<p>Until the conservatives stop divorcing and sapping welfare money from the gov’t, I will pay no heed to their cries of the decline of “family” or “moral” values.</p>
<p>People who fly planes into buildings and blow up subways and night clubs.</p>
<p>I think that’s why we go through security checks at airports and little men with badges open up purses and bags when I go to sporting events.</p>
<p>Sometimes the little men will have me turn on my cell phone just to see if it’s really a cell phone and not a bomb. They’re probably just doing that though to annoy me.</p>
<p>It always makes me scratch my head in amazement at the number of people who feel more threatened by the actions of the Christian Right than by Radical Islamic fundamentalism. Do you honestly believe that Jerry Falwell is more of a threat to the United States than Osama Bin Laden? Had you been trapped in the twin towers on the morning of 9/11, and I asked you that question, how would you have answered (assuming there had been time 
)? One group is using its constitutional right as a voting block to push a political and social agenda based on its shared beliefs (however offensive those beliefs may be to those who vehemently diagree). The other group’s stated goal is to destroy our country by means of mass murder, mayhem, and financial devastation. One group has yet to succeed in establishing a single one of its stated objectives by way of Law or Constitutional amendment (much less by mass murder, mayhem and financial devastation). The other has not only shown an outright distain for the rule of law itself, but imposes by force its agenda upon a growing numbers of nations across the globe. Its no accident that Radical Islam is at the center of a disproportionate number of politically motivated violent acts across the globe in recent years. If the Christian Right stopped just talking smack and started planting bombs, then maybe there’d be reason to feel more threatened by its members than those of Al Qaida and its allies.</p>
<p>clear thinking, poetsheart</p>
<p>It doesn’t compare in scope, but some extreme members of the Christian Right have been planting bombs at the abortion clinics, shooting people, and so on.</p>
<p>Those members are few and far between - radical Islamists are not.</p>
<p>“Antonin Scalia and certain Republican members of Congress may not have actually attended PHC, but when it comes to implementing major social changes, they are now playing for the same team.”</p>
<p>Coureur, please explain to me how Antonin Scalia and/or “certain Republican members of Congress” have even come close to changing American Jurisprudence, Constituational Law, or national social mores to conform to an agenda anti-thetical to your own. (?)</p>
<p>The Supreme court has a long history of discision making that routinely thwarts the predictions of punits and alarmists. Once they get on the bench, all bets are off as to how they will vote on a given issue. Time and time again, Justices have shown a remarkable ability to think independent of political noise.</p>
<p>And concerning “certain members of Congress” ----As the pendulum swings along the wide continuum from left to right, and back again, and back again, and…So goes Congress. And the White House. If history is any indication, the American voting public seems poised to impose another sea change in the 2008. Then it will be time for much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the GOP and that monster monolith, “THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT”.</p>
<p>Do you think that the threat of Islamic fundamentalism is existential though, Poetsheart? </p>
<p>I have read the fanatic rantings of Osama bin Laden, as well as the lunatics who are currently president of Iran and the new head of Hamas. I think they are all extremely dangerous. I have read their stated goals, and do think the threat of terrorism is real. Do I think it affects us everyday in this country, as an existential threat, the way it does in Israel, for example? No, I don’t. Nor do I think that our current method of “stamping out terrorists” is doing much to hamper the movement. Seems that we are breeding terrorists faster than we can kill them.</p>
<p>As I said, I think the threat is real, but not imminent. I don’t quake at night in fear, and I still ride the subway, go to crowded spots, etc. The terrorists are not controlling America, but the radical right is trying to. That’s all I am saying, although I hear you on your point.</p>
<p>please, everything with a beating heart wants control,…</p>
<p>poetshart,</p>
<p>You speak just like the RNC. News not good? Discussion not going in a direction you like? change the subject.</p>
<p>Nice try, but we’re not discussing islamic extremists here, at least not until you brought it up and made statements to inflame the discussion
</p>
<p>Where the ^&*# did that come from? </p>
<p>Let’s get back on topic. The fact that a hate group (and that’s, I’m afraid what PHC is training) has a constitutional right to free speech does not make their hatemongering correct. The fact that a number of folks, even a majority, espouse views that are distasteful to a minority does not make their majority view right.</p>
<p>Perhaps you think segregation in the south was OK because the white (Christian, no less!) majority wanted it?</p>
<p>Geesh.</p>
<p>I don’t know. </p>
<p>A radical fundamentalist college with 12 professors verses a global terrorist organization that has killed approximately 3000 innocent Americans and thousands more around the world.</p>
<p>Hmmm? One of these things is not like the other…da, da,da da…dada, da, da. I’m going to have to go with the mass murders of Americans 15 miles from my home and blocks away from where Im doing my internship, Link. </p>
<p>I ride the train into Manhattan and back every day…they seem to have wanted to blow those trains up in the tunnel last week or next week or so. </p>
<p>PHC, on the other hand, wants to get more ushers or aids or toadies into our democratically elected government.</p>
<p>One seems like hysteria, the other seems like realistic fear.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>“but the radical right is trying to. That’s all I am saying, although I hear you on your point.”</p>
<p>And they’re doing a pi**poor job of it. That’s all I’m saying, especially given the fact that not everyone who identifies him/herself as an “evangelical christian” walks in lock-step with the political arm of the that brand of Christianity. I’ve often observed that the more self-righteous among liberals believes conservative christians are all plugged into a sort of hive-mind, and are individually incapable of thinking for themselves. That’s a condescending judgement that, were I a conservative christian (which I am not), I’d find highly insulting. For instance, concerning gay marriage, I know quite a few conservative christians who find the concept anti-thetical to logic and biblically unsound, but they do NOT support a law (much less a constitutional ammendment) banning the practice. Believe it or not, many of these same people do not support the repeal of Roe v. Wade, even though they believe abortion to be fundamentally immoral. </p>
<p>“Do you think that the threat of Islamic fundamentalism is existential though, Poetsheart?”</p>
<p>If by “existential”, you mean a real threat to us on our own soil, yes, I do think the threat is existential. 9/11 proved that. The only reason we have not experienced another attack of its magnitude is that certain federal agencies are working overtime (and perhaps loosely interpreting certain privacy laws—and yes, that DOES concern me) to prevent it from happening again. Despite that, we are still highly vulnerable, and I think its only a matter of time before we’re reeling from another major terrorist attack. No, we don’t live at terror ground zero, the way Israelis do, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to be run screaming from such boogeymen as Ralph Reed, while minimizing the dangers of Islamic extremism.</p>
<p>PHC has placed more interns in the White House then any other college</p>
<p>Oh gosh, let me think, have small groups of people ever caused havoc in government, have small groups of people changed things</p>
<p>To me, people that want to fundamentally change our government to a theocracy are much more scary…but then I respect our history and government and want to protect our freedoms…</p>
<p>"PHC has placed more interns in the White House then any other college</p>
<p>Oh, the sky is falling, the sky is falling! And those interns are oh so powerful, aren’t they? Fundi Fanatics that they are, they have supernatural powers too. They have the ability to change our entire system of government without regard to the voting majority. They can also disregard our constitution, and by-pass congress and the courts entirely. </p>
<p>“Oh gosh, let me think, have small groups of people ever caused havoc in government, have small groups of people changed things”</p>
<p>Sure. Small groups of people have and do demonstrate the power to cause havoc in a number of governments around the world. But one of the things that makes us the envy of the world is the way our political system is structured, making it extremely difficult for the fringe to usurp the will of the majority or disregard our laws and Constitution. </p>
<p>“To me, people that want to fundamentally change our government to a theocracy are much more scary…but then I respect our history and government and want to protect our freedoms…”</p>
<p>CGM, the operative word here is “want” (in other words, if wishes were horses…).<br>
Indeed they would be extremely scary if we had to depend on the power of shrill hysteria to “protect our freedoms”. Fortunately for all of us, we have a well designed government, The Bill of Rights, and Constitutional law to do that for us. Fortunately too, the majority of us know a real threat when we see one, and don’t turn ashen and weak in the knees when a minority faction uses our well designed system to TRY to effect change. I think that’s called democracy. It sounds to me CGM, that though you “respect our history and government”, you don’t have much faith in it.</p>
<p>By the way, CGM, I agree with your post # 59 entirely. As the mother of a Physics major who virtually idolizes Stephen Hawking, I believe that only science should be taught in science class. The teaching of creationism belongs in Mythology and Comparative Religion classes. Here again, comparatively speaking, the Fundamentalist fringe isn’t having much luck pushing the creationist agenda, an agenda that usually doesn’t hold up very well to legal challenge. Thing is, I suspect they’re as afraid of you as you are of them.</p>
<p>“It always makes me scratch my head in amazement at the number of people who feel more threatened by the actions of the Christian Right than by Radical Islamic fundamentalism.”</p>
<p>The more proper comparison would be Radical Christian Fundamentalism vs. Radical Islamic Fundamentalism. I find them roughly equivalent, just on opposite sides of the majority moderates.</p>
<p>“Do you honestly believe that Jerry Falwell is more of a threat to the United States than Osama Bin Laden?”</p>
<p>Yes, indeed. Just as Lincoln said, the real danger to Amerca comes from within.</p>
<p>
The Left seems to have lost the ability to reason things through…either that, or they forgot to include the punch-line to their campy little joke about PHC interns.</p>
<p>One:
(Islamic Terrorists) has killed 10’s of thousands, of innocents, all around the world and would like to re-establish the Medieval Caliphate–all in the last few years. Likely coming to a metropolis near you.</p>
<p>The other:
(Fundamentalist Protestants) has a social agenda that has not changed much in the last century…oh yeah, there is also the issue of interns in the White House (though, curiously, not much hanky panky going on these days) trying to achieve their specific agenda as such political types are prone to. Apparently, according to the hysterical amongst us, most interns are really diabolic geniuses capable of overturning the bill of rights in addition to sexually servicing their boss, the leader of the Free World
it should be recalled that they consider the latter cheeky, if not good form–within the job description.</p>
<p>“The Left seems to have lost the ability to reason things through”</p>
<p>Coming from the moderate middle, I often agree. </p>
<p>Radical Christian/Islamic fundamentalists (some leading governments and organizations, others as individuals) have indeed killed thousands of innocents. We need to find a way to get the moderates back in power everywhere; we’re collectively becoming increasingly polarized.</p>
<p>I suspect that our own contributions to the deaths of thousands of innocents have exacerbated the difficulties moderates are experiencing in holding power throughout much of the world.</p>
<p>Vossron & Greybeard,</p>
<p>Enjoyed your posts, but could you be specific: how are radical Christians killing thousandsas Christians, in fact, not as someone who is a Christian that kills? That is to say, as part of a Christian agenda, as in the case of Islamic terrorists? I participate in a faith that is historically much closer to Islam than Christianity, I have no ideological dog in this fight.</p>
<p>A plane flies into a building and the culprits leave a message that claims what they did was done for Allah and Islam; this is quite a specific claim. There are of course bad people, some are Christians. But are there bad Christians with an agenda to kill mass numbers of people? In the modern era most atrocities have been committed by committed atheists–Stalin, Mao and their cronies.</p>
<p>Is there any equivalence at all in the 20th and 21st century? More particularly, in my lifetime (requiring my 18 year old action to prevent it). As said above, an existential threat.</p>
<p>I am unaware of one, as of now.</p>