Tales of the Counter Reformation

Reading the first few essays in Jesus Is Not A Republican, The Religious Right's War on America, edited by Clint Willis and Nate Hardcastle, I came across two sentences in two different essays that go to the heart of the dissembling practiced by both political and religious conservatives.

"They [Neo-Con followers of Leo Strauss] really have no use for liberalism and democracy, but they're conquering the world in the name of liberalism and democracy." Shadia Drury in Leo Strauss and the American Right quoted by Jim Lobe in his article Leo Strauss's Philosophy of Deception, page 22).

"As seekers of mainstream credibility, they [purveyors of Intelligent Design] don't want to be associated with the medieval persecutors of Copernicus and Galileo. Instead, they try to present themselves as heirs to those very visionaries, insisting that dogmatic secularists desperate to deny God are thwarting their open-minded quest for truth." The New Monkey Trial, Michelle Goldberg, page 22.

In other words, these thought leaders on the Right do whatever they need to do in order to advance their agendas. And if that means engaging in lying, dissembling, or intellectual dishonesty, these leaders of the counter-reformation of American life are more than willing to do whatever it takes and do it by whatever means necessary.