Dominion, Not Influence

I realize I'm spending a lot of time commenting on Mike Huckabee, but the man is scary weird. He's a snake oil salesman with a lot of charm and a poisonous product.

Andrew Sullivan (yes, I'm still reading the Daily Dish) is after Huckabee. I guess the idea of amending the Constitution to bring it in line with Jehovah's standards got to him.

The post itself is merely reporting blog wars on the right, namely Hugh Hewitt's response to Stephen Bainbridge's -- well, I guess "attack" is an appropriate description -- on Huckabee's relationship with Christian Reconstructionism. If anyone needed any further evidence that Hewitt is out there someplace, this should suffice:

Huck called for amendments to the Constitution to protect life and traditional marriage. These are mainstream, conservative positions. He is not a "reconstructionist" Christian, as even a casual glance at his decade of governing in Arkansas shows. Professor B's tortured string of cites never delivers anything remotely connecting Huck to "reconstructionism," and implying otherwise is just imagination.

Disagree with Huck on economics, but his positions on life and marriage are mainstream GOP positions, repeatedly endorsed at the ballot box across the country.

I don't see how anyone could justify such a statement. Note also the neo-right idea that civil rights are fit subjects for plebiscites. That's hardly a traditional conservative position in itself. Frankly, since the right is so fond of "slippery slope" arguments, this seems like an excellent example: once you start amending the Constitution to conform to Jehovah's plan for humanity (or at least your interpretation of it), where do you stop? Huckabee claims that abortion and marriage are the only two issues for which he favors Constitutional amendments, because the right to life and the sanctity of traditional marriage are being challenged. Any guesses on what his response would be to the next challenge to traditional Christian tribal taboos? (Here's some more information on Huckabee's links to Dominionists and Reconstructionists, embedded in a wake-up call from tristero at Hullabaloo.)

I have to join tristero in pointing out that Huckabee and his supporters are the most dangerous element in American society right now. I've heard comments in discussion groups (in fact, Huckabee has his own thread at EA Forums) to the effect that "well, when he was governor of Arkansas he didn't do that." Of course, his tenure as governor had other problems, most notably his lack of judgment and willingness to be stampeded by pressure from the right -- sort of like another governor who recently became president, and look what that's done to us. Do I want Donal Wildmon and his ilk dictating domestic policy? I don't think so.

However, my real comment on Sullivan's post is on his conclusion.

I don't think people have really understood the logical consequences of the fundamentalist psyche. There is nothing more antithetical to the principles underlying traditional conservatism. Eventually, the complacent Republicans will realize the tiger they are riding. Huckabee is charming. The charming ones are often the most dangerous.

It's not just antipathy toward the principles of traditional conservatism that's in play here. If I can repeat myself yet again, it's a fundamental antipathy to the underlying princples of American democracy. Sullivan outlines that in the preceding paragraph, and somehow misses the point.

I can't say I'm surprised.

Update:

Hilzoy has a terrific analysis of Huckabee's statement and its implications:

In his clarification, he suggests that he was just pointing out a difference between the Constitution and the Bible: the Constitution can be amended, while the Bible cannot. But that won't wash. It is, of course, true that the Bible cannot now be amended, although at various points in its earlier history, it could.

This touches on something that has always puzzled me, but I've gotten to the point where I just ascribe it to willful ignorance: the Bible as it is known to most American fundamentalists and literalists is a translation of scattered religious texts that were selected, edited and assembled in the Middle Ages to conform with the Church's idea of what the Christian scripture should be. And yet somehow it is inerrant and not subject to change. Aside from the obvious cognitive dissonance inherent in this position, it also begs the issue that our understanding of things changes, including the Bible.

Or, I guess that's true unless you're Mike Huckabee.