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Entry: Hitchens' Haj Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/hitchens_haj#7016 Post contents: As regards Hitchens, his recent speech before an atheist confab in Wisconsin may indicate he is evolving from NeoPod popinjay into a leading policy planner for the coming Giuliani Administration. Like his vomiting at Fr. Rutler last May, it further indicates Hitchens may be evolving from a Trotskyite into something more redolent of Hitlerite insanity – as revealed in this eyewitness account of his talk by University of Minnesota biology prof P.Z. Myers at his gung-ho atheist science blog called Pharyngula: "[Hitchens] got a standing ovation when he was introduced," but soon "accused his audience of being soft on Islam, of being the kind of vague atheists who refused to see the threat for what it was, a clash of civilizations, and of being too weak to do what was necessary, which was to spill blood to defeat the enemy. Along the way he told us who his choice for president was right now – Rudy Giuliani…and that he was less than thrilled about all the support of the FFRF [Freedom from Religion Foundation] for the Democratic Party. We cannot afford to allow the Iranian theocracy to arm itself with nuclear weapons…and that the only solution is to go in there with bombs and marines and blow it all up. The way to win the war is kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear all the mounting casualties…the only solution he had to offer was death and destruction of the enemy. This was made even more clear during the Q&A. "Basically, what Hitchens was proposing was genocide. Or, at least, wholesale execution of the population of the Moslem world until they are sufficiently cowed and frightened and depleted that they are unable to resist us in any way, ever again…I'd like to know whether he thinks the way atheists ought to end religion in America is to start shooting Baptists…I had a depressing feeling that the solution would involve sending Baptists over to Iraq to kill and be killed… "The questions were all dismissed with comments about the audience's intelligence…that we weren't good atheists if we didn’t agree that murder as the answer," but "while I agree with [Hitchens's] goal of working toward a rational, secular world, a triumph of enlightenment values, I disagree entirely with his proposed strategy, which seems to involve putting a bullet through every god-haunted brain." Alas, we know who wins those debates about the triumph of enlightenment values. PS: Since most Christianity teaches that faith is a mystery, a gift they call it, whereas conservative political and social ideas and impulses are arguably achievable without divine assistance, it seems likely the latter could exist independent of the former. Nonetheless, according to Culture Wars mag, Sam Francis sought the Sacraments on his deathbed. Sent at: 2008 09 06