Watch Out:
He's Running for Governor Führer.
This is charming. Read it. Brownback's office help now monitors your tweets and calls your supervisor to get you in trouble if you badmouth him.
Update: Five or six days later, Sam apologized for his staff. Better late than never.
Pay attention to what he says, what he does, what he supports, what he opposes. If he doesn't stand for your values, if you agree we can do better, then campaign and vote for Anybody But Brownback.
Most of the content on this page is out of date, but it's not obsolete. Sam has a history and it is mostly a bad one. The more you know about his past, the better you'll understand his strange policies in the present.
I'll update the page when my job and life and other obligations permit. Meanwhile, browse around. There's much to learn.
Disturbing Hot Topic:
The "Church" Where Sam Lives
Watch this short MSNBC video about the "C Street House," where Sam reportedly lives. A reporter who infiltrated "The Family" wrote a book about it: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, by Jeff Sharlet.
Sam and his "Dominionist" "Family" are some of the best arguments for a tall, thick wall of separation between church and state. (This is not the same as a separation between politics and religion, which are human activities, not institutions. It's an important distinction. For example, it's not illegal for "The Family" to believe that you have to "hate" your family and everyone else to be a Christian, or that America should be a kingdom, ruled by The Family as viceregents of Christ, instead of a republic.)
Read about these people. Do we want Sam representing Kansas? Or as governor?
Sam: The Answer to the Big Question
("What's the Matter with Kansas?")
Sam Brownback explained in the New York Times opinion pages that, as Mark Twain's schoolboy said, "Faith is believin' what you know ain't so."
Here's what he wrote: "What I Think About Evolution" by Sam Brownback.
Here is an articulate response by someone who knows what "science" means: "Don't Know Much Biology" by Jerry Coyne.
You can make up your own mind. Myself, I'm heartily tired of the willful refusal of people to understand these things:
- Religion doesn't help people understand Nature.
- Science doesn't help people understand God.
- Science is not a "belief": it's a reliable way of knowing what's true.
- Religion is not "truth" merely by virtue of intensity of belief.
Brownback says scientists "continue to feud today" about evolution. Implication: doubt equals error. That's exactly where he misunderstands what science is. (Do religions ever "feud"? More, or less, than scientists, would you say? What does that mean?)
No matter how many times it's explained, Brownback will never hear it. He says so in his essay.
War
"I think there is a just war that is going on in Iraq." --September 17, 2007
Is he right? Here are some discussions of the Just War Doctrine:
Catholic view (Sam is Catholic) Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article
Wikipedia article
I know Sam's presidential fiasco is over, but I still like this picture.
Photo © 2007 The Concord Monitor, Concord, New Hampshire.
It's not enough to remember his name.
You have to remember to vote for somebody else.
Anybody But Brownback.
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