Newt Gingrich is often described as the smartest most intelligent man in the room as compared to his rival running mates on the debate stage, however, if this is so, it’s a mystery to me how he can come up with some of the dumbest must unintelligent ideas I’ve ever heard.
Most of the candidates, with the refreshing exception of Dr. Ron Paul, feel obligated to pander to the evangelical religious right with their pious anti-gay and family values positions. Gingrich does all of that too but then goes far beyond any semblance of rational hyperbole with inane attempts to please his Bible thumping constituents.
Lately, for example, the Newt has been on what he calls an “anti-religious-bigots” jag.
The standard dictionary definition of the term “bigot” refers to a person who is utterly intolerant of anyone different than himself, usually in regard to physical appearance, such as skin color, cultural practices or beliefs. Thus, “bigot” is often correctly applied to uncompromising religious people who vilify and want to discriminate against those who do not conform to their standards of religious morality.
Newt Gingrich, for example, fits the dictionary definition of a religious bigot, but being the slippery tongued disingenuous politician that he is, he likes to turn that definition around one hundred and eighty degrees to the opposite so that a “bigot” in his fraudulent lexicon is the one who won’t conform to his personal religious ideas, and perhaps objects to being imposed upon by them, especially in the name of government.
Government in America is supposed to remain neutral in matters of religion. Gingrich knows this but has taken the liberty to turn that proposition around on its ear by asserting that government officials who adhere to religious neutrality as they are supposed to do are anti-religious-bigots. That has been his incredulous position in the last several debates.
Gingrich declared in South Carolina: “One of the key issues is the growing anti-religious bigotry of our elites and if you get a chance, if you go to newt.org, my campaign site, there's a fifty four page paper there on the balance of power, putting the judiciary back in its proper role and eliminating dictatorial religious bigots such as Judge Biery in San Antonio…,” (who issued a ruling against organized public school prayers at graduation ceremonies.) “Now, we don't have speech dictatorship in America by anti-religious bigots, period.”
During the last Florida debate, Gingrich ranted: “Third, one of the reasons I’m running is there has been a war on religion, particularly on Christianity in this country, and I frankly believe it’s important to have leadership that says, enough, we are given the right for religious freedom, not religious oppression by the state.”
You see, according to the Newt, Judge Biery is an anti-religious-bigot for not allowing a public school function to be taken over by Christian prayer. There is a war on Christianity in America being waged by anti-religious-bigots who object to government sponsorship of his Christian religion.
The proper role of the judiciary is to support his religious beliefs. Any jurist who refuses to do that is an anti-religious-bigot. So he’s going to reform the judiciary by getting rid of anti-religious-bigot judges who have the temerity to enforce the First Amendment Establishment Clause. Religious freedom in the United States of America is limited to Christianity, period.
Now these are pretty dumb ideas, for sure, but it gets even worse. It seems that the ultra-right-wing evangelical fanatic Newt Gingrich is also a dedicated and fanatical space cadet. If elected president this so-called fiscally conservative Tea Party Republican vows to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in a “bold vision” to put an American colony on the Moon by 2020.
Campaigning (i.e. pandering) on Florida’s “Space Coast,” last Wednesday, Gingrich made no apologies for his admittedly “grandiose ideas” on space. “I accept the charge that I am an American and Americans are instinctively grandiose,” declared the Newt, referring to a proposal he made early in his career, which called for American residents of the moon to petition for statehood when they reached a population of 13,000.
Gingrich admitted on Wednesday that the proposition was “the weirdest thing I’ve ever done,” but said he was still a proponent of the plan. “I will, as president, encourage the introduction of the ‘Northwest Ordinance’ for space to put a marker down that we want Americans to think boldly about the future, and we want Americans to go out and study hard and work hard and together we're going to unleash the American people to build the country we love,” he said.
Businessman, Mitt Romney mocked the proposal as prohibitively expensive and outrageous, but Newt was undaunted, contrasting himself to Romney: “Here's the difference between romantics and so-called practical people, I wanted every young American to say to themselves, ‘I could be one of those 13,000, I could be a pioneer.’” Americans should feel “part of a generation of courageous people who do something big and bold and heroic.”
The Newt doesn’t want to stop at a mere 13,000 member Moon colony and statehood for his Moon inhabitants. He also has his sights set firmly upon Mars. “By the end of 2020, we will have the first continuous propulsion system in space capable of getting to Mars in a remarkably short time, because I am sick of being told we have to be timid and I am sick of being told we have to be limited in technologies that are 50 years old,” Gingrich enthused.
If he is so smart, why has he dismissed the simple truth that there is nothing on the Moon or Mars that people want, at least nothing worth the trouble and expense to go after now. President Kennedy launched the Moon expeditions for the sole purpose of proving that it could be done. Well, it was done alright, and for the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, the American people have nothing whatsoever to show for it save a lot of worthless bragging rights.
This is why Newt Gingrich, and other fanatical evangelical space cadet minded politicians shouldn’t be allowed to represent much less govern people here on planet earth.
They’re just too damned “smart” for our sake.
excellent, as always
ReplyDelete