That's right - Mike Huckabee, a Christian living in a majority Christian nation, wants to warn his fellow Christians that, somehow, evil godless liberal atheist scum are going to subvert their will and override the entire democratic system.
Huckabee blames "Big Government", Obama, and Pelosi for "liberal attacks on faith [that] are accelerating to a crisis point."
A few choice bits:
I'm sure you've followed the stories of how liberal judges have targeted our cherished "Pledge of Allegiance" because it contains the words "one nation, under God. [1]Here's what I have to say about that.
You and I have watched for years as liberals [2] and atheists have systematically driven all [3] Christmas-season nativity scenes from public squares all across America. [4]
Prayer in schools is all but extinct... [5] public school children are barred from singing Christmas carols... [6] an invocation at a graduation ceremony is likely to generate a barrage of lawsuits from "offended" liberals and atheists. [7]
[...]
How long do you think it will be before the liberals and atheists are able to have the words "In God We Trust" stricken from our bills and coins? [8]
How long before the atheists and the ACLU [9] declare final victory in getting the entire "Pledge of Allegiance" banned from our schools? [10]
[...]
I am concerned that our children and grandchildren could inherit an America where ANY religious utterance is prohibited outside the walls of a private home or church, just because some liberal might be "offended!" [11]
[...]
Our liberal-leaning [12] courts have been outlawing God in all aspects [13] of our public lives.
And our left-dominated media [14] has mercilessly portrayed believers as either frightening fanatics or idiotic simpletons. [14]
[1] This has never happened. Judges can't "target" anything. People bring lawsuits, and judges make judgments.
[2] Notice how he paints all liberals as enemies of people of faith? Never mind the fact that the majority of liberals are people of faith themselves, and might actually agree with him about some of his complaints... let's paint them all with a broad brush! Discriminating between different people is hard!
[3] This is an interesting use of "all" to mean "practically none of the."
[4] Removing the promotion of religion is not the same as promoting atheism. A blank piece of paper is not an atheist pamphlet. A public square without a nativity scene is *a public square.*
[5] If you ignore, of course, the fact that children and teachers are fully allowed to pray in school - the teachers just aren't allowed to lead kids in prayer or make them pray.
[6] [citation needed]
[7] See, Mike, this is where you don't get it (again). We're not offended by your beliefs. We're offended that you're so eager to trample the Constitution by injecting your beliefs into our taxpayer-funded schools. You want your kids to learn about God and Jesus in school? Send them to private school. I don't want to pay for it.
[8] Oh noes! Not our money! How can we practice our faith freely if we can't put our deity on the coinage?
[9] The same ACLU which has fought for the rights of Christians several times.
[10] Who has ever suggested this?
[11] Again... it has nothing to be with being offended. But that's beside the point. Neither I nor any atheist I've ever known have wanted to legally prevent people from expressing their religious beliefs (though we would prefer they kept them to themselves). What we want is for the *government* to stop endorsing religion. There's a significant difference between "we won't let you say 'God'" and "we won't let the government promote a specific religion." Mike Huckabee is intentionally ignoring this.
[12] What's the composition of the Supreme Court, again? Oh, that's right... half and half, with a swing voter who leans conservative:
- Ginsberg: very liberal, consistently votes against conservatives
- Breyer: consistently liberal
- Sotomayor: consistently votes progressive
- Kagan: centrist-progressive
- Kennedy: the swing vote; considered conservative; sometimes votes liberal
- Alito: consistently conservative
- Roberts: consistently conservative
- Scalia: extremely conservative
- Thomas: extremely conservative (more than Scalia)
In George W. Bush's eight years in office, he appointed 325 federal judges. In Barack Obama's three years so far, he's appointed 62. Extrapolate that out to eight years and you get 165 judges - barely half of those appointed by Bush. And yet we're supposed to believe that liberals have been taking over the court system. Hilarious!
[13] He's playing with "all" again... and I'd really like to know just what on earth he's talking about.
[14] The media so left-dominated that a milder, leftist, more reality-based version of Glenn Beck gets fired from the top-rated show on his network.
[15] Well, Mike, if the shoe fits...
But this mindless, factually-ignorant screed isn't even the best part. The best part is that he blames increases in crime, abortion, and drug use on godless liberals and atheists. Mike... atheists don't even make up 10% of the population of this country. You're in the majority; sounds to me like you're the one who needs to get his house in order here.
Huckabee's letter goes on to announce the formation (partnered with Newt Gingrich) of Renewing America's Leadership (ReAL), an organization "a new national non-profit organization that is working with ministers and lawyers" to fight the perceived threats to religious liberty from liberals and atheists.
Huckabee insists that "the Founding Fathers fully intended for expressions of religious belief to be incorporated into American life" - something I don't really have a problem with. I'm sure they did. What they didn't intend was for the government to be the one making those expressions. They intentionally set up a secular democracy, not a theocracy, no matter what Mike and his pals would like us to think.
The letter is a golden example of hyperbole, from the beginning down to the statement (next to the box you tick to indicate you want to donate) saying that the "Obama-Pelosi liberals [want] us all to worship at the altar of Big Government". It's also a golden example of historical ignorance, blind bigotry and hatred, and foamy-mouthed fear-mongering.
This smarmy little diatribe could be presented in schools as an example of the conservative mindset: fearful, hateful, pious, always looking for an enemy, bombastic, exuding a sense of helplessness even when part of the majority, perceiving nonexistent threats, and ignorant of reality.
But it's worse than that, really. Read the letter again, but substitute 'atheist' for any other minority group. Imagine a past and future presidential candidate attacking any other minority this way. Imagine, for example, a candidate blasting African Americans for wanting to remove segregation and anti-miscegenation laws from our government. That candidate would be laughed out of the race. And yet, with atheists (and, to be fair, with Muslims, since Huckabee attacked them too), it's still okay - in fact, you're practically expected to attack atheists if you want to be taken seriously by conservative voters.
Mike Huckabee should be ashamed, but you can bet he won't. He won't because we still live in a country where most people agree with his distorted view of reality. And that's why we can no longer afford to remain silent. We actually are victims to this wannabe theocrat and his ilk, and yet we're the ones painted as oppressors. If atheists remain silent - if we remain hidden away in the closet, out of view - we'll never change minds in our favor.
