Reconstucting Huckabee

The mainstream media (MSM) has been hollering about Ron Paul having refused to return an isolated contribution from Don Black, a white supremacist with a website. Paul is clearly not a racist and has never had any association with Mr. Black.

The media gave quite a different treatment to Mike Huckabee following the discovery that he had at one time suggested that AIDS victims should be "isolated" (i.e., quarantined (e.g., interred in camps)). That news was treated as passé, even though Huckabee refused to recant the statement and it is not at all clear that Huckabee is not a homophobe. Quite to the contrary, he has been hanging out with homophobes as recently as this week.

On Tuesday, December 18, Huckabee flew to Houston to attend a fund raising event hosted by Steve Hotze, a leader in the Christian Reconstructionist movement. The Reconstructionist are decidedly scarier than any of Don Black's friends, largely because they have real organizations and real followings. (Many are probably white supremacists as well though, so perhaps they contributed money to Don Black -- who foolishly then sent it on to Ron Paul. That would be a great amusement to the rest of Paul's famously tolerant libertarian supporters.)

Who are the Reconstructionist? They are a movement founded by Rousas John Rushdoony (Gary North's father-in-law), with the aim to make America literally a Christian nation. How's that you ask? How is indeed the question. Of course they typically avoid discussion of methods, however their ends could only be accomplished by replacing the Constitution and establishing a police state to impose their version of "god's law" onto the rest of our pluralistic culture. They are, in short, a home-grown, Christian-variety of the Middle East's Islam-o-fascists. The Reconstructionist are all about implementing a society based on Biblical (Mosaic) law. For just a hint at what this would mean, imagine an America that allows for the keeping of slaves, beating of wives, stoning of homosexuals, and a lot of other scary things approved of by the god of the Old Testament.

What has been the reaction from the mainstream media in response to this revelation? So far, not much. Robert Novak wrote about it yesterday, and Brink Lindsey blogged about that on Cato@Liberty, but so far it hasn't made the front pages. By the standards of the mainstream media, a $500 check from a lone racist is news, but participatory fund raising efforts in cooperation with people intent on overthrowing the Constitution is barely worth a mention. And we foolishly think of the media as "liberal"!

There have been isolated rumors and reports that the Christian Reconstructionists already have their tentacles in Washington, perhaps even in the White House. What is interesting about this week's news is the open manner in which the Huckabee fund raiser took place, and that Huckabee himself felt that it politically safe to attend. Apparently the Reconstructionist are feeling secure enough to come out into the open. That may indeed be a safer place for us to have them, however it doesn't speak well of the current social climate in America.

The Reconstructions, no matter their beliefs, do have a right to participate in the political process. There is a big difference, however in a candidate's acceptance of donation and the candidate's active participation in a fund raiser. The latter clearly implies some degree of reverse endorsement. Imagine if Ron Paul had attended a neo-Nazi fund raiser to benefit his campaign, rather than merely cashing a single check from one individual? That news would rightly be plastered all over America's editorial pages. Instead, we have Mike Huckabee attending fund raisers hosted by the Christian Taliban.

Where is the ink?