The question of Nile Gardiner's Unificationism has once again presented itself.
As Chesterton said, when people stop believing in Christianity (I mean, as he did, the strong stuff, not tepid Churchianity), then they do not believe in nothing. Rather, they believe in anything. Absolutely anything at all.
Except, of course, the mainstream Christianity against which they have defined themselves, and as professed by twelve tribes of Palestinian, by a large minority in Syria, formerly by a large minority in Iraq until neocon actions drove most of them out, and by the Armenians and Assyrians with reserved parliamentary representation in Iran.
See what neoconservatism has turned the Republican Party into. The old school of American mainline Protestantism was removed as its frame of reference and replaced with the witterings of Leo Strauss, Max Shachtman and Ayn Rand.
Creating the space for every fruitcake from sea to shining sea: Gardiner and the rest of the Washington Times Moonies, Romney and the Mormons (lining up Gardiner for National Security Advisor – then do we finally get to strip him of his British citizenship?), Sharron Angle and the Scientologists, Christine O’Donnell and the dabblers in witchcraft, Rand Paul and the worshippers of whatever Aqua Buddha might be, the Dominionists and the “Christian Zionists”.
Goodbye, Middle America.
From what I have read and heard, my understanding is that "worshipping Aqua Buddha" is some kind of college slang for taking bong hits or hits of some other kind of marijuana pipe (I honestly don't have much knowledge of this sort of thing, as I was always a bit of a "square").
ReplyDeleteIf that is true, I am not sure if that is better or worse for Rand Paul. Of course, there is the old saying that a libertarian is just a "Republican that likes to smoke pot."