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| Jonah Goldberg: The magnifying trick of liberal paranoia |
| 2006-10-11 |
| If the Christian base of the GOP gets its way, "All government employees - federal, state and local - would be required to participate in weekly Bible classes in the workplace, as well as compulsory daily prayer sessions." We would all have to carry religious identity cards that "would provide Christocrats with preferential treatment in many areas of life, including home ownership, student loans, employment and education." Non-Christians would be indulged as second-class citizens, "but younger members ... would be strongly encouraged to formally convert to the dominant evangelical Christianity." Homosexual sex would be illegalized, while "known homosexuals and lesbians would have to successfully undergo government-sponsored reeducation sessions if they applied for any public-sector jobs." Dissidents would be on the run, the popular culture censored by bureaucratic Cotton Mathers, and "the mainstream press and the electronic media would be beaten into submission." All of that is according to James Rudin in his book "The Baptizing of America." I learned about it from a brilliant essay in the August-September issue of First Things, in which Ross Douthat surveys the scare literature demonizing "Christianists," "theocons" and "Christocrats" - people who were under the impression that they were actually law-abiding, tax-paying, patriotic American citizens who happen to subscribe to the Christian faith. Little did they know they're actually all about rounding up infidels and torching the Constitution. . . . Go read the rest of it. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #8 above is a quote from the article. |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-11 13:56 |
| #7 Yet Orwell's point is still relevant. Intellectuals look at the world through literary prisms of theory. They come up with a vision of the world - one that usually magnifies their importance - and then select facts accordingly. Arendt herself was so convinced a Goldwater presidency would usher in an age of storm troopers, she looked for an apartment in Switzerland after he was nominated. The waves of paranoia currently sweeping through America could be seen as the democratization of intellectual dementia. Criticisms of President Bush, Christians, the right wing, the Patriot Act, whatever: These are all fine. But presumably, such large claims against America should come with ample evidence to back them up. Instead, we get the opposite. The smaller the example, the greater its significance. And that trick is the intellectual class's gift to America. |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-11 13:36 |
| #6 tu - I thought that was where it was going too. |
| Posted by: anon 2006-10-11 13:33 |
| #5 Hmmmm. Change a few words and it sounds like one of them "Islamic republics"... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2006-10-11 12:37 |
| #4 Leave it to a moonbat never to let facts and history get in the way of his opinion. |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2006-10-11 12:29 |
| #3 Good article, really. What's crack me up is that the very same people who wishes to (and often have successfully done so) limit free expression, want the All-Powerful State to regulate society (for its own good, of course, nanny is here to protect you against yourself), enforce essentially racist laws (in the name of affirmative action, diversity),... are the same who cry "wolf" about freedom in the USA. And what's even more funny is those pundits, here at the heart of Tranziland, who say that the USa have de facto become fascist... while in fact this is in Europe that freedom of speech and opinion is truly in danger, that the actual european laws concerning terror are much more severe than the US ones, than the oprressing nany-State has gone haywire,... Weird. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-11 11:44 |
| #2 And we would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for these meddling writers! |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2006-10-11 11:26 |
| #1 Would the neo-cons who are just tools of Isreal force people to become Christians? Methinks the conscipiracies are a bit tangled at times. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-10-11 10:55 |