Rick Santorum is a true believer and is so far to the right that he has fallen off the map of reality. At every level of basic humanity he is a profoundly flawed and damaged human being and is wrong on pretty much every issue. At first, he was largely viewed as a simpleton on the margins, but now that he has a shot at the GOP nomination, his backward views, ugly bigotry, religious extremism, and sexual hangups have been thrust into the public arena.
On ABC’s This Week the candidate said today that President John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech calling for the separation of church and state made him want to “throw up.” According to today’s ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos:
“To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?” Santorum said.
“That makes me throw up and it should make every American who is seen from the president, someone who is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can’t come to the public square and argue against it, but now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square,” he said.
Santorum also said he does not believe in an America where the separation of church and state is “absolute.”
“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country,” said Santorum. “This is the First Amendment. The First Amendment says the free exercise of religion. That means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square. Kennedy for the first time articulated the vision saying, no, ‘faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate.’ Go on and read the speech ‘I will have nothing to do with faith. I won’t consult with people of faith.’ It was an absolutist doctrine that was foreign at the time of 1960,” he said.
Santorum also tried to foment working class resentment and played the “elitism” card by calling Barack Obama a “snob” for having the audacity of wanting young people to have a college education so they can graduate with higher-paying jobs. According to the Los Angeles Times:
Appearing at a campaign stop in Troy, Mich., Santorum — his voice thick with derision — said on Saturday: “President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob. There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard everyday and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor that [tries] to indoctrinate them.”
If this weren’t bad enough, Santorum said that President Obama was wrong to apologize for America mistakenly burning Korans in Afghanistan:
“There was nothing deliberately done wrong here. This was something that happened as a mistake. Killing Americans in uniform is not a mistake, ” said Santorum. “Say it’s unfortunate…but to apologize for something that was not an intentional act is something that the president of the United States in my opinion should not have done.”
We must also add that Rick’s wife, Karen Santorum claimed that God wanted her creepy Opus Dei loving husband to be President:
“I personally think this is God’s will. I think He has us on a path, and I do think there’s a lot more happening than what we’re seeing. Personally I mean I think Rick’s a great guy, and he’s really smart and everything. But I think a lot more is happening than what we can actually see. It’s completely a spiritual thing. This is God’s will.”
Now we know Rick Santorum’s vision of himself and for America: The former senator is a man with troubling delusions of grandeur and a God complex, who believes that it is America’s role to be arrogant and unreasonable to other nations, disrespectful of the religion of others, and at home we should become a land of Christian Sharia — with no separation of church and state –little education and issues like birth control and gay rights should be returned to their proper place in the 1950′s.
One wonders what radical and ridiculous drivel will drip out of his mouth this week.
That stupid SOB has no constitutional right to exercise his religion over me.
Santorum has absolutely no understanding of what separation of church and state means. He thinks that Kennedy meant that we had to ignore the religious rather than respect all religions and not allow one group’s religion to control everyone.
Santorum’s current status in the Republican Party speaks to a colossal failure of the American educational system.
Whenever I hear/read a reference to “people of faith,”
I immediately think “people of superstition.”
I wish some liberal college professor had done a better job of indoctrinating little Ricky. Or better yet if he had followed in his grandfather’s footsteps and became some blue collar stiff we wouldn’t be dealing with him now.
This is the kind of roman catholicism which has been rearing its ugly head since the advent of Karol Wojtyla and Joseph Alois Ratzinger to the office of the Popery. The kind of catholicism which undergirded Franco in Spain, Salazar in Portugal and Mussolini in Italy for decades and decades in the not too distant past. The kind of Blue Army/ Opus Dei take no prisoners batshittery which is analogous to the fundagelical protestantism that has erupted like a boil across the Americas since the 1970′s. The kind of catholicism that draw vermin like Terry Dolan, Clarence Thomas, Sam Brownback & Newt Gingrich to convert to it. Roman catholicism if given the chance, would reimpose its own version of Sharia Law politically over subjugated populaces once again, just like it did in Europe for centuries.
Well it is only fair. Every time I hear him speak or read some stupid thing he has said I want to barf in my own hat.
Angry anti-gay activist Santorum continues his march toward theocracy where people of different faiths and non-faiths will be forever locked out of the publc square. What the Christian Taliban says will be the law and the rest of us will “like it” or go to jail.
I have nothing whatsoever against anyone’s religion, but I do think this: It’s meant to be one’s own personal experience and path to enlightenment/fulfillment, not a lens through which to view others but to view oneself. If you ask me if I’m religious, I’ll say no. Spriritual, though? Oh yeah. Do I think religion has no place in politics? Yes. Do I, however, disrespect anyone’s choice of religion? No. Freedom of religion and speech is for all of us… but when those freedoms are exercised by some in an effort to judge or govern others, boundaries have been crossed that simply should not be. 70% of the world’s population do not subscribe to Abrahamic Monotheism (capital-g god) or the tenets set forth by its followers. For the other 30% to think they should be in a position to subject the rest of us to their interpretation of morals, etc., particularly by legal means… is, let’s face it, wrong. That’s why there is and will remain separation of church and state.
Taliban Rick
“One wonders what radical and ridiculous drivel will drip out of his mouth this week.”
I know you have way too much class to say this, Wayne, so I will:
He’s got his head up his a*s. No need to wonder, just more santorum.
Did “Frothy mix” not attend college?
I think little Ricky needs to get to the doctor fast to have his eating problems checked out. All that vomiting is not good for the system and may be a sign of some serious medical or psychological problems.
They’re not even hiding their effort to revive the Dark Ages anymore.
Yeah, well, Ricky, everytime I see you or read something about you I want to throw up, too. Guess that makes us even.
You are so right Paul. I used to, many years ago, be part of the Blue Army and Santorum is indeed part of that batshit insanity. I’m surprised he isn’t part of the crazies in the Pius X Society or the idiots up near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He’d fit in great with those nutcases.
This man is a clear and present danger to the country.
Good God.
If JFK did say those things, then I wholeheartedly agree with him.
Religion should have NO role in running a state.
Keep it in the Sunday service and maybe after-school bible classes. Certainly NOT in politics.
His disdain for education is apparent in his every word. If he wasn’t so ignorant, he’d know that Separation of Church and State protects everyone, that it allows people the freedom to practice whatever religion they choose (including his particular brand of insanity) rather than whatever The State has chosen to impose on everyone. His astounding ignorance and hypocrisy are on full display in the way he denounces Shariah Law as evil when it’s the very epitome of what he claims is so very desirable–the complete union of Church and State.
One taste of Santorum should cause any decent person to throw up. It’s indicative of our country’s decline that so many people are not only not throwing up, but are actually hungry for more.
Oh this SOB needs to go back to hillbilly area he came from, when he was in congress gave george bush a blank check and forgot about it. Well some of americans do remember him thats why he got voted out.