Saturday, September 10, 2011

And now for a message from our sponsors- Reason and Sanity





My politics are no secret; I’m a fiscal semi-conservative and a social liberal. I simply refer to myself as a Moderate when pressed for a political label. But whether you are a conservative, moderate or liberal - by virtue of your being a reader of my blog you clearly have a dedication to reality and sanity. You respect reason and science. You support a secular government. You despise politicians who promote religiosity, try to sneak it into government and our schools, or use it to ingratiate themselves to the voting religionist public. If my assessment of my readership is accurate this article should enrage you.

During this past week's GOP debate two things stood out that sent shivers up my spine, made my skin crawl, and for an instant made me ashamed to be an American. One was uttered by the GOP front runner, the other was an outburst of enthusiasm by the venue’s audience. I’m not the first to write on this issue, but I want to offer my perspective and record it for posterity or at least so I’ll remember it for as long as I still have a memory.

Rick Perry attempted to justify his rejection of the scientific evidence for man made global warming by implying that scientists can be and have been wrong before. In his bumbling attempt to find support for his denial of scientific reality he made this absurd statement: “Galileo got outvoted for a spell." WTF??!

It took a few seconds for that to register with me since it made zero sense. Galileo got outvoted? By whom, and over what? Galileo supported the solar centric versus the Church endorsed Earth centric model of the universe. What peer review group of scientists “outvoted” him? Was he ultimately proven wrong? WTF was Perry saying?

What Perry was saying was pure and blatant idiocy. Or, if you are more generous, he is a pathetic whore playing to the dumbest of the religious zombies that he depends on for support. So dumb that likely many of them still believe in an Earth-centric model of our solar system. But no matter what spin anyone puts on it this was the statement of a living breathing jerk.

Galileo wasn’t outvoted /overruled as a result of his theory being subjected to peer review and found lacking by qualified astronomer scientists of his day. Galileo was silenced, a victim of the Church’s Inquisition! The Church forbade Galileo to promote the heresy of truth; threatened him; and put him under house arrest until he recanted the truth of his statement. How does the exercise of unlimited power by the Church to suppress reality and truth because it disagreed with their fable and lies, in anyway equate to being “outvoted” and more importantly how does it relate to the global warming issue? It doesn't, except ironically Perry would likely be delighted to play Grand Inquisitor to the 98% of the climate scientists whose science he rejects.




I’m hoping Perry was too stupid to realize what he said made no sense. To do otherwise would be to accept an even scarier alternative: that Perry was tipping his hat to his fundamentalist evangelical base by implying that the power of religious belief super cedes scientific evidence. What is that superstitious belief? That God would never permit man to destroy his Creation; that only God holds the power to destroy the planet and will do so in accordance with His timetable - thus the science of man-made global warming is a fraud, a long held fundamentalist position.

I hope it was his stupidity. I want it to be his stupidity. The implications of it being the latter alternative are so horrific, so insidious, so foreboding in terms of what a religiously guided government would be that it boggles the mind, or should, of any freethinking American and respecter of reason. But I dare not dismiss the possibility. It is entirely plausible given Perry’s history of combining religious fanaticism, feigned or real, with governance.

Then came the most telling and horrific event of the evening. The moderator brought up the hundreds of executions that Texas has carried out under Perry’s administration, more executions than under any other governor, in any state in the nation’s history. At the mention of this fact some significant portion of the republican/tea party/ Christian audience erupted into applause. APPLAUSE!

At first I thought I missed something. Maybe there was a delayed response to a prior comment from a candidate. But alas, this was not the case. These people were applauding the over 230 executions carried out under Perry’s term of office. They were gleeful, proud, and exuberant over the size and scope of unbridled state sponsored killing. They were being Christian.

My mind immediately formed the image of filthy, stinking, jeering crowds of peasant Christians reveling at the writhing bodies of heretics as they are burned at the stake during the Inquisition; or gleeful at the screams of incinerated “witches” during the 17th century. Of Muslim extremists stoning women to death, or loping off heads as crowds laughed and goaded and cursed the condemned.

I looked at Perry during this unholy display. He did not look distraught, or disapproving, or in any way phased by his supporters’ outburst - emotions /reactions that a better man, even a death penalty supporter, might have elicited simply as a respecter of human life. No, nothing. Religionists love executions, they always have; and the more religious/ Christian they are the more they love them. So, what’s to be ashamed of? Where’s the contradiction?

I support capital punishment for certain cases. I’m not proud of it; I just see it as a necessary response to certain crimes under certain circumstances. But for a fleeting moment I felt dirty and ashamed. Americans don’t revel in execution rates, at least not in the America I thought I knew. They do in Rick Perry’s America.



I don’t want this to become a Rick Perry America. If you do, if you don’t share my disgust and revulsion at what he represents and what it would mean to the “Wall of Separation,” civility and our liberties; if you'd cast your vote for him for pocket book reasons, then the unsubscribe button is only a few inches from your finger tips. Do it now.

17 comments:

NewEnglandBob said...

The Republican front runners: a dominionist vs magic underpants. One wants Christian armies to take over from democracy, the other thinks Jesus went to Utah after becoming a zombie. The party of fruit loops.

Anonymous said...

You're problem is that you're thinking too logically. Throw all that out and Perry and his supporters make lots of sense.

helga said...

Life is expendable for these applauders- but only after birth. The whole scenario is scary, scary. In Europe, we can't understand how people such as rick perry can ever be in a position of power.

Stan Dorst said...

The only thing about this post that bothers me is your request for those who don't agree with you to unsubscribe. It seems to me that we have too many places on the internet where everyone agrees, and too few where people can disagree, discuss, and learn. I know that I disagreed with one of your posts in the past and then re-thought my position based on your response to my comment. That may not happen often (see the XKCD comic at http://xkcd.com/386/), but it will never happen if everyone who disagrees with you unsubscribes.

Dromedary Hump said...

sd555,
Thanks...I understand your point.

But, I'm unrepentant. You see, it doesn't take a great stretch of the imagination to equate a freethinker voting for Rick Perry to a 1960's black man voting for George Wallace, or 1970's black man voting for David Dukes.

If they don't like that analogy, or the fact that they are themselves Uncle Tom Atheists, the door is over there. That option is always availabe, with or without my invitation.

Fact is, I'd have more respect for Tea bagging creationist theocrat than a Rick Perry supporting atheist. I don't have the inclination to pander to such people, I'd just as soon not have them as fb friends, or readers.

Sue said...

I was so repulsed at that applause, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. But then, yeah. This is the country we live in. Vile, vile display of ignorance and hatred.

Anonymous said...

What I find even worse than what you have explained is that there is no good alternative. I voted for Obama in the last presidential election and he wasted all his power trying to be nice to Mr. Uniter. By the time he got his head out of his ass, The Democrats lost seats and their ability to push laws past the Republicans. Since then, everything has been a stalemate at best, a complete loss of ground at worst. My feat is that the Republicans are going to win simply because there will not be an alternative that can carry enough of the minority, liberal, sane votes.

Anonymous said...

For me, this election is the scariest I have seen. In the past, God is mentioned is passing by candidates, but the way these GOP candidates use it on every little issue has me worried that America will turn into Massachusetts circa 1600. Science classes will no longer teach evolution, but creationism will be forced down our kids throat. The day will start off with a morning prayer. Instead of a government class, high school seniors will have to take a Bible class. I can go on, but just thinking about it makes me angry.

Hump, you stated you hoped Perry was too stupid to realize that what he said made no sense. Well, to quote Senator Mark Pryor, when interviewed by Bill Maher in Religulous: "You don't need to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate." That to me is a blanket statement for politics in general.

Anonymous said...

Perry's comment speaks volumes. He clearly had it in his hand, ready to play, when the issue of man-influenced global warming came up. It was absolutely a nod to his religiously afflicted followers and a promise to them as to how he would deal with science that didn't align with christianity, should they vote him in.
Perry scares me WAY more than Bush ever did, and Americans are dumb enough to elect him as their next president.
After all, at this point, it seems that the only alternative for this "christian nation" of republicans is a heathen Mormon.

Malky said...

A a European I echo Helga's comment in that it is hard to understand the American electorate. In the UK any politician who played for the religious vote would very quickly find themselves only with that vote. At times it seems that USA politics is insane.

David said...

I've always been perplexed as to why religionists love executions so much. Doesn't the bible say "Thou shalt not kill"? Seems hypocritical to me.

Texas Mike said...

Here's Rick Perry's modus operandi:


1. Gov. Rick Perry slashed state funding to volunteer fire departments from 30 billion to 7 billion (75%) this year during a record drought.
2. Then, Perry asked everyone to pray for rain.
3. Rain doesn't come. Fires rage out of control.
4. Perry campaigns with Jesus like a parrot on his shoulders, railing against big government and federal spending, and then
5. requested disaster relief from the federal government. . . .


. . . As president, he might be the one to slash Medicare by 75 percent during a plague and then pray for everyone to get well. That's his mode of operating he's already established. Is this the man we want for president? I am from Texas and I say no. Hell, no.

GatorApe said...

Hump, I completely share your political views. And yes, this does enrage me. It's a shame that the GOP can't offer up anything better than this -- the current offering really is an affront to reason and sanity.

A few years back, when Palin was the GOP Religious Right wing nut du jour, I thought, well, certainly, this has got to be rock bottom. Then they handed us Bachmann. Then Perry. WTF indeed!

It's a shame that the sponsores of this post are not mandatory in the voting booth!

Gerard26 said...

Hump, awhile back you posted about what you felt the American South and made spot-on observations on that region of the country, Mr. Perry is the embodiment of everything you expressed. A Perry presidency for our nation would be a disaster. Sinclar Lewis got it right in his book about a right-wing/fundie/extremist takeover in America, they will come in carrying the cross and wrapped in the flag.Yes,reason and sanity is under attack in this nation.

tiNstAg said...

Margaret Atwood's
Handmaid's Tale is terrifyingly closer than you think.
Be afraid, very afraid.

Gerard26 said...

@tiNstA'g
First, thanks for your post,I viewed the film this evening for the first time and it confirmed what I was trying to express about where we are headed as a nation, this is very scary.

Ahab said...

Perry's views, combined with his collaboration with dominionists and repugnant groups such as the AFA, should give voters pause. I really hope he does not secure the Republican nomination, or the White House.