The Pioneer Children of the Corn

**Disclaimer** In this post I am poking some fun at the Vision Forum, but I want to make clear that I in no way begrudge them their right to seek to restore what they consider to be a proper understanding of boyhood and girlhood. What I am questioning is their romanticizing of various periods of American history that were characterized by racism and xenophobia. Also, I am troubled by their linking of their stated principles with the Protestant Reformation. So if you like the Vision Forum and will be offended by its being challenged in a semi-jocular manner, then you may want to stop reading at this point....

I don't how how it started, but I occasionally get these catalogues in the mail from the Vision Forum which, as far as I can tell, is an organization whose aim is to harken the Christian family back to the good ol' days when Ma would milk Betsy so's we chillins could churn us up some fresh butter. Or better yet, we could just have our slave do it while we white folk can go down to the courthouse and carve the Ten Commandments into its hallowed walls.

I realize I'm being a tad melodram-atic, but only a tad. Some of the items for sale in the latest Vision Forum catalogue include civil war uniforms, Crusades-era knight costumes with swords and shields to "defend our sisters as protectors of womankind," and for the more contemporary warrior, various modern soldiery parephernalia that looks like the stuff issued to the new recruits at Blackwater U.S.A. right before they're shipped off to Baghdad to protect the interests of Halliburton. Did I say that out loud? I meant "America."

Is it me, or is this stuff seriously spooky?

Don't get me wrong, I love to rock a coonskin cap and hunt Injuns as much as the next red-blooded American boy, but equating the carefree and fun-loving days when we (white, male, land-owning) Americans were realizing our manifest destiny with the Protestant Reformation, well, that's a bit much.