John R. Houk
© October 30, 2010
One of the favorite rites of Leftist propaganda is to accuse the Tea Partiers of being bigots, racists, xenophobes and religious extremists. One day I was searching for some Tea Party Movement information via Google. During the search I had a “surprise-surprise” moment of finding loads of MSM both at home and abroad the Leftist propaganda I just wrote about.
George Monbiot writing for the UK’s Guardian wrote a piece about the Tea Party Movement in America because – GASP! – People on a grassroots level are beginning to adopt the principles of less government, fiscal responsibility and less taxation. Thus Monbiot writes what he believes is a straight line from the past to the present believing Tea Partiers are well meaning dupes in which Big Business under the auspices of billionaire family Koch (Oil and Energy Business) are financing the Tea Party and a host of Conservative Think Tanks to influence lower taxation for the wealthy and Big Business. Monbiot includes historic racists and Right Wing Conspiracy Theorists (such as the John Birch Society – JBS) are the roots of today’s Tea Partiers.
Think about that oxymoronic thought: well meaning people coupled with racist Right Wing xenophobes in the same brain explosive thought pattern of Monbiot.
The Tea Party … is mostly composed of passionate, well-meaning people who think they are fighting elite power, unaware that they have been organised by the very interests they believe they are confronting. We now have powerful evidence that the movement was established and has been guided with the help of money from billionaires and big business.
Charles and David Koch own 84% of Koch Industries, the second-largest private company in the United States. It runs oil refineries, coal suppliers, chemical plants and logging firms, and turns over roughly $100bn a year; the brothers are each worth $21bn. The company has had to pay tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements for oil and chemical spills and other industrial accidents. The Kochs want to pay less tax, keep more profits and be restrained by less regulation. Their challenge has been to persuade the people harmed by this agenda that it's good for them.
Are the Koch’s environmentally evil hurting the people they are throwing money toward? There is a good chance they are which has to make the Eco-Conspiracy Theorists (i.e. on the Left side) incomprehensibly lunatic. Left Wing Eco-Conspiracy Theorists are concerned about the carbon footprint destroying the earth ecosystem which in turn will kill the earth which will in turn kill off humanity. Who is at fault? Of course it is Big Business.
If a fair tax or a less Socialistically intrusive tax that not only benefits the profit of the rich and powerful (Left and Right by the way) but also benefits the working Middle Class because higher revenue means more money into the hands of the Working Middle Class which betters the non-rich’s quality of life as well. Is this a case of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? No! It is a case of the rich getting richer, the poor becoming better off and entrepreneur individual utilizing hard work and innovation to join the rich. Friends, this is America. Friends, this is a repudiation of a Socialistic dominated economy such as in Europe.
If the Tea Party is more about grassroots benefits, then the Koch beneficence does not connect the grassroots Tea Partiers to some nefarious design of the Koch brothers and Big Business. As to the ecology: ecological abuse that harms individuals is one of the reasons government exists. Instead of intruding in the lives of individuals government is to protect the lives of individuals. I only thing that I will agree with the Left about is that Big Business and its wealthy business elites need to be held accountable for making land and/or life dangerous for individuals. Often times the penalty needs to be a penalty above a fine that Big Business simply throws money at even if it is a temporary loss. Rather the penalty ALSO should be jail time for the people involved in directing a crime against humanity. Although the Koch’s efforts may be self-serving, the reality is Koch money is going to a movement demanding fiscal responsibility and responsible taxation rather than the failed economics of Socialism.
The connection to racism and xenophobia is amusing as well.
This section is not intended to be exhaustive or comprehensive. The highlights presented here are drawn from scholarly studies and reporting on the movement by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Neo-Confederate Movement
In their study of the development of the neo-Confederate movement Edward Sebesta and Euan Hague identified Robert Lewis Dabney, a rather marginal 19th century theologian, when judged against his contemporaries, as “arguably the most significant early advocate of a theological perspective of the Civil War.”
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Sebesta and Hague wrote, “Dabney believed that the Bible legitimated slavery, and thus opposition to slavery was tantamount to rejecting Christianity.”1
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Sebesta and Hague identified a “theological war thesis, an assessment that interprets the nineteenth century CSA [Confederate States of America] to be an orthodox Christian nation and understands the 1861-1865 US Civil War to have been a theological war over the future American religiosity fought between devout Christian and heretical Union states.”2
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Three key theologians and theoreticians trace their own intellectual lineage back to Dabney—the late Rousas J. Rushdoony, founder of Christian Reconstructionism at the Chalcedon Foundation; Steven Wilkins, co-founder (with history professor Michael Hill) of the racist, secessionist League of the South; and Douglas Wilson, who heads the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals, Credenda/Agenda, Canon Press, and New Saint Andrews College—all of them located in Moscow, Idaho.
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Goldberg’s book has chapters on homosexuality, Intelligent Design, abstinence sex education, and the Bush administration’s faith-based initiative. But, central to the effort to achieve their goal of re-establishing the historical revisionist interpretation of America being founded as a “Christian nation” is the “war on the courts.” Goldberg noted that the “Christian nationalists view the courts as the last intolerable obstacle to their palingenetic dream. Believing America to be a Christian nation, they see any ruling that contradicts their theology as de facto unconstitutional, and its enforcement tyrannical. They’re convinced that they must destroy the judiciary’s power to liberate themselves.” Moreover, the Christian nationalist effort to strip the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts from hearing cases related to the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause “could let state governments criminalize abortion and gay sex [read vociferous advocacy of states’ rights under the Tenth Amendment]. It could sanction the reinstitution of school prayer and the teaching of creationism and permit the ever greater Christianization of the country’s social services…It could intrude into the most intimate corners of Americans’ private lives.”7 (Origins of the Tea Party Movement: Part IV-B – Paul’s Network Components; James Scaminaci III 3/23/10)
This is a typical Leftist who is actually a history revisionist claiming the Christian Right are a bunch of historical revisionists. Scaminaci hasn’t made his point yet but he working his way to connect the present day Tea Party Movement of less government and less taxation to the Confederate Southern culture sympathizers as a theologically justified war by the South who are Black Slavery enthusiasts ergo the Tea Party are racist Afro-American hating bigots.
Scaminaci sees this “Neo-Confederacy” crowd became Christian Reconstructionists. The Christian Reconstructionists are the political influence of the Christian Right. Now if you are a Christian Right kind of person (meaning you are a Values vote politically and a Believer in the inerrancy of the Bible) and you either know little to nothing at all about Christian Reconstructionism, here is a small primer:
The modern Christian Reconstructionist (sometimes called Dominionism) was founded by Rousas J. Rushdoony, a writer and theologian whose 1973 book The Institutes of Biblical Law,” denounced the modern conception of democracy as “heresy” and called for the imposition of a Calvinist government similar to that of the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where “"In colonial New England the covenantal concept of church and state was applied. Everyone went to church, but only a limited number had voting rights in the church and therefore the state, because there was a coincidence of church membership and citizenship. The others were no less believers, but the belief was that only the responsible must be given responsibility. One faith, one law, and one standard of justice did not mean democracy. The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state, and it has worked towards reducing society to anarchy." [1]
In accordance with Levitical law, capital crimes in a Christian Reconstructionist society would include homosexuality, adultery, abortion, blasphemy, disobedience to one’s parents, idolatry and violation of the Sabbath. Rushdoony told Bill Moyers in 1988 that "The Bible identifies 15 crimes against the family worthy of the death penalty. Abortion is treason against the family and deserves the death penalty. Adultery is treason to the family; adulterers should be put to death. Homosexuality is treason to the family, and it too, is worthy of death." [2] This point was confirmed by Christian Reconstructionist Gary DeMar on an Atlanta Radio show during which the following exchange took place:
Gonzales: If, indeed the Reconstructionist movement ever made it in America, would you advocate these biblical principles being carried out: the execution of the adulterer, the abortionist, and the homosexual? DEMAR: I'm saying that they could be implemented, yes. [3]
Many Christian Reconstructionists advocate the reinstitution of slavery as a punishment for non-capital offenses. … (Conservapedia)
You should know Christian Reconstructionism is very small and is repudiated by most that are aware of it in the Christian Right. Most of the Christian Right may wish to have America’s Christian foundations attributed to the moral values that have made America a great nation, but I can think of no authentic Christian Right person and involved in politics who would wish the American Constitution to be amended establishing any form of Christianity as the State Church. Any State established Church would then be in a position to persecute all the other Denominations of Christianity. It is not like everyone on the Christian Right agrees absolutely with other Christian Right independent Churches or Dominations. I can see Charismatic/Pentecostals and Baptists doing some major theological clashes even though politically their positions are the same.
The many variations in Christian theology are one reason the Founding Fathers emphasized religious freedom and forbade Congress to establish a State Church. The concept was to prevent the government from meddling in the Christian religion but not Christianity from influence the government in Christian goodness and morality. The Left has a problem with that thus they have chosen to interpret the Jeffersonian phrase of “separation of Church and State” written to a Baptist Church meant the government would not get involved in Church affairs. As much as the probable Christian Deist referred to the Providence of the Creator I am convinced his concept of “separation of Church and State” did not mean Christianity should not have an influence for the good to be infused into government. Just to note to the Leftists: Jefferson’s letter to a local Baptist Church with phrase “separation of Church and State” is found NO WHERE in the United States Constitution let alone NOT in the First Amendment.
This is a huge reason most on the Christian Right deny any political ideas of Christian Reconstructionism restructuring America into a Christian nation with the enforcement of Levitical Laws that even modern Judaism abhors. The annoying appellation by the Left of the Christian Taliban for all of the Christian Right would indeed be applicable to Christian Reconstructionists.
You can see where Scaminaci is going, right? He is alluding to the Obama description of Americans who support the 2nd Amendment and to Christians that believe the Holy Bible is the Inspired Word of God.
"And it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations".
Tea Partiers thus are the same ignorant fellows that cling to their guns, religion and have antipathy toward (illegal) immigrants.
Frank Gaffney wrote a recent article entitled, “What I Learned at the Tea Party”. I fairly confident that the likes of Monbiot and Scaminaci will erupt into fits of the accusation racism after reading Gaffney. The article is about his address at two Tea Party meetings in Houston, TX. Gaffney’s address actually had little to do with Big Government, fiscal responsibility and lower taxes. Gaffney spoke on something close to my heart that Americans (Left and Right and in between) are nearly ignorant of the very un-American culture of Islam and Sharia Law. As a Tea Partier you have to ask, “What in the world was Gaffney thinking talking about the threat of Islam to our culture, American Liberty and the U.S. Constitution?”
Here is the thing about this minority representation of modern Islam: The Muslims claiming to be moderate are more and more being influenced by the purist ideology of those Muslims described by the West and moderate Muslims as radical Islam. The intellectuals of Islamic academia residing in the Middle East are more and more accepting the tenets of radical Islam. Indeed the majority of literature flowing to Islamic schools and Mosques in America comes from the area steeped in Wahhabi/Salafi doctrine.
JRH 10/30/10
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