Tea Party people are very conservative. They also claim to be very religious. The question I have is whether they are very intelligent. Several of the Republican candidates for president, including Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, reject the Darwinian theory of evolution. They do this primarily on religious grounds. They tend toward the creationist theory that God created all living things just as they are. Also, despite the overwehlming weight of scientific evidence, they reject the current theory of global warming. It is kind of scary to think that one of these ignoramuses could become president of the United States.
The distinguished British biologist and author, Richard Dawkins, wrote about the ignorance of Rick Perry as follows:
"There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown
in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow
the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore
Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this:
In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally
rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s
Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack
of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory.
Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican
voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like
themselves over someone actually qualified for the job."
The advent of "Uneducated fools" in the ranks of the Republican Party is explained by the general level of ignorance to be found in its Tea Party base. The people who make up the Tea Party fanatics are, for the most part, a highly uneducated group who resent the high education of President Obama and those around him. The fact is that Liberals and athiests are better educated and brighter than conservatives and religious believers.
It seems from all the studies done of the relative intelligence of conservatives and liberals, and of religious believers and atheists, that on the average liberals are more intelligent than conservatives, (George Will may or may not be an exception to the rule), and atheists are more intelligent than religious believers. Aside from the overwhelming weight of intelligence studies, the difference in intelligence between these groups is encountered on a daily basis. Have you ever noticed that the most educated people you know and meet are usually liberal and non-religious? The corollary of this is that the most conservative and religious people you know and meet are usually less well educated. One need only look at the high percentage of liberals and atheists among scientists, collage professors, and members of other educated professions.
I will not waste a lot of time defining the terms liberal, conservative, and atheist. But when I speak of somebody being “religious,” I am not talking about being spiritual, holy, or pious. By the term “religious” I mean the Tea Party type of people such as “Born-Again” Christians, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and outspoken bible-thumping members of the so-called Religious Right who claim to be religious.
There have been a number of studies looking at whether liberals and atheists are more intelligent than conservatives and religious types. One is the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (or Add Health). The other is the General Social Survey (GSS). Both studies demonstrated that liberals are more intelligent than conservatives. The Add Health study shows that the mean IQ of adolescents who identify themselves as "very liberal" is 106, compared with a mean IQ of 95 for those calling themselves "very conservative." The Add Health study also found that there was a correlation between religion and intelligence. Non-religious people tended to be more intelligent than religious believers. The Add Health study is statistically significant because more than 20,000 young people were surveyed.
Researcher, Satoshi Kanazawa, of the London School of Economics and Political Science, has written a paper in which he quotes from the Add Health Survey along with other sources. He finds that more-intelligent people are more likely to describe themselves as liberal and non-religious. In another study, a British team found that young people with higher intelligence scores were more likely to grow into adults who vote for Liberal Democrats.
In 2008, intelligence researcher Helmuth Nyborg examined whether IQ relates to religion, using representative data from the Add Health and other studies. His results, published in the scientific journal "Intelligence," demonstrated that on average, Atheists scored 5.89 IQ points higher than religious types. These findings are supported by many other studies including the study by Lazar Stankova of the National Institute of Education in Singapore, the 1975 study by Norman Poythress, using SAT scores as a measure of intelligence, and others.
You need only look at the levels of education for media conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, and compare them with those for liberals like Anderson Cooper, Keith Olberman, Bill Maher, and Rachel Maddow. Whereas Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity never graduated from college (Limbaugh flunked-out), Anderson Cooper graduated from Yale, Keith Olberman and Bill Maher both graduated from Cornell, and Rachel Maddow obtained a doctoral degree from Oxford University in England.
The question is: Does this make any difference? I say yes. We obviously want our political leaders to be highly intelligent and well-educated. We have a president who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. He is surrounded by some of the most brilliant and highly educated people ever to work in the White House. Some of his Republican Tea Party opponents, however, seem to occupy the opposite end of the educational spectrum. Rick Perry of Texas, who graduated from Texas A&M with a 2.22 GPA in Animal Science, has been described as “intellectually challenged.” One Republican strategist says that Perry “benefits from an uncluttered mind.” Look at the educational credentials of Sarah Palin, the Right-Wing’s poster girl for dimwittedness. Michele Bachmann, who graduated from that distinguished center of learning, Winona State University, and got a Law degree at Oral Roberts University, displays her lack of knowledge with repeated and sometimes hilarious gaffs.
Liberals tend to be far more accepting of the findings of science than Tea Party types. Liberals accept the firmly established Darwinian theory of evolution, the science of global warming, and the burgeoning developments of stem cell research. Tea Party people embrace the pseudo-science of Creationism, deny the overwhelming evidence of global warming, and would stop stem-cell research in its tracks.
But even if liberals and atheists are smarter, are they any better people than Tea Party conservatives and religious believers? I say yes. Despite their claim for patriotism, piety, and purity, Tea Party types are often narrow, bigoted, hypocritical, and mean-spirited. They tend to despise minorities, poor people, gays, immigrants, non-Christians, and others. Liberals and Atheists tend to be more open-minded about the differences between people, and more accepting.
Theoretically, religion is supposed to make people better, kinder toward their fellow man, full of love and generosity. This is just not the case with Tea Party types. They tend to be small-minded, envious, and angry. While Christ spoke of charity toward the poor, Tea Party people deeply resent the aid that government gives poor and minority people. They are very judgmental toward poor people, asserting that such people are lazy parasites on the state. Instead of Christian charity, they seem to have a coldness if not repugnance toward the less fortunate.
The following by Paul Krugman is also very pertinent to this issue:
"Within the G.O.P., willful ignorance has become a litmus test for candidates...So it’s now highly likely that the presidential candidate of one of our two major political parties will either be a man who believes what he wants to believe, even in the teeth of scientific evidence, or a man who pretends to believe whatever he thinks the party’s base wants him to believe. And the deepening anti-intellectualism of the political right, both within and beyond the G.O.P., extends far beyond the issue of climate change."
I believe that when all things are added up, liberals and atheists are not only smarter than Tea Party types, but also better, more decent people. In many ways, they follow the teachings of Jesus better than the Tea Partiers.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
TEA PARTY PEOPLE ARE NOT TERRORISTS
Tea Party people are not terrorists, they are something else. The terrorist charge has been leveled at them because so many were willing to vote against raising the debt limit. While it is true that failure to raise the debt limit would have caused a default on our national obligations, the Tea Party people didn’t fully realize the catastrophe that would ensue. No, their motivation was not to bring-on another giant recession. It was simply to cut future spending.
In a recent poll, three-quarters of Tea Party supporters said that they opposed any rise in the debt limit because they were more concerned that raising the debt ceiling would “lead to higher government spending and make the national debt bigger.” It didn’t matter to them that in return for a rise in the debt limit the Republican leadership would be able to get trillions of dollars of spending cuts.
What those Tea Party supporters didn’t seem to know was that a rise in the debt limit was needed not to pay for future spending, but to pay for obligations already incurred by the United States government. Those Tea Partiers were not worried about a default on our nation’s debt, or the economic catastrophe predicted by leading economists, because they thought that failure to raise the debt limit would simply make the President cut-back on future spending. They had no understanding how the economics of government works, and they didn’t want to hear the facts.
The problem with the Tea Party is not terrorism. It is ignorance. Those people in the Tea Party who opposed any rise in the debt limit, even if it was matched by spending cuts, were acting out of ignorance. They didn’t understand why it was necessary to raise the debt ceiling.
In addition, I believe that they were acting out of bigotry toward a president who presents a combination that they hate—he is biracial and highly educated. In an interview on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly asked the President why so many people hated him. Obama politely answered that people don’t know him, and that if they did they would not necessarily feel so much hostility. I think that we should face the real truth. Right-wing people hate President Obama because he is an educated black man and he makes them feel inferior. Most of the white Tea Party supporters have spent their lives holding strong feelings of bigotry toward African Americans and other people of color. Even though they may themselves have been poorly educated, they have always assumed that Blacks are mentally inferior to whites. While most of them would not admit to such bigotry, and would not only deny their racial hate but point to all the nice Black people who are their friends, underneath it all they are repelled by Blacks.
To Tea Party bigots, President Obama is the worst possible kind of president. He is not only a liberal, but he is black. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude. He taught constitutional law in Chicago. He speaks with the assurance of a highly intelligent and cultivated person. The Tea Party whites look at him on television and realize that this Black man is far more educated, far more sophisticated, far more articulate then they are. They assume that he will want not only to help poor people, but also that he will do everything he can to spend tax dollars helping Black people.
I believe that a major motivation of Tea Partiers is anger, resentment, and jealousy at liberals who are more educated than they are. One Tea Party congressman who had never been to collage made that clear when he complained that a rise in the debt limit would simply mean more money for Pell Grants so that people like the Barack Obama could go to college and get educated by liberals. Tea Party types hate white liberals because they believe that liberals want to spend governmental money to help improve the status of poor people, particularly African Americans. They look upon Blacks as inferior people who are lazy and dishonest. They resent the idea of spending their tax money to support African Americans. They hate paying taxes, and the use of tax money to support people they despise is intolerable.
When Tea Party people look at liberal spokesmen on television, they realize that those liberals are almost always better educated and better informed than they are. They also realize that those liberals are better educated and informed than the conservative spokesmen found on radio talk shows and Fox News. They call the liberal media the “elite” media because of the greater level of education of liberal media journalists. I once wrote a column for the newspaper in which I pointed out the difference in education between conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, and liberals like Anderson Cooper, Keith Olberman, Bill Maher, and Rachel Maddow. Whereas Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity never graduated from college, Anderson Cooper graduated from Yale, Keith Olberman and Bill Maher both graduated from Cornell, and Rachel Maddow obtained a doctoral degree from Oxford University in England. When one compares the educational accomplishments of Tea Party Congressmen with those of liberal Democrats in Congress, the difference is astounding. Liberals, on average, are far more educated than Tea Partiers.
I am convinced that much of the evil in American politics is due to the ignorance of far-right-wing Tea Party types. A good example was presented in a recent newspaper article in Dayton, Ohio, where a local school board member, who is also the head of the local Tea Party cell, called for the teaching of creationism in schools. It is frightening that someone in a position to influence the teaching of children is so fundamentally stupid. This woman demonstrated ignorance on several levels. First, she showed that she was unaware of the law in America. Creationism (and its ugly sister “Intelligent Design”) has been declared by the courts to be a religious and not scientific theory and has been banned in every case. In Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creationism be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion.
In addition, the board member demonstrated the kind of ignorance about science common among Tea Party people. Evolution is an established scientific fact, not just a theory. It has been proven in thousands of scientific studies published in thousands of scientific papers in hundreds of prestigious scientific publications. Creationism is a wacky non-scientific theory that has religion as its base and no legitimate science to support it. The simple-minded people who believe in it are religious zealots who have no real understanding of science.
So the main characteristic of people in the Tea Party is not terrorism. They do not want to blow-up federal buildings. They want only to stop all social programs that give tax money to poor and minority people. Their main characteristic is not terror, it is ignorance combined with bigotry.
In a recent poll, three-quarters of Tea Party supporters said that they opposed any rise in the debt limit because they were more concerned that raising the debt ceiling would “lead to higher government spending and make the national debt bigger.” It didn’t matter to them that in return for a rise in the debt limit the Republican leadership would be able to get trillions of dollars of spending cuts.
What those Tea Party supporters didn’t seem to know was that a rise in the debt limit was needed not to pay for future spending, but to pay for obligations already incurred by the United States government. Those Tea Partiers were not worried about a default on our nation’s debt, or the economic catastrophe predicted by leading economists, because they thought that failure to raise the debt limit would simply make the President cut-back on future spending. They had no understanding how the economics of government works, and they didn’t want to hear the facts.
The problem with the Tea Party is not terrorism. It is ignorance. Those people in the Tea Party who opposed any rise in the debt limit, even if it was matched by spending cuts, were acting out of ignorance. They didn’t understand why it was necessary to raise the debt ceiling.
In addition, I believe that they were acting out of bigotry toward a president who presents a combination that they hate—he is biracial and highly educated. In an interview on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly asked the President why so many people hated him. Obama politely answered that people don’t know him, and that if they did they would not necessarily feel so much hostility. I think that we should face the real truth. Right-wing people hate President Obama because he is an educated black man and he makes them feel inferior. Most of the white Tea Party supporters have spent their lives holding strong feelings of bigotry toward African Americans and other people of color. Even though they may themselves have been poorly educated, they have always assumed that Blacks are mentally inferior to whites. While most of them would not admit to such bigotry, and would not only deny their racial hate but point to all the nice Black people who are their friends, underneath it all they are repelled by Blacks.
To Tea Party bigots, President Obama is the worst possible kind of president. He is not only a liberal, but he is black. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude. He taught constitutional law in Chicago. He speaks with the assurance of a highly intelligent and cultivated person. The Tea Party whites look at him on television and realize that this Black man is far more educated, far more sophisticated, far more articulate then they are. They assume that he will want not only to help poor people, but also that he will do everything he can to spend tax dollars helping Black people.
I believe that a major motivation of Tea Partiers is anger, resentment, and jealousy at liberals who are more educated than they are. One Tea Party congressman who had never been to collage made that clear when he complained that a rise in the debt limit would simply mean more money for Pell Grants so that people like the Barack Obama could go to college and get educated by liberals. Tea Party types hate white liberals because they believe that liberals want to spend governmental money to help improve the status of poor people, particularly African Americans. They look upon Blacks as inferior people who are lazy and dishonest. They resent the idea of spending their tax money to support African Americans. They hate paying taxes, and the use of tax money to support people they despise is intolerable.
When Tea Party people look at liberal spokesmen on television, they realize that those liberals are almost always better educated and better informed than they are. They also realize that those liberals are better educated and informed than the conservative spokesmen found on radio talk shows and Fox News. They call the liberal media the “elite” media because of the greater level of education of liberal media journalists. I once wrote a column for the newspaper in which I pointed out the difference in education between conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, and liberals like Anderson Cooper, Keith Olberman, Bill Maher, and Rachel Maddow. Whereas Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity never graduated from college, Anderson Cooper graduated from Yale, Keith Olberman and Bill Maher both graduated from Cornell, and Rachel Maddow obtained a doctoral degree from Oxford University in England. When one compares the educational accomplishments of Tea Party Congressmen with those of liberal Democrats in Congress, the difference is astounding. Liberals, on average, are far more educated than Tea Partiers.
I am convinced that much of the evil in American politics is due to the ignorance of far-right-wing Tea Party types. A good example was presented in a recent newspaper article in Dayton, Ohio, where a local school board member, who is also the head of the local Tea Party cell, called for the teaching of creationism in schools. It is frightening that someone in a position to influence the teaching of children is so fundamentally stupid. This woman demonstrated ignorance on several levels. First, she showed that she was unaware of the law in America. Creationism (and its ugly sister “Intelligent Design”) has been declared by the courts to be a religious and not scientific theory and has been banned in every case. In Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creationism be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion.
In addition, the board member demonstrated the kind of ignorance about science common among Tea Party people. Evolution is an established scientific fact, not just a theory. It has been proven in thousands of scientific studies published in thousands of scientific papers in hundreds of prestigious scientific publications. Creationism is a wacky non-scientific theory that has religion as its base and no legitimate science to support it. The simple-minded people who believe in it are religious zealots who have no real understanding of science.
So the main characteristic of people in the Tea Party is not terrorism. They do not want to blow-up federal buildings. They want only to stop all social programs that give tax money to poor and minority people. Their main characteristic is not terror, it is ignorance combined with bigotry.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Warren Jeffs Rapist
A court in Texas has convicted Warren Jeffs of sexual molestation of two young girls. One was age 12 when she was married to Jeffs. The other was 14. Apparently the evidence against Jeffs included a tape recording of Jeffs talking to the young girl during the rape. I am told that the jury cried when it heard the slender tiny voice of this girl. When Jeffs asked during the sex act her how she was, she said she was okay. Jeffs said the pain would mean that she was going to heaven. The jury will now have the option of sending this miserable scoundrel to Hell. Now the law enforcement officials in Texas should prosecute every man and woman in that cult who had anything to do with the rape of young girls.
If the many witnesses who have spoken about the cult are to be believed, these child-brides become part of harems for church elders who eject young men from the sect so that they will not have any competition for the young girls’ attention. The wives and children of these men are raised and brainwashed to believe that it is God’s commandment that they surrender their virginity and freedom to older men in order to propagate the sect.
But it is not God’s commandment. It has nothing to do with God. It has nothing to do with religion. It is the raw exercise of power and lust by dirty old men who want to enjoy sex with young virgins. It is rape. History shows that people have always used religion to cloak their nefarious designs. Just as Moslem fanatics use religion to justify their insane attacks against innocent people, men have always used religion to justify the rape of young girls.
I have nothing against these rapists practicing polygamy with adult women if that is what they want to do. My problem is with elders and parents compelling their children to take part in such a sick culture. Most states in the union forbid sex between adults and children under the age of consent. In Texas the age of consent is 17. In most states it is 16. There is a good reason for treating children under 16 or 17 as being unable to consent. Most children under 16 or 17 do not have the fortitude to resist the impositions of adults and do not have sufficient understanding to assent to such impositions. The twisted individuals who prey upon young girls on the internet deserve to have the book simultaneously thrown at them and shoved down their throats.
It does not matter that this form of child-abuse is institutionalized as a religion. They can call it anything they want, but it is nothing more than child molestation. It has been going on for ages and has always been common in primitive societies. In parts of Africa and Asia it has proceeded hand-in-glove with the genital mutilation of young girls. The freedom of women from mistreatment and exploitation is an important part of the story of civilization. We in America may have a long way to go to be thoroughly civilized, but we do not have to tolerate this kind of beastly behavior.
You need only look at the women from this cult to see what damage can be done by brainwashing. They come on television in their grotesque hairdos and pioneer dresses and speak in robotic voices. You could say that they should not be punished because they have obviously been hammered by the abuses of the men of the cult, but they are adults, and however brain-damaged they may be, they are answerable to the law for their transgressions. Any adult that would let her 12-year-old daughter marry a 55-year-old man is a pimp and deserves no sympathy.
It seems apparent that despite denials, the practice of forcing underage girls into polygamous marriages is widespread in the cult. For this reason, the proper thing to do is not only to prosecute all of the men and women in the cult, but also to permanently take all of the children in the sect away from their biological parents. These people look upon the cult as one large “family.” They live communally. The children call all of the women their “mothers” and all of the men their “uncles.” As in any abusive family, when some of the children are being abused the government must take all of the children out of the household.
If the many witnesses who have spoken about the cult are to be believed, these child-brides become part of harems for church elders who eject young men from the sect so that they will not have any competition for the young girls’ attention. The wives and children of these men are raised and brainwashed to believe that it is God’s commandment that they surrender their virginity and freedom to older men in order to propagate the sect.
But it is not God’s commandment. It has nothing to do with God. It has nothing to do with religion. It is the raw exercise of power and lust by dirty old men who want to enjoy sex with young virgins. It is rape. History shows that people have always used religion to cloak their nefarious designs. Just as Moslem fanatics use religion to justify their insane attacks against innocent people, men have always used religion to justify the rape of young girls.
I have nothing against these rapists practicing polygamy with adult women if that is what they want to do. My problem is with elders and parents compelling their children to take part in such a sick culture. Most states in the union forbid sex between adults and children under the age of consent. In Texas the age of consent is 17. In most states it is 16. There is a good reason for treating children under 16 or 17 as being unable to consent. Most children under 16 or 17 do not have the fortitude to resist the impositions of adults and do not have sufficient understanding to assent to such impositions. The twisted individuals who prey upon young girls on the internet deserve to have the book simultaneously thrown at them and shoved down their throats.
It does not matter that this form of child-abuse is institutionalized as a religion. They can call it anything they want, but it is nothing more than child molestation. It has been going on for ages and has always been common in primitive societies. In parts of Africa and Asia it has proceeded hand-in-glove with the genital mutilation of young girls. The freedom of women from mistreatment and exploitation is an important part of the story of civilization. We in America may have a long way to go to be thoroughly civilized, but we do not have to tolerate this kind of beastly behavior.
You need only look at the women from this cult to see what damage can be done by brainwashing. They come on television in their grotesque hairdos and pioneer dresses and speak in robotic voices. You could say that they should not be punished because they have obviously been hammered by the abuses of the men of the cult, but they are adults, and however brain-damaged they may be, they are answerable to the law for their transgressions. Any adult that would let her 12-year-old daughter marry a 55-year-old man is a pimp and deserves no sympathy.
It seems apparent that despite denials, the practice of forcing underage girls into polygamous marriages is widespread in the cult. For this reason, the proper thing to do is not only to prosecute all of the men and women in the cult, but also to permanently take all of the children in the sect away from their biological parents. These people look upon the cult as one large “family.” They live communally. The children call all of the women their “mothers” and all of the men their “uncles.” As in any abusive family, when some of the children are being abused the government must take all of the children out of the household.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Republican Leaders vs. Republican Voters
Many Republican middle-income voters do not fully realize that their representatives in Washington are actually working against their best interests. They imagine that their congressmen are fighting to reduce the size and cost of government and to keep taxes down. What they don’t seem to know is that their representatives are actually fighting for big businesses and very wealthy people.
Let’s start with the current fight over raising the debt limit. Although the Republicans in Congress are demanding deep cuts in spending in return for a rise in the debt limit, they refuse to allow any increase in taxes. The problem is, the only increase in taxes demanded by the Democrats is a restoration of the tax rates for very wealthy people that existed under the Clinton Administration. Ordinary middle-income Republicans would not be hurt by restoring the old tax rates on billionaires. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were one of the main causes of our current deficits. Surely the restoration of the previous tax rates will not impoverish wealthy people. But Republican legislators are loathe to restore the old tax rates because it is the billionaires who contribute so much to their coffers.
Consider the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created under the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The purpose of the Bureau is to protect ordinary American consumers from dubious and deceptive financial behavior by banks, credit card companies, stockbrokers, and other financial powers. The Act will protect against abuses by predatory mortgage lenders, credit card companies, credit rating services, and payday loan companies. The Republicans fought mightily against creation of the CFPB, and are now fighting to prevent it from exercising any jurisdiction over the Republicans’ beloved multi-billion dollar financial titans. They have refused to approve the appointment of Elizabeth Warren, a strong consumer advocate, to head the CFPB, and have signaled that they will oppose the appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, an honest and effective administrator, for the post. In other words, they want to prevent any regulation of those in the financial industry who would happily defraud ordinary Americans of their money.
Many Republicans expressed anger at the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), (derisively called “Obamacare”). What few seem to realize is that that law will help not only working poor people who have gone without health insurance, but also millions of ordinary middle-income Americans. The law will create insurance exchanges that will make the cost of health insurance significantly lower for ordinary people. It will prevent insurers from refusing coverage on account of prior existing conditions. It will eliminate the “doughnut hole” which all seniors must endure after they reach a certain cap in payments. It will allow the coverage of children up until age 26 on parents’ policies. It will eliminate the annual caps on coverage provided in most health insurance policies. These and many other provisions benefit all middle-income people, not just the wealthy, or Democrats, or the government. The main opposition to such provisions comes from the insurance industry which sees those provisions cutting into its profits.
Somehow, the Republicans in Congress have gotten ordinary Republican voters worked-up against climate change legislation, particularly the “Cap-and-Trade” bills proposed by the Democrats. It is as if such laws would somehow harm the welfare of ordinary people. Even many top Republicans now admit that global warming is an established fact and that the human emission of greenhouse gasses is one of the major causes of this phenomenon. There is now almost unanimous agreement among climate scientists that continuation of this process will have disastrous effects on the Earth in the coming years if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions. These effects will include, among many other things, melting icecaps with massive flooding of coastline cities and islands, and dramatic changes in weather patterns with adverse effect on agriculture and ordinary living conditions. These catastrophes will have a terrible impact on ordinary Americans. So why are the Republicans so adverse to climate change legislation?
The answer is not that such legislation will cause higher taxes, higher fuel bills, or more discomfort to middle-income Americans. The reason for Republican opposition to climate change legislation is that it will cost more for giant utilities, coal and oil companies, and manufacturers. These fabulously wealthy businesses are run by the fat cats who pour-out the money for Republican politicians. Those politicians are not thinking about ordinary Republican voters. They are thinking about the billionaires who supply them with the money to run election campaigns.
If you look at many of the main financial issues between Democrats and Republicans you will realize that Republicans furiously oppose the enactment of laws that will protect consumers against the abuses of big business. If ordinary Republicans and Independents really care about their own welfare and their pocketbooks, they should look closely at the actions of their representatives in Congress and question whether those actions are really for the benefit of the middle class.
Let’s start with the current fight over raising the debt limit. Although the Republicans in Congress are demanding deep cuts in spending in return for a rise in the debt limit, they refuse to allow any increase in taxes. The problem is, the only increase in taxes demanded by the Democrats is a restoration of the tax rates for very wealthy people that existed under the Clinton Administration. Ordinary middle-income Republicans would not be hurt by restoring the old tax rates on billionaires. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were one of the main causes of our current deficits. Surely the restoration of the previous tax rates will not impoverish wealthy people. But Republican legislators are loathe to restore the old tax rates because it is the billionaires who contribute so much to their coffers.
Consider the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created under the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The purpose of the Bureau is to protect ordinary American consumers from dubious and deceptive financial behavior by banks, credit card companies, stockbrokers, and other financial powers. The Act will protect against abuses by predatory mortgage lenders, credit card companies, credit rating services, and payday loan companies. The Republicans fought mightily against creation of the CFPB, and are now fighting to prevent it from exercising any jurisdiction over the Republicans’ beloved multi-billion dollar financial titans. They have refused to approve the appointment of Elizabeth Warren, a strong consumer advocate, to head the CFPB, and have signaled that they will oppose the appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, an honest and effective administrator, for the post. In other words, they want to prevent any regulation of those in the financial industry who would happily defraud ordinary Americans of their money.
Many Republicans expressed anger at the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), (derisively called “Obamacare”). What few seem to realize is that that law will help not only working poor people who have gone without health insurance, but also millions of ordinary middle-income Americans. The law will create insurance exchanges that will make the cost of health insurance significantly lower for ordinary people. It will prevent insurers from refusing coverage on account of prior existing conditions. It will eliminate the “doughnut hole” which all seniors must endure after they reach a certain cap in payments. It will allow the coverage of children up until age 26 on parents’ policies. It will eliminate the annual caps on coverage provided in most health insurance policies. These and many other provisions benefit all middle-income people, not just the wealthy, or Democrats, or the government. The main opposition to such provisions comes from the insurance industry which sees those provisions cutting into its profits.
Somehow, the Republicans in Congress have gotten ordinary Republican voters worked-up against climate change legislation, particularly the “Cap-and-Trade” bills proposed by the Democrats. It is as if such laws would somehow harm the welfare of ordinary people. Even many top Republicans now admit that global warming is an established fact and that the human emission of greenhouse gasses is one of the major causes of this phenomenon. There is now almost unanimous agreement among climate scientists that continuation of this process will have disastrous effects on the Earth in the coming years if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions. These effects will include, among many other things, melting icecaps with massive flooding of coastline cities and islands, and dramatic changes in weather patterns with adverse effect on agriculture and ordinary living conditions. These catastrophes will have a terrible impact on ordinary Americans. So why are the Republicans so adverse to climate change legislation?
The answer is not that such legislation will cause higher taxes, higher fuel bills, or more discomfort to middle-income Americans. The reason for Republican opposition to climate change legislation is that it will cost more for giant utilities, coal and oil companies, and manufacturers. These fabulously wealthy businesses are run by the fat cats who pour-out the money for Republican politicians. Those politicians are not thinking about ordinary Republican voters. They are thinking about the billionaires who supply them with the money to run election campaigns.
If you look at many of the main financial issues between Democrats and Republicans you will realize that Republicans furiously oppose the enactment of laws that will protect consumers against the abuses of big business. If ordinary Republicans and Independents really care about their own welfare and their pocketbooks, they should look closely at the actions of their representatives in Congress and question whether those actions are really for the benefit of the middle class.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Debt Limit and the Republicans
It seems almost unbelievable, but there is a chance that the Congress will refuse to raise the debt limit of the United States and the nation will go into default. The reason for this could be that the Republicans are simply unwilling to restore the tax rates previously placed on extremely wealthy people. In addition, there are many of the Tea Party Republicans who simply want the default to occur. Even though we have been warned that default could destroy the economy, these people believe that it would also destroy the Administration of President Obama. They are filled with hate for our biracial president, and are willing to bring on an economic catastrophe in order to unseat him.
The Republicans are playing a dangerous game of Chicken. The debt limit is basically the maximum amount of money that the U.S. can borrow at any one time. Because of the deficit spending during the Administration of George W. Bush, the nation has already spent more than the amount of the debt limit. Thus, it is not a question of more spending. It is a question of paying for things that have already been bought. Among the things causing this problem are the costs of two wars, the Medicare Part D Drug Program, and the huge tax cuts for the wealthy granted by Bush and the Republicans.
Few People realize that we have already gone past the date when the debt limit should have been raised, and that the U.S. Treasury has been able to function only by juggling the books and using certain pension and other funds in order to keep the government running. It will no longer be able to do that after August 2. If the Congress does not raise the debt limit by that date we are in for economic catastrophe. But we should not wait until then. Each day that the Congress delays in approving a rise in the debt limit, the crisis becomes more severe and the damage to America’s credit grows.
Back in January, Treasury Secretary Geithner warned lawmakers that the national debt could hit the legal limit on borrowing as soon as March 31, 2011, and he urged quick action to avoid a government default that would spark "catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades." He said that unless Congress acts to raise the limit, the United States will default on its debt, an unprecedented event that could destroy "millions of American jobs," cause interest rates to spike, damage the dollar, and halt payments to millions of Social Security recipients, veterans, and active U.S. troops.
It is sad to think that partisan politics in America has arrived at the point where members of one major party are so filled with hatred for the government that they are willing to destroy the economy of the nation rather than allow the government to run smoothly. The Congress has never failed to raise the debt limit when needed. During the last Bush Administration, Congress raised the debt limit four times. It is simply unthinkable that it would fail to do so this time.
Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman advises that “If we hit the debt ceiling, the government will be forced to stop paying roughly a third of its bills, because that’s the share of spending currently financed by borrowing. So will it stop sending out Social Security checks? Will it stop paying doctors and hospitals that treat Medicare patients? Will it stop paying the contractors supplying fuel and munitions to our military? Or will it stop paying interest on the debt?... At least one, and probably several, of these components will face payment stoppages if federal borrowing is cut off.”
According to Matthew E. Zames, a managing director at JPMorgan Chase and the chairman of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, any delay in making an interest or principal payment by Treasury even for a very short period of time could trigger another catastrophic financial crisis. Mr. Zames notes that a default by the U.S. Treasury, or even an extended delay in raising the debt ceiling, could lead to a downgrade of the U.S. sovereign credit rating. The resulting financial crisis could trigger a run on money market funds and economic collapse.
The Republicans have a right to demand that there be spending cuts to counterbalance any rise in the debt limit. But their demands are outragous and amount to blackmail and extortion. Now they are demanding that the President reduce the deficit by repealing much of our social legislation. Many of them want the Democrats to agree to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. They want to eliminate certain departments of government. They want the government to adopt the Ryan budget which eliminates Medicare. They are obsessed with reducing the deficit, but for some reason, they are violently opposed to restoring the tax rates for wealthy taxpayers that existed at the time of the Clinton Administration.
It seems clear that the Republicans feel beholden to the fabulously wealthy fat cats who finance their campaigns. Meanwhile, the ordinary Republican voters seem oblivious to the fact that many of the Republicans in Congress are willing to sacrifice the economy of this country by letting it go into default. And they are willing to sacrifice the senior citizens of this country by allowing the stoppage of payments of social security and Medicare.
The Republicans are playing a dangerous game of Chicken. The debt limit is basically the maximum amount of money that the U.S. can borrow at any one time. Because of the deficit spending during the Administration of George W. Bush, the nation has already spent more than the amount of the debt limit. Thus, it is not a question of more spending. It is a question of paying for things that have already been bought. Among the things causing this problem are the costs of two wars, the Medicare Part D Drug Program, and the huge tax cuts for the wealthy granted by Bush and the Republicans.
Few People realize that we have already gone past the date when the debt limit should have been raised, and that the U.S. Treasury has been able to function only by juggling the books and using certain pension and other funds in order to keep the government running. It will no longer be able to do that after August 2. If the Congress does not raise the debt limit by that date we are in for economic catastrophe. But we should not wait until then. Each day that the Congress delays in approving a rise in the debt limit, the crisis becomes more severe and the damage to America’s credit grows.
Back in January, Treasury Secretary Geithner warned lawmakers that the national debt could hit the legal limit on borrowing as soon as March 31, 2011, and he urged quick action to avoid a government default that would spark "catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades." He said that unless Congress acts to raise the limit, the United States will default on its debt, an unprecedented event that could destroy "millions of American jobs," cause interest rates to spike, damage the dollar, and halt payments to millions of Social Security recipients, veterans, and active U.S. troops.
It is sad to think that partisan politics in America has arrived at the point where members of one major party are so filled with hatred for the government that they are willing to destroy the economy of the nation rather than allow the government to run smoothly. The Congress has never failed to raise the debt limit when needed. During the last Bush Administration, Congress raised the debt limit four times. It is simply unthinkable that it would fail to do so this time.
Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman advises that “If we hit the debt ceiling, the government will be forced to stop paying roughly a third of its bills, because that’s the share of spending currently financed by borrowing. So will it stop sending out Social Security checks? Will it stop paying doctors and hospitals that treat Medicare patients? Will it stop paying the contractors supplying fuel and munitions to our military? Or will it stop paying interest on the debt?... At least one, and probably several, of these components will face payment stoppages if federal borrowing is cut off.”
According to Matthew E. Zames, a managing director at JPMorgan Chase and the chairman of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, any delay in making an interest or principal payment by Treasury even for a very short period of time could trigger another catastrophic financial crisis. Mr. Zames notes that a default by the U.S. Treasury, or even an extended delay in raising the debt ceiling, could lead to a downgrade of the U.S. sovereign credit rating. The resulting financial crisis could trigger a run on money market funds and economic collapse.
The Republicans have a right to demand that there be spending cuts to counterbalance any rise in the debt limit. But their demands are outragous and amount to blackmail and extortion. Now they are demanding that the President reduce the deficit by repealing much of our social legislation. Many of them want the Democrats to agree to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. They want to eliminate certain departments of government. They want the government to adopt the Ryan budget which eliminates Medicare. They are obsessed with reducing the deficit, but for some reason, they are violently opposed to restoring the tax rates for wealthy taxpayers that existed at the time of the Clinton Administration.
It seems clear that the Republicans feel beholden to the fabulously wealthy fat cats who finance their campaigns. Meanwhile, the ordinary Republican voters seem oblivious to the fact that many of the Republicans in Congress are willing to sacrifice the economy of this country by letting it go into default. And they are willing to sacrifice the senior citizens of this country by allowing the stoppage of payments of social security and Medicare.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Jesus and Atheism
While atheists universally deny that Jesus was God or the Son of God, I think that there is room for acknowledging that he must have been a very good man and that his teachings represent the highest moral and ethical aspirations of man. In my book, "The Case Against God; A Lawyer Examines the Evidence," I discuss the fact that Jesus was nothing more than a Jewish holy man who taught traditional Jewish teachings and who had no intention of describing himself as a God or Son of God. He did not intend to form a new church or to go contrary to the laws of Judaism. He was most likely a Pharisee who conveyed the teaching of Hillel, the Pharisee sage. We cannot accept the apotheosis and sanctifying of Jesus by later writers and churchmen.
Nevertheless, the picture of Jesus presented to us is a beautiful one. This cannot be explained solely by the embellishment of his image by churches and clerics. Much of it must stem from the man who actually lived in Israel over 2000 years ago. Scholars believe that many of the quotes of Jesus set forth in the New Testament were actually spoken by the real Jesus. Prior to the writing of the New Testament there apparently were a set of sayings called the “Q source” which were picked-up by the evangelists who wrote the canonical Bible.
Even if we consider that some of the stories about Jesus may have been added by later writers, we must admit that the picture painted of Jesus reflects the highest form of human ethics. Ludwig Feuerbach said that our ideas of God are merely a reflection of the highest human ideals. To a certain extent this is obviously true of our picture of Jesus. But it says something good about man. With all of our evil, cruelty, greed, and selfishness, we were able to imagine a Man/God who flowed with the goodness, kindness, love, charity, and sense of sacrifice that all humans admire. One writer described Jesus as a “sweet soul.”
It is helpful to think about things he probably said to his followers. He probably emphasized the idea of loving your neighbor. This was an ancient Jewish teaching. It is one of the hardest things anybody can do, but it is a lofty goal. It humanizes us more than almost any other thing. He probably told his followers to turn the other cheek, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to bless the poor and the meek and the peacemakers, to avoid self righteousness, and to show mercy. He probably gave the Sermon on the Mount. He probably told a crowd that he who is without sin should throw the first stone at the woman caught in adultery.
His kindness and goodness seems to have been abandoned by a Church that burned heretics in the Inquisition and waged crusades and wars against those who did not share the Church’s teaching. It is certainly lost on those today who practice the theology of anger, resentment, bigotry, sanctimoniousness, and self-righteousness. The New Testament describes a man who was kind and loving. He obviously loved children. He ate with sinners and forgave their sins. He obviously enjoyed a party and drank wine. He seems like somebody who laughed and enjoyed a joke. He even got angry and cursed a barren fig tree. He obviously rejected hypocrisy and false piety. I have no doubt that he would have been appalled by the strict Puritanism of many of the Protestant sects. I have no doubt that he would have been appalled at the great wealth and pomp of the Catholic Church. I have no doubt that he would have been appalled by monasticism in all its forms. I believe that he would have been devastated by and wept at the molestation of little children by members of the clergy.
I also have no doubt that Jesus would have glowed with pleasure at the kindness of many people today. He would have loved the people who dedicate their lives to helping others, who are kind and merciful, who stand for peace, who are filled with love for their fellow man. In the novel "Let the Great World Spin," by Colum McCann, the main character is a man from Ireland who becomes a brother and goes to live among the pimps and prostitutes of the lower Bronx in New York. He does not judge these poor sad women or preach to them. He helps them. What would Jesus think of this saint? One reads every day about saints like the character described by McCann. Their aim is to make life better for others, and to live in the image of Jesus.
As an atheist, I cannot believe in Jesus as some divine Son of God who created the universe and fills the air around us with his presence. But I do believe that the Jesus who actually lived and the Jesus we have created is a great man, an ideal human, someone to be imitated.
Nevertheless, the picture of Jesus presented to us is a beautiful one. This cannot be explained solely by the embellishment of his image by churches and clerics. Much of it must stem from the man who actually lived in Israel over 2000 years ago. Scholars believe that many of the quotes of Jesus set forth in the New Testament were actually spoken by the real Jesus. Prior to the writing of the New Testament there apparently were a set of sayings called the “Q source” which were picked-up by the evangelists who wrote the canonical Bible.
Even if we consider that some of the stories about Jesus may have been added by later writers, we must admit that the picture painted of Jesus reflects the highest form of human ethics. Ludwig Feuerbach said that our ideas of God are merely a reflection of the highest human ideals. To a certain extent this is obviously true of our picture of Jesus. But it says something good about man. With all of our evil, cruelty, greed, and selfishness, we were able to imagine a Man/God who flowed with the goodness, kindness, love, charity, and sense of sacrifice that all humans admire. One writer described Jesus as a “sweet soul.”
It is helpful to think about things he probably said to his followers. He probably emphasized the idea of loving your neighbor. This was an ancient Jewish teaching. It is one of the hardest things anybody can do, but it is a lofty goal. It humanizes us more than almost any other thing. He probably told his followers to turn the other cheek, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to bless the poor and the meek and the peacemakers, to avoid self righteousness, and to show mercy. He probably gave the Sermon on the Mount. He probably told a crowd that he who is without sin should throw the first stone at the woman caught in adultery.
His kindness and goodness seems to have been abandoned by a Church that burned heretics in the Inquisition and waged crusades and wars against those who did not share the Church’s teaching. It is certainly lost on those today who practice the theology of anger, resentment, bigotry, sanctimoniousness, and self-righteousness. The New Testament describes a man who was kind and loving. He obviously loved children. He ate with sinners and forgave their sins. He obviously enjoyed a party and drank wine. He seems like somebody who laughed and enjoyed a joke. He even got angry and cursed a barren fig tree. He obviously rejected hypocrisy and false piety. I have no doubt that he would have been appalled by the strict Puritanism of many of the Protestant sects. I have no doubt that he would have been appalled at the great wealth and pomp of the Catholic Church. I have no doubt that he would have been appalled by monasticism in all its forms. I believe that he would have been devastated by and wept at the molestation of little children by members of the clergy.
I also have no doubt that Jesus would have glowed with pleasure at the kindness of many people today. He would have loved the people who dedicate their lives to helping others, who are kind and merciful, who stand for peace, who are filled with love for their fellow man. In the novel "Let the Great World Spin," by Colum McCann, the main character is a man from Ireland who becomes a brother and goes to live among the pimps and prostitutes of the lower Bronx in New York. He does not judge these poor sad women or preach to them. He helps them. What would Jesus think of this saint? One reads every day about saints like the character described by McCann. Their aim is to make life better for others, and to live in the image of Jesus.
As an atheist, I cannot believe in Jesus as some divine Son of God who created the universe and fills the air around us with his presence. But I do believe that the Jesus who actually lived and the Jesus we have created is a great man, an ideal human, someone to be imitated.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Michele Bachmann Extremist
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R. Minn.), the two-term representative for Minnesota's 6th Congressional District, has now announced that she is running for president. Perhaps what she really wants is to be chosen as a Republican vice-presidential candidate. Her candidacy is being treated like any other candidacy even though she is a representative of extreme right-wing politics. She should not be looked upon as a traditional conservative. Her views are in line with the views of ultra right-wing militias and hate groups. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that exposes and fights hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and far-right-wing militias, she is one of the chief political “enablers” of hate groups and “has used her office as a megaphone for outrageous claims and conspiracy theories that in the past wouldn't spread far beyond the firing ranges and obstacle courses where militiamen and other antigovernment ‘Patriots’ gather.”
In 2009, Bachmann became a critic of what she characterized as proposals for mandatory public service. Speaking in reference to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an expansion to AmeriCorps (a federal community service organization), she said: “The real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.” Nevertheless, her son, Harrison, joined “Teach for America,” which is a member of the AmeriCorps program.
You can get an idea of how extreme her views are from statements such as “I am very concerned that he [Barack Obama] may have anti-American views." When asked during the Meet the Press interview if she would take back her previous comments that Obama held "anti-American views" and was running a "gangster government", Bachmann backed her statements, saying "I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House -- I don't take back my statements on gangster government. I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt...I said I have very serious concerns about the president's views, and I think the president's actions in the last two years speak for themselves.
Bachmann would be happy to see a return to McCarthyism because she believes that there are a lot of “Anti-Americans” in Congress. She found the Capitol teeming with so much anti-Americanism that she called on the media to ferret-out the unpatriotic politicians. "I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?" she said during an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews in 2008.
Bachmann has embraced the culture of conspiracy advocated by ultra right-wing militias with their fear of concentration camps and U.N. black helicopters. When it comes to the Census, Bachmann sees a sinister plot hearkening back to World War II. "They used the U.S. Census information to round up the Japanese and put them in the internment camps," she said during an interview with Fox News' Glenn Beck. "I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home, we won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that." However, she failed to realize that the Constitution does not require citizens to complete the census.
Bachmann does not just oppose the proposed cap-and-trade legislation to fight global warming. She claims that global warming is a hoax, and says that she wants Minnesotans "armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back."
Like many far-right zealots, Bachman believes that almost every form of government program to help the poor, disabled, youth, and the aged is socialistic or communistic. She has called for phasing-out of Social Security and Medicare. I wonder how many senior citizens know that and will vote for her in the primaries. She wrote that education laws passed by Congress in 2001, including "School To Work" and "Goals 2000", created a new national school curriculum that embraced "a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America."
Bachmann has voted against continuing resolutions enacted to prevent the government from closing while the budget is being debated. She has made it clear that she would rather see the government shut down than see a continuation of current governmental programs. She said: "I am vowing to vote 'no' on future Continuing Resolutions to fund the government unless there is specific language included to defund Obamacare and rescind the funding that has already been appropriated. Defunding Obamacare, along with defunding Planned Parenthood, must be non-negotiable planks in our budget negotiations.”
Bachmann has made it clear that she will vote against extending the debt limit of the United States and would rather see the collapse of the American economy and credit. She has posted a petition on the Web site of her political action committee, encouraging voters to tell Congress that the "spending frenzy cannot continue. It's time to force our elected officials to stop spending cold turkey, and we can start by making sure they do not raise the debt ceiling."
Among her other positions, Bachmann supports the teaching of “Intelligent Design” in public school science classes. Intelligent Design is a purely religious concept that says that there was no Darwinian evolution of the species by natural selection, but rather, that God designed everything. The theory has been scorned by most legitimate scientists and has been banned from the classroom by the courts. During a 2003 interview on the KKMS Christian radio program Talk The Walk, Bachmann said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other.
Bachmann explained in a 2010 speech that if the United States turns its back on Israel, "a curse" will be placed on the land. As proof, she cited Genesis 12:3, in which God says to Abraham, "The one who curses you I will curse." It was an uncommonly explicit blurring of policy and theology from a prominent politician
Bachmann supports both federal and state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and any legal equivalents.
Michele Bachmann is an attractive woman. She is a good speaker and a tireless campaigner. People seeing her might be lulled into thinking that she is just another conservative trying to stop the growth of taxes and government. But she is much more than that. She is an ultra right-wing ideologue. If she was president, she would abolish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, the Obama Medical Reform Act, and most other social legislation. She would abolish most restrictions on business and most laws governing fraud in the securities markets. She would inject prayer into the schools, prosecute people seeking or carrying-out abortions, cancel all laws protecting the rights of gay people, and withdraw America from the United Nations. She would cancel most of our First Amendment rights and prosecute people with left-wing views. She is not just an extremist. She is dangerous.
.
In 2009, Bachmann became a critic of what she characterized as proposals for mandatory public service. Speaking in reference to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an expansion to AmeriCorps (a federal community service organization), she said: “The real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.” Nevertheless, her son, Harrison, joined “Teach for America,” which is a member of the AmeriCorps program.
You can get an idea of how extreme her views are from statements such as “I am very concerned that he [Barack Obama] may have anti-American views." When asked during the Meet the Press interview if she would take back her previous comments that Obama held "anti-American views" and was running a "gangster government", Bachmann backed her statements, saying "I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House -- I don't take back my statements on gangster government. I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt...I said I have very serious concerns about the president's views, and I think the president's actions in the last two years speak for themselves.
Bachmann would be happy to see a return to McCarthyism because she believes that there are a lot of “Anti-Americans” in Congress. She found the Capitol teeming with so much anti-Americanism that she called on the media to ferret-out the unpatriotic politicians. "I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?" she said during an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews in 2008.
Bachmann has embraced the culture of conspiracy advocated by ultra right-wing militias with their fear of concentration camps and U.N. black helicopters. When it comes to the Census, Bachmann sees a sinister plot hearkening back to World War II. "They used the U.S. Census information to round up the Japanese and put them in the internment camps," she said during an interview with Fox News' Glenn Beck. "I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home, we won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that." However, she failed to realize that the Constitution does not require citizens to complete the census.
Bachmann does not just oppose the proposed cap-and-trade legislation to fight global warming. She claims that global warming is a hoax, and says that she wants Minnesotans "armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back."
Like many far-right zealots, Bachman believes that almost every form of government program to help the poor, disabled, youth, and the aged is socialistic or communistic. She has called for phasing-out of Social Security and Medicare. I wonder how many senior citizens know that and will vote for her in the primaries. She wrote that education laws passed by Congress in 2001, including "School To Work" and "Goals 2000", created a new national school curriculum that embraced "a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America."
Bachmann has voted against continuing resolutions enacted to prevent the government from closing while the budget is being debated. She has made it clear that she would rather see the government shut down than see a continuation of current governmental programs. She said: "I am vowing to vote 'no' on future Continuing Resolutions to fund the government unless there is specific language included to defund Obamacare and rescind the funding that has already been appropriated. Defunding Obamacare, along with defunding Planned Parenthood, must be non-negotiable planks in our budget negotiations.”
Bachmann has made it clear that she will vote against extending the debt limit of the United States and would rather see the collapse of the American economy and credit. She has posted a petition on the Web site of her political action committee, encouraging voters to tell Congress that the "spending frenzy cannot continue. It's time to force our elected officials to stop spending cold turkey, and we can start by making sure they do not raise the debt ceiling."
Among her other positions, Bachmann supports the teaching of “Intelligent Design” in public school science classes. Intelligent Design is a purely religious concept that says that there was no Darwinian evolution of the species by natural selection, but rather, that God designed everything. The theory has been scorned by most legitimate scientists and has been banned from the classroom by the courts. During a 2003 interview on the KKMS Christian radio program Talk The Walk, Bachmann said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other.
Bachmann explained in a 2010 speech that if the United States turns its back on Israel, "a curse" will be placed on the land. As proof, she cited Genesis 12:3, in which God says to Abraham, "The one who curses you I will curse." It was an uncommonly explicit blurring of policy and theology from a prominent politician
Bachmann supports both federal and state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and any legal equivalents.
Michele Bachmann is an attractive woman. She is a good speaker and a tireless campaigner. People seeing her might be lulled into thinking that she is just another conservative trying to stop the growth of taxes and government. But she is much more than that. She is an ultra right-wing ideologue. If she was president, she would abolish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, the Obama Medical Reform Act, and most other social legislation. She would abolish most restrictions on business and most laws governing fraud in the securities markets. She would inject prayer into the schools, prosecute people seeking or carrying-out abortions, cancel all laws protecting the rights of gay people, and withdraw America from the United Nations. She would cancel most of our First Amendment rights and prosecute people with left-wing views. She is not just an extremist. She is dangerous.
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