Rick Perry’s “Strong” ad (you can click the link if you haven’t seen it; I refuse to embed it into my blog) has been getting a lot of negative press lately. I’ve been fuming about just how incredibly stupid the guy is for the last couple of days but haven’t as yet done a whole lot of commentary on the thing. I wanted to make a YouTube video in response but I didn’t get around to it and it doesn’t seem like it would be timely and relevant anymore. Then again, it’s such a timeless tragedy that people like Perry even have a voice in politics I may still make that video. For now, I’ll devote a few minutes to a blog post dedicated to all of the “duh” in this ad. Luckily, it’s so easy I won’t even have to strain myself.
As of this moment, Perry’s steaming pile of bigoted refuse has garnered 627,905 dislikes and 19,225 likes. These numbers are both encouraging and very disturbing at the same time. I’m glad so many people have managed to see what a worthless sack Perry is but I’m extremely disheartened (although, as usual, not surprised) to see that 19,000+ people actually thought there was some measure of merit to this travesty. I could live with the idea that Perry is a one-of-a-kind dickhead who has some fringe views to which ordinary thinking people don’t subscribe. But there are those 19,000+ people who not only agreed with Perry but agreed enough to click the “thumbs up” button after viewing this nauseating message of ignorance and arrogance.
Why was Perry’s ad so horrible? I mean, after all, he was only expressing mainstream Christian views. If a large number of people agree on them they couldn’t be so bad, right? Wrong. Whatever number of people share Perry’s views is directly proportional to the number of people who are very, very wrong. I’ll tell you why by analyzing the statements he makes and showing you where and why he’s wrong.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian,
Of course you’re not, Bubba. Coming out as a Christian in America is so much easier than coming out as…well, anything else. If you haven’t noticed, Christians still hold the majority stake of religious groups in this country and they’ve all got each others’ backs — even when they don’t agree 100%. See, the moderate Christians provide cover and protection for the whack-jobs like you because they know that as soon as they admit your views are crazy as hell the same logic can then be turned on their own, slightly less crazy yet eerily similar beliefs. Try coming out as a homosexual, atheist, or Wiccan and then tell me how much of a hardship it was to find acceptance.
but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country
Yeah, there’s definitely something wrong with this country. You’re about to illustrate that it’s you. Let’s hear you illustrate my point:
when gays can serve openly in the military
And there it is, you bigoted, simple-minded asshole. This just shows how incredibly stupid you really are and I’ll tell you why: gays have always served in the military. The only difference is that prior to the repeal of DADT (yet another legacy of your detestable ilk) gays had to lie about who they really are in order to not be kicked out on the street. Now gays can serve in the military exactly as they always have except for one thing: they don’t have to lie about themselves anymore! To any sane and compassionate person this would be a good thing. The fact that you view it as a problem shows that you are neither sane nor compassionate.
but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.
This is one of my biggest gripes with the poor, persecuted majority Christians in this country. They all think that inclusion of other people’s views and beliefs is equal to the oppression of theirs. How arrogant! How maddeningly ignorant! Any decision that has ever been made to “remove prayer from school” has been aimed at the practice of conducting a mandatory sectarian prayer each morning regardless of the mix of faiths and non-faiths among the student (and faculty) body. These decision have made it easier for children who don’t consider themselves Christian to feel included and equal in the school where it’s only right to not show preference to one superstitious belief over another, especially since superstition isn’t what you teach in school anyway. What they have not done is remove altogether the right of students and/or faculty to pray to whatever god they wish so long as it doesn’t cause a disruption to other students. Every single student in this nation’s schools has that right. Didn’t you get the memo?
On the Christmas issue, I already said what I needed to say on that matter. Twice. If you haven’t understood the reasoning, that’s your problem. I don’t disparage people from celebrating whatever holiday they want.
As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion.
Obama’s waging war on religion? How do you even get to be insane and stupid enough to make a statement like that? It seems to me that you’d have to work really hard to even conceive of a dumber sentence. To quote JT Eberhard, “I could swallow a dictionary and shit a more realistic gripe.”
And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage.
What religious heritage? The one where we owned slaves, kept women from having the right to vote, discriminated against people of other races, faiths and sexual orientations, restricted access to birth control, and outlawed a woman’s right to choose whether or not she’d carry an unwanted pregnancy to full term? Well, that’s certainly worth protecting, isn’t it? Douche bag.
Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.
Faith is what’s tearing this country apart — faith like your divisive, discriminatory, hate-filled bastardization of Christianity. A country full of hate and division isn’t a strong country. You can think otherwise if you want but you’ll always be wrong. It’s hard to imagine someone more wrong than you at the moment. Go fuck yourself.
