So crazy met crazy yesterday and, well, talked about crazy stuff. Pretty much describes any two points in the Right Wing narrative today, doesn’t it? Specifically, Larry Pratt, president of Gun Owners of America, appeared on Gordon Klingenschmitt’s “Pray in Jesus’ Name” yesterday and called liberals not only “insane zealots” but unmoored from our shared reality.
Yes, they said that. Yes, this was Pratt saying this to Klingenschmitt, a man infamous for his own unmoored status. A man so for distant from our shared reality that even other Colorado Republicans want nothing to do with him, lest they be tainted by association.
Speaking of “insane zealots” unmoored from our shared reality, this is the same Gordon Klingenschmitt who,
- Said if you can’t go to church you can’t use the public restroom
- Said he wants Israel’s borders restored to those of 1500 BCE
- Said he wants to kill liberals
- Said the entire LGBT community “is guided by a powerful demon spirit who is subordinate to Satan”
- Said Christians will be “forced to worship sodomy”
- Said hardcore Islamist regime ISIL, that would kill a gay person as soon as look at them, is part of the “homosexual agenda”
- Said that gay Democratic congressman Jared Polis would “join ISIS in beheading Christians, but not just in Syria, right here in America.”
Yes, THAT Gordon Klingenschmitt. But WE are the ones, Pratt says, who are unmoored from reality and who do not live in a fact-based world.
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Did Pratt even NOTICE who’s show he was on?
As I said when I connected the dots above, crazy, crazy, crazy.
Check it out courtesy of Right Wing Watch:
Specifically, Pratt was attempting to prove that “gun-free zones” are not safe, and that liberals are basically shooting themselves in the foot by wanting to enforce gun controls. Our liberal “feelings” get in the way.
Their feelings are so intense that the string of mass murder after mass murder in gun-free zones just doesn’t seem to shake them off that conviction.
He tells us that “feeling safe is not the same as actually being safe.” Well thank you for that, Mr. Pratt. I can tell you that we are not just not feeling safe with all you gun noting nutjobs walking around, but that we are not safe.
Right, because nobody EVER gets shot in areas where people are free to tote guns around.
As if to prove my point, Pratt went on to explain,
We live in a rather different universe from those who support gun control. And just to repeat, the facts just don’t seem to ever get under their skin. I guess it’s the definition of a zealot that no matter how many times he fails at doing something, he knows that if he does it one more time the same way, he’s going to succeed. That’s otherwise known as the definition of a crazy person.
Well, he’s right about living in different universes, at any rate. And no, knowing an Einstein quote doesn’t make you sane.
Neither does wanting to eliminate all gun control laws:
We want to see gun control legislation taken off the books. We think ‘shall not be infringed’ means shall not be infringed, period! No other discussion is permitted by that language.
Oh you want to talk Second Amendment, Mr. Pratt?
The Second Amendment states:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I don’t see a well-regulated militia. I see a rabble of illiterate beer-bellied white supremacists. If we’re going to pick on any part of the amendment, let’s pick on ALL of it.
One last thing to keep min mind. This is the same Gordon Klingenschmitt who previously railed against we mere mortals “adding to God’s law.” At the time, railing against LGBT rights, the disgraced former Navy chaplain cited Deuteronomy 12:32, which says (AKJV):
What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: you shall not add thereto nor diminish from it.
That’s why, he says, “America’s law needs to reflect God’s law. Because otherwise American law is telling some people, ‘Oh this is really legal’ when it’s actually illegal under God’s law.”
So, what you’re saying then, Gordo (can I call you ‘Gordo’?) – and I’m just going to run this up the flagpole and you tell me if I’m right – is that we ought to do away with man’s law.
Of course, that includes the Second Amendment, because it’s not God’s law. I mean, it was ratified by Congress, not by God. And it’s not in the Bible.
Falling back on God’s law – and I’m just flipping through my trusty Bible here – I don’t see any of God’s laws allowing ownership of guns.
Oh dear. Oh, OH dear!
I’m sure that wasn’t intentional.
Can I get a “My bad!” from God?
Sorry, Mr. Pratt. According to Klingenschmitt’s own logic, you can’t own any guns at all, because the Second Amendment is “man’s” law and not “God’s law” and therefore irrelevant.
I have to say, although he’s not my god, that I think this is one your god got right. If you want guns, you’re going to have to depend on man’s law, and man’s law says gun ownership is dependent upon a well-ordered militia.
These days, we call that the National Guard.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
