Posted on 08/06/2012 7:45:42 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
A veteran Republican says the religious right has taken over, and turned his party into anti-intellectual nuts
Having observed politics up close and personal for most of my adult lifetime, I have come to the conclusion that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism may have been the key ingredient in the transformation of the Republican Party. Politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes—at least in the minds of its followers—all three of the GOP’s main tenets: wealth worship, war worship, and the permanent culture war.
Religious cranks ceased to be a minor public nuisance in this country beginning in the 1970s and grew into a major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson’s strong showing in the 1988 Iowa presidential caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. Unfortunately, at the time I mostly underestimated the implications of what I was seeing. It did strike me as oddly humorous that a fundamentalist staff member in my congressional office was going to take time off to convert the heathen in Greece, a country that had been overwhelmingly Christian for almost two thousand years. I recall another point, in the early 1990s, when a different fundamentalist GOP staffer said that dinosaur fossils were a hoax. As a mere legislative mechanic toiling away in what I held to be a civil rather than ecclesiastical calling, I did not yet see that ideological impulses far different from mine were poised to capture the party of Lincoln.
.... All around us now is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science. Politicized religion is the sheet anchor of the dreary forty-year-old culture wars.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Revised title to reflect what they really mean:
GOP insider: Religion/The-Tea-Party/Conservatives/Fly-Over-Country/People-With-Principles destroyed my party
And, he thinks it’s a BAD thing....????
more anti christian b.s. and standard strawmen to knock down.....
what an assklown.,...
The left has been pushing this meme non-stop since the early 80’s with the emergence of the Christian Moral Majority.
A veteran Republican whom they refuse to name. Why? What did they do? Dig up Jacob Javits?
And to promote his book, this good Republic soldier is going to the likes of Salon.
BTW, I am not sure why someone’s belief about dinosaur footprints should make a difference in a discussion about deficit spending, the role of government or even cultural morality issues. Maybe these types of pubbies can’t think clearly when they are too busy sneering.
“....all three of the GOP’s main tenets: wealth worship, war worship, and the permanent culture war.”
No agenda by the writer. Nope, none at all. /s
You should be so lucky, asshole.
Mike Lofgren spent twenty-eight years working in Congress, the last sixteen as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees, which gave him ringside seats on TARP, Hurricane Katrina disaster relief, debates on the Pentagon budget and the amazing antics of various deficit–reduction commissions. He holds two degrees in history and received a Fulbright scholarship. He lives in Washington, D.C.
That explains a lot....
That article is a bunch of bull-Obama.
GOP insider: Religion RINOs destroyed my party.
Fixed.
"Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed this afternoon, Senator McCain."
So we don’t get to know the name of this supposedly real-life, veteran Republican? Is this another Harry Reid propaganda action?
I think he means cults.
LOL McQueeg was my first thought.
The call themselves republican without the slightest clue what republican means.
IMO the lack of religion is destroying the country.
Morality has become almost none existent and Democrats are actually thinking of putting a Gay plank in their platform.
It isn’t religion that is destroying the Republican party it is people who are sup[posed Republicans but in actuality are Democrats. Much like the Dildo who wrote this scribe.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.