The Coming Religious War – Mike Gold: Brainiac On Banjo #264 | @MDWorld
February 27, 2012 Mike Gold 6 Comments
We’re just a couple days from the Michigan primary, and at this point überChristian Rick Santorum is neck-and-neck with Michigan native Mitt Romney. Ol’ Mitt grew up there, his daddy was a well-respected businessman who became governor and was considered a viable Presidential candidate in his day. So why is his kid on the ropes? Perhaps it’s because he wailed against the highly successful auto industry bailout that saved tens of thousands of jobs, many if not most in Michigan itself. Or perhaps it’s because Mitt has been an inept campaigner. Or maybe he’s been shot so many times by his fellow Republicrats that he’s perceived as a loser. Maybe all three.
So if Santorum beats Romney in his state-of-birth, Mitt’s campaign will look like an outtake from The Walking Dead.
Let’s get real. Not a single one of these candidates has inspired a significant number of the Republican rank-and-file to come out to the primaries or the caucuses – and from the dreadful turnouts it’s clear that a whole lot of them can’t be bothered to vote for any of these four clowns. Politics abhor a vacuum and eventually somebody gets the nod even if, by the time of the nominating convention, the poor jerk has been reduced to cannon fodder. The Republicrats can only hope that Barack Obama does something earth-shatteringly stupid between August 29th and November 6th.
But let’s go with the guy who, right now, is being carried by Big Mo. Yes, “Big” is relative, and this year it’s looking like the big momentum is more of a fart in the storm, but as I said, politics abhors a vacuum. So let’s go with Rick Santorum.
Brushing aside his preoccupation with Man-On-Dog nuptials, Santorum is best known for being a Christian totalitarian who makes Torquemada look like Bill Maher.
1) He believes that a woman’s place is in the home. “The purported need to provide things for their children simply provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home.” That’s from his 2005 book. He stands behind it today.
2) He’s opposed to sex for non-procreative reasons, saying (I paraphrase) that sex without procreation is merely pleasure. Well he’s got that right, but he clearly thinks that’s a bad thing.
3) He’s opposed to birth control. That one’s going to cost him a lot of votes. He’s opposed to condom use; that’s going to cost him a lot more votes. Anti-condom equals pro-HIV, and we have learned conclusively that a lot of Americans think sex is worth dying for.
4) He’s opposed to abortion. The Republicrats would like us to believe a majority of Americans are similarly opposed to abortion. According to Pew Research, 54% of those polled support legal abortion in all or most cases, while only 42% say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Other polls set the approval rating as high as 59%: Pew had the lowest figure. Even 54% to 42% with a 4% swing translates to Santorum being on the wrong side of America.
5) He’s got a hysterical fear of gay sex. He says he’s not opposed to homosexuals, he’s opposed to homosexual sex. He doesn’t perceive any difference between gay sex, polygamy, and bestiality. Those sweater vests only provide protection from two of the three.
6) He’s opposed to many prenatal tests because they could lead to abortion. “A lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero, and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions,” he said. “We know that 90% of Down syndrome children in America are aborted.” That latter figure, by the way, is a complete and absolute lie.
7) Santorum believes Obama is a lousy Christian. Ricky said Obama believes in “some phony ideal, some phony theology; not a theology based on (Santorum’s) bible.” He later said “I wasn’t suggesting the president’s not a Christian.” Got it. He’s just not a real Christian.
8) He believes “federal and state governments should get out of public education.”
So who’s going to vote for this Christian Talibani who doesn’t have a clue what the Bill of Rights means and could not care less? I mean, outside of the stupid white men who have been so pathetically frightened by the Republicrats that they can actually be counted on to vote against their own self-interest and the interests of their family and nation.
Well, here’s a better question.
If you were one of the 481 Republicrats running for governor, senator, or Congressperson this November… would you think it’s in your best interest to have Rick Santorum at the head of your party’s ticket?
Unless things change pretty fast – and, really, why how? – it’s beginning to look like the G.O.P. is D.O.A.
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Bon-vivant psycho Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking bizarro music and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, replayed three times during the week (check the website above for times). It’s also available On Demand at the same venue. Does Rick Santorum approve of the devil’s music?
Jeremiah Avery
February 27, 2012 - 8:43 am
As John Adams put it in the Treaty of Tripoli: “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”. You would think that one of the Founders of our country would be in the know about this sort of thing. Sort of knocks out the rhetoric about our religious foundation. Then again, why let facts get in the way?
I’m all for smaller government but some people seem to think that smaller goverment = controlling what happens in the bedroom.
It’s a scary time when someone on the fringe goes from single digits in the polls to a potential frontrunner. Remember when we used to laugh at the loons? Now they have power and influence.
Kyle G.
February 27, 2012 - 8:54 am
The more and more I see of this year’s GOP offerings the more I think all the real contenders decided to sit this one out. Between Romney, Santorum and Gingrich it’s like we have the worst representative of each wing of the republican party (rich business man, extremist religion and career politician). Santorum is too fringe to be a serious threat to Obama. I thought the nail for him would be a joint radio interview he did with his wife when she went on and on about how it was God’s will that he run to stop Obama-care. I don’t just think this is a race he can’t win, I think the public getting such a good look will harm the rest of Santorums future political career of any kind.
Mike Gold
February 27, 2012 - 10:37 am
Kyle, this morning Politico reported Obama has a 10 point lead on Romney and 11 points on Santorum. Of course, the election is over eight months away, but Romney and Santorum have been campaigning aggressively and Obama has been campaigning, at best, passively at best. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in your statement.
With one question. Who are the GOP’s REAL contenders? Jeb? That is to laugh; the first Bush was a happenstance, the second was a coincidence, the third time is enemy action (hi, Ian!). The Jersey Fat Fuck? Not until he goes on a diet. Mitch Daniels? Maybe, but he needs a couple years of the spotlight to achieve name recognition.
Jonathan (the other one)
February 27, 2012 - 11:00 am
The GOP did have one candidate this cycle who could, potentially, have threatened Obama; one man whose public positions weren’t so far out in right field they never even saw the ball, and who said out loud that discussion and compromise could be good things. Unfortunately for the GOP, Huntsman was knocked out of contention early on, because clearly the “base” has no interest in acting like adults or participating in the 21st century…
R. Maheras
February 27, 2012 - 11:23 am
Hey! Leave the sweater vests out of this! I like ’em, I saw ’em first (12 years ago and counting), and I’ll be damned if some flash-in-the-pan presidential wannabe is gonna force me to stop wearing ’em!
If Santorum causes sweater vests to become the new Hitler’s moustache, I’ll really be torqued off.
Mike Gold
February 27, 2012 - 11:49 am
Jonathan, Huntsman certainly came off as the only one who was not-insane (Papoon For President!). This is not to say that I found his policies attractive, but in these troubled times “not-insane” was a hell of leg up on the others. Besides, having a guy in there who understood China and the current Chinese power structure would be a real plus. We might have been better off if he remained our ambassador to China — and I don’t think we’ve ever had a candidate with more relevant world business experience.
Mike Gold
February 27, 2012 - 12:07 pm
The idea of Santorum’s sweater becoming the new Hitler’s mustache is wonderful. Of course, should he win, absent of other considerations, it could become the new JFK’s hat.
A couple days ago I was considering how to dress myself for our current wacky weather. It was 62 degrees here, and I was going into Manhattan to get together with our pal Martha Thomases and her husband John Tebbel. This meant I wouldn’t be back until a couple hours after dark, and the temperature would drop considerably by then. Bitch bitch, moan moan. I took a brown sweater vest that looked useful and fit well with my ensemble, and then I realized who I was lunching with. Martha would have done a half-hour on that sweater, and we had stuff to talk about. So, reluctantly, I put the sweater vest away.
But I just might grow that Hitler mustache.
R. Maheras
February 27, 2012 - 1:20 pm
Mike — Regarding Hitler’s moustache, even the great Charlie Chaplin, who was known the world over long before Hitler ever came along, finally relented and dumped his black “toothbrush” moustache once World War II started in earnest — but not before getting in his last dig at Hitler via his 1940 film “The Great Dictator.” By the time Chaplin’s next film rolled around in the late 1940s, he was sporting a thinner, David-Niven-style moustache.
Mike Gold
February 27, 2012 - 1:30 pm
Of course, Charlie was quite the left-winger, but that was at a time when such was fashionable.
Ever been to the old Essanay Studio in Chicago’s Uptown? Home to many a silent movie (which is fashionable again, I gather) and movie star — Chaplin, Ben Turpin, Wallace Beery, Gloria Swanson, Tom Mix, Harold Lloyd, and many others. The studio space remains in operation, now part of St. Augustine College. Should be enjoying it’s 100th anniversary any day now; I’ll have to check. All them folks used to hang out at the Green Mill Tavern long before it was owned by Al Capone; the Tavern is still there, along with the behind the door trap-door access to the catacombs underneath the joint. My old pal Ric Addy owns Shake, Rattle and Read next door; it, too, has access to the underground rooms used by Capone and friends. I used to do tours of all that for comics pro guests after the old Chicago Comicon.
R. Maheras
February 27, 2012 - 2:58 pm
Dang, Mike — I shoulda hung around with you back in the day…
George Haberberger
February 27, 2012 - 4:02 pm
If you were one of the 481 Republicrats running for governor, senator, or Congressperson this November… would you think it’s in your best interest to have Rick Santorum at the head of your party’s ticket?
That’s a good point. But for someone that no one seriously believes could win the general election even if he manages to get the nomination, he sure gets talked about a lot on this website. Why? Why not just ignore him? If he is so unelectable, the left leaning posters here should want him to get the nomination so that Obama is assured victory.
“We know that 90% of Down syndrome children in America are aborted.” That latter figure, by the way, is a complete and absolute lie.
Yeah it probably is a lie. He got that information from the New York Times, so consider the source.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/us/09down.html
Rene
February 27, 2012 - 4:33 pm
He is so talked about because the mere thought of Santorum as US President is very scary to a lot of us, even if the chances of him actually winning are slim, George.
But I blame Liberals too for a man like Santorum going as far as this. Since 2001, Liberal politicians in the US have been incompetent and cowardly when it comes to defending secularism.
Mike Gold
February 27, 2012 - 4:46 pm
After Santorum’s comments about elitism and colleges, after Santorum’s comments about how we must abolish Jefferson’s “wall of separation of church and state,” after Santorum’s comments about how Kennedy’s comments about separation of church and state, it is crystal clear that this mammoth bastard is hell-bent to ram his evil, hateful, bigoted “faith” down the throats of Americans and take a diarrhetic shit all over the founders of this great nation. He is a much, much greater threat to the freedom and safety of Americans than Louis Farrakhan multiplied by Adolf Hitler, so yes, George, I shall continue to scream holy hell over this astonishing piece of pulsating inhuman detritus as long as the motherfucker breathes a breath. He claims to speak for Christians; the sound of Christians putting this traitor down is overwhelmed by the chirping of crickets.
Rene
February 27, 2012 - 5:24 pm
There is one thing about the issue of aborted Down Syndrome fetuses that is very revealing.
Think about it for a while. 90% of the parents who knew they’d have a Down Syndrome kid chose abortion. And Conservatives are about 50% of the US population, correct?
It means that most Conservatives, when push came to shove, chose to abort a Down Syndrome child.
And that is completely in keep with my view of human nature. Conservatives don’t want other people having abortions, but when tragedy happens to THEM, they have abortions. In other words, your abortion is a sin, my abortion was a special case and totally necessary.
And it leads back to the point many of us Liberals make: every single abortion is a special case and a tragedy. No one who seeks an abortion does it like ordering a Big Mac.
R. Maheras
February 27, 2012 - 5:39 pm
Mike — Reality check. You’re going a bit over-the top regarding Santorum. Farrakhan isn’t even in the same galaxy as Hitler, and neither is Santorum.
But I digress.
Santorum’s muddled comments about college are, at their core, probably spot on. My generation misled their kids’ generation into believing that getting a college degree was the key to success. We cited all of the statistics showing that Joe College, on average, made far more money in a lifetime than did Joe High School Graduate or Jane Dropout. Vocations, which at one time were held in extremely high regard in this country, were often portrayed in the 1980s as the last stop on the train to loserville.
The problem is, my generation did not have a very good crystal ball. It did not foresee that the layers of managerial and corporate positions common in the 1980s would vanish when companies moved their operations overseas, lock, stock and barrel. My generation also did not take into consideration the fact that hundreds of thousands of graduates would earn degrees that would be useless in the job marketplace. Finally, my generation did not know that college educators and administrators would squeeze salaries out of their institutions at such a clip that it would force tuitions to rise at a rate that was many, many times the rate of inflation — saddling graduates with student loan tabs (some they may be paying off for decades) that could have bought nice houses back in the 1980s.
So Santorum is on the right track — even if he’s lousy at getting his point across. A vocational job may not be such a bad track for many of the kids today who are being strong-armed to go to college.
JosephW
February 27, 2012 - 6:12 pm
“We know that 90% of Down syndrome children in America are aborted.” That latter figure, by the way, is a complete and absolute lie.
*****
Well, of course, it’s a lie. Not only that but it completely fails the logic test. Since the only way we could have ANY Down syndrome children in the first place would require these children be born (that is, delivered from the uterus). And since it’s impossible to be aborted AFTER birth (Cartman’s mom’s effort notwithstanding), I would say the number of Down syndrome CHILDREN being aborted would be closer to zero.
Of course, Santorum is one of those morons who think that life begins at the moment of conception, the quote still fails. The NYT article that’s been so badly quoted says that 90% of WOMEN who’ve received a diagnosis of Down have aborted but the article also points out that there are apparently some truly selfish people–parents of Down Syndrome kids who only seem to want more Down kids to be born so that their own kids won’t be “unique.” The parents don’t seem to care about the well-being of the children. They seem to be more of the mindset of “We got stuck with a Down kid so other folks should be forced to get stuck with one as well.”
Rene
February 27, 2012 - 7:49 pm
That wasn’t the vibe I got from reading the article, Joseph.
The parents just think life for their kids will become harder, and they’re right. It’s a fact that the smaller the group of disabled persons, the harder it is for each individual member, because society will be less prepared to deal with them.
Martha Thomases
February 28, 2012 - 5:00 am
May I suggest this article: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/02/rick_santorum_and_prenatal_testing_i_would_have_saved_my_son_from_his_suffering_.html
Jeremiah Avery
February 28, 2012 - 6:22 am
I read that article yesterday, Martha. Very heartbreaking. What is infuriating is that Santorum and his ilk would cut access to the necessary assistance anyone with a child enduring a similar situation would need.
R. Maheras
February 28, 2012 - 9:01 am
Mike — One example of the misguided shift of emphasis can be found at my own high school, Lane Tech. For more than 50 years it was Lane Technical High School, an elite educational institution that focused on science, technology and vocations. Then, about 20 years ago, the name was changed to Lane Tech College Prep High School, and many of the shops and vocations that had once been the core of the curriculum were phased out. There was some emphasis on newer technology like computers, but, from my vantage point at least, the shift away from science, technology and vocations was pretty stark.
Rick Oliver
February 28, 2012 - 1:26 pm
Santorum isn’t opposed to college because it fails to prepare you for a career. Santorum is opposed to college because he thinks it indoctrinates otherwise pious youth to forego their faith (and presumably follow the devil).
Personally, I find myself talking a lot about Rick Santorum because it’s hard for me to get my head around the idea that 30% of the electorate may be as self-deluded as he is.
Rene
February 28, 2012 - 3:27 pm
I think intelligent conservatives like Russ are trying too hard to see Santorum as something different and better than what he really is.
I also don’t see Santorum’s comment on college as anything to do with the job market. He’s railing against indocrination by evil liberal teachers.
R. Maheras
February 28, 2012 - 4:07 pm
Rene — I appreciate being called intelligent, but honest, from a “Man from Mars” perspective, I’m not a conservative. I’m not even a Republican.
If one constructed a baseline with liberal extremist on one end, conservative extremist on the other, and independent in the middle, I’d fall somewhere in independent territory.
What I am is all relative to the politics of the person doing the observing at a given point in time.
Whitney
March 1, 2012 - 12:40 am
Golden Boy –
I knew it! You know who Torquemada is! Kindred spirit, welcome to the really tiny circle. First Nation and Chosen Nation people have a lot in common. The Alhambhra Decree that caused the Jewish diaspora also trained up the conquistidors in scorched earth warfare that they used to conquer the New World.
I’ve often wondered what Queen Isabella felt like when she wasn’t able to stop the horror of the Inquisition that she had inadvertently launched. For someone who has known the love of God, watching the corruption of the Word of God for political or financial gain must feel like desecration of the soul. Kinda like America right now…