Skip to main content

Satan and Sensuality

Is Rick Santorum out of his mind?
Is he just a simple-minded believer?
Are we supposed to take him seriously?

He says he is running for the Presidency, but he talks as if he wants to be a prophet.

"This is a spiritual war, and the father of lies has his sights on what you would think the father of lies, Satan, would have his sights on: A good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age? There is no one else to go after other than the United States."


It is absurd enough that he thinks there are no countries other than our own that are good, decent, powerful, and influential.  Has he never lived outside the United States; not even while in school?  Has he no friends in other countries, even after having served in both the House and the Senate?  


But worse than that, he thinks that our political process is about a war between Satan and God's last, best, great Christian hope on earth:  us!  The U.S.!  Oh, Lordy, Lordy!  And Ricky is his prophet!


And just how is the Great Satan doing his evil deeds?  In just the way you and Rick might imagine!  He is using the great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality!  And my guess, after hearing Santorum talk about women, and birth control, and all those other vain and proud vices, is that sensuality is the greatest of these.  There are these three, as Saint Paul might have said, but didn't, and the greatest of these is sen-su-al-ity!


It would not be grown-up of me to admit it, so I won't, but I am suppressing a call to hear it for sen-su-al-ity!  


There are giants in the Tea Party Wing of the Republican Party calling for complete control over women's bodies--an ambition most men had to give up the first time they met a real woman--but which continues to exist as the last, great hope of testosterone, and Rick Santorum, wearing the barely disguised robes of a prophet, is one of them.  Birth control is bad.  Sex for any reason other than procreation is bad.  Abortion is bad, even if it is necessary to save a woman's life, or even if it is the result of rape or incest.  And I imagine that a women touching herself unnecessarily is bad.  


And this is a holy war!  Us against Satan.  That is why he wants to become President.  Maybe we could organize a Children's Crusade and march them to Jerusalem to save the Holy Land from the infidel:  you know, the infidel, who has a different religion than you do.  The unbeliever with a different god.  


Is that not what you hope a President thinks about?  Nor do I.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard

Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy.  Those were skills to be learned and practiced.   I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop.  He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes.  He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade.  Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore.  The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up.   I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth.  I knew how to do that.  Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down.  On the second try, aimi

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back:  two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed!  Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore.  The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil.  We farmed, too, of course.  All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor.  Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them.  Even when all they wanted to do w