"The 'Islamic Republic of Iran,' which once marketed itself as some kind of Muslim utopia, has devolved into little more than a third-world, tinpot dictatorship. The 'Islamic State' in Iraq and Syria was little more than a meth-fueled orgy of torture and killing. The rule of the 'Justice and Development Party' in Turkey, once so promising, has devolved into little more than the megalomaniacal rule of a typical Middle Eastern strongman (Erdogan) and his corrupt relatives.
In America, theocracy will shrivel in the same way - by winning power and showing its true colors. I am predicting right now that after the Supreme Court overturns (or guts)
Roe v. Wade in 2022, banning abortion across America will be a long-term political disaster for the Republican Party."
Brooks says something similar, though without equating American Republicans to political Islamists: "When political Islamists tried to establish theocratically influenced rule in actual nations, their movement’s reputation was badly hurt. In one of extremism’s most violent, radical manifestations, the Islamic State’s caliphate in Iraq and Syria became a blood-drenched nightmare."
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So stopping the murder of millions of babies equates to Islamists and their theocracy?? I don't see it. Murder is murder. These people are sick.
Sigh. America was created by Christians based on Christian philosophy. Christianity is the foundation for Western Civilization. The Middle East was created by all the early mid eastern religions which then culminated in the hoax of Islam. Islam is all the bad parts of earlier pagan religions without the good.
It’s very telling that a so called Abrahamic religion was created by a man with no ties to Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. Early Christians were Jews. The people who wrote the New Testament were Jews. Christianity may be a Jewish heresy but it is still Jewish. Islam is not and never was Jewish or Christian. It is a propaganda campaign to acquire power and wealth. The idiots who try to compare Islam with Christianity don’t understand the basic underpinnings of either.
"Zippy" Zapendowski is, of course, wrong. Overturning Roe/Casey will simply return the issue to the states. There will still be plenty of abortions. And it's much better for society that AOC, Lena Dunham, Chelsea Handler, Kamala Harris, Angela Merkel, et al. remain childless.
If anything, do it for the planet! (This "global warmmongering" is really paying dividends.)
Today’s theme seems to be that the pages of the New York Times are being used to equate critics of liberalism with Islamic theocracy. I suppose it’s a positive development that The New York Times has finally decided that Islamic theocracy is (today, at least) a bad thing.
To win the war, we need to establish diplomatic relations and befriend the Taliban.
If there are any theocrats in the US today (besides any Muslim jihadists keeping a low profile while waiting for the signal to strike), it's the sect that Joseph Sobran called The Hive, aka "liberals." Their theology is a mish-mash of junk economics, envy-stoking, and retrogressive State-cultism; and they are willing, even eager, to use political power to force the rest of us into submission to it.
It’s cool how he talks about reversing Roe as a done deal, like they all knew it was wrong to begin with…
…kind of like the way they talk about there’s a President Biden and the way they talk about how he’s gone soon..
They are such fuck ups it feels like any day now they will decide the best strategy is to send a coalition if the administrations top women over to negotiate terms. Top. Women.
Got his history right. But whether it's an actual, practical handicap to the State and to the further spread of same doesn't seem obvious.
It's sort of like Biden's election. Ostensibly, at least, most of the folks were in favor.
Hopefully thisbis already happening with the actual hegemonic religion in the US, spelling the end of the Great Awokening.
M: "It’s very telling that a so called Abrahamic religion was created by a man with no ties to Judaism."
Mohammed was heavily influenced by Judaism during his early life as a trader, and also by his later experiences with Christianity. It is likely he considered Islam to be an offshoot of Judaism, but he turned against the Jews later in his life (for purely political reasons). To Muslims, Christians and Jews are "people of the book," which gave them special privileges that other religions did not get.
"No ties to Judaism" is incorrect.
America is the last place there will be a theocracy. Don't they know about the 1st amendment?
I live in the South and don't know anyone pushing for a Christian theocracy. Christians aren't even united: Protestants have hundreds of denominations because they can't get along with one another.
What this is is just the Washington power class trying to hold on to power and turn the US military on the American people. If pro-life religious folks are as bad as ISIS, Washington can do all kinds of horrible things to them, just like it has done to Native Americans and most recently, at a smaller scale, in ATF and bureau of land management fights.
"theocracy will shrivel in the same way - by winning power and showing its true colors. I am predicting right now that after the Supreme Court overturns (or guts) Roe v. Wade in 2022 . . ."
A glimpse into the recesses of the progressive mind.
ISIS = GOP
Overturning Roe = theocracy.
Limiting abortion = Islamic terror.
Except that lefties worry more about GOP theocracy than the real thing abroad.
OK, so the first guy has a tell about what his piece is really about -- pushing his pro-abortion agenda by conflating concern for protecting human lives with religion, as if atheists don't care about killing people.
But both he and Crease-in-his-pants, like the Biden Administration, don't get this simple point -- the Islamists don't give a fuck about public sentiment or international approval. Tell it to the people who were killed by them whether it matters that they have suffered this supposed blow to their theocracy, like the Soviets and Chinese have suffered a blow to communism. Ultra maroons, all of them.
To Muslims, Christians and Jews are "people of the book," which gave them special privileges that other religions did not get.
Just the opposite.
To Muslims, Christians and Jews are "people of the book," which made them especially egregious heretics and apostates to the True Religion of Allah, who turned to The Prophet because all those evil Jews and Christians had turned against them. Christians, with their claim that God is a Trinity, especially earned the ire of good Muslims who responded with smiting the neck of these heathen unbelievers (cutting off their heads with a rusty knife) as Allah instructs them to do.
I think you could argue that atheists are trying to establish a theocracy in America.
DaveL: "To Muslims, Christians and Jews are "people of the book," which gave them special privileges that other religions did not get."
Islamists are quite open about the "special privileges" they will be offering Jews and Christians....death or enslavement.
As they say rather proudly and openly: First the Saturay people, then the Sunday people.....
As America implodes from all sides I see mishandling of covid response, utter chaos at our southern border with zero national security, Afghanistan as a show of our incompetence at every level, the economy reeling as we shut down our own energy production, the dollar weakening along with our influence, our schools so bad at teaching math, science, reading, that they're starting to remove competency in those areas as a standard to graduate, our universities handing out degrees if the students all show bent knee to a movement, not actual thinking. Our cities have turned into Mad Max adventure games where you take your life in your hand just going out to buy toothpaste. Our forests are burning up because we cannot manage them. Our cities are burning down and we seem to approve of that- if it's for the right cause.
And all of this: every stinkin' bit of it is due to far left, socialist/regressive thought and policies- many just dumped on us without our consent. Welcome to the reality of the left. I look around and wonder who's going to wipe the asses of the upcoming generations when we're gone.
And in the NYT, commenter Michal Zapendowski is worried about Americans who still go to church. Good God.
To people like David Brooks, the power of government is holy. Obey our health directives even if they make no sense for the Government has spoken the holy word from on high! Dr. Fraudci is our prophet and all must obey his holy tablets, gathered from a burning bush. Rent, schment! The Government will provide! The Government will create the holy deficit so it can provide to the people what the people are not providing for themselves. It doesn't matter that the people are not working to create the products and services that the people demand, the Government has created the holy cargo plane which will provide everything from its cargo hold!
Yeah, oh you faithful people, bend down and worship the holy Government! For I, David Brooks have spoken!
Allah, who turned to The Prophet because all those evil Jews and Christians had turned against them
CORRECTION: Allah turned to The Prophet because all those evil Jews and Christians had turned against HIM.
Roe v. Wade Should be over turned, it’s bad case law, but it won’t be.
I’m sure the Scotus will find done technicality to dodge the issue.
Kavanaugh and Robert’s will not over turn, they seem to have a judicial decision making of avoiding hot potatoes. The Trump election fraud suits are great examples of that. Look what it took to finally get the cdc eviction ban over turned. Look at their blind eye to all the Fisa warrant issues.
Zappy disqualified himself when he asserted that overturning Roe would eliminate abortion across America. Many, many states have permissive abortion laws.
The real question is when will even the most blindly loyal Democrats realize that their party has turned most major US cities into urban hells, where the police don’t police, the teachers don’t teach, the prosecutors don’t prosecute, and feral urban youth prey on respectable citizens?
There is an accounting coming for one of our political parties, and it isn’t the Republicans. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer are quite a crew, and their supporting cast of governors, mayors and prosecutors is like a freak show.
Consider Chicago, Illinois: Pritzker, Lightfoot, Foxx. They are fools leading the way to the death of a great city. North Michigan Avenue, the premier shopping street of the Midwest, has a 26% vacancy rate. Disney just announced they are closing their retail store. If suburbanites and conventioneers won’t come to our city, that 11% sales tax won’t amount to much.
Ray said...
"Kavanaugh and Robert’s will not over turn,"
The PROBLEM IS:
a Democrat President picks Left-wing Judges
and
a Republican President picks Left-wing Judges TOO!
Wouldn't the world become INTERESTING, if america had conservative Presidents that picked conservative Judges??
What iconchasm said at 7:12. We do seem to be in the early stages of a theocracy of the woke. Unfortunately, even when a theocratic regime's flaws have been exposed, they can hang on to power for decades (see Iran). After all, it's not like you need to care that much about the people think when you already know what God thinks.
The biggest blow to secular liberalism is when political secular liberals have actually come to power. The West Coast of the USA, which once marketed itself as some kind of leftist utopia, has devolved into little more than a set of third-world, tinpot dictatorships. The 'Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone ("CHAZ")' in Seattle was little more than a meth-fueled orgy of robbing and killing. The rule of the 'Antifa' in Michigan, once so promising, has devolved into little more than the megalomaniacal rule of a typical Middle Eastern strongman (Whitmer) and her corrupt party.
In one of extremism’s most violent, radical manifestations, the secular left’s caliphate - er, unelected judges - in the US led to the enactment of Roe v. Wade in 1973,which turned into a nearly fifty-ear (and counting) blood-drenched nightmare.
I am predicting right now that after the Supreme Court overturns (or guts) Roe v. Wade in 2022, banning abortion across America will be a long-term political disaster for the Republican Party.
Overturning Roe wouldn't ban abortion across America, but would leave it up to the states to decide. This would probably take a lot of air out of the pro-life movement's tires and free voters who vote Republican because of abortion to vote on other issues.
But how would it affect the pro-choice movement? Would the determination to "save Roe" translate into enthusiasm to make abortion legal everywhere? Or would there be a similar freeing up of pro-abortion voters to vote based on other issues? My gut feeling is that some of those pro-life voters would vote more on economic issues, while most of the pro-choice voters would find other social or cultural issues to bind themselves to the Democrats.
That no social order lasts forever seems to be an historical or sociological law. Either it succumbs to internal contradictions and developing internal weaknesses or people get bored with it and want something else. How long that takes is another matter. Historians and sociologists discuss questions like this, but today the discussion may be less analytical and dispassionate and more fixated on current political "us versus them" divisions.
I would call this a 'Handmaid's Tale fantasy.'
I'm an atheist. I don't care a whit what Muslims do to themselves and one another--or more accurately, the more they torment one another the less time and energy they have to think about me.
The mistake our big stupid country keeps making is to act on the assumption that inside everyone in the world is an American consumer struggling to get out.
Updike's Colonel Ellelou in "The Coup" describes the USA as a fountain of obscenity and glut. That we might prefer obscenity and glut to Islamic or other pieties (I know I do) doesn't invalidate the observation.
Islam is the product of the fevered mind of a dune loon, a mishmash of local paganism and misunderstood Jewish and Christian stories and concepts cobbled together around practical advice for dividing loot fairly and keeping the women in line. Tom Holland's "In the Shadow of the Sword" is excellent on the historical background.
When one reads a response like this, suggesting that there are Christian groups lurking in the wings waiting for a political take-over, remember that many on the Left believe that the Christian Right is but a front for Christian Dominionism.
Even after all my years of lurking in the on-line fever swamps of the Right, I have yet to find a self-proclaimed Dominionist. Not so for many on the Left. Dominionists are out there in flyover country, lurking behind ever tree & bush, just waiting to enact some form of Christian theocracy.
Those that equate Antifa to D-Day soldiers, pro-lie supporters to ISIS and those that believe it is "open season" on black males would have a very steep learning curve if they moved to some 80 percent of the world outside of the US and took their world view with them.
The taliban worships the Koran.
David Brooks worships the State.
They both support theocracy.
If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned or "gutted", California would compete with NY, Oregon, Washington, and other states to offer the most attractive free abortion vacations to residents of states where it is illegal or merely inconvenient. People would get pregnant just to get the vacation, and the USA would have more abortions than ever.
Your commenter has it backwards. The biggest blow to the Progressive narrative and ideology - which is in practice theocratic - in when Progressive Democrats come to power. Carter begat Reagan, Obama begat Trump, and Biden et al. are on track to do enough damage to squelch Progressivism for a very long time.
Pro-life will morph naturally into pro-conception. When Republicans go there they will lose half of their remaining female adherents (and not just a few of the men).
But, I can sense some on my Babies-for-Trump neighbors getting revved up for that.
These guys have really missed it.
Don't they know that the NUMBER ONE Christian, the BEST CATHOLIC ON THE PLANET is Joe Biden?? He and his minions tell us so constantly.
Our founding fathers, deliberately using the PC incorrect form, organized and wrote their state constitutions organizing states the same way, balancing rural areas and dense city powers because they were too stupid to know that the state constitutions they wrote violated the “one man one vote “ provision that the Warren court saw written in black and white inedible ink in the federal constitution. That was when the real trend towards totalitarianism started. That was in 1964, just before state budgets started exploding. Coincidence? And we survived from 1776 to 1973 before another liberal court discovered the right to have an abortion with absolutely no restrictions. Almost 2 whole centuries.
Now the courts are deciding to hell election security, anyone and everyone must be sent a mail in ballot, which can be returned by anyone, without bothering to check basic facts like- “Is the voter alive?” The dead have been voting in Democrat run cities since at least the turn of the previous century, now they’ll be able to vote everywhere..
Hey, let’s talk about gun confiscation for a moment. Numerous Demoncrats have openly said the government needs to confiscate all private weapons. In order for us to be safer. You know who agrees with them? The Taliban in Afghanistan. They’ve ordered all privately owned weapons to be turned in, people don’t need them anymore because the good guys are now running things…
And which states in the USA are doubling down on masking and social isolation, saying we must trade liberty and freedom for safety? Demoncrat run states. That masking and social isolation didn’t work the first time is immaterial. That Sweden, a country that never enacted either but relied on it’s citizens to make individual decisions is doing better than most other countries at the moment is immaterial. Nope, Demoncrat governors are insisting we all mask up. And I hear way too many people who should know better saying “It’s just a mask. Why do you have to make it political?” If by now you don’t realize it’s about control, not safety, you’re hopelessly ignorant.
America’s right and left wing aren’t congruous with Europe’s. There the right wants a government that’s a little more fascist, the left a little more Communist- they both want different forms of socialism telling the people what to do. Here, the right wing supports individual liberty with voluntary associations, the left wants collectivism.
The USA was a theocracy prior to 1973, good too know.
Our founding fathers, deliberately using the PC incorrect form, organized and wrote their state constitutions organizing states the same way, balancing rural areas and dense city powers because they were too stupid to know that the state constitutions they wrote violated the “one man one vote “ provision that the Warren court saw written in black and white inedible ink in the federal constitution. That was when the real trend towards totalitarianism started. That was in 1964, just before state budgets started exploding. Coincidence? And we survived from 1776 to 1973 before another liberal court discovered the right to have an abortion with absolutely no restrictions. Almost 2 whole centuries.
Now the courts are deciding to hell election security, anyone and everyone must be sent a mail in ballot, which can be returned by anyone, without bothering to check basic facts like- “Is the voter alive?” The dead have been voting in Democrat run cities since at least the turn of the previous century, now they’ll be able to vote everywhere..
Hey, let’s talk about gun confiscation for a moment. Numerous Demoncrats have openly said the government needs to confiscate all private weapons. In order for us to be safer. You know who agrees with them? The Taliban in Afghanistan. They’ve ordered all privately owned weapons to be turned in, people don’t need them anymore because the good guys are now running things…
And which states in the USA are doubling down on masking and social isolation, saying we must trade liberty and freedom for safety? Demoncrat run states. That masking and social isolation didn’t work the first time is immaterial. That Sweden, a country that never enacted either but relied on it’s citizens to make individual decisions is doing better than most other countries at the moment is immaterial. Nope, Demoncrat governors are insisting we all mask up. And I hear way too many people who should know better saying “It’s just a mask. Why do you have to make it political?” If by now you don’t realize it’s about control, not safety, you’re hopelessly ignorant.
America’s right and left wing aren’t congruous with Europe’s. There the right wants a government that’s a little more fascist, the left a little more Communist- they both want different forms of socialism telling the people what to do. Here, the right wing supports individual liberty with voluntary associations, the left wants collectivism.
Overturning Roe v Wade would leave it up to the states, where it should always have been. The US Constitution gives no power of health, nor privacy, to the Feds.
One of the Big Lies that progressive deluded religion is based on is that abortion does not kill a human.
The scientific truth is that every human starts their life as an ovum + sperm with DNA different than their mother, just like every mammal. Zygote, Fetus, baby - they are all human, and all different.
It's a political question about when the gov't / society should protect the "right to life", but scientifically it's clear that the human life starts at conception.
Overturning Roe will reduce Rep support because pro-Life, big-gov't voters will have gotten the pro-Life stuff they wanted from Reps, and will move towards more Dem support for big-gov't.
Either he is an idiot or he thinks his audience is. Overturning Roe v. Wade would not make abortion illegal across the United States. It would put it back in the hands of the individual states, and several of them already have laws making abortion legal (New York for sure, and I would bet money on California though I am not sure of that one). The theocracy he fears from the right is a case of projection, as the secular humanists are trying to get the courts to do what the legislatures won't and shove their particular brand of state worship down our throats.
I could be wrong, but in the US both the pro- and anti-abortion (pro- and anti-life) sides get Europe wrong. It's much easier to get an abortion in parts of the US than in parts of Europe.
The US Constitution and 10A's name many sorts of people, offices, and functions--Pres, VP, Electors, Senators, Representatives, Soldiers, Owners, Judges, Juries, Indians not taxed and a few others. No mention of color, sex, slavery (until it was dead) etc.
The term used for the general run of people was 'person.' I told my history students as far back as 1992 that the Supremes would eventually have to decide if fetuses are persons or not. Punting back to the States probably makes the most sense.
No mention of the fact that the rest of the civilized world has far more restrictive abortion laws than the United States?
I have had subordinates who argued that new and advanced methods were needed, they read Kinsey papers. I made sure they understood our methods before they dreamed of others. Then I gave them a fiefdom to prove their own theory. I never had a success, but it was nice to know that our regular procedures were optimal. We evolved as a group based on current tech, but the ones that knew everything were not useful.
So, we are going to just let slide the truly obnoxious slight of hand of basically saying America will become a theocracy if Roe is overturned? That comment steals a 20 year major league baseball career's worth of bases. France has far more restrictions on abortion than the US. Would anyone use 'theocracy' to describe France? I DO agree with the base analysis that overturning Roe and returning the issue to the states would become a 10-20 year threat to the GOP that did not adapt. But I think overturning Roe would actually create more diversity in each party on the issue with more Republican candidates becoming pro-legal abortion with restrictions once they figure out that an outright ban is a political loser exception in REALLY conservative areas. Likewise, Democrats would moderate on the issue away from 'abortion should be legal in week 40' insanity of the current national leaders and would likewise become more pro-abortion but with more restrictions (because survey after survey for decades has shown Americans to be in favor of legal abortion early in the pregnancy and quite in favor restrictions later in the pregnancy). I do think it will take the GOP a while to learn this rough lesson.
But, including the political threat to the GOP in overturning Roe to his thesis of 'theocracies shrivel and get corrupt' devalues the column to the point of 'I should ignore this' because this person is a clearly a hack. Hold whatever frickin' position on abortion you like but banning or restricting it is not a f'ing step towards the damn Handmaid's Tale. Good lord.
Perhaps when Michal Zapendowski is being beheaded someday, he'll realize he should have had some children who might help protect him from his enemies. Instead of aborting them in the womb.
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