The Religious Right Is Rejoicing in the Stupid, AGAIN

Booby Jindal, Governor of Louisisana, came out asserting that the GOP shouldn't be the party of the stupid.

Remember two years ago, almost to the day in 2015, when sitting Louisiana governor Jindal and former Mississippi governor and RNC chair Haley Barbour whinged on about how the GOP, following on the 2012 losses, should stop being the stupid party?

From the Daily News:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal tells GOP: ‘Stop being the stupid party.’ 

Jindal said 'offensive and bizarre comments' by some Republicans hurt the whole party. Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor and RNC chair, seconded Jindal's message on Friday.

“We’ve got to stop being the stupid party. It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults,” he said. “We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. I’m here to say we’ve had enough of that.”

Apparently, with the 2014 success at voter suppression resulting in low voter turnout, the GOP and of course their idiot step-child, the Tea Party, have returned to their real base, the stupid people.

Bobby Jindal wants to lead their parade of stupid as the grand marshal.

Why do I claim that?

Well, we have the claim by Jindal that there are Muslim no-go zones in Europe and the U.S.  (including claims of no-go zones in our own city of Minneapolis). 

That's been widely debunke;  even Fake News and Rupert the Racist and Bigot Murdoch have apologized for that claim.

But Booby Jindal doesn't stop there.  Oh, no -- he's got lots more stupid stored up for his 2016 presidential run.  For starters, he's repeating the appeal to the burning stupid made by fellow stupid southern conservative Rick Perry.  He's going for the prayer for stupid religious crowd.

from the HuffPo:

Let's start with the invitation, sent on Jindal's official state letterhead. "We are in need of spiritual and transforming revival," he wrote, "if we are to recapture the vision of our early leaders who signed on the Mayflower, 'In the name of God and for the advancement of the Christian faith.'" Leadership to solve the country's problems "will not come from a politician or a movement for social change," he wrote in this time civil rights movement anniversaries. So how will we solve our problems? "Jesus Christ, Son of God and the Lord of Life, is America's only hope." In a separate letter he wrote to the other 49 governors inviting them to his rally to pray for "spiritual revival" and "heaven's intervention" over the country. "There will only be one name lifted up that day -- Jesus!"
What does all this suggest to non-Christian Americans (including non-Christian governors) about how Jindal views their contributions? Jindal's letters reflect the attitudes of rally organizer David Lane, a political strategist who believes America was founded by and for Christians. The event was paid for by the American Family Association, whose chief spokesman, radio host Bryan Fischer, believes the First Amendment's religious liberty protections apply only to Christians.

The rally was also a showcase for the dominionist views of self-proclaimed "apostles" who promoted and spearheaded the event. One of those "apostles" was the event's emcee. Doug Stringer has called the 9/11 attacks "a wake-up call" that happened because God was not around to defend America due to abortion, homosexuality, and kicking God out of public schools. While introducing Jindal, Stringer made a brief mention of "Seven Mountains" theology, which states that all the "mountains" in society -- arenas like business, entertainment, and government -- must be led by the right kind of Christian. A later speaker, Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum, spent more time on the "Seven Mountains." Mills said these spheres of influence belong to God but are currently occupied by the "enemy." They therefore need to be evangelized and "occupied by the body of Christ."

An aside for those who don't follow the different flavors of the crazy religious right; the seven mountains crowd have a heavy overlap with white supremacists.  There are many subsets of religious extremism here, ranging from the 7M's (seven mountains crowd) to the NARs, (New Apostlic Reformation) and other 'dominionists'.

Then you have some of the other crazies, like the Home-School promoting Rushdoonies.  They overlap libertarians as well They are convinced we are incapable of thinking, so -- hey, why bother with facts or reason.  Rushdoonies see us more as god's puppets than as reasoning beings with free will or intellect.  They WANT to keep everyone stupid.  They think Jesus likes it that way.

"As a theologian Rushdoony saw human beings as primarily religious creatures bound to God, not as rational autonomous thinkers. While this may seem an esoteric theological point, it isn't. All of Rushdoony's influence on the Christian Right stems from this single, essential fact. Many critics of Christian Reconstructionism assume that Rushdoony's unique contribution to the Christian Right was his focus on theocracy. In fact, Rushdoony's primary innovation was his single-minded effort to popularize a pre-Enlightenment, medieval view of a God-centered world. By de-emphasizing humanity's ability to reason independently of God, Rushdoony attacked the assumptions most of us uncritically accept."

While the same crowd holding a Rick Perry rally CLEARLY failed to get him elected, (which I would argue says their god is losing, using their own rational for success,) the religious righties came up with more that is deeply offensive.

From Right Wing Watch, back in 2011; (the 'Jacobs' referred to here is Cidy Jacobs, part of the recent Jindal event as well):

Jacobs claims that lands are cursed with violence because they were previously inhabited by Native Americans who “did blood sacrifice” and “were cannibals and they ate people.”

Fortunately, Jacobs maintains, Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s The Response prayer rally in Houston broke the curse and “the land is starting to rejoice, you see, because of that prayer.”

This concept of curses left by Native Americans has a large foothold in the New Apostolic Reformation, and today Bruce Wilson reported that NAR figures Chuck Pierce, John Benefiel, Tom Schlueter and Jay Swallow recently participated in an event in Teas that involved “smashing of Native American art objects” in order to “divorce and tear down the principalities of Baal, Asherah and Leviathan.” Like Benefiel and Swallow, Jacobs was an official endorser of The Response.

Except there weren't any Native American Cannibals in Texas, or apparently anywhere else, any more than there were European American cannibals.

However, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish conquistador who lived among the Karankawa for several years in the 1530s made no mention of cannibalism. To the contrary, Cabeza De Vaca acknowledged that he and his fellow Spanish conquistadors committed acts of cannibalism on their own to stay alive after shipwrecking off Galveston Bay. The Karankawa (or possibly the Atakapa) people were shocked at the Spanish cannibalism which they found to be repugnant. Most of the later accounts of Karankawa cannibalism are second or third-hand.

I'm appalled at ANY candidate who claims to want to hold office, at any level. who agrees with these morons, who seeks their support, both in vote and donation, and who appears to fully condone the destruction of the historic and artistic legacy of Native Americans for purposes of indulging their stupid superstition.

Remember this? These people are no different.  They are just as stupid and ignorant, just as horrible, just as irresponsible.  The same "we don't want your kids going to school, receiving a western education" as Boko Haram.



If you are not a Christian, you should be scared. This lot believes the protections of the Constitution only apply to them. If you are a Christian, but not THEIR variety of Christian, you should be more frightened; they are equally your enemy.

And it's not just Jindal, there's competition for the right wing stupid.  We have former governor Huckabee, promoting the solution to ending school mass shootings is to require every school to hold daily Christian chapel services, and we have Tom Inhofe, who thinks the Bible trumps science on global warming.

Stupid is the persistent and wilful failure to recognize cause and effect; stupid is rejecting reality.