The Unusual Suspects

Many of the hateful, sometimes highly political comments some of the people connected to The Response — the Gov. Rick Perry-hosted and supposedly nonpolitical prayer rally in Houston later this summer — are anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Home Depot, anti-Barney the Dinosaur, anti-you name it.

And also pro-violence?

The event’s info packet lists  Pastor Stephen Broden as one of the endorsers of The Response. Broden, of Dallas, ran for Congress as a Republican in 2010 but was defeated in the general election. A few weeks before the election, a Dallas TV reporter confronted Broden about comments he has made from the pulpit, including that the violent overthrow of the government was “on the table” if elections did not produce the results he wanted. Vote for me, or else?

From Broden:

We have a constitutional remedy. And the Framers say if that don’t work, revolution.

Pressed by a reporter on whether revolution is an option in 2010, Broden responded:

I don’t think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms. However, it is not the first option.

That was just the highlight out of several unusual things Broden had to say during the TV interview. You can read about Broden’s comments in the Dallas Morning News. Or you can watch his exchange with the TV reporter:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqBkWj4YVSs]

To recap, thus far the people associated with The Response include:

Can you feel the love, America?

You can send a message to Gov. Perry. Tell him you are troubled by his association with a hate group and his cynical insistence on using faith for political purposes by signing our open letter to the governor.

12 thoughts on “The Unusual Suspects

  1. The Law of Inverse Attrribution helps to decode the ogre under the hype. Crisis creation does not have an inbuilt political bias, it is equal opportunity BS, except when there is a real crisis, Real crises differ from BS crises by the absence of inverse attributionl, normally verified by scientific or direct physical evidence.

    If, for example, a demogogue pronounced that the Rio Brando was going to overflow during a drought, one must look for the real reasons which could be as simple as a hand out to a favored civil engineering firm. One must take care, however to double check the 100 year flooding experience in the area and the area up stream. It could be that upstream water is about to be diverted into the Rio Brando. That happended in “China Town” with Jack Nicholson.

    The hysteria heard in certain brands of TP propaganda make much ado about the concept that the Constitution is not a suicide pact which is a concept that shows no confidence in the US Constitution, The Constitutional hyoe painted on a certain demogogue tour bus, is an example of the Law of Inverse Attribution in that it is clear by not so subtle subtext, that certain ethnic and religious groups must be denied the rights writtin in the Constiution as it has been carried out in case law.

    Wishy washy Broden is a fine example of one who is wrting checks with his mouth that can’t be cashed with his axe.

  2. Well, I would have to say that all of the stars are aligning well for a Dark Forces takeover of the United States in 2012. Bachmann appears to be in the driver’s seat right now for President. This reminds me of the words of Rousas Rushdoony, the founder of the Christian homeschool movement:

    “The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state … Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies. Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy, [Democracy] is “the great love of the failures and cowards of life.”

    And this is the thing that really gets me—the thing that really brings the evil to the forefront in all of this. You could read that actual statement from Rushdoony to 100 followers of Bachmann, Perry, etc. and none of them would feel a chill run down their spine. More than half of them would not know who Rushdoony was and would have no idea that an evil man like this has shaped a large portion of what they have come to believe. The rest that might know of him would say, “Aw, he was a nice Christian man. He could not possibly have believed or said anything like that. You liberals just made that up to smear the reputation of a fine man.”

    These people have become so ignorant, blind, and unreachable that Jesus himself could not persuade them of their folly, just like their spiritual forefathers in Matthew 23.

  3. What is totally disturbing is that Gov. Perry thinks that racists and bigots constitute his base.

  4. The AFA is a loving Christian association, and NOT a HATE GROUP.

    The TFN seems to HATE anyone who is a Bible-believing Christian … .

    1. Joseph, you certainly have a right to ignore the hateful things AFA has said and promoted regarding non-Christians and minorities, but that record is long. Regarding TFN, our staff, our board and our supporters across Texas (such as the hundreds of clergy in our Texas Faith Network) include Bible-believing Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and people of other faiths as well as people of goodwill who practice no faith tradition. What links us all is a strong belief in the constitutional freedoms that protect all our rights to practice our faith or not without government’s misguided help or interference or the cynical attempt of politicians and pressure groups to use faith as a weapon for political gain.

  5. @Joseph Allen: Most “loving Christian” people only seem to love other “loving Christians” and hate non-Christians.

    That does not sound very loving to me.

  6. The Hareful Left of the Seventies was consistently “anti” in rhetoric which made it difficult to see who or what they were for. The “fors” were sufficiently vague which allowed a “rainbow coalation” of dissimilar “antis” The hidden agenda that their actions supported were propably most certainly not revealed to the useful. In short, the unifiying element that kept the rainbow aimed at the pot on the left was the fairly consisgtent focus on Russian energy and defense issues.

    The Left demonstrated at the drop of the hat against the B-70 bomber and the B-1 bomber until the USSR fielded the Foxbat Mig-25 high altutude interceptor. We didn’t build the B-70 and the production line of the B-1 was shut down for a few years, The Great Polar Bear Scam in which the plight of he poor Polar Bear driven from the melting ice packs on account of pollution from American oil production in Alasks. The problem iwith the blaime is that the Arctic is bein melted by warm and polluted water from Russian rives flowing north from industrial centers in Siberia.f

    One must consider the hidden agendas of the hateful Right. Some of the good old time religion enthusiasm was supported by illegal speack easts. whoe houses, and crooked sheriffs. The good old time religion hat outlets that are closed today. The old system worked because it wss a double standard. This makes he vblneability of politicos on the right quire high. With no outlet for hanky panky in the Tea Party, makes the Tea Party to some sreious infightig, and back stabbing.

    The issue of Anti-Islam rhetoric in as much strength in deomonizing people to the point that their human rights are forefeit. Illegal aliens, Sharia, and mosllems have now reached the point that Jews had in Germany about 1932. By 1933 the Race Laws were enacted and bti by bit, Jews were rounded up and “resettled”

    The different from the Hateful Left is that although htey were directed at the subversion of American power projection in favor of Russian, but with a relatively small faithful, at least enough to fill the DC mall. But the Hateful Right has the keys to power in their pockets, The knock on the door at midnight is a few steps away.

  7. Two points Joseph Allen:

    1) So-called Bible-believing Christians are the only humans on the planet that do not filter or process scripture through brain tissue to determine what it means. The meaning just somehow arrives whole in its final form between the reading eye and the cognition center in the brain. I wonder why God gave you all of that brain tissue if you were never supposed to use it. Did you ever think about that? And women are a real mystery. Being as how they were created for no other purpose than to be sexy, screw, wash the dishes, be pregnant, and be her husband’s stay-at-home slave, it is a mystery to me why God bothered to give her a big brain at all. She obviously needs only a few donkey neurons to do her appointed job, as seen from the so-called Bible-believing perspective.

    The Bible says that those who diligently seek the Lord will find him. That means deep and continual study and using your brain cells to understand and properly interpret the Bible–like the Jews and Catholics have always done—not like the Baptists. It also means listening to the voice and leading of the Holy Spirit—TOTALLY APART FROM THE BIBLE. You were given that big brain of yours to find the Lord in all ways possible. Get off your butt and quit using the Bible like a cheap 1960s comic book, and quit using your brain like that of a 7 year old. God’s out there waiting for you. When you find him, you will be amazed and surprised. He is not who you have been led to believe he is.

    2) My primary reason for being against so-called Bible-believing Christianity is because of the intense spiritual pride in its followers and their absolute conviction that they are right and every other person on the planet who claims to be a Christian is wrong. In particular, and this is what I have against the American Family Association, Bible-believing Christians are thirsty to take over the power of government and use it to force other Christians (I know you don’t think we are—not really) and people in general to believe and behave just exactly as they do. That takes spiritual testicles because God himself does not step across the line you people have stepped over. God allows people to accept him or reject him. Romans 14 makes it clear that it is a sin to force people to believe or behave against their own conscience. But no-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!!!!! You people will have none of that. You want absolute worldly power so you can use it to force all of the human squares into your round holes. And if a few people die along the way—so what.

  8. The Religious Right and Bible-believing Christians of today have a peculiar taste for 17th century English preachers and Puritanical types with their rigid asceticism. They also love the “thee and thou” language of that time that they have introduced into what people today call “church talk.”

    They are never satisfied in their own time and place in history. They want to go back in time to the 17th century and personally experience the abuse of a Cotton Mather of Jonathan Edwards sermon. When I attended a Southern Baptist convention church as a member back in the 1980s, it was not unusual to hear a preacher wail, “Oh-h-h-h-h-h–h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h!!!!!!!! If we could only go back in time and live in the First Century as those brave and blessed first Christians did. What a wonderful and sweet thing it would be!!!!!

    They never stop to think that their ridiculous behavior may be precisely what gives rise to the following sort of ridicule:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOrgLj9lOwk