If you build it...

I get about 90% of my political news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (the other 10% comes from Facebook memes). Both shows were back on the air this week after a two-week break, so politics has been on my mind slightly more than usual the last few days. I emphasize the "slightly," as evidenced by the half-baked nature of this week's BASOTRUSSL.

Actually, calling it half-baked is giving it too much credit. This is like taking something out of the freezer and sticking it in the oven for 35 minutes, except you forgot to turn the oven on. It's a partly-defrosted idea. But it's the best I could come up with for this week. Anyway...

If Rush Limbaugh can pretend that the new Batman movie is a left-wing conspiracy and keep a straight face, then maybe I can convince people that the narrative from this week's Sunday School lesson is a thinly veiled metaphor of the pretended injustices Mitt Romney's "evil" 1% inflict on Obama's 99.

The prideful Zoramites and their Rameumptom proved to be unfruitful targets for Alma and his fellow missionaries, so they began teaching the poor people of the city. They had been kicked out of the Zoramites' houses of worship due to their poverty, even though they themselves had "labored abundantly to build [them] with [their] own hands" (Alma 32:5). In other words, they were saying to the rich, "you didn't build that!"

(I'm clearly joking around here, but it's kinda crazy to me that people are soooooo worked up about that line from the President's recent speech. It's true his word choice was poor--he should've added "on your own" at the end of the offending sentence. If you read the full speech, he makes that clear in the very next paragraph. The part in question is near the end.)

Alma then teaches the poverty-stricken to plant seeds, and to experiment. You know who likes to plant things? Michelle Obama. Do you know the name of the seed of an oak tree? How about an ACORN? And do you know who once experimented? One Mr. Barack Hussein Obama, that's who. Alma was clearly a liberal crusader.

It gets worse...in the next chapter, Alma recounts the tale of Moses, who offered healing to all his people if they would look at his rod, which had a serpent on it (see Alma 33:19-20; Num. 21:6-9). A snake on a pole? Sounds familiar. Free, universal healthcare? That sounds familiar too. Who knew Alma was such a socialist?

Naturally, the poor people latch onto these pro-big-government philosophies, so much so that the ruling elite becomes worried. They were worried because Alma's teachings "did destroy their craft" (Alma 35:3). So, they "found out privily the minds of all the people" (Alma 35:5), and exile all of the poor believers. "You people have got to go," they said.

And go they did. But the 1% wasn't satisfied--they wanted those who were different than them to die. But they no longer had anyone around who was willing to serve in the military, so they outsourced the army (see Alma 35:10-13). The rich are great at outsourcing, of course.

That Rush Limbaugh is on to something. Falsely interpreting texts as a wider left-wing conspiracy is pretty fun. Over the course of writing that, I think it actually reached half-baked status after all, maybe more. If anyone else can come up with the fully cooked version I'll gladly read it. In the meantime, you ought to read these chapters in Alma--there's some real faith-strengthening stuff that I completely ignored here.