Santorum says he ‘almost threw up’ after reading JFK speech on separation of church and state
By Felicia Sonmez Posted at 11:54 AM ET, 02/26/2012
Former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) on Sunday defended a statement he made last October in which he said that he “almost threw up” when he read John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Houston address on the role of religion in public life.
The statement by Santorum marks the GOP contender’s latest defense of his long-held views on the separation of church and state, although in his Sunday appearance he doubled down on the colorful language he employed in his October speech at a New Hampshire college.
In remarks last year at the College of Saint Mary Magdalen in Warner, N.H., Santorum had told the crowd of J.F.K.’s famous 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, “Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up. You should read the speech.”
“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him,” Kennedy said.
On Sunday, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Santorum whether he stood by his statement last year, noting that Santorum’s rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R), delivered an address on religion during the 2008 campaign [ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2007/12/post-228.html ] that garnered comparisons to Kennedy’s address.
Santorum defended his remarks, telling Stephanopoulos that “the first line, first substantive line in the speech, says, ‘I believe in America where the separation of church and state is absolute.’”
“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Santorum said. “The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.”
He went on to note that the First Amendment “says the free exercise of religion — that means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square.”
“Kennedy for the first time articulated the vision saying, ‘No, faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate.’ Go on and read the speech. ‘I will have nothing to do with faith. I won’t consult with people of faith.’ It was an absolutist doctrine that was abhorrent at the time of 1960.”
Later in the interview, Stephanopoulos asked Santorum, “You think you wanted to throw up?”
“Well, yes, absolutely,” Santorum replied. “To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up.”
On Sept. 12, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy gave a major speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant ministers, on the issue of his religion. At the time, many Protestants questioned whether Kennedy's Roman Catholic faith would allow him to make important national decisions as president independent of the church. Kennedy addressed those concerns before a skeptical audience of Protestant clergy. The following is a transcript of Kennedy's speech:
Rev. Meza, Rev. Reck, I'm grateful for your generous invitation to speak my views.
While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election: the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida; the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power; the hungry children I saw in West Virginia; the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills; the families forced to give up their farms; an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.
These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues — for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.
But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured — perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in — for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.
That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.
I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so. And neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test — even by indirection — for it. If they disagree with that safeguard, they should be out openly working to repeal it.
I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none; who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him; and whose fulfillment of his presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.
This is the kind of America I believe in, and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died."
And in fact ,this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died, when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches; when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom; and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey. But no one knows whether they were Catholic or not, for there was no religious test at the Alamo.
I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition, to judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress, on my declared stands against an ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have attended myself)— instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948, which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.
I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts. Why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion. And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their presidency to Protestants, and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as Ireland and France, and the independence of such statesmen as Adenauer and De Gaulle.
But let me stress again that these are my views. For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.
Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.
But if the time should ever come — and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible — when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.
But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith, nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.
If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being president on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser — in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.
But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the presidency — practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, so help me God.
Transcript courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Rick Santorum defends comments blasting JFK over religion’s place in politics
By Shira Schoenberg, Globe Correspondent 02/26/2012 1:11 PM
Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who has made his conservative stance on religious and social issues one of the centerpieces of his Republican presidential campaign, today questioned the idea of a complete separation of church and state. Santorum stood by comments he made last year when he said after reading President John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 speech about the separation of church and state, “I almost threw up.”
Santorum said his disagreement with Kennedy came from the line in Kennedy’s speech that read, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”
“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Santorum said today on ABC’s “This Week.’’ “The idea that the church should have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical of the objectives and vision of our country.”
Santorum’s conservative social views have come under increasing scrutiny as he has soared in the polls nationally and come to challenge former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. He has waded into battles over insurance coverage of contraception, federal support for education, and what he referred to as President Obama’s “theology” on the environment. Today, Santorum was forced to defend his views on college education and on the separation of religion and politics.
Santorum’s original comments on Kennedy’s speech came from a talk he gave at the College of Saint Mary Magdalen in New Hampshire in October. Santorum said, “Earlier in my political career I had opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up.”
Kennedy’s speech was intended to address skepticism over his own religion as a Catholic running for president. Kennedy called for an America “where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”
Santorum said he understood the speech as being opposed to the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which bans government from making laws regarding religion or limiting its practice. “That means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square,” Santorum said. “Kennedy for the first time articulated a vision saying ‘no, faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate.’”
Santorum said his point was how important it is for everybody – including those of faith – to feel welcome in politics. “To say that people of faith have no role in the public square, you bet that makes you throw up,” Santorum said. “What kind of country do we live in that says only people of non-faith can come in the public square and make their case?”
Expanding on his comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press,’’ Santorum said that the major American movements that opposed slavery and supported civil rights were led by people of faith. “The idea we need to segregate faith is a dangerous idea,” he said.
Santorum also defended comments he made yesterday on higher education. Speaking to Tea Party activists in Michigan, Santorum criticized Obama’s statements encouraging everyone to go to college. “President Obama wants everyone in America to go to college. What a snob,” Santorum said. “There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to the test who aren’t taught by some liberal college professor who tries to indoctrinate.”
On ABC, Santorum explained, “There are a lot of people in this country that have no desire, or no aspiration to go to college because they have a different set of skills, desires, and dreams that don’t include college.” Santorum said technical schools, apprenticeships, or vocational training could be more appropriate for some people than college.
Asked about a previous interview Santorum gave to conservative talk show host Glenn Beck where he called colleges “indoctrination mills,” Santorum said conservative college students are singled out and ridiculed. “We have some real problems on our college campuses with political correctness, with an ideology that is forced upon people who may not agree with the politically correct left doctrine.”
Asked on NBC if he encourages his own children to go to college, Santorum responded, “I encourage my kids to get a higher education, absolutely. If college is the best place for them, absolutely.” He went on to say that if a child prefers to go to a trade school to become a carpenter, plumber, artist, or musician, all those are worthwhile professions that people “should not look down their nose at and say they’re somehow less because you didn’t get a four-year college degree.”
Santorum Says Religion and Conservative Principles Are at Risk
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE February 26, 2012, 12:37 pm
MARQUETTE, Mich. — Two days before the Arizona and Michigan primaries, Rick Santorum made a broad appeal to social conservatives on Sunday, arguing that religion and conservative principles were at risk, both on college campuses and in the public square.
On the ABC News program “This Week,” Mr. Santorum repeated his belief that President Obama was wrong — was, indeed, a “snob” — for encouraging all Americans to go to college.
And he defended his view that John F. Kennedy, before he became president, was wrong to assert that the separation of church and state should be absolute.
Mr. Santorum spoke with the program’s host, George Stephanopoulos, from this town in far Northern Michigan, where he is campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination. Michigan’s primary is Tuesday. He told Mr. Stephanopoulos that college campuses were liberal bastions that remained hostile to conservative students.
Mr. Stephanopoulos pointed out that a college education had long been part of the American dream. But Mr. Santorum said there are “a lot of people in this country that have no desire or no aspiration to go to college” because they had different skills and different interests. And, as he told the radio talk show host Glenn Beck last week, he said President Obama wanted everyone to go to college because the campuses are “indoctrination mills.”
He said on Sunday that conservatives often feel persecuted on college campuses. “I’ve gone through it,” Mr. Santorum said. “I went through it at Penn State. You talk to most kids who go to college who are conservatives, and you are singled out, you are ridiculed.”
“I can tell you personally,” he added, “I went through a process where I was docked for my conservative views.” He did not elaborate.
He also said that perhaps as many as 62 percent of students who enter college “with some sort of faith commitment” leave college without it.
“This is not a neutral setting,” Mr. Santorum said of college campuses. “We have some real problems at our college campuses with political correctness, with an ideology that is forced upon people who, you know, who may not agree with the politically correct left doctrine.”
He added: “And one of the things that I’ve spoken out on — and will continue to speak out — is to make sure that conservative and more mainstream, common-sense conservative principles that have made this country great are reflected in our college courses and with college professors. And at many, many, and I would argue most institutions in this country, that simply isn’t the case.”
The discussion of religion in schools led to a discussion of religion in the public square. Mr. Santorum had said earlier that he “almost threw up” when he read John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech in which Mr. Kennedy, then a presidential candidate who some critics said would take orders from the Vatican because he was a Roman Catholic, asserted that separation of church and state should be absolute.
“The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country,” Mr. Santorum said. He said the First Amendment’s allowance for the free exercise of religion “means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square.”
He said that Mr. Kennedy “for the first time articulated the vision saying, ‘No, faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate.’ Go on and read the speech. ‘I will have nothing to do with faith. I won’t consult with people of faith.’ It was an absolutist doctrine that was abhorrent at the time of 1960.”
Mr. Kennedy, who went on to become the first Catholic president, gave the speech in Houston in an attempt to assure voters that his faith would not interfere with government.
Mr. Santorum, who also is Catholic, went to Houston in 2010 to mark the 50th anniversary of that speech and to say that Mr. Kennedy had been wrong. In that speech, Mr. Santorum said that Mr. Kennedy’s views would “create a purely secular public square cleansed of all religious wisdom and the voice of religious people of all faiths.”
He added that Mr. Kennedy’s speech “laid the foundation for attacks on religious freedom and freedom of speech by the secular left and its political arms like the A.C.L.U and the People for the American Way. This has, and will, continue to create dissension and division in this country as people of faith increasingly feel like second-class citizens.”
“To say that people of faith have no role in the public square?” Mr. Santorum said on Sunday. “You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live in that says only people of nonfaith can come into the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up.”
He then veered into a critique of President Obama, whom he did not mention by name, for his health care plan and his recent directive that insurance companies pay for contraceptives for anyone who wants them, even if they work for a Catholic institution.
Mr. Obama, he said, “is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can’t come to the public square and argue against it, but now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square.”
On another issue, Mr. Santorum said that President Obama showed “weakness” when he apologized to the Afghan government last week for the burning of several Korans at an American military base near Kabul, Afghanistan.
American officials have said the burning was a mistake, and Mr. Obama sent a letter of apology to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan: “I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident. I extend to you and the Afghan people my sincere apologies.” The burning has led to widespread violent protests in Afghanistan, including the killing of four American soldiers.
Newt Gingrich was the first of the Republican presidential candidates to condemn the apology. He said last week that Mr. Obama had essentially “surrendered” to Afghanistan and that instead of apologizing, he should demand that the Afghan government apologize to the United States for the deaths of the American soldiers.
Mr. Santorum said Sunday that the burning of the Korans was not deliberate and did not deserve an apology. “Say, ‘It’s unfortunate,’ ” he said, but to apologize suggests “there is somehow blame, this is somehow that we did something wrong in the sense of doing a deliberate act wrong. I think it shows that we are — that I think it shows weakness.”
With rhetoric like this, these Christian conservatives are playing an ancient game. They are using religion to separate the world into “us” and “them.” They are saying, “The president is not like us.”
The president’s Christian beliefs are hardly unusual. He was raised by a mother whom he has called “agnostic” and who today might be dubbed “spiritual but not religious.” (The fastest-growing religious category in the country is “none”: people who believe in God but don’t affiliate with any denomination.) When Barack Obama walked for the first time into Trinity Church on the South Side of Chicago [ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/05/obama-resigns-church-me.html ], he was 27. He had read widely in theology — Saint Augustine and Nietzsche and Reinhold Niebuhr — but he had no formal religious training.
Perhaps he was drawn to Trinity for pragmatic reasons: As a young community organizer, he needed the credibility of a church base. Perhaps he was on an identity quest and found at Trinity the African American family he never had. Perhaps in Trinity’s fiery pastor, Jeremiah Wright [ http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/03/heaven_is_being_with_god.html ], Obama found a guide to faith — a man of great learning, musical talent and homiletic gifts — and a friend whose friendship he would live to regret. Perhaps he found himself transported by the joyful, soulful sounds of Trinity’s 300-member gospel choir.
In any case, Obama has said he found Jesus at Trinity. In the memoir “Dreams From My Father [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0029LHWFO ],” he describes a revelatory morning in church this way: “The stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories — of survival and freedom, and hope — became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears.” He was transported. He felt the spirit. After that morning, he was baptized in the name of Jesus.
Religion has done much good in the world, but it becomes dangerous when the “us and them” worldview grows rigid — when “we” claim moral (or theological) superiority over others. No one should know this better than Santorum, for Roman Catholics have been among the most persecuted groups in America. Yet for Santorum, history has had no modulating effect. The “phony” remark seems, at worst, calculated to remind voters of Wright and the “liberation theology” he preached, and in so doing to incite racism and fear.
One major theological disagreement between Obama and religious conservatives concerns salvation. Obama happens to be the kind of Christian who believes non-Christians, including his beloved mother, can go to heaven.
Here is what he told a colleague and me when we interviewed him for Newsweek magazine during the 2008 campaign [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/07/11/finding-his-faith.html ]: “It is a precept of my Christian faith that my redemption comes through Christ, but I am also a big believer in the Golden Rule, which I think is an essential pillar not only of my faith but of my values and my ideals and my experience here on Earth. I’ve said this before, and I know this raises questions in the minds of some evangelicals. I do not believe that my mother, who never formally embraced Christianity as far as I know .?.?. I do not believe she went to hell.”
Most Americans are with Obama on this. According to a 2008 poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, more than half of American Christians believe there are many paths to heaven [ http://www.pewforum.org/Many-Americans-Say-Other-Faiths-Can-Lead-to-Eternal-Life.aspx ]. The data say it best: No matter what exclusivist doctrines pastors preach from the pulpit, Americans are more open-minded. Last year, an evangelical pastor from Michigan named Rob Bell roused the ire of his colleagues by suggesting, in a book called “Love Wins,” that mostly everybody goes to heaven. It was a massive bestseller.
America was founded by people who hoped that by allowing religious diversity to flourish, they might discourage extremism from growing. Counter to the claims of so many Christian conservatives, the intent of the First Amendment is not to protect any particular brand of Christianity from government encroachments, but to allow all kinds of believers to practice freely.
“I hate polemical politics and polemical divinity,” a politician once said. “My religion is founded on the love of God and my neighbor; on the hope of pardon for my offenses; upon contrition .?.?. in the duty of doing no wrong, but all the good I can, to the creation of which I am but an infinitesimal part.”
It is only unfortunate that these sentiments were those of John Adams — and that they are two centuries old.
Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery Address to Joint Session of Congress Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 [...] ... And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American. ... [...] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Address-to-Joint-Session-of-Congress
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Santorum: Obama "A Snob" For Wanting Everyone To Go To College
Republican president candidate Rick Santorum defended his statement from Saturday that President Obama was a "snob" because he has said he wants everyone in the country to have the ability to go college.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday [video embedded; complete MTP interview, first vid in this post], Santorum said he does not believe that going to college is the only way to become successful.
"What I've said is I want everyone to have the opportunity to go to college, or whatever other higher training skills," he said. "But it doesn't mean you have to go to a four-year college degree... I think everyone should have the opportunity. It's about what's best for you."
"President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college," Santorum said during his AFP speech. "What a snob. There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test who aren't taught by some liberal college professor that tried to indoctrinate them.
"I understand why [Obama] wants you to go to college," Santorum continued. "He wants to remake you in his image."
Santorum, who has both a bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University and advanced degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and the Dickinson law school, said he has encouraged his own children to go to college.
However, he quickly added: "But you know what…going to a trade school or learning to be a carpenter or a plumber…all of those are [noteworthy] professions that we shouldn't look down our nose [at]."
"I have seven kids," Santorum continued. "I can tell you who would do very well and excel... and there's some who have different skills."
Santorum Reaches Out to Voters Who Don’t Want College Degrees
By Siobhan Hughes February 26, 2012, 3:28 PM
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday reached out to voters who do not want a college degree, saying that pushing Americans toward higher education “devalues the tremendous work” of people who are not interested in going to college.
His comments came a day after taking a swipe at President Barack Obama’s education goals at a campaign event in Troy, Mich. “President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college – what a snob!” Mr. Santorum said.
He toned it down a bit on Sunday morning, saying on ABC’s “This Week” that ”there are lot of people in this country that have no desire or no aspiration to go to college, because they have a different set of skills and desires and dreams that don’t include college. To sort of lay out there that somehow this is — this is — should be everybody’s goal, I think, devalues the tremendous work” of “people who, frankly, don’t go to college and don’t want to go to college.”
Government statistics show that unemployment is higher among those without a college degree. In January, the jobless rate for those with less than a high school degree was 13.1%, according to the Labor Department. That compares with a 4.2% unemployment rate among people who have a bachelor’s degree or more education. The rate was 7.2% for those who have graduated from high school but have never gone to college.
Mr. Santorum, who has said before that college isn’t for everyone, disputed the suggestion that his position made it seem like he thought there was something wrong with getting a college education.
“Not at all, but understand that we have some real problems at our college campuses with political correctness, with an ideology that is forced upon people who, you know, who may not agree with the politically correct left doctrine,” Mr. Santorum said.
Mr. Santorum’s remarks drew some blowback on Sunday. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” that Mr. Santorum “probably” crossed “over the line.” “I don’t think the president is a snob for saying that,” said Mr. Christie, who has endorsed Santorum rival Mitt Romney.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, took a swipe at the GOP presidential field over education policy.
“Everyone should have a right and an opportunity to go to college and, yes, we should have technical training like they do in Germany,” Mr. Brown said in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said he would also like to see more “joint labor management apprentice programs for pipefitters and electricians and sheet metal workers and carpenters. I’d like to see a lot more of that, and that takes union and management cooperation, something that the Republican candidates seem very hostile to.”
Rick Santorum Labels Romney An ‘Elite’ And Obama A ‘Snob’
By Michael Falcone Feb 25, 2012 11:34am
TROY, Mich. — In his campaign stump speeches, Rick Santorum often deploys a famous Ronald Reagan line, saying that he is the candidate of “bold colors” not “pale pastels,” to show why he would offer the clearest contrast to President Obama.
On a chilly Saturday morning in Michigan, Santorum used some of those “bold colors” to paint Mitt Romney, his main rival in the primary here, as an elitist, inconsistent, liberal-in-Republican’s-clothing, unexciting candidate.
“Every time we’ve run a moderate, we’ve lost,” Santorum warned. “Every time we’ve run a conservative — a complete conservative on all the issues, I might add, national security, culture and economy — we’ve won.”
On Romney’s home turf, Santorum cast himself as the blue collar candidate in the race. He even highlighted the fact that his immigrant grandfather worked in Michigan for two years before leaving for the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania.
“I don’t come from the elite,” Santorum said. “I worked my way to the success that I have and I’m proud of it. Elites come up with phony ideologies and phony ideas to rob you of your freedom.”
At a forum sponsored by the conservative group, Americans For Prosperity, he took particular umbrage with Romney’s newly-announced tax plan, which would scale back deductions and exemptions for the richest Americans.
“I never thought that a Republican presidential candidate would adopt the verbiage of Occupy Wall Street,” Santorum said.
Santorum, who opposes all government bailouts, blasted Romney’s willingness to support the Wall Street bailout but not the automobile bailout.
“Why do you pick one and not the other?” he asked.
As he does everywhere he goes, Santorum pledged to be a “strong, consistent conservative.”
When it comes to Romney, however, Santorum warned: “what you see” is not “what you get.” Inviting the crowd to “imagine” what kind of candidate the former Massachusetts governor would be in a general election.
In a nearly one hour policy address Friday night in a Detroit suburb, Santorum focused largely on what he views as the failures of the Obama administration. At his Saturday morning speech to a ballroom full of conservative activists, the former Pennsylvania senator took aim at President Obama’s hope that every American will go to college.
“What a snob!” Santorum said.
“If you want big things to happen then you have to elect somebody and nominate somebody who can draw the clear contrast with President Obama,” he said, appealing to the audience not to nominate someone — Romney — whose “own party isn’t excited about campaigning for.”
Receiving a standing ovation at his last public campaign event in the state on Saturday before departing for Tennessee, he told voters: “You have an opportunity here in Michigan to shock the country.”
Santorum stands by ‘snob’ comment, says conservatives ‘singled out’ and ‘ridiculed’ at colleges
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. senator Rick Santorum campaigns at a tea party town hall meeting, Saturday, in Hixson, Tenn. (John Amis - AP)
By Felicia Sonmez Posted at 10:50 AM ET, 02/26/2012
“Now getting to college has been part of the American dream for generations, Senator,” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Santorum in an interview on “This Week. “Why does articulating an aspiration make the president a snob?”
“I think because there are lot of people in this country that have no desire or no aspiration to go to college, because they have a different set of skills and desires and dreams that don’t include college,” Santorum said. “And to sort of lay out there that somehow this should be everybody’s goal, I think, devalues the tremendous work that people who, frankly, don’t go to college and don’t want to go to college because they have a lot of other talents and skills that, frankly, college, you know, four-year colleges may not be able to assist them.”
He added that “there’s all sorts of things that people can do to upgrade their skills.”
that “not all folks are gifted in the same way” and that “there are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them.”
Asked by Stephanopoulos on Sunday about the “indoctrination” comment, Santorum defended the remark, arguing that conservatives are “singled out” and “ridiculed” at most American colleges.
“I mean, you look at the colleges and universities,” Santorum said. “This is not something that’s new for most Americans, is how liberal our colleges and universities are and how many children in fact are – look, I’ve gone through it. I went through it at Penn State.”
“You talk to most kids who go to college who are conservatives, and you are singled out, you are ridiculed, you are — I can tell you personally.?.?. I went through a process where I was docked for my conservative views. This is sort of a regular routine. You know the statistic .?.?. that 62 percent of kids who enter college with some sort of faith commitment leave without it. This is not a neutral setting.”
Stephanopoulos asked whether Santorum’s comments meant that he thought there was “something wrong with encouraging college education.”
“No, not at all, but understand that we have some real problems at our college campuses with political correctness, with an ideology that is forced upon people who, you know, who may not agree with the politically correct left doctrine,” Santorum responded. “And one of the things that I’ve spoken out on and will continue to speak out is to make sure that conservative and more mainstream, common-sense conservative and principles that have made this country great are reflected in our college courses and with college professors. And at many, many, and I would argue most institutions in this country, that simply isn’t the case.’
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney ANDRE J. JACKSON / MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
February 24, 2012 at 5:00 PM
Fundamental human right
Editor, The Times:
The recent rhetoric from the Mitt Romney campaign stating that President Obama has “fought against religion” is ridiculous because it puts the rights of the church above the rights of an individual. I’m outraged that a presidential candidate is openly fighting for the rights of an organization over the rights of an individual. [“Romney says Obama has ‘fought against religion,’” Politics and Government, seattletimes.com, Feb. 21].
As a fundamental human right, freedom of religion applies to each and every citizen, not to corporations or organizations. Workers of church-affiliated organizations should be the ones that decide whether or not they use free birth control. It is wrong of Romney to advocate that the church has the right to make that decision for its employees, regardless of its stance. The church should not deny access to birth control, just as it would be wrong to require use of birth control.
Obama does not have a secular agenda; he has the agenda of a true president. He is not putting the rights of an organization over the rights of individuals. He is protecting the religious rights of workers and their right to choose whether or not they use birth control.
It is not the church’s choice, it is the individual’s.
Paranoid Conservatives Warp The Hunger Games To Fit Their Anti-Obama Fantasies
By: Sarah JonesMarch 25, 2012see more posts by Sarah Jones
Even The Hunger Games make them froth.
You may have thought you were going to the movies to see a wildly successful film based on a novel called The Hunger Games published on Oct 1, 2008; one that warned of a brutal, totalitarian government using TV to control the people through terror, punishment and distraction.
But you were not. You went to see The Hunger Games .. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/ .. to see a warning about how Obama wants to control all of our resources, including our livestock. Duh.
Watch the trailer here:
The Right brought their ideology to the theatre, and you had best agree with them even though the director and (one of several) screenwriter Gary Ross quite clearly was referencing the oligarchy of the 1%. A bit of background: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hunger-games-suzanne-collins/1100171585
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the other districts in line by forcing them to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight-to-the-death on live TV. One boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and sixteen are selected by lottery to play.
The winner brings riches and favor to his or her district. But that is nothing compared to what the Capitol wins: one more year of fearful compliance with its rule. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her impoverished district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before – and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
The Hunger Games warns us about an evil government of wealthy, callous, pampered sociopaths who enjoy inflicting pain and terror on the people in order to maintain their power. They are very pro-war and get off on limiting the people’s access to resources in order to keep them docile and willing to kill for survival.
The key to survival in The Hunger Games is to, “Get people to like you!” Or so says the heroine’s mentor. Even if you have to lie to them, invent a love story and act like you don’t care. Play the game right and you’ll survive. The one thing the government doesn’t allow is for humanity to win, so when the heroine battles with her compassion and desire to nurture other “Tributes”, she is supposed to lose because she’s not callous enough.
However, The Hunger Games is Hollywood, and in Hollywood, only the moral can win in a blockbuster. In that sense, the film advocates for humanity and against devouring our own. The evolved win; compassion wins.
In Right wing, this translates to Obama’s horrible dystopian government is giving us all welfare in order to distract us from their theft of our liberty.
The right claims The Hunger Games’ warning about Obama should be heeded. You see, state subsidized birth control is a way to distract us from the government stealing our liberty! Obama is the bread and circuses (panem et circenses; or superficial means of appeasement) upon which the fictitious nation is named! Panem! Bread!
For example, Raven Clabough writes .. http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/movies/11303-the-hunger-games-movie-first-in-an-exciting-trilogy .. for New American, “One need not be a genius to draw parallels between the governing regime of Panem and that of the United States, adding a frightening layer of depth to the film. One need not look past the recent executive order signed by President Obama to discover that our own federal government has a desire to control our resources, nor does one need to look past the recent congressional debate over subsidized birth control (let alone all of the other government promises to take care of us from cradle to grave), in order to understand that the government is always looking for the next distraction to keep the American people in the dark about its tyrannical and liberty-threatening measures.”
Also, one need not be a genius to know that this executive order does not expand the President’s authority and it is based on a decades old law. This Executive Order is based on Defense Production Act of 1950 which gave the Government powers to mobilize national resources in the event of national emergency. It has been in effect since the Truman Administration.
But back to the fear. Executive order!
Surely I thought they might recognize themselves in the Randian crowds cheering for the death of innocents because they “deserve it” according to the state. But no. The Right’s debate cheers may have demonstrated their propensity to be entertained by violence and suffering of others, but the liberty!
Real liberty is, apparently, allowing yourself to get jacked up over a decades old law. After all, one need not be a genius to know how yummy fear is with tea.
Just how expansive are the claimed powers and what resources are included in their scope? Livestock? Yes. All food “resources” and “resource facilities?” Yes. Veterinary clinics? Yes. All forms of energy? Yes. Will the President control the water supply? Yes.
Well, it’s been a week and my water is still running, but I question my cable, which goes out every evening at midnight. Obama is hoarding my cable! Oh, wait, that’s the state allowing a corporation to dictate policy. Well, still. Liberty!
My only question is as women, do we now qualify legally as livestock, after Republicans have been likening our reproductive abilities and their right to regulate our property to our being livestock? Moo.
But panem! We all recall when President Obama told us the best thing we could do for our country would be to go shopping, right after he sent us all a 2k refund.
Oh, I kid the conservatives.
The New American doesn’t make mention of the lottery/draft war parable or the to fight until your likely death sold as “noble sacrifice” for your country. No mention of the wealthy sponsorship that the Tributes must win in order to survive. No mention of a government where no dissent is allowed. No mention that the games are a punishment for an uprising of the people. No mention of a government that breeds callousness and divides the people by pitting them against one another for survival. No mention of the use of fear to control and manipulate the people, via the TV, by showing them what happens to bad, undeserving people.
When we watch the scene of the wealthy, privileged few in the Capitol watching the games on big screens and placing bets on who will die as they laugh and gorge themselves, are we thinking gee, there are the 99% or are we thinking gee, there are the 1%?
Donald Sutherland, who plays the evil President Snow, said the film was a unique way to talk about the Occupy Wall Street movement’s message. He tells Entertainment Weekly .. http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/03/21/the-hunger-games-donald-sutherland-video/ .. he hopes the movie will mobilize a generation of people. Sutherland spoke of the poignancy of the film being about the oligarchy controlling the 99%, “Gary Ross wrote a script of such elegance and wit, but he wrote those two scenes in the Rose Garden for me, that so brilliantly encapsulated what it was with the oligarchy controlling the 99% and that is what made me so desperately enthusiastic about being a part of these films.”
The Right is trying to co-opt a universal theme in science fiction, a world of Randian, authoritative brutality in which the government manages to remove humanity from the people by pitting them against one another in a fight for resources. They know the movie is powerful and successful, and so they want to be sure their values are associated with its message in a positive way, lest any “geniuses” out there get any “ideas”.
We know what happens to people with ideas. They engage in uprisings and uprisings must be silenced and shut down…. Individuality is discouraged and spirit is only allowable if the wealthy can be entertained or enriched or use it to distract the masses.
With themes similar to The Running Man, social commentary on a dystopian future with lethal reality TV sufficing for what used to be the Gladiator Games is hardly new, but somehow the Right came away from The Hunger Games believing a book published in October of 2008 was about how evil Obama is. They also assume that the film champions their values of wanting endless wars, hating and fearing gays, Muslims, African Americans, women, union members, poor, elderly, disabled, children, Hispanics, Hollywood elite, coastal elites, big city slickers, et al because they are “hogging all of the resources” that should belong to the white Christian wealthy male and his corporate sponsors. Now you know why they are so desperate to defund education.
As 1%er President Snow, played by Donald Sutherland, says in the film, “Hope. Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous.”
Got it? Fear = good, hope is bad. Hope empowers the people, fear controls them.
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