Ross Douthat (the man who took offense at non-Christian spirituality in the movies – Avatar, Star Wars, etc) is back with a column about Brit Hume’s ridiculous invitation to Tiger Woods. Douthat rightly says that “Liberal democracy offers religious believers a bargain. Accept, as a price of citizenship, that you may never impose your convictions on your neighbor, or use state power to compel belief. In return, you will be free to practice your own faith as you see fit — and free, as well, to compete with other believers (and nonbelievers) in the marketplace of ideas.”

“That’s the theory,” he goes on to say. “In practice, the admirable principle that nobody should be persecuted for their beliefs often blurs into the more illiberal idea that nobody should ever publicly criticize another religion.”

Fair enough. Christianity certainly likes to criticize other religions – and other forms of Christianity. Though I would point out to Mr. Douthat that Christianity is far less willing to accept criticism directed at itself. To do so invites charges of a “war on Christianity” or seasonally, a “war on Christmas.”

But there is more: “Or champion one’s own faith as an alternative.”

Nothing wrong with this. After all, as a polytheist I champion polytheism. It’s why I’m here. I can hardly criticize Mr. Douthat for that. But there is often more to it. For a Christian, it is not generally championing Christianity as an “alternative” but as a “superior” religion. One is far less offensive than the other. I suspect Mr. Douthat, based on this and other columns, has lost some perspective on the matter. Christian champions do tend to be a bit myopic.

Then Mr. Douthat adds, “Or say anything whatsoever about religion, outside the privacy of church, synagogue or home.”

Notice that other possible places of worship get no mention from the narrow perspective of Christian monotheism.

I don’t have a problem with people talking about religion. I talk about religion, though I generally don’t initiate the conversation. Christians, however, like to initiate conversations about religion. These conversations often tend to be one-directional, however. They are often, “Do you go to church? Where do you go to church? Have you been saved? Do you know Jesus Christ?”and things of that nature. If you respond in the negative you invite further haranguing (there is no other word for it) and if you seek to make the conversation omnidirectional you are met with a stiff rebuff. “I don’t want to talk about that,” is the mildest response heard. Another is, “I’m sorry to hear that.” For a person of another religion to speak up is generally either an end to a conversation or the invitation to a long harangue about the inferiority of your system of belief as compared to the benefits of Christianity.

I venture to say Mr. Douthat has never been on the receiving end of a conversation of this sort. He lacks perspective.

To Mr. Douthat’s purpose in writing this column:

A week ago, Brit Hume broke all three rules at once. Asked on a Fox News panel what advice he’d give to the embattled Tiger Woods, Hume suggested that the golfer consider converting to Christianity. “He’s said to be a Buddhist,” Hume noted. “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.”

He goes on to say that, “A great many people immediately declared that this comment was the most outrageous thing they’d ever heard.”
Look at it from a non-Christian perspective, Mr. Douthat. If a polytheist had spoken instead of Hume, you would not be writing this column – or, at least, it would not take the form it does at present.

The outrage would be from Christians.

Mr. Douthat is at least fair enough to admit this: “Somewhat more plausibly, a few of Hume’s critics suggested that had he been a Buddhist commentator urging a Christian celebrity to convert — or more provocatively, a Muslim touting the advantages of Islam — Christians would be calling for his head.”

“No doubt many would,” he admits.

Let me say this: Christianity is not the cure. In fact, there is no disease to cure. Or, as I’ve said before, Christianity is the cure for a disease that does not exist. It’s superfluous and irrelevant. It’s whole raison d’être is to “fix” what had gone wrong with “God’s plan,” but that is to presuppose that your God has, a) a plan; or b) the ability to effect all things everywhere on this planet – namely, that is “the sole God of the universe.”
Those are pretty big suppositions.

So when a Christian pundit publicly suggests that another religion is inferior (and that is what Hume was, in fact, doing) the rest of us have a right to take offense.

He is also fair enough to recognize that “Many Christians have decided that the best way to compete in an era of political correctness is to play the victim card.”

Mr. Douthat says that we don’t “need to welcome real bigotry into our public discourse,” and he is right. But his next words ring somewhat more hollow: “But what Hume said wasn’t bigoted: Indeed, his claim about the difference between Buddhism and Christianity was perfectly defensible.”
You’re being disingenuous, Mr. Douthat. You know as well as I do that Hume was not merely pointing out differences between two religions. He was saying that Christianity is the only religion capable of dealing with a perceived problem.

It is true, as you say, that “Christians believe in a personal God who forgives sins” but he also abrogates the necessity of personal responsibility for one’s actions: this includes the old adage that “There is no crime for those who have Christ.” Christians tend to believe that their truth trumps polite discourse, it trumps hurt feelings, and it trumps religious tolerance.

It is also true that “it’s at least plausible that Tiger Woods might welcome the possibility that there’s Someone out there capable of forgiving him, even if Elin Nordegren and his corporate sponsors never do.”

Yes, it’s possible – but that’s assuming Tiger feels like he needs forgiveness. You forget that the whole idea of salvation and forgiveness is alien to many religions. It is just as likely (if not more so) that Tiger will feel that the important thing is to accept responsibility for his actions and to behave in a better fashion henceforth.

You say, Mr. Douthat, that “The knee-jerk outrage that greeted Hume’s remarks buried intelligent responses from Buddhists, who made arguments along these lines — explaining their faith, contrasting it with Christianity, and describing how a lost soul like Woods might use Buddhist concepts to climb from darkness into light.” Somehow, in your mind, Hume’s own comment is not a “knee-jerk” reaction to an event. But it was. The knee-jerk reaction of a holier-than-thou Christian who thinks his religion is the answer to everything.

Mr. Douthat says that “If we tiptoe politely around this reality, then we betray every teacher, guru and philosopher — including Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha both — who ever sought to resolve the most human of all problems: How then should we live?”

If this is so, why do other forms of spirituality threaten you so much, Mr. Douthat? A world (as in Avatar) full of spiritual people without recourse to Christianity – or Jedi’s and their Force, who also find themselves ethical, moral, and just without recourse to Christianity. I find that in general, Christians much prefer to condemn; they don’t like criticisms leveled at them in return.

I do agree with Mr. Douthat when he concludes that “It’s reasonable to doubt that a cable news analyst has the right answer to this question.” I personally would not want my news anchor to suggest that a person in the news should adopt a particular religion as a solution to some perceived problem.

Mr. Douthat believes that “the debate that Brit Hume kicked off a week ago is still worth having. Indeed, it’s the most important one there is.” I disagree. How is what one person’s religion might be of such profound importance? It’s his religion – not yours. It’s his business – not yours. It’s one thing to say: “This is my religion: this is what we believe.” Fine. Do it. It’s another entirely to say, as Hume did, “Tiger Woods needs access to a superior religion in answer to his problems.”

We can have religious discussions outside of churches and synagogues and mosques, but we don’t need public moralizing. Keep that to yourselves. The rest of us are happy – and moral, and ethical, and just – without your religion.

“If you support gay marriage, we’re going to let the homeless starve!”
This is what the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington D.C., home to over 580,000 Catholics in the District of Columbia and five Maryland counties, said if the D.C. Council passes marriage equality.
Tit-for-tat.
It’s so Third-grade. And so, apparently, Catholic.
These services are critical. They include homeless shelters, food programs for needy families, and health services.
Marriage equality has now passed. Will Archbishop Wuerl carry out his threats? Will he honestly hold helpless people hostage like a common terrorist to get his way?
We’ve come to a sad pass when Christian conservative are so desperate to involve themselves in politics, to force the hand of government, that they’d hurt people to get their way.
It is not, apparently, America’s protestants who alone form our own brand of Taliban.
The Archdiocese insists that for its part it remains committed to serving those in need. It says it’s not pulling services. By some bizarre twist of logic it’s claiming the city is forcing them to cease providing services!
This is the same logic criminals use when they take hostages. We’ve all seen it before: “I’m not responsible for killing these people – you are – by not doing what I told you to do. The blood is on your hands if you force me to kill them!”
Common criminals. Thugs. Terrorists…Christians.
Very sad. I’d like to see some outrage from moderate Christians. I haven’t yet. But I’d like to.
But I think the rest of us can summon up enough outrage to make up for their quietude, don’t you think?

P.S. If I’d waited a day, this clown would be my nithing of the week. Even so, he’s still a nithing, one among far too many deserving applicants.

UPDATE 7:11 pm 11.20.09:

Subject: It’s Official Folks – CafePress Is Pulling Psalm 109 Merchandise

Hello Friends:
It’s official folks. A number of people have received email from CafePress saying that they’ve changed their position on Psalm 109.

In other words, they are “are actively pulling all Psalms 109 content from the site.”

This just in from the Boycott Cafe Press group on Facebook:

Subject: We’ve Been Heard!

Hello All:
A few moments ago, Cafepress updated their blog with the announcement that the’ve decided to pull all Psalm 109 merchandise!
http://www.facebook.com/l/eb597;blog.cafepress.com/

I am still awaiting official confirmation from the Vice-President. I will let you know as soon as I hear from them again.

Congratulations to all of you for making this happen. Well done, ladies and gentlemen, well done!

I have seen some pretty low and reprehensible things in my time. Christians, and Christianity as a whole, have been responsible for some of them. But this recent development is so disgusting that it makes you wonder why people aren’t being hauled off to jail:

Christian Conservatives Pray for God to Kill President Obama

Psalm 109 is not a happy Psalm. The prayer is not one for Obama’s health or for his continued long life. It is a prayer for his death:

“Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

The article encourages you to read on when you come to this Psalm, and for good reason:

6 Appoint [a] an evil man [b] to oppose him;
let an accuser [c] stand at his right hand.

7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.

8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.

9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.

10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven [d] from their ruined homes.

11 May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.

12 May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.

13 May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.

14 May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.

Where is the Secret Service in all this? You have to wonder. Laugh as somebody might that their god could strike somebody down if asked to do so, the people who came up with this scheme, the people who buy the t-shirts, think that it will work. Worse, they want it to work.

I hope the consequences for their actions will not be happy ones.

Meanwhile, if you are on Facebook there is a Boycott Cafe Press group. Join this. And there are other things you can do. The following is taken from their FB page:

Cafe Press originally pulled their product but replaced all of it within 24 hours, stating that they believe it is typical political commentary – the likes of which they have sold for years.

We disagree. Given the current state of race relations and the growing number of hate groups in the U.S., we believe that allowing such merchandise to be hosted on Cafe Press’ website amounts to tacit approval of the potential for violence against the POTUS.

It is not appropriate for us to remain silent on this. Should something actually happen to the president because of the hatred being fanned, wouldn’t we all bear some responsibility?

PLEASE ACT NOW:
1. Boycott Cafe Press until they pull the products.
2. File a complaint with them letting them know that you will no longer be shopping with them.
3. Let them know you’re going to pass the word.
4. Do it.

File your complaint with Cafe Press here:
http://help.cafepress.com/hc/s-74058960/cmd/kbresource/kb-3031644499937843668/escalate!PAGETYPE?VisitorProfile=cafepress

Call to lodge your complaint:
1-877-809-1659
Mon-Sat, 9:00a til 9:00p EST

And by the way, this hasn’t been the first prayer for Obama’s death:

Rev. Wiley Drake Prays for Obama’s Death

And another,

The Baptist pastor who prayed for Obama’s death has been interviewed by the Secret Service

For Rachel Maddow’s condemnation, see here. Her comments on this subject come about four minutes into the broadcast, so don’t give up.

I’ll give you some of the highlights here: Rachel Maddow spoke to Patience With God author and Huffington Post blogger Frank Schaeffer and asked him if the citation of this Biblical text “means something less threatening to people hearing this in a Biblical context. Schaeffer responded that this is “trawling for assassins”:

SCHAEFFER: No. Actually, it means something more threatening. I think that the situation that I find genuinely frightening right now is that you have a ramping up of Biblical language, language from the anti-abortion movement for instance, death panels and this sort of thing, and what it’s coalescing into is branding Obama as Hitler, as they have already called him. And something foreign to our shores, we’re reminded of that, he’s born in Kenya. As brown, as black, above all, as not us. He is Sarah Palin’s “not a real American.” But now, it turns out, he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers to which all these Biblical allusions are directed who should be slaughtered, if not by God, then by just men. So there’s a parallel here with Timothy McVeigh’s t-shirt on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing. He said the tree of liberty had to be watered by the blood of tyrants. That quote, we saw at a meeting where Obama was present carried on a placard by someone with a loaded weapon.

What we’re looking at right now is two things going on. We see the evangelical groups I talked about in my new book, Patience With God, enthralled by an apocalyptic vision that I go into in some detail there. They represent the millions of people who have turned the Left Behind series into best sellers. Most of them are not crazy, they’re just deluded. But there is a crazy fringe to whom all these little messages that have been pouring out of Fox News, now on a bumper sticker, talking about doing away with Obama, asking God to kill him. Really, this is trolling for assassins. This is serious business.

It’s un-American. It’s unpatriotic. And it goes to show that the religious right, the Republican far right have coalesced into a group who truly want American revolution. If it turns out to be blood in the streets and death, so be it. It’s not funny stuff anymore. They cannot be dismissed as just crazies on the fringe. It only takes one. You know, look at the Boston Globe article from a few weeks ago that says the threat level faced by the Secret Service has gone up 400%, higher than any other time in 52 years, for any president, Democrat or Republican. These are no jokes.

Schaeffer added, “Look, this is the American version of the Taliban… this is the Old Testament Biblical equivalent of calling for holy war.”

Take it seriously, my friends. The Religious Right is a terrorist organization, no less so than the Christian radicals in the Roman Empire. They have declared war on our system of government, on American democracy. They could not make their feelings or their intentions more plain.

As Schaeffer points out, the moderates do not speak out. Where is the outrage? Or as he says, “Where the hell are you?” I join him in this. We’re always told most Christians are moderates, but let’s see their outrage. As Schaeffer says, “this is serious stuff” and I’ll add this: Time to decide which side you’re on. You may not want to have sides, but sometimes they’re forced upon you, and as Schaeffer warns, “There are not many steps left on this insane path.”

I will add a prayer of my own: Thor protect you, Barack Obama.

It is possible to find a wide diversity of views coming from the left of the political spectrum. As we move right, diversity dries up and is replaced by sameness, by orthodoxy. It is still possible to find moderate Democrats; the moderate Republican is a thing of the past. Where orthodoxy has taken hold, choice becomes an evil. Choice means heresy. Or in modern American political parlance, we have “real” Americans, we have “real” Republicans, and everyone else is, to use the appropriate verbiage from the Bible, “whoring after foreign gods.” In other words, they have turned not only against the United States, but against God. The two, as they were in ancient Israel, have become inseparable.

Thus, we could see during the presidential races of 2008, John McCain and Sarah Palin, the Republican candidates, torch-bearers of the New Republicanism, rally the base through an appeal to orthodoxy. We discover that parts of Pennsylvania, for example, and parts of Virginia, are the “real” Pennsylvania or the “real” Virginia. Everyone else becomes the “constructed Other” – we liberals are today’s Canaanites. And it should come as no surprise that the Republican base has the same plans for us as the Yahwist priesthood had for the Canaanites: Where orthodoxy exists, genocide cannot be far behind, whether physical, cultural, or political. Anything else is a betrayal of “God.” And the GOP has become all about their god.

We saw this too during the presidential races, this appeal to “God.” Sarah Palin stood further right than John McCain. John McCain, to some Republican rank and file was nearly a heretic himself, not approaching orthodoxy on a number of issues. Some even accused him of not being a conservative at all. Sarah Palin was his lifeline, his direct link to the base, and Sarah Palin, member of the ultra-conservative Assembly of God, even touted a genuine witch-hunter for a pastor. It is a mistake to ignore the religious dimensions of the New Republicanism. It is nothing new to say that the GOP – the Grand Old Party – has become “God’s Own Party.” The base believes their god has chosen the United States as a vehicle, the vehicle to replace the Roman Empire, and that their god has therefore also chosen our President. Sarah Palin, on election night, even stated boldly to James Dobson, head of the hate group Focus on the Family that “I know at the end of the day, putting this in God’s hands, the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4.” Apparently, the base and their demagogue leaders fail to understand how American democracy works: as our Founders intended, it is the American people who elect the president: God gets no vote. Not even one.

Nuance does not exist on the Right. There are no shades of gray – there is only black and white. Where a diversity of views can be found on the left, a veritable cacophony of voices ranging across a wide spectrum and sometimes loudly disagreeing, the only disagreement going on among the Right is who gets to be top dog in the GOP’s cult of personality. Individual opinions are stifled. Facts go out the window. What we get instead are “talking points.” New Republicanism’s Talking Points are today’s Decalogue, a sort of modern Ten Commandments, and everybody wants to play Moses, from Rush Limbaugh to Sarah Palin to James Dobson and Pat Robertson to Glenn Beck and Rupert Murdoch. Those who do not attain Moses-like status will have to settle for being prophets. And like all prophets, they peddle fear and hate and the wrath of an angry god for those who have gone astray. The masses, eagerly lapping up the pabulum tossed their way by Limbaugh and others, then go out and spout these talking points, all saying essentially the same thing. And they have to of course; If they don’t, they become heretics. Like poor Dede Scozzafava in New York District 23, they find out they’re not really Republicans after all. You can’t be a Republican if you harbor support for individual human rights and women’s freedom of choice: Thou shalt not! Any support for any position held by President Obama, whom we were previously guaranteed would be chosen by God (Sarah Palin’s promise), automatically qualifies as heresy and non-membership in today’s Chosen People (i.e. the “Real” Americans – the Republican base).

It is no surprise that most people who were not lower income, uneducated, White Southern Christian voters, drifted towards Democrat ranks in the 2008 elections. A party of exclusion has a very small tent. People are not welcomed to join. Membership is created not through inclusion but through exclusion, through acceptance of the GOP’s talking points. This means you have to follow an Abrahamic form of monotheism – as long as you’re not Islamic – and, well, it’s probably better if you’re not Jewish too – or too “ethnic.” Ethnic people (read Hispanic) are Canaanites too. Though the GOP went after the Jewish vote in 2008, according to the national exit polls, Jews voted for Obama over McCain 78% to 21%. This is no surprise. The Jews, according to Christian doctrine, are, after all, yesterday’s Chosen People. Today’s Chosen People are Christians, and not just any Christian – Mormons generally fail to make the grade, as Mitt Romney discovered in 2008, and those with moderate views aren’t really Christians either. No, here too the path is narrow and exclusive. Ugly freedom of choice is frowned upon. You can’t have a personal opinion unless it is the pre-approved, pre-packaged Talking Points we discussed earlier. As Dede Scozzafava discovered, you can’t like gays, you can’t approve of abortion in any form, and you must at least pretend to be a fiscal conservative and a believer in small government (though this last is more fiction than fact – as the record demonstrates, Republicans are more than happy to spend money as long as they’re the ones doing the spending, and they love big government as long as it’s THEIR big government).

What this all boils down to is, on the left, diversity, already condemned by the Right’s demagogues as nothing better than paganism (e.g. Coulter, Robertson). For example, on Patriots and Liberty dot com (October 2008) we discover that “Modernity’s gnosticism is paganism (nature religion), dressed up as science and secularism, behind which lurks Liberalism, Marxism, and fascism.” We see this claim frequently made by the New Republicanism’s prophets these days, these fear tactics appealing to the threat of Marxism, fascism (never mind that Marxist ideology is Left and fascist ideology is Right – today’s Chosen People aren’t good with directions – no surprise since direction indicates choice and they’re not at all comfortable with that). We see President Obama and liberals accused all at once of being Communists and Nazis, which is interesting, because totalitarianism by its very nature suppresses the free expression of ideas and thoughts of individual human rights. If you want to look for where totalitarianism really lurks, you only have to look to the Right. That is where you will find the rhetoric of totalitarianism: the suppression of human rights and liberties, the graveyard of free choice and Democracy (after all, where is Democracy if God is the decider?), and the creation of political orthodoxy so extreme that the slightest hint of dissent gets you cast out of the Promised Land. Totalitarianism permits no opposition.[1] Dede Scozzafava had no choice but to throw in with the Democrats; there is no room in today’s GOP for moderate Republicans. You are not allowed to challenge orthodoxy. There is no room for diversity where diversity makes you a Canaanite. Absolutes are uttered not by progressive thinkers, or by liberals, but by the orthodox: If you are not with us, you are against us. It was Hitler who said this. It was Hitler whose army held up their trousers with “God is with us” belt buckles. George Lucas was wrong: It is not only Sith who deal in absolutes. It is Republicans.

Sinclair Lewis said, “”when fascism comes to America, it will be draped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

He was right. It has. And it is. The Tea Partiers, like the Nazis before them, have clothed themselves in the aura of sanctity, self-convinced crusaders and haters calling for revolution, espousing, like the Nazis, ethnophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and the promise of a restored “fatherland” that has only ever existed in the imagination. It is no surprise when so much of the Bible itself is “history as it should have been” that these “folks” appeal to an American history “as it should have been” – a Biblical paradise in which the Founding Fathers were not children of the European Enlightenment but Fundamentalist Christians whose vision for America has been led astray by the evils of liberalism.

Do not be fooled by the rhetoric. The New Republicanism loves to accuse others of what they’re guilty of themselves. Throw enough dirt, they think, and some of it will stick. Tell the same lie often enough and it will be believed. McCain and Palin tried this in 2008. It did not matter how often they were interrupted and corrected, or faced with the facts. The same lies continued to spill out of their mouths. And in a sense, they had no choice. The Sword of Damocles is wielded by the New Republicanism Orthodoxy and if you stray, you will be cast out, as one of their prophets, Rush Limbaugh, has repeatedly demonstrated. McCain was nearly cast out. Faced with a choice, he walked the walk and talked the talk. There is nothing worse, after all, than being a Canaanite. The Hebrew Bible, which the Republican base discounts as the “Old” (as in replaced and superseded) Testament, offers proof of that. And it is today’s Chosen People who wield God now, and who smite the wicked, a category that now includes well over half the US population according to the results of the 2008 presidential election. And make no mistake: they want to make certain we pay for that affront to God.

If you find yourself wondering where totalitarianism lives in American politics, you need only look both Left and Right. Any sane person does that, after all, before crossing the street. Totalitarians will be the ones who say “You must think X to be one of us.” By its very nature, totalitarianism does not tolerate looking both directions; it does not tolerate the opposite, “You can think X, Y, or even Z and still be one of us.” You cannot have totalitarianism and diversity. It’s like water and oil. You cannot have totalitarianism and plurality. You cannot have totalitarianism and freedom of choice. You cannot have totalitarianism and freedom of belief. And while the GOP will claim freedom of belief is high on their agenda, there is only one freedom of belief they’re interested in, and that’s their own. And they want us all to share that belief, even if they have to force it down our throats. They don’t like Muslims. They don’t like atheists. They don’t like Pagans. They don’t like secular humanists. They don’t like liberals. They don’t like progressives. In fact, the list of what they don’t like is a lot longer than the list of things they do like. But then, they’re just following the Decalogue there, which is, after all, a negation of everything outside Yahwism’s narrow confines, a rejection of everything Canaanite. You can’t have other gods if you’re a Republican. You can’t live by a different moral code. This freedom of choice can’t exist within totalitarianism, where belief is imposed, where those who waver are coerced.

If you doubt where totalitarianism lives in American politics, look to the types of people you will find at each end of the spectrum. You will find a diversity of opinion and belief on the Left. You will find Christians, you will find Jews, you will find Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, secular humanists – and yes, Pagans. And what will you find on the right? Only Christians. And only a certain kind of Christian. Because anything else – yes, you got it – anything else means you’re the “Other” and therefore that not a “real” American; You’re a Canaanite. It’s no coincidence that it is on the Right you will find proponents of Christian theocracy, of belief in a Biblical mandate to impose uniformity of belief on the world (while accusing Islam of wanting to do the same thing – you figure it out). It’s the totalitarians who like to stone people, not the progressive thinkers (who are generally the ones being stoned). The demagogues on the right can cast all the mud they want. It’s a tactic they learned from Hitler and Goebbels and its efficacy is proven. But if you look at the facts – the real facts and not talking points, you will see the true lay of the land.

Our country is under assault. Our way of life is under assault. Just as Hitler appealed to the “folk” so too the leaders on the American Right appeal to the “folk” – for Hitler it was “real” Germans. Hitler said he wanted to “save” Germany. What is the New Republicanism now saying? For them it is “real” Americans. They want to “save” America. There is no essential difference in their viewpoints. Hitler’s Nazism constructed the “Other” as everything outside rigid party ideology. The Republican Party has done the same. “These are the rules, and you must live by them,” the Nazis said – every totalitarian has said. It’s no surprise we are hearing the same thing from the New Republicanism these days. Both are parties of totalitarian ideology; both are parties that embrace the cult of personality. Both are parties that reject and exclude. Totalitarians don’t approve of much: You’re with them, or you’re against them.

Remember that, America. The German people did not wake up to what had happened until it was too late. We still have time. And we have the lesson of history to nudge us, to serve as a salutary lesson of the price of failure. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke did not say those words precisely, but they accurately reflect his thought. And so our hope and our time will last only so long as we stand up to totalitarianism, to fascism – to the New Republicanism. We have hope and we have time only if we speak up now, only if we take action now. The Nazis were a minority. People laughed at them and their ideas of a Reich composed of “real” Germans. The Republican base is a minority. People laugh at the possibility of theocracy imposed by the extreme Right, a theocracy composed of “real” Americans. Have we learned nothing from history?

They’re here. They’re draped in the flag. And they’re carrying crosses. If you’ve somehow missed this, you’re not paying attention.

“If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”

Listen to them, America. Listen to them, and you will see where totalitarianism lives in American politics.

If you like to think for yourself, if you like having the freedom not only to hold an opinion but to express it, an opinion generated by your own informed viewpoint and not dictated from above, not held through fear of exclusion but born of the fruits of diversity, you won’t be at home on the Right, unless that opinion is the pre-approved one. It is no surprise that Ann Coulter calls liberalism a religion (Godless: the Church of Liberalism 2006); it is no wonder she attacks liberalism so relentlessly. Liberalism is the only thing that can stand up to totalitarianism. Liberalism is the Nazi’s Judaism, a bacillus that threatens “real” America.

The base has gotten caught up in the hysteria and they convince themselves (or is it willful ignorance?) it is those on the Left who are brain-washed. “Drink the Kool-Aid,” they say. The phrase is an allusion (and an obvious one) to Jim Jones and the 1978 Jonestown massacre in Guyana. Jones was a messianic cult leader who the New Republicanism is quick to dismiss as a “leftist” and a “communist.” What they fail to mention is that Jones, whatever her personal beliefs, was a Pentecostal minister and his followers were looking for Jesus Christ (Jones told them to think of him in this way), not Joseph Stalin. The real lesson here is about the dangers of the extreme Right wing Christian thought-world. These people did not kill themselves, did not “drink the Kool-Aid” for Communism or for a Communist paradise; they drank it for Jesus Christ and hope for a Christian paradise. By the same token the New Republicanism will insist that Hitler was not really a Christian (he was a tithe-paying Catholic till the day he died) because he “did not have Christ in his heart” while ignoring the fact that anti-Semitism is a byproduct of Christianity and that Hitler’s followers were not atheists, Muslims, secular humanists, Hindus, Buddhists and Pagans but Christians. Hitler operated in the context of fundamentalist Abrahamic messianism. Without Judeo-Christian religious fundamentalism there would be no fertile ground for the Hitlers, Joneses and Koreshes of this world. It is not secular humanism or liberalism that birthed these figures but Christian religious fundamentalism.

Do not be fooled. The New Republicanism’s fundamentalist messianic paradise is a shibboleth.[2] There was no Democracy to where Fundamentalist Christianity looks, in ancient Israel. Israel was a monarchy, a theocracy. The Decalogue does not enshrine individual human rights and liberties; it espouses conformism and rigid totalitarian thinking: do this, or else. If you do not think what you are supposed to think, if you do not do what you are supposed to do, you will be made a Canaanite. Democracy was born in Paganism, birthed in polytheistic Greece. Diversity ruled the world of polytheism, diversity of thought and diversity of belief, scholar Ramsay MacMullen’s a “spongy mass of tolerance and tradition,”[3] Jan Assmann’s “cosmotheism” which translated across ethnic and cultural barriers and served to unite rather than to divide. “False gods cannot be translated,” Assmann says,[4] and where orthodoxy is concerned, all outside itself is false gods. False gods are excluded, and with them, freedom of choice. What remains is totalitarianism. What remains is the New Republicanism. The United States was born left-of-center. Any move to “return” to what never existed (not even “right-of-center” but to the extreme right) is a lie. A very dangerous lie within which lies the heart of darkness and the destruction of the American Promise.

Like Hitler’s stormtroopers, the Tea Partiers seek not to restore, but to destroy as they hearken to a past that never was.

Think liberal, America, and be free, because freedom cannot be imposed. What is imposed can only make you a slave, a slave to a narrow, exclusive, intolerant doctrinal path, a slave to talking points, a slave to a bigoted and often hypocritical sense of morality, a slave in some cases to a god that is not even your own. The little tent is the tent of totalitarianism. Look at history if you doubt. Totalitarianism has never had a big tent. And in America, it is the liberals, the progressive thinkers, the true mavericks,[5] who have the big tent.

Go to the big tent America, because there is no room for disagreement in the little tent. In the big tent, you can give a piece of your mind; in the little tent, you must surrender it. You will lose your pants there, and much, much more besides.

Notes:

[1] Pocket Oxford American Dictionary Second Edition (2008), Totalitarian: “one leader or party that has complete power and control and permits no opposition.” This is the lesson Rush Limbaugh has driven home; this is the lesson Dede Scozzafava learned to her cost.

[2] Pocket Oxford American Dictionary, Second Edition (2008). Shibboleth: “a long-standing belief or principle that many people regard as outdated or no longer important.”

[3] Ramsay MacMullen. Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 2.

[4] Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Harvard University Press 1997), 3.

[5] Pocket Oxford American Dictionary, Second Edition (2008): Maverick: “an unconventional or independent-minded person.” Independent minds are discouraged in the New Republicanism as they are in all orthodoxies.