The existence of militant Christian Taliban groups is old news. Such a group with the technical savvy to make a website loaded with flash animations and a Google maps mashup showing all the satanic sites in Amarillo (including Buddhist temples and New Age gift shops) is a bit more interesting. A group like that whose leader has a day job as a security guard at Pantex, the place that assembles all of the US's nuclear weapons, is frankly terrifying.
Short of the Army of God snagging a nuke, which I have to admit seems unlikely, the Texas Observer article shows that this group has developed a more mundane tactical innovation -- they regularly publicize the names of people doing things they disapprove of, such as attending swingers events or going to a Unitarian Church, often resulting in actual harm such as job loss. They will surveil ungodly sites and take people's license plates, for example. Given how easy it is to find information about people these days, and to spread it far and wide, I'm guessing we'll see more of these tactics employed in cultural and political conflicts. Perhaps people will think twice before exposing their life on Facebook, unless they plan not to have any enemies.
Of course we all remember when the original Afghan Taliban had enough of those Buddha statues and finally decided to publicize their Google maps location. So thoroughly did they corrupt that country that later on when an Afghan man converted to Christianity, the new regime we helped put in place publicized his name.
ReplyDelete"They regularly publicize the names of people doing things they disapprove of..."
ReplyDeleteIn other words, just like militant gay groups did with the names of people who signed petitions to put Proposition 8 on the ballot? Just as certain newspapers with anti-Second Amendment editorial stances did with the names of people who had been granted concealed-carry permits?
Ahem, Mr. Anonymous, the correct terms are "militant gay Taliban" and "militant anti-gun Taliban".
ReplyDelete