namelessgenxer:

August 14, 2011:

“Have you read my book, Fed Up? Get a copy and read it.”

~ GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Perry source

August 18, 2011:

“The Book [Fed Up] is not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto.”

~ Ray Sullivan, Perry Communications Director source

The Ten Weirdest Ideas In Rick Perry’s ‘Fed Up’

— 10. Social Security Is Evil: According to Perry Social Security is “by far the best example” of a program “violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles.” (page 48)

— 9. Private Enterprise Blossomed Under Conscription and Wartime Price Controls: Not only does he argue that the New Deal failed to end the Great Depression, but he asserts “recovery did not come until World War II, when FDR was finally persuaded to unleash private enterprise.” (page 48)

— 8. Medicare Is Too Expensive But Must Never Be Cut: Both establishing Medicare in 1965 and expanding it to include prescription drugs in 2003 are examples of “an irresponsible culture of spending in Washington” (page 63), but establishing “‘councils of experts’ and panels of various sorts” to assess the cost effectiveness of different Medicare-eligible treatments is a “frightening” “scheme” that “undermines freedom” and can be fairly labeled “death panels” (page 81).

— 7. All Bank Regulation Is Unconstitutional: Criticizing the Security and Exchange Commission’s rulemaking process under the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, Perry asserts that “if the Constitution were shown the appropriate respect, Washington regulation writers wouldn’t have to worry about underrepresented views, because they wouldn’t have control over them in the first place” (page 94).

— 6. Consumer Financial Protection Is Unconstitutional: Further reiterates his view that all federal financial regulation is illegitimate, listing the SEC on page 44 as part of a “federal alphabet soup” in which “undemocratic unelected Washington bureaucrats” are “now (dubiously) empowered to dictate their own preferences to the American people.”

— 5. Almost Everything Is Unconstitutional: Regrets the existence of jurisprudence construing the Commerce Clause to permit “federal laws regulating the environment, regulating guns, protecting civil rights, establishing the massive programs and Medicare and Medicaid, creating national minimum wage laws, [and] establishing national labor laws.” Perry makes a partial exception for laws barring racial discrimination which he says fulfill “the intent behind the passage of the Reconstruction Era amendments.” (page 51)

— 4. Federal Education Policy Is Unconstitutional: Cites the willingness of Republicans to vote for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as a “perfect example” of “losing sight of the fact that perfectly laudable policy choices at the local level are not appropriate (much less constitutional) at the federal level.” (page 87)

— 3. Al Gore Is Part Of A Conspiracy To Deny The Existence Of Global Cooling: Jokes that the Social Security Trust Fund “must be somewhere in Al Gore’s lockbox, right next to his notes from inventing the Internet and that global cooling data he doesn’t want anyone to see” (page 60). Argues that moderates oppose curbing greenhouse gas emissions because “they know that we have been experiencing a cooling trend” (page 92).

— 2. Not Only Is Everything Unconstitutional, Activist Judges Are A Problem: Having called the majority of the duly enacted modern welfare state and federal regulatory apparatus unconstitutional, Perry pivots to the complaint that “the [Supreme] court too often chooses to take it upon itself to govern and to develop policy” (page 114).

— 1. The Civil War Was Caused By Slaveowners Trampling On Northern States’ Rights: Rather than simply citing chattel slavery as an exemption to his “states’ rights are good” principle, Perry argues that slaveholder activism in the 1850s was an example of big government federal overreach. “In many ways it was was the northern states whose sovereignty was violated in the run-up to the Civil War,” he argues, citing the Fugitive Slave Act and completely ignoring the human rights of the enslaved African-Americans of the south. He says “we can never know what would have happened in the absence of federal involvement,” ignoring again the fact that federalism would have bought peace at the price of continued slavery.

“

Both Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry hail from the [Christian] Dominionist movement as well, replete with all of the tells of a Dominionist – the science denying, the sense of entitlement, the inaccurate American history, an understanding of The Constitution and America’s laws that conflicts with reality and deliberately tears down the wall of separation between church and state. And of course, the necessity of claiming that the “liberal media” is out to get them, which is the ‘Get Out Of Inaccuracies Free’ card they all pull when called on their failure to deal with reality.

These are folks who are emboldened to lie to your face because they a) believe these lies (Bachmann) or b) feel that they are the Chosen One (Perry, Palin, Walker, et al) and hence lying is justified in order to achieve the goal of taking Dominion over America.

~  Sarah Jones | PoliticusUSA | What is Dominionism? God, Guns and Greed

Dominionism is a bible-based sect of Christianity that does not represent mainstream Christians in America, or elsewhere in the world. This is a very powerful, very well organized and very wealthy religious-political machine that has been driving toward the goal of marrying church and state in America for decades.

For as long as humans have existed there have been politics. And even before the birth of Christianity – beliefs, superstitions and faith have wound their way into the rules that govern peoples. Wars have been fought and massive numbers of lives have been lost in the name of religion. A constant struggle to control land and populations has dictated the formations of rules and laws around the world from the very beginning, so when we see this same struggle for power continuing right before us within our own system of government I am stymied as to why this is such an unbelievable concept for us to take seriously. The refrain “history repeats itself” is not an empty one; rather it is a warning that we must heed.

As time has evolved so have the sophisticated intentions and goals of those who dedicate themselves to obtaining more power and more control. It does not matter whether others agree with them or not, this is about dominion. Religious zealots are undoubtedly a persistent part of this group, but they are certainly not doing this solo. What is making this eternal battle ever more dangerous is the blending of common purposes by other groups who share specific end goals. The common goals are smaller government, privatization, less regulation, a conservative Supreme Court, in order to implement favorable legal findings for private corporations, and conservative religious social laws.

~ excerpted from God, Guns and Greed: A Dangerous Path for America by Leah Burton 

(via namelessgenxer)