Pat Buchanan explains why Bush MUST appeal to religious fanatics.

...Americans are indeed feckless imperialists, but not because we are lacking in stamina. Our generation, after all, persevered through 40 years of Cold War to prevail against a Soviet Empire that was steeped in stamina.

What we lack is an imperial faith, an unquestioning belief in our God-given right to rule other peoples and instruct them in how to live – the faith that compels men to create empires.

When Spain, France and England came to the New World, it was not only for gold and land, but for the greater glory of God – Ad Majorem Gloriam Dei. Christians came here to convert pagans, smash their idols, demolish their civilizations and rule over them until they, too, embraced the faith.
...
Democratic empire is a contradiction in terms. And Americans are simply not a people who can live long with contradictions.

from "Why America's Empire Will Vanish"
http://www.theamericancause.org/patwhyamericasempirewillvanishprint.htm

Why is this man all over the tube not just one show? Why would anyone even consider listening to this raging, self righteous, reactionary, bigoted, pundit? If they would keep him off television this slug would starve.

real insight into the GOP. This is one of those cases, only he's missed the mark ever so slightly.

You see, imperial faith that one has a god given right to rule over the other peoples of the world assumes there will be a future in which to do so. Bush's Empire is not an end in itself, but a means to Armageddon, the end of all things.

It's very seductive for the fundies, this bringing on of disaster for the human race and for the whole planet, because they've been told over and over again that their faith will save them, that they'll be raptured up to paradise before the shit hits the fan. This is what they are fighting for, a ticket to Paradise, not an empire in and of itself.

That might help.

I doubt his paradise will have a thousand virgins.

He belongs back in the 16th C.

Pat seems to think we need an imperial religion as the moral justification :

to convert pagans, smash their idols, demolish their civilizations and rule over them until they, too, embraced the faith.

Wasnt this what the Nazis did in part, when they were not exterminating undesirable races?
All this serves to do is justify the looting and theft of the natural resources and wealth of other dis similar folk.

What a diseased mind this perosn has !

sons and daughters of the same lower classes Buchanan despises so much. Nice deal if you can make it work like Cheney and Halliburton.

Somebody wake up this Rip Van Winkle and let him know it is the twentyfirst century already.