Larisa Alexandrovna: Our Very Own Taliban

Hissyspit

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Mon Jun-01-09 05:20 PM
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Larisa Alexandrovna: Our Very Own Taliban

Edited on Mon Jun-01-09 05:24 PM by Hissyspit

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http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/06/our-very-own-taliban.html

June 01, 2009

Our very own Taliban

The tragic assassination of Dr. Tiller by a right-wing terrorist is yet another example of how dangerous Christian extremism is, just like its counterpart in Muslim extremism. The political right is now distancing themselves from this latest attack, but fail to see how their political shift to the extreme right has helped produce this latest crime.

Take for example Fox's Bill O'Reilly, who equated Dr. Tiller with Hitler. Salon does a fine job showing just how dangerous O'Reilly's propaganda is:

"But there's no other person who bears as much responsibility for the characterization of Tiller as a savage on the loose, killing babies willy-nilly thanks to the collusion of would-be sophisticated cultural elites, a bought-and-paid-for governor and scofflaw secular journalists. Tiller's name first appeared on "The Factor" on Feb. 25, 2005. Since then, O'Reilly and his guest hosts have brought up the doctor on 28 more episodes, including as recently as April 27 of this year. Almost invariably, Tiller is described as "Tiller the Baby Killer."

Tiller, O'Reilly likes to say, "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000." He's guilty of "Nazi stuff," said O'Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. "This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao's China, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union," said O'Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006."

The typical reaction from the Malkinites has been to brand this as an act of extremism, not terrorism. A bad apple that rotted away from the more mainstream tree.

The reality is of course contrary to such claims. Firstly, terrorism is always an act of extremism. Secondly, the far more important question that should be asked of the Malkinites is why they are busy trying to re-brand this violent act?

Perhaps because all acts of terrorism tend to force the more moderate members of a particular group to try to place some distance between themselves and an attack. On this point, I agree. The American Taliban does not represent mainstream Christianity. But the mainstream Christianity of the right has for many years now shifted far closer to the extreme than they wish to admit.

The extremists the right embraces are in fact mainstream

Ann Coulter wants genocide to cleanse the earth of the Muslim threat. She has openly hoped for the murder of liberals. She has argued that America is a Christian nation and that Jews would be perfected by becoming Christians.

Yet she appears regularly on Fox, MSNBC, ABC, and a plethora of other mainstream outlets, billed as a Conservative commentator. Coulter is not saying these things in someone's basement or out in the woods far away from the Conservative movement and standing along side David Duke.

She is invited over and over to give key speeches at various organizations also not on the fringe. But if Coulter strapped on a bomb and took out the New York Times building, would anyone be surprised? No. I would call her an extremists. Yet the political right embraces her fully. And she is just one example of so many, it would take a book-length long inventory to convey.

The right spends a good deal of time defending torture, mass murder, executions, and so forth. In fact, many of these arguments have become mainstream. Consider what your reaction may have been 20 years ago if a John-Yoo-type said on public television that the president could crush the testicles of a child if he wanted to, as was his power as leader to do? The country would have erupted in demands for his removal from office.

Yet not only has this kind of Executive power been supported by the mainstream right, but the crimes that have grown out of this policy have also been defended by the mainstream right. Again, these are not people hiding in a basement somewhere and claiming that torture is okay, murder is okay, all of it okay as long as it may save an American life.

How is that argument different from the justification for taking Dr. Tiller's life? It is the same argument. The doctor is a mass murderer and killing him saves American lives. When your political platform consists of religious zealots - including the former president who took his murder orders directly from God - and war profiteers, then a lone extremist with a gun is more likely than not.

You cannot advocate violence and then denounce it when it is politically damaging. You cannot argue that the US is a Christian nation and that the laws of Christianity supersede the laws of the land, and then denounce a lone Christian extremist exercising what he believes is the proper Christian reaction to what he views as the mass murder of innocents.

So while I agree that this murder does not represent all Christians - not even most - I disagree that it is an entirely extremist act outside of the mainstream political right. Not when the politics of the right have shifted so far to the extreme.