"We all
know that many of the (anti-Trump protests) are promoted and funded by George
Soros", begins a letter in Tuesday's
local "news" paper. If it were
true, it would be his (Soros') right to do so, however, other than his long standing
involvement with Moveon.org, no one, let alone "we all," knows any
such thing.
The letter is
among the most singularly self
contradictory I've ever read. The writer claims the Republican platform is
based on, among other things, Biblical principles. On the other hand, it continues,
the cursed Democratic platform "denies God, ( and among other claims) "Makes government a God and supports many
special interests groups".....ad nauseum. My readers are well aware of my
feelings re: organized religion, but, sometimes lunacy such as this demands
response, not in support of religion, but of facts.
The USA is a secular state where all are free to worship as
they choose to (or not). A Governmental role in religion is specifically proscribed
and, as the founders made clear, the
inverse is also true. If the author desires to live in a state where political doctrine is dictated by scripture, allow me to suggest
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or the Vatican. And, coincidentally, the Republican platform shatters what Jesus
referred to as the Second Great Commandment - "love thy neighbor as
thyself." It is probably worth
mentioning that Jesus omitted the words "Only if they are white, straight,
male supremacist, and believe exactly as you do."
Regarding
piety, allow me to remind us all that the current president elect has avoided essentially
all involvement with any religious activity since his teens, with the exception of his
three publically stage managed,
grandiose, trophy wife "trade ups."
Wife number two, meanwhile, has acknowledged
that the marriage was the alternative to
her having an abortion, proposed by him, refused by Ms. Maples. This disaffection with religion, and
plasticity re: abortion, ignored by his
sycophant fan base, was of course accompanied by incessant slandering of his opponent, herself a lifelong, devout United Methodist congregant.
Regarding
"special interests" The writer
has it backward (again). Special
interests support the government. An examination of the lobbying efforts of Big
Pharma, the Energy Lobby. Insurance, and the Banking industry make this pretty
clear. As a matter of curiosity I did a bit of
research (remember "facts"?) re: lobbying expenditures and who gets
what from whom. The most sobering
statistic was that if one adds all the (declared, as some is almost certainly
under the table) lobbying expenditures for 2015 and divides by 535 Senators and
Representatives the math will amaze you.
Total lobbying
expenditures for the year were over $4.4 BILLION , which, doing the math, works out to $8.25 + MILLION for every member
of the Congress. Of course none of these special interest groups (poor, immigrants,
non-white) accounted for any of this money.
Of the ten top
industries which lobby Congress, in 2015, seven of them gave the most to just 3 members of
Congress. Retirees, Oil/Gas - Cruz (R) , Investment banking, Real Estate -
Rubio (R) , Insurance, Big Pharma, Commercial banking - Ryan (R). Of the top 20
lobbying interests, the only ones which
did not give the large majority of its funds to Republicans was specific
Democrat PACS and Education.
While we were being
encouraged by those incessant ads on TV to be "Energy Voters" and
assured that it was "a non-partisan issue", Ted Cruz was getting much
of his $107 million campaign funding from the 90% of gas/oil lobbying which went
to Republicans.
Now tell me again about those damned Democrats and the special
interests?
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