Absolutism: The Tea Party Theology

It looks like all over the country the American people are not buying what the Tea Party has to sell. Senator Cruz and Sarah Palin are losers once again, and they are mad as hell about this fact. These Tea Partiers are flailing about against the Republicans, Democrats and anyone else that refuses to follow their party line of absolutism.

Absolutism is at the core of the Tea Party which has loosely based itself on the idea of Puritanism. This theory has political as well as religious implications such as the ideas that truth and morality are absolute and not conditional upon human perception. And, if you refuse to follow these precepts, then, you are immoral or worst amoral.  Of course you will not be able to understand these absolutes unless you unquestioningly but into the Tea Party point of view.

This political and religious belief system leaves no room to question the authorities be they religious or political. You must follow what they say and prescribe or you will be punished if not in this life in the next. These concepts are why these Tea Party and religious radicals have such a hard time understanding the idea of freewill or the idea that morality can and will change as society evolves and changes.

At the heart of the Tea Party’s animus today, is marriage equality. These religious terrorists are livid about the idea that marriage is between one man and one woman, moreover, that marriage is all about reproduction of the species. For them, marriage is not about love and caring and companionship, but about deciding who is allowed to love (publically) and forcing the rest of society to accept their view of marriage. Tangled in this web of loathing is the idea that being homosexual is a lifestyle choice that must be changed or these amoral people will suffer in the fires of hell.

Their hostility for ideas that they cannot control does not stop there. The thought that a woman can choose an abortion or that she has the right to control what happens to her body by using birth control or refusing sexual advances is outrageous and has led some of these religious terrorists to murder in the name of God. It demonstrates the dishonest nature of the religious right and their corresponding Tea Party minions that are willing to carry out these heinous acts.

Bombing of abortion clinics, killing doctors are disgusting and immoral acts, but they pale in comparison to the political treachery that is taking place in state legislatures across the country. These white men pretend that they are trying to protect women’s health by making it nearly impossible for women to have health screenings by forcing clinics and doctors to meet regulatory standards that they know will shut down the majority of women’s health clinics that do significantly more than abortions in that they carry out important health screening and contraception distribution to low and middle income families. The irony is that these legislators pretend to believe in less regulations for American businesses unless of course said businesses do not follow their moral directives.

All of these issues revolve around moral imperatives and the absolutism that so profoundly dominates their perspective of how Americans should behave. When you are as intractable and rigid as these political operatives, there is no reason to compromise and share power or ideas or opinions because concessions are impossible.

In the world of the Tea Party absolutists, strength can only be seen by unflinchingly clinging to your strict autocracy at all costs even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary as in the case of Karl Rove questioning the outcome of the last Presidential election on national television and left holding the bag.

The foundations of this country have demanded compromise. If it was not for George Washington and his ability to broker an agreement between opposing factions, our present day Constitution may not exist, thus, we may never have existed as the country we are today. If President Lincoln had not stood his ground against inflexible tyranny and fought for the equality we presently enjoy, we may not be the country that we are today. And, if we do not stand up to the tyranny of the Tea Party, there is no telling where we are headed as a country.

That last statement is completely erroneous in that it is clear as to what kind of country we will become if we allow corporate America to buy elections; we will transform from a Representative Democracy to a Technocratic Oligarchy in which our elected officials will only serve their corporate sponsors due to the rigidity of an electorate that does not understand or appreciate the fact that absolutism is what hundreds of thousands of American soldiers have sacrificed their lives and wellbeing for over 200 years.

Puritanical Dogma and the Tea Party

It is intriguing that the far right Tea Partiers believe that the idea of Puritanism is based on freedom and tolerance. They have decided again to rewrite history for their own prurient reasons, which can only be guessed, but self-interest, power and control are at the top of the list.

For the Tea Party, puritanism equals freedom and tolerance unless of course you don’t believe the way these modern day Puritans believe. In fact, in many ways, the father of the entire movement was Oliver Cromwell who they seem to model themselves after. His belief in freedom and tolerance was decided different then what most Americans today would view as such.

It is time to give Steve Deace and the Tea Partiers a history lesson, because they seem to have forgotten the ideas that drove puritanism to our shores. Mr. Cromwell set the tone for puritanism in that he went to Ireland to decimate the Catholics. By the time he was done in Ireland, Cromwell had made sure that only 10% of the land was owned by Catholics who made up 80% of the population. There was not much tolerance on his mind as he annihilated the Irish Catholics as the 1 percent today tries to crush the middle class.

Moreover, in 1647, he banned Christmas and other religious holidays, declaring them to be pagan festivals as well as theater. In this way, he fits right into the wheelhouse of the religious right and their Tea Party apologists who want to ban everything from abortions to the Dream Act because these actions play into their own self-interest and   from their perspective serves to highlight how they are victims in America today.

Furthermore, immigration reform and the thought that other immigrants want to come to America because of the safety and opportunities that present themselves in our society and cannot be found in their countries of origin is an abomination. While many of these people are forced flee their own countries due to economic and social ills, the Tea Parties response is, “TOO BAD”. From their perspective, immigrants in the past have never fled to our shores (can you say Ireland?). None of these right-winger families came to America illegally seeking their fortune or safety from oppressive regimes. The irony of this situation completely escapes these modern day Puritans.

From the Tea Party’s perspective, we need to put up a no trespassing sign and a lock on the gate of our southern border. Too bad there is no way to do this or the Tea Party Republicans would have a solution to the border issues. More to the point, the most important parts of Puritanism were piety, obeying religious rules as the Puritans determined. What exactly does that mean? Love thy neighbor as you would thyself unless they speak a different language, have a different skin color or a different idea as to how to solve America’s problems.

Modern Puritanical ideology is not about freedom and tolerance. It is about power and control and how to dominate social mores. They like to couch their ideas in terms of doing God’s will. I am fully aware that early Puritan ministers like Jonathon Edwards preached that God is angry with man because of our sinful ways. I wonder if hating undocumented workers and their children is sinful? These religious zealots want the rest of society to believe that they know what must be done to curry God’s favor and through these actions America will thrive.

To help of the rest of society to understand their positions, these modern day Puritans point fingers at what they see as society’s ills. Bobby Jindal’s speech at the Faith and Freedom rally is a perfect example of finger pointing.  He “…accused President Barack Obama and other Democrats of waging wars against religious liberty and education…” Where was his proof? Just saying these words does not make them true or accurate. Where was his solution? He had none. He wanted to stir up the pot of dissatisfaction because it serves his purpose of aligning with his base. There is no leadership present in those words, only self-interest.

He is the same governor of Louisiana that refused federal dollars to expand Medicaid insurance to the poorest Louisianans. Where in the New Testament does Jesus refuse to help the poor and the sick and the downtrodden? I must have missed that idea in my religious upbringing. I hope my Puritan freedom loving believers can show me where this occurred.

Be aware, the Puritan idea of freedom is on the march again, and it is anything but freedom. It is a dogma that allows no dissension (just ask the women put to death as witches in Salem, Massachusetts). It is a doctrine that dictates absolute truths that only they through their worship of God know to be true. Moreover, it reinforces the idea of intolerance for anyone or anything that contradicts their belief system.

Republican Amnesia

Amnesia is a great state to live if you are a right-winger. When you are in this state, you never have to remember what happened in the past and you get to make up anything that you like to take its place. You get to blame the Democrats for the state of affairs in Iraq and Afghanistan. You get to rant about the end of the world as we know it, and how ISIS is going destroy the America we love. This is the perfect storm to gin up political outrage. Without Muslim terrorists you could never say I told you so.

Iraq is a great example of the Republican state of amnesia. Iraq is imploding much like Bosnia did in the 1990’s. A brutal dictator was vanquished in each and in his place warring factions went after each other and all their grudges and hatreds that had been bottled up for years overflowed in massive and destructive violence. Once again Pandora was allowed out of the box.

The difference between Bosnia and Iraq is that the Iraqi extremist not only want to kill each other, but they want to go after the heathens better known as the United States of America. The Bosnians had no global plans; they only wanted to act locally, and that is what they did quite successfully.

My right-wing friends seem to have forgotten the lessons of Bosnia and its impact on its neighbors when they decided to invade a stable if not grotesquely ruthless Iraq. They did not think that the Iraqi extremists hatred for the west and what we stand for such as freedom (if we think that you deserve it) or independence (only if you do it our way) was such a good thing since we had put such a vicious dictator in power to protect America’s interests in the middle east and attack our sworn enemy: Iran.

These same right-wingers don’t like to let facts get in the way of their rants against Democrats. Let’s look at some facts: the Republicans were in power when 3,000 people died in the World Trade Center, a Republican President landed on an aircraft carrier and said mission accomplished as 4,500 American soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan, but none of this should get in the way of their present attacks on Democrats.

The Republicans left a mess in the Middle East and expect the Democrats to clean it up all the while pretending that there was nothing wrong with the actions that tore Iraq apart and opened the way for al-Qaida to set up training centers that were once housed in Afghanistan. Bully for the right-wingers. They are like the neighbor kid that comes to your house and helps destroy your son’s or daughter’s room then leaves the mess for someone else to clean up.

More than that. Each time the Democrats take care of business in regards to al-Qaida, the Republicans poo-poo it. They act as if the killing of Osama bin Laden was no big deal; this is after a Republican president said that the man who organized the deaths of 3,000 people on 9/11 was not important enough to apprehend, then, this same President went off on a foreign adventure in Iraq that more than ten years later is still in shambles.

These same right-wingers pretended it was not essential to kill Anwar al-Awlaki an American setting himself up to be the next bin Laden. Or acknowledge the significance of the latest capture of the organizer of the Benghazi attacks, Abu Ahmed Khattala. It is more vital to spend millions of dollars to see that there is no hidden conspiracy in regards to the Benghazi attacks.

It is the Republicans’ need to live in a state of amnesia and bring along fellow amnesiacs that is most frightening. As the world gets more complicated, these right-wingers think that we can go back to a time when America could flex its muscles and the rest of the world would flinch. This is no longer the case, however, this won’t stop them from using present and past events to gin up political indignation without having a solution outside of putting more American troops at risk.

Republicans keep pretending that your simplistic and childish world views will save us, and I’ll pretend that you don’t love Muslim terrorists because you believe they will provide the cover needed so that you can take control of this country. Muslim terrorists just what the Republican doctor ordered for the 2014 election cycle.

Gun Right Extremists

I love right-wing talkers like Mike Gallagher who profess to be outraged by alleged second amendment issues, first amendment issues and are ready to begin impeachment proceedings against President Obama. They scream scandal at the drop of the hat. Of course, this is all for ratings and to get the crazies out and behaving as if their hair is on fire. I have no idea if Mike Gallagher really believes what he spouts on the radio, but it would be rather disingenuous if he didn’t.

The idea that any of the amendments to the constitution do not have limitations is absolutely absurd. There are limits on all our freedoms. If, as a public school teacher, I began to espouse my religious beliefs and tried to recruit students to whatever religion I was selling I would be terminated. If, as a public school teacher, I went on a racist tear I would be terminated.  If as a public school teacher, I brought a gun to school to demonstrate my second amendment rights I would be terminated. These are realistic limits to constitutionally guaranteed American rights.

It is a false precept to believe that because some idea is in the constitution that it goes unfettered as these phony Second Amendment apologists would have America believe. The crux of all their arguments is that their freedoms no matter the topic are being restricted and that is un-American. What is un-American are these right-wing groups trying to force their opinions on the rest of society.

The guns rights group are a fantastic example of taking the Second Amendment to the extreme in that they feel it is their right to press their position on the rest of us. I would hate to be a cop in today’s world. These jackalopes feel that they are entitled to unencumbered restrictions as to where and when they can carry their gun. They will also be the first to cry foul when one of their ilk is shot and killed in a confrontation with the police because they were carrying their weapon and refused to follow the requests of the authorities.

The idea that any and everyone can walk around with a loaded weapon is completely idiotic. This is the type of behavior that works in failed states such as Somalia or Syria not the United States of America. There is no need to brandish a weapon in public. I am all for gun safety classes and shooting competitions and firing ranges, but when citizens openly carry guns, bad things happen.

I guess the right-wing pundits like Mike Gallagher have forgotten about the retired police officer that decided to shoot a movie theatre patron because said patron was being too loud. No weapon on the shooter’s person and one man is alive and the other is not in jail, but why should logic dictate behavior be it on the radio or on the streets.

Yes, there are restrictions to gun ownership as there should be. The constitution does not say that you can carry your gun on your person when and wherever you travel unless of course you are a police officer or federal agent. Maybe we should allow open carry on airplanes?

The second amendment does say, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” What state or federally mandated militia are these people representing? Who are they protecting?

Of course, I forget. These modern day citizen soldiers are protecting me from those left-wing extremists known heretofore as progressives or Democrats who are out to subjugate the masses, and will not only take all their guns away, but also take away their hard earned money, and will give it to those ne'er-do-wells that are sucking the life out of our country: BIG BUSINESS.

Sergeant Bergdahl

In the world of politics, Sergeant Bergdahl’s release has become the right-wing’s latest red herring. With a son who was a former army ranger that served in Afghanistan, I asked him how he felt about the release of Bergdahl. Unequivocally, he said, “We leave no one behind.” There were no if or buts in his statement.

We went on to discuss other issues with the release. What if he was a deserter? Or a douche-bag? He told me that none of that mattered. He was an Army soldier and we, as a country, needed to do whatever was necessary to bring him home. All the other issues were subterfuge.

He let me know that there were men in his unit that were left stateside when he deployed to Afghanistan because they were deemed to be unfit or were seen as a detriment to the unit in a combat zone. If Sergeant Bergdahl was seen as such a bad soldier, why was he in Afghanistan? Who did not do the proper vetting prior to his deployment? Was it his direct commander? The head of his unit? As I understand it, there are channels to take care of problems like this.

Once in country, why did no one take the steps needed to prevent Sergeant Bergdahl from walking off his post? Were there no signs that problems were on the horizon? Someone needs to get to the bottom of that question. Did his aberrant behavior pop up out of nowhere? Where is the written documentation to back up the claims in his unit? Or, was it a sergeant or lieutenant or captain or someone even higher in the chain of command that dropped the ball and didn’t address the problem of Sergeant Bergdahl?

I am dumbfounded by the way others in his unit talk about Sergeant Bergdahl.  Where is their responsibility in all this? Why did they not take action to see that this young man was pulled back? This issue goes much deeper than anyone seems to be looking? However, it is much easier to blame Sargent Bergdahl than see where the system failed.

Many of the men that have spoken out against Sergeant Bergdahl said that they signed essentially gag orders. Why? What is the Army trying to cover-up? Why is Sergeant Bergdahl being made the scapegoat? He is at fault for walking off his post, but there is a hell of a lot not being talked about as it relates to this case.

But for right-wing pundit and politicians, it is easier to point fingers than to search for the truth. In this they can try to gain political points in lieu of seeking the truth behind the story. Six servicemen dead in the hunt for him makes for great headlines. Unlike Army drop the ball and knew Sergeant Bergdahl mental state was deteriorating, but left him in the rotation.

In the world of right-wing punditry, he is a coward, deserter; a man who so shamed the uniform he wore that we should have left him behind to rot for the rest of his life. These talkers have become judge, jury and executioner. Where is their honor? They have none. But it does not stop there.

They are incensed that five Taliban leaders were released. Were we to imprison them in perpetuity? Exactly how are they going to harm Americans? They are not going to harm anyone in this country. In fact, they may lead us to people serving in al-Qaida. Once out of Qatar, they may rejoin the fight to retake control of Afghanistan, but they are never going to be a threat to us here in America. This fear-mongering is a stratagem to gain political points as to who is best at protecting us from our enemies and their answers remain the Republicans.

These five men in no way will do anything outside of Afghanistan, but they can lead us to people that want to do us harm here and across the world. When President Obama says that we have eyes on these five men, he means that we have their DNA, voice recognition, finger prints, and facial recognition. They can go nowhere without us. The hope being that people in al-Qaida will want to interview them and we will gain new information.

 

Why they will never harm us is the fact that these five men will never be accepted into al-Qaida because they do not in any way have the skill sets that al Qaida requires such as language skills, computer skills, and financial skills to name a few, everything that is needed to operate outside of Afghanistan.

Finally, this exchange was a smart move because it saved an American life. It is not the first nor will it be the last time that America negotiates with terrorists. Lest we forget that Ronald Reagan negotiated with Iranian terrorists to bring home hostages in 1980, and in that case, he traded arms for Americans. When a Republican negotiates with the enemy, then, he is a hero, end of story.

 

Welcome home Sergeant Bergdahl. You have come back to a place where many on the right want to make an example of you. It seems as if we have learned nothing from Vietnam. Political gamesmanship is much more important than saving an American soldier even if it is from himself.

 

The Tea Party’s Cries of Intolerance

Self-righteous condemnation is the cornerstone of the Tea Party and all right-wing talkers and politicians. These groups see their right for free speech being taken away by the government and liberal media. All right, they don’t really see their free speech being taken away. Through hyperbole, they pretend that they no longer have the rights and freedoms that the rest of society enjoys.

In their world, these wackadoodles shout and cry and demand their time to be heard. They act as if they are misunderstood and that all their positions need to be followed at all costs because they and only they know what is best for America.

That last statement is ironic as these right-wing hooligans genuflect about issues like the VA scandal, however, when asked to expand funding for the VA, 41 Republican Senators voted down Bernie Sanders’ bill to do just that in the weeks prior to the Arizona outrage. Hypocrisy rules the beltway. You Tea Party loyalist can't cry the VA is failing veterans when you refuse to put money into the system that is forced to deal with veterans that are returning from 12 years of war.

In the Tea Party world, all the problems are caused by the Democrats, thus, they and their fellow Republicans have no responsibility to any problems that we face. Unemployment=Democratic issue; healthcare=Democratic issue; the VA=Democratic issue. It must be great when you are never responsible for anything that goes on in America. Please keep shouting about how poorly you are treated and how the world is against you.

The best part of all this is the obscene amount of money being thrown about to prove how mistreated and misunderstood Tea Party candidates and pundits are these days. Sara Palin has made a career out of being a loser. How many people keep getting paid millions of dollars to keep losing? I guess that Karl Rove would fit into that category.

But, I must get back to the topic at hand: how the Tea Party is being marginalized and silenced by the democratically led government. Oh, the Democrats run the federal government? Isn’t the House of Representatives is controlled by the Republicans? You would never know it by the chest beating and cries of agony from all this right-wing pundits and like-minded politicians.

However, at the heart of all these alligator tears, is the issue of compromise. We have now lost all the WWII veterans in congress. This is a sad day for America. The one ideal that all these men and women held as sacred was the idea of compromise. They sacrificed so much for their country that these politicians were able to reach common ground because of their common experiences. They may have had different views as to how to solve problems, but they were able to overcome these differences because the country came first. This is no longer the case.

Today’s Tea Party politicians and pundits can rail about the demise of America, but they are unable to acknowledge that compromise is at the heart of democracy. Nondemocratic countries may see us as being weak and the Tea Party may shout until they are blue in the face, but it is conciliation that has created the nation that we are today. Democracy is a messy affair, and all the bellowing in the world will not change that fact. The idea that the top can dictate to the rest of society is absurd, which is the way that the Tea Party is proposing America to be run.

In their world, it is a corporate oligarchy that will decide what happens to Americans be it healthcare, the minimum wage or who can marry who. What I fear is corporate America taking over the halls of government in such a way that the American worker is left further in the dust and whose rights will be whittled away to nothing.

None of these Tea Party elitists give a damn about average Americans. They are looking out for their own self-interest. The Kohl brothers, Bill Kristal or Charles Krauthammer don’t give a hill of beans about anything but their needs. The same goes for Boeing, GE or GM. The bottom dollar is all that matters.

Just remember, as the Tea Party leaders’ latest cries of intolerance reaches a crescendo in the next few months, they are out for themselves and not the American people. They have never lost their freedom of speech. This idea is merely a tool to fool those of you who have fallen in line with their phony machinations; good luck to you as they saddle you with the yoke of servitude and condemnation.