Kynn:

I appreciate your candor and agree with your comments.

All believers are broken. The bible is a miracle of a gift, which slaps us in the face with this fact. It reminds us that grace and forgiveness is the answer to a question—the question being sin.

The worst of the conservative Christians need to learn that harping on sin to unbelievers is a waste of time. They ought to be seeking holiness in their own fellowships.

The worst of the liberal Christians need to learn that sin is real, and that grace is a quizzical answer at best when no one is even asking the question.

Phillip makes a good point. The Good News only makes sense in the context of the “bad news” of God’s required justice for sin.

Kynn, off the top of my head, Roger Gregory comes to mind with respect to judges. Also, I remember similar comments when Republicans objected to the late Ron Brown for Secretary of Commerce, and Joycelyn Elders for Surgeon General. I also remember Ms. Elder’s supporters accusing Clinton of racism and sexism over her forced resignation.

I also remember a study that showed two things about federal judicial appointments: that the confirmation process takes substantially longer when the appointing president is of the opposite party from the confirming Senate, and that this hasn’t historically always been so. I googled for it, and found mention of it in some blogs (this report at constitutionproject.org appears to be the source.)

Kynn: I’m praying for your dad, and I’m very sorry for your family’s loss. I wish things could be different.

As I recall, documentation of Sanger’s beliefs was posted as part of the argument. Whether or not it applies today is a different matter, but suggesting that Sanger was a Bad Person™ isn’t a conspiracy theory, it’s a fact. I think Bart did put on a tinfoil hat about something or another, but that’s just Bart. I wasn’t paying attention. (JN)

I doubt you’ll find too many believers in the Clinton Body Count around here, but I could be wrong. And you wouldn’t be dismissing my statements about a concerted campaign to discredit conservatives on issues of race if you’d heard the conversations I’ve heard. I said “I don’t know” to be charitable, but at least one of the emails I saw was clearly labeled as coming from a Dallas-area DNC person.

On Halloween: Thanks to Scott, I’ve got a copy of the 95 Theses in Latin, and I managed to get it down to one page once I saw a representation of the original and realized that it needed to be in two columns. I even used a fancy font and used Roman numerals to mark them, just because that seems old.

Then I printed up an English copy to match it, for when people ask me to read the Latin. ;-)

Kynn: That’s actually quite a good analysis of some of the problems with the liberal church today. I would suggest that some of the problems you describe are insurmountable without giving up some of what you consider the positives of “progressive” churches. For example, is there a way to develop a clear gospel message and still cling to the beliefs that Moslems and Jews will do alright so long as they’re sincere? Since such a belief appears to be quite antithetical to Scripture, and since Scripture seems to have quite a bit to say about the gospel, I don’t see how. That liberal Christianity doesn’t provide much of anything to the unsaved is the clearest and most honest indictment of that group that I’ve heard in a while. Since Christianity is about the gospel, which is good news, a group that doesn’t really have good news is really missing the entire point of Christianity, I think.

Thanks for the post.

Just for the record, I thought I would list some of the problems, as I see them, with liberal churches like Michael’s hypothetical Oakwood Church.

Poor Scripture Knowledge

The issue of the authority of the bible has become so polarizing that it seems people line up on two sides: Either it’s the perfect, infallible, authoritative Word of God, or it’s not worth reading. The latter is a grave mistake on the part of liberal churches.

There is a danger among liberal Christians that we will forget that the bible is the primary source and foundation of our faith in Christ and God. In contrast to “bible-thumpers”, some of us may adopt a view that rejects the bible as being of little value, full of racism, sexism, close-minded authors, and a very narrow world view.

By doing this, we shut ourselves off to the main source of Christian and Jewish inspiration over the centuries, as well as the deeper meanings of our faith. The symptoms include general lack of bible studies in some liberal churches and occasional lack of bible teaching.

This is bad for several reasons. First, all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable teaching, reproof, correction, and training righteousness. That doesn’t mean that we have to believe that every word was written by God, but it does mean that we need to keep the scriptures by the center of our Christian experience. It is, in many ways, our “daily bread” in a spiritual sense. Even the parts we don’t understand or agree with can help us grow in our walk.

Secondly, it makes it real hard for us to converse with (or argue with) our conservative brethren in Christ. If we can’t have a common foundation on the authority of scripture, at least we can try to keep up with them and our understanding and knowledge of this book which we hold dear regardless of which branch of the faith tradition is followed. The bible really should be used to bring Christians together, not drive them apart.

Rejection of Tradition

As nearly all progressive churches are protestant in descent, we have a long background of rejection of traditional, ceremony, rituals, and other trappings and window dressing. This isn’t found exclusively in progressive churches, mind you, but most of the conservative churches who reject ritualized Christianity do so in a way that attempts to “regain” a purer form of the faith, while liberals look to “discard” the old versions and move beyond them. Neither extreme is an appropriate position regarding the traditions of the church.

Liberal churches need to embrace our heritage and rejoice in our traditions, without getting bound down by them. We need to recognize that the faith we have was passed down to us by generations and generations of our predecessors, and that if it were not for them, we would not know Christ at all.

That doesn’t mean we have to venerate those who came before us or overlook their faults; but by rejecting our heritage, for good and for bad, we are rejecting the universality of the body of Christ. We are one in the spirit, and that includes our history.

The rituals, rites, and ceremonies of the church throughout the ages help remind us of that history, the sacrifices that have been made, and the love that has been shown to get us where we are. They identify us as a body of believers who have something in common with others, through our practices. These range from sacraments such as the cup and the bread, and baptism, to traditions such as the doxology or the Lord’s Prayer.

It may be possible to be a Christian and reject many of the trappings of the Christian experience—but why would you want to? Ceremony and ritual play a very important part, and liberal churches often fail to acknowledge this, especially in their desire to distance themselves from “orthodoxy.”

Weak Evangelism

Part of every Christian’s calling is the spreading of the “good news” of Christ—that’s what “gospel” is all about, after all. However, liberal churches tend to be quite bad at evangelism. The primary reason for this is lack of a strong gospel message.

As progressives, we tend to be pretty accepting of diversity. You’re conservative Christian? That’s cool. Jewish? Good for you. Muslim? Way to go. Buddhist? Hey, all roads end up the same place.

So if we really believe that, why would we bother to spread the “good news”? It doesn’t sound like anyone needs it! (Except maybe those conservative Christians, who have to be less nasty.)

As such, we devote our efforts instead to things like social justice. Which is a great cause in and of itself, but it certainly doesn’t do a lot to spread the news of Christ to others. But doing so seems kind of… pushy.

By contrast, our conservative evangelical brethren have an easier time. They’ve got a strong motive: These people will be lost to hell forever if we don’t let them know. And they’ve got a good message: You guys need to hear this. God loves you and offers you a way out.

The liberal church’s message is a lot weaker. God loves you, and wants you to work for justice? God calls you to be a Christian, or maybe a Jew, or if you want, Buddhist, or…?

Progressive Christians need to clearly articulate a gospel message. Simply arguing for social justice, equal rights, and progressive values doesn’t get you far enough. You might as well just be a liberal atheist. What reason is there for someone to become a liberal Christian?

By and large, it turns out that liberal Christianity is a great home to second-time Christians like myself. People who grew up within the Christian tradition, fell away, and then came back to a liberal branch of the faith. This lets them keep both their Christian heritage and their liberal values, and eliminates the (false) feeling that there’s a conflict between the two. But it doesn’t provide much of anything to the “unsaved,” those people who have never been Christians before. Why would an atheist or agnostic bother?

Anyway, those are my three big ones. There are smaller ones, but these represent, as I see them, the weakest parts of the progressive Christian experience. There are a number of positives as well, and there are weaknesses in the conservative traditions too, but for now I am not going to just cheerlead for “my side.”

Thoughts?

Denise:

Yes! Strongbad RULES! I want a Trogdor t-shirt!

It’s one of the few cool things I found by myself and showed to my husband instead of the other way around. :-D

Kynn:

I’m really sorry to hear that. While I know we’re not supposed to be materialistic (a problem with which I really struggle), even objects can hold a LOT of sentimental value. I hope you’re dad’s okay.

Bill:

I heartily agree with your statement about Jesus not having a wife. Jesus was sent down for a purpose and having a wife and children would have distracted him from that purpose. His lifestyle was not condusive to caring for a family and, since a man is supposed to be the head of the family, he would have been gone from them for far too long than is healthy. I had a friend who said he wouldn’t be surprised if Jesus married and had a family.

No, Jesus was born for a purpose and he couldn’t let anything distract from that purpose. It reminds me of what Paul said when he stated that it is better to remain single. It’s not from the fact that he disliked women but because people who are single don’t have the distractions of worrying about family and how to provide for family to take away from their service to the Lord.

Kynn- If you hear me subscribe to any conspiracy theories on the BHT let me know. I loathe the notion. Check the archives. The BHT has discussed conspiracy theories of the left and right at some length and we are not fans. We live and breath Snopes.com around here. So sorry, I won’t play. :-) You should remember that one conservative stand by me (or someone else on here) is not necessarily indicative of all the stereotypical aspects of a conservative. I’m a pretty independent thinker and so are most of us. When discussions start pulling in all things ever said or done by conservatives as obviously what we would support, it won’t work.

Michael: Why are conservative conspiracy theories about pro-choicers wanting to eliminate black children accepted as okay, but documentable (do you want the proof quoted here) events dismissed as unbelievable?

I mean, not just here. In general, whenever you point out that Bush did this or that, or Republicans did whatever, it’s dismissed as paranoid wacko conspiracies—and yet there are plenty of people who still seem to believe that Bill Clinton went around killing people and dealing drugs.

Thanks to the guys at Foundersfriends:

Thought everyone might enjoy this, in honor of Reformation Day…by Richard Gebel(sung ot the tune of “Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious”)

EVERYBODY SING!!!!

When I was just ein junger Mann I studied canon law;
While Erfurt was a challenge, it was just to please my Pa.
Then came the storm, the lightning struck, I called upon Saint Anne,
I shaved my head, I took my vows, an Augustinian! Oh …

Chorus:Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

When Tetzel came near Wittenberg, St. Peter’s profits soared,
I wrote a little notice for the All Saints’ Bull’tin board:
“You cannot purchase merits, for we’re justified by grace!
Here’s 95 more reasons, Broher Tetzel, in your face!

Chorus:Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

They loved my tracts, adored my wit, all were exempleror;
The Pope, however, hauled me up before the Emperor.
“Are these your books? Do you recant?” King Charles did demand,
“I will not change me Diet, Sir, God help me here I stand”

Oh …Chorus:Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Duke Frederick took the Wise approach, responding to my words,
By knighting “George” as hostage in the Kingdom of the Birds.
Use Brother Martin’s model if the languages you seek,
Stay locked inside a castle with your Hebrew and your Greek!

Let’s raise our steins and Concord Books while gathered in this place,
And spread the word that “catholic” is spelled with lower case;
The Word remains unfettered when the Spirit gets his chance,
So come on, Katy, drop your lute, and join us in our dance!

Oh …Chorus:Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let’s start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

are, I’m happy to say, greatly exaggerated. My latest back pain diagnosis, after a bone scan performed by a nervous technician, and a hastily arranged MRI, is that I have osteo-arthritis and bone spurs. Not good you say? Ha. It’s all relative. Compared to nth stage terminal spinal cancer, arthritis is only pain.

Did Jesus have a wife: NO.

Jesus was the most singularly focused individual to ever live. He had no time for split priorities.

The idea is absurd.

Very sorry to hear about the cabin, Kynn. As I was praying with our students today, and mentioning the fires, this text came to mind.

II Peter 3:8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.
11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire!
13 But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

I pray that many will come to know in the loss of temporary things, the value of eternal things.

As the entries today have been, on the whole (with the exception of Scott and his best buddy Jack Chick) much too serious for such a joyous holiday, I submit a paraphrased Halloween quote of the day from Strongbad, my favorite character on the Homestarrunner cartoon web site.

Stongbad: (trick-or-treating) Oh, look! A fun-sized candy bar. What’s fun about eating less candy?

Happy Halloween, all!

...well-documented cases where Republicans are known to be behind attempts to disenfranchise or mislead black voters.

Just wanted to announce that the aluminum foil hats to protect everyone from alien ray-beams are now available at the bar, and the sign-up lists to watch out for black helicopters is by the door. Our movie tonight is “The X-Files” followed by “The Manchurian Candidate” and, by special request, Bart’s special cut of “The American President.” We will try to pause the party to listen to Art Bell sometime after midnight. Meanwhile, the running archives of past BHT discussions of conspiracy theories are available in the reading room.

Someone has asked to start a pot on how long it will be before the word “Florida” is mentioned without refering to the Marlins, and that is fine with me.

Oh yeah….(JN++)

The cabin is a complete loss. A neighbor who is up there called my grandmother a half hour ago to tell her that it burned to the ground.

I offered to go have lunch or dinner with my dad—about a half hour away from the office—but he refused. My mom’s out of town this week on a business trip, and I’m worried about my father. He put a lot of work into that cabin over the years, and as I mentioned before, it was built by his grandfather.

The Matrix 3: I’ve actually read the full spoiler-ridden review (complete with the ending), and the take I’ve gotten is that Reloaded and Revolutions are basically one film. The reviewer seemed… uh… pleased with the way it played out, but still came short of calling it the “Gone With the Wind” of sci-fi. My take was that it’s basically a good, full, satisfactory conclusion that leaves a few minor doors open, but not enough to demand a sequel.

Also, I will add that since I’ve read up on the Animatrix, Reloaded makes a lot more sense now (as does the summary I heard).

Jim, can you give an example of this?

D: This [insert minority qualifier here] person should be a judge.
R: I can’t accept [his|her] ideology.
D: You’re a [racist|sexist|homophobic].

Phillip, you wrote:

However, Kynn , I don’t think that it demeans any class or group of people when I say that I have seen clear evidence of efforts to smear conservatives circulate among black people that I know. A black coworker received and forwarded on several emails prior to the 2000 election that flat-out lied about then-Governor Bush. Where did those emails come from? I don’t know [...]

But on the other hand, there are a number of well-documented cases where Republicans are known to be behind attempts to disenfranchise or mislead black voters. A few anonymous emails forwarded around—especially when all sides do the same thing (“Clinton death list”, anyone?)—don’t compare to Republican party efforts to discourage black voting.

Scott, you’re right about the eugenics tie-in to Planned Parenthood’s founder. I think, though, that such information is less than informative about the aims of the group than one might think, especially as they have explicitly disavowed Sanger’s eugenicist philosophies. For a good discussion of the eugenics issue, see the book War Against The Weak by Edwin Black, which is well researched and pretty fair. I’m halfway through it, currently. Black writes this about Sanger (page 127):

Because Sanger challenged the moral as well as the legal order, and antagonized many religious groups that understandably held the right to life an inviolate principle, Sanger made many enemies. They dogged her everywhere she went, and in every endeavor.

Sanger-hatred never receded. Decades after her death, discrediting Sanger was still a permanent fixture in a broad movement opposed to birth control and abortion. Their tactics frequently included the sloppy or deliberate misquoting, misattributing or misconstruing of single out-of-context sentences to falsely depict Sanger as a racist or anti-Semite. Sanger was no racist. Nor was she anti-Semitic.

But Sanger was an ardent, self-confessed eugenicist, and she would turn her otherwise noble birth control organizations into a tool for eugenics, which advocated for mass sterilization of so-called defectives, mass incarceration of the unfit and draconian immigration restrictions. Like other staunch eugenicists, Sanger vigorously opposed charitable efforts to uplift the downtrodden and deprived, and argued extensively that it was better that the cold and hungry be left without help, so that the eugenically superior strains could multiply without competition from “the unfit.” She repeatedly referred to the lower classes and the unfit as “human waste” not worthy of assistance, and proudly quoted the extreme eugenic view that human “weeds” should be “exterminated.”

There’s more, of course. She wasn’t a nice person—but then pretty much all of the eugenicists in this book, including people like Alexander Graham Bell, were pretty damn nasty by either liberal or conservative views. Of Planned Parenthood in particular, Black writes (page 426):

Planned Parenthood went on to promote intelligent birth control and family planning for people everywhere, regardless of race or ethnic background. It condemns its eugenic legacy and copes with the dark side of its founder, Margaret Sanger.

Other random tidbits:

1. I see no reason to assume Jesus had a wife, and I don’t see the point of asserting that he did. If he did, it wouldn’t have any effect on my beliefs.
2. I agree with JS that the judicial appointment process is meant to be political and we shouldn’t be surprised by politics playing a role in a political process.
3. I don’t see a liberal media. But then, I don’t see a conservative media either. I see a media which is corporate controlled and thus caters to the bottom dollar and to those in power. In current times, this means a conservative bias (witness the war buildup) may seem to exist, but ultimately the news media is run based on corporate profits not on ideology.

J.I. Packer weighs in on the burning theological issue of the day – Are the Cubbies Cursed?

A delicious quote:

Q: So we don’t have to worry about the Cubs being cursed?

Packer: No, they just have to work harder and acquire some better players. From what I gather their pitcher, Kerry Wood, isn’t quite good enough.

English cricket is my game, but I know what it’s like to have a bowler that’s not quite good enough.

Kerry Wood isn’t quite good enough?!? You gotta love Packer.

Jack, here’s my proposal for how we as individuals can actually impact airplane security: Boycott any airline or flight where the pilot is not carrying a sidearm. Write or call airline customer service departments. Ask if they require pilots to be armed. Tell them you will not patronize their business if they do not require pilots to carry sidearms. The only way to stop a determined attack is to be prepared to use overwhelming force.

Or do what I do: simply refuse to fly until this nonsense is ended. My employer, for whom I used to have to fly 4-5 times a year, has been markedly supportive of this approach. I drive or take the train now – not because either is inherently safer, but because the BS factor is lower.

Spoiler warning! Here is a review of Matrix Revolutions. And it ain’t good news.

A good, if short, Yaconelli read – Why Fundamentalism is a Waste of Time

During the first 20 years of my life as a Christian, no one influenced me more than Yaconelli. His writing at the Door, and Mike’s sense of humor, literally is responsible for every ounce of honesty I’ve ever been able to pour out of myself into a sermon, article, counseling session or class. He modeled for me something I never saw in my church, and it was the beauty of Christ. Every time I say God wants honesty, not effort, I think of Mike. If I can relate to kids, Yaconelli gets vast amounts of credit. At Youth Specialties conventions, I always loved just hanging around him, and enjoying his totally honest personality and humility. Plus, the man was crazy funny. I’m so sorry that he’s left us just weeks after heading into partial retirement. Looks like he fell asleep or something while driving. I raise my glass to you, Mike. I love you, I’ll remember you and the time you gave to make me a better youth minister, and I’ll miss all the great books you would have written. Time to dig through the tapes and hear that talk on the church as a Zoo again.

I am shocked to find the words “optimal colour on the runway”, “personal colour inventory”, and “colour palette” in a sports story. But it says here that the Dallas Mavericks are slam-dunking their new uniforms after a one game trial run.

Pre-Bork Supes: Well… politics played a much lesser role in the past than it did today, but it still played a role.

Questions about Jesus:

1. What if he did? Would it change anything?

Not really. Not for me, anyway. My mom believed at one point that if Jesus were married, it would show that He had some type of sexual need, etc. However, I’m not so certain, since marriage and sexual relationships were much less based on sexual need or desire and more on intra-family relations.

2. It is odd that he didn’t, given what we know of the 1st century jewish world.

Agreed. If he didn’t. I remember hearing somewhere that the at the wedding feast, He performed some of the activities expected of the groom. However, the source on that may have been goofy.

3. No, he didn’t. Why are people obsessed with the sex life of Jesus?

Who’s obsessed? Mostly people trying to challenge orthodox views of Christ. In reality, I think most of us who hold to an orthodox view wouldn’t care if He did get hitched, or even had kids. We would care if someone ran off looking for people who were related to Jesus.

Come on now…damn it… you all know that it is the responsibility of ABC News to make religion more intriguing and more interesting for us. there is no way that the reality of a savior/hero allowing himself to be tortured to death in order to provide a way for him to resurrect and there by conquer hell and destroy it’s grip on our innately lost nature could be anywhere near as entertaining as is their spin on the topic. Please. (Insert the 7 words that you used to not be able to say on TV here.)

Circa – 04/16/2002

Angus

Michael: No, I don’t believe He did. His bride is the church.

1. Explicitly, it would change nothing, but implicitly I think it would make a difference if something like this could be proven. Not in terms of undermining Scripture necessarily, but in terms of more clearly understanding His nature.
2. True, but that seems to underscore the teaching of the catholic church as His bride.
3. Cynically I would offer that it is all about self-justification and rationalization. Honestly, I suspect it is simply because sex is such a powerful force in human life and we all have a tendency to project.

JN –
You KNOW I’m not allowed to talk about that “stuff”

Oh, and whatever happened to the days when a judge got appointed because he or she was the MOST QUALIFIED and NOT because of ideology? Was that “pre-Bork”? Or did those days ever exist?

I don’t think they ever existed. Unfortunately, I don’t have the history knowledge to confirm this, and Google is unhelpful.

In any case, I see no reason why the Senate shouldn’t evaluate nominees based on ideology. The ability to shape the judiciary is becoming one of the most important powers that the President wields, and the President’s decisions with regards to this are unabashedly ideological. In keeping with the whole checks-and-balances idea, the Senate has a right, almost a responsibility, to be just as ideological with their approval.

And I’m reminded of zompist’s short reminder about political opposition.

Did Jesus have a wife?

1. What if he did? Would it change anything?
2. It is odd that he didn’t, given what we know of the 1st century jewish world.
3. No, he didn’t. Why are people obsessed with the sex life of Jesus?

Oh, and whatever happened to the days when a judge got appointed because he or she was the MOST QUALIFIED and NOT because of ideology? Was that “pre-Bork”? Or did those days ever exist?

Sad news: just read over on the Christianity Today website that Mike Yaconelli, founder of “The Door” magazine and Youth Specialties died due to injuries suffered in a truck accident. He also authored the book “Messy Spirituality,” a book I read a couple of years ago. The Body has lost a great man.

I travel a lot, which means I go through airport “security” a lot. The story about the college student who smuggled box cutters and bleach onto planes for months reminds me again that what I feared has indeed come to pass: the government has not given me any more security in exchange for the freedom it demanded I relinquish.

So I cannot take one side or the other in these political discussions; the choice is inevitably between Donkeys or Elephants, and that is a distinction I find to be essentially meaningless. Sure, the Donkeys pose as “champions of the poor” and the Elephants as “champions of traditional values”, but in practice, both parties are nothing less than the champions of naked power.

The day we begin discussing the gross abuses of freedom inflicted upon us by both political parties is the day I will be able to take a side in these discussions. Until then, my view is that you’re just arguing about whether you prefer a brass ring around your neck or an iron one. I for one prefer no slave chain at all.

Government has only two legitimate roles: to preserve justice and to punish evil-doers. Period. Yet the government does everything BUT fulfill its legitimate roll.

It dictates how much water my toilet can flush, who can legally cut my hair or provide me health care, and how much I should pay for a taxi ride. It robs me of my labor and gives me nothing but promises in return. It then uses MY money to support people, ideas and businesses that I implaccably oppose. It reserves unto itself, (by threat of force), the power to create money, then it debases the value of this money in a myriad of ways and thus robs me of even my savings. It dictates how much I can pay my employees and demands that I act as its accomplice while it robs them as well. It dictates what I can and cannot eat, what I can and cannot smoke, what I can and cannot inject, inhale, imbibe or otherwise put in my body. It takes what it wants by force or the threat of force. It makes no pretense to be bound by any law save the Law of Political Expediency.

It does not defend the defenseless, it does not uphold justice and it most emphatically does not punish evil-doers. So why should I care whether donkeys or elephants are my jailers? I don’t want a particular type of jailer, I want freedom.

Richard: The so-called “emerging church” movement is really a collection of movements all united by adherence to the tenets of postmodern communication and a desire to return to church to its New Testament tradition and structure.

To me, it only seems to be another manifestation of the “trendier-than-thou” evangelicalism that plagues the church. Not to mention that they say “we have nothing to fear from postmodernity.” That in itself is absurd. At least the modernists believed that truths were objective.

The one nice thing about the emerging church movement is its love of tradition, although that too can become a problem when tradition is taken out of its original context and “deconstructed” as to become quasi-mystical.

The emerging church movement is a reaction to the nascent modernism in mainstream evangelicalism. Whereas before, the church leadership adopted modernist attitudes, now, the so-called “13th generation” leadership adopts postmodernist attitudes. The fact of the matter is that a Christian should adopt neither.

Bart: Your abortion theory may be closer to the mark that you think.

The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a well-known racist who favored preventing what she saw as “unfit” parents, such as the poor, and especially blacks from reproducing, by her own mouth, “By force if necessary”. She was in strong favor of eugenics based on standards that she set. Planned Parenthood today tries to gloss over this fact by making her appear merciful, but really can’t get around the key issue that Margaret Sanger promoted abortion and birth control in order to limit the growth of the black population.

The most telling quote from this patron saint of pro-choicedom, from her 1939 proposal for the “Negro Project”: “the most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” This, combined with her association with Ernst Rudin, who served as Hitler’s director of genetic sterilization, really answers any questions I have about her, or the organization she set up.

Thanks, Kynn, for expressing something that was bothering me, though I didn’t catch what it was. Yes, I think that Coulter (and the Bush administration) are playing the race card here. When I read the NY Times editorial, I see things with which I disagree (especially given the single fact found in SWWSU’s column), but I don’t see race-baiting. When race is mentioned at all, it is in relation to racially-related cases over which she has presided, or a direct response to what the Times calls the Bush administration’s packaging of Justice Brown.

Coulter brought race into the forefront by saying that “Liberals are hysterical about Justice Brown principally because she is black,” but providing no evidence. Is race a factor? Sure, I won’t deny that it probably is, in the sense that Democrats really wouldn’t like to see a lot of black conservatives in positions of power even more than they wouldn’t like to see a lot of white conservatives in positions of power, but I think that the key is still the “conservative” part of the phrase “black conservative.” That is, the Democrats could and I think would write an extremely similar editorial about a white male judge with Brown’s record. They oppose the conservative ideas, and only maybe have a little more passion than usual about it because of the perceived threat to their voting “bloc.”

However, Kynn, I don’t think that it demeans any class or group of people when I say that I have seen clear evidence of efforts to smear conservatives circulate among black people that I know. A black coworker received and forwarded on several emails prior to the 2000 election that flat-out lied about then-Governor Bush. Where did those emails come from? I don’t know, but she believed them completely, and the were demonstrably (and I did demonstrate) false. She didn’t care, but forwarded them on anyway. How many people (of any skin color) believed those lies about Bush and hate crimes or the specious lies that accused him of racism? I didn’t even vote for the man in 2000, but those emails were slander, pure and simple.

Am I saying black people are dumb and easily tricked? Hardly. Both parties spin like crazy, and some of the stories circulating about Gore in 2000 were off the hook as well. What I am saying is that I strongly doubt your assertion that Republicans are getting their message to black people. From what I’ve seen, that just isn’t so.

Up until recently I attended a heavily heteroracial church, and I spent a lot of time talking with people of many different skin colors about all sorts of things. I was often in the minority, and so people spoke as people do, assuming everybody else believes what they do. The things I heard surprised me. Gross misrepresentations and outright falsehoods (unintentional on the part of the speakers, I’m sure) that portrayed Bush and other conservatives as klansmen-by-night and thieves-by-day were widespread and believed completely. Opinions are obviously debatable, but when I would ask for facts, I would get an amazing menagerie of utter garbage. When I would state a few facts in defense of Republicans (ugh), often complete with documentation, it was clear that my statements were completely and totally new concepts to my audience, and they were often dismissed since they clearly did not fit within their defined worldview.

I can’t blame anyone for that: If I thought something was one way for years and years, I wouldn’t easily accept a single data point in opposition to that belief, no matter how well it was documented. I suspect the same is true of all of us.

So I’m not accusing anybody of being stupid, nor am I saying that the issues don’t matter, but I do not believe that Republicans are communicating their beliefs well, or at least not well enough to counter communication from the Democrats and other sources. I’d feel a lot better if I thought that most black voters had truly heard and understood the Republican positions, but everything I’ve seen tells me that just isn’t so.

Wonder if any of you can help me out. What is meant by the phrase “the emerging church”? One increasingly sees/hears it but it is seldom defined. What is it?

Kynn, the game is played differently. Here’s how it goes:

D: This [insert minority qualifier here] person should be a judge.
R: I can’t accept [his|her] ideology.
D: You’re a [racist|sexist|homophobic].

As over against:

R: This person should be a judge.
D: I can’t accept [his|her] ideology.
R: But [s]he is [insert minority qualifier here].
D: I still can’t accept [his|her] ideology.
R: So much for supporting the advancement of [insert minority qualifier here].

In other words, neither side is being honest.

Bart, I thought for sure I’d bait you on the Scottish Terrorists post. But at the (considerable) risk of raising your ire, let me point out that while it may require an aluminum foil hat mentality to accuse the entire Democratic party of racism with respect to abortion, the charge of eugenics and racism leveled at the individuals and groups who have lobbied for abortion rights in the US is well founded and requires no such measures. In other, more sane times, the systematic, intentional killing of 13 million black children in a 27 year period would be properly called genocide, and condemned as such.

Lest anyone think I pick only on political conservatives (I criticize because I care!), here’s an execrable display by a Berkeley professor practicing just what I was talking about yesterday at 4:45PM. Conservatives haven’t been doing well politically because their ideas are winning out in the political marketplace, or because the liberals are seen as bereft of purpose, but because they control the language.

Then again, maybe he’s got a point. Anyone who would write “one of the only progressive think tanks in existence in the U.S.” obviously hasn’t mastered the language. And before anyone points out that the statement comes from the interviewer, not the interviewee, I hasten to highlight one of the interviewer’s questions: “Why do conservatives appear to be so much better at framing?” A sympathetic interviewer indeed. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. All in all, it’s tripe, even though it makes some good points.

I believe that the interviewer is correct in stating that conservatives, at least economic conservatives including libertarians, have done an excellent job in framing the public discourse beyond what one might expect when looking at vote totals (especially considering the libertarians). However, I think that he is missing the boat in suggesting that it is all a function of vocabulary, rather than of the ideas themselves. In accusing conservatives of NewSpeak, I believe he demonstrates only his own reckless disregard for meaning and truth.

Now am I back to being friends with all of the heartless conservatives in the bar? (JN)

Big K –
Now you know how it feels to be a conservative in a land where the media is (by and in large part) liberal.

Conspiracy theory hat on

You know, the reason why then dems are so pro choice is that they want to limit the minority populations. That’s why the thrust of the pro-choice propaganda is focused on low SES populations (i.e. Blacks – Latinos – and poor whites). If you don’t let them multiply, you don’t have to feel responsible or guilty when you realize that you are affluent and they are not. It’s guilt alleviation.

Conspiracy theory hat off

Scott: Thanks for the link, I’m formatting it so that I can print it out and carry it around with me. I got it down to three pages instead of the original four.

Michael: If you want to know my preferred style of sharp political humor, where the satire is well-done instead of half-baked and bitter, check out Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web. It’s hard-core conservative, it’s funny, and it’s eminently fair. Even when I disagree with statements here, I don’t want to wash my eyeballs to get the filth off like I do after reading SWWSU. ;-)

I’m confused by how often the Republican’s supporters raise the race card when it comes to judicial nominees.

I’ve never once heard a Democrat oppose someone because of the color of their skin. Instead, I’ve heard objections based on ideology, on legal theories espoused by the nominees, on politics. All of these seem, to me, to be legitimate reasons to oppose someone.

But the response from the right is always something of the sort, “You don’t think blacks and latinos can be judges!” It implies that the Democrats are not merely partisan—and likely to reject conservative judges—but that they are, in some way, deeply racist and hiding it from everyone.

This strikes me as an unfair accusation. It means that the Democratic party would simply be unable to oppose any nominee who is a person of color, no matter what that person’s other qualifications, ideology, and politics are. It’s basically a “gotcha” trap from the right, trying to split off swing voters and moderate Democrats who can be convinced that the Republicans are the party of the minorities.

One of the problems, of course, is that it’s just not working. Blacks, as noted by someone here, aren’t flocking in masses to the Republican party. Some may say it’s because the Republicans aren’t communicating well, some say it’s because the Democrats are spinning things. Maybe the blacks are just dumb and easily tricked by Democratic flimflam, the more extreme versions go.

But the thing is, black voters aren’t stupid, and the Republicans are getting their message across. That message is just being rejected. And these types of claims of racism, which are only used as a cover for defending extreme conservatives, are part of that message.

Now, historically, this tactic represents a shallow and cynical co-option of the strategies of the left. In the old days—and even rarely today—you’d have Republicans opposing candidates or nominees on basis of color or race. And the Democrats would point this out, and it was legitimate because there was real racism there, and the Republicans were part and parcel of it. However, the current version has the Republicans pointing at Democrats and calling them racists, not because they really believe they’re racist—because by and large they are not, especially compared to the Republican party—but because it makes for political gains. The very serious issue of barriers to people in color participating in government has been hijacked and diminished to where it is just used for a cynical political ploy.

Now, to address something I’ve heard before on this topic. “Wait! What about those groups which say that a nominee ‘isn’t Hispanic enough’ or the like?” It’s important to note that those arguments about a nominee’s “authenticity” as a member of a race are raised as responses to the racial exclusion arguments presented by the Republicans, and not as arguments against the nominee itself.

In other words, it goes like this:

1. R: “This guy should be a judge.”
2. D: “He’s not qualified, he’s a right-wing ideologue, and we don’t trust him to interpret the law fairly.”
3. R: “You’re just saying that because he’s Mexican. You Democrats, always tryin’ to keep the brown man down.”
4. D: “No, we oppose him on ideology.”
5. Some association of Mexican Americans: “You know, he’s not even very Mexican American at all. His experiences DON’T match with roughly 99.99999999% of us. You can’t claim he’s representing us when he clearly is nothing like us. We agree with the Democrats, we oppose him on ideology.”

By some of the arguments you hear from the right, the Republicans should be allowed to nominate as a judge anyone who is not white, and the Democrats have to accept them regardless of ideology or qualifications, or else admit that the Democratic party is full of bigots. Huh?

Phillip: For the record, I won “Most Original Costume”. Little do they know that it was originally Bart’s idea… MWAHAHAHAHA!

And if you have an opportunity, to clarify your outfit for your co-workers, you can always print off a copy of the Theses… in Latin...

I think that this is a fascinating site. While I clearly don’t agree with some of these guys’ conclusions, they do seem to be honest liberals, and I give them props for that.

Jack:

It’s a “sporan” and it’s in the front. You always want to keep your Scotch close to your Jewels. Both are of the utmost value

Scott: I should have brought a bottle of beer! As it is, I’m dressed (or will be later this morning – the robe is hot and I need to wait until my office gets pretty cold as it usually does) as an unidentified monk. No theses, no beer. Sigh. I really wanted to shave my head in the pattern worn by Joseph Fiennes in Luther, but my wife was really resistant for some reason. You know I’m Martin Luther, but not many other people will.

Another things that occurred to me on the way into work, this time both yesterday and today, is how much President Bush’s complaint about press coverage has worked. NPR, noted exactly noted for a conservative slant on the news, has been reporting consistently well-balanced and even overtly positive news about Iraq, about the economy, about everything. What used to be satellite-feed gripefests have turned into reports from Iraqis stating how much they love the US presence there, how free they feel without a tyrant ruling them, how much better things are overall, and so on, with an occasional complainer thrown in as they come across him. They come rarely enough that I’m willing to believe that they actually take them as they come instead of seeking them out as they had been reported to do in the past.

Maybe NPR is making a better effort to be fair and balanced, or maybe the news really is that obviously good.

Speaking of fair and balanced, I broke with my own usual pattern and watched Fox News over the weekend. They had better coverage of the fires than those darn southerners at CNN. Anyway, after switching back and forth for a while and determining that FNC did indeed have better coverage, I left it on there. And later in the day while wandering through the room I noticed that some gang including Cal Thomas and some other people I didn’t recognize were severely criticizing the Bush Administration over some policy involving the bodies of soldiers killed in Iraq. Are they allowed to criticize the Bush Administration like that? I thought they were only supposed to read the notes they were given?

Actually, Spong’s views are not that new: they’ve been floating around in various forms for 150 years. It’s just that they’ve moved to new arenas and emphases (i.e., homosexuality).

And, 97% of the time, the original song IS better than the remake.

Scottish dissidents try to poison the PM’s wife. No, this is not an Onion article…

One thing that occurred to me as I was on my way into work this morning is how much of religious liberalism and conservatism is driven by our views of old vs new. Many of us here in the tavern are here because of our love for the old elements of orthodoxy, while some of us cling to the new. My father and I used to debate every time a song was remade. He would inevitably say that the old version was better, even when it was clearly not. At one point in my life, I would consistently cling to the remakes, even when they were objectively inferior. I would like to think that I am more balanced now, not just picking whichever version I heard first as the superior one, but I’m probably deceiving myself.

Sometimes I think that’s a bigger factor than we acknowledge in our view of religious liberalism and conservatism. People like Spong, for example, are on the record as stating that the new is infinitely superior to the old. Because of the content of the old and new views? Sure, but maybe just a little because the old view is old and the new view is new.

For example, a strong argument for some of you is that 2000 years of church history back up a certain view, making it very likely that the view is correct. That argument carries little or no weight with someone who is apt to reject an argument solely on the basis that it is 2000 years old and therefore doesn’t benefit from our modern hermeneutic.

Sadly, I offer no solutions for the seemingly-unbridgeable chasm; it’s just an observation, worth barely the electrons it takes to make it visible to you.

Oh, and I’m going to the office costume party as “disgruntled employee with high blood pressure” again this year.

Michael, The NYTs runs the risk of appearing racist by consistently ignoring the qualifications of these judges and opposing them for political reasons. The Times ran over that risk and blithely drove on years ago.

Oh, and Jesus’ command to hate your parents is something I had no trouble following.

Tink ta ta tink ta ta tink ta tink ta….

The Fifth and Final Special Halloween Edition of the Chick Tract Translator
What a week, my hardies. Not only have you been the well-fed recipients of five… count ‘em – five Chick Tract Translations, but you’ve also gotten two bonus translations, with one or two more special translations coming. Then, I’m afraid that I’ll have to take a week or so off to recouperate. Tract translation is a labor-intensive process involving a warehouse filled with small, underfed children attached to sarcasm generators producing translations like only a sla… I mean, it’s a lot of brain work on my part.

Yeah. That’s it.

Today’s treat is no trick… The Trick is a limited-order gem of a tract that you probably won’t find in your local Christian bookstore, and we here at Chick Translation Headquarters are pleased to supply you with web links and translations galore!

Our story opens in a meeting of Satanists. Gotta love Chick. The Satanists are exceedingly gleeful because it’s that special time of year when Satan Claws flies across the skies in his sleigh full of razor-blade infested apples and teeth-rotting candy and not a single Chick tract in any of ‘em. The Satanists have it all planned out, and they’ve got Sister Charity ‘splainin’ it. They’re gonna perform more sacrifices this year than they have previously, and they’re also going to shoot for higher new membership totals. Man, whod’ve thunk that running a coven would be so much like running a golf club. Without the murder.

They detail their plans and get ‘em all laid out:

1. Razor blades in apples. This should increase sales of Gillette products worldwide.
2. Crushed glass and pins in treats. Should decrease trips to the Dentist by scaring children away from candy.
3. Control and kill children by injecting drugs and poisons into special treats.
4. Place curses on treats.
5. Perform all of the above in a giant pentagram painted on the floor.

Check. Need to hit Sherwin-Williams for cans of paint for giant pentagram. The Satanists are ready to rock. “Haw haw” they say. One of them gets a quick reminder to remember which treats are “special”.

Oh, dear Lord.

Welp. Along comes Reformation Day, and off the kiddies go out to increase sales of amalgum fillings. Johnny’s mom reminds him only to visit the neighbors they know, so they head off to Ms. Brenda, who just happens to be…. yep. You guessed it. She’s evil.

30 minutes later…

“Yaaaaahhhh!!!!” “What’s that?” “It’s a child screaming.” Yep. Johnny bit it. Susie’s in ICU and Jerry’s in surgery for the cuts in his mouth. And who’s off to console the parents? That’s right… good ol’ Ms. Brenda. Charity, however, isn’t doing quite as well. You see, she’s busy having a coronary, which is really unpleasant, because she can’t “breath”. Breath. Noun. As in the stuff that comes out of your mouth when you BREATHE.

Couldn’t afford a grammar checker, huh, Jack?

So Charity’s off to hell, where Satan has his own bag of treats for her. Ten months later, Charity’s skin is still crispin’ on her bones, and the parents of the neighborhood are off to have a meeting with Ms. Brenda, complete with a former witch, Becky.

Gee… do you think anyone knows Ms. Brenda’s secret identity isn’t Catwoman?

Becky goes on and tells us what Halloween was used for thousands of years ago, and how it’s still being used to open the doors to Satanism, and she uses the parents lack of belief in the devil to prove that he exists, because he doesn’t want you to believe he exists.

Huh? So, since I don’t believe in the abominable snowman, since that’s what he wants, he does exist? Does the WHAT THE HECK in my eyes transmit across the Internet? Does it? Can you see it? OK… Jack. Let me introduce you to this guy… his name’s circular reasoning. Have you met? Oh. You have. Well, good.

The moms continue to listen to Satan’s Secret Plan to Destroy Children With Candy® and are shocked that such a thing could actually exist. “It’s getting scarey”. That’s good, because I’d really hate it to get SCARY. Dear Lord, Jack… don’t you own a spell checker? A dictionary? Seriously, I will personally send you a dictionary – free. All yours. Just send me your address.

So anywho… the parents all huddle together and join the Independent Baptists, and then run off to get their kids joinin’ the club. Meanwhile, Ms. Brenda’s gettin’ ticked off that there’s a bunch of Christians in her living room, and Charity’s starting to turn a nice medium rare. What an ending!

Well, it’s official. I’ve stole—- borrowed Bart’s idea from last year… I think it was Bart’s… There’s an Augustinian monk running around my office with a bottle of beer and a hammer and a list of 95 things he’d like to “discuss” with the local Catholic Church. So far, I think I’m the odds favorite to win “most obscure costume”.

“The Times thinks Justice Brown should be the maid and Miguel Estrada the pool boy.”

This is a test. The following test of the iMonk Satire Reception System (MSRS) is being conducted to determine if the chosen selection of satire is communicating accurately, or purposely twisting the facts. Following this test, your computer will return to normal. Thank you.

1. The NYT has not endorsed the ethnic candidates for judge sent up by the President.
2. In both cases, the Times said the candidate was not qualified.
3. If either candidate was being nominated for a job less than a federal appeals court judge, they apparently would be qualified.
4. That would include maid and pool boy.
5. The NYTs runs the risk of appearing racist by consistently ignoring the qualifications of these judges and opposing them for political reasons.
6. The NYT never actually said that either candidate should be pool boy or maid. That’s entirely for effect. Sort of like saying “If you don’t hate your parents, you can’t be my disciple.”

The MSRS verifies the following statments as true. In this case, satire is working. We now return your monitor to its regular programming.

Phillip, Hannity has been somewhat toned down in syndication. When his show was NYC-only, he was quite obnoxious at times. It occurred to me after reading your post that AC is very much in the same line as a shock-jock. Things are said/written for their emotional impact, with accuracy being secondary at best. I’ve talked about this before, both here on BHT and over at XMLhead.

Don’t worry guys, I wasn’t attempting to argue moral equivalence. I mainly noted that SWWSU is still picking on Kennedy for something that happened 33 years ago. Wouldn’t it be more effective to pick on him for something more current? There’s plenty of material to choose from, but I guess it’s easier to parrot Jay Leno. It’s not any funnier. Also, since AC didn’t go into detail on Chappaquidick, I only responded directly to the actual statement she made, which left lots unsaid and made a comparison with Laura easier. That’s somewhat the point: in her haste to smear people in just a word or two, she misses the more important things.

Jim, like I said originally, I couldn’t get to the NY Times piece until after I had finished with SWWSU. Yes, it’s annoying. Yes, the NY Times is predictably liberal (though not as much as it seems AC would have us all believe). My point is this: she’s a joke. The NY Times editorial did seem off-kilter to me. Inasmuch as she corrected what I consider a dishonest implication (“She regularly stakes out extreme positions, often dissenting alone. In one case, [mentions case in which the vote was four to three]”) in the NY Times piece, I salute her. That she waited until the 17th paragraph of 23 to get to that point, and the 16th before she listed a single actual fact at all is the tragedy. If she’s as smart as many of you seem to think she is, she should realize that her fact-checking of the NY Times might play to more people than her core fan base if she would stop with the stupid mud-slinging.

As I tried to point out, she writes an opinion column just like the opinion column she was criticizing. And just like the column she was criticizing, she made statements which are not accurate, or at least are unsupported and unsupportable with any evidence. With the bitterness that drips from her keyboard and her lips (when I’ve seen her on Bill Maher’s show, for example), it seems like a case of the pot calling the kettle black. These kinds of things — the NY Times editorial and the Coulter column — play well for the party faithful, but the twisting and name-calling just makes me weary.

Satire? I know how to recognize satire. I also know when someone is blowing up my skirt, and Coulter is not practicing satire, she’s practicing whatever the corporate equivalent of character assassination is called.

And, uh, blondes aren’t my type. Of all the types God made, blondes just don’t do anything for me. If she were a redhead, now, I might be more disposed to reading favorably. (JN)

Now on the issue of “liberals” (or as large a group of people who identify themselves as liberal we care to include in our label) and black people, I hear you. I have grown weary of hearing how someone isn’t really black unless they support affirmative action or reparations, both liberal causes. I’ve heard quotes from a lot of places and people. Never the NY Times that I can remember, oddly enough, but I’m sure the editorial page has featured a few at one time or another. I do often wonder how much of the nearly monolithic voting pattern among black Americans is the fault of the Republicans failing to communicate well or reach out to make their views known and how much is due to distortion and misinformation from the Democratic party. I suspect the latter far more than the former, and point to Bush’s relative numbers in Texas versus the rest of the country as Exhibit, oh, Q or so. I still think that there is a far cry between the reality of the Democratic party’s treatment of black Americans and “The Times thinks Justice Brown should be the maid and Miguel Estrada the pool boy.” If you don’t see it, or don’t think its ridiculous, that’s fine. You can be wrong if you want to. (JN)

She reminds me of why I always enjoyed reading Rush far more than I enjoyed listening to him. Sadly, her writing is even more over-the-top than what Rush says out loud, and when I see her on Maher’s show, I’m just astounded that she can be so bitter toward a group and express opinions in ways that are clearly heartless, even if she’s right.

I’ll stick with Jim’s label for the woman: she’s a troll. I’d place her on the list well above Rush, and even above Hannity (I’ve only heard his radio show once, but he seemed remarkably well-balanced that one time), but I do consider her to be the universe’s cosmic attempt to balance out Michael Moore in some way.

Thomas Sowell writes in his book Vision of the Anointed that:

“What a vision may offer , and what the prevailing vision of our time emphatically does offer, is a special state of grace for those who believe in it. Those who accept this vision are deemed to be not merely factually correct but morally on a higher plane. Put differently, those who disagree with the prevailing vision are seen as being not merely in error, but in sin. For those who have this vision of the world, the anointed and the benighted do not argue on the same moral plane or play by the same cold rules of logic and evidence. The benighted are to made “aware,” to have their “consciousness raised,” and the wistful hope is held out that they will “grow.” Should the benighted prove recalcitrant, however, then their “mean-spiritedness” must be fought and “real reasons” behind their arguments and actions exposed. While verbal fashions change, this basic picture of the differential rectitude of the anointed and the benighted has not changed fundamentally in at least two hundred years.

These are not mere debating tactics. People are never more sincere than when they assume their own moral superiority.”

From Chapter 1, Flattering Unction, Vision of the Anointed

This is probably the best capsulized description and explanation of why liberals and elitists react the way they do when someone has the gall to disagree with them. Their political vision for the world is the only correct one. In sum, they are political fundamentalists.

Therefore, when you see Democrats opposing and verbally castigating qualified minority candidates for judgeships, think of this post. Nominees to high posts who do not share the prevailing vision of the anointed will be subject to excessive vicious verbal castigation and slander. This is perfectly displayed in the Democratic obstruction of qualified minority judges to high posts. They just do not think in a way the Democratic leadership would approve of.

Pretty tolerant, eh?????????????????

For the record, a mirrof of a Washington Post Article that mentions the accident involving Laura Bush, and a mention of it is included in her bio on CNN.

PWinn, can I dislike Ann Coulter and still agree with Michael’s ire at your Ted Kennedy/Laura Bush comparison? Ann is, like Spong, Al Franken, Michael Moore, Shawn Hannity and Rush Limbaugh (the latter at least 80% of the time), a troll. These people make comments not to inform debate, but to entertain. The fact that Coulter’s basic political philosophy is rightist shouldn’t detract from her entertainment value any more than Franken’s innane parroting of left wing conspiracy theories does. The sad thing, as you point out, is that all of this detracts from the general discussion. Did you read the Times piece on Brown? Frankly, I’m as outraged by it as Ann is, and more, although I’ve avoided shock-jock expressions a bit better. Follow some of the discussion of Brown on Volokh’s blog and you’ll get an idea of how silly the YT has become. But anyway, the Kennedy thing was just wrong, but let’s play along for a minute. Do you actually believe that even without his little diving accident, Teddy has any stand to make moral pronoucements? I’d suggest examining his voting record. And don’t let your daughter drink with his nephews.

PW: I really don’t get your point. You’re bugged that she is exaggerating how liberal the NYTs really is? Do you need to spend more time reading Reynolds, Sullivan and the rest of the Blogosphere that nails them daily? How far off base is AC to say the NYTs definition of “mainstream” is predictably far left and way, way out of the values of most of America? Who is arguing that the NYTs is centrist? Wow.

Maybe I need to send you Doug Wilson’s book on Satire, but hey, you read Scott Ward and you get him. Not to mention a bunch of the OT prophets, and even Jesus himself in his sarcastic criticism of his opponents. Ever heard of Mencken? Faulting a satirist for smearing is an odd criticism. So agree or disagree, I am surprised you are so thoroughly slamming the format. Males having problems with uppidity GOP blondes? (JN) There is a group for that. (JN)

Now, I gotta call this one a cheap shot: I hope nobody tells SWWSU that Laura Bush killed someone while she was younger and got away with it, too. If it’s come to light that a drunken Laura Bush did something comparable to a guy who drove off a bridge with a coworker who he was screwing, did not attempt a rescue, then left the scene for three hours while the co-worker probably slowly died in a sinking car, then lied to the police, the media and the public with the help of the family to wrench the system, then I stand corrected. I’d say that Sen. Kennedy has absolutely no moral authority whatsoever until he stands up and says “I left that girl to die and lied about it to save my shot at the White House.” Comparisons to Laura Bush’s tragedy? I read a lot of liberal baloney, but I’ve missed that one. (She wasn’t Mrs. Bush then btw.) If AC has a deserving target, Ted is it. What a loathsome and embarassing person to have in the Senate saying anything about anything.

Liberals and blacks: Hmmmm. I have to admit that starting with Clarence Thomas and going right through the racial baiting of Condi Rice and Colin Powell and JC Watts and Larry Elder or any other black Conservative who is called “the Bush house negro” or Uncle Tom or a Black who hates himself, I thought she had a point there. I was a liberal once, and that sort of “keep ‘em on the plantation” thinking was what got me to change buses. Of course, what can we expect from the party that hasn’t quite owned up to it’s own role in segregating this country. And I am sure someone has mentioned that many of those choices being made in the beloved by Democrats pro-choice camp are choices to abort persons of color just like Mrs. Sangster wanted. Sorry – but AC doesn’t hit half as hard as she needs to. What the Democrats have done to African-Americans in this culture is a cultural holocaust. You go girl.

But I could be wrong.

JS: Go to the Victor Davis Hanson Archive and get yourself straightened out. Start here. You won’t be sorry. Sample this:

Second, President Bush, whatever one thinks of him, is, well, let’s face it, a strange sort of president. For all the hysteria about Karl Rove’s supposed political calculations and machinations, I sense that the president doesn’t care much what others think of him; indeed, for the price of winning this war he might even be willing to be a one-term president. In other words, this is a man who probably would not have withdrawn from Beirut, turned ships around off the harbor at Haiti at the sound of gunfire, or yanked Americans from Somalia as two-bit thugs dragged their corpses in the street.

For some reason or another he does not seem to crave future rave reviews from the New York Times, a late-night private dinner in Georgetown, or an obsequious phone call from a European apparatchik. Indeed, he seems to have expected the invective from the Europeans, the slander from our own media, and even the irrational, if not visceral, hatred of American elites as the inevitable wages that come with at last saying “enough is enough” and thereby dissolving in a moment the comfortable fraud that so many of us had invested so heavily in the last 20 years. How long his resistance will last in the face of slander and slurs of historic proportions is unclear; but for now he has again responded in a manner that his enemies would never have anticipated.