>So, your objection to "fundie" seems to be that it is too nice? I don't
>have a problem with that , if that is what you are saying.
Yeah, too nice, or too flip, benign or something. Doesn't capture what dangerous pieces of work these people really are. Their most successful MO is to appear nice, reasonable and harmless, I want to cut through that and not use any labels that disguise what they really are; profoundly dangerous, malevolent people with a hate filled agenda.
There were two excellent article in the May Harper's (http://www.harpers.org/Newsstand2005-05.html), one called something like 'Feeling the Hate with the National Religious Broadcasters' and another on a massive fundamentalist church in Utah I believe. The author, Jeff Sharlett, does an amazing job of describing the church, the congregation and the minister such that you realize by the end of the article how deeply disturbed these people are, and what a civil veneer they have out on themselves.
I want that veneer stripped away, calling someone a fundie sugar coats it.
>On the other hand, calling them simple minded fundamentalists, etc. might
>give them the ammo for fake portrayal of themselves as victims.
Agreed, in retrospect the word simple is too loaded. I meant simple in the sense of single minded solutions, rather than lacking mental acuity. In many, many ways, these are not simple people.
>This is a rhetoric question. Who is our audience ? What will persuade them.
>I don't know if there are differences between Canada and the US on this.
It's a complex question I think, so here’s some more rhetoric for an answer!
We aren't plagued by the deep rot of fundamentalism in our political leadership that exists in the US. There seems to be a general view here that religion is a matter of private belief and conscience and public displays of religious fervor or as a basis for policy are not seen favorably. We may also have a smaller proportion of the population that identify with fundamentalist faiths, and even within nominally conservative faiths like the Catholics many people hold views on things like abortion, gay rights and contraception that are in direct opposition to the view of the church hierarchy.
That being said we have pockets of wing nuttery like the province I live in where we have cabinet ministers who are affiliated with fundamentalist churches or the LDS and are referred to by many as ‘cavemen’ for their regressive views and attitudes. My own MP sends mailings out paid for on the taxpayer dime advertising something called ‘The Singing Christmas Tree’ that’s held at a fundamentalist church that isn’t even in his riding. Other areas in the country, generally rural, are equally conservative; the BC interior, eastern Ontario, some pockets of the Maritimes.
So who’s the audience here? I think the social context and the latitude people allow themselves within beliefs mean that the middle ground of reasonable people who are not interested in wrapping politics up with religion is larger and more prone to rejection overtly fundamentalist politicians. That would explain why these leaders and their groups are now doing what they did in the US 20-30 years ago; start taking over at the riding level and nominating people in benign disguises. The good news is that doesn’t seem to be working.
PC
N P Childs
'I'm Mister Bad Example, the stranger in the dirt, I like to have a good time and I don't care who gets hurt'.
-Mr. Bad Example, W Zevon