Why does Willard hate America so much?

While on a sojourn to assess whether the bumpkin factor in neighboring states can compete with Nevada's, the Gleaner is publishing excerpts from some older posts, in the firm belief that their unbridled brilliance was not fully appreciated the first time.

From Willard declares jihad on secularists, Dec. 6, 2007.

Americans may believe in many different brands of hocus pocus, but they all agree that people who don't believe in any hocus pocus at all aren't really Americans, Mitt the Magic Mormon said Thursday morning in one of the most offensive and intolerant tirades against individual belief ever delivered by a modern mainstream candidate for president from a major political party.

We've highlighted a few excerpts from Willard's remarks (in italics) and taken the "liberty" (if we may use that word) of providing some commentary from the apparently hated, discredited valueless point of view of a hapless non-believer.

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom."

Translation: Only people who believe in some complicated web of myths — say, as an example, the myth that a charlatan and plagiarist was visited by an angelic descendant of the planet Kolob bearing golden tablets — are capable of working toward economic and social justice and the defense and promotion of individual rights. Don't believe in god magic? Bad American! No freedom for you!

"Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

True, the crusades, the Inquisition and 9-11 remain powerful testaments to religion's historical commitment to protecting freedoms. Willard's got us there.

"Americans do not respect believers of convenience. Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world."

Curious that in a speech on god and stuff, Willard acknowledged that flip-flopping on abortion in a blatant act of brazen and obvious political opportunism has rendered him untrustworthy in the eyes of American voters. Oh well, moving along...

"The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation 'Under God' and in God, we do indeed trust."

What's this "We" shit? You got a mouse in your pocket Willard? Throughout the rest of his talk thingy, the draft-dodging flip-flopping dog-hating Magic Mormon transitioned from offensive to creepy by repeated references to "we" and "us" and "our," hammering home the point again and again that anyone who does not believe in god (or gods, in the case of Willard's faith) isn't really a citizen of the United States....

"We believe that every single human being is a child of God – we are all part of the human family."

OK, we get it — those of us who do not believe that every human being is "a child of god" are not Americans. But are we also denied membership in the human family? Not that it matters, s'pose, because Willard's fellow saints will get around to baptizing each and every person on the planet as Mormons after we're dead, so presumably at the end of the day we'll all get to return to the Kolobian solar system and be gods and have 113 wives (sorry, ladies) no matter what we believe or don't believe now....

"Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government."

Leaving aside the favorite rhetorical retreat of War Party politicians — the false dichotomy — no doubt some Americans do feel that liberty is a divine gift.

No doubt there are other Americans who acknowledge liberty as an underlying, foundational value and concept for which people have fought and died and been persecuted. Many Americans also acknowledge that some of those people who advocated and defended liberty through the ages were religious, some of them weren't, and as often as not, liberty's champions were attacked and killed in the name of the very organized religions and intense god-beliefs that Willard seems to think lie at the heart of every productive activity on the planet earth.

And still other Americans might acknowledge liberty is the right of individuals to think and act for themselves. They might define or interpret liberty in a way that doesn't have jack to do with Goddy McGod. Oh. Wait. According to the Willardian astrological map of the heavens, those people aren't Americans at all. Never mind.