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Katherine Harris's Recent Words Connect with the UnAmerican Nature of the Bushite Power Grab

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Here's a passage from a recent news report about Katherine Harris, candidate for the Republican nomination for the Senate from Florida and most noteworthy for her very partisan performance of her duties as Florida's Secretary of State at the time of the Bush-Gore election cliff-hanger in the 2000 presidential election:
Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) said this week that God did not intend for the United States to be a "nation of secular laws" and that the separation of church and state is a "lie we have been told" to keep religious people out of politics.

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris told interviewers from the Florida Baptist Witness,


It occurs to me that her words here may be indicative of a mind-set that enabled her to act as she did in 2000, and indicative further of how the Bushites more broadly speaking think about our democratic constitutional system.

Her words here show that she believes in the election of the "good Christians" like her and Bush. And they show also that she does not believe in the democratic system, which involves respect for a diversity of views and of the importance of liberal respect for others with different worldviews.

If one sees politics in these terms, how important can things like laws and the Constitution be? After all, if it's a choice between helping God's people by ignoring principles of legality and fairness or honoring those principles in a way that helps the "Godless," how would you expect such a True Believer to act?

She'd act like she did in 2000, abusing her powers as Secretary of State to help Bush get elected.

Which means also that she'd act like the Bushites have in office, trampling on the law and on the Constitution out of a sense of their own rightness that is simply assumed.

When you're God's agent on earth, why allow the rules of man--like election laws and principles of fairness-- to get in your way?

And this, of course, is fundamentally opposed to the entire spirit of the government our Founding Fathers established.
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Andy Schmookler, an award-winning author, political commentator, radio talk-show host, and teacher, was the Democratic nominee for Congress from Virginia's 6th District. His new book -- written to have an impact on the central political battle of our time -- is (more...)
 
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