Angels of Light or Right Wing Hate Mongers?

ANGELS OF LIGHT OR RIGHT WING HATE MONGERS?
By Donatra

Are you sick and tired of Republican attack ads? Are you sick and tired of verbal assaults on twelve-year-old-boys and two-year-old-girls by rich, white fat men wo share a basic contempt for change and who practice rhetorical savagery as a virtue? Yeah. I am too. And I think I finally understand the reason behind all the right wing hate-mongering and vitriole.

For all intents and purposes conservatives tend to view human beings as evil, demented creatures. Several years ago one of our blogging partners found himself involved in a truly viceral school board race in which members of the supposedly Christian Right were trying to take over a local school board. He wasn't running for office himself, but as an independent thinker and as a child of the 18th Century Enlightenment, he gradually discovered that the indviduals with whom he was debating had a very different view of the world than mainstream Christians. As we all know, many right wing Christians believe that human beings are products of the Biblical fall from grace as told in the Book of Genesis. They genuinely believe that because Adam and Eve fell from grace that every subsequent human being on the face of the earth must be a depraved, sinful criiminal at heart and that societies need strong, perhaps even repressive forms of government to keep the evil, criminal sides of our natures under strict control. To that end conservatives, especially Fundamentalist Christians, place a greater emphasis on control and regulation and less emphasis on personal freedom, constitutional liberties, and representative forms of government in general. They believe that if you give the people too much freedom that they will act on the depraved, sinful natures, creating chaos and wrecking havoc.

That however, was not what many of the Constitutional Framers believed. Many of the most influential framers were liberal Christians or Deists who believed that mankind, while not entirely perfectable, was at least somewhat perfectable. To that end they emphasized public morality as opposed to the kind of Puritanical, private morality with which the far right has so disturbingly obsessed. The far right in this country, again, the Fundamentalist Right in particular, believes that the purpose of the federal government is to control the private lives of the indvidual, to act as a kind of thought or morality police to prevent the ignorant masses from hurting themselves or others. As a dirct result we see a twisted preoccupation with sexual matters, and other personal issues which are none of the government's business. By the same token the far right dismisses the idea of public morality, so while the far right tramples on the Constitution to invade our private lives, indeed our privacy in general, it is perfectly content to tolerate the suffering of large groups of people. Whether it's uninsured children, the sick, the old, the weak, or the infirm, etc, the far right operates under the false assumption that people deserve to suffer because--you guessed it--Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. In sharp comparison, the Framers of our Constitution, like modern day liberals, were less concerned with private morality than they were in public morality. In this regard they emphasized the central teachings of Jesus. Indeed, it might even be suggested that the NonChristian Deists had a better understadning of Christ's morality than the suposed Christians who use the name of Christ but who spit upon his techings whenever tose teachings become a political inconvenience. Unike the radical right, Liberals take Christ seriously when he talks about healing the sick, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, and turning the other cheek. Unlike the Conservatives who pay mere lip service to what Jesus taught, Liberals believe that civilized governments take care of their weakest citizens.

In recent days we have seen the end result of conservaive thought (an oxymoron if ever there was one!). We have seen a President, who once preached an empty gospel of Compassionate Conservatism, as he vetoed a program that wuld have provided health insurance to lower and middle income children. And what was the Conservative reasoning behind this veto? if we help a few more people now we may be tempted to help more people in the future. NOOOOOO. We wouldn't want to do that. Why, who ever heard of a government that didn't leave its chjildren vulnerable to illness and possible death. We wouldn't want to prevent that. Not when we have some archaic paradigm that says we have to punish everyone because Eve tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden. And while we're at it, suppose we talk a little more about the rhetorical attacks by conservatives on defenseless children. Will someone please tell me just what in the hell a two-year-old girl did to merit the dubious labels of evil, sinful, and/or criminal? From where I'm sitting the most this poor child has ever done has, in all liklihood, has been to poop in her pants or knock over a glass or orange juice. Certainly that did not merit public attacks in our corporate media. Then we have the outrageous attacks on a 12-year-old boy who recoevered from a coma. What exactly did this boy do to deserve public humiliation? Was he in the Garden of Eden? The last I knew he probably wasn't, and yet the far right had no trouble when it came to picking on someone who wasn't able to defend himself. rather like Anne Coulter's attack of the 911 widows.

On the bright side, I suspect that the American people may be waking up to the basic fact that some of the talking heads (I so want to say driping penisis) on the far right simply don't know what they are talking about. They are so convinced that everyone else is evil and depraved that they refuse to cast the very large and blinding motes from their own eyes. And that's the problem, the underlaying weakness in their basic philosophy, their basic paradigm. If people are corrupt, evil, and sinful, then how can we be certain that the conservativs themselves aren't judging others by themselves? How do we know that they aren't engaged in the fine art of projection? Doesn't it stand to reason that if, according to their belief system--all people are criminals and sinners that they themselves are also criminals and sinners and that we have merely elected devils in the guise of self-righteous angels to be our dictators, tyrants, and fuhrers? It may well me. I know, I know, the Funamentalist right may wel argue that they have been filld with the Holy Spirit, that they have been chosen by God. But how can we be sure? For if we take a literal translation of Biblican text, we arrive at a point where that same text warns us about deception.

Does any one recall that inconvenient verse in 2 Corinthians, 11:14? "And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." Isn't that what can happen when we begin to believe in the natural superiority of both, ourselves and our belief systems? Do we not begin to accept evil as a form of benevolence?

Looking at the Social Darwinism that has become our economic policy; at the violence, sadism, and mass murder that has become our foreign policy; at the torture, corruption and prevarication that has become our legal system, and the ceaseless flow of verbal attacks against the weak and defenseless which has become modern day journalism, I would suspect that the term conservative morality is also an oxymoron and that we have exchanged Christ's morality for deregulated savagery.

--

CHEAP GRACE

CHEAP GRACE:
THE HYPOCRTICAL AND DESTRUCTIVE NATURE OF THE PSEUDO-CHRISTIAN RIGHT

By Trevor, Jeffrey, Brandon, Daniel, Kyle and Brian


"We don't lie, cheat, or steal on Sunday, but God help you on Monday."
An old Midwestern joke

Call it what you like: cheap grace, hypocrisy, dime store theology, a mockery of the Holy bible, sociopathy: In the end it is almost invariably excused by two of the worst and most abused passages in the New Testament:

"And whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words when ye depart out of that house or city, Shake off the dust of your feet..."
-------The Gospel of Saint Matthew 10:14

And

"Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily I say unto thee except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily I saith unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said..."
-------The Gospel of Saint John 3: 3-7

-------One of the great ironies (read deceptions) in the year 2006 was the utter lack of consistency that the so-called Christian Right brings to both, the political and religious arenas. Certain pastors and politicians argue that the Ten Commandments are so important and such an integral part of Western Civilization, that they must turn them into graven images, mere idols as a part of the Christian Right's ongoing war against western civilization. The Ten Commandments, argues the Christian Right, must be forced into virtually every aspect of our public institutions, from village squares to court house lawns, to school rooms and governmental buildings etc. But what the Christian Right fails to tell you is that while reactionary religious leaders on the far right are trying to force the Ten Commandments on everyone else, those same religious leaders are telling their own congregations that the Ten Commandments are obsolete, that Jesus Christ nailed them to the cross and that we are all saved through grace alone, not deeds or actions .

-------To be honest, I have some major problems with that kind of theology (or lack thereof). In many ways it reminds of me of an under-Christianized version of navel contemplation, an excuse for doing nothing, for not getting involved with the world condition while human suffering and abject misery run rampant. Ideally, faith or grace-based theology is supposed to work like this: You are born again; you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and if you are sincere in your acceptance you will naturally be guided to behave in a way that is acceptable and pleasing in the eyes of the Lord because you have been filed with the Holy Spirit. But as we all know, there is a tremendous difference between the stated idea and the actual end result, the every day practice of one's religion.

-------Far from being filled with the Holy Spirit, it appears as if some religious leaders and their authoritarian followers are filled with what John Dean refers to as "cheap grace." The same appears to be true of certain right wing politicians. Instead of behaving in a more spiritual or compassionate manner, many authoritarian Christians use cheap grace as an excuse to engage in a remorseless, over-glorified ego trip which is anything but Christian or beneficial. Convinced that the Ten Commandments are obsolete, they substitute a clear cut code of moral and ethical behavior with a quick prayer in which they beg the Lord to forgive them. Believing that Jesus now sits up at night to admire them, they then operate under the false assumption that they can transgress, perform unspeakable acts, beg for God's forgiveness, and then proceed to commit even more outrageous transgressions against their fellow man or even society at large.

-------It is as as if these individuals had worn down their consciences with cheap grace--a remarkable and frightening process. "One of the things a conscience is supposed to do is make us act better, but when you have a means of eliminating guilt there is not much incentive to clean up your act. You see how conscience gets short circuited," (Robert) Altmeyer noted. He added. "bad behavior may produce guilt, but it is easily washed away. So then more bad behavior can result again and again, getting removed very easily through religion. There is a terrible closing to this reality. The lack of guilt over things he has done in the past can actually contribute to the self-righteousness of the authoritarian. And this self-righteousness has proven, in experiments, to be the main factor that unleashes the right wing authoritarian's aggressive impulses." He concluded, "I have called them 'God's designated hitters.' We end up with the irony that the people who think they are so very good end up doing so very much evil, and more remarkably, they are probably the last people in the world who will ever realize the connection between the two." There is no better explanation for the behavior of many Christian conservatives, for it accounts for their license to do ill, Christian beliefs notwithstanding."
-------From Conservatives Without Conscience (page 64)
------- by John Dean

The results have been disastrous: A loose-tongued evangelist who endorses the assassination of foreign leaders; a sociopathic Texan Governor turned sociopathic (P)resident who rejoices at the ideas of war, death, torture, and stealing from the poor to give to the rich; a right wing party which embraces the Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism while spewing disingenuous double talk about democracy and freedom. Why, when you listen to these warped individuals, you practically have to stop and ask yourself: Are they quoting from a Catholic or Protestant Bible, or have they embraced the teachings of Anton LaVay's Satanic Bible? If you didn't know better you'd think that the teachings of Jesus were irrelevant to these phony Christians. Their warped theology may well teach that Jesus nailed the Ten Commandments to the cross, but they don't have a clue as to what Jesus himself had to say. Indeed, they seem to believe that when Jesus spoke (in the New Testament) he was only doing so because it was a boring Tuesday afternoon and he didn't know what else to do with himself. But if Jesus is indeed both divine and perfectly human (without sin) then why do these pontificating hate mongers ignore their own Savior when he asks us to feed the hungry, give alms to the poor, and turn the other cheek? Again, the answer seems to be cheap grace. They don't mind bastardizing the name of Jesus Christ as long as then can exploit His name to promote hate, warfare, violence, racism, homophobia, and Social Darwinism. But when Jesus specifically asks them to be more generous, less hateful, and more forgiving, they not only nail the Ten Commandments to the cross--they also nail the teachings of their beloved Lord and Savior to the cross. All the while begging the deity to forgive them so they can turn around, undermine His teachings, and move on to even more shameful and damaging acts.

-----Moreover moral codes aren't the only victims. Other victims include legitimate Christianity itself and the Red State Cesspools where the Republican/Pseudo Christian fecal matter has backed up into the lives of Red State citizens. Consider the following:

-------* THE 10 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST OVER ALL INCARCERATION RATES: Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Arizona , and Delaware; Delaware neing the only blue state. In other words, nine out of ten were Red States. [ Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners, 2003 (November 2004)]

-------* THE 10 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST RATE OF FEMALE INCARCERATION IN 2003: Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, Montana, Idaho, Arizona, Alabama, Nevada, Colorado. Ten out of ten were Red States . [Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners 2003 (November 2004)]

-------* THE TEN STATES WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF EXECUTIONS IN 2004 WERE ALL RED STATES: Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nevada . [Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment, 2004 (November 2005)]

-------* The 15 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST RATES OF DEATH BY FIREARMS IN 2003 WERE ALL RED STATES: Alaska , Louisiana, New Mexico, Nevada, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Arizona, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky. [Deaths. Final Date for 2003 National Center For Health Statistics Volume 54, No 13, 2006 ]

-------* OF THE 15 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST RATES OF SUICIDE, 14 OUT OF 15 WERE RED STATES: Wyoming, Alaska, Nevada, Montana, New Mexico, Idaho , Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, South Dakota, Kentucky. Note that Oregon was the only blue state. [Deaths. Final Date for 2003, National Center for health statistics. Volume 54. No 13, 2006]

-------* TEN OF THE TOP TEN STATES WITH THE HIGHEST DIVORCE RATES ARE RED STATES: Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida. [Division of Vital Statistics. National Center for Health Statistics CDC. 2005 among 45 reported.]

------- * NINE OF THE TEN STATES WITH THE HIGHEST ILLEGITIMACY RATES ARE RED STATES: New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arizona, South Carolina, Florida, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, and Delaware--again, Delaware being the only blue state. [Births. Final Data for 2003. National Center for Health, Statistics. Volume 54, Nov 2, 2005 ]

-------* 14 OF THE 15 STATES WITH THE HIGHEST OBESITY RATES ARE RED STATES: Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee,Louisiana, Arizona, Kentucky, Texas, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Michigan--Michigan being the only blue state. [Behavioral Risk Surveillance System. Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2004 ]

-------* EIGHT OF THE ELEVEN STATES WITH THE HIGHEST GROSSING MARKETS FOR GAMBLING ARE RED STATES: Nevada, Mississippi, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, Iowa, Colorado, South Dakota, New Jersey, Ilinois, and Michigan--New Jersey, Illinois, and Michigan being the only blue states. [United States Gaming Bulletin. Ernst Young 2005. Includes Native American gambling. ]

-------* EIGHT OF THE TEN SMARTEST STATES ARE BLUE STATES: Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maine, Minnesota, Virginia, Wisconsin, New York, and Montana--Montana being the only red state. (On the other hand, the 10 states with the worst paid teachers are all red states. Out of the bottom states, eight out of ten are red states, a situation that might be explained by the fact that blue states place a higher premium on both education and a willingness to pay for education. [From Morgan Quinto Press. Based on 21 factors from its reference book Education State Rankings 2005-2006]

------- All right. Maybe I'm being a little unfair. Instead of looking at the deplorable results that conservative policies have produced in Conservative, Republican states, maybe I should be looking at what faith only religion has done for the individual believer, to the individual conservative politician or preacher. Truly their belief in God, their repeated prayers for redemption have made them better people.

-------Right?

-------Wrong.

-------This is a list of Conservative politicians and preachers who have...Well, just read on. You'll get the idea.

1. Edison Misla Aldarondo: Republican legislator. Sentenced to thirteen years in prison for molestation of a nine-years-old.

2. Randal David Ankeney: Republican activist. Arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child with force. He faces six charges related to getting a thirteen- year-old girl stoned, then having sex with her.

3. Merrill Robert Barter: Republican County Commissioner. Pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact & assault on a teenage boy.

4. Robert Bauman: Republican congressman & anti-gay activist. Charged with having sex with a sixteen-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.

5. Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to thirty months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

6. Louis Beres: Chairman of the Christian Coalition of Oregon. Three of his family members accuse him of molesting them when they were preteens.

7. Howard L. Brooks: Republican legislative aide and adviser to a California assemblyman. Charged with molesting a twelve-year-old boy & possession of child porn.

8. Andrew Buhr: Republican politician, former committeeman for Hadley Township Missouri, former Tom Delay aide. Charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a thirteen-year-old boy.

9. Born Theodore Robert Cowell , this individual, under the name of Ted Bundy, would become synonymous with the term serial killer. " Bundy worked on the re-election campaign of Washington's Republican Governor Dan Evans. Evans was elected and he appointed Bundy to the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Committee. Bundy's political future seemed secure, when in 1973 he became assistant to Ross Davis, chairman of the Washington State Republican Party. It was a good time in Bundy's life. He had a girlfriend, his old girlfriend was once again in love with him, and his footing in the political arena was strong."

10. John Allen Burt: Republican anti-abortion activist. Convicted of sexually molesting a 15-year-old girl at the home for troubled girls that he ran.

11. Keola Childs: Republican county councilman. Pleaded guilty to sexual assault in the first degree for molesting a male child.

12. Kevin Coan: Republican St.Louis Election Board official. Arrested & charged with trying to buy sex from a fourteen-year-old girl whom he met on Internet.

13. Dan Crane: Republican congressman. Married, father of six, received a "100% Morality Rating" from Christian Voice. Had sex with a minor working as a congressional page. On July 20th, the House voted for censure of Crane, the first time that censure had been imposed for sexual misconduct.

14. Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was charged with rape for allegedly paying a fifteen-year-old girl for sex. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women The barrage of Republican public figures having sex with minors is hard to keep track of without a program. Fortunately, The Sappho Manifesto has provided us with a program to keep track of them all.

15. Peter Dibble: Republican legislator. Pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a thirteen- year-old girl.

16. Richard A. Delgaudio: Republican fundraiser and Bush pioneer. Found guilty of child porn charges.

17. Nicholas Elizondo: Director of the Young Republican Federation. Molested his six- year-old daughter & sentenced to six years in prison.

18. Larry Dale Floyd: Republican Constable in Denton County, Texas, Precinct 2. Arrested for allegedly crossing state lines to have sex with an 8 year old child & charged with seven related offences.

19. Jack W. Gardner: Republican councilman. Convicted of molesting a thirteen year old girl, when the Republican party, knowing of these crimes, put him on the ballot.

20. Richard Gardner : Nevada State Representative. Admitted to molesting his two daughters.

21. Matthew Glavin: President & CEO of Southeastern Legal Foundation, big player in Clinton impeachment. Arrested multiple times for public indecency, one time fondling the crotch of the officer who was arresting him.

22. Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing eight-and ten-year old girls.

23. Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a . "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.

24. Mark A. Grethen: Republican activist. Convicted of six counts of sex crimes involving children.

25. Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.

26. Mark Harris: Republican city councilman who is described as a "church goer". Convicted of repeatedly having sex with an eleven- year-old girl & sentenced to twelve years in prison

27. The Reverend Ted Haggard of the New Life Church, after preaching a message of strict, right wing "morality" and brazen homophobia, was outed in November, 2006 by a male escourt (read male prostitute) with whom he had been sleeping once a month for the better part of three years. In addition Haggard was also accused of using methamphetamine. Haggard subsequently confessed to the allegations

28. Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his twelve-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.

29. Howard Scott Heldreth: Anti-abortion activist who gained famed during the Shiavo media-circus. Convicted of two charges of raping a child in 2002.

30. Mike Hintz: First Assembly of God youth pastor, introduced by Bush on the campaign trail & promoted his policies. two months later, this married father of four turned himself into police, charged with sexual exploitation of a child.

31. Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to forty years in prison for molesting an eight-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.

32. Paul Ingram: Republican party leader of Turston County, Washington. Pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served fourteen years in federal prison.

33. Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

34. Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.

35. Jon Matthews: Republican talk show host in Houston. Indicted for indecency with a child, including exposing his genitals to a girl under age seventeen.

36. Nicholas Morency: Republican anti-abortion activist. Pleaded guilty to possessing child porn on his computer and offering a bounty to anyone who murders am abortion doctor.

37. Jeffery Patti: Republican Committee Chairman. Arrested for distributing what experts call " some of the most offensive material in the child porn world." It was a video clip of a five- year-old girl being raped.

38. Mark Pazuhanich: Republican judge. Pleaded no contest to fondling a ten-year-old girl and sentenced to ten years probation.

39. Dennis Rader, otherwise known as the BTK (Blind, Torture, Kill) Serial Killer was a savage homicidal maniiac who murdered his many victims according to a ritualized script. When he murdered his neighbor Marine Hedge, in 1985, he quite literally took her to the Wichita Christ Lutheran Church and photographed her dead body on the altar. To the outside world, Rader gave all the outward appearances of normalcy. He was a Boy Scout Leader; he was a member of the above mentioned Christ Lutheran Church, and he was a registered Republican. He was also considered a loving father and decent family man who never the less quoted the Bible at his sentencing hearing.

40. Beverly Russell: County Chairman of Christian Coalition. Sexually molested his step-daughter, Susan Smith, who later drowned her two children.


41. Brent K. Schepp, a Republican candidate for the Kane County Illinois Board, who was arrested on charges of child molestation. Then there's 65-year-old Republican Pennsylvania Congressman, Don Sherwood, who was accused by his 29-year-old mistress of repeated instances of physical abuse, including strangulation (by the way Sherwood's campaign held a rally last week hosted by President Bush and Rick "Family Values: Santrorum,* who has also recorded endorsements for the embattled candidate.

42. Larry Jack Schwarz: Republican parole board officer & former Colorado State Representative. Fired after child porn was found in his possession.

43. Tom Shortridge: Republican campaign consultant. Sentenced to three years probation for taking nude pictures of a fifteen- year-old girl.

44. Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a fifteen year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.

45. Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

46. David Swartz: Republican County Commissioner. Pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of eleven, sentenced to 8 years in prison.

47. Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly had sex with a sixteen- year old girl when he was 28.

48. Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.

49. Robin Vanerwall: Republican strategist & Citadel Military College graduate, Director of Faith and Family Alliance, member of Ralph Reed's inner circle who funneled money to and from Jack Abromoff to Reed. Convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the Internet.

50. Spokane Mayor Jim West (a conservative Republican who rabidly opposes gay rights and teen sex) was caught in a sting operation by the local newspaper as he was arranging sex with a forensic computer expert – hired by the paper – that he thought was an 18-year- old boy. While technically never convicted of having sex with a minor, there was plenty of evidence that he molested children while he was a scout leader years ago.

51. Keith Westmoreland: Tennessee State Representative. Arrested on seven felony counts of lewd & lascivious exhibition to minors under 16-years-old.

52. Stephen White: Republican preacher. Arrested after allegedly offering $ 20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

----- - To this list I might have added Virginia Senator George Allen, for his history of racism and domestic violence, but to the best of my knowledge Senator Allen is only a bigot, a bully, and a thug, not sexual deviant. And I really don't know what to do about Dennis Hastert because he only covered for online stalker Jim Foley. As far as I know Hastert has not molested nor stalked any minors nor engaged in any sex crimes--only covered them up. On the other hand, I probably should have included terrorist bomber, Eric Rudolph, the homophobic, anti-abortion fanatic who killed two people and wounded 110 others because he had a problem with abortion and "abberant sexual behavior." As if murdering people is the "Christian" alternative.

------- As you can tell, I am hardly surprised by this kind of behavior on the conservative side of the political/religious spectrum. The Republican Party, after all has been hijacked by people who John Dean refers to as "Conservatives Without Conscience." What, you might wonder is a conservative without a conscience? Read on. Dean divides them into two categories: The Social Dominators (or leaders) and the Right Wing Authoritarians (or followers),

-------Social Dominators are typically men. They are dominating, and they oppose equality. They also crave personal power and tend to be amoral. In addition they are also: intimidating, bullying, faintly hedonistic, vengeful, pitiless, exploitive, manipulative, dishonest, highly prejudiced (racist, sexist, homophobic), mean-spirited, militant, and nationalistic. They tell others what they want to hear, they take advantage of suckers, they create false images to sell themselves, they may or may not be religious, and they are usually politically and economically conservative/Republican. Right Wing Authoritarian Followers, on the other hand, may be men or women. They are submissive to and aggressive on behalf of authority, and are highly conventional. They are also deeply religious (often to the point of fanaticism) and possess moderate to little education. They trust people who should never be trusted and, like their totalitarian masters, they are highly prejudiced (especially against homosexuals, women, and followers of religions which differ from their own). They are also mean-spirited, narrow-minded, intolerant, bullying, zealous, dogmatic, uncritical of authority, hypocritical, inconsistent, contradictory, prone to panic easily, highly self-righteous, moralistic, strict disciplinarians, severely punitive, demanding of loyalty and eager to return loyalty. They tend to possess little in the way of self awareness and they are usually politically and economically conservative. (See John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience pages 68-69, for the source material).

-------The upshot here is obvious. On one hand the pseudo Christians claim to be moral, God-fearing people, but when you look at some of the areas in this country where they have the most influence they are what some of us might refer to as "dens of iniquity." They preach morality and good government on one hand, but when it's all said and done they are little more than authoritarian (some might say totalitarian) leaders and followers who couldn't tell a decent set of morals from an advanced case of genital warts .

-------Their so called Christian values are the same values that one would find among sociopaths and malignant narcissists, people with dangerous, incurable personality disorders. And while we can't send them to the mental hospitals for the criminally insane (which is where a few of them belong) , we can at least remove them from elected positions in the same way that one would remove a cancerous tumor.

-------These people have done enough damage. It's time to bring an end to their irrational reign of terror. Let logic, compassion, and reason flourish once again.


Trevor, Jeffrey, Brandon, Daniel, Kyle and Brian



SOURCES

THE KING JAMES BIBLE: EXTRA LARGE PRINT EDITION
American Bible Society, New York

CONSERVATIVES WITHOUT CONSCIENCE
Page 63- 64, 68-69
by John Dean
Viking 2006

MEET UP
46 Republican Pedophiles
http://dfa.meetup.com/boards/view/viewthread?thread=2075382

WASH PARK PROJECT
Republican and Religious Right Wing Pedophiles
26 April 2006
posted by Andrew Oh-Willeke
http://dfa.meetup.com/boards /view/viewthread?thread=2075382

ABOUT
Crime / Punishment
Serial Killer Ted Bundy
From Charles Montaldo
http://crime.about.com/od/serial/p/tedbundy.htm

CNN.com / Law Center
Rudolph Reveals Motives
Tesday April 19, 2005
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/13/eric.rudolph/index.html

VANITY FAIR (November Print Edition)
"Red State Babylon"
Page 164
by James Wolcott

DUAL DIAGNOSIS AND THE ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER
March 25, 2000
http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/antisoc.htm

GEORGE BUSH IS A MALIGNANT NARCISSIST
by Paul Levy
2004
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/bushnarc.html

Special Thanks to "Dude" from THE BLUE REPUBLIC for the information about Spokane Mayor Jim West; and to "Jay" from THE BLUE REPUBLIC for his information about Brent K. Schepp. And a big thank you to LEftOfCenter at The Blue Republic for providing us with the wonderful article about Malignant Narcissism



Authors notes by Trevor and Jeffrey

-------In many ways this was a a more difficult project than our recent revision of THE FOURTEEN CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM. We have worked together on projects before, but this is the first time that all five of the founders have worked together on a single project. For the record, Trevor is a dyed in the wool atheist--quite a change from the devout and very conservative Prebyterian that he had once been. Jeffrey has been drifting towards Deism; possibly because his "favorite" Founding Fathers were Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Brandon is a "Secular Buddhist," essentially accepting the moral teachings of the Buddhist faith without the supernatural trappings. Danny is an agnostic, although he may quite possibly swing over to a liberal form of Christianity. Kyle is a "recovering Presbyterian--and if you know what that means you know more than the authors.

------- Oddly enough, we enjoyed every minute of the composition--bringing together the various threads, weaving in past posts, and discovering that the material was more related than we had ever imagined.

-------Will we work like this again? We certainly hope so. Peace to you and yours

-------Trevor and Jeffrey