Organizations on the religious right raise funds just like any other interest group – they scan world news for the most egregious example of whatever it is they’re fighting against, tart the story up a bit and spam it out to their mailing list as a fundraising letter. Since their mission basically entails increasing the incentives for people to practice Christianity, evangelical fundraisers love a good religious persecution story in the same way that environmentalists milked the Valdez disaster and NARAL will name the next wing of their headquarters after Bill Napoli.
For evangelical groups the fundraising letters don’t come more pre-written than this:
An Afghan who has renounced his Islamic faith for Christianity faces the death penalty under Afghan law in a throwback to the brutal Taleban regime.
…Mr Rahman converted to Christianity over 14 years ago, but his situation was bought to the attention of the authorities after he tried to gain custody of his daughters who had been living with their grandparents. His parents then denounced him as a convert and on arrest he was found to be carrying a Bible.
“The Attorney General is emphasising he should be hung. It is a crime to convert to Christianity from Islam. He is teasing and insulating his family by converting,” Judge Alhaj Ansarullah Mawlawy Zada, who will be trying his case, told The Times.
“He was a Muslim for 25 years more than he has been a Christian. We will request him to become a Muslim again. In your country two women can marry I think that is very strange. In this country we have the perfect constitution, it is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished,” said the judge.
But here’s the downside to politicizing religion. Fundamentalist evangelical groups (yes I know that there’s a distinction) made the decision to firmly hitch their wagon to George W. Bush’s horse, and they’ve been gunning all eight cylinders on his behalf ever since*. This sort of remark, made during one of those exhaustively-screened fellate-the-president sessions, doesn’t seem unusual:
I have a comment, first of all, and then just a real quick question. I want to let you know that every service at our church you are, by name, lifted up in prayer, and you and your staff and all of our leaders. And we believe in you. We are behind you. And we cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done to shape our country.
This puts the fundraisers in a bit of a bind. If they highlight the plight of Mr. Rahman they indirectly suggest that all is not 100% right in Afghanistan, which reflects badly on the guy whom they’re supposed to be lifting up. But these guys are pretty smart and I predict that sooner or later the siren song of fundraising cash will lead them to the growing rightwing meme that middle easterners may just be too backwards to save, no matter how goshdarned hard we try, and kudos to the great president for at least giving it a go.
Let us know in the comments if you have already received any fundraising letters regarding Mr. Rahman. It will be interesting to see whether we get silence, the response that I predicted or we find out that I’m full of, as they say, hot air.
…
(*) Allergy warning – this blog may contain mixed metaphors.
srv
I think we need to start a new meme. If all these Evangelics are praying so hard for Bush, and his policies keep failing, maybe God is trying to tell them something?
GOP4Me
The Lord is trying to tell us that a sinful nation which lets sodomites marry and which permits women to have abortions on demand is not worthy of a President as good and Christian as George Bush. That is why the Lord has plagued us with folly, and that is why the Democrats now wax resurgent. But in the fullness of time, this nation will again prove worthy of its origins, and the Red Menace will retreat once again.
I feel very horrible about Mr. Rahman. But you can hardly blame Afghanistan’s Islam on the Bush Administration. If he’d done anything to change it, you liberals would have been the first ones up in arms about it. Now that the results of doing nothing about heathen idolatry are coming to fruition, how can this also be the fault of the God-fearing among us?
Joel
When I first saw this story I thought of the same conundrum: It’s a shining example of persecution of Christians, but it makes the President look bad. What will the Christian fundraisers do with it?
(I haven’t received any such letter, but since I subscribe to First Things I am on several Christian mailing lists and I’ll let you know when I get one.)
tim maguire
I’m really having trouble seeing the “conundrum.” Bush isn’t president of Afghanistan and he isn’t Mohammed either. Your position requires that he be both.
There are laudable states other then “perfect” and no rational person would claim that Afghanistan isn’t a much better place because of our actions there. I would like to see pressure applied to save Mr. Rahman, but his case doesn’t have anything like the implications you claim.
SeesThroughIt
Jon Stewart hit on this a while ago: “You know…for somebody who loves to pray as much as Bush does…he’s really bad at it!”
As for this:
That is the new meme, but what remains to be seen is whether it will replace the old ones or simply get tacked on to them. A major current meme is “Iraq is a shining success, but insofar as it isn’t, it’s entirely the fault of Democrats and the media!” So with this new one, will they simply add “middle-easterners who are too backward to save” on after “Democrats and the media,” or will this become the new meme in full?
Rome Again
Of all the things I’d like to do/say to Bush for the way he’s “shaped” our country, thanking him wouldn’t be one of them.
Since I’m no longer a Christian, I don’t get their correspondence, so I can’t give you any updates, sorry.
Rome Again
Write this one as thoroughly tanked on the Purple Jesus beverage.
As much as I hate to see the results of what’s coming to this country GOP4ME, I’ll have at least one satisfaction, and that is knowing that eventually even you will finally wake up to reality, probably when it’s too late, but one day you will see what those of your mindset have wrought, and you’ll be truly sorry.
P.S. George Bush is about as Christian as my coffee cup.
zzyzx
Please please PLEASE let the Republicans think this will help them out in November!
S.W. Anderson
I don’t know why the Christian evangelicals should be so taken aback by what’s being done to Rahman in Afghanistan. The Afghans are acting in accordance with the dictates of their extremist, literalist, no compromises faith. That should resonate with fundamentalist Christians.
Gary Farber
“…that all is not 100% right in Afghanistan […] the growing rightwing meme that middle easterners….”
Probably a good idea to avoid phrasings that suggest that Afghanistan is in the Middle East. I know you know better, and that you didn’t mean to suggest this, but it’s what you said.
TBone
Other than being (mildly) anti-Christian and anti-Bush, what was the point of this post?
Christians realize that prayer is not always answered in the ways we would like it to be because that’s not how it works. The Lord’s will is often not in line with our earthly desires. I seriously doubt that Christians are praying to have the Lord kill Afghanis, or to have Bush become the king of America; but simply for God to strengthen the leaders of our nation and to guide this complicated situation (GWOT) in a positive direction.
To lump all committed Christians in the collective pot because a few whacky evangelicals make idiotic remarks is a big mistake for the Left.
Richard Bottoms
Let’ see the smirking chimp explain this one away.
Because freedom is sure on the march.
Cyrus
You know, why does everyone assume that GOP4ME is for real? Because he has a Web site expressing these attitudes instead of just a series of comments on other peoples’ blogs? I don’t see any reason that couldn’t be faked.
In fact, that Web site is only three months old, and the only ad it has is to a café press store with three cookie-cutter t-shirts. It begins with a post referencing Bill Frist, which seems a lot more common on the left side of the blogosphere than the right. Hard thing to be sure of, but still.
It features posts by GOP4ME, dwildman, Leonidas, and a few others. Dwildman and the others seem relatively unimportant, but someone has posted under Leonidas’ name on other blogs, here included. And GOP4ME soon spoke up to accuse her of being a spoofer. But I’ve pretty sure I’ve seen the name on a few Protein Wisom threads too.
Sooo… really being spoofed, or raising the possibility just to shoot it down? For what it’s work, this isn’t DougJ’s style, but there’s no reason he couldn’t have inspired someone else.
Two other things. First, why is Balloon Juice still under the “The Right Way” category of his blog? That’s been dubious ever since Tim F. started posting, and very unlikely after GOP4ME’s post on his blog yesterday. And second, do we know any identifying details about any of the posters there? Home state, pets, jobs, military experience, anything like that? They could of course reply to this, but that doesn’t prove much unless they’re linking to something already out there. I’m not suggesting that they “out” themselves unless they want to, but it is strange that we know nothing about these bloggers other than their extreme political views.
Tim F.
They claim to know each other from RedState and Free Republic. Somebody could dig around those sites and see whether they have a history there. If they’ve been around the rightwing blogosphere for years then we’re either talking about the real deal or one really long con.
Santa Claus
Trust me, he’s real alright. I had Frosty the Snowman peek in his window just the other day. Delightful fellow, that GOP4Me. He’ll be getting lots more toys than you this Christmas.
As for the paragraph you reference, truer words have not yet been spoken on this thread. I know God, and He IS punishing America for its sins. Not that any of you give a shit, and not that I particularly care either. Plenty of other countries have toy-loving children and no adults fighting a War on Christmas. I live off the coast of Greenland, so you left-wing moonbats can’t really affect me too much. Go ahead, fuck your country up. I’m out-Canadianing the Canadians here, why the Hell should I care?
And don’t try to come up here after me, or my trained polar bears will maul your asses.
DougJ
Thank you. I like to think I’m a little wittier than that. But I have to confess that many of the Leonidas posts here were done by me.
GOP4Me
A lot of the other Scrutator posters were at Free Republic and Redstate. I have no idea what screen names they used. I was a lurker for a long time before I started some tentative posting at Volokh and Protein Wisdom last November under the screen names DEGOP and Moose. I have no idea what anyone else did, and I’m tired of having to justify my reality to you kooks.
BTW, f-ck you, DougJ. And f-ck your troll-spoof name, Santa Claus. That’s really certifiable, you know that?
Krista
God only knows…people have more identities on blogs than can be believed. GOP4Me could be Darrell, for all we know. Tim, I think you and I are freakish anomalies for actually using our real names.
zzyzx
“Zzyzx” obviously isn’t my real name, but I’m pretty well known by that on the internet so my information is accurate too fwiw.
ppGaz
I’ve gone over there and posted daily for a while, it seems boilerplate righty most of the time except for GOP4, and all I can say about that is I know for a fact he’s not DougJ.
But even more interesting …. why are you obsessed with it? I don’t remember the names, much less the personal details, of 95% of the commenters here … as many of them can attest (I am the king of incorrect attributions). My question is, who gives a shit?
scs
GOP4ME is DougJ and his blog Scrutator is a spoof. I was further convinced after I exchanged a few emails with him. I am really starting to believe that some of DougJ’s posts are computer generated like DougJ has “joked” before. Otherwise there’s no way one guy would have the time to troll so many blogs. After all this is a guy who used to write computer programs to try and simulate DNA evolution -if he can do that, I’m sure he can simulate some mindless posts. Such automatic responses are common among chat rooms cybots so it’s not unheard of, and maybe not too hard to adjust to a blog. Highlight one point made from a previous poster and then put in a sentence that that poster is a fool. Probably not rocket science. It’s time we all realized it and adjusted out expectations here and stuck to exhanging with posters we trust. Sorry DJ to blow any cover- but you really should get a life.
scs
Sorry about the underlines there. Here it is again with out the lines.
GOP4ME is DougJ and his blog Scrutator is a spoof. I was further convinced after I exchanged a few emails with him. I am really starting to believe that some of DougJ’s posts are computer generated like DougJ has “joked” before. Otherwise there’s no way one guy would have the time to troll so many blogs. After all this is a guy who used to write computer programs to try and simulate DNA evolution -if he can do that, I’m sure he can simulate some mindless posts. Such automatic responses are common among chat rooms cybots so it’s not unheard of, and maybe not too hard to adjust to a blog. Highlight one point made from a previous poster and then put in a sentence that that poster is a fool. Probably not rocket science. It’s time we all realized it and adjusted out expectations here and stuck to exhanging with posters we trust. Sorry DJ to blow any cover- but you really should get a life.
scs
Damn – why does it do that?
scs
And by the way, there’s a distinction but a similarity as well. It’s like saying Shia and Sunni Muslims. There’s a distinction but they are the same in ways as well.
ppGaz
No, scs you are wrong. GOP4Me is not DougJ, nor vice versa.
scs
As to the Christian guy in Afghanistan, the actual substance of this thread, what can you do? The people there are about 1000 years behind the times. No matter what government we put in, the people will still be who they are. Hopefully, through this attempt at Democracy, we can chip away at them little by little, but it will take time. The Christian won’t be executed though because I heard that Karzai has to sign off on it, which he won’t do, so I think that’s why the Bush people aren’t making that big of a deal about it.
scs
What makes you sure of this? He could be trolling you as well.
ppGaz
I have corresponded with him. While I do not agree with his politics, he is a helluva writer and funny too.
And he is not DougJ.
GOP4Me
No, I am not DougJ, scs. I can’t correspond with you any more for personal reasons, but that does not make me DougJ.
There is no computer-generated response machine. It would need to have artificial intelligence, or you’d spot the artificial responses. Artificial intelligence doesn’t exist outside of the “Terminator” movies, and if it did exist it would probably start a nuclear war and kill us all.
When I was about 12 years old, I used to play this computer game called “Dr. Sbaitso.” It was supposed to be a computer shrink, but it only had about 8 responses, and they were inappropriate answers to most statements. Basically, it was like a computerized 8-ball. My brothers and I used to play it because we liked cussing at it until it got “parity error” and flipped out, but otherwise it was boring. That’s the most advanced computer interface I’ve ever seen, short of those touch-tone computerized phone options you get when you call Dell. Before you get the Pakistani human with the barely-discernible accent, I mean.
scs
Welll don’t you think our own DougJ is a helluva writer and funny too? Granted completely insane, but funny, on occasion yes I have to give it to him. I have heard the personal details of GOP, but I am not convinced it is not another story. In fact I am fairly convinced it is.
scs
Well good for you, then you must not IM cyberbot sluts in chat rooms, because a lot of them have automated responses now. You type something and their repsonse adjusts to whatever you typed. The technology is out there. If someone were really dedicated, they could put that to use in a blog too. I’ve noticed how the clones here constantly repeat snippets that you just posted in short sentences connected together, in a way that doesn’t always make sense or read logically. Not all of them mind you, just some. That would be especially handy to use in your own spoof blog, and fill up the threads in the hopes of obtaining advertising dollars. I think DougJ is testing his latest technology on us. Well you have to admire his entrepreneurial spirit I guess.
Cyrus
Hey, I use my real name.
But I don’t think I’ve used my FULL name in connection with any of my blog posts or other online time-killers. Call it paranoia, I guess. When people whine about being anonymously attacked, I comfort myself with the knowledge that given my name and my personal blog you could figure out who I am in about five minutes, I think.
But you know, I’ve always had a private joke and it’s a shame not to share it: my full name is Cyrus John Cole-Levesque. Notice the middle part.
Sure, we’re not talking about a cosmic coincidence here because they’re common names, but still, I’ve been tickled by it periodically.
Anyways,
Who’s obsessing? I happen to notice the names of posters. Most right-wing extremists around here either tend to get accused of being fake pretty quickly, or actually are. GOP4ME gets accused of it rarely if at all, and I assume the main reason is the fact that there’s an actual blog backing him up. But I happened to take another look at that blog and I got to wondering, that’s all.
ppGaz
Okay, well, my name is Pablo Abraham Lincoln-Towncar Sczianaski.
Note the middle part. Folks hereabouts call me “Abe” except for the missus, who calls me “King Vidor.”
scs
I have to admit it, another good one.
Santa Claus
Well, I
post under my real name, anyway. You cowardly motherfuckers.
Santa Claus
Fucking God damn elf-shit-stomping motherless bitch of a margin-chopping scumbag asshole! HOW in the name of sweet baby Jesus do you italicize crap around here? I’m just an old elf with too much snow on the brain, help me out here.