[vsp]

Originally Posted by wolf

I suppose that it is unusual for you to hear conservatives referencing someone that the liberals have been worshiping and apologizing for for the last 60-odd years ...

Hysteria? "Liberals worshiping Stalin?" Physician, heal thyself.

If there's one thing that most ultraconservatives have always had in common, it's been their staunch belief that Communism is THE ENEMY, to the point that some are _still_ flinging "socialist" at American leftists as the ultimate pejorative. (Which dates them nicely, as Communism is old and busted and Islamofascism is the new hotness. Didn't you get the memo?)

So when an ultraconservative endorses one of the slogans of the most infamous and brutal Soviet leader of the 20th Century, pointing at him and saying "Hey, here's a guy who said something intelligent that we should learn from, and it involves killing those who oppose your goals," am I entitled to allow my jaw to drop a little bit?

Just a little tiny bit?

Thanks.

EDIT: No, I'm not done after all, because this is the second time Wolf has snipped at me in this thread, and I'm more than a little annoyed at being dismissed again like a know-nothing conspiracy crank or a Phil Hendrie caller.

You can call them "Dominionists." You can call them "Christian Reconstructionists." They have a variety of names, organizations and support structures. But the bottom line is this: there _are_ a bunch of people out there who want nothing less than to replace as much of our American system of government and laws as possible with a system that'll govern according to a much stricter Biblical worldview.

Are they the majority (or even a sizeable minority) among religious people in general or Christians, Republicans or conservatives specifically? No, which is what allows me to sleep at night. But they're out there, and you can't just fucking wish them into the cornfield and pretend that they don't exist.

Randall Terry just spent a couple of weeks on CNN and Fox News and such as a high-profile spokesman in an issue of high national interest, and they treated him like someone with a shred of credibility rather than as a raving fucking loon, someone who matches the definition of "terrorist" more closely than a lot of people in Guantanamo Bay and someone who's openly stated repeatedly that the US needs to become a theocracy yesterday. RANDALL FUCKING TERRY!

Things like that wouldn't unsettle me so much if _some of our elected officials_ weren't openly receptive to these people. This isn't just Sean Hannity saying "I need ratings and the far right watches me, so I'll invite some fundie huckleberries onto Hannity and Idiot tonight"; there are far too many Dobson-types who have at least some of the ear of Bush and some of Congress. The Republican Party grew and nurtured Frankenfundie through the 80's and 90's as part of their support base, and they have to feed it once in a while; some of them aren't even shy about throwing red meat to that crowd. DeLay. Santorum. Brownback. The dearly departed Zell Miller. Shelby. Coburn. Musgrave. My OWN REP, Joe Pitts, isn't too far off; he's cosponsored both years' versions of the Constitution Restoration Act.

When my own rep wants officials to be able to "act in the name of God being the sovereign source of law and government" without any federal judicial review, and when one of my own senators feels that the government _should_ be able to prohibit consenting adults from playing with each other behind their own closed doors, I have to whack myself in the head with a Wiffle Ball bat and remind myself that I'm _not_ in deepest Alabama, I'm _not_ in Mississippi, I'm _not_ in some heavily segregated Bible Study university somewhere in the hinterlands, I'm living in an affluent suburb of a major city that's _supposed_ to have joined everyone else in the 21st Century a few years back instead of regressing to the 17th.

Am I going to wake up tomorrow in Gilead, with cross-wearing troops at my door ready to drag me off for heresy? No, of course not. There will be no "Oh, by the way, GOD is in charge now and we're about to nuke the heathens" coup in America. But the fundies _are_ calling in their markers and saying "We voted you in, you have both houses of Congress and the Presidency, now give us what we want." Even incremental change along the lines of what they really want is detrimental to this nation, because the average church-going person won't wake the fuck up and oppose it until laws and "judicial reform" have changed to the point where he's personally affected, and by _that_ time it may be too late to easily rectify things. It's a good thing that the Constitution is very difficult to amend, else the _real_ fun would've started already.

But in the short run, I'm damned glad that I'm not a judge or related to one, just like I'm glad that I'm not related to anyone who works in a facility that performs abortions. Why? Because I don't want to even think about knowing what it must feel like to feel an imaginary laser-sight or bull's-eye on my back 24-7, wondering when some ultrafundie with a gun and a grudge is going to take a shot at me. People like DeLay and Cornyn and those quoted in the article I linked are stirring up the anger as hard as they can, and if some Matt Hale/Paul Hill/Eric Rudolph/Hal Turner type decides to take action and snuff someone who he's convinced is An Enemy Of God, the blood will be on their hands. (The one good thing that the Schindlers did in the entire Terri saga was to come out in the end and specifically denounce violent action taken on "their behalf.")

There is scary shit in the works right now, more unsettling than anything I've seen or felt in the past 20-25 years. I don't think violence against judges is a possibility right now; I think it's a sure thing, and the countdown is ticking. And once it starts, this country is going to get ugly in ways not seen since the height of the Vietnam era. I hope I'm wrong. I really do. But I don't make a habit of making outlandish predictions often, because I'm not often far off.

And, quite frankly, I'm more than a little surprised to see someone whose own spiritual beliefs (as far as I've gathered from years of her posts) are most definitely on the Dobsonites' "Not Approved" list lining up to defend them.