I used to bridle at the popular smear: Florid-Duh -- after all I live here, but perhaps it's time to recognize that this smelly shoe fits pretty well and we can't avoid wearing it. My suspicion began back when a State Representative balked on passing a bill mentioning Animal Husbandry for fear it would lead to legalizing marriage between people and animals and now that I read about Daniel Webster, candidate for the US Congress, who is endorsed by the Orlando Sentinel and former Governor and Presidential brother, Jeb Bush as well, I have to confess. We're not just the Sunshine State; we're Flori-Duh.
Webster is no political neophyte and hardly an outsider to the Republican Party. He was Speaker of the Florida House, Majority Leader of the Florida Senate and was in the State Legislature for 28 years. While there, he introduced a bill which was meant to create something he calls "covenant marriage" and others have called the "Roach Motel Marriage." You can check in, but you can't check out. Under this law, so closely resembling what one sees only in Taliban controlled areas, there is no excuse for divorce except for the infidelity of one partner. If both are unfaithful, you don't check out. If your partner beats hell out of you, sets you on fire or molests your children, you live with it for the rest of your life. So much for the Republican fable that it's the Liberals looking to institute Sharia law in the US.
Certainly, the history of bizarre Congressional proposals is rich with idiotic attempts such as this, but remember, Dan Webster is not considered beyond the pale of modern conservatism, he's a favorite son of what's left of the Republican Party; a party not satisfied only to roll back all progress in human rights since the 1960's, but the 1860's and perhaps the 1760's. Don't forget the recent and still popular Vice Presidential candidate who spoke of Witches as a real problem or the elected officials who don't believe in evolution and think Geology and Archaeology are fraudulent.
If there are many of them who can smell the idiocy, they're too partisan to mention it and indeed, the ride they've been taking on the wave of superstition, suspicion and stupidity has taken them a long way and they're along way from giving it up. The wave never seems to break and it won't until we break it.
Dang! If southern Republicans pass something like that, they will have to find more compatible cousins to marry. ;-)
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, FL has Grayson,
Grayson for President!
ReplyDeleteWhy is it Republicans want the government out of peoples' business except when it comes to THE most personal areas of their business -- their marriages, their bedrooms, their reading matter, their children's education?
ReplyDeleteHonestly, that the Republican Party doesn't implode from the weight of its own hypocrisy is amazing.
Perhaps because they feel that the only "freedom" worth fighting for is the unfettered right to make and keep as much money as possible? It must be in the constitution somewhere, but who has the vocabulary or attention span to read it?
ReplyDeleteSouthern B. asked my ongoing question, and Captain, your response makes as much sense as any others out there. All of the attempts to add laws and/or constitutional amendments regarding marriage are absurd and a dangerous attempt to blend legal rights and religion.
ReplyDeleteSoBe - Why is it Republicans want the government out of peoples' business except when it comes to THE most personal areas of their business -- their marriages, their bedrooms, their reading matter, their children's education?
ReplyDeleteSheria - Southern B. asked my ongoing question ...
A hypothetical explanation: Social conservatives have an authoritarian world view based on strict social and moral hierarchies. Since all other viewpoints are incomprehensible to them, contrary viewpoints are regarded as threats to their freedom. Thus, what seems hypocritical and contradictory to us are the logical outcome of their core beliefs.
For rigid authoritarian social controllers, there is no room for compromise ... the wellspring of their extremism.
"A hypothetical explanation: Social conservatives have an authoritarian world view based on strict social and moral hierarchies. Since all other viewpoints are incomprehensible to them, contrary viewpoints are regarded as threats to their freedom. Thus, what seems hypocritical and contradictory to us are the logical outcome of their core beliefs."
ReplyDeleteOcto, I see the logic in your analysis. It offers a very plausible theory for the existence of seemingly contradictory ideologies. Regrettably, it also means that logic and reason will be ineffective in dissuaded any such thinkers of their beliefs. They scare me.
They scare me too and I don't think you can ever count them out. I think it's sad that our country's birth was the first big blow to government by divine right and although we have a long way to go to realize it's initial promise, I'm not sure we're winning any more.
ReplyDeleteWhy does it have to be so damned cold in Canada?
Sheria, their version of logic and reason, while internally consistent, are wholly incompatible with our values. If they had the power to change laws and the Constitution, they would oppress us in a flash. In encounters I have had with these people, they are so smugly self-righteous, they need not express outright anger or profanity to feel abused by them.
ReplyDeleteUltra strict authoritarians represent about 17% of the population and about 34% of the Republican Party, the so-called 'base.' Their influence far exceeds their numbers.
Captain, at the current rate of global warming, Canada will have palm trees soon enough. Lately, I have been thinking of Portugal and France (most likely choice).
At one point a few years ago, the Turks and Caicos islands were trying to get annexed by Canada. I was ready to go but it fell through.
ReplyDeleteEu tenho saudades do Portugal. We once had a villa, or Quinta there for a couple of summers.