Last night I tweeted John Lennon's "Imagine" to Betsy Devos and Steve Bannon

I've been thinking a lot about this quote by Betsy Devos, courtesy of Mother Jones:

Asked whether Christian schools should continue to rely on giving—rather than pushing for taxpayer money through vouchers—Betsy DeVos replied, "There are not enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education...Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God's kingdom."

Aww. She's so sweet, isn't she? She really wants to get taxpayers to pay for the indoctrination of children for her religion. Why? So she won't have to worry about her fellow Christians being persecuted by others like atheists, Muslims and maybe even Buddhists. I wrote about this fear of persecution years ago. This campaign isn't about saving other people. It's about preventing persecution of Christians. Gosh, if they weren't so incredibly vindictive against others, they might've saved themselves some trouble.

For two millennia, Christians have, at their own hands, conducted genocide and numerous lesser forms of persecution against other races and religions, all in the name of their one supreme religion, Christianity. This isn't to say that all Christians are bad people. They are not all bad. Many, perhaps even a majority of them, live and love in relative peace, wishing no harm on anyone. A few of them are my friends and they're actually pretty cool people. But God help anyone else should Christians amass absolute political and military power.

I have to say it seems quite ironic that a religion so totally dedicated to reliance upon God focuses more on believing in God without question, and following the dictates of the leaders of that religion without question. Christian pursuit of political and military power would seem an oddity then, too. This is why we engage in so many wars. Now that Congress is better than 90% Christian, with conservative Republican majorities in both houses, and a conservative Republican Administration running the show from the White House, it's time to call the "leaders" out for what they are, "jihadists", or as someone else put it, The American Taliban.

If you don't believe me, check out this article on Medium by JC Weatherby, It’s Time to Start Calling Evangelicals What They Are: The American Taliban. Here is the nugget:

Evangelicals are advocating a religious extremism that is no different from muslim extremism, which projects religious authority over all people in their domain, which limits the rights of women, controls and limits education, and enforces strict adherence to a moral code, which naturally rejects and punishes all forms of “decadence,” including; “deviant sexuality,” science, reason, and any questioning of authority. Christian fundamentalists, if given the power, will do the same things.

These people want to tell everyone else what to believe. They want to force us all to believe as they do, but at the same time, would rain hell upon anyone else who tried to do the same thing to them. I'm perfectly content with allowing others to believe what they want to believe, as long as they don't try to force me to do the same as them. Homogeneous thinking is not how humans survived for so long. It is the differences in opinion that makes humans a successful species.

The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival. Getting us all to believe in a Christian God isn't going to "save" anybody. For the leaders of our country who profess Christianity, it's about security. They want to sleep at night knowing that they'd be safe from persecution if everyone else believed as they do. That's what this is all about. It's an entirely selfish motive, and we know it because not only do they want to enforce a certain religious belief upon the rest of us, they want to keep the hierarchy, too. Funny how no one is talking about dashing that hierarchy to a trillion little pieces.

So I got on Twitter last night and did this tweet:

@BetsyDeVos I'd rather #imagine a way to keep your conception of god out of schools and preserve the #1stamendment. https://t.co/LVwduRbYkh

— ScottCDunn (@ScottCDunn) February 28, 2017

And this one:

@BetsyDeVos #Morality is a skill, not #dogma https://t.co/BWsNIJiHj5 You cannot teach morality without teaching the skills to achieve it.

— ScottCDunn (@ScottCDunn) February 28, 2017

I would love to see a nice million strong wave of Tweets of John Lennon's song aimed at Betsy. In his song, Lennon offers an important reminder that we're all human, we all have frailties and that we all could live in peace if we can let go of the need to get others to think like we do. He's urging us to coexist, in peace.

And then I thought about how "anti-establishment" Steve Bannon claims to be. I wonder how committed to that he really is. Would Bannon give up the hierarchy and his place in it once he's accomplished his goals? I don't think so. Absolute power is stupefyingly attractive and addictive to all humans. I sincerely doubt Bannon is an exception to this rule. So I sent him this tweet, too:

.@StephenBannon Hey, Mr. Anti-establishment...this song is for you: https://t.co/LVwduRbYkh To have peace, you must be peaceful.

— ScottCDunn (@ScottCDunn) February 28, 2017

So far, no responses, no retweets, not really much of anything from that yet. I guess it's to be expected. But I've said my piece and that is enough for me. If the people in power truly believe that their actions will promote world peace, then they won't mind explaining their motives for their actions.