Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Jeez, I'd hit that (as they say), even if it's only a 2-D cartoon.

I felt sure I would end up regretting the image. But I found it rather compelling too.

At least the Attorney General of this pink couple would not be caught publicly saying:

Mexicans, Asians and Negroes that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man!

I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate.

My dad gave up working in lumber mills to become a preacher for the Church of Christ, which is pretty fundamentalist as such things go. I grew up around them and the common liberal perception of "fundies" is wrong from the get go.

Generally speaking they're the kindest and nicest people you would ever meet. Generous to a fault and always ready to help other folks out. My dad has helped a lot of people in his time, some who deserved it and returned his kindness and some who didn't. But he never stopped doing what he could to help others.

He wouldn't have anything to do with a group like Focus on the Family and would recognize them for what they are, a fund raising machine. He despises that sort of thing as much as any lefty I ever met.

People like to pigeon hole other people so they don't have to actually work to figure them out. That's what liberals do with "fundamentalists" (and I put that in quotes because it's a bullshit term to be honest) and that's what a lot of folks on the right do with us lefties too. I can't tell you how many people think I'm a liberal. It makes me laugh.

My Dad's a great guy, we disagree on evolution, the meaning of God, whether you need to be baptized to be saved and other stuff like that but he accepts me and I like him just fine too. Folks like him aren't at all uncommon.

"And I think the fun comes from feeling superior to these poor benighted souls."

And you would know, of course, what such fun is like. Poor, benighted liberals.

A woman we knew used to babysit our kids sometimes. Abused by her husband and ill-treated by her son, she turned to Jesus and especially to Mary. She became part of a group centered in New York City (maybe in Bay View or Bay Ridge). Complete crackpots. Our friend had too many insane religious and other ideas to name. The devil was everywhere, even in cash registers. However, she believed in those corporal works of mercy, and she would give you or any needy person anything she had. And she was great with the kids. Took them all over the place. They knew she was crazy, but they liked her all the same. Jesus and Mary saved her life; sadly medical malpractice killed her. I think that if the fascists had been afer me and Karen, she would certainly have hidden us, fed us, and helped us escape. Many a good secular liberal would not have done the same.

Maybe I am a lunatic, but I've even met a lot of decent Mormons! Mike Davis wrote an essay about strikers in the CA town of Boron. Most were Mormons. He points out that there is a hidden history of Mormon working class solidarity. Who knew?

Not many know of Italian labor radicalism either that went back to the old country or for that matter civil rights activism of the likes of Mario Savio and Father James Groppi. Few of the current crop of sneering "militant atheists" would dare do a fraction of what the latter did in Milwaukee, usually in opposition to Church hierarchy.

Comrade Strelnikov (of the Red Dawn or Pasternak Strelnikovs?) did not, I surmise, have the advantage of being raised in Henderson KY, Kennedy MN or Boron CA (is there a town anywhere with a better name than Boron?), and that goes some distance toward illuminating his family focus fascination. Even with such an advantage, I spent some time in the radio company of Harold Camping. Good times....

Good time, but too tedious to qualify as "fun". Another hypothesis is called for.

I grew up a fundamentalist, and I can tell you that they span the whole range of personality types. Some are generous and loving down to their marrow, others are profoundly nasty and vain. Religious beliefs and levels of goodness are not well-correlated.

To be fair to your friend, s/he does say that he's trying to keep tabs on the movement, and not your average pew-warmer. I think that's a solid distinction to make. Focus is intensely political, and that tells you quite a bit about how they will throw around their considerable weight. It's not a bad thing to keep tabs on, even if it doesn't give you the soul of the Freewill Baptist.

Boink,

I like a benighted liberal now and then, but I'm a pervert and jaded from too many years of rampant hedonism.

Poor benighted liberals

Hey they are laffing at us !

They usually got what they were after more or less

We revolutionists on the other hand.....

Al has a nice perspective on true blue liberals

They never saw a hierarchy based on merit they wanted torn down

And their pretty bad at climbing them really
And yet
Mostly bite at those ready to set fire to the establishment

They usually ...in this is an implicit paradox
leave the near to the top rungs
for secret sadists and other dark side monsters

The very summit is of course
for the beautiful and the damned

So true blue liberals have half a chance

Which half ?

The eye of the beholder half of course

Can't take my eyes off that Mormon hunk

His " five o'clock "drives me wild

I wish that belaboring slut ding bat would step away
From his innocent hetero package

The oligarchy has accomplished it's mission. Citizens like 'Boink' don't know the difference between a Communist,a Socialist or a useless fucking Liberal. They truly believe that pols like Pelosi and Kerry are "of the Left". I'd love to hear his definition of a Fascist.

All men seek the good.

It's a complete parody to suggest that American fundies are the paragons of compassion, no?

That's got to be a joke, because while they may possess bourgeois affection for family charity, and a Southern fried sort of filial devotion to the fakery of charm, they are as mean spirited as liberals when it comes to the Commons, and hostile to the very notion of a socialist enterprise.

They absorbed Rand as hungrily as they did precisely because the old school fundie of the second to last fin de siecle is no more and hasn't been since anti-Red fervor was well past its peak.

Kind of like people who read the NY Times and think this informs them of what millions of liberals believe. Why would you waste your beautiful mind on something like that if not for the smug sense of superiority it gives you?

I don't think most here would have a problem admitting that a lot of fundies are decent people at least in person. But liberals? They're obviously the spawn of Satan without an iota of good will in their bones.

Here's a thought experiment: give a liberal a magic wand that can change the world, and what would he do with it? I suspect he would end all wars, disband the military, eliminate the cops, give free food, housing, medical care and education to everyone and tax the rich into the ground to pay for it. He'd probably still be stupid enough to vote for some hack like Obama to carry all this out, but at least his heart would be in the right place.

Now hand the wand to a fundie. First he'd kill or convert all the Catholics and Muslims to his faith. Then he'd got rid of everyone who is sick, poor, black or otherwise suffering from some affliction that arises from lack of faith, or at least set them to work doing something productive. Think Irish Potato Famine here.

He might eventually get around to setting up some soup kitchens where soup is all they serve, if only for the pleasure of feeling he is serving God while ladling soup. But you'll have to listen to a sermon to get a meal and the watery gruel will only be for those who exhibit the requisite amount of personal responsibility as he wouldn't want to breed welfare dependency in those feckless losers.

He would make the US military the most powerful military force in the known universe, and he would grind the poor into the ground with taxes to pay for it.

I could go on, but your pleasant, friendly fundie given the power would make this world more a nightmare than any liberal could dream of.

Boink seems to me well equipped to make such facile distinctions par4

Finding the would be social fascists in this utterly non fascist nation
that requires the ability to separte the pepper from the fly shit

But he knows I'm the living expert on social fascism
And would ring me up

Sean

U bring up the contradictionbetween Protestant fundies and cathoholics

They long ago settled this at the top

Yes Pentecostals rustle strays from the catholic herd

jehovahs are the real masters of this and indeed
in Latin states suffer the consequences more then pentacostals
But here ?

I doubt any rough stuff would be along these sectarian lines
Not even Jews need worry ......so long as they are zionists

I suppose the point I'd make is simple

The fundie base is not the problem least of all for their beliefs
The black community is heavily baptist
And only the newer more overtly political evangelical sects
that are multi racial can turn a few blacks into republicans

Gays have more to be concerned about here
But worse case this becomes a Stephen Douglas issue
Ie like abortion and capital punishment
The states may decide

And cultural liberals will retain control of enough of the coastal statesb
To provide a home for anything now legal anywhere in America

Fortunately gays as a community are highly mobile and
With a reasonably affluent majority

But a poor Chicano gay might face horror on two fronts

The second front

vigilante undoc sweeps catching
a few unfortunate latin citizens as well

'string' you up?

hadn't thought of that boink
but it is
just one of my typos away

thank you so very much Michael.

in this horrifying 'creepy' world we've all found ourselves mired in, it pains me to realize that I should have noted that I meant that first post I made (above), it wasn't 'snark,' etcetera.

(I do favor a garrote as a very last resort though, but more as a metaphor, as in choking off lying: mother father brother sister, etcetara, fuckers of anything they feel free to VIOLATE for their daily delight.)

(sorry, "etcetera," ..times are so sad, and quite unfortunately, typos can undo a valid response.)

"Now hand the wand to a fundie. First he'd kill or convert all the Catholics and Muslims to his faith. Then he'd got rid of everyone who is sick, poor, black or otherwise suffering from some affliction that arises from lack of faith, or at least set them to work doing something productive."

Depends on which "fundie" you pick. And who you call a fundie. And what the term "fundie" means. And other shit too.

But if this is the belief that gets you through the night then more power to you.

"Depends on which "fundie" you pick. And who you call a fundie. And what the term "fundie" means. And other shit too.

If you need to know what the term "fundie" means you're in no position to render an opinion. I gave an historic example of this mentality at work and could give thousands in modern society. If it makes you feel better to ignore the facts don't let me burst your bubble.

Now let's come back to the question of fun. I think -- maybe this is harsh and cynical of me, but I still think it -- that Strelnikov actually gets some fun out of listening to Focus On The Family. It's hard to believe that somebody would do something week after week, year after year, without getting some fun out of it. And I think the fun comes from feeling superior to these poor benighted souls.

That's a plausible thesis. Status obsessives can get cheap gratification from tuning in to the television and radio three card monte games. It's poor sport by my standards and has its own baggage of self-degradation.

Here's a thought experiment: give a liberal a magic wand that can change the world, and what would he do with it? I suspect he would end all wars, disband the military, eliminate the cops, give free food, housing, medical care and education to everyone and tax the rich into the ground to pay for it.

One man's liberal is another's labrador, but I think this is very wrong. Maybe a New Left hippie turned McGovern voter would endorse this. Maybe a Rainbow Coalition supporter would (the same guy in the end who voted for Where's the Beef or the dwarf in a tank.) But today's liberal? I don't think so. End all wars? You mean prosecute wars to deliver human rights unto those who groan under the weight of designer glasses dictators. DISBAND the military and ELIMINATE the cops? You mean, put our heroes and heroines who do good work -- but are sometimes put on bad assignments by malevolent types -- out of work? Free ANYTHING? (Well, maybe health care... everything else recognizes the universal truth of "disinectivization".) Tax the rich, probably, but don't stifle the initiative of another worshipful Steve Jobs! You get the picture.

I've yet to meet a real live liberal who supports the Iraq War, opposes welfare, food stamps, free healthcare or university education or who likes the cops. I've yet to meet one who favors taxing the poor over taxing the rich.

Not sure where you're getting these liberals you speak of outside of the NY Times, Kos or other paid propagandists and media whores who in no way represent liberal thought as it exists out in the genpop.

Sean, you confuse me a bit with this distinction between real liberals (on the one hand) and (on the other hand) all the individuals and institutions that liberals love and support (Bill Clinton, the New York Times, Daily Kos). Who are these 'real liberals' exactly?

I think Sean has a very valid point, I’m betting the millions of homeless; the 30 plus percent of, not homeless US citizens with no home computer; and those whose computers have fried and they can no longer afford another, count for millions of the types of liberals he speaks of.

The internet voices are predominately: the Techie, Media, Management, and Academia classes.

"If you need to know what the term "fundie" means you're in no position to render an opinion"

Well, I'm certainly in no position to render an opinion. Yet I do so anyways. I'm obstinate that way.

And I'll stick to my opinion that people call other people names so that they can easily pigeon hole them and then toss them away.

It's the exact same mechanism they use to get folks to kill each other in wars. Them vs. Us. They're evil, we're good. They're fundies, we're liberals.

Pardon me while I puke.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, Drunk Pundit.