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Blogs by David A. Schwinghammer
"Doofus" 3/6/2012 8:59:59 AM
Do we really want a theocrat in the Oval Office?
After Rick Santorum lost his senate seat, he wrangled a job as a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Some of his comments were so outlandish that one of his fellow columnists labeled him a “doofus.” Surprisingly Santorum himself brought this up on the campaign trail.
Santorum was at it again when he questioned the “theology” of the Obama administration. The next day he tried to explain himself by saying he meant Obama’s sympathy toward “radical environmentalists.” He later made it worse by complaining that the national media was “less than erudite” when they questioned his use of the term “theology.” First off, he needs to look up the word theology; secondly, I’ve never heard anybody refer to environmentalists as radical. About as close as they get is trying to save endangered species, hardly radical. I think he said what he meant the first time. He does not hide the fact that he would legislate as a theocrat, scorning the Constitution conservatives say they love so much. He has even said that John F. Kennedy’s speech in which he promised to keep his religion and his policy separate made him want to throw up. What part of the First Amendment does this man not understand? I actually remember the campaign of 1960; you could not go anywhere without finding a pamphlet on your windshield warning about Kennedy taking orders from the Pope.
Some of these same people now support Santorum.
Remarkably the national press seems to be avoiding the Opus Dei issue.
Santorum and his wife have been designated Knight and Dame of the Magistral Grace of the Knights of Malta. Opus Dei is the bane of progressive Catholicism. Santorum attends, along with Antonin Scalia, St. Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church in Great Falls, Virginia, known for its Latin masses. Although Latin masses are no longer forbidden, most Catholic masses have been said in English since the John XXIII’s Ecumenical Council in the sixties.
Santorum refers to global warming as fraudulent. This opinion is based on three percent of climatologists who agree with him. And many of those are changing their minds, especially after the phalanx of tornadoes that decimated the Midwest in early March. A meteorologist from the Weather Channel said he thought it was a result of the lack of snow. This has been the warmest winter in recorded history in Minnesota. With the jet stream moving further south, the warm air racing up from the Gulf acts like a boiled over pot. It’s not like we don’t have any evidence that pollution affects the weather. Acid rain is a settled fact as is the hole in the Ozone layer over the Arctic. Soot particles and greenhouse gases trap the heat, resulting in higher temperatures. Santorum and the others get campaign contributions from the major culprits, the oil billionaires. They’re willing to play dice with the future of the country, rather than agree to something like Cap and Trade legislation. Australia, which recently went through a horrible drought, has finally seen the error of their ways, has initiated this same legislation. Australia is hardly known for its Progressive legislation.
Here’s where Santorum earns the appellation doofus. Santorum claims that the federal and state governments ought to stay out of education. He also referred to Obama as a snob for insisting that every American ought to have the right to a college education. Santorum was giving a speech to a working class audience at the time. Apparently it’s okay to call it class warfare when the Occupy Wall Street movement attacks the one percent, but it’s something else when Santorum tries to drive a wedge between the educated and workers. Santorum home schooled his kids, all seven of them. As far as I can figure, home schooling is a reaction to sex education and separation of church and state. In other words, these parents don’t trust their kids to think for themselves. Another name for that is brainwashing. Santorum and others of his ilk are like the kid who owns the baseball who pouts when he doesn't get his way and goes home and takes his ball with him. That’s not how democracy works; of course Santorum is a theocrat and they don’t believe in democracy in the first place. Then there’s the matter of what a college education does for you. Statistics I’ve read claim college graduates make up to three times what a high school graduate makes on the average, unless of course the worker belongs to a union and we know what Republicans think of unions. Also, if it’s a liberal arts college and you’re required to take general eds, you learn so much more about life, it’s immeasurable. Music, for instance. How many Jaywalkers (See Jay Leno bit) don’t know who Mozart is? How many have no idea who the Impressionists were?
Face it, a Rick Santorum presidency is a presidency for the chosen few. He openly supports a Christian government. There’s not that much of a difference between fundamentalist Christianity and Islam. They both come from the same place. Muhammad used the Bible as a guide when he compiled the Koran. Both of them have their roots in misogynistic Zoroastrianism. What about the 20% of Americans who don’t list a religion on surveys? That’s sixty-some million people. What about the Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Scientologists etc. who live in this country?
