Posted on 08/06/2012 7:45:42 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
A veteran Republican says the religious right has taken over, and turned his party into anti-intellectual nuts
Having observed politics up close and personal for most of my adult lifetime, I have come to the conclusion that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism may have been the key ingredient in the transformation of the Republican Party. Politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes—at least in the minds of its followers—all three of the GOP’s main tenets: wealth worship, war worship, and the permanent culture war.
Religious cranks ceased to be a minor public nuisance in this country beginning in the 1970s and grew into a major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson’s strong showing in the 1988 Iowa presidential caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. Unfortunately, at the time I mostly underestimated the implications of what I was seeing. It did strike me as oddly humorous that a fundamentalist staff member in my congressional office was going to take time off to convert the heathen in Greece, a country that had been overwhelmingly Christian for almost two thousand years. I recall another point, in the early 1990s, when a different fundamentalist GOP staffer said that dinosaur fossils were a hoax. As a mere legislative mechanic toiling away in what I held to be a civil rather than ecclesiastical calling, I did not yet see that ideological impulses far different from mine were poised to capture the party of Lincoln.
.... All around us now is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science. Politicized religion is the sheet anchor of the dreary forty-year-old culture wars.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Mr. "We have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency" will go down in history as one of conservatism's leading quislings... and deserves to. ;)
Harry Reid, is this you?
Same guy who told Reid Romney hadn’t filed taxes for 10 years?
If it wasn’t for them stinking religious nuts, the Republicans could have long ago joined the Democrats in embracing communism.
(Long term staffer) Mike Lofgren loyally served the GOP on Capitol Hill for 28 years. But no longer. Michael Tomasky on what the defection of a Republican staffer tells us about the state of the party.
I hope you are adressing that to the author, and not to SirNaps...
Everything was so much better when neither party stood for anything, and everyone was getting along, never having to worry about cultural decline, the Constitution, liberty, irritating things like that. It is so much easier when taxes, big government, new regulations, new agencies, and mainstream media ruled. Everyone could have an abortion, the borders could be open, and no one in government paid attention to the 2nd Amendment. We were all Democrats, but the Republican Democrats were keeping the Democrats sane. ...Meanwhile, we can’t disenfranchise less than 2 percent of voters because they are gay, which the author probably is, and we can’t disenfranchise women, or minorities, but he has no problem disenfranchising people with principles, honest people, moral people, those silly people who still think the Constitution means something, or that this nation has a Christian heritage. Damn them for interjecting conscience into politics.
Nothing will change their minds -— that the ‘common people’ are cultureless Neanderthals.
The GOP supposedly represents the greedy, stupid common people.
they think this way because it is to their advantage to do so; they must think of themselves as superior to the oinking masses and so must sneer at them, or somebody.
I think people who write this sort of thing have a sort of genetically programmed need to sneer. That comes first. Then they look around for something/somebody as a target. Two hundred years ago they would have been kissing ass at the royal court and sniggering at peasants, you know, the people who raised their food and carried the world on their backs.
Thanks...
And, of course, there’s Michael Tomasky putting in his useless two cents. A Republican staffer defected — video at 11. Oh, and, cue the Huge Manatee.
Since Mike has spent so much time in DC maybe he’s a little lite in the “Lofgren” and therefore has an agenda of his own. I would start with checking out the “Log Cabin Republicans” membership list.
“...rise of politicized religious fundamentalism may have been the key ingredient in the transformation of the Republican Party.”
Actually, my impression was the rise (beginning) of the Republican Party was from religious people against slavery. I think those who are more interested in corporate cronyism and social moderation took over after the civil war.
So in reality, the political, religious Republicans are trying to take the Republican Party back to it’s roots - just my take on the situation.
The Democrats have essentially become godless communists- atheism is part and parcel of leftwing ideology. As such, real opposition needs to be arrayed against them. The days when the GOP Establishment can compromise with them and then go hang out at the country club need to be over- too much has been lost already. People like the author of this article who imagine themselves to be “intellectual” because they have no core values or believe in negotiation with evil need to be extirpated from the GOP, instead of running it.
This person claims to have been a republican? A few names come to mind: Collins, Snowe, Jeffords, and Specter, but certainly no conservatives. I worship God, only God.
I value wealth. What I have earned is mine, and I have a moral obligation to use it with wisdom, frugality, and in accordance with God's word. What others have earned is theirs, and I am prohibited by Exodus 20 (the Ten Commandments) from coveting it or stealing it from them. Since government redistribution of wealth is morally equivalent to theft, I could not support the far left's position on progressive taxation, even if I didn't see it as harmful to the rich, the middle class, and the poor.
I certainly do not worship war. As with most republicans and all conservatives, I believe war is in general a very bad thing. However, I also believe there are times when all other options are even worse than war. In those situations, I believe there is a moral obligation to fight to win decisively. I believe the best way to prevent war is by preparing to fight successfully, if necessary.
I'm amused at attributing the culture war to republicans. I do not believe that abortion should ever have been a federal issue. While abortion is a disgusting moral act, it is outside the scope of enumerated federal powers, and the Supreme Court should have left the issue at the state level, but liberals pushed it into the spotlight. Similarly, I agree with the position that Obama claimed to hold on gay "marriage" (until May of this year when Obama changed his position and liberals declared declared those who failed to evolve in favor of gay "marriage" at the moment that Obama did to he hateful). Drugs? I have known quite a few people who used illegal drugs, and I cannot name even one whose life is better because of those drugs. I have mixed feelings on drug laws, but as a moral issue, dealing drugs and encouraging others to use drugs are clearly immoral.
The problem with these articles is the lack of acknowledgement that that movement of religious people to the GOP is as much a defensive move. One can list the assaults on tradition and people’s faith directed by the people who took over the Democratic party in the late 60s/early 70s.
A Christian might think you're going to Hell; he might even try to warn you about it, but as long as you are not harming other people or society, he'll let you go there in your own way. God will do the same.
He’s right.
I reserve the right to be religious.
Sounds like this guy would like it if a lot of people left the gop and start a third party.
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