Can’t you hear the echo from your 70′s console color TV set? “Edith, get in here!” hollered by the bellicose Archie Bunker from the living room. Edith would run through the swinging door from the kitchen into the living room, drying her hands on her dish towel: “What do you need, Archie?”
That’s what last night’s debate left me with: Archie Bunker is running for President as the Republican Party candidate—men that believe they are in charge of women. My childhood memories of watching All in the Family don’t provide me with a perspective on Archie’s religious beliefs, but most, if not all of the men onstage believe that “God gave specific duties to the government, the church, and the family.” http://www.rightwingwatch.org/...
That viewpoint explains the current war on women and children quite nicely, although that’s not how they refer to it, of course. They don’t want to scare voters away. It really doesn’t matter which one of them wins the primary, they are all drinking and selling the same Kool-Aid at their stand masquerading as a podium. 2016′s flavor (2012 as well, and probably further back than that) has its platform and talking points rooted in the Tea Party, (or as they like to call themselves, the “Teavangelicals”), which is based in large part on Christian Reconstructionism.
The article link above will give you enough information to make you familiar with what the CR folks are peddling via the Tea Party and conservative Christians, but I’m providing the high (low) points from last night’s debate here and correlating them back to the CR movement.
From an article on rightwingwatch.org:
“The modern day Religious Right draws much of its ideology from Christian Reconstructionists who teach that God gave specific duties to the government, the church, and the family.”
“According to this theological worldview, education and taking care of the poor are the responsibility of families and churches, and it is unbiblical for the government to take on these roles. That meshes well with the view of “constitutional conservatives” who believe, for example, the Constitution does not authorize any federal government role in education.”
This should ring a bell with anyone who watched the debate last night. Mike Huckabee, candidate, former Governor of Arkansas and friend of the Duggars stated: “There is no role at the Federal government for the Department of Education.” Why has conservative Christian homeschooling risen so drastically in the last 20 years? (Full disclosure: I have been a secular homeschooler for one of my kids over the last year and a half, he’s returning to public school in a few weeks.)
This is why these men (not sure about Carly Fiorina) want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, Planned Parenthood (not just abortion, all services), SNAP, TANF, etc. They do not believe that government has a role in taking care of the less fortunate, that should be left up to the church. According to David Barton, who was one of the architects of the Republican Platform of 2012, “It’s not the government’s responsibility to take care of the poor and needy,” he said, “it’s the church’s responsibility.”
Please notice something folks. The word he used is church’s, possessive. Not churches, plural. For there is only one true church according to these folks, and it is the church that believes in the Bible as the literal word of God. Both the Old and New Testaments, but primarily the Old.
He goes on further to say, “What we’re doing right now is for the first time in America we have ignored what the Bible says, the Bible says you don’t work, you don’t eat.” He went on to say that people “not having to work and getting free money…violates everything the Bible tells us” about dealing with the poor.
Huckabee also wants to eliminate the IRS so that the US can move to a flat (fair) tax on everyone. That viewpoint also has its roots in Christian Reconstructionism:
"The Bible,” according to Barton, “opposes those taxes as well as estate taxes and progressive income taxes. A flat tax is “what the Bible supports.”
Now who benefits from the programs managed by the Federal Government that I mentioned above? Overwhelmingly women and children. So when people talk about a "war on women,” there really is, promulgated by the Republican Party.
Under the guise of cutting estate/inheritance taxes, moving to a flat tax, defunding programs that benefit primarily women and children, and saying that education should be left up to the states, virtually every candidate up there last night (Trump may be the exception, but he is so boorish that I can’t take him seriously as a potential President), is promoting policies that will send women and their children back to the 1950s. They’re already working at eviscerating Roe v Wade, with mixed success, they are directing county clerks to not issue marriage licenses to same sex couples after the SCOTUS ruling, and they don’t support a livable minimum wage or equal pay for equal work.
If churches do step up to provide these social justice services, don’t you think there will be a catch? You have to attend the church, accept Jesus, tithe, whatever they tell you to do so that you and your kids can eat. You can read my blog post from earlier in the week to see what really happened when Jeb! defunded Planned Parenthood in Florida and didn’t divert the funding to community based health organizations, but instead to faith-based abstinence programs:
http://theunlikelycrusader.tumblr.com/...
I think the picture of Archie and Edith sums up their view of women quite well, don’t you? Archie was always telling Edith what to believe, how to think and how she should act. If she dared to say anything contrary to Archie, this was his reaction. These men are no different. If they have their way, the strides we have made since women entered the workforce in droves in the 70′s will be obliterated.
http://images.dailykos.com/...
Originally published 8/7/2015 at http://theunlikelycrusader.tumblr.com/...