Santorum Proves He's An Idiot

Someone on his campaign staff should have reminded Rick Santorum of the old adage that "it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt". Because this right-wing nut has opened his mouth and shown the entire country that he is without a doubt a complete idiot. It's not the first time Santorum has let his mouth overload his ass, but it may be the most egregious.

What did he say this time? Well, he's decided that America is not as free as it was during the time of the Founding Fathers (1787?). This is what he told an Iowa crowd at a campaign stop last weekend:

Our founders said [our] rights were given to us to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Does anyone here believe that first inalienable right is as whole as it was at the time of our founding? It isn’t. Does anyone believe that our freedom is as whole as it was at the time of our founders? It is not.

How could he possibly believe (or even utter) such a ridiculous thing? Did he skip every day of his American History classes in high school? While the Founding Fathers did a great thing by giving us our independence and our Constitution, they actually provided freedom and rights to only a limited minority of the residents of this country at that time.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the huge majority of African-Americans still slaves at that time? They would not be freed for another eight decades, and would not be guaranteed equal rights by the government for another hundred years after that. And that's not all. Women could not vote (or even own property in many places). It was not until the early Twentieth Century that all American women were given the right to vote.

To believe Santorum's statement is true, you would have to believe that only white male property-owners deserved freedom -- because those were the only people who had freedom at the time of our Founding Fathers. But then I sometimes believe that is exactly what many Republican right-wingers, especially the teabaggers, actually do believe.

The truth is that while this country has not yet fulfilled its promise of freedom and equality for all its citizens, the United States is today a freer country than it has ever been in the past. And only a total idiot would say otherwise.