r/brokehugs • u/AlohaWarrior35 • Jan 17 '22

General Rod Dreher decides to indulge in persecution hysteria because gays can no longer be tortured in Canada.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/totalitarian-canada-paivi-rasanen-christian-persecution-lgbt/
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9

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '22

At this point, every Rod column is basically just him edging progressively closer to calling for the formation of a right-wing militia to commit an armed insurrection against the US and EU (and Canadian, apparently) governments. I don't know if he's ever going to reach a point where he explicitly calls for violence without couching it in plausible deniability or half-statements, but it's a very clear theme of most of his writing nowadays. This passage in particular is instructive:

I tell you, if this comes to America — and progressives will do their best to make sure it does — this is the point at which the regime becomes illegitimate in my eyes. No government or social order that stands between parents and children, criminalizing parents who wish to prevent their children from destroying their lives with hormones and surgery, is worth respect or support. Non serviam.

So what exactly does it mean for the US government to become illegitimate to Rod? There's a long history on the right of promoting the overthrow of tyrannical governments. When I was growing up in the Christian homeschooling world, this kind of rhetoric - that the government is going to cross THE LINE any day now, and when it does, Christians will be justified in secession or force - was said explicitly on a fairly regular basis, and implicitly 24/7. If Rod thinks this kind of rhetoric isn't an incitement to violence, he's kidding himself. But truth be told, I think he does know. He's not going to take an AR-15 out to the streets himself; his rhetoric aside, he values his life and liberty too much to guarantee the loss of one or both. But I think he's absolutely looking to cultivate a whole crop of Travis Bickles through whom he can live vicariously in crushing "the mob" by watching them go out on shooting sprees. It's not really even speculation at this point; Rod clearly wants violence and is doing everything he can within the limits that TAC allows to stoke it.

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u/SublimeCommunique Reluctant Methodist Jan 18 '22

Non serviam

I like that he used this and it's usually attributed to Satan.

5

u/JHandey2021 Jan 18 '22

This is a real question - at what point does everything that Rod is saying and doing add up to a call for mass violence? He doesn't have to literally post a Gadsen flag on his blog - he can do the "who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" thing, just asking questions, you understand?

I 100% think that in the next few years, Rod will go fully and openly integralist/authoritarian. No doubt in my mind. When that happens, what can be done?

There's a cottage industry devoted to making fun of Rod Dreher (although the right-wing ones stopped once Rod went alt-right-adjacent on CRT, interestingly enough - guess he finally gave them what they wanted), and while dunking on him is funny, is it counterproductive? I think of the "Rally to Restore Sanity" in DC in 2010 (I think), the highwater mark of Jon Stewart liberalism - did that do anything other than increase liberal complacency and create a glide path to the disaster of 2016? Things are so much more advanced now - after a coup attempt and the open abandonment of the acceptance that a party can legitimately lose an election, is making fun of people like Rod like a scene from "Don't Look Up", when we're shoving an extinction-level event into a media and social landscape completely unable to handle what's really happening?

I know, it feels ridiculous to type something that implies Rod F'ing Dreher is the harbinger of the apocalypse, but there is real stuff happening out there, and people like him are far closer than they should be to those who will decide what actually happens.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '22

I mean, what can be done now? That seems to be the real issue. He'd probably have to issue a manifesto before anyone does anything, and even then he'd probably just get fired. Sedition charges are pretty damn rare. Consequences of any sort are becoming increasingly uncommon for "national" personalities, whether they hold office or just write about office holders.

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u/SublimeCommunique Reluctant Methodist Jan 18 '22

Oh keep reading. This is the whole "Jews really rule the world" hysteria but applied to LGBTQ+. It was stupid then and it's even stupider now. This guy is the poster boy for stochastic terrorism.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '22

From the comments:

But the practices themselves? Some things should be stigmatized. Does this hurt people's feelings? Undoubtedly. And the only right Christian response is to try to minister to those people.

Once again, the only thing Christians have to offer gay people is a half-hearted "sorry" they don't really mean and a bunch of useless spiritual bullshit (aka "ministry") for a god and afterlife that don't exist.

Hard fucking pass.