18 | September | 2010 | Existential Ennui

Tags

American Family Association, Ergun Caner, teabaggers, Values Voter Summit

I’m not one to make analogies to Hitler and his band of thugs. I find them singularly inappropriate and usually not analogous. I mention such names as Goebbels, Hess, Himmler, Göring, only because the mere mention of their names suggests only the infamy they came to.

A goodly number of folks in the Teabagger movement and it’s fringes are now flirting or have already succumbed to being known primarily and perhaps only for their association with hate politics.

As many of you know, there is a thing called a Values Voters Summit going on. The VVS is pretty much a mutual massage meeting, where like-minded haters of most everything not “them” can meet and convince each other that they are not what they are, but rather the collective saviors of civilization.

I thought it might be useful to trip through the speakers roster and give you a shot bio of some of the players.

Karin Agness runs an outfit called Network of Enlightened Women. Learning at the knee of Senator Lugar as an intern, she decided that most university life was hostile to “conservative women.” Thus she seeks to be the voice for them. Their aim is rescue feminism from the left. New chapter leaders gush that they can be “educated yet don’t have to hate men!” and can “go to the shooting range one week and have a tea the next.” They in general spout the usual “moral” high ground, picketing against such things as the “Vagina Monologues” as evidence of the decadent left.

Gary L. Bauer runs American Values which takes on the usual issues of abortion, homosexuality, and government programs for the poor. All are bad of course. But so are all Muslims. Obama is bad, Israel is good. You know the scenario. They are against liberal values and culture. They are for our Founding Fathers. He hates stem cell research, hates immigrants and would make it a prerequisite that any immigrant learn English and “American” culture for entry into the country.

Ergun Caner is listed as the former Dean at Liberty University Theological Union. He is, by his own claim a former Sunni Muslim. Much of his early life is now in question, since many of his claims of being a young jihadist have been questioned, and most of this has been taken off his website. His contract at Liberty was not renewed based probably on the growing questions that he has fabricated much of his past to suit his shtick as a former jihadist.

Bryan Fischer connected with American Family Association gets his theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, well-known ultra conservative school. He favors legal sanctions against homosexuals and has now honed in on Muslims for special attention. He recently wrote that Germany, “gives us a template for how to handle Muslims” namely the way they handle neo-Nazi’s today. His blog, Renew America supports the constitution “as written” and demands that no mosques be allowed to be built in America.

Joel Grewe runs Generation Joshua which has the fine stated purpose of helping our youth understand history and how the government works all to the end of their being good civic citizens, engaged and informed. Of course, when you dig a bit deeper, you find that the only history and government they teach is based on conservative revisionism and the only candidates they support are those that toe the ultra-conservative line. They push Christian nationalism and get the kids out stumping for right-wing candidates.

David Limbaugh has practiced law for 20 years and styles himself an expert at both it and law. He tours the country as a “motivational speaker”. He gets his chutzpah no doubt from being the brother of Rush. Need we say more? Okay, he writes a twice-weekly column for WorldNetDaily the most wacko Christian right site on the web.

Lela Rose is an anti-abortionist, founder of Live Action a pro-life group. She appears often on Foxy News and likes to go “undercover” against Planned Parenthood. She has worked with James O’Keefe on various sting operations, which landed O’Keefe in jail. She is allegedly home schooled and attended some junior college, mostly Christian in nature. She started Live Action when she was 15, and has been trained in infiltration methods. She cooked up the Acorn stings with O’Keefe. Her undercover videos are alleged to be heavily edited and thus unreliable.

Of course there are the usual list of nuts:

Michele Bachmann :ho gave a lesson in “how government works.” First you see, God gives the law, then the people give a few things to a government, but mostly we get to keep most of ’em.” Well, that’s what she said!

James Inhofe: who ran around flapping his arms, claiming that the military would be destroyed by “openly gay soldiers.”

Christine O’Donnell: still flush from victory, announced that “we don’t have to take back America, we’ve always ruled!” Meaning I guess that white people are the only proper leaders of America.

Mike Huckabee: who likened coverage for pre-existent conditions, to calling your insurance company and expecting them to insure you car, AFTER it’s been totaled in an accident. Oh the compassion their Pastor Mike!

Phyllis Schlafly: who has been telling women to obey their husbands and stay home, all the while making a living by doing anything but.

Rick Santorum: loser in PA, who thinks somehow that we like him better now as a potential Presidential candidate.

Newt Gingrich: who has gone racist on Obama calling him a Kenyan anti-colonialist.

Rep. Mike Pense: who suggests that America’s very survival depends on getting Obama out of office and repealing all his socialist laws.

As I always say, I could go on for at least another three pages. The gallery is stuffed with nuts. Most of these fools will disappear never to be remembered three and one half minutes after their death. A few have managed to garner enough attention that they will be remembered as the foolish haters that they are, and for nothing else. And this they richly deserve.

And now, I need a shower!