Uniformed Paramilitaries for Christ in Fort Lauderdale Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Check out the new Christian militarism, replete with military garb.

One thinks of the morals police in Saudi Arabia: the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Or the quote attributed to Sinclair Lewis:

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.

I think we need a little more Ethan Allen, Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin and Tom Paine, and a whole lot less of these freaks.

To what extent the Republican Party has gone from being the party of a government-skeptic Goldwater and to being the Christian Nationalist Party, I cannot say, though the overtones of the bloodbath at the recent Anne Arundel County Republican Central Committee as reported by Greg Kline, Brian Griffiths and David Kyle left me chilled. I found of particular interest the comments of Maryland Chesapeake Blog, whose unstated assumption from the MORE MODERATE side of their recent unfortunate intra-party food fight seemed to be that specifically Christian teachings were or should have been the governing principles of how the Republican Party should operate there. Implicit therein: non-Christians, meaning non-evangelical Christians, practically - were not part of the community, or at least were not of consequence. Mind you, I don't know that a Christian Nationalist Party is per se a bad thing. I would rather that those who support an integration of Christian ecclesiology and doctrine into the forceful apparatus of the state make their case openly and without apology, same way that I fight for liberal, secular values and governance.

UPDATE: David Kyle suggests in comments that he did not blog very well but it is I who failed to add the appropriate tone of snark and humor to the prior paragraph that I sought. Long week, been working too hard. Please note the Schadenfreude and humor tags in reference to the parliamentary food fight in Annapolis. While I do believe that the Republican Party is slouching towards theocratic tendencies, Annapolis' recent kerfuffle is not evidence of same. Frankly, was just trying to find the sense of humor that I seem to have difficulties finding of late. Harrumph and good natured ribbing to all.

Go Enjoy A Little Anti-GOP Schadenfreude Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

In the Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons that graced the Saturday mornings of my childhood, sometimes the Coyote would find himself in a painful situation having grabbed an anvil while not standing on firm ground. The anvil would send him crashing down to the desert below, often after he dared to look down and realized he had walked off of a cliff.

In similar vein, we may enjoy the scene of theocrats chewing one another to pieces. We should feel free to lend, purchase and indeed toss them as many anvils as possible, for maximum broken bones and blood on the dust of the desert below. But sometimes, the theocratic political hacks and politicians turn to feed on each other in seeming unforced errors. In such joyous cases, we should not interrupt but just enjoy the tint and smell of copious blood on the ice:

FIRST MESSAGE: "Hello, this is Doug Lamborn calling for either Jonathan or Anna. Something very serious has happened. There was a letter to the editor that you both put in your names to the editor of the Woodmen Edition and there is something that is blatantly false in that letter.

"I would like to get together with you and show this to you and appeal to you as a brother and sister in Christ. You didn't give me that opportunity but I am happy to overlook that and deal with you on that level because I think that is the right thing to do and show you where you made a blatant, wrong statement.

"Now there are consequences to this kind of thing, but I would like to work with you in a way that is best for everyone here concerned. So please call me at your earliest convenience. It is now 2:40 (p.m.) on Saturday afternoon.

SECOND MESSAGE: "Hello, this is Doug Lamborn again, I'm finishing up my message from a moment ago. I got cut off. It is critical that you get back to me as soon as possible on this because I'll be going back to Washington here in a few days and I have to make sure that this is resolved one way or another. And like I said I'd rather resolve this on a Scriptural level but if you are unwilling to do that I will be forced to take other steps, which I would rather not have to do. So please call me. This is essential. Call me by tonight, Saturday night and we can get together sometime Sunday afternoon."

It is a strange moment when I feel sympathy for anyone associated with James Dobson, but it was his operatives in Colorado Springs who criticized Rep. Lamborn (R-Dobsonville CO, aka Colorado Springs) for his opposition to federal anti-dogfighting proposals.

Now reasonable minds may differ as to whether dog-fighting is a legitimate target of state prohibition (lobsters are boiled alive and ducks fattened forcibly for foie gras lawfully in most states) and whether the federal government is the appropriate level of government for any such laws. I find dogfighting disgusting, but cannot formulate at hand an argument as to why a dogfighter's pleasure does not merit respect while a gourmand's taste for lobster and foie gras do merit such respect. Perhaps it's the income level of the respective parties, or the fact that dogfighting is a spectacle whereas lobsters and ducks are tortured out of direct public sight, or that the torture is a (perhaps undesired, perhaps reluctant) means for the gourmand as opposed to an end in itself for the dogfight enthusiasts.

But for a Congressman to call and threaten his constituents on a voice mail is pretty brazen. I take it as a sign that the GOP is cracking under pressure, and losing its bearings. To quote one Republican operative:

"It's always darkest right before you get clobbered over the head with a pipe wrench. But then it actually does get darker," said a GOP pollster who insisted on anonymity in order to speak candidly.

The Schadenfreude tag has not seen nearly enough work lately. Shame on me.

Talking Points Memo's Schadenfreude-meter Redlines on Giuliani, McCain Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Josh Marshall is enjoying himself immensely, redlining whatever gauge measures Schadenfreude at the expense of Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. No "fair use" quote can do it justice.

Meta: The Crab Does A Happy Dance.... Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I am probably happier than I should be about getting a new - meaning used and cheap - BlackBerry to replace the one with the clickwheel gone to pot. The clickwheel controlled two services for which I was paying retail: internet access and out-going email. Now I can communicate like an obnoxious yuppie in form rather than an obnoxious blogger in substance. More mundanely, I look forward to being able to make remote posts to CMW on the train again as well as respond more efficiently to incoming email.

Next week will be a light week for me. I have off on Wednesday and Friday, though Friday will be taken up largely with errand running, of a sort. But Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I will be getting out of work at 5:30 rather than 7 PM. For most people this is not a big deal but it means I will get to see my kids every evening, if briefly, for the next nine days.

During the extra time, I will be working to move the ball forward on a number of Crab Media projects that need upgrading and cleaning up. The Attorney and Blogger pages need serious work, especially the latter. I will be setting up a page with an RSS feed from Mrs. Crab's blog that will address autism. I have a couple of ideas for Crab's Lab. And I have in mind a potential "killer app" that will draw some new readers not specifically to CMW but to Crab Media. Hint: it will criticize lawyers, so I am reasonably sure that I have got MBA's David Kyle as a likely reader.

Gay Marriage: The Case Against Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

This blog has gone on record for gay marriage. Let's hear what some on the other side have to say.



I would be interested in learning how preaching Christianity has led to an arrest. Fred Phelps and company are even preaching at Jerry Falwell's funeral, eliciting off-the-meter levels of Schadenfreude for folks like me. But Phelps and company keep eluding arrest. Where are the Christians who have been arrested and booked for praying and preaching in the U.S.? I know of anti-war protesters who got shot in California with rubber bullets for speech, but not Christian preachers. Decades of First Amendment jurisprudence, largely instituted on behalf of Jehovah's Witnesses, protect the right to preach on a street corner (so much so that it is often joked that Jehovah's Witnesses don't lose free exercise cases, period.)

How gays and lesbians are bad for the "economy" is news to me. I would LOVE for my neighborhood to turn majority gay, out of my insatiable raw greed: property values tend to rise when a neighborhood gay-gentrifies. DC's gay community is growing by leaps and bounds and gentrifying the city daily; if gays and lesbians had any compassion they would invade Baltimore similarly, checkbooks in hand. They are good for the public fisc as well; they pay more taxes on the same dollar of income but use very little in the way of government services like public schools and Infants and Toddlers services for autism as my family uses heavily. No doubt there are many gay parents, both actual and aspiring, but gay parents are pretty much immune to a child by "oopsie" which is how about half of all children are conceived. And gay parenting is not a goal of a majority of gay adults,. Economy-killers, right. May they "kill" my neighborhood's economy and may it never recover.

In fairness, there are far more eloquent and educated advocates of the other side of this issue than the rubes who provided the freak-show display above, just as there are anti-war voices less "head-trip zombie" than Cindy Sheehan's. Some among those more eloquent voices may be among our own Maryland Blogger Alliance. I recognize how serious, educated and fair-minded people can disagree on this issue, either as a matter of moral principle or as a practical policy (or jurisprudential) matter. Serious, educated and fair-minded people did not appear in the YouTube above, I believe.

HAT TIP Pandagon.

Kevin Dayhoff Rubbing It In From Key West Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Maryland Blogger Alliance member Kevin Dayhoff is taking great joy in his endurance of the recent Maryland winter storm and the unusually cold weather that arrived before it .... from his vacation spot in Key West....

Liberal Radio Killing Each Other Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

For the conservative readers who would like to hear liberal radio hosts batter each other, North Dakota-based progressive radio host Ed Schultz smacks the stuffing out of liberal radio network Air America, its history of financial mismanagement and its attempts to muscle Schulz out of XM Radio.

HAT TIP to Oliver Willis.

Maryland Conservatarian On White Liberal Racial Guilt Schadenfreude Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Yes, Conservatarian, you can gloat, if you keep it moderate, which you did.