Saturday, October 25, 2008
Palin's Faith
Palin's faith is briefly discussed in the New York Times, but as with most mainstream news, the violent roots of her religion and political career are not.
America's a crazy place today in large part because its early European immigrants were a pretty nuts group themselves. Inheritors of rabid religions molded out of war, famine and plague on the other side of the Atlantic, they practiced -- and still practice -- a particularly insane form of commerce, religion and governance that threatens all life on earth.
Palin's people -- most of whom believe in and practice religiously-inspired malicious harassment for political purposes -- are a throwback to the witch-burning early settlers. While most of us have moved on intellectually and socially, there are outposts of madness still reveling in apocalyptic visions they desperately fight to impose on the rest of us.
Like all social pathologies that threaten the health of our society, this is one we must oppose vigorously, both as Americans and as sane human beings. We ignore this public menace at our peril.
America's a crazy place today in large part because its early European immigrants were a pretty nuts group themselves. Inheritors of rabid religions molded out of war, famine and plague on the other side of the Atlantic, they practiced -- and still practice -- a particularly insane form of commerce, religion and governance that threatens all life on earth.
Palin's people -- most of whom believe in and practice religiously-inspired malicious harassment for political purposes -- are a throwback to the witch-burning early settlers. While most of us have moved on intellectually and socially, there are outposts of madness still reveling in apocalyptic visions they desperately fight to impose on the rest of us.
Like all social pathologies that threaten the health of our society, this is one we must oppose vigorously, both as Americans and as sane human beings. We ignore this public menace at our peril.
