In some Christian circles, there is an odd Neoconfederate movement that is apparently an outgrowth of paleoconservatism. They believe that Abraham Lincoln was evil, that the old South was the closest thing to God's Kingdom that the earth has ever seen, and that the United States should never dare involve herself in a dispute outside of her own borders. Not coincidentally, they were also vehemently opposed to the war in Iraq.

It seems that there's a disturbing pattern with these guys. They are strangely unmoved by the plight of the enslaved--whether it be the slaves in the South, or the people of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Amazingly, they actually frame it as though the people fighting to free these people are (or were) the ones in the wrong!

Ironically, many of these same people claim to be indignant about the plight of the unborn in abortion-happy America (a shameful blight on our society, to be sure). And I'm sure that they are. But it's odd that they evidently couldn't care less about the condition of human beings beyond the third trimester.

Fortunately, most conservative Christians still recognize that the Southern slave trade and abortion are both abominations, and don't pick and choose so strangely. They still recognize that it is a good thing for Iraqi people to be free, and that though our culture has much evil in it, it is at least a culture in which people are free to hear about and worship Jesus Christ. These Neoconfederates would apparently prefer that the Iraqi people be spared from the "imperialistic expansionism of secular humanism" (their rhetoric sounds suspiciously similar to that of most Arab dictators) in favor of a government that would kill them for attempting to worship Christ or tell others about him. An odd position for a Christian to take.

"Since we have the scourge of abortion in our own country," their reasoning goes, "we have no business toppling oppressive regimes elsewhere." This rationale springs from their bitterness at having the North, which certainly had problems of its own, come down and free their slaves for them. They actually still refer to it as "The War of Northern Aggression." Just like Saddam's Information Minister, who refers to the Iraq war as "The War of American Aggression." They'll cite all sorts of nutty revisionist histories and conspiracy theories to "prove" that the Civil War was really just about Lincoln's evil impulses, that there is a "Jewish cabal" within the government forcing us to go to war with Arabs, and that you are not historically literate enough to realize the "real" causes behind all these things, which they by dint of their sheer brilliance have managed to uncover.

I guess every generation has them. In my parents' generation, it was the Birchers who believed the the Trilateral Commission was conspiring to fluoridate our drinking water in an attempt to control our minds. While unpleasant, these groups at least give us the benefit of following one another off into eventual obscurity.