One of the things that constantly amazes me
is God’s consistent unconditional love for we human beings. Now there are those who
believe God is a mean deity who is just out to get us for mistakes we make and
wants most folk to go to hell; but even though they can quote scripture till
the cows come home, they don’t seem to get it; at least in my opinion. The
record of God’s constantly forgiving people who ignore God, fail to follow God’s
ethic of love, and are generally just pains in the ass boggles my mind. Truly
God’s ways are not our ways. If anyone has read even a bit of history,
humankind just doesn’t seem that great. We just seem to fight a lot and try to
kill each other over really dumb stuff.
Let me give you a modern example. There is
a fellow in Texas, Wes Riddle, who is running for congress and is likely to become one of
our congressmen. He has a Facebook page on his spokeman, Garrett Smith wrote
the following: “The reasoning for President Obama’s impeachment begins with the
fact that the State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden
Alaskan islands to Russia.” The giveaway includes billions of barrels of oil
and the like he says. He endorsed by Ron Paul. He goes on with a conspiracy
theory that this is all being done in secret, with the discussing anything with
the public or even members of the Alaska state government.
Riddle has written on his blog that Western
Civilization is superior to all others. Even slavery served its purpose by
getting Africans to America. He just wants the “GOVERNMENT TO LEAVE US ALONE.”
Of course, all that he says is absolutely
bogus and has been discredited by fact check groups. However, he is loved by
the Tea Party folk. The truth is the President Obama didn’t give away any
islands, the treaty dealing with them was signed by President George H.W. Bush
in 1991 and they were all on the other side of the international date line and
the treaty was endorsed by both of Alaska’s senators of the time.
We can debate whether Wes Riddle is whacko,
and opportunist, or just a plain liar. But he is still one of God’s critters and
is likely to be a U.S. congressman because people will vote for him. Why, I don’t
have a clue but then the electorate often confuses me. I find the title of his
blog amusing, “Horse Sense.”
You can check with Mother Jones for the
complete article.
Conspiracy myths and red herrings have become a mainstay of the message of the Right lately.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the passion of the Tea Party has given a platform to a number of irrational people who carry this to extremes. Michelle Bachmann in our state is another example of someone who repeatedly demonstrates the characteristics of a paranoid schizophrenic and yet somehow manages to stay in office.
It is a sad commentary on the state of political knowledge and attitudes in our country when crazy people with a message of myths and hate find a constant, ready platform to support them.