President, or Prefect of Jesusistan?

Quite a few of you have probably seen my anti-Jesusistan rants before. We devote an entire category to it at Reconstitution. But there are people who take offense (or, more accurately, want to take offense) at the term “Jesusistan.” So I like to explain every now and then where the word came from, and who and what it is I’m talking about when I use it.

Reconstitution’s view of what a Jesusistani is can be seen here and here. I coined the word sometime during the runup to the invasion of Iraq, while I was arguing with a faith-based wingtard on a message board. Although the wingtard professed to be “shocked” and “offended” at my newly-invented word, I found using it very satisfying. With this one word, I was able to evoke precisely the image I wished to evoke. This one word has saved me paragraphs and paragraphs of typing.

This was the way I defined what I saw as a “Jesusistani” awhile back. I stand by the definition now. If the definition doesn’t fit you, then you’re not my target

What is a Jesusistani?

-A Jesusistani is someone who loves fetuses but hates programs designed to help pregnant women stay healthy and fed. I find it funny that the Jesusistani that wails about the “welfare queen” apparently has no problem at all with billions of dollars stolen from Baghdad, or a lack of armor for our soldiers because Halliburton is gouging the Federal Government, helping to leave the Government without the money for the armor.

-In addition, a Jesusistani believes that people with little or no brain function must be kept in a vegetative state indefinitely, but has no patience with the idea of social programs that might help sentient beings avoid hunger, or homelessness. They call this beliefset a “Culture of Life.” The “Culture of Life,” unfortunately, does not extend itself to things like preventing cervical cancer in women who sleep with someone not their husband, or ending State-sanctioned killing. Most of the time a Jesusistani doesn’t even want someone facing a State-sanctioned killing to be able to appeal his or her case, once a “Guilty” verdict is in-and it doesn’t matter much whether or not the State has fudged evidence in the past.

-A Jesusistani is someone that would try to make any way of life other than their own way punishible in a Court of Law. Jesus told you long ago that morality questions will be settled on Judgment Day, and that they would be between the Lord and the person in question. He never gave you the right to judge how anyone else lives-you are to be the master of your own morality. Your inability to keep from attacking those different than you are absolutely would be condemned by Jesus if he were here in physical form.

-A Jesusistani is someone who wants to keep someone sick from being able to obtain marijuana for things like fighting nausea, but sees nothing wrong with smoking cigarettes (and affecting the health of all those around him or her.) I really, really want someone to explain to me someday how you can rationalize that.

-A Jesusistani is someone who wants to see the Ten Commandments in front of every Government building in the country, but wants the first Ten Amendments to the United States Constitution forgotten about.

-A Jesusistani is a pious, married, churchgoing family type who sees sin that must be combatted on the TV, in the theater, on the street corner-all the while coveting a coworker, or a secretary, or a sales rep. There are so many who fit into this particular category that I have become automatically suspicious of anyone who “preaches” to me.

-A Jesusistani is someone who believes that God meant for certain people (like themselves) to be wealthy, and that any attempt to help someone who is sick, or unemployed, or otherwise down on their luck is “Godless Communism.” This indicates to me that the Jesusistanis who see things in this light really never read much New Testament.

-A Jesusistani is someone that blindly worships false idols, even idols that do things like steal from the common trough, lie to their populations, start wars of choice in “heathen” lands that kill tens of thousands of other human beings. The Jesusistani often rationalizes that the people killed on the orders of their false idol are of the “wrong” faith and therefore, not as important in the eyes of the Lord. Jesus, of course, felt differently.

-Along the same vein, the Jesusistani loves war, but feels that he or she should be exempt from any kind of service or sacrifice in the name of their beloved war. All the while preaching that we must fight these wars or become extinct. The most we can normally expect from a Jesusistani in the way of “sacrifice” is a yellow car magnet. Usually accompanied by a “W” sticker. Things like inconvieniencing themselves by wasting less energy are just Marxist anathema-the Lord apparently meant for them to own a Denali that gets 8MPG while poor kids get blown to smithereens by IEDs while trying to keep the supply line for that Denali’s fuel open.

There is a lot more to it than this, but I don’t want to make you cross-eyed before I get to tonight’s rant.

I’m sure that people have been following the meteoric rise of Mike Huckabee with some surprise. I confess here that when the push polling began against Mitt Romney, I believe that I identified the wrong person as the likely culprit. In the days subsequent to this despicable poll, of course, Mike started running TV commercials touting his Jesusistan credentials, and his poll numbers began to climb rapidly. Talking about the issues wasn’t going to get Mike anywhere, and apparently one of his handler/advisors figured that out. Denigrating someone else on the basis of religion is a surefire winning issue in Gopperdom these days, however.

The Republican Party was infiltrated at ground level about 30 years ago at the direction of Pat Robertson, who sent his minions out to run for offices in every obscure election there was. Those mid-year elections for things like School Board seats, Township Trustees, Mayors of villages, officers of local Republican organizations, and the like. The culmination of Robertson’s slow coup d’etat came in 2000, when with the help of Bush I’s SCOTUS Justices, a certifiably deranged Jesusistan wingtard was elevated to the Presidency. There is no way Chimpy could have gotten himself nominated, much less appointed President, without the backing of the Jesusistanis in the Republican apparatus. And since then, they’ve become even more powerful, as the 2004 election results showed us. In addition to the elevation of Chimpy, the Jesusistanis have largely driven out most of the moderate, more traditional Republicans. The Republican Party of today would not tolerate a Gerald Ford, Charles Percy, Everett Dirksen, or even a Barry Goldwater in its ranks. Der Rovesmarschall would have found a wingtard to run against these guys in the Primary cycle and driven them out of the Republican Party. Consider what Barry Goldwater had to say about the Jesusistanis who were infecting his Party like some kind of uncontrollable fungus:

“I am a conservative Republican, but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don’t hurt anyone else in the process.” (in a 1994 Washington Post essay)…

…“I don’t have any respect for the Religious Right.” (Interview, 1991)…

...When Sandra Day O’Connor was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1981, some Religious Right leaders suspected she might be too moderate on abortion and other social concerns. Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell told the news media that “every good Christian should be concerned.” Replied Goldwater, “Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell’s ass.”

Goldwater was once a staunch supporter of things like vouchers for parents who wanted to send their kids to religions schools and a Constitutional Amendment allowing prayer in schools. But Barry was always a man who was able to learn from the mistakes in his past, and in his later years he began to speak out against the hatred and intolerance that Jesusistan had brought into the Republican Party.

Barry knew that one day soon, we’d be right where we are.

Where is it we are, exactly? We’ve arrived at a place where you cannot get a nomination from one of our major political parties unless you spew Jesus every time you make a speech. You also have to agree that by not allowing Jesusistan zealots to force their dogma down the throat of every American in every public venue in the country, that this country is “persecuting Christians.” You have to profess a naked, outward hostility to any woman who suddenly finds herself having to make an anguishing choice about continuing a pregnancy; indeed, you must agree that a woman who terminates a pregnancy at any stage past fertilization is a “baby killer.” Never mind that the Bible, itself, defines the beginning of life as the time that breath is drawn into the body. Jesusistanis are mighty selective about what Bible verses they latch onto, and mighty inventive if the things that they espouse can’t be found in the Bible. Things like Rapture, as another example.

Mike Huckabee is saying all the right things, and his refusal as Governor of Arkansas to allow State funds to pay for aborting a fetus from a retarded 15 year old girl (who was impregnated via her stepfather’s rape) definitely stands him in good stead with the Jesusistan fringe that controls the Republican nomination process. Without having to say a thing about foreign policy, without ever having to explain how he would handle almost any domestic issue save abortion and gay rights, Mike Huckabee is 100% qualified to receive the Republican nomination for President.

You tell me-could the state of affairs in the Republican Party be any sorrier? These guys are headed to regional Party status, a-la Strom Thurmond’s “States Rights” movement back in the late 1940s.

Good riddance to them. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could find some vertebrates among the Democrats to rally behind as their replacements?