elfs | Double Godwin With a Backflip.

Michelle Goldberg's new book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, documents the rise of a dream among a certain segment of the population: the use of facist language and aesthetics among those who would convert America into Jesusland. The Nazis and the Christian Nationalists both had/have the same idea: that someday the nation will rise up, Phoenix-like, after a period of decadance that all but destroyed it.

The Christian Nationalist movement has drawn a lot of attention, and a lot of kooks. In her excerpt on Salon (it's Salon, you know the drill), Goldberg documents how the CN has as part of its support groups that openly advocate the position that "Jews hold too much power in America, in Hollywood in particular, and they're doing so to maintain power at the expense of godly people." She also outlines the Coalition on Revival, a collection of position papers with such statements as "blasphemy and pornography can never be free speech; freedom can only be defined in the context of living a Christian life," and so on.

What seems to be the overriding relationship here between Christian Nationalism and National Socialism is that the latter may have been "evil," but only because their objective was not a Christianized world. The tools and techniques they used were not evil, only the ends to which they were put. Some of the mid-term objectives, such as getting rid of elments of "national impurity," such as foreigners, homosexuals, and so forth, are already part of Christian Nationalism's program, and they openly say so.

What makes this a Double Godwin with a Backflip is little snot-nosed Vox Day. Vox (whose name is a pun on the latin phrase "Voice of God") got his start as a World Net Daily commentator when he was fourteen years old and defending his beloved Boy Scouts' right to discriminate against homosexuals and atheists (and pagans, it seems). Yesterday, in preparation for George Bush's speech on immigration, Vox dropped this shining little turd:

[Bush] lied when he said: "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic - it's just not going to work."

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

Vox has come back and basically said that he was misquoted or misunderstood or something, but I think the point is clear: in Vox's mind, like that of too many Christian Nationalists, what the German National Socialists accomplished comes to mind readily, easily, and is to be admired and emulated.