In the interview of Mike Pence on the Kudlow show yesterday, Mike Pence made a truly frightening statement.
Mind you, before he got there he railed on about gas (and energy prices) being 60% higher than when he left office, and his answer is for the United States to become “energy independent.” No word about a major war in Ukraine that resulted in a global upset of the energy market. Does he really believe that starting up drilling again in Alaska, on federal lands, and offshore, would solve that problem? Does he really think we’re that stupid?
But I digress. He said that the “radical left” wants to keep God out of our lives. Hell yes they do, and I guess I am now also a “radical leftist” due to that attitude.
If you don’t want to watch the whole video (some of it is very painful to watch) you can scroll to 10:30 to listen to Kudlow’s introduction to the religious section, and at 11:10 Pence says it:
“The radical left believes that the freedom of religion is the freedom from religion.”
This is truly frightening to me.
Does that mean he thinks the government should have the right to push religion on me?
Which religion?
Jehovah’s Witnesses? Southern Baptism? Catholicism? Methodism? Mormonism? Islam? Hinduism?
Do I have the right to push any of these on him?
What his statement says to me is that he actually believes the government should be able to push religion on us. They could make is wear hijabs, or turbans, or yarmulkes. They could force us to waste our times attending their services. They could decide what we can eat and can’t eat.
Maybe he should go to live in Iran and see how that is working out for them.
Freedom of religion to me has always meant that the Hindus and Jews and Christians and Mormons and Muslims all get to do their thing, build their temples, proselytize, knock on my door to try to get me to join them, raise money, tithe people who want to pay, pray, and make excuses for systemic societal failures because “God works in mysterious ways.”
Just leave me alone, please!
I lived too many years under a Christian-ist evangelical (parental) regime to not worry about a GOP mid-term sweep of Congress, then the Presidency… I want to be able to keep saying, when asked to state my religion, “I am Non-delusional.” (H/T to website Religion is Cancer poster.)
I like that: I am non-delusional. I haven’t heard that one before, but I think I’ll be using it…
As an old friend who is also a practicing Lutheran, I completely agree that “freedom of religion is freedom from religion.” Very well said. And while all religion is not delusional or bullshit, to impose religious beliefs and practices on non-believers is definitely delusional and a form of majority tyranny.
Yes, I knew, the “bullshit” word would get some people riled up! I chose to delete that sentence. It didn’t add value. Thanks my friend.