Committee appointments are assigned to individual members of Congress by each party's leadership based on a combination of political clout, interest, and seniority.
Congressman Caveman's appointment was certainly no accident. He's there to torpedo anything he can that resembles progress but doesn't fit into the Evangelical worldview...
In a single weekend GOP members attacked science, endorsed slavery and justified death penalty for rebellious children: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/paul-broun-evolution-big-bang_n_1944808.html?ref=topbar http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/08/loy-mauch-arkansas-slavery_n_1948717.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...s-children_n_1948490.html?utm_hp_ref=politics Seriously, if you vote for the GOP don't come back complaining about the outcome, you're asking for it....
The rest of the developed world watches in amazement, as the GOP in 19 of the other G20 countries would have only a fringe existence. I can't explain it to my global coworkers, I try but I cannot.
I think it's really one of the unfortunate side-effects of a two-party system. Most parliamentary democracies have at least one totally bonkers party catering to hardcore bigots and/or antimodern fanatics. In our system, they find their way into one of the two major parties. EDIT: Worth noting--all three links regard the Arkansas GOP. I don't think the problem is with the GOP itself--it's with the way the party has become dominated by Southern reactionaries.
But England is largely two-party (prior to the rise of LibDems), and the Tories were never like this. To me, while having two parties may well be a factor, it's more a function of U.S. geography. A big danged country, with a big danged interior population that is isolated and nativist. Same for Russia, although Russia has it even more so.
Yeah, my post left a lot unsaid and I probably should either take the time to compose a more complete answer rather than spit out a half-baked thought. Short answer--it's complicated, and I don't mean to suggest that there's some 'fixed' percentage of the population in every country who buy into the bizarre anti-science/anti-modern/anti-liberal sentiments these people are spouting. There are particular historical reasons why we have such a sizable right-wing minority in this country, and why they tend to be white Southerners. I was just alluding to that by saying that if we had a different political system, the GOP as we know it would be fractured into different, probably regional parties, and many people in todays GOP would be free to take more moderate, sometimes even "liberal", positions. Imagine Mitt Romney as the head of a free-market-oriented party centered in the American Northeast, free from the obligation of pandering to reactionary Southerners or anti-Federal-government Westerners.
So, this Arkansas GOP says'rebellious children' should face the most extreme consequences. LAter on... "On his campaign blog, Fuqua highlights his service on the Children and Families Committee while a member of the Arkansas Legislature in 1997. He also describes liberals and Muslims as the "anti-Christ" and says he believes they are conspiring to create a "bloody revolution." So, its the same. His ideal of a Christian-Patrimony has the right to ascendency, children and non-christians are one and the same. All owe allegiance to his theologically based hierarchy. This guy is absolutely Taliban. What we need is a codified name for these Christer Sharia types.
To be fair, our Conservatives here are semi-republican-lite, and have some of the same social conservative bent amongst their ranks. A taste: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/09/21/pol-when-life-begins-debate.html And before DoyleG comes to correct me I'll point out that the party leadership (the PM and cabinet) do not have this as a policy plank, and have not taken steps to support this.
Easy answer, Evangelical Christians. Roman Catholics may be anti-abortion (anti-contraception) but they tend to be ok on the Evolution science front (eventually). Europe is way more secular than the USA, compare the USA with other “anti-science” countries and we rate next to Turkey or Saudi Arabia, and not next to European countries.
Rick Scott gives out meningitis hotline, one digit mistake leads callers to phone sex operator instead
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlo...he-republican-rep-is-on-record-on-slavery-too I have to comment on this one...Wehrmacht=Marxists????
How many of those marxists were Republicans? And how many in the US were reading Karl Marx in the 1860's-1870's?
Update: Hubbard godwins the debate in a letter which, sadly, can't be linked to. , but you can read an excerpt here.
New GOP stance on rape: Don't blame the woman, blame God! http://news.yahoo.com/gop-senate-ca...ancies-rape-061057785--abc-news-politics.html
Not quite. That's the reason why Turkey is still not allowed to enter the EU. The EU is no Christianity club. But it's the club that has outsourced the religious wackos to America.
I would turn this on its head and ask my fine, republican friend: If abortion were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861? or how about: If homosexuality were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861? or how about: If people going hungry, or the sick being unattended were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861? Oh wait . . .
Yeah, I thought about that as I was hitting "post." I'm Catholic, so I don't have a good grip on scripture. Paul ripped on homosexuals, but Jesus not so much, correct? I do know that abortion never comes up in the new testament, and I'm fairly certain that both Jesus and Paul spent a bit of time talking about the poor and the sick.
Maybe that was just something that sort of went without saying? We don't have many conversations about whether or not it's okay to set puppies on fire because it's wired into our society that setting fire to puppies is a bad thing. Maybe buttsechs was as bad to folks in 33ad as puppy pyromania is to us now. Please keep in mind that in the real world, we shouldn't be basing our policies on what anyone says in the bible.