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d429c40
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"At least two important conservative thinkers, Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss, were unbelievers or nonbelievers and in any case contemptuous of Christianity. I have my own differences with both of these savants, but is the Republican Party really prepared to disown such modern intellectuals as it can claim, in favor of a shallow, demagogic and above all sectarian religiosity? Perhaps one could phrase the same question in two further ways. At the last election, the GOP succeeded in increasing its vote among American Jews by an estimated five percentage points. Does it propose to welcome these new adherents or sympathizers by yelling in the tones of that great Democrat bigmouth William Jennings Bryan? By insisting that evolution is 'only a theory'? By demanding biblical literalism and by proclaiming that the Messiah has already shown himself? If so, it will deserve the punishment for hubris that is already coming its way. (The punishment, in other words, that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson believed had struck America on Sept. 11, 2001. How can it be that such grotesque characters, calling down divine revenge on the workers in the World Trade Center, are allowed a respectful hearing, or a hearing at all, among patriotic Republicans?).
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evolution
christianity
jesus
politics
religion
2003
ayn-rand
christian-fundamentalism
christian-right
us-elections-2000
william-jennings-bryan
world-trade-center
american-jews
leo-strauss
2001
sectarianism
pat-robertson
jerry-falwell
biblical-literalism
creationism
september-11-attacks
democratic-party-united-states
republican-party-united-states
united-states
atheism
fundamentalism
jews
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Christopher Hitchens |
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9b3cc78
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On my desk is an appeal from the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. It asks me to become a sponsor and donor of this soon-to-be-opened institution, while an accompanying leaflet has enticing photographs of Bob Dylan, Betty Friedan, Sandy Koufax, Irving Berlin, Estee Lauder, Barbra Streisand, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. There is something faintly about this, as there is in the habit of those Jewish papers that annually list Jewish prize-winners from the Nobel to the Oscars. (It is apparently true that the London once reported the result of a footrace under the headline 'Goldstein Fifteenth.') However, I think I may send a contribution. Other small 'races' have come from unpromising and hazardous beginnings to achieve great things--no Roman would have believed that the brutish inhabitants of the British Isles could ever amount to much--and other small 'races,' too, like Gypsies and Armenians, have outlived determined attempts to eradicate and exterminate them. But there is something about the , both of the Jews and their persecutors, that does seem to merit a museum of its own.
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american-jews
armenian-genocide
armenians
barbra-streisand
betty-friedan
britons
estee-lauder
gypsies
irving-berlin
isaac-bashevis-singer
philadelphia
sandy-koufax
romans
bob-dylan
british-isles
bigotry
united-states
race
antisemitism
jews
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Christopher Hitchens |