Comments on God is great, it's his fan club that sucks

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It's great to read Talion again - and the verbal sparring between

Gome and Talion is a swashbuckling encounter between light sabers - nicely choreographed.

posted by Pat_B on September 9, 2007 at 9:26 AM | link to this | reply

Of course times have changed, Gome...

But I disagree that Che junior is not present today. Just last week, Venezuela's Chavez commenced an effort that will make him "President for Life." Already, he has confiscated most significant private income producing property. He has been publicly embraced by several prominent Hollywood types, both older, middle aged, and young. The NEA still today completely embraces a pure Socialist agenda in its bylaws (see the details in my book), and NEA members teach our kids. The Democrat Party has adopted the modern European Socialist model for its platform – even though both Germany and France seem to be rejecting it in favor of the original American ideal of free markets and limited government. Nearly all the current crop of "blockbuster" films present America in a bad light, put the American government in the position of the evil perpetrator, and glorify the worst in our society. You can find no film like The Longest Day, The Green Berets, or any number of Hollywood productions from the 40s, 50s, and early 60s.

The 60s Che juniors were not as limited as you state, either. They dominated the 1968 Democrat convention, and they will be in Chicago in force for the Green Party convention next year. These people, and what they represent, are far more insidious and dangerous to our society than any group of Christian fanatics, in my opinion.

posted by arGee on September 8, 2007 at 3:50 PM | link to this | reply

Gomedome

Yes, Argee, I agree, in fact I'm sure that most people in the world are good folk. The nutters of any persuasion are a tiny minority.

And as for for all those " useful idiots" of wet communist fellow travellers of university dons, what did they do when their pet political system could no longer bear a second's examination?

Why, invent PC of course, so they could go on bossing the lumpenproletariat about as before. It's a superiority complex, cherished by the mentally inferior.

posted by ariel70 on September 8, 2007 at 2:32 PM | link to this | reply

arGee - times and political ideals have changed dramatically in 40 years

Once it had been demonstrated by failures elsewhere in the world that socialist based administrative systems directly conflict with the human qualities of innovation and ambition, people such as "Che junior" have become redundant. There is no audience for their brand of socialist nihilism, if someone spouting those types of nonsensical ideas showed up on a university campus today, they'd be ostracized by both the left and right of the political spectrum. I contend that what we are seeing from some members of the religious right today has certain parallels with the ramblings of people such as Che junior.

The most obvious of these parallels being the promotion of an unworkable paradigm. It is in the dissimilarities of the two eras where we should be concerned however. This is the age of instant communication which in turn facilitates widespread dissemination of information. There is inarguably a mature societal trend in the political organization of the religious right, something that did not exist to any significant degree in the time of Che junior. I'll trade you a truckload of campus radicals to one idiot right wing preacher anytime. The campus radical is invariably an immature idealist preaching primarily to peers and with very few exceptions, grows out of their limited perspectives. The idiot right wing preacher on the other hand is given undo credence simply because of what they supposedly represent. Their audience is not limited to their peers but instead may include the entire age spectrum of society, including young children as well as the mentally challenged and infirm.

Think for a minute what could have happened if Che junior had an audience that afforded him respect because of his vocation and was not limited to college aged young adults who presumably had enough intelligence to enter college.     

posted by gomedome on September 8, 2007 at 12:14 PM | link to this | reply

Both my parents were deeply religious, Ariel...

And by any measure, members of the Religious Right. But they never forbade me any reading, nor in anyway restricted or censored me, except for keeping me out of trouble as a youth with appropriate threats and punishments. When I was quite young, my mother asked me to bring her any reading material I wanted to read before I read it. She would review it, and either give it back, or hold it, promising to let me have it when I was old enough to understand it. And she always kept her promise to give it to me eventually. 

I tell you this to demonstrate that there reasonable people in this movement. In fact, my experience is that more are reasonable than are not.

posted by arGee on September 8, 2007 at 11:22 AM | link to this | reply

Argee

It was the same in Britain back in those dismal days, and how can anyone say that nowadays " seats of learning" are bastions of free speech?

One is inhibited enough in one's private live when touching on the taboo subjects, which hardly require listing here, but it is perilous indeed to set foot in these areas in politics, or in, say, Oxford, Yale of Cambridge.

The atavistic compulsion to forbid, to ban, to burn, to gag is as powerful in us as ever it was in the mediaeval peasant.

I don't suppose that it's really coincidence that so many deeply religious people share this same compulsion with committed Communists, Nazis and Fascists.

posted by ariel70 on September 8, 2007 at 10:18 AM | link to this | reply

In reviewing the last two comments (ariel & Gome)...

I am reminded that this kind of behavior is not limited to the Religious Right. I first personally discovered the virulent, violent hate by the Left while attending University of Washington in the mid-1960s. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) would listen with rapt attention to the campus radical leader in his Che Guevara hat speechifying in front of the student union building – a place set aside for the free public exchange of ideas; but these same people would shout me down when I stood to present a counter view.

Che junior organized an attempt to burn down the beautiful sandstone building used by the campus Naval ROTC. I heard about it from an acquaintance in SDS, and organized the ROTC students and my colleagues from Univ. of Wash. NESEP (Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program – a scholarship program for active Navy enlisted personnel that led to a regular line commission). On the evening of the "event," the SDS gang showed up after dark with burning torches, but we had surrounded the building with guys carrying baseball bats. I stepped out and offered a direct challenge; a couple of my guys broke ranks and joined me – three of us standing there, confronting several hundred screaming, torch wielding idiots. Of course they backed down, and that was the end of it.

I graduated the Summer of 1969. The SDS burned the building down that Fall. As I commented to Gome in another of his recent posts, I will take the silly, bigoted, religion-blinded folks from the Religious Right any day over the hate-filled violent Left.

posted by arGee on September 8, 2007 at 8:03 AM | link to this | reply

ariel70 - I may be the being blocked all time leader but in reality I do

not know, I've lost count.

It's somewhere around a dozen times, at least the ones I have known about. There is a distinctive pattern to my blockings. Some fervant religious person with a tenuous grasp on reality reads my posts and decides that they do not want the son of Satan ever posting a comment to one of their blogs. There has never been an instance of my being blocked for my behaviour, not even an instance of where I had left a comment and had been blocked for the content of that comment. That says something about how some people live their lives in a state of deluded denial. What type of life guiding philosophy makes it necessary to block out all divergent opinions?

I view it much the same as you do, as quit while I'm ahead scenarios. If people are that screwed up, their decision to not have dialogue with me is a decidedly good thing from my perspective.

posted by gomedome on September 8, 2007 at 12:39 AM | link to this | reply

Gomedome

For them to go on harbouring THEIR delusions of course! OOps!

posted by ariel70 on September 7, 2007 at 2:54 PM | link to this | reply

Gomedome et al

As I guess most of you know, I'm not in here much these days, 'cos I'm off to pastures new.

But when I first logged on again after a long absence, I was shocked to see the demented rantings of a religious fruitcake whose posts might well be direct quotes from a mediaeval Spanish Inquisitor.

And what is truly shocking is to see the numerous flatering comments. " Great post" Lots of good stuff here, X, really made me think!" etc etc.

What the hell had got into people in here that they can't,or won't see such unspeakable trash as what it it is ; the ravings of a mad person?

Needless to say, I'm blocked by this blogger : no great loss, I assure you. I guess you've experienced that more than anyone else in here, 'cos it's the best way to go on harbouring your delusions.

posted by ariel70 on September 7, 2007 at 2:28 PM | link to this | reply

A-and-B - that is very true, I know from my own experiences here on Blogit

that quite often there is no point, I just move on.

But in the case I describe in this post, one self righteous individual misquoted another blogger, referencing his user name while doing so. Any decent person would either retract the post if someone claimed to be misquoted or at the very least prove that the individual had actually said what was contended. The author did neither. How would anyone react to being the subject of ridicule in the post of another based on a misquote? I know that I would not have let it slide.  

posted by gomedome on September 6, 2007 at 10:26 PM | link to this | reply

Not everyone would take up arms and debate a post's contents.

(A)

posted by A-and-B on September 6, 2007 at 7:32 PM | link to this | reply

sannhet - of that there is no doubt but we do not have members of other

religions cloistered in little cliquish groups endorsing the wrong actions of others on this site.

 

posted by gomedome on September 6, 2007 at 6:00 PM | link to this | reply

Gome -

This is true of all religions, not just Christianity.

posted by sannhet on September 6, 2007 at 5:47 PM | link to this | reply

Pat_B - for the most part I avoid those types of blogs as well

There are some amongst the God squad that are very decent people who actually practice what they preach but as in any religious group there are the poseurs, fakes and wannabes. The cliquishness of these people does not surprise me, that is just human nature, but I am constantly amazed at how they continually support and endorse the wrong actions of each other.  

posted by gomedome on September 6, 2007 at 5:17 PM | link to this | reply

I admit I'm probably not smarter than a fifth grader...

but I do avoid blogs by members of the fan club. Sometimes their strident, frantic posturing gets so tiresome it's all I can do to resist saying something well reasoned and insightful that will, in all likelihood, get me blocked.

posted by Pat_B on September 6, 2007 at 3:37 PM | link to this | reply

Troosha - God is still a mystery to me as well and yes it is okay to say it

The "pray for me" posts are a little different. I feel that praying is the power of positive thinking in a different package and have never felt that people should be denied their solace or inspiration. Mind you, there will never come a day that you catch me blubbering incantations to invisible people . . . but that's just me.

posted by gomedome on September 6, 2007 at 12:30 PM | link to this | reply

gomedome

Fire away...  and what about those post that say "pray for me".  I don't even know you and even if I do pray it might be for something more grand than landing a new job or publishing some article.  God is a mystery; one I have yet to fully understand.  Is that ok to say? 

posted by Troosha on September 6, 2007 at 12:22 PM | link to this | reply

kooka_lives - I'm waiting for that to happen and it just might

I couldn't resist my closing line. It is hilarious to me that a chucklehead who has consistently harrassed others and pleaded innocence throughout, has had to use the blocking utility when given a dose of his own medicine. ... and a minor dose at that.

posted by gomedome on September 6, 2007 at 12:21 PM | link to this | reply

You said "God is great" in your post

posted by kooka_lives on September 6, 2007 at 12:08 PM | link to this | reply