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Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / Fire on the mountain, run boys run

Fire on the mountain, run boys run

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Rod Dreher thinks death metal caused the Paris attacks by summoning the devil:

The band Eagles of Death Metal had just started playing their song “Kiss The Devil” when terrorists burst into the Bataclan and started firing.

[….]

Evil is not a game. Evil is not to be messed with. If you call up the devil, sometimes, he will come.

(h/d reader D)

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  1. 1.

    chopper

    Rod Dreher thinks death metal caused the Paris attacks by summoning the devil:

    the eagles of death metal are not a metal band. at all.

  5. 5.

    Seanly

    I’m looking forward to Roy Edroso skewering him on this. EDIT: Roy’s on it already :)

    I better not let Rod know that I am back to playing pen & paper D&D again! He’ll think I’m casting actual spells & calling forth Asmodeus to do my bidding.

  8. 8.

    Matt McIrvin

    @chopper: Yeah, but they named the Devil in their song.

    It was just like the time that scary skeleton death band The Grateful Dead did it, and they went down to the levee and the Devil met them there, and he took their twenty dollar bill and vanished in the air.

  10. 10.

    MomSense

    My Mom just called me furious after reading a letter to the editor. The author thinks we should put Syrian refugees on reservations just like we did with American Indians.

    Jeebus, we committed genocide with Native Americans.

  12. 12.

    Luthe

    I love the not-so-subtle implication that the terrorists (and by extension, Muslims) are the devil.

    Russian judges only give him a 6.5, though.

  14. 14.

    dedc79

    I’m having trouble picking a favorite comment, but this one is up there:

    “For whatever reason, demons have to follow certain rules — they are in the end subject to God. Using their symbols gives them permission. This is well-documented.”

  18. 18.

    beltane

    @dedc79: Come on, it’s well documented, just like fairies, trolls, and leprechauns are well documented. What more do you want?

  24. 24.

    NonyNony

    @beltane: Of course it’s well documented. There’s a long running documentary that runs weekly on the CW that goes into all of the rules. I think it’s called Supernatural – it’s very informative. Everyone should know the rules so they don’t accidentally summon something that they can’t put down.

  25. 25.

    Ked

    …wow, I hadn’t been here for a couple weeks (work, gaming, and now it’s Desert Bus week (go donate!)). Has the front page been this double-spaced hell for long? Why are quotes single-spaced? What is with the insanely-large frequently-repeated picture that links to discussion – and if you’re going to do that can you get one that fits in better?

    Also I couldn’t help but leave a statement of disbelief for Rod. I’m sure it’ll be moderated out, but damn that’s some broken thinking right there. If causality works that way in your head, there’s no way you can build functional policy.

  28. 28.

    beltane

    Dreher must also believe that Satan and his minions are out on the prowl Halloween night. Don’t dress up as anything scary, kids, or Lucifer will come for your soul.

  29. 29.

    NonyNony

    @Tom Levenson: Man I only wish that D&D were as “metal” as the D&D haters thought it was. D&D is mostly sitting around a table doing improv bullshitting while doing some applied statistics and basic algebra. I was told that there would be demons! And virgin sacrifices! I read through the entire Dungeon Masters Guide from cover to cover and I never found any magic spells!

  33. 33.

    beltane

    @Yastreblyansky: Perhaps Dreher’s next religious conversion will be to Islam. No matter what religion he practices at any given moment, everything he writes is nothing more than medieval, backwards-ass hooey.

  36. 36.

    amorphous

    @chopper: Yeah, the name itself says they aren’t death metal. They are the Eagles of Death Metal, much like the Eagles are the Eagles of Rock Music, i.e. not actually rock, EODM aren’t actually death metal.

    From Wiki:

    Despite their band name, Eagles of Death Metal are not a death metal band. Hughes stated that a friend was introducing Josh Homme to the death metal genre. When he played a song by the Polish band Vader and made a claim that the song was within the death metal genre, Homme then referred to Vader as “The Eagles of Death Metal”. After hearing this phrase, he wondered what a cross between the Eagles and a death metal band would sound like.

    @DemJayhawks: Homme is super conservative iirc. They’re from desert California, which to me is usually indicative of Republicans.

  37. 37.

    Cacti

    One the GOP minority outreach front:

    The number of Hispanic and Latino voters who believe the Republican Party is “hostile” to them has grown from 18% to 45%. The number who believe that Republicans don’t care about them or are hostile to them, has grown from 74% to 84%.

    Thanks Donald Trump!

  39. 39.

    beltane

    @SatanicPanic: Great, now you show up here with your demon attracting nym. We’re going to have to flap our arms around reciting the Hail Mary just to keep ourselves safe.

  41. 41.

    Roger Moore

    @xenos:

    A haiku

    Nope. First of all, the traditional metric format for a haiku is 5-7-5, not 5-5-7 as you’ve done it. Also, a haiku is supposed to have a seasonal allusion, which yours lacks. I think you could reasonably claim that there’s a kiru between the second and third lines, at least.

  42. 42.

    Gex

    I just have to reconcile myself to being unable to really think anything like the other side. Their tough stands never fail to look like pants-wetting fear to me. Not sure how they can see it differently.

  43. 43.

    burnspbesq

    There’s only one long-term answer to Dreher’s lunacy: Frankie Goes to the Vatican needs to excommunicate his ass. Only then can he let his inner crackpot Southern Baptist come out to play.

  46. 46.

    Gin & Tonic

    @dedc79: A very popular saying in the old Soviet Union was “как известно”, or “as is well-known.” Saved you from providing any pesky references, just relying on the fact that everybody knew something or other.

  47. 47.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @MomSense:

    we committed genocide with Native Americans.

    And that’s just fine with most of those assholes. The ones that actually believe it happened, that is. Actual comment made to me (by RWNJ BIL):

    I read a book written by an anthropologist who said that never happened.

    The stupid, it burns.

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    @Cacti:

    The number of Hispanic and Latino voters who believe the Republican Party is “hostile” to them has grown from 18% to 45%. The number who believe that Republicans don’t care about them or are hostile to them, has grown from 74% to 84%.

    Let’s hope that turns them from “voters” into “reliable voters”.

  50. 50.

    Iowa Old Lady

    I feel like I’m watching America struggle for its soul and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.

    All I can say is thank god that this time we have a president who’s smart, informed, and committed to American values in their most idealized form.

  51. 51.

    EthylEster

    @schrodinger’s cat wrote:

    Rod Dreher is a sanctimonious idiot.

    Actually he’s worse than that. I’ve been reading his posts daily for about 6 months now. He has severely degraded the idea of Christianity for me over that time period. He is petty and mean. I wonder what kind of jerk he was BEFORE Dante “saved his life”.

    I would advise against anyone visiting his site.
    It’s full of Jesus-y hate! Which the world does NOT need more of.

  52. 52.

    NotMax

    @Cacti

    Obviously their command of English is shaky at best, so they didn’t understand the question.

    /RWNJ talking point

    (Wouldn’t put it past ’em to trot that out at this point.)

  57. 57.

    EthylEster

    @Gin & Tonic wrote:

    Four FP posts in a half-hour. I can’t keep up.

    If you’re referring to Dreher, yeah, he has what my mom used to call “diarrhea of the mouth” but it manifests itself in his writing. He also often quotes long passages from other authors and never fails to end with “Read the whole thing”. The comments are frequently toxic.

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    @Gin & Tonic:

    A very popular saying in the old Soviet Union was “как известно”, or “as is well-known.” Saved you from providing any pesky references, just relying on the fact that everybody knew something or other.

    Americans do about the same thing by describing policies as “common sense”. It simultaneously avoids the need for supporting evidence and implicitly criticizes anyone who contradicts you as lacking common sense.

  60. 60.

    Paul in KY

    @beltane: You mean you haven’t already?! I always do a pre-emptive one before I enter this damnenble portal.

    John or Tommy should fix it so that when you click on the name, you hear a couple seconds of moans & wails.

  64. 64.

    Calouste

    @schrodinger’s cat: I think Gingrich adopted the religion of his third wife, formerly his second mistress (that we know of), which is not all that unusual.

    On the other hand, Rubio started out as a Catholic, has been a Mormon, and is currently back to being a Catholic as well as being a Baptist. Or something like that.

  65. 65.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    My understanding is that Dreher honestly believes that demons (and, of course, Big Red himself) are real. Not metaphorical, not allegorical – real. Every bit as real as President Obama and John Cole. So he’s a bit twitchy about occult imagery.

  66. 66.

    Paul in KY

    @benw: Ozzy’s like “Man, I can’t get rid of them now. Have about 246 demons on payroll. If only I’d known”

  67. 67.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Paul in KY: Not close. Transliterating it would be “kak izvestno.” The thing that looks to you like a backwards N is a vowel very close (in sound) to I. Izvestno is the same root as “Izvestiya”, the newspaper.

  68. 68.

    dedc79

    @SatanicPanic: As I commented over at Dreher’s blog (still in moderation), one would think that god, if he/she/it existed, would at least have prevented the Duke Blue Devils from winning all those national championships.

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I am not a religious person, but I just don’t get this idea of shopping around for a religion.

    You’re obviously not a proper American either, then; this is a country where we list churches in the Yellow Pages, or at least we did back when there were Yellow Pages. Instead of being born into a church and sticking with the theology it espouses, Americans feel comfortable trying to find a church that has theological leanings that they prefer. It’s more or less a way of voting (with our feet) on theological questions.

  74. 74.

    lethargytartare

    @NonyNony:

    I read through the entire Dungeon Masters Guide from cover to cover and I never found any magic spells!

    that’s because spells are in the Player’s Handbook

  75. 75.

    Gimlet

    Maybe that’s why they militarized the police. Now they need to stop selling pressure cookers.

    From the Tennessean

    A top Tennessee Republican lawmaker believes the time has come for the National Guard to round up any Syrian refugees who have recently settled in the state and to stop any additional Syrian refugees from entering Tennessee.

    “We need to activate the Tennessee National Guard and stop them from coming in to the state by whatever means we can,” said House GOP Caucus Chairman Glen Casada, R-Franklin, referencing refugees.

    In fiscal year 2015, only 30 of the 1,601 refugees settled in Tennessee came from Syria, according to the Tennessee Office for Refugees.

    Gov. Bill Haslam sent a letter to President Barack Obama on Tuesday formally asking him to stop sending Syrian refugees to Tennessee.

    “If the U.S. Supreme Court says the federal government cannot force states to expand their Medicaid rolls, I’m not sure how the federal government believes it can legitimately force Tennessee to accept refugees from countries with known terrorists.”

  76. 76.

    bemused

    Funny that Dreher doesn’t consider the thought that he could be calling up the devil himself just writing that delusional crap. I’ve heard the devil is super sneaky that way.

  78. 78.

    glaukopis

    @schrodinger’s cat: From a different perspective – my mother grew up with a hateful, bible-thumping stepmother and distrusted all religions as trying to mold our minds before we had enough reason to evaluate what they said. As a consequence we were allowed to attend any church we liked but could not join until we were 18. I found it a bit annoying as a teenager, but in retrospect think it was pretty sound.

  79. 79.

    bemused

    @MomSense:

    Putrid minds think alike. TN Rep, Chairman of Republican Caucus wants to round up the Syrians already living in his state and return them to immigration center run by federal government.

    I shudder to think what other sick ideas Republicans are going dream up.

  83. 83.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Gex: I grew up in Virginny in the times when people there were freaking out about Dungeons and Dragons and passing around that Jack Chick comic about how rock and roll would give you Druid Stonehenge powers, and this all just seems like old times.

  84. 84.

    les

    Somebody needs to send Rod some Charlie Daniels Band music. When he finds out the devil is in Georgia, maybe Rod will leave.

  85. 85.

    Betty Cracker

    @Matt McIrvin: Jack Chick! My mom’s car got leaflet-bombed when we were at the beach once, and we had such fun reading them! This was mid to late-70s maybe?

  86. 86.

    Iowa Old Lady

    A quote from Babylon 5:

    When our leader was killed by your people, we went mad together. We stayed mad for a very long time, a madness that almost consumed your world, until finally, before it was too late, we woke up together

  87. 87.

    Sad_Dem

    Noticed in the comments that one commenter got scolded for being reasonable and saying there’s this thing called irony.

  88. 88.

    Patricia Kayden

    Dreher has me speechless. Can’t believe someone semi-intelligent would actually put that out into the public domain.

  89. 89.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Sad_Dem: From the linked article, Dreher writes: “My point is that the demonic is real, and not something to be messed with, even ironically. I wish scoffers could spend some serious time talking to exorcists, as I have done.”

    I don’t think Dreher was trying to be ironic. He really believes that the band conjured up demons/evil with their song.

    What were the Black church attendees conjuring up when they were shot to death by that White Supremacist in Charleston, S.C.? Sigh.

  90. 90.

    rikyrah

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

    …………………

    Ben Carson’s campaign made a U.S. map and put a bunch of states in the wrong place
    November 18 at 11:10 AM

    Happy Geography Awareness Week! Recognizing that “too many young Americans are unable to make effective decisions, understand geo-spatial issues, or even recognize their impacts as global citizens,” National Geographic created this annual observance to “raise awareness to this dangerous deficiency in American education.”

    Ben Carson’s presidential campaign inadvertently underscored this point Tuesday night, when it took to social media to share a map of the United States in which five New England states were placed in the wrong location. The campaign deleted the Twitter and Facebook posts Wednesday morning after media outlets and social media users pointed out the error.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/18/ben-carsons-campaign-made-a-u-s-map-and-put-a-bunch-of-states-in-the-wrong-place/

  95. 95.

    Greg

    Rod Dreher has gone insane, and the comments on his posts are in general taking him to task for it. Unless, of course, they are white supremacists, in which case they simply use every post of his as another excuse to write how brown people are sullying the pure white American culture and need to be stopped. There is also a hard core group of very angry, bitter Catholics who hate the current Church, hate the Pope, hate everyone. Do not read Erin Manning, she comments on Dreher and has her own blog which just oozes bitter sanctimonious venom from every post. But by and large his loyal readership has commented openly on how he seems to be seriously unhinged and maybe needs to take a break. His posts keep getting longer and longer and more and more bizarre. I started reading him when he was the voice of reason at National review (until they dumped him for it), and he maintained that for many years elsewhere. But over the last year or so he has fallen into some pit of superstitious mumbo-jumbo where demons, witches, ghosts, angels and succubi all compete for our souls ( or something like that). He hasn’t mentioned vampires or werewolves yet, but at this point it wouldn’t surprise me. I read him now only for the amusement factor of watching his long-time readers berate him for being a pompous jerk. He also has finally let slip the mask on what he truly believes: that Christians deserve special privileges and rights because their religion is superior. Any attempt to thwart that is an attack on Christianity (he sincerely believes that Christians are persecuted in this country), and he defines “religious liberty” as “Christians don’t have to obey laws or workplace rules they don’t like, nor stop annoying everybody else and also should be allowed to pass laws that blatantly discriminate against anybody who doesn’t behave the way we want them to”. He has truly lost his mind.

  96. 96.

    D58826

    Chuck Todd was just going over an online poll taken in the last 24 hours. Overwhelming majorities think we are losing the war with ISIS. 70% or so across all party lines want US ground troops committed to the middle east. A majority are afraid and are concerned that a loved one will die in a terrorist attack. I would say ISIS has had a smashingly successful weekend. Obviously these numbers are skewed by the events of the past week but still for a country that likes to talk about being the ‘home of the brave’ it certainly shows a lack of spine.

  97. 97.

    dedc79

    @schrodinger’s cat: I read Dreher from time to time (I’m the one who sent the link to Doug). I used to read Sullivan b/c, as frustrating as he could be, he was the closest thing to a sane conservative blogger out there (and it seemed important to know what the sanest conservatives thought about all the insane conservatives). When Sully’s site went dark, I was told that Dreher was the next closest thing, so I started reading Dreher. As this post demonstrates, though, the sanity gap between him and Sullivan is quite large.

  99. 99.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Greg:

    Rod Dreher has gone insane, and the comments on his posts are in general taking him to task for it.

    A thing I remember about the 1980s Satanic Panic was that there were an amazing number of people who thought stage magicians were summoning demons and had literal demonic powers. I remember my mother getting into a big argument over this with people who were upset about a magician performing at a public-school event.

  103. 103.

    Davebo

    “I wish scoffers could spend some serious time talking to exorcists, as I have done”

    Hey! I’ve spent some serious time talking to ventriloquists as well as orthodontists!

    Is that enough to promote me from film critic to DMN columnist to a gig at AMCON?

    Wait, on second thought, ventriloquists and orthodontists actually manage to accomplish something that doesn’t involve grifting rubes .

  104. 104.

    jamey

    Rod Dreher thinks death metal caused the Paris attacks by summoning the devil:

    Good thing they didn’t play “Beetlejuice” for their third encore…

  107. 107.

    burnspbesq

    @jamey:

    It’s a single-subject blog (albeit a really good one), but Lawfare has a cabal of seemingly sane, relatively conservative guys, including Jack Goldsmith, Ben Wittes, and David Kris.

  109. 109.

    Gretchen

    I’m trying to give up Dreher for the sake of my blood pressure, but I keep being tempted back to see what heights of stupid he’s flown to today. Today he’s shocked that a university has a seminar on abortion, because baby-killing. We can all agree that baby-killing is evil, and anyone who facilitates baby-killing is an evil ghoul, right?

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