Mike Huckabee – Another Step Closer to Theocracy and Religious Dictatorship?

As I have posted several times in this blog, the religious right, or right-wing authoritarians (RWA), are a significant voting block in this country and they want to make major changes in our laws, our government and our way of life to suit their narrow exclusive beliefs. Well, guess who this group wants as their political leader? Right, it’s Mike Huckabee. But, did you know the Iowa Caucus was not the first time he was their number one choice.

Last September 17, 2007, Huckabee won the values voter straw poll at the Values Voter Presidential Debate. As this ‘debate’ progressed, Huckabee’s rating grew from 35 percent to 63 percent.

This ranking was based on the candidates response to a questionnaire of more than 50 questions. Here is the survey and the Republican’s candidates yes or no answers. Please take a look and see what they want of our next president and what Mike Huckabee agrees with.

This gathering of RWAs took place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where they declared Huckabee “as the pro-family winner,” and most of the attendees were from the southeast. On a scale of 0 to 9, with 9 being the strongest, they rated the overall strength (or agreement with their views) of each Republican candidate. Huckabee’s scores went from 31 percent to 68 percent by the end of the gathering.

Then we have the results from the September Iowa Caucuses. One CNN story stated, “Christian conservatives are critical to any GOP presidential candidate, and Iowa is no exception. But Huckabee’s support among those voters was overwhelming, in both numbers and in intensity: As many as 80 percent of his backers Thursday were self-identified evangelicals, according to entrance polls.”

In another CNN story where the exit poll compared Huckabee to Romney, Huckabee supporters said, “that a candidate’s religious beliefs matter ‘a great deal’ overwhelmingly supported Huckabee by a margin of 56 percent to 11 percent.”

So, who are these values voters? What do they want for this country and the rest of us? What kind of republic do they want for the rest of us and why do they prefer Mike Huckabee?

Here is how they describe themselves and what that says about Mike Huckabee:

In our Declaration of Independence we determined among other things: to value our national relationship with our Creator God; to value the fact that He gave us our human rights; and to value the truth that we instituted our government — not for the purpose of creating rights — but rather for the purpose of recognizing and securing the rights that God embedded into all of human kind at creation.

We also value the right of a free people to govern themselves according to their constitutional form of government and to not be subject to tyrannical judges that legislate from the bench and subvert our constitution and the will of the American people.

For a little more insight into this group of voters and the man they want for president, here are some excerpts from their “Voters Values’ Contract with Congress.” They start off by basing it on their faith in their God and then reviewing the assault on their beliefs by liberals and progressives.

We are citizens of the United States of America and subjects of the sovereign Creator, acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence as the Supreme Ruler and Judge of the World.

Moved by our faith in God and this republican creed we join together now to defend representative self-government against the greatest assault it has ever faced. This assault has been more dangerous and successful because it comes from within and aims to destroy not just our physical defenses, but the moral ideas, habits and practices that sustain our character as a free people.

For some decades now supposedly “liberal” and “progressive” forces within our society have waged an insidious campaign to corrupt and destroy the moral foundations of our liberty. Under the compassionate guise of government welfare and social programs they have eroded our fortitude and self-discipline, taxed away our independent resources, and in particular undermined the centrality of family as the locus of individual self-reliance. Under the guise of sexual freedom and self-determination they have corrupted our sense of responsibility for our own offspring in the womb and for our biological relationships in general. This ultimately affects all relationships that draw upon the capacity for self-sacrifice we ought naturally to learn and practice in the context of decent family life. Under the guise of scientific knowledge, and a fallacious separation of religion from public life, they have thrown off the yoke of reason, and denied our sovereign right to acknowledge, as a people, the existence and authority of the Creator. But the Creator’s being and will represent the principle of unity that makes possible both the diversity of individuals and the orderly community that, on the whole, they may become. Thus, though they masquerade as the champions of community and compassion, these self-styled “liberals” and “progressives” have discarded the principle of unity, the sense of a common good, indispensable to both.

As the principal instrument for their assault upon the foundations of our liberty they have resorted to an abuse of the judicial system, and in particular the Federal judiciary’s assertion of supreme and unchecked constitutional power that supersedes and may arbitrarily nullify any action taken by the executive or legislative branches.

… the US Supreme Court has … created from its false reading of the Establishment Clause a pervasive hostility to religion.

… the Courts have purported to forbid prayer and other religious elements in government funded schools, activities and projects authorized by the people;

Having in this abusive fashion denied the people’s authority over their own religious affairs, power-grabbing Judges have begun a similar campaign against the general moral authority of the people.

But the Courts have also assaulted the strength of our national identity more directly: by using foreign laws in their decisions and by interfering with establishment of immigration policies.

After listing the issues that threaten their beliefs, they listed what they want from Congress and expect Mike Huckabee to support. Here are some highlights of their 30 item wish list. They include references to related House and Senate bills:

• Promotion of their God in public places including your place of work with H.R. 2389, 1070, 2679 and 1445, and S. 1046, 520 and 677.
• Make sure that marriage is only between one man and one woman with H.R. 1100.
• Securing parental rights over their children and other adults with H.R. 748, 181 and 1790.
• Secure our “God-bestowed right to life” with H.R 1357, 356, and S. 658 and 51
• Eliminating the separation of church and state and eliminating religious expression as a hate crime
• Eliminating all pornography and obscenity by making sure the First Amendment does not apply to it
• Securing our national borders, and
• An urgent call, for judicial restraint and an end to liberal judicial activism

This group of voters and Mike Huckabee are also referred to as social issue voters. In 2006, John Dean made the following statements about social conservatives in his book Conservatives Without Conscience:

Social conservatives, whose core members are Christian conservatives, comprise the largest and most cohesive faction of conservatism. They are, by and large, typical right-wing authoritarian followers. Both neoconservatives [social dominator authoritarians] and social conservatives include countless conservatives without conscience within their ranks [Christianists].

Social conservatives are especially susceptible to irrational beliefs ….

… Social conservatives are deeply offended by atheists who want the words “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, yet … they recite … that pledge and its words: “liberty and justice for all.” For all but atheists [and moderates, liberals, peace mongers, scientists, climatologists, artists, gays, actors, except Fred Thompson, non-Republicans, non-whites, non-Christians, non-conformers, non-feelers or thinkers, hybrid owners, agnostics, union members, dissenters, suspected terrorists and anyone not like them] ….

They represent 43 percent of registered Republicans.

But there is hope. Based on the total votes cast, 827,462, for the IOWA caucus and New Hampshire primary Huckabee came in 6th with 8 percent of the total votes. What is really important is the voter turnout for the Democrats – 57 percent of the total votes cast. If that can be maintained across the nation, the November election will not be close and Democrats have 10 percentage points over the closest Republican. The social/value issue voters won’t have a chance.