This could be fun — in a “did they really say that?!?” kind of way. David Barton has invited Louie Gohmert, a Republican congressman from East Texas who can barely open his mouth without saying something outrageous, to be on his daily Internet radio program tomorrow (Tuesday).
As readers of TFN Insider already know, Barton is a propaganda master for the religious right not just in Texas, but also across the country. The pseudo-historian has spoken at Neo-Nazi gatherings, wants to impeach judges whose rulings are opposed by social conservatives, and argues against taxes on income, capital gains and inheritance because, he says, they violate biblical mandates.
In the race for whose arguments are the most extreme, however, Congressman Gohmert gives Barton a run for his money. Last month he warned that pregnant foreign terrorists are breeding baby terrorists in America. His support for democracy is so tenuous that earlier this year, upset that the Senate passed health care reform, he advocated for repealing the 17th Amendment, which requires the direct election of senators. Last fall Congressman Gohmert suggested that proposed legislation dealing with hate crimes would protect people engaged in sex with animals, corpses and children. His grasp of factual history is also as bad as Barton’s, arguing in June of this year that “the fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul.”
The show should be interesting, to say the least. Here’s Congressman Gohmert on terrorist babies:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSo1RCpxapw]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dorCLFVpzyo]
Yes! Terrorist babies are given miniature (but operable) AK-47s almost at the instant of birth. I have seen a woman who talked to a nurse who knows that…
How, I wonder, does a dolt such as Gohmert get elected? Is there a pocket of idiots somewhere over in that part of the state? Don’t like that health care reform finally passed? Just toss out a Constitutional amendment!
I’m going to hit my head against a door now…it will feel better when it stops.
I think this is the appropriate juncture to repost my favorite Frank Schaeffer video clip. Sometimes I think you folks do not listen or watch.
In case you do not know, Frank Schaeffer is the son of Francis Schaeffer, a famous evangelical theologian, pastor, guru, etc. in the Calvinist tradition. He was an American, but he lived a big part of his life in Switzerland. Frank’s mother was about equally famous for the same things—sort of like Billy and Ruth Graham—but also not so much in other ways. In any event, as some really smart children will do, Frank figured out the fact that mummy and daddy were a bit off the deep end and rejected a great deal of his nutjob upbringing—all except Jesus and church. Ain’t it amazing how you can reject all the crap and still keep the most important things. Give a listen to Frank Schaeffer, and please let him explain Representative Gohmert to you in simple, concise, and truthful terms.
And by the way, my wife says that she read a news story on Yahoo!!! today where the village idiots were deriding Sarah Palin because they have now decided that she is not “conservative enough. You say, “How could that possibly be?” I’ll explain that one in my next post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s6JFoIVnTw&feature=player_embedded
Charlie I read Frank Schaeffer’s autobiography a few years ago. Although I thought it was quite poorly written a couple of things really stood out. The first was that James Dobson is not at all about religion but rather about amassing political power. Frank did an excellent job of driving that point home.
The other was a conversation Barbara Bush had with Frank’s mom – I think it was Frank’s mom anyway. Barbara confided she was afraid her son BoyGeorge would never amount to anything, that he was a slacker and a ne’er-do-well.
Yes Beverly, there really is a majority group in East Texas who support Louie Gohmert and agree with these scare tactics and Tea Party propaganda. You should check out their Texas Rep. Leo Berman if your head needs more abuse. “How do I know?” you ask. I live (in constant amazement and disgust) in the middle of them.
I found the article my wife read on-line. It was actually a newspaper article wherein a Religious Right author grinds on Sarah Palin for not being conservative enough.
Basically, the author makes the same point I was going to make—pentacostalists like Palin are, as a breed, “soft on sin.” What does that mean? It means they talk the conservative religious talk and try to walk the conservative religious walk. However, when they screw up by having an out-of-wedlock child, they are greeted with wholehearted love and forgiveness rather than anger, condemnation, and being locked in a secret room with no windows on the back of the house for the next 40 years. In fact, one could argue (from experience in my own extended family) that the unbridled forgiveness and love shown by pentacostalists to their sinners actually encourages more sin because the sinner knows ahead of time that an out-of-wedlock baby, while not an all together good thing, could result in a brand new car to deposit the kid at daycare on the way to a new job to support little Mary. Sin has its little perks.
I guess the things that should make our blood run cold are the other American evangelicals and fundamentalists who pride themselves on being hard on sin. They might talk a little mercy and forgiveness in Sunday school class every once in a while. However, if you committed some sin, your beard would grow all the way from Earth to Zeta Reticuli and back before any of it would actually show up to save you from some horrible fate like the kind they mete out in Iran. Personally, I am inclined to think that these hard-on-sin Christians here in the United States are quite probably our uniquely American Taliban and ayatollah wannabees. It’s not just the sin. It’s not just the lack of mercy. It’s not just the fact that someone is getting their just desserts from some black-robed fruitcake. No siree. The details have to be worked out in excruciating detail and be perfectly tailored to the nature of the condemned. I guess it is harder to show mercy when you already have an intricate roadway to the punishment already laid out. I mean really. Why have a system if you never use it? The mere fact that you have a system almost demands that you use it.
In Iran, they stone people for committing adultery. Here is how they do it. If you are a man who has committed adultery, they bury your body vertically in the ground up to your waist. Your arms are left free of soil, which could allow you to flail about and deflect or shield yourself from rocks, which I suppose could make it take longer for you to die. Women, instead, are buried up to their chest with their arms left entirely underground, thus making the target a defenseless head and shoulders (no—not the shampoo). Now, riddle me this Batman. Why do they do the women differently? I would bet my last nickel they would say, “This is part of our great and merciful respect for women. When it is only the rock and the head, they die faster.”
Mercy. It’s a unique point of view. I think you get my point. Here is the article my wife read:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/jul/11/palin-falls-short-of-conservative-expectations/?partner=popular
Well heck. It appears that my details on the stoning were wrong in the reference source I consulted on Saturday. The burying part was right. However, they pack the folks in white sacks that look like that human tubesock in the candy commercial on TV. They bind their hands inside the tube sock. The men are buried up to their heads, which are uncovered for the stoning. The women are only buried up to their chest like I said before. The mob of about 100 or more people who are throwing the rocks are kept behind a circular line that is a specified distance from the victim—looked to me to be about 30 feet out. Now here is what my second reference said. One of the unique rules is that if the victim is somehow able to free himself from the bindings, tube sock, and dirt—and run to the edge of the circle before they die, they are saved. The women are buried to the chest as an act of mercy because there is a little bit better chance that they might be able to free their arms, make it out of the dirt, and get to the edge of the circle. Of course, the reality of this sordid Iranian playground game is that no one ever gets out of the tubesock, bindings, and dirt.
But with the religious right there are punishment exceptions. Not for gays certainly, they’ve all “chosen” a sinful lifestyle and going to hell in a handbag. But if you’re David Vitter of Louisiana, who’s been in every whorehouse from New Orleans to the Texas border, you get forgiveness because James Dobson’s water boy in the Senate. Or if you’re that holy roller preacher out in ……..hmmm Utah I think…….who was snorting speed and performing ungodly acts with a gay prostitute, you can get absolution as well. That guy got “treatment” for his gay behavior for about a year and then Dobson declared him “cured.” Which means he most likely fattened Dobson’s bank account.
How does a dolt such as Gohmert get elected? Easy. Because there are enough dolt voters who vote for him. That’s what scares the holy s**t out of me about this country.
I just clicked on the blue letters in the article above where it says that Barton has spoken at Neo-Nazi gatherings. I knew Barton to be an idiot and a con man, but the article made my hair stand on end.
Last night, I came into email contact with a first cousin of mine with whom I’d had no contact for a decade or more. This sweet, kind well-educated gentleman is a fan of….David Barton. OMG! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!!! Oh yeah, dear cousin is a dyed-in-the-wool teabagger. Well, dyed-in-the-wool is my own phrase, not his. I describe him that way because dear cousin has totally bought into the Obama-is-the-most-dangerous-man-in-the-world, he’s-a-marxist/socialist/fascist, he must be stopped…. And of course, I wondered what he meant by ‘stopped.’ He babbled on about how this is a Christian nation, and Obama is doing everything he can to destroy Christianity…. and blah blah blah.
So my cousin is not the sweet kind well-educated guy I remember. That guy is dead and gone. Whoever or whatever this new guy is I want nothing to do with him. I will not respond to him. Whatever I get from him will be deleted unread.
My brother was claimed by the looney-tune Righties years ago and, of course, dear brother being dear brother, there’s no hope for him. Totally wasted. Beyond rehab.
But my cousin: I am shocked – SHOCKED – beyond words.
And heartbroken.
And terrified.