A devil in Angel's shoes

February 5th is primary election day in my state. I am happy with the primary system in my state. As a voter I am allowed to take a ballot from any registered party. This gives me a chance to view the whole field of candidates and take the action I believe in the best interests of the country, not just one party. Between now and the primary election, I will take brief looks at several candidates and offer my opinions and remaining questions.

Let’s go ahead and get the worst one out of the way: Mike Huckabee. The fact that he’s a southern baptist preacher is enough reason for me to refuse to vote for him, but that says as much about me as it does him, so I will look closer. My initial reaction to Huckabee is that as a baptist preacher he is most likely a racist homophobe who believes that he has a monopoly on the truth, especially when it comes to matters of faith. It didn’t take long into his campaign surge for confirmation to begin to arise.

Huckabee’s infamous Christmas commercial embodied the insidious arrogance of someone who believes they hold the exclusive truth about faith. In it, he says "what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ." To him maybe, but many disagree. Then to make it perfectly clear this commercial is not for everyone, he says "I hope you and your family have a magnificent Christmas" (So Jews, Muslims, Atheists, etc, go f*k yourself). The exact same scene and many of the same words, but universal themes of peace and love would have been more effective and less offensive. Even use the word Christmas, fine, but add something else. I have seen even George W. Bush handle this better his entire presidency, not wavering on what he believes but always being inclusive, even of atheists. From what I've seen of Huckabee, those groups are "sinners" and "clearly wrong" and I'm suspicious of someone that certain about things that are so uncertain.

No doubt some believe I am overreacting, but I think that only reinforces my opinion of the insidious nature of Huckabee’s demeanor about issues of faith. The trickery is amplified by Huckabee’s “victim” act surrounding the controversy of his monopoly on faith, claiming “aren’t YOU the one being intolerant” because people object to his bigoted view. I would say the same if a Muslim professed a belief that Christians were going to hell. I generally do not think that should be done by politicians over the subject of religion. It's stuff that is not needed in politics. In fact, I believe it's often a BS smokescreen. For the evangelicals in Iowa that voted for him, did they know anything about Huckabee's political beliefs? It probably did not matter because he only needed to say “I'm a Christian” in a way that “stood up” for their beleaguered bigoted view.

The Xmas commercial was simply the decorated tip of the iceberg. The following statement was made this month by Huckabee:

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."

Again it’s painfully clear that Huckabee is awfully certain he has the monopoly of truth, which is fine for your local demagogue but not a great feature for a leader in our government. I mean seriously, take the above statement, substitute Allah for “God” and Koran for “God’s standards” and it’s the Taliban. I beg you to tell me the difference.

I’ll move on to homophobia. The best that can be said of Huckabee in this area is that he backed off his call to quarantine those with HIV and AIDS. Wow, what compassion. Huckabee continues to publicly declare it a sin (even if he believes this, is he preaching or running for President?). Huckabee continues to equate gay and lesbian to pedophilia and bestiality. I don't need to add anything here; Huckabee will tell you himself of his judgmental nature and lack of compassion.

What about racial bigotry? There are some interesting ties between Huckabee and some racist groups, but that is not always indicative of the candidate’s own choices. A candidate’s reluctance to fight off unsolicited racist supporters is troubling, but we need not find a tie that loose for Huckabee. Read this outlandish statement from Huckabee also made this month in South Carolina:

“You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do.”

I will not delve into the joking (I presume) threat of violent assault on others, though Huckabee does have a strangely brutal bent toward violent humor (joking about shooting people, slitting wrists, etc). The brazen racial bigotry in Huckabee’s statement is remarkable. South Carolina legislators specifically decided to fly that flag over the capitol in 1962 in a show of bigoted defiance, not in a dispute about state’s rights. Furthermore, I allow the esteemed Christopher Hitchens to make the most salient point concerning the flag:

Under this fiery cross of St. Andrew, the state of Pennsylvania was invaded and free Americans were rounded up and re-enslaved. Under this same cross, it was announced that any Union officer commanding freed-slave soldiers, or any of his men, would be executed if captured. (In other words, war crimes were boasted of in advance.) The 13stars of the same flag include stars for two states—Kentucky and Missouri—that never did secede, and they thus express a clear ambition to conquer free and independent states.
…
So slack is our grasp of history and principle that we seem unable to think of the Confederacy as other than "offensive" to blacks. … [The flag exalts] those who attempted to destroy the Union by force, and those who solicited the help of foreign powers in order to do so, and whose treason led to the violent deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Support of the Confederate flag is support of treason. Enough said.

It’s clear I will not be voting for Huckabee. I hope his campaign ends soon and the platform for his brand of harm is removed.