We Must Stop Allowing Far Right Conservative Christians to Dumb Down and Radicalize This Country

They believe that “God speaks to them,” that laws should be taken from religion, that homosexuality is a sin, that women shouldn’t have control over their own bodies and that all other religions besides theirs are wrong.

Oh, I’m talking about Islamic radicals, not conservative Christians. Though I could see how someone might confuse the two. They do have striking similarities.

Kind of ironic, isn’t it?

Especially when you consider that many conservative Christians loathe Muslims – all Muslims. See, to a good deal of them, all Muslims are “Islamic radicals.” Though I’m sure many of them are unaware that there are more Muslims found in south and southeast Asia than the Middle East. But I doubt many of them are “alerted” by someone they meet from Indonesia.

And while Islamic radicals do pose a threat to the United States, mostly from afar, many conservative Christians pose a threat to this country domestically.

These people, empowered by the tea party in the last few years, are doing everything they can to dumb down this country and turn it into some kind of theocracy.

Instead of having debates on how to combat climate change, we’re stuck trying to convince tens of millions of people that God didn’t use a tornado to “punish” sinners. Instead of figuring out how to make the United States a world leader in math and science, we’re debating whether or not the story of Noah’s ark should be in the chapter following the mapping of human DNA in science books. Instead of embracing some of the most educated and intelligent among us, millions of Americans would rather listen to a bearded redneck from backwoods Louisiana tell them how the United States needs to be more “godly.” And somehow “being godly” seems to mostly revolve around a strong disdain for homosexuals.

It’s absurd.

When we have a debate about science in this country we shouldn’t have to spend time debating someone who thinks the Flintstones is a documentary, believing that humans and dinosaurs roamed the Earth together just a few thousand years ago. But that’s exactly what we’re having to do.

The Republican Party and the Continued Rise of the “American Taliban”

In the past I’ve written a couple of articles professing my belief that the Republican party, especially the tea party aspects of it, have become a domestic terrorist group. On the recently ended HBO show The Newsroom, character Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels) referred to them as the “American Taliban,” and I think that’s a perfect way to describe this ever-growing group of right-wing radicals.

Just think about this for a moment. These are people (and there are millions of them) who honestly believe that we are allowed to own guns largely for the purpose of one day violently overthrowing our government. I’ve never quite understood how these conservatives can call themselves “patriots” by hating over half the American population (liberals, minorities, homosexuals and followers of any other religion other than Christianity), loathing the very government our Constitution created and often talking about the possible need to rise up in an armed rebellion to violently overthrow elected officials. 

And it’s not as if this is some “sudden movement.” Most of these “strongly Republican gun-loving states” are the very same ones that nearly tore this country in half during the Civil War fighting for their right to own other human beings as property. So let’s not act as if this anti-government rhetoric is simply rooted in their dislike for “liberal ideologies and big government.” Southern conservatives have hated and opposed our government for generations.

But even when you just look at the last 6 years, the GOP has done just about everything it possibly could since President Obama moved into the White House to stall any and all possible economic progress. Whether it was trying to hold our debt ceiling hostage, blocking several jobs bills and even shutting down our government, Republicans have done just about everything within their power to obstruct our economy hoping that it would pay off for them politically. Which it did, in some ways.

And now that they’re about to have even more power, I can damn sure promise you that they’re going to spend the next two years doing whatever they can to hold back our economy. Sure, they’ll use a lot of talking points while spewing the word “jobs” and other right-wing propaganda to hide this fact, but the last thing they’ll want to do over these next two years is help our economy continue to grow.

Why would they? If our economy continues to grow, that would almost all but doom their chances in 2016. Their only real hope to get a Republican in the White House two years from now is to try to slow down (or outright crash) our economy, hoping that people will blame it on President Obama – and in turn his party – and that they’ll get a huge advantage heading into our next presidential election.

The last things Republicans want to see these next two years is for our unemployment rate to drop near or blow 5 percent and see another 4-5 million jobs created.

And if you doubt me, just look at what they’ve done with the Affordable Care Act. Instead of working with the president to make the law better, to help millions of Americans gain access to health care, they’ve done just about everything they possibly can to sabotage the law at every turn. Then they have the gall to stand there and point to the “failures of Obamacare” when most of the issues we’ve had with the law are due in large part to the compromises we had to make with Republicans when the law was being written, and the shenanigans many state governments have been playing to try to obstruct the law at the local level.

It’s like I’ve said before, Republicans want a massive collapse of this country. They want our government to be so inefficient, so corrupt and so disliked that Americans do “rise up” in some sort of rebellion so that they can try to remake this nation in the image that they want – which is essentially a Christian theocracy full of gun nuts.

The question I always like to ask conservatives is, why would Republicans actively try to help make our government more efficient and trustworthy when a large premise of their entire political platform is based upon how inefficient and corrupt our government is?

The nonsense conservatives actually believe is absolutely absurd.

And while I’m not saying that the Republican party is some blood-thirsty terrorist group that wants to kill Americans, I do honestly believe that they are in large part a group of individuals who are actively rooting for the failure of the United States. Because that’s the only way they can get what they want, which is a complete teardown of this country so that they can try to turn it into the Christian theocracy that they’ve always wanted.

Unfortunately for them, the Constitution as it stands now prevents them from doing that. And sadly for all of us, they just can’t seem to come to grips with that fact.

Pat Robertson Calls For Establishing Biblical Law As The Law Of The Land

Pat Robertson is openly calling for replacing the Constitution with the Bible as the law of the land.

In the Constitution, you will not find any reference to the Bible whatsoever. No mention of Jesus, God, the disciples, prophets, Satan, angels, demons, Christianity, or even of the book itself. The only mention of religion in the document states that we the people have the freedom to practice whatever religion we choose and prohibits the government from establishing a state sponsored religion.

For over 220 years, the Constitution had been the foundation of our government and legal system. But ever since the Constitution became the law of the land, religious fundamentalists have tried time and time again to shred it in favor of biblical law. In the last 70 years alone, conservative “Christians” have made every effort to turn America from a religiously neutral nation of laws into a theocracy.

They have never been closer to achieving their dangerous and destructive goal than they are at this moment. And now Pat Robertson is openly calling for replacing the Constitution with the Bible.

During his 700 Club program on Monday, Robertson claimed that freedom will be lost if Americans don’t accept biblical law right now. He also claimed that biblical law has always been the foundation of the United States.

“This country was raised as honoring the Bible, how far have we come now where we have allowed a few atheists to destroy the very foundations of our culture and we’re in danger of losing all of our freedom because our freedom rests, ladies and gentlemen, rests on the word of God,” Robertson said.

Robertson said God is why we have rights and why we have justice and that now accepting the Bible as the law would amount to giving up our freedom and guaranteeing injustice. He then claimed America would transform into a brutal dictatorship unless we trash the Constitution and surrender to biblical law.

“You take away the Bible and you have the Nazis and you have the Communists and you have the dictators and you have evil rampant. America is still a Christian country but is far, far, far away from where it used to be,” Robertson concluded.

Here’s the video via Right Wing Watch:

Christian Taliban Cleric Gordon Klingenschmitt Running for Office to ‘Oppose a Theocracy'

Gordon Klingenschmitt, the disgraced Navy chaplain who was discharged for his refusal to obey explicit orders that he not use his uniform as a prop in a protest demanding that Jesus’ name be used in military prayers, recently threw his hat into the District 15 Colorado House race.

Klingenschmitt promises to oppose education standards and to fight for the repeal of evil “gun-grabbing laws,” but the reality of his intentions are more chilling. Klingenschmitt, for example, has stated that God doesn’t want gay people to have health care. He wants “Worthy of death” printed of gay couples’ wedding photos. He has pushed the idea that transgender women want access to the women’s restroom so they can rape their fellow occupants. He firmly believes that people who, according to his religion, are not going to heaven do not deserve to be treated equally by the government. “If they’re not going to get eternal benefits in Heaven, why should we give them government rewards here on this earth?” Klingenschmitt asked. “I don’t think we should.”

Given his incredibly bigoted and, frankly, horrible stance on just about everything, the fact that this man wants to go anywhere near policy is alarming enough–but his stated reason for wanting to run is far more alarming, as it shows exactly how delusional this man is.

Klingenschmitt explains in a campaign ad that he is running to impose oppose a theocracy that he claims Democrats are trying to implement in the state of Colorado. That’s right–the Democrats. Are. Implementing. A. Theocracy.

This one you have to see to believe: