From our partners at The Agonist

That’s Thonas Hardy, and by chance I came across it today after reading about the Arkansas state legislator who thinks parents should be able to kill their children for being disrespectful:

Remember former Republican legislator Charlie Fuqua, running again for legislature with financial support from the Arkansas Republican Party and U.S. Reps. Tim Griffin and Steve Womack, among others? We’ve mentioned some excerpts from his book, “God’s Law: The Only Political Solution.”

I have more for you today. To save space, I’ve omitted the Biblical citation for Fuqua’s endorsement of the death penalty for rebellious children. Fuqua doesn’t think execution would have to be used often on children who defied their parents, but suggests the deterrent effect of its legality would be beneficial. Verbatim, from the writing of Charlie Fuqua, a former lawyer for the Arkansas Department of Human Services:

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellioius children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21:

…

This passage does not give parents blanket authority to kill their children. They must follow the proper procedure in order to have the death penalty executed against their children. I cannot think of one instance in the Scripture where parents had their child put to death. Why is this so? Other than the love Christ has for us, there is no greater love then [sic] that of a parent for their child. The last people who would want to see a child put to death would be the parents of the child. Even so, the Scrpture provides a safe guard to protect children from parents who would wrongly exercise the death penalty against them. Parents are required to bring their children to the gate of the city. The gate of the city was the place where the elders of the city met and made judicial pronouncements. In other words, the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case before the proper judicial authority, and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they would have taken their child to a court of law and asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.

This comes the day after another Arkansas state legislator, Jon Hubbard, made news  for praising slavery in a new book. Among other things, he wrote that the institution of slavery, “long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise” because “The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.”

Hubbard also called blacks lazy, stupid, and unambitious, and said that racial integration had degraded the quality of education for white students:

On the subject of school integration, Hubbard described black students as having a “a lack of discipline and ambition,” which he said has hurt the entire educational system.

Hubbard also tackled immigration and said that Christians in America are in a similar position to that of Germans during Hitler’s rise to power.

… the immigration issue, both legal and illegal … will lead to planned wars or extermination. Although now this seems to be barbaric and uncivilized, it will at some point become as necessary as eating and breathing.” (Page 9)

We’re not done yet. Have you heard of Loy Mauch? He’s another member of the Bring Back Slavery dream team:

… If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861?
The South has always stood by the Constitution and limited government. When one attacks the Confederate Battle Flag, he is certainly denouncing these principles of government as well as Christianity.

Naturally, he doesn’t like the Fourteenth Amendment:

The 14th Amendment completely destroyed the Founders’ concept of limited government and was coerced on this nation by radical people and in my opinion was never legally ratified as required by Article V of the Constitution. It was essentially a Karl Marx concept and would have never come from the pen of Madison or any of the patriots from Virginia.

And don’t even talk to him about Abraham Lincoln — he was a Nazi and a Marxist. Yes, a Nazi AND  a Marxist. This man knows his history!

Now, you might think Fuqua, Hubbard, and Mauch are so extreme that even other conservative Republicans would condemn them, and refuse to back their election campaigns or accept campaign donations or political support from them.

You would be wrong. Although the Arkansas Republican Party and Republican legislators from Arkansas such as U.S. Reps. Tim Griffin and Steve Womack have said they don’t agree with Fuqua, Mauch, or Hubbard about slavery, they continue to accept their campaign contributions and they have not withdrawn their support for these lunatics’ own political campaigns:

To date, Congressman Griffin and Republican Party Chair Doyle Webb have criticized some of the things Fuqua has said. Womack has said nothing. But no party official has demanded money back or urged Fuqua to withdraw from the race. Majority control of the legislature is far too important for Republicans to abandon a candidate, no matter how extreme. Which tells you a little something about Republican majority governance.

Still waiting for Republican leadership, too, on the question of endorsement of sitting Republican Rep. Loy Mauch of Bismarck, who we’ve quoted repeatedly in defense of slavery and harshly critical of GOP patron saint Abraham Lincoln. Mauch scorns Lincoln as a Nazi and Marxist. The Republican representative is a follower of the neo-Confederate League of the South.

Republican officials also haven’t pulled endorsements and financial support for slavery apologist Republican Rep. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro.

And from another article by the same reporter (Max Brantley):

A spokesman for Griffin said while Griffin disagreed with some of the historical outlook of Mauch, a neo-Confederate long associated with a fringe group on the watch list of the Southern Poverty Law Center, he didn’t see what Mauch had said about Abraham Lincoln and related matters necessarily disqualified him from political support.

Compared with Republicans who are so sociopathic that they think slavery was good for black people, or that rebellious children should be subject to execution, someone like Todd Akin, who merely believes that women’s bodies have a magic anti-pregnancy feature that kicks in if they’re “legitimately” raped, and that doctors perform abortions on women who are not pregnant, seems like a probably well-meaning but slightly addled old uncle.

In other words, when it comes to Republicans saying stuff, no matter how bad it is, there is always a worse.