make us a god who will go before us

conservative faith leaders visiting the white house lay their hands on trump to pray for him.

i told them, ‘whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ then they gave me the gold, and i threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” [exodus 32:24]

it's called "natural selection" for a reason

evolutionary biologist jerry coyne @ whyevolutionistrue:

one reader wanted to know if i was going ask [dr. eugenie scott, former head of the national center for science education (NCSE) and known as "genie" to everyone] about theistic evolution — the view that evolution happened, but was somehow guided by god. they wanted to know if she considered that "real" evolution.

i responded on this site that i hardly wanted to get into a kerfuffle about the issue with genie in public. after all, i know her position on it (theistic evolution is okay), she knows mine, and i didn't want to do battle in public, particularly when she was giving a keynote talk.

but this website is a different matter.

in fact, the question of theistic evolution did come up in genie's Q&A, when one of the audience asked genie whether she considered theistic evolution "science."

the question clearly discomfited her a bit, but i knew how she would answer. she said, correctly, that there are a huge variety of positions falling under "theistic evolution," ranging from pure deism (god created the universe, and then evolution proceeded purely naturalistically) to other forms in which god intervened to a greater or lesser extent. as we know, those interventions range from subtle ones (god tweaked certain mutations making it more likely that they would be more likely to be adaptive, or more likely to create human features), to less subtle (god inserted a soul in the human lineage) to pretty drastic interventions (god let some species evolve naturally, but brought others into existence ex nihilo).

theistic evolution is in fact the most widely accepted form of evolution in america, at least for the evolution of our species. a gallup poll in 2012 showed that 46% of americans thought god created humans ex nihilo within the last 10,000 years, 32% thought that humans evolved, but with the help of god, and only 15% thought that humans evolved without any intervention by god. in other words, roughly one in seven american accepts evolution in the same way scientists do. for every american who accepts naturalistic evolution, more than two accept god-guided evolution. (i think accepting that "god guided the process" rules out pure deism.)

genie said something like this (i didn't write down her words), "what we care about is getting the science accepted, and yes, all of these positions are compatible with science, so i have no problem considering them as science." in other words, she'd be okay if she or the NCSE could simply make religious people accept theistic evolution. for, in her view, they'd be accepting a scientific view rather than a religious one. and then they might be our allies in keeping straight creationism out of public schools.

and here i think genie is wrong — dead wrong.

theistic evolution is neither science nor scientific. while it may help some religious people oppose the teaching of strict creationism in schools (the real goal of the NCSE's accommodationism), it inculcates people with the idea that god and his supernatural acts can work hand-in-hand with physical laws to bring about a process that scientists think is purely naturalistic.

further, we have evidence against certain types of theistic evolution. there doesn't appear to be any telelogical forces driving evolution in a certain direction; there is no evidence that mutations are more likely to be useful when the environment changes, so that mutations for longer fur in mammals would occur more frequently when the climate becomes colder (this is what scientists mean when we say that "mutations are random", although "indifferent" is a better word than "random"); and we don't see violations of darwinian natural selection, that is, we don't see natural selection creating "irreducible complexity," as intelligent-design advocates maintain.

as far as we can see, then, evolution, like all things that occur in nature, is purely naturalistic; it does not require or give evidence for the intervention of a god. as laplace famously said, "we don't need that hypothesis." theistic evolution says otherwise. and that's unscientific. there is, after all, a reason that darwin called his best idea natural selection, not "divinely-aided selection."

think about it. saying that theistic evolution is scientific is equivalent to saying that yes, chemical bonds form between sodium and chloride ions, but those bonds are formed with the help of god. why not have theistic chemistry? or that the universe is expanding, but god is helping it expand. why not have theistic cosmology?

those hypotheses are unscientific because they not only posit an intervention that isn't observed, but invoke a superfluous and supernatural intervention to explain a process that can be explained adequately using pure naturalism. god is a useless "add-on" here, and that's not the way science works. science works best when we make theories that assume no more than we need to. while it's logically possible for god to be guiding particles and directing evolution, we have no evidence that this is true. theistic evolution is not required by science; it is, as we must admit, simply something tacked on to make religious people feel better about a process that, if purely naturalistic, is taken as a direct attack on their worldview.

further, theistic evolution is, to use genie's own term, a "science stopper." if you say that god is making mutations, or expanding the universe, then we need investigate no further. what we don't understand can simply be fobbed off on the will of a divine being. there's need to look for that elusive naturalistic explanation.

the tactic of considering theistic evolution as "scientific" is a purely political one. the NCSE and others (viz., the american association for the advancement of science and the national academy of sciences), feel that to get evolution accepted and taught in schools, we need religious allies. and to get those allies, we have to accept their view that evolution was guided by god, even though we don't believe it ourselves.

science makes progress only when it doesn't evoke a god. even the NCSE accepts that "methodological naturalism" — the rejection of divine hypotheses — is the way that science has progressed. so why reject god when you're doing science, but then admit on the sly that he might be in there working away subtly and, perhaps, undetectably? that is a political view, not a scientific one, and it dilutes and pollutes the scientific enterprise. it also gives the public the false idea that theistic evolution is somehow okay with scientists.

it isn't. no evolutionary biologist puts in her scientific papers a note to the effect that god might be involved in the process she's studying. anyone doing that would be laughed out of the field. so if scientists reject theistic evolution in their own work, why accept it when the public believes it? it's pure hypocrisy to do so, and a blatant attempt to coddle believers.

i'd rather stand up for the purity and naturalism of science than accept forms of science that invoke god. yes, i'll be glad to work with religious people to help expel creationism from schools — and theistic evolution is a form of creationism!. what i won't do is give my imprimatur to a form of evolution that includes the supernatural. until we have some evidence for the supernatural in science — and we certainly don't at this point — let's not grant it simply to gain allies. that is a false alliance that, in the end, creates a public misunderstanding of science.

it is ironic that the national center for science education is willing to include theistic evolution as "scientific." it is wrong, it is hypocritical, and it's a cynical political tactic unbecoming to scientists. the NCSE has done terrific work in keeping creationism out of schools. but in saying that theistic evolution is "scientific," as genie did on sunday, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. what is science profited if we help evolution get accepted more widely, but in so doing lose our own scientific soul?

GOP gotta lotta splainin' to do

remember november 2012? (and who doesn't!) back when the new buzzword in republican punditry was "outreach"? if the last two presidential elections taught them nothing else, conservatives learned that they need to channel the coming demographic tide in their direction or be swept by a horde of icky brown people into irrelevance. to that end, frustrated red-staters, sick of slogans and spin, think they can woo hard-to-get traditionally democratic voters with blunt and honest "straight talk" — that is, by "splainin'" to people (whom they'd prefer to keep ignoring) just how dense and gullible they are for not believing the grand old party has their better interests at heart. all it takes is the right message to penetrate the fog. i mean, what else could account for the inexplicable blindness of women and minorities to the grade-A 100% all-american awesomeness of the "right" wing?

1) manSplainin':

i'm no dummy. i see what i see EVERY election cycle, and what i see is the same OL' SH!T. the democrats HYPNOTIZE the females against the 'traditional old white guy' party republican candidate and IT WORKS.

i feel like this is the TOP ISSUE which republican candidates must confront, and that will require OPENLY DISCUSSING THE MANIPULATION OF FEMALES BY DEMOCRATS. [VA governor candidate ken] cuccinelli needs to proclaim "you females are smarter than subjecting yourself to being USED by the PROVEN LIAR democrats!.. DON'T FALL FOR IT. YOU FELL FOR OBAMACARE, HOOK LINE AND SINKER. YOU WERE LIED TO, LADIES, AND THEY'RE LYING TO YOU AGAIN!! THEY AREN'T WHO OR WHAT THEY SAY THEY ARE."

i'm F'ing SICK AND TIRED of watching females huddle together with marxists, totally clueless that they've put their children's futures in jeopardy in exchange for a totally bogus emotional catharsis of the moment. i cannot stand this anymore. i'm SICK of it.

2) whiteSplainin':

3) gringoSplainin':

latinos need to be taught that the democrats have been lying to them, and bankrupting the country, since before most of them were born. somebody has to pay for those free school breakfasts, and even the white billionaires don't have that much money; the money is either borrowed (and your children and grandchildren will pay it back), or it's taxed out of the pockets of working men and women. they need to be taught that the GOP way gives the workers more money because they keeps more of their wages, rather than paying more in taxes; and that the GOP way creates more jobs, and better jobs for everyone.

most of all, they need to be taught that as reagan said, the best welfare program anyone ever invented is a job. get a good job and you can buy all the education, health care, and housing you and your family will ever need. and the way to get good jobs is to get the democratic party's enormous government out of the way, and let entrepreneurs create the jobs.

[democrats] pander to them with the same lame promises they dupe the african americans with.... hope that we can get enough votes to redistribute all the advantages your way.

the flood gates were left open and now we must deal. i agree the black vote will not leave obama so the latin vote looms a bigger prize. as conservatives we MUST start to court the ideas of family and religion to this voting block. when the latinos wake up to the fact that the liberal mind wants to crush their spirituality they will revolt. i say just run some bill maher episodes on secularism as your ad campaign....

republicans need to quit playing defense. they need to find a couple of good telegenic spanish speakers who will go on telemundo and univision look straight into the camera and ask — "we're just wondering ... are latins the new blacks?"

4) gentileSplainin':

when asked how the [messianic jewish bible institute] managed to secure [former president george w.] bush to keynote its fundraiser, [alisa] stephenson [MJBI director of events and partner relations] cited its track record of drawing influential speakers, pointing to the appearance by [right wing ideologue glenn] beck.

at last year's event, members of the MJBI's board of directors explained the organization's mission of converting jews to an audience of hundreds who were seated on a professional football field, wearing formal clothes, and eating pork barbecue. rabbi jonathan bernis, a leading messianic jew and televangelist who chairs MJBI's board of directors, maintained that "our numbers are growing and growing," because "the bible predicted that the day would come when the blindness would come off the eyes of the people it all began with." he was referring to jews.

the first step towards solving any problem is, of course, admitting that the problem exists. as far as the GOP's concerned, the problem isn't that the party's constructed a series of strawmen, scapegoats and bogeymen to serve as red meat and chew toys for its shrinking reactionary base. no, the real problem is getting all those icky strawmen, scapegoats and bogeymen to agree that they're idiots for not voting republican. but something tells me, however, that their hearts just aren't into it — or you.

no thanks, wolf

(art and story by tom tomorrow)

as is man, so is god

(story and art by reuben bolling)

"better than science"

after forty long hours in the desert and forty long hours on the mountaintop, indefatigable texas birther rudy davis descends unto youTube to deliver the gospel:

... i probably spent about eighty hours, maybe more, so far researching this, reading books, going to various websites, using the knowledge that i've gained in my physics class — lemmee share a little bit about my background and this isn't me like braggin' on my background, there's nothin' to brag about. y'know, when you ask me about my credentials are, i know how to use a shovel and, uh, i can clean a pretty good litter box, but i did go through four years of college and obtained a electrical engineering degree, with a minor in mechanical engineering, and, um, i passed my calculus classes. i loved calculus, i love math. i, uh, passed my trigonometry, geometry, analytical geometry, um, y'know, physics, uh, thermodynamics — i loved all that stuff. i love, y'know, mathematics and science since it was one of my favorite topics.

i'm not, um, completely ... uneducated. but i'm not the smartest guy in the world either. i'm not here saying i'm smarter than anybody — i think, for these things, the lord has to lead you into this, sort of, belief, uh, and you have to have a biblical perspective in order to understand what i'm about to say ...

and after a short digression into 9-11 trutherism:

... so i want you to think back, y'know, when somebody first told you that, t—, your reaction. 'cause what i'm about to say, i'm not sayin' for shock value. i couldn't care less if you like me or you din't like me, i could care less about, uh, how many subscribers i have. what i'm about to say i'm telling you because i believe it's the truth and i know 99.99 percent of you are going to reject it. i rejected it when i first heard it, until i started lookin' into it more, 'til i started reading my bible, 'til i started, uh, understanding, uh, a little bit more about the things that we've been told, and, uh, i would just ask you to look into it before you jump to the conclusion that i'm an absolute nut. and, again i'm just telling you this because there are — there's gonna be point-zero-zero-zero-one percent of you that, uh, is gonna receive it, just like, just like i received it and just like, y'know, there, there's a few, there's a few that can weed through all the BS that we've been told in this world and see what's goin' on.

but i wanna declare, uh, that i am a geocentrist. and uh, what a geocentrist is, is someone who believes that the earth is the center of the universe and does not move. lemmee say that again. the earth does not move, it does not rotate, it does not revolve, it does not, uh, go around the sun and it does not wobble. the bible says the earth cannot be moved. and, uh, that's what i'm goin' with.

and, y'know, when it comes to copernicus, galileo, uh, kepler, uh, carl sagan and einstein, all of 'em are flim-fam— flam artists. i believe they're all con artists and they're basically in a satanic deception that put forth satan's very, very first blue-ribbon lie. y'know — well, uh, you could go all the way back to the garden of eden, so i wouldn't say it's his first, but, uh, satan's blue-ribbon lie, at least one of them, is that the, uh, earth moves around the sun. okay? that absolutely is not true and i believe it with all my heart.

... now do i believe that carl sagan, einstein, kepler, uh ... uh ... copernicus and galileo were in some, y'know, plot where they communicated with each other? no, i don't believe they were communicatin' with each other through the centuries but what i do believe is, uh, that satan allows certain people to be puffed up with pride an' this world promotes, uh people and they get too smart for their, for their own good an' they just put out absolute BS. i mean we've just been lied to upon lied to.

... some people say that y'know, uh "the bible does, does not say how the heavens go, but the bible tells us how to go to heaven." in other words, they're tryin' to say that the bible is not a sci— is not a science book. but i would say that the bible is better than a science book. the bible is better [chuckling] than any science book ever written. and if it says the earth doesn't move, then it doesn't freakin' move. and uh, that's one thing you need to know about me. and, and you may be a christian watching this thinkin' i'm an absolute kook, but know this: when i read that bible, the difference between me and other christians is when i read that bible i believe what it says. i don't try to fit into my little, uh, box of how i think god should be or how the universe should be. if the bible says it, that's the way that it is. and i don't believe the king james bible has any errors.

that's right, folks, a hardcore wingnut conspiracy theorist who never doubted a rumor found in his yahoo inbox is calling a satanic hoax on the last 500 years of scientific discovery. eighty hours of what passes as deep thought in rudy's mind and the bible (king james version only, accept no imitations!) is all any right-thinking patriot needs.

to supply the perfect counterpoint to rudy's admitted defiant anti-intellectualism, enter working physicist sean carroll, someone who's certainly spent more than eighty hours on the subject. sean casually explains what real scientists and real mathematicians already know — the "known knowns", so to speak, wherein neither god nor satan nor any other strange supernatural, metaphysical or paranormal beings, forces or powers are anywhere to be found:

so, the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood. the reason why i emphasize this is because scientists, and skeptics for that matter, love to go right to the unknown things. there are many, many things that are unknown, from dark matter to quantum gravity to finance, okay? but there are also things that are known. and among the things that are known are how the matter around us in our everyday life actually works. and it's not just "we have a theory that works." it's better than that. we know that there are no new parts of nature that we haven't found yet that could exert a substantial influence over our everyday lives. there are no new particles or forces that could be relevant to your everyday life that science hasn't found yet.

... so we've looked. there could be plenty of new particles of nature, but they must be either weakly interacting, too heavy to create or too short-lived to detect. what that means is that they can't possibly be very relevant to your everyday life. they cannot affect your consciousness, you cannot blame them for being in a bad mood. you and everyone you know is made up of the standard model of particle physics and nothing else.

... we've ruled out every possible force that is both long range and strong enough to notice.

... the conclusion is that as far as the immediate world of experience is concerned, as far as what you see and touch and taste and feel as you go through your everyday life, we have the theory. we're done. that does not mean that we understand everything, but the underlying laws that describe what baseballs are made out of, or tables or living beings, we understand that. it's electrons and quarks with masses from the higgs field interacting via those forces. that's the everyday world.

... when it comes to the everyday world, we have figured out what the pieces are and what direction they can move in. that does not make us good world players or chess players. it does constrain the kind of games you can play. if someone has come up with a new chess strategy that involves the rook moving diagonally, you know that you can rule that out without listening to their elaborate presentation on it. likewise, if someone has a great new theory of living their lives that involves homeopathy or astrology, you can tune them out without listening to the details. because just knowing the fact that the standard model of particle physics is the right theory of the matter that makes up the everyday world is immediately enough to rule out a whole host of possible phenomena. anything you can't do with electrons, protons, neutrons, gravity and electromagnetism, you can't do in your basement.

... you cannot bend spoons with your mind — unless your mind tells your other arm to go out and bend the spoon. but you can't just do it with a new force emanating from your cortex because there are no such forces. you cannot predict the future, see around corners, the position of saturn when you were born sadly irrelevant to the rest of your life, blah-blah-blah ...

and in fact we known there is no life after death. sometimes even atheists and skeptics like to be open-minded about this because we haven't done all the right double-blind experiments, blah-blah-blah ... forget it! if you believe in life after death, tell me what particles contain the information that moves your soul from place to place. is it electrons? 'cause those would be easy to notice cause electrons are electrically charged and it's actually quite a lot of charge. is it atoms? but the atoms don't move very much when you die. if you believe that there's some way that you have an immortal soul that travels from place to place, then you're not just saying we don't know how it works, you are saying that our current knowledge of the laws of physics is wrong. which means you better give me a good reason to believe that our current knowledge of the laws of physics is wrong, because it's not, and i'm going to move on to more interesting things.

most of science's work, certainly that part which concerns everday human experience, has been done. science can explain through natural causes everything we do and everything that effects us between waking and sleeping, including waking and sleeping. whatever important unknowns remain lie beyond john q. public's quotidian concerns.

sean argues that even gravity, one of the universe's most ubiquitous, constant and far-reaching forces, can be ignored as "utterly, utterly irrelevant" to our lives since it is also one of the weakest. air travelers might quibble, but his point is that the activity of any purported forces or beings that supposedly affect or manipulate human lives on any regular and significant level would have to be stronger than gravity — and therefore, like gravity, noticable and provable. so we would have already noticed by now if any undiscovered entities were regularly intervening in the world by stopping bullets from hitting people or picking sides at sporting events. and we certainly know enough to ignore out-of-hand rudy's entreaties for us to "educate ourselves" by following up on his so-called research since it defies everything real scientists have discovered.

to justify itself, every religion claims to be not just relevant but inseparable and indispensible to the human experience — all while hiding just beyond reach in the supernatural. but science has yet to find any human activity that can't be explained by some combination of the natural forces we've thus far discovered. despite or because of the worst abuses of religion, the history of science has been the inexorable balkanization of gods and ghosts onto smaller and smaller islands of possibility. sorry rudy, but as of today, atlantis is sunk — even the king james version.

there is a cult of ignorance in the united states, and there has always been. the strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge".
— issac asimov

stuff i don't believe in

1. religion and the supernatural
   • gods and deities
   • angels, demons and the semi-devine
   • heaven, hell and the afterlife
   • ghosts and poltergeists
   • souls, reincarnation and past lives
   • etc
2. prophecy and fortune-telling
3. witchcraft, magic and talismans
4. monsters and weird creatures
   • vampires
   • zombies
   • werewolves
   • fairies and elves
   • big foot, yetis and sasquatch
   • etc
5. pseudoscience and superstition
   • astrology
   • numerology
   • palmistry
   • dowsing
   • deepak chopra
   • etc
6. the paranormal
   • psychic powers
   • clairvoyance
   • telepathy
   • telekenisis
   • astral projection
   • etc
7. science fantasy
   • ufos and alien visitations
   • time travel
   • faster-than-light travel
   • etc
8. conspiracy theory
   • too numerous to list


9. etc

or in other words, just about anything left on the history channel.

while i enjoy speculation as well as anyone, ultimately i believe only in reason, the power of logic and the empirical method of acquiring facts and knowledge through the gathering and testing of evidence. if you come to me professing a belief in ghosts or ufos, don't expect me to take you seriously and do expect me to be skeptical of everything else you say.

still struggling to come out

as everyone knows, second to the initial struggle with accepting an identity that conflicts with the mainstream (especially an antagonistic mainstream), is the painful exodus of even longtime friends unwilling to accompany much less support the journey:

i never post on free republic, although i come here everyday, but something has been bothering me and i'm not exactly sure how to handle it.

ever since his holiness obama has made his gay marriage proclamation, my facebook feed has been inundated by posts from my gay friends about it.

i haven't responded to any of the posts, because i know it would be go over well. none of my friends responses by others has been anything except positive (from the gay point of view).

i'm smart enough to know that not everyone believes in gay marriage, and the ones who feel as i do just don't want to get involved because they don't feel the hassle is worth it.

my issue is that i'm sick to death reading those idiotic posts day after day. i'm fed up and I WILL respond eventually, but when i do, i want to do so calmly, and in a way where i won't come across as a homophobe. i know when i respond i'll lose at least half my gay friends, which sucks, but that's life i guess.

does anyone have suggestions on how i could respond civily? i tend to think i'll leave religion out of it, because i want to come across rationally, and when religion gets into the mix, rationality goes out the window instantly.

i apologize for the lame post, i'm extremely new at this.

— "sporke"

well, that is a painful dilemma, isn't it?

while i'm sure "sporke" isn't the first homophobe to struggle with coming out of the closet, to those taking their first steps, it often feels that way. but whom better to turn to for rational guidance than the "guns-god-and-country"-loving patriots at the wingnut waterhole free republic?

i must admit to my own struggle just sifting out the gold from this rich vein of wingnut wisdom. the first response pretty much summed up the practical advice:

are they real life friends, or FB friends?

if the latter....just unfriend them! no matter WHAT you say...they’ll label you a phobe anyway.

or, say your peace and THEN "unfriend" them.

if the former? they should already know how you feel.

my 2 cents....

— "brad's gramma"

dr. lecter suggests staying in the closet:

anything you say can, and most certainly will, be used against you on facebook. best to leave it be.

— "helloooClareece"

unfortunately there is no response they would consider civil. it's there way or the highway.

BTW the vast majority of people of all ages highly disapprove of the gay agenda.

this has been repeatedly born out by popular elections.

— "cyberSpartacus"

which BTW explains why there are no openly gay elected officials ...

i'm so glad i came across this post, i have been struggling with this as well. i have been trying to compose a response in my head and couldn't quite figure out how to respond to some posts.

after reading what other people have commented, i have decided that they are right and there is nothing you can say that won't make you sound "evil" for disagreeing.

at least we have somewhere to go with like minded people. :-)

— "mrsadams"

it may not be facebook, but sporke's making and helping new friends already!

i have lots of gay friends on facebook and those who vehemently support them. their primary reason for supporting gay marriage is that they hate the dogmatic intolerance of the religious right trying to dictate to them how they should live and what they should believe. in their attempt to sway us away from our beliefs and doctrines for its intolerance, they often display the most hateful,vicious intolerance themselves for those with whom they disagree. the hypocrisy is lost on them. do not trouble yourself to respond.

— "erkyl"

we like our intolerance just fine, thank you!

the only reason homosexuality is wrong is because god said so.

— "donna"

which, until god changes his mind, should be good enough for everyone!

... you could also point out to your gay friends that they already have the right to marry—everyone does as long as they marry someone of the opposite sex. gay people CHOOSE not to exercise these rights. they aren’t denied anything. they want special privileges. why should two able-bodied gay men who can work their whole lives without ever producing children together get special privileges?

— "dupree"

and up to now i thought that this talking point was universally recognized even by wingnuts for the cynical absurdist joke it is. apparently, not everyone is in on it.

i don’t have any "gay" friends, wouldn’t associate with anyone gay, won’t work with anyone gay (that i’m aware of) because my views are well known on the subject and folks know exactly where i stand.

— "maddog55"

well, alrighty then — problem solved! forever!

(cross-posted at daily kos)

the fluke contraception deception

the numbers are out and in a surprise to no one but conservatives, it turns out that women do not like being called "sluts":

the biggest change came among women under 50. in mid-february, just under half of those voters supported obama. now more than six in 10 do while romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. the president leads him 2-1 in this group.

republicans' traditional strength among men "won't be good enough if we're losing women by nine points or 10 points," says sara taylor fagen, a republican strategist and former political adviser to president george w. bush. "the focus on contraception has not been a good one for us ... and republicans have unfairly taken on water on this issue." (usa today/gallup)

"unfairly"? well, cry me a river ... one which appears to be roaring right through our favorite wingnut watering hole free republic, where you will never find a more wretched hive of chauvinism and misogyny.

and they're wond'ring where all the wimmenfolk went ...

unfortunately, to some women, especially single ones, government is daddy, husband, lover and provider all rolled up into one. (scottinVA)

but isn't that the model wingnut family? (cue "dueling banjos")

women are "wired" that way.

the 'rats and their mentor, satan, knew what they were doing when they destroyed the support structure called "marriage" and "family".

the title should say "boosted by SINGLE AND DIVORCED women voters..." (mrB)

bingo - a lot of the women i know politically are mostly selfish, self centered, ditzes who only care about abortion, birth control, etc. (glockThe Vote)

translation: "they didn't wanna touch my glock!"

why do they keep calling these free contraceptives? someone is paying for them. and are rat women so gullible that they'll vote for a guy who is killing us at the pump, thermostat, grocery store and job market - not to mention the little matter of national security, just to get "free" birth control??? (aria)

if these women don't like romney they sure as heck aren't going to vote for santorum. obama's little birth control scheme seems to be working. i think republicans need to do some intense opposition research into obama's donors. the candidates need to start talking about all the dirt that's been coming out on him. make him look like the crooked chicago politician that he is. (jersey117)

riiiiiight. because in four years nobody's tried that yet ...

the social issues bs makes me want to scream. birth control? FNG really???

women voters in general are easily scammed. (glockThe Vote)

that they are. i'm here to tell you — they're buying this issue hook, line, and sinker. bunches of women i know are convinced that EVIL republicans have only one agenda ...and that is to make birth control ILLEGAL in this country.

i kid you not. they are convinced. rational, otherwise intelligent women. this flat out LIE has worked like a charm.

but, who is surprised. america has and is going down due to this very issue at the heart of it. we've contracepted ourselves so much that we've had to import workers. we have aborted so many we dont' have a tax paying base anymore to support all the elderly OR the freeloading immigrants. radical feminism has done its trick on this country ...and continues to do so, destroying marriage, family, and a strong moral base. why be surprised? many women are in love with themselves and their own power and new-found freedom to screw up their lives with oblivion. (libsRJerks)

repeal the 19th amendment. (sharpRightTurn)

sure glad we gave them the vote. (dagogo redux)

because women vote for appeals to emotion. that is the democrat party's specialty. (longbow1969)

and the GOP's specialty? appeals to idiocy ...

young single women want to go on killing their unborn babies. and now they really believe evil republicans are going to completely ban contraception. the fluke contraception deception worked perfectly. (protectOurFreedom)

tricking rush into a three-day tirade was the easy part. tricking wingnuts into defending him? actually, that was easy too ...

woman — being fooled by snakes since the garden. (bmwcyle)

the "war on women" paying dividends.

dems would never win without the woman voter advantage. (tigerClaws)

alas, the unfairness of it all ...

it won't matter -- those ideological women voters are blind to everything except what they want to see, their "vision". by teasing up reproductive issues, obozo is rattling their chains, they just don't know it.

giving women the vote was a civilizational mistake that will kill the republic. women don't want anything like what men do from government, and the republic was constructed around a male electorate. women's brain processes make them the very, very last people anyone anywhere should want next to the levers of republican government, and that's even allowing for real exceptions like margaret thatcher and sarah palin.

overeducated, barren, man-hating democrat women will turn america into a despotate, and then a wasteland -- like something out of hellboy. (lentulusgracchus)

unlike the patriarchal heaven-on-earth that is saudi arabia, or even afghanistan, eh, lentulus?

now i'm pretty sure that free republic, every dittohead's little patch of heaven on the internet, is by no means men-only. i'm pretty sure freeperville has some members that at least have claimed to be female. i'm pretty sure i can remember reading the praises of these culture-war-hardened survivalists for the fierceness and independence of their mothers, mates and daughters. so where are all the wimmenfolk? none showed up today, or more certainly, no one either female or male showed up to crash this little meeting of the "he-man women haters club":

so if not unfettered misogyny, what kind of hate speech proves simply too intolerable for the neanderthals on this thread?

cut it out psycho. santorum can’t be blamed for splitting the vote, but we know who polls lower than rick with women and he is the one with the second fewest delegates.

so cut the hate. (dforest)

... just leave little ricky alooooone!

a rick santorum presidency

see also:

"a rick perry presidency"
"a michelle bachmann presidency"
"a herman cain presidency"
"a mitt romney presidency"
"a newt gingrich presidency"

the art of the backdown

(former) pastor melvin thompson:

the parents wanted to know exactly who had a problem with their future son-in-law.

"me, for one," thompson replied. he added, "the best thing [stella] can do is take him back where she found him."

i do not believe in interracial marriages, and i do not believe this [ban] will give our church a black eye at all.

an eastern kentucky church under a firestorm of criticism since members voted to bar mixed-race couples from joining the congregation overturned that decision sunday ...

... thompson has said he is not racist and called the matter an "internal affair."

thompson has since been replaced with a new pastor who said that everyone was welcome at the church.

see:
"kentucky church votes to ban interracial couples"
"ky church overturns ban on interracial couples"
"pastor nullifies church ban on interracial couples"

jonah and the beast

jonah escapes the belly of the beast, with a message for cap'n ahab ...

goodbye to all that:
reflections of a GOP operative who left the cult
by mike lofgren, retired GOP congressional staffer

barbara stanwyck:		we're both rotten!
fred macmurray:		yeah — only you're a little more rotten.
"double indemnity" (1944)

those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary america. both parties are rotten — how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? both parties are captives to corporate loot. the main reason the democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests — no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to big pharma.

but both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. the democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

to those millions of americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the republican party is so full of lunatics. to be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like robert k. dornan or william e. dannemeyer. but the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: steve king, michele bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), paul broun, patrick mchenry, virginia foxx, louie gohmert, allen west. the congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

it was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on capitol hill. a couple of months ago, i retired; but i could see as early as last november that the republican party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of world war II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.

the debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 federal aviation administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel — how prudent is that? — in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.

everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. this fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the bob dole era in terms of its orientation. for instance, ezra klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while house republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. of course they might — the attitude of many freshman republicans to national default was "bring it on!"

it should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the republican party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century europe. this trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

in his "manual of parliamentary practice," thomas jefferson wrote that it is less important that every rule and custom of a legislature be absolutely justifiable in a theoretical sense, than that they should be generally acknowledged and honored by all parties. these include unwritten rules, customs and courtesies that lubricate the legislative machinery and keep governance a relatively civilized procedure. the US senate has more complex procedural rules than any other legislative body in the world; many of these rules are contradictory, and on any given day, the senate parliamentarian may issue a ruling that contradicts earlier rulings on analogous cases.

the only thing that can keep the senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. during periods of political consensus, for instance, the world war II and early post-war eras, the senate was a "high functioning" institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. now, one can no more picture the current senate producing the original medicare act than the old supreme soviet having legislated the bill of rights.

far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a republican filibuster. under the circumstances, it is no wonder that washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the reichstag of the weimar republic. as hannah arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.

john p. judis sums up the modern GOP this way:

over the last four decades, the republican party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. it is the party of watergate and iran-contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. if there is an earlier american precedent for today's republican party, it is the antebellum southern democrats of john calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery.

a couple of years ago, a republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. should republicans succeed in obstructing the senate from doing its job, it would further lower congress's generic favorability rating among the american people. by sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

a deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. there are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. these voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." this ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s — a distrust that has been stoked by republican rhetoric at every turn ("government is the problem," declared ronald reagan in 1980).

the media are also complicit in this phenomenon. ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness. paul krugman has skewered this tactic as being the "centrist cop-out." "i joked long ago," he says, "that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read 'views differ on shape of planet.'"

inside-the-beltway wise guy chris cillizza merely proves krugman right in his washington post analysis of "winners and losers" in the debt ceiling impasse. he wrote that the institution of congress was a big loser in the fracas, which is, of course, correct, but then he opined: "lawmakers — bless their hearts — seem entirely unaware of just how bad they looked during this fight and will almost certainly spend the next few weeks (or months) congratulating themselves on their tremendous magnanimity." note how the pundit's ironic deprecation falls like the rain on the just and unjust alike, on those who precipitated the needless crisis and those who despaired of it. he seems oblivious that one side — or a sizable faction of one side — has deliberately attempted to damage the reputation of congress to achieve its political objectives.

this constant drizzle of "there the two parties go again!" stories out of the news bureaus, combined with the hazy confusion of low-information voters, means that the long-term republican strategy of undermining confidence in our democratic institutions has reaped electoral dividends. the united states has nearly the lowest voter participation among western democracies; this, again, is a consequence of the decline of trust in government institutions — if government is a racket and both parties are the same, why vote? and if the uninvolved middle declines to vote, it increases the electoral clout of a minority that is constantly being whipped into a lather by three hours daily of rush limbaugh or fox news. there were only 44 million republican voters in the 2010 mid-term elections, but they effectively canceled the political results of the election of president obama by 69 million voters.

this tactic of inducing public distrust of government is not only cynical, it is schizophrenic. for people who profess to revere the constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document. this is not to say that there is not some theoretical limit to the size or intrusiveness of government; i would be the first to say there are such limits, both fiscal and constitutional. but most republican officeholders seem strangely uninterested in the effective repeal of fourth amendment protections by the patriot act, the weakening of habeas corpus and self-incrimination protections in the public hysteria following 9/11 or the unpalatable fact that the united states has the largest incarcerated population of any country on earth. if anything, they would probably opt for more incarcerated persons, as imprisonment is a profit center for the prison privatization industry, which is itself a growth center for political contributions to these same politicians.[1] instead, they prefer to rail against those government programs that actually help people. and when a program is too popular to attack directly, like medicare or social security, they prefer to undermine it by feigning an agonized concern about the deficit. that concern, as we shall see, is largely fictitious.

undermining americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. but if this technique falls short of producing karl rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's new jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back. ever since republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last november, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in wisconsin, republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting department of motor vehicles (DMV) offices in democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.

this legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of american history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the middle east was a signature policy of the bush administration. but domestically, they don't want those people voting.

you can probably guess who those people are. above all, anyone not likely to vote republican. as sarah palin would imply, the people who are not real americans. racial minorities. immigrants. muslims. gays. intellectuals. basically, anyone who doesn't look, think, or talk like the GOP base. this must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of president obama. i have joked in the past that the main administration policy that republicans object to is obama's policy of being black.[2] among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the good, the true and the beautiful: subversives. commies. socialists. ragheads. secular humanists. blacks. fags. feminazis. the list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.

it is not clear to me how many GOP officeholders believe this reactionary and paranoid claptrap. i would bet that most do not. but they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base with a nod and a wink. during the disgraceful circus of the "birther" issue, republican politicians subtly stoked the fires of paranoia by being suggestively equivocal — "i take the president at his word" — while never unambiguously slapping down the myth. john huntsman was the first major GOP figure forthrightly to refute the birther calumny — albeit after release of the birth certificate.

i do not mean to place too much emphasis on racial animus in the GOP. while it surely exists, it is also a fact that republicans think that no democratic president could conceivably be legitimate. republicans also regarded bill clinton as somehow, in some manner, twice fraudulently elected (well do i remember the elaborate conspiracy theories that republicans traded among themselves). had it been hillary clinton, rather than barack obama, who had been elected in 2008, i am certain we would now be hearing, in lieu of the birther myths, conspiracy theories about vince foster's alleged murder.

the reader may think that i am attributing svengali-like powers to GOP operatives able to manipulate a zombie base to do their bidding. it is more complicated than that. historical circumstances produced the raw material: the deindustrialization and financialization of america since about 1970 has spawned an increasingly downscale white middle class — without job security (or even without jobs), with pensions and health benefits evaporating and with their principal asset deflating in the collapse of the housing bubble. their fears are not imaginary; their standard of living is shrinking.

what do the democrats offer these people? essentially nothing. democratic leadership council-style "centrist" democrats were among the biggest promoters of disastrous trade deals in the 1990s that outsourced jobs abroad: NAFTA, world trade organization, permanent most-favored-nation status for china. at the same time, the identity politics/lifestyle wing of the democratic party was seen as a too illegal immigrant-friendly by downscaled and outsourced whites.[3]

while democrats temporized, or even dismissed the fears of the white working class as racist or nativist, republicans went to work. to be sure, the business wing of the republican party consists of the most energetic outsourcers, wage cutters and hirers of sub-minimum wage immigrant labor to be found anywhere on the globe. but the faux-populist wing of the party, knowing the mental compartmentalization that occurs in most low-information voters, played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations' bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let's build a wall on the southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). instead of predatory bankers, it's evil muslims. or evil gays. or evil abortionists.

how do they manage to do this? because democrats ceded the field. above all, they do not understand language. their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: the patient protection and affordable care act. the what? — can anyone even remember it? no wonder the pejorative "obamacare" won out. contrast that with the republicans' patriot act. you're a patriot, aren't you? does anyone at the GED level have a clue what a stimulus bill is supposed to be? why didn't the white house call it the jobs bill and keep pounding on that theme?

you know that social security and medicare are in jeopardy when even democrats refer to them as entitlements. "entitlement" has a negative sound in colloquial english: somebody who is "entitled" selfishly claims something he doesn't really deserve. why not call them "earned benefits," which is what they are because we all contribute payroll taxes to fund them? that would never occur to the democrats. republicans don't make that mistake; they are relentlessly on message: it is never the "estate tax," it is the "death tax." heaven forbid that the walton family should give up one penny of its $86-billion fortune. all of that lucre is necessary to ensure that unions be kept out of wal-mart, that women employees not be promoted and that politicians be kept on a short leash.

it was not always thus. it would have been hard to find an uneducated farmer during the depression of the 1890s who did not have a very accurate idea about exactly which economic interests were shafting him. an unemployed worker in a breadline in 1932 would have felt little gratitude to the rockefellers or the mellons. but that is not the case in the present economic crisis. after a riot of unbridled greed such as the world has not seen since the conquistadors' looting expeditions and after an unprecedented broad and rapid transfer of wealth upward by wall street and its corporate satellites, where is the popular anger directed, at least as depicted in the media? at "washington spending" — which has increased primarily to provide unemployment compensation, food stamps and medicaid to those economically damaged by the previous decade's corporate saturnalia. or the popular rage is harmlessly diverted against pseudo-issues: death panels, birtherism, gay marriage, abortion, and so on, none of which stands to dent the corporate bottom line in the slightest.

thus far, i have concentrated on republican tactics, rather than republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation. rather, this mindset seeks polarizing division (karl rove has been very explicit that this is his principal campaign strategy), conflict and the crushing of opposition.

as for what they really believe, the republican party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets i have laid out below. the rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing:

1. the GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. the party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of america's plutocracy. their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public. whatever else president obama has accomplished (and many of his purported accomplishments are highly suspect), his $4-trillion deficit reduction package did perform the useful service of smoking out republican hypocrisy. the GOP refused, because it could not abide so much as a one-tenth of one percent increase on the tax rates of the walton family or the koch brothers, much less a repeal of the carried interest rule that permits billionaire hedge fund managers to pay income tax at a lower effective rate than cops or nurses. republicans finally settled on a deal that had far less deficit reduction — and even less spending reduction! — than obama's offer, because of their iron resolution to protect at all costs our society's overclass.

republicans have attempted to camouflage their amorous solicitude for billionaires with a fog of misleading rhetoric. john boehner is fond of saying, "we won't raise anyone's taxes," as if the take-home pay of an olive garden waitress were inextricably bound up with whether warren buffett pays his capital gains as ordinary income or at a lower rate. another chestnut is that millionaires and billionaires are "job creators." US corporations have just had their most profitable quarters in history; apple, for one, is sitting on $76 billion in cash, more than the GDP of most countries. so, where are the jobs?

another smokescreen is the "small business" meme, since standing up for mom's and pop's corner store is politically more attractive than to be seen shilling for a megacorporation. raising taxes on the wealthy will kill small business' ability to hire; that is the GOP dirge every time bernie sanders or some democrat offers an amendment to increase taxes on incomes above $1 million. but the number of small businesses that have a net annual income over a million dollars is de minimis, if not by definition impossible (as they would no longer be small businesses). and as data from the center for economic and policy research have shown, small businesses account for only 7.2 percent of total US employment, a significantly smaller share of total employment than in most organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) countries.

likewise, republicans have assiduously spread the myth that americans are conspicuously overtaxed. but compared to other OECD countries, the effective rates of US taxation are among the lowest. in particular, they point to the top corporate income rate of 35 percent as being confiscatory bolshevism. but again, the effective rate is much lower. did GE pay 35 percent on 2010 profits of $14 billion? no, it paid zero.

when pressed, republicans make up misleading statistics to "prove" that the america's fiscal burden is being borne by the rich and the rest of us are just freeloaders who don't appreciate that fact. "half of americans don't pay taxes" is a perennial meme. but what they leave out is that that statement refers to federal income taxes. there are millions of people who don't pay income taxes, but do contribute payroll taxes — among the most regressive forms of taxation. but according to GOP fiscal theology, payroll taxes don't count. somehow, they have convinced themselves that since payroll taxes go into trust funds, they're not real taxes. likewise, state and local sales taxes apparently don't count, although their effect on a poor person buying necessities like foodstuffs is far more regressive than on a millionaire.

all of these half truths and outright lies have seeped into popular culture via the corporate-owned business press. just listen to CNBC for a few hours and you will hear most of them in one form or another. more important politically, republicans' myths about taxation have been internalized by millions of economically downscale "values voters," who may have been attracted to the GOP for other reasons (which i will explain later), but who now accept this misinformation as dogma.

and when misinformation isn't enough to sustain popular support for the GOP's agenda, concealment is needed. one fairly innocuous provision in the dodd-frank financial reform bill requires public companies to make a more transparent disclosure of CEO compensation, including bonuses. note that it would not limit the compensation, only require full disclosure. republicans are hell-bent on repealing this provision. of course; it would not serve wall street interests if the public took an unhealthy interest in the disparity of their own incomes as against that of a bank CEO. as spencer bachus, the republican chairman of the house financial services committee, says, "in washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

2. they worship at the altar of mars. while the me-too democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the joneses with respect to waging wars, they can never match GOP stalwarts such as john mccain or lindsey graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries. mccain wanted to mix it up with russia — a nuclear-armed state — during the latter's conflict with georgia in 2008 (remember? — "we are all georgians now," a slogan that did not, fortunately, catch on), while graham has been persistently agitating for attacks on iran and intervention in syria. and these are not fringe elements of the party; they are the leading "defense experts," who always get tapped for the sunday talk shows. about a month before republicans began holding a gun to the head of the credit markets to get trillions of dollars of cuts, these same republicans passed a defense appropriations bill that increased spending by $17 billion over the prior year's defense appropriation. to borrow chris hedges' formulation, war is the force that gives meaning to their lives.

a cynic might conclude that this militaristic enthusiasm is no more complicated than the fact that pentagon contractors spread a lot of bribery money around capitol hill. that is true, but there is more to it than that. it is not necessarily even the fact that members of congress feel they are protecting constituents' jobs. the wildly uneven concentration of defense contracts and military bases nationally means that some areas, like washington, DC, and san diego, are heavily dependent on department of defense (DOD) spending. but there are many more areas of the country whose net balance is negative: the citizenry pays more in taxes to support the pentagon than it receives back in local contracts.

and the economic justification for pentagon spending is even more fallacious when one considers that the $700 billion annual DOD budget creates comparatively few jobs. the days of rosie the riveter are long gone; most weapons projects now require very little touch labor. instead, a disproportionate share is siphoned off into high-cost research and development (from which the civilian economy benefits little); exorbitant management expenditures, overhead and out-and-out padding; and, of course, the money that flows back into the coffers of political campaigns. a million dollars appropriated for highway construction would create two to three times as many jobs as a million dollars appropriated for pentagon weapons procurement, so the jobs argument is ultimately specious.

take away the cash nexus and there still remains a psychological predisposition toward war and militarism on the part of the GOP. this undoubtedly arises from a neurotic need to demonstrate toughness and dovetails perfectly with the belligerent tough-guy pose one constantly hears on right-wing talk radio. militarism springs from the same psychological deficit that requires an endless series of enemies, both foreign and domestic.

the results of the last decade of unbridled militarism and the democrats' cowardly refusal to reverse it[4], have been disastrous both strategically and fiscally. it has made the united states less prosperous, less secure and less free. unfortunately, the militarism and the promiscuous intervention it gives rise to are only likely to abate when the treasury is exhausted, just as it happened to the dutch republic and the british empire.

3. give me that old time religion. pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation in the GOP. beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance in this country and grew into the major element of the republican rank and file. pat robertson's strong showing in the 1988 iowa caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. the results are all around us: if the american people poll more like iranians or nigerians than europeans or canadians on questions of evolution versus creationism, scriptural inerrancy, the existence of angels and demons, and so forth, that result is due to the rise of the religious right, its insertion into the public sphere by the republican party and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary or quaint beliefs. also around us is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science; it is this group that defines "low-information voter" — or, perhaps, "misinformation voter."

the constitution to the contrary notwithstanding, there is now a de facto religious test for the presidency: major candidates are encouraged (or coerced) to "share their feelings" about their "faith" in a revelatory speech; or, some televangelist like rick warren dragoons the candidates (as he did with obama and mccain in 2008) to debate the finer points of christology, with warren himself, of course, as the arbiter. politicized religion is also the sheet anchor of the culture wars. but how did the whole toxic stew of GOP beliefs — economic royalism, militarism and culture wars cum fundamentalism — come completely to displace an erstwhile civilized eisenhower republicanism?

it is my view that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism (which is a subset of the decline of rational problem solving in america) may have been the key ingredient of the takeover of the republican party. for politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes — at least in the minds of followers — all three of the GOP's main tenets.

televangelists have long espoused the health-and-wealth/name-it-and-claim it gospel. if you are wealthy, it is a sign of god's favor. if not, too bad! but don't forget to tithe in any case. this rationale may explain why some economically downscale whites defend the prerogatives of billionaires.

the GOP's fascination with war is also connected with the fundamentalist mindset. the old testament abounds in tales of slaughter — god ordering the killing of the midianite male infants and enslavement of the balance of the population, the divinely-inspired genocide of the canaanites, the slaying of various miscreants with the jawbone of an ass — and since american religious fundamentalist seem to prefer the old testament to the new (particularly that portion of the new testament known as the sermon on the mount), it is but a short step to approving war as a divinely inspired mission. this sort of thinking has led, inexorably, to such phenomena as jerry falwell once writing that god is pro-war.

it is the apocalyptic frame of reference of fundamentalists, their belief in an imminent armageddon, that psychologically conditions them to steer this country into conflict, not only on foreign fields (some evangelicals thought saddam was the antichrist and therefore a suitable target for cruise missiles), but also in the realm of domestic political controversy. it is hardly surprising that the most adamant proponent of the view that there was no debt ceiling problem was michele bachmann, the darling of the fundamentalist right. what does it matter, anyway, if the country defaults? — we shall presently abide in the bosom of the lord.

some liberal writers have opined that the different socio-economic perspectives separating the "business" wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. i am not so sure. there is no fundamental disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far in that direction they want to take it. the plutocrats would drag us back to the gilded age, the theocrats to the salem witch trials. in any case, those consummate plutocrats, the koch brothers, are pumping large sums of money into michele bachman's presidential campaign, so one ought not make too much of a potential plutocrat-theocrat split.

thus, the modern GOP; it hardly seems conceivable that a republican could have written the following:

should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. there is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. among them are h.l. hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. their number is negligible and they are stupid.

(that was president eisenhower, writing to his brother edgar in 1954.)

it is this broad and ever-widening gulf between the traditional republicanism of an eisenhower and the quasi-totalitarian cult of a michele bachmann that impelled my departure from capitol hill. it is not in my pragmatic nature to make a heroic gesture of self-immolation, or to make lurid revelations of personal martyrdom in the manner of david brock. and i will leave a more detailed dissection of failed republican economic policies to my fellow apostate bruce bartlett.

i left because i was appalled at the headlong rush of republicans, like gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. and, in truth, i left as an act of rational self-interest. having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.

if you think paul ryan and his ayn rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your social security and medicare, i am here to disabuse you of your naiveté.[5] they will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" — and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.

during the week that this piece was written, the debt ceiling fiasco reached its conclusion. the economy was already weak, but the GOP's disgraceful game of chicken roiled the markets even further. foreigners could hardly believe it: americans' own crazy political actions were destabilizing the safe-haven status of the dollar. accordingly, during that same week, over one trillion dollars worth of assets evaporated on financial markets. russia and china have stepped up their advocating that the dollar be replaced as the global reserve currency — a move as consequential and disastrous for US interests as any that can be imagined.

if republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and america's status as the world's leading power.

---

[1] i am not exaggerating for effect. a law passed in 2010 by the arizona legislature mandating arrest and incarceration of suspected illegal aliens was actually drafted by the american legislative exchange council, a conservative business front group that drafts "model" legislation on behalf of its corporate sponsors. the draft legislation in question was written for the private prison lobby, which sensed a growth opportunity in imprisoning more people.

[2] i am not a supporter of obama and object to a number of his foreign and domestic policies. but when he took office amid the greatest financial collapse in 80 years, i wanted him to succeed, so that the country i served did not fail. but already in 2009, mitch mcconnell, the senate republican leader, declared that his greatest legislative priority was — jobs for americans? rescuing the financial system? solving the housing collapse? — no, none of those things. his top priority was to ensure that obama should be a one-term president. evidently senator mcconnell hates obama more than he loves his country. note that the mainstream media have lately been hailing mcconnell as "the adult in the room," presumably because he is less visibly unstable than the tea party freshmen

[3] this is not a venue for immigrant bashing. it remains a fact that outsourcing jobs overseas, while insourcing sub-minimum wage immigrant labor, will exert downward pressure on US wages. the consequence will be popular anger, and failure to address that anger will result in a downward wage spiral and a breech of the social compact, not to mention a rise in nativism and other reactionary impulses. it does no good to claim that these economic consequences are an inevitable result of globalization; germany has somehow managed to maintain a high-wage economy and a vigorous industrial base.

[4] the cowardice is not merely political. during the past ten years, i have observed that democrats are actually growing afraid of republicans. in a quirky and flawed, but insightful, little book, "democracy and populism: fear and hatred," john lukacs concludes that the left fears, the right hates.

[5] the GOP cult of ayn rand is both revealing and mystifying. on the one hand, rand's tough guy, every-man-for-himself posturing is a natural fit because it puts a philosophical gloss on the latent sociopathy so prevalent among the hard right. on the other, rand exclaimed at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing but contempt for christianity. apparently, the ignorance of most fundamentalist "values voters" means that GOP candidates who enthuse over rand at the same time they thump their bibles never have to explain this stark contradiction. and i imagine a democratic officeholder would have a harder time explaining why he named his offspring "marx" than a GOP incumbent would in rationalizing naming his kid "rand."

would'ja believe ... ?

voltaire, 18th-century philosopher:

qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde est en droit de vous rendre injuste.

[those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.]

william craig lane, 21st-century christian moralist:

if we believe, as i do, that god's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of [the canaanite] children was actually their salvation. we are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven's incomparable joy. therefore, god does these children no wrong in taking their lives.

whom does god wrong in commanding the destruction of the canaanites? not the canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. not the children, for they inherit eternal life. so who is wronged? ironically, i think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the israeli soldiers themselves. can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? the brutalizing effect on these israeli soldiers is disturbing.

p.z. myers, 21st-century biologist and atheist:

it's always interesting when some god-walloper honestly follows through on the logical implications of his beliefs — he basically is compelled to admit that if you worship a tyrannical monster, you have to end up rationalizing monstrous tyrannies.

i don't think william lane craig is an intrinsically evil human being. but this is a case where it is clear that religion is a tool that allows good people to bypass decent moral positions and find justification to do evil.

quote of the day

courtesy of pz meyers, one-man walking existential threat to church ladies everywhere:

i have zero sympathy for intelligent people who stand before a grandiose monument to lies, an institution that is anti-scientific, anti-rational, and ultimately anti-human, in a place where children are being actively miseducated, an edifice dedicated to an abiding intellectual evil, and choose to complain about how those ghastly atheists are ruining everything. those people can just fuck off.

the soon-to-be-senator from minnesota

disclaimer: those who've known me for a long time would never accuse me of developing a mancrush on anybody (not that there's anything wrong with it ...), and really, it's not, but ... there's something about the way al carries his oddball pretend-irascibility (or is it an irascible pretend-oddballity?), even while working the audience to convince us he's no carpet-bagger, a performance that somehow cleverly morphs itself into something bordering on a kind of — dare i say it — adorability?

(of course, smacking bush around does kinda help seal the deal and reminiscing about all the decider's unappreciated genius has become somewhat fashionable at the moment ...)

letterman:	ladies and gentlemen ... al franken!
	[franken walks onstage, bows, sits] always a pleasure, al.
franken:	always a pleasure for me.
letterman:	so where do they tape your microphone?
franken:	[bends to look at his crotch] well, dave ...
letterman:	heh, heh, heh ... well now, i don't wanna ... i don't wanna bore you, but you might find some of this tedious ...
franken:	yeah ...
letterman:	... but i find it fascinating, ah, a while ago, six months ago? three months ago? a year ago ... you and your wife moved ...
together:	to minneapolis ...
franken:	... that's right.
letterman:	you're originally from minnesota. how's that goin'?
franken:	... great. great! great, i do my show from there. y'know, i'm the hardest working man in show biz politics, and uh ...
schaefer:	[laughing] ... it's a new category to me! hahaha!
franken:	yeah, yeah, and, in fact this thing i'm doing tomorrow night, the reason i brought it up, is it's a big fund-raiser for my group "midwest values PAC" ...
letterman:	at the state theater ...
franken:	yeah, and we're raising money for democrats, y'know, it's called "midwest values" because i feel, i, y'know, i lived here for a long time ...
letterman:	thirty years or so in new york.
franken:	yeah, and uh, but i always felt like a midwesterner, always felt like a minnesotan. you must feel like —
letterman:	y'know, i do, and i feel like i'm at home. i love indiana and i feel that that's a great part of me.
franken:	yeah, and that's ... your values are rooted there, and uh, that's what our PAC is about, and uh, that's because i think democrats win ... on values. we stand for things, for example: ah, accountability. like, uh, bush finally, like a couple weeks ago, uh, was with tony blair, admitted that he made some mistakes ... in iraq. right. [applause] and all he said, he said "i said some things wrong. like, i shouldn't have said 'bring it on.'"
letterman:	right.
franken:	which is kinda common sense, another midwest value: don't goad the enemy to attack you. [laughter]
letterman:	right.
franken:	y'know, and it's all that swagger thing, like, at the ... remember at the republican convention he said: "some people see me, and, uh, [adopts bush drawl] they see a swagger, certain swagger. well, in texas we call that walkin'." in minnesota we call that "being a jerk." [applause] y'know. walk with, with uh ...
letterman:	... dignity ...
franken:	... some humility ...
letterman:	yes, humility, right.
franken:	... humility. ah, bush, y'know, says like he's a big jesus guy. well, jesus didn't walk with a swagger. he didn't go like, [adopts bush drawl] "see that water i turned into wine?" [points to self] "me. that was me."
letterman:	heh — not a show-off ...
franken:	[still in character] "see that blind guy over there? that uh, he's not bumpin' into things any more? [points to self] jesus." [laughter]
letterman:	wasn't a blowhard ...
franken:	[still in character] "yeah. that big boulder i rolled, y'know, in front of, i rolled that outta the entrance to that cave where i was dead and now i'm alive? eh?" [puffs out chest] "bring it on!" [applause] y'know, it's easy — that wasn't jesus. that was ... walk with some, some ... humility.
letterman:	that's right.
franken:	you can be strong, you can be courageous —
letterman:	exactly.
franken:	— it's not, that kind of bluster isn't strong. that's not strength.
letterman:	now, uh, from where you sit, what are your other observations regarding, now we're nearly halfway through the second term of the bush administration. what are your observations generally of, about things now?
franken:	he's ... he's in the toilet. actually, lorne michaels said something very funny to me. he said that jee— uh, ah, that bush ... [laughter, applause] ... i had jesus on the brain!
letterman:	we all do.
franken:	great, great prophet, jesus.
letterman:	yeah.
franken:	as my rabbi told me, he had a lot of great ideas. none of them knew. s'what my rabbi used to tell me. anyway, ah, bush. lorne michaels said to me, "looks like a, a guy whose show's just been cancelled, but he has nine more to do." [applause]
letterman:	heh, i know that feeling.
franken:	you know that feeling?
letterman:	yeah, absolutely.
franken:	like, i mean, obviously the war's just going terribly. uh, if he's going to admit those mistakes, he should have admitted a couple other things. for example, ah, when he said, y'know, that the war on terror is a crusade. that was stupid.
letterman:	poor choice of words.
franken:	it sent the wrong message to a lot of people. muslims, mainly. and, uh, y'know the only defense i can thing of for him is that, um, y'know he didn't know there had been a "crusades". [laughter]
letterman:	[unintelligible]
franken:	y'know, he wasn't a great student. he's admitted he doesn't do a lot of reading. so i think that the thing he needs to do is hold himself accountable. i think he needs to go on TV and admit the mistakes he made. that he kind of ... misled us ... into the war, didn't send enough troops, uh, disbanded the iraqi army by telling them, y'know, by telling 300,000 guys: "you're fired! we're not gonna pay you, get the hell outta here! and take your weapons with you!" [laughter] and say: "i'm sorry i tortured — we tortured people." that turned out to be a mistake, because, y'know, their families don't like it. they get angry. basically, this would be, this is the short version. it'd have to be a six-hour speech he'd have to tell, s'what i'm saying.
letterman:	[laughing] ... six hours ... now, i want to talk to you about your experience with the american military. and recently you gave the commencement at west point.
franken:	it wasn't the commencement. it was just a ...
letterman:	just a "how'ya doin'?" you just dropped in ... ?
franken:	it was, it was sort of in-between.
letterman:	OK. we'll be right back here with al franken, everybody.
	[commercial break]
letterman:	... and i said, mistakenly, you'd given the commencement at west point, and i think, uh, president bush actually gave the commencement.
franken:	yeah, they just ask him to do the commencement, i just ...
letterman:	you were not there for the commencement.
franken:	... gave the sol feinstone lecture on the meaning of freedom. this is last — i had my book out at the time, "the truth, with jokes", this was, i was at west point. it was an audience not so different than this one. [laughter] uh, except, it was all cadets.
letterman:	that's right. that would be the one small difference.
franken:	yeah and i was supposed to talk about the meaning of freedom, and my book "the truth, with jokes" was out at the time and basically, after jollying them up with some jokes, um, i got them on my side, and i told them that the president had lied us into the war, and uh, i said you can't have freedom without the truth. you can have freedom without jokes, as the dutch and the swiss have proven. [laughter] but, they um, gave me a standing ovation, and they —
letterman:	really?
franken:	yeah. i think that, i really admire them, as you said, i've gone over a number of times on USO trips and — a lotta people think that it's dangerous. it's not. i remember that — you're surrounded by the USO, by ...
letterman:	the army.
franken:	by the, yeah, by the ... you're embedded and they don't want anyone in the USO to get ... a coupla years ago i'd done my first one in iraq. i was at a party in hollywood and there was all these celebrities there and i got a little bit overwhelmed and i went to sit in the library and i was — i thought i was alone and i hear this voice: [in deep low voice] "hey, al ..." yeah, i looked around and it was sylvester stallone.
letterman:	oh ...
franken:	and i said, uh "hey ... uh ... sylvester." 'cause i didn't know ... [laughter]
letterman:	riiight ...
franken:	and he said, [in deep low voice] "i understand you went on one of them USO tours." i said "yeah it was great." he said [deep] "yah, well, i was supposed to go, but i didn't." and i said "well, why didn't you go?" he said [deep] "well, i thought it might be too dangerous." i said "well, it's not really that dangerous ..." i said exactly just what i said to you and he said [deep]"yah well lemmee ask ya this: was there ever any moment when you felt in danger for your life?" [laughter] and i said well, OK we did have one point where we took helicopters from baghdad to tikrit and then back again, and some ... had been shot down, so i thought maybe one-in-ten-thousand chance that — [deep] "yah well, that's why i didn't go." [laughter] i said to him "weren't you, weren't you friggin' rambo?" [laughter, applause]
letterman:	friggin' ... friggin' rambo ...
franken:	i didn't say "friggin'", but ...
letterman:	[unintelligible] rambo ...
franken:	he was actually very honest and said [deep] "yah, but i like my life. i got a good life." that's how i got the west point guys on my side. i told them that story.
letterman:	yeah, that's a pretty good story ...
franken:	true story.
letterman:	what's he doin' in the library, fer god sakes ... ? [laughter]
franken:	uh, i, ah ...
letterman:	honestly, that's bizarre.
franken:	he might've followed me in.
letterman:	uh, just wanna quickly, ah, because we're all interested in your political future, if you have one, perhaps running for office, and i think the interesting thing, and important to point out, is you've been married for quite a few years and that's very important. you should use that in your campaign. people like, uh, marriage solidarity. and you certainly represent that, you and your wife have been married how, how long?
franken:	um, thirty years, many of them happy. [laughter, applause]
letterman:	that's good.
franken:	thank you. thank you.
letterman:	don't be afraid to use this, for your campaign.
franken:	um, i credit fear.
letterman:	hm.
franken:	yes, i just, ah, am afraid of being alone. and uh, we have kids. that's —
letterman:	that's good, sure.
franken:	really ... i, uh, i find her incredibly annoying in a lotta ways. [laughter]
letterman:	talkin' about your wife now?
franken:	yah, um ...
letterman:	you might wanna soft-pedal this out on the campaign trail ...
franken:	yeah ... well, it's little things! it's just always little things. she does a lot of like ... she decides to say stuff to me as soon as i've walked out of the room. so i spend a lot of time saying: "i can't, i can't hear you!" [laughter] but we ... "i'm in another room!" and um ... y'know, but we, we met, uh, freshman — can i tell you the story of my, uh ... when my daughter was six years old — 'cause kira's segment was so lovely — i was at my daughter's teacher, when my daughter was six years old, asked her to write a story, asked every kid to write a story how their parents met. and, so, um, we told her: we met freshman year in college at a mixer, i said i saw your mom across the room gathering these, uh, other girls to leave. she was trying to get 'em to leave and i loved the way she like, was taking charge. in retrospect ... [waves hands dismissively] ... and anyway, um, i said — and she was beautiful! she was beautiful! y'know, beautiful, so i asked her to dance, then i, uh, bought her a, got her a ginger ale, and then i escorted her to her dorm and asked her for a date. so my daughter wrote: "my dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink and took her home." [applause] and ...
letterman:	hehhehheh, well ... nothin' wrong with that either! tomorrow night at the state theater in minneapolis. i'm sure it'll be an enjoyable evening.
franken:	it, um ... the website, just in case you wanted to get tickets in minneapolis, midwestvaluespac.org, and that, that is not to be confused with liveorg.org, which is where you get live organs ...
letterman:	heh heh heh. alright ...
franken:	... live human organs, which is another one of my ...
letterman:	no, you wouldn't wanna get those —
franken:	our organs are human.
letterman:	yeah, that's right. good.
franken:	midwestvaluespac.org.
letterman:	thank you very much, al. always a pleasure. nice to see you.
franken:	thanks.

(hat tip to one good move)