Truth and consequences - and responsibility

Back somewhere around 1980, a colleague in the Socialist Party USA circulated a paper he'd written about the beliefs and claims of extreme right-wing religious fundamentalism. He intended it to be a warning of what he correctly perceived that far back was a growing trend that could come to deeply affect our political (and therefore our personal) lives. When I read it, or at least most of it - it was comprehensive but overly long and suffered from lack of a good editor - it seemed so over the top to me that I didn't take it seriously. A major failing, as subsequent events continue to prove.

From the Detroit Free Press for October 28:

A Taylor police dispatcher took the call at precisely 12:44 p.m. on Oct. 18.

A 49-year-old man said he'd just blasted a man with a revolver and a shotgun because the man said he didn't believe in God. ...

The dispatcher asked the suspect how many times he shot the victim.

"Hopefully enough," was the suspect's chilling reply, according to the dispatcher. ...

The suspect said the victim had told him there was nothing he could say that would convince the 62-year-old to believe in God. ...

"How long would it take you to believe in God?" the suspect said he asked the victim.

"Not until I hear Gabriel blow his horn," the victim allegedly replied, while tipping his hat.

That's when the suspect shot him.

"I did it because he is evil; he was not a believer," the suspect told police.

Let's accept that this man is disturbed. Let's accept that no preacher of right wing fundamentalist doctrine actually told him "go kill anyone who doesn't believe in God." Let's accept the genuine madness of his act.

But if we're going to do that, let's also accept - and avow - that those same preachers, so ostensibly innocent, have spread a message of hate and have created an atmosphere of violence, of grinding fear among their followers and devotees, fear of sin, of Satan, of the world around them. Let's also accept - and avow - that the protestations of innocence gushing from the Robertsons, the Dobsons, and all the rest when one of their acolytes takes their sermons on sin to heart and acts on it, are just wind, empty of meaning, of content, of value, of truth.

Let's accept that if we are - as we are - responsible for what we do, that what we say is part of what we do. And what we advocate is part of what we do. And if we refuse to accept responsibility for the effects of our words, refuse to accept that we are in any way involved when someone takes our words seriously, we are morally barren hypocrites and intellectual cowards.

And so they are.

Thanks to Lean Left for the link.