David Barton (the fake historian who says there’s no such thing as Separation of Church and State in the Constitution ) thinks it was a mistake to give women the vote. Because, you know, the husband’s vote is really the vote of the “family.”
“So family government precedes civil government and you watch that as colonists came to America, they voted by families. And you have to remember back then, husband and wife, I mean the two were considered one. That is the biblical precept… That is a family, that is voting. And so the head of the family is traditionally considered to be the husband and even biblically still continues to be so.”
I guess unmarried women are just out of luck, since he’s made it clear that he attributes many of the nation’s problems to the fact that humans with vaginas were given the right to vote.
Then there’s William G. (Jerry) Boykin–remember him? He was the Army General who explained his unit’s victory in a battle in Iraq by saying “My God was bigger than their God.” He now works for the Family Research Council, and he’s still doing his paleolithic version of “God work.” He recently explained that Jews are responsible for all the problems in the world. (We’ve been really busy–there aren’t all that many of us, you know. No wonder I’m tired.)
Then there’s “I ranch on taxpayers’ property” Cliven Bundy. He and the Tea Party blame most problems on the feds. (And, of course, “The Negro.”)
Closer to home, Micah Clark and his merry band of culture warriors are positive that it’s “the gays” fault that society isn’t moving in their preferred direction. Homosexuals are destroying the traditional family, what with their “gay agenda” and all.
I wish I had a dollar for every blogger, pundit and troll who blames academic “elitists” for the nation’s ills. (My favorite headline, from something called “The Clothesline”: Can America Survive the Arrogant Elitist Imbeciles of Academia?)
And everyone from Rush Limbaugh to your crazy Uncle Ed just knows it’s those scary black folks and their President that have taken a country that was perfect in every way and turned it into some wimpy, pseudo-European shadow of its former greatness.
I wonder what would happen if we all stopped pointing our fingers at “the other” and tried to work together to make this country what it should be–that place of Truth, Justice and the American Way that existed only in Superman comics and the rosy memories of people who weren’t paying attention.
What if we actually tried to live up to our ideals?
What if we took e pluribus unum seriously?
When one political party thinks cowboys rode in Dino the Dyno, where do we start? What common ground can we work from? Until the Repubs shake loose of the Tea Party crazies, I think there will be little progress. One party firms based in BS makes working together impossible.
Ms. Kennedy,
This post is a bit surprising coming from you. First, by ridiculing Barton, Boykin, Bundy and Clark, you appear to be picking on kids who are smaller than you (not that they don’t deserve ridicule). I’m guessing you’re sick of seeing how influential such clowns appear to be and you’re just venting.
But more surprising is the naïveté reflected in your concluding sentences. It reminds me of the old joke that asks, How do you become a billionaire? Answer: First you take a million dollars….
How do you (insert one of society’s big problems here)? Save the planet from climate change? Redistribute wealth and income more equitably? Raise the minimum wage so every full-time worker can support his/her family? Get money out of politics? Get corporations out of public education and prison management? Bring fairness to the state and federal tax codes? “First you get everyone to work together” isn’t the answer. It’s the punchline to an old joke.
When has peace, justice or equality under the law ever been achieved by getting the haves to work with the have-nots?
The real answer, as I think you know, is you understand the nature of the problem and the source of its sustenance. You find ways to empower the people in need (never easy, but it has been done many times). And you exercise that power to take power and privilege away from those who hold it today.
It might be time for you to dust off your copy of Moral Man, Immoral Society.
You’re my favorite blogger, by the way. The Hoosier Elizabeth Warren. So please keep the faith and don’t stop writing and teaching.
Pax
Michael Starks
Out of many, one? That would expect tolerance for one’s fellow citizens (surely less difficult than the biblical expectation to LOVE one another – including our enemies). If all God’s people could just get along.
“Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote.”
OMG where did this guy crawl out from? Oh yeah, the 19th century. Sheesh