Chuck_G wrote:Elspeth Reeve of The Atlantic Wire wrote:
Why does Michele Bachmann think we should cut spending? To grow business, to cut the deficit, the usual. But also because God told her we should, via last week's East Coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene. The St. Petersburg Times' Adam C. Smith reports that the presidential candidate told a Sarasota, Florida crowd this weekend, "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."
Questions for debate:
1. Is god really worried about government spending in the U.S. and responsible for hurricanes and earthquakes to provoke fear?
2. Do you think she really believes this or it is just an appeal to the christian far right?
I rarely use such baldly pejorative language, but I don't know what else to say but that Michelle Bachmann is an idiot.
One would be just as justified in saying that God wants the tea partiers to get sent home and to have another huge round of stimulus spending to get the economy going. In fact, that would make even more sense, given the Biblical admonitions to help the poor. I am not sure where in the Bible there is anything about cutting government spending.
One has to ask what the people of Texas are supposed to make of their months long drought. How about the people living along the Missouri River, many of whom are only now able to get back into their homes?
Perhaps the hurricane and the earthquake were warnings to Eric Cantor, Representative from Virginia. I believe the epicenter of the quake was in his district. God is obviously not pleased with his political intransigence and demagoguery.
Illinois seems to be peculiarly immune to disasters this year. God likes Obama?
It is too bad there doesn't seem to be anyone on the left who uses these loony religious/political arguments. If someone would, maybe even those who put credence in Bachmann's pronouncements would see the ridiculousness of such statements.
" . . . the line separating good and evil passes, not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart . . . ." Alexander Solzhenitsyn