:00","slug":"why-do-i-even-bother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/04\/19\/why-do-i-even-bother\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do I Even Bother?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 330px;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"180\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hkZir1L7fSY\" width=\"320\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Yesterday, I wrote a <a href=\"http:\/\/40yrs.blogspot.com\/2017\/04\/political-panic-in-france.html\">lengthy post<\/a> explaining the <b>profoundly<\/b> dysfunctional Presidential campaign in France.<\/p>\n<p>Today, I came across John Oliver&#8217;s summary of the campaign on his show, and I am feeling profoundly inadequate.<\/p>\n<p>It covers the issue and entertains at the same time, though I think that there could be a little less focus on the laughs and more on the humor.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing that I object to is his characterization of Le Pen&#8217;s position on the wearing of religious regalia in public.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not outrageous by the standards of France:&nbsp; French republics have been thoroughly and militantly secular since  Charles de Gaulle was a teen,<sup>*<\/sup> to the degree that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.expatica.com\/fr\/family-essentials\/French-weddings-A-guide-to-getting-married-in-France_101112.html\">religious wedding ceremonies are not recognized by the state<\/a>, and couples have to be married in a civil ceremony to have their union recognized.<\/p>\n<p>The policy is called La\u00efcit\u00e9, and while Le Pen&#8217;s absolutism regarding this policy is a minority position, it is well within the bounds of what is considered mainstream French political thought.<\/p>\n<p>Still, I feel really inadequate right now.<\/p>\n<p><sup>*<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\">Specifically, since the passage of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1905_French_law_on_the_Separation_of_the_Churches_and_the_State\" title=\"1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State\">1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State<\/a>, though secularism was a significant portion of French political discourse since at least the French revolution.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I wrote a lengthy post explaining the profoundly dysfunctional Presidential campaign in France. Today, I came across John Oliver&#8217;s summary of the campaign on his show, and I am feeling profoundly inadequate. It covers the issue and entertains at the same time, though I think that there could be a little less focus on &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[375,371,588,386,430,504,380,401],"class_list":["post-180435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-elections","tag-europe","tag-fail","tag-humor","tag-meta","tag-philosophy","tag-religion","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}