So my politically active, pagan lesbian friend Emily sent me an e-mail this week. Planned Parenthood is doing an online petition to get Supreme Court nominee John Roberts to disclose his stand on abortion. Now, you and I and my cats know John Roberts' stand on abortion (like, duh), but hey, I want to help, so I signed my name and sent the petition to four other people.
One of the people I sent it to was Ellen, a former writing-group participant with me. She wrote me back a few minutes later, saying: you're the worst republican *ever*
I called her the next day, after I stopped laughing. For, yes, I AM the worst Republican ever. Last October I went to the Kerry campaign HQ and asked for a “Republicans for Kerry” button. Shortly before we moved here from Chico, I got a phone call from the Republican party.
“Yes, I'm calling to thank you for your continued support,” this 22-year-old man told me, “and to ensure that we'll have your continued continued support this November.”
“No,” I said, “I don't think you will.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, when I registered with the Republican party 14 years ago, I did so because I believed it was the thinking-man's party. Unfortunately, I no longer believe that to be true.”
I don't think the guy had a response to that in his script, so he sputtered politely; I wished him good day and hung up.
And you know, it pisses me off that we came into the year 2000 with a strong fiscal situation, little debt, and now that the pro-business Republicans are in charge, our financial situation and national debt are ballooning, along with the deathcount of our soldiers in the Middle East.
And is our President a “thinking man?” Well, his nickname for his #1 secret-leaking political adviser, Karl Rove, is “turd blossom, which, granted, is the height of sophistication among third-grader playgrounds everywhere, but dontcha think the president of the United States of America could maybe come up with something a little less… scatalogical?
Apparently not. And I'd like to see G-dub improve not only his thought factor but also his Christianity factor. I'm not usually one for bumper-sticker philosophy, but I saw a great one the other day:
I'm the culprit. You're actually a throwback to an old-fashioned kind of Republican, the kindler, gentler kind.
But you're one of the best Christians I know. And I'm not one. But I do know about Jesus. 🙂
Ellen
When Jesus said, “Love thy enemies,” I'm pretty sure he meant “don't kill them.”
Pretty dumb saying, as the Bible condones killing when necessary (didn't you ever hear that Byrds song?). 'Thou shalt not kill' was a mistranslation and should actually read, 'Thou shalt not murder', and Jesus himself said he did not come to bring peace but a sword. Nothing's more annoying then when people try to apply this hippy crap to Jesus or the Bible. It doesn't work.
There's a pretty big difference between Old Testament killing and New Testament killing. OT was all about fire, brimstone, etc. NT is much more “let he who is without sin cast out the first stone.” All in all, NT has a lot more “hippy crap” than OT. Let's not forget that Jesus did a LOT more forgiving than killing! “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Sound familiar?