Roy Moore: insane, proud of it, and leading the parade
Posted by
KTK
Roy Moore, the former Alabama state court judge who violated the Constitution, flouted numerous direct orders from higher courts, and was finally impeached over a gigantic Christian monument he erected in his courthouse (literally in the dark of night), is now bull-goose loony over . . . mad cow disease tracking programs.
Moore opposes such tracking, saying it represents unprecedented government intrusion into the right to own animals. He says an identification system - first for cattle and then for all types of livestock - is “more identifiable with communism than free enterprise.”
I guess they do the tracking from black helicopters. That’s the first sign.
Moore, whose anti-tracking position is shared by others nationally [for economic, not psychological, reasons], finds the timing of Alabama’s first mad cow case curious. It was announced as a bill moved through the Legislature to implement an animal identification system consistent with any developed by federal agriculture officials.
“It’s a strange coincidence that the first case of mad cow disease came up at the same time the Senate was considering implementation of the National Animal Identification System,” Moore said.
State Veterinarian Tony Frazier said Alabama’s first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called mad cow, is real and he’s got the carcass in a state lab to prove it.
“To insinuate that it’s made up is fanatical,” he said. . . .
Moore said more livestock producers - specially small farmers - ought to get politically active on the issue.
“We ought to have mad people,” Moore said.
Well, they’ve clearly got one.
But is anyone surprised by this? Isn’t it time we point out the feature that the anti-government conspiracy theorists, creationists, anti-choicers, anti-sciencers, anti-sexers, censors, anti-women’s-rightsists, homophobes, “pro-marriageists”, anti-Islamics, and other retrograde fanatics now plaguing America all have in common? Their core constituencies are far-right Christian theocrats, and they’re bat-shit crazy.
Moore is a hero to that community for his “Ten Commandments” grandstanding, and for thumbing his nose at the law he was sworn to uphold and that they hate. A good percentage of them want to make him governor of Alabama. And he’s insane. Not just a far-fringe religious weirdo - we knew that already. He’s nuts - as in “tracking cases of fatal-and-incurable-brain-eating-disease-causing cattle violates ‘the right to own animals’” nuts. The bad kind of crazy. The kind of crazy that believes “free enterprise” includes a right to sell diseased meat from fatal-and incurable-brain-eating-disease-causing cattle to an unknowing public, and that to do otherwise is communist. Ronald-Reagan-meets-Bo-Gritz crazy. He was recently polling almost 30% in the Alabama Republican primary, and actually leads the Democratic candidate.
You simply can’t be too crazy for a certain segment of the population - at least, not if your craziness takes the form of fascistically aggressive Christianity and a shrieking fear of doing anything to make people’s lives better. George Bush turned over the rocks the rest of us had been avoiding in 2000, and that segment of the population turned out to be 25% or more - and enough to swing national elections his way. (You can’t be too stupid or incompetent for them, either, as long as you’re onboard with the FAC and the SFoDATMPLB.) We’ve known since then we can’t ignore them, but we’ve never really come to terms with how simply pathological the theocratic right is.
I, for one (and probably only one - Kevin and Tom will be making “off his meds” remarks about this post, I’m sure), am tired of pretending these people are part of a civilized republic. It’s become commonplace to refer to the far-right Christian wing as “America’s Taliban”, but I think the analogy holds in earnest. There is a sizable part of this country that hates the rest of the country and is determined to make the most of us live our lives according to rules imposed (though often not followed) by the minority. And worse, they’re not just aggressive, intrusive, and repressive - they’re nuts.
They take their religious beliefs to the extent not only of denying science - nutty in itself - but of claiming that science does not require or imply rational truths. (William Dembski testified in the Kansas creationism trial that science is not limited to natural explanations of phenomena.) They not only kill for their religion (7 murders of abortion providers, and multiple attempts); they kill with their religion (the South Dakota abortion statute literally requires women to die, rather than receive an abortion, in cases where not intervening would certainly result in the deaths of the woman and the fetus anyway). They elevate bizarre, religiously-grounded phobias above the value of human life (condoms are 85% effective at the worst; “abstinence pledges” are 88% ineffective at the least; right-wing sex policy entirely prohibits the former and insists on the latter even in countries where AIDS is prevalent), while using “the value of human life” as a weapon against personal autonomy. They openly embrace religious triumphalism (Google on “Christian Identity”, “Messianic Judaism”, or “religion of peace” to get an earful), while working themselves into a frenzy over a wholly delusional “war on Christmas”. And they allow that delusional paranoia to spawn fever-dreams of persecution of all kinds: the public school system is “indoctrinating” their kids; vaccinations are yet another communist plot (I guess the communists got tired of flouridating our water); UN peacekeeping troops are the advance battalions of a One World Order; vaccinations against the virus causing cervical cancer should be opposed because they make sex safer; God was “driven out of our schools” by the ban on mandatory sectarian prayer.
This is nuts. It’s not just extremist, not just kind of whacky - it’s insane. No decent person can believe any of these things, and no rational person can believe most of them. They’re not just “conservative” - they’re wrong, and not just wrong, but so wrong, and so distorted, you have to be nuts to believe them. But they are all staples of the evangelical Christian far right. And to the extent that beliefs such as these are driving that group’s politics - and given the influence that group currently wields - such thinking, and the people who entertain it, are a threat to the nation.
One thing the right wing’s “War on [Some] Terror[ists Who Happen To Belong To Other Religions But Not in Countries That Pay Us Off]” has taught us is that it’s OK to criticize the bad things about people’s religions. Politely looking the other way has gone by the boards, and in fact that’s a good thing. So let’s look. No more free rides for extremists, crazies, and oppressives. We already knew about the real Taliban, but relatively few Americans are actually oppressed by the real Taliban. It’s time to take a close look at America’s Taliban, and call them for what they are: reactionary, misogynist, homophobic, sex-phobic, irrational, delusional, intolerant, and paranoid.
Crazy.
There was a bio piece on Moore in The Atlantic Monthly a few months back. One word: “Holy Moley!”
Comment 4/12/2006
>anti-government conspiracy theorists
I call Shenanigans, there’s just as many left wing conspiracy theorists as right wing.
Comment 4/12/2006
there’s just as many left wing conspiracy theorists as right wing.
But none of them are plausible contenders for a governorship. None of them were seriously talked about as presidential candidates because they flouted the Constitution and the separation of church and state.
And I offer Moore only as an example. My real point is that this kind of thinking, and behavior, is prevalent on the right wing, including among influential figures. It’s a staple of their policies and politics. Even if you disagree with their positions, or even their factual beliefs, you don’t see large portions of the left openly embracing irrationalism.
Comment 4/13/2006
KTK
Nah, no meds required. I wouldn’t go so far to say they are nuts. Ignorance is enough to explain their attitude towards science and the like and ignoraance and cultural isolation is enough to explain the rest. And I think it is important to note that violence isn’t as widespread among Christian fundamentalists as it is among Muslim fundamentalists. While the goals are similiar, the difference in execution is still important.
But beyond those quibbles, you are right. There are people who want something very much like a theocracy, and they ar not all firnge groups — they have quite a bit of say in the GOP.
Comment 4/13/2006
KTK: “But none of them are plausible contenders for a governorship.”
Fred: One of them wants to be the president. Remember the loyal wife who stood by her cheating husband, the President, against the “vast right-wing conspiracy”?
Comment 4/13/2006
KTK: “There is a sizable part of this country that hates the rest of the country and is determined to make the most of us live our lives according to rules imposed (though often not followed) by the minority. And worse, they’re not just aggressive, intrusive, and repressive - they’re nuts.”
Ted: I swear I heard Rush Limbaugh say the exact same thing last week.
Comment 4/13/2006
KTK: “There is a sizable part of this country that hates the rest of the country”
Fred: You’re right. And you should quit hating the rest of the country. If you want to see someone spouting hate, read your own posts.
Comment 4/13/2006
>None of them were seriously talked about as presidential
>candidates because they flouted the Constitution and the
>separation of church and state.
Obviously you’ve never been exposed to Dennis Kucinnich’s views on Mind Control Satellites. Or Cynthia McKinney’s views on the the Indian conspiracy to subvert the US Government.
Comment 4/15/2006
The conservative right is dangerous because they prioritize following tradition or prejudice in the face of scientific fact and because they are more violent. For instance, anyone with a brain that has read objective scientic material knows that there was no Garden of Eden, or Noah’s Ark, or that God created the world in 6 days. Yet half of the country believes these things simply because they want to, not because any evidence points to the TRUTH of their creationist vision. Furthermore, many of these evangelicals come from the South, which is and has been the most violent, aggressive part of our country. It is funny that the most Christianized part of the country is also the most crime-ridden and violent. They don’t care about practicality, such as birth control or condoms and would rather live in a dream world and let generations die from disease. They are anything but “Christian.”
Comment 7/31/2006