Rick Santorum: The Most Dangerous Man in America

Remember when I used to write political posts?  I don't either.  But on the site banner, there's a claim that there are "politics, reviews, and nonsense".  The second two are definitely here, but as for "politics", unless its the politics of Oscar Picks, I seem to have forgotten that.  Anyway, here's just a quick post for you people.

The currently most despicable man running for President today is Newt Gingrich.  This is a well-established fact.  However, the most dangerous man running for President is Rick Santorum.  Its been widely reported that on Friday, Santorum publicly called President Obama out for making laws based upon a "phony theology*, not a theology based on the Bible."  Now, I can immediately feel the gulf between what has become two Americas.  Now, automatically, I am not the kind of person who thinks what Santorum describing is a bad thing.  In fact, I have to wonder why anybody would want a political leader to base his or her decisions on the Bible.  Base your world view on realpolitik or universal moral values or the Constitution or heck, even the Communist Manifesto, anything but the Bible.  Where is this coming from?  Now suddenly its completely fair to criticize a president for not viewing the Bible as his political roadmap?  Where is Santorum coming from?  Who is this guy?  What country is this guy representing?

Rick Santorum is a seriously dangerous person, probably one of the most dangerous men in America right now.  Lately he's been riding high in his ability to offer an honest political platform to Republicans sick of the two-faced Romney and the Machiavellian Gingrich.  Santorum's platform has currently evolved to a full-fledged assault on sexual liberation.  The guy has mentioned that he opposes contraceptive use even for married couples.  Is Santorum secretly a Saudi cleric?  People call Obama a radical Muslim, but the irony is that its none other than folks like Santorum who really wouldn't have much problem with Osama bin Laden's platform, other than the fact that Osama is using the wrong book to preach for it.  Santorum implies that President Obama is a not a Christian, while ironically nothing he does or believes is in any way based upon the teachings of Christ.  He's an all-around nightmare.

Now, I should point out that Santorum is not actively running on a platform to ban contraceptives, and he could never pull it off even if he tried.  He is never going to be President, but Obama sure as heck is hoping that the Republicans pick him.  (At this point, Obama is basically guaranteed a victory in November and that goes double if Santorum is the nominee.)  Santorum is so far right that I wonder if most die hard Republicans don't get a bit worried about him.

In terms of standing against contraceptives, Rick Santorum is such a historical dinosaur that he's somehow even more antiquated than Ron Paul's message of tearing down the Imperial federal government.  Contraceptives have revolutionized humanity, and human interactions.  Sex as a recreational activity has existed since forever, Rick Santorum isn't going to take that away.  Celibacy has never existed, except for monks and deranged subcultures.  Even in the Middle Ages, there were brothels.  Heck, even for the monks I mentioned, they probably still whored around every few years.  People like having sex, its a biological imperative.  Its hard-wired into our brains to want to do it, to oppose sexuality is to oppose humanity.  Santorum is a Dalek.  All contraceptives do is add protection to people who are going to do it anyway, condoms or not.  The 60s weren't what turned America into a nation of sluts, we were sluts from the beginning.  And we should be happy we're sluts, because sluts have more fun**.

I don't even need to explain further why Santorum is out of his mind on this one.

But Santorum is also insane in a number of other ways, mainly that he actually opposes public education.  If Santorum were elected, he would probably be the first President in history to turn the White House into his own private home school.  by standing in the way of public education, Rick Santorum is actually standing against some two centuries of educational philosophy in the country, including such figures as Horace Mann, Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, heck every educational dude America has ever had.  Santorum wants complete control of education to fall to local communities or parents, with no state or federal control at all.  This is not based upon any kind of pedagogical ways of though, research, or probably even an honest interest in the education of students, Santorum just wants people to be able to pray in schools.  America believes that its future lies in solving our educational issues, and if Santorum thinks he's getting votes by tearing that system to pieces, he is out of his mind.

I'll be the first to admit that America's education system has problems.  Here's where, regrettably, I get into an educational rant because I'm a teacher (or teacher-to-be).  But you aren't going to solve them by cutting out state and federal governments from the discussion.  Here in New Jersey, we have some of the most independent local school boards in the country, and that only results in an insane amount of waste and acrimony as every tiny hamlet has to have its own superintendent, its own principal, its own curriculum, its own teacher contracts, and its own everything.  And none of those public schools allow for prayer, even if some only teach under a hundred students.  This isn't a problem when some schools simply like to focus more on creativity and fine arts than math and science, but it is a serious problem in school systems like say... Trenton.  There are schools in that town that are so poor right now they can barely stay open as it is.  Trust me, you haven't seen real poverty and the class divisions in our society until you've seen an inner city school.  If federal and state funding were to disappear, those schools would be completely abandoned - with all their students left helpless as well.

The states became major forces in the educational world in the 19th century in order to fulfill a mandate to give free public education to all Americans.  The federal government got involved in the late 20th century in order to equalize that education.  From the Brown v. Board of Ed case onward, the federal government worked for fifty years giving minorities, girls, and the disabled the same quality of education as White boys as possible.  Santorum does not understand this history, or more likely is completely ignorant of it.  The school system is the institution in our society that is constantly the equalizer of America, the one institution that we trust to give everybody an equal chance to succeed.  Individual towns, communities, and parents are simply too filled with individual prejudices to even attempt that goal.  If Santorum gets his way, the already prison-like schools within the inner cities, schools that are so woeful as to prove to their students every day that society does not care about them, really will be forgotten and closed-down.  Instead of bad education, the poor will get no education.

And of course, Santorum is against gay marriage, against abortion, against immigration, does not believe in separation of church and state, does not believe in global warming, and wants to privatize social security.  He's a whirlwind of bad ideas.  Santorum calls himself a "compassionate conservative", which sounds like a positive thing.  But he's not a compassionate person, he hates everybody that doesn't act like he does - which is like a Dalek.  Compassionate to Santorum is a word he thinks means "the government can rapidly expand itself to regulate every part of our lives", while shrinking the government only in places that would let corporations conquer whatever remains of our free lives.  This is a serious problem, Santorum is the worst breed of political monster I've seen yet appear out of the Republican Party.  Santorum offers a path for America, one which nobody should follow him down.

So, honestly, I hate to say it, but vote Gingrich, Republicans.

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* Furthermore, I have no idea what Santorum means by "phony theology".  There are so many things this comment could mean, I doubt even Santorum knows what he's talking about.  It could be Communism, it could be Islam, it could be just plain old Liberalism, they're all equally invalid.  Apparently now Santorum is saying it was about "radical environmentalists".

** By the way, I feel bad for the woman who has to have sex with Rick Santorum.  I can't even imagine what that kind of frigid experience is like.  I bet he calls sex "my duty to God".