don't attack me as i attack you

It's sometimes funny to read some people's take on things. Take a look at this.

Those arrayed against American democracy are waiting for a moment to strike, a national crisis that will allow them to shred the Constitution in the name of national security and strength.
Chris Hedges, American Fascists, pp 201-202

If I stopped right there, those of you who are conservative like me would think, sure, we all know that. One can find the echo of Rahm Emanuel saying that a crisis should not be wasted.

But...that not Hedges' claim. Oh, no, Hedges fears American Fascists among...the Christian Right.

Debate with the Christian Right is useless. We cannot reach this movement. It does not want to dialogue. It is a movement based on emotion and cares nothing for rational thought and discussion. It is not mollified because John Kerry prays or Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday school.
p 202

The radical Christian Right calls for exclusion, cruelty and intolerance in the name of God. Its members do not commit evil for evil's sake. They commit evil to make a better world...The worst suffering in human history has been carried out by those who preach such grand, utopian visions, those who seek to implant by force their narrow, particular version of goodness. This is true of all doctrines of personal salvation, from Christianity to ethnic nationalism to communism to fascism.
p 205

The attacks by this movement (Christian Right, radical Christian Right, Christian radicals, pick your name for them) on the rights and beliefs of Muslims, Jews, immigrants, gays, lesbians, women, scholars, scientists, those they dismiss as "nominal Christians", and those they brand with the curse of "secular humanists" are an attack on all of us, on our values, our freedoms and ultimately our democracy. Tolerance is a virtue, but tolerance coupled with passivity is a vice.
p 207

That last part, which is what he ends the book on (not counted notes and index), is hilarious. Oh, no, the Christian Right can't say a thing about all those other people, but he, Hedges, and we may assume people like him, can attack people like Tim Lahaye and Creationists as much as he wants in his book, and apparently those attacks aren't "an attack on all of us, on our values, our freedoms and ultimately our democracy".

It rather boggles the mind. But then, I've found it a truism that, when the left accuses conservatives of doing something or being a certain way, it actually means that the left is doing those things and is that way. So, when Hedges, who is obviously on the left, says that to the Christian Right it doesn't matter what religious activities John Kerry and Jimmy Carter are involves in, it actually means that to him it doesn't matter what religious activities George Bush and Tim Lahaye are involved in. When he says that debate with the Christian Right is useless, it simply affirms my own personal observation that debate with left is about as useless as trying to hammer a nail into a brick wall with my forehead. And probably more painful.