When Samuel Alito sits down with his family for a good old-fashioned Opus Dei Fourth of July, which version of the story of the Declaration of Independence do you think he will tell? The one where Jesus gave Thomas Jefferson the words on an inscribed tablet of gold, or a chiseled tablet of stone?
Open thread.
Elizabelle
Richard Mellon Scaife is dead. There’s a good thing to learn on Independence Day.
Neutron Flux
Baud
Hey, MM. LGM seems to have a working Comments RSS. Is there a reason we can’t?
Happy 4th. And Alito’s declaration of independence is just like ours except he has underlined “men” in “all men are created equal” several times.
debbie
Won’t he, like the Texas School Board, seek to erase Jefferson entirely?
Neutron Flux
Golf Clap
Alex S.
@Elizabelle:
Oh! I thought he had died some time ago.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Thanks for the laugh!
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Which part? Alito, or the idea of getting a working RSS feed here?
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Ha! I for one would gladly trade away the rights of others for a working Comments RSS.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
That’s a good start. Oh, wait, I’m not supposed to be happy at someone’s passing? OK, fine, the tears are rolling down my face.
Now, if only I could get to mourn the passing of a few more like him.
barry
Jefferson founded the Democrat Party and owned slaves. Neither Ronald Reagan nor George W.Bush owned slaves nor did they found the Democrat Party. And Clarence Thomas has a white wife.
Therefore, there is no longer any need for the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. Anyone who says we need them are the real racists. What we need are tougher laws against voter fraud and more monuments dedicated to Ronald Reagan.
SFAW
@barry:
You forgot
PolandFrancisco Franco!Xecky Gilchrist
Happy Fourth, my fellow liberal traitor scum. It’s wonderful to have a holiday to remind us all just what we’ve dedicated our lives to destroying and burning down and jumping up and down gleefully upon the ashes of.
OzarkHillbilly
@Alex S.: He did. It just took his body a few years to catch up.
Cacti
@Elizabelle:
Beat me to it.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: I wish I could claim to be that clever!
I could just see the pen moving as someone underlined the word “men” over and over, and it made me laugh, which is good because I have been feeling quite sad and discouraged since the ridiculous Hobby Lobby ruling came out.
I suspect I dismissed the wish for the RSS comments as “never gonna happen”.
But, hey, MSNBC finally got their RSS feed for just Benen working properly at last, so stranger things have happened.
Elizabelle
@Cacti:
Yeah. Our tragedy is that he was filthy rich rubbish. Otherwise, he would have just been a spittle-flecked miscreant with a rightwing newsletter and neighbors who waved from a distance.
MomSense
You know I’m going to stop and contemplate for a moment that God didn’t trust men with the miracles that became the basis of Christianity and with good reason. Unlike the creation of Adam, God didn’t gather the dust of the earth to make his son. No–God impregnated an unmarried woman. And the male disciples liked to traipse around with this wonder rabbi well enough but as soon as he was a dead man walking by way of capital punishment they were nowhere to be found, even bad mouthing him to the authorities (at least Peter felt remorse about his cowardice). Nope, it was the women disciples and followers who were brave enough to attend to Jesus during the long, agonizing crucifixion. And even the big miracle on the third day was only seen and reported by those same women. The men had nothing to do with it.
It seems that the Justices have forgotten this. In fairness, it seems the whole Catholic Church has forgotten that women are the ones who created the basis for the religion. They also seem to have forgotten that the Church allowed for abortion for much of its early history, and even sainted abortion providers (St. Brigid). I hope God and women will get pissed enough at how these men keep distorting the religion in order to justify controlling women,neglecting “the least of these” and failing to follow most of God/Christ’s teachings to smite them big time. I hope God starts with Opus Dei.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl:
I stopped reading Benen because I can’t stand MSNBC’s site. And I am not blind.
ThresherK
“I’ve got this petition I’ve been circulating around the neighborhood.
Elizabelle
@MomSense:
Yup. The Catholic Church is built on misogyny. Saint Jerome and all the Church “fathers”. (I say that as a lapsed Catholic.)
Liza Mundy wrote a great WaPost magazine essay a few years ago about how it is no accident that the Taliban purposely removed women from society and power. You cannot pursue a reactionary, crazy-assed, medieval worldview and have most women go along with it. Silence them.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Do you use RSS? Because now I don’t have to go to their blasted website to read Benen – his stuff shows up in my RSS reader and I don’t have to wade through all the other crap that’s on rachel’s blog.
Edit: I also don’t think Benen has been as good since he moved to rachel’s blog. It used to seem like Benen got to stuff first and lots of other bloggers picked up on what he was writing about. It’s not uncommon at all now for me to see stuff Benen writes and think “wow, I saw that earlier, some place else”. Disappointing!
Cacti
Here’s a good Independence Day reminder of what the opposition is about these days.
The GOPer governor of Maine has met with Sovereign Citizens movement affiliates on 8 different occasions.
jurassicpork
Cyril Blubberpuss on what it means to be an American citizen.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
It seems that many religions share the removing women from power aspect even when it really isn’t supported by their scriptures.
D58826
HL has been coming in for a bit of criticism from Christian pundits for doing business with China. For a family that is so burdened by the contraceptive mandate and its supposed link to abortion they seem strangely untroubled by the 300+ million abortions in China as a result of the one child policy. Fortunately the talk radio apologists have come to HL’s rescue. It seems that HL only deals with business people and not the government. It is the government of China that is responsible for all of the abortions. I guess if you want to fool yourself that the government and the business people are somehow separated by a great wall, then I have a bridge to sell them. Even if we indulge their fantasy on this, there is still a problem. Little sisters of the poor and Wheaton college claim that filling out the government form to request an exemption still links them to the use of contraceptives. In Wheaton’s case it is the 4 that supposedly cause abortions. Well isn’t HL and the Green family then linked to abortions in China when they apply for passports and other government documents necessary to do business in China. They are dealing with a government that makes abortion a matter of public policy.
I guess when you have God on speed dial you don’t have to worry about things like that
Chris
@Cacti:
I need to watch “Gettysburg” again.
Well, at least the part at Little Round Top.
Cacti
@D58826:
The true God of the Green family and corporate citizen Hobby Lobby is the Almighty Dollar, blessed be his holy name.
WereBear
@MomSense: Quick and easy built-in oppression of half the population that is readily identifiable! No wonder it’s so popular.
D58826
@Cacti: (sigh) true and that whole camel thru the eye of a needle was just a mis-quote. Jesus and Herrod were really BFF’s.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Parade happening in a half hour. It’s a lovely cool morning so we’ll stroll a few blocks and observe the proceedings.
WereBear
@D58826: Consistency is for the little people.
This is the sick advantage of having authoritarian followers. You don’t have to give them a logical or believable excuse. They just need an excuse.
constitutional mistermix
On comments RSS, the answer is the same as it’s always been: B-J has 3.2 million comments in its WordPress comment table. The stock WordPress comments RSS has a query that has terrible performance on a table that size. If someone wants to find or build a plugin that, say, caches the last ~20 comments and puts them somewhere that can be used as a RSS feed or in a widget, I’ll be happy to try it.
raven
Mowed that bad mofo!
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl:
Luddite here. I think I click on the RSS button on Benen site and new items show up in email. Is that the way it works?
raven
They just showed a Peachtree runner in full firefighter gear!
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
I am about at that point because Maddow’s site messes up my browser. It’s too damn slow.
danielx
@Elizabelle:
And Andrew Breitbart is still dead, which should help your disposition even more. I never tire of hearing it; puts a sparkle on my teeth and a spring in my step.
D58826
@danielx: Unfortunately too many of his evil stepchildren live on
MomSense
@WereBear:
And don’t forget the money part. There’s no such thing as a free eternal after life.
Botsplainer
@MomSense:
I dropped this in downstairs this AM. It was my Facebook troll declaring independence from conservative Christianity this morning.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
You are on a roll these days.
You’d think that maybe one or two of the old, white, dick club would think after being on this rock for a day or three that pissing off almost all of the women might not be in their best interest. But then they aren’t real bright are they?
danielx
Given the corporate inclination of today’s Supremes, I’ve gotta go with door #1. Who cares about a engraved chunk of stone? Unless, of course, it’s going to be bedded down on a courthouse lawn, in which case its value becomes incalculable.
MomSense
@Cacti:
I’m well familiar with that group. It is really quite disturbing that our governor would legitimize them by meeting with them but he even went so far as to discuss the execution of elected officials for treason. The worst part is that he will still get the support of 36-38% of the voters. I guess our crazification factor is even greater than the national average.
D58826
found this on kos:
Ruckus
@jurassicpork:
New business selling pie?
It does suit you much better.
GregB
Hillary Clinton running for President and suddenly Richard Mellon Scaife dies.
Verrrrry suspicious.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: That’s not how it works for me, but I have only been using RSS for a few months. Love it!
Do you use a Mac or a PC? I stumbled through the process on my mac, and I would be happy to tell you what I did. (that could save you a bit of stumbling, yourself)
Ash Can
And of course the “mission creep” of the Hobby Lobby ruling has already begun, with yesterday’s ruling by the men on the SC that Wheaton College basically didn’t have to provide its female employees with insurance covering contraceptives at all if it didn’t feel like it. (Sorry, no link — can’t get it to work on the Android.) The three female justices had a fucking conniption over the brazenness of their asshole colleagues dropping the “narrow ruling” figleaf so quickly, of course — basically saying that no one can believe a word of what the SCOTUS says anymore — but who cares about them?
Baud
@constitutional mistermix:
Thanks, mistermix. If I knew how to code, I would give it a try.
Han
@SFAW:
Is he still dead?
Botsplainer
@Ash Can:
It’s all rooted in two decades of the zombie lies about hormonal BC being an abortifacient, not that it should matter.
If it is modern conservatism, it is a lie.
We really do need those FEMA camps. Obama had a brilliant scheme, but was lazy.
Gin & Tonic
@constitutional mistermix: On comments RSS, the answer is the same as it’s always been: B-J has 3.2 million comments in its WordPress comment table.
Delete some. They’re mostly worthless. Except mine, of course.
PaulW
Alito would tell the version where Jesus smote Jefferson for being a Deist denier of His miracles, and would have handed the SACRED TOME OF WHITE PATRIARCHAL CATHOLIC SUPREMACY directly to William Jennings Bryan, time traveler and true American Spiritual Patriot.
D58826
Oh boiy, Obama thought he had problems with the GOP, Iraq, Iran, etc. Malia just turned 16. Wait till she asks for the keys to the presidential limo
WaterGirl
@Baud: Paging MikeJ, paging MikeJ! Or perhaps someone with a nym like codemonkey would be a start?
Ash Can
@Botsplainer: Righteous rant.
Mike in NC
@Chris: Funniest scene in “Gettysburg” was seeing Robert E. Lee (Martin Sheen) on a horse. Looked like he was strapped in and scared to death of falling off.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I denounce you as a heretic!
Ruckus
@Ash Can:
Unfortunately a few still do. But this is a great point. If the USSC is going to hang out so far on the fringes of reality at some point they are going to be like the house. Useless waste of oxygen. All rant, no substance. At some point do we just ignore them? And if so isn’t that a successful, in the park home run, home base slide at the anarchy park?
gene108
@D58826:
Jesus may have talked about helping the poor, but Christianity gained steam as a political tool to hold the Roman Empire together. When Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome, in 300 something AD, the official Bible we have today was still a century away from being compiled.
When the barbarian tribes of Europe started converting to Christianity they often did it to more easily rule the remnants of alreadyChristian Rome.
The authoritarian streak is alive and well in how
Christianity is practiced today.
The authooritarian streak
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: That will spoil my day.
PaulW
Sciafe’s dead? He of the “Hillary is the Anti-Christ” Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?
…bet the Brietbart crowd will be screaming about the evil Hillary body count in 5… 4… 3… 2…
gnomedad
Jesus is fine with parchment.
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
That is awesome, Botsplainer!! I want to hear about the flames that resulted.
I’m not a Christian in the sense that the version of Christianity that I follow lost in 325 CE so I guess I am part of a long, heretical tradition but it does seem to me that an adherent to a faith should at least try to emulate the teachings of that faith. I don’t see a whole lot of the Sermon on the Mount happening among the most vocal, most aggressive of the fundamentalist and evangelical voices. And as much as I appreciate what Pope Francis is trying to do–I don’t know how one would even go about peeling away all the layers of corruption in Roman Catholicism.
All that having been said, I do think that there are people of every faith and non-believers trying to lead compassionate and responsible lives–they just don’t broadcast it.
@Ruckus:
Thanks! I usually just yell at my teevee like a crazy person.
Ash Can
@Botsplainer: The “abortifacient” bit stems from the belief that once the egg is fertilized, it’s a unique human individual, and everyone needs to immediately back off and let nature/god take its course — nevermind the inconvenient facts that this technically isn’t pregnancy, or that this “unique individual” can be frozen and revived like a package of vegetables, unlike an actual human being, or that none of this is any of their fucking business in the first place.
Morzer
@Botsplainer:
I always like to throw Matthew 6:1-5 at the more obnoxious fundies I encounter:
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic:
My babies!!
Corner Stone
@GregB:
She learned her lesson after she killed Vince Foster. Gotta knock off those former lovers early.
D58826
freom the NYT today
This follows the pattern of the Roberts court. They rarely throw out the entire law but add enough hoops and exceptions and complexity as to make the law meaningless.
The degree to which this has moved to fantasy land is in the courts ruling on Wheaton. The college argued that filling out form 700 was an unconscionable burden on their religious liberty but sending a letter saying the same thing is ok. I’m sure there is some logic to that but I haven’t had enough to drink yet to see what it is.
ira-NY
Alito in many ways is much worse than Scalia. He is a dry husk of a man.
Ash Can
@Ruckus: By “who cares about them” I was referring snarkily to the 3 female justices’ gender. But your reference to anarchy is pretty much what Sotomayor was saying. Within the limitations of standard legal writing, she really blew her stack.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I will gladly retract, so as not to spoil your day, but there is a $10 handling fee for all retractions.
FlipYrWhig
@Gin & Tonic: Delete them? My strongly held religious beliefs forbid me from performing acts that perform other acts that result in the deletion of comments, so I must demand that you rescind your statement. Even linking to your comment is dicey, and I think the Supreme Court’s men would stand with me on this.
PurpleGirl
@MomSense: I believe it’s in the Talmud that a living woman is more important than a potential child. If a pregnant woman becomes sick or something happens to the fetus, it is permissible to abort a fetus. But I’m not a Talmudic scholar, I’m just remembering (mis-remembering?) something someone told me.
D58826
One more from the NYT
So get out and vote
Elmo
@Morzer:
“Mathew6” is my vanity license plate. I love it when ppl ask me “but i thought u were an atheist?”
Yes I am. But I can still have a favorite bible verse.
PaulW
blog flog: http://noticeatrend.blogspot.com/2014/07/its-4th-of-july-you-know-what-that-means.html
Higgs Boson's Mate
Sounds liike something a Republican president would happily sign into law. No, wait…
mai naem
The NY Times obit says that Richard Mellon Scaife was called Dickie by friends and family. I have no idea why but I just find that funny. It just sounds like a Monty Python skit with people calling RWNJ “I say be a fine chap, Dickie, hand me Grey Poop on ” in an upper crust British accent.
magurakurin
@Elmo:
I guess you could also respond, “Matthew wasn’t a god, he was a man”
gian
@Elizabelle:
Maggie Thatcher
Indira Ghandi
Golda Meir
Queen Elizabeth
(etc.)
and the large number of married women who voted for Mitt would like a word with you.
that’s not to say that “hey both parents need to work” shitty assed productivity goes up and pay doesn’t” world hasn’t been worse for women than men, because it has, it basically results in a world where they get to split work 50/50 and home duties something like 90/10
Gin & Tonic
@FlipYrWhig: Rescissions, retractions, deletions, it’s getting confusing. I say look forward, not back.
gian
@Elizabelle:
Ding Dong…
Botsplainer
@MomSense:
Arian? Chaldean?
Baud
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I really hate that meme. There is nothing awful about the statute. It’s conservative justices who twisted it. The Democratic justices had a perfectly sensible interpretation of the RFRA. Let’s stop pretending that Democrats are somehow equally responsible here.
gian
@PurpleGirl:
that’s why the GOP scoffing at the life of the mother exceptions to abortion bans (see John McCain in 2008) is so damn offensive. (err wrong, harmful etc)
say you’re a good right wing baby maker and child #6 is in a bad spot and giving birth could kill you, leaving kids 1-5 without mom. the GOP answer is die painfully. Say you’re 11, and you’re uncle rapes you, the GOP answer is die in pain, not abortion because life of the mother doesn’t matter, it’s a fake issue.
gian
@mai naem:
after all theses years, I’ve thought of him as a dickor, not a dickee
NotMax
The techie jargon is a bit overwhelming for us laypeople, but what is gleaned from the piece as a whole is another pit of the stomach roiling revelation.
D58826
@gian:
Unless your Mr. and Mrs. Rick Santorum, then you abort. That was exact position they were in at 20 weeks, even though it might have been baby 5. Of course Rick now wants to eliminate the choice for everyone else.
Botsplainer
@MomSense:
The only stated butthurt came from an acquaintance from high school days who is a NatVan contributor and probably hidden Stormfronter. The other commenters seem to like it.
Don’t know how it is to be received by silent folks.
gene108
@MomSense:
“Funny” thing about conservative Christians, in the USA, that I have observed recently is a major part of their faith is the need to oppress and subjugate a group to fit their view of Christianity.
In the past it was White superiority, with African-Americans being slaves and then second glass citizens, when slavery was looked down upon.
50 or so years ago, looking down on African-Americans and other non-White races, as inferior and not worthy of the benefits of full citizenship became out of fashion.
The right-wing fundies floundered for awhile as to what group their “Faith” tells them to oppress and they came upon abortion and contraception, which could not be pigeonholed as explicitly racist and with some women touting the company-line, it was not explicitly an overt attempt by only men to roll back the gains of women’s lib movement.
Since the fundies are losing badly on gay marriage, they have to double down hard on denying women contraception. It’s all they have left to express their “Faith”, i.e. an acceptable group to dick over without garnering too much public scorn.
Corner Stone
@NotMax:
Yawn. Known. Burger.
hueyplong
I thought Hillary would never get around to murdering Richard Scaife.
She’s got my 2016 vote for sure now.
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
Unitarian.
gene108
@GregB:
Just another victim in the Clnton Body Count.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
Not having a TV helps me be a little less crazy. Hasn’t changed the world one bit, it’s just that I don’t get to see it so up and in my face. Of course if you talk to any ten random people at least 4 of them are going to be, let’s see how to say this….. I’ve got it, fucking batshit crazy. And 2 more of them are willing to discuss and demonstrate that they are on the border of crazy, walking at a rapid pace in that direction. Almost enough to get one thinking of huffing glue as an occupation. But then you’d be just like those 6 other people.
GregB
@gene108:
I never knew JFK Jr. was one of the Clinton’s hits.
Does anyone know if Hillary was spotted on the grassy knoll in November 1963?
It would be criminal not to speculate.
Ruckus
@Ash Can:
Got your point but we still are ruled by the entire court, not just the sane ones. And taken in it’s entirety it is a joke. I’m not a lawyer, never been a judge and I’d make a dramatically better justice than any of those five assholes. Of course my left big toe would even be better and it may have a fungus.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Baud:
It was a Democratic president who signed that bill into law. That same president, of all people, should have known by 1993 that if you hand the cons anything that might conceivably be twisted into a mechanism for gaining their ends they will do just that with it.
Steeplejack
Found myself watching Wimbledon until something else comes on, and now I find myself intensely hoping that Dimitrov can upset Djokovic. Currently match point for Djokovic in the fourth set.
Baud
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
If that’s the test, we should give up on politics and government. Because there is nothing we can do that the cons won’t take advantage of. It’s what they do.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Ruckus:
No TV works for me. I have Netflix so I do catch up with shows and movies sooner or later. Not-watching the news did wonders, literally, for my blood pressure.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Oh, well. Dimitrov staved off that match point but lost on the next one. But he seems to be in a relationship with Maria Sharapova—she was cheering for him in his box—so perhaps there will be consoling.
I guess it’s over to the obscenely early Cubs-Nats game until football/soccer/fútbol at noon.
Bobby B.
“It is time you kept your appointment with the wicker man.”
Shame on me for enjoying a movie where a catholic cop is burned to death.
D58826
Since Hobby Lobby requires believing 6 impossible things before breakfast, here is a 7th to totally blow what is left of any ones mind. From Juan Cole’s place
The Su-25 is the Russian version of the a-10 warthog. The article also talks about the unspoken alliance with Iran and Syria against ISIS. Politics and war do make strange bed fellows.
dmsilev
@GregB: I’m pretty sure that one was Obama, on his way back from forging the evidence of his own ‘birth’.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Baud:
Is that what I wrote? Jeez, must be having an acid flashback. Either that or your hyperbole chip is working full time. I would expect a Democratic president to consider the possible consequences, including shenanigans, of any bill that he or she signs. Clinton, in signing into law the RFRA, CFMA, DOMA, and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, apparently just didn’t give a shit.
Corner Stone
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
He was the original Triangulating Pragmatist President ™ .
Baud
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
RFRA passed with almost unanimous support. There are things Clinton did that were worthy of criticism, but I’m not going to blame him for not forseeing that a bare wingnut majority on the Supreme Court would twist the statute 21 years after it was enacted.
Woodrowfan
going to try to watch the DC fireworks from the Arlington Ridge with wife and friends…..
Ruckus
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Sometimes a head in the sand is nice.
The world around you is going to shit but as there is little possibility to change it for the better, and ignoring it till it just blows up completely has some advantage in the personal health department. It’s not the length of your life, it’s the quality.
Question for those of a philosophical nature.
Why do so many humans always measure the wrong things? Money, so called status over others, how long we live, what car we drive/clothes we wear, where we live? You know, all the modern religious things.
raven
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Watch the new Hendix documentary on Netflix.
Morzer
@Ruckus:
It’s easier to turn life into a somewhat tacky game and play for points, rather than asking yourself what really matters and whether you measure up as a person.
gene108
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Too bad his liberal legislation – like universal healthcare, gays serving openly in the military, and gun control – did not meet with so much opposition. Yeah, gun control passed, but it made the gun-nuts that much more convinced their guns will be confiscated and they would be shipped to FEMA camps.
Oh well, I do not get the liberal hatred of the Clintons. I can understand being apprehensive about them because they do not seem to dig in and fight for whatever beliefs they purport to have, but they are not appreciably different – policy wise – from any other Democrat, including President Obama.
Baud
@Ruckus:
Money and social status buy a measure of security in an all too hostile world. I think that’s the primal basis for it all.
Morzer
@gene108:
One big reason I don’t trust the Clintons is that they seem much more comfortable around plutocrats than they should be as Democrats. That said, I believe the answer is to elect more and better Democrats to the House and Senate and make Democratic presidents govern as Democrats, rather than lining up to chant “I need a hero!” one more futile time.
Ruckus
@Morzer:
Too easy. True though.
Bex
@Ruckus: See HPtFtU (the Human Potential to Fuck things Up) in Francis Spufford’s book, “Unapologetic.”
MomSense
@gene108:
Religions would be perfect if it weren’t for the humans who create and practice them!
Mandalay
@gene108:
In Hilary Clinton’s case, maybe because she is not remotely a liberal, but poses as one?
SATSQ.
SFAW
@gene108:
Jeebus! Is there anyone (i.e., of the already-dead) that they HAVEN’T killed?
And what’s that black helicopter, hovering over my back yard? Uh-oh, gotta run!
Ruckus
@Morzer:
This.
We are hiring a person to run the place for all of us, not just those with money, power(but I repeat myself) and the loudest vocal cords. We don’t need someone who wants to be the next big action hero, we aren’t making a true to bullshit movie.
WereBear
@Bex: I have no problems with what Jesus taught; when I fled the Southern Baptists at 14, I took the red letters and ran.
As always, it’s creating businesses from it, with its hierarchy, money issues, and con artist opportunities, where the problems lie.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@raven:
Will do. Lucky enough to see him four different times, including Monterey Pop and a Sixties gig when he was a side man with the Isley Brothers.
Ruckus
@Baud:
If it were only primal, we be worried about food, shelter and sex. The people I asked the question about aren’t worried about 2 of those and they worry way too much about everyone else having more of the third than they are.
Bex
@WereBear: Spufford doesn’t deny any of that.
Baud
@Ruckus:
The fact that it’s primal means that it’s beyond the reach of reason or objective circumstances, IMHO.
Another Holocene Humann
Happy Independence Day. I am grateful to you Juicers for keeping me sane at times. My wife has to spend serious time on social justice Tumblr (a kind of blogosphere for the young and outraged) and it’s seriously challenging to one’s mental health.
It’s sad what happened to Sadly, No! but it’s good to see Sadlynaughts over here and at LGM bringing teh funneh. It’s not laugh or cry these days, it’s laugh or despair. Especially with the bishops gunning for Griswold. A few weeks ago I decided to dig into medieval history of England and France a bit out of curiosity. It’s pretty bad, y’all. The only bright spot is that Richard the Lionhearted had enough shame to literally run away from accusations of rape instead of blathering on about “legitimate rape”. The women of Europe were the big losers for a thousand years after the conversion of their tribes to Christianity. (And if you were a Jewish woman you pretty much had to suck up whatever the community leaders told you was your lot because you and your family’s legal status was contingent and could be revoked at any time. Once the Enlightenment rolled around and Jews started to be considered national citizens instead of barely tolerated aliens to be chased around when politically convenient, a lot of outspoken Jewish women start showing up in the political scene and they haven’t quit yet.)
schrodinger's cat
It is my opinion that organized religion has little to do with spirituality. It is a way devised by men to keep women in their place and control them. Its not just Christianity either, it is true of most of the major world religions. Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and even Zoroastrianism.
That’s one of the many reasons I cannot take most religious people too seriously.
Another Holocene Humann
@Mandalay: Shorter Mandalay: “gonadal politics” is not a liberal issue
shorter me: just because politician X sucks like a Vax doesn’t mean they’re not a liberal … unfortunately
Ruckus
@Baud:
Primal means the things you need to exist. Most of us don’t live in caves and hunt for food with sharpened stones that we eat raw because we haven’t figured out how to cook yet. Primal can’t be behind us but we can and (most of us) have learned how to not let primal be our only guiding principle. We’ve learned how to be better. We shouldn’t forget that, we shouldn’t let others forget that.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
It’s more than your humble opinion. It’s how behavioral evolution works. You can’t set out instincts for the details of behavior as complicated as a human’s, so you set out drives that can be adapted to every behavior. A big reason humans are so successful is how fantastically well these drives adapt. Computer games are likely becoming popular because they’re practice for important adult skills. The desire for games that mimic what you see adults doing is built in, and it switched from athletic to electronic perfectly.
Ruckus
@schrodinger’s cat:
And their religions even less seriously.
Another Holocene Humann
@schrodinger’s cat: Organized religion always starts as a way for an ambitious conman to fleece the marks. Could be about money, but usually the founder is more about adulation, control, sex, which is about control, emotional vampirism, rape, etc. (Some of these individuals are females, too, such as Ayn Rand and Mary Baker Eddy, note both of them interfered with their followers’ most private, personal decisions, such as who to marry, or as in Rand’s case, she set about to break up a marriage and called it righteous, same behavior pattern as males like Joseph Smith.)
Then, after the founder dies, the next group of bounders in charge, typically all males from this point on, seek to secure the same advantages the founder had, if not more so, using the founder’s example.
While a religion is in minority status, sometimes more practical or just more decent individuals can steer a cult away from this shit, at least temporarily or to a degree. After Brigham Young’s death the Profits of the LDS renounced polygamy to gain statehood for Utah, while Malcolm X was repulsed by Elijah Muhammed’s sexual incontinence and attempted to steer the Nation of Islam congregation to go on despite the scandal. But once a religion gains dominant status all its most evil impulses come into play.
Cults play into authoritarian tropes, trying to play on conditioned and instinctual fears and needs from early childhood. The cult takes over the parental relationship, but it also coerces people in more adult ways. Control over intimate relationships and offspring is one of the more pernicious aspects of this. And authoritarian structures seem to favor men over women, whether because of the degree of ruthlessness required or some simple physical facts of size and force and who bears the natural cost of childbearing.
You don’t really need religion to engage in authoritarian control of women. Rome had actual public, appointed morality squadsters and the connection to religion was tenuous at best. Sure, they said morality came from the gods’, though as Socrates cheekily pointed out, it wasn’t given by example. But the morality police weren’t religious leaders (and in fact a lot of religious officials, especially female religious functionaries, were even more in fear of the morality police than people in private life). It was a secular, civic position. And the Romans even drew a connection between culture and moral standards, understanding morality in more nationalistic or tribalistic sense than in a religious sense. The yearning for theocracy conflates these issues but it’s certainly not necessary. For a non-Western example, the Shogunate introduced strict censorship of erotic media because of a set of beliefs about sexual continence we might more readily associate with sports superstition. It was not driven by religious leaders. The Meiji government, far from overturning these laws actually went further with respect to nudity because of shifting attitudes brought on by increasing contact with the West and a feeling that traditional notions about public deshabille and depictions of phalluses and so on were increasingly embarrassing in a modernizing country.
So you don’t need religion to do these things.
Another Holocene Humann
@Ruckus:
Oh god yes. I feel like it’s gotten worse even in the last year. It’s so bad I start to wonder if I’m the once living in a bubble then I realize we’re all in our bubbles because this country is super polarized right now … and a majority of whites have gone bugfuck nuts deathcult.
It’s really fucking scary if you think about it too hard.
schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Humann:
You may not need religion to control women, but it sure is handy to keep them in their rightful place.
Ruckus
@Another Holocene Humann:
True.
Religion just organizes and establishes them with a “protected” status. Unless of course the religion can be bent towards using those things as a furtherance of the government, then it is enjoined. But power over and control of are the tenets of religion. Well not sure of the Quakers, but then they have never been that big. Maybe people are so used to being controlled and under a thumb they refuse to see any other possibilities. Or maybe it’s just my very limited ability to be part of a group for the sake of being part of the group.
Another Holocene Humann
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I have to agree that the RFRA seemed like a bad idea to some of us at the time. It was the wrong way to secure protection for adherents to minority religions. (For one thing, wasn’t one of the big issues the mad-on the feds had for hallucinogens at the time, which was actually driven by religious beliefs and prejudices of the majority, not any factual, that is, non-group-psychosis-generated compelling state interest?)
It’s not some sort of accident that the religious right brought an RFRA complaint or that the right wing’s justices used it that way. This is a theory they’ve been pushing for a long, long time.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU.org) has been doing great work on this issue for decades and I would strongly recommend supporting their work.
Saying “oh, that’s what the right wing does” kind of ignores the method that they are using rhetorically and legally to get their foot in the door. It’s NOT that religious practices need protection*, it’s that minorities need protection from majorities. By protecting religion rather than individuals who are part of minority groups, they are empowering the powerful and diminishing individual liberty as well as endangering those very minority groups they supposedly were protecting.
*-after all, we must judge the very secular harm that a practice may cause, whether we’re talking about snake handling, pedophile priests, or coerced prayer, whereas religious practices that harm no-one should not be subject to state scrutiny and individuals who engage in such practices should not face discrimination for doing so under CRA, etcet
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Humann:
But being a warmonger in bed with Wall Street does mean she is not a liberal. Make the case that Hilary Clinton is a liberal if you have one, and I don’t think you do.
Another Holocene Humann
@Botsplainer: Where is that “like” button, dammit! I’m talking to you, John Cole!
Southern Beale
For those who need it — and I certainly do — there WAS some good news this week, too.
Another Holocene Humann
@MomSense: Brigid is another example of Catholic syncretism, making a saint of a local deity, but of course the point still stands.
It’s kind of like their sincerely held belief post schism that parish priests should NOT be married because Jesus didn’t marry argle bargle thhhbbbffff or their totally sincere, ancient and forever hatred of Teh Gay, except during Late Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, and Late Middle Ages, but, you know, except for all that they’ve ALWAYS considered homosexuality to be objectively disordered, but Jesus commanded Ratzinger to write it down in 1986 because reasons.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Another Holocene Humann:
Well said! My take at the time was that having Congress in any way meddle in religion, no matter how noble its intent, would have bad results. Once you’ve granted protections in the law it’s not easy to predict who will decide that they need protection.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti : Mammon worshiping scum.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Keith G
On a technical note, neither one sounds particularly Catholic in nature. Protestant Evangelicals, on the other hand, would definitely get a chubby from either scenario.
Tehanu
I go for the chiseled tablet because Alito is such a blatant chiseler. At least, that’s the polite word for it.
xenos
@MomSense:
Yeah… I have been an Episcopalian for life, and in the last few years I have been just unable to muscle through the Nicean Creed. I used to mumble the bit about the virgin birth, but now nearly all of it sticks in the throat.
I guess it is hitting middle age, and per Paul Simon, not expecting to be taken for a fool no more. I do love church though, even if I don’t go there anymore.
Matt McIrvin
@Ash Can:
And the inconvenient fact that most of the things they describe as abortifacients don’t even prevent implantation of a fertilized egg; they prevent normal ovulation and fertilization in the first place.
That leads me to believe that the anti-contraception people’s definition of “the moment of conception” is not when the sperm goes into the egg; it’s when the sperm goes into the woman. Or if they think it is when the sperm goes into the egg, they’re vaguely imagining that this happens instantaneously (which, to be fair, is reflected in some colloquial ways that people use the word “conceive”/”conception”, though it’s biologically wrong).
That is, it’s all about regulating sexual behavior.
PhoningItIn
‘@xenos: With you on that. I’m increasingly feeling drawn to some form of Buddhism. I love the E. liturgy, but the people in the pews are are almost suffocatingly focused on their good lives and their rich parish–or perhaps I should say, their parish full of rich people. It’s the conversations founded on the assumptions about “how things are” which kills me. “How are you?” can be a very loaded question when a person who’s talking about the second house she just bought, with tenants is answering a polite inquiry by someone losing her house. Or someone talking about flying to see her kids, a trip the other person can’t afford in her own family. It’s the painted smiles, the coerced courtesies, the awkwardly pregnant pauses that can neither give birth to truths and compassionate sharing in real time, nor an answer to the question “What can I do?”
One of my new acquaintences wrote, “Success and misery a few paces apart. My heart aches to think about it.”
I was bemused to read this article on inequality and how to fix it, which suggests that some of the privileged not only notice the gap but also why Democrats miss the boat just as thoroughly as Republicans.
PhoningItIn
@Another Holocene Humann: Second that!