Guest Blogged by Frank Schaeffer
I grew up in a fundamentalist missionary family that in the 1970s and 80s morphed into my father’s activity as one of the founders of the Religious Right. We would hobnob with Republican leaders from Ronald Reagan to Gerald Ford and the Bush family, Jack Kemp and many others. One day it dawned on me that the far right of the Republican Party — in other words its base — actually hates America.
The Religious Right reveled in rising crime statistics, “family breakdown” statistics, failing public schools and so forth. As I explain in my book Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism)
We wanted our country to fail because it had “turned away” from what we believed to be true.
Combined with the fact that we began to lose parts of the culture war, when it came to other Americans beginning to recognize gay rights, expanding women’s rights, abortion rights and such, the Religious Right and the Republican Party infected gun-toting America with a chip on its shoulder about a mile wide. This led to the myth that “they” (fill in the blank, gays, Jews, blacks, liberals — whatever) are “taking away our country from ‘us'”…
“Conservative” means that you believe it’s right to legalize torture, but reject health care for all.
These days to be a conservative means that you hate the United States government elected by the people; believe that if millions of citizens are out of work that it’s their own fault and that the rest of the community should not help them by spending tax dollars; think that Sarah-believes-in-casting-out-demons-before-she-ran-for-governorship-Palin speaks for you. To be a conservative means you believe that healthcare reform will lead to “death panels”; that the president of the United States is not a “real American”; that a university education is a dangerous thing; that Americans who live in big cities are less American than those who live in small towns; that brown people, blacks, progressive whites, gays, public school teachers, Hispanics, immigrants, are somehow conspiring to subvert the “real America” with a “gay agenda” or a “Muslim agenda” or at least the browning of “our” white America.
In other words to be a conservative today is to be an anti-American, nihilistic libertarian know-nothing who believes in unregulated consumerism and the theology of dominion, and the Rapture that many conservatives also subscribe to along with such “facts” as that Obama is the — literal! — Antichrist.
Other than trying to stop women from having abortions and fighting the whole world, our “terrorist enemies”, in other words everyone “not like us”, conservatism today is nothing more than a pent up reaction against everything “we” don’t understand — like art, literature, government, history, geography, diversity, how people get to be gay, black or female… things like that.
Conservatism today is actually not for anything. It is just against everyone but “us” and a few like us bound together by an alternative reality, otherwise known as Fox/NRA/Beck/Palin/Jesus’s Return–“News.”
The irony is that conservatives used to wrap themselves in the American flag and belonging to a cause built on higher ideals than pure selfishness and individual choice. Patriotism was based on principle, not fear and anger. Conservatism led by people such as the late William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater and others had its feet firmly planted in what it regarded as the reality-based community as opposed to liberal wishful thinking about progress coming from government, human nature, etc.
The problem for the conservative movement — hence the Republican Party — is that the us in “us” was never more narrowly defined.
No one said it openly, in fact it was denied, but it really amounted to we Real Americans boiling down to mostly uneducated white people, dumb enough to believe things such as Sarah Palin’s barefaced lies about Obama consorting with terrorists, and/or, post the Obama election, conspiring to unleash “death panels” on unsuspecting elderly and/or handicapped Americans while turning us into a “Communist state” as everyone knows Hitler did to Germany, that other “communist country” famous right up there with Canada and the UK for killing its sick, tired and poor.
What is the conservative movement today, and/or the Republican Party?
It’s about as far away from conservatism as it can get. It is a party ready to trash its own country in support of nihilistic, selfish market-driven “values” the very opposite of conservative values of family, community and stability. It is in fact what conservatives of the 60s said the hippies were: selfish brats with no sense of responsibility to anyone. It’s also a party of armed revolution not so subtly egging on its lunatic fringe to commit violence. It applauds white rubes who show up at public meetings carrying loaded assault weapons “to make a point” and signs reminiscent of Timothy McVeigh and his famous T-shirt; “the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants” and the like are held up by Murdoch/Beck/Fox and company — those profiteers off the unregulated market — as paragons of good sense and free enterprise and gun rights.
To be an actual conservative today is to be a progressive Democrat.
An actual conservative believes in community and accountability to a moral tradition that puts the greater good of others ahead of oneself. Take a look at the way the very conservative communities of New England’s Puritan towns were arranged around the village green known as “the commons.”
Shared public spaces were owned by the community, for instance grazing land, and town meetinghouses. People were obliged to show up and participate in the fledgling democracy and vote. Taxes were dispensed by committees for charitable purposes. A duty to government and obligations placed on citizens by other citizens — when it came to putting the life of the community ahead of the self — were the norm. The free-market and individual enterprise were strictly curtailed based on not just the needs of the community but, when it came to things like banking and lending, the Old Testament teachings that frowned on “usury” — in other words banks making more money than they should from ordinary people– were upheld.
President Obama is a conservative. He believes in the brotherhood of all people. He believes in the freedom of the individual to make moral decisions. He believes that sexuality, religion and skin color should not define us but the content of our characters should define us. He believes that we are our brother’s keeper. He believes in loyalty to community and country — in other words patriotism, whether that’s the honor of serving in the military or the honor of paying taxes to support not just national defense but how we treat what the Bible calls the least amongst us.
People ask me why I’m a progressive these days and “changed sides” from being a conservative. I didn’t change sides.
What changed — ironically with my father’s and my nefarious “help!” — was a conservative movement that became an enclave for hate-filled ignorance, anti-American sentiment and nihilistic individualism. What changed was my bare faced self deception as I profited from the God business and the far right even though I knew better. Today I am an independent voter, and an Obama supporter, and a progressive because I am a conservative.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back
He will be making appearances across the country over the next several months to promote his new book. His current tour schedule is here. Please stop by to say hello if he comes to your home town, and tell him you read him on The BRAD BLOG!
Previously from Frank Schaeffer at The BRAD BLOG:
• 10/22/09: “A Letter to Rupert Murdoch”
• 10/23/09: Brad Interviews Schaeffer on Green960 
• 11/2/09: “The Loony Right Eats Its Own”
Funny, I guess I’m now a conservative, BECAUSE I’M LIBERAL. I think a huge, totalitarian federal government running a brave-new-world society will put a crimp in my free-spiritedness.
Thoughtful article Mr. Schaeffer. I was reared in a more liberal Christian community in the northern San Francisco bay area; however, it was the early to mid eighties and the fervor of divine right to all of America and the world by the Christian community was somewhat disgusting. I am an atheist now. Much simpler.
Mr. Schaeffer,I think you are desperately needed in the Congress. You surly have my vote. Corporations have taken over the Republican Party and going hard after the Democrats.
How many of your past associates really think as you do but can’t get out, because the Money is good?
Frank Schaeffer wrote:
Indeed. Yes, indeed. Those nihilistic, selfish, market driven corporate moguls are using the religious right to advance their own nefarious purposes: gather as much money and power for themselves as possible. They are conducting as brilliant a psy-op as I could imagine.
Frank – I read your article on Alternet yesterday, and I’ll leave the same comment here as I did there (granted, your writing here is not the same, but what was posted there makes me not want to read your post here – I will, and maybe I’ll comment on it later in the thread):
WHAT A STUPID ARTICLE
No, of course “New Atheists” are not as dangerous as fundamentalist religious kooks. For one, we are not likely to kill someone over whether or not God exists. Why is it not OK to view the entire concept of ‘faith’ as idiocy? It certainly has a historical precedent as such. Seriously, what is so virtuous about believing in something with no evidence? (No, the bible does NOT count as evidence, not in any meaningful way.)
People are welcome to ‘believe’ whatever LooneyTunes ideas they want. They are all as LooneyTunes as each other – virgin birth, 72 virgins upon martyrdom, resurrection after 3 days, jesus came among the native americans – take your pick, all equally loopy…on par with the actual belief in a god, which is no more or less nutty than any of the surrounding myths. I would just like to see us get to a point where believing in god is something people grow out of, like the tooth fairy or the easter bunny or santa claus.
I don’t have to respect “belief”. I can accept that people “believe” many strange things, but I don’t have to respect it. Any real moral ideas (the Golden Rule being the big one) do not need a god for validity.
Aside from writing articles on liberal blogs (no, I won’t use the word conservative to describe myself ever) and writing books that seem to pander to a liberal audience (no, I haven’t read any of them, but if your aforementioned Alternet piece is any kind of representation of your work, I won’t be reading them) what have you done, Mr. Schaeffer, to repent for your time spent being part of the ‘haters.’ It’s all well and good to throw mea culpae towards a receptive audience (oh goody, he’s one of us now), but you were at one point a powerful cog in a destructive and traitorous machine, one that justified the death of kids like Matthew Shepard. I’m certainly glad that you are no longer a part of that machine, but what are you really doing to undo the ‘sins’ of your past? How are you taking on the current Religious Right directly? Have you had a conversation with Fred Phelps about how you were wrong? What about other more general haters like George Bush (apparently you have/had access)? Glenn Beck? Michael Savage? Lou Dobbs?
Preaching to the choir, telling us all here things about conservatism that we already knew, sorry it don’t impress me much.
BTW – I did read the letter to Rupert Murdoch. While it was quite a good letter, I have a feeling he didn’t read it. I have a feeling it was really for us.
Maybe you should change your name to “Rebel Without a Soul”… Negative much? Sheesh! What do you expect the guy to do get down on his knees and beg your forgiveness? If his book makes even one so-called conservative see the light regarding the hypocrisy of the religious right, he’ll have gone a long way towards atoning for his previous crimes against community. Being intolerant of people of faith and trashing their belief just makes you guilty of the same kind of behavior you seem to be so against. NOT progressive in my book.
Ho Hum.
By the way, where did I say I was “intolerant” of people of faith? I fully support everyone 1st Amendment guarantee to freedom of religion. That I think “faith” is NOT a virtue, nor is it rational, and that I also think religion is the most destructive force on the planet does not render me intolerant.
What I AM intolerant of is people making idiotic statements like Schaeffer’s “New Atheists are as dangerous as religious fundamentalists.” Not true, not even close to being true. Atheists have been a persecuted minority since the dawn of religion (not like gays, or blacks in contemporary history, but certainly in the histiry of mankind. Recent polls have said that the least likely demographic to be elected to public office is Atheist/Nonbeliever. THAT is a ridiculous and troubling commentary on the state of our society!) Now that we are becoming a vocal minority that is actually standing up for ourselves, everyone starts pissing in their pants.
So I guess people will always read into things what they want. And my moniker should be interpreted exactly as you have indicated (at least that is one of my intents) – I Rebel against the very notion of a Soul.
Dear Frank
Having read some of your father’s books I find it hard to see him as a Fundamentalist, especially of the American variety.
He did not seem to be a ranter or bigoted in his opinions and ideas. To rank him with people like Jerry Falwell, Oral Roberts, and the Bush family seems unfair if not unreal.
I agree that the christian right seems to hate America, or at least democracy. They are your equivalent of the Taliban and others like them, and it seems that it will not take much for them to turn to violence to get what they want.
I think in some ways that might not be a bad thing, since it seems the only way some countries can only rid themselves of the sort of poison that permeates your country.
I am continually disappointed that President Obama does not allow the Justice department to pursue Bush and co for their crimes (they can’t be called anything else), especially their incompetence or deliberate willful neglect of the prospect of the 9/11 attack, and their callous use of it and the trust of the American people in going to war against Iraq.
Most Christians have an experience similar to that Palin-demon-smear, you mention. Anybody who converts to Catholicism has that within their Rite. You twist and conflate in a hateful way.
Now I’ve heard it all, “nihilistic individualism”. And these so-labeled nihilists are the family people, church-goers, taxpayers and producers in society, it seems. So you disagree with them. Fine. That justifies this anti-intellectual smear?
Obama is many things, and “conservative” isn’t one. Again, twisting a definition, or revising facts to fit one is off-the-wall.
Have conservatives changed? Or has society’s expectation of what they must DO, ACCEPT & BELIEVE changed? They don’t want to go along with the changes proposed, so you change definitions and smear them.
They are the same people they were 30-40 years ago, but won’t buy in to what you want. They resist and you hate them for it.
Hint: Leave them alone, and all the fireworks go away, Mr. Social Engineer.
I’d hate to see what drives your demagogic rant…it could even be nihilism in your psyche.
What a completely ridiculous article but certainly a window into a demented delusional mind that takes truth and twists it to such a degree as to be unrecognizble.