Huckabee's fundamentalist pandering: a rant

There's a rumor going around that America is the most advanced nation on Earth, in terms of human rights and scientific prowess at the very least. But in reality, the majority of this nation has greeted the prospect of returning to the dark ages with open arms. Atheists only ever usually see this in the comments creationists leave on science blogs, most of which (the comments, that is) are such a black hole of vacuous moronity coupled with unwonted arrogance and smugness that they must be seen to be believed.

But Americans' eagerness to flush the last 200 or so years of civilization down the commode can be seen in so many places, and most prominently in the fact that the front-runner for the GOP right now is Mike Huckabee, a hyper-fundamentalist nincompoop who proudly wears his sexism, homophobia and scientific illiteracy on his sleeve, and who puts his superstitions right at the forefront of his campaign as if they were his greatest virtue. That the benighted American public thinks the more idiotic religious atavism you practice, the more virtuous you really are, it's sadly predictable that Huckabee's lunacy is selling. It's selling so well that people not only don't care that, when he was governor of Arkansas, this staunch enemy of abortion rights pressed for the early release of a serial rapist from prison despite numerous warnings that the man would almost certainly offend again (and sure enough, he raped and killed one more woman after Huckabee let him walk), but they'd probably be more inclined to support him if they did know. Hell, it's what all them uppity feminazi bitches deserve, ain't it?

I fear some folks are taking the confident "it can't happen here" attitude towards a possible Huckabee presidency. Even American voters couldn't be that idiotic, they assure themselves. Well, when you remember that over half the population of this country believes the universe was created after dogs were domesticated, I think the intelligence of the majority is something one should not overestimate. That Huckabee has gotten as far as he has solely on flogging his Christian faith, while openly displaying his ignorance of foreign policy and geopolitics ought to be enough of an indicator of GOP voters' low standards for who they'd like to see in the White House (as if Bush weren't bad enough).

Yes, Huckabee has tried to assure people he's open to non-Christians as well ("The key issue of real faith is that it never can be forced on someone. And never would I want to use the government institutions to impose mine or anybody else's faith or to restrict..."), but when he's on record as stating he'd like to "take this nation back for Christ," then defends it as simply the kind of thing you say to a Baptist gathering, forgive me if I'm a little dubious. If a presidential candidate were to appear at an Islamic mosque and talk about taking America back for Allah, or at a Klan meeting to talk about putting the uppity blacks in their place, and then respond to the press that "certainly that would be appropriate to be said to a gathering of" Muslims or neo-Nazi hicks, his political career would be over faster than you could say "redneck." (Though creepily enough, Ron Paul's lunatic fringe of supporters don't seem terribly bothered by his apparent affiliation with white supremacists, so maybe racism wouldn't be much of a liability to a candidate these days.)

Well, who knows yet how things will turn out in the caucuses, but it does appear as if the GOP at large is throwing former golden boy Romney overboard in favor of Huckabee. I can say that if Huckabee actually gets the GOP nomination, it would be a sufficiently awful turn of events that I might actually be driven to support Hillary. At least the worst you can say about her is that she's a dishonest, opportunistic careerist who never takes a stand on anything she can't abandon in a heartbeat if it appears to be hurting her in the polls.

Can you tell I'm not overly optimistic about the election year?