Theo-Conservative Thuggery Has No Decency
Remember that time when a bunch of scientists stormed a
church and began taking apart the weekly service? How they picked apart the King James Bible, throwing
disclaimers everywhere about how Adam and Eve came about, how the sun couldn’t
be created after the Earth, how Jonah didn’t get swallowed by a whale, how the
“body and blood of Christ” weren’t really such, and how the book was really
cobbled together by a committee of men cherry-picking which stories to accept
instead of it being “divinely created”.
Remember that?
Well, of course not.
Because that never happened.
Scientists don’t feel an overwhelming compulsion to go to every church
and tear down religious beliefs and negate what people believe in, even if that
belief is delusional or counter-productive or even destructive.
So why is it that the overly-religious feel entitled to do
just that with everything around them?
Case in point: An amateur Egyptologist
by the name of Olivia McConnell had a rather curious question when it came to
her home state of South Carolina. She
wondered why there wasn’t a “state fossil”.
There is,
after all, a state flag, a state seal, a state flower, a state tree, two state
songs, a state dance, a state fish, a state reptile, a state beverage, even a
state snack. But no “state fossil”, and
this from the state that officially found the
first fossil back in 1725!
So young Miss McConnell sent a letter to her state
legislators and Governor Nikki Haley.
They liked the idea and thought that they should have a state
fossil. In fact they believed this would
be a no-brainer.
Enter the theocratic-conservatives.
The theo-cons apparently did not like seeing a piece of
legislation that was contrary to their religious beliefs. So they demanded that the legislation include
whole passages from the Book of Genesis, and if they didn’t get their way, then
this otherwise simple state designation would die in committee.
It should be noted that the
person behind this otherwise nice idea of a state fossil, Olivia McConnell,
is all of eight years old. And she’s not
an atheist either. But she does feel –
like many of you do – that there’s no reason at all why bible references should
be inserted into an otherwise innocuous state designation.
And when that came out, that the theo-cons were actually
bulling a little girl to impose their own self-important measure of theocracy,
some of them decided to “compromise”.
They watered down their wording… but only a little bit.
But apparently even that isn’t enough to satisfy all of
their egos. As of this column’s date,
the legislation is still stalled in committee, and it doesn’t look like these
state-elected self-serving mullahs will allow it to progress. After all, the theo-conservative script
decrees that there never were dinosaurs… because that would contradict the
literal word of the Bible!
Meanwhile, another theo-con in Louisiana has
reluctantly pulled his effort to decree the King James Bible as that
state’s official book. Apparently he
“didn’t realize” that making that kind of declaration actually would be a state-endorsement
of Christianity, which is in direct violation of the First Amendment. Or at least that’s what he claims.
And if you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you!
Right about now I’d be asking what the hell is going on with
these theo-cons, but let’s get brutally honest here… this is really nothing
new. This is the same theocratic agenda
that they’ve been trying in earnest to impose on us for generations now.
But now some of them seem to not even care about
pretense. Making the King James Bible
the official state book? That’s about as
blanket of a state endorsement of religion as you can get without an
out-and-out ceremony. And out-and-out
inserting passages from the Book of Genesis to negate a secular message? That’s some serious passive-aggressive
backhanding, especially when it’s done to the efforts of an eight-year old
little girl!
Those so-called “Christian” legislators in South Carolina
should be ashamed of themselves for what they are doing!
They “should” be… but I’m guessing that they won’t.
Because we are talking about amoral, sociopathic, sadistic,
self-serving, self-righteous career politicians that don’t apologize or retreat
over what they do. They don’t stand down
when wrong; they double-down. They
re-assert their self-righteousness and demand that the rest of the world
surrender to it and place it on a pedestal, immune from challenge, question, or
doubt.
And then you hear from the apologists… their fellow
conservatives that automatically defend and validate the tactics as a way to
counter some fictional “assault” on “our way of life”. But these are the same arguments that have
been used since the days of unchecked evangelism of the 19th
Century. The “threat” that they vaguely
cite to justify their actions never changes.
It never goes away. It is never
diminished one iota no matter what they do.
If anything, they will claim that the “threat” is getting closer and
closer and getting worse and worse, more perilous by the day. “Just look at the news”, they always say, “and
you’ll see it.”
But what “it” really is, they will never admit to in
public. Because “it” is their sense of
self-importance. “It” is their obsessive
fixation on dominance. “It” is their
assurance of power and control over the masses.
“It” is their perverted sense of security that their actions and
judgments are sanctified – “by God,” of course – so they will be followed
without question.
And to that end, it means keeping the masses afraid of some
perpetual and mythical “looming threat”.
It means keeping the Great Unwashed willfully ignorant instead of
informed. It means demonizing science
and condemning independent thought. It
means keeping people controlled instead of educated. It means sneaking in signs of their religious
dominance to appease their own egos. It
even means thumbing their noses at the well-meaning efforts of little girls.
Because of all of the state designations that one could come
up with, the only “designation” that they ever really care about… is their own.
2 comments:
David, if you really want an idea of how far they'll go, read the novel "Christian Nation". I did last fall; it's kind of like a modern-day "It Can't Happen Here".
Actually I read it a couple of years ago (Thank you RJ!!!) and I have to say IT HAS BEEN HAPPENING HERE!
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