The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Coming-Rise-Christian-Nationalism/dp/0393329763/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-1514635-5264950?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183943022&sr=8-1

I haven't been reading much lately.

For the most part what this book did was confirm one of my biggest fears. No, not the one where it turns out Meg Ryan is really a man. Instead it's the fear that the Christian right is much more organized than most people realize. It also made me aware of more fears that I should be paying attention to. I knew that federal dollars are being shifted to faith based initiatives. While in principle I have some fundamental problems with that, if the money is being distributed amongst religions equitably and the money is being legitimately helpful, then let's use the money the best way possible. According to Michelle Goldberg, it's not being used wisely.

There's a lot of these tidbits of how your tax dollars are being used unwisely. There's also a lot of information on how a lot of religious zealots that you may or may not have heard of are subverting your government. There's even some of the whacked out stuff that you expect from right wing nuts like their unrelenting drive to abolish the justice system. In the meantime they're perfectly happy stocking the court with many of their own ilk who are slowly rolling the system back. And then Ms. Goldberg tries to talk you off the ledge by saying that there is no impending authoritarian theocracy about to happen.

While that's probably true, what is also true is that the seeds have been planted to keep the Christian Nationalists with a foothold on the power levers for quite some time. The judiciary is being filled with these guys and a network of CN's raising future CN's via home schooling and Christian universities means you'll be hearing from this bunch for a long time to come. Fortunately I think common sense (on both sides) will win out in the long run, but I suspect there will be many more close brushes with theocracy in our future. The threat will always be present. The thing that kills me is that none of these nut bags have even the slightest inkling that they're trying to be the same thing as (insert theocratic Muslim country name here).

As for the merits of the book on it's own, it's sort of a mixed bag for me. Liberals like to talk about the vast right wing conspiracy and this book certainly gives plenty of fodder for it. As for vast, well I'm not sure it's really that vast. It isn't really a conspiracy if it's a known concerted effort either. I think you'd call it a movement instead.
Conservatives like to talk about liberal elites and Ms. Goldberg is certainly that. Look, I appreciate being smart and well spoken, but I don't think you have to resort to a dump truck of obscure words to prove your point. One of the reasons that conservatives are able to sway people is because they use a language that allows the common man to relate and understand them, even if they are lying to them. Liberals, especially the elite in power, tend to separate themselves from the common man via language. It's a lesson I suspect they will never learn.

I wouldn't call this an exceptional book, but it is very well written and it appears to be passionately researched. I think every free thinking individual in America should be required to read it in order to understand who is trying to take your civil liberties away because they know what's best for you. Otherwise, you deserve to stand there with your mouth agape.