Huckabee silliness and silly hate
There was a segment on NPR today that was about an Iowa campaign advertisement by a candidate named Mike Huckabee. Huckabee is a Republican candidate; my impression of him is a friendly, simple man who would make a good friend but not a great executive. (Certain trivial faults: having a not-very-distinguished last name; not "believing" in evolution..sigh) Right now, the Iowa caucuses (party primary elections) are approaching and Mr Huckabee has a strange, unexpected lead over one party rival, Mitt Romney. Romney just put out some attack ad against Mr Huckabee and Mr Huckabee responded (retaliated?) with a completely politics-less Christmastime message, in which he urged Iowans to forget about politics and have a nice Christmas. NPR told about this and then added, "some people have noticed that the shadows on the bookcase in the commercial make the shape of a cross", as if this were something crazy, maybe like a conspiracy or something! How idiotic. I mean, I have no idea whether this cruciform shape was intentional, but let us consider the obvious ways in which a cross would be strikingly congruent: (a) The entire message was about a Christian holiday, and although this holiday is celebrated generally as a secular festival, the commercial specifically mentioned the birth of Christ. (b) Mr Huckabee is himself an ordained evangelical protestant minister. I just found that thing on the radio altogether baffling!
Now, since we are on the topics of politics and religion, here are some quotes I ran across in online magazines today.
"Nothing besides the teaching of evolution, art, climatology and literature makes right-wingers nuttier than teaching how to not need an abortion."
"At twenty, I always wonder how I will ensure that my children don't believe the Creationist lies. I imagine myself with my children clutching my legs and me with a baseball bat fending off boring white Christians waving bibles at us. I can only think that the worst thing that could happen is that my children somehow turn religious!"
Do these comments completely shock anyone else here? I am not shocked to see sentiments like these coming from people on the left, left-leaning people seem to me to be quite politically bigoted; what shocks me is how utterly idiotic these lines are! Admittedly, labels like "right-wingers" are pretty much meaningless out of context, but a blanket statement like that first one should set off alarm bells in your head. "Right-wingers" are against the teaching of art and literature..? What? Many Americans can think of examples of politically right-wing people somehow opposing mainstream teachings on evolution and climate science, but I am pretty confused about the other part.
I don't really know what to say about the second quote. I will be fair, it was actually a comment response to an article as opposed to actually a part of an article. I kind of wonder about why the bible-waving Christians were white, I mean, potentially, black, hispanic, or asian Christians could be equally perilous. And whyever are they boring? Would it not be better to be violently repulsing deluded fools armed with books if they were fierce or savage rather than boring?! Most of all, I must say, I am struck by this person's attitude of heroism. The image of her children cowering at her feet, under the protection of her righteous anger (and a fucking baseball bat), surrounded by the deceivers, is surprisingly militant. I don't know if it's more reminiscent of a zombie movie or Delacroix's Liberty leading the people. If you have read some of my past posts, you know that I have a pretty sarcastic opinion on normal liberal people who seem to think that they are revolutionaries or freedom fighters of some sort.
(For some real fun, let's check out the last line. What would happen if her children gave in to the dark side? would she use the baseball bat on them?)
Now, since we are on the topics of politics and religion, here are some quotes I ran across in online magazines today.
"Nothing besides the teaching of evolution, art, climatology and literature makes right-wingers nuttier than teaching how to not need an abortion."
"At twenty, I always wonder how I will ensure that my children don't believe the Creationist lies. I imagine myself with my children clutching my legs and me with a baseball bat fending off boring white Christians waving bibles at us. I can only think that the worst thing that could happen is that my children somehow turn religious!"
Do these comments completely shock anyone else here? I am not shocked to see sentiments like these coming from people on the left, left-leaning people seem to me to be quite politically bigoted; what shocks me is how utterly idiotic these lines are! Admittedly, labels like "right-wingers" are pretty much meaningless out of context, but a blanket statement like that first one should set off alarm bells in your head. "Right-wingers" are against the teaching of art and literature..? What? Many Americans can think of examples of politically right-wing people somehow opposing mainstream teachings on evolution and climate science, but I am pretty confused about the other part.
I don't really know what to say about the second quote. I will be fair, it was actually a comment response to an article as opposed to actually a part of an article. I kind of wonder about why the bible-waving Christians were white, I mean, potentially, black, hispanic, or asian Christians could be equally perilous. And whyever are they boring? Would it not be better to be violently repulsing deluded fools armed with books if they were fierce or savage rather than boring?! Most of all, I must say, I am struck by this person's attitude of heroism. The image of her children cowering at her feet, under the protection of her righteous anger (and a fucking baseball bat), surrounded by the deceivers, is surprisingly militant. I don't know if it's more reminiscent of a zombie movie or Delacroix's Liberty leading the people. If you have read some of my past posts, you know that I have a pretty sarcastic opinion on normal liberal people who seem to think that they are revolutionaries or freedom fighters of some sort.
(For some real fun, let's check out the last line. What would happen if her children gave in to the dark side? would she use the baseball bat on them?)