Liberals Who Want the Democratic Party Back - See Inside

Great Debates
61

Yeah, and if by ‘Muslim’ I mean only al-Qaida members, then I can say that “all Muslims are murdering terrorists”. Would that be okay?

Peyote is clearly painting a huge swath of Christians with the same brush. Particularly, any Christians who hold firm beliefs on their religion, and who tend to vote for Republicans. That’s about half of the Christians in the country. Yep, they’re all drooling morons who are totally incapable of reason, right?

One of the contradictions of some on the left is that they preach tolerance for just about everything, except they reserve their hatred for one group - American Christians. I’m neither American nor Christian, but I can spot intolerance when I see it. And I’ve had too many ‘tolerant’ liberals tell me in detail just how much they hate Christians, and especially the religious right.

62

The Peyote Coyote: I agree with your conclusion, but not necessarily with the reasoning behind it. The “Jesus Right” is as well educated and as capable of analysis as anyone else. Many, if not most, know quite well that they are being thrown bones at best, but what other options do they have? They certainly aren’t going to defect to the Democrats, and there’s no viable third party option. If they create their own third party, that would split the GOP vote and throw a number of races to the Democrats. It’s in their own best interest to just take what they’re given until (or unless) they can form a coalition strong enough to elect their own readers outright.

Aside from whether or not the Democrats should become more leftist, is there a way that the Democrats could convince the Religious Right that they are strong enough already to win races under a third party label and thereby win that way?

63

An an atheist I will tell you that that is a spectacularly ignorant point of view. The “Jesus Right” may contain it’s fair share of ignorant people (apparently about as many as your ideological cohort does) but it is also full of highly intelligent and canny people who make it their business to see that their ideological point of view gets some face time and gets input into public policy.

What kind of job is your ideological interest group doing in getting its representatives elected and its ideas made into public policy? Do that comparison then tell me who the 'tards are.

64

Sorry, Sam, but I call 'em as I see 'em.

When you talk about the American Religious Right you are talking about:
People who put bumper stickers on their cars that say: “I believe in the Big Bang. God said bang.”
People who believe, sincerely believe, that the bulk of scientific evidence disproves evolution
When they don’t refer to it as evilution.
People who believe most, if not, all Catholics are going to hell, the Pope is an Anti-Christ, the Masons practice devil worship and yet believe Ronald Reagan was the greatest thing since sex and sliced bread.

As further evidence of the Religious Right’s ignorance, I cite:
My mother burning my D&D figurines and a beautiful wooden Buddha she had inherited from her grandmother because Mom believes all that shit Jack Chick feeds his believers.
A former co-worker who said that people who believe in flying saucers are going to hell. (Same woman had two kids out of wedlock and yet UFO nuts are going to hell. Funny. I always thought fornication was the sin.)
Another former co-worker who used to come to my house, smoke my dope, drink my rum, brag about the girl he was currently screwing, and then whine about how he wanted to kill himself because his wife had divorced him (probably, IMO, because she got tired of injecting him full of drugs that even The Peyote Coyote doesn’t touch). He was another one of the fundies who believe science disproves evolution and all gays are fags who will burn in hell. Stupid me. I tried to counsel him to live, telling him that he had a grandfather who loved him and friends who cared about him, and then a year later he turned on me like a mad dog and wouldn’t even acknowledge my existence at the home of mutual friends.
My pusher’s wife, who said she thinks we are living in the times after the angel of Revelation has opened the Third Seal. Don’t ask me to explain; I bought my reefer and got out fast.
Another incident from about 10 years ago when I worked on a small newspaper and the boss asked me to cover a meeting of the Indiana Christian Volunteer Militia. Gun nuts and people who hate the Clintons don’t bother me – hell, I own guns myself and I think Blowjob Bill was a disgrace to his office – but I left when they showed a film claiming liberals would project giant holograms of UFOs just before the end of the world so the evil ones could create a mass panic that would cause Americans to throw out the Constitution and usher in the end times of Revelation. I had enough for a story and my boss was understanding when I told him I had to get out before I broke down laughing.

And these are only the five most glaring anecdotes. I could tell you plenty more stories if I wanted to. If you think I’m prejudiced, I should get my best friend to post. His attitudes toward the religious right would really pin back your ears. What you call prejudice, we call accurate observation.

IMO, the Religious Right is a group of people – most of them quite sincere in their beliefs, some even nice and friendly, but the vast majority as ignorant as owl shit – who are manipulated by some of the most hideously evil hypocrites in the United States. Again IMO, some members of the Religious Right drift into it because, like the young lady who thought UFO’s were demonspawn, they are the products of poor rural schools that are nearly as bad as inner-city schools, or because shattering emotional experiences have caused them to turn to extreme religion as solace.

I’ve found that many of them will whine about how people are prejudiced against them, but they view their own prejudices against blacks and Mexicans as being as sound as the Laws of Thermodynamics. They’re against fornication and sodomy, but they don’t say a word about the corrupt business practices that thrive in this country.

Furthermore, I’m hostile toward most religions, which is why I usually don’t post in threads about religion. I have no use for Islam – like Prince Vladimir of Kiev, I will not participate in a religion that forbids drinking. My opinions of Wiccan and New Ager beliefs is that they are at least as stupid as the beliefs of fundamentalist Christians. I could go on, but I’m probably beginning to push the tolerance of the mods.

Also, I did not say many, if not most, Christians are ignorant; I said many, if not most, members of the Jesus Right are ignorant. The difference is small, but profound. I think you’ll find it’s an opinion shared by several other posters on this board, several of them Christian.

I’ll work on my computer skills; you work on your reading comprehension skills, m’kay?

65

lel: I agree with you that the leaders, the Falwells and the Robertsons and their ilk, are smart and educated, but much of the rank and file are ignorant.
As for other options, I can think of one right off the bat. There are a fair number of conservative Democrats in the South and Midwest, many of whom have beliefs very compatible with those of the Jesus Right. Alan Chowning, a Hoosier Democrat who ran for the Indiana house in my district, cited a pro-gun, pro-life policy in the campaign literature he sent to me. If the Jesus Right would ally with these Democrats, they would have a third party that would be immediately viable. Hell, they might run the country.
It might actually be to the liberal Democrats’ interest to suggest that the Jesus Right form its own party. American politics would get really interesting.

astro: I suggest you get off the East Coast and spend some time in the Heartland. I don’t think many posters who have lived in places like Texas, the rural South, and southern Indiana are going to disagree with my assessments. Again, the leadership may be educated and sophisicated; the rank and file is not. I distinctly said many, not all.
My views are not ignorant. I’ve lived in Bible Belt most of my life; I’ve partied and worked with religious fundamentalists, I’ve got a couple of friends who are religious fundamentalists, my mother is a faithful follower of Jack Chick and Peter Ruckman (if you don’t know who Ruckman is, then I would suggest you don’t know enough about American fundamentalism to have many meaningful opinions about it), and I was once madly in love with a fundamentalist. I stand by my opinions. If they offend you, too goddamn bad.

Sam: You pule about ignorance and bigotry, but make false assumptions. I’m not a member of the left. Hell, two years ago, stoid herself called me a right-winger when I told her she was too optimistic in assuming the 2000 election results indicated the country was moving to the left. I am for tax cuts, especially for the people making less than $10 per hour; for the death penalty; against gun control; and very against corporate welfare. I am sympathetic toward the pro-life position and have not made up my mind about war with Iraq, but think it might be necessary. Of American political parties, the Libertarians’ philosophy is the closest to my own (I guess that makes me a 'tard in astro’s enlightened opinion), but I consider myself to be a true populist.

66

Thank you. And the same to your mother.

Y’know, I thought that’s what KKT was doing when she tried to paint Ehrlich as an extremist. Like I said, I didn’t think that was necessary.

So IOW, you’re accusing the voters of Maryland of being sheep in a whole 'nother set of ways: voting against KKT because Glendening, whose personal life she had no control over, divorced his wife and married his bimbo.

Ehrlich had great success in portraying himself as a moderate in 2002, just like Bush did in 2000.

I thought the people of Maryland, if informed of the actual differences between the positions they tend to espouse, and those Ehrlich holds, might have said, “which one of these two dufes is a better campaigner is really irrelevant - I happen to disagree with Ehrlich on issues A through about Q or R,” and hold their noses to vote for KKT.

If that’s behaving like sheep, then you and I have vastly different definitions of the term.

67

No, but they’ve got some longstanding blind spots you could drive a truck through.

For one, they treat Biblical inerrancy as intellectually sound.

For another, they seem to trust people like Pat Robertson, who’s one of the most dishonest people on God’s green earth. They support his TV network and his charities, and send their kids to his university. And even more amazingly, to Falwell’s.

They think it’s a sign of societal prejudice against them when people don’t want prayer in the classroom, the Ten Commandments posted all over public property, and so forth. There’s something about fair play that eludes them here, forget about the Establishment Clause.

I could go on - I’ve lived decades of my Christian life at close quarters with these folks. But most of all, they perpetuate ignorance even when exposed to the truth - you can explain to them about the difference between evolution as a bona-fide theory with a century and a half worth of accumulated evidence behind it, and Biblical creationism as a ‘theory’ with a chapter in Genesis behind it, and they will come back tomorrow and say there’s no difference. Just a few days ago, one of 'em (college-educated, FWIW) was trying to explain to me why America was really a Christian country. You think they’d learn, but they never do. They keep perpetuating nonsense like this that has been repeatedly demonstrated wrong. After enough decades of this, it’s not mere ignorance, it’s deliberate, willful ignorance.

I am intolerant of those who promote ignorance. That’s not a race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or whatnot. To evangelicals I’d say, if the shoe fits, wear it. If that’s intolerance, then so be it.

68

RTFirefly:

Okay… So they treat the bible as being the word of God. I take it then that you level the same criticism against Muslims, Jews, and Catholics? Or pretty much any religion that relies on scripture? Why single out Christian conservatives for approbation?

As for ‘trusting people like Pat Robertson’ - Well, some do, some don’t. I know lots of people on the right who happen to be Christians, and who also think that Falwell and Robertson and their ilk are a blight on their faith. But are they any different than those on the religious left who think Jesse Jackson is a man of God? Or Louis Farrakhan?

I too grew up around religious conservatives. I’m not religious, but my entire family is.

You know what I see them focusing on? Missionary work. Charity. Running community soup kitchens. Thursday night bible study. Sermons on Sundays are not political - they are messages of tolerance, love, and living right.

There are plenty of idiots in the Religious right. And there are plenty of idiots on the irreligious left. But you’d take me to task for smearing all democrats as suckers for Jesse Jackson’s shakedown scams, or for his ‘hymietown’ anti-semitism. You’d excoriate me for claiming that all liberals were suckers for Al Sharpton’s crooked ways.

But it’s not just the religious right and their politics. This board has regular attacks on Christians in general. I remember when those two young women were sentenced to death in Afghanistan for preaching the bible - there were threads here in which plenty of people basically said, “Those damned Christians are getting what they deserve”. There’s a thread in the pit right now called “Fucking Christians”.

And yet, after 9/11 many of these same people have become defenders of the Muslim faith, and have made a career out of seeking out anyone who would criticise Muslims and attacking them for their religious bigotry. I wonder what the reaction would be here if someone started a thread called, “Fucking Muslims”. And I wonder how many people would have a problem if the Peyote Coyote had said, "“Many, if not most, Muslims are ignorant and are not capable of the analysis you did.” The same people who have said nothing when he launched that criticism at Christians.

Remember when Anne Coulter said that we should just convert the Muslims to Christianity? She was rightly condemned for such foolishness. Yet, I’ve heard lots of people say, “The world would be a better place if we could just get the Christians to stop being Christians.” How many college bull sessions have you been in where someone had to mention that “More people have been killed in the name of christianity than anything else”? It’s almost a cliche it’s uttered so often. Hell, the Christians are still being criticised for the freaking Crusades. It might be time to let that one go.

69

Well, Sam, that is a stirring defense of something that requires no defense. I too am opposed to stupidity. Have little tolerance for religious bigotry. Etc. Here’s your gold star. Here’s mine. There now. Isn’t that nice.

And where in the hell did you get this alleged connection between Farrakhan and liberals?

Ignorance exists, Sam. Ignorant peckerwoods exist, I can testify from personal experience. Ignorant crackers, coon-asses, rednecks, bo-hunks, they’re all real. I guarantee it. Raise a banner that offers simplistic and dogmatic answers to subtle and abstruse questions and they will flock to it like flies to a cow patty. The dunderheaded theology of Falwell and his ilk is just such a banner, it has no more relevence to sincere Christianity than Donald Duck is Einstein, any more than the subtle and sometimes whimsical wisdom of the Sufi connects to the sheer obtuse dogmatism of the Taliban.

Peyote is quite right, the Jesus Right is largely made up of ignorant, unsophisticated persons. As much as I recognize thier right to be such, I still insist on recognizing the truth of thier condition.

But that’s all it means, Sam. Just that, no extensions.

70

So I’ll see you at Rotary tomorrow, right?

71

So do I. I have no problem with that. It’s regarding it as the inerrant word, with little regard to the inability of the Bible to sustain that use, that I have a problem with.

While I know there are Jews and Catholics (I don’t know about Muslims) who take the Bible literally, they don’t take that literal interpretation and turn themselves into a voting bloc that, through the analytic thought that you say they’re capable of, seem to consistently and overwhelmingly vote the way Pat Robertson’s voter guides say they should.

I didn’t - exactly the opposite. Check your dictionary.

And if they’d keep it to that, and skip the part I mentioned above, I wouldn’t have any problem with that.

I’ve attended a considerable number of evangelical church services over the past quarter-century, and while the sermons mostly stay away from politics, IME at least one or two digs at liberal idiocy per sermon is almost de rigeur.

I’d expect you to provide some evidence, certainly. I’ll be over here, waiting.

I haven’t read that Pit thread, nor did I read the comment in the one from last year about the two women in Afghanistan. I defended their lying to get into Afghanistan to preach the Gospel in one thread; I have no idea if it was the same thread. Threads about Afghanistan were abundant last fall.

At any rate, I have not personally seen any more anti-Christian bigotry on this board than any other kind. There are certainly a lot of Christian regs here, most of whom are much more in tune with Polycarp than with His4Ever. It’s possible that it’s happening, and I’m in the wrong threads; I’m not the GDer I used to be. But to the extent that I’ve encountered “anti-Christian” prejudice here, it seems to be clearly aimed at the Robertson-Falwell-Phelps school of Christianity, which is why it doesn’t bother me.

I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing particular Muslims for particular acts. But if you’re going to criticize Islam in general, you’d better be sure the facts are on your side.

There is indeed a very real strain of Islam that doesn’t seem to have much room in its worldview for the existence of other religions. In order to slam Islam in general on the basis of that strain of Islam, one would have to demonstrate that it is the dominant strain of Islam. Has anyone managed to do that?

OTOH, on the basis of what’s known of the voting patterns of evangelical Christians, as well as my long personal familiarity with that wing of Christianity, I think it’s perfectly fair to say that the dominant strain of American evangelical Christianity is one that overwhelmingly votes the way the Christian Coalition’s voter guides prescribe. Is some form of groupthink going on, or are they all reaching Pat’s conclusions by coincidence?

I’ve rarely heard people say that, myself. Or maybe I just assumed from context that they were referring to Falwell-Robertson Christianity.

I’m a generation removed from my college bull sessions. Can’t help you there.

When evangelicals cease using the word in a favorable manner, I’ll be happy to.

72

Forgive me for what might be a stupid question, but upon what basis is the assertion made that the Religious Right is ignorant and largely incapable of complex analysis? So far I’ve come up with research showing that those who are born again come in roughly equal numbers from various economic strata and that evangelicals are more likely to have a college degree than most other adults.

It has been shown often that evangelical Christians do tend to vote overwhelmingly Republican in the United States. How does this lead to saying that they are incapable of analysis? They tend to congregate primarily with each other, read/view/hear similar media, and more. Given the fact that evangelical Christians often immerse themselves in similar environments, it’s not a huge stretch to say that they just might come to similar political views also. While it is an environment where one could abstain from analysis of political views, that is a different thing from saying that one is not capable of such analysis. In the meantime, while we’re sharing our experiences with the Religious Right, I have to say that most of my experiences have been with people who came to reasoned conclusions about their political opinions and were capable of rational analysis. One might come to the conclusion that the Bible is inerrant by prayer and faith, but that does not mean that one is incapable of logical, rational analysis. It simply means that one chooses to evaluate the Bible by other means than logical analysis.

73

To follow up on what lel had to say I do have to differ with the characterizations offered in this thread of evangelical Christians as primarily ignorant know-nothings. Given the nature of my work as a commercial real estate agent, most of the socio-economic cohort I interact with is typically middle class to upper middle class and beyond. I can imagine that the poorly educated “Jesus Right” might have some spectacularly ignorant and obnoxious opinions but the same can be said of some of the bottom intellectual and socio-economic rungs of any group (and the upper rungs in some cases).

Many of the canniest and most successful business people in this area are born again Christians, and I am well acquainted with several college educated evangelical Christians who are very intelligent multi-multi millionaire real estate investors and developers.

Human beings are multi-faceted creatures and they have the ability to be extremely rational in certain areas and go purely on faith in others. Religious conservatives AKA the “Jesus Right” may have arrived at their philosophical perspective through environment, education or some spiritual epiphany, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that they lack the ability to reason and make sound strategic judgments about where to place their political bets. As evidenced by the election just past people who make this mistake generally wind up wearing their ass for a hat.

74

A difference between the Right and Left Wings.

The Right has learned to keep its petty, ignorant predudices to itself.

75

Uhhhh, Peyote dude, are you high?

I’ve never heard of the Jesus Right, but then I guess I need to get out more often. :confused:

[sub]come to think of it, I’ve never heard of the Money Right either, but I would like to know one or two.[/sub] :wink:

76

Simple bigotry.

But don’t tell them. One of the greatest gifts we can receive is our opponents’ belief that we are entirely ignorant, mouth-breathing crackers with no thought in our heads that wasn’t put there by Jack Chick.

Let the Left waste its efforts fighting that. Then when their predictions of Republican apocalypse don’t come true, they wind up looking sillier than their imaginary enemies.

Chicken Little might be elected to Congress, but she tends not to be re-elected.

But nobody tell Peyote Coyote that. I would prefer that he find out on his own.

Regards,
Shodan

77

Bringing this whole subject back to the OP, I’m wondering what Stoid makes of this development.

Considering what she says at the end of the article…

…I wonder if the hopes you have for her wrangling the party around to her liberal ideology are still extant?