Kersten: It's me and God and screw the rest of you! III

Katie's Easter cudgel

Here are parts one and two. Here's the cudgel.

When you read the column -- you all did read it, right? -- some of you undoubtedly noticed how Kersten went directly from telling us how important the "Judeo-Christian heritage" was in informing the Founders about freedom and equality, a warm and fuzzy metaphorical kind of thing, to this:

[T]hey [the left and the opinion elites] don't like the idea of truth -- the idea that there is, in the nature of things, a blueprint for human flourishing. They don't like the notion of moral parameters that limit our actions on matters such as cloning, stem cell use, abortion or marriage. They believe that man can make himself: that there is no "floor" to the universe.

Whatever you think the Declaration of Independence says, you will look unsuccessfully for the clauses that talk about cloning, or stem cells, or even abortion or marriage. But it's a leap of faith, so to speak, that Katie makes, and expects the rest of us to as well, landing in the same spot exactly as Katie does. Even Katie admits it's irrational. Where does this come from?

Frank Schaeffer has some ideas in a post entitled The "Biblical" Root of American Political Stupidity:

One group that has perfected the art of special pleading for respect for non-reality-based "ideas" are the religious fundamentalists otherwise called Evangelicals. They train their families from birth to be the sort of gullible dupes the Palin/Trump/Bachmann/Becks of this world manipulate.

Evangelicals are a group to which no idea is too farfetched. From birth they are told that facts are lies and that "true believers" like them -- and they only -- have access to the actual and only truth: the Bible.

And not just any Bible, says Schaeffer, it's the every-word-is-true Bible. Kersten is a Palin/Trump/Bachmann/Beck acolyte, a true altar girl. Schaeffer observes that people living in the reality-based community are called "God-hating elites" by fundies like Katie and the rest of the above-named charlatans, and by golly, that's exactly what Katie calls them. It's almost like she's writing from a script.

Gee, ya think?

Schaeffer, who grew up in one of the granddaddy of all evangelical households, says it's a mistake to humor these clucks:

One of America's great sins is our respect for any and all religion. Note: the irony is that religious gullibility even prepares many religious believers to accept greedy evangelists and crass tycoons like Trump because they -- like the believers -- are perceived as "outsiders" bucking the educated culturally savvy "elite's" facts. 

This is an unintended spinoff of our commitment to free speech. Since we're all free to say or believe anything then, the thinking goes, we should respect whatever it is our neighbor says he or she believes. 

This is a mistake: Just because we're all equal before the law doesn't make everything said or thought of equal value, let alone deserving of respect.

That's a better valedictory that I could have written about Katie's Easter cudgel, but I adopt and second the sentiment.

Thanks to Andy Birkey for the link.