One Nation Under Godawful Art

I was going to do an extended, blow-by-blow ranting screed over this truly wretched (and specially annotated) piece of art (and history) … but David Willis did the (specially annotated) job for me, and far more entertainingly.

I cannot, however, restrain myself from summarize my feelings on three points of Jon McNaughton’s hit job on American history, polity, religion, and and law:

1. America is, in McNaughton’s eyes, lily-white. Yes, there is one black historical figure, one Indian, one black everyman soldier, and one Godless Heathen Immigrant Terrified of Constitutional Jesus. That’s all very appropriate, because Constitutional Jesus is about as Semitic-looking as Brad Pitt. Oh, there’s a black college student, but it’s okay because he’s surrounded by more mature while folk.
2. The irony of Thomas Jefferson standing proudly next to Jesus is remarkable, given that while Jefferson considered Jesus to have been a great human teacher, he decried the mythmaking down about him, and created his own abridged New Testament where he excised all the miracles.   He’d probably be a bit nonplussed in front of glowing Constitutional Jesus. Indeed, while most of the founders shown were theists, they tended to be freethinking in various aspects of their religion, deeply distrustful of churches, and many of them were dedicated to the separation of Church and State.
3. The litany of stereotypes on the lower right — the heedless politician, the remorseful SCOTUS justice, the evil-utionist professor, the smarmy actor, the greedy lawyer, the liberal journalist — would be breathtaking enough, even without Emperor Palpatine Satan lurking in the shadows behind them. All that’s missing is a swishy hair stylist and a slavering abortionist to make the picture complete. (I’m not quite sure what the pregnant woman is doing hanging out with that crowd.)

Yeesh.