The "ham-faced pundit", Erick Son of Erick, would fit right in here in England (if not in any other UK nation), as a "gammon". Aka the type of Brexit fundamentalist who is fullest of angry self-righteous certitude, and shit. A short induction course (up to five minutes) would be more than sufficient to bring him up to speed on everything he wanted to know concerning the EU.
Poor bastard Erick. He's had to deal with whole months of people making his kind into villains and jokes in their fiction about Thor and Arachne and Wiccan! Imagine if he was gay. Or a woman. Or a Muslim.
I'm not going to deny that you guys *feel* persecuted and all, but even if you were being, there's a line over there that you need to get waaaaay to the end of before we start addressing your victimization at the hands of society. Take a number, sit down, shut up, and we'll get to your hurt feelings when you have to watch OTHER PEOPLES' GODS ACT LIKE THE CHRISTIAN GOD IS NOT THEIR LODESTONE IN LIFE right after we've addressed people who are actually being hurt and killed. We're a little busy.
I know I'm veering into smugness, but to any Jew, terror-stricken horror that your religious beliefs don't run the world seems like utter milquetoastery. (Apologies to my fellow somewhat-effeminate males, many of whom are extremely brave and full of gamban.)
Of course, the sort of 'Christian' doing the complaining is exactly the sort whose intentions for the world are such that that condition—your group's beliefs not privileged—_would_ in fact be the first step toward actual persecution and perhaps eventual murder. Not to dominate can imply only being dominated utterly, the same mind-set that rules their Dear Leader.
I get it, I'm just a little irritated at the idiocy of Christians watching a TV show with people with magical powers who are named after other people's religions--and who in some cases are literally the gods of other people's religions--and objecting when they do not conform to your strict Christian world view. It always reminds me of the folks who got outraged that Sims 3 introduced witches. Made the game satanic, they said, and anyway there's no such thing as a good witch. And I thought, but you're cool with the vampires, werewolves, zombies, and fairies? And it turned out that yes, they were. WTF.
I've been begging Edroso to marry me for years. The fact that I'm already married will no doubt be an impediment to achieving that goal, let alone adding you in — at least for the moment. But once we've killed the Christians and their puny God, I'm sure it will all work out.
Yeah, I think I've proposed to him a few times also. Also, you might have to check with my partner.
We may not be able to pull off the group marriage thing, but I accept the sentiment in the spirit it was meant, because I am often also swept away by someone's snark.
Who would win a "most ham-like" contest, Erick or Karl Rove? Place your bets.
Meanwhile, neo-confederacy scholars Loewen and Sebesta accurately delineated the world view of the Confederacy, which lives on in Trump supporters. There is a hierarchy with the Christian God at the top, then white males vouched safe by God to rule the natural world, then white women and children under the protection of those white males, and lastly everyone else at about the same level as beasts of the field, good for labor and needing dominion by guess who? Whatever threatens that hierarchy is evil and unnatural, including uppity women, smart-ass youngsters, blacks who don't know their place, foreigners who don't speak English, unacceptable types of Christians*, other religions, homosexuals, scientists, etc. This model accurately predicts every animosity uncovered during the Cletus safaris into Trumpland.
*Definition of unacceptable Christians varies from time to time. Catholics now more acceptable than in the 19th century.
The United States is a Christian nation. Which is why Christians are under constant attack. Because Christians are the majority, which is what makes them the minority. And the only way to keep them from being persecuted is to let them persecute everyone else. Because if Jesus taught us anything, it was to pre-emptively attack your neighbor based upon false witness.
As everyone knows, this didn't start with the Covington Catholic kids and their MAGA hats. For that matter, CCHS has had a terrible reputation for racism and misogyny for quite a long time. So too I've been hearing about the assault on the "Christian nation" since at least the decision to ban mandatory prayers in public schools, i.e. decades long. Conservative "Christians" have a zero sum mentality: the extent to which religious recognition is extended to non-Christians results in an equivalent loss to Christians. Same with civil rights. It's a deeply perverted POV and, needless to say, not actually Christian at all. But there you have it.
It's like Erick bin Erick, former Tail-End Charlie of the Macon, Georgia City Council, is fundamentally denying the existence of non-white, liberal Christians all over the USA.
But we're really having a spreading rash of it now, spurred by the events I mentioned. Put "expose Christian schools" in Twitter and set the date range to the past week -- you'll see all kinds of lunacy, from the fringe sites to the New York Post ("Exposing the Times’ anti-Christian bias").
I almost feel bad for rightwing religious nuts -- and I think that's why they've been attractive to pop culture as villains for a century: There's a built-in grain of almost-sympathy you can feel with them, because while implacably cruel and ambitious, all their problems are also all so obviously based on a core misunderstanding. And although it's one that they were perhaps constitutionally doomed to make, you can also hope that they might, in an occasional glimmer, perceive it, and choose to be redeemed, rather than force an apocalypse.
(tl;dr appendix: In real life, seems they're hardly ever redeemed from their original sin of mistaking religion for authority. They're not built to heed actual religion, which is about creating peace by listening to the world, not by telling it what to do. I mean pretty much every public statement from Jesus amounts to "You dopes. Pay attention to other people, and fuck all the various authority figures" -- he couldn't be clearer, and still they miss it. Meanwhile democracy is becoming more cosmopolitan/borderless, and pop culture and social media are putting the hood and barrio and every Mary Magdalene cam-girl increasingly on an equal playing field with the White House -- so maybe we're actually improving our chances of pulling off what Jesus asked us to try. But nuts like Erickson and Dreher, every two-bit Pat Robertson and follower therelike, is determined never to notice, because noticing means ceding authority. And authority is really what they want, not peace. Thank you for attending my TED talk.)
"I almost feel bad for rightwing religious nuts -- and I think that's why they've been attractive to pop culture as villains for a century: There's a built-in grain of almost-sympathy you can feel with them..." We could go back to Tartuffe, but in America the jig was up with Mark Twain, and by the time we get to Joe Hill's "Pie In The Sky" the poor preachers had a pretty rough time of it in the public eye -- as did the cops. But we see how that's changed in recent years.
Upon further reflection... yarr. I guess one thing that makes em great villains is that this brand of villainy is a choice. The evil capitalist who wants to tear down the community center is blind to suffering -- but the grifting preacher approaches sufferers on full alert. The serial killer is a robot who never had humanity -- but the zealot actively rejected his humanity. So the element of choice makes the religious super villains. Anyway, these idiots better get used to it, as it's been in the canon since... uh, well, since the sanhedrin engineered the crucifixion. Idiots.
<blockquote>“Are liberals declaring war on Christians and Catholics?” asks Fox News; </blockquote>
Pretty much a tell from that WASP-y lot. Catholics ought to watch out for those fundie fucks. Jack Chick didn't consider Catholics as Christians, and neither do a lot of hardline American fundamentalists.
A many years ago at Catholic boys school a Brother told me of early Rome era Christians destroying the temples of Jupiter et al. He was particularly impressed that because the temples were so well and heavily built, the Christians used to tunnel under them to burn the wooden pylons they were built on causing collapse. I've never seen any evidential reference to this but I'll never forget how pleased he was that the saboteurs had showed those polytheists what for.
Devastating last line.
The "ham-faced pundit", Erick Son of Erick, would fit right in here in England (if not in any other UK nation), as a "gammon". Aka the type of Brexit fundamentalist who is fullest of angry self-righteous certitude, and shit. A short induction course (up to five minutes) would be more than sufficient to bring him up to speed on everything he wanted to know concerning the EU.
Looks like a gammon too, in the earliest sense of the word.
Yup. Ericksons Ltd, Dealers in Secondhand Gammon and Spinach.
Poor bastard Erick. He's had to deal with whole months of people making his kind into villains and jokes in their fiction about Thor and Arachne and Wiccan! Imagine if he was gay. Or a woman. Or a Muslim.
I'm not going to deny that you guys *feel* persecuted and all, but even if you were being, there's a line over there that you need to get waaaaay to the end of before we start addressing your victimization at the hands of society. Take a number, sit down, shut up, and we'll get to your hurt feelings when you have to watch OTHER PEOPLES' GODS ACT LIKE THE CHRISTIAN GOD IS NOT THEIR LODESTONE IN LIFE right after we've addressed people who are actually being hurt and killed. We're a little busy.
I know I'm veering into smugness, but to any Jew, terror-stricken horror that your religious beliefs don't run the world seems like utter milquetoastery. (Apologies to my fellow somewhat-effeminate males, many of whom are extremely brave and full of gamban.)
Of course, the sort of 'Christian' doing the complaining is exactly the sort whose intentions for the world are such that that condition—your group's beliefs not privileged—_would_ in fact be the first step toward actual persecution and perhaps eventual murder. Not to dominate can imply only being dominated utterly, the same mind-set that rules their Dear Leader.
What's "Gamban"? I Googled it and found a bunch of links for a software program that prevents online gambling. Is that what you meant?
The Muslims and the Jewish people worship the same God as the Christians, but do it wrong.
Of course, poor Erick said a Supreme Court Justice was a goat fucking child molester so he should be villain and is a joke
I get it, I'm just a little irritated at the idiocy of Christians watching a TV show with people with magical powers who are named after other people's religions--and who in some cases are literally the gods of other people's religions--and objecting when they do not conform to your strict Christian world view. It always reminds me of the folks who got outraged that Sims 3 introduced witches. Made the game satanic, they said, and anyway there's no such thing as a good witch. And I thought, but you're cool with the vampires, werewolves, zombies, and fairies? And it turned out that yes, they were. WTF.
No such thing as a good witch? HAVE THEY NOT SEEN THE WIZARD OF OZ??? And yet they call themselves Christians and Americans.
D. Sidhe, will you marry me?
I've been begging Edroso to marry me for years. The fact that I'm already married will no doubt be an impediment to achieving that goal, let alone adding you in — at least for the moment. But once we've killed the Christians and their puny God, I'm sure it will all work out.
Yeah, I think I've proposed to him a few times also. Also, you might have to check with my partner.
We may not be able to pull off the group marriage thing, but I accept the sentiment in the spirit it was meant, because I am often also swept away by someone's snark.
Who would win a "most ham-like" contest, Erick or Karl Rove? Place your bets.
Meanwhile, neo-confederacy scholars Loewen and Sebesta accurately delineated the world view of the Confederacy, which lives on in Trump supporters. There is a hierarchy with the Christian God at the top, then white males vouched safe by God to rule the natural world, then white women and children under the protection of those white males, and lastly everyone else at about the same level as beasts of the field, good for labor and needing dominion by guess who? Whatever threatens that hierarchy is evil and unnatural, including uppity women, smart-ass youngsters, blacks who don't know their place, foreigners who don't speak English, unacceptable types of Christians*, other religions, homosexuals, scientists, etc. This model accurately predicts every animosity uncovered during the Cletus safaris into Trumpland.
*Definition of unacceptable Christians varies from time to time. Catholics now more acceptable than in the 19th century.
I have said so before, you have said it best: the Great Chain of Being crossed with The Human Millipede.
don't forget that what was wrong with slavery was that it prevented the male in the family from exercising his dominion over his wife and kids
some idiot right wing commentator, I forget which one
Tucker Carlson ("Husbands and fathers were prohibited from exercising the authority that men at the time were supposed to wield") http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-annual-conservatives-do-mlk-day.html
Fucking BRILLIANT post. It really explains the right-wing worldview.
Thanks!
And Dr8DH's comment is great too!
Rove is a dry-aged ham and Ewic is a fresh ham.
The United States is a Christian nation. Which is why Christians are under constant attack. Because Christians are the majority, which is what makes them the minority. And the only way to keep them from being persecuted is to let them persecute everyone else. Because if Jesus taught us anything, it was to pre-emptively attack your neighbor based upon false witness.
Heard that Maddow referenced this movie in explaining The Idiot's recent claims about duck tape, mega-vehicles etc. at the border,
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5052474/
As everyone knows, this didn't start with the Covington Catholic kids and their MAGA hats. For that matter, CCHS has had a terrible reputation for racism and misogyny for quite a long time. So too I've been hearing about the assault on the "Christian nation" since at least the decision to ban mandatory prayers in public schools, i.e. decades long. Conservative "Christians" have a zero sum mentality: the extent to which religious recognition is extended to non-Christians results in an equivalent loss to Christians. Same with civil rights. It's a deeply perverted POV and, needless to say, not actually Christian at all. But there you have it.
It's like Erick bin Erick, former Tail-End Charlie of the Macon, Georgia City Council, is fundamentally denying the existence of non-white, liberal Christians all over the USA.
Sure, it goes back a long way -- I recall the ravings of Dale Evans (!) against removing school prayer: https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/13/archives/campaign-starts-on-school-prayer-california-rally-for-becker.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=A33B149515D133E08A9DAEAC55A30E85&gwt=pay.
But we're really having a spreading rash of it now, spurred by the events I mentioned. Put "expose Christian schools" in Twitter and set the date range to the past week -- you'll see all kinds of lunacy, from the fringe sites to the New York Post ("Exposing the Times’ anti-Christian bias").
I almost feel bad for rightwing religious nuts -- and I think that's why they've been attractive to pop culture as villains for a century: There's a built-in grain of almost-sympathy you can feel with them, because while implacably cruel and ambitious, all their problems are also all so obviously based on a core misunderstanding. And although it's one that they were perhaps constitutionally doomed to make, you can also hope that they might, in an occasional glimmer, perceive it, and choose to be redeemed, rather than force an apocalypse.
(tl;dr appendix: In real life, seems they're hardly ever redeemed from their original sin of mistaking religion for authority. They're not built to heed actual religion, which is about creating peace by listening to the world, not by telling it what to do. I mean pretty much every public statement from Jesus amounts to "You dopes. Pay attention to other people, and fuck all the various authority figures" -- he couldn't be clearer, and still they miss it. Meanwhile democracy is becoming more cosmopolitan/borderless, and pop culture and social media are putting the hood and barrio and every Mary Magdalene cam-girl increasingly on an equal playing field with the White House -- so maybe we're actually improving our chances of pulling off what Jesus asked us to try. But nuts like Erickson and Dreher, every two-bit Pat Robertson and follower therelike, is determined never to notice, because noticing means ceding authority. And authority is really what they want, not peace. Thank you for attending my TED talk.)
"I almost feel bad for rightwing religious nuts -- and I think that's why they've been attractive to pop culture as villains for a century: There's a built-in grain of almost-sympathy you can feel with them..." We could go back to Tartuffe, but in America the jig was up with Mark Twain, and by the time we get to Joe Hill's "Pie In The Sky" the poor preachers had a pretty rough time of it in the public eye -- as did the cops. But we see how that's changed in recent years.
Upon further reflection... yarr. I guess one thing that makes em great villains is that this brand of villainy is a choice. The evil capitalist who wants to tear down the community center is blind to suffering -- but the grifting preacher approaches sufferers on full alert. The serial killer is a robot who never had humanity -- but the zealot actively rejected his humanity. So the element of choice makes the religious super villains. Anyway, these idiots better get used to it, as it's been in the canon since... uh, well, since the sanhedrin engineered the crucifixion. Idiots.
<blockquote>“Are liberals declaring war on Christians and Catholics?” asks Fox News; </blockquote>
Pretty much a tell from that WASP-y lot. Catholics ought to watch out for those fundie fucks. Jack Chick didn't consider Catholics as Christians, and neither do a lot of hardline American fundamentalists.
Nor did the Klan! But standards have been adjusted in the face of fallen recruitment.
You're in the leaky lifeboat until you get pushed out...
A many years ago at Catholic boys school a Brother told me of early Rome era Christians destroying the temples of Jupiter et al. He was particularly impressed that because the temples were so well and heavily built, the Christians used to tunnel under them to burn the wooden pylons they were built on causing collapse. I've never seen any evidential reference to this but I'll never forget how pleased he was that the saboteurs had showed those polytheists what for.