How do you know that? 
Fine. You have the power of Rationality and Righteousness (a trait I would have rather thought to be in the Buchananists camp*).
I have the power of Semi-Auto and High-Cap Magazine.
:contemplates the old saw of “knives in gunfights”:
*[sub]Maybe you and Pat Buchanan have more in common than you’d like to admit.[/sub]
*[sub]Maybe you and Pat Buchanan have more in common than you’d like to admit.[/sub]
I’m sorry. That really was uncalled for on my part.
Superb, Tigers2B1.
Thanks.
Given that the vast majority of this country has some kind of religion, I’d say you have your work cut out for you. You’re so much more knowledgable and righteous then us dumb theists though, so I’m sure you’ll win awful quick. :rolleyes:
But only a minority of those – say, about one-third of the population, by most sources I’ve read – are both deeply and traditionally religious and committed to basing their politics on that. More liberal Christians and Jews are not part of the problem.
Well, there is a religious war to be fought. Right now, the Believers, who might be a natural constituency of Reform & Righteousness, are being suckered by The Rich. A return to reverence for truly sacred things is what both religious conservatives & “weird leftie” progressives seek, but they are divided by the two-party propaganda of the present moneyed powers.
Then it would make more sense, wouldn’t it, if we had a multi-party system? Then the religious conservatives could form their own party, and they could ally themselves with the Democrats on economic issues and the Republicans on cultural issues.
No matter how “liberal” the Christian, Muslim, Jew, Bhuddist, Sikh (a pretty cool religion, btw), etc., linking “Religion” and “Ignorance” on the same side in a sentence delineating positions isn’t going to win you that many more converts.
As your cosmopolitan contempt shows through, don’t be too startled when you find many of your “liberal” theists are slipping back towards the traditional fold.
FWIW, I’m damned near an atheists; haven’t been to church since XMas '94, and have no intention of going again anytime soon, so I don’t really have a dog in this theist fight, but you are correct that there is a cultural war going on, and mostly at the federal level, as one side or another tries to reshape the entire nation to their ideaology.
Let the fed worry about safe borders and international concerns; let the states decide whether there should be SSUs or prayer in school.
You know it can’t work like that any more. We’re a real national society now. If same-sex unions are recognized in two or three states, it’s only a matter of time before they’re recognized everywhere. As they should be.
Ding ding ding ding!
Our numbers may be declining, but there are plenty of liberal and “mainstream” Christians who aren’t ignorant but who still will be fighting on the side of ignorance in opposition to righteousness and rational thought in your (BrainGlutton’s) rhetoric.
Also, I’m not convinced that our declining numbers is an irreversable trend. Religious fervor ebbs and flows in this country–witness the great awakening, the second great awakening, the creation of Fundamentalism at the Niagra conference, and so forth. I think that the current rise of evangelic fundamentlism will eventually ebb (or at least I really really really hope it will), and when it does it’s possible that a lot of former fundies will find the more intellectual, more ambiguous but far less visceral theology that’s practiced by the established churches to be just the ticket (and, perhaps more important to many then the theology, the availability of similiar social structures without the Fundamenlist baggage).
I’m not talking about your world-view as such but how you want it expressed in the public sphere. The kind of religious liberals you are describing – if I understand you correctly – are the kind who are quite willing to tolerate gay marriage or abortion, even if the idea of either gives them the willies on some level.
BG:
Sure it can; there’s nothing wrong with the system. It just goes through these occasional upheavals, is all. Let’s see, IIRC, the last one we had was a precursor to Mr. Lincoln’s War. I dunno; mebbe it was just before The New Deal.
But I think most Parliamentary advocates may be onto something. Tweak the Electoral College to proportional apportionment of Electoral Votes, tweak the Federal Campaign Funding guidelines, and viola! A three (or 4, or 40) party system.
You know we just fell into this two-party rut by accident, and have pretty much remained there out of sheer cussed habit, right?
Nitpick: A multiparty or proportional-representation system has nothing to do with a parliamentary system. A parliamentary system is defined by an executive branch chosen by the legislature instead of being separately elected.
Quite true. The Framers never envisioned any kind of party system. A two-party system turned out to be the natural product of the political environment they created, which has not since been significantly changed. A winner-take-all single-member-district system produces a two-party system by marginalizing all but the strongest two parties. The people, however, are not divided into only two ideological camps and never have been. The system forces them to choose one major-party “big tent” or the other if they want to have any political influence.
To those of a progressive bent who are worried about the repercussions of our country’s current conservative slant: don’t be.
This country maintains a sort of political homeostasis. Like breathing: an inhalation of conservatism and an exhalation of liberalism. The harder the intake, the stronger the outlet. The conservative fifties were followed by the free-love sixties in which we accomplished amazing things, such as the civil rights movement.
That said, I too have seen this election in the light of the masses versus the intelligencia. The hostility I’ve seen some espouse towards diplomacy, science, and civil liberities that has been brought out by heated debates over the current administration has been very distressing to me.
I comfort myself that if we do get “four more years” (shudder) the backlash will be equally as intense.
Radicalist policies are destructive whether they’re conservative or liberal. Inhaling conservative and exhaling liberal as fine, but at the moment it seems like we’re heading more toward inhaling Hitler and exhaling Stalin.
Cite?
I’d like to point out that 30 years is a very short time in this regard. Many people who were born and raised just after RvW was adjudicated haven’t had children yet - I’d expect it to take at least two or three full generations to take effect on a fundamental cultural level.
As to ROTC and soldiering, I’d ask for a cite regarding “coming from conservative homes” vs. “coming from poor families”. I’d also forward the proposition that “liberal campuses” are most certainly not hotbeds of armed forces recruiting, so this point has no force.
My post is my cite!
No, seriously–I think the ebb and flow of religious fundamentalism is a good example of what Lissa is talking about, given that conservative religious social movements often are accompanied by corresponding changes in politics (given the representative nature of our government). I gave a few examples of previous periods where conservative religious fervor swept the country…