The Post After The Last "U.S. Politics" Post I Ever Wrote

I know, I know. I said I was done.

But this is so brilliant, so succinct, so perfect an illustration of the level our political discourse had sunk to that I cannot with good intent pass on commenting on it. Here's the quote, from Charlie Pierce again, citing Rick Santorum on the evils of putting the totem pole in the donut hole without throwing the pregnancy dice (emphasis mine):

"One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."

Now sit back and think about that for a moment.First of all, this man isn't running for stake president of the local Mormon outfit. He's not a cardinal hustling votes for the Papacy. He's supposed to be one of We the People, a citizen of a nation explicitly designed around not codifying religious dogma into civil law ("an establishment of religion") who is trying to convince you to vote for him as its Chief Executive.

And this is part of his platform.

Second, consider the semantics of his statement; "do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be".

Obviously, for Santorum, it's how GOD wants them to be.And this is...why?

Why should we care what Santorum's Bible says? Or even what PART of it Santorum wants us to listen to.

My grandfather was a Salvation Army officer, and I'm as familiar with the Christian Bible, Old and New Testaments, as a heathen can be. And in my opinion there's a ton of stuff about sex, almost all of it archaic, almost all of it confusing, and none of it applicable to the job of the President of the United States.

There's all the old Hebrew stuff; "be fruitful and multiply", the Sin of Onan, but you'd expect that from a culture that demanded progeny due to the insane rate of death in infancy, childhood and childbirth.

But there is also some genuinely bizarre shit. Like how you're supposed to fuck your brother's widow? Or the etiquette for raping your female slaves? (Hint - make sure you have a spare ram around in case you get caught...).

In other words, there's all SORTS of ridiculous desert-wandering God-pesterer crap in the Bible, sexual or otherwise.And that Rick Santorum cherry-picks some of it says more about him than it does about the Christian Bible.

But that's kinda not the point, really, isn't it?

The point is that we're supposed to be living in a non-sectarian state, as in, you can't circumsize my daughter - or my son - because of what YOU believe. You don't get to decide whether my wife and I have kids when we have sex because YOU believe we should, or even if your GOD believes we should and tells you so. And we don't have to figure out what part of the Bible that's in; it's right in the Constitution.

That's really all there is to it.

And Rick Santorum doesn't believe this.

And Rick Santorum is not being laughed, reviled, and mocked off the public stage.

Rick Santorum is not being held up as a living example of the very dangers of theocracy by the sort of people who will swear to you that Muslims want you to live by sharia law.No.

Rick Santorum is being taken seriously as a Presidential candidate by the "news media" and by a significant number of people in one of our two major political parties.Update 1/4: And the fact that this god-botherer pulled a quarter of the GOP vote - that between them this religious whackaloon who believes that it is the President's job to intone on what my wife and I do in bed and the goldbug who thinks that our country is still working under the Articles of Confederation pulled half the GOP electorate in Iowa - should tell you all you really need to know about our nation and why we are where we are today.

We Are So Fucked.