Elonka wrote:
] It pains me when I hear liberals refer to the
] religious right as "evil".

Hrm. I feel like I ought to respond to this again. Because it came up in our early discussion. And here it is again. And its not directed at me anymore, but when first presented you were twisting a position that I had expressed, and you still seem to be twisting that position.

Let me try to be as clear as possible about this. References that I make to Conservative Christians are a misnomer. I'm not actually referring to Conservative Christians. I am referring to the Conservative Christian political movement. To the extent that Conservative Christians feel that they want to practice their beleifs, and express their beliefs, and advocate their beleifs, without forcing others to conform to said beleifs against their will, they are not evil, and in fact I strongly defend their right to do these things.

However, this does not characterize the Conservative Christian political movement. When people talk about the "religious right" they aren't talking about Amish people. They're talking about the politically active religious right.

And when I say that this movement is evil, I am quite confident, and what I mean is not that it's intentions are bad. However, I'm quite confident that Al'Q beleives that its intentions are good as well. What I will say is that the radical fringes of this movement have blood on their hands, and that the political leadership of this movement is engaged in widespread deception, and that the ultimate goal of this movement is an outcome which has been proven, over and over again in history, to result in tremendous human suffering, and there can be no clearer definition of evil then that.

One can look directly to organizations, connected to this movement, which advocate and participate in terrorist attacks, such as in the 1996 Summer Olympics, in murders of physicians and lyncings of homosexuals, but it is not approriate to look at a political movement based on on the actions of it's radical fringe.

One must also look to the leadership, and see the deception that leadership engages in. At its heart that deception is the attitude that when someone engages in a behavior which you disapprove, they are forcing their beliefs on you, and that legislation is required to stop that behavior, so that you can be protected from it.

It is quite a straight forward matter of common sense that if someone is engaged in behavior that you don't like, but which has absolutely no effect on you in any way, that the beliefs of said people cannot be said to be forced upon you through such an action. It is quite a straight forward matter of common sense that by banning such behavior you are not protecting yourself from anything, in the case where such behavior has no effect on you, but rather you are forcing your beleifs upon others. To consider this otherwise is to engage in deception.

But the deception is even more clear, and more blatent, in the actual manner in which this movement pursues its legislative agenda. In Georgia passing a law which banned Gay Marriage AND Civil Unions, but placing a paraphased description of said law on the ballot, which described only the Gay Marriage ban and not the Civil Union ban, knowing that the majority of voters had no other information about the matter at question, and knowing that these two issues polled quite differently.

These are lies, and they are as clear as day, and if you cannot see them as lies you are totally blind. But what is at hand here is a greater problem then simple deception. In fact, political deception is so widespread in our society that if we are to attack it we must attack nearly everything, and maybe we should, but I am singling out this group for a reason, and that reason is the ultimate goals of their movement.

The goal of this movement is a government rooted in religion. A religious government, in which God is the ultimate source of sovereignty. This goal is quite clear in the rhetoric of these groups, and it is quite clear in the actual text of the legislation they propose, such as HR 3799, proposed this year, which bans court review of any "acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law..."

It should be understood that the goal of the Islamic Fundamentalists is exactly the same goal, and it should also be acknowledged that societies in history which have pursued such a goal have always turned violent and oppresive, and that this country was literally created in resistance to religious establishment on the part of the English government. In fact, the revolutionary idea embodied in the Declaration of Independance, was that the sovereign source of law was the people governed, which in context was in direct opposition to the English notion of God as the sovereign source law, and in the divine right of Kings.

This goal is a problem because a government of God is a government that is perfect, and a government that is perfect cannot be questioned, and a government that cannot be questioned cannot be democratic. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and when the government's word carries the force of God its power cannot be resisted. And that is Evil. That is what evil is. I am opposed to it, whether it comes from Afghanistan or my next door neighbor.

"The clause of the constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro' the U. S.; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians & Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me..." - Thomas Jefferson

RE: MSNBC - Rove tells conservatives to chill out