Oh Just Shut the Hell Up Already

Remember when the Republicans were the party of personal responsibility? Remember when they talked about how the government shouldn't help people because they should actively pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Remember when they talked about how anyone could find a job if they Just Looked Hard Enough?

Isn't it peculiar, then, how the brand of Christianity that these moral scolds and hypocrites practice allows them to be passive vessels for God's Will. THEY don't have to actively do anything to help themselves. THEY don't have to have any personal responsibility, because God will do it all for them.

Mark Sanford is the new poster boy for conservative passivity masquerading as personal responsibility:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, still clinging to office after admitting to an extramarital affair, wrote in an opinion piece released Sunday that God will change him so he can emerge from the scandal a more humble and effective leader.

"(W)hile none of us has the chance to attend our own funeral, in many ways I feel like I was at my own in the past weeks, and surprisingly I am thankful for the perspective it has afforded," Sanford wrote in the opinion piece distributed statewide for Sunday newspapers.

[snip]

In the opinion, Sanford vows to work with lawmakers he's long fought and cites scripture and his faith in God – just as he's done in his few public appearances since admitting the affair.

"It's in the spirit of making good from bad that I am committing to you and the larger family of South Carolinians to use this experience to both trust God in his larger work of changing me, and from my end, to work to becoming a better and more effective leader," he wrote.

Asshole. Changing one's life is WORK. It's HARD FUCKING WORK. We've all known those people who spend years in therapy to find out that the reason they're always late is because they're angry at their fathers -- but then the world owes them "understanding" when they're late. NO. Once you know from whence your problems stem, it's your RESPONSIBILITY to use that knowledge to MAKE CHANGES IN YOUR LIFE to overcome your lousy childhood. Stopping at "I know why" isn't enough. So-called "Christians" like Mark Sanford who hide behind a Great White Alpha Male in the Sky and a Jewish carpenter who got nailed to a cross 2000 years ago because he dared to say we should be nice to each other and take care of the poor to absolve themselves of having to do anything active to change their lives deserve nothing but our contempt.

Mark Sanford could do us all a favor and stop with the press conferences already. He's a spiritual welfare queen, asking God to do all the heavy lifting for him while he sits in the governor's mansion collecting a state paycheck.