Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Jerry Falwell passes
It seems obligatory for all proper conservatives to say something like this:
"Jerry Falwell did a lot for the movement, but his remarks about the cause of 9/11 were hateful and intolerant."
I'm not a proper conservative, so I beg to differ.
First of all, he was not talking about a direct human cause. He was speaking on a spiritual level. Those who criticize him are claiming to know the mind of God better than Falwell did.
I don't claim to know the mind of God; I'm at best a sort of "watchmaker deist", not sure if the creator is still interested in us. But if you're going to believe in a personal god -- which most of these conservatives do -- and if you're going to evaluate what this god wants, you have to use the documentation he left behind. And the documentation (especially the Reference Manual for Version 1.0) is jam-packed with tutorial examples of fine civilizations destroyed when they fell into decadence.
Even if we treat Falwell's theory in a purely secular way, it makes good sense. We have in fact been weakened by multiculturalism, by our abandonment of the structures that once made us strong. Families with firm division of labor, kids feeling useful and lovingly limited, jobs with security, unconfused churches, men and women knowing what to expect from each other, teachers with authority and respect, civic organizations serving the poor .... on and on. Lenin and Mao have destroyed all of this, largely through the services of groups like the ACLU and Norman Lear's "People for the American Way". And that's what Falwell said.
Though I have no idea what a god may think, I can see the secular consequences of this chaos. It's brutally obvious. Sheikh Osama saw it as well, and knew we were ripe for an attack. He knew that our leaders were hopelessly crippled and confused by the ACLU, and wouldn't take the necessary steps to unite the country for its Christian God and against Allah. And Sheikh Osama's guess was correct. ¶ 8:54 PM
"Jerry Falwell did a lot for the movement, but his remarks about the cause of 9/11 were hateful and intolerant."
I'm not a proper conservative, so I beg to differ.
First of all, he was not talking about a direct human cause. He was speaking on a spiritual level. Those who criticize him are claiming to know the mind of God better than Falwell did.
I don't claim to know the mind of God; I'm at best a sort of "watchmaker deist", not sure if the creator is still interested in us. But if you're going to believe in a personal god -- which most of these conservatives do -- and if you're going to evaluate what this god wants, you have to use the documentation he left behind. And the documentation (especially the Reference Manual for Version 1.0) is jam-packed with tutorial examples of fine civilizations destroyed when they fell into decadence.
Even if we treat Falwell's theory in a purely secular way, it makes good sense. We have in fact been weakened by multiculturalism, by our abandonment of the structures that once made us strong. Families with firm division of labor, kids feeling useful and lovingly limited, jobs with security, unconfused churches, men and women knowing what to expect from each other, teachers with authority and respect, civic organizations serving the poor .... on and on. Lenin and Mao have destroyed all of this, largely through the services of groups like the ACLU and Norman Lear's "People for the American Way". And that's what Falwell said.
Though I have no idea what a god may think, I can see the secular consequences of this chaos. It's brutally obvious. Sheikh Osama saw it as well, and knew we were ripe for an attack. He knew that our leaders were hopelessly crippled and confused by the ACLU, and wouldn't take the necessary steps to unite the country for its Christian God and against Allah. And Sheikh Osama's guess was correct. ¶ 8:54 PM
