Sunday, April 19, 2009

Fear of Right-Wing Extremism: Commie-Hunting in Reverse

I was born in the Truman administration, and remember the tail end of the commie-hunting days. What's talked about, or referred to, most these days seems to be Senator Joe McCarthy and his anti-Communist witch hunts.

There may actually have been commies in the State Department, but what the Senator accomplished in the long run was discrediting his sort of pogrom against people who don't toe the party line.

I sincerely hope that what I see brewing in Homeland Security and the Obama administration isn't a replay of the 'good old days' of McCarthyism: this time with pro-life people, American veterans, supporters of Ron Paul, and other dangerous radicals in the cross hairs.

I've posted about this before. What's new today is that another blogger's post (Tim Burke, in Salvation Is an Adventure) contains a link to the latest disturbing document from Homeland Security programs: "(U//FOUO) Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

The link appears in "Right Wing Extremism" (Salvation is an Adventure (April 19, 2009)): a blog which I've added to the blogroll.

I'm taking the liberty of quoting parts of the last paragraph of that post:
"...In the event that the federal government does indeed decide to try to silence us, what are we, as Christians to do? We are to do what Peter and John did when they were brought before the Sanhedrin in Acts Chapter 4. ... It is impossible for us, as Christians, to deny our faith and our beliefs. We must stand up! We must make our voices known. We must band together as the disciples did in the early Church and proclaim from the message of the Lord from the rooftops. Christ said we would be persecuted. It is all a part of the adventure of salvation. BRING IT ON!"
(Salvation Is an Adventure)
I would much rather not "bring it on." On the other hand, If I must choose, I would much rather be in trouble with the awesome might of the United States Supreme Court, The entire legislative branch, and both houses of Congress, than with the Father of Jesus of Nazareth.

Related posts:

4 comments:

Tim Burke said...

I would much rather not "bring it on" either, but I know that we, as Christians, have won the battle and we should not be afraid to stand up for what we believe in.

Brian H. Gill said...

Tim Burke,

Agreed. I think the apparent differences in our approaches may be a matter of semantics.

Left-footer said...

Fine post, and says what needs to be said. All over Europe, and I guess in America too, there is a creeping Stalinism of Big Brotherly good-thinkfulness and duckspeak which intimidates Christians and moral absolutists and makes them feel marginalised, and even unclean.

The liberals think they have seized the moral high ground. We must retrieve it.

Brian H. Gill said...

Left-footer,

Thanks for the good words. The (new) establishment does seem to - as you said - "think they have seized the moral high ground."

The good news, in my opinion, is that this gives practicing Catholics a wonderful opportunity to learn what the Church *really* teaches - without the sort of cultural smokescreen of nominal Christianity that I remember from my youth.

And that, as I say quite often, is another topic.

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