Charles Johnson: High Priest

Gee, and I always thought of Charles as just being one of my blog heros. But now, thanks to Mark Shea, I now know that he's the leader of a religious cult.

Mark posts and responds to a letter from a reader who thinks President Bush is the Antichrist, containing links to two posts by someone named Glenn Greenwald. For Mark, the "crucial point" that Greenwald makes is this:

It used to be the case that in order to be considered a "liberal" or someone "of the Left," one had to actually ascribe to liberal views on the important policy issues of the day – social spending, abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, immigration, "judicial activism," hate speech laws, gay rights, utopian foreign policies, etc. etc. These days, to be a "liberal," such views are no longer necessary.

Now, in order to be considered a "liberal," only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a "liberal," regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more "liberal" one is. Whether one is a "liberal" -- or, for that matter, a "conservative" -- is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.

And what blinding flashes of insight flow from Mark's keyboard upon finding such pearls of Bush Derangement Syndrome wisdom?

In my experience, this has often been the case, though I also think my experience is tempered by the fact that my audience is largely Catholic and therefore is not nearly as given as, say, the readers of Little Green Footballs to making their ideology a substitute religion. Certainly, I have been labeled a "traitor" by some for my failure get on board with the war and with Bushie excuses for torture.[...]

In case the Mark Shea experience is new for any of you, it's all personal--none of it's business. If you don't show up in his comboxes to commiserate with him ("In my [undeservedly painful] experience") about how he really was a good boy, and agree that Daddy was mean to him, then you're evil, naughty, and bad!--as you'll find out below:

Finally, I'm wary of dragging Antichrist into the discussion without a great deal of qualification, precisely because of the kneejerk tendency of Bush devotees to make easy dismissals of critiques because of a false word.

"Wary...because of those wily goose-stepping Bushitler clones who get all upset about, like, words instead of just LIKING ME! IS THAT SO BAD?! MOOOMMMM!"

When antichrist comes, he will have enthusiastic support from both sides of the aisle. There is something in all of us that hungers for the promise of secular messianic solutions to our problems. Despite the screams of Greenwald's readers about "Bush Derangement Syndrome" the interesting thing about both those entries is that they do not seem to me to be about Bush, but about his devotees. What has struck me all along in the torture debates is how much further apologists for torture in my comboxes are willing to go to justify torture than any Administration spokesman would ever go. Impalement? Fine! The Church has no problem with that. It is a comment on us, not on Bush, that we are willing to pre-emptively justify such things, should Caesar wish to do them. And that's on this blog. Over on Little Green Footballs one finds (routinely) a slavering horde of people in the comboxes who would gladly grant Caesar the power to, not just to torture, but to unleash a nuclear holocaust, put all perceived enemies of the state in concentration camps, and generally "do whatever is necessary" to keep us safe. Here and throughout St. Blog's, such D'Hippolitan thinking is the kooky exception and kooks who advocate mass murder as an instrument of US policy are booted from comboxes (with rare exceptions).

The kook he's referring to is yours truly, btw. Without any links to prove what he's saying. Unlike the links on his blog that approvingly link to one of Pat Buchanan's smear jobs on Israel, and then defend that linking in a later post.

On LGF, the suggestion that all New Jersey Muslims be rounded up, locked in a mosque and subjected to artillery fire as retribution for a terrorist act in Iraq is acceptable political discourse that is a normal part of the landscape. And they think they are conservative.

You know, I don't know if Charles is the leader of a religious cult that makes "ideology a substitute religion" or not; though my guess is that, as a Catholic, Charles would find such a suggestion blasphemous. The only cult I see going on here is one that has as its object of adoration a little unloved boy masquerading as a serious commenter on matters best left to adults.