Then read this book. If you consider yourself conservative, Christian and patriotic you may angrily dismiss it, but please do so on the basis of contrary evidence and post your review. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;Phillips never lets us know what his own religious leaning is. If its Christian, it would add to his credibility. However, religious is not be a prerequisite for writing strong history. He makes a good case behind the premise that America like other empires before it will fail by over-extending militarily, letting our manufacturing base be superseded by finance and credit, ignoring the physics of energy and by becoming a theocracy. The parallels to The Netherlands, England and Spain are convincing. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;Anyone who loves America will be stunned. With relentless streams of scary statistics and eery historical similarities, he reads like a Steven King of political history. He has observed and written about the religious rights evolution for 25 years, since working for Ronald Reagan. What he says cant easily be dismissed as fiction or the ranting of the newly converted. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;Its sad that the GOP mainstream will be told what they need to know about the book and will take it on faith that they dont need to read it. Those who take exception to that assessment can start reading and make up their own minds. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;Good night and God Bless The World.
I liked this book a lot, but I couldnt help thinking that much of what was in it has been said by more radical writers, like Noam Chomsky or Tariq Ali. Still, I suppose it is good that it is getting so much mainstream attention.
The author gets right to the point in the beginning and shows his bias. His entire attack on Americas alleged theocracy is based on the usual mistakes of simpletons who dont bother to do solid in depth research. Here are examples of his mistakes: lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;1) He takes Bush at his word when he claims to be a Christian or hearing from God. Lying is the oldest trick in the book, how can the author be so gullible? lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;2) He lumps Christianity and all religions together, as if there arent much differences between them, and lumps all Christians together as if they all believe the same things as well. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;3) He blames the sins for one person on everyone else, for example if George Bush, claiming to be a Christian, says God told him to blow up Iraq, that therefore its the fault of all Christians and the Bible. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;Ironically, he preaches against terrorism using the above reasons, yet his above reasons are the same type that terrorists use, right? For example how many Muslims think all Christians are bad because of the crusades, which the Catholic denomination engaged? At the very least THE EXTREMISTS. So what does that make the author? Guess. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;Besides showing how he lumps all Christians together as beign evil, he, on page viii, shows his historical ignorance: He says, "We have had a theocracy in North America before, in Puritan England and later in Mormon Utah but except in their earliest beginnings, they lacked the intesnsity of those in Europe, such as John Calvins Geneva or the Catholic Spain of the Inquisition." lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;No doubt he is implying that the Puritan government was no good because of the Salem Witch Trials. However, that is a poor reason to bash it or put all the Puritans and Chrisitans in a bad light. The judges of that trial and the one who appointed the judges (do research and see for yourself) had no indication that they were geniunely changed Christians, but only outwardly Christian. Furthermore, not all Christians have the same amount of wisdom as with any human, some will be more wreckless than others. If a CEO of a food company sells bad food that doesnt make all CEOs of food companys bad does it? And remember also, these were a people running away from the corrupt Catholic denomiantion and were just beginning to learn more and more about the Bible, they were far from perfect and were afraid to cast off all the bad ways of their parent so to speak. There is no evidence that the Puritan government wouldnt have improved. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;As for the old government of Mormon Utah, it sure did NOT lack intensitiy, see One Nation Under Gods. Wow, and that is a huge error to compare it to Calvins government. The Mormon government of Utah was based on false prophecies being made by a money-loving power-loving liar who hated TRUTH. John Calvin LOVED the truth and would not say whatever the heck for money or power. Shame. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;Again, as for the Inquisition OF Spain (not the other way around as the author states), to compare Catholocism to saved Calvanists is a huge error and a bad comparison. Genuine Catholics hold tradition and opinions OVER Scripture and often change their laws to suit the culture, not so John Calvin, he was hardly as corrupt in that way. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;Was John Calvin a murderer? As one who was forgiven God says no. Its because according to Scripture a saved person has a pure spirit that is always good, so they are significantly changed. But did John murder? Yes, sadly. But as even liberals and Christian-haters acknowledge, even murdering doesnt necessarily make a person evil or worthless, and that is especially true of John Calvin, despite his partial bad example. But what a hypocrite, how many people has the author lead to Christ and helped get eternal life? ZERO. How many, despite his sins, did Calvin lead? About 100 million as far as I can tell. And even if not that many, his awsome explanation of how salvation works surely strengthened the faith of those who wondered if they understood the Bible right or not. So give us a break, how dare anyone finger Calvin, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", and hey, lead a few million people to Christ before railing against Calvin. "Get the log out of your own eye before trying to help your brother with the SPECK in his eye." Ok? And how callous, the author doesnt even point out what would have provoked Calvin to murder, what happened to the excuse making that liberals are so fond of? All of the before hand events that supposedly excuse a persons bad behavior? They sure are biased when it comes to those evil truth-loving Christians. Anyone remember Calvin being chased out and persecuted? Oh yeah, but naw, that dont matter, because he was a truth-loving Christian. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;Something the author misses of so many other books like these, is that one of the major problems is the religion or philosophy of NEUTRALISM, sometimes wrongly called Being Tolerant. Neutralism is to "not obey God too much or too little and accepting all religions as being true." Neutralism, as Bush Jr. shows by exploiting the Constitution, leads to oppression, murder, and ruin. lt;br /gt; lt;br /gt;The U.S. Constitution, is a neutral set of laws. As for secular governments being better, hey, lets talk about the government of Turkey, the former Soviet Union, and China, have fun there.
