elfgrove:

sailorscooby:

bajo-el-mar:

Oh Michigan…

oh goddamnit.

Okay, this has been going around to the point it was bugging me. What the hell did Stalin ever say that Mr. Walberg felt was good enough to justify quoting someone widely accepted as a “bad guy” in history? Because in our days of political sound-bytes, sometimes context makes a difference.

Took a little bit to dig that up.

The best I could get without video was this news report:

Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., a former pastor, told the religious leaders to “speak with clarity” to their congregations, lest America lose its guiding principles of religious freedoms.

“I don’t normally quote Stalin,” Walberg said, “but today he said something appropriate.” Walberg then read a quote from the former communist leader about causing America’s collapse by undermining its “spiritual life.”

“I would encourage the church to fight back strongly against what Stalin understood,” Walberg said solemnly.

“I presume the gentleman brought Stalin up only to bring him down,” Issa quickly interjected.

“Absolutely!” Walberg responded.

[source]

That doesn’t really give me the quote he used, but maybe it’s enough to find the quote by. Here we go.

“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.” - Joseph Stalin

Welp. That seems to be it.

So… Requiring either the company or an outside insurer [note this legislation did not apply to religious institutions only to actual companies that were being run with religious ideologies] to provide coverage for women’s birth control is going to undermine the spiritual health of the ENTIRE NATION? Are you fucking kidding me? You have a right to your beliefs, you don’t have a right to force them on others. THAT is the “guiding principles of religious freedoms” our country was founded on. Religious freedom not your ability to force your beliefs on others.