Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Why the GOP doesn't worry about mundane reality -- Trent Lott and the end-times

A story twice removed from the source, so taken with some skepticism:
The Grinch Who Stole Fitzmas | Cosmic Variance

... Yesterday a friend of mine told me a story that she was told by a friend of hers, well-known explorer Sylvia Earle. Apparently Earle found herself at a fancy White House dinner, seated next to Trent Lott of all people. Innocent that she is, Earle thought this would be a great opportunity to explain to him the various ways in which our activities are wreaking havoc with the environment, in the oceans as well as in the atmosphere. After listening patiently to her over the course of dinner, at the end Lott nodded his head and said, But you have to understand that the long-term fate of the Earth doesn’t really matter to us, since everything will be re-arranged when the Lord returns on Judgment Day.
Maybe Lott was tweaking her, or maybe he was misinterpreted, but what he says makes sense to me. If you are a logical end-times fundamentalist, this interpretation springs directly from your core beliefs. The world is disposable and transitory, we need not plan for the future for there will be no human future.

A lot of the new GOP is made up of end-times fundamentalists. The actions of the GOP make sense in that context. (Budget deficits? Let not fights over budgets detract from the Lord's work; the end-times will preempt such mundane matters.)

So how many Republicans are really comfortable with all of this?

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