Posted by
sweiserwendel on Wednesday, March 14, 2007 8:05:09 PM
Things are looking up for secular conservatives - I think we're becoming a movement. Today here comes my favorite raver, Christopher "I've Got a Headache from Thinking Down to Your Level" Hitchens, flogging his new book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
Now, now, ye people of faith, put down those (metaphoric) knife sharpeners, leave those fantasies of disemboweling (verbally, of course) the obscene infidel. Hitchens is a bona fide intellectual with a thorough education. I love NASCAR, but he ain't NASCAR. We need people like him on this side of the aisle: thinkers, writers, recent converts whose zeal spilleth over. As long as the left's got us pegged as anal compulsives, toothless hooch-brewers, icky ladies who say "That's not nice," and all the other stereotypes, we won't make headway in the states with large numbers in the Electoral College.
This has nothing to do with Republican positions. Most Democrats don't know their party's positions (even when their party has positions), let alone ours -- if they thought that much, they'd probably switch sides. (By the way, last time I looked, the Democrats had a position: supine). This is about public relations and the management of perception. As Bush and Rumsfeld learned to their (and our) chagrin, all that stuff -- soft, silly, emotional, irrational stuff -- does matter. It's a dog-manipulates-dog world.
Disagree with Hitchens all you want, attempt to change his views, pray for him if you like -- but please, no public outcry, no spluttering indignity, no calls for the author's head. He is good for us, and we need more like him.
Thanks for reading - Sylvia Weiser Wendel