Thanks, celticgirl. I’ll hopefully be talking to my friend in Lawrence who knows the victim later today, so I’ll let you know how he’s doing and what the latest is.

Ironically enough, I just caught Fox News’s coverage of Dr. Mirecki’s assault – you know those little news blurbs they offer early in the morning? According to the good lads over at Fox, Dr. Mirecki was fired from his position as chair of the religious studies department. This is pretty interesting, seeing as he voluntarily resigned after the attack. He just didn’t feel safe in his job anymore.

Not that making people feel unsafe at work if they deviate from the party line is a classic Sturmabteilung technique or anything.

As far as “bias” in the classroom goes, if you stop sucking David Horowitz’s dick long enough to form your own opinions about what’s going on around you, you might just finally realize why it is that reality so often seems to be biased in favor of the evil liberal agenda. You have no idea what I learn in my classrooms, but I can guarantee you it’s been vetted by people who have actually gone through the time, work,and effort necessary to earn a Ph.D. in a subject – which means they have far more valid reasons for other people to respect their opinions on their subject matter than does Bill O’Reilly.

You know why Bill O’Reilly doesn’t teach in a classroom? Because he’s not fucking qualified.

But why should that matter? Why should people who have troubled to educate themselves on a topic and are considered experts in that topic by their peers be more entitled to have their opinions respected than some guy with a website or a TV show? That’s just elitist, anti-American claptrap. Everybody knows that America’s about equality, right? My opinion’s worth just as much as Eugene Genovese on the antebellum economy of the South, right?

This is the same anti-intellectual attitude that drives the attacks on evolution in local school districts. After all, just because a bunch of biologists believe that evolution happens – well, everybody in my town believes that God did it. And there’s more of us than there are of those eggheads, so we should at the very least teach BOTH ideas in our schools.

And not that anti-intellectualism is a core tenet of fascist ideology, either.

But Watchman, I can’t help but notice that you haven’t actually responded to the substance of my post – just that you don’t like my tone. Do you have an opinion on Pelley’s place in American history? Or, is it just the case that you don’t actually know what the hell you’re talking about when it comes to American history, but like to listen to yourself talk? Because that’s okay – you’ll have lots of friends in the Bill O’Reilly audience if that’s the case.

I don’t know everything, but I know what I know. And we’ve never in our history seen anything like what’s going on now with the government. Ever. We were perhaps closer to overt manifestations of fascism with William Pelley’s Silver Shirts in the early thirties, but we had a president in office who understood the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments and actively opposed overtly totalizing elements in the government. We lack that now. We had a Congress then who was willing to stand up to the President when he overstepped his authority – we lack that now, too.

History is by no means a predictive science, so I don’t claim that jackbooted thugs are guaranteed to be in our future – but I do feel confident saying that if we don’t get them, it won’t be for a lack of trying on the part of the righties.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m going crazy – I can see how things in America could go from where these folks are a fringe group to where they rule the country so clearly, it’s like it’s already happened sometimes. And I feel like nobody else can see it.

People forget all the time what a fragile thing democracy is, and how dependent it is upon an overriding respect for the concept of secular law. We live in a country where the vast majority of Americans couldn’t even tell you what the Fourteenth Amendment is or give a coherent explanation of what checks and balances mean, and we’ve also got a small but growing majority of people who think that the “laws of Christ” are more important for America than the “laws of Man”.

In other words, we’ve got the seed-core of a fanatical regime, and the bulk of the country’s too ignorant to understand why democracy needs to be defended from ALL threats, foreign AND domestic.

I’d feel better, maybe, if I didn’t feel like I’m just about the only person who sees this.

Beating up people who don’t like your particular brand of Christianity.

I’m a bit shaken up by this one, because the guy in question is a friend of a friend of mine. Word has it that he’s planning on resigning some chairmanships over the incident. They knocked a tooth out of his head.

The only significant difference between the guys involved in this incident and the Sturmabteilung is numbers – if we had two thousand of these chumps instead of two, just think about what they could do. And it’s not that hard to recruit people.

People are really not taking this new brand of “Christianity” that’s erupting in this country seriously enough.

It’s fascinating to see the process in action. (Hmm, which slogan will best appeal to our target demographic? Let’s apply some science.)

And the WINNER IS!!!!1!!

“It bothers me that Bush bends over backward to not offend other religions while repeatedly shortchanging Christians.”

Coming in at just over 33%.

“love your enemy.”

“turn the other cheek.”

“peacemakers shall be called sons of god.”

“let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

“thou shalt at all times kiss the assholes of your far right christian base, even with regard to absurdly symbolic and petty shit like putting happy holidays on your yearly cards instead of merry christmas.”

thus sayeth the lord.

Approximately 20% are at least somewhat sane, if we are to judge by the responses.

Choice quote: [At the National Christmas tree lighting,] Bush told the public, “The lighting of the National Christmas tree is one of the great traditions in our nation’s capital. Each year, we gather here to celebrate the season of hope and joy ? and to remember the story of one humble life that lifted the sights of humanity. Santa, thanks for coming. Glad you made it.”