#822: Paul Kengor

Paul Kengor is a professor of political science at Grove City College and the executive director of the College’s Center for Vision and Values. His most characteristic trait is his commitment to the Red Scare (yes, still). The communists are everywhere and on the verge of bringing down America, thinks Kengor, and his columns on the matter are regularly featured at Townhall.com (though are sometimes picked up by mainstream media).

Here, for instance, Kengor attempts to argue that gay people are being duped bycommunists (and Satan) who want to destroy the family (apparently by recognizing gay people’s families as families – their method seems a bit feeble) into supporting gay marriage. The left has always tried to abolish the family, “[r]eally, it’s a battle that goes back to the Garden of Eden, where a sinister force first tried tear asunder the male-female union the Creator had ordained” (no, it makes absolutely no sense to me either, but suggests that Kengor has young-earth creationist sympathies as well). And since gay marriage is currently accepted by many, he concludes that “[t]his is an exciting time for extreme leftists. They are genuinely transforming human nature. (That, by the way, is the textbook definition of totalitarianism: to transform human nature.) And they’re doing it with the unwitting support of a huge swath of clueless citizens and voters.” Notice what Kengor is the “textbook definition of totalitarianism;” one wonders what textbooks Kengor is using (or alternatively whether he even knows what words mean).

How do the liberals arrive at their nefarious positions – legalized abortion, taxes, marriage equality (i.e. communism)? Kengor’s (obvious) answer: By removing God. That makes them, according to Kengor, “very European”, which was apparently supposed to be received by the audience with shock and horror.

His criticisms of the ACLU are also telling. The ACLU hates Christians, according to Kengor – after all, the ACLU refuses to recognize that Christians should be privileged in the US just because they constitute the majority – and, instead of backing up his claims (he refers to Mat Staver), Kengor explains why: the founders of ACLU were leftists and atheists – Kengor even takes a brief sweep at how universities today are portraying McCarthy in such negative light, despite the fact that there was, according to Kengor, a real threat to the US from atheists and John Dewey back then (no, there is not direct connection to the ACLU, but never mind). But Kengor does notice that one of the founders, Harry Ward, was a methodist minister. And Kengor is shocked: “When it came to sheer manipulation by communists, Ward was arguably the single greatest dupe in the entire history of the American Religious Left.” Because a true Christian would never support religious freedom or civil liberties if it meant something other than expanding the privileges of the religious majority. So "duped by the communists" remains (by elimination) the only reasonable conclusion. It should, at least, give you an idea about where Kengor is coming from – it is all about being dupes of the communists (whose agenda is Satanic); that's the only way to explain how people can disagree with Kengor on religion, politics or anything else, really.

Kengor is also the author of several books, including God and Ronald Reagan, God and George W. Bush, God and Hillary Clinton, and The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor, which elaborates on his theory that Frank Marshall Davis was working for the Communist Party USA and a mentor and significant influence on the political outlook of Barack Obama. (He is interviewed on his hypotheses here, and gives some indication of his “evidence” here). This one is revealing with regard to how Kengor fills in missing details in his stories.

Diagnosis: Yes, he has a PhD in political science. But he has no real clue how to puzzle things together from evidence by the use of reason. Quite astonishing, really.