JABbering Stooge

…this would be the only type of “art” that could legally be produced. (Yes, I said “legally.”)

The “artist,” Jon McNaughton, is trying to propagate the notion that America is a “Christian Nation™®©,” and that only by ripping the Constitution to shreds and becoming a theocracy can we “get right with Zombie Jesus, as the Founding Fathers intended.” This is basically the radical Christianist right’s version of Piss Christ, only unlike those on the right, I don’t want it censored, I just want to mock it! (That IS still legal, right?)

Shall we?

When you run the mouse pointer over the picture at McNaughty’s site, part of the image will show up enlarged at the right of the picture with descriptive text underneath. Here are some samples, along with my commentary:

A more apt description of today’s Republican party I could never find. The fact that the “artist” (unintentionally, perhaps) depicts The Politician™ in the likeness of Senator John Cornyn is just gravy.

Right. Because no conservative trope has EVER made it into a mainstream Hollyweird movie. Oh wait… (Is it just me, or does the “Hollywood Guy” look like Chuck Norris?)

Uh huh. If I had a nickel penny for every time a conservative fantasized about purging ‘Murka of the evil, treasonous, Mexislamohomofascist-loving, dirty fucking hippies in a civil war, I could retire comfortably right now. So while his fantasy “Civil War soldier” may be weeping over the prospect of Civil War v. 2.0, I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that the thought gives Mr. McNaughton here a massive stiffy.

Beware! Evil Professor is EVIL! With his +6 Book of Darwinian Indoctrination, he will quickly sap and impurify the precious bodily fluids innocent minds of your children with Satanic things like facts and logic and reason! And standing tall against him is this guy:

Note that this is one of the few minorities among the Real ‘Murkins, separated from the godless commie traitor scum as per Matthew 25:31-46 (never mind that these Modern Pharisees routinely act in a manner that would get them condemned to “everlasting fire” — see, for instance, their treatment of homosexuals and non-Christians). If McNaughton is true to form in his wingnuttery, he probably imagines that this young man is homeschooled and thus, in his fevered imagination, far smarter than Professor Smartypants McDoomy. But wait. What’s that, you say? Books? Are those books in his hand? What sort of books?

That’s right! It’s the Glenn Beck Bible: The Gospel According to Willard Cleon Skousen The Five-Thousand Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen, a man who was too nutty even for the Birchers, if you can believe that!

So Mr. McNaughty subscribes to Becktology. That explains a lot!

On the other hand, we have this:

A “generic schoolteacher” who vaguely resembles Private Citizen Sarah “Quitter” Palin. Coincidence? I think not! So why is she a “Real American™,” but not Professor Commie McTreason? Could it be that McNaughty thinks that primary and secondary school teachers are more pliable to the whims of theocracy-inclined school board members? You decide.

Sidebar: Other incongruous inclusions include President Eisenhower, who in addition to his military service (which wingnuts love), pushed for the creation of the Interstate Highway System (Socialist stimulus money!) and warned against the Military-Industrial Complex in his farewell address (Treason!) and John F. Kennedy, the first and only Catholic POTUS, who is only remembered fondly by wingnuts because he stood up to the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis and was tragically assassinated (which some wingnuts at the time celebrated). And, in addition to relegating the 19th century abolitionist and suffragist Frederick Douglass to the back of the bus, as it were, McNaughty misspells his name!

Naturally, no wingnut wankfest would be complete without engaging in fetus fetishism. After all, to hear them tell it, the only value a woman has is as a brood-mare for the State, and if more of these “ambulatory incubators” die in childbirth as a result, so much the better. (Just like the Taliban! Hmmm….)

Yep, those conservative-dominated courts have been real paragons of Constitutional literalism, haven’t they? 

And just which rulings does McNaughty object to?

Figures. What wingnut doesn’t spend every waking hour cursing the Burger Court for this ruling?

So the Supreme Court ruled that it is legal for corrupt corporations to collude with corrupt local politicians to defraud citizens out of their homes in the name of the Almighty Dollar? This is the ultimate in capitalism — conservatives ought to be on board with this!

Quite right. How dare Congress protect consumers in Massachusetts from toxic products made in Tennessee? (Or China, for that matter!)

What? The Supreme Court ruled that public schools (“government schools,” for the hard of thinking) can’t legally be used as Christian madrassas? Heresy!

These next two really threw me for a loop because McNaughty’s bitching about them really seemed to come out of left field. But then I was struck by an epiphany.

What? The Supreme Court ruled that they weren’t merely a rubber stamp on laws passed by Congress? That’s unconstitutional*!

And if that weren’t enough, McNaughty helpfully provides a decoder ring for his Talibangelical splooge.

Number 20 is particularly precious:

There are fifty stars shining in the heavens as they peek through the breaking clouds. These stars represent the fifty states of the Union. Some stars shine brighter than others.

Lemme guess: the bright stars represent the states full of Real ‘Murkins™ who did their patriotic duty by voting for President-in-Exile McCain Palin, whereas the dim stars represent states infested with commiesymps who voted for B. Hussein Osama X The Usurper, amirite?

And near the bottom of the page, McNaughty decides he wants to play Dueling Founder Quotes. Two can play that game:

“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”
— Benjamin Franklin

“The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.”
— Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1758

“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession.”
— Abraham Lincoln

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

“Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
— Thomas Jefferson, to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purposes.”
— Thomas Jefferson, to Horatio G Spafford, March 17, 1814

“If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. […] Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God.”
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

“As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?”
— John Adams, letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

“The civil government […] functions with complete success […] by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
— James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432

“What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient allies.”
— James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, addressed to the Virginia General Assembly, June 20, 1785

“Religion flourishes in greater purity without than with the aid of government.”
— James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

“Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute threepence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?”
— James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, addressed to the Virginia General Assembly, June 20, 1785

If you prefer, there’s also a snarky antidote to McNaughty’s poison work over at shortpacked.com.

* Ironic, no?