Slapping The Other Cheek - Good Luck United

[maplesyrup]

Slapping the Other Cheek

You'd think the one good thing about merging church and state would be that politics would be suffused with glistening Christian sentiments like "love thy neighbor," "turn the other cheek," "good will toward men," "blessed be the peacemakers" and "judge not lest you be judged."

Yet somehow I'm not getting a peace, charity, tolerance and forgiveness vibe from the conservatives and evangelicals who claim to have put their prodigal son back in office.

I'm getting more the feel of a vengeful mob - revved up by rectitude - running around with torches and hatchets after heathens and pagans and infidels.

One fiery Southern senator actually accused a nice Catholic columnist of having horns coming up out of her head!

Bob Jones III, president of the fundamentalist college of the same name, has written a letter to the president telling him that "Christ has allowed you to be his servant" so he could "leave an imprint for righteousness," by appointing conservative judges and approving legislation "defined by biblical norm."

"In your re-election, God has graciously granted America - though she doesn't deserve it - a reprieve from the agenda of paganism," Mr. Jones wrote. "Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ." Way harsh.

The Christian avengers and inquisitors, hearts hard as marble, are chasing poor 74-year-old Arlen Specter through the Capitol's marble halls, determined to flagellate him and deny him his cherished goal of taking over the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I wonder if Ashcroft stepping down will help matters. It seems he was the most divisive cabinet minister that Bush had in the first term. I wonder if Colin Powell is going to stay on. I hope he does for the sake of the United States. They desperately need some moderating influences.

[maplesyrup]

GOD'S SECOND TERM.

The Elect

Perhaps the most odious feature of contemporary conservatism is its equation of success with virtue. In the realm of economics, this long ago resulted in the strange belief in the moral superiority of the wealthy, a vulgar Calvinism according to which money is a proof of merit and riches are a mark of righteousness. How else is wealth acquired in America, after all, except justly? And now, in the aftermath of the election, the equation of success and virtue, the conflation of outer worth with inner worth, has been extended to the realm of politics. We are instructed that the Republicans won because they have "values" and the Democrats lost because they do not have "values." (Or quantitatively speaking, 59.5 million Americans have "values" and 55.9 million Americans do not have "values.") Winners are good, losers are bad....

The above quote is from an article in the New Republic and sums up how I feel about the election results in the US and its aftermath, and why the US can only be headed for serious trouble with this kind of right thinking in control of their government. Of course the Republicians have a right to win elections, but for them to suggest they are the only one with values (i.e. morals) is indeed a perversion of democracy, and what democracy is supposed to represent. /13

[Black Dog]

I wonder if Ashcroft stepping down will help matters. It seems he was the most divisive cabinet minister that Bush had in the first term. I wonder if Colin Powell is going to stay on. I hope he does for the sake of the United States. They desperately need some moderating influences.

I expect Ashcroft and Powell's departures will lead to a Bush cabinet that is even less moderate than the current one (not that either of those individuals were paragons of moderation themselves.)

I don't think anyone will or should give much credence to Bush's claim that he's interested in uniting the country: he owes his election to the forces of divisiveness aqnd they will expect their due.