Matt Yglesias musing on Mitt Romney:
Meanwhile, from the point of view of a basically secular person who nonetheless holds to certain retrograde notions about human dignity, there continues to be something staggering about the extent to which the politicized “faith” crowd believes that it is a right and just thing to do to, say, keep a man shackled naked in a standing posture in a freezing room and then, later, strap him to a board and force water down his throat so as to induce a sensation of drowning before using evidence obtained by such methods as perhaps a basis for detaining further individuals and treating them likewise.
Not to be a contrarian, but I think that Romney was perfectly right to point out the commonality between faith communities. After all, many muslim fundamentalists think that it is ok to torture prisoners. Our religious leaders think that it is ok to torture prisoners. Counting all religious communities who wield their faith as a self-righteous club to beat outsiders with and an exclusionary tool for political advancement, Torquemada would fit right in.
So Mitt has it right. Birds of a feather shouldn’t be afraid to stress their common points. It can’t be easy dealing with us soulless secularists who won’t get on board with casual warfare and inflicting physical and psychological suffering on helpless captives.
Zifnab
Romnet? Is he like Cybernet, but more fake?
Jake
Mitt Headroom.
“V-v-vote! For me. Me!”
Xenos
I wonder what the Morman position on the destruction of evidence for war crimes. Someone ought to ask Mitt that question.
Anonymous
“many muslim fundamentalists think that it is ok to torture prisoners. Our religious leaders think that it is ok to torture prisoners”
Are you on the muslim fundamentalists listserv? Care to name names?
AkaDad
If I wear the Mormon underwear, will I have more freedom?
Incertus (Brian)
To be fair, it’s not just us soulless secularists who who won’t get on board with casual warfare and inflicting physical and psychological suffering on helpless captives. There are lots of reasonable believers who feel the same way. Romney just isn’t as interested in their votes.
Jake
You didn’t think the GOP would be content with besmirching the word Conservative, did ya? By my count the Neo-, So- and TheoCons have worked their ju-ju on the words Morals, Values, America, Christian and God.
ThymeZone
Why are we praising this asshole? He made a speech yesterday that as much as declared that religion was not only a qualification for high office, but that we should be discussing the candidates’ religious beliefs openly in campaigns, and applying qualitative measurements to them.
This is in direct contradiction to Article 6 of the US Constitution.
Everything else the man said was window dressing, fluff, and diversion. His message was, elect me, I’m as a good a Christian as you are.
Fuck him.
skyler
Actually the strong majority of Islamists are really against torturing prisoners because they are on the receiving end of so much state torture themselves. Although, since they aren’t in power in many states, it’s hard to say if they wouldn’t engage in the same practices they decry. But anyway, among Islamists it is safe to say that they are FAR more anti-torture than the Christian right.
Now, when it comes to other little things like killing gay people, beating women, the whole hating Jews thing, maybe I prefer our religious fundies. But give Islamists their due, they’re way better on torture.
Dreggas
Based on This something will be more “free”. Then again if they’re too tight you’ll wind up with a low sperm count.
Incertus (Brian)
Why are we praising this asshole?
I’m not seeing much in the way of praise here.
Zifnab
Not to mention, it is the polar opposite of what Kennedy conveyed 50 years ago. When questioned about his faith, JFK claimed that he would serve his country as a President, not as a Catholic In Charge. When setting up a media stunt about his faith, Mittens claimed that his love of Jesus should be the only religious measurement, and that freaky brown people and atheists are really a bigger threat anyway so come on.
You really would have to try to get farther away from the Kennedy proclamation. Fortunately, “Sure I’m a crazy Mormon, but BROWN PEOPLE! GAYS! TERRORISTS! SECULAR GOD KILLING ACLU!” hasn’t been working quite so well of late. He’s preaching to the Republican figureheads. I think his little speech might sway some of them, and they’ll pass the word on down to the dittohead congregations. But if the polls don’t lie, Fear of Mormons still outweigh Fear of Hitlery. He’s the least intimidating candidate out of the Republican field. I eagerly await his nomination.
Cindrella Ferret
Indeed. And, we silly few thought Back to the Future was fiction.
Xenos
Exactly like the American founding fathers. Indeed, empire and torture go hand-in-glove. And Mitt, like W, is all in favor of the American Empire.
‘George W. to George W.’, a tragedy in 43 acts.
AkaDad
Why does Matt Yglesias hate Pro-Lifers?
Poopyman
Jesus’ General has an answer to that question, Xenos.
ThymeZone
I wish that’s all it was. To me, it was that his Lovageezus was the reason why we should treat him at least as well as Huckabee, who has the Geezus Advantage right now in the campaign.
It was pure Holier Than Thou Or At Least As Holy As Thou.
Kennedy was never about being holy. Romney is all about it.
Again, fuck him very much.
Cyrus
This is off-topic in this thread, but interesting nonetheless. I saw this at Unfogged. Summary: detective interrogates teen suspected of murder for more than an hour, encourages him to confess. Later, detective testifies under oath in teen’s trial that the teen had not been questioned about the incident. But unbeknownst to the detective, the teen recorded the interrogation on his MP3 player. Detective now faces 12 counts of perjury.
ThymeZone
Excellent.
Dreggas
I wonder how he views us pagans? The Native Americans who still follow their ways? I mean sure the Atheists get short shrift but lumped in are buddhists, hindus, taoists, pagans, druids, vodoo, santeria, of course satanists and a myriad others. This election is really turning into “My god can beat up your god (or lack thereof) writ large. Maybe we should just have it televised ala celebrity death match?
Incertus (Brian)
Anyone want to bet this leads to legislation making it illegal to record a cop without his knowledge?
Zifnab
They’ve got MP3 players that record? Why do I never see that feature on an iPod?
cleek
but, remember, it’s the militant atheists who keep making a big deal about their beliefs.
AkaDad
Like a pet dog on a car roof?
Cyrus
You can buy something you plug into an iPod that makes it record. I think it’s called an iTalk. You plug it into where the headphones would go, just like you’d plug in a radio transmitting attachment or whatever. I had one for a while, but stopped using it when I stopped using my iPod because of the moronic expensive hassle of changing the batteries.
I now use an Olympus digital voice recorder, WS-300M if you’re very curious. It’s mostly meant to be a recording device but it can also hold several hours of music, although I haven’t got around to figuring out how to get all the songs to go in the same folder yet.
Jake
Exactly, it’s never been enough for these dipshits to be the bestests and most Christianest and Patriotical. They have to grind faces, but of course in a way that ensures they aren’t exposed to any actual unpleasantness. Onward Christian Soldiers, we’ll be back here in our armchairs! If all of this rant about the EvilSecularHomoAbortionFascist inspires some sick fuck to throw a bomb, they’ll of course be Shocked.
CMcC
You quote Matt Yglesias musing on Mitt Romney “…there continues to be something staggering about the extent to which the politicized ‘faith’ crowd believes that it is a right and just thing to do to, say, keep a man shackled naked in a standing posture in a freezing room…”
This has long mystified me. What happened to the great words of Jesus that I learned in Sunday school when I was a kid. You know, “love your neighbor,” “love your enemy,” “turn the other cheek,” “judge not…,” “the least of these…”, and so on? The Christmas hymns about “peace on earth” and “joy to the world”?
One answer, I now think, is that “the politicized ‘faith’ crowd” is more and more focused on what they see as the imminent apocalyse. They, of course, will be raptured out of their cars, airplane seats, offices, and homes up into heaven. There they will watch God do hideous things for all eternity to those of us “left behind.” They are merely doing God’s work when they get the pain and agony going a little early (and when they promote some wars and rumors of wars over around the holy land). The real thing won’t be pretty, and it will last a long, long time. And they will enjoy every moment of God’s wrath and our torment as they look down from their skyboxes.
A key cultural moment, I think, was the success of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” It turned Jesus from the Son of a Loving God into a Terminator Son of a Just Avenger God. “I’ll be back,” could have been the closing line. Shed one tear for old times sake, for that Sermon on the Mount crap, then nuke ’em.
John S.
Torquemada – He’ll torture you until you confess!
Torquemada – He’ll keep you imprisoned indefinitely!
Torquemada – He’ll force you into converting!
Let’s face it… you can’t Torquemada anything!
/rimshot
John S.
The fundies decided they didn’t like that pussy bullshit so they reverted back to the ‘eye for an eye’ stuff in the old testament because it suits them better.
NickM
Isn’t Romnet that enzyme from a cow’s stomach lining that’s used to make cheese?
Philip the Equal Opportunity Cynic
If you wonder how some can attempt to reconcile following Jesus with “torture thy enemy”, check out the comments here. In fairness it’s about 2/3 on the anti-torture side — but oh, what a depressing third remains. (Also, some of the non-theists involved are on the anti-torture side, whereas I don’t see a single pro-torture non-theist on there.)
grumpy realist
OT, but an article over at HuffPo (self-described as “wildly unscientific, based on talks with people, impressions, etc.”) is given the following for the top three Republicans in Iowa:
1) Huckabee
2) Romney
3) Paul
My eyebrows raised at that. I’d love to see Paul place in the top three (expecially if he gets anywhere close to the other two) simply for the collective heart attack it would give the entire political establishment. Plus all the pundits.
gratefulcub
No it isn’t. It’s my understanding that the constitution protects us from the government. So, the government can’t make laws requiring someone to be of a faith to hold office. People running for office can imply, or directly state, that you must be a snake handling christian to be fit to hold office. Constitutionally speaking.
It’s funny watching GOP potentials, that are obviously not extremely religious people, running around trying to out god the next guy. Except Huckabee of course.
Personally I hope Huckabee wins the nomination. I have truly believed for quite some time that the country would not elect a man running for preacher instead of president. If I am wrong, I want to find out that we have actually reached this point.
As a non-believer, it is tough to stomach the current political climate. I am not some evangelical non-believer, trying to convert others, or declaring war on christmas. (I am hosting a party tomorrow night, in which the invitations read, “Join us for some Festivus Fellowshipping”. But, I just think I am a funny guy) I look forward to a political debate in my lifetime that does not include the level of faith in god.
Zifnab
I’m tempted to register Republican and vote for Paul in Texas, just because I know my Presidential vote doesn’t mean a shit down here anyway. But there are down-ballot issues to consider so… :p
r€nato
evidently you are counting on some sort of scientific breakthrough in longevity.
srv
Sweet post.
The Other Steve
It’s interesting to note that since the rise of the religious right there has been an increase in the number of Americans claiming no religion.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm
gratefulcub
I don’t think we are that religious as a country. I live in Kentucky, not exactly a hotbed of atheism. I work at an executive level that is filled with lifelong, devout republicans. The topic of religion never comes up. I assume that I work with people that attend church, but it never comes up.
~30% of the country may be bordering on fanatical, but that leaves 70% that are not. I want to see Huckabee run against someone other than Hillary. I want to see how far God can take someone in a general election. I don’t think it will work. Maybe I am naive. I think the volume of the 30% make their numbers seem larger than they actually are.
Jamey
Probably late to this party, but Willard wasn’t stressing the commonality of the great faiths, he was trying to pacify Christians who are justifiably suspicious of the weird-ass rape cult that Romney belongs to. But, really, is that all there is to it: mollifying Christians? Or is t hat just a vestige of Rovian
I’ve got issues with the Church of Latter-Day Saints. They do weird shit to families, particularly ones in which spouses don’t share a common level of devotion to the faith.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Huh? Well no wonder Matt thinks waterboarding is torture. He’s doing it all wrong.
Logically, waterboarding can’t be torture if hippies do it to each other in a pointless gesture to protest against it. You don’t see them ripping each other’s fingernails out, do you?
The Other Steve
Do it in the primary. That’s what I am going to do up here in Minnesota.
Well we have a caucus, so I think it’ll be fun to go with a Ron Paul button and tweak some fucks.
gratefulcub
I hate hippies. Peace love and understanding? Jesus Freaks!
RSA
If I were a religious person, I might note the following to Romney:
And this to Giuliani:
And this to the rest of the Republican candidates:
gratefulcub
It isn’t about religion, as in the word of god. People are tribal at heart, and they have a need to be a part of something. And, to believe (with deep faith) that they are better. Religion and race are just the easiest to identify.
Alabamans truly believe they are superior to Mississippians, and vice versa.
It isn’t about following the word of god, as in being judged based on how you treat the young, the old, the sick, the poor. It is about belonging to the club. My club is better than your club, take that Mormons.
Mix in some charismatic, power hungry leaders and you have a denomination. Now Southern Baptists can feel superior to First Baptists.
If it wasn’t religion, it would be college football.
It’s all batshit insane.
gratefulcub
They became embarrassed by their club, so they opted out.
Church communities are wonderful things. They take care of their own when things get hard. The problem is when folks like Pat Robertson, and his less successful compatriots scattered around the world, that the idea of religion becomes an instrument to attack others, and to feel better about yourself by pointing out others faults.
dbrown
I have never meet a christian, only hypocrites that claim to be christians – they do exist, like the South American missionaries that gave up their lives (they had guns for defense against wild animals) rather than harm a group of natives that were attacking them.
One typical true ‘american christian’ had a bumper sticker on a 2007 cadillac SUV saying ” Ignore the car, my reward is in heaven”; Christ would not call that typical american hypocrite one of his.
Religion is for liars, hypocrites and thieves – that is, bush ass lickers and too many republicans and some democrats.
libarbarian
WOW.
If you are going to say that Christianity forbids government use of torture, then you should be able to point to a verse that says that, but the verses lean towards the opposite;
Christianity leans towards torture?
Yeah. Without torture Jesus would have just been another street-corner prophet.
New Slogan: Waterboarding? Its nothing compared to what Jesus is gonna do when he gets back!
Yeah, the central message of Christianity is “Men are depraved and therefore deserve to be Waterboarded”. I guess “Turn the other cheek” = “Spin around,whip out your flamethrower, and let the bastards have it.”
I dont care bout no stinking Intelligence – I just want the bastard to suffer.
Ed Drone
I wonder what would happen if someone were to smite Huckabee on his right cheek (which means a back-handed slap, by the way). Would he turn his other cheek, or have his ‘attacker’ taken down by the security wing of his campaign?
Just wondering. I think I know the answer.
Ed
Peter Johnson
Mitt does indeed have it right.
It’s no longer politically correct to say this, though it’s clearly what the Founding Fathers mean when they wrote “we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable writes”.
I agree with Ike: “A good leader must have firm religious principles, and I don’t care what they are.”
Incertus (Brian)
“Certain unalienable writes”?
Peter Johnson
Rights. Sorry about that.
And creator isn’t the Budhist pagan deity Kucinich worships.
Peter Johnson
Jesus died from many different problems, one was the actual crucifixion. But before the crucifixion, Jesus was beaten and flogged. He was so exhausted that another man had to carry his cross.
To elaborate on the whipping, the Romans would strip a person down to the waist and would tie him in the courtyard. Then they would take a whip that had a handle about a foot and a half long. At the end of the handle, it had four leather thongs with heavy, jagged bones or balls of lead with jagged edges, wound into the end of the straps. There were a minimum of five straps of different lengths. The
Having a little cold water splashed in your face doesn’t sound so bad now, huh?
grumpy realist
Hee. Hitchens is really feeling his oats today:
http://www.slate.com/id/2179404/
Incertus (Brian)
So waterboarding is okay because it’s not as bad as crucifixion? And I’m not quite clear if you’re suggesting that people suspected of having bad thoughts are being tortured for our sins–can you clear that up?
Gus
I would argue that being beheaded isn’t as bad as crucifixion either, so I don’t know why people complained about what happened to Nick Berg. PJ, I just have to keep reminding myself you’re a spoof. You’re just not as funny as Jon Swift or Jesus’ General.
ThymeZone
You might want to rethink. Since the 1980’s, evangelicals have openly and deliberately pursued a stealth approach to politics, cloaking their true religious agenda in deflectionspeak and pretending to be other than what they really are. It’s a strategy Bush used in 2000, with his talk of “compassionate conservatism.” Nobody knew what the hell that was. Well, how do you like it so far?
Huckabee talks as if his “faith” is no big deal, aw shucks, I’m justa reglar guy. I don’t believe him for one second, I think he’s a liar, and I think he is a full-out nutcase religious fanatic who intends to restore God’s dominion on earth.
He’s your most dangerous and most dishonest candidate. He’s the head of the beast that we are trying to get rid of in our government. He’s an idiot, on policy, and a mealy mouthed liar on matters of state and religion.
But he’s likeable. Like Bush was thought to be in 2000. A guy you could have a beer with. Well, except for his AA pledge, of course.
Gus
I didn’t realize that Mittens’ speech was at the HW Library. Does that say something about who the Bushies want as the next nominee?
RSA
Peter Johnson wrote:
There’s a typo above: “nor” should be “and”.
jonas
Hey, when America does it, it’s not waterboarding, it’s “freedomboarding”, ok, because as Mitt sez, you can’t have freedom without religion and waterboarding has a long religious pedigree going back to sixteenth century Spain. Ergo, it’s really like forcing a hose of liberty down your esophagus and filling your lungs with sweet H-two-Oh say can-you-see. These prisoners should thank the CIA for giving them just a little taste of what a great nation like this really stands for.
Svensker
By their words, ye shall know them.
Wilfred
What the fuck does that mean? Any Muslim who tortures another human being is no longer a Muslim by the mere fact of doing it.
You forgot the Jews, Tim. The only country that ever admitted to torturing brown people was Israel. How soon:we forget
I’m sure they stopped.
The other torture regimes are Bush’s secular allies in Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, which currently entertains thousands of members of the Muslim Brotherhood in medieval prisons, backed by billions of dollars in US aid.
Collective response of people like St. Matt?
You can’t bitch about torture without condemning it everywhere, every time.
SueinNM
We already know how much many so-called Christians enjoy torture: witness the success of PASSION OF THE CHRIST. I saw a clip of it and was sickened that anyone could sit through that and be anything but reviled by the glorification of suffering, whether or not you believe that suffering “saves” you.
Chad N. Freude
Well, OK, but isn’t apprehension, trial, and imprisonment enough?
12across
Yeah and we all know that big movies staring Mel Gibson represent the views of an entire religion. Perfect liberal logic.
Chad N. Freude
Peter Johnson says:
and
So PJ, why do you refer to Kucinich’s religion in this context? Since it doesn’t matter to you, why bring it up?
Viola Cella
NOObody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Except, well, um, us . . . ’cause, see, how are we s’posed to keep freedom free?
Bring out the comfy chairs . . . the ones with the water buckets and plastic bags.
Anne Laurie
I wonder what the Morman position on the destruction of evidence for war crimes. Someone ought to ask Mitt that question.
Extra points if the questioner can work in the phrase “Mountain Meadows Massacre”!
Far as this non-Mormon can tell from what’s on the internet, official Mormon policy on MMM seems to be that the *real* mistake was that they didn’t kill all the witnesses after burning every record they could get their hands on. Because murder for paranoia & profit is not exactly pious, but giving the Unbelievers a chance to bad-mouth Joseph Smith was just wrong.
No, I don’t hate Mormons, although I sure do hate Willard “Mitt” Romney. But a lot of Romney’s nastiest, smarmiest okay-for-me-but-not-for-thee crap, from spousal abuse to his business practices as a vulture capitalist to his efforts to destroy the infrastructure of the state he used as a stepping-stone on the road to his presidential candidacy, seems to have been spawned or at least enabled by his “deeply religious” understanding of Mormonism.
Ed Drone
12Across said: “Yeah and we all know that big movies staring Mel Gibson represent the views of an entire religion. Perfect liberal logic.”
Well, since the neotheos flocked to that film, and excoriated anyone who didn’t like it (like liberals), yes I THINK IT REPRESENTS THE VIEWS OF AN ENTIRE RELIGIO-POLITICAL MOVEMENT though NOT a particular religion. That’s the difference between liberals and right-handed sock-puppets — we can see the difference between a political party and a religion.
Ed
J sub D
The conversation goes like this.
I’m a Christian.
Oh, like Jerry Falwell?
Not really.
Like Pat Robertson?
Uh, no.
Oh, like Jim Bakker then?
Actually, I’m an agnostic.
Bob In Pacifica
Mitt hocked out this: “Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.”
I would suggest a short tour of history for Romney. Pharoahs and the like claimed to be gods, kings ruled by the grace of God, every ruler who went into war claimed to have God on his side. Our current Prez has conversations with The Big Guy. It seems the closer the connection to the divine the more likely a leader gets a country into war.
Sweden, whose population is about 50% without benefit of a supreme being or religion, is pretty peaceful and these days seems even more democratic than the U.S.
My complaint about Romney’s chat at G.H.W. Bush’s library (by the way, G.H.W. was pulling in a million a speech from that God Rev. Moon after he got out of office) was that he was so short on specificity. I would have liked an explanation of the golden tablets and the magical glasses and all the other stuff, and how come the church finally decided not to look at black folk as inferior. These are my questions about Mormonism.
Free At Last
Wilfred, you must have lost your talking points. In the future please remember to criticize only the Zionists. You have nothing against the Jews, remember?
Wilfred
I don’t have talking points. I have a real politics and real praxis.
When people think nothing of linking a behavior, torture in this case, to Christians and Muslims, it is praxis to point out that Jews torture, too. Fair play’s a jewel.
Kynn
Romney is okay by me. Basically, whatever he may or may not believe about religion is just fine, as long as he’s for THE FAIR TAX.
Because, you know, it has “fair” in the name.
mclaren
By now we should have learned that the more devout these religious guys profess themselves in public, the more depraved they actually are in private. For example, this host of the Godtalk radio show who just got busted for kiddy porn.
So the real issue with Mitt Romney remains…what kind of kiddy porn does Romney view when he snorts crystal meth at his gay hooker orgies while dressed in a double wetsuit?
Rudy Giuliani has appeared in public in drag and there’s now hard evidence that he embezzled public monies to pay for a love nest for his mistress. This makes Giuliani Mr. Clean among the Repub candidates — first, because he was having an affair with a woman over the age of consent; and, second, because Giuliani is open about cross-dressing. So we know his private fetishes aren’t that bad.
But Romney! Holy crap! This guy tries to come off like he sh*ts blocks of marble. So we know Romney has got to be the most twisted perverted sick-o freazoid in the entire sexual deviant menagerie. Romney goes to such extreme pains to present himself as squeaky-clean that it’s a dead giveaway his private sexual perversions must be radical to the point of Lovecraftian horrror — perhaps real live tenatcle porn, or pedicadio, or perhaps Romney gets sexually aroused by hiring young girls to wear high heels and and crush model train sets underfoot… I don’t know what Romney’s particular ultra-twisted kinkiness is, but the guy presents himself as so relentlessly clean-cut it’s a sure bet his particular sexual perversion is something genuinely mind-boggling.
I mean, it’s only a matter of time. You can hear the countdown in the background — YouTube cellphone videos of Romney’s crystal meth gay pedophile scat sex bouts with underage octopi in bondage in…3…2…1…