I get the American Family Association newsletter, and this week, they sent an intriguing statement.
Here is the single most important question you can ask your Representative and Senators concerning ObamaCare.
“Will you vote to require members of
Congress to be included on any bill dealing with health care? Please
give me a yes or no answer.”If the ObamaCare health care bill isn’t good for the members of Congress, then it is not good for the general public.
Do you think that this is a good litmus test? I mean, do we expect our leaders to be under the same laws as us, or are they allowed special treatment? If so, in what cases? In this case?
BTW, the guy that leads it, Don Wildmon (pictured above), looks anything but wild, and sounds even geekier. I think they need a new face at the top.
Donald Wildmon, right wing fascist:
Don Wildmon's American Family Association has been increasingly on the forefront of the Radical Religious Right and the efforts to impose a very conservative, evangelical Christian morality on America. His organization began in the late 1970s with attempts to remove Playboy magazine from convenience stores and is currently very active in attempts to remove Howard Stern's radio and television programs from airing in various markets. A high-priority target of Wildmon and the AFA are homosexuals and their efforts to obtain a certain degree of respect, tolerance, and rights in our society.
In an ironic twist of language which even George Orwell would be proud of, people like Wildom have begun complaining that when people react negatively to their moralizing on homosexuality, this represents anti-Christian hatred and bigotry. Apparently, their proclamations should be considered immune to any sort of critique or moral outrage.
All of us, hetero- and homosexual, should recognize that this is a primary issue in the so-called "culture wars" in America. This is where the Relgious Right is focusing a significant percentage of its attention because, if they lose on this, they may never again have the chance to impose their vision upon our society by peaceful means. They really need to win on this in order to maintain any degree of status and importance in American political life.
No wonder right wing fascist, daniel, subscribes to their newsletter. That explains a lot.
Fascism is a leftist movement. :/
Look up the acronym for NAZI and see if you can spot a leftist theme there.
Wiki's definition at least shows some honest confusion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
But I just can't find for the life of me any major fascist group that didn't flow out of leftist ideaology… Perhaps you can help fill this gap for me.
That said, the "Moral Majority" of the 70's and it's outpooring groups definitely made a lot of misteps. We put Christ in bed with politicians because they held some of the same views, but certainly not all. I struggle to think why people worked to legislated Christian morality, when Christian morality can only be expressed in increasing ways by new creations indwelt by the Holy Spirit…
I'm curious about your perspective on this Louis, because I think there's a really unclear area that exists here:
Should we as a society at large, seek to limit free and easy access to certain kinds of media or speech (this article mentions Playboy and Stern)?
If so, how do we determine what is to be limited? To what scale should it be limited? And how should we continue to review that?
What about where there are distinct conflicts? If you go along the lines that everything should be freely available, then you must surely include anti-gay bigotted hate speech, like the Westboro clan of insanity, right? Unless you say only "nice" speech is allowed, but then how would you decide who says what's nice and what's not?
I don't recall advocating the muzzling of these hatemongering morons.As tempting as the prospect at first appears, it would be playing directly into their hands by lowering myself to their disgusting level. I oppose any attempts, by left or right, to silence opposing thought (thought peacefully expressed, that is). This means that I have to support the right of numskulls like the Westboro "church" and daniel to their right to expression, no matter how evil their expression is. It does not mean, however, that I have to support these angry mobs disrupting townhall meetings with the clear intent of silencing debate and discussion just because they disagree. I reserve the right to lambaste them to my heart's content, and call them out for what they clearly are: modern-day descendants of the Brown Shirts whose only goal is to impose an authoritarian regime and, under the guise of legitimate dissent, silence by intimidation any opposition to their views (for the record, I also oppose those gays who disrupt church services – it's rude if nothing else). The Constitution isn't a suicide pact, after all.
btw: If the Nazis were a socialist movement, why were their first targets for persecution and silencing bona fide socialists, communists, and unions?
>> LOUIS: btw: If the Nazis were a socialist movement, why were their first targets for persecution and silencing bona fide socialists, communists, and unions?
That is a good question. But answering just the IF part, the history of both Fascism and its moniker is something like this – Stalin saw communism taking off in other countries, but it was highly nationalistic, which he hated – he saw Communism as a world philosophy, and nationalism was a contaminant. HE coined 'Fascism' to distinguish his Socialism from National Socialism (wasn't the Nazi Party the National Socialist Party?).
Stalin also characterized Fascism as 'right,' but only because it was to the RIGHT of Socialism! It was still a polar opposite from the ideals of the Democratic west, which, before the modern era, was much less Socialistic.
For what it's worth, this I agree with without reservation:
"It does not mean, however, that I have to support these angry mobs disrupting townhall meetings with the clear intent of silencing debate and discussion just because they disagree."
I don't think that just because the POTUS encourages this from his followers (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCMDur9CDZ4), that we should follow a "two wrongs make a right" sort of argument. There's more civil ways of noting that a speaker is telling lies.