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Their freedom requires your slavery.

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They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: *Less* (Small-C) Catholic Than the Pope

Late Night Open Thread: *Less* (Small-C) Catholic Than the Pope

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Blarts from the past — remember ‘Crunchy Con’ Dreher?

The Benedict Option — Dreher argues for the formation of virtuous Christian communities in response to an increasingly secular culture — was influential enough to rate a Wikipedia stub before it faded like a sparkler. Dreher was so mad about the Pope’s refusal to embrace his theory of withdrawal from our fallen world (which: pretty much the opposite of everything Francis had endorsed) that he stomped off to join the Greek Orthodox Church. Unless he’s found an even more ‘rigorous’ faith since then…

I grew up ‘in The Church’, and IMO this is pretty much an adequate guidepost:

Reader Interactions

54Comments

  2. 2.

    CaseyL

    Dreher’s descent into demented authoritarianism has been saddening hilarious to watch. It’s been interesting, in a slow-motion-car-crash sort of way, to see his obsession with policing other peoples’ sex lives lead him down the merry path to fascism, embracing the full-out racist and misogynistic accessory package that goes with it.

  4. 4.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    I’m just here for the human zoo. That shit sounds awesome. If only we could keep ’em there.

  5. 5.

    Poe Larity

    Maybe Francis heard that Dreher’s Benedict enclaves are modelled after NASA’s child slaver base on Mars.

    How about a gofundme for a SpaceX ride over so he can have his own private Hyperion.

  6. 6.

    Steeplejack

    That Dreher saga was one of the highlights of the Twitter week, capped by the genius of “explaining to a cartoon rabbit.”

    Open thread, so . . .

    The Australian Broadcasting Corp has released an amazing documentary called “Fox and the Big Lie.” Here, reporter Sarah Ferguson eviscerates Sidney Powell, causing her to walk off the set.
    pic.twitter.com/MWPZhXzgHq

    — Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 31, 2021

    Jessica Huseman: “It’s sort of amazing to me that American interviewers who have spoken to her—though there have been few, I realize—haven’t even gotten down to the crucial level of ‘Do you understand the ownership structures of these voting machine companies?’”

    Nick: “That’s not their job, which means you have to contemplate what their job is.”

  8. 8.

    FredW

    To be fair, he joined the Russian Orthodox Church (not Greek) and it was way before he wrote the Benedict Option.

    I used to read his blog years ago — he could be interesting so long as you stayed away from marriage equality, then it was off to the funny farm.

    Then it turned into non-stop “the libs are practicing soft totalitarianism to oppress us true believers” all the while turning a blind eye to the hard totalitarianism the R’s were trying to do.

    Daniel Larison blogged at the same place at the time. I think it is important to read people who disagree with you — so long as they are sane and argue in good faith — something lacking in today Right.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    Trivia:

    1) With 1.5 crimes per citizen, Vatican City has the highest crime rate in the world.
    2) The ATMs in Vatican City speak in Latin.
    Source
    .

  10. 10.

    JoyceH

    @Steeplejack: ​
     

    That Dreher saga was one of the highlights of the Twitter week

    My Twitter highlight of the week was the person who said of Ed Asner: “He had spunk. I like spunk.”

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    Have never heard of Dreher, have not the slightest idea who he might be, and most important why I might possibly have the remotest interest in knowing.

  16. 16.

    prostratedragon

    For some reason running through my mind this week:

    “What happened to God?”  — Foster (Will Patton), The Rapture.

     

    @JoyceH:  That’s cute.  I like spunk too.

  17. 17.

    danielx

    @NotMax: ​

    I get that every morning when I touch the iPhone News icon: who the fuck are these people and why am I supposed to care what they think, eat, wear, where they vacation, or who they screw? Whatever the algorithm, its mojo just ain’t working on me or for me.

    But I’m a weirdo, I don’t watch television to speak of so I’m way outside the normal curve right there.

    ETA: somebody asked me once about tv as a conversation starter: I responded that he presupposed I would want to converse with somebody who thought television comedies were a worthy topic. He said I was becoming cranky.

  20. 20.

    Mary G

    @FredW: Same here. I originally came to Balloon Juice to read a sane conservative, and in the same spirit read Larison for years – he ragged equally on Republican and Democrats for the forever wars and has been screaming into the void about starving children in Yemen since 2015.

    I had to stop when I was unable to resist hate clicking on Dreher. He’s gone all the way down to kissing up to Orban in Hungary and hinting that America could use an authoritarian administration to keep liberals from changing children’s genitals at the age of four.

    Larison’s gone to a substack, I think, and tweets every once in a while.

  22. 22.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @NotMax:  Dreher gets (or used to; I can’t be bothered to keep up) column space on the NYT editorial page as a regular; I think he was hired so he could expose us to a young, cutting-edge conservative thinker.

    The great Charlie Pierce would demolish him occasionally in his online pieces for Esquire, between bouts of highlighting David Brooks’s grandiose follies (Pierce’s invention of Brooks’s photo op dog, an Irish Setter named Moral Panic, is one for the ages.)

  32. 32.

    frosty

    @danielx: You are becoming cranky. But what the hell, just own it.

    PS I haven’t watched too many comedies lately, it’s more like Travels By Narrowboat.

  36. 36.

    opiejeanne

    @NotMax: I loved this tidbit: Allen Carney died at the age of 63 in Van Nuys from the excitement of winning the Daily Double at Hollywood Racetrack.

  37. 37.

    Tony Jay

    I used to hate-read Dreher too, until 2016 when that shit just wasn’t funny anymore.

    He’s the guy who ‘proved’ that Liberals were the real racists because ‘Brown Sugar’ = Racist Stones = Long haired Lefties = Suck on that, Libtard.

    A tiresome fart of a man sticky with the treacle of his own self-righteousness. I’m not sure if anyone ever pointed out to him how his calls for a parallel Christian Community living alongside but separate from mainstream society echo those of the founders of the Taliban, etc, but I am sure that if they have, he’s scuttled away offended before coming back the next day to post article after article after endless bloody article spiralling down the drill hole into crazy town as he ‘suddenly understands’ how this latest example of intolerance just shows how truly authoritarian the Left is.

    The Pope was right to blank him.

  40. 40.

    burnspbesq

    Ugh. Dreher.

    That is all.

    ETA: IIRC, he used to occasionally get shredded in the pages of National Catholic Reporter. You have to be waaaaaayyyyyy out there for that to happen.

  41. 41.

    Freemark

    Anyone know what happened to Joe Walsh? Since Trump became President he actually seems reasonable. Or is it just because the bar is so low for Republicans now?

    So many people arguing about and asking the question, “Who’s to blame?” And I’m like, “Blame for what?” We’re finally ending a 20 year unwinnable war, we’re finally getting all of our troops out, and we’ve evacuated over 120,000 people. Blame? I think Biden deserves credit.

  43. 43.

    Tony Jay

    @burnspbesq:

    Its all – and I do mean all – about the dinero. Book sales drive everything that guy fulminates about. Being able to apend “Too salty for the Liberals’ favourite Pope” to the latest printing of his screed should be worth a few more sales, and that’s what’s important in the Kingdom of Mammon.

  44. 44.

    WereBear

    I once read an account of a women whose family, with young children, became part of one of those Benedict colonies.

    She bitterly regretted every moment. At least one estranged child. I don’t think the marriage lasted.

    So much misery, while the Right Winger “thought leaders” raked in it. I no longer thing they are sincere and deluded.

    They are, and long have been, pure con artist. And nothing more.

  45. 45.

    Gvg

    @Freemark: Trump. Actually I never wondered till you asked because the surprising thing is that their weren’t millions more republicans who saw what Trump and the GOP leadership were. It is kind of interesting which ones revolted and which ones got worse. I guess it might be enlightening to know the specifics.

    Joe Walsh is still the dick who didn’t pay child support and every once in awhile he still has opinions that are totally wrong but typical Republican, however he consistently speaks out against Trump. He has a way with words and the pithy put down.

  46. 46.

    Geminid

    @Freemark: I think what happened to Joe Walsh is that he decided to stop trying to be elected. A lot of Republican politicians who know better have said stupid stuff trying to keep up with their party as the the tea party cranks and then trump dragged it over the edge.

    Someone once said, “A politician is a sick man who gets well by being elected.”

  54. 54.

    opiejeanne

    @WereBear: There are Benedict colonies? Is that like the town in Florida started by the owner of Domino’s Pizza, supposed to be open only to Catholics and birth control will not be sold in the pharmacy?

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