Sam Brownback
August 16, 2007
Sam Brownback has taken to adorning his stump speech with an inane chant of “All for Jesus! All for Jesus! All for Jesus!”. The logical connection between the Lord and Sam Brownback’s political platform is a bit unclear, but the meaning of the speech isn’t: Brownback wants his campaign to be a moral movement, and to convince his supporters that theirs is a good cause.
Since no other politician has ever framed his ideas in such a way before, this is obviously the first step down the road to a Calvinist theocracy, as opposed to the last gasp of a campaign that’s going nowhere. It’s rhetoric that tries to create a moral movement not by arguing for the moral superiority of its own virtues, but by implicitly calling opponents infidels and unbelievers, who are assumed to be, in this world-view, immoral and hostile to the Christian faith. This is not a winning argument, even among conservative Christians.
Andrew Sullivan writes that Sam Brownback’s ridiculous oratory represents “a subtler, more insidious threat to Western freedom and constitutionalism” than does “Islamism” (*):
The audience members completely conflated the struggle for their souls with not just politics but a particular party in politics. Once this happens, once it is acquiesced in, once it becomes normal, the immense power of religion and its unequaled capacity to change society and politics is unleashed in unpredictable and dangerous ways.
Well, maybe.
Sam Brownback is the kind of senator who (I’m not making this up) decorates his office space with giant Soviet-style paintings of himself, surrounded by cherubic angels and the American flag.
He’s a demogogue and a megalomaniac who has no business serving in a leadership position anywhere, even before you consider his voting record. But before we start claiming that the audience have “completely conflated” their religion with Sam Brownback’s presidential campaign, it might be worthwhile to stop and reflect on the fact that the guy is at 1% in the polls, among Republicans.
San Brownback’s seat in the Senate is one of the things that’s the matter with Kansas, but a threat to the Republic he’s not.
(*) Which is no doubt true if you don’t consider the infringments on civil liberties and the weakening of constitutional guarantees pushed through by the Republican Party in the name of a war on terrorism Terrorists’ War on Us to be caused by “Islamism”. But it’s true only in the vapid sense that neither of these things — neither Islam nor over-zealous expressions of Christianity, pose an “insidious threat to Western freedom”.
August 16th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
[...] Wesley Clark Contact the Webmaster Link to Article sam brownback Sam Brownback » Posted at Badger Blues on Thursday, August 16, 2007 This article contains copywritten material. Please click on the "View Original Article" link below to view the article on the author’s site. View Original Article » [...]
August 17th, 2007 at 5:54 am
I don’t know much about Sen Brownback execept he has about as much of a chance as Ron Paul to win the Nomination.
You are right about one thing Islam itself doesn’t pose much of a threat but the ones who are radicalizing it do.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I don’t think radical Islam poses a threat to Western freedom. Their philosophy is unpersuasive, and attracts no converts. And they’re too weak to threaten any of our governments or civilizations. They can kill a few people, and at worst, they can kill a lot of people, but that’s it. The odds of sharia being imposed on, say, Chicago are zero. They pose a threat to our security, but it’s not an existential one.
Fear-mongering and insane over-reaction by our government, on the other hand, do pose a threat to our traditional and constitutional freedoms. Hello, warrantless wiretaps and satellite surveillance. Hello, USA PATRIOT Act. Hello, security theater in the airports. And so on.
August 17th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Ben, Brownback only did this once (unless you can show me where he did it a second time, and then I stand corrected), and he was quoting something Mother Teresa said to him while they were in a car together.
And I wouldn’t say radical Islam attracts “no converts.” A lot of the radical Islamists in Britain and elsewhere didn’t start out that way.
August 17th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I wouldn’t say radical Islam attracts “no converts.†A lot of the radical Islamists in Britain and elsewhere didn’t start out that way.
That’s fair. I was thinking of converting people to Islam, not radicalizing people who are already Muslims. None of us, with the possible exception of Dinesh D’Souza, look at the Muslim world and say, “Man, that’s a way to run a society. If only we could do that here.”
August 18th, 2007 at 12:58 am
Ben, Now tell me what wrong with that wiretap program?
I see nothing wrong with wiretaping foriegn Phonecalls. it’s a foriegn surveillance program not Domestic surveilance.
Also what was wrong with the Patriot ACT?
As for the Airports I think alot of that stuff is warrented, but there are also some things that are silly