Claim: Christian Right Is ‘Trolling for Assassins’

It’s amazing that this country’s most hateful people seem to be “religious”, or at least say they are.  There is no adequate denouncement of this behavior by other religious people.  I’m not talking about Islam, either.   I’m not against religious beliefs at all, but I am against racism, hate, war, murder, torture and assassination,  some things this country’s most extremist fundamentalist “Christian” religious people seem to be advocates of.   How can they even call themselves “Christians”?  Unless that religion has changed drastically, they can’t.   This was recently discussed on the Rachel Maddow show and it’s a phenomenon that has not gone unnoticed by people.

Former Evangelist Frank Schaeffer claims:  “There is a crazy fringe [receiving] messages that have been pouring out of FOX News … talking about doing away with Obama, asking God to kill him.”  He calls them the American Taliban.

I know there is something funky in the water that the tea bagger types are drinking, but it’s not funny anymore.  People who are threatening harm to President Obama, either overtly or covertly,  are sick and over the top and they need to be treated as any other terrorist threat.  This was Schaeffer’s point.

The following is an excerpt of a transcript from a recent episode of the Rachel Maddow Show:

Rachel Maddow: . . . . On an actual cable TV channel, host Glenn Beck assessed Democratic efforts at health reform with equal intellectual rigor:

Genn Beck, Fox Host: America has spoken clearly, consistently, we are—excuse this analogy but I feel like it‘s true—we‘re the young girls saying, “No, no, help me” and the government is Roland Polanski.

Maddow: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office,” “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”  This is such strong language in secular terms about President Obama.  Can you tell me if this means something less threatening to people hearing this in a biblical context?

Schaeffer: No, actually, it means something more threatening.  I think the situation that I find genuinely frightening right now is that you have a ramping up of biblical language—language from the antiabortion movement, for instance, death panels and this sort of thing.  And what it‘s coalescing into is branding Obama as Hitler, as they‘ve already called him, as something foreign to our shores.  We‘re reminded of that.  He‘s born in Kenya—as brown, as black, above all, as not us.  He is Sarah Palin‘s ‘not a real American’.

Schaeffer: But now, it turns out, that he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers, to which all these biblical illusions are directed who should be slaughtered, if not by God, then by just men.

So, there‘s a direct parallel here with Timothy McVeigh‘s t-shirt on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing in which he said that the tree of liberty had to be watered occasionally by the blood of tyrants.  And that quote, we saw again at a meeting at which Obama was present being carried on a placard by someone carrying a loaded weapon.

What we‘re looking at right now is two things going on. We see the evangelical groups that I talk about in my new book, “Patience with God,” enthralled by an apocalyptic vision that I go into in some detail there. They represent the millions of people who have turned the “Left Behind” series into best sellers.  Most of them are not crazy, they‘re just deluded.

But there is a crazy fringe to whom all these little messages that have been pouring out of FOX News, now on a bumper sticker, talking about doing away with Obama, asking God to kill him.

Really, this is trolling for assassins.  And this is serious business.

It‘s un-American.  It‘s unpatriotic.

And it goes to show that the religious right, the Republican far right, have coalesced into a group that truly want American revolution.  And if it turns out to be blood in the streets and death, so be it.  This is not funny stuff anymore.  They cannot be dismissed as just crazies on the fringe.  It only takes one.

You know, look at “The Boston Globe” article a few weeks ago saying that the threat level faced by the Secrete Service has gone up 400 percent, higher than any other time in 52 years for any president, Democrat or Republican.  These are no jokes.

And as I talk about in “Patience with God,” if you trace these origins back to this paranoid, evangelical group, of which me and my father, sadly, were not only leaders, but leaders in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the foot soldiers that people like Dick Armey and others are using now to push their political agenda onto health care, are also people that have within their ranks, people, such as the person who murdered Dr. Tiller and killed three police officers in Pittsburgh because they thought Obama would take away their guns.

. . . .

Schaeffer: And it goes to show that the religious right, the Republican far right, have coalesced into a group that truly want American revolution.  And if it turns out to be blood in the streets and death, so be it.  This is not funny stuff anymore.  They cannot be dismissed as just crazies on the fringe.  It only takes one.

You know, look at “The Boston Globe” article a few weeks ago saying that the threat level faced by the Secrete Service has gone up 400 percent, higher than any other time in 52 years for any president, Democrat or Republican.  These are no jokes.

And as I talk about in “Patience with God,” if you trace these origins back to this paranoid, evangelical group, of which me and my father, sadly, were not only leaders, but leaders in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the foot soldiers that people like Dick Armey and others are using now to push their political agenda onto health care, are also people that have within their ranks, people, such as the person who murdered Dr. Tiller and killed three police officers in Pittsburgh because they thought Obama would take away their guns.

. . . . . .

Maddow: And to be clear—I mean, over-the-top political criticism is as American as apple pie.  And incredibly intense criticism has been lobbied against George W. Bush and against every president that‘s gone before modern times.  But you‘re saying that there‘s essentially a religious inflection in the most extreme of the commentary against Obama, that sort—that‘s operating on a religious level, that‘s a signal to a religiously-minded audience.

Schaeffer: Absolutely.  Look, this is the American version of the Taliban.  The Taliban quotes the Quran and al Qaeda quotes certain verses in the Quran, in and out of context, calling for jihad and bloody war and the curse of Allah on infidels.

This is the Old Testament biblical equivalent of calling for “Holy War.”  Now, most Americans will just see the bumper sticker and smile and think that it‘s facetious.  Unfortunately, there are 22 million Americans or so who just call themselves super-conservative evangelicals.  Of this, a small minority might be violent, but the general atmosphere here is really getting heated.

And what surprises me is that responsible—if you can put it that way—Republican leadership and the editors of some of these Christian magazines, et cetera, et cetera, do not stand-up in holy hour (ph) and denounce this.

You know, they‘re always asking, “Where is the Islamic leadership denouncing terrorism?  Why aren‘t the moderates speaking out?”  Well, I challenge the folks who I used to work with, that I talk about in my book, “Patience with God,” and I would just say to them, “Where the hell are you?  This is not funny anymore.  And be it on your head if something happens to our president, if you are going to go around supporting and not speaking out against this stuff.

It‘s just not a question of who‘s doing it.  The bigger question is: Where are the people speaking out against these things?  I don‘t hear those voices raised in the evangelical fundamentalist community.  And until I do, I—and my opinion is, they are culpable.

One last thing on this, I think it points at the fact that Obama supporters, of which I have been one since he began running, have better start speaking up in support of him and not sniping at him all the time because he‘s not moving toward change as fast as we‘d like in every area.  This is serious stuff.  The chips are down.  He has real enemies.  Some of them are violent.

And as far as I‘m concerned, it‘s time to support our president, stand with him, and not only wish him the best, but as a believing Christian myself, pray for his safety in the face of these religious maniacs, who every day, you know, one time I was on your show awhile back and they were talking about, “Is he the antichrist?”  Now, they are asking he‘s an unjust ruler and they‘re asking God to strike him down.  There are very not many steps left on this insane path.

Read more here.

He’s got a good point that Obama needs support.

There was no neat conclusion.  You can’t brush this off and say, “Oh some people are just crazy.”  And I would venture this thought, that these people have nothing to do with a real religion. (A violent cult, yes).  These are people with mental illnesses, their own sicknesses, that are driving their behaviors.

The people even insinuating that our President should be hurt should be locked up, deported, or otherwise removed from society.   At the very least, questioned and watched very closely. (I assume someone is doing that).  I’m a huge fan of deportation — kick the violent, hateful, racist ‘Christian’ (or any other religion)  fundies out of the country.  We don’t want them here.  Then again, that brings up all sorts of other people we don’t want here either — Michele Bachmann comes to mind.  Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, etc.  These people and others like them (their followers) are terribly violent in their rhetoric and obviously with dangerous personality disorders.  Why are they in positions to influence people?  In all seriousness, why aren’t they being investigated?  Maybe they are.  That would be far more justified than Bush’s wiretapping of every American’s phones just for the hell of it.