I was in the car in the middle of a radio interview with some dingbat last night. I kept thinking, who is this nutjob yapping about Syrian refugees? I don’t recognize his voice but he sounds like a Klown Kar rider. Finally figured out it was Ohio’s John Kasich – the one at the debates who was rolling his eyes at his fellow Republican presidential candidates because they are nutty but he is reasonable. I think he must have gotten some training in having a reasonable sounding voice that might fool you for a minute until you actually listen to what he says. I nearly lost my shit, Kasich was trying his hardest pretending to be a Fundamentalist Chrisitian.
I have to say, I never saw this one coming. In the race to see who could come up with the most insane, unconstitutional proposal in reaction to the Paris massacre, my money was on the obvious favorites, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. And while they all made valient efforts, the worst idea of all sprung up from the “moderate” mind of Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Maybe he got tired of being called “the reasonable one” and decided that if Crazy Talk is what’s selling this year, he may as well go all in.
How is John Kasich, as president, going to defeat ISIS? He’s going to focus foreign policy on promoting “Judeo-Christian values” and create a brand new agency that will be a bit like the Voice of America, only instead of beaming American jazz beyond the Iron Curtain, it’ll be responsible for Judeo-Christianizing the rest of the world, especially in the lands currently controlled by the Mahommedans. Then once we’ve brought Judeo-Christianity to the heathens, they’ll see that there’s no way like the American Way. Tne centerpiece of his evangelical foreign policy:
“U.S. Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting have lost their focus on the case for Western values and ideals and effectively countering opponents’ propaganda and disinformation. I will consolidate them into a new agency that has a clear mandate to promote the core Judaeo-Christian Western [sic] values that we and our friends and allies share. In this vacuum of values, is it any wonder that we see bright, educated young people abandoning the West for the meaning they think they see in the extremists’ cause?”
Kasich first rejected Ted Cruz’s call for only allowing Christian Syrian refugees into the country, not because he objects to the United States promoting certain religions over others, obviously, but because he believes no refugees at all should be admitted. Then he explained his vision for modernized Crusades:
KASICH: Its job would be, fundamentally, to revive what we used to do when we beamed messages into the former Soviet Union. We need to beam messages around the world about what it means to have a Western ethic, to be part of a Christian, Judeo-Christian society. It means freedom, it means opportunity, it means respect for women, it means freedom to gather, it means so many things. And to be able to send these messages into a place like Russia, which is absolutely trying to prevent people from hearing the truth, or even in China when they try to figure out how to limit the effectiveness of the Internet, and of course most particularly in the Middle East, where young radicals are constantly fed ideas that lead to more radicalization, I think it’s essential we begin to spread who we are, and why we are who we are, and what we represent. It is essential that we do promote this message. It’s essential, by the way, that those in the West begin to embrace again our Jewish and Christian tradition rather than running from it, hiding from it, creating a…
Interviewer: What does that say to atheists and Muslims and Buddhists and all the others that live in our melting pot?
Kasich: Well I also think that we have many moderate Muslims who share our views. I think there are many of them — they condemned the Paris attacks; I think there are many of them that stand up and speak out, and they should be included in this. And they’d be a very effective part of this. So to support, you know, the Jewish and Christian tradition also involves the ability to have tolerance.
That should be awfully reassuring to American Muslims, to know that John Kasich sees them as a very effective part of his plans for a Judeo-Christian foreign policy. Also, those Russian Orthodoxers are going to be surprised when they find out they need to adopt a Christian worldview. Yes, yes, we know he said “Judeo-Christian,” That’s your Midwestern Values™ for you: we seem nice enough, but really are just as bad as everybody else.
” We need to beam messages around the world about what it means to have a Western ethic, to be part of a Christian, Judeo-Christian society. It means freedom, it means opportunity, it means respect for women, it means freedom to gather, it means so many things.”
YES YES YES!! This country and the world are going to respect women ONLY AFTER after we add in some more Christian values! Wait. My lady-brain is easily confused, but I seem to distinctly remember the Bible and maybe a few other religious texts being used for centuries to promote the idea that women are “less than”. I’m probably just overly emotional, perhaps hysterical, so I could be wrong. That this fuckhead can say this shit with a straight face chills me to the bone. Serious question: Has every candidate for the gop learned how to govern and get elected from watching the Simpsons? Is that where staff that leave the show go to, to run campaigns for these guys?
It may be time to get the Catholics and Protestants killing each other according to their nature again. The pretense to humility and nonviolence doesn’t wear well on them.hristiania has always been at war with Islamia. The Paris gunmen grew up in French and Belgian suburbs. Kasich obviously doesn’t think those places are “Western” enough to transmit culture, it takes A Murcan voice to make it convincing. Just keep broadcasting jazz, blues, and rock n roll—all around the planet people love our music, and resent getting arrested for listening to it. Also, mix it up with popular singers from Muslim countries who have been banned by the extremists, because there are a lot of them banned. As for “Judeo-Christian” values: as others pointed out already, the other Abrahamaic religion is Islam, and all three of the “desert religions” have a lot in common, good as well as bad. These countries don’t need no larnin’ from Kasich.
Would it be rude to mention that the Crusades were ultimately a huge fucking failure?***
I was always particulalry fond of the spasm of bloodshed that accompanied the Reformation. Paris stacked three feet deep with dead Huegenots is always a pleasant reminder of Christian love.
Sure, Mr Ohio Moderate’s plan was lifted right out of the Middle Ages, but after he was scolded by Holy Warrior Lindsey Graham, he came to his “moderate” senses an 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.
OK, genius. The problem with creating a new Big Government agency to teach them Others how to love Jesus just so is not the “Big Government” part. It’s the unconstitutional, undemocratic, immoral, ineffective idea that if we bomb the crap out of countries and then hand out some Bibles, that will work out good for us. It doesn’t matter whether such a dumb stupid WTF policy is executed through a $$$ Department of Crusading or through an old program we once used to beat the Soviet Union by screaming “Under God” in their commie faces. Also? It makes America look like a bunch of religious radical extremist dickbags, which supposedly is the very thing we are trying to prove we are better than. Thus far, pretty unsuccessfully.
Kasich further elaborated on why converting people in the inferior parts of the world is such a swell idea:
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.
Pardon my while I choke on my own vomit. Yes, “we” are best suited to teach Them about – for example – the equality of women. We are not saying Kasich is JUST LIKE Al Qaeda. Or ISIS. Or Hitler. Or, OBAMA, but Kasich is perhaps not the best American spokesman for how “we” love women and free speech. Unless denying women the right to a legal medical procedure — or to even be informed, with free speech that such a right exists — is what Kasich considers good western Judeo-Christian ethics that the rest of the world needs to learn about. While Kasich employed that old (but not that old; circa 1950, really) rhetorical trick to promote Christian supremacy by pretending the Jews are in on it too, we’d like to point out that Judeo-ism is not actually a western value and that Kasich might want to lay his eyes upon a map sometime to see Where Did Jewishes Come From. (Spoiler: It’s not Ohio.)
If Mr. Moderate Kasich wants to get in on the crazy that is all the rage with his party right now, we suggest he stick to his personal brand of Slate pitches, like suggesting climate change is real.
*** Well, they were a failure from their stated objectives, but they did give Europe a hankering for eastern luxuries that resulted in them getting out of the house and into a boat and looking for a way to get around those Ottomans to get the luxuries they wanted.