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Ear to the Ground

Santorum’s Satan Complex

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Posted on Feb 21, 2012
Wikimedia Commons

Satan Goes to Washington: This political cartoon by Grant E. Hamilton was published in January 1885 in the magazine The Judge. 

Putting aside any of the possible reasons why Rick Santorum invoked the mighty evil that is Satan while spiritually assessing America during a speech at Ave Maria University in 2008, as that would constitute unhelpful speculation at this time, we think Forbes’ Josh Barro has some good points about the telling blind spots in Santorum’s diagnosis. Here’s a bit of the history lesson Barro offers in his piece.

Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh says Santorum’s got some ’splainin’ to do.  —KA

Forbes:

Let’s think back to what America was like almost 200 years ago. Slavery was legal, indeed enshrined in our Constitution by our Founding Fathers. The federal government was forcibly removing American Indians from their lands, leading to thousands of deaths. Women couldn’t vote and were limited in their rights to own property. And yet, Santorum sees Satan wielding more influence and having more success in America today than he did then.

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Shenonymous's avatar

By Shenonymous, February 22 at 2:33 pm Link to this comment

It rarely happens, but I agree with Robespierre.  My thanks for the
correction.  I was not paying attention.  Yes, he is an extreme
conservative truly reactionary Dark Ages Catholic.  What an AH! 
And I don’t mean Air Head.  He certainly knows how to genuflect
with puckered lips.  My mistake earlier and my apologies.  It was
not Protestantism, he would be a terrible emissary for Catholicism. 
Unless Catholicism is no longer considered Christian.  Well according
to freaky Evangelical Franklin Graham, Catholicism has almost been
drummed out of the Christian corps.  Christianity started with Luther
according to him (he’s an idiot too!).  But if there were a God, I know
in my heart (LOL), Santorum would not be blessed.  Having been a
Catholic until my teens, having studied the Church catechism, had
Holy Communion and had Confirmation by the regional Bishop,
belonging to a young Catholic society, I know as far as knowing can
go that he does not live the Christian principles.  His values are not
the values of Christ.  His religious vision is impaired by the ugly
hypocritical politics he has chosen over his God.  His mouth will get
him a table with the Satan’s he invokes so often. 

NPR has totally won my favor, they did not put one Santorum headline
or story on the front page of todays online issue!

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prisnersdilema's avatar

By prisnersdilema, February 22 at 12:27 pm Link to this comment

There are many religious sects in this country that have always seen anything modern as
the work of the Devil. Unfortunately, they will not leave everyone else alone, but keep
trying to impose their own antideliuvian views everywhere they go.

Religion never ceases to be a problem, either here or else where. Though sometimes it
does good works it seems to have unending ability to make people mad. In this sems it
is very much like the thirst for power, an infintie source of madness.

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By Ed Romano, February 22 at 12:26 pm Link to this comment

Robespierre 115, The fact people like Santorum, Gingrich, William F. Buckley and the like can find a comfortable home in Catholicism is pretty much all we need to determine that Roman Catholicism is a dead issue as far as Christianity is concerned. God bless this man, but in a sane world I think the authorities would be seriously thinking of having him committed.

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Robespierre115's avatar

By Robespierre115, February 22 at 11:48 am Link to this comment

@Shenonymous, although to be clear: He’s a reactionary CATHOLIC.

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By MondoBizarro, February 22 at 10:06 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Santorum is no fool. Like any good salesman, he knows what the market will bear,
and he’s giving a certain segment of resentful white protestants the old bang for
buck ride.

If anything, Santorum is the inevitable product of a society awash in willful
ignorance and sanctimonious superstition. As long as it remains socially
acceptable to ignore evidence, dismiss science, and indulge in fantasies about
golden days of yore, there are going to be Santorums stalking the wings, ready to
seize their moment on the stage.

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Shenonymous's avatar

By Shenonymous, February 22 at 9:32 am Link to this comment

Santorum is a terrible envoy for Protestantism. He is unChristian so
much that it hurts to listen to his sub-animal bigotry because of its
injustice and immorality.  It smacks of religious quackery.  The neo-
Elmer Gantry of politics.  Gingrich also sounded like a religious snake
oil salesman, a sophist of religion, these many weeks of acrimony. 
The intensity of caustic Republican articulation, bitter and virulent is
nothing ennobled civilized people would act voluntarily. With Santorum
it sounds like centuries of enlightenment have been lost. It is a form of
barbarism, or primitiveness.  It is the anti-democratic contour of the
Republican conservative mind and a hostility to an intellectual
engagement with the world.  Knowing people question the dogma
they are spoon fed. The raw nerves he is hitting of the vulgar
Republican riffraff only goes to show how ignorant are the
uneducated or contaminated education that is small-minded due
to homespun philistinism.  He is a dangerous mouth to infect the
general population with an intoleration of the most prepossessed
fanatic.  He is monomaniacal.  Who has just the kind of insanity that
would put this country on the road to perdition.  I think he is doing
more damage to Protestant Christianity than has been done in many
a year.  He and people like Franklin Graham will wreck the religion and
retard its attraction for new membership.

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By Pat, February 22 at 9:12 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Salem witchtrials on steroids given the extent of its exposure - a national crisis by anyone’s objective judgement.

VA stance on vaginal probes sounds a bit like the stripping of women to examine marks of witchcraft as they did in Salem, and other locales in 1650-1700.

How can it be judged otherwise than wrongheaded male supremacy under the premise of authoritarian Gods/Satans that men tout as the natural subordination of women to men?

The GOP has little to offer but whack-o science/spirituality touted as conservative values with economic expertise, both of which are unfounded, and ill advised. America needs this like a hole in the head.

America cannot be governed by superstition!

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By FBirdTRv, February 22 at 8:05 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Quote: This is possibly a stupid question but could whoever please tell what ‘WHATM’ and ‘bump’ means. Most I can work out but these two have me beat! WHATM is used in the BB site when live feed is on and it stands for ‘Whats Happening At The Moment’ Bump is when you article in a theme that is old, i.e. you bumped it back up to the top. I’m not completely new to forums, but have had some poor experiences - there has always seemed to be a click of affiliates that is hard to break into!
<a >health fitness</a>

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By balkas, February 22 at 1:48 am Link to this comment

godologists cannot live without devilogy. without
the devil and devilry in their lives ther ‘gods’
disappear in thin air!

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By gerard, February 21 at 8:04 pm Link to this comment

I often wonder about the nightmares of the Right—not so much where they come from, but why they seem never to wear out and get discarded.  My guess is that centuries ago, when the story-tellers sat around the dying fire after having eaten a meal of half-raw meat, as the glow of the coals grew dimmer the night grew bigger and darker. Wolves could be plainly heard sniffing at the edges of the camp. Everything seemed haunted, threatening and vast.
Stories told before bedtime were less than reassuring because the winds of danger never ceased from blowing in spite of all efforts toward propitiation. 
  Time came when eyes could no longer remain open and even the night watchman fell asleep. Brains could still not sleep. Remembrance of fears caused even the beams of moonlight to be translated into icy lanes that penetrated the dark ground, pointing the way to an even darker place where a demon even more heartless presided with awesome power as Judge and Jury over the fractious human will.
  Such extremes must still be haunting all those today who believe in spite of total lack of evidence that we are so important compared to the heartless stars that the whims and judgments of beings invented by prehistoric fiction still rule over us, and throughout countless ages have refused to remove their masks lest the truth would take away their power. 
  Yet even more troublesome is the knowledge that the power structures everywhere today still try to maintain the same secrecy and invisibility, and tremble like grass in the wind when Reason attempts to remove the masks. FREE BRADLEY MANNING AND JULIAN ASSANGE.

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