Thursday, December 6, 2007

"Freedom requires religion"?


I don't know if Mitt Romney's eagerly awaited speech this morning on the subject of religion did him any good politically, but I do know that his remarks were mostly bullshit.

Not even the 10 American flags with which he shared the stage could camouflage the fallacies in his misreading of our nation's history and the constitutional niceties regarding religion.

"Freedom requires religion," Romney said. Does that mean that I, as an agnostic, have less freedom than the gullible saps who embrace the fairy tales and superstitions peddled by most, if not all, religions? Not according to my copy of the Constitution.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum has the right take on Romney's speech. So does this guy. And this guy.

2 comments:

Will Pfeifer said...

Isn't the concept of religion -- putting your life in the metaphorical hands of a higher power -- the exact opposite of freedom?

Anonymous said...

I didn't hear or read the speech, but I did hear news reports on the radio and the cuts they played made Romney sound very reasonable. There was no reference at all to "freedom requires religion." It appears the mainstream media dropped the ball once again. Our attitudes about religion in general and Christianity in particular in this country are regressing. I heard a caller into a Rockford radio station say a candidate's religion did not make any difference to him, but he could not vote for anyone who didn't believe in God. He obviously didn't realize that he contradicted himself making that statement and the talk show host didn't call him on it. Unfortunately this may be the attitude of a majority of Americans. The other question that should have been directed to this caller was how do you know if a candidate really believes in God. I've no doubt that we've had Presidents in the past who simply gave this issue lip service but were not believers.