The American Christian Theocratic Candidate.

A vote for Mike Huckabee is not just a vote for a republican or a conservative. It is not even just a vote for some one who believes in Christianity. A vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote to destroy the primary tenant of the first amendment. Huckabee a former Baptist pastor is by recent polls gaining in the Republican primary. It is unfortunate but a vote for him will send our country further down the dark spiral we have been traveling on. Not just because he has no real positions internationally or economically but because of his platform being based primarily on him being The Christian Candidate. In a country that has nothing but Christian candidates for president this might seem out of place. Why is it such a problem that he is campaigning primarily on Jesus? I mean after all another republican candidate recently said “freedom can’t exist without religion”(Romeny). But Huckabee stands out from them all as being the Christian Theocratic Candidate because of his campaign rhetoric.

His call for a return to a Christian country that never existed ought to be grounds enough for him to be considered a threat to the first amendment. His recent statement alone are enough to convince even the most passive supporters of our constitution not just of his personal faith in his religion but in his belief that, his religion is the answer for every one. "The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity," he said. "And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior."(1) Huckabee has blamed our countries problems on the lack of belief in a singular Abrahamic god. Sorry Mike but the reason we have broken humans has less to do with the fact that people have given up god and more to do with the actions of those who have turned towards him. The Republican Party and many other Christian conservatives are the problem. Their policies and general unchristian behavior has helped turn our country into a cesspool of ignorance and moral outrage over unimportant issues, such as abortion, and gay marriage. By confusing the real issues and supporting people who want to make money more then help the country they have contributed far more to destruction of our country.

Funny that when the country as a whole has become the most religious and Christian it has ever been, that it is the failure of us to get right with god which is causing all our problems. It seems exactly the opposite to me it is not the lack of god that is the problem, but that we have too much. Much like the conservative viewpoint that wanted to shrink government down to the size that it could be drowned in a bathtub. Christian Conservatives like Mr. Huckabee don’t really want democratic government. What they want is a theocratic state that is controlled by the church. "I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives."(1) What Mr. Huckabee has is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because he views government as being wrong, he acts in a way to force government to fail and when it does he trumpets that government is always going to fail and we have to go back to god.

This can be seen in his view of charity. Huckabee believes that the government should not be taking care of the people but that churches should. This view is not only antiquated but also flat out wrong. “I'm often asked why taxes are so high and government is so big. It's because the faith we have in local churches has become so small. If we'd been doing what we should have -- giving a dime from every dollar to help the widows, the orphans and the poor -- we now wouldn't be giving nearly 50 cents of every dollar to a government that's doing ... what we should have been doing all along."(1) Taxes aren’t high because of welfare for the poor they are high because of corporate welfare, pork barreling, cronyism, and excessive military spending. Welfare to the poor makes up a very small percentage of our taxes, but some how it’s the problem. Well guess what Mike the world tried your solution and it didn’t work. For many hundreds of years there were no state supported system of welfare, only charities run by religious institutions, and they failed to illuminate poverty. It is because poverty is a problem of having a capitalist society. The mere fact of creating a market for things means some people are going to be poor. Religious charities, even more so then government institutions actually want to perpetuate this because it gives them a reason to exist, and power in the community. So giving to religious institutions will not actually lessen the need or the amount of money spent on helping the homeless, just make the institutions religious. Sure this is fine if its just helping the poor but many of these institutions are also used to recruit and to enforce belief, which is wrong because it uses aid as an incentive for religious indoctrination.

Huckabee continues to stump on things like the school shooting and the most recent shootings of some Christian missionaries. To him these are examples of a lack of faith in god, much like Katrina was a response to our lack of faith, or the Westburough Baptist churches hate filled view that Gays are the reason we have troops dying. Huckabee says the reason for children’s violence is not just a lack of faith but a lack of parent doing what he feels is their job. "It is Mom and Dad raising kids and teaching them respect for authority, others and God."(1) Well guess what Mr. Huckabee My parents raised me with a heavy dose of questioning Authority and no respect for god and I never killed any one. I’m a great citizen who pays taxes and volunteers, I am not the problem and neither is a lack of faith in your god. The problem is the faith in your god because it allows people to ignore the real solutions and wait for a solution to miraculously appear from the heavens. It allows you to blame a thing that is very hard to prove the level of faith in god as the cause of the problems. Maybe those kids were pissed of because evolution wasn’t being taught in schools but I doubt it. A much more realistic explanation is that as populations grow the percentage of people who will do bad things also grows, add to them the easy access to weapons like submachine guns and you have a volatile combination which will inevitably explode in violence. This will happen regardless of peoples faith in god.

It really amazes me how people can not see the forest for the tress on this one. Shouldn’t it be that when the country is the most religious and Christian oriented it has ever been, such as it is now, that that if people like Huckabee were correct we would be doing better then ever? Instead we are doing worse. I believe just the opposite I don’t think it’s our lack of faith in Jesus that is ruining our country I think it is our new found faith that is doing it. It has led us away from real solutions to real problems by making us idly pray for divine intervention instead of working to fix our problems. It has led us away from our real founding document the constitution and bill of rights. This is a document we should not just have faith in but should fight to protect and jealously guard our rights. This is a document Mr. Huckabee seeks to destroy in order to create a more Christian nation. This is the beginning of the creation and support of an American Theocratic state which will use Christianity as it front in order to put the nation underneath the control of a very harsh and brutal dictatorship, much like the world witnessed under the Taliban.

1. Caillouet, Linda S. Huckabee: U.S. gave up on religion

School shootings were wake-up call, he says, ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE. 12/10/07