"When O'Donnell suggested that 'Afghanistan became a vacuum for terrorism and a staging ground for 9/11' because America was 'working in Afghanistan to defeat Soviets in the 80s and we left' too early, Coons questioned O'Donnell's knowledge on the issue.posted by ericb at 2:46 PM on October 19, 2010 [4 favorites]
'You have just laid out a position on Afghanistan that is reckless and irresponsible,' Coons said. 'You thought we were fighting the Soviets in the 90s last time we faced each other!'"*
It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty...posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:49 PM on October 19, 2010 [8 favorites]
Truthiness is "What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true." It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.
Coons: "I believe that creationism is religious doctrine and that--"I think O'Donnell is a cdesign proponentsist.
O'Donnell: "How about the theory of intelligent design?"
Coons: "Creationism, which you'd like to call..."
O'Donnell: "Theory of intelligent design!"
Coons: "...the theory of intelligent design, is religious doctrine."
O'Donnell: "No, two different things."
Make no mistake. That choice is painful.posted by Navelgazer at 3:05 PM on October 19, 2010
Gov. Joe Manchin is one of the most engaging and effective governors in the state's history. He has tackled many of the state-erected barriers to economic growth - a broken workers' compensation system, uncompetitive tax rates, an unfair legal climate.
The governor also has tried to educate liberal Washington on what its barmy energy plans would do to the U.S. economy.
But it's no use.
Leading Democrats have made it clear that if Manchin were sent to Washington, he would be expected to function as part of the team.
We never believed in Hitler; we only may reproach ourselves for having believed too little in a potential Nazi danger, as long as it disguised itself as a farce.--Confessions of a European intellectual / Franz Schoenberner, p. 196.posted by No Robots at 3:57 PM on October 19, 2010 [8 favorites]
"It is ironic, then, that evangelicals--so focused on the "true" history--have neglected their own. Indeed, the one group that would almost certainly oppose the views of 21st-century evangelicals are the 18th-century evangelicals. John Leland was no anomaly. In state after state, when colonists and Americans met to debate the relationship between God and government, it was the proto-evangelica1s who pushed the more radical view that church and state should be kept far apart. Both secular liberals who sneer at the idea that evangelicals could ever be a positive influence in politics and Christian conservatives who want to knock down the "wall" should take note: It was the 18th-century evangelicals who provided the political shock troops for Jefferson and Madison in their efforts to keep government from strong involvement with religion. Modern evangelicals are certainly free to take a different course, but they should realize that in doing so they have dramatically departed from the tradition of their spiritual forefathers. "Or if you're rolling your eyes at the thought of learning about the history thing (and it consistently amazed me how many Christians don't bother to sit down and read not only the religious texts but the history of various denominations besides their own - yet decide to lecture others) (that snarky aside is to no one here, merely thinking of past folks I actually know, in you know, meatspace, where I was on the receiving end of said lecture) - here's an epic bit of trivia in the article:
"Thomas Jefferson stood, dressed in a black suit, in a doorway of the White House on Jan. 1, 1802, watching a bizarre spectacle. Two horses were pulling a dray carrying a 1,235-pound cheese--just for him. Measuring 4 feet in diameter and 17 inches in height, this cheese was the work of 900 cows. More impressive than the size of the cheese was its eloquence. Painted on the red crust was the inscription: "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." The cheese was a gift from religious leaders in western Massachusetts."Now I must research further, in hopes of finding out more.
"The last thing that I would suggest is that her witchcraft or masturbation stance should be what we should be thinking about or focusing on, and I think that's an enormous mistake that the Democrats will make. We like to sit around the office and we have a little game called 'How will the Democrats blow it?' And that's the way they'll do it. They'll think somehow that that will resonate with voters, that 20 years ago Christine O'Donnell on MTV said 'Masturbation is a sin.' And they'll play it, and they'll ridicule it, and the voters will be like, 'Yeah, I don't have a job.' That's how they'll blow it."posted by chrisamiller at 9:45 PM on October 19, 2010 [18 favorites]
posted by infinite intimation at 9:54 PM on October 19, 2010 [3 favorites]
For much of the nineteenth century, Catholics in America were the unassimilated, sometimes violent “religious other.” Often they did not speak English or attend public schools. Some of their religious women—nuns—wore distinctive clothing. Their religious practices and beliefs—from rosaries to tran- substantiation—seemed to many Americans superstitious nonsense. Most worrisome, Catholics seemed in- sufficiently grateful for their ability to build churches and worship in a democracy, rights sometimes denied to Protestants and Jews in Catholic countries, notably Italy.
In the 1840s and 1850s these anxieties about Catholicism in American society turned violent, resulting in mob attacks on priests and churches as well as the formation of a major political party, the American Party, dedicated to combating Catholic influence. This led to novel claims that the US Constitution imposed an absolute separation of church and state—claims that stem not from Thomas Jefferson and George Washington but from nineteenth-century politicians, ministers, and editors worried that adherents of a hierarchical Catholicism might destroy the hard-won achievements of American democracy. In 1875, a decade after accepting General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, President Ulysses S. Grant publicly warned that Catholicism might prove as divisive in American society as the Confederacy.
Like many American Muslims today, many American Catholics squirmed when their foreign-born religious leaders offered belligerent or tone-deaf pronouncements on the modern world. New York’s own Bishop John Hughes thundered in 1850 that the Church’s mission was to convert “the Officers of the Navy and the Marines, commander of the Army, the legislatures, the Senate, the Cabinet, the President and all.” The Syllabus of Errors, promulgated by Pope Pius IX in 1864, denied that the Church had any duty to reconcile itself with “progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.”
The oddest thing to me about Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell's "I Was A Teenage Witch" claims is that so much of the reaction has accepted her claim that such a thing might be possible.posted by Pope Guilty at 10:38 PM on October 19, 2010 [18 favorites]
It is not. Her claims of "dabbling" in what she called "witchcraft" are not true. The supposed witchcraft she describes is not something that exists. Such stories of bloody altars and Satanic covens are common and they are false. All of them. That is a matter of established fact.
The supposed witchery O'Donnell describes is simply the stuff of Satanic panic urban legends. Her descriptions come straight out of the fabrications of proven liar and con-man Mike Warnke. He made this stuff up. Her claims are about as credible as if she had said that she once conjured Bloody Mary by repeating her name three times in the bathroom mirror.
"I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things," she said. This is not true. The wholly imaginary form of Satan-worshipping "witchcraft" in which O'Donnell claimed to have dabbled has never actually existed. You can't dabble in things that don't exist.
That Christine O'Donnell would repeat such well-established lies as facts -- embellishing them with additional patently false claims of first-hand experience -- is not surprising. Her entire political career has taken place within the strand of the evangelical Christian anti-abortion movement that is driven and shaped by this very same late-20th Century variant of the medieval blood libel. These imaginary Satanic baby killers form the core of her identity -- they are the Other against whom she has always defined herself. They are the enemy in contrast to whom O'Donnell and her supporters are able to feel good and righteous and special. That these enemies do not, in fact, exist -- that they have never, in fact, existed -- only highlights the desperate insecurity of O'Donnell and her witch-hunting comrades.
No, I mean, seriously here, do you have no idea what any religion in the world actually believes and does?No, you're not being serious.
There is absolutely no rational reason to attack a political candidate for being Mormon if you're not going to attack every single other candidate who claims to be religious and whose religion holds any similar beliefs to those you find objectionable or whose religion has done something in the last 50 years that you think is as bad as what you think Mormonism has done in that same time frame. Did you and do you continue to attack Barack Obama for his professed religious beliefs about same-sex marriage? How about his other professed religious beliefs or the beliefs and actions of the religion with which he associates himself?You can't skip over everything I said and expect to have a discussion: "If a politician professes a religion that believes in bringing about the apocalypse so their savior can return to earth to redeem mankind, yes, that will give me pause, as every Christian and Muslim does." As far as Obama is concerned, I have no evidence that he's an orthodox Christian, and I'm pretty sure he does the Church thing because this is America, and for political purposes you have to be religious to get the right number of votes. Perhaps I'm naive for thinking so, but in the context of this discussion, we're talking about a woman who thinks masturbation is wrong, and decided that was important enough to state publicly.
...you take that as license to attack what you presume to be my religious beliefs - beliefs that are totally irrelevant to the discussion.This argument does not hold. If your beliefs include denying me or any other person their rights as a US citizen, they are absolutely relevant.
Look, you don't like Mormonism? Fine. You want to pretend that everything I say regarding religion in politics is motivated entirely by some Mormon agenda? Well, you're incorrectI didn't say that. But if you were running for office, whatever your religion, I would ask you to publicly declare that your personal beliefs will not be upheld in place of the laws of our government.
Again, I have said nothing about "protecting wildly irrational religious beliefs from any criticisms" or about "making these beliefs immune to rational examination."Then what does this mean: "I think it's generally inappropriate to make someone's religion a target as part of opposing their candidacy for political office."
...being a Mormon in 2010 means having people like you single me out and ignorantly attack me based on the ridiculous notion that anything that the Mormon church has ever done or believed is one bit more ridiculous or offensive than what other mainstream churches have done and believed during exactly the same time period.Mormonism was doctrinally racist from the days of Brigham Young until 1978, when it's tax status was threatened. Then, one of your elders had a miraculous revelation that black people weren't so bad after all. Forgive me, but I will never forget this fact. And you're right, it probably does make me biased. Sorry that reality has that effect on my brain.
/snip/posted by ericb at 11:53 AM on October 20, 2010 [1 favorite]
“At least, unlike Paris Hilton and her ilk, the Dumb Blonde of ’50s cinema had a firm grasp on one thing: It was cool to be smart. She aspired to read good books and be friends with intellectuals, even going so far as to marry one. But now another famous beauty with glowing skin and a powerful current, Sarah Palin, has made ignorance fashionable.
You struggle to name Supreme Court cases, newspapers you read and even founding fathers you admire? No problem. You endorse a candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate seat who is the nominee in West Virginia? Oh, well.
At least you’re not one of those ‘spineless’ elites with an Ivy League education, like President Obama, who can’t feel anything. It’s news to Christine O’Donnell that the Constitution guarantees separation of church and state. It’s news to Joe Miller, whose guards handcuffed a journalist, and to Carl Paladino, who threatened The New York Post’s Fred Dicker, that the First Amendment exists, even in Tea Party Land. Michele Bachmann calls Smoot-Hawley Hoot-Smalley.
Sharron Angle sank to new lows of obliviousness when she told a classroom of Hispanic kids in Las Vegas: ‘Some of you look a little more Asian to me.’
As Palin tweeted in July about her own special language adding examples from W. and Obama: ‘ ‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!’
On Saturday, at a G.O.P. rally in Anaheim, Calif., Palin mockingly noted that you won’t find her invoking Mao or Saul Alinsky. She says she believes in American exceptionalism. But when it comes to the people running the country, exceptionalism is suspect; leaders should be — as Palin, O’Donnell and Angle keep saying — just like you.”
/snip/
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."posted by notion at 12:12 PM on October 20, 2010
-CS Lewis
"I'm sure most of us get confused about which amendment is which, I certainly do. But most of us aren't running for Senate, and most of us don't claim to be constitutional experts, as Christine O'Donnell has certainly come close to doing just that."posted by ericb at 12:19 PM on October 20, 2010 [4 favorites]
In one recorded sermon, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, tells soldiers that, as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility "to be witnesses for him".There are hundreds more stories about hazing in the Air Force Academy for not showing up to Bible classes, or for being punished for not attending Christian rock concerts. The US armed forces promote religion for very specific reasons. It's easier to accept dying and killing when death is not the end.
"The special forces guys - they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down," he says. "Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business." (source)
"The last hour won't come before the Muslims would fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them so Jews would hide behind rocks and trees. Then the rocks and trees would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."According to modern Christian tradition, these parts are simply ignored and never talked about. In the Islamic community, I think they are more diligent about reading their holy books, so they have interpreted jihad as an inner struggle instead of an external struggle. If I didn't make this clear, let me do so now: the vast majority of religious people in America and the West either don't take their books seriously, don't read them, or don't interpret their intent as one of violent means to an end.
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posted by scody at 2:36 PM on October 19, 2010 [114 favorites]