What’s love got to do with it?

Hurricane Ike is ravaging Texas.

Quick aside; best joke I’ve heard in a while:

“Ike is coming, better run for it, Tina.”

Hah.

Anyway…Why do I have the feeling that FEMA’s response is going to be whole lot better than Katrina? I don’t think Bush is going to let a bunch of chaw-chewing, back-assed-woods cracker white boys drown.

As long as it’s decent white people who vote republican and hate gay people, the full faith and credit of the federal government is at your disposal. Otherwise, you are on your fucking own.

I’m supremely annoyed at my country right now. While many people are weighing the careful decision of voting for John “Grandpa” McCain or Barack “It’s probably a good idea if I run my campaign exactly like John Kerry and Al Gore” Obama, I find myself weighing the decision of voting or not voting.

I’m serious. The idea of pulling a George Carlin and dropping out of this sick mess appeals to me. I’m on the verge of losing faith in my countrypeople. People around me are seriously considering voting for Grandpa because his twit of a VP has spent a large amount of her downtime shooting animals and having children.

This country is very nearly beyond all hope. We are sinking because we have rejected science, reason, and economics and replaced it with Jesus. It’s a strange version of Jesus though. (Full disclosure, I was raised by God-fearing conservative Christians and I probably know the Bible better than most churchgoers.)

This version of Jesus is all about exclusion, hatred and conformity. This Jesus is all about judgment and very little about love and acceptance. In my churchgoing days, those were the qualities that made me think Christianity was a pretty great religion.

Jesus hung out with the poor and the sick. He healed them. His followers were whores, cowards and tax collectors. For those of you not in the know, Matthew (yes, he wrote one of the gospels), was a tax collector for the Romans. Essentially he was a Nazi sympathizer.

If Jesus showed up today the conservative Christians would rally. Specifically, they would rally to kill him again. That’s what annoys me about today’s religious right. They are entitled to their beliefs, of course, but they’re wrong. They don’t even get the basics of their own religion down. They use is it as an excuse to hate.

And those people are winning. That’s why I want to drop out. I can’t change them and there’s no point in trying. Let the American Taliban turn this country into a third world country. Who am I to stand in their way?

 

A monopoly of two.

Gotta hand it to Dr. Dobson. This guy really has that compassionate conservative thing down.

“The media is already trying to spin this as evidence that Governor Palin is a hypocrite, but all it really means is that she and her family are human.”

article here.

Another one:

“Being a Christian does not mean you’re perfect,”

Article here.

He’s really getting behind McCain-Palin. He now claims he’s ready to vote for them.

This is a guy who was extremely vocal about not supporting John McCain. His exact words were that he would not support McCain “under any circumstances.”

Why the big change, Jimmy boy? I thought Christians were steadfast; God is unchanging and his rules are forever. You know, like those rules about gay people. If it was good enough for an ancient nomadic society, it’s good enough for us.

There’s other rules in the Bible as well. Rules about not eating pork. And rules that require killing the children and infants of your enemies (1 Samuel 15-3.) Hmm…maybe we don’t exactly follow every single rule….However it does make one think why conservative Christians don’t support abortion for liberals. I mean, they are the infants of your enemies.

Anyway, I digress.

The question is why Dobson has changed his tune. He is easily the most important man on the Christian Right and he’s singing the praises of an unwed, teenage mother.

The answer is simple. He’s scared Obama will win. Dobson wants his followers to vote for McCain. Otherwise the Supreme Court will become stacked with pro-choice judges. Then the fire and brimstone will start.

Essentially Dobson is making the exact same calculation that I am. He’s voting for the lesser of two evils. We are just diametrically opposed on who the lesser evil is.

I imagine I could sit down with Dobson and have a chat about politicians. I bet we could find that we have many things in common. We could complain about politicians that pander to us but are really beholden to their contributors. We could complain about our support being taken for granted. We could complain about being ignored the day after the election.

You hear the ‘lesser of two evils’ comment all the time in the media. Is it really any wonder why over 40% of people don’t vote in presidential elections. Why is it I can walk into a grocery store and find seven varieties of flour, but our country can only manage two candidates?

The two party system is the culprit. The Dems and the GOP rely on each other more than their own constituencies. They work hard to keep third party candidates out of debates and other events. Then they work extra hard to scare us to death about the other guy.

No one is actually voting for someone. We’re all voting against someone else. The only vote that I have cast that was for someone was in 2000. I voted for Nader.

Since then I have voted against Bush and will vote against McCain.

The mountains win again.