Jesse Ventura’s Playboy interview is so outrageous, I wonder what there is left to say.

Monday, October 04, 1999

Jesse Ventura’s Playboy interview is so outrageous, I wonder what there is left to say. The governor’s spokesman says the article "speaks for itself," but I wish it did not.

I wish I could find some redeeming value in it. There is none. Why bother, then, to comment? Because too many people can be predicted to be irresponsibly entertained by this insanity when we need to evaluate its political and moral significance so as to deal with him as governor and make voting decisions.

The best thing that can be said about Jesse Ventura is that he lies when he says he says what he thinks, because what he says has serious consequences and the governor must be held accountable for them.

When Ventura blames "organized religion" for the unpopularity of legalized prostitution, he encourages me that we may have been more successful than we sometimes worry.

He seems to find it irritating to practice his natural immorality and be told it is also criminal. He complains, in his book, that American women expect to be treated as human beings rather than as animal objects as he says Filipino women are.

For the governor who refused to sign a Day of Prayer proclamation so as not to offend atheists, it is no surprise he should charge that "organized religion" (whatever that is) is "a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers."

Could he actually be counting on re-election by just atheists, because it is not rational now to expect the votes of people of religion whom he has so violently offended.

A weak-minded person is he who thinks he can stand alone, isolated within his community, because he has a big body and a bigger mouth.

I know far more about that portion of the religious establishment that is a self-serving industry than he does, but I actually understand what I am talking about and I am doing more than talking about it.

His broad term includes even the smallest congregation (Christian, Jewish, Islam, and the rest) that has incorporated under state law.

How can we expect the government of Minnesota to treat us fairly and with respect when its governor speaks thus?

So far as religion telling "people to go out and stick their noses into other people’s business," this is what is called being our brother’s keeper, compassion, mercy, and grace.

Someone needs to tell this governor about such things, for he is ignorant of them.

He dismisses the Tailhook scandal with a self-justifying excuse that when we create jobs to protect citizens we are forced to allow those men to "have their way"with women.

We know he thinks this is the enjoyment of SEALs and other military, but would it not extend to policemen, firemen, and any number of other civilians?

Just how much protection can we expect state laws to give us from such as rape and sexual abuse when the state is headed by such an evil-minded person?

He told Playboy he likes being governor because he is "king" and "there’s no one in this state who can tell me what to do." Jesse-boy, read the state constitution.

Inasmuch as Jesse Ventura feels he was elected governor because people want him to say what he thinks and he brags this is what he actually does, we have an obligation to hold him accountable for exactly what he says as precisely what he thinks and likely what he will do.