Real Idiot of the Month: Charles Colson

There's nothing more annoying than finding a really good Idiot of the Month nominee, putting it up, and then finding someone a day or two later who makes the first nominee sound like Mortimer Adler by comparison (okay, that's an exaggeration. There is something more annoying than that. Need I mention Celine Dion?). But yes, it has happened again, and I'm afraid David Morrell is going to have to surrender his recent award to none other than Watergate-crook-turned-evangelist-fraud Charles Colson for this unrelentingly idiotic screed in Christianity Today. Just look at this:

We must be careful not to blame innocent Americans for murderous attacks against them. At the same time, let's acknowledge that America's increasing decadence is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. When we tolerate trash on television, permit pornography to invade our homes via the internet, and allow babies to be killed at the point of birth, we are inflaming radical Islam.

Radical Islamists were surely watching in July when the Senate voted on procedural grounds to do away with the Federal Marriage Amendment. This is like handing moral weapons of mass destruction to those who use America's decadence to recruit more snipers and hijackers and suicide bombers.

One vital goal of the war in Iraq, and the war against terrorism, is to bring democracy to the heart of the Islamic world. Our hope is to make freedom so attractive that other Muslim countries will follow suit. But when radical Islamists see American women abusing Muslim men, as they did in the Abu Ghraib prison, and when they see news coverage of same-sex couples being "married" in U.S. towns, we make our kind of freedom abhorrent--the kind they see as a blot on Allah's creation.

Preserving traditional marriage in order to protect children is a crucially important goal by itself. But it's also about protecting the United States from those who would use our depravity to destroy us...

This makes reversing U.S. decadence an urgent priority, not just for Christians, but for all Americans. If our cultural rot continues unabated, a Talibanized West may no longer be a joke, but grim reality.

By God, I think Colson's nailed it! What a brilliant idea. If they "hate us for our freedom", as President Bush keeps intoning in what is simply one of the most idiotic phrases ever uttered by a politician (and imagine the kind of competition that designation comes with), then the solution is simple - get rid of our freedom! Is it really possible that Colson is so incredibly stupid that he doesn't recognize the contradiction at the heart of his suggestion? He is proposing that we convert ourselves into a Talibanized society in order to keep the radical Islamists from trying to force us to Talibanize our society. Great idea, Chucky.

In fact, while we're at it, let's ban alcohol (hey, that worked out really well the first time, didn't it?) and the eating of pork. Let's create a Department of Homeland Morality, complete with roving gangs of armed thugs that randomly check females for virginity. I mean, there's nothing that pisses off the Islamists more than slutty women and, as you said, we must reverse our decadence in order to assuage the terrorists. In fact, let's start dressing women up as beekeepers just to make sure no man is tempted to want to have sex with them. Let's shut down the internet, since it's so full of decadence, and let's start banning books too.

In fact, instead of fighting against the Shiite cleric Al-Sistani in Iraq, let's just invite him to America to take over as our Grand Ayatollah and he can institute Sharia law here in the US. That will certainly reverse our decadence and keep the terrorists at bay. By God, if they hate us for our freedom, we'll outsmart those ignorant savages - we'll get rid of our freedom. Then what will you fight against, you bunch of barbarians?

Charles Colson, you are officially our idiot of the month. In fact, I am going to extend some additional honors upon you as well. Not only are you the idiot of the month, you're the braindead cretin of the month and the muddleheaded halfwit of the month as well. But thank you for demonstrating for us so powerfully and perfectly that the religious right in America has the same goals as the religious right in the Middle East. Thank you for demonstrating that you and your ilk hate us for our freedom too, and will use any excuse, no matter how moronic and contradictory, to try and eliminate it.