As I was growing up, and receiving my education as to the government of the United States, if you'd have told me that, in my lifetime, there would be a candidate for the United States Senate that had no idea that the First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state, I'd have told you that you're completely fucking nuts.
It appears, then, that I'd have been wrong, and that wrongness comes, of course, in the form of Chrstine O'Donnell, the Republican nominee for the US Senate in Delaware, who recently expressed bewilderment when told by her opponent that the First Amendment says just that. This video simply has to be seen to be believed.
Here's my attempt at a play-by-play.
"Where in the constitution is the separation of church and state?" she asks, her tone a bit snippy, following a question from the audience.
There's nervous laughter from the crows, many of them probably thinking (or at least hoping) that she's being sarcastic.
Later, her opponent, Chris Coons, in fit of understatement that can only be described as "heroic", notes "I also think you just heard, in the answers from my opponent, and in her attempt at saying 'Where is the separation of church and state in the constitution?' reveals her fundamental misunderstandings of what our constitution is, how it is amended, and how it evolved (?). The First Amendment ... the First Amendment, establishes a separation, the man fact being that the federal government shall not establish any religion, and decisions of law by the Supreme Court, over many, many decades, clarifies..."
O'Donnell, unable to resist any further, asks, "The First Amendment?"
"...Clarifies that there is a separation of church and state that our courts and our laws must respect."
After some talking over one another, we cut to a bit later, and O'Donnell pipes in: "Let me just clarify: you're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?"
Coons responds with (nearly) the direct applicable text: "The government shall make no establishment of religion."
"That's in the First Amendment?" O'Donnell clarifies.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I wouldn't have thought it possible: there's a candidate even dumber, and even more ignorant, than Sarah Fucking Palin.
How does someone that doesn't know what's in the first amendment have the fucking balls to even run for Senate in the first place? This woman would get laughed out of any Junior High civics lesson.
I know, I know, I'm wasting my time being bewildered by this. She's not going to win. That's not the point. The point is that, when it comes to Republicans, the inmates have taken over the fucking asylum. The party has gone completely bug-fuck insane. How does a woman this incompetent become the best possible Republican choice for the fucking US Senate in the entire fucking state of Delaware. This is the best that they can do. This is their representative. This is the spokesperson for their philosophies.
Or if she's not, then fucking disown her. If you can't do that, you've drunk the Kool-Aid.
The fact (and it is indisputable fact) that the Republican spin machine will attempt to defend her ignorance is evidence of how far we've fallen as a society. The insane reality that some of these loons are actually going to win is even worse. Sharon Angle, the Tea Party candidate in Nevada that is in a dead heat with Harry Reid, may not be as outwardly ignorant as O'Donnell is when it comes to the text of the constitution, but she holds to the same bug-fuck insane set of beliefs. She's the one that said that Dearborn, MI (which has a higher-than-normal Muslim-American population; in the city there are 7 Islamic mosques and 60 Christian churches) had been "taken over" by Islamists and was now subject to "Sharia Law".
Remember what the "Tea Party" is supposed to stand for: a return to the values espoused in the Constitution. I propose that there isn't an irony meter in existence that won't overload when presented with the full extent of their constitutional ignorance.
And the people eat it up, because we live in a society where actual knowledge is shunned, where everything is an opinion, and where all opinions have equal validity. As the Fox News talking heads run in circles trying to defend the latest insanity that the players on their team spew forth, the bobbleheads that eat their shit up justify their bias by saying "...but the Olbermans and the Maddows on the left are just as biased!" It's not true, of course; you can bet everything you own that if a liberal Democrat went bugshit insane and started spouting the sort of shit that O'Donnell just did, they'd be in a foot race to throw said candidate under the bus. This is because, as their argumentative styles, they rely on facts, logic, and reasoning, no matter how forceful their conclusions or left-leaning their opinions. Either is a sharp contrast to the non-stop shouting match/bullying technique employed by O'Reilly, the smug and empty condescension displayed by Hannity, or the never-ending 24/7 Chewbacca Defense of Glenn Beck.
I'm actually curious how a Republican can defend this sort of shit. I know that there are a great many intelligent political conservatives out there, people that *must* be as appalled by the ignorant takeover of their party as I am appalled by the ignorance in general. The question is, where are the Republicans repudiating the Tea Party, denying the message that the Repubs have made loud and clear with their endorsement of teabaggers as their representatives: that they'd rather see the country drown in ignorance than see their side lose.
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