For what does Yarbrough's "Values Action Team" really stand?

On the first day of the 2014 legislative session, state Sen. Steven Yarbrough (R-LD17/Chandler) introduced SB1062.

Sen. Yarbrough leads a bipartisan group of legislators and citizen group leaders known as the Arizona Values Action Team which supports public policy that is pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-school choice and pro-religious liberty.

First, the "bipartisan" claim is dubious at best. If there actually is tangible team membership, any Democrats would likely only be token and needed solely to blunt the reality of Dominionism being exclusively a Republican political sect.

Second, the Arizona Eagletarian has already made the connection between Yarbrough's VAT and Christian Nationalism or Dominionism.

Terms like Dominionism and Value Action Team might sound innocuous, or possibly even noble (Sean Noble? Nah...) but the SB1062 controversy showed clearly that what this "team" really pushes is government control over personal conduct. Personal conduct that causes NO tangible harm to anyone. Or, as Mike Huckabee put it,

"Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women," Huckabee told his audience at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting in downtown Washington. "That's not a war on them. It's a war for them. And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control, because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it." (emphasis mine)

Why is Mike Huckabee, or Steve Yarbrough, or Eddie Farnsworth (who sponsored, in the House, a bill identical to SB1062) so concerned with what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedroom? Granted, that wasn't the direct subject of SB1062, but Dominionist Republicans have not been shy about that aspect of their legislative agenda for Arizona or America.

So, imagine my surprise when last evening on 60 Minutes, Morley Safer reported on Billion Dollar Art Battle Steeped in WWII History.

Starting at about 3:28 into the video,

Art thought to be worth over a billion dollars. Art piled on shelves. Much of it art the Nazis declared to be degenerate. It was art taken from the walls of museums and from Jewish-owned galleries and collectors. All of it acquired by Hildebrand Gurlitt, Cornelius's father. He was a leading art dealer chosen by Hitler to sell the art to customers abroad for hard currency. Much of it featured in a 1937 degenerate art show in which Hitler wanted to show Germans what he regarded as the decadence and depravity of modern avant-garde art.

Last year, when I posted a quote attributed to a WWII German propaganda minister, there was a little bit of push back. After all, what about Godwin's Law, which applies when Hitler is invoked in an online discussion?

Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often referred to as "playing the Hitler card". The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of Nazi Germany such as genocide, eugenics, or racial superiority, nor, more debatably, to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies, if that was the explicit topic of conversation, since a Nazi comparison in those circumstances may be appropriate...

About totalitarian regimes...

Totalitarianism or totalitarian state is a term used by some political scientists to describe a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible.

Can there be any doubt about the natural end result of what Cathi Herrod advocates for and what Yarbrough does his best to implement (when he's not busy skimming taxpayer funding from his School Tuition Organization) by legislation?

If you doubt, consider one of the biggest hot button issues in contemporary America, women's right to make their own health, reproduction and even abortion choices. I have no problem with anti-choice advocates believing that abortion is an abomination. I know NOBODY who think terminating a pregnancy is something to celebrate. But for the STATE (legislatures in Congress and 50 states) to make that decision and mandate that a woman cannot make the decision for herself, IS totalitarian.

Again, I ask you, can there be any doubt that the natural end result of allowing Cathi Herrod and her lackeys, like Steve Yarbrough, to triumph will be a totalitarian state?

Should we be concerned? Not unless we are complacent and ready to abdicate our responsibility as citizens.




If we Rise UP! We WILL overcome.




We will overcome Dominionism. Overcome Citizens United. Overcome McCutcheon.