Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Paranoia Strikes Deep

Very ominous trends, my friends.

Several stories are bubbling up here and there about a supposed "anti-Christian" bias in various institutions, principally the Government of the United States of America. Christianist politicians claim to be victims of widespread attacks by forces of bigotry against evangelicals.

Actually, the truth as the GTL sees it is that many groups ARE under attack - FROM the evangelical Right, not the other way around.

Here at the GTL we feel that one's religious beliefs (or lack thereof) are private and that citizenship alone is enough. No public profession of faith in one or another deity is required, appreciated, or welcome in our unique land where church and state are by design kept as distant as kissing cousins who can never marry.

When members of the dominant group claim to be victims of bias, at a time when they maintain an historically unheard-of level of power and influence, well, what we have here is a seething paranoia, one that will not simply go away and will not go underground.

Christianists in government say the judiciary has run amok and is waging war on them, yet it is their side that threatens violence against judges who refuse to scrap the balance of power between Congress and the Judiciary, it is the Right that wants to detonate the Nuclear option in the Senate so that the president can ram ultra-conservatives into life-tenure judgeships, and it is their side too that all but demand oaths of Christian loyalty from government employees.

Today I read about a spate of harassment at the Air Force Academy, where "patriotic" young Christians are threatening other cadets as "filthy Jews," "Christ Killers," or telling non-Christians they will go to Hell if they don't fall in line. Of course, evangelical groups seem to think that putting a stop to a bigot who is bullying the slim minority of non-Christians is itself an act of bias. The GTL calls it protecting and defending the Constitution, but why split hairs?

Today I am thankful for my right to keep and bear arms since I don't doubt that someday these Christianist radicals, out of desperation to spread the Good News of Jesus' loving wrath, and in frustration that his second coming is so long delayed, will rise up in an orgy of blood and murder.

For my own good, of course.

I don't imagine I can stop them. But as a wise man once said, "if they make us have a funeral uptown, then we're going to make sure they have a funeral downtown, too."

1 comment:

nomis said...

You show too much faith in the honesty of those in power... I seriously believe that this type of thing is actually intentional. It's a classic bully tactic that has been used time and time again on school playgrounds. Why shouldn't it work in politics?

Bascially, accuse the victim of doing what you are doing... it's easy to do when the victim is the weaker (which is almost ALWAYS the case, by definition).

The fact is that many people can see through these types of threats. The thing that angers me about this is that the media (who really should know better) swallows this stuff whole. Often they will state an opposing opinion, but this always falls AFTER the original accusation.

The success of the "bullies" (as I like to call them) lies specifically in being able to define the battleground... anything else becomes a reaction; reactions are often not taken as having the same strength as the initial statements for the same basic reasons defined in the bully-victim dichotomy... alpha vs beta type. whoever defines the terms generally wins the argument