HESTON, MISSISSIPPI — Clem O’Connor is “staunchly pro-life.” He is a devout, “born again” Christian and he is also a “lifelong Republican.” Clem is supporting Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) for the Republican presidential nomination, and he told our reporter Cruz’s foreign policy of essentially carpet bombing adversaries of the U.S. doesn’t at all interfere with his pro-life views.
“Well, first of all,” Clem told us, “he doesn’t even really know what carpet bombing is,” insisting that Cruz’s seeming ignorance to how carpet bombing works is a defense of his potential hypocrisy. “Further, of course we can be pro-life and pro-bombing,” Clem said, “because the only way to make peace is to bomb. Look at how peaceful Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan are! Imagine how less peaceful they’d be if we weren’t bombing them!”
Clem told us that he’s “pro-life because the life of the innocent is so important” but pro-carpet bombing because “innocent lives are worth less once they’re born, especially if they’re born in another country.” O’Connor pointed to his religious beliefs as part of his reason for being pro-carpet bombing but anti-abortion. “Nowhere in the Bible does it say we shouldn’t bomb our enemies,” Clem said, “and sure that’s because bombs didn’t exist centuries ago, but still, you get what I’m saying right?”
“It’s really very simple,” Clem told us when trying to describe the subtle, nuanced differences between “a woman making a tough decision that impacts both her and a developing life form that can’t survive on its own” and “bombing the living shit out of people when you know it’ll result in civilian casualties.” He explained, “With abortion, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity told me to hate it, with bombing people into the next century, they told me to like it. Why think for myself when I can have my thoughts spoon-fed to me?”
Clem told our interviewer that “Really, at the end of the day it might just be as simple as this — civilian casualties from carpet bombing are something I’ll never see or have to deal with, and even though I’ll never have to get an abortion, nor see one performed, it’s something that’s an issue here at home for me to wring my hands over, so I do that, ignoring any and all potential conflicting information within my brain that tells me my views are intellectually inconsistent.”
“And again, Rush told me to think this, and when has Rush Limbaugh ever been wrong about anything,” Clem asked.
