Over the last several weeks, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has been under attack from Religious Right activists for his statement that the nation needed to call a “truce” in the culture wars in order to focus on more important issues.
Obviously, social conservatives refuse to accept any such truce, as fighting the culture war is their entire reason for existing and have begun questioning Daniels’ conservative bona fides.
But that is clearly unjustified because, as this interview with him from December demonstrates, he clearly shares their worldview:
Mellinger: Is there part of you that is bothered by the aggressive atheism of a [Sam] Harris, a [Christopher] Hitchens, a [Richard] Dawkins? And what I mean is… this atheism is a little different than atheism has been in the past because it does seek to convert people.
Daniels: I’m not sure it’s all that new. People who reject the idea of a God -who think that we’re just accidental protoplasm- have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications -which not all such folks have thought through- because really, if we are just accidental, if this life is all there is, if there is no eternal standard of right and wrong, then all that matters is power.
And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists -Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth- because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth.
Everyone’s certainly entitled in our country to equal treatment regardless of their opinion. But yes, I think that folks who believe they’ve come to that opinion ought to think very carefully, first of all, about how different it is from the American tradition; how it leads to a very different set of outcomes in the real world.
