Submitted by admin on Tue, 2005-11-15 09:00. ::
The man from Plains makes clear in his book that “fundamentalists” aren't merely knuckle-dragging yokels who believe in a flat earth: “neocons” are also “fundamentalists” Opponents of the Kyoto Treaty are “fundamentalists.” Even justifying violence against judges is attributable to fundamentalist “intimidation of the judiciary.” Thus, Jimmy Carter continues his long history of insufferable, grating moralizing; demonizing his opponents; and rewriting the history of his failed presidency.
In the last chapter, he lays all his cards on the table: “[T]he greatest challenge we face [in this millennium] is the growing chasm between the rich and poor people on earth.” Among his solutions: “getting to know the poor.” You may think America is compassionate and philanthropic , but “we are, in fact, the stingiest of all industrialized nations.” This, to him and others on the American Left, presents a far more troubling problem than a cadre of thugs dedicated to imposing a medieval religio-political philosophy upon the entire world, while spilling as much American, Western, and “infidel” blood as possible.
The trouble is not that we are not at war; the trouble is James Earl Carter Jr. and the American Left have been AWOL from it, as they were during the Cold War. This means the War on Terror, like the waning days of the Cold War, will have to be won without their help – indeed, with their virulent resistance.
Although nearly all media coverage has focused on one-half of chapter eight – in which Carter allegedly makes the stunning revelation (for a leftist) that the Democrats are too closely associated with unrestricted abortion – he never writes anything of the sort, instead spending the seven pages of his book putatively dedicated to “abortion” by advancing government welfare programs, contraceptive sex education, U.S. funding of international “family planning,” and embryonic stem cell research, all the while claiming pro-life voters “do not extend their concern to the baby who is born.” In his rambling diatribe, Carter disconnectedly weaves from topic-to-topic, in the process endorsing the International Criminal Court , the Kyoto Protocol , the International Covenant on the Rights of the Child, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the ABM Treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the IAEA, and Mutually Assured Destruction.
All this from the man who allowed Russians to invade Afghanistan, Islamists to overthrow the Shah and hold Americans hostage for more than a year, attempted to prevent Operation Desert Storm, and hit the snooze alarm on dealing with North Korea's nuclear program until it was too late.
Carter's antagonists aren't just Bush, neocons, and Israeli Jews. Naturally, Christian leaders get taken to the woodshed, as well. Carter recounts how he harangued Pope John Paul II, who was so effectively rallied Eastern Europe against Communism that even Jimmy Carter couldn't stop him. Carter writes, “I disagreed with him on his perpetuation of the subservience of women.” Misogyny should be a tough charge to hang on a man who spent his pontificate celebrating Mother Theresa and contemplating the glories of an ancient Jewish woman in the Rosary. Carter continues, “there was more harshness when we turned to the subject of ‘liberation theology.'” “Liberation theology” is Marxism with a Christian veneer, and the late pontiff strongly condemned it. His successor, Benedict XVI, has written this heresy “constitutes a fundamental threat to the faith of the Church.” As one critic notes , “In traditional Christianity, the ennobling of human nature takes place because of Christ's Incarnation; in Marxism, the State takes His place.” Carter's approval may stem from his love of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, a spokesman for “religious socialism” who later founded Americans for Democratic Action . Carter writes Jesus came to “bring good news to the poor,” but as president he reached “a surprising and somewhat reluctant conclusion…government officeholders and not church members were more likely to assume responsibility and be able to fulfill the benevolent missions.” Forget that this is a complete blurring of the roles of Church and State, which he allegedly opposes. In Carter's conception, the State replaces the Church; the State takes over the functions of God. Such an admission can't come as much of a shock from a man who also admires anti-Christian Communist poet Langston Hughes .
It's not just Roman Catholics: Carter claims he left the conservative Southern Baptist Convention because it, in effect, replaced Jesus Christ by adopting a statement of faith and imposing it with a “strictness” that “has exceeded that in Roman Catholicism.” Baptist statements of faith are hardly new; one was passed in 1963 , when Jimmuh was a faithful little deacon.
Worse, Southern Baptists also “keep women in their place,” and this, Carter charges, is responsible for…female genital mutilation! “Women are greatly abused in many countries in the world, and the alleviation of their plight is made less likely by the mandated subservience of women by Christian fundamentalists.” Refuse to elect a female pope, or maintain traditional sexual roles, and you might as well cut off an infant's labia.
Carter's entire book is one long slander of his perceived enemies, religious and secular, effected by casting them as backwoods morons guilty of the most lurid crimes imaginable, the worst being incorrigibly refusing to listen to their betters. It is, in other words, the Left's typical reaction to conservatives, people of faith, and average Americans generally. If you want to read a book that actually has a grasp of American values, read Zell Miller's A Deficit of Decency . Buy Our Endangered Values only if you wish to read the venomous ravings of a bitter, discredited man with a Messianic complex lashing out at the mainstream of the country he failed.
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