Miscellanea Agnostica

In an effort to appeal to his militant Christianist “peeps,” the former speaker of the US house — and raging hypocrite — Newt Gingrich recently spewed an idiotic, and demonstrably false, claim about the future of the US. Politico reports on something he said at Pastor John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, TX (WebCite cached article):

“I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9,” Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

In his furious effort to conflate the two great enemies of his militant Christofascism, the Newtster equated “secular atheists” with “radical Islamists.” The problem here is that the two cannot be the same, and that’s by definition: “Secular atheists” are all areligious (or irreligious), while “radical Islamists” are all decidedly religious. Radical Islamists, in fact, hate “secular atheists” as much as militant Christians do.

What a fucking moron.

The article also mentions that Gingrich is now Roman Catholic, which makes his appearance at Pastor Hagee’s church strange indeed, since Hagee hasn’t had much good to say about Catholics or Catholicism — at least, that’s what Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League, has said (cached).

Photo credit: plognark.

Tags: christian, christian right, christianism, christianist, christianists, Christianity, christians, christofascism, christofascist, christofascists, cornerstone church, gingrich, gop, islamism, islamist, islamists, john hagee, newt ginrich, radical islamism, radical islamist, radical islamists, religionism, religionist, religionists, religious right, republican, republicans, right, san antonio, san antonio TX, secular atheism, secular atheist, secular atheists

As I’ve blogged a number of times already, Birtherism is a delusion that simply will not die. A frequent mantra of Birthers is that Obama has never produced his birth certificate. That, however, is factually incorrect; he has done so, and did it prior to his election in 2008. See FactCheck and Politfact, cached here and here for the evidence. (Note, neither of these fact-checking sites is “biased” towards Obama and the Democrats; recently, for instance, FactCheck pointed out tall tales told by him and by his party, and Politifact has a running “Obameter” listing promises he’s made, and has not shied from listing some as broken.) Oh, and that Kenyan birth certificate you may have heard about? It’s a fake (cached).

Making this situation worse is that denial that Obama is a US citizen has become religionized, and inextricably linked to the claim that he’s a Muslim. So the delusion has taken on an added dimension and, essentially, doubled in scope. Yes, that’s been covered by FactCheck (cached) and Politifact (cached), too — but again, the deluded Right-wing Birthers don’t give a fuck about facts.

Birtherism among Rightists has become so strong and pervasive, that GOP leaders refuse to confront it any more. If anything, they make excuses for Birtherism and wink in its direction. A recent example is House Speaker John Boehner, who did exactly this during his appearance on Meet the Press yesterday (WebCite cached article). When host David Gregory asked about persistent Birtherism, he said:

David, it’s not my job to tell the American people what to think. Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people.

That’s an interesting claim on Boehner’s part, since he’s been telling Americans for the last couple of years that Obama is a vile, wicked socialist, and he hasn’t “listened” to any Americans outside of the extreme Right-wing. After having told us what we’re supposed to think about Obama and the Democrats all this time, suddenly he declares he’s unwilling to tell us what to think? What a fucking hypocrite! At any rate, he continued hedging:

Having said that, the state of Hawaii has said that he was born there. That’s good enough for me. The president says he’s a Christian. I accept him at his word.

That’s all well and good, but it’s hardly a dismissal of Birtherism. Then, having said that, he veered back toward his original position:

MR. GREGORY: But that kind of ignorance about whether he’s a Muslim doesn’t concern you?

SPEAKER BOEHNER: Listen, the American people have the right to think what they want to think. I can’t–it’s not my job to tell them.

So the Speaker slalomed from, “I’m not supposed to tell people what to think,” to “Obama said he’s a citizen and a Christian,” to “People have a right to be deluded.”

Well, Speaker, you’re correct in that Americans have a “right” to be deluded. No doubt about that. The right to be a fucking ignoramus is undeniable. But you — as a leader in your political party — have a moral and ethical obligation to inform them of the truth. Even if it’s not a convenient truth to tell, and — yes — even if they don’t want to hear it. This is not a question of anyone’s “rights.” This is a question of what the objective facts are and what his duty is, as the leader of the Republican party in Congress.

In other words, it’s a question of fortitude and leadership.

Boehner has purposely chosen to keep his party chock-full of childish, delusional, paranoiac imbeciles. Just because he’s too much of a sniveling coward to tell them to knock off their Birtherist bullshit and shut the fuck up about the President not being a citizen or a Christian.

Way to go, Speaker. What outstanding courage you’ve shown! Why, you’ve demonstrated perfectly the kind of character it takes to lead the Right in the US.

It’s time for everyone on the Right — starting with Speaker Bonehead and the rest of his sanctimonious Rightist rabble in the House — to grow the hell up, stop telling demonstrable lies, and move on to something else, fercryinoutloud.

Photo credit: FactCheck.

Tags: birther, birtherism, birthers, boehner, childish, congress, conservatism, conservative, conservatives, gop, immature, immaturity, john boehner, juvenile, muslim, muslim obama, obama citizen, obama is a muslim, obama muslim, politics, republican, republicans, right, rightism, rightist, rightists, speaker of the house

It’s been over a month since I last mentioned the Great Neocrusade against Islam in the United States, but that’s not because the movement has gone away. On the contrary, with the Religious Right having gained new momentum, it will continue to be a force to contend with over the next couple of years. It will now include a series of Inquisition-style show-trials in the House of Representatives, hosted by none other than Rep. Peter King, R-NY, as Politico reports (WebCite cached article):

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) is vowing to hold hearings next year on what he calls the “radicalization of the American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism.”

The incoming chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security said he plans to examine the “disconnect” between law-abiding American Muslims and the homegrown terrorists who have plotted failed attacks in places like Times Square and Portland, Ore.

I’m not sure what King thinks he’s going to find. It goes almost without saying that there are law-abiding Muslims in the US, as well as terrorist Muslims. I’m not sure there is a “thing” standing between them, which King’s hearings are somehow going to “uncover.”

I will say that the situation is probably very similar to what one finds among members of other religions, where the more upstanding members of a religion tend to “enable” extremists. It happens even among Christians in the US. A great example of this phenomenon was seen in the reaction of “mainstream” Christians to the assassination of Dr George Tiller by vehement Christianist Scott Roeder. While lots of Christians condemned the killing — and one assumes they’d not have done it, themselves — many did say they “understood” Roeder’s motivation. This is a tacit form of support for extremism, which extremists interpret as license to do what they do.

Maybe King should hold trials looking into the matter of the information supplied to Roeder to help him in his plot to kill Dr Tiller?

I should, finally, note that Rep. King does not exactly come into the matter with what one might call “clean hands.” In the past he was an outspoken supporter of the Irish Republican Army, which — during the course of “the Troubles” — committed more than its share of terrorist acts. King, therefore, is no stranger to “radicalism” himself. That makes him worse than just being a Neocrusader … he’s a fucking hypocritical Neocrusader!

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: christian, Christianity, christians, congress, domestic terrorism, extremism, extremist, extremists, gop, homeland security, house committee on homeland security, house of representatives, inquisition, inquisitions, ira, Islam, muslim, muslims, neocrusade, neocrusader, neocrusaders, neocrusades, peter king, radicalization, radicalize, radicalized, Religion, religionism, religionist, religious, religious right, republican, right, terrorism, terrorist, terrorists, trial, trials

The fiercely Christian-theocratic, extreme-right-wing Texas GOP is revealing its anti-Semitism, over the matter of who is to be the Speaker of that state’s House of Representatives. Fox News — of all outfits — reports on this not-very-surprising revelation (WebCite cached article):

The race to lead the Texas House of Representatives has taken a religious turn, with some conservatives in the state suggesting that the speaker of the House, who is a Jewish Republican, should be replaced by a “Christian conservative.”

The state’s GOP insists this is not due to Straus’s religion, but his supposed ideological impurity:

Over the past month, in a spate of e-mails and political pitches, conservative opponents of incumbent Speaker Joe Straus have said they want him replaced not because of his Jewish religion, but because of his betrayal of Republican principles.

This, however, is a lie … because the emails in question reveal that it IS, in fact, Straus’s religion which is the sticking point, and which the Texas GOP finds offensive:

“We elected a house with Christian, conservative values. We now want a true Christian, conservative running it,” [State Republican Executive Committee official John] Cook said in the Nov. 30 e-mail, first published by the Texas Observer.

These people can sugar-coat this all they want, but the truth is they’re anti-Semitic. That’s just the way it is.

Hat tip: Skeptics & Heretics Forum on Delphi Forums.

Photo credit: Great Beyond.

Tags: anti-semites, anti-semitic, anti-semitism, austin, austin TX, christian, Christianity, christians, gop, joe straus, republican, republican party, republicans, texas, texas gop, texas house, texas house of representatives, texas legislature, texas republican, texas republicans, texas speaker

I’ve blogged before about the Right comparing Obama and the Democrats to Hitler and the Nazis. To hear them tell it, the US has already become the next incarnation of the Third Reich. Reductio ad Hitlerums have become so common that it’s almost expected. Well, the Germans have noticed, and Der Spiegel, at least, is telling the American Right to stop already with the Hitlerisms (WebCite cached article):

Many on the American right have developed a taste for including a bit of German history in their stump speeches. Hitler comparisons abound and the Berlin Wall even made a cameo recently. But the flippant references to the Holocaust are ignorant and offensive. And they should stop. …

In this midterm campaign season in the US, German history seems to be everywhere. In June, conservative columnist Thomas Sowell of JewishWorldReview.com essentially argued that President Barack Obama, by requiring that BP pay $20 billion (€14.3 billion) to compensate those harmed by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, was following in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler — and was promptly praised by Sarah Palin and Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas.

Other examples abound. A Tea Party campaign poster in Iowa depicted Obama flanked by both Hitler and Lenin. Conservative talking head and Tea Party heartthrob Glenn Beck can hardly get through one of his Fox News shows without an Obama-Hitler comparison. Palin also accused Obama’s health care plan of including “death panels.” …

During his show on Oct. 5, Glenn Beck said that Obama’s science adviser John Holdren’s concern about the global population and White House health policy adviser Ezekiel Emanuel’s warnings about global warming are “the kind of thinking that led to … the extermination program that eventually led to the Holocaust.”

Der Spiegel goes on to talk about how Germans themselves … apart from one famous example that the article cites … tend to avoid the old reductio ad Hitlerum:

For most Germans, though, the Hitler comparisons are vastly more offensive. It is almost impossible to finish high school in Germany without going on a class visit to a former concentration camp. They are not pleasant places to be. While the sites themselves might now be little more than windswept rows of foundations where hopelessly overcrowded, disease-ridden barracks once stood, the museum exhibits tend to be much more disturbing. Images of trucks full of emaciated corpses, ovens where tens of thousands of bodies were burned, photos of SS commandos on the Eastern Front shooting row upon row of Jews, a canister of the poison gas Zyklon B — all are likely to be on display. …

It would be hard to find someone on this side of the Atlantic who wouldn’t cringe at the ignorance of [Beck's] statement [about Holdren]. Leaving aside the question as to whether or not one should be concerned about climate change and an overcrowded planet, the kind of thinking that led to the Holocaust was a different one. Hitler wanted a racially pure Germany. People with handicaps didn’t fit. Neither did Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, blacks, Asians, Arabs or homosexuals.

Der Spiegel puts the whole thing into perspective:

The Holocaust was the result of murderous ideological fanaticism of the kind not to be found in leaders forced to face re-election every four years. It was not the result of a policy meeting.

Similarly, back in June Glenn Beck said that children singing for Barack Obama was “out of the playbook … of the Third Reich ….This is Hitler Youth.” One can assume that not all of Beck’s listeners and viewers know what the Hitler Youth was. Beck himself, an astute, if cynical, student of history, certainly does. The Hitler Youth was the ideological training grounds designed to prepare German boys for a glorious career in the SS murdering anyone who stood in the way of the Führer’s dream of a vast and racially pure German Reich. It was not a dictator’s private children’s choir.

One can forgive those like Glenn Beck and his Tea Party followers for hating Barack Obama. The liberals, after all, were passionately opposed to George W. Bush and rarely shied away from hyperbole in their expressions of loathing. But it is hard to imagine even the most hard-bitten Tea Party activist sincerely believing that President Barack Obama wants to systematically murder over 6 million people like Adolf Hitler did.

One of the “justifications” for this sort of reasoning which folks on the Right have offered, is that during the George W. Bush administration, many on the Left made similar accusations about Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the Republicans. They are correct in pointing out this happened — as I noted previously — but they’re wrong about this justifying their rhetoric. It doesn’t, quite simply because two wrongs don’t make a right. That the Left did something it shouldn’t have, years ago, does not grant the Right license to do the same thing, now.

I have no doubt that Tea Partiers and assorted creeps like Glenn Beck will not stop using appeals to Hitler and the Nazis, but it sure seems as though Der Spiegel said something that has desperately needed to be said, for a long time … and did so from the perspective of its native country, Germany, which was home to Hitler, his Nazi party, and the Third Reich.

Photo credit: elviskennedy.

Tags: ad hitlerum, adolf hitler, american right, appeal to hitler, appeal to nazis, appeals to hitler, appeals to nazis, barack obama, germans, germany, glenn beck, gop, hitler, holocaust, louie gohmert, nazis, nazism, obama, reductio ad hitlerum, republican, republican party, republicans, right, right wing, sarah palin, tea partier, tea partiers, tea party, third reich

It turns out that more than one GOP Senate candidate opposes separation of church and state and believes it to be unconstitutional — even though a long sequence of Supreme Court decisions has decided that it is. The latest Christofascist to make this declaration is Ken Buck, who’s running for US Senate from Colorado, as the Washington Post reports (WebCite cached article):

Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck has questioned the separation of government and religion, drawing criticism from Democrats who last week chided another tea party candidate for the same view.

Buck’s opponents have been circulating a clip of him from a 2009 GOP forum in which he won applause from a conservative crowd at Colorado Christian University when he said the Constitution doesn’t require church and state to be separate.

“I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state. It was not written into the Constitution,” Buck said on the video. “While we have a Constitution that is very strong in the sense that we are not gonna have a religion that’s sanctioned by the government, it doesn’t mean that we need to have a separation between government and religion.”

As with Christine O’Donnell, who spewed similar views during a debate, Buck’s campaign is defending his words:

Buck hasn’t said anything public recently about the issue. His spokesman, Owen Loftus, said Wednesday that Buck’s belief stands.

OK, so now we know Ken Buck is a Christofascist, if not a dominionist or Christian reconstructionist.

All I can say to Mr Buck is this: Hey Ken, if you want this American to become a Christian, you’re just going to have to make me one. Go ahead. Do your worst. I dare you to give it your best shot. I’m ready for whatever you decide to do in order to force me to become the Christian you think I must be.

In case anyone is not clear on the matter, as I explained previously, separation of church and state IS most certainly Constitutional … not merely because the Supreme Court has decided it is, but because that’s what the writer of the First Amendment, James Madison, himself said it meant!

Photo Credit: Buck for Colorado Web site.

Tags: 2010 election, christian, christian right, Christianity, christians, christofascism, christofascist, colorado, colorado christian university, conservative, constitution, constitutional, constitutionality, election 2010, gop, ken buck, religiofascism, religiofascist, religiofascists, Religion, religious, religious right, republican, right, senate, Separation of church and state, socas, us senate

As if the freak-show which is the Christine O’Donnell Senate candidacy couldn’t get any freakier … she comes out with a new stream of idiotic blather. The latest example of her mindless religious inanity was reported by CNN’s Political Ticker blog (WebCite cached article):

In a recent interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Christine O’Donnell listed both God and Gloria Steinem as sources of inspiration and influence when times get tough on the campaign trail. …

She continued that her success in politics can be directly tied to prayer: “The day that we saw a spike in the polls was a day that some people had a prayer meeting for me that morning for this campaign so I believe that prayer plays a direct role in this campaign and I always ask please pray for the campaign; please pray for our staff; please pray specifically that the eyes of the voters be opened.”

That’s right. O’Donnell thinks that, when asked in the form of prayerful requests, God cranks up her poll numbers.

Oh, and in an effort to compare herself with Jesus — whom Christians believe died for everyone — the hyperreligious-lunatic-for-Senate claimed that running for office was like “dying”:

O’Donnell then delved into faith stating, “God is the reason that I’m running. If I didn’t believe that there were a cause greater than myself worth fighting for, if I didn’t believe that it takes a complete dying of self to make things right in this election cycle I would not be running and when you die to yourself you rely on a power greater than yourself so prayer is what’s gotten us all through.”

I hardly know what to say about this walking train-wreck any more. Really.

Photo credit: CNN.

Tags: 2010 election, cbn, christian broadcasting network, christine o'donnell, delaware, election, elections, gloria steinem, gop, prayer, republican, right, senate

Periodically I’m accused of being paranoid or of lying, when I say that there are Christians in the US who want to dispense with the government we have, and establish a new, Christian-theocratic, one. Ordinarily I’d be one of the first to be skeptical about something so ridiculous and insane-sounding. However, the dominionist and Christian reconstructionist movements are all too real, and they are quite active in American politics. Of course, most of the time they’re circumspect about what they want, and they present an often-credible-seeming facade of reasonability.

But once in a while one of these Christofascists blurts out what it is they actually want … and this happened recently with a Republican Congressional candidate in (you guessed it!) Texas. Making this a bit worse is that the candidate in question is also a Christian minister, by vocation! The Dallas Morning News reports on his alarming but clear admission (WebCite cached article):

Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.

In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising “is not the first option,” but it is “on the table.” …

In the interview, Brad Watson, political reporter for WFAA-TV (Channel 8), asked Broden about a tea party event last year in Fort Worth in which he described the nation’s government as tyrannical.

“We have a constitutional remedy,” Broden said then. “And the Framers say if that don’t work, revolution.” …

Watson asked if violence would be in option in 2010, under the current government.

“The option is on the table. I don’t think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms,” Broden said, without elaborating.

First of all, “revolution” is most certainly NOT a “constitutional” remedy. There is no description in the Constitution of how a revolution is to be conducted, and no procedure for beginning one. The possibility of “revolution” is not mentioned anywhere within it. Any “revolution,” then, can only be decidedly extra-constitutional. Second, that the Founders had to resort to revolution was because the regime under which the Colonies existed was not one that could be altered by any legal means. Our present Constitution, on the other hand, does provide a means for changing the government (via Constitutional amendment). So long as amendments are possible, revolution is unnecessary.

The local Republican party tried to distance themselves from Broden:

[Broden's comments] drew a quick denunciation from the head of the Dallas County GOP, who called the remarks “inappropriate.”

That said, however, they haven’t truly disavowed the idea of revolution; instead they’re painting it as a “marginal” comment, nothing more:

Jonathan Neerman, head of the Dallas County Republican Party, said he’s never heard Broden or other local Republican candidates advocate violence against the government.

“It is a disappointing, isolated incident,” Neerman said. He said he plans to discuss the matter with Broden’s campaign.

Ken Emanuelson, a Broden supporter and leading tea party organizer in Dallas, said he did not disagree with the “philosophical point” that people had the right to resist a tyrannical government.

Clearly, Broden’s local GOP is triangulating here … appearing to denounce him just enough to make themselves not look like raging lunatics, but not really disavowing the principle he laid out.

Way to go people. It would be laughable, if not for the fact that these people are fascists who want to destroy the US government and remake it into a dour Christian theocracy. They’re against “tyranny,” except when they set themselves up as tyrants.

As for religious reactions, I haven’t yet seen any stories that mention any reaction from his congregants (at the Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas), or from any of his fellow pastors. They’re running silent on the matter, it seems.

Update: KXAS-TV in Fort Worth, TX reports that Broden lost his bid to unseat incumbent Eddie Bernice Johnson (cached article). I’m not sure that’s too good for the country, though, since Broden marches as a member of Glenn Beck’s “Black-Robed Regiment” of militant Christian pastors and theologians who are spoiling to go to war over their theocratic vision for America. That he won’t be doing this from inside the House of Representatives isn’t much comfort.

Hat tip: Religion Dispatches.

Photo credit: Wikipedia.

Tags: christian, christian right, Christianity, christians, christofascism, christofascist, christofascists, dallas, dallas TX, fair park bible fellowship, gop, pastor, religious right, republican, right, stephen broden, tea party, texas