Family Values American Values Family Family
Oh look, Theocracy in America.
A collection of major Religious Right groups is seeking to flex some muscle this weekend, screening Republican presidential hopefuls and demanding they show fealty to the fundamentalist political agenda. The so-called “Values Voter Summit” in Washington, D.C., is sponsored by the Family Research Council Action, Focus on the Family Action, the Alliance Defense Fund, American Family Association Action and Gary Bauer’s American Values group. Every major GOP presidential hopeful is slated to appear. “This may be the biggest collection of theocrats in one room since the Salem Witch Trials,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “Their goal is simple: to consolidate their power within the GOP and elect a president who is in their pocket. They want to ramp up their efforts to run everyone else’s lives according to a narrow and rather hateful definition of Christianity.”
Well if they can’t run everyone else’s lives, where’s the fun in belonging to one of those crapulous outfits? Who would want to hang out with the Family Focus on Family American Values Defense Action Focus Action Group if there were no opportunity to tell other people what to do? What else are they going to be doing? Having interesting conversations? Boogying? Drinking and telling jokes? Humping? Seems unlikely! No – the only fun those people know of is the fun of Coercion and Regimentation, with a little Exhortation and Excoriation thrown in. Poor bastards.
Oh, I’d be willing to bet that at least some of them are there for the humping. The furtive, shameful, semi-anonymous humping.
If anyone hasn’t seen it, there’s an archived stream of the “debate” they had last month at http://www.alankeyes.com/vvdebate.php
It’ll freeze your blood.
One word: framing.
You hate ‘framing’ when it means soft-pedalling to not offend sympathisers. In this case the use of hyperbole, scare quotes, and emotive language is obvious.
Theocracy in America? Looks like representative democracy in action to me. You don’t have to shut up and neither do they. Vote.
Dont loose sleep over this O.B they will get stacks of promises but when it comes time to deliver they will get squat!
Nah, we have it here in Australia too. They raise money, support a few mainstream candidates from either major party, maybe float a wee party of their own and put in a couple of members or senators, then founder on the average ideas and mediocre people that are involved. You won’t get anyone as dangerous as Ralph Nader from that lot.
Churches are not there to form governments. Fundraising for missions and aid is legitimate but getting too political in churches results in donor and volunteer burnout very soon; it isn’t core to the mission.
Of course its SO energising to play to people’s confirmatory bias and hunt for theocrats under every bush.
‘Family Focus on Family American Values Defense Action Focus Action Group” Could we have another ‘family’ in there? It’d be self- satirizing if it wasn’t for the fact that that’s the way they really do think.
@ chrisper
Sure it’s democracy in action – until they get in, that is.
“Religious right groups are raking in the cash. The Carpetbagger. Key religious leaders have died recently (Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy), some major groups have nearly disappeared (Christian Coalition), the movement’s…”
The foremost Religious Right groups know moderately well how to flex their muscles. Sure, are they not at it all the time? Lifting up their arms to the heavens above crying out for manna!They are also relentlessly outstretching their arms whilst clasping onto collection plates which are placed under the chins of otherworldly, surreal, dream-like blameless victims. Undeniably, they are Pennies from Heaven, or so they want to pretend to believe. Gosh, does not God loves a giver. “The only fun those people know of is the fun of”, erm, the counting out, afterwards, of the dosh from their religious collection plates. Yes, raking it in is surely, what they are doing. It is as clear as daylight. They are having extreme fun and laughter and the expense of gullible trance -like victims, all the way to the nearest bank. Religion for them is is purely a business venture, and nothing else.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13257.html
ChrisPer, what makes you think theocracy and democracy are contraries?
“Of course its SO energising to play to people’s confirmatory bias and hunt for theocrats under every bush.”
Seriously, watch that video I linked. In America, they aren’t hiding.
Crapulous? Surely none of the Family Values crowd would ever be “hung over”, as we plebians put it.
BTW, the Toronto papers are, if not all agog then at least semi-agog at J.K.Rowling’s outing of Albus Dumbledore.
Just one more thing to upset the religious right.
“Demanding they show fealty to the fundamentalist political agenda.”
“The Christian Identity movement is perhaps one of the most dangerous theological doctrines in America today. It is made all the more dangerous by the fact that so few people even realize that it exists, much less what exactly it represents. Christian Identity is the dominant theology of many active right-wing Christian groups, including many if not most Ku Klux Klan organizations”
atheism.about.com/od/religiousright/a/overview.htm
Can you just see in your mind’s eye owing political – never mind, religious allegiance, loyalty, trueness to right wing Christians Activists such as the KKK, (let alone the others) Cor blimey, for the love of Moses, get me out of here, before I begin to scream.
What a scary thought to even ponder!Fealty my foot!
Damn, I didn’t know ‘crapulous’ meant hungover. Rats, another abuse-word gone. I need all the abuse-words I can get.
Did you know that “Albus Dumbledore” is an anagram of “Male bods rule, bud!”
No, I bet you did not, buddies! :~)!
Aye, but seriously, though, buddies – I am buzzing by again to let you know that in actuality in Devonshire speak -Dumbledore signifies – Bumblebee.
Sorry, for this small talk!
G T, theocrats can be elected and are not adverse at using the democratic process.
The ayatollahs in Iran came to power with a lot of support from all parts of the population.
They haven’t lost all it yet either…
Just so, Arnaud.
Tingey, I didn’t say opposites, I said contraries. My point is that democracy does not rule out theocracy. There is no necessary contradiction between majority will and theocracy.
Well I find this irritating because I agree with you that churches should not be dictating to the Government, but I don’t see a lot of difference between this ‘theocracy in America’ meme and the ‘9/11 Truther’ brain-fart.
Its a political group you disagree with; why make it bigger than its pathetic reality? Your political system is MADE so you can balance their power.
Of course OB is right that there is no logical contradiction. There are however very few perfect logical arguments in political life anyway.
As I hear they said in Algeria: “One man, one vote – once.”
Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.
— G. K. Chesterton
“Damn, I didn’t know ‘crapulous’ meant hungover.”
It doesn’t, it means ‘drinks too much’, usually a posh way of saying someone is a lush, although I think it can also mean ‘eats too much’ but it is almost never used like that. ‘Crapulence’ is a hangover via food or drink.
The word is so regularly misused, though, that I think the proper use is soon going to be almost impossible. It will go the way of ‘jejune’ a useful word that is now almost always used as a synonym for ‘naive’, as if we needed one. If you describe someone as ‘jejune’ in the proper sense, you can be sure that nearly everyone will misunderstand you. It makes me sad, although I can understand that a lot of you will find the whole subject somewhat, well, jejeune.
“I agree with you that churches should not be dictating to the Government, but I don’t see a lot of difference between this ‘theocracy in America’ meme and the ‘9/11 Truther’ brain-fart.”
Well I do, because some churches and religious groups are already dictating to the government in various ways. The ways are of course limited, but they’re not nothing, so hardly comparable to nonsense about 9/11.
Another point about the theocracy issue is that theocracy is what a good many people in the US do actually want, and I think that is at the very least worth noticing and thinking about.
But if your complaint is that I’m saying full theocracy is already here, of course I’m not, nor do I think it’s likely. Large chips in secularism, though, I think are much more likely, and I do not want them.
John M, I know, about ‘jejune’ – I mostly avoid it too, for the same reason. (Careful how you spell it though! If you spell it ‘jejeune’ you just foster the very misunderstanding you refer to! heh)
ChrisPer: Are you completely clueless about actual American politics in operation? Something like 1-in-5 currently-sitting members of Congress get 100% approval ratings for their votes on issues considered key to the agenda of radical right wing religious theocracy groups like Focus on the Family. That’s not an insignificant amount of influence: As OB rightly points out, the theocrats ALREADY SET POLICY at a state and national level on a whole slew of issues.
The thing is, theocracy doesn’t happen all it once: It happens in dribs and drabs, in rabid right wing Catholic Supreme Court appointees, in more and more money going to social programs that advance religion, in decisions about what research can be funded and what medical treatments women are allowed to access, in the deliberate destruction of the public school system to set up diversion of public resources to sectarian private schools, in state constitutions amended to prevent same-sex marriages which are already not allowed by state law … These things are happening, right here, right now. Every bit of progress advancing the various agendas of theocrats is another nail in the coffin of our already-ailing democracy.
Hell, if nothing else, think of what a horrible impact Bush has had on this country and the world – and remember that he could have been neither nominated as his party’s candidate nor elected (sort of) to the presidency without the money, support and votes of people who actively seek to turn this nation into a theocracy.
G, by certain peoples standards I am clueless about politics. But I know that the paranoid rhetoric from the Left (and Right too) is not in any way to be confused with reality.
I think there is no disagreement that a substantial church-based lobby industry in the US pushes agendas against abortion, gay marriage and a bunch of other fashionable icons. They raise funds, support candidates, start parties, all the usual stuff. And when they get some access to power they use it.
But given the intellectual corruption of the Left, and the financial corruption of both sides, and the lack of utopianism of both the centre left and centre right in the US, and the hegemony of soft-liberal values in the educated class, the idea of totalitarianism is absolutely laughable.
I have been in Iran, Morocco, Kashmir, Zimbabwe, Singapore and Papua New Guinea and seen what ‘differently-free’ countries feel like. The US theocracy meme is just paranoid bumper-sticker quality politics, and I am sorry I have wasted so much time talking about it.
I’m sorry you’ve wasted so much time talking about it too, Chris, since you seem to have a well-entrenched preconception about it which you’re unwilling to modify.
G.You mention rabid right wing catholic supreme court justices are you talking about Roberts and Alito? also why is it a problem if funds are being diverted away from your public school system? it strikes me that the U.S.public schools have become little more than job protection schemes for teachers! a bit of competition could only help?
Roberts and Alito, yes, but the most rabid is an appointment long predating Dubya, Antonin Scalia.
“It strikes me that the U.S.public schools have become little more than job protection schemes for teachers! a bit of competition could only help?”
I was going to respond to this, but I thought better of it. I won’t waste my time correcting the misinformation you get from whatever right-wing talking point sources you get your picture of America from, Richard. Except to point out that “competition” is not a magical cure-all for every problem, and that it has in fact proved utterly disastrous every time our government (or any other that I’m aware of) has actually moved essential public services to the private sector supposedly governed by free and fair competition in an open market. In practice, in NEVER works out that way: Instead, massive corruption and betrayal of the public trust ensues. Even the fairly small-scale flirtations that some U.S. states and municipalities have made so far in diverting tax money to private schools through “charter schools” and “school choice” mechanisms have resulted in one embarrassing scandal after another.
Re. US schools, for a more-in-sorrow view, see here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/a/2007/10/24/notes102407.DTL
G. I would agree with you on Scalia but to call chief justice Roberts a rabid right wing catholic just does not bear any relation to reality! have you watched his confermation hearing? because I saw a sober and thoughtfull jurist (I would prefer someone more liberal on isues like capital punishment) not a rabid right winger. I would take isue with your competition never works in public services comment, it is working quite well here especialy school choice.There are some problems that I think we discused recently with state funded faith schools in the U.K but that is only a small part of the picture.Competition is also working very well with the former state owned monopolies again it is not perfect but things have certainly improved from the days of nationalisation.
There’s plenty of school choice in the USA, Richard. Competition does not a magic bullet make.
The problem rather lies in the vast inequality of funds available to public school systems, and unsurprisingly wealthier districts almost always perform better than poor ones. The only thing that voucher programs accomplish is a net defunding of public schools, which will cause already failing schools to fail faster.
The right-wing/libertarian solution to public services is to kneecap the public services and complain that they can’t run a marathon.
As to Roberts, time will tell, Richard. Being ideologically far right does not always mean being rhetorically far right: He presents himself very well, but in his actual jurisprudence – on the federal bench before his appointment, and on the SCOTUS since – he consistently writes decisions which support the preferences of right wing ideologues, religious and otherwise. If anything, he bothers me more for the absolute free reign he offers corporations than for his religious ideology, which after all is likely to affect only a few narrow issues like abortion (one bad decision handed down already). But Roberts has never met a corporate interest he doesn’t support wholeheartedly in his career: In his jurisprudence, corporations seem to enjoy all the rights and privileges of persons but absolutely none of the duties and responsibilities. That was the real motivation behind his support of the egregious decision to limit sexism/pay inequity suits so much as to make them utterly impossible to pursue: It serves corporate interests.
And I didn’t say competition never works in public schools, I said competition never works in public infrastructure of any sort, period. All I ever read about, even in the UK system you defend, is massive unfairness and constant problems being caused by state-funded sectarian religious schools – problems which are growing worse thanks to Tony Blair’s years of “Rah, rah, anything religious is automatically good” nonsense.
And what are your examples of competition being an improvement over careful government regulation in basic infrastructure roles? (I never said anything about state-owned monopolies, you might note, because that’s never really been how we do such things in the U.S.) In the U.S., every time there’s a major move towards privatization and deregulation in a given infrastructure area (schools, highways, etc.), there is a marked increase in costs to the consumer and an endless series of ongoing fraud and corruption scandals to show for it. I can point to thousands of individual and broad-scale examples: Recent deregulation in gas & electricity production & distribution, charter schools, increasing dependence on contractors (and decreasing oversight of contractors) in everything from road construction to prisons to military operations, deregulation of the mortgage industry, and on and on. All of these have proven to decrease efficiency of service delivery, increase costs, and encourage corruption and outright fraud. I can think of many examples where things have gotten worse with deregulation, outsourcing, and other sorts of transfer of primary direct responsibility for infrastructure from the state to private industry – but none where the wonderful magic of competition has actually made anything better.
And, to bring us back to the topic at hand, sectarian religious schools dividing a society into increasingly distinct us/them, insider/outsider sub-groups based on religious ideology would be a detriment to society even if it DID result in slight educational improvements – a claim for which I’ve seen little to no evidence.