Bringing The Snark
The Los Angeles Times op-ed blogger Paul Whitefield had me chuckling with this opening set of paragraphs:
Forget voter ID laws. What this country needs are laws to keep stupid people from voting.
Now, I’m not talking about folks who can’t recite the preamble to the Constitution, or who can’t tell you what the 1st Amendment covers, or how many Supreme Court justices there are. I’ll even exempt those poor souls who don’t know who the first president was, or can’t name the two houses of Congress, or don’t know the name of their representative.
But, if you were to show up at the polls in November, and the poll worker were to ask you “Is President Obama a Muslim or a Christian?” and you answered “Muslim,” then — bzzzzzt — you’d be automatically disqualified from voting, on the grounds you’re just too dumb.
Heh.
He's referring, of course, to the recent Pew poll which shows even more Republican voters believe Barack Obama is a Muslim than ever before. Of course, even Whitefield admits that one possible reason for that is the respondents were having a spot of fun with the pollsters. Still, that is a bit disheartening.
After my giggles ended, however, I got the point behind the point, which Grade A Snark should always deliver. What difference does it make, really? What if Obama really is a Muslim? So what? Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn) is a Muslim. So? Why should it matter?
I remember more than 50 years ago when my mother and her sisters declared that if the Democrats nominated that Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy for president they'd never vote Democrat again, and as far as I know, none of them ever did, even after JFK's speech indicating he would uphold his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. I had hoped we finally got beyond that point. Clearly I was wrong.
Stupid is one thing. Vicious bigotry is something else. Michele Bachman (and folks such as John Bolton) know this, but still have no trouble playing on the fears people were taught to have by the last administration after 9/11. The equation is simple: Muslim = terrorist. Roman Catholic = Vatican control. Mormonism = bigamist cult.
So much for the promise of a new century, a new millennium.
Forget voter ID laws. What this country needs are laws to keep stupid people from voting.
Now, I’m not talking about folks who can’t recite the preamble to the Constitution, or who can’t tell you what the 1st Amendment covers, or how many Supreme Court justices there are. I’ll even exempt those poor souls who don’t know who the first president was, or can’t name the two houses of Congress, or don’t know the name of their representative.
But, if you were to show up at the polls in November, and the poll worker were to ask you “Is President Obama a Muslim or a Christian?” and you answered “Muslim,” then — bzzzzzt — you’d be automatically disqualified from voting, on the grounds you’re just too dumb.
Heh.
He's referring, of course, to the recent Pew poll which shows even more Republican voters believe Barack Obama is a Muslim than ever before. Of course, even Whitefield admits that one possible reason for that is the respondents were having a spot of fun with the pollsters. Still, that is a bit disheartening.
After my giggles ended, however, I got the point behind the point, which Grade A Snark should always deliver. What difference does it make, really? What if Obama really is a Muslim? So what? Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn) is a Muslim. So? Why should it matter?
I remember more than 50 years ago when my mother and her sisters declared that if the Democrats nominated that Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy for president they'd never vote Democrat again, and as far as I know, none of them ever did, even after JFK's speech indicating he would uphold his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. I had hoped we finally got beyond that point. Clearly I was wrong.
Stupid is one thing. Vicious bigotry is something else. Michele Bachman (and folks such as John Bolton) know this, but still have no trouble playing on the fears people were taught to have by the last administration after 9/11. The equation is simple: Muslim = terrorist. Roman Catholic = Vatican control. Mormonism = bigamist cult.
So much for the promise of a new century, a new millennium.
Labels: First Amendment, Religion, Religious Reich, Terra Terra Terra
posted by Diane at 3:00 AM
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