A Lutheran pastor who writes for the site Public Theology has written a piece cheering on the IRS for their abuse of power. Seriously.
Ed Knudson, a Lutheran pastor, who wrote a piece in 2009 defending the Christian ethics of late-term abortionist George Tiller, is now defending the IRS workers who targeted conservatives.
So I want to raise my voice in praise of you, the honest and faithful IRS worker. You were trying to do good work. You were trying to do what was right and good in carrying out your profession. You were trying to be fair to all the American people. You deserve praise. The attacks on you of an unthinking and ridiculous press, which will only report negative comments from both Republicans and Democrats, are completely unwarranted…
Make no mistake. This isn’t one of those things where he’s defending the good IRS workers who are unfortunately being smeared along with their colleagues who were involved in this abuse of power. No, he’s cheering on those IRS workers who abused their power to discriminate against pro-life groups and critics of the Administration. He wrote that it wasn’t the fault of the IRS workers, it was those nutty tea partiers who should just shut up.
It’s not the fault of the IRS workers but Tea Party groups which pushed the limits of what should be allowed. Such groups are like teenagers pushing the limits of what the parents allow; and the hollering and screaming being done by these groups sounds just like irresponsible teenagers.
Here’s how he sees it going down.
Now, you are a technocrat; you do your job on the basis of rational guidelines to make sure you are fair to everyone. But you also have a life, you go home at night and watch the news. You are aware there is an election going on. You may watch Fox News and see that this major television network is pushing for the organization of new groups associated with something called the Tea Party. You learn that several billionaires are providing the funds for organizing such groups. And you hear clearly that these groups hate President Obama and want to destroy any chance of having his health care program enacted into law.
Unless you are a person totally isolated from the media environment you cannot help coming to know that the word “Tea Party” refers to political groups, and not just any political groups, but ones that are very boisterous, full of rage and engaging in hostile talk. You may have seen them screaming at elected officials and pushing people around at town hall meetings. This is the kind of thing the press just has to cover. In fact, it may well be that the media literally helps create these groups; they are given such a major voice in public life not because they have any truth or logic to their beliefs but because they are willing to do crazy stuff to get attention.
Then you go back to work and you see applications for Tea Party groups which want to be tax-exempt. This would mean that other tax payers would be helping to support the work of these groups, which would not be fair at all.
Dude’s an embarrassment. I would link the entire piece but I don’t link to asshattery. It simply encourages more asshattery.
