Why have conservative Christians so vehemently backed George W. Bush?
It’s not because they want their social security handed over to Charles Schwab. It’s not because they want their children to pay for the war in Iraq. It’s not because they love missile defense systems, or arsenic in their drinking water. It’s not because they support no-bid contracts for Halliburton. It’s not because they want to drill for oil in wildlife refuges. It’s not because they want Usama bin Laden to go unpunished. It’s not because they want veteran’s hospitals to fall apart and veteran’s benefits to be cut. It’s not because they want their public schools underfunded and college loans more expensive and harder to get. No, it’s none of these things.
The conservative Christians support Bush because they want a judge. A Supreme Court judge. And they don’t want some punkass judge like David Souter or Anthony Kennedy. They don’t want another Sandra Day O’Connor. As Judge Bork and the NY Times point out, weak-ass judges have pissed the fundies off, and good:
The fundies want to RULE. They want to RULE over the issues of ‘abortion, gay rights and pornography’. They want to make abortion, gay sex, and pornography illegal, and they want to throw people in jail. They want to pass unconstitutional laws, and they want judges that don’t give a shit that the laws are unconstitutional.
These nutcases are chomping at the bit. They can feel the revolution, they are on the cusp of victory. This time, they will not be denied. They’ve worked too hard, they’ve been double-crossed too many times. They are not going to accept anything less than total victory for their candidate, and Bush better pick someone off Dobson’s list.
So, the question is: can we match their intensity?
This is the World Series and the Super Bowl wrapped into one. That’s how important it is.
Based on past performance, many of the Democrats and a few of the moderate Republicans will fight bitterly against the far-right nominee that Bush will surely nominate.
It will all come bown to whether the 14 senators who worked out the compromise can see that if they allow these radicals to take the nation’s highest court — all is lost.
Again, based on past performances many – if not all – of these senators – will fold.
The best thing we have going for us is that if the fight is over a replacement for the current chief justice – it will be replacing one far-right jurist with another and the SC will remain precariously balanced – 4 moderates and liberals, 2 conservatives (Kennedy and O’Connor) and 2 far-rightwingers (Scalia and Thomas) with the two conservatives holding the balance of power.
If the fight comes over a replacement of one of the more moderate members, then this is one we can’t lose for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
Bushco has been letting down their base time after time this term. I know that’s not much of a glimmer of hope, but the extreme fundies haven’t exactly been batting 100%.
As for matching their intensity – bring.it.on.
i hope so.
Judge Bork is a complete ass.
the court “can say that the majority may not rule”
Yeah, BOB, both the constitution and the Founders said the same damn thing, you moron.
The whole point of a Representative Republic and the entire reason for the Madison vs Jefferson visions of America had to do with…wait for it…ensuring the RULE OF LAW, ensuring that “mob rule” and the “will of the majority” did not result in the stripping of rights from ANY minority.
I am SO glad that he got nixed for the court.
What a fool.
Whoops.
Sorry for the double post.
I guess I don’t feel bad about saying what I said twice.
Perhaps I should change my sig line “Judge Bork is a complete ass”…
THANKS oh invisible hand of Moderator, who reached down from Server and deleted my Mistake!
one of my favorite memes of Kerry’s campaign:
We can, and we must.
SCOTUS appointment is the Ultimate Prize. Heads will be exploding all over the place, and I predict it will be a bloody, no holds barred battle.
Dems and moderate Repubs MUST be hammered 24/7, because arm-twisters are in place and the right is already mobilized and Ready to Roll. And we’re…. well… not.
You’re absolutely right, BooMan. Whatever else is going on in this wide world, the fight for the court is going to consume the most energy. It’s past time for us to prepare for the fight, so ramping up the intesity is a must.
The stolen 2000 election got me pretty active and busy, but not as intense as them.
The RNC coming to exploit my city’s tragedy hiked up my intensity and I came close to their intensity.
The possibly stolen 2004 election ramped my intensity up even more and since then, I think I have matched theirs.
Now, Karl Rove has ramped up my intensity massively. I am now ready to fucking BEAT their intensity.
Folks, this is a matter of survivial–the survival of American Democracy and, quite possibly, our personal survival. This isn’t some game anymore. Apathy is no longer a luxury we can afford lest we want to wake up someday soon having lost our rights and being threatened with prison for our civil libertarian views. Let me repeat something that I have said many times–I don’t know if a dictatorship like the Nazis could ever rise in the USA. But if it ever did, THIS IS HOW IT WOULD HAPPEN. The REpublicans probably don’t have genocide on their agenda like Hitler did, but they DO have one-party rule, restrictions of civil rights and, if someone stands up to them, prison camps on their agenda. THey even have TORTURE on their agenda. It isn’t just that we SHOULD be as intense as them. We HAVE TO.
Anyone here who isn’t attending any meetups or attending Dem clubs or petitioning or doing SOMETHING other than just blog and complain and vote has to start finding his/her voice as a real activist. And if you don’t match their intensity yet, remember that ROVE IS LABELING YOU A TRAITOR. In Bush America, those who are SUSPECTED of terrorism can, and have, be held without due process. In Bush America, those who are SUSPECTED of terrorism can, and have, been tortured. That means you are at risk here and now.
The fundies want to RULE.
That’s it, in a nutshell. Great piece, Booman.
These religious zealots will stop at nothing to win the court, and we’d better be well aware of this. Time to turn up the pressure big time, on Dems in Congress, however we can, as often as we can, and don’t let up. If every single one of us took even two hours a week for calls and letters to those we’ve elected, and some LTE’s as well, it would make a mighty roar. If every one of us talked this all up to even one fence sitter every week, and got them to do the same, it would get even louder.
We’re talking about fighting to preserve the freedoms we’ve all fought hard for for a very long time, and this is the superbowl.
Um, no. Or, maybe we can, but I’m not sure we should…
I’ve got kids. Not just any kids, but rather (Godde bless ’em) “intense” kids. The fact is, even though it’s tempting to respond to one of their wobblies with more of the same, I know that’s not the positive, productive way to respond.
Rick Lavoie writes and does talks about dealing with learning disabled kids in the classroom. I watched one of his videos a couple years ago, and one thing that really stayed with me is what he called the “broken record” method. He was doing a presentation to a group of teachers and other professionals who work with LD kids, and had two volunteers get up on the stage. He had them role play the part of kids in the classroom, where one of them shoves the other.
He first goes through the scenario the “wrong” way, which is engaging the kid by arguing, and then takes a break and discusses what happened as that played out. The student denies having done anything, makes excuses, tries to blame someone else, etc. The kid ends up having the power, the teacher gives up power, the kid gains by getting away from the planned lesson. The kid also gains the admiration/amusement of classmates as s/he causes consternation for the teacher.
Then Lavoie demonstrated the “broken record” method, where he walked over to the offending student and saying calmly but firmly, “In my class, there’s no shoving.” The student, as before, starts with denials etc., and Lavoie repeats, “In my class, there’s no shoving.” This way, it quickly stops being fun for the kid who is causing trouble. S/he doesn’t look like a “hero” to the classmates, and doesn’t get rewarded by being able to suck the teacher into a pointless argument, avoiding classwork, and so forth. Lavoie noted that typically three times is all the repetitions you will need with the broken record method.
Anyway, I know it’s not easy, but I think what we need to do is consistently be the rational ones who are behaving appropriately. Say, “No, we aren’t going to do that, because it would violate the basic rights that are assured to all Americans in the Constitution” (or some other simple, valid explanation). Be a “broken record”–yeah, I know, “broken record” is becoming kind of a dated expression, but I think the point is still valid).
But once you start arguing on the level of someone who is irrational, you have already lost to some extent. One thing that happens is that a lot of average Americans, who don’t really tune into the content, just register “a lot of yelling on both sides” and develop that “a pox on both your houses” mentality. I’ve seen it in action…”Oh, that’s what politics is like. Who’s to say who is right–both sides are guilty of wrongdoing!”
Just some thoughts I had on the matter this morning, before heading out for work.
(Here’s my DeanFest report so far, with pictures, if anyone is interested http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/6/25/121819/596)
Renee, I like that philosophy and believe it can work. But somewhere in all that we shouldn’t just be responding to bad behavior and having to be a broken record. At some point, I think we need to play DJ and put on a new record. I think that’s what we need to do here…put on a record with as much energy and passion that they’ve been playing all these years…but with a different message.
The question is do we want to match the insanity? These nutcases comprise a fraction (less than 20%) of the population. The shenanigans with diebold and the vote-tampering have convinced them that they are a majority. They believe that in America majority rules. How can we prove them wrong about that? Do we need to arm ourselves? I’m not going to, I’m not that kind of person.
Booman, you are as always right as rain. The issue that we need to concern ourselves with is the 2006 election. We need a Democratic Congress, or at least a Democratic Senate to stop this. I suspect they will get their one judge and explode the nuclear option to do so, but we need to make sure they don’t get any others after that.
I think you’re absolutely right about the fundie agenda. They do indeed want to rule; I woke up this morning thinking about it as I do most mornings.
And no, I don’t believe that ‘we’ can match their intensity and no I don’t believe that ‘we’ will win this one.
Those of us who are part of the cheap labor market and who follow politics tend to get fairly intense at the notion of lifelong status as chattel. And, of course most (but not all) sexual and racial minorities understand what’s coming down the pike but the Roemer, Casey, Langevin party machinations and the collective responses of what serves for dem leadership in DC and on the blog ‘A’ lists do not.
I pay lots of attention to what the folks employed in politics have to say. Not because I generally respect them but because what they’re trying to sell and what they’re trying to sell indicates to me that the party leadership isn’t going to fight; they’re going to triangulate.
I had some hope for several years that we would be able to force the democrats to politic and govern in a manner which was helpful to the actual people who worked and vote for them but after the last election there’s just too much evidence that they’re going to continue down the ‘centrist’ path to oblivion and rather pathetically spin it as some sort of populism.
This is, btw, what I learned from the ‘pie fights’, the people who believe that reproductive rights are of less importance than tort reform and the people who deny that there are problems, the people who never write about poverty issues and find abortion so reprehensible that they would leave the party if that right becomes part of ‘our’ core values will have control and the folks who have the most to lose will be silenced or have no viable choices beyond leaving the country.
It’s hard to match the intensity of the single-minded Stepford wife robot mentality, but we have a passion for what is right and that will serve us just as well. Unlike the fundies, we actually tolerate varying opinion so their kind of intensity doesn’t apply to those on the left. When free thought is not tolerated, lockstep intensity must replace it.
As I’ve posted before, I’m a wedding musician which takes me into these churches periodically. They’re entire worlds, there’s nothing like them on the left.
The conditions that lead people to fundamentalism are increasing; those that lead people to rationalism and reward them for it are in decline, so regardless of whether we succeed against fundamentalism in particular issues now, they will remain a growing force in society.
And yes, they intend to rule, and they intend to dismantle any structure that’s in their way.
What are those “conditions that people to fundamentalism”? Truly, I can’t quite figure it out, and to understand why people go there is going to be key to figuring out how to run an intervention.
I’m sure there have been many diaries, books, articles, etc. that have touched on this directly and indirectly – of which I have none at hand, and of which I’m not really in any position to posit with any expertise. But here are a couple of my ‘ordinary person’ type idears…1) fear, 2) fear, 3) fear.
So…how do we help them become less afraid?
Bad news for the fundies today…no 10 commandments on the courthouse! LINK