Yeah.

Welcome to your modern Republican Party.

I’m a conservative (Canadian, which makes me a lefty to Americans) and an atheist.

Being conservative has diddley to do with religion. It’s about fiscal responsibility, fair dealing, standing up for what’s just and taking charge of your life.

This Noonan guy should seek counselling pronto. He has some paranoid ideation going on.

What Noonan and the rest are really worried about is Sedition. It just sounds so much more sexy, justifiable and rabble (a)rousing to call it treason.
I agree with this:
The bed-wetting conservative view of America is postulated on a country that is so rickety, a few well-placed newspaper articles in conjunction with one or two public displays of protest (espeically if they are televised) will enable two dozen scruffy lunatics with sharp knives to bring the whole thing crashing down, and all 300 million of us will immediately walk ourselves into subservience to an aged diabetic in a cave 8000 miles away….
The gravest existential threat facing our country today are those who identify themselves are conservatives but are really authoritarians in disguise. Osama “Dead or Alive” bin Ladin did the most damage to our country by empowering the right – Noonan and those who are like minded. They have the capacity to destroy our country – not them islamonazimexifemhomofascists.

It’s pretty damn fortunate that Hitler or the Japanese never figured out that formula, you know.

They view the bar as pretty low on this one, essentially saying that if you ever say anything negative about America or any of the actions the country takes, THE ENEMIES will take that as encouragement, hence you have AIDED and COMFORTED them, in a way that somehow will cause the entire structure of America to collapse.

Here is how treason is defined in the Consitution:

Section 3: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Treason has to be an armed attack against the United States. McVeigh’s act was treason – Noonan is just an idiot.

Nah. The end of his comment seems to have sent him off in another direction . . .

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I’m guessing it involves a stage and a pole…

OK – I’m gonna go on record here – actions involving a stage and a pole, are much more rocking when performed wy a woman as opposed to Gavin (or any man – no offense Gavin)

That is where your average wingnut disagrees. We could scrap the Constitution and institute a fascist totalitarian state, and as long as we (1) keep the Stars and Stripes as the flag, (2) keep the USofA as the name, and (3) prevent any faggot liberal states from seceding, then it WILL be the same country, and will be better positioned to BE NUMBER ONE, which is all it is really about.

And what better Leader to take the US to #1 than George “It’s just a fucking piece of paper” Bush?

I’m guessing it involves a stage and a pole…

Neocons say stuff like this and how all liberals should be jailed for treason, and all this apparently motivated by their love of their country. My question is what do they consider their country to be? To me, saying, on the one hand, I love my country but on the other, the constitution is just a goddamn piece of paper, is completely contradictory. The constitution IS our country. It’s like having matter and antimatter in the same sentence and thus my head explodes. They have some imaginary country in their heads. I don’t live there. If conservatism puts religion above the rule of law, isn’t THAT treason? Isn’t treason violating the law and the constitution?

And despite my being a godless atheist with no morals whatsoever, the HORROR! comes because I actually give a crap about my fellow humans. You know like that guy, what was his name, love your neighbor as yourself, help me out here, I’m sure you’ve heard of him.

On the other hand, the statement,

“The bedrock of conservatism is the Christian religion…”

Is SO problematic that you could probably spend pages going over everything wrong with it.

It almost doesn’t seem worth it.

I do want to point out, though, that if we decide paganism is unAmerican we’ve decided that any indiginous American religions are (somehow) unAmerican, as well as putting us on the road to seeing manifest destiny as one of America’s best ideas.

Which would seem to prevent a large number of native Americans from being conservative, even (especially) if they oppose social changes to native areas.

But like I said, that’s only ONE problem with that statement.