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December 14, 2007
'Overdosing On Public Piety' In Politics
Via Andrew Stuttaford at NRO, Krauthammer writes what needs to be written:
[...] Mitt Romney declares, "Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." Barack Obama opens his speech at his South Carolina Oprah rally with "Giving all praise and honor to God. Look at the day that the Lord has made." Mike Huckabee explains his surge in the polls thus: "There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one. It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people." This campaign is knee-deep in religion, and it's only going to get worse. I'd thought that the limits of professed public piety had already been achieved during the Republican CNN-YouTubedebate when some squirrelly looking guy held up a Bible and asked, "Do you believe every word of this book?" -- and not one candidate dared reply: None of your damn business.Be sure to read Krauthammer's entire piece, especially, as Stuttaford suggests - where "Krauthammer takes a look at Gov. Romney's (absurd) claim that "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom," a claim that would suggest that he knows as much about history as Mike Huckabee knows about biology.""Instead, Giuliani, Romney and Huckabee bent a knee and tried appeasement with various interpretations of scriptural literalism. The right answer, the only answer, is that the very question is offensive. The Constitution prohibits any religious test for office. And while that proscribes only government action, the law is also meant to be a teacher. In the same way that civil rights laws established not just the legal but also the moral norm that one simply does not discriminate on the basis of race -- changing the practice of one generation and the consciousness of the next -- so the constitutional injunction against religious tests is meant to make citizens understand that such tests are profoundly un-American.
[...] In this country, there is no special political standing that one derives from being a Christian leader like Mike Huckabee or a fervent believer like Mitt Romney. Just as there should be no disability or disqualification for political views that derive from religious sensibilities, whether the subject is civil rights or stem cells.
By the way, speaking of religion in politics, I'm glad I'm not the only one that believes the Oprah-Obama messiah routine is way over the top and nothing less than a ruse:
Obama's promises to move beyond the politics of the 1960s are, by definition, empty promises.If Oprah and Obama weren't Black they'd be massacred in the media over their obvious racism (yes, Michelle Obama and her "soul" talk as well). Can you imagine a White person getting away with a White version of Oprah/Obama's obvious racism and "vote Black" message? To say the least, I'm not at all impressed with Oprah - Daytime Talks' Jihadist Sister (Cheating husbands don't get off as easy as Islamic terrorists, murderers, and torturers in Winfrey's world), nor the Oprah/Obama phony "soul" message, and I'm damned not going to fall for their ruse of a secular message of radicalism disquised as Obama the new messiah
What is more, Obama knows they are empty promises. In the war between traditionalism and radicalism, Obama stands solidly with radicalism. Though he has a gift for obscuring his positions, Obama is an advocate of gay rights, a strong believer in the concept of private property as social property, an abortion-on-demand fanatic. His pledge to move beyond the politics of the 1960s is a pledge to achieve unity in the fully triumphant program of the 1960s. If Obama is a Messiah, he is a secular Messiah, preaching the word of Tom Hayden.
Related readings:
Rich Lowry - Obama the Messianic
Debbie Schlussel - Oprah Sucks Alert
Sissy Willis - Did Obama just call me a racist?
Cross posted from Hyscience
Posted by Richard at December 14, 2007 11:03 AM
