I still like Jesse Ventura. This didn’t used to make me unique, but in recent days, Gov. Ventura’s approval rating has apparently been dwindling. The reason: Some insensitive remarks he made to Playboy Magazine.

The biggest fuss is being made over Ventura’s comments that organized religion is “a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people.”

I can see why so many people’s panties are in a bunch. In this day and age when organizations like the Christian Coalition wield such a big stick in Washington, it’s shocking to hear someone so brazenly knock religion.

As soon as I heard of the comments, I realized they weren’t a great PR move, but I have been shocked at what a big deal the news media has made of this.

This week you haven’t been able to turn on CNN without hearing some political analyst blasting Ventura for being a stupid clown. Why such a backlash?

First off, Ventura’s comments may be seen as insensitive by some. But let’s be honest, there’s nothing new or surprising about them. Everyone from Karl Marx to Friedrich Nietzsche to that tool in your Philosophy 230 class has suggested, at some point, that religion is sustained by the weak-minded.

So even someone who finds this suggestion appalling can’t claim that it is in any way shocking. Except, perhaps, for the fact that it came from a political leader.

What makes these comments from Ventura so ridiculous in the minds of news analysts? Scores of respected philosophers and scholars hold similar views, and I doubt any of the panel members from “Crossfire” would call them ridiculous.

The only ridiculous thing about Ventura’s actions was that he jeopardized his seat on top of the opinion polls. Is that really such a crime?

The only reason I can see to explain the current backlash is that everyone entrenched in the political system, from analysts to politicians, can’t stand Ventura because he’s not one of them.

For conservatives, hating Ventura is no problem. They traditionally have no issues with ostracizing outsiders. For liberals, things haven’t been so easy.

Liberals are less quick to jump on Ventura for being a professional wrestler and walking side show because they don’t want to be seen as judgmental or insensitive. It’s just not PC.

Luckily for them, Ventura made the first move by making some very un-PC comments. And there’s nothing that rings a liberals bell faster than that.

But what really rubs me wrong about this whole situation is how hypocritical many of the people attacking Ventura are. After all, it’s liberal politician’s who have been flooding MTV for years asking young people to vote.

It’s not just young people, either. We’ve all heard the statistics about how low voter turnout is in this country. Even for presidential elections, which typically draw the largest numbers, well under half of the people in this country of voting age show up at the polls.

The people not voting tend to be people with lower levels of income and education.

And, of course, young people.

At the time of his election, Ventura was lauded for drawing scores of people to the polls for the first time.

In fact, Ventura carried every age group under the age of 60.

To put it simply, the people have spoken, and those in the political establishment don’t like it.

Did anyone really think that if every socio-economic bracket in this society was equally represented at the polls, they would still elect the same lame white guys?

The people we see in Washington represent the incomes, educations, and beliefs of upper and upper-middle class America. They’re trained to be complacent, not rock the boat, and certainly not take a swing at anything as powerful as organized religion.

Honestly, though, Jesse Ventura represents more people in this society than most any other politician does.

He may be insensitive and maybe even ignorant on more than a few things, but so are most of us.

For years conservative and liberal politicians have been running on an “I’m just a plain talkin’ American …” campaign. I’ve always thought it was just a load of B.S. — until Ventura arrived.

The man really is telling us what he thinks, not what his spin-doctors have groomed him to think. For years we’ve been complaining that we want honest politicians, now maybe some people are realizing that they’d rather have business as usual.

I’ll be blunt: You can have honest politicians or you can have non-threatening PR machines, but you can’t have it both ways.

Maybe Ventura is a bit of culture shock to this democracy of ours, but at least he is an accurate representation of what the people really want.

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Ben Godar is a senior in sociology from Ames. Mean Gene for President!