Newt Gingrich – satori in New Hampshire

He’s probably now not going to be the next President of the United States. Even so, Newt seems to have gained a valuable insight:

"Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money?"

Well yes and no, Newt, the only quibble being these days it’s possible to manipulate the lives of millions of people; but that’s just me being picky. Then again he also said that:

There is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment...

Elsewhere:

I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [my grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.

Which, as the author in the link suggests, begs the question of what on Earth gay-secular-fascist-islamists look like? What do they do, stone themselves to death?

Now, it’s all very well kicking a man when he’s down. For your enjoyment, Michael Moore, kicking Gingrich when he was up:

World of Stupid 2... Godwin's Revenge!

Rhetoric 101: everyone is opposed to fascism, find a link between your opponents and fascism, even if it's just a cheapjack neologism like "feminazi" or, in this case gaystapo, and you will prevail in your argument. See here:

An Anglican newspaper has defended the publication of an article that compares gay rights campaigners to Nazis, saying the author has "pertinent views".

Pertinent is a synonym for relevant. What are these views relevant to?

In his column [Alan] Craig referred to a number of high-profile legal cases where Christians claim to have been penalised for their views on homosexuality.

He wrote: "Having forcibly – and understandably – rectified the Versailles-type injustices and humiliations foisted on the homosexual community, the UK's victorious Gaystapo are now on a roll. Their gay-rights stormtroopers take no prisoners as they annex our wider culture, and hotel owners, registrars, magistrates, doctors, counsellors, and foster parents … find themselves crushed under the pink jackboot.

"Thanks especially to the green light from a permissive New Labour government, the gay Wehrmacht is on its long march through the institutions and has already occupied the Sudetenland social uplands of the Home Office, the educational establishment, the politically-correct police. Following a plethora of equalities legislation, homosexuals are now protected and privileged by sexual orientation regulations and have achieved legal equality by way of civil partnerships. But it's only 1938 and Nazi expansionist ambitions are far from sated."

Yes, before you know it they'll be sending heterosexuals to the gas chambers. Pertinent, in this case means relevant to Alan Craig's vivid imagination (as a side note - I hope, for the sake of sanity that Alan Craig is mixing his metaphors and doesn't actually think the Gestapo led the French Revolution).

It may not have always been the case, privileged, white, heterosexual men have insisting that they are the most downtrodden in society. It is a nice illustration though of the superiority/fear dialectic of bigotry. Bigots simultaneously feel superior yet consistently undermined by the object of their hate. They have the upper hand, yet everywhere they see inevitable doom, in this case hallucinations of pink swastikas. They may be dominant, but their enemy is vital and alive.

There's almost certainly a degree of projection here too. It's rather like Martin Amis's characterisation of Muslims as fascists, followed by thought experiments in a final solution.

We may want to give Alan Craig the benefit of the doubt on this account. I certainly have never heard of him before, and let's not forget for every one of him there may be many Giles Frasers are there?. But why bother? He sounds like an absolute scumbag.