The wizened re-animated corpse of international dipshit extraordinaire Pat Robertson made mouth-noises out of a hole in his face today about speeding and traffic regulation. And the weirdest part is that I agree with him? Partially? Sort of? Maybe?
I don't know how I feel about this.
On yesterday's edition of The 700 Club, a show no one can believe is still on the air yet your great aunt still watches, Pat Robertson was asked by a viewer about her husband's speeding habit:
Pat, is it a sin to constantly drive over the speed limit? My husband insists on speeding even when he's on time. In the last two years he's gotten four speeding tickets and our insurance has gone up. He doesn't feel that God cares if we speed. What do you think?
Any thinking person can tell you that four speeding tickets in two years does seem a bit much, and maybe that person might want to slow it down a bit, or take it to a track. But this is not a question for a thinking person. Au contraire, it is a theological matter for none other than the great theological mind of Pat Robertson, a man who once called Scotland "a dark land" overrun by The Gays and then said he could leg press 2,000 pounds.
Which, um, okay.
And, in what is probably a highly unusual situation for Pat to find himself, he actually didn't come across as a complete and total lunatic. I mean, there is the part about him doing 200 miles per hour, or maybe 100 miles per hour, his protein shake-addled brain isn't really sure, but the rest isn't... terrible? So that's a start:
Pat deftly brings up that he's probably not in any way, shape, or form an authority on the matter, because he likes going fast a bit too much. Which I get. He even admits to the speeding incident one time on a deserted highway in Texas, and I'm not going to stand here and proudly proclaim that I've never broken a speed limit ever.
And then he gets into the meat of it:
But is it a sin? I think it's a sin to hurt somebody. I think it's a sin to drive recklessly. I've seen these clowns storming around the midst of heavy traffic. When I drive in the city, I drive very slowly... I think it's a sin to hurt people, and if you're driving imperils other people, you are sinning. No question about it.
And that's actually alright? I guess? I am loathe to agree with Pat Robertson on anything, because he's Pat Robertson, a man who claimed to be a preacher while investing $8,000,000 in a diamond mine in a country run by Charles Taylor (who was later convicted of crimes against humanity including rape, murder, and the use of child soldiers), a man who called Hinduism "demonic," a man who urged someone else to move to Saudi Arabia in order to beat their wife more thoroughly, but driving without due care and endangering the lives of others is definitely a Bad Thing.
But that whole crap about Texas not having speed limits is wrong. One stretch of Texas highway has a speed limit of 85 MPH, which is relatively high, but it's not unlimited. And then he says some blather about Portugal, and I have no idea what he's talking about, as Portugal is generally a pleasant enough place, and when I was there people seemed to obey stop signs and such.
But his main point sort of stands:
Don't imperil anybody else with the way you drive your car. And be careful, because you want to help other people live, and not wind up in the hospital.
And once again, I can't believe I'm saying this, but yeah, I can get behind Pat on that point.
Or maybe all those people crash because they watch too many horror movies. I'm not really sure. Pat's loony theology is kind of inconsistent on that point.
Via Raw Story