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“Hating the ‘Sinner'”

Harsanyi:

it’s social conservatism that will most often turn those with secular sensibilities away from the right. Even within the movement, a libertarian vs. social conservative debate has roiled on forever. This dynamic is only going to change when political expediency becomes a force more powerful than faith — which is to say the day after we pay off the national debt.

Now, it’s true that social conservatives can be unfairly ridiculed as bigots in these debates. But sometimes, as it happens, they act like bigots.

When, for instance, a bunch of influential organizations decide to boycott the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) yearly confab simply because a gay Republican group named GOProud happens to be participating, we have stumbled upon such a moment.

As Peter Wehner of conservative Commentary magazine noted, “the boycotting organizations come across as defensive and insecure, as if they fear that their arguments cannot win the day on the merits.” It’s worse. The boycott demonstrates a lack of any argument. For some, apparently, it’s not really the policy sin but the sinner him-and-himself that’s the real problem. (I know, it’s not technically in the Good Book.)

Though I support gay marriage — more specifically, removing government from the marriage business altogether — it strikes me as deceitful to dismiss legitimate arguments for preserving traditional marriage and ugly to smear everyone making them as homophobic Neanderthals.

Yet, really, what can one say about a person who won’t attend a political event featuring 70 disparate groups — including, yes, The John Birch Society — because he or she might be sitting a table or two away from a lesbian infiltrator who agrees with them approximately 90 percent of the time.

As Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com recently pointed out, the GOProud agenda is perhaps a point or two off the conventional conservative agenda. (Actually, it seems to me, GOProud is more focused on the fundamental problems facing the country than the Concerned Women for America or the Family Research Council are.)

Then again, these groups will probably tell you the kerfuffle is about far more than gays. The popular right-wing conspiratorial website leading the charge has even cooked up a transcendentally silly (and retroactive) theory that claims CPAC is now under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. Quite convenient, I say, because it allows someone to point out that one of the many quirks about religious fundamentalists is that they make no distinctions between politics and religion or personal behavior and individual freedom.

Speaking of which, let’s remember that last year leading GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee skipped CPAC, explaining that the event had become “increasingly libertarian and less Republican.”

“Republican” must be a code word for those who have sworn their rock-ribbed allegiance to the entire consecrated GOP agenda. Others won’t be engaged or debated or shown the errors of their decadent ways, I suppose.

Which is a fine way to bring down your own party, or, if that party happens to smarten up, your own cause.

Of course, Harsanyi — being a libertarian — is (like me) more inclined to look at the “bigotry” from one direction; but it bears remembering that oftentimes it is the social conservatives themselves who are the product of knee-jerk dismissal by more secular-minded (and snobbish) conservatives / classical liberals / libertarians.

I’m not saying that Harsanyi is like that; in fact, because I know him personally I can assure you he isn’t. But the truth is, many of us who are less religious oftentimes recoil at the way the social conservative agenda is framed by social conservatives themselves— even though on the merits we agree with their positions: for instance, I was one of those who thought that on Lawrence, Justice Thomas had it right, even though I’m not against “sodomy” (for those who find it appealing), nor think it should be outlawed. But it is a question that should be left up to state legislators and voters, because privacy isn’t a right granted by the Constitution.

Too, I’ve come out (irony alert!) against the idea of same-sex marriage, even though I have no problem with civil unions, nor with same-sex couples accruing many of the same partnership rights as those who enter into traditional marriage contracts. But that’s not because I believe homosexuality is a “sin”; rather, I believe marriage has long been culturally defined, and that a new and different arrangement should carry a new and different label.

But while many of us of a more secular bent feel uneasy with the religiosity used to frame social issues that are important to social conservatives, it is important to remember that it is generally the secularists who keep turning these issues into wedge issues — oftentimes by claiming some civil right has been violated, and bringing suit against this or that supposedly “discriminatory” behavior. That is, for all the grief social cons take over “the culture wars,” more often than not it is the secularists, and mostly the secularist left, who creates these crises in order to demonize and belittle the religious right.

Having a number of social con readers, I’ve watched how they’ve argued over the years — and seen how they’ve been oftentimes argued against. And while that is in no way a scientific study, it certainly opened my eyes a bit.

So I figured I’d say so.

You’re welcome.

382 Replies to ““Hating the ‘Sinner'””

  1. I Callahan says:

    Uh oh. This thread is going to be a ‘feets magnet…

  2. dicentra says:

    Everyone is going to hell but me.

    Which, feature or bug. You decide.

  3. dicentra says:

    The popular right-wing conspiratorial website leading the charge has even cooked up a transcendentally silly (and retroactive) theory that claims CPAC is now under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood.

    Ok, if this is what it’s come to, homophobia is the least of these people’s problems.

  4. happyfeet says:

    Team R doesn’t have the moral authority to own social issues anymore and they just look silly when they try. Even Sarah Palin seems to understand this on some level.

  5. sdferr says:

    I’ve watched how they’ve argued over the years — and seen how they’ve been oftentimes argued against.

    Argument, though, it seems to me anyhow, often stinks in every direction, or in any direction we might identify, sooner or later, simply on account of being a property of human beings, who also, once we look a bit, turn out to stink in any and every direction sooner or later. We suck.

  6. McGehee says:

    So-cons get grief because identity politics encourages people to regard “sinner” and “sin” as inseparable.

    Thus when Christians love the sinner but hate the sin, identity types can’t process it because to them the distinction simply doesn’t exist.

  7. McGehee says:

    And I see one of our “identities is teh wunnerful” regulars has paused in his cupcake snarfing to help prove my point.

  8. Silver Whistle says:

    Everyone is going to hell but me.

    Pray for me then, sister.

  9. happyfeet says:

    what are you talking about how have I proved your point exactly… my point is that Team R as an arbiter of what is Good and Moral is a fucking joke

  10. happyfeet says:

    Team R’s recent ardent dog-humping-your-leg embrace of a spendy spendy multi-billion dollar tax cuts-for-stimulus hornswoggle is a far far far more grievous offense to the moral fiber of our failshit little country than teeming hordes of married-up homos would be I think.

  11. LTC John says:

    #7 – and again, and again, and…

  12. Roddy Boyd says:

    Jeff’s intro is about as fine a synopsis of my own thinking on the issue as I’ve seen. It probably sums up the core thinking of the majority of Americans on the issue with the side benefit of being true.

    It’s pretty clear that outside of a rump group of textual fundamentalists–I’m thinking maybe 15%-25% of social conservatives–who simply cannot abide by social mores that veer outside a highly proscribed, narrow, oftentimes Christian worldview, there is a profound misunderstanding of social conservatism. Most social conservatism is defensive in nature–“Hey, let’s not redefine marriage….Hey, let’s not allow nudity on TV…..Hey, let’s not fund art that (literally) pisses on Christian traditions….”–as opposed to banning stuff.

    As a reporter, I know all too well how that plays out. Moreover, I know how it plays out next to other religions that express their displeasure in less….verbal fashions.

  13. Bob Reed says:

    I second what McGehee said in #6. And will add that I too disagree with folks boycotting CPAC because GOProud was included.

    To the best of my knowledge, those folks aren’t trying to agitate from the inside, they’re just looking to team up with folks that they agree with on the predominant number of issues.

    And I also agree that it is most often the identity fetishists on the left that try and use the differences of opinion as wedge issues; but divide and conquer is a fundamental tenet of an ideology that would divide an otherwise homogeneous, classless, society into tribal factions.

  14. Abe Froman says:

    I sort of think this tracks with the “fuzzy math” post above in a way. While I have a great deal of sympathy for the social conservative worldview, it is the enemy of clarity as regards our fight against the liberal vision of government.

  15. Darleen says:

    there is a profound misunderstanding of social conservatism

    I don’t think there is a misunderstanding at all. There is a continuing effort to split off and demonize even the kind of live-let live socCon that is the majority of the movement. That comes with the deliberate conflation of criticism of X with advocation of legally banning X.

    It has gotten so bad that I encounter people who blather confidently that the Founders were anti-religious and only paid “lip-service” to religion and that laws on murder/theft were never borne of “moral” judgement.

    If the Left & its pet-press can play up any ideological schism, or invent it (see TEA Party=racist), it will.

  16. Darleen says:

    it is the enemy of clarity

    are the socCons the enemy, or is it how their views are rewritten by the press and presented by same?

  17. McGehee says:

    what are you talking about how have I proved your point exactly

    If you had read #6 you wouldn’t need to ask. In fact you as a marketing guy have to think in terms of group identities because it’s not possible to leech millions off of corporations by marketing to individuals. Identity groups are your bread and butter.

    And you have embraced that as the primary thing that makes you you, so of course you’re going to be fixated on identity group allegiance in everything else. Like the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer…

  18. sdferr says:

    Is political organization — is government — a matter of the question of the ways in which God works in the world, on the earth, directly in the lives of individual believers and non-believers? Or is political organization about something else altogether?

  19. dicentra says:

    Team R doesn’t have the moral authority to own social issues anymore

    Team R isn’t boycotting CPAC because of GOProud–a bunch of whack-jobs is.

    Although I’m not sure where one gets “moral authority” in the first place, especially in the political arena.

    my point is that Team R as an arbiter of what is Good and Moral is a fucking joke

    Who would you put in as arbiter, feets? You? Me? Jeff? The Pope? Bill Maher? What are the qualifications: that they don’t come across to you as hypocrites? That they conform to what seems Good and Moral to you?

    Criticism is easy, ‘feets, and pretty damned cheap. The fact that some people think they’re too good to sit in the same room as GOProud doesn’t smear everyone right of center, and definitely not everyone who self-identifies as Christian.

    Go ride your high horse elsewhere.

  20. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Relevant thoughts from one of Ace’s hobo trackers here.

  21. Abe Froman says:

    I wouldn’t entirely blame the press, Darleen. Happyfeet may react like a lunatic, but he isn’t alone in finding your social con lite posts to be rather off-putting. To your credit, what it is that you’re trying to say tends to be fleshed out in the comments to everyone but the griefer’s satisfaction, but it sort of underscores the challenge of communicating these things.

  22. McGehee says:

    Is political organization — is government — a matter of the question of the ways in which God works in the world, on the earth, directly in the lives of individual believers and non-believers?

    Political organization is a matter of what matters to the individuals taking part. What is valid for me may seem utterly irrelevant to you — but where we agree on issues we should be able to work together, and save the disagreements for those issues where we disagree.

  23. Bob Reed says:

    Something else all together, sdferr.

    Although, Muslims believe the opposite. That’s not to say that religious beliefs don’t inform our morality, and that some of that doesn’t get codified into law. But that’s a different matter, more in line with what we were discussing yesterday about changes in governance infringing on personal liberty.

    In a society where religious freedom is a basic tenet, people need to be left to their own ideas about the ways of God in the world.

  24. McGehee says:

    In a society where religious freedom is a basic tenet, people need to be left to their own ideas about the ways of God in the world.

    If you’ll pardon the expression, “Amen.”

  25. LBascom says:

    “a far far far more grievous offense to the moral fiber of our failshit little country than… “

    Other peoples vices are always worse than your own.

    Thing is, you’ll go to hell as quick for lying as you will for stealing homosexual behaviour.

    1Ti 1:8 But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully,

    1Ti 1:9 as knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,

    1Ti 1:10 for fornicators, for abusers of themselves with men, for menstealers, for liars, for false swearers, and if there be any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine;

    1Ti 1:11 according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

    1Ti 1:15 Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief:

    As for the CPAC flap, I’ll just note that Jesus biggest enemy was the Pharisees, who really hated it when Jesus hung out at the public houses rapping with the sinners.

  26. bh says:

    This isn’t towards the thrust of this post, but isn’t there some competing conference that some of these socon groups prefer to promote and this isn’t so much about a boycott as it is basic competition?

    Towards the thrust of the post, I suppose I’ve seen evidence that falls more to Harsanyi’s argument and evidence that falls more to Jeff’s argument. Read the comments at Hot Air and I start thinking the former and read the comments here and I start thinking the latter.

  27. happyfeet says:

    the high horse is ridden by the people what suppose anyone should give a shit that they only hate the “sin” I think… Jesus never once called homosexuality a sin – why should anyone care what a bunch of Republicans call it?

  28. dicentra says:

    it is the enemy of clarity as regards our fight against the liberal vision of government.

    Not if you define the liberal vision of government as evil because it seeks to destroy human liberty, and show very clearly that God is a champion of human liberty over tyranny.

    Not if you recognize that much of our political demise owes to moral demise both in individuals and socieity: we have lost the moral courage to draw lines in the sand and stay by them in the face of sophistry and ridicule.

    Not if you recognize that free people must be moral people: people who hate deception, theft, corruption, and envy, who cherish dignity, honesty, integrity, loyalty, decency.

    Not if you recognize that human beings are fundamentally flawed, and therefore claims to the perfectability of human society come either from fools or charlatains.

    You may not be into the God thing yourself, but surely you must recognize that your Believing compatriots are more likely to act on principle than your equivocating, rudderless Lefties.

  29. McGehee says:

    Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief

    The gist of Christianity in a nutshell.

  30. McGehee says:

    the high horse is ridden by the people what suppose anyone should give a shit that they only hate the “sin”

    And now you see how you have proven my point. No need to apologize.

  31. dicentra says:

    Jesus never once called homosexuality a sin

    But it wouldn’t matter one whit to you if he did. Your point?

  32. Darleen says:

    I wouldn’t entirely blame the press, Darleen

    Really? So then why the challenge of communicating these things?

    Outside of a few radicals, the vast majority of people with conservative-small government POVs are discussing what they believe are the best ways to live – they are not talking about codifying those ways into law.

    Look at any of my posts that you deem “soc con lite” and tell me where I’ve advocated for law. Indeed, I’ve advocated for getting the government out of enabling bad behavior.

  33. McGehee says:

    See, happyfeet, the reason I put scare quotes around “sin” is because I wasn’t talking about actual, Biblically proscribed sin, but about the things people do that perhaps they know they shouldn’t — but they convince themselves, or have allowed others to convince them, that if they stopped doing these things they would stop being themselves.

    Which is bullshit. It enables destructive behavior and causes those who indulge in it to demand not only acceptance but approbation from everyone around them. And as a result they do not become more like themselves, but progressively (heh) less.

  34. happyfeet says:

    my point is that tribe white trash christer arrogates to themselves a judgey bitchyness that Jesus never even a little bit modeled for them – their priorities are not even remotely aligned with his

    this is what people are reacting to when the criticize the Concerned Hoochies of America – it’s just so tacky

  35. sdferr says:

    In a society where religious freedom is a basic tenet, people need to be left to their own ideas about the ways of God in the world.

    So what do we say to those who insist, as McGehee kindly points out they might do [“. . . a matter of what matters to the individuals taking part. What is valid for me may seem utterly irrelevant to you. . . “], in answer to my question, that “Yes, above all, yes, political organization is before all else, about the question how God works in the world on earth in the lives of both believers and non-believers!”?

    Bugger off, looney toon? No. That won’t do.

    Still, such a one will insist: before all else, as a supreme rule of the supreme ruler.

    Well, no, we quietly intone, you will want to include others who disagree with you about that rule. Yeah, that’ll work.

  36. bh says:

    Is political organization — is government — a matter of the question of the ways in which God works in the world, on the earth, directly in the lives of individual believers and non-believers? Or is political organization about something else altogether?

    As you phrase this, I’d answer it with “something else altogether”. If it was phrased more along the lines of, “Can religiously inspired notions of morality sensibly contribute towards an individual’s thoughts on political organization?” I’d say yeah, sure, it’s been that way for a long, long time.

  37. happyfeet says:

    when *they* criticize I mean

  38. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Is political organization — is government — a matter of the question of the ways in which God works in the world, on the earth, directly in the lives of individual believers and non-believers? Or is political organization about something else altogether?

    Yes.

  39. Abe Froman says:

    Really? So then why the challenge of communicating these things?

    Jeff does a perfectly good job of it.

  40. Darleen says:

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,[72] that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. … is a profoundly religious statement. Not denominational, but religious in the sense that it is a statement of faith; an assumption from which a morality is built. Emmanuel Kant said one had to assume “free will” in order to “refute objections against it.”

    There is no empirical evidence in support of either free will or the basic equality of men; indeed for even that Man has moral worth.

    But forty plus years of relentless, radical secularism has created an atmosphere that any person who professes faith (especially Christian faith) is regarded with suspicion, ridicule or hostility.

  41. sdferr says:

    Yes.

    heh

  42. Darleen says:

    with all due respect Abe, that doesn’t answer my point.

  43. Bob Reed says:

    sdferr,
    I might be inclined to point them to our founding documents, remind them of the basic notion of religious freedom, and if they insist on being strident, as a fellow Christian ask them to show me in the bible where it says that the only legitimate form of government is one that is grounded in Christian principles-like the Koran does.

    Or, you know, a place where Christ told the Romans that they’d better synchronize their earthly politics with will of almighty God.

    Just because our codified laws and underpinning ideology shares some common ground with Judeo-Christian beliefs doesn’t mean it has to be modified to comply completely…

    It would make for an intersting conversation. Kind of like the ones I used to have with secularists who were stunned that I could hold to Catholic cosmology, as a man of science-so to speak, juxtaposed against others I had with some of my southern, more fundamentalist, relatives about how I could believe in evolution and “the big bang” :)

  44. McGehee says:

    So what do we say to those who insist, as McGehee kindly points out they might do [“. . . a matter of what matters to the individuals taking part. What is valid for me may seem utterly irrelevant to you. . . “], in answer to my question, that “Yes, above all, yes, political organization is before all else, about the question how God works in the world on earth in the lives of both believers and non-believers!”?

    With which, I take it, you would disagree. You left out the part where I said, “…save the disagreements for those issues where we disagree.”

    So… disagree.

  45. sdferr says:

    . . . is a profoundly religious statement. Not denominational, but religious in the sense that it is a statement of faith; an assumption from which a morality is built. Emmanuel Kant said one had to assume “free will” in order to “refute objections against it.”

    I don’t think this is a fair representation of the origins of the modern natural right theory from which the founders themselves derived their ideas. At all. But then, finding that origin would still require some work from us, just as it did for the founders themselves.

  46. McGehee says:

    34. happyfeet posted on 1/7 @ 10:34 am

    And what do you arrogate to yourself when you use language like that?

  47. sdferr says:

    You left out the part where I said, “…save the disagreements for those issues where we disagree.”

    I did, it’s true. But why? I think it obvious myself I guess, but to spell that part out: it’s because respecting the views of those who insist, their rule is the one thing which cannot be a matter of a simple issue where we disagree, and so can leave lightly aside. Their claim, on the contrary, is that this point of disagreement is the one thing most needful where we begin to organize our politics.

  48. Ernst Schreiber says:

    my point is that tribe white trash christer arrogates to themselves a judgey bitchyness

    With all due respect you’re the judgiest tribal trash bitch around here, happyfeet.

  49. happyfeet says:

    what’s neat is we have a pretty near consensus that in this instance our gay friends are behaving just fine and it’s our white trash christer friends what are the ones behaving abysmally.

    is this a teachable moment?

    Mike Huckabee doesn’t seem to think so.

  50. Darleen says:

    I don’t think this is a fair representation of the origins of the modern natural right theory from which the founders themselves derived their ideas

    If you can, please point to the empirical evidence in support of “natural rights.”

    I believe in the inherent rights of individual human beings. I believe that Man is an end in himself, not the means to others ends. I believe that such a moral framework is the best way not only for individuals to explore their own potential, but for society to benefit from such liberty.

    I cannot prove by any science that humans have moral worth while a rock doesn’t; but my assumption, my faith in such moral worth, and in the concept of good and evil, allows for justice and honor.

  51. Carin says:

    Methinks that since you can’t get beyond calling them “white trash christers” your opinion in this matter may not be exactly impartial.

  52. LBascom says:

    “my point is that tribe white trash christer arrogates to themselves a judgey bitchyness that Jesus never even a little bit modeled for them – their priorities are not even remotely aligned with his”

    Well, He could be a little judgy…

    Mat 23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier [matters] of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

    Mat 23:24[Ye] blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

    Mat 23:25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

    Mat 23:26 [Thou] blind Pharisee, cleanse first that [which is] within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

    Mat 23:27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men’s] bones, and of all uncleanness.

    Mat 23:28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

  53. Carin says:

    I am disappointed, though, to read that the Heritage Foundation has joined the boycott. I don’t understand why they feel the need to destroy (imho, with a boycott) what has become a successful gathering for conservatives.

  54. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Mike Huckabee isn’t a conservative. He’s a social-gospel supporting paleo-progressive.

    Just to be precise in our taxonomy.

  55. bh says:

    I don’t think social compacts or axiomatic truths are within the proper realm of empirical evidence as if they are simple true/false statements. Their “proof” is in their efficacy.

  56. sdferr says:

    Darleen, I wasn’t questioning what you believe, either as a matter of empirical evidentiary finding or as a matter of faith. Rather, I was pointing to the ideas of the founders, which were, I believe, rooted in their study of political science as it had been developed through human history up to their time, and in particular, if you prefer, to the writings of men such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and others.

  57. bh says:

    Which is to say, I don’t have to believe or have faith in them, I can observe that the system is working and judge it thusly.

  58. bh says:

    I think I read Carin that Heritage says they’ve done so many meetings lately, they’re running out of money. They’re not characterizing it as a boycott anyways.

  59. sdferr says:

    I am disappointed, though, to read that the Heritage Foundation has joined the boycott.

    Carin, I saw at Ace’s this note from Heritage:

    The Washington Times adds Heritage to the list of “values groups” boycotting, but that isn’t related to GOProud either. When Heritage announced its decision last month, it didn’t link its attendance to GOProud. Instead, Heritage said that it’s a budget issue:

    “With the rise of the Tea Party groups this year, there have been more and more meetings we’ve been going to, and we’re trying to reach out to new conservatives,” said James Weidman, a Heritage spokesman. “We have a limited budget for outreach and we’ve got more and more organizations out there that want our outreach.”

    “We’ve been a fixture at CPAC for years. I’m not sure we’re going to reach any new people there,” Weidman added.

  60. Darleen says:

    Carin

    Heritage isn’t attending because of financial reasons. It hasn’t anything to do with GOProud.

    But the rumor hasn’t died. The Washington Times reported yesterday on what WorldNetDaily has been reporting for two months — an effort by social conservatives to stage showy boycotts of CPAC, to protest GOProud. The goal, in part, was to get the media to cover a “rift,” and it’s working. The Times lists “social-issues groups opting to avoid the conference” and includes “the Heritage Foundation, the Family Research Council, the Center for Military Readiness, the American Family Association, the American Principles Project, the Liberty Counsel and the National Organization for Marriage.” As I’ve reported before, the FRC didn’t actually participate in CPAC last year, nor did the AFA, and they run their own social conservative conference.

    It’s wrong, though, to add Heritage to the list of GOProud-squeamish groups. They told me in December that the decision was financial, and they say the same thing today. The trick that social conservatives are able to play is that there has long been unease among conservatives about the American Conservative Union in general and David Keene in particular. In December, the ACU didn’t comment on an IRS investigation of a “material diversion” of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Before that, Sarah Palin passed on the conference, in part, because the ACU hinted that it could take money for its support to Fed Ex in a legislative battle with UPS (you’ve probably heard of the “brown bailout” by now). That’s why some D.C. conservative groups balk at the ACU, and some social conservatives are exploiting that to make there seem like there’s more outrage over GOProud than there is. (There is some outrage, definitely.)

  61. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Heritage isn’t boycotting anything Carin. It’s a matter of money. They’ve spent so much reaching out to TEA party groups that they don’t have enough for C-PAC this year.

    Heritage is Norm to C-PAC’s Cheers, so while they’ll be missed, they won’t be forgotten.

  62. sdferr says:

    Got that Carin?

    heh

  63. Abe Froman says:

    with all due respect Abe, that doesn’t answer my point.

    The media may or may not misrepresent the collective sentiments of social conservatives, but it doesn’t really need to as regards the leadership of advocacy groups, politicians, or Republican Party platforms. As a general matter, even those who are merely sympathetic to the social conservative agenda, but maintain a more clearheaded vision of government’s role, fail to adequately communicate this.

  64. Ernst Schreiber says:

    See what I mean about Heritage being our Norm?

  65. Darleen says:

    Rather, I was pointing to the ideas of the founders, which were, I believe, rooted in their study of political science

    And because the word “science” is attached to political, it makes “natural rights” a fact on par with the Earth orbiting the Sun, rather than a religious (def: faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality) statement?

  66. Carin says:

    What’s that about Heritage? It’s like, the info is right here somewhere and I’m not getting it.

    (I’m relieved – it was disappointed to think they were joining the boycott)

  67. Ernst Schreiber says:

    “Science” is merely the systematic accumulation of a body of knowledge, Darleen. Theology is a science, even if it isn’t scientific in the narrow and overdetermined sense the word has acquired post Darwin.

  68. sdferr says:

    And because the word “science” is attached to political, it makes “natural rights” a fact on par with the Earth orbiting the Sun, rather than a religious (def: faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality) statement?

    Well, it’s actually a question complicated by many things, not least the way in which those thinkers themselves thought about the question.

    But, no, I was there only using the term in the general sense in which I believe the founders themselves would have used it, or in place of what I’d otherwise have done to call it, say, political philosophy, which to our contemporary ears is only a little more discordant.

  69. Darleen says:

    even those who are merely sympathetic to the social conservative agenda, but maintain a more clearheaded vision of government’s role, fail to adequately communicate this.

    I disagree. Generally (and I know, lots of exceptions) I believe it is due to a deliberate “interpretation” of what so cons say/believe based on a attributing bad motives to so cons.

    It is just a variation on Howard Dean’s quote “unlike Republicans, we Democrats don’t want children to go to bed hungry.” So Cons are evil, period, so why actually listen to what they say? And even if the words sound ok, they don’t really mean it, it is just code words for all that evil rightwingers stuff.

  70. Slartibartfast says:

    hf’s premise seems to be that if you think there is a high ground, morally, and that if you occasionally fail to conform to your own moral high ground, that you should immediately abandon all of your morality. Or that maybe you should keep your yap shut because you might offend NG’s tender sensibilities. Or something.

    Otherwise, I have absolutely no idea what his point is.

  71. Slartibartfast says:

    “Science” is merely the systematic accumulation of a body of knowledge

    I would say that slightly differently: science is the process by which understanding of how things work is advanced.

    Knowledge accumulation ain’t all science. Take, for example, all of written history.

  72. Darleen says:

    Theology is a science, even if it isn’t scientific in the narrow and overdetermined sense the word has acquired post Darwin.

    There are those that have decided that not only is “theology” not a “science” but that to even be considered fit enough to be in a real science, one cannot even think of anything theological

  73. Abe Froman says:

    I disagree. Generally (and I know, lots of exceptions) I believe it is due to a deliberate “interpretation” of what so cons say/believe based on a attributing bad motives to so cons.

    I suppose that will have more credence if and when the Republicans ever nominate a presidential candidate who doesn’t at least pretend to be a social conservative.

  74. sdferr says:

    This science discussion has veered — interestingly — in a direction I hadn’t the least expectation it might take, one I should perhaps have foreseen. But by all means, go for it with gusto. It’s a good thing, I think.

  75. Darleen says:

    Abe

    And since when has the press ever presented a Republican nominee/candidates so-con POV as anything other than “problematic”?

    and a so-con Dem is so viewed with vapor-inducing horrors by the MFM that the Dem is a non-starter out of the gate.

    The majority of Americans are center-right, while a majority of the press is center-left. And the press buys ink by the barrel.

  76. LBascom says:

    “Darleen, I wasn’t questioning what you believe, either as a matter of empirical evidentiary finding or as a matter of faith. Rather, I was pointing to the ideas of the founders, which were, I believe, rooted in their study of political science as it had been developed through human history up to their time, and in particular, if you prefer, to the writings of men such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and others.”

    I bet the founders read the Bible alongside Locke and Machiavelli.

    Who was it said something about it requires a moral people to have individual liberty? Madison? I see empirical evidence of this, that our liberties have been lost as the morality of the people has declined. Anyway, I think “that they are endowed by their Creator” carries a bit more freight than just “natural rights” as political science alone.

  77. sdferr says:

    This is maybe a good place to link a piece bh sent the other day, a blog post from Russ Roberts over at Cafe Hayek about his views of economics and science. Much, I believe, of what Roberts sees applied to the shaping of economics as a science goes in spades for the epistemological satellites orbiting politics, stuff like sociology, modern political science, anthropology and the other assorted so-called “soft” sciences. Anyhow, the Roberts is a damned good read.

  78. sdferr says:

    You’re so right about the founders reading the Bible, and I was remiss to have left it out. However, if we’re to reach back that far, we may as well throw Plato, Aristotle and Homer into the bag too. Too few of our contemporaries read these worthwhile works in addition to their Bibles.

  79. bh says:

    A friend of mine sometimes makes the satirical point that unless you invent a new language everyday, occasionally decide to throw feces at people, and agitate for cat suffrage, you’re a social conservative.

    Which, there is something there, isn’t there? That this isn’t a binary question. There’s utter chaos on one side and utter conformity on the other with all of us falling in between, heavily clustered near the conformity pole. Even the most wild-eyed revolutionaries are still fairly strong social conservatives. The meaning of this, to me, is that social conservatism can’t be bad or good because those words are meaningless if all people are bad or good. So, again, it’s a matter of efficacy. Where on the spectrum does a society do best?

  80. bh says:

    Much, I believe, of what Roberts sees applied to the shaping of economics as a science goes in spades for the epistemological satellites orbiting politics, stuff like sociology, modern political science, anthropology and the other assorted so-called “soft” sciences.

    Absolutely.

  81. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Knowledge accumulation ain’t all science. Take, for example, all of written history.

    A subject near and dear to me, Slartibartfast:

    History, in the end, may for the most part be seen as a science in the weak sense of the German term Wissenschaft, an organized body of knowledge acquired through research carried out according to generally agreed methods [emph added], presented in published reports, and subject to peer review. It is not a science in the strong sense that it can frame general laws or predict the future [don’t tell that to a Marxist, however –E.S.]. But there are sciences, such as geology, which cannot predict the future either. The fact seems to be that the differences between what in English are known as the sciences are at least as great as the differences between these disciplines taken together and a humane discipline such as history. (Richard J. Evans In Defense of History (New York, 1999) p. 62.)

  82. Darleen says:

    If it can’t be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. ~~ Robert Heinlein

  83. bh says:

    I don’t know the right word here but it’s cool to note the sudden interdisciplinary consonance between Roberts’ argument and your excerpt, Ernst.

  84. cranky-d says:

    because privacy isn’t a right granted by the Constitution.

    Huh? The constitution doesn’t “grant” any rights at all. It recognizes them. You don’t ask if the Constitution doesn’t allow something, you ask if it does. I don’t see where it allows invasion of privacy. The Bill of Rights was actually meant to specifically codify some rights which many, if not most, thought the Constitution already protected. The opponents of the Bill of Rights were against it because they thought that in the future those would be the only rights that would end up being protected. It appears they were correct.

    I know my interpretation puts me in a minority that disagrees even with Justice Thomas, but I can live with that. I really cannot see the Founders agreeing the some of the intrusions that have been imposed by law, such as the Texas sodomy case. I would say that, in this case, the right in question belongs not to the state, but too the people.

  85. sdferr says:

    That’s a nice quote as regards modern physical science Darleen. Pretty much sums up the view taken on way back when, but in so doing, leaves behind or aside all other understandings of the field, which is an error of omission we would do well to avoid.

  86. sdferr says:

    There is an obscure or disused sense of the term grant which doesn’t imply to confer but merely to recognize cranky-d, which maybe would fit with the sense of the granting used there.

  87. Ernst Schreiber says:

    That cool eye-patch sporting Nazi played by Robert Duvall in The Eagle has Landed called it “synchronicity.”

  88. bh says:

    Yes, perfect, synchronicity.

  89. cranky-d says:

    Some things get my ire up, sdferr. You’re probably correct about the use of “grant,” but I see that word used in this manner and it makes me crankier than usual.

  90. sdferr says:

    After I wrote that cranky-d, I looked it up and was a little surprised that the etymology cites to some Latin gobbledeegook for “to believe” or something.

    1175–1225; ME gra(u)nten < OF graunter, var. of crëanter < VL *credent?re, v. deriv. of L cr?dent-, s. of cr?d?ns, prp. of cr?dere to believe

  91. happyfeet says:

    no Carin I am not impartial you busted me but for reals I don’t understand why certain christians – the ones who we might choose to term “white trash christers” – are so endlessly antagonistic towards gay people yet feel themselves are due both respect and deference and frankly I’m mystified when some of your more traditionally persecuted sorts of christers are driven to march and spend monies and et cetera to delimit the rights of gays with the Prop 8 and the DOMA

    Frankly if the white trash christers what believe the Wife is meant to be subservient to the Husband can marry then the institution has been more than sufficiently debased to allow gay marriage I think.

  92. LBascom says:

    “There is an obscure or disused sense of the term grant which doesn’t imply to confer but merely to recognize cranky-d”

    True, I’ll grant you, but that definition doesn’t help the case.

  93. Squid says:

    It used to drive me up the wall when the deranged electric hamster went out of his way to insult those he found insulting, while pretending not to understand why those he insulted would insult others. Then I learned that every time it utters the phrase “white Christers,” one should replace the words with “black kettles.”

    Now it kinda cracks me up.

  94. sdferr says:

    . . . that definition doesn’t help the case.

    Why not LBascom? Seems to me it’s only recognizing a condition already in effect. That is, nothing but belief in a condition present in the world is handed over or given voice, so to speak.

  95. Bob Reed says:

    Wissenschaft is translated as “science”, and Wissen is “knowledge”; while Landschaft is translated as “lanscape” or “scenery” and land is, well, land. Interesting then how Wissenschaft is “knowledgescape” (to simply put two words together as the Germans sometimes do as in Flugzeug), or the vista of everything we know…

    But mated with the context of the most excellent Cafe Hayek piece linked by sdferr, could we say that everything we know, history, is predictive by it’s nature? I mean, in a tautological or mathematical sense?

    Could be I’m crossing the Rubicon into yet another epistemological discussion that;s only tangentially on-topic :)

  96. LBascom says:

    “for reals I don’t understand why certain christians – the ones who we might choose to term “white trash christers” – are so endlessly antagonistic towards gay people”

    It’s been discussed here plenty for you to understand the resistance to normalizing what some regard deviant behavior. I believe the lack of understanding must be from your end.

    Maybe you could try another label.

  97. sdferr says:

    . . . could we say that everything we know, history, is predictive by it’s nature? I mean, in a tautological or mathematical sense?

    You’ve certainly got my attention Bob. Could you expand this, say more, fill ‘er out some?

  98. Abe Froman says:

    And since when has the press ever presented a Republican nominee/candidates so-con POV as anything other than “problematic”?

    What does that have to do with the Republican Party’s apparent unwillingness to nominate someone who isn’t? It sort of confirms the media’s notion about the prominence of such issues on the right, doesn’t it?

    and a so-con Dem is so viewed with vapor-inducing horrors by the MFM that the Dem is a non-starter out of the gate.

    I had no idea that this was a sentiment implanted into the minds of liberal voters by the media. The game cuts both ways, hence people like Jesse Jackson and Dennis Kuccinich throwing their pro-life views under the bus when seeking the presidency. The difference, in case it isn’t obvious, is that Republicans undermine a more broadly palatable argument for limited government which was kind of my whole point.


    The majority of Americans are center-right, while a majority of the press is center-left. And the press buys ink by the barrel.

    So I guess the thing to do is whine about the media incessantly.

  99. LBascom says:

    “Why not LBascom? Seems to me it’s only recognizing a condition already in effect”

    Sdferr, what Cranky was objecting to:

    because privacy isn’t a right granted by the Constitution.

    and his point:

    “Huh? The constitution doesn’t “grant” any rights at all. It recognizes them. […] . I don’t see where it allows invasion of privacy.”

    To put it like that, ‘privacy isn’t a right granted by the Constitution’, implies no expectation of privacy.

    I think that’s what he’s driving at.

  100. sdferr says:

    I’m in danger of being confused, I think, LBascom, which isn’t an out of the ordinary condition where I’m concerned anymore. Still, to pursue it a little, I don’t think Jeff would use the phrase “granted by the Constitution” in a sense in which the Constitution is seen as conferring a natural right upon someone, as opposed to the sense in which it merely recognizes the existence of a condition it did not create. So, working backwards, so to speak, I turned to other senses of the term “grant” to see if there wasn’t one which fit the logical terrain. Finding one, I thought maybe that settled the logical contradiction.

    Further, just because the Constitution is silent on the question of privacy, doesn’t (per Madison’s wise inclusion of Amendment IX: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”) imply there is no such right to be expected already residing in the possession of the people.

  101. Makewi says:

    The fact that happyfeet, having been called on it again and again, chooses to continue to focus his ire on the white trash christers tells you pretty much anything you would ever need to know about him. Can we just fit him for a hood and robe and be done with it?

  102. Bob Reed says:

    What I was getting at sdferr was is all of history really “science”, in the sense of the German meaning of the word that Ernst kindly provided in his post with the excellent quote. Especially in light of what Roberts put forth in the piece you linked from Cage Hayek.

    That is, in the sense of the environmental biology he speaks of, and regardless of the size or depth of the “dtabase”, isn’t any “science” based on history involving humans on a societal level fraught with far too many variables, the number of humans and the unpredictability of the possible individual decisions/choices they may take, and an inherent lack of repeatability, the changes to the sizes of a society or is morality as a snapshot in time, for it to ever really be predictive of the future in and of itself to really be thought of as “science”?

    Did I say that clumsily enough to even be understood? :)

  103. Bob Reed says:

    I’ll be back soon, it’s time to go shovel some snow here in NYC, lest my elderly neighbors take a spill-God forbid.

  104. dicentra says:

    my point is that tribe white trash christer arrogates to themselves a judgey bitchyness that Jesus never even a little bit modeled for them

    Really?
    Huh. Jesus never got bitchy with sinners. Let’s see…

    Try, for example, all of Matthew 23, wherein he reads the riot act to the cultural elite of his day. For example:

    33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

    34¶ Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

    35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

    36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

    37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

    38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

    How about John 5?

    22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son…

    24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life….

    28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,

    29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

    And there are multiple examples of Jesus raining verbal hellfire on the wicked.

    On homosexuals and prostitutes? Why no, he didn’t stand there and revile against them. You know why?

    Because they already knew they were sinners and didn’t need to be preached against. It was the snotty elitist Pharisees and Scribes (the credentialed class, aka. star-bellied Sneeches) who were the target of his wrath, because they believed themselves to be righteous when they were anything but, and they were horrible to ordinary sinners and other unfortunates.

    That doesn’t mean that Jesus told sinners that they were not sinning, as we see in Matthew 9:

    10¶And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.

    11 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

    12 But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

    13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

    I am not impressed at all by the morons who are boycotting CPAC on account of GOProud. But you’re at least as bad as they are, ‘feets, because you hold those “tribe white trash christers” in as much contempt as they hold homosexuals in. Would you sit down at table with those icky christers anymore than they’d sit down with GOProud?

    No, ‘feets, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t sit down with them in the hopes of persuading them to forsake their h8y ways the way Jesus did with sinners and Publicans. He didn’t sit down with them because he approved of them, but because he wanted to help them repent.
    Judgy bitchiness comes from all quarters, ‘feets. You’re only annoyed at those who gore YOUR ox.

  105. sdferr says:

    If we can speak of episteme, human knowledge, as “science”, and require as a condition of qualification to the use of the term, a perfect record of predictive power, we are then recognizing deliciously extreme limits on what we would in the event call — in the case of any particular cognitive event — knowledge. In simple terms, we have hardly any at all, if any, anywhere.

    Which is ok, right? I mean, why not?

    But these limitations, limitations which we might place on ourselves, with regard to our own use of the term, and for our own purposes, would be unreasonable to place on others — men of the past, say — as regards their use of the term. There, we would want to see what they say about it, since they may have very different criteria of qualification.

  106. happyfeet says:

    I don’t go door to door to try and get people to proactively delimit white trash christer rights. I don’t boycott anything for to try to deny people like the Concerned Hoochies a voice.

    Live and let live say I.

    The christers though, they try to use government to force their perverted christer lifestyles on everyone and make everyone accept their twisted and hateful white trash christer values. It’s very very not America.

  107. cranky-d says:

    To put it like that, ‘privacy isn’t a right granted by the Constitution’, implies no expectation of privacy.

    I think that’s what he’s driving at.

    You are correct, sir. That is what I meant.

    My take on the Founders, which could be mistaken, is that they never thought they had to state that there is an expectation of privacy, but that it was inherent. It certainly seems to be inherent given their dislike for unreasonable search and seizure, and for government intrusiveness in general. I am remiss because while I own a copy of the Federalist Papers (an impulse purchase, but I really like having books around, so I tend to buy a lot of them), I have not read it. Therefore, the Founders may have felt differently on the subject.

  108. Makewi says:

    The christers though, they try to use government to force their perverted christer lifestyles on everyone and make everyone accept their twisted and hateful white trash christer values. It’s very very not America.

    What’s America is forcing others to accept whatever change the loud, angry and fabulous minority crowd decides that they want. Failure (for the white people) to give it with a smile makes one a hater. Shocking.

  109. happyfeet says:

    But you’re at least as bad as they are, ‘feets, because you hold those “tribe white trash christers” in as much contempt as they hold homosexuals in.

    Yes! This.

  110. dicentra says:

    The christers though, they try to use government to force their perverted christer lifestyles on everyone and make everyone accept their twisted and hateful white trash christer values.

    They do? They’re using the government to force people to pray, pay tithing, read the scriptures, go to church on Sundays, wait until marriage (or abstain if you can’t bond with the opposite sex), sign a document saying you accept the Nicene Creed, pay alms to the poor (unlike the Left, yeah?), and stop coveting thy neighbor’s stuff?

    As was stated upthread, the “hateful white trash christers” are on the DEFENSIVE in the culture wars: it’s the Left who tries to impose their twisted values through the fiat of the courts, who tells use we have to STFU because we’re hateful white trash christers.

    Pushback is imposition. Who knew?

  111. happyfeet says:

    banning gay people from marrying is a lot impositional … what if white trash christers were banned from marriage? That would be very impositional, no?

    White trash christers should let gay peoples live how they want to live – married or not – it’s really none of their business.

  112. Makewi says:

    banning gay people from marrying is a lot impositional … what if white trash christers were banned from marriage? That would be very impositional, no?

    This is a lie and you are a liar. Gay people are not banned from getting married. If you won’t be truthful, go fuck yourself.

  113. Squid says:

    I’m thinking we lock Alex and ‘feets in a room together until one of them learns to recognize irony.

  114. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    I’ll be back soon, it’s time to go shovel some snow here in NYC, lest my elderly neighbors take a spill-God forbid.

    Freaking do gooder christer ;) You’re a good man, Bob.

  115. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    banning gay people from marrying is a lot impositional

    Who knew Jeff was a christer? One of them “Jews for Jesus” guys?

  116. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Makewi I find your desire for the white trash christer hoochies to grow up and marry gay guys and live together to the glory of the Lord somewhat quixotic. That sort of thing is becoming increasingly uncommon I fear.

    Kids these days.

  117. Makewi says:

    Mr. happyfeet I find your insistence on being a liar what who lies as a means to improve his argument to be really annoying. What’s more, that you do it here where the twisting of language to suit ones purpose is a common theme just smacks of an arrogance that is appalling.

    I wish you would stop it.

    So, in the hope that truth is something that you value – Is it a ban or is it a (so far) denial of a request to redefine something?

  118. happyfeet says:

    Mr. OI dogma is dogma but what is quintessentially America is if you don’t like gay marriage don’t get gay married.

  119. Darleen says:

    Abe

    So I guess the thing to do is whine about the media incessantly.

    Oh. So noting that sometimes the author of a message is not at fault when the receiver deliberately refuses to consider the author’s intent and rewrites it to conform to the receiver’s own prejudices is “whining”.

    Got it.

  120. Ernst Schreiber says:

    But you’re at least as bad as they are, ‘feets, because you hold those “tribe white trash christers” in as much contempt as they hold homosexuals in.

    Yes! This.

    So when the “God hates fags!” christers are in town, you’re there to yell “fags hate God!” (or at least christers)? At least metaphorically speaking? You’re rather fanatical in your opposition to fanatics.

  121. happyfeet says:

    This idea that marriage must adhere to a Sacred Definition never to be redefined is goofy. It’s been redefined in many countries already, and to no particular ill-effect.

    Failshit America no longer looks to the future; all of its glories lie in the past. But that doesn’t mean the future won’t arrive. It just means America will be ill-prepared.

  122. sdferr says:

    The little tiny finger bananas cut green a week ago are finally coming ripe, and man’o-man’o-mannyschevitz are they tasty: like a bitsy vanilla ice-cream in a skin.

    And another thing: it’s a pleasant sound when the ice cubes, stacked in the too small glass of scotch, melting, fall by their own accord to bell-ring the sides of that glass as they settle in the liquid, reminding us there’s more to be drunk there.

    Haterz.

  123. Darleen says:

    White trash christers should let gay peoples live how they want to live

    Please cite WTC legislation criminalizing gays and tossing them into jail for being gay.

    – married or not

    Marriage is a public institution and even WTC have the same right to vote as non-WTC’s

    it’s really none of their business.

    Marriage is, how gays behave in private is not.

    You really need to stop pretending that objections to a radical redefinition of marriage is homophobic.

  124. happyfeet says:

    I wouldn’t say homophobic. It’s merely garden-variety bigotry I think.

  125. sdferr says:

    Repeal passed in the House, 236 – 181, 2 “present”, 15 not voting.

  126. Makewi says:

    Your failure to answer the question is noted. You want it, you want it now, and so you are entitled to make a villain anyone who doesn’t give it to you and to lie to serve your ends. You are also entitled to pick and choose who gets the blame, because we must remember that while black folks are overwhelmingly against gay marriage, gay blacks are unhelpful to the cause of blackdom as a general rule.

  127. Darleen says:

    This idea that marriage must adhere to a Sacred Definition never to be redefined is goofy

    No configuration of marriage has ever been same sex. None. Ever. So who is “goofy” here?

    been redefined in many countries already, and to no particular ill-effect.

    Cuz polygamy is such a wonderful configuration. Polyamory must be government sanctioned else the objectors are trashy bigots that wants to interfer!! Wahaaaaaa!

  128. Darleen says:

    It’s merely garden-variety bigotry

    Same sex marriage advocates certain are ..

  129. happyfeet says:

    There’s same sex marriage in Canada, Darleen, which is in the same hemisphere as failshit America, and which is very similar to America just not as much awash in debt and fail and more awash in oil.

  130. Makewi says:

    The failure of society to allow me to tie blades to the feet of a rooster and bet on the outcome of it’s fights is a little bigoted too. So is the failure of my employer to allow me to go home at lunch to take a siesta. Fucking bigots everywhere man.

  131. happyfeet says:

    the humanity

  132. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Failshit America no longer looks to the future; all of its glories lie in the past.

    Now how can that be when the past was nothing but white trash christers hating on folks with their sacred definitions of morality and other impositions of bigotry?

  133. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Canada’s also chock-a-block full of people who think you can say whatever you want to say so long as it doesn’t offend the perpetually aggrieved –and it has the human rights commissions to prove it.

  134. Darleen says:

    There’s same sex marriage in Canada

    Geez … “Hey ma, my friends parents are letting him [fill in questionable behavior]! If you don’t let me you’re just a meany!”

    I don’t think that’s an argument.

  135. happyfeet says:

    I guess it’s baked in the pie Mr. Ernst.

  136. newrouter says:

    canada is progg heaven. i wish all proggs here moved there.

  137. LBascom says:

    “There’s same sex marriage in Canada, Darleen, which is in the same hemisphere as failshit America, and which is very similar to America just not as much awash in debt and fail and more awash in oil.”

    Canada has a population smaller than California, and a replacement rate for White Christers and their stupid western culture even smaller than ours. They will follow shortly behind Europe in becoming Muslim states under Sharia law.

    Now those people really hate the gays

  138. Entropy says:

    the high horse is ridden by the people what suppose anyone should give a shit that they only hate the “sin” I think… Jesus never once called homosexuality a sin – why should anyone care what a bunch of Republicans call it?

    To be completely fair, Jesus said – and most christian theologies generally hold – that whatever the hell the Old Testament said was bad, is still bad, unless stated otherwise by Jesus or in the New Testament (and even then, many will suggest that those exceptions where highly nuanced and depended mostly on intent).

    It also removed the punishments for bad stuff, so no more moral god-ordained stoning for anything, no matter what you did wrong. But wrong is still wrong by the theology.

    Jesus said you ought observe the Sabbath out of your own interest, but it’s cool to work on the Sabbath if you felt it best. Somebody – I think it was Paul – said you could eat whatever the fuck you wanted including pork. Etc. etc. etc.

    And all the unclean days of ritual washing outside city limits if you accidentally touched some chick who was bleeding went out with the stoning.

    But you, as a matter of theology, still can’t bang homos or animals.

    The fact that Jesus (and any of his Apostles) never said shit about homos specifically means God still hates buttsex.

    I don’t particularly even subscribe to the theology. Though it is a bit frustrating that even many subscribers, along with virtually all non-subscribers, talk shit without knowing their ass from a hole in the ground on the subject.

    As for waving signs that say “homos burn in hell” or whatever else they want to do, including boycotting conferences with homos in them, those are actually constitutionally protected rights whether they display good judgement or not.

  139. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I have a question for Abe, if he’s still around. Before the pikachu blew his stuffing all over the thread again, you wrote:

    The difference, in case it isn’t obvious, is that Republicans undermine a more broadly palatable argument for limited government which was kind of my whole point.

    Now, I take it you’re talking about the way the “culture wars” type social issues play in the electorate as a whole, correct?

    My question is, what do you think that argument is that the Republicans are undermining?

    sincerely and respectfully

    ES

  140. Entropy says:

    This idea that marriage must adhere to a Sacred Definition never to be redefined is goofy. It’s been redefined in many countries already, and to no particular ill-effect.

    Why the hell should we redefine it?

    To coddle homos? That seems to be the desired ulterior outcome. They are emo and we need to hold their hand and whisper ‘there there’.

    I don’t see you bending over backwards to have government create alternative comparable cultural institutions for all existing ones, meant to cater to my specific tastes.

    IS IT BECAUSE I’M BLACK?!?!?

    I’m not, but I redefined it so now I am. IT WON’T HURT!

    Why can’t mormons and muslims file all 16 of their wives as dependants on a 1040EZ? The lack of space on the form is rank religious discrimination by a bunch of goddamn moralists.

    I am married to my fantasy wife who exists only in my head, but I love her, I should be able to legally marry her and I demand you redefine the definition and provide me with a government certificate of non-judgemental validation.

    Besides, it’s not all so Sacred and all that. Male-female monagamy was invented by pagan Romans.

    And Romans were all about effective, efficient social organization. Because of the PRAGMATISM.

  141. happyfeet says:

    Actually who are emo are the white trash christer hoochies what are pouting pouting pouting and won’t go to a conference unless they get to approve the guest list.

  142. LBascom says:

    Just for consistency, I also support the US government in their decision to force the Mormon church to abandon polygamy before Utah was given statehood.

    It was the right thing to do.

  143. LBascom says:

    The fuck’in Amish boycott everything, the pouty bastards…

  144. Makewi says:

    Which is totally different than the emo in happyfeetland who pouted pouted pouted publicly about specific Mormons who didn’t vote the right way. Calling out specific individuals who fail to vote the right way is very America I think.

  145. happyfeet says:

    Calling out specific individuals who fail to vote the right way is very America I think.

    No it was very atrocious and shitty behaviour.

  146. LBascom says:

    Calling out specific individuals who fail to vote the right way is very America I think.

    Unless they’re black.

    That can be…problematic.

  147. Makewi says:

    Yeah, it was. Boycotting CPAC because of the gays is also atrocious and shitty behavior. I’m not down with it.

  148. Ernst Schreiber says:

    They’re not pouting. They organized a competing conference sponsored by the Family Research Council.

    I suspose [stet] I could argue that what’s going on is that the white trash christers finally listened to all those libertarian voices saying “shut up or go away!”. And now that they’ve gone away those same voices are whining about how their departure is contrary to the greater good.

    But that wouldn’t exactly be accurate, would it?

  149. Makewi says:

    If I can just expand on my last for a second. I think it is especially egregious because it assumes that a homo is entirely defined by his or her sex acts and nothing else. Which is really belittling and demeaning.

  150. Swen says:

    Everyone is going to hell but me.

    Well I certainly hope so! I can’t stand harp music and I’d be lonely without all my friends….

  151. happyfeet says:

    If the Concerned Hoochies want to have a circle jerk with their Family Research Council pals then more power to them. The more marginalized they are, the better for Team R and the better for America.

  152. LBascom says:

    I think it is especially egregious because it assumes that a homo is entirely defined by his or her sex acts and nothing else. Which is really belittling and demeaning.

    Maybe they wouldn’t have made that decision had the gay agenda not forced a second ballot initiative in California (the notorious Prop 8), also approved by the voters, only to be again overturned by judicial fiat.

    Or maybe they’re just activist, bigoted firebrands and would have shown their ugly prejudice anyway. Hard to tell.

  153. Entropy says:

    Actually who are emo are the white trash christer hoochies what are pouting pouting pouting and won’t go to a conference unless they get to approve the guest list.

    Yes.

    Emo > statist emo who tries to make the government revise the guest list.

    How horrible it would be to have the homosexuals decide to boycott the institution and declare that if they cannot marry each other, then they will not get married at all!

  154. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Careful what you wish for.

  155. Entropy says:

    An emo is just an emo.

    But a tyrannical statist emo is practically Hitler.

  156. happyfeet says:

    I didn’t even know there was an emo hierarchy nobody tells me anything

  157. happyfeet says:

    wehrmacht bitches at?

  158. newrouter says:

    i wish homos would get over their homoness and be sunny and gay

  159. newrouter says:

    All this is increasingly obvious, particularly to those not brain-altered in institutions of higher learning or on the oligarchy’s payroll. On all occasions when the public has a chance to express itself on related issues such as immigration, bilingual education, gayization or dhimmization, the people overwhelmingly reject the diversity project. The ruling elite continues implementing it nonetheless by a series of increasingly totalitarian measures, including judicial nullification of inconvenient plebiscites, new laws explicitly at odds with the will of the people, persecution of “crimes of intolerance,” and executive rulings that circumvent the apparatus of democracy.

    link

  160. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The ruling elite continues implementing it [the diversity project] nonetheless by a series of increasingly totalitarian measures, including judicial nullification of inconvenient plebiscites, new laws explicitly at odds with the will of the people, persecution of “crimes of intolerance,” and executive rulings that circumvent the apparatus of democracy.

    Well of couwthe thilly! I mean, what’th the point of libewty without equality? We won’t twuly be fwee and equal until we awe all alike. Jutht exactly the thame. intewchangeable cogth in the machine of thate.

  161. bh says:

    The fuck’in Amish boycott everything, the pouty bastards…

    Heh.

  162. Bob Reed says:

    This idea that marriage must adhere to a Sacred Definition never to be redefined is goofy. It’s been redefined in many countries already, and to no particular ill-effect.

    Marriage is a societal tradition, as well as a religious sacrament, that has been clearly defined, developed, and successfully practiced over thousands of years. Few of the folks who you refer to as “white trash christers” are opposed to civil unions for gay couples, sanctioned by the state or sanctified by amenable religious organizations, that carry many of the legal rights that traditional marriage does.

    But for some reason that’s not good enough for the militant activist gay advocates. Although equal, they will not be satisfied until society is forced to smilingly accept and affirm, and regard as being equally as mainstream and normal, a lifestyle choice and arrangement they may not personally approve of.

    Equality is not good enough; we have to all CELEBRATE! and rejoice in each of their unions.

    We’ve been up and down this road happyfeet, many times, and you know both my opinion and that I am no homophobe or bigot; I said waaaaaay upthread that it was wrong for groups to boycott CPAC because of the inclusion of GOPac. I think that equality should be good enough, and reject the witchunts and demonstrative inquisitions, of the type that saw Captain Honors relieved in order to demonstrate DOD’d committment to “diversity in sexual preference” and intolerance for hurting LBGT feelings, that are designed to placate and mollify a shriekingly vocal minority.

    I’m not trying to argue with or embarrass you into changing your personal opinion. But, I say the same thing to those folks that I say to those that think America should be more like Euro-socialists or Canada; move there and bask in the transnational multi-culti goodness then, and leave America for those who love her regardless of whether she “evolves” into the form they like it or not.

    YMMV my friend, but I’m in line with our host JeffG on this one, and truly have no problem with loving the sinner, we are all sinners, and hating the sin.

  163. newrouter says:

    next stop: let us celebrate gaydom or “lgand assorted perverts” in saudi arabia. do it for obama!!!!

  164. newrouter says:

    darwin tells me the “gays” are dead enders. that is the christer in me.

  165. happyfeet says:

    you know both my opinion and that I am no homophobe or bigot

    I also don’t think you’re a white trash christer Mr. Bob… you have your work cut out for you to earn that. But I don’t think the goal is to force celebration and acceptance I think gay people are very sincere about the marriagings I know this cause I saw Neal & David in People and there was a very sincere marriage vibe there.

    brb

  166. happyfeet says:

    see?

    They’re wearing the same outfit that’s pretty darn sincere.

    But I’m not moving to Canadia my job is to help failshit dirty socialist America suck marginally less hard and it’s a lot of work.

  167. newrouter says:

    “I think gay people are very sincere about the marriagings”

    yea right. proggs are pushing all the buttons. ask the fcc & epa.

  168. happyfeet says:

    gay people are not all proggs Mr. newrouter that’s why this one group is at the CPAC and the concerned hoochies are in a snit

  169. newrouter says:

    how’s come fighting for group “rights” is ok at cpac. maybe the fag peeps are co-opting your message. bwarneys frank likes the goproud. hmmm.
    did anyone ask keith elison his muslim view?

  170. newrouter says:

    “gay people are not all proggs Mr. newrouter that’s why this one group is at the CPAC and the concerned hoochies are in a snit”

    why is sex stuff important? why are gay peeps proud of anal sex? darwin tells me no don’t go there. it is very scientific no?

  171. newrouter says:

    “gay people are not all proggs”

    the “gay” agenda is progg like the black, hispanic, women, disabled, workers, “middle class”, workers, et al of the progg agenda

  172. cranky-d says:

    Gays are, in the majority, proggs, because they believe the lies that the left is more in favor of their agenda than the right. Also, many gays really do have to have their unions called marriage and want to make sure all the straights call it that too, because of the tolerance.

    Sure, not all of them feel that way, but the ones making the most noise do. They suffer from the same proggie disease the straight proggies do, that if you call something by a name that’s “appropriate” and “mainstream,” acceptance will follow. However, every time someone changes the name of something to mean something else, all that happens is the new name takes on the connotations of the old thing. They will define marriage to mean gay marriage, and the straights will have to find a new name for marriage for themselves, and then the gays will want to call their marriage by the new name, and so on, forever.

    If you don’t know what I mean, think

    mongoloid -> retarded -> special -> special needs

    etc. If you hear that a child is “special” or has “special needs,” you know darned well they probably mean retarded. It’s a game, and a stupid one.

  173. happyfeet says:

    groups don’t get married individual people get married

  174. happyfeet says:

    cranky we already have the for reals marriage and the white trash marriage where the christer hoochies are subservient to their husbands for jesus and they both co-exist under the same definition of marriage.

    I think the institution is sufficiently malleable to include same sex relationships, and it is in fact doing so in an increasing number of places outside of failshit America.

  175. newrouter says:

    “groups don’t get married individual people get married”

    no a man and a woman marry everything else is a progg mind fart

  176. newrouter says:

    “I think the institution is sufficiently malleable to include same sex relationships”

    you think wrong in ca twice

  177. newrouter says:

    “and it is in fact doing so in an increasing number of places outside of failshit America.”

    i hear killing gov’t officials for blasphemy is popular in pakistan

  178. newrouter says:

    i hear stoning fags is popular in obama’s 57 states.

  179. happyfeet says:

    you heard wrong Mr. newrouter it is actually frowned upon I think you’re being facetious

  180. Bob Reed says:

    I don’t think you should move to Canada happyfeet, just those who would like America to be more…Canadian. I don’t understand what the problem is with civil unions, especially if they carry the same legal rights for the participants.

    Don’t tell me those fellows got hitched while barefoot, in jeans, and holding babies!?!

  181. Caecus Caesar says:

    love the sinner but hate the sin

    Damn, I think I’ve been working it vice-versa.

  182. newrouter says:

    the fags(add idiot acronym here) lifestyle is anti darwinist. therefore anti-science. so fags are christers with an agenda.

  183. happyfeet says:

    I like civil unions too but Team R is to civil unions what jennifer love hewitt is to breast reduction surgery

    not having it

  184. bh says:

    They’re wearing the same outfit that’s pretty darn sincere.

    Suit up, Barney! Geez.

  185. bh says:

    I’d have assumed the Darwin sock person well over a dozen times now if I didn’t have to change the avatar and login and all that.

  186. newrouter says:

    darwin says “put progg thought here but mostly you got to procreate to be in the game” the fags and lesbos don’t do it. science peeps!!11!

  187. newrouter says:

    yea and you “transgender” f**k ups need not apply. allah the mental cases it is easier to stone them!

  188. bh says:

    So, gay people disprove evolution or evolution disproves gay people?

    Bonus question: how is it that infertile people keep showing up in each new generation?

  189. bh says:

    For the life of me, I simply can’t understand your mental block here and you repeat it constantly on this topic.

  190. newrouter says:

    “So, gay people disprove evolution or evolution disproves gay people?”

    the “science” shows heterosexuals procreate cupcake. anal sex no.

  191. Stephanie says:

    Seems to me y’all are addressing the wrong sin. The private sin is one that harms no one else and if they want to get their strap on on, more power to them which is why most socons are meh towards gays in that regard. The public sin is one of covetousness. Like all proggs, they want what someone else has. That it is really like trying to squeeze a humvee into a compact car parking space and dinging the doors on the adjacent cars is tough shit. If Mark and Susan can park a compact car there, well then the gay’s will claim their humvee is a compact car…

  192. newrouter says:

    “you repeat it constantly on this topic.”

    short version: sticking your dick in a man’s anus is not procreation. do it in a woman’s possible. do the birds and the bees to an idiot,

  193. bh says:

    Not an answer.

    Think about it for a second rather than going into insult mode.

    Do infertile people procreate? No. How do they keep reappearing? There’s an easily identifiable mechanism. Fertile parents.

    Likewise, where do the vast majority of gay people come from? Straight parents.

    There. Is. No. Mystery. Here.

  194. newrouter says:

    “The private sin is one that harms no one else and if they want to get their strap on on, ”

    no the next step is to have sex with a 9 year old while having an orgy with whatever. f&&k perverts. harm whom inter acting with another person?

  195. bh says:

    Imagine if all red heads couldn’t reproduce with other red heads yet it remained possible for those with the recessive gene to reproduce with anyone.

    Would you have such problems with evolution or red heads in that scenario?

  196. newrouter says:

    “Do infertile people procreate? No. ”

    faggots by definition do not procreate. is it “science” or is it progg agenda?

  197. newrouter says:

    “Imagine if all red heads couldn’t reproduce with other red heads yet it remained possible for those with the recessive gene to reproduce with anyone.”

    the gay sex peeps don’t reproduce. you are arguing stupidity.

  198. bh says:

    Uhhh, what do you think the definition of infertile is?

    And, wrong, there’s no part of the “gay definition” that says they don’t procreate. They can do it and do do it. But, if they do, they’re overwhelmingly likely to have a straight kid. Just like everyone else.

  199. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Damn Stephanie. Smart, thoughtful with just a touch of … naughtiness.

    I think I’ll imagine you as a redhead.

  200. happyfeet says:

    gay marriage fuck yeah

  201. bh says:

    Can you covet that which you honestly think is yours?

    That is to say, can you covet your own wife?

    (I do hear what you’re saying Stephanie and it’s an interesting twist but it doesn’t work, for me anyways, in the case of gay people who honestly think same sex marriage is their natural right.)

  202. Stephanie says:

    no the next step is to have sex with a 9 year old while having an orgy with whatever. f&&k perverts. harm whom inter acting with another person?

    I’m not talking next steps – I’m talking gays. I’m not talking 9 year olds (which is already illegal) – I’m talking gays. Two adult gays doing whatever to each other affects exactly no one else. What my husband and I do in the privacy of our house affects exactly no one else.

    If anyone in any combination (legal age participants) wants to fuck titties or ears or anuses it is a private concern. If they want to act out scenes from 9 1/2 Weeks it harms no one else and is a private concern.

    That they covet and want to adopt a ritual that others practice and change the fundamental basis of that ritual and force those who practice it to acquiesce to their covetousness is a taking.

    It is rather like joining The Church of Nilla Wafers and informing the congregants they are using the wrong symbols and insisting that the wafer should not be a wafer it should be a dorito (to use a current issue that is floating around – thanks Frito Lay) and that the church must use doritos and the Church is still the Church of Nilla Wafers when in fact it is now the Church of Frito Lay. What it was before, is no more. And that is a taking of the essence of the Church of Nilla Wafers.

  203. sdferr says:

    You really should get out more newrouter. Homosexually inclined people have kids quite a lot actually, though I must say, most all of the children of homosexual people I’ve known weren’t homosexuals themselves. So I suspect that there’s more to generating homosexual people than genetic matter solely.

  204. Stephanie says:

    Used to be, but I’m a blonde now. Alas, the grey doesn’t show as much between visits to the salon as a blonde. I kinda got tired of the chillens refering to my “Nascar Racing Stripe.”

  205. bh says:

    Silly wording on my part. I was using “covet” as a natural pejorative when it’s actually the circumstance that it doesn’t belong to you that makes it a situational negative.

    So, mentally add “immorally” before the “covets” in #201, please.

  206. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Ah, but is same sex marriage a natural right, and from what first principle(s) does it derive?

  207. Stephanie says:

    sdferr, most of my gay hairdressers have kids and were married at one time in their lives – to women. I make no causal effect claims on the whys and wherefores of whether their wives soured them on heterosexuality or if they were beards. I’ve also known of homosexuals who have suddenly married heteros and decided that they were straight – (Anne Heche).

  208. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I’m still going to imagine you as a redhead. I’m smart enough to stay outside of the redhead event horizon.

  209. bh says:

    Rather than walk that longer path, Ernst, couldn’t we take a shortcut and logically stipulate that one couldn’t immorally covet that which they honestly thought was theirs rightfully?

  210. Stephanie says:

    Ah, but is same sex marriage a natural right, and from what first principle(s) does it derive?

    Coupling is a natural right. Coveting the practice of what another does in practicing their coupling is not.

    Seems to me natural rights accrue to individuals in a bodily sense and not to the practices of individuals individually OR collectively, but I haven’t thought that through so much it may be more of less than that.

    Most of the disagreements over this issue aren’t that gays want to couple and call it something, it is that they want to call it a word that is already in use for something and the practitioners of this are feeling all territorial about it being taken from them. Shakespeare covered this rather handily. A rose…

  211. Ernst Schreiber says:

    [C]ouldn’t we take a shortcut and logically stipulate that one couldn’t immorally covet that which they honestly thought was theirs rightfully?

    No. The 100 million victims of the covetors of private property won’t allow it.

  212. Bob Reed says:

    bh,
    But might that not neing the same as saying that one couldn’t possibly be hijacking the intent of that which they really knew the correct meaning of?

    The societal concept “Marriage” has been about hetero pair bonding since at least the time of the Romans. Why change it now? An equivalent civil unions would suffice, especially if it conferred the same legal rights and privileges.

    Heck, where I live it’s easier for a gay couple to adopt children than a straight one; I know from personal experience…

  213. bh says:

    Weren’t those victims of theft and murder and not covetousness? This might sound like I’m splitting a hair rather finely here but isn’t covetousness something you do in your mind and theft or murder is something you do in deed?

  214. Stephanie says:

    No. The 100 million victims of the covetors of private property won’t allow it.

    And that is where I was going with the gist of the covetousness and territoriality. The word has been used. It is taken. The word owns the intellectual property rights of the meaning as it was attached to it and any attempt to redefine or repurpose the word is a theft from that word of its intellectual property right. Any attempt to change the meaning alters the property and makes it what it isn’t or wasn’t before the taking.

  215. bh says:

    I’m sort of making a narrow argument here, Bob, as I tried to re-express to Ernst. It’s a Jesuit thing. [Insert smiley emoticon here.]

    To recast this just a bit, I feel that I have to remain open to the possibility that at least a subset of same sex marriage proponents are acting in good faith. They believe this thing is their rightful property. At that point, I’m entirely free to disagree but I don’t know that I can logically say that they don’t honestly think they have a legitimate claim on marriage. Isn’t that the essential requisite required if I’m to say they’re being covetous?

  216. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I think they were the victims of covetousness as well. Private property is not fair, you see, so those people were killed for their own good. Satre’s “when you kill a European colonialist you kill two evils” (my paraphrase). and all that.

    My point (so I don’t derail our exchange any further), is that I believe you can honestly think you’re entitled to something and still be immoral.

  217. happyfeet says:

    y’all talk all tough and shit but the truth is if gay marriage were legal and any of you guys were to be unexpectedly seated with a gay newlywed couple at a dinner party every last one of you monkeys would be exceedingly immaculately and decent and kind and engaged and 97% of you would have a good time and 3% of you would have drank too much and needed help home

  218. happyfeet says:

    oh. I put an and before decent what I shouldn’t have

  219. sdferr says:

    I’m not sure where we’re supposed to be locating an immorality here? Is it in the desire to have homosexual unions be called marriage? Cause that sounds odd, somehow.

  220. happyfeet says:

    yes but ernsty wernsty it’s not your place to judge people immoral is it no it isn’t I heard there will be cake on the lido deck

  221. bh says:

    Tell me if this is a fair hypothetical.

    Frank falls in love with Theresa. They get married. They consummate the marriage.

    The entire time Frank was entirely ignorant of the fact that Theresa was already married to another man.

    Okay. One, is that a fair hypothetical based on what we’re talking about? Two, did Frank immorally covet another man’s wife?

  222. Stephanie says:

    Theft or murder is the completion of the act of covetousness. The bible says that covetousness is a sin even though it is a thought that hasn’t been taken to its logical conclusion. Why is that? Kinda like Jimmy Carter and his “lust in his heart” comment when he was asked if he had ever been unfaithful.

    Is cybersex being unfaithful? The act hasn’t been completed in a biblical sense, but many people will answer affirmatively that cybersex is being unfaithful.

    It seems to me that covetousness was deemed a sin because it was a kind of gateway sin to doing worse things that are surely sins in fact and deed.

    The same sex marriage issue is the gays attempting to act on their covetousness and complete the act with the theft of marriage. They have been offered “civil unions” as a readily available term to satisfy their covetousness of marriage, but they don’t want it. They want what another has. That is coveting. And changing the meaning of marriage would be to enable their theft.

  223. bh says:

    By the way, that’s not a hypo on gay marriage per se. It’s a hypo based on one’s ability to sin based on what they think they’re doing.

  224. Stephanie says:

    y’all talk all tough and shit but the truth is if gay marriage were legal

    I find it interesting that you used the modifier “gay.” Why do you think you did that?

    Further…

    What if there were two marriage certificates available at the govt office? One titled “Certificate of Marriage,” One, “Certificate of Gay Marriage.” Would the gay community have a problem with that? So far the evidence is, yes they would.

  225. Ernst Schreiber says:

    bh, I’m more or less with Stacy McCain on the issue of gay marriage. Teh gays have the same right to marry a person of the opposite sex as have teh straights. If they go about it right, they can game the system and buy both halves of the duplex, and more power to them for stickin’ it to the Man. What they’re asking for is a special privilege.

    I could probably live with a Civil Union regime. But what happens when the gay parents want to put their kid in Catholic school (for example)?

  226. happyfeet says:

    I swear to god I thought we were talking about gay marriage

  227. Stephanie says:

    To expand on covetousness… is it the only sin that was labeled as a sin that Heinlein or Orwell would label as a “thought crime.” I can’t offhand think of any other “sins” that could be classified as “thought crimes.”

  228. happyfeet says:

    if lust isn’t a thought crime than what’s the point everybody should just stay home and watch Glee

  229. Stephanie says:

    I swear to god I thought we were talking about gay marriage

    And there is that modifier again. If we were talking about marriage and I couldn’t tell what kind of couple you were wanting to discuss, then the word marriage would include gays. Since you felt the need to use the modifier again, kinda suggests that what you were wanting to discuss is sufficiently different that it 1) needs modifying for conciseness and 2) needs a different word because the other one doesn’t quite capture the meaning you were wanting to signify.

  230. happyfeet says:

    also isn’t thoughtcrime opposed to be one word?

  231. bh says:

    I’m just mentally playing with the notion of covetousness and the desire for gay marriage because it’s a novel idea to me, Ernst and Stephanie.

    Not really trying to make an argument one way or the other. Doubt I have anything particularly insightful to express about the issue regardless.

  232. Ernst Schreiber says:

    ‘feets I’m not the one judging, I’m just abiding by the Judgement. Gluttony is immoral too, so easy on the cake there.

    In answer to your hypo bh, I suppose it would depend on what Frank does next.

  233. Stephanie says:

    So you would agree with Jimmy Carter that he has been unfaithful?

    And I hate Glee…

  234. Stephanie says:

    That last was to hf…

  235. happyfeet says:

    stepahanie what it all comes to is

    that no one’s really got it all figured out just yet

  236. happyfeet says:

    comes *down* to I mean sorry I are distracted

    brb

  237. Stephanie says:

    My point is and has always been that civil unions or two separate certificates signifying the bonds entered into should be acceptable to gays as long as they convey all the rights and privileges that the current marriage definition does for heteros. That it doesn’t has caused me to wonder why. Covetousness is what I concluded. It isn’t enough to gain the rights and privileges, they want to appropriate (take) the word for a new use.

    That the two conditions marriage and gay marriage are not describably synonymous is telling – at least to me. They aren’t the same and shouldn’t be conflated.

  238. happyfeet says:

    well bully for civil unions when is Team Boehnerfag gonna jump on those I wonder

  239. Stephanie says:

    I don’t think you can cite an instance where Boehner has come out against civil unions (or most Republicans for that matter). Most have spent their time arguing in the gay marriage=marriage realm.

    I wouldn’t try googling the term to see what the gays have to say about it, though. You don’t want to know.

  240. Ernst Schreiber says:

    stepahanie what it all comes to is

    that no one’s really got it all figured out just yet

    Which is why Burke wrote:

    If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feeling will be drawn that way… and then they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate
    Edmund Burke “Thoughts on French Affairs” (1791)

    So maybe we should be a bit more circumspect before we go about mucking around with an institution older than the state itself for the purpose of making a minority feel better about itself as a minority.

    Especially since the fruits and nuts in California aren’t down with the program yet.

  241. happyfeet says:

    I’m not sure where we’re supposed to be locating an immorality here? Is it in the desire to have homosexual unions be called marriage? Cause that sounds odd, somehow.

  242. happyfeet says:

    ok yeah I stole that so what

  243. happyfeet says:

    Edmund Burke never had t

  244. happyfeet says:

    o contend with a popcult

  245. happyfeet says:

    ure that moved faste

  246. happyfeet says:

    r than a mule in hea

  247. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I thought team Boehnerfag was supposed to be all about the spendings lest America continue to shit fail.

  248. happyfeet says:

    t

  249. sdferr says:

    . . . it’s social conservatism that will most often turn those with secular sensibilities away from the right.

    I think for me it would be not enough sour cream for my baked potato, more than social conservatism.

  250. Bob Reed says:

    Shamelessly OT, but weigh in on your picks for this weekend at Dan’s ( http://tiny.cc/Fball ).

    /now let’s return to our regularly scheduled train of thought :)

  251. Ernst Schreiber says:

    and chives! Don’t forget the chives!

  252. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Schreiber the highlight of Boehnerpigment’s Very Important, much-feted, and Highly Pivotal Week was his vowing to cut a fraction of spending… a fraction that is substantially less than Team Whorepublican gave away in the heady heady heat of a glorious pre-CHRISTmas tax cuts for stimulus orgy some couple weeks ago now

    cigarette?

  253. sdferr says:

    GB, NO, BAL, IND

  254. bh says:

    That Burke always brings me back into the fold.

    He must be some sort of mesmerist.

  255. Stephanie says:

    My original comment was that Jeff had identified the wrong “sin” in the body of the post. I remarked that the correct “sin” is covetousness not homosexuality.

    I have no beef with what two folks (or more) do in the privacy of their abode. I have a beef that they want to appropriate the word marriage and use it to signify something that it can’t – that being gay marriage. That the one requires a modifier (gay) and the other doesn’t proves the two activities are not the same and shouldn’t be described samely. I was addressing the whys of why gays demand the use and repurposing of an inappropriately descriptive term to describe the joining of two homos in domestic bliss. This IS a language blog at its core and an entirely appropriate application of language, signifiers and such seems relevant to the issue.

    Note I use homo and hetero to define the states of sexuality not homo as a slur against gays – homo and hetero being more correctly opposite to each other relative to sexuality…

  256. sdferr says:

    Sure, chives. But see, those or bacons are delicious extras to a baker, whereas two or three healthy dollops of sour cream are simply fundamental.

  257. Bob Reed says:

    Precisely my thoughts too sdferr.

  258. Stephanie says:

    Burke sure did smoke some good shit, didn’t he? The only truths my smoking ever revealed was an incessant desire to hit Wendy’s at 2 am for some fries and a Frosty…

  259. happyfeet says:

    stephanie did you see the People picture of Neal and David

    do you care to guess how many other stephanies saw the People picture of Neal and David?

  260. happyfeet says:

    it is many

  261. bh says:

    Wind sprints!

  262. Stephanie says:

    Don’t go making me whistful for my dinner at Outback tonight. The tasty $14.95 steak and lobster dinner with loaded baked potato was perfect. As was the interesting conversation with my 17 yo daughter on the whys and wherefors of manga and Yaoi, Baku, Loveless and all sorts of weird stuff. She pronounced me a M something japanese word which I took to mean apostasy that I was an outsider attempting to fumble through learning about manga and all its nooks and crannies. I was hurt. I was just trying to find out what the fascination is for her and maybe find some genre that I might could enjoy. Alas, she has pronounced me unworthy. She even rolled her eyes when I mentioned was there any good stuff on Adult Swim. Ah, well.

  263. Stephanie says:

    wistful… whist is a game I shall never master.

  264. sdferr says:

    Wind sprints!

    Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.

  265. happyfeet says:

    you might wanna google Yaoi

    where’s louchette when you need her?

  266. Ernst Schreiber says:

    No, Burke never had to deal with a pop culture like ours. But nobody had ever had to deal with a pop culture like France’s in 1791 before either, so he’s got that going for him.

    I suppose (there’s that word again, where’s my thesaurus?) since I’m the one who introduced morality I ought to reply to sdferr and ‘feets.

    I believe the goal agenda of teh gays is to legitimize homosexuality by seizing the imprimatur of “marriage.” I believe homosexual activity (distinct from same-sex attraction) is immoral, as is heterosexual activity outside of marriage.

    I was confirmed in an evangelical church. My mother was raised Presbyterian (Michigan Dutch Calvinist strain), my father, Christian scientist. My wife is Catholic and we are raising our children Catholic.

    I’m a Popish symp, but haven’t convinced myself to cross the Tiber.

    I have no interest in imposing my views on anyone via either the legislative or judicial process. As to subjecting all of you to my views, remember, I was asked.

    Feel free to read me the riot act.

  267. happyfeet says:

    not answering messenger

  268. happyfeet says:

    you’re for reals contending that homosexuality is illegitimate like fucking babies and slapping your mama?

    In the year of our Obama 2010?

    GLWT

  269. Bob Reed says:

    Wouldn’t that be a “Papist symp” Ernst? Speaking as the unabashed Papist that I am…

  270. sdferr says:

    Is symp related to syrup. Cause I get a boner for that maple stuff awful easy.

  271. Ernst Schreiber says:

    What the hell does “GLWT” mean? I’m not hep to da jive, you know?

  272. Stephanie says:

    I admit that I have sinned. I was covetous of men on the golf course yesterday. I had to pee real bad and was pissed off to see some dude pop into the woods for a quick pee. For some reason, this sin recurs on hikes and camping which I have now vowed to avoid just so I am not tempted to sin. I plan on petitioning my congressman for my constitutional golfing rights and demanding that all heavily wooded areas shall henceforth contain at least one john. Particularly those around the 14th hole. These johns will now be known as jills. That is all.

  273. Ernst Schreiber says:

    nevermind figured it out

  274. happyfeet says:

    good luck with that Ernst

    also… Mr. Schreiber, what results do you get when you google “let’s roll”?

    I think my results are broken all I get is an illegitimate same-sex attraction person what is most surely illegitimate.

  275. happyfeet says:

    oh. carry on then.

  276. Stephanie says:

    I have googled Yaoi and baku and all the rest. After much research, I ended up at some strange wiki definition of Japanese bondage.

    Interestingly the accompanying picture was Alex Walter. And thus the internet truly works in mysterious ways.

  277. happyfeet says:

    ok I’m googling yaoi if I’m traumatized in any way you owe me a cupcake

  278. happyfeet says:

    dude.

    if you click on images it’s pretty dark.

  279. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Bob, I was alluding to the old Proddie slur “Popery” in my play on commie symp.

  280. happyfeet says:

    I guess not so much dark as watercolory

  281. happyfeet says:

    I think when you drop an atom bomb on people they develop a highly refined sense of submission

    NTTAWWT

  282. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The Japanese have always been dirty birds.

  283. Stephanie says:

    Japanese manga evidently is broken into genre’s of which Yaoi is some boy-boy bondage drawn by japanese girls. Evidently the more authentic manga is always drawn by Japanese girls. Baku is also bondage, but then from reading wiki, the japanese have some super long history of bondage that rivals the kamasutra for its historical awesomeness. And Sailor Moon and such is also drawn by Japanese girls what have some weird sorority type lesbian until graduation type vibe. Who knew?

    My daughter is into manga and drawing and writing stories. Evidently she has a really big following on a couple of websites. I was just peeking to see what genre she prefers. So far it looks like she’s into the hetero stuff with some weird cat ears and tails on the characters or something. And a bunch of stuff she buys at B&N which I figure can’t be too out there or B&N wouldn’t carry it in the teen section.

  284. Bob Reed says:

    Gotcha Ernst.

  285. happyfeet says:

    your daughter sounds smokin’ cool and well-prepared for the future unlike Mr. Ernst

  286. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You’re freaking this father of two pre-tweener daughters out Stephanie.

  287. bh says:

    One day I will tell a tale of the (tall, skinny, oafish, pale) fish out of water in Tokyo.

    There are many yuks wherein our idiotic protagonist is confused and slack-jawed.

  288. Ernst Schreiber says:

    As a historian, I’ve never been inclined towards the future.

    But I try to be conscious of the fact that the future leads to an End of Days.

  289. Stephanie says:

    Parents are always the last to know. ;) Sailor Moon is no different that an adult watching old American cartoons and finally catching the adult jokes you missed as a kid. Don’t freak out.

    My daughter is definitely MY daughter. She has inherited my weirdly sick sense of humor. She’s a 4chan fan and also reads Ace and Drudge and is big into politics. I guess I’m a bad parent cause I thought it wildly funny when she came home from working at the polling location on Nov 2nd and wanted to go get some pudding to celebrate the tea party victory. And some malt balls so she could “dip it like Ace.”

  290. happyfeet says:

    I remember when I was a wee little man I thought this song had something to do with our nipponese pals what we harshly bombed

    not so much it was just innovative Brits apparently

  291. Stephanie says:

    Well, it’s official. We are under a winter storm watch. Expecting 4-6 inches of snow in Atlanta and a supposedly really wicked ice storm on top of that. Lovely. Bet we lose power, too. For days.

    OMG no internets and if we miss the BCS championship… kill me know!

  292. Stephanie says:

    now. sheesh.

  293. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Our nipponese pals missed when they tried to kick us awake before disembowling the Pacific Fleet, so they had it coming to them.

  294. bh says:

    That’s just nature’s way of letting you know that the Packers are coming to Atlanta shortly, Stephanie.

    Hey, on the plus side, you’re far too young to remember Sherman. It’s like a free history lesson.

  295. happyfeet says:

    yes, Mr. Ernst.

    Whilst Mr. Robert Dole was genuinely and for reals heroic.

    Actively.

    Quite busily and also arm-rendingly.

    He lost to a fuckshit named Bill.

    and ain’t that America something to see baby

  296. geoffb says:

    Interestingly the accompanying picture was Alex Walter

    From his one film, “Casting Couch” no doubt.

  297. Ernst Schreiber says:

    As I recall, Atlanta didn’t freeze over, it burned.

    But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Gone With the Wind.

  298. Stephanie says:

    I remember the ice storm of 75 where we had no power for a week and Snow Jam in the 80s where I got stranded at Emory after we had to abandon the car in the streets due to ice with my 80 yo blind grandmother and had to walk 3 miles to a Waffle House and call my BF father who was a big wig with the police to get a ride home causing a near riot as we were the only ones who got a ride.

    geoffb: LULZ. That is too…. perfect.

  299. bh says:

    Nope, you’re totally wrong, Ernst.

    The year was 19-something. Sherman invented a tank called the Sherman which he used to run a power sweep to the right and score. And then Atlantis sank beneath the waves.

    Frankly, I’m now not sure you’re cut out for history.

  300. happyfeet says:

    and ain’t that America

  301. Stephanie says:

    Umm. If he was heading south and ran a power sweep to the right, he would take out Mobile. And they say women don’t know directions… sheesh.

  302. Stephanie says:

    Anyways, Sherman was a piker. If he’d run a double reverse he could have taken out Athens and Tuscaloosa and maybe Auburn, too.

  303. happyfeet says:

    Sherman is a town in Texas

    named Sherman

    it’s where the homesick texan went to college

  304. Ernst Schreiber says:

    And the entire time that all this was going on, where was Mr. Peabody?

  305. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Off somewhere licking his balls just because he could right?

    (And with that… Goodnight)

    Enjoy your global warming Stephanie!

  306. Stephanie says:

    As to the Packers, they are going to run into the Aflockalypse Defense and WHAM! they’ll be kicked to the curbside drive in at the Varsity asking “What’ll ya have?” so’s they can get a quarter back.

  307. geoffb says:

    The Party Party.

  308. geoffb says:

    And yes it has a whiff of Dem-peration about it.

  309. happyfeet says:

    does a woman hotly licking another woman’s hot hot breast still say homolesbianperversion or is it just kicky?

    I don’t even know anymore.

    Meanwhile M’chelle hates fat kids.

    Fucking hates them.

    Purple passion.

  310. Stephanie says:

    Geoffb: Interesting thing about photos is they tend to make objects in them appear closer to each other than what they actually are. 2 D does that, ya know. She could have been just poking her tongue out at the photog and it just looks like she’s doing what they claim.

    Or, she could just be a party animal – in which case, meh. OMG she’s at a party!!eleventy!11! Not.

    Half of Californication is just jealous they weren’t invited, the other half will claim they were there, too.

    As to who she is supposedly with, whatevs. Everyone has a few unsavory friends that they know about AND a few they don’t.

    Niters.

  311. happyfeet says:

    or maybe Mary Bono had her titties ravaged like Bristol Palin’s unmentionables at a high school hockey tournament

  312. guinsPen says:

    blah, blah, blah,
    but you can’t pik a chu.

  313. Carin says:

    We will surcome all this. I’m sure.

  314. geoffb says:

    The point about the picture is that it is 4 years old. It was not used through two election cycles but is hauled out only now. It is a message to all Republicans even those, especially those, who might be squishy that all possible, even if implausible, dirty laundry will be aired.

    This tells me that there is a sense of desperation to port side. Flailing about in search of a way to stop the Republican House from passing bills that they will have to to publicly oppose.

  315. geoffb says:

    Many surcame due to the explicitly depicted surcoming in that blockbuster.*

  316. Carin says:

    I hope I can surcome my long held support I had for Bono. As many of us on this blog have long admired her work, I think we have much surtoning to do.

  317. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by David Harsanyi, proteinwisdom. proteinwisdom said: "Hating the 'Sinner'" https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=23921 […]

  318. sdferr says:

    An evil thing has happened this morning in Tucson, Az. There has been a mass shooting and killing.

    Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D – Az8) has been killed by gunshot, as have a number of others (NPR reports as many as six others killed, with additional people struck and wounded), all while attending a constituents rally held by the Congresswoman at an N.W Tucson Safeway grocery parking lot.

    Though the NPR story says a single gunman was “firing indiscriminately”, that does not appear to be the case: he fired at the Congresswoman and staffers, as well as others at very close range. The Congresswoman was struck in the head.

    The shooter was tackled and is held in custody. The murderous coward’s name is not known as yet, nor his motive in this act.

  319. sdferr says:

    Now I am seeing reports that the Congresswoman is alive in surgery.

    NPR has changed its story, though the multiple changes to that story — which has resided at the same link I placed above — are not reflected in the story itself. At the time I posted the link NPR had written that the Congresswoman was dead. It now says “There are conflicting reports about whether she was killed.”

    From Tucson local TV station KOLD 13 , this:

    She is alive and in surgery right now,” Slaten said.

    Earlier, CNN and Fox News had both confirmed Giffords’ death.

  320. LBascom says:

    This woman was shot in the head too. Tragic.

  321. sdferr says:

    Sorry to hear about that Lee. But tragic, it isn’t, at least on its face.

  322. dicentra says:

    Although it’s too early to know who did what and for which reason, apparently it’s not too early to make political hay out of the situation, on both the left and the right.

    The KosKiddies are blaming Palin for that graphic of Giffords’s district with a bullseye on it. From the right, a screencap [part 2] of a now-scrubbed Kos Diarist’s post has been posted by various.

    As if either were remotely probative.

    Latest is that a 9-year-old child died and that a judge was also shot, shooter is named 22 year old Jared Laughner. This YouTube video by someone of the same name appears to be the work of schizophrenic.

  323. dicentra says:

    Appears to be the real Jared Laughner at YouTube, because the dude’s from Tucson.

    Definitely a paranoid schizophrenic. Selected video titles: “How To: Mind Controller” and “How To: Your New Currency.”

    Videos are just text, sometimes set to music, wherein he lays out his version of logic. Rants about the government and currency and “conscience dreams.”

    If he’s 22, he’s the right age to have had a break. There were rumors on Twitter about other suspects or other shooters, but I’m pretty sure that rumor goes around after every shooting.

  324. dicentra says:

    This is from his now-removed My Space page, featuring a gun resting atop what looks like a book titled “U.S. History.”

  325. Stephanie says:

    I hate Pete Carroll. I hate the Saints more. Go Seattle!

  326. JD says:

    In unrelated news, the guys calling the Aints vs Seahawks game on NBC are Teh Suck.

  327. JD says:

    Jabba the Rex sucks the hairy rancid nut sacks of underage goats.

  328. cranky-d says:

    Stephanie is going on my list.

  329. geoffb says:

    The “smart” bunch, now all they need is a sucker.

  330. Pablo says:

    Twitter feed for a girl who knows the shooter and lives quite near the shooting.

  331. cranky-d says:

    Oh, look, it’s JD’s favorite announcer, Chris Collinsworth.

  332. Stephanie says:

    geoffb: Too bad Soros won’t go for it. I’d like to see him fund that shortfall, personally.

    cranky: Snap!

    The NBC guys are definitely teh suck.

    I’m enjoying the football tonight and praying that I still have power to watch the BCS on Monday night. There’s gonna be alot of pissed off SEC fans come Monday night I’m afraid. The current forecast is 8 – 10 inches of snow and 1/2 inch of ice. Around Auburn and Lower Ala the forecast is for 3 inches of snow and 1 inch of ice.

  333. Stephanie says:

    Woo-hoo! 30 – 20.

  334. geoffb says:

    Couple of roundups of news on the AZ shooting.

  335. JD says:

    Chris Collinsworth is Satan’s handmaiden.

    Can you believe Seattle?!

  336. cranky-d says:

    I’m not happy about this game, but I guess if there is a time for a team to start peaking, it’s during the playoffs.

  337. JD says:

    Sean’s balls may have finally got the best of him.

  338. happyfeet says:

    a lot of future shot-in-the-head people will have substantially lesser quality health cares cause of this dirty socialist Gabrielle hoochie

    That’s kind of ironic.

  339. Stephanie says:

    Interception pretty please…

  340. JD says:

    Seattle must have finally looked at the scoreboard, and realized who they were.

  341. cranky-d says:

    Field goal? Poop.

  342. Stephanie says:

    They’re hanging in there. Can they outlast the clock?

  343. Stephanie says:

    HOly shit! That was the most bizarre thing…

  344. cranky-d says:

    Well, that was a sad performance by the Saints defense.

  345. JD says:

    That was one of the best runs I have ever seen, in the circumstances.

  346. happyfeet says:

    BP PLC said it’s shutting down 95% of its Alaskan oil production after a big oil leak was discovered at one of the pump stations on the North Slope, a spokesman said.

    The North Slope accounts for around 630,000 barrels a day of production, or about 9% of total U.S. output. The BP-operated Prudhoe Bay – the largest producing field in the U.S. – makes up a big chunk of North Slope production – around 370,000 barrels a day.

    wow I guess bumblefuck didn’t figure on something like this happening when he destroyed the drilling industry in the Gulf of Mexico

    He’s an inspiringly piss-poor president.

  347. Stephanie says:

    Hasselbeck down there trying to block. Five broken tackles. Incredible.

  348. cranky-d says:

    Alright, Seattle, you had better frelling go all the way now. Jerks.

  349. Stephanie says:

    The defending champs giving up 41 to the NFC West Chumps? Wow.

  350. Stephanie says:

    Or is that the defending chumps giving up 41 to the NFC West Champs?

  351. JD says:

    With a win today, and another next week, Seattle will become bowl eligible.

  352. Stephanie says:

    LOL. Snort!

  353. Stephanie says:

    Wow. Denied. The onside kick team better have their sticky gloves on.

  354. cranky-d says:

    Heck, all they need to do is recover the onside kick and score a touchdown. No Problem.

  355. cranky-d says:

    See what I mean? The Saints are champs, baybee!

    Okay, they’re chumps.

    Ooop! Pfft!

    o_O

  356. JD says:

    Mayock is horrible in the booth. Thank Allah he is not calling my Colts game.

  357. cranky-d says:

    I think Collinsworth is calling the Colts game.

  358. cranky-d says:

    I saw him on teevee earlier anyway, during the half-time break. I hope I’m wrong.

  359. bh says:

    Wow, what an upset. And there’s still another good game coming up next.

    I love football.

  360. bh says:

    Mike LaRoche must be freaking out, btw.

  361. Stephanie says:

    Is Mayock gay? I thought it was Bwaney Fwank in the booth when the game started…

  362. dicentra says:

    Hey, I just posted at the pub for the first time in months.

    ¡Dadme albricias, hijos d’Adán!

  363. Stephanie says:

    Go Peyton! Did you remember to wear your reception goggles today?

  364. cranky-d says:

    I can be happy either way here.

  365. cranky-d says:

    Okay, that was a rilly dum play.

  366. Stephanie says:

    Niiiice.

  367. Stephanie says:

    Don’t worry Aints fans… Drew Brees is now available to play in the Pro Bowl.

  368. sdferr says:

    Surely the Saints aren’t going to blame their loss on the lack of a devastating hurricane this last summer, in contrast to their claims that their victory bespoke a stamp of virtue on the city’s overcoming suffering under Katrina?

  369. cranky-d says:

    What the heck was that play call? Down by 4, let’s kick a field goal.

  370. Stephanie says:

    This has been a strange game.

  371. Stephanie says:

    Shit they knocked him down.

  372. Stephanie says:

    Incredible.

  373. cranky-d says:

    Another stupid move, this time by the Colts. Might be fatal.

  374. Stephanie says:

    I can’t watch.

  375. Stephanie says:

    Son of a bitch.

  376. sdferr says:

    That last was a great pattern, throw and catch, one and all. Gotta give that to ’em, at least, don’t we?

  377. JD says:

    no. we do not have to give that to them. jabba the rex fucking sucks. congrats j e t s jets jet jets. fuckers.

  378. Bob Reed says:

    JD,
    I was truly shocked by the results of both games today, but especially the Jets/Colts game. I don’t root for the Jets, but am forced to watch them many weeks here since in the NY market you mostly see Jets, Giants, and some Igglez. I can only imagine how tough it was to sit in the stadium and watch your beloved cColts lose in the last moments.

    Maybe you can get some pleasure out of rooting against the teams you despise for the rest of the playoffs…

    I mean, that’s what I would do :)

  379. JD says:

    rex ryan eats michael moores or school buses for midnight snacks.

  380. guinsPen says:

    GLWT

    Giant lesbian with testicles.

Comments are closed.