While I have not yet seen articles on this, two left-wing friends asserted to me, recently, that “everyone” knows that the Nation is headed for a colossal religious war. These friends are highly educated, cultured, well read, witting, true believers in the “progressive” Socialist faith. They look at me, incredulously and sneeringly, when I inform them that this news hasn’t reached me at this point. One friend speaks with a poignant expression on her face and a far-away look in her eye. Her mood can only be described as “fascist”. She speculates that she may not live long enough to witness the great cataclysm, but she speaks, with a sense of absolute certainty, about the violent bloodbath that will occur. The delusional theory that is being espoused is that “fundamentalist” Christians are planning to impose, by force of government, Christianity on the United States.
When I gently press for a shred of proof, all I get is a vague reference to the U.S. Congress passing a resolution for a day honoring Jesus. I heard them mumble the name “Strom Thurmond” under their breath, and speak, in conspiratorial tones, about “right wing” congressmen going back to their districts and giving speeches that were different than those they would deliver in Washington. They darkly refer to religion running rampant in the world to the point where governments were being left no other option than having to crack down on proselytizing. They blame religion on the conflict in the Middle East. They imply a connection between this international religious “menace” and increased proselytizing in America. Worst of all, for them, is that religion is responsible for the killing of abortion doctors and protests at abortion clinics. After all, who else would be behind this conspiracy to “outlaw” the aborting of human fetuses?
Is this nightmare scenario emanating solely from the fecund imagination of a couple of delusional paranoids, or, is this a new party line emerging from left-wing theoreticians and pundits? Would this drama, I ask, involve secret Christian moles infiltrating our government and reporting to some shadowy controlling authority at, say, Bob Jones University? Is Jesse Helms sending coded messages to the Hezbollah? Perhaps Ken Starr, a religious man don’t you know, was an agent of the 700 Club. Maybe Sen. Chuck Shumer should convene a congressional committee where he would subpoena witnesses who would be asked, under oath, are you or have you ever been a “fundamentalist” Christian?
History teaches that this bizarre fantasy should not be dismissed as merely someone’s idea of a sick joke. The left has a long and infamous history of predicting war, and violence, which has, at times, turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. They usually instigate the violence. From the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution, the left has subverted and perverted genuine organic struggles toward freedom and liberty. In these two cases, and countless others, they were able to harness a creative and moral liberation movement and turn it on it’s proverbial head by effecting a regression toward a worse form of totalitarianism than had existed previously. The French Revolution, inspired by the American Revolution, once co-opted by left-wing forces, was turned into the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic Autocracy. The Russian Revolution, a move toward genuine Republican government, was overthrown by Lenin’s Bolshevik coup resulting in the most totalitarian and bloody regime in history. The Black Book of Communism documents the liquidation of approximately 100 million people at the hands of left-wing Communist regimes, four times as many as their close ideological cousins, the Fascist dictatorships.
The left has predicted war in this country before and has exerted great efforts toward creating that war. In the 1930’s there were predictions of an “inevitable” class war. In the 1960’s it was an “inevitable” race war. In the 1930’s, the left attempted to harness the labor movement, a conservative movement advocating greater ownership by workers, by infiltrating unions and using them to create “proletarian” revolution. In the 1960’s, again, the left attempted to take over the civil rights movement, a conservative, essentially Christian movement, for the purpose of creating race war. Thus, thanks to the left, this great moral movement turned to riots, burning of cities, and the Black Panthers, a criminal Marxist militia.
Thanks to American traditions of freedom, liberty, and private ownership, the left failed overall in this country, but, they did achieve some notable successes from their twisted perspective. They were able to use both the movements of the 1930’s and 1960’s, and the well meaning people who participated in those movements, to move this country toward a more centralized, authoritarian form of government. They were able to place themselves in positions of authority in this increased bureaucracy where they would be in a position to wield a greater power over various aspects of our lives while enriching themselves in the process. Each time the left ratchets up government control, their propaganda instruments take steps to insure that the populace is fooled by the notion that it was they, the left, who saved the day by averting this “inevitable” war looming on the horizon.
At the very core of the leftist faith is violence and “struggle” to achieve a utopian paradise where mankind is “transformed” into a “collective”, free of such “false” superstitions as individuality, property, family, belief in a creator, and self government. Marx himself, lays it out in the Communist Manifesto: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. The word “struggle” is a euphemism for war. The red in the Communist flag symbolizes the human blood that will be shed in order to achieve their great and glorious new social order. In his soul, every leftist prays for that violent eruption that will be required to “sweep away”, to borrow another Marxian slogan, the existing, “false” social order. The prayer for religious war, an idea that my friends, and most leftists, with variations, have been yearning for all their lives and gives them a context of meaning, serves a dual purpose. The war will destroy the “great Satan”, which is our capitalist Republic, and give cause for the annihilation of those implacable enemies, G-d fearing believers.