Republican Religion

Republicans like to associate themselves with the Christian religion. But this is not really their religion. Their religion is the Republican Party. The dividing line between the saved and the damned is membership in the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Of course, they will not actually say this. But consider what they do, and whom they choose to represent them.

For awhile, many “Christian” Republicans were strong supporters of Newt Gingrich. When he pulled out of the race, Rick Perry endorsed Gingrich. Gingrich has been an unabashed womanizer, going against all the ethics and morals that Republicans claim to believe in. Yet his conservative Republican beliefs are enough to release him from the consequences of what would be, for a Democrat, sinful behavior.

And now former governor Mark Sanford has been elected to the House of Representatives. Not that it makes any difference; the House Republicans do nothing except proclaim the holiness of the Republican Party, which they would do whether Sanford is a member or not. But while governor Mark Sanford not only committed a very extreme act of adultery, but he lied about it publicly, and he is also guilty of dereliction of duty: he told nobody in the state government where he was (in case of emergency) while he was off hiking the Appalachian Trail along his mistress’s geography. Not only adultery but also lying and dereliction of duty do not matter, so long as he follows the Republican Party line.

Although I do not proclaim any particular doctrine, I have always been an admirer of Jesus. It really bothers me when someone, or even an entire political party, insults Jesus by claiming themselves to represent Him while they openly and brazenly commit what would be, for a Democrat, immoral behavior, and behavior that would disqualify any Democrat from public service. Had I only the self-proclaimed Republican Christians as evidence, I would be forced to consider that Jesus was evil, a thought that fills me with revulsion.

Republicans worship their own party. That’s pretty much a summary of the whole situation. They wave their Bibles in the air but I doubt that they ever read them. To the Republican climate of hypocrisy one can add blasphemy as well.

Welcome to the Republican Climate!

Welcome to the Republican Climate! The Republican Party has created a climate of hostility, intimidation, misinformation, and hypocrisy. The entries in this blog will document many examples in which the Republican Party has poisoned the social world in which we live. In addition, they have totally prevented any meaningful action from being taken on controlling climate change, that is, the physical climate.

I could also welcome you by saying, Welcome to the Republican Utopia! They had eight years of George W. Bush presidency to create the kind of country they wanted, almost without opposition for the first six of those years. During that time, they created the negative climate that I will describe in these blog entries. Today, however, the Republican Party wants you to forget that there ever was a Bush-Cheney Administration that used false information to start a war that put us a trillion dollars further in debt. Now they want us to think that they are the party of spending money carefully rather than starting wars just for the hell of it. They want us to think that, in 2009, the Republican Party was totally reborn and has no history. But all of the significant aspects of the Republican Climate of the Bush Administration continue. I will document those ongoing abuses, with only historical references to Bush-Cheney.

You want to know what a Republican utopia would look like? It would be a world in which everybody has to carry guns to protect themselves from everyone else, in which the middle class and poor live in debt and pollution while the very rich live in safe, walled compounds with private guards and pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us. The very rich, who will be almost the sole beneficiaries of Republican policy, have most of their money in overseas accounts and, in the event that the economy of America (or any other country) should collapse, they will still be rich. They have nothing to lose if America collapses from its contamination by the Republican Climate.

And they may very soon have a chance to make their utopian vision a reality.

The Republican Climate has a veneer of Christianity, but underneath that veneer we will discover that the Republican Party actually hates everything that Jesus said and did.

Moreover, I do not wish to present the Democratic Party as being a bastion of goodness. If your comments are critical of the Democratic Party, I may often agree with them. I am disappointed with them, but alarmed by the Republicans. In our political system, it is a choice between incompetent mules and destructive, hate-filled elephants. God spare us. I choose incompetence over destructiveness.

I know, furthermore, that there are many individually nice Republicans. Millions, I suspect. I know a few. But these reasonable Republicans have allowed the hate-mongers to take over their party.

The Republican Party did not used to be this way. This is a point made by former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma. He finds the Republican Party of today almost unrecognizable in comparison to the Republican Party of earlier decades. I encourage you to read Mickey Edwards's writings for The Atlantic, and his new book The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.