As the Marxist-in-Chief prepares to (a) remove more money from a struggling economy, (b) take more power, and (c) build an environmental policy upon discredited non-science, it appears that he has tag-teamed with former VP and failed presidential candidate Al Gore.  They don't have the votes but will curry every favor they can to get them.

The problem is freedom.  On, not that we shouldn't be free.  This is really about the dictionary.  It's how we define freedom.  For the conservative and historic liberal, being free is largely about personal autonomy and responsibility.  For the modern liberal it is about security and having your needs met so that you are not overwhelmed by them, for then you can authenticate yourself.  It is a battle between Adam Smith on one side versus Marx and Hegel on the other.

I would rather the choices of responsibility and of success and failure be mine.

This makes me wonder -- what does President Obama now owe Al Gore.

Well, it looks like they're at it again.

Bonatti, a regular and long-time commenter over at the secular/Leftist TalkToAction site is now promoting violence.  He suggests attacking Ann Coulter with a baseball bat.

His commenting career has included a suggestion that religious liberty be reduced because, in his mind, some views deserve to be censored.  They present some sort of danger to the republic.

He promoted a childish sort of violence against Jerry Falwell:

Likening these particular people to the Taliban makes Bonatti sound like Al Gore.

Bonatti takes a low view of any sort of Christian nation proposition, and it begins to approach his violent rhetoric:

Tht toleration of extreme rhetoric allows it to grow. 

I do understand that it's difficult to deal with every little problem.  There are nuts on Townhall just like this, who say things they shouldn't.  HuffPo called out Michael Savage for something similar.  No, Savage did not say to do something violent.  But on the side of the message recipient, exposure takes the form of an effective threat.  Bonatti has done more.  He made the insinuation of a method.

Bonatti's commenting career on TalkToAction has been extensive.  It looks like he's been there since 2005, a long-standing and apparently amenable relationship even with his extreme rhetoric.

I do hope that Clarkson can see what he has done.  His abuse of Coulter's hyperbolic statements (hey, I don't always agree with her content, but do at least understand her rhetorical tools) has bred this call to violence.

One can see Coulter's hyperbole with little effort.  Nobody who hears her or reads her in context understands anything else or there would have been investigations galore and arrests long ago.  That is, of course, unless one (Clarkson, that is) wishes to create an enemy.  And created enemies fuels extreme behavior.

Bonatti has called for violence at least twice.  (Yes, the first was pretty dumb, but the trend now appears established.)  If you count the judicious use of "traitor" and "sedition" by one who has served, he is also including a degree of coercion.  This type of rhetoric is beginning to typify today's Left.

Bonatti's extreme rhetoric has been tolerated on TalkToAction for several years.  It is these extremist sites that will build momentum among the more radical Left to continue the violence that they began in the 1930s, the 1960s, and being promoted today.  That's because, from the modern Left's foundation in Marxism, violence is necessary and predictable.  Their past is their present.

It may not be the methods of the apologist like Clarkson, but the principles being put to use, with the rhetoric being employed, that fuel the radicals by creating a new enemy.  Those who create an enemy will fuel an attack on that enemy.  With Bonatti's words, the match has been lit.  This is not what the country needs.

I am glad the Fred Clarkson is bringing this matter up for conversation and clarification.  It is certainly among the most critical issues today, not because it is a popular topic of daily conversation, because it is not.  And it is not because the subject separates the Right from the Left, conservative from liberal, or Republican from the Democrat.  No, nothing so simple, so dualistic.  No, it is important because it defines and sets the course for the nature of our Republic and the direction we are to take in the future on this issue and every other one that it affects.

This dialogue is taking place within the Netroots Nation community and will certainly be discussed vociferously long after the convention ends.  None of the men on this panel (no women?) looks to be a lightweight on the topic.  The point is that there is a dialogue because there is both disagreement on the philosophical and religious foundation and because the Left (they call themselves "progressive" here) knows that they will have a difficult time maintianing the Obama vote if they remain purely secular.  (What they may not realize is that they will need more than just liberal theology to accomplish this.)

The controversy is a matter of principle.  The secularists would do their best to not mix theology (even ethical principles) with government and law.  Their dependence is upon reason, a classic liberal concept.  Their emphasis is on strict separation, taking hints from our colonial history and early national history, as well as more recent court rulings.

There are, though, many progressives who disagree.  They see in this same history the existence of a world view, an ethic, that was still largely Christian.  Not ecclesiastically Christian, but ethically Christian.  Things like the appeal natural law in the Declaration of Independence, do not escape their notice.  Yet they see faith not only within the people serving in government but driving the overall population, so they place an emphasis on a type of civil religion.  As Bruce Ledewitz said on his blog:

There is concern here for the evangelical and fundamentalist theologian and teacher.  On the one hand the secularist will often tell us to be "silent" and stay out of government and legislative matters.  Though this is generally an assertion out of convenience as they promote what are clearly religious ethical concerns.  One cannot listen to discussion on welfare -- and often homosexual marriage -- without hearing an appeal to popular religous emotional motivations.  "Don't you care?"  "God loves them, too."  "God made them like this, so who are you to put down your laws?"

Then there is the civil religion community that frequently views religious belief in through the lens of service to the state.  As Mr. Ledewitz proposed, the "reinterpretation" of faith to serve public ends raises the uglly spectre of a redefined history.  On the one hand he acknowledges our Christian heritage and on the other hand he really, really wants to make something entirely different out of it.

In either case we are presented with a challenge to maintaining orthodoxy in the public square.  We know from our history that this nation, never existing as a theocracy, was always tolerant of the religious voices (including the evangelical and fundamentalist Christian voices) in the public square.  Some were outspoken while others remained quite on various matters.  But in all cases, the freedom existed as the property of the individual and not as the determination of the state.  It is this tendency toward statism, in either "progressive" framing, which is to be noted and resisted.

Both views challenge the liberty that we enjoyed in the past.  When this happens, when church serves state in any fashion (and I believe that includes some conservative framings of the subject) then the redemptive Gospel is at risk.  Though a component of freedom, while a truly wonderful system to live in, may be at stake, there is something far more important.  As always, it is the spread of the Gospel.  This is why we must speak against the Left and other statists and totalitarians.

Pat Waak Talk Fires Up Denver Democrats

Here is a highlight from her talk:

Makes me wonder -- I thought there were legal concerns when the resources of one campaign are forwarded to another.  Is the material contribution of a list the same as spreading monies between campaign coffers?  Any campaign finance violation here?  You who know can look into it.

A selection from Can Christianity Save Civilization by Walter Marshall Horton, Oberlin College, 1940, Harper & Brothers Publishers, pp 151-153.

One wonders about disintegration and how it might play out. American society maintains a tension that is largely unfelt in Europe today. We still have Christians, of various stripes, who seek this reunification of life beneath a spiritual umbrella. Though the mechanisms and ends may vary the principle remains the same.

This trend of liberalism garners a reaction from the general public and not just from academics. Many parents do not want their children taught an all-encompassing Darwinist view of life (not just as a matter of origins), and would prefer that their values be reinforced in schools instead of contramanded. But the secularist demands that the church, even its values and ethics, be kept out of public life.

There is no society without authority. In practical terms there is always government and police. But in ethical terms there is either religious ethics and morality or there is statism. Horton's position, even pre-WWII, and still in the early days of the USSR, pre-PROC, pre-Iron Curtain, must be understood more clearly. There is no ethical vacuum. Either religious ethics saves society or statism destroys it, as it did with PROC, USSR, Nazi Germany, and every other statist system. All of them fail, not only economically, but all of them fail ethically.

a.k.a., more guilt by association that the Left just cannot live without.

Ok, so we know that the radical right has nuts who are white supremacists. Perhaps neo-nazis. They are, fortunately, not mainstream.  They do not define conservatism.  Their presence would not be missed were they to leave the label "conservative" behind.  But ... there are those on the left who will always draw the link and propose generalizations which leave the reader thinking that to be conservative is to be racist.  It is a tiring scenario.  And it typifies their most effective strategy of marginalization.  It doesn't matter if their opponents are racist or not.  Calling them racists and lumping them all together has proven to be an effective strategy. 

(I'm still waiting for a single Leftist site to confront the current hatred of Jews that permeates modern liberalism.  Still waiting.)

Bill Berkowitz' recent post, God, Guns, and Blood on the Wire, displays this propensity quite nicely.  He begins with a very appropriate confrontation of the extreme racists:

So far, so good.  But how does Berkowitz paint conservatives in general?  Does he generalize this racism to the whole movement?  Yes, and he does so very plainly.

It appears, really it is very, very clear, that Berkowitz did not look at all the conservative minorities who participated in the tea parties.  Nor does he consider the idea of merely disagreeing as anything but racism.  Instead he looks at skin color.  He finds political authority and influence being defined by these divisions.  In simple terms, this makes him a racist as he seeks power through racial means.

Some Leftists, mainstream writers like Berkowitz, have little or no conscience when it comes to branding all of their opponents with such lies and despicable libel.  Berkowitz is clearly, given the stupidity of that quoted paragraph, a thoughtless, inconsiderate, and otherwise prejudiced liberal who is willing to do and say almost anything to make a point.  Berkowitz is an opportunist.

How dare we disagree.

Part I: Ed's Nuttery
Part II: A Question on Campaign Finance Reporting

I Ed's Nuttery

Who is Salem Communications? Salem is a publicly traded Christian radio broadcasting company that takes a generally conservative slant. I believe Salem owns more stations than Ed Schultz is heard on, and that would include MSNBC. The photo is provided in case you've not seen a pic of him.

Schultz went NUTS. Just, plain, unadulterated, unshelled, unroasted, un-honey-glazed NUTS. To Ed, and his words are pretty plain, anyone who dares diagree with Leftist socialism must "HATE" President Obama. And this attitude has to be motivated out of jealousy because of President Obama's success. That's what he said -- success. I guess Ed thinks that GM's and Chrysler's failures are something that Obama inherited from Bush. Maybe he just doesn't read Pravda. Maybe he should.

Ed is as deluded as the rest of the Left. He equates approval rating with success. I guess that he does not mind Hillary's sabre-rattling with N. Korea. Or Obama's suggestion that Iran + Nukes is no problem. Or that Israel has to do whatever O says. I guess if you think that the egO is all that the Left needs, then go for it.

Ed's sense of economy is really shallow. Does he think that by screwing the owners of a company, the stockholders and the executives, and by redistributing more stock to union people that the industry is somehow saved? He does. But that does not save an industry. The economy was and should always be private, not government. The alternative is what I have regularly called nouveau Communism. It's is not really Keynesian and it's not really socialism. It is the reduction of personal economic liberty and the opportunities that would accompany this freedom.

What Ed proposes is that this quick fix is a solution. It is not. GM and Chrysler have suffered from two problems over their lives. The one is the arrogance that they cannot lose. The other is the union arrogance that they cannot lose their jobs. The only thing that Obama has done is to protect the unions. There is nothing here to give advantage to the consumer. There is nothing for the executive, except perhaps to wait for a pink slip from the new Executive-in-Chief.

Clearly, the Tenth Amendment has faded into oblivion.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The government has NO business owning anything private. Period. The right is not delegated and there is nothing unclear about it. Ed thinks, and he and the mayor both said so, that "socialism" is some sort of pejorative. Go read Pravda, Ed. Ya big hack.

Ed is really sick, sick, sick, when he says that disagreeing O-Socialism is "un-American". How dare he question anyone's patriotism? How dare he say that we are not American? Ed was quite clear:

Prove to me that you're an American.

No, Ed, we do not submit to such thuggery.

I thought I heard him indicate at least once that dissent was the highest form of patriotism. He turns the tables so conveniently. What a hack.

Here's the video. Laugh. Then look at Virg Bernero.

II Campaign Finance Problem?

President Obama must be reading his own press. I think he likes those pictures that show him with a halo. I'm listening to him on C-SPAN right now.

Today he says that the $68B being repaid from the bailout means $68B that future generations will not have to repay. What? Does he really want people to believe that this .022% of the over $3T really makes any significant difference?

Tax cuts are an expenditure? That's what he says. He thinks that what we earn, what we get back that the government does not need, is a cost.

It's no wonder Pravda, the old voice of the Marxist Communist U.S.S.R. recently stated, so clearly, that ...

Again, I dare call them Socialist. I dare call them Communists. They take over the private sector (financial, automotive, and healthcare/health insurance) and we step back. The White House attempts to silence critics, and we step back. They bribe us to buy stupid cars and we go for the bait.

This is what they call "pay as you go" and all it means is a return to the shady bookkeeping of the Clinton administration. Barak must be spending a lot of time with Hillary. The tricks are the same.

Is anyone here really stupid enough to believe that the government can continue shelling out trillions upon trillions of dollars and that it will all magically fit back into the budget? It cannot. The solution during the Clinton years was off-budget.

Also on C-SPAN right now is a discussion of the healthcare takeover plan.

And how do they plan to take over health care? They want a "quality" approach. What does that mean? It means that there will be bureaucracy determining efficiency because there is, in their words, "so much waste" that can be recovered in order to fund the system. That is -- they will find the waste in the private sector.

Now, has anyone here been in the hospital recently? I have. Nurse has 8-12 patients and might see you once every shift, maybe twice. ICU visits are periodic. Where do they think they will find inefficiency? The same as on Wall Street and in the auto industry. The will drop the wages of administrators and owners, and they will, like the did with GM, screw the real owners, the shareholders. Anyone out there retired? Have an investment in health care? Watch what happens to your retirement investment! What happened to GM is only the tip of the iceberg.

So what if the country continues to lose jobs under the Obama plan. He just keeps blaming Bush for everything. The delusion seems to work. At least on him. And Pelosi. And Reid. And Ayers and Wright. And Dodd. And Kennedy.

They will also have to take over private religious hospitals in order to institute their necessary controls. Anyone worried about religious liberty and free exercise? Say goodbye to the First Amendment.

The irony that Pravda now sounds like something that the John Birch Society might have published 30 years ago:

Listen to John Voight.

First, a little historical perspective ...

One can arguably say that postmillennialism was "progressive" because it sought to better the lot of human existence through the establishment of God's kingdom. Though the early movement was beset with ecclesiastical corruption and theological incongruities, the lot of humanity was improved. Women were now seen as ontological equals with men. Slavery in Europe came to an end. The world was not perfect, but it was better.

Then came the Reformation and the Renaissance.

Calvin's Geneva improved the lot of women even further. Though the city is often described as having a harsh set of laws, it was this rigidity that punished men for abusing their wives. It also punished a man for naming his dog Calvin. For women, Geneva was certainly among the safest places on earth at the time.

The renaissance, and what I really mean is the whole of the modern movement through the enlightenment period, men became autonomous from the church. These enterprising capitalists re-introduced slavery into the Western world and conquored and colonized new lands and nations. Though Christianity went along for the ride, the impetus for the economics was generally a secular motivation.

At the same time, some of these secularists saw the problems of both the capitalists and the church, and so was born modern democracy. But the experiment has been short-lived as no society can be purely democratic and the corruption of those in power continues today just as it did in past centuries. Democracy has given way to centralized power. The hope of the 18th and 19th centuries died at Auschwitz. The centralized power of Hegel gave us the bloodiest century in human history, the 20th century.

Today's challenge to change ...

But now the church is out of (political) power. The church is not in a place where it can make a difference through the channels of political influence. That may or may not be the best venue for making a change, but it is a venue that is, and ought, be available in a free society. The church will never be out of a place of social influence, the place where real power lies.

So, what value can the church bring to society? For those who follow the revivalist traditions, the redemptive message of the Gospel is all they have to offer. Not to diminish the place of redeeming grace, it still holds that the Gospel is rightly validated, not though signs and wonders or $20K suits on televangelists, but through works done in daily life.

At this point the church is responsible for the ending of Western slavery. The church is also the initiator of equality for women. The church is currently in the forefront of the life ethic issues. Many participate in works to the destitute. But there is much more that we can tackle, things that give the gospel an avenue as well as validation.

Literacy. With all the immigration happening today, we would do well to teach language in church.

Social justice. Churches ought speak out when real social injustices occur. Does our regular silence justify the wrongs that occur? Sometimes it might seem so.

Education. Like literacy, there is much that can be done to help adults and children in need. This can be accomplished in schools, in churches, or in homes. I suspect that many of your churches have retired teachers who might be interested in some sort of ministry opportunity.

Honor. This seems odd, but "honor where honor is due" is a Biblical principle that can be glossed over. Perhaps we could honor successes in our neighborhoods and communities.

Equality. Christian progressivism can and must avoid the social dialectic of the Left. The power of the state to place people in unnecessary conflict in order to maintain its position of management and control should be confronted as one of the core inequalities of today's liberalism.

Shall we treat women as spiritually inferior to men? Does a man's spiritual leadership mean that he is more spiritual than his wife or does it mean that he is in a certain relationship with his wife? Do we not want our women and wives to be as strong in theology as possible, to be the best teachers and leaders that they can be while still maintaining a Biblical relationships?

Let's make equality practical. How can we minister to women who are in home situations that are unlike anything in our churches? Have we created a virtual works salvation situation where people who are in a different home structure situation have a difficult time fitting in to our activities and system?

Morality. While this subject has caused some division, it seems that Christian morality must continue to show its value. People will, hopefully, understand the practical value of this type of morality. Less disease. Fewer unwanted or unexpected pregnancies. More stable relationships.

But morality comes with public benefits as well. Less pornography, especially the serious and damaging type that destroys relationships. The economics of sexual immorality fall hand-in-glove iwth other public vices that the "progressive" Left regularly promotes -- public gambling.

And coupled with the matter of equality, Christian morality can and should confront the racism of the Left that targets the poor and minorities to destroy their children and families.

Political theory. In our churches we would do very well to provide an evangelical perspective on politics. To some it might sound as if it rings of partisanship or some convoluted violation of the First Amendment. But doing this will allow us to give feet to our theology, to let it influence not just votes but also to teach those young people who will leave our churches and enter colleges where there is no place for a Christian political ethic and framework.

Science. Yes, this is another matter of education. Those of us who accept the challenge of the evolutionary model come with the understanding that this is the greatest challenge that Christianity faces today. This is a more serious challenge than Marxism or Islam because it goes to the core of what it means to be human and (potentially) created in the image of God. Just teaching 6-day creation is not enough. A good number of Christian colleges have sacrificed any sense of creation for acceptance in the secular community. I do not think the sacrifice need be that great. More on this later.

These are not topics that the Left and liberals own. Not by any means. Nobody should be allowed to demagogue needs for political gain without a voice to challenge the political rhetoric of the day.

Engaging our society allows the church to be far more progressive than the Leftists who have co-opted the idea. For it is Christianity alone that can stop the abuses of the Left -- the utilitarian ideas that reduce humanity to a commodity that serves statism. Only Christianity can transcend these evils.

The consequence for the church is first to rethink its ministry objectives. Do we want or need to keep putting so great a percentage of our resources into format and infrastructure (how we schedule and manage the worship service, Sunday School, etc.) or should we give consideration to new ways of handling these challenges?

Busted Mythmaker #1:  Americans United

First, the facts

Charles Colson was convicted and jailed for a crime. Here some background:

He was commonly named as one of the Watergate Seven, but was never charged with, or prosecuted for, any crime related to the Watergate break-in or its cover-up, although he did plead guilty to obstruction of justice in another case.[1]

After extensively investigating Colson's activities relating to Watergate, Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski attempted to make a deal with Colson in which Colson would agree to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge relating to Watergate, in exchange for which Jaworski agreed to recommend that he not be sentenced to prison. Colson felt doing so would be pleading guilty to a crime he did not commit. Instead, Colson counter-offered. Colson told Jaworski that he would agree to plead guilty to the crime of obstruction of justice, not in relation to Watergate, but in relation to having attempted to smear Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg and damage his chances for a fair trial. Colson insisted also that Jaworski would not be constrained to recommend no prison time. At the sentencing, Judge Gerhard Gesell sentenced Colson to the maximum prison term permitted under federal law.

Now the Leftist myth

He was, apparently, not part of the Watergate conspiracy. But Joseph Conn would rather use the popular Leftist smear that seems to make the rounds when partisanship pretends to be the only patriotism available:

Ok, so he screwed up his history by trying to recall something, but was inaccurate. Big deal. No, it's more. Mr. Conn build on falsehood and myth to build his case.  So much for AU's credibility.

Busted Mythmaker #2:  Crooks and Liars

Again the facts

The World Trade Center was first attacked during the Clinton administration, in 1993.

The U.S.S. Cole was attacked during the Clinton administration.

The Beiruit Marine barracks were attacked in 1983, during the Reagan administration.

These attacks have come irrespective of which type of administration currently holds office.

Now the Leftist myth

John Amato, that scholar among scholars, says this about the Bush administration:

What?  Bush gave us terrorist attacks?  And he opposed two wars -- looks like Amato really does not want to get OBL!  Bush created the stock market crash?  That's a streach by any imagination.

Busted Mythmaker #3:  Crooks and Liars (redux)

And now, the facts

Heather first quoted Chris Wallace and pretended that he is not "fair and balanced" when he said:

Followed by the Leftist myth

So what is unfair?  The claim at C&L has been that there is no socialism, that there are no socialists to promote socialism.  From another post by the same Heather, quoting Cafferty to make her point:

Reading the whole of Heather's post makes one thing perfectly clear -- they know that this is socialism.  The comment by Amato was a deflection.  Nobody touched the subject of socialism.  Nothing addressed the point.  But getting these Leftists to admit the truth is something else.

How dare we call them socialists!  (Hint:  The truth dares.)

There is innuendo and there is direct accusation.   Some on the Left don't seem to know the difference.

Now Crooks and LIARS has gotten specific, naming Randall Terry and Cheryl Sullinger.

Dave Niewert expects to hear the "sound of sphincters clenching" when Rachel Maddow commented on Loretta King of the Justice Department, who reported that

Nothing too difficult to understand there.  Innocent people have nothing to worry about.  And since there are no indictments, let alone an investigation as yet, one can only say that Niewert is a radical wacko, completely out of touch with any reality except to advance the delusion that anyone who disagrees is a murderous madman.

While we work to save lives and help women and children in real need, the nuts will do what the nuts do.  They will kill.  They will accuse.  Nothing too surprising.

The blame game seems unending.  And to noone's it is always without substance.

First, it was anyone who dared speak against abortion. Then, it was anyone who used strong pro-life rhetoric.

It did not matter to the critic if calling abortion "murder" had nothing to do with commanding people to kill -- and it does not -- or that the acts of these murderers are not confessed members of the greater pro-life movement which calls for non-violent activity -- they were not -- nothing really matters at all to the critic. Their goal, it would seem is to cast blame on all for the actions of one. Fred Clarkson. Emily Douglas goes even further. Now Chip Berlet lays blame at the feet of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Yes, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Oh, and all the dispensationalists are asked to come along for the ride.

And what does Mr. Berlet have to say on this? Just a loose association, one that is completely without causal relationship:

And let's be fair. Mr. Berlet is talking about those nuts who are on the extreme and find some sort of misguided motivation from apocalyptic material. Unfortunately, Mr. Berlet says even more:

That's a serious leap. Mr. Berlet takes us from the misguided individual to the dynamic of the whole movement. That's not much differnet from what everyone else on the pro-abortion side has been doing, except that he created a new starting point -- theology, specifically eschatology.

I wonder if Mr. Berlet considers Al Gore responsible for the unabomber's work because Mr. Gore's book was one of his guides? Doubtful. But logic and consistency are often evasive. (I don't either, just as this type of conspiracy theory is equally shallow and likewise lacking in substance.)

Mr. Berlet goes on in his Public Eye post:

But asking Mr. Berlet to identify who he listened to and what he was, apparently. told to do, that might be asking a bit too much. He is beginning to sound much like President Clinton in 1995. Talk about creating an enemy out of nothing ...

In a bit of irony, his PublicEye post is entitled Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, & Scapegoating, as he points the reader toward the expected outcome of paranoid behavior and beliefs.  So, in building on his perspective that dispensational theology (he mentions Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins along with their Left Behind book series specifically) he creates a novel representation of what it means to follow this theology:

It is a fascinating bit of irony that Mr. Berlet has no idea what he is talking about.  The return of Christ to establish His millennial kingdom, while inaugurated with the defeat of evil empires, is not one of mystery and what seem to be occultic leadings.  There are no deep "hidden truths" to be brought out for any special person or elect group to receive.  And it is not represented by the popular concept of any sort of eternal struggle between good and evil.  Though his statements flow smoothly they seem to escape the breadth of necessary theological inquiry for them to be accurate.

An additional irony is his view that the U.S. Civil Rights Movement was founded on a similar type of apocalyptic perspective.  Wrong.  This movement is postmillennial, the very theological position that TalkToAction and other secularists are waging war against.  It is the view that human goodness and human effort can prepare the earth for God's kingdom, for His return.  There is little or nothing foundational in the U.S. Civil Rights movement that comes out of a premillennial or dispensational framework. 

It seems that he simply forgot to blame Ryrie and Chafer.

Sadly, Mr. Berlet resorts to a plain b&w fallacy -- that there are only two options available.  One is either "constructive" and working to build up society, or one is "agressive" and inciting murder.  This is hardly the stuff of a quality think tank.  Why does he think that the general call stop abortion is either destructive or inciting murder?  I don't know, either.  This is an argument that the pro-slavery-choice movement could have used 175 years ago.  "Don't want slavery?  Don't own one."  "Don't want an abortion?  Don't have one."  "Abolitionist violence justifies slavery."

Now, I'm pretty certain that there are segments of the pro-life community that are overly agressive, who employ intimidation tactics such as picketing homes.  They are, though, seriously in the minority.  Their rhetoric is different.  Yet they do not encourage murder.

There are those in the pro-abortion community who are likewise agressive.  They defend (by hiding) the killing of their own patients.  They often are not regulated.  They mis-report or under-report crimes such as rape.  And they install their facilities base on socio-economic and ethnic factors.  The first practice their crimes against their customers.

Leaders in this movement also seek to have those who speak against them vilified.  They call them complicit murders and use the term "enemy" as though they are personally threated.   But perhaps having an enemy makes energizing a movement much easier.  It is a great manipulation tactic.

I will suggest that Mr. Berlet's title, Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, & Scapegoating, is suited to the very material that he publishes.  This past week we've gone from Randall Terry, then to Jill Stanek, and now to the broader pro-life movement, and finally to dispensational theology.  When will the illogic end?  Probably when they've created enough hate for this enemy.

The extent and breadth that the pro-abortion community will reach in order to lay blame is truly astounding.