God Bless Christopher Hitchens!

Hitchens, avowed atheist and virulent anti-Catholic would undoubtedly not appreciate the sentiment, but again I say, God bless him! As we watch the collective (and increasingly worrisome) breakdown of the Democrats, and we notice that not a SINGLE Democrat in a leadership position is telling these people to knock it off and “move on”, Hitchens brings his own rigorous logic to the whole issue and calls Bush a champion of Secularism. And he’s right. For all that American Christians of every stripe are now being equated with Taliban by those oh-so-tolerant, enlightened so-called liberals, President Bush is very much fighting to sustain the very favorable to secularists freedom which we all enjoy in this country. For all the heated rhetoric, no sane person believes George W. Bush is going to make everyone bow down to his God, or risk the sword. But that doesn’t keep the so-called liberals from pushing the idea, as they attempt to foment something truly awful in our nation. They’re heaping on the hate and building one hell of a fire. I pray we can survive it.

Too many on the left who are quick to denounce religion will not admit that they have a religion and a belief system of their own. It is called Secular Humanism. They think it has brought them enlightenment, but I don’t see it (and once in my life, I too thought it was the promise of something good). It seems to have merely turned their basest human instincts in on themselves, focused them too, too much on their own thoughts and power – they believe in nothing greater than themselves and so they worship their own reason. It might satisfy, but it doesn’t save. And since this religion seems to cut them off from the rest of the world (they travel only with the like-minded) it is a religion of insularity; it cannot “reach out” because it is forever spinning within. It hasn’t built any hospitals or fed the poor – it simply relies on the government to do that. Therefore it is faceless and nameless and cold.

Coming from a classically liberal background, I cannot call these people “liberals” any longer. The bigoted, narrow intolerance, graceless manner and childish pouting of these people (not, I rush to assure, the general population of Democrats, but the Dem leadership and Establishment) is ignorant and unrealistic. It is also centuries removed from what I was raised to believe a “liberal” mind to be. Brought up as a liberal, I was trained to be respectful of differences of opinion and taught that all perspectives were valuable. I was raised to understand that there were all sorts of people in the world, all of them valuable. These ranting fascists we’re having thrust before our faces (thank God I watch almost nothing on television) and the weird lamentations they are encouraging from the extremely sick people on some Democratic websites, (they know who they are) resemble absolutely nothing I ever experienced from the liberals and Democrats who populated my youth and young adulthood. These creatures are far, far removed from those enlightened, gentle and good-hearted people.

When did it start? When did it become impossible for a Democrat and a Republican to find any – ANY – common ground on which to speak and grow? I hate to say it – I really do – but I lay it at the feet of the Clintons and that whole “war” and “scorched earth” mentality. Previous to the Clinton Administration and their take over of much of the press, the world was not like this.

If ordinary, thoughtful Democrats (some of who I see commenting on this site, and whose views I appreciate very much – even the somewhat more extreme ones ) cannot rein in these extremist louts, the Democrats will never again be a serious party put back in power. The hysteria has got to end, the calls for assassination have got to be shouted down, the Democrats must take back their party from those who are hijacking it to a foreign and dangerous place. If the Democrat leadership will not do it, then it must come from the grass roots Democrats – the ones who want to save their party. America needs a healthy two-party system. My Libertarian friends may well end up becoming that healthier and stronger second party if the Democrats can’t be helped out of the padded rooms and rehabilitated.

UPDATE: Also God bless Doug Kern over at TCS: Tech Central Station, who made me laugh out loud with this Advice to Democrats