[Vision2020] Wilson's Excuses

[J Ford]

Gary is pulling a kirker stronghold and fallback - if you get what you want, 
pretend it is not really what you wanted.

He asked, you have provided, I have provided what he asked for but it 
apparently is NOT what he wanted after all because it puts his hero in the 
wrong light.

Sorry Gary - but you are still sitting on that fence and by now those 
splinters MUST be getting uncomfortable.


J  :]





>From: "Andreas Schou" <ophite at gmail.com>
>To: "g. crabtree" <jampot at adelphia.net>
>CC: "J Ford" <privatejf32 at hotmail.com>, vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Wilson's Excuses
>Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 11:34:00 -0800
>
>On 2/20/07, g. crabtree <jampot at adelphia.net> wrote:
>>
>>A,
>>   You really didn't have to feel obligated to take my "got something new"
>>remark quite so literally. While I'm glad that you've decided to give the
>>"Doug wants to kill kids and queers" mantra a rest, moving on to the
>>subversion of liberal democracy just because you think you've found
>>documentation for it is an intellectually lazy technique for furthering 
>>this
>>discussion.
>
>G --
>
>You've asked for two particular things: proof of a political agenda
>and proof of a political agenda that advocates the death penalty for
>homosexuality. I provided the former and you accuse me of changing the
>subject. Apparently, providing evidence from Doug's associates and the
>magazine he edits is not enough. So, here's evidence of Doug's
>moderate views, from the Idaho Statesman, 10-12-2003.
>
>"The Bible indicates the punishment for homosexuality is death. The
>Bible also indicates the punishment for homosexuality is exile. So
>death is not the minimal punishment for a homosexual. There are other
>alternatives."
>
>This sets the moral range of options for dealing with homosexuality
>from "totally unacceptable" to "Holocaust." You might find it
>unsurprising that I might find exile (or just stoning someone half to
>death) to be unacceptable.
>
>Doug's a smart guy. He doesn't like to rock the boat, because he has a
>local constituency to appease -- he's not simply responsible for
>pandering to mouth-breathing neoconfederates behind closed doors.
>That's not the kind of guy he is: he realizes that it's difficult for
>true radicals to take power. So he says one thing to his supporters,
>when he feels like he's in private, and says quite another to the
>media, when he feels like his views might become subject to criticism.
>
>Not so with his Trinity Fest co-presenter George Grant, who,
>apparently, has no particular desire not to be regarded as absolutely
>nuts. Here's a quote from his 1987 book, "The Changing of the Guard":
>"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy
>responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ - to have dominion
>in the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and
>godliness.  But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.
>It is dominion we are afier. Not just influence.  It is dominion we
>are after. Not just equal time."
>
>You can find echoes of the same principles in Doug's work. Take, for
>instance, this sermon from December 28, 2003: "In the 60s, my father
>wrote a small but enormously influential book called The Principles of
>War. In it, he applied the principles of physical warfare to what he
>called strategic evangelism. This idea of warfare is necessary in
>order to understand a central part of what is happening here, and by
>this I mean the concept of the decisive point. A decisive point is one
>which is simultaneously strategic and feasible. Strategic means that
>it would be a significant loss to the enemy if taken. Feasible means
>that it is possible to take. New York City is strategic but not
>feasible. Bovill is feasible but not strategic. But small towns with
>major universities (Moscow and Pullman, say) are both."
>
>This isn't just theoretical. In the 90s, according to his bookkeeper,
>Wilson was involved in channeling church funds (and using the
>bookkeeper herself) to support the radical U.S. Taxpayers' Party. The
>church email list is regularly used to support church-funded
>candidates in local elections. These things are not irrelevant.
>
>>What protestant religious leader (or any religious leader, for that 
>>matter)
>>doesn't think that our country would be made a better, more righteous 
>>place
>>if it were to internalize the teachings of *insert dogma here*. Rushdooney
>>was hardly unique in this regard. The fact that Mr. Wilson thinks the 
>>world
>>would be a better place if run from a more biblical perspective hardly 
>>comes
>>as a major surprise, in fact, the surprise would be if he didn't. Given a
>>choice between government run from a more biblical perspective and sharia,
>>I'll stick with the one that has provided at least a modicum of the legal
>>underpinning for this country for the last couple hundred years. Feel free
>>to continue lose sleep over the impending crisis that is a country 
>>dominated
>>by Douglas Wilson and his teachings. Personally, I think it's the least of
>>your worries.
>
>Here's the deal: we are in no danger of being overrun by Muslims and
>being forced to submit to sharia. Why modern conservatives are
>currently busy wetting themselves over the prospect of being forced to
>submit to a form of law that absolutely no one in our country believes
>in is -- well, it's completely beyond me. Likewise, it might surprise
>you to know that I have very little fear of a country run according to
>Old Testament law: we have a deep-seated small-l liberal democratic
>tradition in this country.
>
>What confuses me, Gary, is why you keep insisting that we ignore the
>fact that people with a deep-seated aversion to basic principles of
>accountability and, indeed, to liberal democracy itself are running
>for elected office. Kirkers claim that their faith is not irrelevant
>to their politics. I take them at their word: it is clear that their
>faith is not irrelevant to the policies they recommend. When
>threatened, they duck behind the 1st Amendment -- a principle in which
>they do not even believe -- and take cover behind the
>constitutionalist principles that they themselves would abolish if
>they ever took power.
>
>I am not required to reducio my own priniples to absurdium in order to
>maintain absolute consistency. I believe in religious tolerance, but
>my belief in religious tolerance -- that the state should do nothing
>to prohibit their faith's peculiarities -- does not mean that I am
>required to spend my money in ways that facilitate their efforts,
>however quixotic, to put in place a social order not just
>contradictory to absolutely every principle I hold dear, but
>contradictory to the get-along-go-along Christian faith held by the
>majority of our country's founders.
>
>-- ACS
>
>* Actually, Rushdoony was sort of unique. He's nothing like Robertson
>or Falwell -- guys so irritating they make my teeth itch -- in that he
>doesn't even see democracy as the appropriate way to establish the
>idiotic and unethical social reforms he recommends.
>
>Take, for instance, this quote: "One faith, one law and one standard
>of justice did not mean democracy. The heresy of democracy has since
>then worked havoc in church and state . . . Christianity and democracy
>are inevitably enemies."
>
>and
>
>"Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is
>committed to spiritual aristrocracy."

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