01.03.11
Local Tea Party funny
From time to time I’ve linked to the Lehigh Valley Conservative blog. It’s run by a scripture-spouting LV member of the Tea Party, a former union steward now virulently anti-union in the middle of a community that enjoyed its best days due to unionized labor.
Nothing on the Lehigh Valley Conservative’s blog makes much sense but it is emblematic of the great vigor of the Tea Party. As such, it’s thoroughly mixed up, sometimes comically so, but driven.
Today, the LVCer asks what’s the greatest threat to the “future of America.” (I’d say embedded ignorance but that’s only a slight subtextual matter here. Plus it gets in the way of the joke.)
Francis Schaeffer said when ask the question; “What is the greatest concern for the future of America???? Without hesitation he answered saying “State-ism???.
State-ism involves a philosophy of government, by which the state, or government, is viewed not only as the final ruling authority but the ultimate agency of redemption. The government in the form of “State-ism??? will supplant the church and can never function under God. If and when, the social order has made that transition into “State-ism??? there is no stopping the civil/social slide into Hell.
State-ism is the reason or why you have Democrats, Republicans and Independents being called “Progressives??? to some degree or another, a political branding, they all are of or follow after the preaching and Theology of the religion of “State-ism??? with there god and savior being big government.
If you’re not getting why this is amusing, follow this link: “State-ism.”
Anyway, statism was also a part of the Ayn Rand lexicon — her philosophies now holding full sway in the GOP. Ted Nugent, for example, is the dull-witted man’s regurgitator of Ayn Rand and sundry Atlas Shrugged-isms.
In the context of the world of the Lehigh Valley Conservative, this is a second layer of unintentional humor.
LVC begins his screed on “state-ism” with some of his standard cant endorsing “theological issues,” in his case meaning the US should transform into a theocracy.
Ayn Rand was an atheist.
This leaves some Tea Partiers, so quick to invoke God, scratching their heads over the cognitive dissonance. Others, like Glenn Beck, have built an entire foundation on the illogic.
Writes the Lehigh Valley Conservative, over a visit to the local Tea Party by a disciple of Ayn Rand, in March of last year:
Last night at the lehigh Valley 9/12 meeting we heard Professor Andrew Bernstein gave a talk on the virtues of reason and with his talk mentioning Ayn Rand and how much the book “Atlas Shugged??? had influenced him. He also was promoting his new book “Capitalism Unbound???. An interesting thing happened in the Q&A Someone ask him—- And I Para-phase—Were does the “Christian Faith??? fit into reason and the founding of the country? To which he said, It didn’t and that Christianity had nothing to do with the founding of the country. I heard or at least I think I heard some voicing of disapproval around the room. I tell you this only because a house divided cannot stand and we either put God and His Bible first or Ayn Rand and her book “Atlas Shugged??? first. And from everything I read about her she was not a Christian and as a matter of fact she hated Christ and Christianity. Her position and thinking cannot line up with God if that is true and we than must consider our position and her teachings.