Life Under Romney
This cartoon, especially the fourth panel, derives from this sentence in Mitt Romney’s speech on the role of religion in his candidacy and in American politics.
Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.
The first three words of that sentence are the most retarded three words spoken in American political speechifying since “Bring it on!” The rest of it is arguable. History shows that one religion can thrive for centuries at the expense of the freedom of other competing faiths. Christopher Hitchens gave Romney’s glib platitudes his trademark scathing treatment (and who is Hitch to call anyone “windy”?), but I was interested to see that even the effervescent Peggy Noonan took exception to these remarks:
There was one significant mistake in the speech. I do not know why Romney did not include nonbelievers in his moving portrait of the great American family. We were founded by believing Christians, but soon enough Jeremiah Johnson, and the old proud agnostic mountain men, and the village atheist, and the Brahmin doubter, were there, and they too are part of us, part of this wonderful thing we have. Why did Mr. Romney not do the obvious thing and include them? My guess: It would have been reported, and some idiots would have seen it and been offended that this Romney character likes to laud atheists. And he would have lost the idiot vote.
My feeling is we’ve bowed too far to the idiots. This is true in politics, journalism, and just about everything else.
I don’t often agree with former Reagan speechwriters, but on this point I wholeheartedly concur.
Oh, and: Discordianism is a prank religion. Wikipedia has a useful article on the subject.
