The results of the mid-term elections in the United States have surpassed even some of the wilder speculations of the US media by handing the Republican Party not just solid majority control of the senate but also of state legislatures and governorships up and down the country (even in the electoral heartlands of the Democrat Party). This is all the more remarkable when one considers the calibre of the some of the GOP candidates, men and women who would not be uncomfortable in the ranks of our own dear DUP or UUP. Back in July the columnist Matthew Pulver of the Georgia-based Flag Pole website took a long hard look at one of the Republican candidates, evangelical Baptist minister Jody Hice, and this is what he discovered:
“If you’d like to know what Hice believes, he wrote a book in 2012 called It’s Now or Never: A Call to Reclaim America. It’s crazy. I read it, so you don’t have to.
It takes Hice a mere four pages to equate his political vision with that of Hamas. He’s trying to do the opposite, of course—Hice is predictably anti-Muslim—but he chooses this quote from Hamas founder Mahmoud al-Zahar to introduce the book’s central thesis: “The West brought all this freedom to its people, but it is that freedom that has brought about the death of morality in the West.”
…Hice is pretty much in agreement: “‘Freedom’ within any context other than a Judeo-Christian one only leads to corruption…”
What are the freedoms destroying our freedom? First off are the reproductive rights of women. Hice quotes President Ronald Reagan (but not before ol’ al-Zahar), warning that “we cannot survive as a free nation” if abortion remains legal.
But as LGBT rights have largely superseded abortion as the cause célèbre of social conservatism, so Hice devotes the next two chapters to the national existential threat posed by LGBT Americans.
Forcing a Christian businessperson to serve a gay customer, writes Hice, is tantamount to “forcing an African American to participate in a KKK meeting.” Is it?
…“Some ask the question, ‘How does same-sex ‘marriage’ threaten your marriage?’ The answer is similar to asking, ‘How does a trashy neighborhood affect you?’” Yes, he just compared gay Americans to trash. That really happened.
Chapter Five appears to be about Satanists taking over. I’m not quite sure; I got scared and quit reading it.
And now that he has his readers scared and angry, Hice starts talking guns. And not just pistols and hunting rifles—Hice seems ready to legalize .50 cals and streetsweepers. It’s not about hunting for Hice; it’s about revolt against a tyrannical government.
Oh, hey, did you hear about the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan to take over America? This is a real thing, according to Hice.
I learned a ton about Islam from Hice. For instance, did you know that “when taken in its entirety, Islam is not a religion”? That’s why it “does not deserve First Amendment protection.”
After all the hyperventilating about Muslim takeovers, Hice devotes the following chapter to another religious threat, the “Christian left,” or “pseudo-Christians.”
Prepare to tremble at the threat of the new Christians. Hice chillingly describes a Christian festival which featured “various genres of music, yoga, liberal speakers and an open attempt to embrace gays and lesbians…”
Hice’s ideal is all the way back in the nation’s earliest years, when “there were virtually no regulations or income taxes.” Hice offers a prescriptive package near the furthest right end of the Tea Party spectrum: the Fair Tax (a national sales tax), abolition of the IRS, severe cuts in spending, an end to “environmental despotism” and a return to the gold standard. And, of course, the “welfare state” should essentially be eliminated.
Hice concludes with three chapters imploring the rise of political clerics. Do you like the idea of a clerical regime but hate the idea of going to church on Friday? Cancel that ticket to Iran, then, and consider Christian nationalism right here at home. Hice spends a lot of ink talking about how good it was during the 1740s, when puritanical American colonists got even way more Christian-y. A vote for Hice is apparently a vote for a government ruling according to the principles of mid-18th Century theology.”
Jody Hice was comfortably elected as a congressman for the Georgia 10th district on Tuesday and will enter the US House of Representatives next January.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
The Republicans have been gerrymandering the electoral roll. They have made it hard for students to vote. by moving polling booths miles away from campuses. They made it harder for African Americans to get registered to vote and these were traditional Democrat voters.
But all in all. as sickening as that is..Obama has failed to light my fire. and I can’t bring myself to care about the Democrats too much.
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I tend to agree with that. Obama has been a huge disappointment. The drone-strike president. The political rationale for his actions don’t make up for the consequences of them.
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Yes, I agree I think the USA will pay a price for those drone strikes. It will be like the Brits and the famine for Ireland.
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He maintained the “Patriot Act,” which basically abolished the constitution. He allowed for the assassination of American citizens by mere bureaucratic declaration, without trial, or even an actual, official charge (again – no decisions – mere letting things go without control). This allowance exists not only in foreign countries but on American soil as well. For Americans, these are the worst facets of that administration. The Patriot Act is for America what the laws issued by the Nazis were for Germany, following the burning of the Reichstag. What is still outstanding is the Kristallnacht. Only a matter of time before someone abuses that power. The US already paid the price more than once over.
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They already skirting pretty close to the edges of abuse – and arguably over the edge.
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Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Where’s my fiddle….
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😉
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Meirica is at the end of its reign. It is rapidly declining into the role of the other “has-beens,” like England, France, and Russia. Much sabre-rattling and nothing to back it up with. Although currently owning both houses, the Republicans have no meaningful presidential candidate. The many “crazies,” such as Mr. Hice don’t really give them a good chance at persistence. Nor does their amazing corruption. The Obama administration is nearing eight years of never making a real decision, ever. Most of what is presented as one is the follow-through of plans made long before they took power. They could not even make a decision if they should quarantine people coming in with a potentially deadly, infectious disease or not, they left that up to the individual states. As for the making the vote a difficult thing by moving the polls away from college campuses, wow! In the United States? Where everyone including the dog has a car? How in the world were they able to discourage black voters? By what means? Last time it was the new black panthers that were at the voting booths allegedly intimidating the white voters. Americans are just lazy – they generally just don’t vote. That is just propaganda each side spews when they lose. It’s not even good propaganda. You have to be American to believe that s..te. By the way, most of what we believe to be Western ideals when it comes to individual freedom actually has its roots in early Islam. I highly recommend research of the history of the city of Alexandria as an example reference. It is such an irony.
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Agree with all of that, Ar An Sliabh, though the campaign to disenfranchise African-Americans (and Latinos) does seem to be having some effect, even just at the level of dissuading people to register to vote. I may add that the worse traditions of US politics were given licence through the “Citizens United” judgement. While one can sympathise with some of the logic the effect has been disastrous. What is needed in the US is electoral reform. Unfortunately that will never happen with the constitution being viewed as a biblical rather than living document. None of the invested parties have any real interest in fixing a broken system that keeps both parties in power, one way or another.
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The real problem is that the entire system there is corrupt. It is really only about which cronies pocket the tax money. There are a multitude of campaigns to disenfrachise voters of all sorts, but all in all if you really want to vote you can. If you look at the percentages of eligible voters that actually register, and then how many of those vote in the end, you will laugh. They will have to eat dirt again, like in the great depression, before they will wake up.
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“How in the world were they able to discourage black voters? By what means?”
By requiring voters to pay for photographic identification in order to cast their ballots. This disproportionately affects the young, the elderly, the poor, the urban, and the non-white – all heavily Democratic-leaning demographic groups except for the elderly. Contrary to your assumption about everyone having a car in the United States, hundreds of thousands of people who live in cities with reliable public transportation don’t, in fact, own cars, and therefore generally don’t have driver’s licenses.
Simple enough to get a photo ID, though, surely? Not quite. The cost of a photo ID ranges from $75 to $175, which is an expensive luxury if you’re poor and don’t need it because you can ride the subway or the city bus to work. And that’s if you can find a government office nearby that’s able to issue driver’s licenses: in Texas, which is rapidly becoming a majority Latino state, a third of counties don’t have such offices, forcing people who want photo ID to travel long distances to get them.
This is already deciding close elections in favor of Republicans in states like Kansas, where 21,000 people tried to register to vote this year but were denied because they lacked photo ID:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-voter-suppression-laws-are-already-deciding-elections/2014/11/10/52dc9710-6920-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html
Spare me the condescending anti-American rhetoric until you’ve actually done some reading.
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Spare me your condescending rhetoric, I have worked with the indigent in the United States across 13 states over 20+ years and I am fully aware of the services that are available. An opinion article from the Washington Post has about as much value in any debate as one from the “Faux” news network. Similar to Europe, you need ID for virtually everything money related. There are a multitude of public and non-profit resources that provide assistance to millions for ID and local travel purposes. I don’t stand on either side of the American political spectrum, and don’t buy either side’s “story.” The constant depletion of public funds and reduced services are also nothing new. That’s generally what happens when the rich sell out their nation. The buses we used to organize for voting purposes and that are still being organized now go to the polls with plenty of space.
Click to access DE-VID1.pdf
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Ar An Sliabh, my reading of the liberal media in the States would suggest that voter-disenfranchisement is working. It has created a “cold house” for African-Americans, etc. in several districts. Your experience is different?
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It may be working for some to feel discouraged. In my experience, if there is a will there is a way. Generally voting is not too hard to accomplish. I have to grant that there were initiatives that did make it somewhat harder, mostly in terms of travel, but the impact due to lack of participation is usually insignificant. Whenever one side suffers some loss they cry foul. I don’t really think the Democrats have too much to worry about in the long run. The average U.S. citizen should they vote Republican, really votes against themselves. Being European, not having identification showing your eligibility to vote, is non-sense. I do not think that the persons illegally in the country really make a difference in the elections either. Again, from experience, most Americans, regardless of socio-economic status, rely on checks. Most have some form of ID to cash them. Most of the less fortunate, elderly and disabled are provided with ID for state or local services they receive. These ID’s are generally accepted at voting booths (see the Kansas example attached in one of my earlier posts) where required. Even though the attempt is deplorable to inhibit the voting by some, neutrally looked at, it is generally ineffective in making any real difference. Apathy is the real enemy to America’s democracy.
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Fair points, villagecharm. I do believe that the voter-ID drive is dissuading minority citizens to register to vote or preventing those who try.
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