Townsend Resigns

The Left and the media will probably try to make some hay out of all the resignations given their disdain for Bush. In reality, this is mostly just the expected changing of the guard at the end of a second term.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House adviser on terrorism and homeland security, whose tough and aggressive approach had made her one of President George W. Bush’s most trusted aides, has resigned.

In a statement issued by the White House this morning, the president said that Ms. Townsend “has played an integral role in the formation of the key strategies and policies my administration has used to combat terror and protect Americans.”

Comments

[scarshapedstar]

"In reality, this is mostly just the expected changing of the guard at the end of a second term."

So, if a Democrat were to fire all of the Christianist moles and time-bombs that the Republicans have hidden throughout the government, does that mean you wouldn't complain in the slightest?

[rwilymz]

"if a Democrat were to fire all of the Christianist moles and time-bombs that the Republicans have hidden throughout the government..."

A coupla things, here.

First, in case you didn't get the latest DNC memo, the Democrats are trying to appeal to the christian voters this time around. Apparently, they've finally figured out that there is a huge lot of m/l "traditional values" out there worth tapping for the votes they hold.

Second, if the Republicans are so omni-potent/scient/present that they can hide "moles" and "time-bombs" among the government infrastructure, what makes you think there'd ever come a time when a Democrat would be in a position to fire them?

[seekeronos]

Ross, don't try to appeal to Scar with logic or any rational reasoning. You'll just overload his liberal brain cell. :P

That aside, gotta love his loaded "question" about "Christianists and Republican time-bombs" (isn't that a word that wannabe gay "conservative" Andrew "Milky Loads" Sullivan coined?) ... I mean, ScaryScar makes it sound like one just can't go very far in this country without finding radical Baptists waiting to toss a frag grenade at you because you wore jeans to church last Sunday.

[templar knight]

A Christianist? What the hell is that?

[seekeronos]

TK:

"Christianist" is a manufactured term used by liberals and atheists in order to (attempt to) equate certain murderous, lunatic Muslims whose idolatrous fervor for their moon god runs to the point of mass-murdering non-Muslims or forcing their conversions to Islam to fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians who preach the resurrection of Jesus Christ for the redemption of sinners unto eternal life.

[scarshapedstar]

No, a Christianist is anyone who believes that the United States government exists to further the aims of the Christian religion. For example, the "christian embassy" group that tirelessly proselytizes in the military, aka the "Pentecostalgon".

http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2006/12/pentecostalgon.htm

Republican time bombs are the foxes in the henhouse, like that asshole on the FCC who's plowing ahead with media consolation just to spit in the face of the citizens who came to his kangaroo "hearing". They have no loyalty to anyone other than their corporate backers. And they should all be fired on day one.

[rwilymz]

"a Christianist is anyone who believes that the United States government exists to further the aims of the Christian religion"

I have a feeling that the people who believe that the US guvmint's job is to further the christian religion are those who are trying to stop that from happening, rather than anyone actually attempting to accomplish it. Your paranoiac "example" notwithstanding. ...and frankly, I don't give it much standing in the first place.

In case you weren't aware, the military doesn't run the government.

Free speech being what it is, proselytes abound in this nation -- upon subjects both religious and not. You can't disqualify some because of the content of their message. Unless you can prove "clear and present danger" you can't disqualify the message in time/location. And unless the folks with the message are on the government payroll AND on the clock while the message is being given, you can't disqualify the message based on "official duties" considerations.

What it boils down to, bub, is that you are spinning a grand web of conspiracy around your paranoias, and claiming in more/less complete disingenuity, that other people doing what they're allowed to do but that you don't want them to do is somehow immoral or inappropriate. Which means that you want a government of you, by you, and for you.

Don't work that way.

Please remember: freedom OF religion =/= freedom FROM religion.

If it does, then freedom OF speech == freedom FROM speech ...in which case, I am as much in my rights to compel you to shut up in my presence as you are to compel others to stop being religious in yours.

Grow up, please.

[scarshapedstar]

"And unless the folks with the message are on the government payroll AND on the clock while the message is being given, you can't disqualify the message based on "official duties" considerations."

You might want to rethink that one, because it's already happened. Repeatedly. For christ's sake, that Christian Embassy group produced a video taped *inside the Pentagon with endorsements by Army and Air Force generals in uniform.*

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/65597/

Is any of this getting through to you? Or are you going to respond with more up-is-downism?

[seekeronos]

"--- a Christianist is anyone who believes that the United States government exists to further the aims of the Christian religion ---"

That requires then, that an Islamist be defined as "anyone who believes that the US gov't. exists to further the aims of the Islamic religion".

That doesn't compute: for a real hardcore bomb-tossing head-chopping-off Islamist wants to replace ALL governments with an Islamic Caliphate that answers only to the false idol Allah, and its demon-possessed prophet, Mohammed.

It doesn't follow, because no (TRUE) Christian believes that a choice for Christ can be made by compulsion... it has to be made by the individual, by faith through God's grace. Moreover, all past attempts at forcing a Christian government have failed -- the Puritans at Plimouth, the Calvinists at Geneva, and elsewhere.

In fact, the limited separation (not mutual exclusivity, but rather, each preforming their respective roles) of Church and State serve the goals of the Christian quite well, when left to its proper balance. The State regulates the civil affairs of men to one another, and as a nation, it deals with the matters of getting along with other nation-states. The Church regulates the spiritual affairs of men to God the Father through the merits and grace of God the Son (Jesus Christ), and also regulates matters between members of the Church.

To attempt to have the Christian Church (meaning: the collective body or _ekklesia_ of true believers) run the state is a recipe for disaster, as the unsaved will resent the Church's attempts to dictate how they should live.

Therefore, if we REALLY thought on the parallel with the Islamists, our goal would then be to turn the US Govt. into a functional theocracy (or more exactly, a heirocracy, since even we are not able to bring Jesus down out of Heaven to rule directly - He will come aain according to the Father's timing).

Now, there is a fringe group of folks (who I consider to be heretical Christians) who believe in what is referred to as "Dominionism" or "Christian Reconstructionism" (very related ideals, and for the purpose of this post, I'll lump them together) which teaches that Christians should lawfully seek to replace legislators, judges, and executives with like-minded Christians (i.e. fellow Reconstructionists/Dominionists)

They haven't been terribly successful, and while they trend toward Arminian doctrine, they've made bedfellows of Evangelical especially Pentecostal/Charismatic churches (the ones that go off of feelings much more so than the Bible) to help swell their numbers and their influence. We can see the backlash of this developing now, as the evangelical leaders are splintering and the followers are becoming less willing to identify with a single candidate.

Simply put, they are the minority of most Christians.

The rest of us simply want to be free to preach the Gospel on street corners if so desired, to reach people for Christ, to build churches and exert minor influence as needed in government to preserve the good and wholesome standards which have helped to make America great, and not overthrow the secular constraints that keep any one church or religious body from taking over the government.

However, although we are a secular nation (government) we are also a Judeo-Christian by our heritage, with a distinct Anglo-Saxo-Celts derived culture from our beginning, and we do well to maintain that identity as our dominant culture lest we run the course of all empires and die from within as our observance and PC-dancing to avoid offending any of our factions and tribes - effectively becoming too divergent to retain a common identity.

[rwilymz]

"For christ's sake, that Christian Embassy group produced a video taped *inside the Pentagon with endorsements by Army and Air Force generals in uniform.*"

Ahhhh. So, someone cobbled together footage of military folks saying kind things about religion, edited the thing in a leading manner, and it has made the light-of-brain dimbulbs believe in boogie men.

There are documentaries every day on cable networks that convince many, many people of the existence of UFOs as well. Not "UFOs which are classified experimental military aircraft, but **UFOs** that have little green men in them.

There are documentaries that convince others of the existence of ghosts; that Flight 19 was zapped by Atlantean energy crystals rather than pilot error; and the Bimini Wall is Rue Grande of a surfacing Atlantis.

There were documentaries which convinced many [including myself when I was 9 years old and about as gullible as you are today] that the Egyptian pyramids were built by aliens rather than a superstitious people, that Qetzlcoatl was an alien emissary to Mezoamerica and that the Inca were Martian "cargo cultists".

These are what happen when you only look at what you wish to see... for whatever reason you wish to see only those things. For some odd reason, you wish to see "christianists" under every napping bureaucrat, and so you do. It validates your paranoias.

I do not choose to play along.