Mike Pence: Number 2 In More Ways Than 1

By Noah

A few days ago, I wrote a post about Vice President Mike Pence titled Mike Pence To Run For President While Running From Himself: Not Good. Among the reader comments was one that, as it began, I took as satire. However, that changed after a few sentences. Rather than quote the reader comment piecemeal, I’ll just give you the whole thing, unexpurgated, without any corrections. I want to be fair, and I’m always fair.

This is hilarious to read. It’s sad that a wonderful man like Mike Pence is talked about so badly. This man has served the great state of Indiana with pride and respect for many years. He not only was a wonderful governor, but he, along with Mitch Daniels made Indiana one of the most fiscally stable states in the nation. Just because he is a Christian and likes to show it, does not make him a terrible man, it makes him a true follower. I stand up for VP Pence and what he stands for, and standing up for his morals! This is by far the most liberal article I have ever read.

OK. I will give the commenter credit for clear expression and civility. After all, what one often gets from the righties is curse-filled bluster and a liberal use of the Republican-coined word “libtard.” We’ve all been there. This time, I even gave a passing thought to the idea that someone very closely involved with Pence was the commenter, someone who is, at least, semi-professional.

I have to admit that the anonymous commenter and I apparently differ wildly in our definitions of what makes a Christian a Christian. I would hold Mike Pence in high contempt no matter what religion he professed. To me, Pence is every bit a perversion of Christianity as those goons who flew planes into the WTC and the Pentagon were of Islam. The only question is who will end up bringing more death and destruction to America, Pence and his goons, or those other goons?

I also have to add that I’ve seen zero indication that Mike Pence is a moral or respectful individual. How can one be moral and say that Trump is a man of great character and will “bring the highest level of integrity to the highest office in the land?”

As for me being a liberal, well, I haven’t considered myself a liberal since I was a teenager filled with contempt for LBJ and Nixon. It just always seems to me that liberals are way too quick to compromise and appease their political foes. Anyway, after reading the comment, I was inspired! Inspired to write another post about Mike Pence! I will be civil, or, maybe not. You’ll have to read to the end. Any perceived lack of civility should be taken as being directed at Mike Pence, not the commenter.

I also wrote a post about Pence last summer when he got his position on the Republican Party ticket. I pointed out that while Señor Trumpanzee had checked off nearly every hate box needed in Republican World, he needed to check off one more, blatant, militant homophobia, and, to that end Indiana’s Mike Pence filled the bill in spades so republicans everywhere could breathe a sigh of relief. They had their balanced ticket.

In the aforementioned 2016 post, I wrote

Clearly Mike Pence is a fanatic, a religious fanatic who says he is “A Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” So much for the separation of church and state. He talks like a Taliban.

But, it’s with LGBT issues where Mike Pence has made his name and became a hero to Republicans. He’s a “marriage is between one man and one woman guy.” He became famous, or shall we say, infamous, for championing and then signing Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was designed to permit discrimination of all kinds against LGBT people. He’s even tried to tie funding for HIV research to a personal favorite of his-- gay conversion “therapy.” He surrounded himself with the type of Christians who actually believe, in 2016, that homosexuality is a treatable disease and leads to sex with animals and children, etc.

But, alas, to people like Mike Pence these laws are not discrimination if you can disguise them by using your religion as a basis for your law. That’s theocratic thinking. It’s all nice and neat, if you are a psychopath who dedicates his life to being super judgmental and delivering punishments against those you hate and fear.

Do not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.
- Matthew 7:1-2

I also wrote that Pence’s new discrimination law was so extreme that even many conservatives criticized him for it and that his in your face extremism brought very serious economic threats to Indiana and lowered his popularity so much that his reelection as Governor was very much in doubt. Indeed, his approval rating was below 50% while his disapproval stood at 40% or slightly less in the polls. Such polls are not indicative of election success to say the least. Then, along came Trump. For Pence, it was a classic example of failing upward. I saw that a lot in my career in the corporate world. In the end, it was always the company that suffered.

When he signed his pet “Religious tolerance” legislation into law, Pence, who was by now known as the Mullah Omar of Indiana, even boldly did the signing photo-op surrounded by a real cadre of pseudo-Christian hatemongering Taliban-style crackpots. Pence’s friends are so toxically extremist that he even wanted to keep the identities of his extremist Christian friends hidden from the press, as if a bit of digging would not reveal them. There he was, pen in hand with, among others, Micah Clark who believes that homosexuality is a treatable disorder and publically freaked out about a lesbian high school student wearing a tux. Curt Smith, who equates homosexuality with bestiality and adultery, and Eric Miller who distributed a flier that falsely stated that pastors could be jailed fir preaching against homosexuality, standing behind him. Pence then had the gall to say that his new law had nothing to do with discrimination.

I’ve said many times before that I find it fascinating how much time republicans spend thinking, in great detail, about the sex lives of other people. Pence is what is known as a Pentecostal Christian. He is also a theocrat, a man who wants his religion to be the national religion. The Constitution is toilet paper to people like Pence. We are not meant to be Iran. Great Americans have fought and died for our concept of freedom of religion but the freedom to persecute was not included. When one looks at Pence and the people he has surrounded himself with, you can’t help but wonder if he is any different than the Wahhabis in the Middle East. Strict Whahabis believe that all those who don’t practice their form of Islam are enemies, and heathens. They also don’t have great feelings about gays and women.

I know real Christians and neither Mike Pence nor his friends are Christians. They believe in The Rapture but, if that day does really ever come, they will be in for quite a shock. They won’t be going anywhere. They will be left behind. They forgot these words from St. Paul’s Epistle To The Romans. More likely, they just held them in contempt. Extremists of all faiths like to twist the words of their liturgy. Christians warping the Bible are no different than Muslim terrorists who warp the Koran.

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
- Romans 13:10

And then, there are these dubious achievements by Governor Mike Pence. For brevity’s sake, I will only list 4, but you will get the picture.

1. Pence also pushed for a kind of voter fraud “reform” that knocked out early voting in districts that were predominately African-American while, at the same time, increasing early voting in white districts. He also had his state police raid and confiscate the registration forms of newly registered African-American citizens. Similar raids were not conducted in rural white areas. What a surprise! Very Christian of him. Racist much? Now, Trump has put Pence in charge of looking into so-called voter fraud.

2. Like any Republican, Pence also led his party’s efforts in the state to shut down Planned Parenthood. We can’t have women getting all those uterine and cancer screenings that they relied on PP for now, can we? This goes in tandem with his virulent anti-Obamacare stance. He is truly a “No chemo for you!” kind of guy.

3. Republicans haven’t been very good with the concept of infrastructure since the days of Ike Eisenhower. Why should Pence be any different? Like all Republicans, he believes in privatizing everything. Back in 2014, Governor Pence even went for privatizing highway building and repairs in his state, promoting his plan as a model for infrastructure planning. The plan has increased commuting times and increased traffic accidents. The “plan” is also costing the citizens of his state millions. Way to go Mike! Now, imagine if Senor Trumpanzee puts Pence in charge of any national infrastructure planning! I can see Pence getting some sort of medal, from Vladimir Putin.

4. Once elected VP, Pence even brought his new boss to Indiana to pull off the now infamous Carrier scam, at great cost ($7,000,000) to the state’s taxpayers. The money was given to Carrier as incentive to keep local workers employed. Guess what. The money is gone and the jobs have been going to Mexico anyway. Surprise, Surprise! I can see Pence in my mind’s eye, playing a classic shell game. 3 shells on the table ladies and gents! 3 shells on the table! Whitch one has your money? Come on, which one? Who’ll put $20 down to find out? Watch the shells. Watch the shells! Oh! So sorry! You guessed wrong!

Yet, some gullible people will still call this man a Christian. He is no more a Christian than a televangelist charlatan who bilks old ladies out of their money, tells them all the good works that money is going for, and builds a $20 million home for himself to live in, all in the name of JEEEEESUS!

In my post of a few days ago, I mentioned that a President Pence would see witches everywhere as did many colonial Americans back in 1620, a time that Pence would feel more comfortable in than today’s world. It could be easily argued that the Salem, Massachusetts of that day was a theocracy. Women were burned. The Jeeeeshadists of the day went to bed and dreamed happy dreams, their insecurities and their inner demons assuaged. Just imagine if or when Mike Pence got so gone and full of himself and his sex fears that he started babbling about full burkas for everyone.

Now imagine if those fanatics had had “gay conversion” therapy. That one would certainly have aroused them, bigly. They’d never turn off the switch! The sooner the corporate media, as represented by the Washington Post, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times, and all the rest start talking about this, the better, not only for the country, but Christians who really are Christians. If you think radical Islam and radical Christianity have a bottom line difference, it’s best you think again. The only difference is not one of belief and code, it is only one of opportunity. This isn’t about “liberals” and “religious tolerance”. It’s about human decency; the human decency that Jesus Christ is said to have taught, by the way. Well, we know what the conservatives of Roman days had to say about him, don’t we. If Jesus did come back, and let’s face it, why would he, I have no doubt that the same thing would happen to him all over again for the same reasons. A Pontius Pence would be saying, “Look, you’re upsetting the status quo, we’ve got a great thing going here. And my religion is law. It is the power and the glory! Nothing real personal or anything; it’s just business. Now, off you go. Carry this cross up the hill.”

If anything, it’s up to us to get out the vote in order to offset this nation’s Pence-style fake “religious tolerance” when that tolerance, could lead us to being like Saudi Arabia or Iran, if we don’t wake up to this internal threat to our democracy. The true religious tolerance is only a vulnerability if we let it be one. Ben Franklin was once asked as he left Independence Hall, “What have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?” His answer was “A Republic if you can keep it.”

The most hardcore of the Christian evangelicals see Trump as an example of “God working in mysterious ways” and a man who has been chosen by God to “lead the way” in their dream of theocracy. They feel his presidency is ordained by God. Once you accept that in your religious fervor, the facts, the real facts, just don’t matter. Trump is right when he says that he could shoot someone of Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and still have the unquestioned support of his followers. Trump works this angle well. It’s one of the things that got him elected. Whatever else he thinks about it doesn’t matter to him as long as it enables his ambitions. Whatever else he says and does doesn’t matter to his supporters. The vile combo of white nationalism and religious fanaticism is what powers today’s Republican Party.

Many of Trump’s supporters who may look at Trump a bit sideways may actually accept his shortcomings because they see him as a steppingstone to Pence. Pence is the guy who they see as their means of achieving their dreamed of United States Theocracy, complete with extremist Christianity’s own version of sharia law. You don’t hear the likes of Sean Insanity and the other lying fantacists and goons on FOX “News” whining and complaining about that, do ya? The question is: Why do they long for this theocracy? The answer is simple. The extremist Christian element firmly and totally believes that Jesus Christ will only return for The Rapture once a theocracy is established in America. Stone crazy? You decide. These are the people who made the difference, out in the heartland, between Trump becoming president and just continuing his art of the sleaze from Trump Tower. In that sense, Pence was a perfect choice for Trump.

We can point at ISIS and al Qaeda all we want, and we should, but we shouldn’t be distracted from the dreams and schemes that the pseudo-Christian Mike Pence’s of the world represent.

And now, to put all of this another way: Mike Pence doesn’t have a Christian bone in his body, except if/when he goes to a gay bathhouse in Indianapolis. Would it surprise you?