"God Told Me So": The Dangerous Delusions of the Religious Republican

by Nomad

It's strange that the typical conservative voter would reject in a courtroom the very thing they openly support in their presidential candidates.

Last week, as reported by local media,  the courts in Cobbs County, Georgia  heard defense of an 18-year-old woman Olivia Nicole Smith. She is accused of the horrific stabbing murder her step-cousin, 17-year-old high school Abbey Hebert. 

According to her testimony, Smith claimed to neighbors, right after the murder, that God had made her do it after she and her cousin smoked marijuana together. She explained that she had "an overwhelming feeling of God coming to her: and that God had disapproved of her behavior.
In response to this imagined judgment, the young woman had an argument with her relative. That argument somehow ended in a butcher knife of murder in the victim's front yard. Prior to this, both victim and accused murderer had been close friends.

The public was justifiably outraged by the sensational crime.   

Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that God (or Satan) has been the alleged accomplice/mastermind of some otherwise inexplicable crime. In fact, it's a pretty common thing.

Astoundingly, in the very same county in Georgia, back in 2008, then 36-year-old Donna Marie Redding told the police that her husband, Gary Dean Parnell, taken the Lord’s name in vain once too many times. 

(For those of you keeping score, that's Commandment Number 3 - taking God's name in vain- while the prohibition on murder is Commandment Number 6.)

Redding's religious sensibilities were utterly offended by all this loose talk, she claimed, and for this reason, Jesus commanded her to shoot her man with a 12-gauge shotgun in the stomach.

How Conservative Religious Extremists Around the World have Declared War on Secularism

by Nomad

Evangelists and some politicians talk about a war on religion and religious liberties. The examples of victimhood they cite are generally somewhat vague. Yet the truth is, around the world, the victims are not the people of faith, but those holding secularist views.  

Death of a Bangladeshi Blogger

Niloy Chatterjee lived humbly in Goran neighborhood of the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka. In early August of this year, on a Friday night, (the Sabbath day in Islam,)  a  machete welding gang broke into Chatterjee's apartment, pushed aside his family members and hacked Niloy to death in his bed. All of the attackers were apparently members of the local chapter of al-Qaeda.

As the writer of a blog, the 40-year-old Chatterjee went by the pen name, Niloy Neel. He used his blog as a free speech platform to criticize religious extremism in the nation.  

The Real Story about Gov. Jindal's Attack on the Hyphenated American

by Nomad

Governor Bobby Jindal recently raised a few eyebrows with some of his ideas on minorities. Some said that he was implying that ethnic minorities could make everyone a lot happier if they gave up their hyphens and became Americans. Full stop. 

However, many on the Left seem to have missed what the true purpose behind the remarks.

Recently in an op-ed piece for Politico, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal gave his ideas on the dangers of excessive emphasis on diversity and multiculturalism. The liberal press quickly jumped on Jindal's remarks, interpreting them as his desire for all minorities to be white as Wonder Bread. It was a bit unfair since he isn't actually saying that. 

In fact, his words deserve a little more attention..rather than a hasty dismissal. If only to understand more fully why the ideas he expressed were so wrong.

The Threat of the Hyphen

In the article, Jindal offers a few interesting points, though most on the left would find hard to agree with. He says, for example, that minorities should pay less attention to their separateness and just try harder to become like the rest of us: American. He writes that today "we seem to act as if that melting pot is passé, an antiquated notion."

Yet we still place far too much emphasis on our “separateness,” our heritage, ethnic background, skin color, etc. We live in the age of hyphenated Americans: Asian-Americans, Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Indian-Americans, and Native Americans, to name just a few.

Jindal also leaves out a very important minority in his list. Jewish-Americans? It is an understandable omission for a Republican. Let's see Jindal speaking before B'nai B'rith, telling the Jewish audience that they need to drop their Jewish heritage and see what happens. They would, with justification, be outraged. Still, it would be a lovely way for Bobby Jindal to immolate his political aspirations.

Incidentally the term "melting pot" was coined by Israel Zangwill, a child of Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia. Although he, like Jindal, felt all races and cultures could come together to make the American identity, he was also an early Zionist, an proponent for the creation of a state for Jews and for Jews alone. 
So even he, like Jindal, had some contradictory ideas.

The Shameful Truth behind Gov. Jindal's Rejection of Health Care Reforms

By Nomad

When it comes to Obamacare, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's position is clear. He will have no part in it. However, his decision will come at a great cost to the welfare of the people of his state. Louisiana, more than most states, will benefit from affordable health care. 

The Quality of Care

Following the Supreme Court's decision, ruling that the Affordable Care Act was, after all, constitutional, all across the land one could hear the sound of the frying of the tiny shriveled brains of right wing conservatives. (It was no doubt made worse by those marvelous screw-ups from Fox and CNN.) 

Yet it was the reaction from Governor Bobby Jindal from Louisiana seemed the most insincere.

Immediately following the announcement of the court's decision, a flustered Jindal surely must have tweeted his fingers raw. He tweets:

Today’s decision is a blow to our freedoms.

He didn't even use all of his 144 characters to explain how our freedoms had precisely been blown. He left that to our imaginations. And later:

The Court should have protected our constitutional freedoms, but remember it was the President that forced this law on us.

As one blog writer noted, how the president forced the law on the American public was by passing it in Congress by majorities. That sly fox. 

However the most galling tweet of the day happened to be this one:

Americans oppose it because it will decrease the quality of care, raise taxes, cut Medicare, and break the bank. All of this is still true.

As we shall soon see, this tweet is, by far, the most obscene.