WaPo Columnist Compares Christians to KKK, Says They Love ‘Torture’
Posted on December 19, 2007
After catching Harold Meyerson’s latest Washington Post hatemongering against religion in general, Christians in particular, and Republicans especially, all I could say was just WOW! This thing is nearly unhinged and if you took the word Christian out and replaced it with any of the favored, protected minorities that the MSM guards like mother hens, it would be indistinguishable from the kind of pure bigotry that would result in Meyerson’s utter ostracizing should it have been written about those protected classes. Calling Republicans/Christians torturers, abusers of immigrants, members of the KKK, bigots and even mean, Meyerson skipped only the Nazi and Hitler references making one wonder if his hatred for Christians isn’t fully sated after all in this piece and if there is more seething bile that he decided it was better not to air?
There is absolutely no substance to Meyerson’s piece at all. It is filled with lies, mischaracterizations, blatant spin and name-calling. In fact, it is nothing but a 12 paragraph excuse to call Christians names, so I won’t waste time trying to refute his garbage as it is so bigoted and full of lies that it defies reply — that and it would take far more time than I’m willing to give it. But, here is a list of all the names he calls Christians and Republicans and just some of his outrageously off-base “analysis” in this piece of trash.
- As Christians across the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it’s a fitting moment to contemplate the mountain of moral, and mortal, hypocrisy that is our Christianized Republican Party.
- Rather, it’s the gap between the teachings of the Gospels and the preachings of the Gospel’s Own Party that has widened past the point of absurdity, even as the ostensible Christianization of the party proceeds apace.
- Likewise his (George Bush’s) support of torture, which he highlighted again this month when he threatened to veto House-passed legislation that would explicitly ban waterboarding.
- It’s not just Bush whose catechism is a merry mix of torture and piety.
- But it’s on their policies concerning immigrants where Republicans — candidates and voters alike — really run afoul of biblical writ. Not on immigration as such but on the treatment of immigrants who are already here.
- Yet the distinctive cry coming from the Republican base this year isn’t simply to control the flow of immigrants across our borders but to punish the undocumented immigrants already here
- the push to persecute the immigrants already among us comes distinctly, though by no means entirely, from the same Republican right that protests its Christian faith at every turn.
- We’ve seen this kind of Christianity before in America… At its height in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan
- But nativist bigotry is strongest in the Old Time Religion precincts of the Republican Party
- The most depressing thing about the Republican presidential race is that the party’s rank and file require their candidates to grow meaner with each passing week.
- And now, inconveniently, inconsiderately, comes Christmas, a holiday that couldn’t be better calibrated to expose the Republicans’ rank, fetid hypocrisy.
See what I mean? There is no “debate” here, nothing to say in reply to this hater because there isn’t a single sentient point made by Meyerson. His just let lose a stream of hate that is as baseless and lacking of real proof as any a bigot ever devised against his most hated segment of humanity.
In the final analysis, Meyerson complains about the right’s “hypocrisy” yet so revels in his own that it makes your head spin. After all, as he complains that the right is so overly concerned about religion in politics, he wants it utterly eliminated from the public sphere, then he complains that the right isn’t “tolerant” enough. Yet, he so pummels Christians and religion showing he is just as intolerant in the opposite direction as those he claims to hate so much.
Like I said, reading Meyerson’s piece boggles the mind. It really has to be read in its entirety to be believed. This kind of hatred would never be allowed by a newspaper should it have been leveled against Jews, blacks or gays, et al. This is the kind of stuff you’d see from the presses of dictators and tyrants’ in their efforts to discredit their enemies. This is a China’s or a Chavez’ style, not that of a level headed democrat.
All you can say is just WOW!
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27 Responses to “WaPo Columnist Compares Christians to KKK, Says They Love ‘Torture’”
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Is it really all that shocking that the WaPo has Harold Meyerson as a writer on their staff? He is an editor at _The American Prospect_, a prototypical leftist, anti-religion, pro-labor rag. Most interestingly is the way he was raised: to hate people of faith, well anyone not of his faith. What’s his religion? Socialism. Surprised?
Way to misread an article…the article is quite favorable to christianity…it is just not very flattering to those “christians” who do not follow Jesus’s teachings or use his words as hypocritical cover for their unchristian acts!
Next madmatt will be telling us that Hitler really liked the Jews as a race, he just had a problem with them individually…
OT OT OT OT
*********FIRE IN EISENHOUER BUILDING NEXT TO WHITE HOUSE. CHENEY’S OFFICE MAY BE INVOLVED***********
betting the Kos Konspiracy Kooks are already on the case.
Yup, just ignorant. The article says teachings of Christ are good but bear no resemblance to current Republican standard bearers. The KKK reference was simply to add that religion has been twisted before.
But it also seems that you haven’t provided any substantive counter arguments, either.
It’s a matter of public record that Bush and the GOP zealousy, enthusiastically endorse waterboarding, which is already against the law and considered torture by many people inside the gov’t. Additionally, there are have been so many GOP sex scandals (Foley, Craig); the GOP has shut down the Congress with threats of filibustering and then blamed the Dems for it.
The point is that the Republicans have simply used Christianity as a cudgel to beat down dissent but haven’t shown any real compassionate conservatism.
But look, if you can’t find the kernel of truth in the scariness that Bush supports rendition and waterboarding, then there is nothing in the world left to say; the Dem worldview and the Republican worldviews are just too different.
I struggle every day trying grasp each side. On various issues I lean right and others left; on the torture issue I simply don’t grasp what has happened to the basic humanity of those who can read the despairing, broken Jesus of Mark. Jesus was tortured by Rome to break his threat to their power; he was perceived as a King.
I could understand if Christians said “look, this stuff we’re doing - snatching people up and holding them forever and just pummeling them til they give up what we want - is ghastly, just sickening - but it has to be done.
But they don’t - they seem to LOVE it, some not all, seem to have reached that Calhoun-level absurdity of slavery as a positive good (who was that guy at the National Review who was proud of waterboarding?) where Christian militarism has swallowed up the meaning of the Gospel.
To me, they sound like Caesar, not Christ.
Even more strangely, traditionally, conservatives have decried lefties in the Culture wars as relativists; we praised Bush for his moral clarity. Yet I just can’t see the bright line when it comes to the use of techniques whose names stem from the Nazis (enhanced interrogation). These very same culture warriors are the first to defend torture as necessitated by the situation, the cause, etc, etc - ie, they are relativists of a different stripe, without realizing the irony or hypocrisy.
It’s the same for the supposed respect for rule of law. The irony of the Gonzales debacle and the blunder of Iraq is that I now wish there was a small gov’t conservative running - I am agog at the incomprehensible incompetence of the media, the Congress, and the Executive dept in running the war, its oversight, and its coverage. I just can’t believe it.
But no one, neither party, believes in small gov’t anymore; no one believes in liberty anymore. Both believe in nanny-state micromanagement of your and my life, and that’s ok as long as they have a Bible tucked under their arm.
I don’t get it. Repubs seem to have jettisoned all the stuff besides war and tax cuts and the bible, the rest of it - liberty, pursuit of happiness, autonomy - it’s just gone, non-concepts.
This is the background, I believe, of Myerson’s article. But like I said, I think we’re at a point where Americans WANT things to be polarized - to HELL with you, says the Left and the Right, to HELL with you.
I am fixated trying to understand how it got this way, because I don’t feel this way. But I can tell from the other comments that clearly no one wants to give an inch.
The article is poorly written, but it seems clear that he’s ripping Republicans for not acting like the Christians even as they try to use religion as a cudgel. The KKK reference is dangerously close to Godwin, but still makes the point that Christian organizations are often far from moral. It’s a valid point, but he makes it badly.
Edit: somebody beat me to the cudgel argument. damn slow connection.
“It’s difficult today to imagine KKKers thinking of their mission as Christian, but millions of them did.”
Um, and this statement disses Christians how exactly?
“As Christians across the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it’s a fitting moment to contemplate the mountain of moral, and mortal, hypocrisy that is our Christianized Republican Party.”
Oh, now I see what your beef is. The Christian virtue of the Republican party must never be questioned.
I think the problem you have with the editorial is that it hit just a bit too close to home.
Consider the GOP’s incredulity over the rise of Huckabee in the polls.
Look, the party wants your support and your vote, and they’ll happily listen to your advice or complaints.
But when it comes to taking action, if you want anything more than tax cuts they could care less.
I realize that coming to this realization is a long process (you’ve been suckered by them for decades now) but sooner or later you’re going to have to come to terms with reality.
My problem with Myerson’s article is that it’s such a shallow and superficial thumb-sucker. It contains no original thought or reporting, and its positions don’t go beyond those my 17-year-old can adduce.
The arguments and the realities about the relationship between religion, politics, and government are far more advanced, sophisticated, and subtle than what appears in this slapdash job, and a real reporter who took his job seriously would be attempting to inform the public about them.
I agree that you misread the article. You may call it shallow and you may disagree with his interpretation of Scripture or his arguments against the GOP, but but it is not anti-religious or anti-Christian, but in fact acknowledges some basic tenets of Christianity as being right and absolute.
And he is right about the KKK. In the 1920s the KKK was a powerful, respected and mainline political organization. Many of its core beliefs (prohibition, anti-immigration, social conservative) would be welcome in today’s religious branch of the GOP.
There is absolutely no substance to Meyerson’s piece at all. It is filled with lies, mischaracterizations, blatant spin and name-calling. In fact, it is nothing but a 12 paragraph excuse to call Christians names, so I won’t waste time trying to refute his garbage as it is so bigoted and full of lies that it defies reply — that and it would take far more time than I’m willing to give it. But, here is a list of all the names he calls Christians and Republicans and just some of his outrageously off-base “analysis” in this piece of trash.
Okay, I give up. Where are the lies, mischaracterizations, and spin in that list of points Meyerson made?
Is not every one of those positions supported by the same Republicans who claim to be Christians, and who flaunt their Christian faith at every opportunity?
I’m jewish and the damn article seems full of inaccuracies to me and I don’t know much about christianity.
“And he is right about the KKK. In the 1920s the KKK was a powerful, respected and mainline political organization.”
AND — they were Democrats.
!
I’m surprised so many Christian haters are fans of StoptheACLU.com!!
Machine is correct that the 1920’s KKK was a powerful, respected, Christian, mainline political organization. He adds correctly that they were Democrats. However, I’m not sure what Machine’s point is. I think that Meyerson was trying to make the point that Christian political parties can veer wildly away from Christ’s message in the Gospels regardless of political party.
Many religions believed their gods came from virgin births and performed “miracles”. Anyone who really believes that stuff today is a childish superstitious fool.
All religions are a mistake. Their followers believe the most ridiculous things,people swallowed by whales or flying up into the sky, but I am evil for not falling into lockstep.
As a friend said, “They got it off a piece of paper in a jar in a cave in a desert. That’s where these people get their information.”
All religious leaders are snake-oil salesmen (plus a few women). They are no better, and most do more damage than palm readers and astrologers and should be taxed as such.
May all the pro-war, pro-torture, faux Christ-ies like Falwell, Perkins, Sun Yung Moon, Ronald Reagan, burn in their imaginary hell.
right on tommo!
bunch a sheep they is.
humans have been fighting over mythical creatures since the beginning of time.
to them -> when you die… your dead.
I am interested in what inaccuracies Defector picked up on. I went back and re-read the article (twice) and didn’t catch it. Please elucidate.
Also, please JM, can you give a short tutorial about the “advanced, sophisticated and subtle” relationship you purport in your comment. I am WELL above 17 and am clueless as to what you are alluding to.
When we have the marriage of FAITH and POLITICs such as we do with the Christian Right, the inevitable result is a loss of faith in both camps. Political expediency undermines whatever morality the faith based community brings to the table, while the limitation of religiously acceptable policy hamstrings our ability as a society to solve looming existential challenges ie. energy, health care & foreign policy.
Wasn’t it JC himself who counseled us to “render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s and render unto the Lord that which is the Lord’s” ? The meaning of which is clear, keep church and state separate !
Funny, I thought I left a nasty little post a while ago and it’s not here now. Is this discussion group censored?
*****************************
Well…bluesman, you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?
The government censors; I moderate. No profanity on this site.
Lobo
You know, Bluesman, if your initial comment had been censored, don’t you imagine your follow-up asking about it would have been, too?
Talk about wrong-heading thinking.
You all desperately need a course in reading comprehension. The article said nothing derogatory about the Christian faith, just the repub distortions of it.
For those who point out that the KKK was Democrats (actually, better described as Dixiecrats), keep in mind that the modern day Repub party was formed by embracing the southern bigots as their base. The Democrats are happy to let you have them.
Bluesman: I stand corrected.
My goodness, people, can’t you see all the lies in the Meyerson article? It is as plain a the nose on your face. He lies about Jesus.
First, and most obviously, Jesus repeatedly encourages his followers to torture their enemies. Nothing could be more Christian.
Second, Jesus insisted that his message could only be spread by wars of aggression.
And third, Jesus hated foreigners. He says it over and over.
This is what WTH means about lies. Meyerson is so eager to cast the Administration as Unchristian that he constantly distorts Christ’s message of World Domination and the supremacey of the Global Market.
wmforr: POW! CRUNCH!! ZAP!!!
Man, I love good sarcasm, and that was good.
Merry Christmas to you, or Happy Holidays — whichever — take your pick.
~ “Sing on, brother. Play on, drummer” ~
– Jimi Hendrix, “If 6 Was 9″ (Axis: Bold As Love, 1968)
My posts are edited, when they appear at all. This is soooo Bush administration of you. Withhold information when it doesn’t suit your fancy.
This is my last post. Good-bye all. Enjoy saying whatever the moderator lets you say. (Geez, it’s like Communist Russia.)
And by all means [ominous music plays in background], stop the ACLU…or else!