Reply #91: I'm not suggesting it's a tactic. [View All]

[SOteric]

I am suggesting that the Religious Right has been given a false sense of power and of their own importance by their belief that Dubya, the Leader of the Free World, is one of them. (Though I do believe that Rove has been using the Religious Right for his own purposes, - that's another story for another time.) Remove the figurehead, and the perception of power/powerlessness normalises once again.

You have every right to concern yourself with the disintegration of citizen rights. I concern myself with them on my own behalf as well, and on the behalf of some tribal populations I work with and of whom I have grown fond. I concern myself with the stripping away of rights of all people, regardless of belief, non-belief. Place the blame and need for correction where it belongs. The government, Bush, Cheney, Rove, Homeland Security, John Ashcroft, Tommy Ridge and a massive failure of the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold the standards of justice and democracy for which this nation was once known.

I don't believe people, even Fundies, will be rising up wholesale to discard the social contract any time soon. As with all things, I watch with my eyes open and I remain open to the possibility that things will yet grow to that level. But we're not there. We're not in the neighbourhood.

The inciting hyperbole I'm being exposed to in this matter is along the line of what you're saying in this thread. I understand your fear. It's valid, but I don't support it. I don't support inciting fear of a nameless abstract group of people based on past hurts and potentialities. That's no better than what you fear they'd do to you.

Folks need to calm down about this; to de-escalate the hyperbole and wild, fear-mongering speculation.

I very much hope that there'll be no rising up even in small ways. Not only because it pains me to think of people who believe themselves followers of Christ behaving in such a manner, but because if some small amount of thuggery begins in the name of that movie either state or local agencies or the production company itself will withdraw the film from local theatres. If you think the film has power now, you do not even want to see what will happen if it gets banned from miscellaneous locations.

Gotta class, - catch you later.