postal scrotum: Christian antisemitism redux

Andrew R. writes in about Christian antisemitism and Bush:

Hi Kevin,

Sorry to hear about the teeth and contacts. Hang in there.

Re: "Christian anitsemitism"

You wrote, "I don't have any clear answer to the question of the Religious Reich, because my feeling right now is that Americans are, on the whole, divided about whether this is as big a problem as some make it out to be."

The 'antisemitism' is often a cultural issue, not a religious issue. Most of the antisemites I know (especially the more casual ones) are driven by cultural...issues - and "religion" is the high-fallutin' flag they wanna wrap themselves in. Because they're just looking to have someone not to like, and they picked a pretty standard target - out of laziness more than anything.

You wrote, "Perhaps it is, but if so, there's still a question of whether the rise of religious conservatism is something that can be firmly pegged to the tone of Bush's administration."

Keep in mind that "the rise of religious conservatism" is mostly a newspaper generated fallacy. The majority of issues and events put under this label were well on their way to maturity during Clinton's reign. So the "rise" is due more to reporting, than actual change.

And again, the super powers of Bush are not a religious issue, but a culture issue. Folks voted for Bush not because he was a churchy fellow, but because his overall platform included the answers folks were looking for. Sure, killing bad guys in the Middle East was a popular stand to take (and not a religious issue) - but the other promises (kept or not) were what a lot of people wanted to hear.

Having said that, yes, the current Supreme Court (which Bush didn't appoint) just made a serious blow to the USA (no more property rights). The list of other complaints against the gov't overall can be long, but keep in mind that Clinton did his fair share to do all sorts of bad things on his watch that were under-reported (the removal of privacy via HIPPA legislation comes to mind).

But the bottom line regarding the President (current or other) is that he's not some unholy sorcerer able to change the mood of the country. Although folks who don't like him - 92% of journalists - sure like to say that. The bad gov't decisions were going to be made regardless of which party is in the White House.

And since most bad decisions are actually made (and proposed!) by the 100 people in the Senate, the folks whining about the Evil Bush need to spend some time in civics class.

_Andy

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