A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter

With Tim Pawlenty out of the presidential race, it is now fairly clear that the GOP candidate will either be Mitt Romney or someone who makes George W. Bush look like Tom Paine. Of the three most plausible candidates for the Republican nomination, two are deeply associated with a theocratic strain of Christian fundamentalism known as Dominionism. If you want to understand Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, understanding Dominionism isn’t optional.

Put simply, Dominionism means that Christians have a God-given right to rule all earthly institutions. Originating among some of America’s most radical theocrats, it’s long had an influence on religious-right education and political organizing. But because it seems so outré, getting ordinary people to take it seriously can be difficult. Most writers, myself included, who explore it have been called paranoid. In a contemptuous 2006 First Things review of several books, including Kevin Phillips’ American Theocracy, and my own Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, conservative columnist Ross Douthat wrote, “the fear of theocracy has become a defining panic of the Bush era.”

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We have not seen this sort of thing at the highest levels of the Republican Party before. Those of us who wrote about the Christian fundamentalist influence on the Bush administration were alarmed that one of his advisers, Marvin Olasky, was associated with Christian Reconstructionism. It seemed unthinkable, at the time, that an American president was taking advice from even a single person whose ideas were so inimical to democracy. Few of us imagined that someone who actually championed such ideas would have a shot at the White House. It turns out we weren’t paranoid enough. If Bush eroded the separation of church and state, the GOP is now poised to nominate someone who will mount an all-out assault on it. We need to take their beliefs seriously, because they certainly do.

A Guelph tech firm with a reputation for making tools to control information abroad is now tightening communications at home.

After giving several media interviews during its rapid rise in the burgeoning internet security sector, Netsweeper is now refusing to speak to reporters.

“There’s no good conversation for us to have,” company spokesperson Scott O’Neill told the Toronto Star in June. Requests for comment by the Guelph Mercury and The Canadian Press have also been turned down.

Netsweeper also recently rejected a meeting request by Guelph MP Frank Valeriote.

“I wanted to meet with them. I wanted to learn more about everything they did, more than I was able to glean from their website and news articles,” he said. “I’m disappointed they didn’t want to meet with me.”

The silence follows allegations the company provides censorship software to Middle Eastern clients who actively suppress free speech and access to information.

According to researchers from Citizen Lab, a web censorship watchdog at the Munk School of Global Affairs, at the University of Toronto, Netsweeper currently provides filtering tools to state-owned telecommunications companies in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

All three clients use the software to block political, religious and same-sex content, Citizen Lab has reported. In its promotional material, Netsweeper boasts it can block websites “based on social, religious or political ideals.”

What does any of this mean for Guelph? Some say not much.

“It is not the City’s practice to comment on the business and contractual relationships of private companies,” Peter Cartwright, general manager of economic development and tourism, said. “If the company has broken any provincial or federal laws, these matters would be have to be addressed by those levels of government.”

Others disagree.

“I think as citizens of the local community, the country and the world, we have multiple obligations,” Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, said.

“It’s imperative that citizens of Guelph think of themselves as custodians of what takes place in Guelph and is projected internationally.”