Bill O'Reilly Still Whining About Secularism

Note: The video I had of O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo was removed from YouTube, so I’ve substituted this segment about the same exact thing where he makes the exact same stupid argument.

So, Bill O’Reilly is miffed because President Obama refused to spend thousands of dollars to fire up a few jet fighters to do a flyover at some “God & Country Festival” in Idaho. Big deal. What have those freeloading Idahoans ever done for the rest of the country, anyway? As one astute observer has commented, Idaho blows. Like most Red States, Idaho gets more money from the federal government than it pays in federal taxes. Idaho gets about $1.21 for every $1 it pays to the federal government. Compare that to my state—a Blue State—which gets about $0.82 for each tax dollar we pay. Red States, for all their complaints about federal spending, are actually financial parasites on the backs of more prosperous (and mostly Democratic) states, leeching money so they can dick around with statues of the Ten Commandments and teach Bronze Age mythology in science classrooms. But I digress.

O’Reilly says, “There is no specific religion in play at that festival.” Having known nothing about this festival, I still knew O’Reilly’s claim had to be bullshit. I was right, per usual. If he had taken five seconds to do an internet search, he would’ve found that the festival’s own website declares, “Our mission is primarily about spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. We believe this Festival, started in 1967, is an incredible tool to share this Good News…” It also states that the festival “is an unashamedly Christian event.” Now unless O’Reilly doesn’t consider Christianity a “specific religion,” he is either lying or hasn’t done his homework. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell because he has such a long and storied history of misinformation that one often doesn’t know where O’Reilly’s incompetence ends and his deception begins.

The festival itself aside, Bill-O is pissed because unlike his predecessors, Obama actually decided to heed the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by refusing government resources to some Bible thumpers on Planet Idaho. O’Reilly likes to throw around the word “secular” like it’s an insult instead of a word for people who ascribe to Jeffersonian principles in matters of church and state. Obama’s a “secular guy.” Oh no, he wants to keep religion out of government, and government out of religion. Cry me a fucking river. Can’t these slaves of Jesus just be happy for their own goddamn servitude without using money from the rest of us to promote their abhorrent and backward beliefs? Be a slave on your own dime. Don’t use my tax dollars to perpetuate your morally and intellectually bankrupt fairy tale of vicarious salvation.

O’Reilly also says that “to diminish spiritually by denying the good folks of Idaho a flyover is simply stupid.” Is he really saying that the spirituality of the festival attendees will be diminished because they won’t get to see some very expensive instruments of destruction fly over their heads? Bill-O and I must have very different definitions of spirituality. And I love how O’Reilly says that secularists are being disrespectful to people of faith. We’re not disrespectful to people of faith, but faith itself because it’s ridiculous and often harmful. Several times I’ve had people of faith tell me that I’m going to burn in hell for eternity because of my unbelieving ways. Now that’s disrespectful.

Then, in a remark against secularism, O’Reilly states, “The secular culture, which President Obama embraces, is mainly concerned with things of this world, like global warming.” Think about that statement for a second. The secular culture is mainly concerned with things of this world. Well what world should we be concerned with? Does O’Reilly think we should be worrying about tax policy on fucking Neptune? Or what the seating arrangements will be in a nonexistent afterlife? Literally, Earth to O’Reilly, bring it in, Bill. Then in a bullshit non sequitur, he asks where this is getting us and starts talking about the reluctance of China and India to take preventative measures on global warming. Bill says they’re not going to help on global warming, so he basically suggests we pray for the problem to go away instead of doing our part, even if others won’t. Seriously, I do not understand the Right’s feverish opposition on this issue. Even if you think global warming is a complete myth, is it really such a bad idea to want to curb emissions and cut back on pollution? This should be a bipartisan issue just like murder and child rape. Then again, one should never underestimate the ability of business interests to corrupt public discussion by lining the pockets of their favorite politicians who are all too happy to repeat canned industry lines about the evils of regulation.

Finally from Bill, the classic demented refrain of the delusional Religious Right: “The U.S.A. has become the strongest, most prosperous country on this earth largely because of its Judeo-Christian traditions.” Bitch, please. Few claims are more revolting than the idea that we would be without moral sense had the hallucinating Moses not promulgated the Ten Commandments to the filthy, illiterate and credulous fools at the foot of Mount Sinai. Those who insist that our laws are based on the commandments simply don’t give humans enough credit to be able to figure out important things on their own, like how the prohibition of murder and theft would be conducive to the perpetuation of any society. Or maybe it’s because the Christians who try to impose the commandments cannot understand themselves why allowing murder is a bad idea. This would explain their continued insistence that the Ten Commandments be displayed everywhere except in Paris Hilton’s vagina, even though there’s enough room for two stone tablets.

Secularism is railed against by ignorant thugs as some kind of subversive ideological force permeating American culture. In reality, secularism is not an ideology, but a safeguard against (religious) ideological encroachments on our society. It is a fine complement to America’s republican form of government, whereby the potentially dangerous and violent passions of the people are diluted through the channels of representation. In a similar fashion, secularism is an insurance policy against religious zealots—Christian or otherwise—who would endeavor to mix religion and government, or worse: impose theocracy in America where God and Jesus would be the chief policymakers in what would be a most nightmarish scenario. We often take it for granted that the Religious Right is not allowed to advance its wretched agenda in wholesale on the rest of the country because of the First Amendment. But we can easily imagine how matters might be otherwise. Secularism is the only thing standing between America as it is now, and a Christianized version of Iran. If America were to become a theocracy, it would perhaps begin with the most minor of religious infractions on free society, and gradually grow until it has rotted the roots of our government, toppling the tree of democracy and sending it crashing earthward to the dirt and filth from which it had managed to ascend to the heavens.

- Max