The American Taliban

I'm not the first to make this connection or observation, but I have been saying it a long time. The religious conservatives in this country are twisting the American dream, American ideals, and American values. Their belief system is steeped in superstitions, illogical reasoning, and fallacies. The hatred of science and reason is downright appalling.

The idea of America was/is a fascinating experiment. Our system of justice is envied around the world. In the United States a criminal defendant will not be indicted, tried and executed in one day like so many oppressive or corrupt countries in the world. Surprisingly, the religious zealots would condemn any defense attorney for doing their essential and crucial job in the system. Liz Cheney would have criminal defense attorneys be tried themselves as criminal or terrorists. The world is so black and white to these people. They have no time for complex thinking or complex situations.

Not only do these religious people ridiculously hold on to ideas that can be easily debunked, disproved and called into question, they claim that any opposition to their beliefs means the opponent is not a "true" or "real" American. Science and reason baffle them. If you explain climate change or conservation they see it as some crazy liberal idea curtailing their freedom. The funny thing is their ideas are all cooperate inventions that have inveigled there way into the epicenter of the conservative belief system. The ideas they claim so fervently are nothing more than cooperate notions to keep the bottom line as high as possible with no regard to the General Welfare of the people of the US (or the world for that matter). Cooperate lies are believed and repeated as if they are from the Bible. I would call cooperate America immoral, but Olbermann explained one night on Countdown the more precise term is amoral....without any moral regard for right or wrong, neither moral or immoral. They have but one goal: make money.

But I digress, from my main point: the American Taliban. The religious conservatives want to control every aspect of life in America: Teach the Bible in school (because this is a really a Christian country despite that pesky 1st Amendment); Control women's bodies (good women don't get jobs and if they do they only support men and good women don't get abortions or use contraception); Control everyone's bedroom (only they know who you should have sex with and how you should be having that sex); and the list goes on and on.

These beliefs are no different than Afghanistan Taliban with its hate of modernity and stance of imprisoning women in the home. Both talibans hate the modern world. They are afraid of science, reason, secularism, and the peaceful co-existence of a divergence of beliefs. They both want their belief systems to supersede everyone else's because they alone are right, they alone have the single path to salvation, and they alone are one true religion.

America's promise always looks beyond the horizon. No matter how fucked up we are now, we know we are striving for something better, more just, and more fair. These religious conservatives need to read and study a non-revisionist history of America and understand where we have really come from and what we as Americans are really about. The founding father could have easily made this a Christian nation, making Christianity the supreme law of the land, but they chose religious freedom for all. The founding fathers could have established a justice system based on guilty until proven innocent with Draconian punishments, but they chose a system that adversarial with checks and balances so the accused have a fair and just trial.

I say we rebel against this American Taliban. I say we stop giving them a legitimate place at the discourse table. We need not encourage their lunacy, bigotry, or hate in the name of hearing all sides. Some sides aren't sides at all...there're just stupid jibberish.