...Is it between neocons and paleocons? Between moderates and authentic conservatives? Between the Washington-centric and the heartland types? None of the above. It’s supposed to be about “what conservative writer Kathleen Parker has called the ‘evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy’ branch” and “the more pragmatic, intellectual, centrist branch.”
Really? Ms. Parker is a wine of recent vintage, whose flavor is distinctly neoconnish: no one had ever heard of her before the Iraq war, at least not in conservative circles, and she came to prominence as a kneejerk defender of our Iraqi adventure and whatever foolhardy domestic policy George W. Bush had taken up that week. And who are these “oogedy boogedy” –cons we hear so much about? I never hear any names attached to this designation, because there aren’t any: it just represents a prejudice of the New York-Washington axis of sophisticates, who deride anyone who doesn’t sneer at organized religion of any sort. Yes, the evangelicals are an organized constituency within the GOP, but they hardly constitute a clearly-defined wing of the conservative movement: there any many libertarian evangelical Christians, and the idea that libertarian ideals and Christianity are opposites in a dichotomy is more myth-making on Gabler’s part.''
Raimondo goes on to discuss Joe McCarthy, why he was right, and why he is so often derided:
.
..The reason the Respectable Right, as well as the Respectable Left, has always hated McCarthy was precisely because of his populism: because he tried to go over the heads of the media, the government, and the Powers That Be, and appeal directly to the American people. There were commies in the government, and no doubt in the Army, and Tail Gunner Joe had no compunctions about exposing them – that was his “recklessness.” Well, then, let them make the most of it. In that case, recklessness was a virtue.
The neocons, of course, hated McCarthy, because they hate populism in all its forms: better that a small cabal should make policy behind closed doors, than that the people should be let in on their secrets. They know what’s best for us: and we – we are just dust-motes, blown about by the wind-makers. Why, how dare these people evoke “resentment” over this state of affairs! That is the primal sin of the neocons and their liberal friends-and-enablers: “Resentment”! We aren’t supposed to resent anything. We’re just supposed to sit still and take it, and anyone who stirs up resentment is one of the evil “McCarthyites”.
What crap!''
Raimondo is right.
But my concern here is not with the McCarthy myth, and his status as a whipping boy or straw man by the left and the ''respectable'' right.
The subject of evangelical Christians is the one that I am concerned with now, and it has been under discussion a lot, with increasing resentment and vitriol directed at Christians in the conservative camp. Here is one such example and the discussion of the article on Free Republic. Many of the ''conservative" FReepers are in agreement not only with David Harsanyi, who wrote the Townhall piece critical of evangelical Republicans, but with Kathleen Parker and her aforementioned ''oogedy-boogedy" designation of Christian conservatives.
To quote the conclusion of Parker's sneering article,
But, like it or not, we are a diverse nation, no longer predominantly white and Christian. The change Barack Obama promised has already occurred, which is why he won.
Among Jewish voters, 78 percent went for Obama. Sixty-six percent of under-30 voters did likewise. Forty-five percent of voters ages 18-29 are Democrats compared to just 26 percent Republican; in 2000, party affiliation was split almost evenly.
The young will get older, of course. Most eventually will marry, and some will become their parents. But nonwhites won't get whiter. And the nonreligious won't get religion through external conversion. It doesn't work that way.
Given those facts, the future of the GOP looks dim and dimmer if it stays the present course. Either the Republican Party needs a new base -- or the nation may need a new party.''
I won't disagree with her on the last eight words of that piece. The nation definitely needs a new party, one which actually represents the majority and the traditionally-Christian heritage of this country. What the nation decidedly doesn't need is two liberal/multiculturalist/PC parties, which is what we have, in truth, now.
I would like this Parker woman, Mr. Harsanyi, and all those ''conservatives'' who slam Christianity on FR or elsewhere to show me just how Christians have commandeered the GOP as they seem to imply, and just how the evangelical Christian agenda is reflected in anything the party has done or plans to do.
Was it the reintroduction of school prayer? Oh wait; that never happened. Was it the 'protection of marriage' act which defined marriage as one man, one woman? That never happened either. Was it the overturning of Roe v. Wade? The return to allowing Christmas to be mentioned in our schools, rather than ''winter celebrations'' or ''holidays"? How, exactly, have conservative Christians or even moderate Christians exercised any real influence in our government?
The dimwits on the left insist that George W. Bush is some kind of fundamentalist Bible-thumping Christian, but he has traipsed all over the world praying at Shinto shrines and mosques, and has hosted Moslem feasts and celebrations at the White House. On top of that, he's said more than once that ''we and the Muslims worship the same God" or words to that effect.
Occasional lip service mentioning 'Christian values' or something equally vague mean nothing.
There is little or nothing pro-Christian in the present administration or the Republican Party.
So what imaginary enemy are these people jousting with?
If Miz Parker thinks that Republicans should eject or marginalize or silence Christians, does she not think that Christians deserve a place at the table in the country that our ancestors founded? Why should we acquiesce and just ''fold our tents like the Arabs and silently slip away' (as an old teacher of mine used to say)?
It's obvious that the Democrats hate Christians (except for the liberal Marxists-in-clerical-collars) even more than the Country Club respectable Republicans do.
So we are being told to hit the road by both parties, and on the 'race realist' right, there is no lack of anti-Christian sentiment. I've been especially grieved with AmRen lately as they continue to give a megaphone to a few obvious Christian-haters on that forum. Why? And why are their no responses from Christians? Are they being censored?
One anonymous AmRen poster here quoting his own posts which were apparently deleted from TakiMag says
...Libertarianism is philosophically incapable of defending conservative particularities.
As is Christian conservatism. Those conservatives who primarily oppose the Left’s hostility to pre-1960s traditional (Christian) moral and socio-sexual values are really either (Protestant) Christian reconstructionists, or else some archaic type of papal supremacists (if they are intellectually coherent, carrying their assumptions to their logical conclusions). The ‘moral values’ crowd has no arguments, within its own Christian ideology, against racial integration (at least if uncoerced). From a conservative perspective, the politicized Christians are at least a bit better than libertarians insofar as they do oppose Muslim immigration, if out of religious and not ethnocultural supremacism. Remember: the Church is a universal institution. It offers nothing in the way of defending cultural particularities (though, I argue, it does not disallow conservatism, either).
Unfortunately for the Christians, they are pretty much ‘maxed out’ today. Christian fundamentalist ideology (whatever sect) appeals to certain mental types, and repulses others. While I expect such Christians to be with us always (for the indefinitely forseeable future), and indeed, to grow more prominent over time, at least among whites (insofar as they are the family-centered people having the most children, and most people are not critical thinkers, but derive their core beliefs from their parents, esp when those beliefs are strong and foundational, as is the case here), there is a limit to political Christianity’s appeal. Most Americans who are convertible to theologically conservative doctrines have already made that leap.
[...]
I’ve said this for years, but I’ll say it again: we racialists are going eventually to take over the conservative movement (I hope by marginalizing the extreme Christians, confining the hard edged fundamentalists, whose bleak, rule-bound vision of social existence is unattractive even to many conservative Christians). We will have to be cagey about it, muting the ‘white pride’ types, and emphasizing the facts of white victimhood (as Jared Taylor has done vis a vis unnecessary neo-Nazis). But that it will get done is inevitable, as long as existing demographic and political trends continue.''
[Emphasis mine]
Then another commenter agrees with the above, saying
War,Death and Destruction are at the core of Evangelical Christian theology. If Southern Eveangeleical [sic] Christians get their wish, and the US starts a war with Iran, there will be large scale death and destruction in the Middle East. Thousands of America teenagers will die over there, and the human species will be brought to the brink.If we some how manage to survive all this, the Southern Evangelicals will be thouroughly discredidted [sic]. I suspect that thier [sic] own children will turn on them. I beleive [sic] that it will only be at this point in time that the transition from Fundamantalist [sic] Christian moral conservatism to White Racialism will take place. White Nationalism is very compatible with some aspects of Paleoconservatism.
White Nationalism will have a bright future in America when Evangelical Christians break their addiction to wars of aggression.'''
[Emphasis mine]
I notice that on AmRen, no other religion's beliefs are attacked in this fashion, including those of Islam or Judaism or any other religion. And I have to assume that such comments, if submitted, are not approved by the mods. Why is Christianity singled out this way? Do the mods have an agenda that is hostile to Christianity? Do they share these commenters' beliefs that Christianity is inimical to our survival?
It seems that everybody, from the Republicans to the 'realists' at AmRen and other such sites, thinks that Christians are expendable, and that they can all succeed without us, indeed, that we are an albatross around their necks.
Ironic, since White Christians are the last of what remains of the country our forefathers built centuries ago. We are the rightful heirs of America, the posterity our Founding Fathers referred to. Everybody else is just a johnny-come-lately, who is here only by our sufferance and charity, if the truth be told.
The anti-Christians in all these ''conservative'' groups will succeed in driving many of us away; it is already happening, and no doubt that will be a cause for jubilation in some quarters. However, it remains to be seen whether these groups can succeed without our support.
They need us far more than we need them, if they but knew it.
For Christians, it's no surprise that we attract animosity. That goes with the territory, and it also happens to anyone who stands for any kind of unpopular truth. ''Woe to you when men speak well of you...", and I've long thought that popularity and mass appeal generally go to the lowest-common-denominator kinds of people and ideas. Being disliked by the right people is a compliment, actually, and conversely, being liked by people such as Kathleen Parker or Mr. Anonymous at AmRen would be a dubious achievement.
I don't think that there will come a time when Christians will regain prestige or be held in high esteem by most people. It just won't happen. We are increasingly at odds with the world, and the world with us. And even if I thought that by compromising and making ourselves more acceptable to the smug 'respectables', we would gain more acceptance, I'd say, sorry, no sale.
But there is something at stake here: why are there so few Christians offering any kind of rebuttal to the worst of the slanders against us? Why do we allow untruths about ourselves to be spread? For example this one from the AmRen thread:
War,Death and Destruction are at the core of Evangelical Christian theology.''
On the other hand, we get people slamming us because Christians are supposedly weaklings who practice pacifism and exhibit pathological tolerance. We can't win, clearly.
Still, knowing that we will never be the flavor of the month, we Christians, we might at least speak up, possibly for the benefit of the non-Christians or agnostics who have heard only the false stereotypes of Christianity, and who have never heard about the Christianity as practiced by our fathers for many centuries, the muscular Christianity that allowed us to maintain our existence against hostile Islam and other forces, the Christianity that formed the basis for the successful nation founded on these shores by our forefathers.
Instead, the impostor Christianity is the image that is believed to be the real thing, for many people.
We Christians know how the story ultimately plays out; we know that the bad guys will lose in the ultimate struggle, but for the time being, ''here we are as on a darkling plain'', as Matthew Arnold said in his poem, Dover Beach, ''Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.''
How do we conduct ourselves in our present struggle for survival? I think, though this world is not our home, we still have to defend our families, folk, and our faith. Let the armies of ignorance do what they will, we have to make our stand for what is true.
