Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich is now walking back his profoundly un-American idea.
One day after urging the creation of a federal agency to promote “core Judeo-Christian, Western values,” Republican presidential candidate John Kasich said on Wednesday he instead would upgrade the existing Voice of America to “engage in the war of ideas” against Islamic State.
Or maybe he's not walking anything back, and instead just clarifying his previous proposal of creating a new federal agency to promote "Judeo-Christian" (that means Christian, kids) values to the filthy non-Judeo-Christians in the rest of the world. Conservatives got twitchy at the notion of creating a new federal agency to do anything, even to spread freedomz and so on, and Anyone Who Knows A Single Damn Thing About The So-Called Foundational Principles Of The United States got twitchy at the notion of government broadcasting messages promoting certain religions over others. Even Sir Bombs-A-Lot wasn't a fan of that one:
“I don’t think we should be promoting Judeo-Christian values in the Arab world,” one of Kasich’s GOP rivals, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, told Real Clear Politics. “I think that was the Crusades.”
When even Lindsey Graham can land a zinger on you, reconsider your life choices. Anyhoo, on to Kasich's next-day "clarification."
“We represent the Western ethic, Western values ... We’re talking fundamentally about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the ability to gather to address our grievances, the equality of women.”
All right, now we're talking. We may need to, well, gloss over a few things. There's quite a few Americans who are not entirely on board with the equality of women part, for example, and the Supreme Court isn't entirely on board itself; the addressing grievances part is fine, but you might have to agree to binding arbitration to actually address them; hmm, and the freedom of religion bit is probably not something you want to put on your A-list of Western values right now, given that the people at the podiums next to Kasich's are currently keen on possibly closing all American mosques and/or possibly requiring immigrants to "prove" that they are Christians before we let them in. Maybe leave that part out entirely.
Freedom of speech, though? Yep, still got that. Watch this: Gov. John Kasich is a poopy head! No firing squads yet. We can still bask in that one, so long as you stick to the designated free speech zones. Well, and assuming Comcast doesn't charge extra.