|
And he HATED war. Just absolutely made him froth to speak of war. He couldn't rail enough against its senselessness.
Now, I didn't agree with him much (he never knew I was an atheist), and he could be a petty, obstinate, and spiteful sonofabitch... he could also be wise, insightful, and funny as all get out - he had the southerner's gift of storytelling - but were he alive today, he would no doubt be seething at Bush and this war, and Afghanistan too.
He was a conservative. He railed against FDR and his 'socialism'. But he didn't like how the Republicans increasingly tried to merge church and state toward the end of his years. He may have wanted the whole world to be Baptist (gawd knows he tried with his only child - my father - and never succeeded), but he knew the state was not the instrument of those means.
Safe to say he was a "vote the person, not the party" kind of man. We had common ground about the subject of war. Were he alive today, I doubt if he would quit the Southern Baptists (like Jimmy Carter courageously did), but he would be seething at their ignorant backing of Bush or the war.
Just a cautionary note against broad brushes and other fallacies.
|