Some of you might remember this from the 1960s. It’s groovy.

Recommended by Goatherd:

Do read Michael Lind’s “The Three Fundamentalisms of the American Right.” It describes how the modern GOP went from being the party of genteel, establishment Burkeans to being the political equivalent of fundamentalist foot-washin’ Baptists.

And this sorta kinda goes along with the “adventures in reading” post I wrote yesterday. If you’ve spent much time with southern redneck fundies (and I grew up with ’em), you know one of their foundational beliefs is that the Bible is written so that everyone can understand it, and we don’t need no steenkin’ priests to explain it to us, like Catholics do. Never mind that the King James version in particular is written in archaic English, and many Bible stories require having some understanding of the history and culture of the era to make sense of them.

The Bible Belt is flooded with people who go on and on about the importance of reading the Bible but who probably would flunk any pop quiz you could give them about what’s in the Bible. And that’s true for many who really do read their Bibles. That’s because “reading the Bible” is more ritual than study for them. Mindlessly reading the words in itself imparts some mystical grace, even if most of what the text actually is saying never soaks in.

So, you see the same thing with documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Righties are mightily insulted if you suggest that perhaps they misunderstand these documents. But as we saw yesterday, you can put the words right in front of them and they still can’t see them. In spite of the Declaration’s clear statement, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” they ridiculed E.J. Dionne for suggesting that the Constitution takes authority, its just powers, from We, the People.

The Bible, and sub-parts of the Bible like the Ten Commandments, and documents such as the Declaration and Constitution have enormous iconic power to this crew. (For example, it is well documented that people who believe in the beneficial effects of exhibiting the Ten Commandments in schools and courthouses often can’t name all ten commandments if put on the spot to do so.) They have fervently held beliefs about how these documents are to be interpreted. However, their beliefs about the Bible and the founding documents often are at odds with what these texts actually say. And if you try to educate them, you are declared a heretic.

I have one quibble with Lind’s analysis, which is that he speaks of fundamentalist Protestantism. That’s correct, strictly speaking, but as I recall from my earlier days, many of the denominations most associated with fundamentalism deny they are Protestants, or at least, they used to deny that. They used to believe that their denominations did not grow out of the Protestant Reformation but instead had been parts of the early church that remained underground during the centuries of Catholic domination. I’d be surprised if that’s changed, although perhaps it has.

Why there are regulations. I suppose you can argue that if damnfools want to ride motorcycles without helmets, that’s their business, and as a side benefit there will be fewer damnfools in the world.

However, as Susie Madrak says,

See, the rationale behind helmet laws is that head injuries are very expensive to treat. Even victims with insurance often end up on Medicaid after they’re tapped out, and that means taxpayers are picking up the rest of the tab. So yes, Ayn Rand fans, the state really does have a legitimate interest in mandating helmets. Sorry!

The news stories don’t say whether the particular biker whose unhelmeted head was smashed on the pavement after he flipped off his Harley had insurance. Since he died on the scene, the point is kind of moot. But one suspects the people who think the government has no business telling them to wear helmets are often the same people who think the government has no business telling them to get comprehensive medical insurance.

They are free riders more than easy riders.