I’ve spent plenty of time writing about the excesses of the fundamentalists, particularly the Baptist variety I was exposed to as a child. I recall that, at the time of my first long article on the convergence of Bush and the Baptists, I had some dim notion that perhaps I could be a catalyst for some change among the fundies I know. I was way naive on that point. How can even one well-reasoned piece of writing or speaking have any effect on people who get a fundamentalist worldview formally reinforced at least 3 times a week by well-coiffed clergy?
I recall visiting a Baptist church in Springfield with my then-girlfriend, and finding in the middle of the bulletin a fine piece of propaganda of that "America is a Christian nation" variety, urging members to call their representatives to demand they protect the "sanctity of marriage." I couldn’t return. Even the fundies of my childhood didn’t so casually ignore the whole separation of church and state business, which has been a recognized part of Baptist orthodoxy since, oh, say, the days when Baptists were persecuted, beaten or imprisoned in the English colonies we now call the United States.
All this adds up, however, to a phenomenon we’ve recently witnessed in spades. It’s easy to say and sounds like hyperbole, but the evidence is very clear that many Republicans have mentally done away with not only the separation of church and state, but the separation of loyalty to party and loyalty to country.
The most frightening example, the one which prompted this particular pouring forth of words, is that of the two overly-blonde Bushies who’ve testified of late before Congress. Both said things that went beyond even this party/country loyalty dissonance, openly espousing their loyalty to George W. Bush, which seems to have trumped all else in their heads.
Monica Goodling, graduate of Pat Roberts’ Regent University (and therefore a fundamentalist Mach 2) said this: "All I ever wanted to do was serve this president, this administration, this department."
Yesterday, Sara Taylor said this: "I took an oath to the president."
Patrick Leahy (God bless the man) followed that up with this:
Leahy: And then you said, I took an oath to the President, and I take that oath very seriously. Did you mean, perhaps, you took an oath to the Constitution?
Taylor: Uh, I, uh, yes, you’re correct, I took an oath to the Constitution. Uh, but, what–
Leahy: Did you take a second oath to the President?
Taylor: I did not. I–
Leahy: So the answer was incorrect.
Taylor: The answer was incorrect. What I should have said is that, I took an oath, I took that oath seriously. And I believe that taking that oath means that I need to respect, and do respect, my service to the President.
These strange creatures, usually fundamentalists, believe so strongly in this un-American, authoritarian, even dictatorial view of working for the government of the people that they are willing to publicly express their views. It takes a Democratic congressman to explain to them what their role is actually supposed to be.
I’m reminded once again of the impossibility of swaying these true believers into seeing things in a broader context. We have a party, part of a nation, that has no knowledge of or desire for the basic system our founding fathers put into place. We cannot change them, because they are so far gone.
The challenge is: how do we weather the consequences of their actions until we get a chance to return government to the hands of the people? Will we even be able to do that, or will their zeal make our Republic one of those places that has a democratic name, but is hollowed of all actual democracy? Will we be the People’s Republic of the United States of America (TM)?
I find it all most depressing, but the most hopeful sign of all is that years of being propagandized haven’t permanently changed the views most of the nation–our Great Leader has bottomed out in every recent poll, and opposition to his war is at levels higher than the disapproval of Vietnam. There is indeed hope, if the mechanism for empowerment is still intact.
