...the school’s leadership refuses to use the language or morality, or moral absolutes. It couches everything it says in the language of liberalism, which is to say, in consent and procedure...Whereas previously the Holy Ghost wrote the disciplinary policies. This is also, per Dreher, why we don't have another MLK; I thought it was because we tend to shoot them. Inevitably:
This is why what is happening in Baltimore is linked to what is happening on Capitol Hill at the Supreme Court today. America in 2015 is a culture that defines the good as whatever the individual says it is.Son of a gun, he brought it back home! Eventually, Dreher revisits:
It’s society’s fault. It always is. In this view, poor black people are always acted upon, and are never moral agents.Also, Freddie Gray "was a layabout who had a bail bondsman the way other people have an auto mechanic," thugs, black fatherlessness, etc. -- why, it's as if Dreher remembered there were other people besides homosexuals for him to hate! He ends thus:
...we will get absolutely nowhere toward harmonizing our badly fractured communities if all we do is blame Somebody Else, or some abstraction — White People, Black People, History, Social Injustice — for our own sins and failings, both individual and collective.If self-awareness were a virus, scientists could build a vaccine off Dreher's immunity.
UPDATE. Many alicublog commenters note the howling irony of Dreher complaining that a sexual assault policy is based on "consent and procedure." ("The language of 'consent and procedure' officially became the basis of our legal system in 1215," says Gromet. "Leave it to Dreher to find the High Middle Ages too liberal.") The lack of clarity among conservatives on the concept of consent is well documented, but it will always be worse with Brother Rod, an every-head-shall-bow-and-every-knee-shall-bend type who probably left Catholicism because they wouldn't let him into Opus Dei.
Kudos to Megalon: "You better watch it, America! The Rod From God is THIS CLOSE to opening a serious can of smite ass!"
Oh, and Dreher has a new Baltimore post up, basically a new entry in the Longest Way To Say 'They're Animals' Competition. And he cites Kevin D. Williamson as a moral authority! Here's an example of Williamson's writing on the riots:
Translation: All liberals are white (blacks are Mau-Maus or something) and they're all as scared of black people as I am.
we will get absolutely nowhere toward harmonizing our badly fractured
ReplyDeletecommunities if all we do is blame Somebody Else, or some abstraction —
White People, Black People, History, Social Injustice — for our own sins
and failings, both individual and collective.
Ha ha, I can just imagine him saying this about police instead of rioters. No, wait, I can't.
Also, first paragraph: "the the religious"
"It couches everything it says in the language of liberalism, which is to say, in consent and procedure"
ReplyDeleteAnother leftist outrage! What on earth could consent have to do with sexual assault!?
"This is why what is happening in Baltimore is linked to what is
happening on Capitol Hill at the Supreme Court today. America in 2015 is
a culture that defines the good as whatever the individual says it is."
You better watch it, America! The Rod From God is THIS CLOSE to opening a serious can of smite ass!
Hmm. Does this mean that religious schools are the new liberal dinner party?
ReplyDeleteEven the Old Testament God wasn't as vindictive as Rod is. It's "an eye for an eye," Rod -- not "your spine severed for having a bail bondsman."
ReplyDeleteHoly shit. He actually includes this quote from Councilman Brandon Scott, out of the Baltimore Sun, in his opening:
ReplyDelete“We cannot let this be a repeat of 1968,” when riots broke out after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. ”The neighborhood they’re in right now is still burned down from 1968.”
Hmmm. You think maybe that's part of the problem? That some shit burned down almost 50 fucking years ago and no one bothered to fix it, because no one who matters has to live there? You think the people who live there haven't noticed no one bothered to fix it because no one thinks they matter?
Like roy said, if self-awareness were a virus, scientists could build a vaccine off Dreher's immunity.
I can't even hate-read Dreher anymore -- the hate part entirely overwhelms any attempt at reading.
ReplyDeleteI honestly can't get past the idea that we could fix things if we'd only stop blaming someone else and abstractions but we can't because it's all culture's fault.
ReplyDeleteDisorder in Baltimore is (a) a repeat of events that have happened repeatedly in the past ("It’s society’s fault. It always is"), and
ReplyDelete(b) the symptom of a moral decline that is unique to 2015.
It's uncanny. He misses the point every damn time.
ReplyDelete"In the end, I said, it comes down to whether or not there is a standard
ReplyDeleteof truth outside of ourselves to which we must conform, or whether or
not the body and the world of matter is inert material upon which we can
impose our will."
Whatever anyone thinks of the Bible, it was written piece by piece, over a time frame of a thousand years by a collection of individuals, each of whom was convinced that Yahweh was whispering in their ear. And then the Council of Nicaea decided what to put in, and what to leave out. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the Bible has the greasy fingerprints of humans all over it, and is just not up to the task of satisfying folks like Rod. Those who are looking for standards of truth outside ourselves, will need nothing less than a Burning Bush Moment, complete with the voice of... umm... whoever... dictating those standards on live TV. Till then, we'll all just have to wing it as best we can.
Yeah, this is a shining example of "stick to what you know." In Rod Dreher's case, he knows two things: how to finger wag at sexual permissiveness, and where the five star restaurants are. I see Jamelle Bouie of Slate has picked up on this post, so hopefully Rod has a twitter pile-on coming in the very near future. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
ReplyDeleteYour last line in spades, Roy.
ReplyDeleteFor a self-anointed "thinker" Dreher is brain dead to looking at other countries and realizing how fucking stupid his conclusions truly are.
Here's a suggestion to all the dreary Dreher dopes out there in gum-my-own-knob pundit pornland: before you write or say something maybe have a look at other countries, other cultures, other societies in the world and see if maybe their reality completely destroys the worthless sticky mess you're ejaculating all over the credulous.
Perhaps look further that your own miasmic crotch to see if your contention that a country not bound by Christianity comes completely unraveled. Maybe quit sniffing your own ass long enough to notice that countries that have allowed same-sex marriage have not devolved into lawlessness and riot. And maybe, just fucking maybe quit tugging at your poor abused member just long enough to note that while the world keeps spinning and time moves forward and everything is changing, changing changing, you're still staring longingly at that poor abused snapshot of your grade-school crush and wondering how, even back then, she knew you for the pathetic twit you are.
It's a brave new world, same as it ever was.
ReplyDelete. The administration is trying to figure out how to address it effectively, but the school’s leadership refuses to use the language or morality, or moral absolutes. It couches everything it says in the language of liberalism, which is to say, in consent and procedure. This does not work. This cannot constrain the desiring hearts and bodies of the students. It leaves them utterly confused, and at the mercy of their passions.
ReplyDeleteYeah. As a secular liberal a couple things come to mind here:
1. "DON'T RAPE" is pretty clear and
2. Raping is condoned in the Bible.
3. So fuck you.
the concepts and the language of the Bible
ReplyDeleteAnd they were in the parking lot of the school, in the shadows of the trees and they saw a place they believed they could smoke a blunt without disturbance. Lo they were wrong, for an apostle of the school administration smote them with sticks and rocks and sent the bodies to the homes of their parents, where there was wailing. And the country was made sound and the riots ended.
The language of "consent and procedure" officially became the basis of our legal system in 1215. Leave it to Dreher to find the High Middle Ages too liberal.
ReplyDeleteThe Holy Ghost in action at Kent State:
ReplyDeletehttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/65/Kent_State_massacre.jpg
~
That's in his job description. Same with Tommy Friedman and the rest of the lot.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/shock-of-the-century-thomas-friedman-supports-the-trans-pacific-partnership
~
It doesn't occur to Rod who did the actual work of building this country, only to achieve second class status as human beings. The reason this is still a problem is because whites are the only people with the means to redress the wrongs.
ReplyDeleteThat alone means justice will never fucking happen.
Rod is too much of a straight up authoritarian to have read the gospels for any other reason than to move his lips.
And you thought he was just some kind of raw talent? Hell no! He works hard at missing the piint.
ReplyDeletemissing the piint.
ReplyDeleteNow I want a beer.
This cannot constrain the desiring hearts and bodies of the students. It leaves them utterly confused, and at the mercy of their passions.
ReplyDeleteShorter Rod: These kids don't need the penumbra of the law, or even in loco parentis. They need pants made of fiberglass insulation, and a knout.
Only a saint can be a victim. That's why Jesus stayed away from criminals and prostitutes.
ReplyDeleteIt couches everything it says in the language of liberalism, which is to say, in consent and procedure
ReplyDeleteI always assumed that "consent," at least in this context, counted as a form of morality. But I guess if you don't end it with "GOD'S GONNA KICK YOUR ASS," it's not timeless enough to pass the Dreher approval test.
Excuse me, pointing out the ways in which society is tilted against black people is refusing to acknowledge personal responsibility. Being oppressed by the system is no excuse not to succeed - just ask the people favored by the system, they're real good at understanding the lessers.
ReplyDeleteFigured out some 45 years ago that the Bible is a really shitty place to look for moral absolutes.
ReplyDeleteRod: People accuse me of harkening back to an idealized earlier time. I don't do that. I just discuss how we used to be united under God until we fell from Grace.
ReplyDeleteAlso Rod: A Christian college, one that has " common faith, and commitment to an external source of moral authority" one presumes, has a multitude of rapists on campus. The campus authority should have use moral absolutes to address the crimes committed by students who already follow the tenets of moral absolutes. Instead they use legal words. That is why we can't have nice things.
Also, rapes are committed by people at the mercy of their passions.
Needless to say rape victims are not "at the mercy of their [own]passsions. They are attacked by other people 's passions. They dont get raped by an ambiguous culture. They get assaulted by actual people.
ReplyDeleteOr anything else really. Honestly, it's not even an enjoyable read. The best bits have become part of our cliche collective. The rest is dreck.
ReplyDeleteIf ol' Rod is really looking for some standard of truth outside of himself, it's actually fairly simple: Dreher is just plain full of old-timey revival cum carnival tent shit.
ReplyDeleteRod disdains--hates, really--consent, because he traded his for "faith" and is pissed that no one else is suffering sufficiently not having made the same deal. He and his lot are sad and/or enraged because the rest of the world fails to applaud and emulate their version of "being moral."
ReplyDeleteYou say to him, "But Rod, your version of morality consists in trying to feel noble for being miserable, all in the hope of some vaguely promised eternal reward afterwards," and he says, "Exactly! What's the problem?"
He doesn't believe in intrinsic human decency, as he has none.
ReplyDeleteDon't you mean, "only a victim can be a saint"? And that's what Rod is in perpetual training for?
ReplyDeleteThe Supreme Court - Baltimore confluence is a meme in bagistan right now. Dreher is an echo.
ReplyDeleteI can see the Russian Orthodox Church busily fashioning a new icon: St. Rod the Insufferable.
ReplyDeleteIt's enraging. He posits it as some kind of unknowable here in the year of our lord 2015. HOW CAN STUDENTS KNOW NOT TO RAPE? THEY HAVE PASSIONS! It has to be liberalism, because of moral relativity (?! No Means No literally is absolute) and "consent" doesn't work (which is a staggering admission and proof, once again, conservatives really don't get the concept at all). Worse, organized religions and their "moral absolutes" are absolutely the worst, psychosexual, completely anachronistic misinformers about human sexuality that there can ever be. He's such a shit.
ReplyDeleteI took a "Bible as history" class in undergrad. That book is the torments of hell itself, if you actually have to read it.
ReplyDeleteI've known people who studied the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic to read the various books. It's not a huge sample, but it is profoundly apeshit.
language of liberalism, which is to say...consent
ReplyDeleteHow is it that a group of people to whom "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" is the finest sentence penned at least since the KJV Bible, have no actual understanding of what the word "consent" even means? I have no great respect for the mental processes of religionists, but come on, this is basic dictionary stuff...
Here's an irony (as if we need one). He rejects personal consent as too subjective and individualistic a way to acquire and sustain a moral sense. But it's been his modus operandi as regards religion itself.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to accept the faith you grew up in. It's another to be inspired, to have a come-to-Jesus (or Whomever) moment that (I assume) sweeps you away.
But imagine shopping around for a religion. What does that mean? It means you're shlepping through Bloomingdale's in search of just the right suit for the job interview next week. You have an a priori set of requirements. He invokes his list of subjective criteria until he finds a faith that fits, then turns to everyone else and condemns them for the same thing.
I know--I'm saying a self-righteously pious person is a hypocrite. I hope I can live with myself after that.
Don't they say (all too often) that everything you need to know is in the Bible? Fuck that dictionary stuff. Religious context is all that's necessary. After all, the Holy Ghost Humpty Dumpty says that words can mean whatever one wants them to mean.
ReplyDeleteThis implication that there's no fundamental difference between consensual sex and rape is easily one of the most nauseating and insulting aspects of rape apologia. Set aside the moral issues for a moment - the thought of rape is physically repulsive to me. I have been in situations in which I did not have sex with a woman because her tension and unease suggested that she wasn't interested. This was not me "resisting my passions," it was me not being a sick-minded son of a bitch.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, Dreher, just fuck right off. Don't you dare preach to me about morality and don't even think about trying to excuse the actions of others by dragging me into your scummy little worldview.
In the 70s I went to a couple marches on Washington, and was amazed/amused to read, the very next day in the New York Times, certain statements about it that I knew, firsthand, were wrong. This, from pro reporters sent there explicitly to take notes and describe what had happened, in accounts literally less than a day old.
ReplyDeleteThe Gospel of Mark (the first one written) was probably written in 66 AD--two generations after JC died. How accurate are we supposed to think it is? When someone like Andrew Sullivan says "I believe in the empty tomb" I want to say, ARE YOU NUTZ?
"It's society’s fault. It always is. In this view, poor black people are always acted upon, and are never moral agents."
ReplyDeleteI'm so sick of this shit and its variants re: the poor, etc., etc. In every discussion of every issue, if you try to take all relevant factors into consideration, conservatives complain. The view Dreher describes is vanishingly rare, but because sensible people often cite societal factors without adding an individual-responsibility disclaimer, conservatives get to play this tedious reductionist game. In this example, the point of playing the game is to be racist. That's all that Baltimore means to them.
Why should we have to add a ridiculous individual-responsibility disclaimer to every fucking statement about a social problem that mentions, you know, societal problems? Is that any way to make progress? So some asshole who should know better can lecture us for the billionth time about how black people, or poor people or whomever, are in fact moral agents? We know.
Free will and willpower aren't magical. Maybe Dreher thinks the "Magic Negro" trope is about black guys who can prevent themselves from being killed by cops, perhaps via time-travel or ESP. As if a time-travelling Freddie Gray who had no bail bondsman would obviously be alive today. It sounds absurd, but just listen to 'em. The whole "selling loose cigarettes" business, and on and on.
But hey, Dreher is happy to discuss societal factors when it suits him, and how it suits him. A Supreme Court ruling that he doesn't like, for example, would send ripples throughout our society, corroding morals. No church or school or free-thinking willful individual could just shrug off the implications of the ruling. Just like in the school Dreher mentions, the one with the sexual assault problem: he blames society, and never thinks to suggest that the only admissible fact is that the rapists could stop raping. They could, but they're probably white Christian youths and so Dreher shifts his rhetorical emphasis from bad individuals to whatever institutions he's comfortable attacking.
This is his idea of thoughtful -- he's the moral one, see? What a shameless hack.
He knows a religious school where they have a sexual assault problem, and the obvious reason is that society no longer adheres to "the concepts and the language of the Bible,"
ReplyDeleteThe reason we didn't have sexual assault problems 40 years ago was because we turned any victim who came forward into a social pariah, not because Christians are better people than secular heathens and that sort of thing didn't happen when they controlled everything. Fuck Rod and his language of the Bible.
Thinks he's "thy Rod and (Chief of) Staff"...
ReplyDeleteApparently the new Donner party.
ReplyDeleteI would like to take this comment back to my place and show it my cilice collection.
ReplyDelete"America in 20152005 1995198519751967 is a culture that defines the good as whatever the individual says it is." That shit never gets old.
ReplyDeleteShorter Rod: Gay marriage is to blame for the Baltimore protests.
ReplyDeleteNo, really. Read his blog.
He's completely gone off the deep end here, and for Rod, that's saying something. God help him if the Supreme Court makes a pro-gay marriage ruling - I can't even imagine what he'll do.
I stand by my earlier comment that there has never been a human being, living or dead, gay or straight, more obsessed with homosexuality than Rod Dreher. I will wager any amount of money that Rod's got a big gay secret.
It won't last, though. Rod has a meticulously curated Twitter feed. Everything on it is either Rod or praise for Rod. Interesting how that works.
ReplyDeleteIrony.
ReplyDeleteWell, there it is, folks, what we've always suspected -- a right-winger who says explicitly that he has a problem with consent.
ReplyDeleteHe's looking for a belief that will tell him to do & think whatever he wants, and to excuse all his horrible faults, like hatred and total lack of compassion or empathy. He hates gays/blacks/other religions because God says so!!!11#
ReplyDeleteSo the concept of "consent" is Liberal! Well! well!
ReplyDeleteHis language unintentionally reveals Dreher's (and about a zillion other conservatoids') bizarre stand that the rapist is the victim--(of false accusations; rampant feminism; deprivation of his rights as a potential father; property theft; denigration of his manhood; etc. etc.). "Society" (whatever the fuck that means to folks like Dreher) has let them down. They are not to blame for succumbing to their natural baseness, if there is no fear of gawd keeping 'em in line.
ReplyDeleteWell, fuck you, Rod Dreher. I have an issue with fluid getting trapped in my eustachian tubes and that only started happening after I baked that cake for that gay wedding. So I'll blame the goddamn gays for my allergy/sinus issues if I want, a-hole.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if he quit missing pints he'd be more pleasant to be around.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I don't recall Dreher writing a single word about the murder of one of his fellow Christians. Or did he call this guy a "layabout" too?
ReplyDeletehttp://images.wjla.com/crime/walter-scott-abcnews_606.jpg
You have an a priori set of requirements.
ReplyDeleteI 'read that as "a prion set", and it fitted just as well.
Part of the problem is that Christianity is not in a good position to condemn dubious-consent impregnation.
ReplyDeleteI would like this comment printed on a t-hairshirt.
ReplyDeleteI have an issue with fluid getting trapped in my eustachian tubes
ReplyDelete"Prick up your ears" is a metaphor, B Spenser.
And if brains were dynamite, Rod couldn't even blow his nose.
ReplyDeleteI think you guys just proved that saint = victim.
ReplyDeleteI do NOT want to be comforted by that Rod!
ReplyDeleteWhat holds us together, or could hold us together? One might have said once upon a time that Christianity did — that’s what Tocqueville saw — and later, one might have said civic religion (generic Christianity + “Americanism”).
ReplyDeleteYes, one could very well have said that if one wanted to see some Founding Fathers dissolve into hysterical laughter.
Also Dreher somehow got the impression that Baltimoreans were rioting because of "the lawlessness in their hearts" and not the lawlessness in their police department.
Funny, Rod usually stokes a craving for something harder.
ReplyDeleteBy amazing coincidence "Cum Carnival" is the title of a video that Rod accidentally downloaded. Twice!
ReplyDeleteGod in his wisdom took you by the hand,
ReplyDeleteGod in his wisdom made you understand
https://youtu.be/66DAjsJy4bc
I like the way that rape is the fault of liberal consent culture, according to Rod.
ReplyDeleteIf only the school followed Biblical rules, and forced the victims to marry their rapists instead! Or stoned them for not shouting for help, and thus presumably consenting -- ugh! -- to sex, the wicked sluts. So much better for society! It's amazing how not even the most extreme and politicallly influential Haredi groups are trying to restore that practice, can't imagine why not!
"Objective morality" conservatives honestly don't realize the horrifying things they reveal about themselves when they talk about consent.
ReplyDeleteWhich is horrifying in its own right.
Om would be our best bet, but with our luck we'd get Rod's god, better known as Nuggan...
ReplyDelete"Rod Dreher" isn't quite on a level with "Randy Boehning," but it's close!
ReplyDeleteHis first instinct
ReplyDeleteis to tell us the rioters have "lawlessness in their hearts," but list
ye, sinners, for "the rest of us are destroying the basis for
self-governance and order in our polis too."
I bet his take on the old conservative "problem with Black America" trope is that Little Richard single-handedly bears the blame.
They don't read the Constitution, they just use it as a fetish object. Similarly, their Bibles are just pages of the repeating text: "All forgiveness and no smiting makes God a dull boy."
ReplyDeleteI want to buy this comment a drink and some bar food, although nothing too fancy--it and I are of the people, as you know.
ReplyDeleteAnd you'd think they'd be somewhere else on the death penalty, too...
ReplyDelete"HOW CAN STUDENTS KNOW NOT TO RAPE?" Without the message of St. Breitbart, they are lost.
ReplyDelete40 years ago in order to prove rape in New York, there had to be a witness. Because all rapists make sure to do their raping in front of unbiased third parties.
ReplyDeleteSo that's it. I was wondering too.
ReplyDeleteIf self-awareness were a virus, scientists could build a vaccine off Dreher's immunity.
ReplyDeleteWould that require chopping him very finely, and then pureeing and centrifuging the result? I ask, of course, with love.
Rod thinks about long, erect staffs a lot. A lot.
ReplyDeleteThat's why Rod has at least 3 or 4 religions left in him. This is a guy who will likely soon find the freaking Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia - the SSPX of the Russian Orthodox Church - too liberal.
ReplyDeleteHe'll be in a pickle, though - where will he religion that is a) aesthetically pleasing, b) radically conservative and victim-blaming, c) full of closet cases like himself, and d) obscure enough that he can get that hipster rush of "I'm cooler than you because you've never heard of my favorite band"?
He'll have to go his own way, eventually. Rod the Prophet, founder of his religion of one.
If the school were to apply moral absolutes, wouldn't they be handing over accused rapists to the police for proper investigation and possible prosecution? It seems that schools of any ideological stripe are trying hard to deal with the problem of campus rape by protecting the accused and sweeping the problem under the rug.
ReplyDeleteIn pre-Vatican II Catholic school, we were taught the difference between imperfect contrition and perfect contrition. Perfect contrition is sorrow for sin because you recognize that you fucked up and hurt God's feelings. Imperfect contrition is fear of punishment. God will accept the latter, but prefers the former. Now there's a moral absolute for you.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they can commission Chris Ofili to create that icon:
ReplyDeleteIn my early catechistic innocence about 30 years ago, I posed that question to a young priest of my newfound faith. "How can the Bible be right about everything, when there were so many hands on it and so much contention?" was more or less my question. "It's the mystery of the Holy Spirit," was the answer.
ReplyDeleteWhich explained everything!
Miracles, schmiracles. Give me Buddhism any day. Their only requirement of belief is that doing good in the world is the most important thing in life.
Rod just wants to call a spade a spade.
ReplyDeleteEverything they need to know is in the Bible. The problem is that all the pages of their Bibles are stuck together so that the book always (and only) opens to that passage in Leviticus about men lying with men.
ReplyDelete3. So fuck you against your will.
ReplyDeleteFTFY
I would like to find the t-hairshirt rack at Wal-Mart.
ReplyDelete"An eye for an eye" still works pretty well for most of them. For them that pays more attention to the Old Testament than the New, that is.
ReplyDeleteFor most conservatives, the Bible is like the Constitution. God only said two things: You must be born again, and NO HOMOS, DAMNIT!!!! All the rest of the book doesn't even rise to the level of commentary. The Constitution consists of the Second Amendment and nothing else.
ReplyDeleteIm so glad at least they've dropped the "with love" shtick. That was such an insult to the very concept.
ReplyDeleteKeta, you gotta understand that for lots of anti-gay people, the only thing that keeps them from being gay is the law. If gay marriage become legal, what will prevent someone like Rod from marrying his grade-school crush, Stephen? Nothing! (And given Rod's inability to understand the idea of consent, not even Stephen's being straight would cock-block Rod's rod.)
ReplyDeleteBrompton's cocktail.
ReplyDelete"This land in 1667 is a culture that defines the goode as what the individual might wish it to be--like those damnable Dutchmen over by the Longe Islande."
ReplyDeleteThe Puritans
And lo did the pot smokers languish in prison down to the seventh generation because there were no fathers to educate the sons, for they were always languishing in prison because of Holy America's severe drug laws which seemed to ensnare Black Americans far more assiduously than they did White Americans. And lo did White America peer down its nose at Black America and accuse it of embracing felonious customs when truly it was White America that had built the very cage in which Black America found itself imprisoned.
ReplyDeleteIt IS hard to get through all those "begats."
ReplyDeleteFine, Rod. I blame you and people who share your views. Satisfied?
ReplyDeleteGet Marcus Bachmann on the horn, stat!
ReplyDeleteI'm beginning to detect a pattern with Rod:
ReplyDelete1.) Here is a bad thing that a good Christian like me feels bad about and wants to solve.
2.)I shouldn't feel bad because it's their own fault.
3.)Hang the bastards.
He's still at it. The poor are miserable because of their thug culture. It's their responsibility to solve their problems. The Turkish Muslims (!) have a community and moral standards. Their poverty is the right kind of poverty. Nobody gives them money and they don't riot.
They always say they'll go Galt but they never go.
So this will have to be short, I could spend a career writing "The Big Book of What's Wrong with Rod Dreher" but not even Rod would read it unless I subtitled it "as revealed to me by a vision from the holy St somebody or other". But here's the conclusion, because of his clinging to his interpretation of his preferred translation of the bible as the ultimate arbiter of morality, he reveals himself to be what St. Augustine (I believe) called a "dumb ass chump, a first rate sucker, and a useful idiot as long as you don't leave him unsupervised with a sharp object, a pen and paper or a half assed religious education". Of course Rod is uncomfortable with consent. His idea of the great chain of being has no room for it, there's only command and compliance or willful rebellion. There was no 'consent' in the story of Abraham when he was asked to sacrifice his son. There's no 'consent' in the ten commandments. There's no 'consent' anywhere in the 10 or so pages of the bible that he actually reads. Rod hates the idea of consent because he doesn't understand the first thing about it. Rod hates the idea of democracy because he can't imagine the people have any idea how society ought to be run, because they haven't turned America into Rod's own theocracy and they've had almost 240 years to get it done. Despite his education and accomplishments as a writer, there's something between Rod's ears that is badly out of calibration with the rest of the modern world. I mean anyone who thinks the "lawlessness in their hearts" of the rioters in Baltimore is a bigger problem than an out of control police department that straight up murders the public they are supposed to protect, is a person with whom I don't have much in common, morally speaking. I'd probably have better luck trying to talk about morals with a coelacanth than I would with Rod the dreary.
ReplyDeleteShorter Dreher: "Free will for me but not for thee."
ReplyDeleteYep. The very opposite of "Kill them all, God will know his own." (Which, when you think about it, is really what Rod's alluding to.)
ReplyDeleteI see you've met my oldest sister, a true Friend of Rod. Her plan for gays includes a wall and lots and lots of bullets. God is on her side, dontcha know.
ReplyDeleteWell, to steal a line from "Fiddler On The Roof", I hope your sister's God blesses her and keeps her - far away from you.
ReplyDeleteWhy is this so hard for him? (Rhetorical question, I know.) "That which is hateful unto thee, do not unto others."
ReplyDelete"He knows a religious school where they have a sexual assault problem, and the obvious reason is that society at large no longer adheres to 'the concepts and the language of the Bible,'"
ReplyDeleteAhh yes, the same thing that befell Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, various Pentecostal Minister Caught With Wetsuit And Hookers Of The Weeks, etc., etc. It's those damn dirty libruls that made em do it.
And right there we have proof of Rod's elitism ("elitism" being a term of hate by fellow wingers); he can shop for his One True Faith, while the rest of us - who are also making our own moral choices - are not allowed to do so in Rod's opinion.
ReplyDeleteAs noted before, only the prospect of punishment keeps these assholes from doing horrible things. And nothing, apparently, is enough to motivate them to do good things like caring for the sick, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, etc.
ReplyDeleteGiven that saying originated in the Crusades it is not a wonder in the least that Rightous Rod believes it to be spot-on.
ReplyDelete"Translation: All liberals are white" -- well he's not saying "all liberals", just "all my lefty friends", which it's certainly believable do not include any non-whites.
ReplyDeleteTruly, I do the Lord's work - by staying as far away as possible.
ReplyDeleteThey were on to those essence-stealing hussies the whole time!
ReplyDeletea self-righteously pious person is a hypocrite
ReplyDeleteThat hippie from Nazareth was always going on about that same thing.
All of 'em, Katie!
ReplyDeleteSo that's why rape victims were always sauntering around in sexy negligees! To attract not just potential rapists, but also witnesses so they could claim rape and cash in on the fame and fortune of being a rape victim, as is every little girl's dream. It's all starting to make a certain kind of wingnut sense now.
ReplyDeleteI suspect he's whining about due process and civil rights as onerous (and, therefore, a liberal invention). In essence, he's saying that if we had judicial systems that depended upon God, and not Man, well, then, we wouldn't have all this trouble with strumpets tempting men. Or something.
ReplyDeleteAnd, it seems, other conservatives agree with Brother Rod. Procedure does get in the way.
People love to bounce back and forth. They cite the OT for justifying horrible shit but when you point out that the horrible shit is just as horrible as anything those skeery mooslims believe then they point to the more peaceful parts of the NT. Ignoring all along, of course, the numerous contradictions between the two T's. Their ability to maintain such levels of cognitive dissonance proves that miracles are real.
ReplyDeleteThe explicit racists seem to be coming out of the woodwork in the comments section.
ReplyDeleteAlways encouraging to see someone pick up a straight line that's been patiently waiting for someone to do so.
ReplyDelete"Tutti-Frutti has damned this nation..."
ReplyDeleteI think what he is saying is that all sexual sins are equally bad: fornication, masturbation, sodomy, rape, they're all the same to this "moral" cretin.
ReplyDelete"We're just not moral enough in Rod's mote log-filled eyes."
ReplyDeleteAnd, let's not forget that those Puritans had damned near as good a scientific test--on a par with DNA matching--for detecting witchcraft.
ReplyDeleteThere's no due process like Gawd's due process, bitchez.
" I can't even imagine what he'll do."
ReplyDeleteHe'll do what he's always done. He'll whine like Columba Bush at U.S. Customs.
Even if he's got "a big gay secret," I'll put money on it being of the Roy Cohn variety.
... And a fanatical opposition to abortion. Well, since the 1970's anyway.
ReplyDeleteFred Clark of "younger than the Happy Meal" fame has also noted the growing opposition to contraception in general (see, e.g., Hobby Lobby), and expects that the list of inerrant, immutable tenets of fundamentalist Protestant Christianity will have to be updated in a decade or so include "We have always been at war with the Pill."
You have to admit: The rioting in Baltimore would be a lot more fun if everyone were well armed.
ReplyDelete... and for some of them, the pages somehow end up even more stuck together.
ReplyDeletehe reveals himself to be what St. Augustine (I believe) called a "dumb
ReplyDeleteass chump, a first rate sucker, and a useful idiot as long as you don't
leave him unsupervised with a sharp object, a pen and paper or a half
assed religious education".Which Rod no doubt has added to the list of doctrines of Augustine not accepted by Orthodox Christianity.
As Jimmy Swaggart has proved time and again, confessing to being subverted by temptation is very profitable. It's a wonder that Brother Rod hasn't begged for forgiveness for fucking a calf or two.
ReplyDelete"I wonder if any of my lefty friends in the DC suburbs are rethinking their Second Amendment rights this week."You don't have any lefty friends, Kevin. The tells are: (1) you don't use pejorative terms like "lefty" to label actual friends; and (2) you're a morally-bankrupt bigoted reactionary shitstain who should count himself lucky if he has any friends, given your utter worthlessness as a human being.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Kevin, you think it would be better for rioters to be carrying firearms, eh? Why do you hate cops so much?
It's not enough for guns to have a function in some situations - they must become the solution to life's problems, just like the 2nd amendment is the only right worth discussing in connection with Baltimore or anywhere else there's a culture of police brutality and broken communities.
ReplyDeleteThat sentiment, combined with the flippant shit-eating tone, combined with the flippant shit-eating disregard for human life in particular black lives, makes that tweet such a neat little stinking pile of shit.
And in regards to all of this invoking of the Bible… I'll say as someone who has studied (and still studies) the Bible that I wish these people would shut up about the Bible. If they are religious, they should examine their own souls and work on improving their character, not put on a grotesque show of moral preening and sneering.
Williamson is an acknowledged leader in the "passive-aggressive revery" movement.
ReplyDeleteRe: Williamson's Tweet about "rethinking their Second Amendment rights"--Apparently the only possible response to Blacks trapped in an inner city where they're deprived of opportunity, education, employment, and even basic respect is to shoot them. I guess even considering thinking about maybe examining why these people are so angry is just not possible.
ReplyDeleteSo, break out the guns! It will be another example of American Exceptionalism if we can mow down hundreds of our fellow citizens because we just don't want to grant them access to the American Dream.
Song of Solomon is completely unreadable.
ReplyDelete"Jesus is all about peace and love, which is why we should kill all those Muslims."
ReplyDeleteThis guy liked it, but I still don't get it.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/tKuSMJ47klA
Said "external morality" doesn't actually keep the morally superior ones from killing, raping, etc. as history shows.
ReplyDeleteKevin just wants to return the USA to it's core competence. Killing off the natives and taking their real estate and their stuff.
ReplyDeleteWhat's 2/3 of a 2nd amendment?
ReplyDeleteAnother argument for biblical inerrancy. It predicted Grindr.
ReplyDeleteAnd everything in it is true, even the parts that contradict the other parts.
ReplyDelete-B. Simpson
Mandatory free will for everyone whether you want it or not.
ReplyDeleteGotta get down to it
ReplyDeleteSoldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
1. Kevin Williamson's "lefty friends" are probably about as real as the imaginary friend that I had when I was two years old.
ReplyDelete2. Oh, no! They're rioting in Baltimore. All of us in the DC suburbs who are miles and miles away from any disturbance whatsoever should arm ourselves in case those animals come rampaging after us!
Reactionaries really are the biggest cowards in the world.
Eh, entirely too licentious and perhaps too well-known for the ever-seeking Divining Rod -
ReplyDeletewe will get absolutely nowhere toward harmonizing our badly fractured
ReplyDeletecommunities if all we do is blame Somebody Else, or some abstraction —
White People, Black People, History, Social Injustice — for our own sins
and failings, both individual and collective.
Who do we blame for the fact that Freddie Gray had lead poisoning as a child, twice the (almost certainly too high) state legal indicator for it?
Criminal: "It's a fair cop, but society is to blame."
ReplyDeletePoliceman: "Agreed. We'll be charging them too."
—Monty Python, "Dead Vicar on the Landing" sketch
Definitely skip the book of Numbers. There are some nifty parts of Isaiah, though, and some good social justice in places like Amos (and other "minor prophets") and the New Testament.
ReplyDelete"consent and procedure"
ReplyDeleteHold on a minute...I thought that consent and procedure was why we don't have the cops running us down at any moment of the night or day and taking our stuff for no reason and arresting us without warrants or probable cause or stopping and frisking us randomly on street corners or hassling our old people or setting off flash-grenades under the cribs of our infants or roughing us up or bloodying us or putting us into the morgue without cause.
Oh wait.
The more you know: Raëlianism, a sex 'n' Space Brothers cult founded by a French race-car driver!
ReplyDelete3/5ths?
ReplyDeleteThere weren't many guns in The Bibble.
ReplyDelete... except that one version approved by the Texas Schoolbook Commission.
ReplyDeleteHOPPY BEER DAY, yesterday!
ReplyDeleteAh, but Jesus and his buddies had that one sword between them. So it makes sense for American civilians to have 300 million guns or so.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Rod's problem is that he doesn't consent to masturbation, but it keeps happening to him anyway.
ReplyDeleteA bit premature - Today is my HOPPY BEER DAY. But many thanks none the less!
ReplyDelete"Reactionaries really are the biggest cowards in the world."
ReplyDeleteAfter all the "ISIS is in Iraq, our homeland is doomed" stuff going around lately, it's difficult not to argue that they have some real problems with reality, let alone proportionality, and the obvious root cause has to be either fear or fearmongering.
Land of the free, home of the brave. You certainly wouldn't know it going by the last few decades, and certainly not by watching Fox News.
Allow me to speak for the wingers:
ReplyDelete1.) Our own government is the greatest threat to our liberty; therefore, we all need to be armed to the fucking teeth to fight back when the police state comes crashing in on us.
2.) Because all these lunatics are armed to the fucking teeth, we need our police to have up-armored Humvees, grenade launchers, machine guns, CNS gas, and complete freedom to come crashing in on us whenever the mood strikes them.
Makes perfect sense, don't you think?
After 9-11, I heard innumerable rightwingers talking about how al Qaeda was going to take over America. Pointing out that a band of, at most 10,000 men living in caves 12,000 miles away would have a somewhat difficult time of just getting here brought forth of a torrent of "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!!! THEY HATE OUR FREEDOMS!!!"
ReplyDeleteAll I could think was, "Wow. We have a bigger military than the entire rest of the world combined, nuclear weapons, and a general populace that's better armed than most Third World standing armies--and all of that is going to just melt away in the face of a handful of ill-trained guys with AK-47s and some RPGs. Glad we spent all that money so productively."
Well, happy hoppy, LP!
ReplyDeleteAnd, despite that, they're ecstatic about selling off the country to corporations... and not necessarily for the highest bid, either.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes wonder if we're only #1 in the percentage of idiots in our population.
"It’s all going, going … because in America, freedom is always the winning mantra."
ReplyDeleteWait a minute, is Rod outing himself as anti-freedom? Did he run this column past his teaparty buddies before he gifted it to the intertrons?
Because the Golden Rule is human derived common sense that does not actually rely on a supernatural all-wise-and-powerful entity to justify and enforce it. In the same way, Commandments 5-10 are basically helpful guidelines to help quarrelsome humans get along in a society.
ReplyDeleteAh, but that's not the government they're afraid of. They're in fear of the government that gives their hard-earned (???) money to ungrateful black people and treats a black person as if he were President.
ReplyDeleteThe police, and the NSA, and the CIA, and that little part of Homeland Security that keeps immigrants out are the government they like and want. We just have too damned many governments in this country, especially at the federal level. Why can't we just stick to that authoritarian one that shows blacks and hippies who's who and what's what, huh?
I had an Iranian grad student as a patient yesterday. We talked politics and news media. His main observation about the US was how sensationalist and fear-mongering our news media is.
ReplyDeleteI'm in Florida right at this very moment, surrounded by people who have all profited very handsomely under Obama--members of the 1% who have seen their wealth skyrocket as the economy recovers. And almost to a man (they're all male), they despise Obama because he's so damaged their fortunes and prevented them getting even richer.
ReplyDeleteAt the other end of the scale are folks I know who live in tract housing in the Orlando 'burbs, barely scratching by on what little they get paid in their lower-middle-class white collar jobs and small businesses. Nearly all of them despise Obama because he's a socialist who has impeded the wealth gathering of the 1%, thus leading to a failure of trickle-down.
Yes, we are a nation of idiots.
And it was a high enough level to leave him and his sister with permanent cognitive deficits and an inability to carry on with a normal life? A level so high that they'd won a financial settlement because of it?
ReplyDeleteEspecially for them what was doing the begattin',
ReplyDeleteNo. No. In Wingnuttia, LIBERTY is the new "freedom."
ReplyDeleteunless they're really into that and you have a signed release and a safe word
ReplyDeleteHow is "justifying every paranoid fever dream about the savage bloodlust of inner city black Americans" fun exactly?
ReplyDeleteWell, this "freedom" thing has gotten completely out of hand! What, with people falling in love with other people, being able to have sex without making babies and/or contracting fatal diseases, and people even being allowed to worship gods Rod doesn't believe in? The only way to save liberty in the land of the free is to enforce lockstep conformity!
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure even a coelacanth would walk away from Rod.
ReplyDeleteLet me know if I can object to that.
ReplyDeleteIt's a common and, frankly, revealing refrain from a certain type of Christian. "If there's no God to establish absolute Good and Evil, then Chaos Reigns! How can you say definitively Adolf Hitler is evil when someone else thinks he is good!"
ReplyDeleteThe bit about "standard of truth outside ourselves" is the tell. I'm your typical lapsed catholic turned atheist, but I'll submit myself to a standard of truth outside myself. Hell, thanks to the scientific method, we're as close as humans can get to making "objective" determinations about the world: water boils at 100 degrees C at sea level, squares have four sides, professional God-botherers are the worst dinner guests, etc.
But Brother Rod is talking about Morality, he'd say, and without God to tell us that Murder = Bad, then why not go all Lord of the Flies? But there is a standard of truth outside ourselves besides God - it's called the rest of the human race. A vast, vast majority of people from disparate communities and faith traditions seem to be in agreement that being killed is bad. So, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" becomes a moral absolute, not from some Great Rule Giver In The Sky, but as an emergent factor of human civilization.
But that's not good enough for some people. For Rod, only an immortal being older than the 13.8 billion year old universe is fit to constrain him with His laws. Notions such as consent, democracy, arbitration, and the actual, messy work of human interaction and government are far too base.
Oops! I forgot that I first woke up and got online at 0400 local, so it only seemed like yesterday. ;)
ReplyDeletePoint of order! Is it t-hairshirt or hair t-shirt? Or does it depend upon which hemisphere you're from?
ReplyDelete"For Rod, only an immortal being older than the 13.8 billion year old universe is fit to constrain him with His laws."
ReplyDeleteGeez, that explains a lot. God has a bad case of senile dementia.
So he's all for sharia law then, so long as it's of the Christian variety.
ReplyDeleteOh, hell, there's no question that ol' Rod is a theocrat. He just can't seem to decide which flavor of the day is right for him and, therefore, for all of humanity. That's about all that's stopping him from going full Dominionist on us.
ReplyDelete"But Rod, your version of morality consists in trying to feel noble for
ReplyDeletebeing miserable, all in the hope of some vaguely promised eternal
reward afterwards,"
Just think of all the revelations forthcoming from Rod when he finally joins the Church of the Pity Fuck Renounced. His ego will look like something that belongs in the Thanksgiving Day parade.
Drum:
ReplyDeleteWhen Freddie Gray was 22 months old, he had a tested blood lead
level of 37 micrograms per deciliter. This is an absolutely
astronomical amount. Freddie never even had the slightest chance of
growing up normally. Lead poisoning doomed him from the start to a life
of heightened aggression, poor learning abilities, and weak impulse
control. His life was a tragedy set in motion the day he was born.
Unfortunately, the lawn order tyoes--including some on the Left--will never willingly accept the "lead hypothesis" as having any legitimacy at all. It threatens too many decades of CW on "criminal types" and the blackitude thereof, even as it lends credence to said CW, because it does so for the wrong reasons, and especially because it bestows some of Nature's precious limited supply of victimhood on black criminals, when God intended it for good straight Christian white folks. Drum may have gotten the ball rolling on this, journalistically at least, but it's gonna be a Sisiphean uphill push...
How unperceptive do you have to be not to realize that the woman you're with doesn't want you? It beggars the imagination. In fact I don't believe it on any level: rapists know what they're doing and they like it. Dreher is full of shit.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that Kevin is beating that drum, because there just might be something to it. But I also wonder if he's not being skeptical enough of the causality hypothesis. Let's hope some more smart people get interested in this.
ReplyDeleteThe line could be characterized as "straight but curious."
ReplyDeleteBlunt-force trauma.
ReplyDeleteLately I've been wondering if police officers should be tested for both lead poisoning (gun range exposure) and steroid abuse. Either could be an explanation of the criminal behavior that seems to be so widespread.
ReplyDeleteOr lefties, for that matter. And possibly not even actual friends, either.
ReplyDeletehttps://scontent-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10917854_407720466059306_5616130919247931089_n.jpg?oh=d784ddaaf48006f09b6fd3053c1aaa39&oe=55D70D75
ReplyDeleteImplicit in Williamson's tweet is the notion that '2nd Amendment Rights' are only applicable to the whites, and not to angry black people in Baltimore.
ReplyDeleteI am impressed and concerned to learn that at least four other people have had dealings with the Brompton's mixture.
ReplyDeleteI initially read that as "strokes", which is not a word you want to see in close proximity to "Rod", "craving" and "something harder".
ReplyDeleteSilly black people, private property should only be destroyed for serious reasons like someone using their cellphone in a theatre.
ReplyDeleteAll my lefty friends are coming over tonight!
ReplyDeleteBecause I'm having one of my famous dinner parties, where I'll puncture their received opinions.
Oh, it's better than that. It originated in the so-called Albigensian Crusades. Its victims were not swarthy be-turbaned Mohammedans but proto-protestants in the south of France; la réligion dévore ses infants. The people of Béziers had massed in the town's cathedral, seeking refuge from the marauding crusaders. The crusade's military commanders were flummoxed; what to do? They consulted their party commissar religious counsellor, Abbot Arnauld, head of the famed Cistercian order of monks. The holy man's answer has come down to us through the ages.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as someone who attended the May 1st Dallas protest in solidarity with Baltimore, I'd like to point out that the scariest thing I've seen in recent memory were the creeps from one of our precious local Open Carry groups, who came to skulk around the fringes of the protest in hopes of getting a chance to shoot someone. All dressed in their best G.I. Joe camo uniforms and carrying giant assault rifles. While clergy and the mothers of dead children shot by police addressed the crowd. I feel very little love for the second amendment right now.
ReplyDelete