I've mostly avoided talking about the Republican candidates debates, partly because the front-runners are changing all the time, and frankly because they give people like me a little too much material (like, for instance, Mitt Romney campaigning with a white supremacist, on Martin Luther King Day). However, there is a new story that I really have to comment on, if for no other reason than it directly confirming everything I've been saying about today's conservatives.
In case you're new, I'll explain: I loathe the right-wing, particularly in North America. These are pundits and so-called leaders who are increasingly willing to boast a self-proclaimed morality one minute, and yet the next minute will do anything from scrap assistance for malnourished children, to literally encourage people to kill their own countrymen, over public health care. We've been seeing this in spades during the Republican rallies alone; candidates like Newt Gingrich openly vow to fire or arrest people for being liberal, Hermann Cain blamed the poor for being unable to find work (during the worst recession in nearly a century), Rick Santorum has based his whole campaign on bashing gays, blacks, and women (and wondering why he's being bashed back with extreme prejudice), and the less said about Michelle Bachmann, the better.
As a lower-case liberal, an agnostic, and a bisexual, it infuriates me that these people constantly say that people like me are the scum of the earth, and wear their supposed Christianity on their sleeves, and yet they themselves ignore Christ's teachings every chance they can get. Anyone who doesn't believe me, is perfectly welcome to find Gospel verses that have Jesus encouraging His followers to be selfish and bigoted hate-mongers -- but I suspect you're going to be as likely to find a recording of Aretha Franklin singing Marilyn Manson.
If you need any further proof, consider this clip of Ron Paul, at a recent debate aired on Fox News. I will say up front that I do not support Ron Paul at all (because quite frankly he's just a gentler version of these anti-rights twirps), but I have to back him up on this one because he's very much in the right.
For those who can't watch the video, here's a transcription:
RON PAUL: “My point is that if another country does to us what we do to others, we are not going to like it very much. I would say that we maybe ought to consider the golden rule in foreign policy. Don’t do to other nations what we don’t want them to do to us. We endlessly bomb these countries, and then we wonder why they get upset with us?”
AUDIENCE: [Boos]
These are voters who proclaim to all who listen, that they are TRUE Christians, and yet here they are ignoring words that allegedly came from Jesus Himself: Matthew 7:12 -- Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.”
This incident alone, pretty much destroyed any claim they have ever made -- and ever will make -- to being righteous. It's bad enough when you deliberately ignore Jesus' teachings about peace, humility, selflessness, and immaterial living. It's bad enough when you totally pervert the teachings of your Lord and Saviour, to pretend that He called for the enslavement and utter annihilation of anyone different from you. But when you're flat out attacking people who recite Jesus' teachings... you're done.
