Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
To caboosify something is to kill something off, slowly, while lying about your intentions. This is accomplished by consistently and steadfastly insisting that other things be prioritized in front of it — by establishing a moral code that nothing is ever to take a back seat to your designated target. In this way, you starve it to death without taking responsibility for doing so.
Via Rick, we have our latest example: The liberal who “questions” — read that, as “denies” — McCain’s campaign slogan of “Country First.” With a phony halo shimmering over his head, the pious liberal makes his innocent rhetorical query, phony eyelashes batting over his phony dinner-plate-sized eyeballs…our “country” should come in somewhere behind God, shouldn’t it?
First up, Mike Todd:
As followers of Jesus, we should not and cannot put country first. Our allegiance is to the King and the Kingdom, not the president and the country.
…
As a believer my God comes first. Then, I would suggest comes family and/or community, depending on whether or not you view those two terms as separate or not. After that might come country.
Then comes Mike’s hero, Jim Wallis, my favorite pretender:
Should country be put ahead of faith, too? I kept wanting to yell back at the people yelling at me about putting the country first and say, “No, not me, I’m a Christian.” Because we as Christians simply can’t put our country first, ahead of God, ahead of Jesus Christ, ahead of the body of Christ (remember the worldwide body of Christ), and even family and friendship. Especially when our country is wrong, and when most of the rest of the body of Christ around the world thinks so.
It’s a big ol’ plate of bovine feces and I’m having absolutely none of it at all:
This is NOT about which comes first. And I can prove it: These “God Before Country” liberals are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the secular types who want to expunge any tincture of recognition of any Higher Power from anything in public view…e.g., Moses from the Supreme Court building; any facsimile of the Ten Commandments within; “In God We Trust” from our money.
If it was really all about “God Before Country” there would be at least the hint of some schism within the left-wing side, about whether such an exuberant and energized campaign of sanitization is appropriate. Or, if it’s appropriate, whether it should be made a priority. There is no such schism so far as I can see. So ends the “Which Comes First?” argument. It’s a phony charade, nothing more.
No, the Todd/Wallis camp is just proving Ann Coulter correct. Maybe that’s the proper rejoinder — hey, you just proved Ann Coulter right.
Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position.
It isn’t about prioritization; it’s about destruction, plain and simple. Prioritization is just the excuse.
Alice The Camel has been noticing what I’ve noticed, but she found a much more eloquent way of pointing it out. You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s two thousand fourteen words.
If your internet connection will handle it, try turning both clips on at once…
My wireless connection was up to the task, and the effect was spectacular.
What a funny god this liberal god must be. He went and made us…but he doesn’t believe we really exist until our mothers have completed the gestational process. Up until then we’re just tissue and we aren’t human yet. When we cross that vaginal finish line, we have a whole smorgasbord of “rights” which are ours even if they come at the expense of others who have also crossed the vaginal finish line — therefore, a right to property is not included in the smorgasbord. And then the smorgasbord of rights, where it needs definition, is defined by a crude, mob-rule majority of us — if fifty-one percent of us say something is so, it’s an obligation of the other forty-nine to convert or die; if they don’t do either one, then the fifty-one should follow ’em around screaming the words “the majority of” at the top of their longs, along with “kill kill kill.”
Most suspicious of all — this god doesn’t want us to do anything specific. He just wants us to “sacrifice” for the “greater good.”
But like I said, it’s a big sham. There is no god for these people. They want to destroy. Their “god” is simply an excuse — something to toss ahead of the caboose, so you can caboosify it properly, and starve it to death.
I hear Sarah Palin is a cynical pandering ploy, tossed out there to reach across and steal the identity-politic female votes from the democrats — and that it ISN’T GONNA WORK! And yet, someone must be worried; since she was announced as the pick, there are all these little tidbits about left-wingers finding some sort of “god.” How plain do things have to be? They want to convert the Christian-fundie types of folks into voting democrat; ooh, look at me, I’m a democrat, with my hair all polished and slicked to one side of my head, on my way to Sunday School with my Bible tucked under my arm. But listen to that guy identify the relationship between people and his god, as he closes the DNC convention. Think about that. Does this sound like a god who would bother to create people in the first place, as anything besides an exercise in simple entertainment?
They’re trying to believe in a god that made humans, without recognizing that humans might have a purpose in their existence. It is ultimately a train of thought customized for the mind easily distracted; it is a train of thought that would have to be abandoned. For if pursued too long, it is forced to contradict itself. Ultimately, it insists god is nothing more than a little boy with an ant farm, fiddling around with it, toward the fulfillment of no great, important or worthy objective. The little boy is pleased with the ants, or he is displeased with the ants — and our reason for being ends right there.
Update: I had made a mental note to work in Leslie’s link, which is Rev. C.J. Conner’s post addressing this, because I read it top to bottom and was favorably impressed. I got too carried away with my own thoughts and didn’t stick to my knitting.
One world view fosters a culture of service and love, the other a culture of entitlement and bitterness. One world view cultivates a culture of humility and graciousness, the other a culture of audacity and self-centered selfishness.
John McCain’s motto has become “Country First.” It occurs to me that sincere Christians will resonate with him because we put God first, and in putting God first we live our lives expressly for the purpose of serving our neighbor, our community, our country.
This is, the way I see it, a further indictment against the “doesn’t God come before country?” question. It’s a false question because it pre-supposes a mutually-exclusive incompatibility that may not exist, and if one accepts that Creation has a thread of consistency permeating throughout it, probably does not. God puts you on the plane of reality. God puts an object on the plane, within your line-of-sight. You look upon the object and jump to the conclusion that it doesn’t belong there, that God wants you to get rid of it, or to undertake the cleansing and purification that He somehow couldn’t work into His schedule, or perhaps forgot to scribble down into His day-timer in the first place — from where do you get this notion?
It’s not at all unlike your body making the incorrect decision to reject a transplant. Sure, you can argue that God gave you the body and the surgeon gave you the transplant…but God created the surgeon. In the same way, God created the country. Liberals seem to have it in common that they jump to the conclusion the country’s gone all bollywonkers, and it’s up to them as God’s children to reform it, and recruit the rest of us into helping them.
This stuff that the truly pious refer to as “humility,” might have a useful purpose in putting a damper on that kind of codswallop and nonsense. Maybe it’s time our liberals started practicing some of it.
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The men in the second video are evil. There can be no other explanation.
- pdwalker | 09/07/2008 @ 12:08On the “Country First” or “God First”, the real hypocrisy is that if the Republicans had said “God First” they’d’ve been taken to task yet more harshly over that. Heads I win, tails you lose. It doesn’t matter what you say, they’ll make an argument against it. It’s what they DO. It’s actually what they pride themselves in.
I know a little bit about Alex Jones. My dad loves him. He’s not a left winger, really. He’s an insane right-winger. A self-promoting conspiracy theorist. Many on the extreme left buy in to his crap as well because he’s saying a lot of things they are saying. Mainly, it’s all a big conspiracy and bushcheneyhalliburtonbloodforoil. But he is coming at the topic from the extreme right rather than the extreme left. Google or wiki him, or check out “thepowerhour.com”. You’ll soon see. I’m not sure he’s still with them, but he is of them. From what I gather, the two demonstrations broken up outside the RNC were Anarchists — which have members of the extreme left and the extreme right. And when I say extreme here, I’m talkin’ extreme.
It’s my belief that the political specrum is somewhat like a cylinder. The extreme right and the extreme left meet around back and shake hands.
The code pink chicks escorted out of the convention are definitely leftists.
- philmon | 09/07/2008 @ 14:28It’s my belief that the political specrum is somewhat like a cylinder. The extreme right and the extreme left meet around back and shake hands.
Mmmm. Interesting theory.
This would be much easier to measure if humans weren’t sentient beings, because non-sentient things are forced to respond to all forces of nature. Humans get to pick & choose their favorite issues, which are like 1 or 2 out of 40 or 50, and react only to those favorites.
- mkfreeberg | 09/07/2008 @ 14:54The idea that the political spectrum meets at the extremes is a myth pushed by the guilty on the Left. Let’s make a value neutral axis and see if we can get it to “wrap”. Yin to Yang in the Freeberg sense. On the Yin side, the extremist lives by himself as a self sufficient hermit. On the Yang side, the extremist lives for a hive someone else has made, selflessly working with others, also in the hive, for the benifit of that hive. On one side, self determination and will, on the other the death of ego and denial of freedom. I don’t see these points as meeting….. Ok, maybe a bad example. Let’s try Private Property supreme vs Gaea Cannot be Owned. Nope, still not seeing it.
I think what happens(other then the completely understandable self serving myth the Left pushes so they don’t have to take the blame for the Nazis) is that Politics and Civilization are hard. Those who can’t keep up devolve back to the base state for humans, the tribe. This is of course the impulse that binds and drives the Left, but it can happen to groups on the Right who can’t keep up. The Libertarians, Gop 2.0, the Constitutional party, all people who found the game too hard to play and dropped out, and formed their own tribe. They find themselves separate from the Party of Civilization, the Republicans, and end up helping and agreeing with the Democrats, who they would naturally join if their tribal image was not opposed to it(insofar as they see themselves not as losers who have failed at the Great game, but as purer, more “real” Republicans or Conservatives).
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/07/2008 @ 18:05Hmmm…yes, that is also a good point.
I’m feelin’ like Reb Tevya in that “You are also right” scene.
- mkfreeberg | 09/07/2008 @ 18:27?
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/07/2008 @ 18:48Fiddler on the Roof. Available at Netflix.
It’s got a bunch of memorable scenes in it. That one doesn’t even rank too high on the list.
- mkfreeberg | 09/07/2008 @ 19:29Thanks for the heads up. My knowledge of the “popular” culture is weak.
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/07/2008 @ 19:44It’s not really the values I’m talking about so much as conspiracy theories of the people who subscribe to them.
People consider me “extreme right” … mostly because of the persisting perception that the second word automatically implies the first (and further that the two words should never be separated). But I don’t consider myself extreme. I’ve seen extreme. I know extreme. I am, sadly, related to extreme. On the right. And believe me, those on the extreme right and the extreme left do seem to subscribe to the same theories.
But you’re right, their values are different. They are not what meets ’round the back. There’s just an uncanny intersection of explanations.
The extreme Left thinks that BushHiltlerCheneyHaliburtonBloodforOil orchestrated 9/11 so they can force Jesus down our throats and kill all the brown people and keep all the women at home barefoot and pregnant. The extreme Right thinks that BushHilterCheneyHaliburtonBloodforOil orchestrated 9/11 to force the Secular Progressive New World Order down our throats on our way to One World Government under the Joooish Bankers in England.
Oddly, both extremes seem to subscribe to everything eventually boiling down to Jewish Bankers.
How appropriate that Morgan was drawn to the line from “Fiddler on the Roof” 😉
- philmon | 09/08/2008 @ 11:51Robert,
I highly reccomend “Fiddler on the Roof”. One of the better movies in the history of musicals, even movies in general.
- philmon | 09/08/2008 @ 12:05Thanks for your thoughts, Philmon. My clumsy point was and is that you are not extreme, and you are not related to any extreme right. Think of Civilization as a tree, made up of people compromising to make a better life. A truck of Universal shared values, (Judeo Christian for our tree) and branchs of differing visions(open vs. closed borders for example). The Left has decided that the tree is rotten, and have removed themselves from the tree. They will make a better one……. The Right is of the tree. Everyone is on the Right until they chose to stop playing the Game, as Mr. Freeberg danced on the edge with his rant of “if not my candidate, then I won’t play!”. If you remove yourself from the tree as your so called “extreme right” has, then you are rotting on the ground with the rest of the Leftists. Of course they sound the same. Rot is rot. And of course it’s always the Jews, the Yinest of people. Smart about everything except politics, they will always be attacked by whatever Yang group is sowing their oats……
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/08/2008 @ 12:41Oh, no worries. I didn’t take it that way at all. I was just clarifying my metaphor, as yours is also valid. We just weren’t quite talking about the same thing.
And when I say “I am related to extreme”, I speak of my father, not of my actual beliefs. What I mean is, I know all too well what the extreme right believes. I’ve been bludgeoned with it for years by a close family member.
The extreme right wishes the tree could return to what it was when it was a younger tree. (I understand that desire, but that’s not how it works). Some of them think the best way is to cut down the tree and let it throw up new shoots. But the trees rarely become anything like a “tree” again after you do that to them. Besides, we have matured and thrown things like slavery aside and recognized that women are people, too.
It’d be cool if we could graft a comparable-sized trunk and branches of our liking onto the rootstock, but that’s a pretty tall order as well.
I think you, Morgan and I are probably of the opinion that it would benefit from a good agressive pruning, but the tree’s still good.
I don’t know how good a feel I really have for what was going on in Morgan’s head on the “not gonna play” issue, although I can tell you I think he and I could easily be brothers. (How’s that for talking about somebody right in front of them in their own house? 😉 ) For the record, I heard what he was saying but I never really thought he wouldn’t eventually go plunk his nickel down in the election if only to fight the prospect of a President Obama. If it were McCain vs a Bill Clinton, I could see him staying home. But Obama ain’t Bill. I just never said anything about it to him. At least I never told him he should change his mind. I told him what I thought and why. But I had a pretty good idea what he was going through and where he’d end up.
And Palin does change the game and give us hope for the future of the movement. She sounds like she’s not averse to doing a little pruning. She gave both of us a reason to be a little psyched about plunking our nickels down this November.
- philmon | 09/08/2008 @ 14:55All this talk of trees and pruning and grafting and … “I jesth wanna get out the crysthtals an’ chant to the Goddesththth!!!” 😉
- philmon | 09/08/2008 @ 14:58Reading Mr. Mitchell’s first comment (“The Libertarians, Gop 2.0, the Constitutional party, all people who found the game too hard to play and dropped out, and formed their own tribe.”) and then glancing at Morgan’s sidebar… thinking “hmmm.”
And then reading his second comment, and thus, the clarification… still made me go “hmmm.” 😉
Dancing on the edge, as it were. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? I mean The Edge in general, not this particular edge.
- Buck | 09/08/2008 @ 17:46The only place I’ve ever heard of GOP 2.0 was Morgan’s sidebar — and what the graphic says is all I know aobut it.
Frankly, I thought he had come up with it himself.
And frankly, if that’s what it’s all about — I don’t have a problem with it. I’m in favor of all of those things.
[sheepish grin] I guess I should click on the link and find out, eh?
- philmon | 09/08/2008 @ 19:47In light of the stagecoach metaphor above, I guess I should add … GOP 2.0 sounds like San Diego to me.
- philmon | 09/08/2008 @ 19:49Buck, I don’t think you are a Man if you have never been tempted to hoist the Jolly Roger and start slitting throats. A Man has the skills, know-how and will to survive without Civilization. But we are gentlemen are we not? And gentlemen protect and aid the less able, with a happy heart(and yet the centurion looked past the wall and took a barbarian wife……).
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/08/2008 @ 20:15Well I haven’t met him face to face, but we’ve been reciprocating links for over two years now and I think I’m in a position to vouch. Buck is ALL man. I mean…I’ll vouch, up to a point. You’ll have to interview some of his bedroom conquests to get the final word, but guy-to-guy, in my book Mr. Pennington’s alright in the dude-department.
- mkfreeberg | 09/08/2008 @ 20:48Hello, sir! I was not questioning Bucks manhood. I am questioning the manhood of those who have never been close enough to the edge to be tempted, as you and Buck have been.
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/08/2008 @ 20:54