Monday, August 3, 2009

July, 2009: A Tie: Dick Armey & Ralph Reed

There are so many certifiably insane fundies around, it's sometimes difficult to make a decision as to which one is the Fundamentalist Jackass of the Month. That was the case in July: it became a toss-up between two "formers" who are making news again, a former House majority leader (now corporate lobbyist) and a former head of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. They're Baaaaaaaaaack!

Armey, a lobbyist for Big Oil, testified for Orin Hatch and other climate change deniers at a Senate hearing late in July, setting forth what chattabox.com characterized as "a novel argument against global warming." He characterized belief in man-made climate change as "eco-evangelical hysteria" and asked rhetorically if America wasn't becoming "a nation of environmental hypochondriacs" -- in effect, a nation of paranoids. Then, he added:

"Now these are observations that are not popular to make because right now it's almost taken as an article of faith that this crisis is real. Let me say I take it as an article of faith if the lord God almighty made the heavens and the Earth, and he made them to his satisfaction and it is quite pretentious of we little weaklings here on earth to think that we are going to destroy God's creation...."

This man is delusional, but the fact that many Americans believe in what he's saying makes him a dangerous lunatic. Only in Texas and a few Southern states could an idiot like this win election to national office. Let's look at the "logic" of his statements. First, if "God" is (1) omnipotent, and (2) all good, why would he allow the planet to be destroyed by climate change? There is a contradiction there. Fundamentalist halfwits like Armey usually argue that "God" gave man freedom of will, so it is man who is responsible for evil. But if this is so, why didn't the "good" "God" see to it that man would always decide to do good?

Second, if man was given freedom of will, what is to prevent him from "destroy[ing] God's creation"? Armey contradicts himself. Fortunately, a few fundamentalist-evangelicals have begun to view the "dominion" passage in the Booble as warning that if "God" gave man stewardship and dominion over the earth, he wouldn't want us to destroy it. But do they realize that "God" would have prevented us from creating weapons of mass destruction, pesticides, and everything else capable of destroying the planet?

You remember Ralph Reed, don't you. Well, if not, perhaps if I drop a few names you will. How 'bout Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, the Tigua Indian Tribe. Still can't recall Reed? Well, look at the photo. Surely your remember that HAIR! This is the same Ralph Reed who was implicated in the DeLay-Abramoff rip-off of a tribe of Native Americans in a lobbyist scandal that put Abramoff in prison and DeLay back at his desk at the pest extermination business in Sugarland.

Seems that Reed's decided to make a "comeback." He's starting up a new Christian coalition, only he's calling it the "Truth and Freedom Coalition." This is a bizarre choice of a name for a PAC. Ostensibly, the "truth" of which he speaks is the "good news" of the Booble. But really, Reed wouldn't know the truth if it bit him on the backside, and the only freedom he cares about is the freedom to fleece the gullible and make a swift buck pandering to whacko religious nuts. Reed is a two-bit hustler with a cherubic face and a sociopathic personality.

Dick Armey and Ralph Reed: Fundamentalist Co-Jackasses of the Month.

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