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You are here: Home / Humorous / 2005- We Were So Young and Innocent

2005- We Were So Young and Innocent

by John Cole|  October 17, 20187:56 am| 21 Comments

This post is in: Humorous

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Remember this:

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for “balance” by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons.

We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: “Sincerity is not enough.” We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it’s true doesn’t make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn’t mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

Brother Gatling Gun of Patience notes that he’s pretty sure the world is out to get him because everyone laughs when he says he is a Unitarian. There were murmurs of assent around the room, and someone suggested that we buy some Congress members and really stick it to the Baptists. But this was deemed against Revolutionary Principles, and Brother Gatling Gun of Patience was remanded to the Sunday Flowers and Banners committee.

Signed- Brother Mallet of Forgiveness

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Reader Interactions

21Comments

  1. 1.

    NotMax

    October 17, 2018 at 8:09 am

    Nope, don’t remember it. And am now desirous of forgetting it ASAP.

  2. 2.

    JPL

    October 17, 2018 at 8:18 am

    @NotMax: That’s why we have terrorist fist bumps.

  3. 3.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    October 17, 2018 at 8:24 am

    According to Vanity Fair, Trump’s 60 Minutes interview drew about half as many viewers as Stormy Daniels’s did in March. How’s that for humor?

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    October 17, 2018 at 8:29 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor

    What Slappy sez.

    ;)

  5. 5.

    satby

    October 17, 2018 at 8:34 am

    Had an unexpectedly good day at the market so donated to Postcard Patriots (and signed up to get some addresses). Now trying to find that request for help go-fund-me someone posted about a veteran a couple of days back. And not having much luck. Anyone remember what day that was?

  6. 6.

    emily68

    October 17, 2018 at 8:46 am

    Having attended Unitarian Sunday School in the 1950s and 60s, I say RIGHT ON!

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    October 17, 2018 at 8:52 am

    @satby: found it for you.

  8. 8.

    satby

    October 17, 2018 at 9:14 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: many thanks.
    People here helped me with the late, much missed Biggie way back when and I like to pay it forward when I can.
    It’s appalling that basic survival can be a struggle for one of our vets in the richest country in the world. We owe them more.

  9. 9.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    October 17, 2018 at 9:17 am

    Of course I remember the Jihad!

  10. 10.

    tomdarga

    October 17, 2018 at 9:22 am

    Just because your motives are pure doesn’t mean you are not doing harm.

    Of course, the person saying this is always the one insisting on being the ultimate arbiter of who and what is doing harm, what that harm entails, etc.

    They are usually self-interested and/or full of shit.

  11. 11.

    A Ghost To Most

    October 17, 2018 at 9:23 am

    Ah, 2005. The Harriet Miers kerfuffle, Katrina and the genesis of the song which is my nym. The GOP was just proto-fascist then, instead of full-on christian fascist.

    Fuck them all to hell.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    October 17, 2018 at 9:28 am

    @tomdarga: Speaking only for myself, I am sick of people who “act with the purest of motives” because not only are they liars (nobody is pure), they usually are ignorant as hell of the realities. Or as my old man liked to say:

    “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

  13. 13.

    Paulwartenberg

    October 17, 2018 at 9:42 am

    I’m still paying UU Jihad dues

  14. 14.

    frosty

    October 17, 2018 at 9:44 am

    Yes, of course I remember. Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason continues the jihad, albeit going incognito now.

  15. 15.

    tobie

    October 17, 2018 at 9:44 am

    Man, Cole, that’s some Kurt-Vonnegut-level humor regarding the Unitarians. Now add a few affectionate jabs at the Society for Ethical Culture and you’ll be in Slaughterhouse Five-territory.

  16. 16.

    PhoenixRising

    October 17, 2018 at 10:41 am

    You’re welcome, y’all.

    I Tweeted re @janet4OH , the retired union leader from the public schools I attended in small-town Ohio who is running against the awful Gym Jordan in OH-4.

    Cook updated OH-4 from solid R to likely R, polls show Janet Garrett breaking 42% of likely voters. So if we can push, pull & drag about 9500 unlikely voters…

  17. 17.

    joel hanes

    October 17, 2018 at 10:43 am

    Jon Carroll was the back-page columnist for the Chron for decades; he’s mostly retired now, but he was often very very good.

    My favorite Jon Carroll meme is the annual late-December push for The Untied Way :

    https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/article/JON-CARROLL-It-s-Time-Again-For-the-Untied-Way-3318295.php

    https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/It-s-time-again-for-the-Untied-Way-6631166.php

  18. 18.

    tomdarga

    October 17, 2018 at 11:10 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Obviously, intentions aren’t “magic” and there is wisdom in that quote.

    OTOH, I have gotten very sick of the modern habit of making often very tenuous/debatable and vague assertions of harm and then getting hostile to anyone who doesn’t immediately accept those assertions as true and act accordingly. Frequently these assertions are based on like “6 steps to Kevin Bacon”-style chains of causation. “You did A, which ‘normalizes’ idea B, which then cause people to do C, which in turn leads to D which is harmful. Therefore, it doesn’t matter why you did A because you are causing harm. Just admit it and apologize”. I’m just sick of this shit.

    The “intentions don’t matter” folks like to trot out the overly simplistic example of

    “if you step on someones foot, then your intentions don’t erase the harm you did and you should apologize even if you didn’t mean to do it”

    , which is all well and good. However, in practice, a better analogy for the way they actually act would be more like

    “if you throw a frisbee to a friend, but a sudden gust of wind blows off course, and a dog sees the frisbee and tries to chase it, and the dog bumps into someone’s legs which causes that person to lose their balance and step on someone else’s foot, then your intentions don’t erase the harm you did and you should apologize even if you didn’t mean to do it”

    which is ….. frankly batshit crazy to be honest.

  19. 19.

    Lodev Mirsi

    October 17, 2018 at 1:52 pm

    @satby: Thanks, satby, for bringing this guy’s case up. And thanks, Ozark for the link.
    Just sent what I could afford at the moment. This guy really needs a break.

  20. 20.

    Brother Holy Cruise Missile Of Mild Acceptance (Dreggas)

    October 17, 2018 at 2:50 pm

    Oh Yes, I remember, this is how I got this name. Those seem like the good old days…

  21. 21.

    hilzoy

    October 17, 2018 at 9:45 pm

    Google does not want to tell me what my Uitarian Jihad name was. I find this very annoying: what good is it if googling hilzoy “unitarian jihad” just comes up with a bunch of old blog posts that mention me and the jihad, but not MY post about it?

    Pout.

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