His strong hot-take on Halloween has all the careful consideration and self-awareness as the rest of his prescriptions for an improved social discourse and general moral welfare, like his brave public declaration of not understanding how separation of powers works or his denunciation of the pernicious and persistent presence of black people.
"This country desperately needs moral guidance. Parents see 250,000 crimes being committed every month. They see 27 million functional illiterates. They see 50 percent of black young people of inner cities not being able to read or write, and they sense a crisis in education."It's a fascinating pivot from "we need moral guidance" to "look at all this crime!" to "soooo many black kids." Am I pulling this quote out of context? Probably, but only because doing so serves the the rhetorical point I'm trying to un-subtly make and this is the internet, so those are kind of the rules.
And OK, to be fair, his main point of the webpage I lifted it from seems to be about "states rights" which has never before been used to obfuscate or complicate any other negative social point regarding African-Americans.
Of course I do disagree with Pat Robertson about Halloween, but only kind of on the finer points. I also object to Halloween, but only on personal laziness grounds, as I do for all holidays that have a participation requirement. He says:
"That’s the day when millions of children and adults will be dressing up as devils, witches, and goblins … to celebrate Satan," he explained. "They don’t realize what they’re doing.”
First of all, pick your head up, grampa. When was the last time you saw anyone dressed up as a "goblin"? Spider-Man villain Green Goblin maybe but only in that window between the first and second Sam Raimi versions, before Spider-Man 3 came along and contaminated all related merchandising with the deadly radioactivity of suck.
In that quote though, it's that last bit... do we not realize what we're doing? Really? We offer sexy Darth Vader costumes, which is basically a latex cat-suit and a helmet. It's not just that it's pointlessly and exploitatively sexualized, it's a pointlessly and exploitatively sexualized Dark Lord of the Sith. This didn't happen by accident. People thought about this. What are the two things Pat Robertson likes the least?* Sorcery and boners, easy. Two for two in one costume. Obvious evidence of intelligent design.
Also, I object to his glib dismissal of Satanism as unthinking or unintentional in general. We've had some very specific points of action recently showing Satanists coming right out to make very showy and pointed political stands in the name of constitutional freedom and the Prince of Darkness. See, two for two again. They come in pairs, Just like Sith lords.
Just this week, Satanists insisted on being allowed equal time to hold an invocation after a high school football game in Washington state because the coach was insisting on having a Christian one. The coach has now been suspended.
In Oklahoma, demanding equal consideration for their religious beliefs, Satanists successfully got a proposed Ten Commandments monument scotched by insisting on installing alongside it a $100,000 bronze statue of a demon being looked at adoringly by children. Happy to say the statue still survives and has been moved, probably appropriately, to Detroit.
Despite my own misgivings, we will be celebrating Halloween again this year, as I have children under 18 still to contend with under my care. They've already decided on their costumes (Porter Wagoner, Keatsian melancholia and Iron Man), so we're committed. If it means accidentally advocating Satanism, I guess I'm OK with it.
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*After taxes and black people, I mean, obviously, as we've already established.
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