Watch The Shifting Rightwing Goalposts
by tristero
A rightwing high school "friend" of mine on Facebook posted a disgusting graphic:
I strongly objected to this as utterly untrue, both historically and culturally, to the point of anti-semitism (that's for starters). Immediately, one of his pals posted:
my feelings are that this country was founded on judeo-christian principles... they go hand in hand...
Catch that? Once the obvious offensiveness of the image was made explicit. at least four goal posts were moved:
1. It's just a feeling, not a fact. Opinions differ!
2. We're not talking about the present, but the founding of the country.
3. I'll throw some Jews into that Christian Nation idea, but only since you insist.
3. These are religious principles, not religious practices.
Truly remarkable. Now, to state the very, very obvious:
The question posed in the picture isn't about feelings but about a fact. And it is a fact that this country's Constitution quite deliberately puts the kibosh on the notion that this is a Christian Nation or any other kind of religious nation. (Christians obviously live here but that is not the issue.) And the picture doesn't pose an historical question about our founding, but one concerned with the here and now. Nor do I see a Star of David in that picture and no Jew I know accepts the symbol of the cross as synonymous with judeo-christian anything, including mere principles. And finally, "principles" are what is being asserted - the question clearly implies religious practice and expression: Christian religious practice and expression, not Jewish, not Muslim, not Buddhist, not Jainist, not atheist, not even Deist.
This is oh so typical of much rightwing discourse - to make a bumper sticker assertion that is both patently untrue and obnoxious, if not bigoted, and then pretend the bumper sticker stands for something very different than what it says - and which also happens to be patently untrue and thoroughly obnoxious, if not bigoted.
This can go on for quite a while. And that is its point - to waste everyone's time so that real issues are never reached or grappled with. Nobody serious really believes the notion that America is a Christian Nation. The phrase is virtually meaningless and the extent it means anything it is deeply wrong and offensive.
Enough. It is pointless to argue with the modern rightwing. They need to be mocked and jeered at, driven back to the periphery of the mainstream discourse, where they so clearly belong.
