The New York Times Op-Ed page has some good stuff today.


Tom Friedman
Garry Wells

This all leads to one of my biggest pet peeves about politics in this country. Jesus Christ. No, that's not an exclamation, that's the problem. Jesus. I'm not afraid to say it - I hate religion. I mean, if you have your beliefs and they help you through the day, great. I'm with you. Unfortunately, that's not usually how it works, is it? Jesus Christ is responsible for more death in the history of this planet than any other person I can name. I mean, it's not his fault, obviously. He seems like he was a great guy. No, it's the hypocrites and assholes who do things in his name who are the problem.

Let's think about this for a minute. Bush ran on Christ. That's his only issue; a winning issue, apparently. He certainly didn't run on a platform touting a massive deficit, a failed war, incompetent advisors, the high unemployment rate. He's running with Christ supposedly at his side. So, help me out. Which of these Bush ideals would Jesus endorse:

• 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead in a war we chose to launch
• executing mentally handicapped children
• rewriting our Constitution to institutionalize discrimination against homosexuals
• shifting the tax burden from the rich onto the backs of the poor
• polluting our lakes, rivers, land, and atmosphere, and raping the planet of its natural resources for his friends' personal gain
• forcing kids to drop out of school to keep the standardized test scores artificially high
• sending American kids off to war to be killed and mutilated, and provide no financial protection for their families, nor proper health care when the soldier comes back with missing limbs

I'm no mind reader, but from what I've read about Jesus, he seems like he wouldn't be down with any of that. Jesus kind of liked the poor. I remember him talking about them a lot. I don't remember Jesus going on about the death penalty. No, in fact, I remember something about a cheek and turning it. Right?

So - why are these people voting for Bush? Because he talks about his relationship with his god and Jesus Christ. That's it! He says he talks to god. God gives him direction. God tells him what to do. So despite the fact that Bush's agenda is pretty much the opposite of *everything* that Jesus Christ stood for, Bush knows what god wants, and god wants him.

Makes sense to me...

And hey, a message to you red staters out there - you know what another one of Jesus' principles was? Keeping your religion private. Private! You think you dig on him, but it seems that you actually know very little about him. Read up! The evil, evil democrats didn't ban the bible just yet...