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i dont think that the christian right has managed an ideological coup d'etat, taking over an otherwise benign conservative politics---the right political machine has developed through a kind of symbiotic relation to the christian right. they need each other.
among the effects of this lovely symbiosis:
the tendency to make absolute arguments, usually couched in the language of morality
the rigid inside/outside correct/incorrect definitions of position
the tendency to frame political arguments in nonfalsfiable terms
the sustained attempt to treat nationalism (and conservative politics which arrogates to itself a monopoly on nationalism) as a religious signifier--in short most of the arguments and mode of argument that come wrapped in special floral bouquets the aroma of which are redolent of fascism arise from this intersection of interests.
(it is easter, i understand, and so one thinks of flowers)
i do not think that it makes sense to imagine that the contemporary conservative machine minus the christian right would revert to previous forms of conservative politics either--to say this (directly or indirectly) is to underestimate what is new in this machinery--and there is much that is new. missing this is yet another way of underestimating the enemy.
most of the more moderate and/or traditional-style conservatives i have run into seem mystified by the rise and scope of the new right apparatus--i suspect these folk find themselves in a curious position. the dlc-style democratic party certainly made a calculation about this population at some point, and geared the party to co-opting them by transforming itself into a moderate republican party (see superbelt's post above)---this was obviously a disastrous choice. but the right apparatus does not care about such details--they continue to portray the democrats as "The Left"--which is empirically insane--but which has a certain persuasuve power for the good footsoldiers of the new right. and so this claim--central to the position war that the right has been winning for some time now--itself can be seens as a demonstration of the patterns i noted above.
irate's posts above seem to me misguided in that he seems to take umbrage at the focus on the christian right at all and reacts to it by claiming that the problem lay with this fantasy of his called antireligious paranoia.
which only makes sense if you accept, at some level, the claim that the american protestant evangelical communities, the organizational expressions of which include the christian coalition and a number of other parallel operations, in itself constitutes the totality of religious people in america--and that the political interests of these particular organizations represent the political claims of not just extremely conservative protestant evangelicals, but of all religious people--a claim which seems the absolute height of arrogance. from there irate moves to a defense of the political prerogatives of individual religious people--which is touching and all but wholly irrelevant--unless the idea is to attempt an erasing of the reality of the organizational scope and impact of the far right protestant evangelicals.
fact is that irate's mode of argument is a direct mirror of the types of arguments that float about in the political landscape he is apparently part of. for him, here as elsewhere, there is a single truth, there are "moral" arguments to be derived from this single truth......this truth is rooted in religious belief, which is persuasive for other believers and irrational for others.....because there is a single truth (something not open for argument, something asserted a priori) it follows that there is a single expression of that truth, a single religion, a single "moral" position in politics and elsewhere....
irate himself occupies that position, speaks from it, defends it, etc.
it is flattering that he descends from the mount to speak unto us, the fallen.
perhaps we should be flattered and not find the proclamations patronizing and annoying.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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