In 2000, an evangelical governor from Texas was awarded the office of President of the United States. He ran as a compassionate conservative promising to cut federal spending and to get the US out of the business of nation-building.
Instead, he cut taxes, eliminated financial and environmental regulations, ignored direct warnings of threats by al-Qeada to use hijacked airliners to attack the US, and started two wars costing as much as $3 trillion. His policies failed to create a single private-sector job in the US and led to the worst economic collapse since 1929. In the process, he doubled our national debt.
Now we have Rick Perry following in his footsteps. As Lieutenant Governor, he replaced Bush as Governor of Texas. Like Bush, he talks about his faith all the while promoting an agenda that favors the rich and attacks the poor. And like Bush, he brags about his accomplishments as governor. Foremost in his braggadocio is the so-called Texas Miracle. The miracle, as the story goes, is that Perry created 80 percent of the jobs in America over the past three years.
Rrrrrrright!
If you examine his claim, you find that its a complete and utter fraud just like the cowboy boots he wears. Certainly, Texas did create more jobs in the last year than any other state. But all of them were in the public sector; i.e. they were government jobs, many of which resulted from Perry extending his hand to Washington in order to receive a disproportionate number of the stimulus funds. Indeed, Texas actually lost jobs in the private sector over the past three years!
And, if you look further, you see rising unemployment in Texas in addition to overcrowded homeless shelters and public schools facing billions in budget cuts. And thats not even the scary part.
More frightening about Perry (as well as Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin) are his way-out-of-this-solar-system religious beliefs. These were put on display just days prior to his announcement that he is running for president. On August 6, he spoke at The Response, billed as a day of prayer and fasting. In fact, it was a day of lunacy with some of the nations most radical evangelical religious figures. These are people who believe the US should be a Christian theocracy; who believe in the end times and the necessity to prepare the Earth for the rapture by cleansing the Seven Mountains (arts and entertainment, business, family, government, media, religion and education) from demonic influence. These are people who believe Oprah is the precursor of the AntiChrist; who believe that gays are controlled by demons; who believe that Islam is a demonic spirit.
Just the kind of people you want in the White House and a presidential administration.
Cant you imagine a US run by a President Perry or a President Bachmann or a President Palin? The administration would begin with a hands-on healing of gays followed by the threat of bombing every non-Christian nation unless they converted. The FCC would command that all sex (violence is okey-dokey) be banned from TV. Public broadcasting would be forced to carry Christian-only programming. All schools would be openly Christian. Every business logo would have to incorporate the symbol of a fish. And all cathedrals, synagogues, temples and mosques would be converted to New Apostolic churches.
In other words, the US would become a Christian version of Iran.