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Politics

Michael The Huck A Bee

A Huckabee supporter's bumper sticker.
Mike’s interests include prayer, gardening, mystical visions, what you do in private, and running for President. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mike Huckabee is sending me email. Why, I don’t know. I could not care less what the man thinks. Calls himself a “Conservative Christian”, which apparently means that he was enjoying the Bible right up until Jesus came along and spoilt it. Mike wants me to know that a bunch of people in robes are not more important than God. This isn’t an anti-Islamic thing, he’s referring to the US Supreme Court and their judgement that some laws against Gay marriage were unconstitutional. He argues that they must be wrong because his God doesn’t agree with Gay marriage. This shows that he either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care for the constitution of the United States. Both, I suspect.

So I’m not an American voter. Was this sent to me by mistake? I get mail intended for other Richard Chapmans (Richards Chapmen?) all the time. I’m not sure; American conservative Christianity is not just a mixture of politics and religion. It’s also a business. Witness the fact that a while after this, along came another mail from Huckabee. Only this one began “Please find a special message from our paid sponsor”. Mike Huckabee’s political spam has breaks for commercials.

(Incidentally – “paid sponsor”?)

It was headed “Sopranos Star Ignored 4 Signs of Imminent Heart Attack, Doctor Says”, and was designed to terrify you into some dubious heart-health scheme by quite literally cashing in on the recent death of James Gandolfini. Classy. Interesting to note though, Outlook’s filters decided Huckabee’s advert wasn’t spam – but that his politics was. I think I see where they’re coming from.

My favourite bit:

Dr. Crandall says that if you ever suffer a heart attack outside of a hospital, you only have a 7 percent chance of survival!

That also means in 93 percent of the cases such an episode is fatal!

No comment of mine could add to that in any way.

Yes, all organised religions from Scientology on down are commercial entities. But the US religious right, seeing as it does no real distinction between Christianity and Capitalism, is among the least embarrassed to blatantly seek “customers”. These don’t necessarily have to be American voters as long as they can raise the funds and spread the programme. Witness “our” Youth Defence, in many ways a bridgehead into Ireland for American Conservative Christianity. (And one to which an outflanked Catholic Church has still to find an effective response.) So there’s every possibility that this mail reached me intentionally. Pointlessly, but intentionally.