Texas Republican state senator Dan Patrick is not impressed by Wendy Davis. Despite Davis’ all day filibuster of an anti-choice bill, Patrick thinks he is the one that deserves the praise. Patrick, the sponsor of the bill, told Mike Huckabee…that he urged his fellow Republicans to break Senate tradition and stop the filibuster. He compared his action to Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees for placing too much importance on “laws and rules.” Patrick went on to encourage other senators to similarly cast off the law, asking, “Are we going to become the modern day Pharisees as Republicans of the Senate?”…. Patrick also criticized the crowd that turned out to support Davis, calling it an “organized mob” carrying out an attack on the government. He blamed their behavior on the fact that they were Democrats, because “a tea party would never do this.”
You might think that being a Texas Republican is easy. All you need is the ability to ignore facts, cling to an unshakeable belief in an Imaginary Friend, consider yourself superior to other, less enlightened mortals, and have no problem translating your narrow belief system into legislation that proscribes behavior you find “ungodly” and/or “icky.” Oh, it helps if you lack self-awareness, a conscience, and are willing to create a government small enough to set up a satellite office in a woman’s uterus.
If you go by this job description, you’d come up with something closely approximating Dan Patrick, an intolerant, self-righteous Right-wing Christocrat from Houston who makes Governor Pander McCrazy look like the reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi. Let’s leave to one side Patrick’s sheer, unmitigated, and wholly unwarranted arrogance in comparing himself to Jesus Christ. What I took from Patrick’s comment was a not at all veiled attempt to use his “Christianity” as justification for breaking rules: “It’s OK, because Jesus would NEVER have put up with whiny and unruly Democrats.”
Placing too much importance on “laws and rules?” You mean the same “laws and rules” Patrick and every other Republican would be insisting must be followed to the letter when it serves their agenda? Of course, no one should be surprised by Patrick’s willingness to play fast and loose with the rules when it breaks to his advantage. A former Right-wing talk show host in Houston, Patrick made a name for himself by advocating for everything just short of rounding up Liberals for summary execution.
And don’t get me started on “a tea party would never do this.” Patrick lives in a world where being a Conservative Christian is code for “I have God on speed dial.” The Tea Party is as much “Conservative” and “Christian” as it is the official cheerleading squad of the Green Bay Packers. The ideology that Dan Patrick and the Tea Party share is a commitment to creating an authoritarian dominionist theocracy/idiocracy.
Like any good idiocratic misogynistic Penis-American, Patrick despises women who don’t know their place (what you and I might call “standing up for themselves”…like Wendy Davis, f’rinstance. After all, if we can’t count on women to be reliably compliant baby factories, then what good are they?
Yessiree…Texas is a wonderful place to live- if you’re a wealthy, White, Christian, Conservative male.
