You can't shit a shitter

Speaking of Reason, Bill Moyers interviewed the magazine's leather-jacketed and sideburned editor-in-chief, Nick Gillespie. I was actually watching Friday's show because the first segment was about Pat Robertson's Regent University.

The Christian fundamentalist graduate school has been getting a lot of attention lately. The numbers may show that these aren't the brightest bulbs, but the current administration has put a lot of them in its marquee. I figured that the segment would be a typical smear piece on these troglodytes. That's not exactly a hard task, and Moyers did not disappoint.

The Gillespie interview followed, and Moyers launched right in on what would appear to be a piece of common ground between a libertarian and an old school progressive like himself.

BILL MOYERS: Does Pat Robertson keep you awake at night?

NICK GILLESPIE: Ugh. Well, you know, a lot of things keep me awake at night, mostly thinking about the future for my two sons, which centers a lot of my political thought. But Pat Robertson and the religious right don't worry me too much.

After this answer, Moyers practically launches into arm-waving hysteria, presumably about the fundamentalist hordes gathering with their pitchforks on the other side of the Hudson.

BILL MOYERS: But you live part of the year in Ohio.

NICK GILLESPIE: That's right.

BILL MOYERS: --the Christian conservatives out there.

Gillespie deftly goes on to note that fundamentalism in general is in decline, which is precisely why it is making so much noise. The culture war is over and the freaks have won.

NICK GILLESPIE: Within recent memory-- Paul Weyrich, who helped co-found the Moral Majority and helped co-found the Heritage Foundation, I mean, two vast institutions of the religious right. A couple years ago he said, "You know what? We have to get out of politics 'cause we're getting our butts kicked."

When you look at somebody like Pat Buchanan who was the instigator of the culture wars, I mean, in Republican presidential primaries, a couple years ago he-- or last year he called for a truce in the culture wars. The fact is, is that social conservatives who tend to be religious have lost the culture wars.

And I think that they recognize that. Abortion, even if Roe versus Wade gets overturned-- they know that the American people are not going to go back to an era where women don't have reproductive rights. Things-- you know, other issues that are really powerful for them are just they're not going anywhere. They've lost the fight against homosexuality. I mean, there's no way that--

BILL MOYERS: Culture's ahead of them.

NICK GILLESPIE: --gays-- yeah, gays-- gays are not going back in the closet. And I think religious conservatives have understood that. In a real way, they have lost the culture wars and they know it.

BILL MOYERS: But when you look at that piece about Pat Robertson, you see that he's quite serious and there are a lot--

NICK GILLESPIE: Oh, sure.

BILL MOYERS: --generation of young people coming along who--

It just goes on. Basically the fundamentalists are evil fucks, yes, but they're also annoying idiots who've screwed themselves out of power through their own stupid actions. Let them continue to make fools of themselves in the open and we can just continue to laugh at them. If they were going to gain any ground they've lost in the last 50 years do you think they'd be dancing in the streets over a Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on one extremely rare abortion procedure? Slippery slope? Camel's nose? Not a chance. Seriously, they've lost so much ground that any small victory is only temporary. The rest of us have more access to sex and drugs and rock and roll than ever, and we're not about to give it up.

This not only goes for American fundamentalists, but for the rest of the world as well. Even in the most repressive theocracies, more and more people have access to satellite TV and internet porn. A few extremist with explosive belts won't change that. Nobody kills themselves when they're winning.

On a side note. It was pretty funny to watch Bill Moyers get a taste of what he dished out to Amy Goodman when she tried to frame the interview in terms of the corrupting power of corporate influence and he came back with the corrupting power of government influence. Here he tries to frame the questions to elicit outrage but Nick Gillespie just won't perform for him. The problem with this tactic is that it only works when interviewing someone who doesn't do the exact same thing for a living. You can't shit a shitter.