While I have concerns about our Federal Government, my concerns often run counter to those expressed by the so called Tea Party, the right of the Republican Party. I am very concerned about the ends sought by those who are the hard core of this group. I find that this group it is doubly dangerous because it fuses two fundamentalist groups, religious and political. Often not noticed by many supporters of these politicians is that the third element behind the scene are powerful corporations and wealthy individuals who call the shots with their financial backing.
Fundamentalists no matter their stripe are dangerous because in their mind they have a lock on the truth. They do not entertain the idea that they might be wrong. Because they “know” they are “right”, they will persist on their narrow minded path no matter the evidence that brings their “beliefs” into question. Some cannot accept that the earth is more than ten thousand years old and/or that deregulation of the markets caused the crash of 2008. They would have to admit that the Bible is not literally true and that capitalism cannot function without good and tight regulation. Our federal government is now nearly paralyzed because the Tea Party right cannot compromise. Compromise is an absolute necessity in a pluralistic democracy.
While the religious right mouths support for religious freedom, they are for religious freedom if it is their brand of religion. They are attempting to make our country a “Christian” country it their image. For Example, they believe that a fertilized ovum is a human being so the “morning after” pill should be illegal. Since implantation in the uterus fails to occur up to 50% of the time, does this mean that there is a death of a human? They are certainly welcome to their beliefs, but should not be allowed to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us.
One gets tired of their false claims that Christianity is under attack. Their claim that prayer is not allowed is schools is false. Since the public schools are public institutions the school cannot promote any religion, but this in no way limits a student’s right to pray. Many a pre-test prayer is still offered by students. On your church grounds or at your home, you are certainly free to put up a monument listing the Ten Commandments, but our governments should not promote any religion so the Ten Commandments don’t belong on public grounds. Religious freedom also means that we should be allowed to be free from religion. The religious rights claims of persecution is just one attempt to “rally the troops.”
Their beliefs trumps evidence. They would like intelligent design taught in our science classes even though it is not science. Observable and quantifiable evidence means nothing to them. They shut their eyes to the massive evidence presented by evolutionary science because of their blind faith. They constantly are at work attacking public schools because they would like their version of the truth, their religion, taught in public schools in violation of the Constitution.
The religious right and the political right are constantly distorting history. Some of their “history” is almost laughable but it is too dangerous to laugh about. The tell us that because Jefferson used the word “God” in the Declaration of Independence, that he helped found an Christian country. They fail to point out that many of the founders were deists along with Jefferson. While Jefferson supported many of the teachings of Jesus, he did not accept his divinity. John Adam who was also on the committee to write the Declaration declared in a treaty with Tripoli that the United States was not a Christian nation. Those proclaiming that we are a Christian nation fail to recognize that the Constitution does not mention God a single time.
The marriage of the Christian Right and the Political right is certainly a very odd couple. While Jesus told us that a rich man has as much chance of getting into heaven as a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle, the political right fights to take more of the wealth of our country from the poor and middle classes and direct it to the rich. Even though Jesus taught that we should do for the least among us, the political right fights to cut all programs that help those very same individuals. Jesus also told the rich man if he wanted to be follower to give all he had to the poor. This hardly sounds like a ringing endorsement of a capitalistic system which praises the accumulation of wealth.
The political right’s major aims include increasing the wealth of the powerful through lower taxes, the increase of corporate control government, deregulation so that Wall Street can continue their casino games and corporations can continue to dump their wastes into our water and air, and lowering tax rates and opening up more loop holes for the rich and the big corporations. The religious right wants to have more control of our government so they can impose their beliefs on all of us. In the church of my youth the preacher would say “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Now many on the right seem to be saying “the earth belongs to the corporations and the fullness thereof, let us rejoice and profit in its exploitation.”