Tennessee’s governor, Bill Haslam, recently appointed a well-qualified resident of the state to be the new international director of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. Her name is Samar Ali. And you can guess where this is going.
The state tea-partiers and Republicans are hysterical. SHE’S A MOOOSLIIIIM!
They bought ads in the newspaper decrying the hiring of Ali because she’s Muslim. Various county leaders are outraged and are passing resolutions condemning Haslam because he hired a Muslim. Oh, and as long as the bigots are emboldened, they’re also tossing in complaints about the fact that Haslam hasn’t fired enough homosexuals.
You know, this is why government is supposed to be secular. As long as the people doing the work of administration keep their religion out of their work, as long as they are responsible to everyone in their state, as long as they are competent, I don’t care whether they’re Christian or Muslim or atheist. Unfortunately, our privileged, selfish Christian conservatives have this mistaken notion that the purpose of government is to act as an arm of the Christian church, and that evangelical fervor is an adequate substitute for competence, and that is doing us great harm.
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Brownian
18 July 2012 at 8:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What a bunch of fucking dipshits.
Hiring people because they happen to belong to the same team, Jesus-wise, is the very antithesis of meritocracy.
Tea partners are the dumbest fucking people in the world. They should be served for dinner in finer establishments. It’s what we do with herd animals.
conway
18 July 2012 at 8:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m so glad I’m from Memphis and not from Tennessee.
MarkNS
18 July 2012 at 8:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m so glad I’m from Canada…
d cwilson
18 July 2012 at 8:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Just swap out “Muslim” with the N-word and their rhetoric would fit right in the Jim Crow era.
kassad
18 July 2012 at 8:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But apart from that, calling the Tea Party a bunch of racist nativist bigots is a slander. Here is just an amazing group of patriots. Disgusting asshats. Freedom and the principles of the Constitution my ass.
The invention of a time machine is necessary, so you can bring Jefferson to slap them until the stupid comes out.
earlycuyler
18 July 2012 at 8:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ha Ha –points to Tennessee.
Wait, I am in Louisiana.
Nevermind.
Gaebolga
18 July 2012 at 8:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But you just don’t get it, PZ…all these poor American Christians are being persecuted by having to confront the fact that stuff they don’t like actually exists.
Think of the poor Christians’ feelings, PZ!
They’re martyrs!
krgrace
18 July 2012 at 8:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, when a governor named “Ha-Islam” is elected, what should one expect?
Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation
18 July 2012 at 9:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I fixed it for you.
Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus
18 July 2012 at 9:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tennessee. What a bunch of idiots. I’m from Pennsylvania which gave the world Santorum. And my representative is Lou Barletta. And, well, never mind.
The Tea Party movement is still not a coherent political philosophy. It is the political equivalent of a three-year-old’s temper tantrum — “I don’ wanna!” repeated endlessly is not politics.
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
18 July 2012 at 9:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ewww, she got mooooslim cooties all over the state economy.
Dalillama, Schmott Guy
18 July 2012 at 9:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Brownian
But you see, to these dipshits, merit consists of yelling about Jesus a lot, waving Bibles around, and an unswerving devotion to conservative ideology.
radpumpkin
18 July 2012 at 9:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, yes, but aside from the misogyny, discrimination against religious beliefs, sexuality, or race, general hostility towards dissenting viewpoints, rampant hypocrisy, lack of any coherent message and evidence based claims, and an overwhelming sense of entitlement, the tea party folk ain’t so bad.
Dick the Damned
18 July 2012 at 9:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I do. I want to know if a candidate believes crazy stuff. Okay, i know a lot of them, (the faithful), behave as if they don’t believe it. So, I also want to know if a candidate is intellectually dishonest.
w00dview
18 July 2012 at 9:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Don’t let ludicrous see you say that, you will be accused of oppressing children. Mind you, most children I have met have more nuanced views of the world than tea partiers.
Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus
18 July 2012 at 9:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What else do they have?
Yup. There I go, viciously silencing children. What can I say? I’m just evil.
bodach
18 July 2012 at 9:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Somebody show me a puppy or pretty squid; I am getting so fucking depressed by this shit.
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
18 July 2012 at 10:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I got your back, Bodach:
Puppy!!
Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation
18 July 2012 at 10:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I got something better: Piglet!
feedmybrain
18 July 2012 at 10:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
How is it that these people can still be so brazenly racist!
Am I in the wrong eon?
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
18 July 2012 at 10:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@feedmybrain:
Sometimes I think we took a wrong turn around Dallas and ended up in Colonial times.
Of course the Tea Partiers wouldn’t call it racist. Nor would anyone who objects to being (properly) labeled an Islamophobe. They’re only protecting this country from people who want to… I dunno… install a form of government that would never fly in this country because a) we have laws against it and b) to change said laws would require consensus of the majority in most cases and 2/3rds majority with 35 state ratification in others.
sundiver
18 July 2012 at 10:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kassad: The down side to trying to slap the stupid out of them is that the shit tends to splatter. The upside is, to steal a line from Hitchens, if you do right before they die, you can bury them in a matchbox.
sundiver
18 July 2012 at 10:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That is, if you do SO right before they die. Stupid computer of mine always does what I type, not what I mean.
feedmybrain
18 July 2012 at 10:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort:
Point taken on the label.
I think it rises from fear of change and an arrogance in their belief that their demographic is the correct one.
It’s the way I interpret it when similar, though more subtle, ideas come out over here (UK).
Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation
18 July 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I even heard thugs wear jeans. So shooting anybody wearing jeans is just self-defence? Amirite?
Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation
18 July 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Whops, wrong tab :( Ignore the idiot in the corner, that one was destined for another tread in another blog :(
'Tis Himself
18 July 2012 at 11:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Teabaggers claim to interpret the Constitution most strictly. So why are they ignoring Article VI?
RFW
18 July 2012 at 11:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ #17 bodach says:
Kittehs!
Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus
18 July 2012 at 11:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Only counts for Christians. And the occasional Jew.
truthspeaker
18 July 2012 at 12:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Remember how when you were a kid you learned both at home and in school that racism was bad, a practice of the past that was no longer socially acceptable?
Some kids heard that school, but heard the opposite from their parents at home.
Some kids didn’t even hear it in school.
Those people who, back in the 50s, walked behind the first black kids going to newly integrated schools calling them the n word? They had kids and tried to pass their views onto their kids.
truthspeaker
18 July 2012 at 12:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
They’re about as familiar with the Constitution as most biblical literalists are with the Bible.
anuran
18 July 2012 at 12:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s because only Christianity is a Real Religion. The Constitution was only meant to apply to property-owning Protestant men.
anuran
18 July 2012 at 12:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry, “property-owning White Protestant men.”
anuran
18 July 2012 at 12:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hope I didn’t forget to close my tags on that last post.
dmill96
18 July 2012 at 12:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is Michelle on the case? One more example of the takeover of government by the shadow mooslem conspiracy.
What a Maroon, el papa ateo
18 July 2012 at 12:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Which Michelle? Because the one in the White House is clearly a lackey of that conspiracy. (Have you ever noticed how she never encourages kids to eat pork or drink alcohol?)
What a Maroon, el papa ateo
18 July 2012 at 12:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In fact, now that I think about it this may be the root cause of rabid Islamophobia in the US. Can you imagine an America without ribs or whisky? It’s not a place I’d want to live in.
What a Maroon, el papa ateo
18 July 2012 at 1:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But speaking of the other Michelle (Bachmann): modern-day McCarthyism.
At least there’s one Republican Senator who hasn’t completely lost his mind.
mikefrancis
18 July 2012 at 1:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ #13 radpumpkin:
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
What a Maroon, el papa ateo
18 July 2012 at 2:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I was thinking it more as a sort of photographic negative of Reg’s speech about the Romans in Life of Brian:
“All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”
thisisaturingtest
18 July 2012 at 2:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@#27, ‘Tis Himself:
I’ve had wingnuts explain to me that that only applies to federal officeholders. Of course, that’s not only simple-minded and just plain wrong, but irrelevant, since Tennessee’s own Constitution says, in Article 1, Section 4:
What’s interesting here is this, in Article 9:
You can be a Muslim and hold office; you can’t be an atheist (which seems to contradict Article 1, Section 4, quoted above). I look for some bigot to claim that a Muslim is an atheist, since they’re not a Christian, therefore…
daniellavine
18 July 2012 at 2:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@thisisaturingtest:
It is indeed irrelevant, per your quote from the Tennessee state constitution. But the wingnuts are indeed correct that this article only applies to federal officeholders.
This should be obvious because many if not most states had religious tests for state office during the ratification of the constitution and for several decades afterwards.
grumpypathdoc
18 July 2012 at 2:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
kassad@5
I see a movie possibility:
“Thomas Jefferson-Tea Party Hunter”
thisisaturingtest
18 July 2012 at 3:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
daniellavine, @#42:
IANAL, but…it seems iffy to me. I understand what you’re saying, but the entire clause reads:
My bolds.
The semicolon dividing the two clauses could be seen as separating them as to intent to apply the proscription (and probably has been seen as doing so in case law- as I said, IANAL, and could be reading it wrong); but I think a case could be made that state offices are covered as well as federal by the prohibition for religious tests.
grumpypathdoc
18 July 2012 at 3:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
w00dview@15
Indeed no need to cast aspersions on the children. Children, generally, just want an answer as to the why of things. Temper tantrums or not. Except when they get highjacked later in life.
Ahhh, human nature, so easily seduced by the mythos, whatever form it takes. My son the chiropractor (and anti-vaccinator), my two daughter, one studying “traditional Chinese medicine” (after receiving a BFA in furniture design from RIT) and the other a graphic designer turned massage therapist. At least my daughters are “soft” atheists. My son, an evangelical christian (or so he purports, I suspect he goes to church to get business). I tried to teach them the logical ways but you can’t control external influences.
Hell, I didn’t wake up to my true “beliefs” till I was in my 50′s, Thanks to PZ and the rest of you. But I’ve always been a leftist libertarian (-6.62;-6.15). Peter Kropotkin anyone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin
daniellavine
18 July 2012 at 4:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@aturingtest:
Ah, yes…actually, I think you’re being kind to me. That’s less ambiguous than I would have guessed. You’ve convinced me.
I should have known better than to think it wasn’t the law just because it wasn’t enforced.
kingoftoasty
18 July 2012 at 6:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ daniellavine, #42
Actually, if I’m not mistaken, the due process clause of the 14th amendment is used to apply the bill of rights to the states
microraptor
18 July 2012 at 6:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Didn’t
ToadNewt already do that last year?Ing: Gerund of Death
18 July 2012 at 6:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not since before the civil war.
dysomniak, darwinian socialist
18 July 2012 at 6:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Never heard of him.
shadow
20 July 2012 at 3:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wouldn’t there be a danger of prions transmitting TPD (Tea Party Disfunction) like other mental aberrations (like CJD)?