I'm hiding under the couch from this being the new normal. I don't think the country's going to handle the reshaping of the social pyramid well. And when the pious poor finally realize the Republicans are NOT their party...(shudder)
I wouldn't put too much stock in the idea of a Christian Uprising. Pew statistics (awesome pun) quite clearly show a rising trend in American atheism and a falling-off of devout adherence to anything of faith. While 85% of Americans may still "believe in God", less than half of those go to church regularly and even fewer are willing to die for their beliefs. Now, a proletariat uprising? Personally I think that's just what America needs. ;)
since the Obama election ammunition and small arms sales have skyrocketed. There are a hard core of Christian fundies willing to die for their beliefs, they just keep putting it off and putting it off thinking maybe some regular political concern will keep life tolerable for them. But the point is they're armed and ready and the breakup of Yugoslavia shows what we can expect to come of that if they finally decide its time to go to war. When they realize that more and more of their friends are being dumped in the trash when they have no means to help these friends themselves and that their opinion leaders finally start blaming the entire political establishment for this...there's already some signs of the beginning of this . Alex Jones has a substantial audience a significant portion of whom are arriving at a bipartisan hatred of the estbalishment.
Wouldn't rest that easy. This is how things got rolling in Germany, a huge mass of people with clear enemies to blame pressing problems on following a rhetoric of "sufficient force will solve our problems".
The American revolution started with something like 3% of the population in arms. if we count 33% of the population as hard core fundies, half of that's male, half of that's potentially of fighting age, and even half of that aggravated enough to start shooting, we're over the threshold NOW if they all decide to get going, never mind opportunists or the desperate whose lives the Armed Forces wrecked and are wondering why they're still loyal to the Republic....
Wow, Rowyn was right about you being alarmist. ;D If you think that the portion of the US population that is "hardcore fundies" is anywhere NEAR 33% then I'd have to say you're BADLY off - by a full order of magnitude!
I, for one, am one of the well-armed atheists - and I think that gun sales have been skyrocketing NOT because of Obamaism and fear on the other side of the isle, but due to widespread fear of economic collapse. Should the economy collapse in the US, you can be sure that things will revert to a less-peaceful "wild west" type state of being, where owning arms will be a necessary part of "having" anything. Everyone is arming up right now, not just the fundies...
My best armed friend lives in Minneapolis and he says at the gun shows the vast majority of people there are staunch Christians and Christian milita. Minneapolis is a pretty liberal area despite being in the Midwest, was my impression. (He acts the part to avoid getting in trouble for getting his own stuff.)
The vast majority of liberals/progressives/nonfundies I know don't own a gun, never would, and have no plans to acquire them. But I don't get out much. So I dearly hope you're right all the same.
The 33% is these are the ones who identify by the technical definition of Fundamentalist. Perhaps they're not all hardcore, but they are the ones who feel the existence of non fundamentalist Americans is a state of seige upon their nice, pure communities. The essay "Red Family, Blue Family" notes that as far as these people are concerned there ISN'T such a thing as peaceful coexistence because the existence of other ways of life encourages desertion from theirs and disobedience and they won't accept that. Orcinius discusses the "Eliminationist" rhetoric and the parallels to such rhetoric in Weimar Germany...
Sweetie, less than half of the US population goes to any denomination of church, from the most liberal to the most conservative. The conservative Christians I know complain about how their congregations are small and being overrun by liberal-value churches that, for example, ordain openly gay people. I think I would have noticed if a third of my country was wanna-be killers.
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timeasmymeasure
alas
Date: 2011-07-11 09:35 pm (UTC)Re: alas
Date: 2011-07-11 09:53 pm (UTC)the american revolution started with less
Date: 2011-07-11 11:40 pm (UTC)Wouldn't rest that easy. This is how things got rolling in Germany, a huge mass of people with clear enemies to blame pressing problems on following a rhetoric of "sufficient force will solve our problems".
The American revolution started with something like 3% of the population in arms. if we count 33% of the population as hard core fundies, half of that's male, half of that's potentially of fighting age, and even half of that aggravated enough to start shooting, we're over the threshold NOW if they all decide to get going, never mind opportunists or the desperate whose lives the Armed Forces wrecked and are wondering why they're still loyal to the Republic....
Re: the american revolution started with less
Date: 2011-07-12 01:00 am (UTC)I, for one, am one of the well-armed atheists - and I think that gun sales have been skyrocketing NOT because of Obamaism and fear on the other side of the isle, but due to widespread fear of economic collapse. Should the economy collapse in the US, you can be sure that things will revert to a less-peaceful "wild west" type state of being, where owning arms will be a necessary part of "having" anything. Everyone is arming up right now, not just the fundies...
Re: the american revolution started with less
Date: 2011-07-12 02:59 am (UTC)The vast majority of liberals/progressives/nonfundies I know don't own a gun, never would, and have no plans to acquire them. But I don't get out much. So I dearly hope you're right all the same.
The 33% is these are the ones who identify by the technical definition of Fundamentalist. Perhaps they're not all hardcore, but they are the ones who feel the existence of non fundamentalist Americans is a state of seige upon their nice, pure communities. The essay "Red Family, Blue Family" notes that as far as these people are concerned there ISN'T such a thing as peaceful coexistence because the existence of other ways of life encourages desertion from theirs and disobedience and they won't accept that. Orcinius discusses the "Eliminationist" rhetoric and the parallels to such rhetoric in Weimar Germany...
I think we're in a great deal of trouble.
Re: the american revolution started with less
Date: 2011-07-12 05:46 pm (UTC)