Cal Thomas Hits a New Low (if That Is Possible)

For years, Cal Thomas has been giving us his Theocon message (Thanks, Lew, for that term) of police state at home and invasions abroad. Oh, I know he once wrote a book that James Dobson didn’t like in which Thomas said that politics was not the ultimate Christian goal, but basically the message we get from Thomas is this: The Right-Wing American State is worthy of worship.

In a recent column Thomas looks at Cuba’s recent decision to lay off government workers and create more private opportunities. While I am sure that Thomas would be one of the people to go ballistic if the American government actually were to end what Theocons have believed to be a Holy Crusade against Cuba, including the travel restrictions and economic embargo, I am struck by this quote:

Castro’s apparent compromise with his ideologically pure communist ideology will surely disappoint the Hollywood elite and others who have visited Cuba and praised Castro, as well as Cuba’s healthcare and schools (while ignoring those in prison, executions, and other human rights violations).

This is a pretty rich statement, given that the United States of America has not only the world’s highest prison population, but also has a much greater percentage of its population either incarcerated or “in the system” than does Cuba. Furthermore, there is no more pro-execution person out there than Cal Thomas, and his contention that the only people executed in this country are vicious murderers leaves out the point that in the past 30 years — the same time that conservative Christians have had more electoral influence than at any time in our history — states and the federal government have executed far more people than has Cuba.

Moreover, don’t tell me that politicians actually care about guilt and innocence in these cases. They just want someone to die, period. Lest anyone think that people in government actually care whether or not the people they are executing are guilty, read this article.

Mississippi, a state where conservative Christians have a lot of political influence, has a number of people on death row who were convicted mostly on the basis of openly fraudulent testimony by two discredited “expert” witnesses, Steven Hayne and Michael West. Hayne masqueraded as a “forensic pathologist” and was famous for giving any testimony that prosecutors wanted to hear, no matter how dishonest or ridiculous it might have been (and jurors bought the lies). West claimed to be a “forensic dentist” who was caught in a huge fraud described here. Yet, the State of Mississippi is preparing to execute a lot of people despite the fact that they were convicted on the basis of testimony of frauds and charlatans, but frauds and charlatans supported by the state.

As for Thomas, keep in mind that this guy has no problem supporting the very kind of repression in this country that he condemns in Cuba. And, to make things worse, he praises the things that Doug Casey exposes about Cuba in this piece. So, Thomas can’t even get it right on those things.

This is not an obscure columnist. He is one of the most-read political columnists in the country, and like most political columnists, he worships the American state and confuses “freedom” with authoritarian American government.

Share

6:20 am on September 19, 2010