Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Strange the way the nuttier pwog secularists and the wacky religious right feed off each other. I'm sure there's a dissertation in there somewhere...

I disagree with this quite vehemently.

The problem isn't that the Democrats are encouraging secularists to stay with them out of fear of fundamentalists (who, as far as I'm concerned, are even more virulently toxic than commonly believed).

The problem is, in fact, quite the opposite: that the Democrats actually want to 'play around' in their usual craven with encouraging fundamentalism when they think that it'll get them votes-but they treat it as a complex game and so get it wrong compared to the Republicans, who are fully willing to dive headlong into the antirational abyss.

Lieberman is in many ways a poster child of the DLC and this was precisely his approach, both as a 'censorcrat' and thorugh his statements that there is no freedom from religion, but only freedom of religion.

When all of the Democrats get together and universally condemn Michael Newdow, an atheist citizen who took the time to get involved himself, an excess of secularism isn't their problem-in fact, quite the opposite.

By the way, you're right that religion in the black community is a generally progressive influence (the Republicans have been trying to change that, but so far without much success except at the margins), but I don't think that really makes up for the overwhelmingly deleterious effects that Christianity as predominantly practiced is having on the country at this point-whether in terms of science education, global warming denial, or the fact that even though American elites would want to support Israel's slow ethnic cleansing anyway, it would be a lot harder for them to do so without a strong baseline of Christian fundamentalism within the United States to aid them.

DHelix -- You're right that the Dems want to play footsie with the fundies, but it seems to me this is just their usual double game -- running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. To one constituency -- secularists, for lack of a better word -- they represent themselves as the last ditch of defense against theocracy, and because the secularists by and large buy this package, and won't bolt no matter what, the Dems are able to conduct a little under-the-table triangulation dalliance with the forces of unreason.

If I don't quite share your alarm about the "deleterious effects of Christianity as predominantly practiced," it's because I firmly believe that religious beliefs, no matter how wacky, have very little political effect unless politics has been emptied of any real content. All this religious craziness in the political world is quite epiphenomal, I'm convinced.

I'm inclined to take DoubleHelix's view, however there is the Creation Care movement:

Creation-care means caring for all of God's creation by stopping and preventing activities that are harmful (e.g. air and water pollution, species extinction), and participating in activities that further Christ's reconciliation of all of creation to God. Doing creation-care fills us with the joy that only comes from doing the will of God.

So it's not all that clear cut to me. I also think that there are a lot of mediagenic qualities to the serious nutters, which gets them more exposure than is really warranted by their numbers.

j alva :

"I'm inclined to take DoubleHelix's view"

meaning?

the biblistas are

"even more virulently toxic than commonly believed)"

or

the craven donks are toying
with
moronic holy hell fire
and
what ??

as a result
not
offering adequate
shelter
to US PROGS

FROM THE MIND-MIN
JESUS HELTER SKELTERS
ON THE PROWL
OUT THERE ???

It will take a long, long comment, JSP, but for starters the fundamenalists have a control over the faithful that exceeds the power of the state and enough of a grip on some parts of the state to be very worrying. The second part of my agreement with DH concerns the feckless footsie routine of the Democrats. I don't expect them ot offer anyone any shelter and indeed would expect them to feed their own, and everyone else within reach, to whoever promised them a bit more career.

It is a feature of struggling empires to institute a religious orthodoxy, which draws its ideological police force from groups that have no use for ambiguity. The "my God is bigger than your god" crowd is perfect for that.

The Creation Care movement shares many of my goals, but I wouldn't expect them to ever be truly friends. Stewardship and submission to the will of God often have to be enforced, with a muscular approach that leaves little room for niceties like common sense or civil liberties.

They're not stupid people, and often very brave. Martial prowess, intelligence, a dislike for "nuance", except as needed for submission to the ineffable, and the happy convergence of God's will and theirs leaves me a little concerned.

I'm having a hard time believing that the religious wingnut crowd has as much clout in the Republican party as some dems would have us believe. That 'values voters' line from '04 was pure bunk.

Sure, the elephants make nicey-nice with the Fallwells and Robertsons, saying the all the right things and even throwing them a bone when it doesn't cost much. But really, fundies are kept on the hook by the elephants just as much as the poor deluded 'progressives' are kept on the hook by the donks.

j alva et double H

very interesting
clearly we are far apart here
i'll try to cook up something
more on this
for you

alan
needless to say
the parallel you make would be the one i'd make too

but far bigger fins
have been sighted
swimming in amerikan
waters bt these two folks than either u or i
have noticed

the game is afoot !!!!

I realize they don't get much of anything from the Reps, but I still consider them the group most vulnerable and useful to demagogues with a clear "vision". The Foxnews pseudocons don't worry me nearly as much. They're lazy and not one is willing to die for a belief system.

Well, I've already gone on record as to how I feel about the God's Army types. Like I said much earlier, it speaks volumes to me that 2004 was the year in which OR's notorious homophobes finally managed to pass a homophobic ballot measure that annulled the Portland County Council's wave-through on same-sex marriage.

To me, it's important to note that such measures have come down the plank nearly every election cycle in the eighteen years I've lived in the state. (See the documentary "Son of 9," for more details.) They usually don't succeed, however. It took several years of the economy being in the toilet and new lows in Demo betrayal of the base for this last one to finally get over.

I don't say this to excuse bigotry, nor to justify the standard DP line that if only the County Chair (Linn, who was just unseated in the primary by a challenger, at last) hadn't tried to get same-sex marriage for the locals, of course the bigots would have left us pwogs alone. To me, interpreting the State laws to allow same-sex marriage and then pretty much ramrodding the issue through was one of the only truly admirable things Linn has done in her multiple terms.

But the fact remains that bad economies feed the flames of bigotry and fear, to say nothing of ignorance. On the ground, you have blog after blog full of good Dems who post constant updates on the God Squad and its routine and ever-more-numerous/dangerous stupidities. Dem rank-and-file won't post about Green candidates, or Cindy Sheehan's endorsement of same, but they have ample time to remind you that Ralph Reed and his buddies don't want women to have a vaccine that can kill a cervical cancer-causing virus, because he'd rather see women and girls die than "get away" with screwing in some non-Christian-approved manner.

But I can't escape the idea that it serves the Rahms and HRCs well to keep their base scared to death. In fact, I'm ready to go further and say that the DP leaders agree with Reed that women and girls deserve to die for their disobedience. The only difference is that Reed follows his idea of Jesus when making these decisions, and HRC follows the rules of Antoinette-esque class snobbery;A few deaths in the galley will make the slaves that much more tractable.

Christian thuggery in a suit or secular thuggery in a suit. Take your pick. >:

I'm having a hard time believing that the religious wingnut crowd has as much clout in the Republican party as some dems would have us believe. That 'values voters' line from '04 was pure bunk.

Sure, the elephants make nicey-nice with the Fallwells and Robertsons, saying the all the right things and even throwing them a bone when it doesn't cost much. But really, fundies are kept on the hook by the elephants just as much as the poor deluded 'progressives' are kept on the hook by the donks.

I think partially there needs to be a bit more precision on my part as to the nature of religious wingnuttery:

Really, there are two variants of it within the Republican party, and both of them are dangerous and, more than anything else, either ignored by the Democrats or 'toyed with'.

The first variant is the obvious, overt one: the pro-lifers, the Falwells, the Robertsons, et cetera. They're used, but also reigned in somewhat when they get out of control (ie, Roy Moore).

The second one seems to be made of wealthy families such as the Ahmansons and their connections to "Christian Reconstructionism" that heavily bankroll aspects of the Republican party and work more quietly.

MJS said earlier he "firmly believe(s) that religious beliefs, no matter how wacky, have very little political effect unless politics has been emptied of any real content." Unfortunately, that's precisely where the United States is right now-and more than anything else, the Democrats don't offer protection as much as they want to attempt to benefit from it when convenient (ie, Casey's anti-abortion stance as an example). They're not even on the map when it comes to fighting it, and they're terrified to actually speak up and say that it's both ridiculous and dangerous to make political decisions based on religious beliefs in the manner that the Republicans often do so.