#183: Mike Huckabee

Huckabee is a Baptist minister and former governor of the State of Arkansas. He was a candidate in the 2008 United States presidential election, representing the Christian Taliban. He is a young earth creationist, and therefore rejects certain controversial elements of modern science such as evolution, heliocentricism, gravity, and mathematics.

As a theocrat, Huckabee advocated changing the Constitution to incorporate Biblical values: “I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.” He generally subordinates logic, evidence and governmental responsibilities to religion. As a presidential candidate he seems, interestingly, to have appealed mainly to the younger evangelical population.

Among his proposed policies are Covenant marriage and reinstating prayer in school (since its removal from school is, together with TV, one of the main reason for the current “moral decay”). He has also used the infamous bumblebee argument for the claim that science doesn’t understand everything. His argument against evolution is mainly Wilberforce’s (you are free to believe that you and your family came from apes, but I didn’t). He admits to not having been present at creation, however. And yes, his ignorance matters.

More here.

Diagnosis: The crackpots shall lead the ignorant, ‘tis said, and Huckabee is certainly a candidate for the position of kook supreme. He is extremely dangerous, and persistent assertions that he is unelectable don’t quite allay all of our worries.