We already know that Mike Huckabee is no longer even trying to pass himself off as a kinder, gentler Christian conservative. Indeed, he’s been marching double-time to the right since jumping into the GOP clown car. Remember, he has declared that he would call in the FBI and National Guard to shut down abortion clinics. He has also let it be known that he wouldn’t allow victims of rape or incest to get an abortion even if they were children. And, last but not least, he crassly used the Kim Davis saga to expand his fundraising base while playing host to a rally for her.
How do you get more extreme than that? Easily, as it turns out. On Wednesday, Huckabee stopped by WHO in Des Moines for a chat with mid-morning host Jan Mickelson. The conversation quickly turned to the criminal justice system, which Mickelson claimed had been “taken over by progressives.” However, it took an ominous turn when Mickelson called jail a “pagan invention.”
The Christian solution to dealing with crime, Mickelson argued, can be found in the Book of Exodus. Mickelson pointed out that Exodus requires a thief to pay back what he steals “two-fold, four-fold.” But what if they don’t have the means to pay it back? If that’s the case, Mickelson said, “we’re supposed to take them down and sell them.” Tellingly, Huckabee didn’t even try to shut Mickelson down. Instead, he laughed. That’s right, LAUGHED.
Mickelson expanded on his degrading proposal, saying that thieves ought to be “indentured,” rather than jailed. He declared that this would be much better than imprisonment because, “they’re supposed to be working off the debt.” Huckabee agreed. He recalled that the director of Arkansas’ prisons during his tenure as governor told him that they locked people up “because we’re mad at them, not because we’re afraid of them.” To Huckabee’s mind, “the best way to deal with nonviolent criminal behavior” is to embrace something like what Mickelson suggested. He believed there would be “a certain deterrent” implied by forcing nonviolent offenders into what amounts to slavery. The passage that Huckabee and Mickelson were discussing is Exodus 22:3:
“Anyone who steals must certainly make restitution, but if they have nothing, they must be sold to pay for their theft.”
There are several problems with this. Selling human beings in this manner runs counter to one of the most basic tenets of our legal system–“no one is below the law.” Specifically, you do not lose your right to basic dignity just because you have been convicted of a crime. Not only that, but it would almost certainly run counter to international anti-slavery treaties which have been signed and ratified by this country. Specifically, the 1926 Slavery Convention and the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. In case Mickelson and Huckabee don’t know, treaties have the same force as constitutional law.
It’s more telling, though, that Huckabee even appeared on Mickelson’s show in the first place. If you’ll remember, in August, he suggested that undocumented immigrants in Iowa should be put on notice that unless they left the state immediately, they would “become property of the state of Iowa.” And a month later, he claimed that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan should have recused themselves from the marriage equality decision because they were “liberal Jews.” If you believe that Huckabee didn’t know about these disgusting comments before going on this host’s show, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
On paper, though, this visit did make some sense. For those who don’t know, the Iowa Republican primary base is dominated by Christian conservatives–a demographic that Huckabee has to win in order to have any chance of doing well in the state’s caucuses. What better way to reach them than to appear with a high-profile right-wing radio host on a 50,000-watt monster that reaches nearly all of Iowa? However, if Huckabee thought that he would have to embrace slavery in order to tap into that right-wing Christian base–or even appear on Mickelson’s show at all–it says a lot about him.
