Jack IngramLast week, while on my way back from my bi-weekly Bible burning with my fellow pagan-communist-sodomite brethren, I happened to stumble upon my counterpart’s column, titled “Good vs. Evil, Republicans vs. Democrats, religion vs. secularism.” And I, perhaps like many of you, walked away wondering not only what the point of Mr. Eller’s column was, but also, how in hell he arrived at it.
I don’t have cable television, and I admit, I miss being able to watch “SpongeBob” and “The Iron Chef,” but I don’t have to sit through all of those lame commercials – like that asshole in the question mark suit who wants to sell you his book on “government money-making secrets” – you know the one. But the best thing about not having television is that I’m not tempted to watch the news, nor do I have to worry about catching a glimpse of FOX “News.”
Sadly, it would appear that FOX has learned about my boycott of their programming and, in order to remedy my impudence, FOX has sent Brian Eller to regurgitate the finer parts of their nightly news broadcast. Mr. Eller’s last column, chockfull of classic FOX News tactics such as parallelism, non-equitur logic and the famous, never-arriving-at-a-point style of rhetoric, blew his cover as a FOX operative.
Where do I even begin? I suppose I’ll start with the title: “Good vs. Evil, Republicans vs. Democrats, religion vs. secularism.” What this title really reads as is something like this: “Good = Republicans and/or religion, Evil = Democrats and/or secularism.”
Also, in the title and throughout the column, it is made to appear as if the Republican Party is THE party of “religion,” while the Democratic Party is one of secularism ” a nicer way of saying, “Jesus is a Republican” and “Satan is a Democrat.”
So if the Republican Party is the party of “religion,” then what religion are they a party of? Islam? Hinduism? Simply because you believe in Jesus does not mean you have some claim to knowing ultimate truth, much less is a political party capable of such knowledge. Republicans do not speak for ALL religion as Mr. Eller contends. The Republican Party represents only a radical, fundamentalist Christian view, a view that excludes all who disagree with its narrow-minded doctrine of bigotry and hate. Republicans may be looking for Jesus on Sunday, but the rest of the week they should be looking for a good lawyer with all the corruption, federal indictments, illegal domestic spying, money laundering, leaking classified information and shooting people in the face.
Mr. Eller also mentions how those heathen Democrats/Liberals (Eller uses these terms interchangeably as if they are the same thing), are about as excited to hear God’s name in our national oaths of office and presidential speeches as “Reagan” (not the president) was about being exorcized. Eller suggests that since the phrase “so help me God” exists in the president’s oath of office, that Democrats and liberals should just forget about silly Constitutional provisions like the separation of church and state. While Mr. Eller may get his jollies any time Bush mentions God’s name, as he did while giving the oath of office, I’m more concerned with the other words and phrases in the oath, phrases like, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Mr. Eller, if you want to talk politics, I suggest giving the Bible and FOX News a rest, and try reading The Constitution, paying careful attention to Article Two, Section One (where the framers included the president’s oath) because therein you will not find any mention of “God.” The phrase to which you refer was added by George Washington, and is not part of the official oath.
But then again, what could a godless liberal like myself possible know about right and wrong? At least I’ll have George Bush, Dick Cheney and Tom Delay to keep me company in hell.
Jack Ingram is a political science senior and a Mustang Daily columnist.