A Christian nation

Mitt Romney stands by what he said, whatever it was he said.  Well, what he said was that President Obama is working to make this a less Christian nation.

Good.

Because this is what the Radical Christian Right, which is to say, the Republican base Mitt is kowtowing to, means by a “Christian” nation:

A nation in which we all pray together in public the same Protestant prayers, even if we’re Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic, non-believers, or Protestants who don’t believe in praying in public because of what Jesus said on the subject. Where creationism is taught to children as science.  Where no women have sex except with their husbands and with the intention of getting pregnant. Where no woman can have an abortion unless the man who got her pregnant permits it. Where no poor woman can get an abortion at all. Where gay people are made to feel as miserable about themselves as can be.  And where the poor can expect no aid or comfort from a supposedly Christian government and where the rich are not inconvenienced in their efforts to store up as much treasure on earth as they can lay their grubby hands on.

A nation of guilt-ridden, joyless, repressed, self-loathing, greedy hypocrites.

Comments

[minstrel hussain boy]

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

thomas jefferson, notes on virginia

these buttmunches are not in conflict with me, they are in conflict with our founders.

[S McCoy]

C'mon Lance!!! Sure there are a few whacko "Christians" that believe there should be a national religion, but that's a tiny minority of the people who go to church on any given Sunday, and an even tinier minority of the Republican party. The "Radical Christian Right" is a figment of your imagination. Do you even know ANY evangelical Christians? Contrary to your caricature, most of them are nice folks who are trying their best to live good lives in a broken world and choose the Republican party because it's the lesser of two evils, not because they're guilt-ridden, joyless, repressed, self-loathing, greedy hypocrites.

[minstrel hussain boy]

the republicans the lesser evil?

thhhhhwwwwwpppppttt!!!! (that's the best raspberry i can manage in HTML)

[Ken Muldrew]

A Christian nation is pretty grim, I'll grant you, but at least we won't have to be assailed by militant atheists.

Myths, like languages, are invented by children. Adults have to climb over the fears of childhood and see past the burial mounds of their ancestors. Not just a few adults, but all of us.

[S McCoy]

When Romney and (most) others say they'd like to see a more Christian nation, they're not talking about creating a southern baptist Taliban, they simply mean they wish more people would act more Christ-like. You know, "love your neighbor", and "let him without sin cast the first stone", and all that. I would think even the most vehement anti-Christians among us would support that.

[Lance Mannion]

S McCoy, are you not paying attention to what these people are saying and doing or do you think they're kidding? I think I may have more respect for them than you do because I believe they are sincere. In all these states where Republicans control the legislature they've been passing laws to make their states more "Christian" and none of these laws are about getting people to behave more neighborly. For crying out loud, Tennessee just passed a law warning young people against kissing and holding hands. That's not about making the place more Christian. It's about stamping out joy. And over in Virginia, well, this how to show love for your neighbor? And you and I have have gone back and forth about how Catholic Paul Ryan's budget is. But raising taxes on the poor in order to cut them on the rich seems like pure meanness and greed to me and the House of Representatives keeps passing it and Mitt Romney thinks it's "marvelous." They mean what they say, they're doing what they believe to be right, and they intend for the whole country to be "Christian" in their way.

[S McCoy]

Of course you can find absurd examples (though your TN example is a ridiculous mis-characterization). But I'm sure you agree that there's nothing wrong with healthy public debate about where to draw the line between decency and indecency. That's called democracy, not government mandated religion. All laws are based on somebody's morals. As for Paul Ryan's budget -- why can't you fathom that people genuinely believe the best prescription is to get the government out of the way and let the free enterprise system work? A vibrant economy combined with strong private charity would be so much more effective than any inefficient, unsustainable government solution. I know you don't agree, but I don't think that makes you an evil, twisted person. On the other hand, you and yours seem to think anyone who doesn't see it your way is criminally wicked.

[Linkmeister]

S McCoy writes "people genuinely believe the best prescription is to get the government out of the way and let the free enterprise system work?"

People may believe that, but people who do have deliberately or otherwise avoided learning American history, particularly that period between about 1930 and 1940. There was a thing called the Great Depression in those years, when there was 25% unemployment and millions of people on bread lines. All those people were subject to the mercies of the free enterprise system. It didn't work for them.

I and my liberal friends think government has an obligation to care for people who get caught up in maelstroms like that. Conservatives don't. I call that wicked. Period, end of story.

[Lance Mannion]

S McCoy, yes, I can find absurd examples. I can find lots of absurd examples. Right Wing Republican legislators keep providing them. In TN,in VA, in OK, AZ, FL, TX, AL, and on and on. These are the laws they want and want in every state and want passed by Congress and amended into the Constitution. And I'm not mischaracterizing them. I'm going by what the people passing say they want, which is not a healthy debate on morality and decency, but the imposition of their notions of morality and decency on everybody else, because they sincerely believe the country has gone to complete hell.

As for the Ryan/GOP budget, I'm not talking about "people". I'm talking about a specific person, Paul Ryan, who you apparently don't believe was ever the devoted disciple of Ayn Rand he was. His recent reconversion to Catholicism would be a lot more convincing if he'd changed his budget to reflect that but he didn't. He didn't even change his rhetoric except to invoke the name of Thomas Aquinas in place of Rand's.

And he still can't add.

[gracie]

Do love the use of "kowtowing" here, given the word's etymology. Nice touch...