[Vision2020] A New Witch Hunt

[Joan Opyr]

On Jul 5, 2006, at 10:39 AM, rvrcowboy wrote:

> It is so amusing to see how so many of the libs here in the venom are
> embracing Wicca while admitting they know little, or nothing, about 
> it.  It
> is always the same with you people:  Any President but Bush and any 
> religion
> but Christianity.
>
> You are so very translucent.
>
> Dick S.

Dick:

I don't embrace Wicca -- I'm Jewish, as I've mentioned before -- so 
embrace wouldn't be the appropriate word.  I don't embrace Islam, 
Christianity, Zorastrianism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, or, indeed, 
any religion but my own.  I accept Wicca as a valid religion because, 
as far as I can tell, it harms no one, and also because it's not my 
place to accept or reject any of the religions I've named.  I can and 
do condemn many "religious" practices: female genital mutilation, child 
marriage, incestuous marriage, forced marriage, women exchanged as 
chattel, patriarchy, insistence on female submission to a higher male 
authority -- the list goes on.  Tolerance doesn't mean complete or 
total acceptance.  There's an old adage, "Those convinced against their 
will hold the same convictions still."  No one can or should try to 
compel belief.

As for some collective "you" on this list being "translucent," do you 
mean that those you've identified as liberal are somehow transparent?  
You know our hearts, our minds, our motives?  Do you know these things 
individually or collectively?  I know my own motives.  I know my own 
goals and desires, and I know my own political and religious beliefs.  
I'm translucent only in the sense that I'm clear.  I'm not secretive; 
I'm wide open.  Like my friend, Debi Robinson-Smith, I think it's best 
to be clear.  If you keep secrets, you open yourself to blackmail and 
tittle-tattle.

[In Moscow, that means Donovan will call the Unitarian Church and tell 
them you're a witch.  And the Unitarian Church will say, "Huh?"]

As for the history of Wicca, you're wrong again: I know a good deal.  
Wicca is not a medieval religion in the sense that it has any confirmed 
or well-documented history in recorded medieval practice.  As it exists 
today, Wicca is largely founded on the teachings of Gerald Gardner, but 
not all practitioners of Wicca are strict Gardnerians.  There are 
solitary Wiccans, Wiccans in covens, and Wiccans who go their own way 
and do their own thing.  Does this belie the legitimacy of Wicca?  Of 
course not.  What religion dates back to the beginning of time?  
Mormonism dates back only to Joseph Smith; Quakerism to George Fox and 
Margaret Fell; and Roman Catholicism to the conversion of the Emperor 
Constantine.  As you try to run the roots of any religion to ground, 
you find only more roots.  Judaism sort of begins with Abraham, but as 
we look at the ancient texts, we find evidence that the Semitic tribes 
originally worshipped a goddess.  No surprises there.  The earliest 
peoples all seem to have worshipped one goddess or another.  The 
Neanderthals had their Willendorf Venus, and from there we go back, 
back, back to Olduvai Gorge.

I do agree with your assertion that I would prefer any president to the 
one we've got now, or just about, anyway.  I'd prefer John McCain, John 
Kerry, Howard Dean, Diane Feinstein, Al Sharpton, Carly Fiorina, 
Janeane Garofalo, Jon Stewart, Al Franken, Howard Stern . . . I'd 
prefer you, Dick Sherwin.  At this point, I think you would make a 
better president than George W. Bush.  Hell, I think my dog, Fergus, 
would be better able to make reasoned, rational decisions than the 
ignorant, bellicose, spoiled rotten man-boy sitting at present in the 
Oval Office.  Of course, it's true that Fergus is a border collie; he's 
smarter than the average 12-year old child.  My dog is also born and 
bred to hard work.  How could he not do a better job?

But when you accuse me (in the collective sense of us liberals all 
together), what do you mean by "any religion but Christianity?"  I am 
not a Christian, but I accept Christians as legitimate members of the 
body politic.  I accept atheists and agnostics.  I accept believers and 
non-believers of all stripes.  Vision 2020 is dominated by 
self-professed Christians.  Do you refuse to recognize them as 
Christian because many are also political liberals?  In your view, is 
it impossible to be both liberal and Christian at the same time?  If 
that's the case, aren't you doing to them what you accuse them of doing 
"translucently" to you, i.e., recognizing no form of religion as 
legitimate other than their own?  I've seen no evidence of that here, 
Dick; none whatsoever.  What I do see are a lot of politically 
conservative Christians denying the legitimacy of liberal Christians.  
I see that all the time.  The Southern Baptists think the American 
Baptists are going to hell.  The conservative Methodists hate the 
liberal Methodists.  The Missouri Synod Lutherans despise the 
Evangelical Lutherans.  Mel Gibson's Tridentine Catholics refuse to 
recognize the Pope.

As people grow harder-line and more right-wing, they seem less inclined 
to make room for others.  "I'm right and you're wrong, and what's more, 
you're going to hell."  Or, if you prefer, "I'm the decider, and I'll 
decide what's best."  Oh, thanks Big Daddy!  That settles it!

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com

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