Christianist Watch - Rick Santorum

As I hoped and suspected would be the case, now that Rick Santorum has moved up and is challenging Mitt Romney he is getting long overdue spotlight treatment and a much more detailed review of his past statements and positions is taking place. And what's being found and/or rediscovered is a record of breath taking extremism that ought to scare the daylights out of everyone but the most untethered, Kool-Aid drinking Christianists. Santorum is the Christian equivalent of a fire breathing Islamic Iman and someone who should definitely hold public office again. But it's not just Santorum's religious fanaticism that is disturbing. A piece in the New York Times describes his ideas on fixing the countries ills - in addition to turning it into a Christianist theocracy - are idiotic and "small minded." Here are some article highlights:

Rick Santorum coyly promised a group of Detroit business leaders Thursday that his plan to restore manufacturing and revive the economy was “just a little different” than those of the other candidates. The plan he then described was nothing more than a rehash of tired Republican ideas stretching back decades. Name a tax, and he proposed to cut it . . .

Then, of course, come the spending cuts: $1 trillion a year for five years. He didn’t bother to list the hundreds of vital programs that would be devastated in the process. He had one easy prescription for any given safety-net program for the poor: “Cap it, cut it, freeze it, and block-grant it to the states.” And inevitably there was the call for far more domestic oil drilling.

But perhaps his most jarring assertion — especially in Michigan, which has suffered more than most from devastating unemployment — was that many people are deliberately staying out of the work force in order to luxuriate in their unemployment benefits.

That is not only out of touch with reality; it is deeply insulting to millions of struggling Americans.

It’s true that some companies are looking for well-educated workers, or those with specialized training. But Mr. Santorum’s wild spending cuts would ravage the nation’s education system and the skills programs those employers need. He has repeatedly made clear his contempt for what he calls “government-run schools” (more commonly known as public schools), and has expressed a strong preference for home schooling.

And of course he believes government entitlements replace America’s moral foundation with soul-killing dependency. He says the nation’s civil laws must comport with God’s laws. But not the laws of all religions. “Where do you think this concept of equality comes from?” he asked in South Carolina last month. “It doesn’t come from Islam. It doesn’t come from the East and Eastern religions. It comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Unlike his main rivals for the nomination, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, Mr. Santorum has held these kinds of views for many years, and is a far more authentic representative of the Republican Party’s angry base. But he does not represent the American mainstream, or its tradition of confronting big problems with big ideas.

The article provides a taste of Santorum's extremism, but Santorum's own past statements and speeches underscore his religious extremism and open contempt for the religious freedoms of other citizens. Right Wing Watch reports on a speech that Santorum gave in August 2008 at the ultra-far right Ave Marie University where he contends that Satan - and liberalism - is destroying America. Santorums views ought to make the blood of every moderate and every religious minority run cold with fear. Here are some highlights as well as a video clip:

Back in 2008, Rick Santorum traveled to Ave Maria University in Florida to deliver an address to students attending the Catholic university founded by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan which he moved from Michigan as part of his effort to build his own personal theocracy in Naples.

Santorum told the students at Ave Maria how lucky they were to be living in a time when God's Army is more needed than ever because all of the major institutions in society were under attack by Satan.

The audio of Santorum's remarks is still posted on the Ave Maria website and the bulk of his speech was dedicated to explaining how God had used him, his political career, and even the death of his son Gabriel in the fight to outlaw abortion in America.

But Santorum began his remarks by explaining to the students in attendance how every institution in America has been destroyed by Satan; from academia to politics with even the church having fallen under His sway - not the Catholic church, of course, but "mainline Protestantism" which is in such "shambles" that it is not even Christian any longer

Don't believe me? Here's what Santorum said:

This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age? There is no one else to go after other than the United States and that has been the case now for almost two hundred years, once America's preeminence was sown by our great Founding Fathers.

And Satan has done so by attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that have so deeply rooted in the American tradition.

The place where he was, in my mind, the most successful and first successful was in academia. . . . . Pursue new truths, deny the existence of truth, play with it because they're smart. And so academia, a long time ago, fell.

And so what we saw this domino effect, once the colleges fell and those who were being education in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, ‘wait, the Catholic Church’? No. . . . we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. So they attacked mainline Protestantism, they attacked the Church, and what better way to go after smart people who also believe they’re pious to use both vanity and pride to also go after the Church.

After that, you start destroying the Church and you start destroying academia, the culture is where their next success was and I need not even go into the state of the popular culture today.

The man is down right scary and, in my opinion, belongs in a mental institution. I would also venture that given his extreme homophobia, he has some serious issues with his own sexuality. What better way to try to convince one's self that they are straight than to father all those children. It goes without saying that in Santorum's bizarre world view, gays are the tools of Satan.



One can only hope that the main stream media begins to truly focus on Santorum's insanity and extremism.