Posted on 08/06/2004 7:30:39 AM PDT by Tuscaloosa Goldfinch
America is Indeed Becoming Two Nations
Over the last few weeks I have come to realize that Democratic Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards is at least partially correct when he says there are two Americas. Unfortunately, his portrayal of the two Americas is nothing more than a recycling of the liberal political tactic of promoting class distinction and envy attempting to pit us against each other.
But a more serious analysis of the social, cultural and political forces presently vying for their place in our nation would show that there are, indeed, two Americas. One America is still trying to hold on to Christian values and apply them not only in their personal and family lives but also in how they engage as citizens and as community members. The other America is a secular America that is growing more openly and stridently anti-Christian day-by-day. This America is being taken over by secular extremists that now openly display their loathing of traditional values and of "fundamentalist" Christians with no concern that they will suffer any consequences for their words or actions.
For example, in a recent interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, singer Linda Ronstadt said, "It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment," she said.
Perhaps if the attacks were only coming from entertainers like Ronstadt such meanness and rudeness could be dismissed. But these positions are not just arising from entertainers and their industry; they are being echoed and argued by respected and successful members of American political and social life.
In a column he wrote for American Prospect entitled "Bush's God," Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, denounced religious zealots that give greater allegiance to God than they do to the government and labeled them as a greater threat than terrorism.
Reich said, "The great conflict of the 21st century will not be between the West and terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. The true battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernists; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority; between those that give priority to life in this world and those who believe that human life is mere preparation for an existence beyond life; between those who believe in science, reason, and logic and those who believe truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma. Terrorism will disrupt and destroy lives. But terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face."
Reich is not alone in this belief. On March 6th of this year, Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, told an audience that the so-called "Religious Right" is more dangerous than Neo-Nazis and Muslim extremists.
In other words, to the Dees and Reiches of this land, if your allegiance is first and foremost to Almighty God and not to the almighty state, you are more dangerous than a terrorist. Reich takes great offense when right-wing fundamentalists criticize him and other secularists as being moral relativists. In so doing, he said, "they confuse politics with private morality." Reich continued, "For religious zealots, there is no distinction between the two realms. And that is precisely the problem."
As secularists like Reich see it, when Christians, as American citizens, speak out against abortion or homosexual marriage or presidents having sex with interns, such expressions represent a greater threat to the well being of the nation than terrorism.
Reich called on his fellow Democrats to "mount a firm and clear counter-assault" against the Religious Right during this election and hold them, he says, "…accountable for what they are trying to do in our nation's schools - promoting the teaching of creationism, demanding school prayer, pushing "abstinence until marriage" programs, and opposing sex education." "This," according to Reich, "is all about imposing their religious views on our children."
Frankly, most Christians have thought it was the other way around: that our children's Christian values have long been under assault by the secular public schools. In fact, the secular left has for years been engaged in ideological warfare against Christian values that is systematically purging our nation of the very basis of our democracy…the belief that our rights are from God and not conferred to us by a benevolent, secular government. And the federal courts have been their weapons of mass destruction.
Right now there are still two Americas, but if secular extremists such as Robert Reich, Morris Dees, Linda Ronstadt and their like have their way, someday there will only be one nation under their god of politically correct secularism.
Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.
July 29, 2004
NOTE: This column is a copyrighted feature distributed free of charge by the Alabama Policy Institute. For information or comments contact: Gary Palmer, Alabama Policy Institute, 402 Office Park Drive, Suite 300, Birmingham, Alabama 35223, (205) 870-9900, e-mail garyp@alabamapolicy.org. To subscribe to this column, please go to www.alabamapolicyinstitute.org/subscribe. To unsubscribe, go to www.alabamapolicyinstitute.org/unsubscribe.
He's absolutely right, but not in the way he intended.
On the one hand, "those who believe in the primacy of the individual" and that individual rights are granted by God and are inviolable.
On the other hand, "those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority," i.e., their social identifying group used to give some individual special rights, while disparaging the rights of others.
I think between the two, we know which side Reich and the Socialists are on. If there is a coming conflict, it will be caused by individuals resisting the pressures of the Socialists. Thanks for making our point for us, Robert.
Terrorists are help without trial for years, bombed, shot on sight, etc. Christians (to Robert Riech) are a "greater danger." I wonder what he has planned for us.
As far as class goes, the US is probably the most classless society on the planet. In many countries, the high-class powerful people refuse to even be in the same room as the working class and will only associate with people in their class. The article is correct, the real division in the country is between those who have high religious-based moral values and those whose value system is humanisticly based on the desires of the flesh.
If America divided into two nations, one being a conservative, Christian nation (like our forefathers) and one being a liberal, any religion or no religion nation, where would the masses choose to live and why?
Are they the ones who came out with that research paper entitled "Kissin' Cousins - Maintaining the Purity of the Family's Gene Pool"?
"And Christ saw satan fall from the sky like lightening..."
Reich is wrong as usual. Christians believe in science, reason and logic. It's the left which moves according to pure emotion. The left actually is extremely unscientific in its thinking, giving rise to the very prevalent "junk science" which is deceptive and dangerous.
I heard there once was a Guy Who once walked around saying, "If they do this in the dry wood, what shall they do in the green?"
I saw an article, AP probably, in the local paper a couple years stating a government study revealed 52% of U.S. households get a government check.
America divided; those households that get a government check and those households that pay for government.
Yes, political correctness (and "multiculturalism") - the diehard fundamentalist RELIGION of the self-entrenching Left. They never cease to remind us that "they got rights, too"! ("Some animals are more equal than others.")
You are correct. I saw the same comment of Reich and thought how misinformed or uninformed he is.
Piety has a distinctly sobering affect on scientific conduct. It constrains the scientist to not jump to conclusions and to verify again and again any results, claims or projections that are made.
Sir Isaac Newton, without question one of the greatest natural philosophers in human history was devoted to God.
Science as a search for truthful knowledge of creation is governed by the Creator. A pious scientist will seek and discover truth according to the standards of truth finding that their own value system dictates.
There is no higher standard of truth than that put out in holy scripture.
It is important to observe that a Church doctrine can present an obstacle to scientific discovery. In each case where this occurs, one can find a nonbeliever has set the Church doctrine. Churches are not infallible to the influence of disobedient nonbelievers.
BTTT
Reich and Kerry have this in common, they have a way with words. the left is very adept at accusing the right of the very thing they are doing. Yes, fundamentalism is bad but there are people who are fundamentalist who want to kill us and there are others who want to live a peaceful life in the comfort of their fundamentalist beliefs. We know who we are fighting. When Christians try to force their religion on others with the use of force we will have to deal with it. Reich would force socialism on us using the force of government, and the force of law. He sees nothing wrong with this, but you need to read his words carefully to know this.
Religion is only one fault line in the coming Civil War Two.
Morris Dees will be exposed for the fraud he is someday....hope it's soon!!
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