These things scare me....

Okay folks, settle in for a rant.

First, read a little of the column by Bob Lonsberry on Sarah Palin's resignation.. Then read through a few of the comments left for him to get the proper context for this rant.

Now Mr. Lonsberry is a die hard conservative, and he and I don't have much in common politically. However I do enjoy reading his columns from time to time because he often offers a bit of a different slant on things. This piece on Palin was no different. You might have expected this to come from the pen of Keith Olbermann or the airwaves of Air America Radio.

As much as I think Mr. Lonsberry was spot on with his criticisms of Palin, I was appalled by many of the comments left by his readers. Some of it is truly scary. There are a number of posts refering to Palin's breasts, calling President Obama by his middle name only (yeah, you are all still stuck on that, we get it), several posts refering to Obama as the Anti-Christ, and even this little gem, which I'll quote word for word.....

"You are a damn idiot, first, anyone who still watches SNL, Keith Oberman, Alan Colmes, David the heart attack Letterman, Hardball, (yea hardball, I wish I could show this bleached haired girlie man what hardball really is) Wolfe Blitzer, (with a name like Wolfe, his physical stature he is a legend in his own mind, he is a pussy).

# 65 you have no life or future, it is people like you that condemn this Country to obscurity.

Godless people like will soon learn a harsh lesson!"

Emphasis Mine.

This is the crap that really scares me. This guy sounds like he wants to be uber-Christian, that's he's on the offensive for the Kingdom of Christ. I wonder if Jesus finds calling people "damn idiots," "girlie man," and "pussy" to be acceptable, I have a hunch that he doesn't. Let's forget about that though.

Read this:

5. The so-called morality of the liberal is no morality at all, rather an encouragement to betrayal. Therefore, they have no claim to protection from the state.
6. The liberal is not smarter than we are, rather only cleverer and craftier. His system cannot be defeated economically — he follows entirely different moral principles than we do. It can only be broken through political means.

Think you could see that or something like it on a right wing blog site, or maybe hear it on Rush Limbaugh? Well it's actually an excerpt from "Der Jude," Der Angriff. Aufsätze aus der Kampfzeit. It was written in 1929 by the Nazi propagandist Goebbels. I just substituted the word "liberal" for the word "Jew."

I do this to make a point. Throughout human history we have made a practice of scapegoating other people. We fear people who don't agree with us, or have a different religion, who don't look like us, or who are of a different political party. We tend to do this the most when we feel like we have God on our side or that or cause is just despite any reasoning to the contrary. 6 million Jews died for this kind of reasoning. The reasoning and the power of fear and blind political pursuit of power. It can happen here too, in the good old USA. During World War II the US Government detained thousands of Japanese-Americans in camps because of the FEAR that they might be spying for the Japanese military. In the 1950's hundreds if not thousands of Americans were openly persecuted by Senator McCarthy and his RED SCARE. We had to round up the communists. We were afraid of them. We went to war in Korea and Vietnam because we FEARED the spread of the ideology of Communism.

Now of course we also fear Muslims, right? I mean, hey, we all lived through 9-11.

Go back to the portion of the comment from the Lonsberry site that I emphasized...
"Godless people like (you) [sic] will soon learn a lesson." Now imagine had that post been made by a Muslim on a national news website or forum. There would be people calling the FBI saying it was a terrorist threat. I guarantee that. Of course, it is a threat, but here in America we don't see it that way if it's coming from a good Christian, right?

Point is, a religious fanatic is a religious fantatic, no matter what religion you are. We seem to have a growing club of Christian right wing fanatics in this country. You know, the kind of people who shoot people at the holocaust museum. The kind of people who call Obama the Anti-Christ. The kind of people who walk into a church on Sunday and shoot a doctor in cold blood in the name of God. The kind of people who will refuse to refer to our President by anything except for his middle name.

You see what I did there?

Damn straight I lumped you all together.

The Palinesque faction of the Republican party has tapped into the fear and hate of everyday Americans. It's tapped into the worst sentiments of people who openly say they FEAR for their culture and their country. Fear is a powerful motivator. So is believing you have God on your side.

The guys who flew those planes on 9-11...they thought they had God on their side too.

We are just left to wonder if these will continue to be idle threats. Let's hope so. We're all in this together and it's time we started acting like it.

A great man once said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That was FDR, a democrat. You've seen him on our money. You'll never hear Palin or Glenn Beck say that.

It's pretty powerful though. Maybe it's time we cut the fear and started working together before more people get hurt...huh?