Though I don’t usually get a chance to listen to Dennis Prager due to work, last Thursday I was able to get out on my lunch hour and hear a bit of his show. He was interviewing Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists, whose main point was that Conservative Christians are equivalent to fascists, and are seeking to have this country ruled by a theocratic dictatorship.

My first simple reaction was “this guy’s nuts!”

Now I’d like to write a more thorough response, though I still think Chris Hedges is nuts. My thoughts are this. If America were to suffer an economic collapse and a major breakdown in law and order, then that would likely encourage the growth of fascist organizations. It’s also likely that such groups would try and appeal to conservative Christians. Given that most Christians are already concerned about a breakdown in society, and immoral behavior, it’s also likely that some conservative Christians would be drawn to some type of fascist group.

But so what? If such a severe breakdown were to occur, many across the belief spectrum could be drawn to a group promoting law and order. Many people might be drawn to radical communist groups. An economic and/or law and order breakdown is what we should fear. Conservative Christians, like most other people, prefer a free and prosperous society.

The Democratic Party traditionally pushes for more government programs and regulation, and higher taxes to support them. They are pushing hard for a withdrawal from Iraq which will result in genocide, and a safe haven for terrorists who will strike at us and the Western world. Both of these policies will, among other things, result in hurting our economy. The Democratic Party also takes a liberal view toward criminals, treating them like victims of an unjust society. Liberal policies during the 1960s and 1970s led to an astronomical surge in crime. So if you fear fascism, you should fear liberal Democrats because they plant the seeds for it.

Al Sadr and many of his Shiite extremists have fled to Iran. Iraqi and US soldiers are moving against the Sunni extremists and have wounded a top Al Qaeda leader in Iraq. The Democrats had better move fast with their resolution condemning our stepped up efforts to defeat the terrorists and explain that we can’t win and had better surrender-er, re-deploy.

Many states are considering making it mandatory that parents have their girls vaccinated for HPV which is a virus that can cause cervical cancer. The governor of Texas, Republican Rick Perry has just signed this in to law. The outrage by many against this government intrusion into parental rights is completely justified. Laws such as these continue the dangerous nanny state trend. While I agree that parents should know about this vaccine, and it’s great that the vaccine is available, this is not a disease like measles that can be spread through the air by children in school. This is a case of the government saying to parents “We know what’s best for your children, and demand that you do what we tell you to do.”

Churches and family rights groups should keep up the fight against their state governments to not implement plans such as these, or to overturn them. Many parents are rightly concerned that it hasn’t been fully proved that the HPV vaccine is not harmful. The virus is mainly transmitted through sexual contact, so parents also don’t want to send a message to their daughters that pre-marital sexual activity is ok.

We should not focus on political parties. The Democrats have a history of expanded government and are pushing for forcing companies to provide contraceptive coverage whether or not that goes against the beliefs of the company owners. Ultimately they want hospitals to be forced to provide abortions, even if they are Catholic hospitals.

However, the Republican Party is the pro-business party, and is inclined to be swayed by policies that will help companies that ultimately might donate to political campaigns. The pharmaceutical company Merck is one of the main companies pushing this type of legislation.

Governor Perry has been getting a lot of negative press about going along with this legislation. Hopefully other state governments are taking notice.