It Can Happen Here!

[knock knock]

Uh, who’s there?

“Pizza delivery.”

But I didn’t order a pizza. Hey, you’re that silly RenewAmerica guy, aren’t you?

76flandshark2.jpg
Above: “AdamGraham.”

Okay, that wasn’t as funny as I imagined. Let’s see what our favorite Cox-For-President booster has up his sleeve this week.

The Sum Of All Christian Fears
Adam Graham
July 22, 2007

From the title, it seems to be something about a plot to drop the gay bomb on Branson, Missouri.

Imagine a world where children are taken from their families in order to stop them from turning their children into terrorists. Now imagine that on the list of potential terrorists whose children must be taken or re-educated are home schoolers, active pro-lifers, and many other average Evangelical Christians.

Imagine a world in which PZ Myers needs to wonder whether he’s been targeted by a homicidal Creationist.

This is the all-too-believable plot behind the novel, Naked Came the Cephalopod, in which a… Oh wait, I mean it’s the actual real world. But let’s not allow that to spoil a perfectly good tale of conservative victimhood. Apparently, the secular establishment is liable to take Christian children away and give them to teh gheys:

This is the all-too-believable plot behind Jodi Cowles novel, “The Minor Protection Act” (TMPA) in which a President of the United States, with help from a slick attorney, gets a bill passed through Congress that has federal agents remove children from their traditionalist Christian homes and families to stop the children from learning “intolerance” that leads to “hate crimes” and “terrorism.”

The seminal scene in the book

I.e., “the money shot.”

[is] when a child is taken from her Christian parents and placed into foster care with a lesbian couple. The scene in that brief word picture explains how traditionalist Christians see the Culture War better than hundreds of essays have.

Perhaps this picture of Jodi Cowles explains her ambivalent fascination with lesbians better than hundreds of fanfic explorations of the complex relationship between Xena and Gabrielle in TV’s Xena: Warrior Princess:

jodicowles.jpg
Above: Resembles Subaru Outback driver

The book paints a credible Orwellian picture of the near future. Cowles world is driven by opinion polls and a President with his own weekly emotionally manipulative talk show.

Like Bush’s weekly radio address, except emotionally manipulative.

While Cowles can be criticized on literary points such as character development, as well as for an ending that can be charitably described as rushed,

I.e., if writing were important in a novel, the book would be lacking.

the book transcends its weaknesses by painting a compelling portrayal of where our country may be headed.

I.e., since the true measure of art is whether it helps promulgate conservative values, the book is in a league with classics such as We The Living and The Turner Diaries.

For Evangelical Christians, the book amounts to a call to engage culture and stand up for biblical values while they have the opportunity. For liberals, the book offers keen insight into the greatest concerns of Evangelical Christians about the liberal agenda.

Which can be summed up in six words: They hate us for our freedom.

Here are some thoughts I had while reading TMPA.

1. Thought crimes: The Christians featured in TMPA were not guilty of actual violent crimes against anyone, but of “hate crimes” which in TMPA includes a Christian teenager who tells a lesbian that homosexuality is wrong. This is a relevant concern. While the current hate crimes bill ostensibly only adds higher penalties to crimes against homosexuals, foreign hate crimes laws have provisions that punish speech and recently a Swedish pastor spent years in criminal proceedings after preaching against homosexuality in his own pulpit. Leftist groups have offered little reassurance that such draconian measures aren’t planned for the future.

A less contorted way of saying this would be that the veto-haunted hate-crimes bill was torpedoed, and that the Swedish pastor was recently acquitted of such charges.

We in the Unspecified Leftist Groups community are frankly too busy howling in triumph to consider the feelings of others.

2. Those fighting words. Terms like “The Religious Reich,” “The American Taliban,” and “Christian Sharia Law” are throw away lines on leftist blogs.

I’m not sure how we ever got into such a habit.

Recently, Richard Dawkins pondered taking away other people’s children, “It’s one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society to be stepping in? What about bringing up children to believe manifest falsehoods?”

This is a threat because of the pending reunification of America and England, and the ascension of the Englishman Dawkins to a seat of worldly power cognate with that of a new Cromwell.

Also in the news, a professor in another country said something.

One thing Cowles can’t be accused of is demonizing political opponents. Even the lesbian couples that are charged by the state with raising kidnapped Christian Children are portrayed as fairly decent folks.

Unlike real-life lesbians:

condi_rice.jpg
Above: Picture of Condi Rice that is added
for no reason in particular

Each character who plays their part in the President’s plot has understandable, even sympathetic motives.

This is perhaps the most chilling part of the story. Were they demon possessed or utterly evil Hitlerian figures, we could perhaps laugh the scenario off as paranoia. However, Cowles’s characters are simply acting on the basic premises and words of cultural liberals and elitists.

We voted for President Churchill because he promised peace. By the time we suspected the horror, it was already unsafe to speak.

If pro-lifers are basically terrorists, if Christian fundamentalism is harmful to our world, if disapproval of homosexuality is the same as racism, why on Earth shouldn’t the government take away these children?

See, there’s a good question. Because the fundies would only make more?

Thoughts and ideas have consequences,

I.e., ‘in a way, fantasies are actually real.’

and for me, TMPA brought this point home.

3. The target minority: A point made against a scenario like Cowles’s is that Christians make up the majority of the country (87%). But of that numbers, less than half regularly attend church and practice their faith. A smaller number than those who attend church are those who believe in the basic fundamentals of the Faith, and a still smaller number are willing to stand outfront as leaders for other Christians to follow. 2,000 years later, strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter is a true principle. In TMPA, the children taken result in other parents being intimidated into silence.

Translation: Although a small minority, fundamentalist Christians are entitled to rule America — and without any of that annoying ‘American Taliban’ talk, thank you very much.

4. Payment for abortion: While a minor plot point in the story, Cowles’s vision of what the future of embryonic stem cell research is worth noting. Embryonic stem cells are harvested from abortions, with the young women paid to abort as well as told they are saving humanity. This was one of the most believable twists in the story. While today, Embryonic Stem Cell Research advocates claim they only wish to have taxpayer dollars fund ESCR from existing stockpiles from fertility clinics. Of course, these stockpiles will run dry fairly quickly and then other means will be required.

Translation: ‘I have forgotten that I am talking about a work of fiction.’

Overall, The Minor Protection Act is a thought-provoking work that serves an important purpose by forcing readers to look beyond the political arguments of the moment and take a closer look at where the road we’re on might lead.

…If President Kucinich and his congressional cheering section continue their endless liberal rampage. Will these liberals never be stopped?!

 

Comments: 44

 
 
a different brad
 

At this point, I give the poor bastard credit for recognizing the book was fiction, and not something actually happening right now.
Also, the proper response to the word seminal is a Matt Pinfield reference.

 
 

From the BBC “gay bomb” article:

In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a “Who? Me?” bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks.

ROTFLMAO!

 
 

The problem is, all the good books set in a not-too-distant future where Conservatives take over the US have been written, and all the not-so-good ones aren’t worth reading.

 
 

Oh, and the one we’re living isn’t even especially well-edited.

 
 

dude, when i read “Imagine a world where children are taken from their families in order to stop them from turning their children into terrorists,” i thought that he was proposing a new policy toward muslims and other non-christians. sigh. i’m not sure if it’s good or bad that i ended up feeling relieved that he was just writing about some chicken little conservative wankfest.

 
 

Puke o rama! Lesbians gone wild! Castorating dudes!
Well, at least we know it’s only poor lesbians and gays who go nuts and hurt people. Thank goodness we can still depend on higher class lesbians like Lynne Cheney not to go nuts & doing bad sex acts & stuff to people.
It’s everywhere. Everywhere, I tells ya!
I’m a skeered, Father.
Boy this is in the realm of real crapola. I didn’t know how bad he was. Anything to attract viewers is his motto.

 
 

Orson Scott Card has a lot to answer for…

 
 

Mary Cheney, of course. But I wonder: does she own a pink pistol?

 
 

First question: IS there such a thing as an “Average Evangelical Christian”?
Isn’t that kinda like “Low Key Manifest Destiny”?
And I’m kinda all in favor of the re-education of home schoolers.

“If pro-lifers are basically terrorists,”

Out of curiosity, when was the last time pro-choices put pipe bombs at a pro-life rally?

“4. Payment for abortion: While a minor plot point in the story, Cowles’s vision of what the future of embryonic stem cell research is worth noting. Embryonic stem cells are harvested from abortions, with the young women paid to abort as well as told they are saving humanity. This was one of the most believable twists in the story.”

Really? Cause I would have thought the most believe able twist was when the Jamaican Space Program launched that manned yellow submarine to colonize Pluto with dinosaurs.

“Translation: ‘I have totally forgotten that I am talking about a work of fiction.’”

Hasn’t stopped 24, Gavin.

 
 

Above: Resembles Subaru Outback driver

[obligatory yadda yadda through the mall wearing a Subaru Outback yadda yadda joke goes here]

 
 

You know, it’s bad enough the wingnuts have to be scared to death of a novel. Why do they always have to pick such shitty novels?

 
 

Orson Scott Card has a lot to answer for…

No kidding. Sadly, Card isn’t the only one pushing the flaming bag of poo known as the wingnut-revenge-fantasies-for-perceived-swirlies-in-high-school “technothrillerwanker.” Douglas MacKinnon came out with one a while back called America’s Last Days. I’m in the midst of a post about that POS at the moment. Look for the trackback ping when I’m done with the post…

 
 

They forgot “Talibangelical”.

Pfft.

 
 

If you want something truly sad try reading the Amazon book reviews, then look at the other books those reviewers have reviewed. They all believe that the book is realistic, they all enjoy it because of the moralizing, and they all apparently read *only* fundamentalist books. It’s frightening.

The best is one reviewer who says he didn’t give the book a perfect score because the Christians in it sometimes lied. He rates books based on how good and Christian the main characters are? They hell?

These people don’t even understand the concepts of novels and fiction. They just want vapid moralizing. What next? “I give Faust zero stars because talking to the devil just isn’t Christian at all!”

 
 

Amazon also has an excerpt from the first chapter up. It reads like the ramblings of a 7th grader.

 
 

Of course, the big question for us on The Left is what do we convert the kids to once we get them, Shiite or Sunni. The Shiite’s have that whole Theocracy/Dimmitude thing going, but those Sunnis hate American almost as much as us.

Hmmm, what to do, what to do.

 
 

What total fucking nonstop projection this is. Everything the fundamentalists would like to do, and indeed have started to plan, they accuse “secularists” and “gays” of doing and planning.

 
 

Above: Picture of Condi Rice that is added
for no reason in particular

But I thought Condi was doing Bush….oh nevermind.

 
 

dude, when i read “Imagine a world where children are taken from their families in order to stop them from turning their children into terrorists,” i thought that he was proposing a new policy toward muslims and other non-christians. sigh.

Actually, if asked, he probably would.

I wonder if this choad is actually aware of the existence of actual gay and lesbian parents who have had their actual children taken away from them by actual Christian judges? Because it would fucking well appear not.

 
 

[…] fine folks at Sadly, No! have found yet more wingnuts trying to pass off their feverish persecution fantasies as fiction “Ripped From the Headlines™®©!!!” As Gavin puts it: […]

 
 

While the current hate crimes bill ostensibly only adds higher penalties to crimes against homosexuals, foreign hate crimes laws have provisions that punish speech and recently a Swedish pastor spent years in criminal proceedings after preaching against homosexuality in his own pulpit. Leftist groups have offered little reassurance that such draconian measures aren’t planned for the future.

That would be because the US has something called the first amendment, rendering such reassurances completely unnecessary.

 
anangryoldbroad
 

Ya know,”good Christian folk”actually DID take kids away from their parents for re-education in fine upstanding Christian Schools. On Indian Reservations in the US and Canada. The last of these schools were shut down in the 1970’s I believe,so this isn’t exactly ancient history. A little something that was called Kill the Indian,Save the Man. Where children were beaten for speaking their native languages. Sexual abuse and child labor were quite popular among the staff at these schools. Children were ripped out of their parent’s care and taken to these schools,often never seeing family members again.

Yet I never have heard today’s modern Christian conservative ever once…oh screw it,these folks don’t give a shit about actual history,why bother?

I will say this,one of my dearest friends in the world grew up in one of these schools,it was a horrible place. There are lots of American Indian adults that still have no clue what happened to their families after these schools purposefully kept them apart.

 
 

Imagine a world where children are taken from their families in order to stop them from turning their children into terrorists. Now imagine that on the list of potential terrorists whose children must be taken or re-educated are home schoolers, active pro-lifers

Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to, homeschool, madrassah…

 
 

Ugh, stupid fundies, look, if you would just abort all your fetuses like we in the Vast Islamunistohomofeministocratic Conspiracy keep trying to force you to do, we wouldn’t have to confiscate all of them and raise them in Politically Correct Stalinist Fag Mosques. Get a clue, you dopes.

On a related note, I feel that Dr. Seuss paints a very realistic picture in Green Eggs & Ham, which confirms my worst fears that I might someday be nagged into trying unappealing breakfast fare. This is where teh country is headed!!!!1!!!

 
 

I love a story with a happy ending. *sigh*

Judging from the author’s picture, I don’t think she wrote the book. Rather, I think she found an author who was involved in a car accident on an icy, isolated mountain slope, took the author back to her cabin, and forced him to write this bit of fundy wank for her. And when he tried to escape, she cut off his feet.

It’s true! Here’s the proof:
http://www.amazon.com/Misery-Stephen-King/dp/0450417395/ref=pd_bbs_3/104-5744103-5531166?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185375758&sr=8-3

 
 

Can I just say a “Ramen!” to what anangryoldbroad said. I too, had childhood friends (Oglala) whose relatives had been “De-injuned” in these horror schools. Fuck the fundy bed-wetters! Under the sanction of their religion and the state, thousands of children have endured emotional and physical torture right here in the US of fucking A.

 
 

“Politically Correct Stalinist Fag Mosques”

That reminds me; I have to renew my membership to my local PCSFM.

 
 

I just don’t get it. The christianists have all the numbers, all the power, are the accepted moral leaders, and even their more extreme positions are quite surprisingly non-controversial. And yet their propaganda arms continue to cry out that they are being persecuted, oppressed and prevented from merely practicing their religion.

Who is fooled when those who wield all the power cry out that they are powerless?

mikey

 
 

Gavin, that is one sweet post, technically speaking.

As for the wingnuts in question…Why do they hate reason and logic so much? Why?

I bet if I wrote a totally farcical novel about Good Christians being subjugated by the gay atheist (or Muslim, or slightly open minded) masses, only to triumph in the end because they were Good and Right, I’d get rich. Sorta like an Inverse Double Guantanamo with a Full Twist. I might be on to something here….

 
 

t4toby- write that novel!

except make it so all the Christians are forced to have teh Gheysex, and they all instantly renounce breederism. It’ll be a horror novel!

Don’t let ’em triumph however. It’ll be a novel of warning.

 
Principal Blackman
 

Who is fooled when those who wield all the power cry out that they are powerless?

Fundies

 
 

Politically Correct Stalinist Fag Mosques

Tea. Out of nose.

Jake FTW.

Thank you SO much!

Legalize: To whom do I write the check? Does the PCSFM have a web site with PayPal? I hate being the last one on any Bandwagon of Teh Left.

 
 

I just don’t get it. The christianists have all the numbers, all the power, are the accepted moral leaders, and even their more extreme positions are quite surprisingly non-controversial. And yet their propaganda arms continue to cry out that they are being persecuted, oppressed and prevented from merely practicing their religion.

mikey,

founding myths die hard, yo. To the Christers, it’s always 79 A.D.

 
 

Imagine a world where children are taken from their families in order to stop them from turning their children into terrorists.

Operation Peter Pan 2.0

 
 

The best is one reviewer who says he didn’t give the book a perfect score because the Christians in it sometimes lied.

A flaw I found and the reason I didn’t give The Holy Bible a perfect rating is that the Christian heroes, at times, use “situation ethics.” They lie. For example, there’s this one scene where Peter denies Jesus three times. Real Christians simply don’t do things like that…

Who is fooled when those who wield all the power cry out that they are powerless?

Fox News Viewers. Registered Republican voters. “Moderate” Democrats. Democratic presidential candidates.

 
 

Fellers,

May I suggest some good ol’ Amazon tagging action?

 
 

Just couldn’t get past the O’Reilly video. You just can’t satirise these idiots.

 
 

Ya know,”good Christian folk”actually DID take kids away from their parents for re-education in fine upstanding Christian Schools. On Indian Reservations in the US and Canada. The last of these schools were shut down in the 1970’s I believe,so this isn’t exactly ancient history.

And don’t forget the Magdalene asylums, in Ireland and other places, including the U.S., which served as virtual slave labor camps for teenage girls who had the audacity to become pregnant or get raped.

 
 

Oh, there are way too many evangelical christians for the guvmint to monitor anyway!

 
 

I haven’t read the book or anything, but there’s two comments that give me pause:
Imagine a world where children are taken from their families in order to stop them from turning their children into terrorists. Now imagine that on the list of potential terrorists whose children must be taken or re-educated are home schoolers, active pro-lifers, and many other average Evangelical Christians.

Like other commenters, I thought that first sentence was a proposal for dealing with Teh Muzlims!!!

Then there’s this:
One thing Cowles can’t be accused of is demonizing political opponents. Even the lesbian couples that are charged by the state with raising kidnapped Christian Children are portrayed as fairly decent folks. […]
Each character who plays their part in the President’s plot has understandable, even sympathetic motives.

This makes me wonder if the author is actually a paranoid fundy thinking this kind of this is likely to happen. It’s entirely possible that the author wrote a cautionary tale about religious persecution being a double-edged sword with serrated teeth that will snap back and bite you in the ass every time. In other words, the author’s point could be “Better lay off the Muslims, guys, because violent Christian extremists can get your church into just as much trouble.”

Of course, I don’t have the time or inclination to read the thing and find out if I’m right or not, so…

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

See also the Australian policy (1915-1969) of “culturally assimilating mixed-descent people into contemporary Australian society”, which involved “the removal of children into internment camps, orphanages and other institutions”.
In 2000 the Aboriginal Affairs Minister explained that there was nothing to apologise for, since only 10% of Aboriginal children [his estimate] had been taken away for re-education.

 
 

Mikey: go visit Fed Clark at Slacktivist and search for his two posts on “Persecution”, which examine how attractive the side of the loser can be.

Look! I’m just like Jesus, nailed to the cross…alright, not actually nailed…and I know this isn’t a cross, it’s a Dell Latitude….okay, try to see this metaphorically….look, just feel sorry for me already, okay?

 
 

I just don’t get it. The christianists have all the numbers, all the power, are the accepted moral leaders, and even their more extreme positions are quite surprisingly non-controversial. And yet their propaganda arms continue to cry out that they are being persecuted, oppressed and prevented from merely practicing their religion.

Who is fooled when those who wield all the power cry out that they are powerless?

It’s because the same media machine which cynically decries, laments, and wrings its hands over the “permissiveness” and “moral degeneracy” of our culture is the one which manufactures it, day after day.

They produce some entertainment which glorifies and fetishizes violence, sex, and the synthesis of the two (read: torture-porn). They produce other entertainment which treats lgbt characters as an exotic sideshow of wackiness for the entertainment of straights, while sanitizing it all with a watery message of “tolerance.” They produce yet more entertainment which stingingly lampoons the intolerance and bigotry of the conservative right. They package it all together and inundate our culture with it for the sake of consumerist entertainment.

In the same breath, they dutifully put on their “journalist” hats, rush out into the streets and draw our attention to the terrible nature of their creation, speaking from a position of manufactured moral authority and decrying the very culture they foisted upon us to sell their products.

By cherry-picking their way through the wasteland of their own manufacture, they perpetuate the meme of the Liberal Media.

 
 

Biggest dating portal in the world, come meet women tonight!…

 
 

(comments are closed)