Friday, May 06, 2005

Reasons to root against the Religious Right

Or more accurately, MORE reasons to root against the Religious Right. I'm happy to root against them 99% of the time. And I find Christopher Hitchens an interesting read 100% of the time.

Posted by geekwife at 9:07 AM

3 comments:

Nylarthotep said...

Not sure I agree with his stance nor his posture of reality. He paints far too much of the repuglican party as being far right and then fails to speak of the equally nutty secular left. And I mean the Secular Atheistic Left, since he seems to think that the religious right has mis-defined the "secular left" to mean only Atheistic Left. (While he mis-defines the right as religious fanatics.)

I found his rant just too imbalanced. Complaining about a minority of Loud right wingers as being the main stay of the republican party most obviously misses the point of the last election. It wasn't the vast right wing that voted Bush and the repugs into office, it was the centrists.

To paint all of the repugs as christian religious fanatics is as sloppy as painting all demosprats as atheists. Neither extremist group represents either of the parties, but they have the biggest mouths and thus get most of the press.

I truly hope that someone that dislikes the far right as much as he states would at least have been balanced enough to make an equal statement about the excesses of the diametrically opposed left wing group.

2:21 PM
geekwife said...

I don't think he's painting all Republicans as right-wing Christians. He starts off saying

"Yet two things are obvious. The first is that many conservatives appreciate the value of a secular republic, and do not make the idiotic confusion between "secular" and "atheist" that is so common nowadays."

I think he's just pointing out, and rightly so, that there is a fanatic Christian voice in the party, and cautioning against the majority letting that faction get too loud or too powerful. He didn't get into the wacky left because that wasn't the point of his piece.

10:33 AM
Nylarthotep said...

I look at this statement as the wide brush.

"I have never understood why conservative entrepreneurs are so all-fired pious and Bible-thumping, let alone why so many of them claim Jesus as their best friend and personal savior."

I think this statement nullifies his above statements on some republicans believing in a secular republic. If a person has a personal belief in Jesus (yeah that "possibly ficticious Nazarene") and they speak about him doesn't make them bible thumping nor an extremist.

Then he points to Ayn Rand and Leo Straous and asks if republicans wish to disown them because they were atheists.
"I have my own differences with both of these savants, but is the Republican Party really prepared to disown such modern intellectuals as it can claim, in favor of a shallow, demagogic and above all sectarian religiosity?"
Very broad statement. The Republican Party is the focus and not aimed just at the religious right.

I'll agree that much of his antipathy toward the extreme religious right is justified. The problem I have is that he seems to think that all of the republican party is controlled by "Bible thumpers" some who are the party leaders. The party leaders don't control the votes.

Falwell and Robertson were true asses for their statements about about the World trade center event. I just disagree that they have that much control or even influence on the majority of the republican party. Nothing anyone can do about them being loud, but I will remain skeptical of the idea that they will ever have substantial power.

At the end of the article he does make a statement on the liberal left that does seem to save some face, but I personally think a balanced article on extremists on both sides would have had much more effect.

2:53 PM

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