Michelle Bachmann, photo by Gage Skidmore.

Much outrage has already been made over Republican senatorial candidate — and current congressman — Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment. Salty Eggs has written about it, and I mentioned it in my last post here as well. Almost all of the commentary has centered on how incredibly offensive the comment was, as though there were variations of rape, one more legitimate than another. The other part of his quote — ” the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” — has generally been casually dismissed as just a stupid thing some guy said. Commentary has focused on the outrage. And I understand that, but why?

The idea that many Republicans are anti-abortion and will come up with any excuse to justify denying abortions to anyone at anytime for any reason is hardly news. And it’s understandable from the anti-abortion point of view. If you truly, in your heart of hearts, believe that life begins at conception, that a mass of cells a couple days old has just as many rights as the mother-to-be in which it dwells, then of course you’re going to try to deny anyone getting an abortion. The problem is in the belief, not in the actions that stem from it. Change the belief, and all those actions fall by the wayside.

What outrages me is not that a Republican senatorial candidate is virulently against women’s rights. What outrages me is that anyone who says something like “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” in regards to rape is actually taken seriously as a candidate. And not because he’s anti-abortion but because he believes something that is so unbelievably, obviously untrue.

I submit to you that there is room in Congress for people who are anti-abortion. There is room for people who believe that life begins at conception, and that therefore, abortion is murder. That is, at least, an intellectually honest argument. I have more respect for that argument, misguided as it is, than I do for Akin’s, because Akin’s is stupider.

I submit to you, dear reader, that not only is Akin’s argument stupid, but that anyone who believes such nonsense should have no business running for office, no business getting elected to office, and should instead be remanded to remedial biology courses until further notice.

We have serious problems in this country, and they will not be solved by morons. Morons like Todd Akin, for whom this is only the latest in a long list of gibberish. My colleague at Salty Eggs, Brandon K. Thorp, just recently posted an essay on the idiocy of South Florida’s own Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. And, yeah, what Ros-Lehtinen did was pretty dumb. But is it any dumber than:

Steve King, photo by Gage Skidmore.

“If there is a sexual predator out there who has impregnated a young girl … that sexual predator can pick that girl up off the playground at the middle school and haul her across the state line and force her to get an abortion to eradicate the evidence of his crime and bring her back and drop her off at the swing set and that’s not against the law in the United States of America.”

– Rep. Steve King

“You’re the state where the shot was heard ‘round the world at Lexington and Concord.”

– Rep. Michele Bachmann, while in New Hampshire, not Massachusetts

“You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place.”

– Rep. Louie Gohmert, on why the Aurora movie theater shooting happened

None of these people should be in Congress. Period. Morons are not a minority that needs protected status in this country. State Legislatures should not be drawing congressional districts to ensure that our nations Moron-Americans have representation in Congress. If you lack even a basic knowledge of history (Bachmann), biology (Akin), the law (King), or whatever the hell the problem with Gohmert is, you do not belong in Congress. I’m not saying everyone needs to know these things, and I don’t think any less of people who are too busy with everything else going on in their lives to have a lot of this knowledge. You, average American just trying to get by, do not need to know that the first battles of the Revolutionary War took place in Massachusetts, or that kidnapping a minor that you have raped and driving her across state lines to get an abortion breaks several state and federal laws, or that there is no biological impediment to pregnancy by rape, or that the Judeo-Christian belief system is the overwhelming majority belief in this country, and that if anything, it’s all the other religions — and those with no belief at all — who face the prejudice of their fellow Americans. But if you intend to lead us all, yes, you have to know these things. No exceptions.

Does that make me a liberal elitist? I don’t think so. It makes me a fellow who wants Congress to consist of the best minds of our nation, not the worst. They say you can’t fix stupid, but I think the reverse is also true — stupid can’t fix anything.

GOP, Louie Gohmert, Michelle Bachmann, Steve King, Todd Akin, too stupid to serve