Jesus of Nazareth
from the Gospel of John, 8:7
Jesus was coming out against capital punishment in this passage. There's no other way of interpreting it. None. A crowd of biblical tea-partiers was about to stone a poor woman to death - and Jesus stopped them, telling her to "Go and sin no more." He didn't say to this blood-thirsty mob, "Hey listen folks, my mother Mary and I have never committed a sin in our entire lives . We'll kill this gal for you!" He was clearly saying that killing another human being was wrong - PERIOD . I would take these right-wingers a lot more seriously if they had as much love and respect for the born as they profess to have for the unborn.
There was also that bit in the Sermon on the Mount about the merciful obtaining mercy. Why is it that these people continue to hold Jesus Christ hostage when their message and agenda has not a thing to do with His message and agenda? And isn't there a passage somewhere in there that says "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord"? I'm just sayin'.
I'm starting to get the impression that the Republicans are a lynch mob posing as a political party. Things have gotten that strange. Their behavior is becoming more Nazi-like by the hour. It should be remembered that when Hitler and his gang took power in the late winter of 1933, there was no talk of exterminating the Jewish people. Had that been the case every Jew in Germany would have gotten the hell out of town while the getting was good - overnight! The horrible reality of the death camps was merely a gradual evolution.
I'm not implying that the American right wing is in full tilt brown-shirt mode - but it cannot be denied by anyone paying close attention that they are evolving into something perfectly hideous. Ronald Reagan is starting to look in hindsight like a moderate . Richard Nixon is starting to look like freakin' Che Guevara! No, this is not your father's Republican party. It's not even your older brother's. How much more further to the extreme right are these jackasses going to move before they hurl themselves - and the rest of the country along with them - right over the proverbial cliff?
"Let me remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me further remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Barry Goldwater
Acceptance speech, Republican Convention, 1964
Let's use old Barry as an example of what I'm talking about. When the Republicans nominated him to run against incumbent Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Goldwater scared the living sh*t out of mainstream America. In his day he was known as "Mr. Conservative". During that campaign he said he could turn North Vietnam into a "parking lot" by means of low-level nuclear weapons. Nice, huh? Although he won in the old confederacy, he lost everywhere else. It was a landslide for Johnson. And yet when he died in 1998 Goldwater was in a blind funk about the mindless extremism to which the Republican party - his party - had attached themselves. And remember. this was over a decade before the formation of the Tea party!
Were Barry Goldwater to rise from the dead tonight, he wouldn't recognize the Grand Old Party. It's also a pretty safe bet that they wouldn't nominate him to run as vice chairman of the Scottsdale Rotary Club. He'd be seen as too much of a left wing extremist. At the time of his death he was writing a book in collaboration with John Dean of Watergate fame. Dean finished the book a few years ago. It was called "Conservatives Without Conscience".
" And let me further remind you " how these knuckleheads on the far-right view that other Barry - a sleep-inducing moderate named Barack Obama. They have labeled him a "socialist". A socialist! Isn't that a hoot?
Barring a gaffe of earthquake magnitudes (like suggesting that Texas may secede from the union) Rick Perry will probably be nominated as the Republican candidate for president of the United States at their convention next summer. Given the jaw-dropping gullibility of the American people, he might very-well win the election. I really hope I'm wrong about this, but I don't think I am. If you think the Supreme Court is disgusting now ( Corporations are people, too! ) wait and see what it looks like after two or three appointments by President Perry. Not that I'm saying we'll have to kiss this country goodbye if he is inaugurated on January 20, 2013. We already did that - on January 20, 2001 . Another right wing extremist from Texas living in the White House will only be anti-climactic. The damage is complete.
Have a lovely day, kiddies!
Tom Degan
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