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.

James Swan at NRO on why we need to kill and eat lots more deer….and soon.

I’m doing what I can, but I’m only one man. I’ve taken three so far, with a potential for three more. I think it is likely I’ll take one more at least. I’ve packaged about 120 lbs of venison. I give a fair bit of that away.

When I was a kid, if you saw a deer in the backyard, you called people and told them about it. Last night I had two or three in my yard ,20 yards from my driveway. I’ve hit 3 with my car in the last few years. My wife has hit one, and my son has hit one (totalled the car). I killed 4 last year and 4 the year before that. Our conservation department says there are too few hunters.

A few weeks ago I attended a wake for an aquaintance who was killed when his motorcycle hit a deer about a quarter mile from my house.

And yet there are groups (PETA) that work like mad to deny people the right to hunt and harvest game animals. Sad.

For once I find myself in something resembling agreement with Michael about Bush. Normally we only agree about homosexuals. And my agreement is this: The only way to clean up Iraq is lots and lots of money, which we are now morally obliged to pay. We barged our way in, and if we wimp out now we will be morally and politically culpable. (Actually, we were morally culpable for Saddam all along, what with the setting him up in the 80’s and all, but that’s a different point.) So, yep, the Dems are being a bunch of brats and are currently throwing stones without any viable alternative of their own—but what else is new in politics?

But I’m also here with Kynn, because I don’t think Bush is the guy to handle this. After all, we did such a bonny job turning Afghanistan into a functioning democray. Especially if by “functioning democracy” you mean mostly anarchic hole dominated by warlords in every square mile that doesn’t have Marines physically standing in it.

Point of personal history: I only turned on Bush after Afghanistan. I was lukewarm towards him at first, and staunchly on his side when he first announced the war on terror and the invasion of Afghanistan. It was our utter failure to finish the job there and the bizarre insistence that we go after Iraq that turned me around.

Anyway. Here’s a response to that RWN link: the flag should belong to all people who identify as American. But it occurs to me that the Democrats might be just a wee bit defensive about this because a certain hystrionic mudslinger has just published two best-selling books accusing every last one of them of slander and treason.

Lastly, thank you to Michael for putting the kabosh on the Kynn discussion. I hid under a table for most of it, which is why this is my first post in two days.

After writing my previous post, I checked the Times search one last time, and this search worked. The article is due to expire after tomorrow, so I’ve mirrored it here in the extended entry for comparison with Coulter’s article. More »« Less

Honestly, Michael, I haven’t been following the Justice Brown situation closely, so all of my information on the issue has come up since you posted your link. But I did read the Coulter article, and frankly, it makes me sad to be identified as a political conservative. The mockery and bile and what seems like misinformation is astounding. The NY Times is not current allowing searches of their archives due to what seems like a technical problem, and SWWSU didn’t provide a date for the NY Times article, so I can only respond with guesses, providing ample opportunity for me to be wrong, but I’ll forge onward where liberal fear to tread.

The NY Times almost missed the war in Iraq? Wait a minute, hadn’t I read another screed from SWWSU about how they were (stupidly, of course) anti-war? How could they be anti-war if they weren’t covering the war? Oh wait — this was just an excuse to slip in a jab at the NY Times over the August flap. Not actually factual at all. Never mind. That does concern me for the rest of the article, though. If the very first sentence sacrifices the truth in favor of witty jabs, is anything else in the article true? I suppose if it isn’t a witty jibe, I might think so.

Paragraph 2 has another one of those witty jabs, this time at Senator Kennedy over an incident that happened 34 years ago! I hope nobody tells SWWSU that Laura Bush killed someone while she was younger and got away with it, too. I don’t think conservatives can do things like that in Coulter’s universe.

Then it really starts. “Liberals are hysterical about Justice Brown principally because she is black. Nothing enrages them so much as a minority person who does not spend her days saying hosannas to liberals.” Do I really need to explain why this sentence is just wrong? Surely anyone offended in any way by recent goings-on here in the tavern should recognize this as a smear unrooted in fact. No support evidence offered? Gee, what a surprise. Yes, I know, she writes opinion columns. But the best opinions have some factual basis, and SWWSU just makes stuff up.

“The Times thinks Justice Brown should be the maid and Miguel Estrada the pool boy.” Gee, really? Really? I can’t read the NY Times editorial, but did they really say that their objection to Brown centered around any position held by NAMBLA, or is this simply a smear by association?

Perhaps the editorial does list partial-birth abortion as an example of Brown’s non-mainstreamness. Perhaps they do list affirmative action as mainstream – sure a debatable point, with Prop 209 as a good starting point. Perhaps they listed support for gay marriage as mainstream. But explicitly linking nude dancing as “speech” is doubtful. More likely they were relying on a more subtle legal argument involving free “expression,” more than just “speech.” And I sincerely doubt that the specifically listed gay Scoutmasters romping in the woods with boys as SWWSU says – rather their view probably has something to do with the Scouts accepting public funds and using publicly-funded facilities while practicing what is legally discrimination. Regardless of anyone’s personal views on the matter, there can’t be much doubt that the preceding statement is true.

It goes on and on. Does the NY Times editorial mention Polanski, Moore, Dean or Chirac? I doubt it. More of that smearing-by-association, taken to a high level with the hurled epithet of “France.” Oh my, shudder. What are flights to Paris costing this time of year?

I’m not a Democrat, but even I can see that alleging that the entire Democratic platform consists of the Communist Manifesto and a pledge to raise taxes is just silly. As I recall, of the current prospects for Democratic candidate for President, fewer than half support raising taxes at all, and even then some suggest specifically a “reversal of cuts” (a raise) only for “the rich” (which we’ve noted before includes more of us than we’d suspect from the label.

“The problem is, if Democrats ever dared speak coherently, the American people would lynch them.” Which is presumably why books written by liberals speaking coherently generally hang out near the tops of best-seller lists alongside Ms Coulters. When she proceeds to mock soccer moms as foolish and easily frightened, I start to see a resemblance to John Spong’s recently-dissected quote.

I’m tempted to stop already, sad and weary, but I read quickly, and I note that finally — finally — it seems that she is getting to particulars. This tells me, I suppose, that all of her spewing up until now has been not at all related to anything that appeared in the Time, but it purely a product of SWWSU’s imagination. Wow.

Yada yada yada, another stab apropos of nothing at a former President based on a story considered discredited by many and completely unrelated to the issue at hand since it didn’t involve race even if it did happen as originally claimed, yada yada.

The funny this is, I think she might have a point on the Times stand on this particular issue. I’d like to know more before issuing a judgment, and Coulter is obviously not the source from which I can expected to learn anything at all, but what I find amazing is that she wraps what might be a nugget of truth in so much crap that I almost didn’t read far enough down to find it. It would be a rare person indeed who could read that article, find the nugget of truth (I’m being generous) and apply it to themselves instead of getting upset long before the payoff.

Well, I didn’t mean to write such a long post, but never let it be said that I don’t look for opportunities to educate myself to deal with people for whom I have little regard.

When I need to be reminded afresh of the beauty of God and the Christian faith I like to come here and here. Herbert and Donne never fail to move me and make me see, once again, the deep beauty of God. (I warmly commend this stuff to all who fail to see the joy of orthodoxy ;-)

PW can skip it, but parties interested in the shameful rejection of another minority judge by the Democrats in the Senate might want to read Coulter’s column this week.

Amazingly, no matter how many conservative minority nominees Bush sends up, the Times has not been able to find a single one who is “qualified.” The Times thinks Justice Brown should be the maid and Miguel Estrada the pool boy.

According to the Times, Brown has “declared war on the mainstream legal values that most Americans hold dear.” What the Times means by “mainstream legal values” is: off-the-charts unpopular positions favored by NAMBLA, the ACLU, and The New York Times editorial page.

Thus, for example, opposition to partial-birth abortion- opposed by 70% of the American people- is “out of the mainstream.”

Support for the death penalty- supported by 70% of the American people- is “out of the mainstream.”

Opposition to government-sanctioned race discrimination- which voters in the largest state in the nation put on an initiative titled Proposition 209 and enacted into law- is “out of the mainstream.”

Opposition to gay marriage- opposed by 60% of the American people- is “out of the mainstream.”

Failing to recognize that totally nude dancing is “speech” is “out of the mainstream.”

Questioning whether gay Scoutmasters should be taking 14-year-old boys on overnight sleepovers in the woods is “out of the mainstream.”

I guess if your “mainstream” includes Roman Polanski, Michael Moore, Howard Dean and Jacques Chirac, then Brown really is “out of the mainstream.” This proverbial “stream” they’re constantly referring to is evidently located somewhere in France.

Richard: Bravo for highlighting an issue that constantly disturbs, especially when I catch myself doing it – treating those with whom we disagree as a lower form of life. I think a few people here in the tavern do that to (political) liberals, and I constantly hear people who describe themselves as liberals do it to conservatives, too. Instead of engaging on idea on its merits, it becomes “Well, little boy, you just believe that because you don’t know any better.” She Who Won’t Shut Up does this, Rush does this (though not so much), Cronkite does this, Dan Rather does this, O’Reilly does this, Moore does this, and on and on it goes. I suspect that we all do it to one extent or another at times. I really try not to, but it is truly difficult sometimes.

So when I defended personal questions earlier as a way to determine the level or nature of support for a given argument, this is not what I hope the outcome of such questions to be. Spong, to use your example, isn’t arguing against inerrancy on any rational basis, but rather dismissing those who believe in inerrancy as inferior to him, with no evidence offered.

It would be a worthwhile exercise for me to submit all of my own statements to this test: Can I substitute the object of scorn with myself and have an equally valid statement? If so, it isn’t really an argument at all, but a hollow echo.

Kynn: Too funny! Bart is at least as ineffable as God, in my inerrant book. (JN)

Michael: I’m no RPW-lover, moderate or otherwise. (JN, and yes, I did read your essay on the subject) However, when my pastor recently sent around a letter asking for input on what people wanted to see become part of the Sunday morning service and mentioned “drama” as one of the possibilities, I made sure to register my “no” vote both to him and to the assistant pastor. Not because I think that drama in church services (or magicians, I guess) are some sort of “strange fire” and Wrong, but because I don’t want to have to sit through any more insufferable church drama skits. Oh, they help us to remember things, do they? Then why can’t I remember a single darned one right now?

I think that if you want drama, you should have a drama night. My old church did this with a series of plays accurately portraying the influence of dark-skinned people at various points in American history, and I remember those clearly and fondly. I can even remember those really bad “Christianity through allegory” plays that preached to Christian youth groups about how to become a Christian – Toymaker’s Dream and the like. But drama during a church service? Please – if it’s about competing with television, it doesn’t work.

I guess maybe I agree with some variation on the RPW more than I’d like to admit. I don’t have a problem with things in church services that aren’t in Scripture, but I think that we might as well pattern the purpose of our church services after those in Scripture. And in that sense I don’t have a problem seeing Paul in my mind’s eye rocking out to drums and guitars any more than nodding gently to pipe organs, but sitting back and watching a skit or a rabbit from a hat? Somehow I doubt it.

But I could be wrong. I’m no Pat Robertson, but it could happen. (JN)

Kynn: I think Jonah’s point is the Democrats are playing politics with this, and who could deny that? It may be principled politics or unprinicpled politics or Wesley Clark politics or Al “Tawana Brawley” Sharpton politcs, but they are playing poltics with it. It’s their job to play politics with it coming up to the election. And if Bush is saying “No accountability! Give me the money so I can build lots of churches and gas stations,” then I hope the Democrats get all that accountability and then some. Nobody wants the $ spend wisely more than me. But it is possible that somewhere in there are some people who simply don’t want this to succeed because they want Bush out and themselves in. Again, that’s fine- unless they are playing with the safety, security and future Democracy of Iraq (PUHLEEZE guys don’t send me the standard posts on Democracy. I don’t want to use another word. (JN) If the Democrats are willing to let Iraqis suffer to deny Bush the money and to make him look like a failure in Iraq- a thought that never entered their minds I’m sure (JN)- then that would be wrong.

EVERYONE: While we are on the subject, if you can read this and not laugh/cry, you are cold. What a bunch of weenies.

SCOTT: Cool kudos at a great blog. Dean owes us all a round because he dug up Kynn. (JN++++)

Those Canadians are playing hockey – as I shall be doing later tonight with a bunch of Mounties – How Canadian is that?

Just a quick note to point out that I seem to have greatly offended our friends over at blogs4God, who were unprepared for such an onslaught of parody as was unleashed upon them earlier today…

Seriously, many thanks to MeanDean for the encouragements and the chance to poke a bit of fun. I’ll put it this way, out of Jack Chick, Bishop Spong, Marcus Borg, Kenneth Copeland, and The Rev. Moon – you’re the only one to take note. I’d say that’s something to be proud of.