Far be it for anyone to make sense of why Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, holds a congressional seat. The guy is a stooge, a man who wouldn’t know a fact if it was presented by Jesus himself. He’s a part of a cabal of intellectually-deficient politicians seeking to undermine the “learned,” routinely in association with the likes of the ghoulish Michele Bachmann and Texas’ resident Special Ed kid, Rep. Louie Gohmert.
Rep. King is known for saying dumb stuff at dumb moments, but as part of Monday evening’s MSNBC panel discussing the Republican National Convention, Rep. King may have reached a whole new level of dumbassery.
It all began with Esquire’s Charles Pierce, who was also on the panel, commenting on the dominance of “loud, unhappy, dissatisfied white people” attending the convention in Cleveland. Rep. King objected to Pierce’s comments, though not on the basis of what he said. Instead, Rep. King objected to the comment’s racial component:
“This whole ‘white people business’ though does get a little tired. I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people you’re talking about. Where did any other sub-group of people contribute more to civilization?”
Because it’s what a good journalist does when they hear something super racist come out of the mouth of an elected leader, host Chris Hayes asked Rep. King to clarify his statement. Because it’s what a good dim-witted politician does when he has realized he’s been caught saying something super racist, Rep. King shifted the focus of his rhetoric, instead asserting he wasn’t talking about “white people” themselves, but:
“… Western civilization itself that’s rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the United States of America, and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.”
This “clarification” really isn’t any better and doesn’t squelch the ignorance in his statement.
Western civilization has largely contributed to the world via imperialism. The nations Rep. Steve King referenced as Western civilization conquered lands and enslaved and murdered inhabitants of those lands by the millions. The “footprint of Christianity” is also complicit in those barbaric actions and even today still contributes to bigotry, hostility, and isolationism. Sure, Western civilization has contributed many things to the human experience, but let’s not forget that the numbers Rep. Steve King likely has to say out loud while counting on his fingers are Arabic and the gunpowder that maximally contributed to the evolution of firearms was invented in China — both being areas that don’t fit into the definition of Western civilization.
Plenty has been contributed to humanity by areas outside of Western civilization.
Perhaps Rep. Steve King needs to be reading Oxford Children’s History of the World instead of puking all over cable news.
Featured image is a screengrab from YouTube.
h/t ThinkProgress
