Interesting Thread Over at By Common Consent, there is an interesting thread on Mormons and Democracy. Here were my two cents. I quite like R. Laurence Moore's book Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans, and its thesis presents interesting ideas on what mainstream in our cultural context means. Another recent Salon article I liked by Anne Lamott might, in light of Moore, underestimate the degree to which the religious right's rhetoric confers on it this messy Religious-Outsider-ergo-American-insider status. I wonder if the longsuffering religious left would ever successfully use similar devices. Does MLK in any of his speeches? From my feeling, MLK succeeded by shining a light on hypocrisy in unjust institutions that were putatively impossible in a true democracy. This seems a different project, compelling insiders to deracinate the implanted embarassing brutalities in the country.  ¶ 2:31 AM