It looks like something over 1000 conservative “Christian” ministers are going to tell their congregations how to vote, and openly challenge the IRS. Quiet frankly, The Pink Flamingo hopes they are slammed by the IRS and put under the jail. This is something we don’t need. It violates the Constitution, but then again, the more outrageously insane the far right becomes, they more they don’t get the Constitution. It’s for them, but no one else. It’s like freedom of speech. THEIR freedom is terribly important. No one else counts.
That’s the real problem. Because the GOP has assimilated the extremes from both the hard, white supremacist, and very bigoted right; the tea party libertarians; and the far religious right, manners have been rejected. The Republican Party once prided itself on manners, etiquette, polite behavior, courtesy, and consideration. The rude Republican was someone to be ostracized.
When manners go, when a dress code is ejected, and just anyone is allowed to reach a position of power, without any standards, what you now see, is what we get. We once had standards. We once monitored candidates, even for the most minor of local elections.
Case in point: When I was county chair, one of our local elected officials, a Democrat, was negotiating to change parties. Having this person as a Republican would be a major state-wide coup. When a local businessman decided to run for the office, we requested that he not run for that position in a primary. Our targeted Dem would switch parties, before the general election, if he was not pushed into a primary.
This individual would have none of it. Even the governor (Carroll Campbell) called, asking him to step aside. To make matters worse, we discovered that this person had contacts to the people who wore little white sheets and individuals who later became part of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC). Finally, the night before the election, when I was doing a radio show with my local Dem counterpart, I just plain old endorsed the Democrat who was running for the office. I was also required to pull the rug out from under someone who was running GOP for a state-wide office. The person running as a Democrat was the better qualified individual. He had also promised to switch parties.
That night, when I arrived home, I had a call from the governor, thanking me for having the courage to stand up for the good of South Carolina, rather than the good of the party. The next day, both candidates lost. Both Dems switched parties, to become Republican the day after the election.
The very organizations the required a Republican running for local office be sandbagged, in order to keep him from advancing the cause, were major backers of Buddy Witherspoon, who ran against Lindsey the last time. They are major sponsors of Jack Hunter’s radio show. They are now in major leadership positions within the tea parties in South Carolina.
Once upon a time people like this were not allowed to advance within the GOP. David Duke is the perfect example, and part of the same movement. They were simply NOT allowed. The very thought that someone like Michelle Malkin (who has some of the very same connections, BTW) would be given a national soap box on a major news network, and given credibility, was a joke.
People like Rand Paul would have been rejected, immediately. You wouldn’t even see some of the recent GOP Senatorial candidates even making it to a primary, let alone the general election. The people who are in positions of power today, from the very local levels, all the way to state-wide are often now men and women who would be gently pushed out of the entire party.
Today, though, anything goes. If you look at the people who attend Mitt Romney’s rallies, they look like rejects from a Walmart flee market melt-down. They are rude, dirty, unkempt. There are no manners, no standards, and no courtesy. Online, today’s conservative “activist” is synonymous for “rude bully”.
When you have conservative celebrities like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Pam Geller, Bay Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, and misc. FOX pundits, who, far too often rub elbows with the likes of Alex Jones, Jack Hunter, James Edwards, Peter Brimelow, Jarred Taylor, Sam Stein, Joe Arpaio, and Russell Pearce, you get a group of people who are, shall we say, soiled, tarnished, filthy, and a disgusting. They have maybe one or just two degrees of separation from the KKK, John Birch Society, white supremacists, and national socialists.
Even six years ago, these people would not be allowed to have a role in the GOP. Not now though. By allowing them to have a part in national events, they have brought the Republican Party down to their level of pond scum.
They talk a good game about the Constitution, Christian values, and family. They adore freedoms such as speech, religion, and assembly. They wax poetic on an individual’s right to chose their own destiny. They want to keep government at arm’s length, away from someone’s life.
The problem with this is that the very individuals who want their Constitutional rights, don’t quite understand that everyone has the same rights, even those with whom they disagree. If you cross one, you are berated, denigrated, and treated like dirt. Their current favorite method of attack is sarcasm. They have a tendency to try and intimate that a person is not quite mentally balanced if they don’t follow the crowed. If you persist in crossing them or criticizing their most sacred, they will not hesitate to destroy with lies, innuendo, and manipulation.
- Freedom of speech is sacred – for them.
- Freedom of religion is sacred – for them.
- Freedom of association is sacred – for them.
- Privacy is sacred – to them.
- A person’s right to vote is sacred – if you vote for the right person.
- There is no longer privacy in the bedroom.
- Rape is something trivialized.
- Abortion is not allowed, even if it kills the mother.
- Women have become sub-citizens.
- They want women to conform to a certain form of dress.
- Immodest women will not be tolerated.
- Only certain science is acceptable.
- The bedroom is to be invaded and policed.
- Pornography is to be banned, but porn stars’ money is just fine.
- Religion is to be practiced openly, as long as it is not Islam.
- Freedom of speech has been expanded to include hate speech.
- Hate speech is anything that contradicts the status quo.
- You must adhere to the new extreme version of Calvinism, even if it is heretical.
- Birth control is to be avoided at all costs.
- Evolution is evil.
- The earth is maybe 6000 years old.
- Science can send you to hell if you think the earth is older than 6000 years old.
- The arts can be damned.
- PBS is evil.
- Museums can support themselves.
- It’s okay to ban certain books and certain forms of thought.
- Survival is for the fittest.
- Should anyone taking a handout and not paying taxes even be allowed to vote?
- Vets are to receive sub-standard treatment.
- Political opponents may be slandered.
- The ends justify the means.
- Christianity must be redefined to accommodate non-Christian cults.
- Less conservative Christianity is to be reviled.
- Those who are not of the right denomination are to be denigrated.
- The military no longer matters.
- Anyone who wants an explanation for the military not mattering is silenced.
- It is the Christian minister’s right to tell his congregation how to vote.
- Blacks and Hispanics must be disenfranchised.
- It’s okay for people to die, so you can have freedom of speech.
- It’s not okay for people to point out that if your free speech kills others, then it is murder.
- Culture is something for buttermilk.
- Only certain individuals are allowed to advance.
- Even when you can prove your genealogy you are slandered.
- Gays are evil.
- It’s okay to be “family values” and have purchased your mailing list from David Duke.
- Billionaires must be kowtowed to, at all times. After all, they are successful.
- You are not free to speak your mind, if you disagree with the nominee.
This is not the GOP it once was.
It’s a party that is dying, and rather quickly. When a political party seeks to exclude those who are not extreme, and had no problem with extremists, bigots, and cults, then it is the beginning of the end. The Grand Old Party is dying. The Pink Flamingo does not know if it is better to put it out of its misery, or just let the extremists take it over, and keep them there, away from those of us who are normal.
