I was reading over at Carlos's blog again today, and noticed an angry comment on the story about Garrison Keillor. Keillor joked, "I am now the chairman of a national campaign to pass a constitutional amendment to take the right to vote away from born-again Christians. Just a little project of mine."
But conservative Christians are not amused. Dave, evidently, found this offensive, and decided to boycott Land's End for sponsoring Prairie Home Companion. Dave says, "Regardless of one's political persuasion, to make comments, even in jest, of disenfranchising an element of society is not funny at all. If the term Christian were to be replaced with "African-American" or "Jew"- the bigotry would be immediately evident. It is an outrage that Land's End should be sponsoring shows that promote this prejudice."
Couple of things wrong with Dave's little rant here. First, I don't think he understands the real issue of bigotry and prejudice. As I have written elsewhere, it is really hard for me to take American conservative evangelicals when they play the victim card. You control all three branches of government and still think you are disenfranchised and victims of the system. You are the goddamned system! You have just helped reelect the most incompetent president in American history, and now you are mad that someone might make fun of you. I am trying to find the pity for you, but can't.
Second, you can't tell the difference between sarcasm and prejudice, then you are really in trouble. There is a HUGE difference between joking about a constitutional amendment on Christians voting and people joking about disenfranchising minorities. Here is a news flash! We have disenfranchised (and worse) minorities in this country. That is why that joke would be offensive and not funny. If you think that anyone would seriously consider banning Christian voting, then you are more stupid than you appear.
Third, your outrage might hold a little more water if you were consistent. Tom Coburn tells stories about lesbianism rampant in OK schools, says that African Americans are genetically predisposed to shorter lives (see, Dave, real prejudice!), and of course considers the death penalty for abortion doctors. Outrage from the conservative evangelical community? Not a wit. Instead, Coburn is elected the United States Fucking Senate! Senator Santorum compares gay sex to incest (that means having sex with relatives, Dave) and again the Christian evangelical community remains silent. Jerry Falwell blames liberals, gays and feminists for allowing 9-11 to happen, and Pat Robertson says that feminism encourages "women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
Dave, can I be assured that you will be writing their sponsors with equally angry boycotting language? Didn't think so. Consistency would help you a great deal, Mr. Conservative evangelical. It would help if you were as equally outraged at the 100,000 Iraqi dead (thanks to your favorite God's own President Bush) as you rightfully are about the dead Christians in the Sudan.
Until then, as another commenter from Jesus's Politics said--you should read your own words and punch yourself in the mouth.
8 comments:
I was going to comment but it is obvious to me that you are not capable of reasonable thought on this matter. It would do no good to debate with you as you are obviously a believer of half-truths and outright lies and cannot possibly see the good in anything that this country does. Michael Moore would love you.
Whether you like it or not, our nation was founded by men of Chritstian faith and values and your Democratic party was also founded by people of Christian faith and values. Somewhere down the line that got lost and it's about time we found it again. Maybe our country wouldn't be in such turmoil.
I don't think an anonymous commenter deserves a response. In fact, I think you have proven my points above.
Deservant or not, our anonymous fuck stick is getting a response.
Next time anonyboy follow this rubric:
Read, Think, Comment (if you must infect the world with your twisted little mind).
Brandon
P.S. Many signers of the constitution were deists. Not Christians. Much of their faith was informed by Christianity, the Masons, etc.
Brandon
Dearest Brandon:
I am anonymous because I am not a member of this blog, not because I hide behind my anonymity. I am also not a “Fuck Stick” although I did serve 22 years fighting and protecting your right to express your views in any ignorant way you choose to do so. Your ignorance is further proven by your inability to express yourself with anything but hatred for someone whose opinion differs from yours. I feel sorry for you.
As for our founding fathers being deists, I quote an exerpt from an article written by Russell Boates in August 2000:
“There were approximately 240 Founding Fathers consisting of the creators and signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, plus heroes of the Revolution, as well as the first Cabinet and Supreme Court Justices. From speeches, letters, volumes of writings, accomplishments, and testimonials from friends, we know that 95% of these men were very devoted Christians. Most of the state Constitutions written after the war by these men, required that all state officials fear God. For example the Massachusetts Constitution, 1780, chapter VI, article I reads, “All persons elected to State office or to the Legislature must make and subscribe the following declaration, viz. ‘I,_______, believe the Christian religion, and have firm persuasion of its truth.’” The Fathers wanted officials who believed God would hold them accountable for their actions. They were hardly deists.
Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson have been labeled “deists”. Jefferson argued that he was a “disciple of Jesus Christ” but denied Christ’s deity. These men don’t seem to have been Christians but they both feared God. For example in a speech to Congress Franklin said, “… God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, in the Sacred Writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel …I therefore (request) – that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning…”.
It seems even the “deists” were not truly so, eh? They were simply labeled as such because they claimed it at one point or there was no other term to describe their beliefs. And yes, you can find articles that will claim they were deists because of the way articles of the constitution or other douments were written. They merely wanted our great nation to be free of religious persecution, not free of religion altogether!
I am not promoting religious intolerance. Nor am I stating that we do or should have a national religion. All I am saying is that our founding fathers were of Christian faith. That is indisputable and yet you attempt to dispute it anyway. Mocking the Christian faith is turning your back upon the more than 220 million Christ followers we have in this country today. That is the problem I have with what Garrison Keillor said and why I commented earlier.
I’m sure you’ll come up with some more colorful expletives to express even further ignorance so I’ll simply sign off here. Have a nice day! (And God Bless!)
Signed (not anonymously),
Don Stolberg
MSgt USMC (Ret)
Don,
I will let Brandon respond if he chooses. You should realize that you could have signed a name or alias and still not signed into blogger. In fact, you decided to do that this last time. No need to berate us for that. Let me also point out that you hardly entered this blog with civility. In fact, you dismissed me as someone incapable of critical thought, so it is highly disingenuous of you to fault Brandon or myself for being brusque with you. In fact, you wrote: "I was going to comment but it is obvious to me that you are not capable of reasonable thought on this matter. It would do no good to debate with you as you are obviously a believer of half-truths and outright lies and cannot possibly see the good in anything that this country does. Michael Moore would love you." Nice little bit of ad hominem attack--linking me to Michael Moore. If you have substantive critiques about my "half-truths and lies," by all means leave them. But, please don't lecture us on civility or discourse. You only decided to comment derisively and with hostility, so don't be surprised that our response might be harsh.
I stand by my critique of the Garrison Keillor issue. Are you as offended by Jerry Falwell as you are by Michael Moore? You never offered any meaningful criticism of my post, so I am unsure why I need to defend it. Defend it against what? I have no problem with the fact that America has a strong Christian heritage. But Don, while we are establishing bona fides, I have a Ph.D. in American history, so I think I have a certain standing here. Were many of our founders Christians? Sure. Many were deists, or more interested in deism or the idea that God was the creator but did not meddle in personal lives. Our Christian heritage is a complicated one, and hardly as simplistic as you present. (Using Franklin, by the way, to support your arguments is probably the weakest point of all.) Noting the state constitutions just misses the point that our Constitution explicitly bars a religious litmus test for government service. This country has allowed a flourishing of religious viewpoints by not choosing one faith. Had they chosen, Don, they might have excluded Baptists, Pentecostals, non-denoms, and certainly Mormons. I don't know what brand your faith is, but many of the prominent "America the Godly Nation" crowd would likely have been excluded. If you are so interested, you might want to read beyond the D. James Kennedy and David Barton pseudo-histories. Try some Mark Noll or Nathan Hatch.
One of the problems with the whole, "We have lost our Christian heritage and that is why we are in trouble" arguments is that is ignores the negative impact that Christianity has had in our history. Christians were on the forefront of supporting slavery, killing Native Americans and expanding American power through imperialism. So, if you are going to make the argument that Christianity is the true heritage of our country, then you have to take the good with the bad.
Your service to our country is appreciated. But the hostility of your attack makes it clear that your "God Bless" at the end of your missive was tongue in cheek. If you want to respond with substance, I will dialogue with you.
Streak
Streak,
Thank you for your response. First, I must apologize for my first entry. Yes, now that I look back on it, it was confrontational. Not to the point of being called a “fuck stick” as Brandon so eloquently put it, but confrontational nonetheless. My apologies to you and anyone else I might have offended. I will add that while it may have seemed that the “God Bless” was tongue in cheek. It was meant sincerely. While I find difficulty in “turning the other cheek” at times, I do know that civility is something we could all use a little more of. I am a “born again” Christian who is still learning more about the grace of God. I have a long way to go on my journey. My faith is non-denominational and I regularly attend services at what is commonly referred to as a “contemporary” Christian church. Not your usual fire and brimstone kind of deal.
As for Jerry Falwell and those like him, I am as offended by them as I am by Michael Moore, maybe even more. At least Michael Moore doesn’t pretend to be a person of good Christian faith and values. And I am well aware of the rather torturous history of the Christian faith and the lives left wasted in its path. Unfortunately, I can’t change that. I can change the way my children and those around me are and I intend to do that through setting an example for them. I stumble often. I am, after all, human.
After having read a number of your entries, I gathered from them that you were basically a follower of the “Michael Moore” school of thought as many of the points you brought up were points that he had used in his movies and writings. I find great fault in most of what he says and does and see no good in what he is doing. I cannot understand how he (and others) seems to feel they are doing good by misquoting, misleading, showing half-truths and outright lying to get their point across. I know you are going to say that the Bush administration has done the same things (and I’ll disagree vehemently) but even if that were so, two wrongs don’t make a right.
I apologize if I am all over the board on this. I began writing this yesterday and was interrupted by children and couldn’t get back to this until now. My thoughts may have been lost since then.
I would like to comment about you. I have read a number of your entries and they are nothing like the response that you have written me. You expressed yourself very well in your response and it was nothing like the ranting that I found in your blog. I get tired of seeing people, especially young people, who cannot express themselves properly without numerous expletives and hateful sayings. Your response was refreshing and, at times, put me in my place. I respect that. And I must say that I am impressed and intrigued that you have a Ph.D. in American History. While I hated history in high school, I have grown very fond of it (especially military history) since then.
I could go on and on with this but I shall end it now before I end up writing a novel. Thank you for your time and the conversation. God Bless. (Truly) :)
Sincerely,
Don
Don,
I appreciate your response as well. Brandon is actually quite thoughtful and I am sure he would agree that at times we all get a little out of hand. The climate of our political dialogue is particularly toxic right now, and we all are effected by that. On that note, by the way, let me say a few things about my blog. This is a little bit of therapy for me. I do my rants--I exert some of my frustration and energy through writing. It is therapeutic for me. If it offends, then I am sorry--to a point. I can't tell you how many times during the recent election that only my ability to write and vent my frustrations kept me from true depression over the state of our political climate.
You might be surprised to find that I am not a Michael Moore fan. I think he has done some good work, but have real problems with his fast and loose use of the facts. I know he is a polemicist, and while he and I agree on some issues, I don't like his methods. I haven't even watched F9-11.
I would like to see where I am relying on half-truths and lies to support my claims. My blog can probably be read as focusing on two primary things: my serious objections with the Bush administration, and my frustrations with the modern church. I think that Bush has presided over a very incompetent administration--and I don't think that is because of either paranoid or conspiratorial thinking. He led us into a war of questionable merit based on false assumptions. He did so by ignoring credible warnings about the administration's sources of information from people like Ahmed Chalabi, and after invading tried to change the reasoning behind his war justification. He has created a huge problem for the rest of the globe. After all, how do we turn to India and tell them they can't preemptively attack Pakistan? Wouldn't they tell us that if it is good for us, it is good for them? Likewise, we have a credibility problem on nuclear proliferation. How do we credibly tell Iran not to develop nukes when the Bush admin is pushing for more nukes of our own? He has also shown a shocking lack of accountability, and has only made either critics or a few soldiers pay for some of the more egregious decisions. Someone high in his administration outed a CIA agent, yet no one has been prosecuted, much less fired. Abu Ghraib shamed us in front of the entire world, yet no one high ranking--despite all the reports--has had to pay. Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke have been savaged, but Condi Rice and Al Gonzales get promoted. I object to all of those things. I don't think we should be in the business of torture--even when our enemy is willing to do that and more. We don't justify our actions based on the brutality of our enemies--or at least we should not.
On the domestic front, I am appalled by this administration. Our environmental policy is a shambles, and I am concerned that the administration is moving towards a situation where the working poor and those doing dangerous work will be left high and dry, while the already wealthy will be rewarded--more. I think the administration has politicized everything from scientific research into global warming to how best to approach public health. I firmly believe that cutting taxes during wartime is the height of irresponsibility. If we are going to go to war, then we should certainly pay for it. I am also appalled that this administration has decided to pursue a war on terror, but has asked the country to make no sacrifices save civil liberties and perhaps programs that protect the environment or assist the poor. That strikes me as antithetical to the teachings of Christ.
That leads to the second big theme of my blog--my frustration with the modern church. I come at this from the other side. I attended church at a very young age all the way through college. In my adult hood, I am seeing things that bother me immensely. I study American history, and specifically the history of the American west and our environment. The church, unfortunately, has a horrible record on both. I am also deeply concerned that the church has become an apologist--not for the radical teachings of Christ--but for the market system. Churches, by my estimation, are encouraging consumption and wealth accumulation--both hard to justify by the WWJD claim.
Anyway, you are more than welcome at my blog. I won't guarantee that it will be expletive free, but I always hope to provide some thought-provoking sentiments. If you want to email me, you can contact me directly at "alafair at gmail dot com."
Peace,
Streak
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