I'd be interested in fellow Brit Duers reaction to this......

[non sociopath skin]

Seems that the Good Old US of A needs Drastic Remedies if it is not to continue becoming a very scary and alien place to us here in Old Yoorp.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x134342

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I don't think that would become a mass movement

and there are bound to be a small minority who think like that - schooling separated from normal people. The horrible thing is how the Republicans eagerly seize on them for assistants - and they will become tomorrow's politicians (and in the USA, they will point to their religious observance as a good thing, and it will be used to excuse their actual policies). They seem even more worrying than the Federation of Conservative Students were - and even the Tories realised they had to disband them, eventually.

[non sociopath skin]

2. Indeed, Mu....

... It probably doesn't need to be a Mass Movement does it? The Patrick Henry crowd seem to be doing very canny with only 300 alumni per annum. I see the vision being a bit like the "Inner Party" in "1984".

Seems to me that Joe Sixpack, bless him, is one day going to need an awakening and deconditioning from Fundie Republicanism as deep and traumatic as Comrade Shestvodka had from Stalinism in the days of Perestroika.

Can't come too soon.

The Skin

[Vladimir]

3. I think you are giving them just a bit more

credit than they deserve Skin... these jokers may wish they were like the Inner Party (or indeed, ha!, the Red Guards. That cracked me up, I must admit), but I think any resemblance is confined to the realm of their fantasies.

[non sociopath skin]

4. I hope you're right, Vlad ....

... but they already seem to have more than their fair share of influence. And, as one of the US posters pointed out, the security clearance which comes with the PHU package gives them a head start on other graduates wishing to move in administrative circles.

The Skin

[bennywhale]

8. It doesn't have to be a mass movement if it is the ruling elite, which it

evidently looks like becoming. That may be its aim, schooling the future leaders of Christian America. And, once they are rulers it may become a mass movemnent.

[LeftishBrit]

5. They sound bloody scary

But I hope they're not too influential!

Who is this Senator Rick Santorum? I came across an article somewhere where he'd said some pretty awful things about gays - not just anti-gay marriage, but implying that it's all right to have 'sodomy' laws regulating people's private behaviour. He sounds worse than our Tories!!! Even Ann Widdecombe said she doesnt want laws to regulate people's private behaviour.

[tjwmason]

6. Junior Senator from Pennsylvania.

A very hard-line conservative Catholic. One of the major movers behind the F.M.A.

The whole sodomy law thing sounds not that far from the U.S. 'mainstream right-wing' ( :puke: ). I have yet to meet any British Tory who wants to ban gay sex - though I know many who find it pretty abhorent, yet there was genuine anger when SCOTUS over-turned the Texas law. The mere fact that several states still have such laws should ring major alarm bells (though I would note that over here until recenty there were different ages of consent, and gay sex could only ever be two people legally).

Thank goodness that there's a great big ocean between us - for all his faults poodle-boy doesn't seem to be following those agenda from the neo-cons; neither do the Tories (if they ever scrape back into office).

[SweetLeftFoot]

13. Tories and gay sex

Of course they don't want to ban it.They don't just take night time walks out on Hampstead Heath for the exercise you know.

[Taxloss]

7. It's very scary, but the education would fall short of other institutions.

Inevitably it would fall short. They would never be able to lure the best professors there, and the doctrinal contamination would damage near every subject on the cirriculum.

Therefore, outside the magic circle of the inner Republican party, these people are useless if you're looking for the best and the brightest. If these people were being prepared to go out into the world and infiltrate other institutions a la Scientology or Opus Dei, I'd be really worried. But it's just further proof that the inner American Right is becoming an introspective closed order - a sure sign of decadence and decline.

[bennywhale]

9. Just how far removed is America becoming from the rest of the

Western world. This is scary as fuck for Americans. For us i think it just ensures it won't happen here, as they are becoming so alien to us (not all obviously), we can see how scray it would be by lookiing across the Atlantic. Can you imagine shit like this in Blighty, it would be hysterical. I can imagine them looking for employment in high places here.

"Yeah, hi, i went to that Christian purist school thing"
"The what?"
"That place that the "Sun" called 'Camp nutcase'"
"hahahahahahahahahahahaha....sorry, a job you say, hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.....sorry..er...no"

We are surely too secular aren't we? Tell me we are. I know Blair likes to pray on Bush's lap but.....

Seriously though America does seem to be drifting (or there is a definite attempt anyway) towards theocracy. That scares the shit out of me quite frankly.

[non sociopath skin]

10. Absolutely, Ben.

I used to think that Margaret Attwood's "Handmaid's Tale" was a piece of science-fiction.

Now I realise that it was a very prescient piece of political writing. She saw this thing happening long before the rest of us.

The Skin

[katty]

11. here in LA,Ca-we are our own nation, but U.S.

isn't 'becoming' scary-it IS scary. However, in Los Angeles you never sense that you are part of the rest of the country-but we do feel connected to NYC--LA and NYC are constantly bashed, yet, we have traditionally been ahead of the pack. A good many CA-ers would love to secede, but the rest of the country needs out big fed tax $--especially that freak in the WH.

[Kipling]

12. Holy shit.

Anything like that here would be met with mockery, protests, and lying articles in the tabloids.