Conservatives are in an uproar (what’s new?). By failing to heed their shrill whining and appeals to widows and children (something they tried to shame liberals about doing in the past) we, the softy liberals, are inviting Muslims right into downtown New York. You’d think liberals were shopping for a great loft space near “ground zero” for Bin Ladin himself.

Granted, nothing that comes out of the mouth of anyone remotely involved in politics this close to an election cycle can be trusted. I’m aware that this contrived controversy is an opportunity for conservatives and an awkward discomfort for the liberals. I understand that even though it is contrived it still could have ramifications beyond all expectation on all of humanity…or in ten years we’ll have nearly forgotten about it.

But at the moment it’s an important issue for the political conservatives and liberals.

Are we gonna be tough, draw the line, tell them terrorists that they may be able to get away with living in our country for now but by god they’ll sit where we tell them and build their goddam temple-celebrating-the-defeat-of-Christians somewhere else like Minnesota (OK, maybe not) or California. Hell, they’re all fruits and nuts out there anyway. Oh, never mind. How about half-way between California and Hawaii?

Well, we could if it weren’t for all them damn liberals talking about freedom of religion, separation of church and state, private property rights, religious tolerance, the Constitution, freedom. They’re all a bunch of weaklings, they’re pussies, they’re unpatriotic, don’t support the troops, think we descended from monkeys and ought to be able to marry the family dog. They’re commies, socialists, elitists, atheists, gays. They have no morals and love to kill babies and old people. They worry too much about their precious rights without understanding that rights and freedom only aid the enemy. It’s like having your RPG ripped out of your arms and having it turned on you. A real conservative (you know, like a real Christian…they have tests, I hear) understands that when the enemy grabs your gun your best move is to render that gun inactive. If freedom and rights are so vulnerable that they provide aid and comfort to the enemy then they have to go. We can’t afford them. They’re a chink in our suit of armor, a hole in the flag with which we drape ourselves. Freedom and rights are weaknesses, tolerance and diversity responsible for them damned terrorists being allowed to build a recruitment center right-smack-dab on top of where so many fine Christian people died at the hands of people just like them, pretty much. Well, sure, there were a few others that died that day, like other Muslims, Jews, gays, atheists, but dammit, they just got what they deserved. Still, they were American enough for us to exploit, I mean use as examples.

Jesus, so much better than all them others

Sure freedom includes vulnerabilities. The only way we can even come close to providing a high level of security from terrorism is to restrict freedom. Less freedom may translate into greater safety, but remember they suffer terrorism in countries that provide almost no freedom to its citizens. So why should we believe that programs like the Patriot Act will be effective? What evidence is there that surrendering freedom will guarantee security? In theory it should, but the real world shows that it doesn’t.

Freedom, like peace, is an attitude and practice that the right portrays as weakness and unpatriotic and the left pays homage to but seldom becomes passionate about anymore. Freedom, like peace, make us vulnerable.

Conservatives want the U.S. to appear to the world as a bully, the big kid who may not be too bright but by gawd is big and nasty and able to kick anyone’s ass that gets in his way. Liberals embarrass conservatives because by espousing tolerance, peace, diplomacy, plurality, they expose America’s weaknesses to the enemy (just about every other nation on the planet). It’s like we’ve let the rest of the world know that the bully wears girl’s panties and likes to dress up in his sister’s clothes on the weekend.

But it’s far too late to pretend to the rest of the world that we have no weaknesses. Our true enemies, foreign and domestic, already know our weaknesses, they already know how to “game” our system. We used to know how to turn our weaknesses into strengths and virtues, learn from our mistakes. Now it seems we’ve chosen to simply deny our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities, and try like hell to make those pesky liberals so ashamed of themselves they’ll shut or better yet, move away. With them fully marginalized America will be free to insist that it is a Christian nation based on the Protestant interpretation of the Bible and that god approves of everything we do. America will show the world by example that mixing politics and religion is the right thing to do as long as politics=conservative right and religion=Christianity. We can then do what we want because god is on our side. The more extreme the U.S. becomes the rest of the world will follow suite or risk becoming collateral damage in the upcoming religious war between the Christians and the Muslims, with special guest appearances by the Jews (or will they be revealed to secretly be behind the whole thing?), the Pope, Mormons, teabaggers, libertarians and Buddhists.

You know, we’ve been down this same road before. Maybe this enmity between the Christians and the Muslims has never gone away. It’s been there for hundreds of years, simmering just under the surface and looking for the first opportunity to explode. And that time has come, again. Maybe we should expect this every 400 years or so, or maybe they’ll ramp it up this time beyond all control and they will succeed in bringing about the rapid extinction of the human race. It’s hard to guess which way things are headed.

Round 1

Liberals hope to prevent that sort of future. Social liberals. The political liberals are slowly morphing into left-leaning conservatives. Political and social liberals may share a common set of principles, but their goals are not always the same. Social liberals look at the Democratic party in much the same way as conservatives do the Republican. Elections are now battlegrounds between conservatives and liberals, not always Republican versus Democrat. Viewpoints have supplanted party affiliation. The level of enmity between liberals and conservatives is far greater than that between Republicans and Democrats. Liberals don’t see this as a good thing because it’s hard to leverage anger and resentment mixed with a dash of racism and sexism into something that liberals can deal with. They don’t seem to be able to use that frustration that so many Americans feel on so many different levels to their advantage. The Democrats have become the party of “Yeah, OK, us too, I guess” and the Republicans the party of “Follow us. We don’t know where we’re headed either but we strut more confidently so we must have been designed to be the leaders.” Conservatives and liberals will decide the next few elections. And social conservatives and liberals will argue entitlements and compassion.

Meanwhile, out back of the bar, a fistfight breaks out between Joe and Moe. Soon knives are drawn, then small arms, finally the mobile tactical nuclear munitions. Joe’s last words before oblivion were, “Woo-whee, we sure showed them ragheads we don’t want their terrorist factory parked on top of the graves of Christian martyrs.” Well, actually, Joe died right after the “Woo-whee”, but those of us who knew him can assure you those would have been his last words if he hadn’t have been in such a big a hurry to meet his master.

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At fucking up.

Democrats, liberals and the sane have dismissed Beck’s hyperbole for years, but despite our best efforts, Beck loyalists have excused his racism, his bigotry, his emotional problem, his obvious character flaws and with an impressive lack of reason blame the left for all of Glen’s issues.

But now he’s managed to piss off a fairly mainstream branch of Christianity and they are calling for their followers and sympathizers to boycott Beck, Fox and maybe even Beck’s god.

An evangelical leader is calling for a boycott of Glenn Beck’s television show and challenging the Fox News personality to a public debate after Beck vilified churches that preach economic and social justice.The Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians, says Beck perverted Jesus’ message when he urged Christians last week to leave churches that preach social and economic justice.

Wallis says Beck compared those churches to Communists and Nazis.

Wallis says at least 20,000 people have already responded to his call to boycott Beck. He says Beck is confusing his personal philosophy with the Bible.

“He wants us to leave our churches, but we should leave him,” Wallis says of Beck. “When your political philosophy is to consistently favor the rich over the poor, you don’t want to hear about economic justice.”

Social and economic justice is at the heart of Jesus’ message, Wallis says.

“He’s afraid of being challenged on his silly caricatures,” Wallis says. “Glenn Beck talks a lot when he doesn’t have someone to dialogue with. Is he willing to talk with someone who he doesn’t agree with?”

Beck did not answer numerous requests for an interview. (Source-CNN)

Don’t rush the poor man. It takes more than a few days to come up with an explanation for such a major fuck-up that sounds contrite yet more importantly paints the sad man as a victim of left-wing fascist communists. He’s got to consult with speech writers, opinion pollsters, studio heads, the ratings, god and all the other sources of Glen’s opinions. Maybe next time he should talk to them first.

But this is a two-fer. Beck didn’t just loose a bunch of advertisers and now a portion of his religious base, he’s attracted the attention of god’s own best buddy, Jerry Falwell.

But a prominent evangelical leader says he, too, is suspicious of churches that preach economic and social justice.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia, says Jesus wasn’t interested in politics. He says that those pastors who preach economic and social justice “are trying to twist the gospel to say the gospel supported socialism.”

“Jesus taught that we should give to the poor and support widows, but he never said that we should elect a government that would take money from our neighbor’s hand and give it to the poor,” Falwell says.

That’s right, Jerry. God wants you to be rich; to live in luxury while preaching poverty of spirit, to cash the checks from the poor and trusting, to build temples to yourselves. You are as delusional as Beck. You make a great team. Sort of like the religious-right’s version of Martin and Lewis.

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