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A Current Similarity

I have picked up on a correlation (similarities if you will allow) between the Republican mentality with regards to this political environment and religion in the darkest of ages, pre-Renaissance. I think the similarity is striking and disturbing, in that the motivation and victims are very similar. The least educated among us are being used against themselves in an attempt to further the agendas of the rich and powerful. Like John Stuart Mill said, "Religion is Politics"- more to the point they need each other to watch the other's back.

The lies, absurdities, appeals to the emotions of people who already feel alienated, and utter tautology of the rhetoric coming from those they wish to trust, want to trust - actually need to trust to protect their world view. In the current political arena, the total lack of "common sense" (if I may assume we can all agree as to what I am referring), cannot be that dissimilar to the conversations of Constantine after his conversion, when he realized the political advantage of rebuilding Rome with the myths of the outlying pagans. Isn't the bread of the conspiracy theorist, conformation bias, and a total disregard for the obvious?

Tags: politics, religion

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Comment by Beachbum on October 19, 2009 at 2:52am: Aloha Walter,

My aim was not to disparage one party over another, but to highlight the common DNA shared by religious and political motivations. The difference in the parties, in this case, is that Republicans and the religious right are connected at the hip and most religious groups are anti-democratic as well as anti-Democrat. This is not to say Democrats do not try to pull the religious right more to left, they do, of course. But it will never happen, the historical evidence is overwhelming to the contrary, so much so, that the words right and left are (and should be changed, honestly) interchangeable with religious and liberal, respectively.

An extreme example is the Nazi party of early 20th century Germany, as well as evidence of the current political misdirection fostered by the tea baggers and supported by repugnant, Republican rhetoric. The main reason, in this country, to hide Hitler's connection with the Catholic Church, Nazism as a right wing political system, Fascism as a right wing economic system lies in its similarity to the current Republican party and its ties to the religious right. The Nazi party got its start by appealing to the emotional disparity of the poor, uneducated, illiterate, extremely religious German-born labor class by first singling out gays, then illegal immigrants (gypsies). Sound familiar? In fact many Republican Dynasties, most notably the Bush's, supported the Third Reich economically - the actual meaning of "Daddy War Bucks" lest we forget.

Don't let anyone fool you, Walter, the symbiotic relationship between Conservatism and religion is more maternal than cooperative. Most people should ask themselves, "What is it, that Conservatives are trying to conserve?" The answers are very enlightening; tradition, family values, patriarchal hierarchy, the Race(?)[its apparent appeal in the South], the economy(?). Of course, tradition sounds good until one realizes it will be at the expense of progressive ideas such as civil and equal rights for all beings. Again, who could possibly be against 'family values' - but who gets to determine those values, or what constitutes a family? Allow me to jump to the idea that Republicans are concerned with the economy, because the contra position to patriarchy and race are much to obvious - but the person who feels that the Republican talking points about taxes have any validity at all, has no knowledge of US economic history at all. Let it be sufficient, to say, a better analogy would have Republicans taking from the populous but Democrats giving back to the general population, much of what they take in taxes.

National Debt by President is a graph that clearly shows Republican disregard for the working class.

All of this is a rebuttal of what I see as an equivocation of the Republican party's use of religion to suppress the populous with their own superstitions, emotions, longings, and prejudices into a voluntary slavery with the Democrats attempt to pull the extreme right just a little more left. But as far as the lies go, I will refer anyone to Politifacts.com for the score card on that game.
And, to my knowledge, there lies a grand gulf between statistical favoritism and "Death Panels" if that is the gist of your disagreement.

Comment by Rusty Gunn. on October 18, 2009 at 1:15pm: "The lies, absurdities, appeals to the emotions of people who already feel alienated.........." Well, I'm sure as hell glad the Democrats would NEVER resort to such things!!