Me, I'd go farther, because I gave up on religion a long time ago. It's become nothing but a political tool for grasping, snarling beasts willing to lead the idiots willing to follow them straight off the cliff into hell, all the while telling them that heaven is just over the next mountaintop. All they have to do is hate those their leaders hate....just like Hitler, Pol Pot and Mao had theirs do.
But if you read the teachings of Christ (which are about to be removed from the new conservative version of the bible because they're too liberal), you know he said flat out -- do not judge, do not hate, do not condemn anyone with whom you disagree. Period. End of story. In fact, the only time he lost his temper and violated his own precepts was when he saw moneychangers cheating people in the temple and threw them out. The rest of the time, he lived by what he preached.
What do we have these days? Pat Robertson blaming both fire and flood on gays and liberals. Preachers helping countries in Africa set up laws that call for executing gays and lesbians, with one going so far as to say what Iran is doing (killing teenage boys for jacking off together) should be done here in the US. Rick Perry actually executing people who are innocent, underaged or insane (and being applauded for it) while being part of a "Christian" group that wants to dismantle Social Security and reinstate sodomy laws even as they hand over cash, left and right, to billion-dollar corporations.
What else do we get? The fetishizing of the catastrophe of 9/11 as an excuse to torture men and women while invading nations that had done nothing to us and slaughtering their citizens (estimates of Iraqi civilians, alone, killed in the war rang up to nearly 1 million) as well as destroying civil liberties here in the US. So far today I've been able to ignore all the wailing and moaning over 9/11; I see it as an insult to those who were murdered by a group of maniacs (thanks to the stupidly lazy nature of the president in charge at the time). Fortunately, it seems to finally be fading as a rallying cry and many in the nation are beginning to see just how crazy we got after the Twin Towers came down.
My hope is we will begin to heal. That Obama will finally see it's okay to stand up to the nutcases in the GOP, and when he does, their constituents will send them packing. That the Tea Party will be sent out with yesterday's trash. And that we will get back to being the greatest nation the earth has ever seen. That's not to say I think we were ever perfect; we were just less imperfect than all the others...and that's a lot to be proud of.
As Winston Churchill is reputed to have said, "...democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried." I'd like us to get back to being the best of the worst instead of just the nastiest.
2 comments:
In a recent Republican debate, Ron Paul was asked "If a twenty-something year old man without medical insurance suddenly went into a coma that would take months of medical care, would it be right to refuse him the care?"
His answer, "Yes." And the crowd clapped loudly their approval.
He went on to say, that those kinds of patients were once paid for by churches but not anymore and that he wished to see that occur again.
Again the Republican crowd clapped loudly.
It's okay to prevent a woman raped from having an abortion, and at the same time deny her any medical care if she can't pay for it.
Mind boggling.
Agreed.
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