This has got to be the best right-wing urban legend in a while:
A Marine was taking college classes between his deployments to Afghanistan.
One of his courses had a professor that was an atheist and a member of the ACLU. One day the professor shocked everyone by walking into class, looking up and stating “God, if you are real, I want you to come down and knock me off this platform, I will give you 15 minutes.
Several minutes tick by in silence, when the 15 min. time almost expired the Marine gets up from his seat, approaches the professor and punched him in the face knocking him off the platform and out cold. The Marine simply went back to his seat.
The professor came to, visibly shaken and asked the Marine, “What the heck did you do that for?!”
The Marine said, “God was busy protecting America’s military who are out protecting your right to say stupid shit like that, so he sent me to fill in.”
CONGRATULATIONS!
I think that’s what’s referred to as a “tell”. Good God. Make him black and a Marxist while we’re at it, please.
Mike E
But you could only see one set of footprints.
pseudonymous in nc
Clearly God was in the tub for all those Marines who got blown to bits by landmines.
I love the hierarchy that’s implied at the end: God > military > citizens. Theocratic stratocracy.
Cacti
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
And gay.
ETA: We can’t forget the pink menace. As you can see from NoiseMax, Obama issued a “gay ultimatum” to military brass. lol
WaterGirl
did you get that link from one of our commenters whose name is hard to spell and whose first name starts with S? she deserves a hat tip; she linked to it OT yesterday.
Comrade Jake
Wingnuts LOVE these kind of tall tales. They’re also the same folks who are likely to believe email-chain driven conspiracy theories.
jl
@Cacti: And, what, no sniveling? Those types of people are supposed to snivel all the time.
Belafon
What happened to God’s omnipotence? And God is really falling down on the job of actually protecting the troops. You’d think God would do something about the PTSD and either block the bullets and disable the IEDs or regrow body parts. And while He’s at it, why doesn’t he take care of the climate change problems?
Baud
The Gospel According to Wingnuts.
SFAW
@Cacti:
You forgot
Poland!fascist Moooooslim !And before you Lie-berals jump all over those, remember:
1) Marxists (and bocialists) are the true fascists
2) Moooooslims don’t worship a REAL God, as every right-thinking ‘Murican knows.
Another Holocene Human
How come whenever you say it’s what God wants, it always seems to be exactly what you want?
WereBear
Reminds me of the tales told to me in Bible camp.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
From the sounds of it, he did. He told the Joint Chiefs they could back him on ending DADT or resign their commissions. Good for him; the brass needs to be reminded who’s actually in charge once in a while.
SatanicPanic
The comments and parodies on that Gawker article were so funny. Highly recommended
DougJ
@WaterGirl:
A friend sent it to me.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
Because God is never wrong. Duh.
ranchandsyrup
Imaginary marine todd has the courage of wingnuts’ convictions, even if they themselves don’t.
p.a.
I never wear my “I’m an atheist and ACLU member” sweatshirt in public.
Cacti
@SFAW:
A Marine was taking college classes between his deployments to VietIraqGhanistan.
One of his courses had a professor that was a black, gay, homosexual, French, muslim, atheist, marxist, who wore mom jeans and was a member of the ACLU.
EconWatcher
My wingnut brother–college educated, by the way–is absolutely convinced that the Clintons forbid military officers to wear their uniforms while visiting the White House, because, your know, they just hate the military that much. Also thinks that Obama’s people covered up the crosses in an auditorium at Georgetown University before an Obama speech because, you know, they hate God.
I used to track down some of this stuff in order to debunk it, but after a while, the futility hit me. There will never be an end to it.
El Tiburon
For the right-wing, a story does not have to be true. It’s what the story represents that is important.
Years ago, before blogging was such a thing, I had a circle of mostly conservative friends and we would e-mail back and forth different crap. One of them sent me some picture of some troops just standing there. The headline was something like, “ACLU sues to ban military from praying” or something.
My conservative added his thoughts on what large pieces of feces the ACLU was. Well, I Snoped it and found it to be False. This was one of our first e-mail exchanges and my first chance to point out he was wrong in hopes he would take a second look at the ACLU.
His reply to me was, and I mostly quote: “It doesn’t matter if it’s true. The ACLU is a bunch of liberal fcktards…”
So, it doesn’t matter. Bunch of morans.
ruemara
Funny how a person is God’s instrument when violence is involved, but when it comes to kindness, charity and the communal benefit as described in Kings & Acts, God needs to come down and do that shit himself.
Cacti
@Roger Moore:
Yes, I’d heard. I was mostly poking fun at their bad grammar.
How could they tell that the ultimatum was gay?
SFAW
Sort of OT, but apparently Dean “Unskewed” “Barack O’Fraudo” “Studmuffin” Chambers is at it again.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obamacare-unskewed-polls
His new thing? The Administration is totes lying, because there’s NO WAY, I TELLS YA that the KMUCare enrollment figures are real. Guess he forgot to take his Clozapine today.
[Note: advanced students will doubtless figure out that KMU = Kenyan Mooooslim Usurper]
Poopyman
So occasionally I get an ad for walk-in tubs on YouTube that “star” Pat Boone. Now I see the NewsMax headline
but I ain’t gettin’ out of the boat, curious as I am.
shelly
So, a belief in God gives you the right to punch somebody in the face who does not. ‘Turn the other cheek’ is for pussies!
justawriter
Then the professor pulled out the .45 he kept in his desk, put eight slugs in the Marine’s chest, and wasn’t even arrested because of “Stand Your Ground” and because the Marine was guilty of being a black man in Florida.
That’s my standard response when this glurge comes across my screen.
Baud
I too have filled in for God on occasion.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Thanks, WaterGirl! Yes, I did, but in fairness to DougJ, this has been making the rounds on Facebook. And for that matter, I lifted it from Ed at Gin and Tacos, and shamefully did not provide a via or hat tip to him.
As for my name, I’m pondering just changing the impossible-to-spell-and-worse-to-pronounce handle I use here and elsewhere and using my own, fairly vanilla name. When I was working, I wanted to keep a firewall between my professional life and online presence, but now, having been retired for nine months, I’m probably safe in expressing my views under my own name. Haven’t decided, though.
Botsplainer
@jl:
And how, pray tell, does one snivel? Is it body language, a tone, a sniff, or a greasy wet fart cut right after the Thanksgiving prayer at Grandma’s table?
Poopyman
@Poopyman: Nevermind! {/Latella}
scav
@shelly: Serving in the military also apparently allows one to personally decide what kind of free speach and other oh-so-envied freedoms are so busy being protected.
SFAW
@Cacti:
Because Obama made them respond “Yeth, Thir”? [Although, if that’s why, it may only be because he may have a thing for Sylvester (another half black, half white cat).]
Baud
In reality, God was busy shaving his cat’s ass.
Poopyman
@SiubhanDuinne: Don’t! Or maybe just start using your vanilla name and pop in with the SD nym as sockpuppet once in a while to spice things up.
eric
@Baud: or so i was told, if you know what i mean, and i think you do. ;)
Cacti
I’m guessing in the original telling of this tale, the Marine was between deployments in Iraq, as it was God’s favorite war during the last decade.
GregB
But remember, Democrats and liberals are the real violent bullies!
Roger Moore
@Poopyman:
Go ahead and click the NoiseMax links once in a while; the blog gets money for it. In this case, it sounds as if Boone has been sued as part of an overreach in another lawsuit and didn’t show up to court, so the judge issued a bench warrant.
Baud
@Cacti:
Because Obama ended it with “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a peso. All for Obama, stand up and say so!”
bemused
@EconWatcher:
Photos of soldiers in their uniforms at the WH are fake, I assume.
eric
The worst part of the story is that it demeans the military in that it suggests that the marine would punch a defenseless person. Whatever, the truth may be, that is not how the marines see themselves.
shelly
Caught the end of Obama’s presser on the ACA. And then had to ankle over to Fox to see what their top-of-the-hour reaction would be. Seems like the talking points are still ‘7 million signed up, but have they paid yet?’
And much, much whining about Obama talking about it at all. “His condescending tone….taking the credit….spiking the ball…in the end zone..”
And probably lots of other athletic cliches I can’t remember.
SiubhanDuinne
@Poopyman:
:-)
That might be amusing.
SatanicPanic
The lesson is God can’t be in two places at once, but our military can. U-S-A! U-S-A!
EconWatcher
@shelly:
As soon as they start complaining about “tone,” you know you’ve won. Big.
Fred
But you gotta admit, it is a kinda funny joke.
My dad always told me, “You have to learn to laugh at yourself.” I was never very good at it but I keep trying. There’s really so much material to work with.
Maybe the prof could be a Welfare Queen too. An Atheist, Marxist, ACLU memberin’ Welfare Queen. Don’t you just hate those when they get jobs as librul perfessers?
Oh sorry. I forgot gay too. The prof was gay.
SFAW
@eric:
Well, thank FSM then, that we have right-wingers to shoot the defenseless, because a Marine wouldn’t.
WaterGirl
@DougJ: I stand corrected!
Cacti
@shelly:
What I wish Obama would have said:
“Hey Teabaggers, you want a pizza? A pizza deez nuts?” followed by a crotch grab and thrust toward John Boehner.
SFAW
@Fred:
From your keyboard to David Horowitz’s ears/eyes.
Baud
@Cacti:
I would have gone with a simple “suck my dick.”
But I’m old fashioned that way.
Cacti
@Fred:
The gay, black, marxist, muslim, welfare queens get all the good perfesserin’ jobs.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Was that from Zorro, The Gay Blade? I LOVED that movie.
Edit: As I read your comment, I heard it in his voice, so it must be.
BGinCHI
Here’s my version of the story: Professor calls the cops and marine arrested for assault. Then lazy professor (who in my version does not have tenure) gets fired for not teaching his classes.
maya
Yeah, it’s always a Marine cause AF Junior Birdman never works as well.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
One of my favorites also.
BGinCHI
@Baud: Also don’t forget the gub/gun scene in the bank in “Take the Money and Run.”
WaterGirl
@Baud: I am off to youtube, hoping there will be at least one clip from the movie.
DougJ
@eric:
Yes, it’s completely demeaning to marines, I agree.
Chyron HR
Addendum: The professor was a devout Christian for his entire life until that morning, when his wife, daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren were all killed in a car accident. But FUCK HIM AMIRITE?
p.a.
Marine Todd kept his cool until the libtard professor started talking about the Bible as literature. (h/t the late Peter DeVries)
maya
@shelly:
Only after George Tenent tells the Prez it’s a “slam dunk” can it be considered a sure thing.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Zorro The Gay Blade: Red like a Rose?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Thank you for that.
aimai
@shelly: I just had to give you a ++100 for “ankle over to Fox.” So retro, so very Perleman.
Bobby Thomson
@shelly:
aka PWB.
More of this, please. Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Cacti: Was that a gaymatum, then?
Fluke bucket
@SatanicPanic: I second that for damn sure. My God they are glorious.
boatboy_srq
@bemused: Amazing what you can do with Photoshop these days.
You know for every proof/evidence/snark there’s going to be some kind of rebuttal from the Reichwhinge. Remember that they still haven’t recovered from Creating Their Own Reality.
Mike G
This is the fundamentalist Xtian conditioned mindset; most of us grow out of fairy tales at a young age but they never do. Stories don’t have to be true, they just need to be pushing the ideological message, over and over. And it’s always a smug, self-pitying message where their tribe are the noble victims and everyone else are evil scum.
It’s why their propaganda is so heavy-handed to the rest of us, and why they have such a difficult time with concepts like truth and evidence.
Central Planning
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I think the word you are looking for is “ultigaytum”
Sly
Pffft. Real atheists are members of FFRF. The ACLU is for people who don’t believe in the right god.
gelfling545
He’s rather falling down on the job, if so.
cckids
@EconWatcher:
My dad believes that Hillary HATES the military because of some fourth-hand BS story my Air Force BIL told him.Something about her not letting military members speak to her. Its so ludicrous I’ve never bothered to find out the “details”; I’m sure they are crap.
smintheus
@ruemara: Ha ha ha…yeah that is kinda funny in a sad way.
Woodrowfan
and then the Marine was expelled, the professor sued him, he was kicked out of the corps for being expelled from school and ended up working at Walmart.
Woodrowfan
In France the righties there are convinced that the current Social President torn up and renounced his baptismal certificate. it’s utter BS, but they believe it.
Hungry Joe
Ah, yes — the Marine and the professor. Reminds me of the tale of hippies spitting on servicemen in airports when they returned from Vietnam. If you think about either of them for 5/8 of a second they make no sense whatsoever.
But that 5/8 of a second … there’s a high bar, indeed.
(And the last line of the Marine/prof tale should be the Marine’s turning around and asking, “Will any of that God stuff be on the midterm?”)
Nerull
I’ve always been kind of puzzled that conservatives scream about how much they support the troops while also constantly repeating stories portraying said troops as undisciplined thugs.
Elmo
@Bobby Thomson:
I know. The more they talk about “spiking the ball, the more the low info types think, “Huh. Preznit musta done somethin good.”
How is that supposed to be bad for our side, again?
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: Facebook? Pshaw. That joke’s been kicking around for at least 20 years. Taking it as truth may be new, though.
Pogonip
Doug, if you refer to a Marine as an ARMY of one, he may punch YOU out.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
Well, true, I’ve certainly heard or seen variations on it for many years. It’s just that, for whatever reasons, it’s taken on new life in the last couple of days.
:: wanders off, whistling “Everything Old is New Again” ::
chopper
LOL, when was the last time america’s military fought to protect americans’ rights? WWII? americans’ rights to cheap gas, maybe.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: Yet another reason to stay off Facebook, if the jokes aren’t any fresher than that!
GOPer
Well, I’m just glad the liberal atheist professor didn’t spit on the Marine’s uniform, like all those bullying 1960’s protestors did to the soldiers just back from Vietnam…
Roger Moore
@chopper:
When Eisenhower called out the 101st Airborne to escort the Little Rock Nine to school.
Sly
@EconWatcher:
That’s nothing. Someone I knew in college absolutely believed that Bill Clinton – as President – was not allowed to sit in on classified intelligence briefings because he protested the Vietnam War when he was 23 years old. Apparently he had to leave the room whenever sensitive information was being discussed.
In fairness, this someone I knew also believed that he was immunized from HIV because he was Irish Catholic, so he was probably suffering from some kind of crazy.
The Other Chuck
“And the student got himself a big chicken dinner for being unable to control his violent unstable self.”
No, that isn’t a meal.
kc
DYING laughing at those tweets.
LauraPDX
@Another Holocene Human: This.
God seems to always say yes to these people’s prayers about that vacation to Hong Kong, or that iPad or other gadget they need right now, or anything else they want (versus need). Others going without (i.e. the poors) though is character-building, and god really means no when those people want or ask for something.
chopper
so there’s this atheist jew professor who’s all ‘i’m in the ACLU and god doesn’t exist!’ and then this big marine stands up to kick his atheist jew ass, but before he can do it baby jesus hits him with a lightning bolt saying ‘fuck you, liberal! go back to china!’
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
Well, I’m pretty old, so even if I’ve heard the jokes a million times, they always seem new!
AnonPhenom
‘Real American Heeeeeroes, Mr. Hippy Punching Imaginary Military Veteran’
chopper
@shelly:
lol. “obama’s really taking the credit for obamacare, isn’t he?”
Jay C
And of course, it never gets retold like this:
scav
God’s Little Marine then walked to all his fallen comrades parents, spouses and children, explaining forcibly (and with violence if they expressed skepticism) how neither God, the Spirit nor the Baby Jebus could be bothered with protecting their loved ones.
Bokonon
So there is this honest, patriotic Wehrmacht soldier, taking classes between deployments at the Eastern Front. One of his professors was a communist Jew …
Just substitute some words, and what do you get?
Really, people. I don’t want to go all Godwin on this thread, but propagandists of some really disreputable types like to traffic in this sort of stuff – right down the physical violence at the end (which is a nice little fascist twist).
Matt McIrvin
Atheist Marines are in big trouble, I guess.
muddy
I got this in email a while ago from a glibertarian. An atheist glibertarian. I didn’t see why he was that thrilled with it, he wasn’t a believer? The response that tried to pass for logic was, “A lot of Christians are really good people, you know.”
Sure, I guess. But what has that to do with this bizarre “joke”? At this point I am thinking this guy must have dementia.
Frankensteinbeck
@muddy:
Think emotionally, because people usually do. The point is ‘That liberal sure got shown who’s boss.’ His objection to liberals is not about religion, but he does want to see them punched and their ideology discredited.
Another Holocene Human
You know, this kind of fantasy (shutting someone up with violence) is a far cry from the RW’s heyday when they published tracts about the clever, bible-believin’ young white male freshman who p0wns the wanky lefty l00natic college perfessor at his own game–verbally destroying him in front of the whole class.
It means that deep down, they know they’ve already lost.
FlipYrWhig
Worst of all, the course was Advanced Calculus.
Eric S.
@chopper: I’ve been off the opinion for quite a while the GOP will end up regretting the Obamacare name. Associating something the masses are going to desire with the opposition is just not smart.
Roger Moore
@muddy:
The joke involves punching a hippie, and that’s all it takes to make some people happy.
Narcissus
The thing about these stories is that the premise is so obviously false — that a professor would walk into his class, and out of the blue for no reason ask god to strike him down for proof — that nobody really believes it, including the people telling the story and laughing about it. They know it’s not true, but they believe it’s “True”, because they like the way it makes them feel.
muddy
@Frankensteinbeck: I did get that much. I guess I was just amazed he pronounced such a non sequitur to me in conversation, with no apparent embarrassment.
muddy
@Roger Moore: This douche thinks he is a hippie because he has a ratty ponytail.
sm*t cl*de
The story is a decade old, per Snopes.
One wonders how America’s military activities of killing people in Afghanistan was “protecting your right to say stupid shit like that”. In fact the only party in the story who has protected anyone’s right to say stupid shit is the ACLU-member lecturer.
opium4themasses
So Jack Chick is still in operation?
Citizen_X
@sm*t cl*de: Yah. “Protecting your right to say stupid shit like that” by decking him? Whatever.
And this:
So, I assume God wanted the commies to win in Vietnam, right?
Marc
I wish I could have been as witty as the folks in that Gawker post when a friend of mine shared the Marine story on Facebook. I had to settle for thanking him for reminding me to re-up my ACLU membership… which I promptly did.
Snarki, child of Loki
Okay, they convinced me.
It’s time for Professors to be armed in class.
Then this story would have a different ending, amirite?
Visceral
@El Tiburon: This is exactly how North Korea thinks.
Betsy
@Another Holocene Human: that’s what this joke reminded me of. Thanks for pegging it
Lurking Canadian
@Fred: Actually, what strikes me about it is how aggressively not funny it is. It’s just belligerent.
I don’t think I’m a prude about jokes, but I just can’t imagine anybody hearing that story and coming away with a smile on his face or a good chuckle. The best anybody could hope as a reaction from a listener would be, “Yeah, that’ll show the fucken libruls!” It’s a serotonin hit, I suppose, if you are a rage junkie, but it’s not “funny”.
Sophist
My favorite aspect of this is how divergent the moral they intend to impart is from the moral it actually contains. Because, when you think about it, it’s parable of a person resorting to violence when the available evidence doesn’t support their religious claims. If it had actually happened it would be a story for atheists to pass around the internet to show what assholes Christians are. I don’t understand how anyone can look at this and think “Yup, that totally paints my belief system in a positive light” and then forward it to everyone they’ve ever met. Epistemic closure: not even once.
The Tragically Flip
An absolute gem.
An eagle named “small government” oh mercy…
The Tragically Flip
The one that has the liberal stopping to pick up more granola bars and scarves had me laughing too. Scarves. It’s the little details that conservatives would never think to mock.
Snowwy
@SiubhanDuinne:
How many different ways can I say it?
Don’t you dare change that beautiful nym /demanding
I will get on my knees and beg you not to change your nym /coquettish
The nym stays /imperious
Hey, *I* can pronounce it! /smartass
AxelFoley
@Roger Moore:
But according to Dan Choi, Obama hated teh gayz.
Tripod
Sunk cost fallacy. Like the post Vietnam load of urban mythology. The idiots that believe this stuff would have long since bankrupted Coca-Cola trying to sell New Coke.
To quote Homer Simpson: “blame me if you must, but don’t blame the system…”
Meanwhile DoD has $50 billion+ worth of up armored trucks that nobody wants.
Hob
@Another Holocene Human: Oh, they’re still peddling the milder version of the fantasy too.
Russ
Reminds me of that time at band camp.
Paul in KY
That is a good one!
Paul in KY
@Hungry Joe: That would be another class member asking if it would be on the midterm, while chewing gum & looking bored.
Paul in KY
@The Tragically Flip: That one hit all the notes, made up some more notes, and then hit them too.
Bet it was fun writing that one.
Ken in NJ
And that soldier’s name was Albert Einstein
Art
@El Tiburon:
Yes. From Raw Story:
Conservative leaders have learned they can train their followers to believe anything, with One Simple Trick: Lie faster than the debunkers can debunk. With the contraception mandate, there’s been a dizzying amount of lies that have been pouring out of the right, and this is no accident. Conservative leaders have learned that if you drown your opposition in lies, they are doomed. Even if they debunk one lie, audiences who are eager to buy into the anti-contraception line will simply cling to another. If you debunk that lie, conservatives just switch to another or switch back.
SFAW
@Snowwy:
Cyrano! I thought you wuz dead!