Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 07:41 pm
It is nearly a certainty that no human being takes any course of action without reason, and in most cases what influences attitudes and behavior are a person’s values, or their sense of right and wrong based on consistent principles. Just because a person, or a group, has values, it does not mean their sense of right and wrong is beneficial for the greater good, and indeed, there are examples of men like Adolf Hitler whose values wreaked havoc on the entire world. In recent American history, neo-conservatives with values aligned with George W. Bush used lies and deceit to embroil this country in two long-term wars against Muslim nations, and for the past year and eight months, Republicans with Christian values spent the entire 112th congress attacking women, gays, and preventing economic recovery.
Over the weekend in Washington D.C., various Republicans took turns addressing the Values Voters Summit (VVS), and true to its name, participants met to promote their values that have earned some of the Summit’s sponsor’s designation as hate groups. The meeting was hosted by the Family Research Council’s FRCAction, and sponsored by the American Family Association that are both anti-gay groups, and according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, certified hate groups. Other anti-gay organizations participating in the VVS were Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, American Values, The Heritage Foundation, and Liberty Counsel that links anti-gay, anti-women, anti-Islam, and anti-Black hate groups to the values embraced by the VVS. The summit is a hate group, and although its featured speaker, Paul Ryan, claimed he took an oath to defend and support the Constitution and not the government, he endorsed the group’s patently unconstitutional agenda of denying all Americans their rights guaranteed in the United States Constitution.
The 14th amendment says “no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The Values Voters Summit is predicated on supporting legislation with the intent purpose of depriving women, gays, and non-Christians liberty and equal protection under the law by virtue of their interpretation of the Christian bible. When speakers were not denigrating President Obama for not following their biblical edicts, cowboy diplomacy, and trickle-down economic theory, they demonized African Americans, women, LGBT people, and thanks to an American’s hate-inspired anti-Islam video, Muslims.
For the past four days, Willard Romney contended the Obama Administration apologized for American values, and he cemented his support for the VVS values of hate and went so far as to thank them for their “leadership” in propagating hate against Americans who do not subscribe to evangelical fanaticism. Romney thanked the “summit” for bringing people together to discuss “vital issues that affect our country and our families.” Romney said Americans are people who cling to religion and the Constitution, and that they want a president who shares their “respect for traditional values” that defend marriage, understand strong families, and believe “those who wait until they are 21 before they marry and have their first child” will be less likely to be poor. Romney was not describing American values; he was endorsing religious right values founded on the bible and in direct opposition to the 14th Amendment guarantee that all Americans enjoy the Constitution’s promise of life and liberty based on equal protection of the laws, not Christian’s prescription for living.
Romney endorsing and thanking a hate organization was the culmination of a steady stream of speakers who took turns assailing President Obama for myriad sleights of their imagination. Michele Bachmann attacked the President for being “the most dangerous president we have ever had on American foreign policy,” and claimed he “ceded to the demands of an Islamist organization and the Muslim Brotherhood,” and mandated that all U.S. security agents, including the military and FBI, be “brainwashed in political correctness toward Islam.” Another speaker, Gary Bauer, who accused the President of “forcing gay marriage on this country,” made an overtly racist assertion that “President Obama’s voters are mostly welfare recipients and dead voters in cities with large Black populations.” Eric Cantor said “only traditional marriage allows for the pursuit of happiness,” and another Republican told the audience that “Planned Parenthood is a racist organization.” The only value evident at the VVS besides hate was mendacity based on their incessant lies about President Obama.
It was Paul Ryan though, who made the greatest reach in portraying events in the Middle East a direct result of President Obama’s foreign policy, and said he needed to exercise American influence (read military force) to overcome evil and violence. Ryan claimed the President was responsible for the “slaughter of brave dissidents in Syria, mobs storming American embassies and consulates, Iran gaining a nuclear weapon, and that he treated Israel with indifference bordering on contempt.” Ryan did not fail to bring god into the picture and decried the government, and the Constitution, when he claimed “our rights come from nature’s God, not from government,” and that the administration is taking the country toward growing government, disregard for rights, and “a country where everything is free but us.” Ryan also made the outrageous assertion that President Obama stands for an absolute, unqualified right to abortion at any time, under any circumstances, and at taxpayer expense.
The Values Voters Summit was not an expression of American values or a representation of the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom and equal rights. It was the Republican vision of a theocracy where only white heterosexual couples adhering to fanatical Christian values and anti-government sentiments were real Americans, and any variation was an abomination before god. The summits’ speakers spared no demographic from their hate and it informs why the Republican presidential ticket is antagonistic to African Americans, gays, non-Christians, women, the poor, and any American who does not subscribe to fanatical Christianity. If there was only one message to take away from the weekend summit, it was that the VVS is indeed an all-inclusive hate group that does not represent America or the Constitution, but they do adhere closely to the foundations of neo-conservatism and religious extremism. As a set of consistent values and measures, The Values Voters Summit has more in common with neo-Nazi fascism than it does American values and they are undoubtedly the Republican Party of Willard Romney and Paul Ryan.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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