posted by TheDon
Those were the words of Mitt Romney in his JFK speech this morning. His reasoning was that people are so corrupt, cruel and evil, that without religion, you can’t trust them with liberty.
I will take Romney at his word that the only thing standing between him and a 25-to-life sentence for strangling his wife with the severed arm of Tagg is his Mormon faith, but for most of us, it just doesn’t work that way. This speech fit perfectly in the tradition of clueless bigots proudly giving speeches which they think cast them in a good light. (What? I called him articulate! It’s a compliment to them!)
“His”? And I assume from the context that a lack of faith is… different?
Pentagrams? Upside-down crucifixes? Flying Spaghetti Monster monuments? I’m guessing that Mitt’s tolerance for religion does have limits, and that’s the point. He respects people of all faiths, as long as he gets to define what faith means, and they don’t get chicken blood on him.
Speaking of the founding principles of this country, Mitt said, “They’re not unique to any one denomination. They belong to the great moral inheritance we hold in common. They are the firm ground on which Americans of different faiths meet and stand as a nation united.”
No mention of the faithless. None. Would this be a bad time to point out that the people who are killing each other in Iraq are quite religious, and full of faith? They are not killing despite their faith, but because of it. The leaders in this country who are quite content to kill indiscriminately in Iraq are equally faithful, although I suspect they kill for reasons completely unrelated to faith. Mitt, who thinks he knows who Jesus would bomb, and who would double GITMO also claims faith. Less religion, more liberty, please.
The real howler to me was the standard rightie construction on where liberty originates. “Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of god, not an indulgence of government. No people in the history of the world have sacrificed as much for liberty. The lives of hundreds of thousands of America’s sons and daughters were laid down during the last century to preserve freedom for us and for freedom loving people throughout the world.”
Nice gift. When Mrs. TheDon gives me a gift, I normally don’t have to go kill for it. Conversely, when I work my ass off, and spend thousands of dollars on something, I don’t consider it a gift from anyone. Liberty is, and always has been, taken from the government by force, and guarded fiercely by people who want it badly enough.
10 Comments.
"No people in the history of the world have sacrificed as much for liberty. The lives of hundreds of thousands of America’s sons and daughters were laid down during the last century to preserve freedom for us and for freedom loving people throughout the world.”
One comment: Stalingrad. The Eastern Front in general during World War II, which actually defeated the Third Reich, while the Americans basically mopped up things from behind.
If you're talking about Nazism the Russians had much more to do with defeating it than we did.
If you're talking about World War I, well, I won't comment on that one since people were saying from before it started till after it ended that it was a pointless exercise in nationalism.
Vietnam?
Korea? Maybe Korea.
Not the Gulf War, fought to preserve the golden faucet fixtures of the Kuwaiti monarchy, as Jello Biafra noted.
THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!
We're fucking special instead of being a bunch of ignorant hicks on an island where we don't have to face the real world.
Next time you pledge aliegance, when it comes to the part One nation "under God" simply insert the manes of different Gods. For example one nation under Yahweh, or, One nation under Allah. Or one nation under Usen. They are all Gods. So what's the problem? Religous intolerance?
No one takes anything away from the Russians. Twenty million dead Ivans is nothing to sneeze at.
But imagine if Hitler han't been a cock and fought a war on two fronts. If the Americans/British had been defeated the Russians would have fallen as well. Those Tiger tanks tended to cut through Russin armour with Teutonic ease…
It's disenguous to say that Europe was a cakewalk for the US. Many of my friends lost grandparents, uncles, and other assorted family on the fields and shores of Europe. Oh yeah, and that other little battle front called the Pacific campaign….
And yes, fuck yes, give me this big island. Nothing like a 3000 mile moat to keep the invasions down!
You are right about the millions of poot Russian/Slavic soldiers who died to stop, turn back, and ultimately destroy the Wermacht.
Amen TheDon
I have nothing to add. Why this is still entertaining, is a mystery to me. I keep wondering when things are going to get real.
Amen John
but John, what about all of the sacrifice we made to stop Japan?
"…what the Japanese Imperial government could not do in over 200 years of persecution, American Christians did in 9 seconds. The entire (christian) worshiping community of Nagasaki was wiped out."
oops, wrong quote. Damn it!
You know, a great illustration to that blog post would be one of Rall's Zoroastrian cartoons 😀
to anonymous pledger:
when I say the pledge, I go with the original – One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Religion is a sad, pathetic holdover from ancient times that only continues to exist because 95% of the world's population can only deal with simple, dumb, comforting, black-and-white answers to any question it has about the world. It's infinitely more important that the answer is simple, dumb, comforting, and black-and-white than that it has any connection to reality or the truth. God's been dead and rotting a long time; we'd be doing the Earth and each other a favor if each of us grabbed a shovel and started covering up the stink.
You and Peggy Noonan are on the same page. She wrote the following in her Dec 7 WSJ column:
"There was one significant mistake in the speech. I do not know why Romney did not include nonbelievers in his moving portrait of the great American family. We were founded by believing Christians, but soon enough Jeremiah Johnson, and the old proud agnostic mountain men, and the village atheist, and the Brahmin doubter, were there, and they too are part of us, part of this wonderful thing we have. Why did Mr. Romney not do the obvious thing and include them? My guess: It would have been reported, and some idiots would have seen it and been offended that this Romney character likes to laud atheists. And he would have lost the idiot vote.
My feeling is we've bowed too far to the idiots. This is true in politics, journalism, and just about everything else."
Yes TheDon i've done the indivisible thing too. Now, I believe it best to interject other
God, names McArthyites, forgot. If you can't dazzel em with brilliance…….