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Archive for June, 2009
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Wednesday, June 24th, 2009Evangelicals Need Abortion
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009From a purely political perspective I can understand how the evangelicals still cling to the abortion issue. Continually waving this flag is their only hope of keeping the Republican Party paying attention to them and granting them a larger voice than their numbers actually merit. It is their best strategy and has worked well for nearly four decades. So long as they remain the uncompromising standard-bearers of this issue they can guilt the rest of the party – which generally agrees with them though not quite so radically – into giving them a healthy dose of the party’s power. It has been the key to their success within the party and, when observed from without, the thing that has brought the party close to splintering and collapsing.
As Republicans realize that allowing the evangelical wing to control so much of their party could lead to its downfall many are starting to drift away from their extreme christian position. True to form the evangelicals refuse to compromise and work within the party. Instead they’ve stiffened their backs. They send murders into legally operating clinics to kill the doctors and nurses that run them. Openly, of course, most evangelicals condemn the actions of their christian soldiers while privately they rejoice. Don’t argue with me on this point. I’ve witnessed it.
At the same time they participate in some brilliant Rovian jujitsu and accuse the Democratics of being as bloodthirst as they actually are. Here’s a great example of what I’m talking about – Obama, younger evangelicals and a true pro-life agenda. On the face of it this seems like a fairly reasonable article about the stand-off over this issue. But the language of it is so hateful and filled with accusations to the Democratic Party and specifically the Obama administration that one can’t help but walk away with a residue of fear and loathing. The author repeatedly calls them pro-abortion. This is a most offensive idea. Nobody is pro-abortion. Let me say that again, nobody is pro-abortion. No one delights when a woman has to make this choice and to imply they do is deeply offensive. The hope appears to be that blasting Democrats with their hate will reinstate evangelicals to their former place of power within the party. The enemy of my straw-man enemy is my friend.
Again, I can understand this thrashing about. The evangelicals are afraid of losing the party they so carefully and meticulously hijacked. Let’s hope that Republicans will continue to realize that they’ve sold their soul for this single issue and start to take their party back from the christianist faction.
WDWJPF – Whose Death Would Jesus Pray For
Monday, June 15th, 2009There’s not really a lot to say about this one. Most rational people can see the insanity to which evangelicals have sunk when one of their leaders speaks this way. The absolute stupidest part about this whole affair is that Obama is a christian!
But anyway, here we go. Take a listen to reverand Wiley Drake declaring that he actively prays for the death of the President of the United States. By the way, I looked up imprecatory as it was a new word for me. Its base verb, imprecate, means “to invoke evil on” according to Websters Ninth.
Gitmo’s still open, isn’t it?
Let’s Ban Book Burners
Saturday, June 13th, 2009Let me say this as plainly as I possibly can. Anytime anyone anywhere tries to legally ban a book they are wrong. If it didn’t violate free speech principles I would be in favor of making illegal the calling for the ban of a book. But in our free society even idiots have the right to express their opinions.
Banning books is the most stupid and fearful thing that one can do in reaction to ideas or words they don’t like. Often the argument is made that young readers can be harmed by the content of books. Usually such claims are made by people like christians who are absolutely convinced of the infallibility of their world view. If it is so solid shouldn’t it be able to stand up to ideas that run contrary to it? If you’ve raised your children in the foundation of your belief shouldn’t they be able to resist opposing ideas? It seems to me that being exposed to ideas that don’t fit yours should strengthen your philosophy if it is indeed the right one.
But that’s really the problem, isn’t it? Book banning has always been the action of overly repressive governments and philosophies. Allowing the population to experience perhaps foreign thoughts and stories of others is dangerous to anyone opposed to a free society. The only reason to ban a book is to force people to accept your philosophy as the only one.
The vilest books should be available in civic libraries. People should be allowed to read what they want to and make up their own minds about it. Banning a disagreeable book only means that you don’t trust those you are trying to control with its content.
Claiming Biblical Principles as US Territory
Friday, June 12th, 2009Now here’s an amazing christian screed. Its author, Roger Mullins, is definitely going on my must-read list if for no other reason than his entertainment value.
There are plenty of factual errors, overstatements and outright baffling claims made here. I want to focus one just one because, among them all, this is the only one that I haven’t encountered elsewhere before. It’s rare to find an original misstatement among these folks – another reason to add him to my reading list.
Mullins says “What was “popular” or “politically correct” was not taken into consideration when our leaders in that day drafted our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence. Which, by-the-way, made us the first and only country in the history of the world to have its government and society founded on predominantly Biblical principles.”
Really? OK, I’ll admit that the qualifier predominantly can make this an argument of greys. Plus the fact that he’s probably a Protestant evangelical – if it quacks like a duck – and rejects the idea that catholic equals biblical but still! Has Mullins never heard of the Vatican? That’s a country. And as the seat of the catholic church I think that it would be heard to deny that it was founded on biblical principles.
But setting that obvious example aside, how many other countries are based on principles or doctrines that can be argued to be as christian as those that established the US. (I question that claim, too. The founding fathers would by no stretch of the imagination recognize the modern evangelical christian as a brother.) If we accept Mullins argument that the US’s founding principles are christian then we have to accept that most countries’ are too.
What exactly are the principles he’s talking about? A peaceful society? Rule of law? Democratic rule? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? These aren’t principles over which christianity can claim a monopoly. As one founding father pointed out these principles are self evident. One doesn’t need a Santa Claus in the sky to grant them or teach them, an intelligent human seeking the best possible existence can realize their necessity.
Passionate, generalized, baseless arguments are what this diatribe – and most evangelical political thought – is based upon. It’s time to call people like Mullins out on it.