Viking Kitties are Bad News for Retread Concern Trolls [a righteous ZOT!]

Richmond Times-Dispatch ^ | 12-30-10 | Nathan B. Oman

[yort]

W. Cleon Skousen's book "The Five Thousand Year Leap" has been reissued, and after an endorsement from Glenn Beck, it was even briefly the No. 1 best-seller at Amazon.com. This is bad news for religious conservatism.

Skousen's book is a slipshod mixture of tendentious history, bad theology and paranoid politics in the John Birch Society mold. It ought to be treated as a curiosity of the pre-Reagan right, a fantasy world where communist agents such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Dwight D. Eisenhower worked to undermine America....

The revival of Skousen-esque thinking via Glenn Beck's teary-eyed presentations on the dangers of creeping socialism and the tea party's darker prognostications on President Barack Obama's secret totalitarian agenda present problems for serious religious conservatives....

...Beck's neo-Skousenism is a distraction and a dead end. His ready use of religious imagery appeals to many religious conservatives, but ultimately it is political and spiritual junk food: tasty to some but without substance and poisonous in large quantities.

Forget debates over gay marriage; the traditional kind seems to be in free fall among those vulnerable citizens who could benefit the most from it. This is surely an issue where the republic would benefit from serious religious voices, as opposed to paranoid fantasy presented as saccharine political spirituality.

Over the long term, the revival of the worst strands of Cold War conservatism on the religious right is bad for America and bad for religious conservatives. If vigorously pursued, it will render conservative religious voices irrelevant to serious political discussions. Sadly, the irrelevance will be deserved.

[TheThinker]

Beck’s got a big hear and talks about very nasty people and how they’re destroying freedom. I admire him.

[fr_freak]

Excellent point about the underlying non-seriousness of the Religious Right faction.

You call that an excellent point? You don't get out much, do you?

On a side note, I noticed this sentence: "It ought to be treated as a curiosity of the pre-Reagan right, a fantasy world where communist agents such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Dwight D. Eisenhower worked to undermine America.... "

One thing the nutbag Left has been successful in doing, largely due to their takeover of the media and Hollywood, is repeat, as accepted fact, that any accusations of communists infiltrating the US was always just paranoid fantasy, now discredited. Now that we see the fruits of the last 40 or 50 years of leftwing policies and propaganda, and the unbelievably drastic cultural and political changes they have wrought on this country, one would have to be a complete fool, ignorant of all 20th century US history, not to realize that those "fantasies" were, in fact, exactly correct, and the widespread disdain for those who raised the alarm, such as Joe McCarthy, are merely the natural result of that infiltration.

The fact that we have a communist like Obama in the White House, and a boatload of communists like Pelosi and Reid in Congress, with the approval of roughly half of the population, is ample evidence of communist infiltration and deconstruction of the American culture. Those things could never have occurred by force of arms 40 years ago, but have now occurred without a shot fired. McCarthy was a genius and a patriot, and Martin Luther King Jr. was probably a communist who worked to undermine America, despite whatever positive influence he may have been in terms of civil rights.

[Graybeard58]

Excellent point about the underlying non-seriousness of the Religious Right faction.

I don't have much use for Beck but I and many others here are "the religious right" that you are looking down your nose at.

[MestaMachine]

Ummm. I call BS on you and Oman. Maybe you should elaborate in exactly who Nate Oman actually is and WHY he doesn't particularly "like" the "religious right." The man is being totally disingenuous in the article you posted.

Or was he being more disingenuous in THIS article?
Mormonism's Al Smith moment?
January 02, 2008|By Nathan B. Oman

Let us suppose that Mitt Romney does not become the next president. What will this mean for the Mormons? There about 5.7 million Latter-day Saints in America, which in a nation of more than 300 million makes us demographic chicken feed, but the question is important for what it reveals about the presidency and its relationship to American citizenship.

As a Latter-day Saint, I care deeply about whether a Mormon can be elected president. This is not because, as the anti-Mormon fringe suggests, my co-religionists and I want to impose a theocracy on the nation, but because so long as a Mormon cannot be elected president because he is Mormon.
Rather, I care because so long as a Mormon cannot be elected president because he is Mormon, I am a second-class citizen in our culture, a member of a tribe disqualified from full political participation.

______________________________________________

Maybe we should note that he seems to think religious Conservatism is just alright as long as it comes from HIS religion.

I have nothing against Mormons per se, Beck being a Mormon himself. I think this article ADDS to Beck's credibility rather than detracts from it.
So where does that place you?

For the record, I am an Orthodox Jew, and would never in a zillion years vote for anyone on the basis of religion alone like so many blacks voted for obama, or so many Mormons voted for Romney. If you ain't right, you ain't right. Period.

[BenKenobi]

“Pro-life liberalism”

Query as to such you refer?

[MestaMachine]

Ping to #24

[americanophile]

On the article:

"First, despite partisan triumphalism in the wake of electoral victory, voters at the center of the political spectrum hold the balance of power in American politics."

Largely true, though it continues to be a center-right nation.

"In the recent congressional elections these voters broke in favor of the Republicans, but they did so in spite of Beck's Skousen revivalism, not because of it."

Well, he presents no data from which to draw that conclusion, and instinctively it would probably be safest to say that their decisions at the polls were neither because of Beck or in spite of him, but rather irrespective of him. Obama's signature political achievent, 'Obamacare' is unpopular, unemployment is high, and the spendthrift Congress has a 13% approval rating. It had little to do with tv host Beck or even with specifically 'religious conservatism.'

"Second, and more important, Beck's neo-Skousenism is a distraction and a dead end."

On the contrary, the second point is made even less important by the irrelevance of the first.

[TigersEye]

It ought to be treated as a curiosity of the pre-Reagan right, a fantasy world where communist agents such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Dwight D. Eisenhower worked to undermine America....

I haven't read the book but when the first example a critic uses is made up and not from the work being criticized ... it's pretty much a lock that the critic is more full of BS than a stock yard.

[meadsjn]

“Pro-life liberalism”

Query as to such you refer?

See Huckabee, Arkansas; a pro-life liberal; open borders, nanny-state, tax and spend, clemency for murderers; supported by the NEA teachers union; supported by evangelical Democrats; supports the Dream Act, amnesty for illegal aliens, in-state tuition for illegal aliens; etc., etc.

[BuckyKat]

Beck’s not my cup of tea. His hyper-emotionalism must be an acquired taste.

I used to like Beck - back when he was funny, more like he is on O'Reilly. I can't bear his show now though. His pseudo-wisdom cum 700-Club done LDS style, his tears, the whole package just comes across as snake oil salesman.

I have a feeling if anyone had heard him back when he was funny (maybe 15 years ago now)and compared it to today, they might be a little skeptical of his sincerity.

He could be quite convincing. He had a good number of listeners believing that he truly thought the news about John-John Kennedy dying in a plane crash was just more hype about John Denver. He played his audience for the fool then and I think he's using the same techniques now.

[blam]

I support Beck.

[Gene Eric]

>> Article: ... and the tea party’s darker prognostications ...

I don’t have a problem with Beck’s decomposition of the complex World we live. It would be foolish to cast his commentaries aside as fantastical rhetoric. He’s entertaining and his arguments are generally sound. But defending Beck is unnecessary. What nullifies the article’s credibility is the assertion of “darker prognostications” by the evil tea party renegade. That’s #ing nonsense!

Welcome to FR.

[meadsjn]

Well said. IIRC, about 90% of the population believe in God, and have some kind of religious or spiritual beliefs.

With thousands of religious groups, with either slightly or drastically diverse beliefs, no person is going to win any nationwide campaign by leading with their personal beliefs.

Liberal media people know this, and will pull out all the stops to get a divisive religious figure, of any flavor, elected as the Republican nominee.

On the other hand, the possibility of a Republican nominee who leads with a unifying message of common sense Constitutional conservatism sends the liberal Democrats and the liberal RINOs into spastic fits of screaming heebie-jeebies.

[bruinbirdman]

"Query as to such you refer? See Huckabee, Arkansas; a pro-life liberal; open borders, nanny-state, tax and spend, clemency for murderers; supported by the NEA teachers union; supported by evangelical Democrats; supports the Dream Act, amnesty for illegal aliens, in-state tuition for illegal aliens; etc., etc. "

And the new choice of socialist press as the best candidate for Republicans. They are pushing him just like they did McLaim.

yitbos

[MestaMachine]

I am sticking with Sarah until and unless she says otherwise. At least her name is Jewish..../removing tongue from cheek now.

[meadsjn]

Someone posted the Hebrew breakdown of her names. That was awesome.

[BenKenobi]

Ah, gotcha.

[Talisker]

I think we should leave hyper-emotionalism crap to the liberals and stick to logic and reason.

"We"?

::snort:: LOL!

You just outed yourself, you collectivist Rat troll. "We" conservatives speak for ourselves, not some groupthink collective. "We" say "I" and stand by our individual opinions. There is no "we" among "us," you stupid moran. That's what "we" share in individual common - and what "you" will never collectively understand.

Slink away back to your focus group and report your failure, loser.

[Talisker]

I think we should leave hyper-emotionalism crap to the liberals and stick to logic and reason.

"We"?

::snort:: LOL!

You just outed yourself, you collectivist Rat troll. "We" conservatives speak for ourselves, not some groupthink collective. "We" say "I" and stand by our individual opinions. There is no "we" among "us," you stupid moran. That's what "we" share in individual common - and what "you" will never collectively understand.

Slink away back to your focus group and report your failure, loser.

[CanaGuy]

I like Glenn. However, he’s uneven and it’s hard to know what mode he’ll be in for any given show. Sometimes it’s history, sometimes religion, sometimes straight politics and sometimes audience and guest interviews. You need to sample at least a week or two’s worth before coming to any conclusions about him. I’ll say one thing, we need more teachers like him, those who use multi-media as effectively as he does. His staff who do the show-prep should be commended, first rate.