Religion + Politics = Global Disaster

(Via Andrew Sullivan.)

This is nothing short of insane. Anyone who asserts that we need not be concerned about human-caused CO2 emissions because only God will decide when the world ends has no place on a local school board let alone in the legislature of the most powerful nation on earth.

Sadly, this is just one more incident proving that the GOP base is not reality-based. These people don't care at all about empirical reality. And that's worse than ridiculous--it's terrifying.

Update:

Another example of the base not being reality based: Wired has a great article detailing the ridiculousness of the anti-science crusaders attempting to hijack the Texas educational system.

Republican Party Of Iowa Chairman Mike Strawn's New Comedy Routine Is Hilarious

Update: An expanded and polished version of this post ran as my column in the Daily Iowan's print edition on March 13--check it out here.

The Iowa Independent reports:

The Republican Party of Iowa, according to chairman Mike Strawn, is a sturdy stool, which needs all three legs to remain functional.

“We don’t need to change who we are to win elections,” Strawn said during remarks to the Linn County Republican Women on Tuesday afternoon. “I’m proud to stand up for the three legs on the Republican stool — pro-family policies, fiscal responsibility and a strong national defense that includes secure borders.”

What Republicans need, according to Strawn, are candidates who can effectively bring that message of three to the people of Iowa.

Continue reading.

Ha, ha, ha! Those crazy Iowa Republicans. They're such adept comedians. And so willing to make fun of themselves--because that's obviously what's going on here.

What, you don't get the joke? Let me explain it to you: each leg of the "Republican stool" has a name that means the opposite of what the Iowa GOP actually represents. His doublespeak is so blatant that Strawn can't really expect anyone of intelligence to take it seriously.

By "pro-family policies," Strawn means "Christianism." Iowa's Republicans don't care about the well-being of families. They care about using the coercive power of the state to enforce their sectarian religious precepts. If these bigots really cared about families, they'd be in favor of gay marriage--or at least civil unions. There's simply no excuse for leaving families headed by gay parents out in the cold. Refusing to recognize the validity of such nuclear families hurts the gay parents, but it hurts their children even more. And most Iowa Republicans couldn't care less.

"Fiscal responsibility" is just ranting about the waste involved in subsidizing black welfare queens in Chicago while simultaneously holding out one's hands and demanding equally wasteful and even more pernicious farm subsidies that are, if one's honest, just welfare for corn and soybean farmers. Likewise, it also entails objecting that increasing domestic spending on infrastructure projects is irresponsible while having insisted for years that building bridges in Iraq is a good use of American tax dollars. Really, all "fiscal responsibility" means to Iowa Republicans is bleating like sheep that Obama is a socialist after having dutifully followed Bush to our collective economic slaughter.

And "a strong national defense that includes secure borders" is just another way of saying that the best way to protect the United States is to squander all the blood and treasure we can spare in establishing Neoconservative colonialist fiefdoms in the Muslim world while at the same time pursuing a puritanical prohibitionist strategy in the all-important "War on Drugs" to the point of destabilizing Mexico enough to risk pushing it into failed-state status. Because that way we not only have no money or troops left to actually secure our borders, but also create as dangerous a situation as possible along the entirety of our border with Mexico.

So, like I said, Strawn is quite a talented comedian. And he's obviously correct in saying that what the Iowa GOP really needs now are "candidates who can effectively bring that message of three to the people of Iowa." But I'm just not sure there are enough clowns of Strawn's comedic caliber in the state to step up and become those candidates. Or enough idiots to actually vote them into power.

Christianism Jumps The Shark

North Carolina Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole lashes out against her Democratic challenger, Kay Hagan, falsely claiming that she is an atheist:



And Hagan hits back, pointing out that Dole's lies violate core Christian principles:



I think Dole just sealed her fate. Her blatantly false attack against Hagan is just too ridiculous for any reasonable person to take seriously. Hence, Christianism seems to have finally jumped the shark. Hopefully, we won't have to wait 100 more episodes for Christianism to go off the air altogether.

Christianism Rears Its Ugly Head At McCain Rally In Davenport

Liveblogging for the Iowa Independent today, John Deeth reports:

The invocation is interesting, as I hear keyboards going all around me:

“There are plenty of people around the world who are praying to their god, be they Hindu, Buddah [sic], or Allah, that (McCain’s) opponent wins. I pray that you step forward and honor your own name.” Ends with “in Jesus’ name.”

Wow. McCain does not appear to have been here yet to catch that, but wow. The preacher’s name appears to be a Pastor Conrad of the Evangelical Free Church.

In case you're unfamiliar with the term "Christianism," here's an excellent essay on the subject from Andrew Sullivan:

Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.

...

So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.

In addition to its abandonment of fiscal conservatism, this embrace of politicized Christianity is exactly why the Republican Party must be shattered and reconstructed from the ground up. In order to save their souls, conservatives need to boot brutish bigots like Pastor Conrad off the party's main stages--they must be exiled to the freakish sideshow of American of politics where they belong.

Update:

Laura Meckler, reporting for the Wall Street Journal, offers a more complete transcription of Conrad's remarks as well as reaction from the McCain campaign:

“There are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his [McCain’s] opponent wins, for a variety of reasons,” said Arnold Conrad, former pastor of Grave Evangelical Free Church. “And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.”

...

“While we understand the important role that faith plays in informing the votes of Iowans, questions about the religious background of the candidates only serve to distract from the real questions in this race about Barack Obama’s judgment, policies and readiness to lead as commander in chief,” said McCain spokeswoman Wendy Riemann.

In other words, Iowa's Republican base is largely composed of a bunch of far-right fundamentalists who think religious affiliation is the most important factor in choosing political leaders. And though the McCain campaign recognizes this as being dangerously ridiculous, they're so desperate for these knuckle-dragging mouth breathers' votes that they'll continue to pander to them by giving their leaders speaking time at campaign events.

It's truly sad to see how far McCain has sunk into darkness since 2000, when he still had the courage to tell the truth about these troglodytes:

Senator John McCain, in a provocative and politically risky speech, sharply criticized leaders of the religious right on Monday as "agents of intolerance" allied to his rival, Governor George W. Bush, and denounced what he said were the tactics of "division and slander."

Specifically, Mr. McCain singled out the evangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "corrupting influences on religion and politics" and said parts of the religious right were divisive and even un-American.

But that was back when the word "maverick" was something other than a Tina Fey joke.

Update II:

Los Angeles Times reporter Maeve Reston managed to get down the cleanest, most complete version of Conrad's remarks that I've been able to find so far. How he begins his statement provides important context:

I would also pray Lord that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that his [McCain’s] opponent wins for a variety of reasons.

And Lord I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.

Oh Lord, we just commit this time to you, move among us, make your presence very well felt as we are gathered here today in Jesus's name I pray.

I'm no more inclined to weigh in on the subject of the relative sizes of various religious groups' imaginary friends in the sky than I am to hazard a guess as to how many angels can dance on the point of a needle, but I do have to wonder what sort of divine message Conrad will take away from McCain's resounding defeat less than a month from now.