Why would senators and congressmen intentionally force the United States to the brink of financial disaster?
Why would legislators drive us to default on our national debt and tell us that default will be a good thing?
Why would billionaires fund grass roots organizations that have their members wave Confederate flags and spout hateful lies?
Why would Bible thumping go on everywhere, such that no speech can end without invoking God?
Why would otherwise sensible people in Kansas, Texas and elsewhere deny verified facts and long proven theories and instead be promoting science as seen through the eyes of relatively ignorant people of thousands of years ago?
Why has congress been gridlocked for so long?
The answers to those questions and more can be found by taking a step back from vilifying the (insert your own epithet here) extremists and railing at the stupid things they say and do. Instead of thinking they are (re-insert your epithet here) irrational, assume that they are sensible and determined warriors fighting for their desired goal. What would their goal be?
That is the answer I found in reading Deborah Caldwell’s article in the Huffington Post. The insanity of current events disappeared with the clarity that hordes of powerful people want to eliminate our government and put in its place a Christian theocracy.
Doubt that? First read Caldwell’s article. Follow through to the links she provides. Then test it all with your experience of hearing Ron Paul tell us he wants to eliminate government support of public education (what would that leave for our children?) and Grover Norquist wanting to shrink the government so that it can be drowned in a bathtub (what would take its place?). Test it against Michele Bachmann glorying in the coming end times that will be hastened by the destruction of our American structure. Don’t dismiss that just because Bachmann says crazy things most of the time, because there are thousands – perhaps hundreds of thousands – of Americans who agree with her and 50 of them are in congress right now and they are destroying our government.
I had long thought that they did that because they got off on the power trip and the attention they received that fed their self-promotion. I had thought that the people in the streets spouting radical stuff were just venting their anger and hoping that finally someone was listening to them and that for a brief moment they had a little bit of control. I may have been right, but that is not the big story.
The big story is that there is a huge number of Americans who want this country to be a Christian theocracy. They will say and do anything to make that happen and they care not at all about the destruction they will cause to America and the world with their fundamentalist, literal interpretation zeal. They think that our Founders wanted America to be that way, this in spite of the fact that the Founders specifically designed the Constitution to prevent America from being a theocracy and they wrote about the importance of that extensively. And that perfectly captures the denial of reality that goes on for our current day extremists.
Now imagine if the zealots had all the power, that the only law of the land was the Christian Bible and that those in charge believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible. America would look a lot like fundamentalist, theocratic Iran. Get ready for public stonings.
Are you scared yet?
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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue. Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same. Thanks. JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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3 Responses to I Get It – At Last
Jim Altschuler December 16, 2013
As I was reading Ms. Caldwell’s article, et al, I kept thinking, “They want to do what the Muslim population is trying to do!”
Then I got to the bottom of your article. It’s amazing that we’re so much on the exact same wavelength.
It’s also amazing that so much of the American populace JUST DOESN’T GET IT!
It’s time to vote those (&$#*%#*) underminers out of the Congress and the Senate and vote in some people who have the brains and guts to do the job right.
David Lindgren December 15, 2013
Jack, you might check out “Shock Doctrine” by Melanie Klein who posits that taking over the country is more to do with Milton Friedman. His economic theories out the University of Chicago want laissez faire free market government and it is repeated by the Tea Party idiots, many of whom are literal interpreters of the Bible. I don’t think we are on track for a Christian theocracy. There are far too many “spiritual but not religious” folks.
Jack Altschuler December 15, 2013
Friedman was a brilliant spokesman for free markets and for pure, unregulated capitalism. He was most persuasive with his unflinching belief and willful blindness to the consequences of his theories, positing that everyone is better off with Rand-ian greed and with self-focus the locus of truth. I’m guessing that he would have approved the termination of unemployment comp for the long term unemployed, declaring, “Let them eat air. It will help to cure their obesity.”
You may be right – that it’s all about laissez-faire capitalism rather than Christian theocracy. On the other hand, it may be both.