Legitimate Lulz from the AOI Crowd.

The American "Orthodox" Institute has give us some legitimate lulz today. Now, let me preface this entire post by saying that the views expressed here in no way have any relation whatsoever to those of my employer. Anyway, they posted a risible article titled, "The Republic is Finished and the America We Knew is Gone". Oh noetry!

Here are some of the larger gaffes (now, keep in mind these are only selections taken in isolation, please don't conceive of them as connected bits, that would do violence to the original meaning):

With this morning’s decision that Obamacare will stand as the law of the land means that America — home of the brave, land of the free — is no more. ...

The path of the free West now follows the path of Russia under the Soviets. ...

We may have to prepare for the catacombs. The government has been granted a license to control every aspect of your behavior under the rubric of the public good.

Yes, we may have to prepare for the catacombs. This is just like when the Soviet Supreme Court ruled that individuals who do not otherwise have health insurance may be required to pay a penalty if they do not purchase health insurance. And used that as a basis for murdering Christians. Better get those catacombs ready.

More seriously, I recognize that there are plenty of conservative and liberal objections to "Obamacare". It's a bit of awkward compromise legislation that nobody particularly loves. But this sort of rhetoric leaves you firmly outside the "reality-based community". Stalin killed millions of people. He killed the vast majority of Orthodox bishops and priests. This... is nothing like Stalinism. I can certainly take reasoned and reasonable criticisms of "Obamacare" seriously, but not ridiculous hyperbole hiding behind Stalin and false religious rhetoric.

Less seriously, some of the comments discuss Confederacy and buying a Confederate flag and all that. Perhaps it is just my Yankee bias, being from the Great (Anti-Slave) State of Iowa, but, to my mind, a Confederate flag is only good for burning, as it is a symbol of slavery, racism, and oppression rather than "heritage", "state's rights", or anything else that somebody might conceivably argue is not bad, much less good, much less worthy of approbation by a Christian.

And, as a reminder, there's more to apophaticism than not being $POLITICAL_IDEOLOGY.