Posted on 09/06/2005 5:21:42 AM PDT by madprof98
At this time in American history, there are considered to be two major political parties: Republicans and Democrats.
The former has been hostilely taken over by religious extremists. The radical right has made mice of GOP moderates.
The moderates silently twitch their noses and watch the country creep toward theocracy.
Similarly, religious zealots among the Democrats have divided and conquered. The party has become more ineffective than it ought to be as the minority party in government.
Democrats and Republicans fear confronting the radical right because it is well-organized. While publicly preaching high morals, it also has proved capable of using dirty tricks, character assassination and worse.
Democrats fear that to go against the radical right is to risk losing the next election and what little power they have. Until Democrats realize these folks don't fight fair, they will be the nice guys who always finish last.
Neither party is able to do what's best for the country while they are distracted by these religious extremists. The radical right keeps using religion as a wedge on almost every issue: education, crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care, energy and so on.
So long as President Bush is not a voice of reason during this reformation, things will go from bad to worse. What a waste of "political capital"! This country is on the verge of a 21st-century holy war.
Just as the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, so, too, does it recognize the right to be free from religion. The radical right wants prayer in public schools, but only Christian prayers. These extremists would scream bloody murder if Muslim schoolchildren were to bow down and praise Allah or Jewish children were to lead their classrooms in Hebrew prayers.
We are a nation of people who adhere to many faiths, including Christianity. But we are not a Christian nation. But as far as the radical right is concerned, there is only one true religion --- fundamentalist Christianity.
These Christian soldiers are not marching as to war; they are at war. Yet, their leaders contend that Christians are under siege. This lie is spread by political allies in Congress as they attack judges as "activists."
On the radical right's enemy list is Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost her son in the war in Iraq. She and her supporters have camped out near the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas. But the radicals can't see her pain or get past her disagreement with their spiritual leader, George W. Bush. In another time, they might have burned Sheehan as a witch just to shut her up.
Members of the radical right pit mother against mother. They hail Terri Schiavo's mother, a Catholic, while condemning Sheehan, also Catholic. The severely brain-damaged Schiavo, who was kept alive by being fed through a tube, became a symbol for the national anti-abortion movement that had open support from Florida's Republican governor.
Sheehan's son went from altar boy to casualty of war and then a symbol for a national anti-war movement. Sheehan uses the same symbolic crosses for her cause as have been used for years throughout the country to represent unborn children lost to abortions. Can you recall anyone driving a truck over them, as happened with the Crawford crosses?
The radical right won't rest until they've converted --- or subverted --- their enemies. As a Catholic mother with children in religious schools, I find this movement reprehensible and suspicious. Do you really believe that the sudden interest Republicans have in attracting black and Hispanic voters has to do with anything other than religion?
Justice Sunday II was not about educating people about the judiciary. It was a religious revival and fund-raiser where Judge John Roberts was just a prop. If churches continue to become political staging areas for extremist movements, they should be taxed.
So what to do? Allow them to subvert the Constitution and continue their bloodless coup without a challenge? No. We must urge them to form their own party. Think of Greens and you think of the environment. The zealots should call themselves Theocrats. They should leave the Democrats and Republicans to fend for themselves. Such defections have happened before. (See Whigs).
If a Theocrat like televangelist Pat Robertson calls for assassinating a foreign dignitary, Republicans wouldn't have to explain. Let Theocrats adopt as their mascot a wolf in sheep's clothing.
If the Theocratic Party succeeds, it will be through votes of the people, through democracy, not deception. Heaven knows, they've deceived us enough already.
> Rhonda Chriss Lokeman is a Kansas City Star columnist. Her column appears occasionally.
I just lost all respect for the AJC. What a bunch of hysterical crap!
I just lost all respect for the AJC. What a bunch of hysterical crap!
Just another load of crap coming out of the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation.
Good Grief..
Like the song says ... 'Could it be you're blaming me for what you're doing yourself'?
LOL...and the Democrat Party has been taken over by Leftist crazies like Howard "The Scream" Dean and George "Machiavelli" Soros. I'd rather have the Christians. They are much more useful and likeable, as we've seen in the past week.
Whaddya want, a party "taken over" by Christians or the one taken over by criminals, perverts, and atheists?
Whenever a moonbat uses the phrase "wedge issue", he/she means that, "most people don't agree with us on this issue, so we're going to make sure you can't even discuss it!"
Name one...
[ crickets ]
Hopefully very occasionally.
Could some one tell me if this harridan is married? If so, I want to send a condolence card to her husband.
"Just as the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, so, too, does it recognize the right to be free from religion."
Bravo Sierra. It does no such thing.
Wow. This moonbat is even zanier than that wild-eyed psychopath who usually spews her insanity from the Urinal and Constipation.
Her name escapes me right now.
Sure it does.
Some penumbra emanates it.
Theocracy???? What planet is that idiot on. You can't even say on prayer on public property these days.
Conservative Christians voting = Theocracy to these whackos.
Really, whose Constitution is that?
The democrat party is ineffective because it's "platform" is a rag-tag collection is single-issue special interest groups ranging from public employee unions to gay yodeler associations.
This moonbat may have stumbled across a grain of truth. The 'Rats definitely have their share of religious zealots: their religion is SOCIALISM.
And if Roberts and other like-minded conservatives are seated on the USSC, their main avenue to advance their socialist agenda on America may be thwarted. That's why the judges issue ranks right up there with Iraq and Katrina, and why scumbags like the Swimmer and Chuckie Schmuckie are fighting so hard against Roberts. Let's hope that Frist has the balls to follow through with the nuke option if they start their filibuster crap.
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