Believers pose a great danger to the Republic.Those who believe,and by extension don't know, are the herd animals to which demagogues appeal effectively. Inherent in one's willingness to believe,especially as it pertains to religion, is the disturbing tendency to trust blindly. Such believers, regardless of the nature of their faith are, in addition to being irresponsible, potential terrorists. The tenets of one's faith will inevitably demand that the believer reject all points of view that do not strictly reinforce their narrow credos. Non-believers are then at risk, prey to the tyranny of the zealous whose abusiveness knows no bounds.
The Bushites,a judeo-christian cult which embraces the punitive nature of the Hebrew diety while rejecting the healing, nurturing philosophies of Jesus, are, in particular, a threat to democracy and freedom in America. In the cosmography of these sheep Bush is the anointed avatar of Jesus and can do no wrong. They believe, not question.They trust and require no oversight. Such willing acceptance of the excesses of power will,in time, erode the very foundation of the Republic and render the United States just another repressive regime on the ash heap of history. To quote Robert Frost
"Too many fall from the great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood."
To believe is to reject curiosity. Rejecting curiosity is tantamount to placing braces on one's brains. The close-minded, restrictive nature of belief creates untrustworthy citizens. There is a faction of conservatives in America who insist that the nation was founded by believers. They are misguided. Our founding fathers did not believe, they knew that men could not be trusted and they created a government with built-in oversights. We wrested our freedoms from a tyrannical monarch and they were insistant that no individual in our new Republic have such far reaching powers.
Enter the Bushites,a warlike people who, with a loud chorus of hosannas, proclaim the infallibility of the boy-god President and damn all other citizens who question the rightness of their devotional zeal. They usurp the flag and label as traitors and unpatriotic those who are indeed the most patriotic.Those Americans who by the virtue of their watchfulness expose the corrupt underbelly of unchecked power. Watchfulness and oversights are the only safeguards against the abuses of power.
I note with alarm the spreading plague of religious fundamentalism which is as abhorrent in the United States as it is in the Middle East.The phenomenon in both regions is spawned by the same social conditions, ignorance and its attendant muse, aggression. The intellectually slothful join religious organizations and this affiliation releases them from the burdens of examination and critical thought. They settle for a tradtional formulaic explanation of existence and unconciously reject all other possibilities. Tragic enough in an individual's life, but positively fatal in the body politic.
Our nation is now confronted with daunting challenges. The most threatening are internal. Are we going to be a nation of panic driven lemmings or shall we begin to fulfill the promise of this great country? If the latter, there must be a renaissance of humanism in which we take responsibility for our actions rather than lay the charge to some mythical creation.Are we human or sheep? Stop asking what would Jesus do and employ your own judgement. Jesus is irrelevant. You are here and now. If you must believe have the largeness of spirit to remember that you chose to close your mind and that that decision is not binding on the rest of us. You have every right to believe in a myth, but you don't have the right to impose your ignorance on society. A classic example: today the christian-soaked Republican Congress cut 40 billion from programs that aid the most vulnerable in society while pondering, in the Senate, a 70 billion dollar tax break for the wealthy. Such believers are,essentially, horrible people. Ribet...ribet