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PAUL BROUN. JR. IS CRAZY—PART 2
"My-courttry's-better-than-your-country" is
not a foreign policy. It's a playground taunt.
But this childish idea is the basis of American
exceptionalism. The concept is that the United
States is not simply an exceptional nation in
this regard or that, but the exception to all
others, at all times and in all ways. The dif
ference is categorical: America is the chosen
nation. American exceptionalism is religious
and extremist by its very nature. The ideol
ogy does not permit any other nation even
to aspire to be on par with the new Canaan.
Congressman Paul Broun, Jr., unexceptional
in so many ways, is 3 steadfast American
exceptionalist.
Broun has written or signed onto a number
of bills whose only goal is to slash federal
discretionary spending in order to maintain
or increase current military spending. Broun
believes that the globe's only
exceptional nation, the one
blessed by God, should, of
course, have the capacity to
decimate all the others. Given
that the United States already
spends more than all other
nations on Earth combined on
its military and war-making,
it seems more than a little
bloodthirsty to slight children's
healthcare and unemployment
assistance to make more room
for aircraft carriers and nukes
whose tactical values are based
on a Cold War calculus. Broun
and his ultra-conservative pals
have even tried to peg military
spending to GDP to provide a
floor under which war spend
ing could not fall. Deriding the
wisdom of George Washington,
who warned against any stand
ing American army, Broun
would like nothing more than
to create a fully militarized
United States, armed to the
teeth and trigger-happy.
But what about foreigners
we're not allowed to shoot? No
bomb has yet been invented
which selectively targets
Mexicans or Salvadorans.
Broun, thus, has tried almost everything else
available to punish impoverished immigrants
from countries to our south. For example,
Broun recently introduced HR 1621, a night
mare of a bill which seeks to withhold federal
funds from any school which allows for the
recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in any
language other than English. For a guy who
has compared Obama to Hitler, it's more than
a little ironic that HR 1621 relies on Broun's
belief that "the government may, from time to
time, take steps to reinforce national unity."
Broun's wish to educationally and materi
ally abuse the children of immigrants in the
interest of "national unity" is textbook "us"
versus "them" politics. One doesn't have to
listen hard for the subtext: The purity of
the homeland must be defended against the
Others whose very presence introduces, in
Broun's words, a "corrupting influence on our
society." As always, Broun casts the debate
in the vague terms of a metaphysical battle
in which heritage and purity are threatened
by a corrupting evil. Never mind the hemi
spheric political economy which creates the
conditions for widespread emigration. Never
mind that the sort of trade policies Broun
supports—those which allow corporations to
freely hopscotch national borders in search of
cheap labor—hopelessly trap the underpaid
workers behind borders they cannot cross.
Sanctity of Life: Until Birth
For Broun, life begins at conception—even
for immigrants. Broun cares deeply for the life
of the unborn child. He largely ceases to care
for that life, however, once it is born. While
Broun sponsors bill after bill to protect the
microscopic morulae, blastulae and metasta-
cizing trophoblasts of the human gestation
process, he really couldn't care less about
what happens once the baby is born into
poverty. Broun offered a bill this year assert
ing that the "right to life guaranteed by the
Constitution is vested in each human being,
and is the paramount and most fundamental
right of a person." But Broun's sanctimonious
concern evaporates as soon as the child is
born and the matter leaves the lofty realm
of ideology and religion. Life is messy, and
Broun's absolutism is better suited to pre
tending things about a zygote that cannot be
seen.
Though recently proposing the anti
abortion "Sanctity of Human Life Act," Broun
voted multiple times to deny health care to
millions of American infants and children by
rejecting the State Children's Health Insurance
Program, a federal program which funds state
programs like Georgia's PeachCare. Meanwhile,
the infant mortality rate in America is a
shameful 46th in the world, as measured by
the CIA. In the severe deprivation of the inner
city and of poor rural areas, that number is
much higher. While many low-income, minor
ity urban areas in the United States show
infant mortality rates the same as Mexico and
Thailand, health experts find that some inner
cities show rates on par with Third World
nations such as Kazakhstan and Zimbabwe. To
allow a child to die in the richest nation on
earth can be thought of as a very late-term
abortion, the sort of abortion Dr. Broun is
content to legislatively administer.
In addition to protecting the sanctity of
life (while promoting totally needless, bloody
wars), Broun is into protecting the sanctity
of marriage. His extremely selective reading
of the Bible has led him to the belief that it
is the government's business how its citizens
choose to live. Broun recently introduced a
bill to create a constitutional amendment ban
ning gay marriage. In typical Broun fashion,
the bill seeks the "protection" of marriage, as
though allowing homosexuals the full rights of
citizenship would simultaneously destroy con
ventional marriage. Apparently Broun didn't
get the news: Marriage has been anything but
sacred in America for some time now, with
divorce rates twice what they were in the
1950s and '60s. Billboards in Atlanta advertise
divorces at Sam's Club-type discounts. Reality
TV shows feature surreal contests in which
spouses are selected by the crudest of criteria.
It is still possible to acquire a mail-order bride
in the country that invented the concept.
Broun's crusade to "protect" marriage is quix
otic at best, hateful at worst.
Onward, Christian Soldier
There's a country pulpit somewhere just
aching for Broun's moralizing. A wild-eyed
congregation awaits his clumsy philosophies
and premonitions, his notions of purity and
warnings of barbarians at the gates. But
Broun is a United States Congressman, and his
absolutist tendencies do little to enhance con
structive debate in Washington. It's all reli
gion to Broun, a pure order for which rational
debate is useless. Faith, whether in a god or
an ideology, doesn't require evidence—that's
sort of the point. A member of Congress,
though, is called to help steer the nation
according to facts on the ground, not whims
of the heavens. There is a time and place for
religion, but as our founders so wisely deter
mined, the business of government is not it.
Still, Broun's first allegiance is to his beliefs,
however much they stand in conflict with the
founders' ideals. It is difficult to imagine that,
even if placed in the Oval Office tomorrow,
Broun would abandon his theocratic ideals and
execute the office in accord with the founders'
principles.
And that's exactly why it is worrisome that
Broun might have aspirations beyond his cur
rent station. Broun's penchant for self-promo
tion, whether through his countless campaign
mailings or increasingly frequent television
appearances, is the sign of sights set higher,
either within the Republican Party or perhaps
in an office above that of Representative.
Broun seeks to be an active agent in the war
for control of the GOP, a battle that pits elec
toral-success-minded Republicans against the
hard-line likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck
and, well, Rep. Broun. Though it would reduce
the party to a sad shadow of its former self,
the hardliners want to fundamentals the
GOP, to strip reason and rationality from the
party whose historical claim has always been
its logical—as opposed to "bleeding heart"—
basis. Are we watching in Broun the birth
of a new conservatism, one that follows—at
whatever distance—the Middle East's model
of dogmatic, faith-based parties? Or are we
witnessing in our very own congressman the
death rattle of an ideology whose day is done?
Matt Pulver
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