Rick Santorum

Rick "Santorum" Santorum (May 10, 1958–) is a former United States Senator (January 3, 1995 - January 3, 2007) and Representative (January 3, 1991 – January 3, 1995) from Pennsylvania.[note 1] He was a candidate for the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election,[3] and was previously a candidate for the 2012 Spanish Inquisition Republican presidential nomination.

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“”We will never have the elite, smart people on our side.
—Frothy on being a conservative[1]
They so proudly wear this insignia.
“”Santorum has like an all-automated electric stupidity generator permanently mounted in his mouth.
—PZ Myers[2]

He is infamous for his wide repertoire of fail, with painfully out-of-touch levels of stupidity, self-righteousness, sanctimoniousness, hypocrisy, spitefulness, fundamentalism and smugness that he exudes both in terms of statements and positions on issues ranging from the U.S. invasion of Iraq, intelligent design, homosexuality, and the Terri Schiavo media circus.

Random positions

America as a Christian nation

During his 2012 Presidential campaign announcement, Santorum proclaimed that America was founded on the Bible and Judeo-Christian values. He repeated the old Religious Right lies that all the Founders were Christians and had planned to establish this country as a Christian nation.

But not too charitable

On 8 December 2011, Santorum engaged in a non sequitur in arguing that poor and unemployed Americans don't need food stamps because there is an epidemic of obesity in the country.[4] Unless he was arguing that thin Americans should eat the fat ones.

Intelligent Design
See the main article on this topic: Santorum Amendment

In 2001, Santorum tried unsuccessfully to insert language which came to be known as the "Santorum Amendment" into the No Child Left Behind bill that sought to promote the teaching of intelligent design while questioning the academic standing of evolution in public schools.

Contraception

Rick Santorum is against any form of contraception stating, "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.... Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that's okay, contraception is okay. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." [5]

Homosexuality

Santorum is no friend of gays, and he has been called a bigot. He has compared having the right to consensual homosexuality to having the right to have sex with a dog, adultery, bigamy, incest, polygamy, and doing “anything,” presumably anything outrageously bad.[6][7]

Rick is concerned about the effects of gay marriage on children.[8] In a 2003 interview with the Associated Press responding to a question about how to prevent sexual abuse of children by priests, Santorum said the priests were engaged in "a basic homosexual relationship," and went on to say that he had "no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts."[note 2] Santorum explained his views, particularly that the right to privacy (as detailed in Griswold v. Connecticut) "doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution." Santorum went further by explaining that, "whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, whether it's sodomy, all of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family." Finally, he claimed that sodomy laws properly exist to prevent acts that "undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family." When the Associated Press reporter asked whether homosexuals should not then engage in homosexual acts, Santorum replied:

“”Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality.[9] That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality.[10]

He's under the impression that gay marriage will somehow cause straight couples to have fewer kids, primarily by "saying that marriage isn't about children." This, no doubt, must be a real surprise to married couples who are childless by choice and unmarried couples who have actually had children.[11]

His opponents successfully fought back by working to “attach his name to a sex act that would make his big white teeth fall out of his big, empty head,”[12] see Santorum.

Boston Catholic Church abuse scandal

In 2002, Santorum made an article about the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal. Santorum wrote:

“”"It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning 'private' moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."[13]

WMDs in Iraq

In June 2006, Santorum declared that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. Officials of the Department of Defense, CIA intelligence analysts, and the White House have all explicitly stated that these expired casings are not part of the WMD threat that Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched to contain. The specific weapons Santorum referred to were chemical munitions dating back to the Iran–Iraq War that were buried in the early 1990s.

Accolades from colleagues

"Santorum — That's Latin for asshole" - former Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE).[14]

Climate denial

"There is no such thing as global warming."[15]

Dutch euthanasia
“”In the Netherlands, people wear different bracelets if they are elderly. And the bracelet is: ‘Do not euthanize me.’ Because they have voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands but half of the people who are euthanized — ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands — half of those people are enthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don’t go to the hospital. They go to another country, because they are afraid, because of budget purposes, they will not come out of that hospital if they go in there with sickness.[16]

When a representative of his campaign was confronted by a Dutch reporter, she responded "It's a matter of what's in his heart. He's a strong pro-life person."

Puerto Rican statehood

When in Puerto Rico, Santorum had this to say:

“”Like any other state, there has to be compliance with this and any other federal law...and that is that English has to be the principal language. There are other states with more than one language such as Hawaii but to be a state of the United States, English has to be the principal language.[17]

There is no such law. The United States has no official language.

American history courses
“”I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught.[18]

This is false; only one doesn't. Why? Because it's a medical school.[18] Even then, medical post-secondary offers History of American Medicine courses. We could assume that anybody accepted was required to take regular American History courses prior to acceptance.

Abortion

Ricky has a rather far-fetched opinion of Obama and abortion:

“”He can't answer that simple question, which is not a debatable question. I don't think you'll find a biologist in the world who would say that [a fetus] is not a human life. The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer — is that human life a person under the Constitution? Barack Obama says no, well if that human life is not a person then... I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say 'now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people'.[19]

Same-sex marriage

Santorum campaigned on the promise of annulling all same-sex marriages and reinstating the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. [20] He also compared same-sex marriage to polygamy, which was a poor comparison to make to gain conservative support, considering polygamy is perfectly acceptable in the bible. Mr. Santorum achieved national notoriety by claiming homosexual marriage would lead to bestiality and child rape.[21]

Welfare and African-Americans bla-people

Then, we got this:

“”...the state of Iowa is gonna get fined if they don't sign up more people under the Medicaid program. They're just pushing more and more of you to get dependent on them so they can get your vote—t-that's what the bottom line is. I don't want t-to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money, I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money, and provide for themselves and their families.[22]

And the crowd claps.

It's often quote mined to just "I don't want to make black people's lives better," but it's not much kinder in context. Many welfare recipients are of other ethnic groups (a good percentage of them white), and Rick-baby seems to follow age-old stereotypes about black people, which are, ironically, ensuring that they won't have the opportunity to "earn the money."

Rick denied saying exactly that, instead preferring the term African American. The general consensus is he did only say "bla- people," though whatever the hell that could stand for is up for debate.[23] Oddly enough, Herman Cain stuck up for him.[24]

Foreign scientists

At a campaign stop in Greenville, South Carolina:

“”On occasion scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing, candidly. I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, North Korea, or from Iran and you are going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe.[25]

Yes, not only did the compassionate, Christian Santorum comment on how murdering foreign scientists is a "wonderful thing" (feel that Christian Love!™) but would have happily started openly killing scientists from not just Iran but Russia if they displeased him, and this would have zero ramifications with regards to an effective act of war, coupled with seriously pissing off the most nuclear armed state on Earth.

Israel & the Palestinians

As can be expected from a self righteous, sanctimonious and almost amusingly out-of-touch Christian fundamentalist, Foamy holds some interesting views with regards to Israel.[26]

In short, he claimed that Palestinians don't really exist and thus have no rights, and that the entire West Bank is part of Israel due to his notion of a "law of conquest" in which once a nation militarily occupies land they hold all rights over it and over the people contained within. It remains to be seen whether he would have supported this in case of a hypothetical occupation of US soil.

Unemployment
“”We need a candidate who's going to be a fighter for freedom. Who's going to get up and make that the central theme in this race because it is the central theme in this race. I don't care what the unemployment rate's going to be. Doesn't matter to me. My campaign doesn't hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates. It's something more foundational that's going on. We have one nominee who says he wants to run the economy. What kind of conservative says that the president runs the economy? What conservative says I'm the guy, because of my economic experience, that can create jobs? I don't know. We conservatives generally think that government doesn't create jobs. That what government does is create an atmosphere for jobs to be created in the private sector.
—Santorum on 19/2/2012 while campaigning

Torture

Rick Santorum is in favour of enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which are recognised as torture by the UN.[27] In a public disagreement, he accused John McCain of not understanding torture. McCain was tortured for 5 and a half years in Vietnam.[28]

The film industry

In October 2013 he made the claim that the film industry was controlled by Satan, although this seems more like an attempt to pimp his cinematic disaster movie The Christmas Candle for EchoLight Studios (of which he's the CEO) than anything else.[29]

Wingnut welfare

Santorum received wingnut welfare as a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and directed their "Program to Promote and Protect America's Freedom" from to 2007 to 2011.[30][31]

2012 Presidential Campaign

On June 6, 2011, Santorum announced that he would be running for President of the United States in 2012. At that time just 2% of Republican voters favored him.[32]

Ever the optimist about his chances, in early December he said that the Iowa caucus was still "wide open" even though he was polling only "single-digit" support at the time. Newt Gingrich's lead was "surmountable," he said. To show just how lubed he was about his chances of further penetration into wide open Iowa and how frothy that single digit was, he further stated that "we're supposed to believe that the latest crave is the one that's going to stick" and "we're going to be peaking right about the right time."[33]

Sure enough, by the end of December, Santorum surged from behind in Iowa,[34] with Mitt Romney on top and Gingrich fading.[35] On December 30 he outdid himself by taking in an entire football along with some buffalo wings and the media in tow.[36]

Iowa Republicans liked Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum almost equally.[37] Eventually it was confirmed that Santorum won narrowly.[38]

In February 2012, votes in three states filled the ballot boxes with Santorum, causing a rise in the polls.[39]

On 10 April 2012, it was announced that Santorum had suspended his 2012 presidential campaign, failing to live up to his principles and carry his dead campaign to term.[40]

It was rather strange that he ran at all, considering he was a two-term Senator who lost his reelection bid by a landslide; presidential contenders are usually those who have been big winners elsewhere, and politics in general is not kind to those who have such a history of defeat. That he did as well as he did is more a testament to the desperation to nominate anyone but Mitt Romney than to his actual viability.

Other bizarre public discourse of note

He joined with Glenn Beck to fight the horrifying non-menace of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Disabled on the grounds of its non-threat to national sovereignty.[41] New World Order Wheelchair Suicide Brigade, attack!

He's now a columnist for WND, which is sure to delight opposition researchers for both primary and general election opponents if he ever decides to run for office again.[42]

And on another note...

Santorum has 7 living children, and lost one to premature birth. Their handling of this child's death later garnered some attention during his presidential run, which seemed unnecessary given how many other completely legitimate issues there were to tear him apart on. His last child was born in 2008 with Edward's syndrome,File:Wikipedia's W.svg and in defiance of all odds is still alive today. Given their medical expenses are far higher than they would be in any other civilized country, it makes it all the more amazing that he isn't among those seeking healthcare reform.[43]

Despite all the evidence to the contrary that you just read (and there was a lot of it), Santorum's actually reasonably well-educated, having earned a bachelors degree in political science, an MBA, and a juris doctorate, all from fairly respectable universities (ie not diploma mills or Liberty University).

Rickograms
  • Cram Our Stink
  • Karmic Torn Us
  • Scrotum An Irk
  • Sour Trick Man
  • Sick Man Or Rut
  • Or I Ask Mr Cunt
  • Rick Rant Um So
  • Rick Moan Rust
  • Cum On Risk Rat
  • Stork Cum Rain
  • Cum Roar Stink
  • Tumor Scar Kin
  • Must Rock Iran
gollark: You should try my "exciting" "game": https://osmarks.net/incdec/
gollark: Bye, I guess.
gollark: Also, is this a *fictional* thing?
gollark: That's quite early.
gollark: Good enough for what? And again, god is omnipotent; it is entirely possible to know the answer without actually creating a world and having people do things and then *torturing them* because they were unlucky enough to get a bad environment.

See also

Notes
  1. He was actually born in Winchester, Virginia and spent some of his childhood in adjacent Berkeley County, West Virginia. Pennsylvania can keep him. We don't want him back. (On another note, the 1992 comedy film Bob Roberts about a creepy politician running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania has an eerie resemblance to the real life Rick Santorum, as well as to another creepy politician also named Rick.)
  2. An opinion shared by Pope Benedict XVI.

References
  1. [Gawker.com: archive.is, web.archive.org Rick Santorum on Being Conservative: 'We Will Never Have the Elite, Smart People on Our Side']
  2. Do we want our politicians to address science issues?
  3. Gabriel, Trip. Rick Santorum Announces New Presidential Bid, and New Focus on Middle Class. The New York Times. 27 May 2015. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  4. Offense Santorum as reported by ThinkProgress.org
  5. http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/news/g3309/stupid-things-politicians-say/?slide=18
  6. http://cowdery.home.netcom.com/santorum.htm
  7. http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/06/06/237112/rick-santorums-top-12-most-offensive-statements/
  8. http://www.towleroad.com/2011/06/santorumsiouxcity.html
  9. Pure bullshit. Same-sex unions, though not necessarily exactly the same as opposite-sex ones, have existed since ancient times. And by "history of man," how are the children in these countries?
  10. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-23-santorum-excerpt_x.htm
  11. Santorum: Gay Marriage Stops Straight People From Having Kids, Dispatches from the Culture Wars
  12. http://blogs.channel4.com/world-news-blog/us-presidential-hopeful-rick-santorum-and-the-curse-of-notoriety
  13. Ah, that Boston.
  14. Jeffrey St. Clair (2006-05-19). "Santorum: That's Latin for Asshole" Actually, it's a slight corruption of sanctorum, which means of holy things, and so our boy may be fairly referred to as "Dick of the Holy Things."
  15. Rick Santorum To Glenn Beck: 'There Is No Such Thing As Global Warming,' 'Drill Everywhere' (VIDEO) Huffington Post
  16. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/euthanasia-in-the-netherlands-rick-santorums-bogus-statistics/2012/02/21/gIQAJaRbSR_blog.html
  17. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/14/rick-santorum-puerto-rico-mitt-romney_n_1345728.html
  18. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/apr/03/rick-santorum/rick-santorum-says-american-history-not-available-/
  19. Rick Santorum Says Barack Obama Should be Pro-Life Because He is Black
  20. http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/advocate-45/2012/08/21/45-biggest-homophobes-our-45-years?page=full
  21. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8996706/US-election-2012-Rick-Santorum-claims-same-sex-marriage-is-comparable-to-polygamy.html
  22. Racist Rick Santorum: "I don't want to make black peoples lives better"
  23. Rick Santorum denies using 'black people' in welfare remarks
  24. Herman Cain Defends Rick Santorum’s ‘Black People’ Comment On The View
  25. Rick Santorum: Dead Foreign Scientists Are A 'Wonderful Thing'
  27. UN torture investigator calls on Obama to charge Bush for Guantanamo abuses
  28. Santorum: McCain "doesn't understand" torture]
  29. Santorum: Satan Controls The Film Industry, Right Wing Watch
  30. Rick Santorum Ethics and Public Policy Center (archived from January 22, 2012).
  31. Program to Promote and Protect America's Freedom Ethics and Public Policy Center (archived from March 14, 2011).
  32. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2011/0606/Rick-Santorum-says-he-s-in-it-to-win.-Could-he
  33. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/05/us-usa-campaign-santorum-idUSTRE7B405P20111205
  34. http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Santorum-surges-from-behind-in-Iowa.html?cmpid=124488469
  35. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/28/cnn-poll-romney-on-top-gingrich-fading-santorum-rising-in-iowa/
  36. http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/12/30/santorum-takes-in-football-wings-with-media-in-tow/
  37. Iowa caucuses: Romney pips Santorum
  38. Mitt Romney stripped of Iowa win after recount
  39. A flood of Santorum in Minnisota
  40. http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/10/politics/campaign-wrap/index.html?hpt=hp_c1,
  41. Beck Spots Hitler. Again. Dispatches from the Culture Wars
  42. Santorum Joins the Worldnutdaily, Dispatches from the Culture Wars
  43. Santorums’ new book reveals how faith and love are tested by a daughter’s disability
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