April 03, 2006

 

Moore and Moore

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Ya know, the libertarian (yes, small “L”) in me seems to be the part of my political psyche with the greatest propensity for aligning with the proverbial strange bedfellows. My latest “affair” ironically comes with some restraint, akin to say, bunkbeds or perhaps the separate twins of the 60’s sitcom era. Yes, thank God for the religious right in this case, for my sympathies on one side lie with none other than Judge Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice equally famous for his stand on the public display of the Ten Commandments and his proclivity for putting his foot in his mouth.



Moore placed an enormous stone monument of the Ten Commandments in the middle of the rotunda of the state courts building in Montgomery in direct violation of federal law and without the knowledge or consent of other justices on the court. Despite riding a huge wave of support from the religious right, he properly lost his job as chief justice.

So you know I’m no fan of Roy Moore, and I thank God again that I have to take his statement out of the context of everything else he espouses in order to sleep with him. I’m such a whore.

Now hizzoner is an increasingly dark horse candidate for the Republican nomination for governor against incumbent Gov. Bob Riley. In spite of it all Roy just can’t seem to catch a break.

At a recent gathering in the northeastern Alabama burg of Centre, Moore stumped and stomped and outlined his platform for around 60 local residents during an informal luncheon at Tab’s of Centre (off – Centre?) last week. Well here’s the part I’m cozy with (compiled from various AP and Birmingham News reports and editorials):

Moore says he will accept no contributions from political action committees (PACs) in the upcoming election. “The way our system of politics is today, you’ve got to have money to run,” said Moore. “I’ve got enough money to run. It takes a lot of money. You’ve seen in the paper, it takes $15 million to run for senator, governor. It is outrageous. It is ridiculous.

“And the only way that people can run these days is to get this special interest money from big businesses. I’m not dependent upon that. In fact, I am not taking any special interest money, PAC money at all. There’s never been another gubernatorial candidate in the history of this state lately who hasn’t accepted special interest money.

“People know who I am, they know what I stand for. Some of them agree, some of them don’t agree,” Moore said, adding that for too long the special interest lobbyists, highly paid bureaucrats, and power hungry politicians have run government.

“Anybody that has been in Montgomery knows about the highly paid bureaucrats and special interest lobbyists,” said Moore. “There are 564 special interest lobbyists in Montgomery. We have 140 legislators. That’s a 4-1 ratio. If you think your legislators represent you, you don’t know government in Alabama.”

Now he starts going all Roy, which exemplifies the problem that I have with the religious right. They just can’t keep their mouth shut when they’re finished with the common sense. Observe:

Moore has suggested that the recent news of mad cow disease being discovered in an Alabama cow is made up and a ruse to promote a nationwide animal identification system. Moore has said he fears such animal identification will spread to other livestock and is just another intrusion of government.

For example, Moore said, a bill to identify all farm animals, known as the NAIS (National Animal Identification System) has made its way through the House and Senate without the knowledge of the average citizen. This bill has come to light recently because of the recent Mad Cow scare. Moore feels this bill will make it more difficult for the average small farmer to have farm animals such as chickens, cows, sheep, goats, pigs and other animals.

“I had some clerks contact the Department of Agriculture,” said Moore. “This is a registration form for your premises. If the bill before the legislature hasn’t passed, how do we have forms with the commissioner’s name on it already? What I’m telling you today is this isn’t the way the system is supposed to work. You are supposed to have a voice in your government. But you don’t. And why don’t you have a voice in your government? Because you don’t control the government, the government controls you, and they don’t rule in your interests, they rule in the interests of special interest lobbyists.”

Now Moore has the right to voice whatever he believes to be true, but to suggest that state and federal officials simply made up a mad cow discovery in Alabama is just plain whacky.

Moore thinks the tracking system is a dire threat to personal liberty, not to mention an attempt to drive small farmers out of business. So naturally, Moore was mighty suspicious when a convenient case of mad cow cropped up in Alabama, just in time to help push along tracking legislation in the State House.

"I spoke out against this. All of the sudden it stalls a little bit in the Senate. All of the sudden we get this report that comes out in the paper," Moore said. "It's a strange coincidence."

Strange, indeed. But not nearly as strange as Moore's thought process. Because for Moore's conspiracy theory to work, Alabama's Democratic agriculture chief Ron Sparks would have to be in league with Republican Gov. Bob Riley and all the Republicans in Washington. They'd need the cooperation of the state veterinarian and the experts in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And making the whole thing even more far-fetched, they'd all have to want to tag cows so badly they'd be willing to threaten the nation's entire beef industry just to get their tracking system established. "Do you think we wanted a case of mad-cow disease in Alabama? Lord knows we didn't," Sparks said. "For anybody to take on a wild tangent that it's the mark of the beast, that it's the end of time, it's absurd."

Not for Roy-O, dude.

Truth be told, the nation should have moved faster to develop some kind of tracking system, considering recent history. After the first case of mad cow was identified in 1986, a massive outbreak occurred in Great Britain, and cases began popping up across the world. Now there’s bird flu and other maladies to worry about - scourges that threaten not only farmers' investment in livestock but also the lives of citizens. In a world where animals and their ailments are as mobile as people, a tracking system seems prudent, to say the least.

As frightened as Moore may be by the idea of Big Brother government tracking the beasts, it's far scarier to have no way to monitor the spread of diseases and public health threats. But scariest of all are such cockamamie ideas coming from a man who aspires to be Alabama's governor.

But wait, that’s not all y’all get:

One member of the audience posed a thought-provoking question: Can a devout Muslim be a good patriot or good American citizen?

“To be a good American citizen, you have to acknowledge the God upon which this nation was founded,” said Moore. “We are founded on a particular concept, that God Almighty gives us rights that cannot be taken from us, that the government is there not to give us rights, not to pretend there is no God, but to secure those rights for us and if it doesn’t it should be abolished. Our Forefathers recognized there is a God that gives rights.

“I’m telling you what this nation was founded upon,” said Moore. “If a Muslim or anybody else would come across and recognize that this nation was founded upon a belief in God of the Holy Scriptures, I’m sure he could do his job.”

Phew, I can just hear the sigh of relief from millions of convenience store owners and hoteliers across the U.S.

“We have got to recognize that this God was recognized from the time of the Pilgrims up through the 150 years prior to 1776,” said Moore. “And from that time forward, to the last days of this country in the 1960s when the United States Supreme Court started saying you cannot recognize this God in public. When we forget we are a nation under God, we are a nation gone under. We’re going to lose everything we have and not only for us, but also for our children and grandchildren.”

Well it looks like the honeymoon's over for me. Just remember, in case of rapture this land will not be plowed.

Comments:
Thoughts on this:

1) It's funny that he put that stone up in the middle of the night without anyone knowing, then decries the secretive nature of government.

2) It's pathetic that he even speaks of the forefathers while conveniently ignoring everything they wrote about seperating churcch and state.

3) I HAVE TO find a way to use the word "scourge" in a blog post!

I'm glad you didn't stay in that bed. Just gave him a mouthful and split, eh?
 
HA! At the risk of starting a stir amongst my commentariat (and my wife for that matter), it's too bad Ann Coulter couldn't sometimes make that much sense.

=8:{)>
 
Egad, don't get me started on that insipid bitch. She is the epitome of the hatefulness and dishonesty of today's phony "conservatives." Let's face it, no one with a "conservative view" of the Constitution, or any respect for it at all, would call someone a traitor just for disagreeing with the President. And she supports Apartheid. Nice chick.

I also don't know why people say she's beautiful. I've seen better legs sticking out of a bucket. I would rather do Debra Messing. At least, when Debra smiles, she doesn't look like she's about to eat someone's young.
 
Oh Dear Higher Power..thanks for such an eloquent writer as my husband. Now, if you could please just work on his tendancy to stray right. Yes, you saw it, stray right. An you do raise the ire of the wife by even typing that name!!!! I am your pied piper...follow me!
All of that just to say that I could have told you that Alabama was one crazy ass place long ago.
 
Ah, but the song says that Alabama is a wonderful place, mainly because the "skies" (they have a few, evidently) are, uniquely enough, blue. SO blue!

Neil Young won that argument, hands down.
 
What's this "Dear Higher Power" shit? I though communists were supposed to be atheists, my dear strangest of bedfellows! =;:{)>

I concur on the skies thing, JtT. Perhaps they should follow in Montana's wake and just consolidate them into one Big one.

Saving grace of Alabama: at least it's not Mississippi (and the guvnah's true, too). I think that's the motto on their license plate, either that or "Fart of Dixie."
 
Or we could change the Pledge of Allegiance thusly:


"One Nation, under 472 Skies....."
 
Truly, Right Wing Wackos are more entertaining than Left Wing Wackos could ever hope to be.

Ook ook
 
I am agnostic and nothing you can say or do will change my mind.
 
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