Nobody here but us Christian extremists!

By Steve Farrell
web posted April 18, 2005

Let's stop pretending. There is no such thing as religious
neutrality in the minds of those who support the secular, socialist
state. They are at war with religion in general and Christianity in
particular. They always have been.

A fresh 'respectable' example: the openly hostile March 29th,
New York Times oped, "What's Going On?" by Paul Krugman.

In it Mr. Krugman shamefully compares white right-wing
Christians to Islamic extremists for their contempt for
democracy, their contempt for the rule of law, their budding thirst
for blood, and a host of other problems.

Nice work.

And he has an inspired, compassionate, freedom loving, left wing
solution: Silence them or else.

And as insane as it sounds, Krugman's 'or else' refers to his
belief that the U.S. will soon resemble the Middle East, complete
with no women's rights, zero science, and political-assassination-
a-plenty if we continue to tolerate right wing, read that
'conservative,' 'traditional,' 'mainstream' Christianity.

Look at what happened in the Netherlands, he says, where
"[their] culture of tolerance led the nation to ignore the growing
influence of Islamic extremists until they turned murderous."

America is next; for the United States is a place "where
dangerous extremists belong to the majority religion and the
majority ethnic group, and wield great political influence."

These Christians, these extremists – and he uses the word
extremist ten times, including his reference to Christian legislative
efforts as "cutting edge extremism" – are putting our nation at
risk.

And it must be so. In close proximity to every reference to
Christian extremism are such additional 'nice' words and phrases
as: kill, murder, assassination, climate of fear, and armed body
guards; and sweeping charges of Christians being guilty of:
meddling, circumventing the courts, intimidating in the name of
God, undermining the rule of law, zero self restraint, and finally,
get this: "pressure." Krugman is so disturbed about Christians
applying political "pressure" that he mentioned this grievous sin
three times.

Then come his examples:

He started off with 'abuses of power' by a trio of Christian
extremists – the Bush Brothers and Congressman Tom Delay –
three men who dared to stand up for the right to life of Terri
Schiavo against the Almighty courts and their culture of death.

How fighting the court system – the least democratic element in
our government, and the most liable to commit abuse against the
democratic pulse of the people and the rule of law – is an act
against democracy [1] and the rule of law, and in this case, in
defense of the Unalienable Right to Life, is a puzzle that
Krugman fails to explain.

If he was looking to be fair and balanced he might have looked
back to the case of the 'founder' of the Democrat Party, Thomas
Jefferson, who, as President, declared the Sedition Act
unconstitutional without consulting the Supreme Court or
Congress, and set free those previously imprisoned, because he
believed every branch has the right to interpret the Constitution
as it sees fit, and that any law that overthrows an Unalienable
Right is NOT a law. [2]

Mr. Krugman might also have noted that Jefferson wasn't afraid
to claim such a right on religious grounds either. Said Jefferson:

I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution
under the Sedition law, because I considered and now consider
that law to be a nullity as absolute and as palpable as if Congress
had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image; and
that it was as my duty to arrest it's execution in every stage, as it
would have been to have rescued from the fiery furnace those
who should have been cast into it for refusing to worship their
image. … On this I am not afraid to appeal to the nation at large,
to posterity, and still less to that Being who sees Himself our
motives, who will judge from His own knowledge of them, and
not on the testimony of a Porcupine or Fenno. [3]

Not bad. A true 'extremist,' the 'founder' of the Democrat Party.

Krugman's next examples of 'extremism' get even more bizarre.

Where Christian extremists "are found in large numbers," he
complains, they have "pressured" state legislators into passing
"conscience" and "refusal" laws, which permit doctors and
pharmacists to refuse to perform abortions or to sell "morning
after" pills when such actions are contrary to their deepest held
convictions.

Just as threatening, Christian extremists have made it so that "31
percent of teachers … feel pressured [there's that word again] to
present creationism-related material in the classroom."

This is pretty serious stuff. 'Pressure.'

Isn't such pressure a manly, vigilant, free exercise of religion and
speech in America? Krugman thinks not. Obsessed with
compelling everyone to think and act alike – in a manner
antagonistic to the Christian faith – he sees any resistance to the
liberal status quo as a clear and present danger.

"What we need – and we aren't seeing", says Krugman, "is a firm
stand by moderates against religious extremism."

You know, Mr. Krugman, there's a more honest way of wording
this last sentence of yours. Try this one on for size: "What we
need is a firm stand by left wing extremists against political and
religious moderation."

After all, liberals generally favor an 'any thing goes', nearly
anarchist approach to morals, and a utopian, extremely centrist,
if not Marxist approach to government – which sounds pretty
extreme to me; while conservatism generally favors traditional
moral and political values over moral and political excesses – a
stand that encourages a healthy combination of limited
government, free enterprise, and social democracy, standing
upon the foundation of a "frequent recurrence to" fixed,
fundamental, Higher principles [4]. If the latter mix isn't the more
moderate approach, what is?

Footnotes:

1. The Founders gave us a republic, not a democracy, which
incorporated such things as checks and balances, Higher Law,
mixed modes of representation, etc., as checks against pure
popular whim.
2. Cappon, Lester J., editor. The Adams–Jefferson Letters: The
Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson &
Abigail & John Adams, University of North Carolina Press,
Chapel Hill and London, 1959, renewed 1987, pgs. 278-279,
Jefferson to Abigail Adams, Sept. 11, 1804.
3. Ibid. pgs. 274-276, Jefferson to Abigail Adams, July 22,
1804.
4. Mason, George. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12,
1776.

NewsMax pundit Steve Farrell is associate professor of political
economy at George Wythe College, press agent for Defend
Marriage (a project of United Families International), and the
author of the highly praised, inspirational novel, "Dark Rose"
(available at amazon.com). Follow his daily blog at
www.LibertyLetters.blogspot.com

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