Remember, “activist judge” just means someone who upsets Rush Limbaugh:
After the State Supreme Court here stunned the nation by making this the first state in the heartland to allow same-sex marriage, Iowa braced for its sleepy judicial elections to turn into referendums on gay marriage.
The three Supreme Court justices on the ballot this year are indeed the targets of a well-financed campaign to oust them. But the effort has less to do with undoing same-sex marriage — which will remain even if the judges do not — than sending a broader message far beyond this state’s borders: voters can remove judges whose opinions they dislike.
Around the country, judicial elections that were designed to be as apolitical as possible are suddenly as contentious as any another race.
In Kansas, anti-abortion activists are seeking to recall a justice. In Illinois, business interests are campaigning against the chief justice after a case that removed a cap on malpractice liability, prompting him to run a television ad that opens with the declaration, “I am not a politician.” And a conservative group called Clear the Bench Colorado is citing a host of decisions in seeking to oust the full slate of justices on the ballot there, urging voters, “Be a citizen, not a subject.”
***Brian S. Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, which has spent $230,000 on television ads criticizing the Iowa judges, said he understood that removing the three judges would not change the same-sex marriage ruling. (It was a unanimous ruling by the state’s seven justices.) But Mr. Brown said he hoped the judges’ ouster would help prevent similar rulings elsewhere by making judges around the nation aware that their jobs are on the line.
“It sends a powerful message,” he said, “That if justices go outside the bounds of their oaths, if the justices go outside the bounds of the U.S. and state constitutions they’re going to be held accountable.”
Bob Vander Plaats, who made opposition to same-sex marriage a centerpiece of his unsuccessful run for governor in Iowa, is leading the ouster campaign on behalf of the political arm of the American Family Association, a conservative Christian organization based in Tupelo, Miss.
“My bigger fear isn’t about injecting politics into judicial retention elections. The bigger fear is that we don’t hold them in check,” he said, warning that gun and property rights could be at risk.
I really find it odd that some liberals are apparently upset with the phrase the “American Taliban.”
General Stuck
Hate never sleeps.
edit – and is well financed
cmorenc
The founders were indeed wise to make federal judicial appointments for life (absent disqualifying criminality) instead of elective, as most state appellate benches are.
NEVERTHELESS it bears mentioning that this principle also shields arrogant reactionary jerks like Anton Scalia from being vulnerable to removal, just as it protected sensibly moderate Justices we wish there were more of (e.g. recently retired Justice Stevens) from vulnerability to removal.
eric
Raw populism is not democracy; neither is the corportacracy now masquerading as democracy. The truth is that America has very limited experience with enlightened democracy.
Derelict
And once this succeeds, they can get to work reversing all of those activist decisions like Brown vs. Board of Ed.
And since they’re into getting the Constitution back into its original shape, well, I can only guess that people like Confederate Wankee are REALLY looking forward to being able to own the black family next door.
eric
Derelict that is an ignorant statement. Everyone knows in this market you rent, you don’t own
Maude
@eric:
Win
Brachiator
@eric: The truth is that
There ain’t no such thing as enlightened democracy, nor a democracy that can ever run on automatic pilot. There is only messy, complicated human beings who have to make democracy work.
DonkeyKong
C’mon they’re not “Taliban” throwing gays off multistory buildings, that’s just over the top. When they start doing that then……………then it’ll be too late.
Tom Levenson
It’s not liberals, or not only. Sully has been truly, deeply offended by the claim, because, apparently, the American wing of the global religious crazy conspiracy hasn’t yet actually blown up a school for the sin of coeducational education.
It’s only after our new overlords start actually exercising executive power and Sully discovers that Michael Oakeshott (sic?) doesn’t actually sereve to moderate their behavior he may come to reconsider.
I keep thinking the phrase “useful idiots” is going to wear out from overuse, but then Sully and his herd of thundering ilk remind me that those thus signified will always be with us.
Tom Levenson
That would of course be the claim (better, the phrase) “American Taliban.”
ruemara
It does sorta make the vapors around Obama not being angry enough over ______ seem silly, when you can’t call Talibangelicals Talibangelicals.
Jewish Steel
Law practice is the D-league for the judiciary, right?
Lawyers are rich, powerful (go ahead and cross one) and can draw on a limitless well of expertise. I think if the loony right starts poking it’s nose into their business, the legal profession will circle the wagons. That would be an ugly, expensive fight that the right doesn’t want.
Davis X. Machina
If it happens, it’ll be the result of a radical righto-leftist movement. There are plenty of people on the left who think an elected judiciary is a wonderful idea, just the ticket to end the reign of appointed hacks like Scalias and Alitos.
In further news, I am an Adélie penguin.
Rob
Thing is the judges get in on “No Gay Marriage!” and stay to rip apart consumer protection and labor rights. In Wisconsin its gotten really bad with Judges who presided over cases which they were financially involved and others who outright lied in their ads. The conservative majority issued a ruling saying that judges should no recuse themselves from cases they are tied to because that would mean they aren’t impartial. so yes they only way to be impartial is to make sure you rule on cases you have a personal stake in!
Odie Hugh Manatee
The reason they’re so afraid of sharia law is because they’re afraid it’ll be implemented before they can take over the courts and impose proper christian justice (fuck that judeo- part!).
JGabriel
John Cole:
I remember back in the 80s and 90s when Molly Ivins used to call southern fundamentalists Shiite Baptists, before we realized that Shia were the moderate Muslims.
.
silentbeep
John Cole:
And I find it really odd, that you find it really odd.
Weird how that works.
People can be really damn crazy and wrong, without being the Taliban. Whatever. This is line of debate isn’t going anywhere (mine or yours!)
burnspbesq
@silentbeep:
“People can be really damn crazy and wrong, without being the Taliban.”
True as far as it goes – but do you really doubt that there are people on the right who wouldn’t hesitate for even a second to go Taliban if they thought they could escape accountability for their actions?
burnspbesq
Electing judges is now, always has been, and always will be a truly terrible idea.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: It has never made any sense to me.
silentbeep
@burnspbesq:
I have a pretty low opinion of all of humanity in general – including progressives who I pretty much agree with 90% of the time. What I mean by “low opinion” is that I think most people will do crazy stuff given the sufficient circumstances – I don’t think progressives are more human than conservatives, and I don’t think conservatives are less human than progressives.
I’m a bad person to ask this, because I know some crazy left wingers that I wouldn’t trust to go eco-terrorist given the right circumstances. But so what? I don’t think for a moment these people I know are representative of most on the American left.
Omnes Omnibus
@silentbeep: Do you think it is an inaccurate characterization or do you think that it is accurate but unhelpful?
Omnes Omnibus
@silentbeep: Do you think it is an inaccurate characterization or do you think that it is accurate but unhelpful?
silentbeep
@Omnes Omnibus: I think it’s an inaccurate characterization and it’s unhelpful. Hyperbole rarely helps. I think this “american taliban” stuff makes liberals feel pretty good but doesn’t do much else.
morzer
@silentbeep:
How would you describe the right-wing extremists then?
Dr. Psycho
I don’t think highly of electing sheriffs, either, come to that.
silentbeep
@morzer:
they are right wing extremists I don’t agree with. I don’t need see the point of making hyperbolic comparisons a la “you are like the taliban!” or the decades old favorite “you are like a nazi” in order to disagree with people. It’s unnecessary, doesn’t convince anyone of anything.
Omnes Omnibus
@silentbeep: I don’t see it as a particularly hyperbolic term.
Omnes Omnibus
@silentbeep: I don’t see it as a particularly hyperbolic term.
morzer
@silentbeep:
It seems to work rather well for the GOP. Perhaps though you are right, and we should enter the arms race with a white flag and an optimistic expression.
Jewish Steel
@Omnes Omnibus: @silentbeep:
It’s accuracy is perhaps less important than it’s effect on the middle?
I’m not sure that it is hyperbole. But if it is, hyperbolic language can be effective rhetorical tool when wielded properly. Stephen Colbert is a creature composed almost entirely of hyperbole and I don’t think anyone questions whether he forces a certain amount of debate, thought, etc.
silentbeep
@morzer: @Omnes Omnibus: if you don’t see it that way, there is nothing either one of us can say to each other, to convince one another otherwise
morzer
@silentbeep:
In sum: you don’t have an argument, and you don’t want one, to back up what you say. Weak sauce to the max.
eemom
@silentbeep:
I do think you have a point on an intellectual level. I really, really dislike the word Nazi being used to describe anyone other than an actual Nazi.
The far right in this country today, however, have become so utterly and completely despicable, that I’m just not about to argue with anyone comparing them to a band of coldblooded, murdering thugs.
Omnes Omnibus
@silentbeep: Thank you for bringing up the topic then. If you don’t think it is a good idea, I would be interested in hearing why.
Brachiator
@silentbeep:
RE: I really find it odd that some liberals are apparently upset with the phrase the “American Taliban.”
So, the question is, what could the goons on the right do that would qualify them to be American Taliban?
I think that some liberals want to be able to dismiss the opposition as being stupid or crazy, and then ignore what they actually advocate or do.
But increasingly, some on the right, some Republicans, some Tea Party people, openly and flatly declare, for example, that Muslims should be forced to become second class citizens. So you have increasingly shrill declarations that not only should Muslims be prohibited from building a cultural center near Ground Zero, but that they should not be allowed to build mosques anywhere. Elsewhere, there are calls to prohibit Muslims from serving in the military. Some radio talks show hosts here in Southern California suggested that Muslims not be allowed to fly on any commercial aircraft, that all Muslim immigration to the US be halted, that restrictions of Muslim liberties are unimportant as long as “real Americans” can go about their business.
It is ironic that Bush and Cheney tamped down some of this, due to their own close ties to the Saudis and others. But the inane and insane fear of Obama as a stealth Muslim causes some of these people to become increasingly hostile to groups they perceive as unalterably The Other.
silentbeep
@Brachiator:
“But increasingly, some on the right, some Republicans, some Tea Party people, openly and flatly declare, for example, that Muslims should be forced to become second class citizens. ”
All of this should be denounced. What I have a problem with, is the Othering that is occuring, when an entire political movement is put under the label “american taliban.” I don’t see the difference between doing that, and calling people you don’t agree with politically “a nazi.” I didn’t like it when Jonah Goldberg did with fascism and liberals in his book, and i don’t like it now, with Markos doing this in his book regarding the Talban and conservatives.
“whatever” in my comment meant this: it is absolutely pointless to argue about how great or how wrong it is, to call the american conservative movement “the taliban.”
But sometimes I can’t keep my mouth shut. Meh, it’s one of my flaws.And hear I am participating in the absurdity as usual.
But I’m wary of analogies in general when it comes to poltical argument. I suggest this TNC quote to help illumate why I don’t like analolgies like this:
“I am sure that, in some ways, the Holocaust is like the Middle Passage. I am also sure that, in some ways, the Holocaust and the Middle Passage are like pet euthanasia. I’m also sure that all three are somehow like a steak dinner. And so on. If your mission is to make yourself right, there are an abundance of pathways.
But if you’re mission is to clarify your own thinking, and understand the experiences of other people, then you tend to shy away from defending analogies which, by your own lights, are “full of holes and designed to inflame more than enlight.” Sometimes, you go so far down into a hole, and you forget why, and how, you got there. ”
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/08/you-are-not-harriet-tubman-cont/60953/
(we all know american conservatives are not exactly like the taliban. but peole support an argument that is full of holes anyway. so it just goes on…)
gnomedad
It’s not just about hyperbole. We are not fighting Nazis right now. We are fighting the Taliban, and it’s quite appropriate to point out that many right wingers have equally little use for the constraints of a civil constitution.
Lysana
As someone whose right to love whom I choose is directly targeted by right-wing extremists, down to wanting me to subject myself to ridiculous pseudo-therapeutic measures and desiring to pass legislation to ban my sexual orientation, I think American Taliban is very accurate.
Put yourself in the shoes of a queer American and imagine how it would feel to realize this minority wants to control the most intimate aspects of your life before you judge that description.
silentbeep
@eemom:
well, and there is the fundamental disagreement right there. i’m really concerned with accuracy despite how horrible some are on the far right. They should be fought every step of they way, however.
silentbeep
@Lysana: I just diagree that stopping these extremists, requires hyperbole that is not accurate.
That’s all. Not about how wrong they are, its the analogy, not the wrongness of what they think, that’s in question. There is a difference. Of course such people need to be stopped and they need to be disagreed with- that’s not in question, and never has been.
Bella Q
@General Stuck: What Stuck said in the first post is true. And the Reds are in the playoffs – I might even go to a game.
Sly
Some people have friends or family members who have been killed by the actual Taliban or Al Qaeda, so there’s that.
I think distinguishing between groups that have an odious political goal, like Operation Rescue, and groups that have killed and maimed (and will likely kill and maim again) to see those goals realized, like the Army of God, is important.
Which doesn’t mean that the Super-Christies aren’t above intimidating people without the threat of violence:
“Nice looking judgeship you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Sly: Dr. Tiller, Atlanta Olympics, Oklahoma City…. People have been killed here by radical Christian fundamentalists and their right wing allies.
Brachiator
@silentbeep:
RE; “But increasingly, some on the right, some Republicans, some Tea Party people, openly and flatly declare, for example, that Muslims should be forced to become second class citizens. ”
Just denounced? Not opposed?
It’s not simply that I disagree with tea partiers and others politically. What concerns me is the increasing hostility of some tea party people to some of their fellow Americans, and their open advocacy of the idea that some groups, gays, Mulims and others are not really Americans. The view of some of these people that America is, or should be, a white Christian nation, is not much different from the views of the Taliban.
Ironically, many people ignored the Afghanistan Taliban as that group escalated its paranoia and cultural and religious xenophobia. These wusses couldn’t even call the Taliban the Taliban.
While I understand your point about wariness when using analogies, I don’t find the TNC quote applicable to this context at all.
True. Some of them are worse than the Taliban.
Mnemosyne
@Sly:
The guy who murdered George Tiller was involved with Operation Rescue, so I don’t think there’s quite the bright line between the groups that you think there is.
Mnemosyne
@silentbeep:
I would agree with you more if you didn’t have people in that movement specifically saying that they need to emulate the Taliban:
Sly
@Omnes Omnibus:
Like I said, there are differences among anti-choice groups. You have the somewhat mainline Right to Life Party (in the context of the general American consensus on abortion), the kooky Operation Rescue nuts that send dead fetuses to politicians, and the violent Army of God that calls for and perpetuates terrorist acts. Scott Roeder and Eric Rudolf were associated more with the last of the three. Then you have unorganized people who support purveyors of right-wing violence, like the people who aided and abetted Rudolf while he was on the lamb, who are all fucking scum and I hope they all choke on the coffee in their “Run, Rudolph, Run!” mugs.
But “American Taliban” has been used as a catch-all to describe all of the above when not all have resorted to violence as a means of political action, even groups that openly condemn and disavow the violent. I am fairly strict in my pro-choice political views, but I wouldn’t put Paul Hill in the same category as Orrin Hatch. Likewise, I would expect people not to put the Sierra Club in the same category as the ELF.
silentbeep
@Mnemosyne: My opinion and comments stand. Sessions is a nut as far as I’m concerned. He is not the entire conservative political movement, in this country, nor is he representative of even most people in the U.S. who consider themselves conservative.
Pointing out the the wrongness of opinion that comes from individual people is one thing. When you go the route that Markos did, which was to make blanket statement about an entire group of people, that is something else.
My quibble is not about defending individual people that hold wrong views, it never was
.
For example, the problem that Adam Serwer had (maybe he is part of the “some” group that Cole is referring to) was about an inaccurate blanket statement referring to an entire movement, not about individuals. That’s why I don’t get, why John Cole doesn’t get it. The issue is with this phrase (the American taliban) that otherizes an entire group of people, which numbers possibly in the millions (don’t know how many Americans consider themselves to be on the right and/or consider themselves to be conservative).
Sly
@Mnemosyne:
The associations between Scott Roeder and OR were pretty flimsy, actually. A few comments left on one of their message boards, and calls to one of their advisors inquiring about court dates in the Tiller case. That’s fairly flimsy. It certainly doesn’t rise to the level of James Kopp using the Nuremburg Files website to track down and kill Dr. Slepian in 1998, a comparison I’ve heard a few times.
silentbeep
@Brachiator:
If you think they are worse than the Taliban, I suggest actually living in Afghanistan and then come back and report the similarities.
It’s been nice sparring with you. But I think it’s a pointless exercise right now. Good day to you.
Jewish Steel
Treating analogy skeptically makes sense. Dismissing it altogther doesn’t.
Especially when you realize that ALL language is metaphor.
silentbeep
@Brachiator:
one last thing thought
“Just denounced? Not opposed?”
Denounced is part of opposing, doing one activity does not cancel out the other. Using inaccuarte, hyperbolic phrases in political argument is not required for opposition, nor denunciation. Why people can’t be denounced, opposed, whatever, without being compared to terrorists, I will never know (especially when they aren’t terrorists). Such hyperbole, is not especially helpful to anyone involved either (except maybe for liberals that just feel really good saying the right is the american taliban.
silentbeep
@Jewish Steel:
“American conservatives have an unfortunate tendency to collapse all populist nationalist movements composed of Muslims into a monolithic and totalitarian “Islamist” menace that they identify with al-Qaeda. But if you were to turn around and try to identify the American conservative movement with the Taliban on the grounds that both are right-wing populist nationalist movements, American conservatives would—quite rightly—point out that this involves eliding a huge number of morally and practically relevant considerations.”
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/08/american-taliban/
Mnemosyne
@silentbeep:
He’s an elected official who has represented over 600,000 people since 2003 and has a major Republican leadership position as the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee. If you don’t understand why it’s bad for the head of the NRCC to be telling his fellow Republicans that they need to emulate the Taliban, then I just can’t help you.
Mnemosyne
@Sly:
Given that Randall Terry and his pals showed up in force to support Roeder during his trial, it’s difficult to argue that he was doing something that was antithetical to what they represent. Not to mention that all of these “lone nuts” who kill abortion doctors seem to have some pretty close connections to one another.
silentbeep
@Mnemosyne:
“If you don’t understand why it’s bad for the head of the NRCC to be telling his fellow Republicans that they need to emulate the Taliban, then I just can’t help you.”
Heh. This paragraph up above makes an assumption that I supposedly don’t understand that Jeff Sessions is totally and completely and utterly wrong. In every way. What this has to do with my preceding arguments about the phrase “american taliban” is beyond me.
I don’t think i can help you. You apparently don’t think you can help me.
been nice chatting with you. have a nice day.
Mnemosyne
@silentbeep:
No, I’m making an assumption that you don’t understand that Jeff Sessions has power within the Republican Party and can influence the direction that the party takes. If one of the major leaders of the party says that the party should emulate the Taliban, I don’t understand why it’s wrong to follow his lead and call them the American Taliban.
Bernard
with Doctors being shot and sometimes killed by the Right to lifers, and having web pages encouraging the harassment and whatnot anyone who opposes the Right to lifers, i wonder what country you live in.
the American Taliban has effectively forced their version of Christian Sharia law on All Americans.
i do wonder where all these “oh, that’s a little extreme” people have been since the Republican have enable the Rightwing Christians to enforce their Religious beliefs.
i am sorry you have no clue about these Christian Taliban.
they are real and those of us who are “less than” know a “different reality” than that you wish to propagate. Their crosshairs have killed quite a few with bombs at Abortion clinics. sad to see such avoidance of the damage done by those Christian loonies, no matter what you choose to call them.
Scalia, Roberts, Alito are definitely enabling the Christian Taliban to make all Americans follow “their way.”
if there is a difference between the Taliban in Afghanistan and those of the Christian persuasion running NOM, Operation Rescue, i’d like to see it. Cause they sure want us to live under “their” Christian ways.
you can feign horror at such a comparison. the reality is there no matter how offended you claim to be.
maya
While ya’ll debate Am Qaeda till your cheeks explode, one pol is using it in as an election ad issue
kindness
Well, the ‘liberals’ who have pitched a fit about Markos using the metaphore of the Taliban in comparison to American conservatives, and particularly those uber orthodox ones, well they aren’t liberal. At least they aren’t all that liberal. Sure, Fox would call them liberal but they’d call Ronnie Reagan a liberal if he pushed his stuff now.
It’s the knowing and open dissing of the Democratic Party that progressives are trying to build & create by fellow Democrats that irks me most. These people know they are playing right into the Fox & Village Idiot Elders in the fields wet dreams. Now I’m not saying don’t criticize dumb Democratic moves….please do. But don’t become the Fox poster child. There’s a difference and those who are being all so moderate getting the vapors over Markos’ insolence…..well screw them. They should be mocked.
Ruckus
@Bernard:
This.
Well written, thought out and right on the money.
Let’s review:
Both the ME taliban and the american taliban want you to live according to their sick, twisted, religious beliefs.
Members of both are not opposed to the use of force and government involvement to achieve these ends.
Members of both are working both within and outside of government to achieve their goals.
Members of both want everyone who does not agree with them to, well die, because they don’t feel anyone who disagrees has any rights, including that of basic life.
The only argument is who belongs in either group. Who and how are they placed there. Personally I chose words and actions as the defining method. Sessions for example, american taliban, no question.
Cacti
This is why I think, in general, that it’s better to have an unelected judiciary.
The judiciary, by nature is supposed to be the most contemplative branch of government, and that’s hard to accomplish when it is subject to the knee jerks of public opinion du jour.
Sly
@Mnemosyne:
ORs argument during the Roeder trial was that “Scott Roeder is bad, but Tiller was worse.” It’s a dumb and grotesque argument, certainly, but it does not make them accessories to murder.
I never advanced the “lone wolf” theory of right-wing terrorism, in large part because it is absurd. There are certainly organized groups out there that call for and assist in violent acts against their political enemies, and this is not something at all new to this country.
@Bernard:
The Taliban openly and insistently commits violence on its political enemies, and calls for others to do likewise. NOM and OR do not. The moment they do, they’ll be in jail.
silentbeep
@Mnemosyne:
“I don’t understand why it’s wrong to follow his lead and call them the American Taliban. ”
this whole issue is a fundamental disagreement that really can’t be bridged on a Balloon Juice comment section. It does no good for me to try.
silentbeep
@Cacti:
yes I agree with you there.
silentbeep
@kindness: who is liberal enough? honest question.
eemom
@silentbeep:
J.H. Christ on a tortilla chip — you’ve been saying for about five hours now that this whole argument is useless and you’re leaving, but you keep sticking around and continuing to argue. Make up your mind.
El Cid
@Sly: And if Operation Rescue etc were armed rebel groups in a lawless chaos of a nation like Afghanistan, there wouldn’t be that difference either. If the Taliban were operating in the US, they wouldn’t be operating like the Taliban in Afghanistan, either.
Just like the CIA doesn’t quite so actively direct the slaughter of tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians here, whereas they’ve traditionally done that in 3rd world contexts.
craigie
I love the idea that once you have gay marriage, the next stop is to remove property rights. I mean, who could possibly argue with that?
silentbeep
@eemom I don’t need your permission to stay or go. You have the problem apparently. Not me.
I don’t think there is an argument here anymore. i’m asking questions, having a conversation. the argument is over as far as I’m concerned, I’m not here to debate. If I ask questions, it’s because I want to understand what’s going on. I’m here to converse not argue at this point.
Nellcote
@cmorenc:
Unfortunately that’s run up against the 60 votes needed routine.
eemom
@silentbeep:
You misunderstand. I couldn’t care less if you stay or go. I just think it makes you look kinda stupid to keep bidding everyone adieu and still sticking around.
silentbeep
@eemom: Thank you for your concern. Wishing everyone a goodbye to leave the forum for good? nope not really. Leaving the argument, sure.
Cerberus
@silentbeep:
Shame because I’m a member of a group targeted for elimination by the American extremist Christians.
I do not say removal from public voice, I mean actual physical elimination. No public recognition, no public mention, and murder at a normalized rate.
My minority group while tiny is eliminated by attack at a rate of 1 per month in the US despite only making up 1% of the population. My minority group is immediately targeted with eliminationist language by the anti-gay hate groups that target me.
My larger identification within the LGBT community is targeted with comparisons to Nazis, child molesters. My rights are constantly targeted for elimination. These groups fight in the US for my right to employment, housing, marry who I choose, and use any public or private facility to be eliminated and abridged. Said groups have openly fought against any and all services towards my group as “immoral” and have openly targeted the larger group as a group to which it should be okay and encouraged to bully to death.
My group has a suicide rate of 1 in 3 thanks to the culture of death that these Christian activists have successfully enshrined in this country. We usually see a 1 in 10 thousand rate as unforgivably obscene.
Said christian activists, when encouraging policy in the country of Uganda, pushed huge amounts of money, manpower, and gave testimony supporting a bill for the elimination of homosexuals, the way homosexuals are perceived means my group as well was targeted for arrest and the sentencing of the death penalty.
For existing, the punishment is death. When not fought, when in a culture that supports them, they fought to try and pass a law where in I would be killed for existing.
Dead.
Said group has despite the law, pushed for Republican platforms in several states to still include calls for the recriminilization of my existence and that of my LGB brothers and sisters.
Arrested for existing.
Said groups also want to make childbirth mandatory and deadly by targeting local organizations responsible for most women-focused medical care, because of their hatred for women. They have targeted women who have been seen as uppity and every few months another group of women is killed by a “lone wolf” with deep-ties to various women-hating organizations.
Such organizations have fought against attempts to enforce rape law despite obscene occurrences of rape against women and children.
These same organizations have deliberately fought a war of aggression on black and latino americans, deliberately killing them when they “pass into the wrong town” even if the reason for such passage is trying to evacuate a town undergoing massive flooding by hurricane. Said same organizations fought to blame the survivors and deny them basic medical care and food and attack all members of the racial identity as monsters because some tried to survive this mandated death sentence.
Our ghettos are filled with the slow death as these organizations fight for “tough on crime” law after law to make the very act of being brown or black illegal. To go further, said groups finance and support and make up the membership of organizations that target anyone with brown skin to be shot on sight with the “justification” of protecting the border.
Said organizations openly call for the replacement of constitutional democracy with a legal system based on their interpretation of Christian Law, they want to make other religions illegal, and they have fought to miseducate our youth with lies and propaganda lest kids find out about the existence of other groups outside the history these Christian bigots want to tell.
They have taken over our schools, our governments, even our pharmacies, for the purpose of destruction of secular society and the imposition of a Christian Law.
So I ask you, as a group targeted for direct physical elimination from my goddamn life by these psychos, exactly where the obvious difference is between these groups and the Taliban lies.
Is it that they pray to a different God, that they are in a country halfway around the world, the success in imposing their vision of a country on a country?
What makes this comparison so off-the-mark when discussing the groups of people who are trying to kill me because the Bible says I’m an abomination?
Tell this trans woman exactly what it is.
Cerberus
Yeah, I don’t get it either, but it’s probably privilege.
It’s a lot easier to believe the nuts in one’s country are somehow less off-meds than the nuts in other countries when one is white and male or middle class enough to not be directly targeted.
It gets a bit harder to ignore when you’ve volunteered for an organization that includes how to evacuate for a bomb threat drilling on the orientation day because that occurs frequently enough to be a need to know issue.
Or when you counter-protest on an issue that directly effects no one except the group you belong to and you are on guard because some of your friends who have done the same have already been beaten up or had their car windows smashed in.
And then you have the bullies who do this, who want you dead and all of your rights secondary to their extra special Jesusness whine that you having equal rights to them somehow removes their God-given right to be extra-special and have all the laws apply only to everyone not them.
Fuck the American Taliban and their twisted idea of what Christianity is and what they want the US to look like. It’s not their country to destroy like that.
Ruckus
@Cerberus:
Don’t you know?
Words are so much more hurtful than actions. More hurtful than abuse. More hurtful than death. And it’s so much more important to have exactly the correct word usage than worrying about what those words stand for.
/BS
The reason and absolute need for your post is why I am politically tired. The bullies are wearing me down.
Sly
@El Cid:
1) And if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle. Whether or not members of OR would be murdering people if they could get away with it is purely hypothetical. They’re not. They’re not advocating in favor of murder either. So I don’t think its appropriate to call them murderers.
2) The Taliban didn’t start murdering and maiming people as soon as they lost the imprimatur of a ruling government. They may have done more of it after they lost control of the government, but that’s a separate discussion on a separate issue.
3) The CIA is not entirely relevant, but if you want to say that they’ve done things over the past 63 years that would categorize them as a terrorist organization, you won’t get any argument from me.
Bernard
so What do you call people who force their religious beliefs on others and forces American society to follow their version of “Christianity”, at least version, this time, on others.
how often do the Christians want to force their version of “American society”. as they have done that for oh so long. the Federal Government is closed on Christmas. What about other non-Christian Religious Holidays
Christians would have to acknowledge they primarily have made their values the only ones that matter. there are others out there, too.
This “my way or the highway” kind of thinking is oh so novel.
Ruckus
@Bernard:
Assholes seems to cover too big a group. For example, I have been called an asshole before. Possibly truthfully. Fucking assholes gets closer. There may still be too much overlap. And some people seem to be bothered by the use of these words.
So I’m going to stick with american taliban. It’s descriptive. It fits. And by all the descriptions that I’ve heard for the taliban, it fits spot on.
Someone on this blog, I think arguingwithsignposts, made the point that the roots of the southern baptists was the puritans. And I believe that many if not all of the evangelical faiths have the same roots. The puritans didn’t want religious freedom, they wanted religious control. Of everything. They are the original taliban. From a small acorn.
Sly
@Bernard:
Assholes.
Because most Federal employees celebrate Christmas, and therefor declaring it Federal holiday make the logistics easier. If the vast majority of Federal employees were, say, Jewish, then it is likely that Yom Kippur would be a Federal holiday and taking off for Christmas would be allowed for Christian employees. As is the current practice for religious minorities.
Then there’s the issue of whether or not it is fair to analogize this to the Taliban’s practice of cutting a woman’s fingers off for the crime of wearing nail polish.
It isn’t.
Ruckus
I don’t believe that anyone has called the christianists the taliban. I believe the common usage is american taliban.
They don’t have to use the same exact torture to achieve their goals. But they have the same desires.
Religious control of the people and government enforcement of their version of morality.
Giving them a descriptive name does not make them terrorists. It’s their goals for everyone else and their lack of concern for others that makes them seem that way.
Jamelle
As the guy who wrote one of the reviews criticizing Markos’ book, I’ll say this:
Above everything else, I think, the phrase “American Taliban” is problematic because it suggests that there is something “unAmerican” about our own religious extremists, right-wing nuts, etc. There isn’t, at all. Singling out marginal groups for ostracizing and sometimes violence? Part of American history. Dealing with people who want laws to reflect their religious beliefs? Part of American history.
Nearly everything progressives don’t like about the modern GOP has its roots in the American story, which is not to say that criticizing them is beyond the pale — they are assholes and deserve all the criticism and fight we can give them — but that they aren’t deviating from some mythical America where we were all civil or something.
Bernard
My God, People. Facts are facts. these so-called Christians in America have forced us to live under their version of the Right wing Christianity since the Republicans gave them access to the Political system.
there are lots of good Christians in America. lol. haven’t found too many, but, i am sure they are out there.
if you want me to tell you how to live, please pay up now. i am getting tired of you people forcing your religious beliefs on MY country. 1st of all we need to take off religious comp days for the Jews, Muslims, Bahias, Sufis, Hindus, Vegans, Wiccans, and all the others i didn’t list here.
but somehow it is okay for the Calvinists, Baptists and other/My way or the Highway/ versions of “perverted” Christianity. Note, i said “perverted Christianity.” lol. not that many of you will allow such thoughts to enter your “my way or the Highway” thinking.
you don’t have to cut someone’s fingernails off in America to be a Talibaner. Just codify your “hate”, intolerance for diversity, and elect Nutjobs to be “activist Judges” that will do your dirty work for you. Lots of control issues for these “losers” who control our society.
please move to Iran, Saudi Arabia/Wahabbianism. we already have proof of what “your MY way or the Highway” religious bs in MY Government/Society.
freedom of religion also means freedom “FROM” religion.
hello!!!! anyone home????
John Bird
They’re probably upset with the phrase because it’s properly applied to right-wingers who kill people with bombs and beat gay people in the streets, not to state governments that ban gay marriage or even political interest groups that make inappropriate warnings about gun control.
Linking the American Taliban, i.e. those likely to engage in direct violence, to the American political right is fruitful. Calling the American political right the American Taliban is inaccurate and appears designed to sell books to people on the left and gin up media coverage.
State bans on marriage are reprehensible and a violation of human rights, and right-wingers a little too eager to talk about guns in reaction to gay issues are really worrisome, but they’re not the same thing, and the difference is the source of the visceral reaction to the Taliban.
liberal
@cmorenc:
We can always impeach that SOS.
SteveMD2
Lets call them talibangelicals.
And not miss the point – there are other ways to murder people, eg drive them to suicide.
Hitler apparently killed only 2 people by his own hand (discounting his service in WWI)
One was a niece who apparently refused to have sex with him.
The other was a man who didn’t have the guts to face justice for using his words to kill 55 million people in history’s worst conflagration.
BTW, he was a catholic and has yet to be excommunicated. But the Pope RATZI in 2009 UNexcommunicated a Bishop Williamson who is a holocaust minimzier / denier.
And hitler often talked about christian values. And every German soldiers belt buckle said “Gott mit Uns”. You don’t need to speak german to read that one.
No wonder the church is all but dead in Europe. My question is whether people think that the church was the creator of fascism, which originated in Italy, not Germany.