I had a long, angry response prepared — John McCain being a needy pander looking for strokes from the liberal media, it was a target rich environment; and that’s before I got into what a bald, craven, opportunistic statist moron with an insatiable lust for power and attention he is — but instead of wasting any more time on this blazing example of the worst of professional politics, I just figured I’d offer an observation:
John McCain may single-handedly kill the GOP as a Party. And as a result, usher in a period of American darkness and liberal fascist, anti-foundationalist, post-constitutional and post-legal rule that will stand until a savior appears and gets nailed to a cross for our political sins.
In fact, I believe were one to look closely at the Book of Revelations, they’d find McCain described, and mankind warned of his ascent. In the apocrypha, in fact, the eighth seal is “Meghan McCain gets a national column.” Not a coincidence, I don’t think.
Before I end this post, however, let me just offer one small reply to Mr McCain’s outrageous and ostentatious defense of what was a remarkably racialist, racist, stereotyped, and unstatesmanlike performance by our (well, not really “our”; we Whites are clearly harboring hatred in our hearts, and Obama doesn’t countenance any such thing, and would just as soon reduce us to domestic terrorists and “enemies” of His State) President:
He, they, we, don’t really like you, John. The liberals who rely on you to neuter your own party’s message, to broker deals against the interests of the GOP base, to run cover for their statist schemes to insinuate into government broad power that can never be extricated, they give you plaudits because they know that, at your age, that’s the closest you’ll come to orgasm. That is, they just find in you a dazzling weakness and they exploit it. And you, being what and who you are, are more than happy to roll over and accept their belly rubs, content to be their bitch just so long as you’re their most favoritist bitch, the one who gets to sleep in the house at the foot of the bed and enjoy the leftover gristle master cut from his steak, while strong-willed alpha dogs like Ted Cruz accept their lot of being tied to the porch, and work each day to chew through the rope that tethers them, ill-content to live as kept animals. We don’t like you for that reason: you’re the political equivalent of an Uncle Tom.
Maybe when you pass, the Democrats will have you stuffed and keep you as a kind of trophy, the loyal pet whose likes we may never see again. Then they can wheel your carcass out each time the GOP “obstructs” “progress” and give impassioned speeches about “what John would have done.” And we’ll all reproach ourselves for dishonoring your memory.
Legacy!
Bravo, Jeff.
He’d make a nice autoicon in the manner of Jeremy Bentham.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who/autoicon
Unlike Bentham, they’d probably let him vote every time, not just in the event of a tie. They already have a brain-dead guy who gets to vote when there’s a tie.
He is the GOP’s Jimmy Carter: still pissed off that America didn’t weep at his brilliance, that he’s determined to screw us every chance he gets. He’s nothing but a contrarian two year old who can be counted on to do the exact opposite of what’s best for him. BTW, do the good people of Arizona still buy his shit?
They put him in the Senate so people in all 57 states would have to pay for it, Shermlaw.
I have no earthly idea what/who Revelation 13 is actually about, but for the sake of a one-off blog comment, let’s say it’s McCain:
Again, I have no clue what this is actually referring to, whether past, present, or future. Just throwin’ it out there.
Allahpundit — playing out his string — finds McCain firmly on the Rand Paul-Mike Enzi bandwagon, presumably along with wise GOP strategists like this Feehery fellow (wise like a happy loser, that is):
Dicentra, you missed Sunday School at any of a number of Dispensationalist Evangelical Churches. The passage refers to the Antichrist and his False Prophet.
The headline on this post was just brought home to me as I contemplated going out for lunch today. Some of the places I’ve been prone to go are staffed overwhelmingly by black Americans — but with Al Sharpton and the NBPP trying to turn a multiracial man’s act of self-defense into a racial Pearl Harbor, I have to admit I wonder how safe my food would be.
I’ve never found myself in that position before. I don’t like it and I don’t like what it would mean for hundreds of hard-working black people in my county alone, if enough other people experience these same doubts.
Undoing 50 years of racial healing indeed.
Do Mormons subscribe to that Antichrist thing, di?
I can’t say that Catholics do. I don’t recall ever hearing any of the Rapture, End of Times, Armageddon-speak until the late 70’s-early 80’s with the Born Again movement.
I always found the Evangelicals to be a scary bunch, but that’s just me.
Do Mormons subscribe to that Antichrist thing, di?
Yes. There is also a fair amount of writing about a whore sitting across many waters.
As a useful shorthand, the answer to most questions regarding what Mormons believe tends to be “baseline christianity and also . . .” You have to get into the weeds to find the divergence, aside from issues regarding holy trinity (which is more a semantic argument than a theological one, and inconsistent even among most mainstream sects).
Anecdotally, there is much less hullabaloo about the second coming and attendant destruction than there once was. This goes for most Christian sects, not just the Mormons. The apocalypse just isn’t as much fun to talk about when we can watch our society decay from year to year in front of our own eyes.
The Walking Dead is somehow less terrifying when we can just look at Detroit and feel the nation slipping into that same whirlpool.
Of course, that ignores the fact that Detroit is the fault of conservatives, per MSNBC.
Mormons don’t believe in the Trinity? I can never keep this stuff straight.
Leigh, we’re a lot less scary than you imagine. I mean, we only bring the snakes out once or twice a year now. [Insert Smiley Emoticon Here]
And by “we,” I mean Evangelicals.
Oh, I was just kidding (mostly), Shermlaw. The only bone I’ve had to pick with a very few of the Evangelicals I have met (and they are thick as thieves around here and mostly very nice people) is the tendency of the few to make the many look bad by saying stupid things like “Catholics aren’t Christians” and that we (Catholics) “worship” statues and the Pope. It gets tiresome to explain it again and again.
The funny thing is, Kansas is chockfull of Catholics and quite a few of them have settled here in Oklahoma. One of my friends was as shocked as me to encounter the naked prejudice toward Catholics here. It is even more appalling toward Jews, even when one reminds that our Lord was a Jew.
I’ve not been exposed to institutional “anti-papism.” I just ignore the stuff with which I disagree theologically and move on. Of course, I live in area up I-44 from you where the saying is, “if you ain’t Catholic, you ain’t shit,” so maybe my co-religionists have been keeping their heads down. [Another Smiley Thing]
Heh. It was that way when I lived in heavily Catholic Pittsburgh and even then in some circles it was the parish you belonged to that was more important than the faith. I ignored those folks.
IIRC, there were some lost in transalation issues in Central and South America where Catholicism was interpreted by the locals in such a way that they were more or less just worshipping the statues, but I readily acknowledge that is not mainstream. Now whether that was entirely due to misunderstandings or deceptively to continue worshipping their previous gods surreptitiously is another matter.
Not trying to be provocative.
I’ve found it to be the case that Catholicism is rather bowdlerized in Central and South America, charles. The further toward the metro centers one gets, the less this is the case.
Mormons don’t believe in the Trinity? I can never keep this stuff straight.
At the risk of a thread derail, Mormons don’t adopt the Nicean Council view of the 3 in 1 trinity. Mormons separate them into three distinct beings with discrete job descriptions.
It’s a fun argument to have between the theologians of different sects as to whether this disqualifies Mormons from being capital “C” Christians. It tends not to make much difference when the qualification for lower case “c” christian is “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
LDS are terrific people and good Christians (see, a capital “c”). I had a Scottish priest who would confide that he thought “them Mar-mons air a coolt!” if he’d had a few nips, but he was an anomaly.
Unitarians are a different story with their rejection of the trinity. I think they are being provocative or just obnoxious.
Which came out of the early 70s “Jesus Freak” movement which in turn was an offshoot/splinter of the Hippies and the New Left the “whole” (if it ever was a “whole”) of which shattered into a thousand groups at that time.
I thought so, but wasn’t quite sure, geoff. I remember the “Jesus Freaks” and the Krishnas at the airports around that time.
The passage refers to the Antichrist and his False Prophet.
I keep forgetting that WordPress doesn’t support sarcasm tags.
It’s a fun argument to have between the theologians of different sects as to whether this disqualifies Mormons from being capital “C” Christians.
If we’re going to divide the world in to capital C Christians and lower-case, then why don’t the Mormons get to draw the line for once?
Here’s what gets you a capital C:
Living prophet and 12 apostles (Ephesians 4:11)
Baptism by immersion (everywhere)
Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts 19)
Aaronic (Levitical) and Melchizedek priesthoods (Hebrews 7)
Continuing revelation (Amos 3:7)
Ordinance work for the dead (1 Cor 15:29, 1 Peter 4))
See how fun it is when you draw the line to include yourself and exclude everyone else?
</fake sarcasm tag>
Catholicism was interpreted by the locals in such a way that they were more or less just worshipping the statues, but I readily acknowledge that is not mainstream. Now whether that was entirely due to misunderstandings or deceptively to continue worshipping their previous gods surreptitiously is another matter.
There is definitely syncretism going on in the mountains, where most folks are ethnic Natives, but in the cities, the Catholics just worship the statues and beg the Virgin to win them the lottery or to heal their kid.
There are no ethical demands made by the curas on their congregations, and the people are only vaguely aware that Being Catholic ought to mean behaving oneself. No such animal as Catholic Guilt down there.
That’s what happens when a church is an Official State Organ: the people you attract to the priesthood and other leadership positions tend toward political ambition, whereas in the States and Canada, you get people who are more service-oriented.
Most of the Latinos who want something more from religion than Latino Catholicism offers go ahead and join other Christian sects.
Which is why the GOP is delusional about the illegals being “natural conservatives”: all those Catholics have no clue about the Church’s teachings regarding abortion and contraception or even chastity. They’re generally very promiscuous sexually, and it’s not unusual for a man to have one legitimate family and one or more secret families. A large number of the couples you see here have abandoned one or two spouses in the old country and have hooked up in el Norte.
I think you missed what I was saying, Di. The attempt to exclude Mormons from mainstream christianity due to doctrinal differences is largely pointless and usually an exercise for those whose idea of personal salvation is to be able to assert doctrinal rightness instead of personal righteousness.
By any nondogmatic standard, Mormons stand out as among the best christendom has to offer. Which begs the question, of what value is theoretical doctrine?
My answer would be, the same value as an Obama campaign promise. It is a nullity.
/derail
That McCain sure is a turd, though, isn’t he?
“Again, I have no clue what this is actually referring to”
If a book refers to a creature as a beast, it probably has thick ankles,
and if a we’re talking about thick ankles…
(all due apologies to the book: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie)
oh my allan you mean the cankle monster will devour us?
Beware the cackling cankle monster! You’ll know it by its hunting call: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
I think you missed what I was saying, Di.
No, I was just blowing off steam in the general direction of those who think they hold the keys to Who Is Christian And Who Ain’t, as if someone else besides The Man Himself were employed at the gate.
The theology disputes are indeed pointless because they cannot be definitively proven either by scriptural exegesis nor by pointing to something observable in the universe. Not from our mortal vantage point, anyway.
As you say, virtuous living has real-world consequences, and that can be observed if not measured.