New Study: Religious People Are Less Intelligent than Atheists

As the title to this post suggests, this topic was just too good to pass up and the referenced study confirms my own personal belief: fundamentalist Christians are less intelligent than both atheists and more intelligent individuals.  I would go further and posit that for the deeply religious who are more intelligent, they obviously have deed psychological issues that make them predisposed to cling to ignorance and closed mindedness (Ken Cuccinelli is a case in point as he battles his closeted self-loathing).  Here are highlights from Yahoo News: 

Religious people are less intelligent than non-believers, according to a new review of 63 scientific studies stretching back over decades.

A team led by Miron Zuckerman of the University of Rochester found “a reliable negative relation between intelligence and religiosity” in 53 out of 63 studies. Even in extreme old age, intelligent people are less likely to believe, the researchers found - and the reasons why people with high IQs shun religion may not be as simple as previously thought.

Previous studies have tended to assume that intelligent people simply “know better”, the researchers  write - but the reasons may be more complex.

For instance, intelligent people are more likely to be married, and more likely to be successful in life - and this may mean they “need” religion less.
The studies used in Zuckerman's paper included a life-long analysis of the beliefs of a group of 1,500 gifted children - those with IQs over 135 - in a study which began in 1921 and continues today.

Even at 75 to 91 years of age, the children from Lewis Terman’s study scored lower for religiosity than the general population - contrary to the widely held belief that people turn to God as they age. The researchers noted that data was lacking about religious attitudes in old age and say, “Additional research is needed to resolve this issue.”

As early as 1958, Michael Argyle concluded, “Although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs, and rather less likely to have pro-religious attitudes.”

The paper, published in the academic journal Personality and Social Psychology Review, said “Most extant explanations (of a negative relation) share one central theme—the premise that religious beliefs are irrational, not anchored in science, not testable and, therefore, unappealing to intelligent people who “know better.”  

“People possessing the functions that religion provides are likely to adopt atheism, people lacking these very functions (e.g., the poor, the helpless) are likely to adopt theism,” the researchers wrote. 

I am not anti-religion per se, but I do believe that it is important to understand that for millennium, religion has been used as a means to control and exert power over the less intelligent.  Russia is a classic example.  For centuries the Russian Orthodox Church used religion and religious dogma that depicted the Tsar as second only to God as a means to keep the serfs and peasantry under control.  The high Church clergy and the aristocracy lived in luxury while the peasantry lived largely in abject poverty.  Now, under Putin, we see the Church once again being used to control the masses and focus attacks on those the leadership has deemed to be unworthy.  In the process, of course, the Church hierarchy will bolster its own power and wealth.   Christ and the Gospel message are (and will remain)  nowhere in the picture.

Monday Morning Male Beauty

Click image to enlarge

Dedicated to Douglas

The GOP Threat to Shut Down the Government: Why Wall Street Should Worry

 

This blog often looks at the GOP/Tea Party's desire to slash and burn government - and most importantly the social safety net - with little regard for the lives damaged.  With another fiscal confrontation in the offing, some are saying that Wall Street may be fooling itself if it doesn't take the insanity of the GOP House seriously and prepare for potential calamity.  A piece in Politico looks at the damage the GOP might weak on America.  Here are highlights:

Talk to anyone on Wall Street and they will tell you they really don’t care about the brewing fiscal storm in Washington. Possible government shutdown? Whatever. Debt ceiling crisis? Meh.

The prevailing view: When Congress returns in September, sabers will be rattled and threats will be hurled. But then, as usual, Washington will grind out a crummy deal that keeps the federal lights on and avoids a disastrous default.

But this time — wait for it — could be different. Really, seriously different.

Here is just a sampling of why Wall Street may be wrong: The House GOP is hopelessly fractured on spending strategy. Senate Republicans who might otherwise broker a deal face primary challenges that make compromise potentially deadly. Other Senate Republicans are jockeying for 2016. And congressional Democrats have no appetite for any bargain — grand or otherwise — that cuts entitlement spending.

And it is not just a government shutdown or debt-ceiling crisis that could cause a Beltway shakeup of markets this fall.

There is also the possibility of a nasty confirmation fight for the next chairman of the Federal Reserve just as the central bank starts to wind down its program of buying hundreds of billions in bonds to support the economy.

Wrap all this potential dysfunction together and there is a real chance that the fall of 2013 will be more like the summer of 2011, when a near-miss on the debt ceiling led to a ratings agency downgrade, a huge sell-off in the stock market and yet another hit to an economy that might otherwise be heating up nicely.

Leadership in both parties seem to want a continuing resolution in September that would fund the government through the end of the year. They may get it. But it’s not obvious how.

GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, perhaps with an eye on the 2016 presidential race, are demanding that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell block any spending bill that funds Obama’s health care law as enrollment begins Oct. 1. There is no chance Obama would sign a spending bill that takes money away from implementation of his biggest achievement.

Meanwhile, McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who might otherwise help push a fiscal compromise, face 2014 primary challenges that may make them less likely to cut deals with Obama. McConnell has been pivotal in recent battles, including the fiscal cliff deal his office hammered out at the last second with Vice President Joe Biden at New Years. Don’t expect a replay this fall.

Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney grew so concerned over rhetoric from Rubio, Cruz and others that he used his first significant post-2012 speech to urge Republicans to back down from the government shutdown rhetoric.   “We need to exercise great care about any talk of shutting down government,” Romney said at a fundraiser in New Hampshire on Aug. 6. “What would come next when soldiers aren’t paid, when seniors fear for their Medicare and Social Security, and when the FBI is off-duty?”

Republicans have not backed off their mantra of a dollar in spending cuts for every dollar of debt-ceiling increase. But if they were to pass such a bill out of the House, it would go nowhere in the Senate. Democrats have no appetite for more cuts, given that annual deficits have been sliced in half and the sequester spending cuts are already taking a bite out of economic growth with no compromise on the horizon.

Housing prices and equity markets have been rising, small businesses are showing more inclination to hire and spend, and threats from Europe are receding, leaving D.C. dysfunction as among the top remaining risks.

“There’d be a host of severe economic consequences associated with debt default. We’d have negative impact for growth, job creation, interest rates would spike, it would make our deficit problems even harder to tackle,” said Rob Nichols, president and CEO of the lobbying group Financial Services Forum. “Raising the debt ceiling is a critical and urgent task.”

All this means that the sequel Wall Street expects this fall could turn into a much scarier movie with unpredictable plot lines.

Bob McDonnell Scandal: The Sharks Are Turning on Each Other

Frankly, it has been entertaining to watch the festering of Bob McDonnell's self-inflicted political wounds.  The greed and sense of entitlement - especially on the part of Maureen McDonnell - has been shocking.   The only down side has been that the scandal has not hit Ken Cuccinelli - Virginia's would be Adolph Hitler like figure - harder.  Kookinelli is just as dirty as McDonnell and only received less generosity from Williams because he doesn't wield the power the governor holds in Virginia.  Now, Bob "Taliban Bob" or "Rolex Bob" McDonnell and erstwhile buddy and lavish gift giver Jonnie R. Williams, Sr., seem poised to go for each others throats.  A column in Bacon's Rebellion looks at this turn of events.  Here are excerpts:

You know something bad is up when Gov. Robert F. McDonnell starts turning on his gift-giving pal Jonnie R. Williams Sr. of Star Scientific and federal prosecutors.

On Friday, the troubled dietary supplement maker filed securities documents saying that the firm has been told by federal prosecutors that it would not be charged criminally in their probe of McDonnell’s acceptance of gifts and loans.

Rich Galen, the Sherpa McDonnell has hired to get him through the scandal, has said that the feds are giving Williams “a free pass” which apparently means that Williams will turn state’s evidence against McDonnell. And that apparently means that the chances of McDonnell’s being indicted are higher, not lower.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Galen “contrasted” McDonnell’s 37 years of public service with Williams, whom Galen said  “has been in trouble with government entities since the earliest days of his business career.”

Now that is a mouthful. And it is very strange given that McDonnell, who told me that he has known Williams for five or six years, has been such a close personal friend with Williams that he has accepted $165,000 in gifts and loans from him, has stayed at his lakeside vacation home, his wife has flown around in his airplane and has gotten a New York City shopping spree (including a $6,5000 Rolex for Bob). The McDonnells have given the goodies back.

Now it seems that McDonnell is going on the campaign trail this week to prop his reputation. One would think he might be going on the hustings to help Cuccinelli. But, no, Cuccinelli is trying to distance himself as much as he can from McDonnell even though Cuccinelli got $18,000 in gifts from Williams. Unlike the governor, the attorney general is not giving them back.

Chris LaCivita, a Cuccinelli advisor, actually gave this bizarre explanation for Cuccinelli’s decision to keep the stuff. The attorney general has seven kids and has to manage his family budget. Ethical transgressions are acceptable if you have a lot of children. Who knew?

The upshot is that McDonnell appears to be in very deep trouble with the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office.

Seven kids, and it still didn't turn Cuccinelli straight.   The man is a slime and a closet case.

Gays in Russia Find No Haven, Despite Support From the West

A piece in the New York Times provides a good overview of the war on gays in Russia - and also the reality that concern and outrage in the western world has to date done little to end the plight of gays in Russia where anti-gay violence seems to be escalating in a chilling pattern reminiscent of Nazi Germany's onslaught against the Jews.  While the plight of gays in Russia has the attention of western powers, more needs to be done to end the anti-gay pogroms.  What's happening is also chilling because the Russian offensive against gays is precisely what American Christofascists would bring to this county if they were allowed to do so.  Here are article highlights:

The law, signed by President Vladimir V. Putin in June, has ignited international condemnation and blindsided the Kremlin with the sort of toxic political controversy that officials had desperately hoped to avoid ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. The last Olympics on Russian soil, in 1980, was marred by the boycott over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

The furor includes a boycott of Russian vodka in gay bars throughout the West and some calls for a boycott of the Sochi Games altogether. Beyond putting organizers on the defensive, it has cast worldwide attention on the cruel circumstances in which most gay people live in modern Russia.

Despite the breathtaking wealth and vibrant culture in the metropolises of Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia remains a country where discrimination and even violence against gay people are widely tolerated. 

“What is going on now in Russia contradicts its place in the world,” said Anton Krasovsky, a television anchor who was immediately fired from his job at the government-controlled KontrTV network in January after he announced during a live broadcast that he is gay, saying he was fed up with lying about his life and offended by the legislation. 

Few gay people in Russia openly acknowledge their sexual orientation, and those who do are often harassed. When some gay people protested the propaganda law by kissing outside the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, police officers stood by and watched as the demonstrators were doused with water and beaten by antigay and religious supporters of the bill.

Last month, Patriarch Kirill I, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, called same-sex marriage “a very dangerous sign of the apocalypse.” 

Mixed signals from senior Russian officials over how the propaganda law might be enforced during the Games have undercut assertions by the International Olympic Committee that gay athletes and spectators have nothing to worry about, and have left organizing officials facing harsh criticism and demanding clarifications from the Kremlin. 

There have been comparisons to Nazi Germany as host of the 1936 Olympics inside and outside Russia, including one by Jay Leno during an interview with President Obama last week on “The Tonight Show.” 

“Something that shocked me about Russia,” Mr. Leno told the president. “Suddenly, homosexuality is against the law. I mean, this seems like Germany: Let’s round up the Jews. Let’s round up the gays. Let’s round up the blacks. I mean, it starts with that.” 

Russian officials say the criticism is unfair and inaccurate. In 1993, Russia repealed the Soviet-era law that made gay sex a crime.  

Gay rights advocates disagree, saying the law is vague and can be used to arrest anyone who appears to support gay rights.

Russian gay rights advocates said the outrage in the West was providing new energy and financial support to their still relatively young movement. It is also raising pressure, including fears of increased violence. 

“It’s not only a question of the period of the Olympic Games; here, there should be no law like this,” said Kirill Kalugin, 21, who was beaten by counter demonstrators at a gay pride event in St. Petersburg last month and then detained by the police. “I feel very offended that I am being presented as an enemy of my own people.”

Rights advocates said that Russia was growing more dangerous for gay people. This year, there have been at least two killings motivated by antigay bias in the country, including the savage beating death in May of a young man in Volgograd who was also sodomized with beer bottles. 

Mr. Smirnov said that even in Moscow and in St. Petersburg, where there are large gay populations, as well as a thriving and visible gay night life that includes several gay bars and clubs, bias was inescapable.

It's a frightening phenomenon and behind it all over and above Putin's quest to retain power is one of the great evils of the world: religion.   As for the 2014 Winter Games, I want to see them moved from Russia.

Sunday Morning Male Beauty

In Leaked Audio, Cuccinelli Affirms Support For E.W. Jackson

Homeschool Tele-Townhall from Jack Hertzfedlt on Vimeo.

E.W. Jackson has to be one of the most insane and delusional nominees for statewide office in Virginia's history.  One would think that anyone who hopes to come across as rational and of sound mind would be running screaming away from Jackson.  But not Ken Cuccinelli, the GOP's gubernatorial nominee.  In a leaked audio, Cuccinelli has affirmed his support for Jackson.  This event confirms what I have long maintained: Cuccinelli is a crazy and as much of a religious extremist as Jackson who clearly wants a theocracy.  Talking Points Memo looks at Cuccinelli's lapse in what he thought was a private conference call with home school extremists.  Here are highlights:

Ken Cuccinelli, the attorney general and Republican nominee for governor in Virginia, told supporters recently they should have no question about his support for E.W. Jackson, the GOP's polarizing nominee for lieutenant governor in that state.

Cuccinelli made his comments over the weekend in private conference call with a group called Homeschoolers for Ken after a woman asked why he hadn't "linked up" with Jackson or made a formal endorsement. TPM obtained audio of that call.

"I am calling to find out why so far you have not linked up with E.W. Jackson for lieutenant governor. I'm really excited about him," the woman said. "I'm very encouraged by his pro-life stance. I feel like the two of you are on the same page and I'm wildly excited that you could both be elected, but I'm not sure what will happen if you don't endorse him and I just want to know why there hasn't been a linkup."

Cuccinelli responded by disputing the notion there was any split between him and Jackson, and promising they will spend more time campaigning together in the final weeks of the election.

Of course I'm supporting both Mark and E.W.," Cuccinelli said. "I don't think there's ever been any question about that. And there shouldn't be on this call."

Cuccinelli previously made attempts to distance himself from Jackson, including during a radio interview in June where he said he "absolutely" wants to be judged separately from Jackson and added, "E.W.’s going to have to introduce himself individually to the rest of Virginia.

Since winning the lieutenant governor nomination in May, Jackson has made negative, national headlines for past statements criticizing gays, accusing President Barack Obama of harboring “Muslim sensibilities,” comparing Planned Parenthood to the KKK, praising the Constitution's original clause to count blacks as three-fifths of a person, and for his efforts in the late 1980's to fight desegregation in Boston.

Listen to the audio of the conference call below, which was posted on Vimeo under an account using the name "Jack Hertzfedlt." Cuccinelli begins discussing his support for Jackson at about 26:50.

Jesus Needs Reza Aslan, Author of 'Zealot'

In prior posts I've looked at the exploding heads among the "godly Christian" crowd over Reza Aslan's new book, "Zealot" that takes on some of the myths, if you will, promoted from far too many pulpits.  What am I talking about?  The fact is that we know few true "facts" about Christ other than what is passed down through the often revised and rewritten Bible.  A Bible that in its current form contains passages not even included in the earliest texts.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at why Zealot - which doesn't really break new ground in biblical scholarship - is good for bringing out need knowledge.  Here are excerpts:

The author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth is at the center of an inexplicable firestorm for writing a book about Jesus. He’s been treated to hair-splitting attacks on his academic credentials and claims of a secret Muslim agenda. Nearly every critic of the Iranian-American and Muslim author has fretted over whether he has the right to tackle his subject. In an interview, Aslan was exasperated, pointing out to me repeatedly that his credentials were never questioned when he wrote the bestselling, No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.

Reviewers spanning the theological spectrum have reacted with a curious level of hostility toward a writer who even by their own estimation is embracing a theory of the historical Jesus that has been around for a long time.  What’s going on? Aslan told me, “My faith background makes me suspect. Not just to the fringe, but to the Washington Post and the New York Times.”

That’s too bad. A Muslim writing an academic book about Jesus is groundbreaking. It should be welcomed. You don’t have to agree with his conclusions about Jesus – I don’t – to hold this view.

Aslan concurs. “About 90 percent of the scholarly historical study of Islam is written by Christians or Jews,” he told me. “Very few scholars of religion who are Muslim write about Christianity.”

The academic field is famously hostile to believers and Aslan has bucked that worldview.  Perhaps the most high-profile anti-God academic is Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, who this week created controversy when he tweeted, "All the world's Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though."

Says Aslan, “Dawkins gives science and atheism a bad name. This is a man who believes any person of faith is not just wrong, but stupid. That he is in solitary possession of truth. That’s called fundamentalism.”  Aslan eschews fundamentalism.  He is a Muslim, but in his book he rejects the virgin birth of Jesus and concludes that Jesus was in fact crucified, putting him at odds with mainstream Islamic doctrine.

In the FoxNews.com interview that helped launch “Zealot” to the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list, Aslan said he had been obsessed with Jesus most of his life. I asked him why this was. He responded, “I don’t know why everyone isn’t obsessed with Jesus. He is the most interesting person who ever lived.”  So he wrote a book about him.

The real issue, of course, is that Aslan's book shakes up the house of cards faith system of the far right.  And the fact that he's a Muslim is used to conveniently ignore the fact that other biblical scholars have come to the same conclusions which underscore that the Bible is anything but inerrant.

 

The Anti-Gay World: 76 Countries Where Being Gay is Illegal

Click image to enlarge

Russia has deservedly been receiving a great deal of media coverage of its newly enacted anti-gay laws - laws motivated by a desire to distract the public from government corruption and incompetence and to win the support of Neanderthals in the Russian Orthodox Church.  But sadly, Russia is only one a many countries where being gay continues to be illegal and, in some cases can subject one to the death penalty.  The main distinction for Russia, is that unlike all but one or two of these other anti-gay countries, it likes to view itself as a modern, civilized and westernized nation.  These new laws underscore that such is, in fact, not the case. BuzzFeed looks at the other anti-gay countries around the world - countries that gays and their allies should avoid visiting or financially supporting in any way.  Here are highlights:

It is illegal to be gay in 76 countries. Punishments range from fines to short and lifelong prison sentences, hard labor, forced psychiatric treatment, banishment, whippings, and death by public stoning. The upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi have put Russia’s “gay propaganda” law and the international community on an unavoidable collision course, but whatever happens in February is only the beginning of a broader (and much more complicated) conversation about the status of LGBT rights around the world. 

In May 2013, the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) released a 110-page study on the status of the international LGBT community with country-by-country profiles of relevant laws. The report is updated annually and was used throughout this post along with other sources when possible.

Here's a sampling of some of these nations - some of which receive billions of dollars in American aid, something that needs to be rethought if change doesn't take place:

1. Afghanistan — Imprisonment.  During Taliban rule, same-sex activity in Afghanistan could lead to the death penalty. The situation has improved, relatively speaking, as a conviction for “pederasty” — used to describe all homosexual relations, regardless of the persons’ ages — results in a “long” prison sentence.

4. Antigua and Barbuda — Up to 15 years in prison.  “Buggery,” a common term for same-sex relations in the Caribbean, comes with a possible 15-year jail sentence in Antigua and Barbuda. The lesser charge of “serious indecency” applies to sexual acts other than sodomy, punishable by up to five years in prison by consenting adults.

6. Barbados — Up to life in prison. According to Barbados’ Sexual Offenses Act of 1992, “Any person who commits buggery is guilty of an offense and is liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for life.” The lesser, related charge “serious indecency” can result in up to 10 years in prison.

7. Belize — 10 years in prison.  Having sex with a person of the same sex is considered an “unnatural crime” in Belize and comes with a 10-year prison sentence.

14. Dominica — Up to 25 years in prison and a possible psychiatric treatment.  In addition to jail sentences for “gross indecency” (maximum 10 years) and “buggery” violations (maximum 25), the island of Dominca could also require “ex-gay” therapy. As noted in Section 16 of the country’s penal code: “Any person who attempts to commit the offense of buggery, or is guilty of an assault with the intent to commit the same is guilty of an offense and liable to imprisonment for four years and, if the Court thinks it, the Court may order that the convicted person be admitted to the psychiatric hospital for treatment.”

23. Jamaica — Up to 10 years in prison.  Jamaican law terms “buggery” an “abominable” crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Just a few weeks ago, a teenager was brutally murdered after being caught cross-dressing at a street party in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The tragedy once again underscores how state-sanctioned homophobia is only part of the hostility LGBT people face across the world.

24. Iran — Death penalty.  Even with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who infamously declared during a 2007 appearance at Columbia University, “In Iran, we don’t have gays”) no longer in office, Iran remains one of the most anti-gay nations on earth. Men convicted of sodomy — defined under the Islamic Penal Code of 1991 as “sexual intercourse with a male” — face death, the method of which is determined by a Shariah (Islamic law) judge. A man just kissing another man is punishable by “60 lashes.”

49. Saudi Arabia — Banishment, whipping, and death by public stoning.  According to the 2013 ILGA report, “There is no codifed Penal Law in Saudi-Arabia. Instead, the country applies strict Islamic Sharia law. According to the interpretation sodomy is criminalized. For a married man the penalty is death by stoning, while the penalty for an unmarried man is 100 blows of the whip as well as banishment for a year. For a non-Muslim, who commits sodomy with a Muslim, the penalty is death by stoning. Moreover are all sexual relations outside of marriage illegal in Saudi-Arabia according to the Sharia law, including sexual relations between women.”

53. Singapore — Up to two years in jail; same-sex relations between women are legal.  In April 2013, the highest court in Singapore threw out a challenge to the country’s anti-sodomy law, saying it was a decision best left to the legislature. An LGBT activist in the country told AFP, “[The law] doesn’t just criminalise gay men. It justifies a wide range of abusive behaviours and institutionalises discrimination against LGBT people. It sends the wrong signal to the world that Singapore is a backward and regressive state.”

58. St. Kitts and Nevis — Up to 10 years in prison, possibly with hard labor.  The ILGA’s 2013 analysis of St. Kitts and Nevis’ “Offenses Against the Person Act” notes that, “The Revised Laws prescribe terms of imprisonment of up to ten years, with or without hard labor, upon conviction for engaging in anal sex, described as “the abominable crime of buggery.” Attempted “buggery” is sanctioned by up to four years imprisonment, with or without hard labor, as is “any indecent assault upon any male person.” The latter, which is in no way defined, is subject to arbitrary interpretation. It could potentially encompass any behavior perceived as a “homosexual advance.”

 Read the entire article and make note of countries to avoid when planning your next vacation or your next purchase.  Better yet, let clothing manufactures know why you will not be buying their product if it is made in an anti-gay country such as Bangladesh.

The Tea Party Vision: Gays and Minorities Should Not Exist

I often get challenged for equating the Tea Party and the Christofascists as being more or less one and the same.  Both have hatred towards others who look different or hold differing belief and seem driven by greed as well as exhibited by their desire to slash social programs and leave millions of citizens without access to healthcare.  If Christians do not like being equated with these, in my view, vile people, then they need to open - and loudly - confront and condemn these Christofascists/Tea Party hate merchants.  As for gays, we need to understand that in the world view of these people, they literally do not want us to exist.  A piece in The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the Tea Party's anti-gay agenda.  Here are highlights:

The Tea Party has a “big picture” vision and gay people are not in it. Neither are black people, Hispanic people, or outspoken women. Why do we pretend we don’t know what they really want?

The Republicans are gathering again in Iowa this weekend at the Family Leadership Conference. Right Wing Watch compiled a list of speakers,  . . . . Right Wing Watch noted the Family Leadership conference this way:

“For anyone who anticipates that Republican presidential candidates will move towards the center in 2016, this weekend’s festivities are a very loud wake up call.”

The Republican Party of Karl Rove is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tea Party. The Tea Party accomplished this takeover by instilling in every elected Republican a testicle-shrinking fear of a primary challenger coming at him from the right. The Republicans of old, except for Ronald Reagan, who they like to pretend shared their stone-hearted philosophy, are no longer relevant.

This new Tea Party controlled Republican Party does not want to attract any “ethnic” people to its membership. They do not want black people to join. They do not want Hispanics to join. They do not want people who aren’t Christian, and they especially do not want Muslims. They do not want women who don’t know how to be “demure” and “feminine”, and they do not want new gay Republicans. To the contrary, they have done everything but put a plank in the party platform pledging to reinstate sodomy laws,

When the Tea Partiers talk about “taking my country back”, it’s true they yearn for a time when white made right. But it isn’t true that they want to go back to slavery, or ship black citizens “back to Africa.” They think there is a way to return to a time when people of color stayed in their ethnic ghettos and white people had the rest of the country to themselves, and in their minds, everyone got along just fine. 

The Tea Party vision is to establish a “Christian Country”. But they have adopted a  modern standard of Christian conduct, where everyone is armed just as Jesus and the apostles would have been, had firearms been an option in 18 AD. Things would have gone a lot differently for Judas and Pontius Pilate if Jesus and his boys had been packing AK-47s.

Those who want public schools, and there are many who don’t, want them to teach a Christian curriculum, and students to be led daily in Christian prayer. They aren’t going to insist every student join in. They are willing to tolerate other faiths in the name of freedom of religion. But they want non-Christians to do their misguided worshiping quietly. In a Tea Party country, their Christian way would be the government sanctioned way, and all laws great and small would have to be in agreement with the Christian bible.

They want schools where science takes a back seat to Bible studies. Where evolution is given the same weight as creationism. And where bullies are given a pass provided they are motivated by a deeply held religious belief that suspected gay kids should be given swirlies.

[T]hey are opposed to the government offering any relief. They call it “redistributing wealth”. Making sure your baby’s belly is full should not be the government’s concern. Taxes are for bombs and soldiers, and executing criminals, not for school lunches and Head Start. In a Tea Party America, not a dime would go to help the “takers.
 
It’s a grand vision, and they are executing it while our political pundits pretend they are merely a bunch of conservative leaning folks who are concerned about the deficit.

If it’s true that “By their fruits ye will know them”, the Tea Party fruits are rotten to the core. The Tea Party infested Republicans are no longer the “loyal opposition” keeping a check on power. It’s time we start talking about them as the threat to domestic tranquility that they have become.