I’m working on something more substantial on Bobo’s latest travesty, but my amusement/outrage meter pegged to the right when I read this over at TPM.
EDIT: DougJ beat me to this. So instead of repeating the offending quote from Bryan (I’d have been Rambo if I hadn’t had more important things to do) Fischer…
Let me just say this.
Who is Bryan Fischer?
He would be the guy who’s spent his career bashing gays (lately, equating gay sex with domestic terrorism, a comparison so special that it screams out loud for Chris Rock treatment, but I ain’t that funny and so won’t try), hating on bears
(not [just] the gay kind)…
…and so loves himself the idea of religious freedom that only Christians, (and only some of them) need apply.
__
That would not be a Bryan Fisher who, according to his bio over at the American Family Association (sic and sick — and no link love from me, boyo) ever managed to find it in his holy American courageousness to put himself in harm’s way. Instead his has been a perfectly cossetted life: elite college; God-talk graduate school; a church job here and another there, before climbing all the way onto the bedroom-snifffing wingnut welfare gravy train.
This isn’t what you’d call a grown up thought, and it’s certainly not a Christian one — if the goal of imitating Jesus is still recognized as foundational — but hell, I’m no follower of the cross anyway, so I’ll just dream on: I’d love to lock Bryan Fischer into a room with some folks who’ve actually done their duty in the unremembered valleys and hills of Afghanistan.
Just for just a little while.
We might see just how “masculine” Mr. Fischer would seem in that company
P.S. No post wandering around this general area would be complete without this comment from Professor M. Python:
Image: Frederick Stuart Church, “The Rites of Spring” before 1924
ruemara
That painting looks like the last time I was at Folsom Street Fair.
The Moar You Know
Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta is a hero. Bryan Fischer will never be one. Ever. And that knowledge of his inadequacy is eating him alive.
Must suck to not have a soul.
Zifnab
Break out the Purple Heart band aids, everybody. We’ve got another serious case of the “not a real American”.
El Cid
Fischer is serving his nation better at home, of course.
gbear
Well to be technical about it, he hates those too.
Culture of Truth
“Obama’s decision to include Native American leader Sitting Bull didn’t go over well with the headline writers at Fox Nation, a Fox News website.”
Their initial take: “Obama Praises Indian Chief Who Killed U.S. General.”
MattR
@El Cid:
Pretty sure this was intended as snark but it is actually very true. I can’t imagine any soldiers would want to have to depend on Fischer.
joe from Lowell
Let’s follow the logic here:
The actions for which Guinta received the Medal of Honor involved charging into a hail of bullets and shooting down armed enemy troops who were firing on him. He killed one and wounded another. Apparently, the guy he killed was a pretty big deal in the Taliban.
So, what Reverend Jackass is arguing here is that the part of Guinta’s actions that involved saving fellow soldiers from being taken and tortured to death by the enemy detracted from the heroism of his actions.
Way to support the troops, jackass.
What a stupid, disgraceful husk of a human being.
russell
File under “dude’s got issues”.
Poopyman
@gbear:
Yeah, but only the Grizzly kind, apparently. What about Polar Bears? They kill people, too. But of course, those are mostly brown people that speak a funny language, so they don’t count.
Bob L
Let me try to follow the reasoning:
1) Soldiers are poor people, at lest the enlisted.
2) Poor people aren’t real people
3) Soldiers are just there to kill muzies
Conclusion: who cares if soldiers die?
Am I following this “Christian” douche Fischer’s reasoning?
Man oh man are we fucked up.
Earl Butz
Not to go out on a limb here and speak for The Man – that’s the specialty of priests, ministers and other such hell-bound self-annointed voices of The Lawd – but I think Jesus himself would have an irresistible urge to beat Bryan Fischer to death with the butt end of an AK-47 for saying “So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?”
SSgt. Giunta killed plenty of folks that day. Anyone can kill a lot of people. You can do it from a comfy chair, if you’re in the Air Force or CIA and flying a drone. We’re not giving him the MOH for that. We’re giving it to him for being a hero, who put his real ass in real physical danger from real live motherfucking bullets and saved some of his real fellow soldiers.
Something Bryan Fischer, Professional Loudmouth and Gutless Asswipe, would not be able to do.
Poopyman
@joe from Lowell:
Yeah, but it got him a place in the spotlight, which is really all that matters.
Culture of Truth
Making sure people can “sleep safely”? Sounds suspiciously feminine.
Why isn’t his family out break dancing – I mean breaking things?
Poopyman
@Bob L:
If by “we”, you mean the nursing “we” as opposed to “us”, then OK. But no, we’re not fucked up. He is, as is anyone who blithely or blindly nods sagely at whatever shit is coming out of this guy’s piehole.
But not “us”.
Earl Butz
Not to go out on a limb here and speak for The Man – that’s the specialty of priests, ministers and other such hell-bound self-annointed voices of The Lawd – but I think Jesus himself would have an irresistible urge to beat Bryan Fischer to death with the butt end of an AK-47 for saying “So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?”
SSgt. Giunta killed plenty of folks that day. Anyone can kill a lot of people. You can do it from a comfy chair, if you’re in the Air Force or CIA and flying a drone. We’re not giving him the MOH for that. We’re giving it to him for being a hero, who put his real ass in real physical danger from real live motherfucking bullets and saved some of his real fellow soldiers.
Something Bryan Fischer, Professional Loudmouth and Gutless Shitlicker, would not be able to do.
El Cid
@MattR: The same as how Sarah Palin’s statement that she could better serve the state of Alaska out of office than it it was true.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@russell:
So do a lot of other folks over the years, to put it mildly. The big question is, why does he have an audience to go with his issues? What does it say about a society that allows people like this “with issues” to grab and retain an audience and convert that into power?
Culture of Truth
the Rivlin-Domenici proposal is out.
Lower income taxes; 6.5% national sales tax.
Increase payroll tax to 90% of wages
Dennis SGMM
Lock him up with an old guy who served in an unremembered corner of the Mekong Delta. That son of a bitch would remember me every time it rained.
Benjamin Cisco
No one else has said it, so I will: most excellent title.
__
Particularly when read after a long day staring at the monitor all day.
here4tehbeer
Dude could be Zell Miller’s twin.
jl
The Medal of Honor was retroactivty ruined after the socialist communist Smedley Butler won it, so who cares if it is feminized now?
This kind of bumbling by Bryan Fischer is why he is not in the first rank of reactionary insane ranters: always a day late and dollar short for outrage meter material.
If Mr. Levenson is looking for material, we have this new outrage
Obama had something nice to say about Chief Sitting Bull in a new children’s book.
But Sitting Bull was an enemy of the United States, who commanded his warrior to kill U.S. Soldiers!
How could Obama do such a thing?
Fox News headline of Obama’s kids book draws criticism
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20101117/ts_yblog_thecutline/fox-news-headline-of-obamas-kids-book-draws-criticism
Me, if I were Obama, I would have gone for Chief Joseph, since he is a more sympathetic case. Or if I wanted to be edgy, would have gone with Captain Jack of the Modoc War, or Winnemucca, if I wanted to be a nerd. Then Fox may not have noticed.
Rosalita
and see how long is takes him to wet his pants…
Jason In the Peg
@Poopyman: Also polar bears are white.
russell
What I take away is that we live in a society full of very insecure people who are inclined to express that insecurity through aggression and violence. Of any and all kinds.
That’s my take on it.
Of course, that just moves the toothpaste one inch further back in the tube. Why are so many people in our society insecure and prone to violence and aggression?
I have no answer for that. Or, maybe, a great big ugly knot of answers, so entangled that I couldn’t unravel them in a month of Sundays.
I just try to keep my own head together and hope for the best.
Poopyman
@Jason In the Peg: This had occurred to me also.
Tom Levenson
@jl:
…
I’m not. Material comes looking for me, and if I don’t duck fast enough….
It’s all fun and games until someone loses an
eyebrain.Dee Loralei
@jl: Captain Jack was in the Moddoc War and WWII? Wow that Torchwood has been around for a damned long time.
(Sorry, nerd humor, this Fisher article has me seething and I’m trying to relieve my blood pressure.)
He could gone with Quannah Parker or Tecumseh also. But I have no problem with Sitting Bull. They are also Americans. Or even whatsername, Birdsong who recently died, she was a great tribal leader.
gnomedad
Fischer:
We’re a bit more tolerant of chicken hawk bloviators, fortunately for them.
ed drone
@Culture of Truth:
And they’re not even right then — Custer wasn’t a General anymore. He lost that rank when the Civil War ended and the Army reduced its officer corps. He was a Lieutenant Colonel, I think, when he led his men into an encampment of Sioux and Cheyenne, and thereby gained the glory of dying needlessly.
Ed
Ash Can
I love that painting! What a sweet, pleasant counterpoint to the disturbing sight of Fischer’s mental illness.
PWL
Yes, it is amazing how many of these bloodthirsty warriors of the right like to fight from the rear…the very far rear….
Michael Carpet
Look at the Medal of Honor citations for the Marines in World War II. The vast majority were awarded posthumously to Marines who dove on a hand grenade to save their comrades. This guy is simply ignorant regarding our most honored military members. He deserves our scorn, and to be ignored.
I guess Fischer never heard of John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
jl
@ed drone: I missed that, Thanks. I think you are correct.
Sitting Bull’s forces picked off one or two other, smaller, U.S. forces in the decade before Little Big Horn, were any of them led by generals? I do think those cases were also foolish expeditions, for doubtful causes, resulting in troops led to their deaths by rash overconfident cavalry officers.
Cheryl from Maryland
@ed drone: Oh, and there’s more! While Sitting Bull was at Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse was the leading Native American general.
Jim Bales
Following on to Michael Carpet’s comment above, consider the “feminzation” of the MoH when it was awarded to Commander Richard Nott Antrim, whose citation reads:
ANTRIM, RICHARD NOTT
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while interned as a prisoner of war of the enemy Japanese … Comdr. Antrim courageously appealed to the fanatic enemy, risking his own life in a desperate effort to mitigate the punishment. … Comdr. Antrim gallantly stepped forward and indicated to the perplexed guards that he would take the remainder of the punishment, throwing the Japanese completely off balance in their amazement and eliciting a roar of acclaim from the suddenly inspired Allied prisoners. By his fearless leadership and valiant concern for the welfare of another, he not only saved the life of a fellow officer and stunned the Japanese into sparing his own life but also brought about a new respect for American officers and men and a great improvement in camp living conditions. His heroic conduct throughout reflects the highest credit upon Comdr. Antrim and the U.S. Naval Service.
Commander Antrim’s actions, I believe, could be accurately described as “Christ-like.” No doubt Mr. Fischer will be horrified to discover that his Savior was feminized.
Best,
Jim