You Can Never Say That No One Told You!

Atrios sends me to this rather amazing post at Think Progress which quotes Newt Gingrich, "unannounced" coughhehcouch Republican candidate for president, making the requisite wingnut genuflection at the shadow of Dead Falwell.

Think Progress reports that:

Gingrich claimed Americans draw strength from Falwell’s “life model,” and said that Falwell, who infamously called the 9/11 attacks God’s punishment on the United States, “bore witness to the Truth” and “knew this truth in his bones.”

But perhaps Gingrich’s most controversial remarks came in an interview after his speech, in which Gingrich cited the opportunity “to convert all of America.”

Gingrich said after his speech that Falwell’s death would not slow the Christian right’s efforts.

“Anybody on the left who hopes that when people like Reverend Falwell disappear that the opportunity to convert all of America has gone with them fundamentally misunderstands why institutions like this were created,” Gingrich said.


Wow. Just, wow.

You know, I have a standard rant that i give to women friends about men who say, 'You shouldn't waste your life on me. I'm not worth it. I'll screw things up for you. I'm no good for you." I always tell them, "You should listen to him. Don't fool yourself into thinking that he doesn't mean it. He's tellling you the truth." All I can say about Gingrich and the Republican Party is the same thing. Listen to him. He means it. He's telling you the truth. Pay attention.

These institutions, institutions such as Falwell's, which are tax exempt and, therefore, supported with the taxes that i pay and that you pay, were created to "convert' "all of America." Whether all Americans want to be converted, or not. Let's be clear about what that means. Even idiots like Gingrich (married 3 times, adulterer, xian in name only) and the scholastically-challenged sheep at "Liberty" (hah!) "University" (hah!) don't imagine that they can turn my witchy heart or your pagan heart to jebuz. They don't care. What they do imagine is that, at the point of the government's taxing power, or guns, or torture racks (no habeaus for "enemy combatants"!) or piles of burning faggots, they can get us to "convert" enough for them to be in complete control. If not, they can burn us as examples to others similarly disinclined to "convert."

Do you ever watch The Sopranos? Perhaps the second-most famous episode of The Sopranos is the one where Carmella, the wife of the mob boss, goes to a psychologist to talk to him about whether she should leave her husband. He tells her that she must leave him and must not take any of his money (not what she wants to hear). He says that it's blood money and then he concludes, "Whatever you do, you can never say that no one told you." That's how I feel about this throw-away comment of Newt Gingrich's. Whatever else we do, we can never say that no one told us. Their goal is to forcibly convert us and to control us forever.

Fuck. That. Shit.