Haven't read the links, but off the bat public/private morality isn't the best framing. The conservative presumably wants the drug users/abortionists/immigrants shamed (at least) in public, and is eager to display their own virtue. The dichotomy I saw in IIRC an authoritarianism book is punishing father/nurturant mother; authoritarians skew to the former. ISTM that current US conservatives are a bit different in that they don't merely privilege punishment ahead of nurture but seem also to deny that nurture is even desirable (unless it's provided solely by parents solely with their own money, maybe).
Indifferent to public morality? I don't think that's a correct description. They have different ideas about public morality. The quoted conservative isn't saying that liberals are moral on public issues and conservative are moral on private issues. She's saying liberals have false ridiculous ideas about public morality that they made up to compensate for their lack of personal morality.
US liberals don't consider failure while conservatives (the personally decent ones, yes they exist) don't consider luck.
I think it's all projection from the conservative side.
I also think it's mostly elderly white conservatives who benefited from the largest public investments ever, did well out of it, and are now kicking the ladder behind them.
She's saying liberals have false ridiculous ideas about public morality that they made up to compensate for their lack of personal morality.
No, she isn't saying that liberals lack a sense of personal morality. They just don't act morally in their personal lives. But, she says, they know what they're doing is immoral - hence why they go to these lengths to avoid feeling shame over it. Basically she's saying that good liberal public policy is a distraction tactic that liberals have evolved to avoid feeling bad (and taking flak) about their horrible personal lives.
Basically we're whisky priests. We know we shouldn't drink but we can't help ourselves, and we don't want to feel guilty (or suffer criticism) so we throw ourselves into good works to make up for it.
If she thought that liberals actually believed taking drugs was OK, why would she think liberals would worry about feeling shame over it?
It's like they don't even consider somebody would have a personal moral view without forcing others to follow it.
The ridiculous mind-reading on display from the conservative here is all too typical, and, to me, a complete bar to taking anything they have to say on any topic seriously. If they get my motivations, and those of millions of others, so completely wrong -- and are willing to publicly and emphatically do so in the face of all the evidence -- why would I expect them to get anything right? Why presume any good faith at all, whether they are talking about their own motivations, or anything else?
I mean, the conservative here is clearly so full of shit it's coming out their ears. What, Donald Trump is an example of self-righteous private morality?
I also don't think that this person speaks for all conservative asswipes - a lot of them are straight up "fuck you, I got mine, I am going to grab as much as possible and I'm very scared of brown people" - and I assume this person is actually like that as well, but this is the rationalization.
I also think that conservatives don't believe anyone has any experience different from their own. Until they've experienced health care hell, they don't believe it exists, for example. So I 100% agree with the comment above who said it's all projection.
6 is it.
I have to say, I also don't really understand Yglesias here. Mrs. Carlson is a black box; we don't know how she feels about her husband. Perhaps she spends each night staring at a bottle of pills trying to summon the courage to escape the shame of her marriage. Maybe she has a secret room full of Nazi memorabilia. There's no data.
There's no data, but it's one or the other.
I'm going to out myself as a terrible person by saying that I thought the linked facebook post is just lame.
It looks like some guy helping himself to an easy bong hit of self-righteousness by posting "Look at me condemning Nazis everyone!".
You know the Nazis were socialist.
Agreed with 4 and 8. 10-15 years ago, in the Bush or early Obama years, it would have been a fairly typical kind of condescending self-righteousness. Douthat, Santorum, plenty of bloggers Sifu Tweety and DougJ used to mock relentlessly. Ah, the good old days. Now it's completely up-is-down, Tweedledee-and-Tweedledum bonkers. The party has firmly and gladly embraced Trump by now, and a dozen figures basically the same as him. The man cheats and lies daily, as easily as breathing. That might sound like hyperbole but on the second day of his presidency he was lying about the weather and crowd size on the first day.
If progress depends on understanding or empathizing with conservatives like the one quoted in the OP then I'm afraid I'm at a loss.
US liberals don't consider failure while conservatives (the personally decent ones, yes they exist) don't consider luck.
I get the conservative part there, I'm not clear on the liberal.
Interesting too that "being moral" is about sex and drugs. It's not about, say, charity or honesty.
I mean, thinking the Nazis were bad is great, but no one gets a special merit badge for doing it.
More on topic, 15 is right that neo-traditionalist Douthat style conservatism was definitively exposed as bullshit once they all lined up behind Trump.
If progress depends on understanding or empathizing with conservatives like the one quoted in the OP then I'm afraid I'm at a loss.
I don't think it does. Progress lies in saying "fuck this asshole" and reforming voter laws.
George Lakoff's (1996) treatment of morality in contemporary American politics tracks helpfully with our analysis in this regard. He views liberalism and conservatism as comparably consistent frameworks for making sense of politics. Lakoff asserts that his schematic conceptions of liberalism and conservatism have increasingly developed into competing models of family. His conception of conservatism, which is premised on a "strict father morality," is closely related to our conception of authoritarianism.(AIHSHB, everyone should read that book.)
Strict father morality asserts that we live in a dog-eat-dog world, and that coddling is not only a sign of personal weakness but also undermines the social fabric more generally by failing to teach people the skills necessary to survive in life in what is, ultimately, a zero-sum game. Obedience to authority is central to this outlook: straying from legitimate authority can undermine the moral order, unhinging a society's moorings, casting people into anarchy, lethargy, and laziness. Crucial to this worldview are the primacy of fatherly authorityand the importance of a traditional family structure.
The other side of the divide is the nurturant parent. Although less well developed as an ideology according to Lakoff (1996), the things that liberals provide - health care, a social safety net, understanding when things go wrong - are consistent with the label. Of course, the descriptions are deeply gendered. Strict fathers are clearly men. Nurturant parents are apparently women.
9: I think Heebie is totally right about lack of imagination. That book talks about authoritarians having different "cognitive styles" but for most of them I think that's a just nice way of saying "stupid".
But it isn't hypocritical of them to embrace Trump. They aren't embracing his immoral lifestyle ("you will die either of the pox or on the gallows" "that depends, my lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress") - but he will put officials in place who will act morally, by which they mean restricting sex and drugs. Supporting Trump is a means to an end.
17 Or any of the other classical Christian virtues
||Saw Chris Christie's name floated for AG. I'm sure Jared will do his utmost to spike this because if that happens I see him joining his daddy behind bars.
|>
I liked Kotsko's most recent biblical-interpretation ethnology in n+1 - it was useful to see that there is some level of biblical parallel for the monstrous modern evangelical notion that Trump in all his evident immorality is an unwitting vessel for Godly government.
Cyrus, who saved the Jews but tried to kill democracy in Greece.
I have not read the essay, but will check it out.
17, 23: Exactly. Morality is nothing but Daddy hurting someone, so you want to be sure someone else gets hurt.
22
Supporting Trump is a means to an end.
That's not technically wrong - I haven't read the article in 24 yet, but I've read about it, I should read it eventually - but (a) there are plenty of inconsistencies between his policies and their purported morality, and (b) a lot of conservatives seem to approve of him personally too.
"we're whisky priests"
I like that bar.
I hadn't realized the reason Matt nuked his feed was that the right wing mob doxxed him and twitter refused to take it down saying it wasn't a violation of their TOS. Maybe Jack does need a special merit badge for condemning Nazis.
there are plenty of inconsistencies between his policies and their purported morality
Are there, though? Their morality is about sex and drugs. Trump himself is completely inconsistent with them - he's an adulterer and (presumably) a cocaine user - but his policies aren't really.
22, 24: I was deeply unconvinced by the Kotsko piece. I really doubt anyone went to a Trump rally and thought "Well, he reminds me of Cyrus!"
I think the causality is in the other direction: the felt wish is to support honest to goodness authoritarian nationalism of the same style as Modi, Haider, Putin, Berlusconi, GW Bush, Duterte, Bolsorano, Netanyahu, Kaczyinski etc. (The list gets hella long. It's a global phenomenon and probably not explicable by Americans' personal sin.) For those who actually feel any religious sentiment this requires some sort of rationalization, especially given Trump's massive personal irreligion, so badda bing badda boom, Cyrus.
31: A priest on my Facebook made the explicit comparison after the election in 2016. It was a question, not an assertion.
Maybe more of a wish than a question.
23.2 You honestly believe that if Trump told Christie he could be Attorney General of the United States but Jared was off limits, he would turn it down? I mean the whole point is to put Trump off limits, Kushner is chump change.
I really doubt anyone went to a Trump rally and thought "Well, he reminds me of Cyrus!"
I don't think this is the chucklefucks and fraudsters going to Trump rallies - rather, it's the placid Christianist exurbanites who don't seem like they'd be all-in for Trump but still turned out solidly on his side in 2016 and 2018.
22: Supporting a mobbed up racist woman hater for president because you like his policy positions might not be hypocritical. Blathering about how important personal morality is for politician until you see that Trump is your guy is. I am super duper curious when, for example, Franklin Graham changed his mind about the importance of personal morality.
Changing their minds about personal morality isn't new, though! They were all about forgiveness when it was their own even in the throes of the Clinton impeachment.
Even then - you could argue that supporting Trump is a privately regrettable necessity. "If Hillary Clinton were to invade Hell, I would at the very least tweet something favourable about the Devil."
I think Trump would throw Jared overboard to save his own hide if he were convinced that was what it would take.
Trump would do literally anything to save his own hide.
It seems hard to blame him for that. I'd throw Jared overboard to save myself too.
A propos of nothing, in the old thread linked in the Careless Rape thread yesterday, LB made an offhand remark about people who comment under their own name. I've never regretted doing so more than I do now.
42 I'd throw Jared overboard to save a plague-ridden rat.
42:
(The crew are trying to persuade Rimmer to shut himself down in order to conserve enough power to keep life support online)
CAT: Come on! We're not asking you to do anything we wouldn't do.
RIMMER: (disbelievingly) You'd sacrifice your life for the good of the crew?
CAT: No, I'd sacrifice your life for the good of the crew!
20: I see that the authors have a new book with a less scholarly title, "Prius or Pickup?"
They are effectively one and the same.
The relevant opposition is surely scooter or SUV.
I think Trump would throw Jared overboard to save his own hide if he were convinced that was what it would take.
I think he'd do it just for kicks.
the reason Matt nuked his feed was that the right wing mob doxxed him
Great. More escalation.
20:
Strict fathers are clearly men. Nurturant parents are apparently women.
When I was in college (mid-90s) I heard Lakoff speak and he mentioned that the gender signifiers were important, but that "nurturant parents" could be either men or women, as that model of parenting allows for either men or women to be caretaker parents.
I like that bar.
The one in Boston? I've had great fun there. Alas, it went out of business in September.
I had an Evangelical student six or eight years ago -- an intelligent one, but very patriarchal, so he was always trying to subdue me, with the best of intentions (I was sinning, you see, by educating the men in the class).
Anyway, he and I had a very long argument about why people -- especially liberals -- do "good" things. The quotation marks there are his. It is because they have committed sexual sins, he says. We commit sexual sins, he says, and then we are filled with shame and horror. So then we do "good" things, like acting nicely to our children or giving money to poor people, in an attempt to make ourselves feel better about our sexual sins.
But you can't make up for your sexual sins that way, he explained to me. You can only confess your sins to Jesus, and let him wash them away with his grace.
I asked him if really believed that people only did nice things out of shame and guilt. He said of course.
I offer this story for what insight it may give you into the Evangelical mind. (He was a preacher in one of our local churches, by the way. And by "sexual sin" he meant such things as lustful thoughts as well as masturbation and having sex for reasons other than procreation.)
They usually accept procreation or to get the Amway rep to leave your kitchen.
AN EVANGELICAL STUDENT ONCE TRIED TO SUBDUE ME. I ATE HIS ARGUMENTS WITH SOME FAVA BEANS AND A NICE CHIANTI.
31: You can date the explicit Trump-Cyrus comparison to May 2016, before he was elected, in this video which is well known among evangelicals. Implicitly, it goes back to the "Trump prophecy" in 2011, which has just been made into a film by Liberty University.
39/40. If push came to shove he'd throw Ivanka under the bus to save his own skin, but we're not there yet by a long chalk.
31 was me.
AIHMHB, I have a FB acquaintance who often cross-posts stuff from a group called "Prophets for Trump." She's a pleasant, caring person in many ways, but completely convinced that he's America's god-appointed leader (as well as of the reality of chemtrails, the harmfulness of vaccinations, and numerous other hoary conspiracy theories).
I'm pretty sure Trump is interviewing Christie just because he knows it will generate buzz, and it's fun to humiliate him.
52: Haven't read Lakoff. Hetherington & C are mapping the parenting model onto other, more political, dispositions and gender roles are more important there.
The interview is two hours of Christie being forced to do the Truffle Shuffle.
ajay's correction of my 2 is what I was trying to say. I guess "lack of personal morality" is ambiguous.
Actually the original Lance Wallnau videos seem to have been made back in October 2015.
I think 35 is right, in that this theology gives right-wing Evangelicals a plausible reason to support Trump despite his personal nastiness - God chose him precisely because he's a sinful human, so that anything good he does (for values of "good" like appointing conservatives to the Supreme Court and keeping out Muslims) is demonstrably the fruit of God's will. There's a twisted logic to it.
That's why I think the recent "Make the Gospel Great Again" billboards with a picture of Trump above the text "The Word Became Flesh" spotted in Missouri and Texas last week were probably high-level, expensive trolling: it's a completely different heresy.
Sort of the same reason Trump chose Rosendale: if he can make that bag of nothing a senator, as an act of righteous vengeance, he can do anything.
Our last county finished counting last night. Fewer votes statewide than Broward County, Florida. We have assholes too whining about conspiracies and Californians, but no one takes them seriously. Yet.
(People who've moved from California vote deep red. Don't tell anyone.)
It's like they don't even consider somebody would have a personal moral view without forcing others to follow it.
I've long thought that an important element of the conservative mindset is a sincere inability to understand the difference between allowing something and requiring it.
52: My sense is that conservatives don't have all that much love or respect for the strict mother archetype, and that this is an American oddness -- maybe that there is some expectation that fathers will be involved enough with the family to be the primary authoritarian, rather than delegating to the mother. I could easily be persuaded otherwise; just musing. (This is a tributary of the larger "why there could never be an American Thatcher" line of thought.)
61: And when you put it like that, Trump is right!
I think Professor Alan Finlayson basically gets it right:
https://twitter.com/profafinlayson/status/950073603453841415?lang=en
As a teenager my grasp of politics was little more than that uptight greedy bastards ruin it for everyone. Then I learned sophisticated theories of interests, structures & ideologies. Now in late middle-age, I find that Uptight Greedy Bastard Theory has amazing explanatory power.
I asked him if really believed that people only did nice things out of shame and guilt. He said of course.
Consistent with 27.
Basically, it's a child's morality. A child does things only for base reasons, fear and greed; conservatives believe what they do for base reasons, fear and greed; so whatever liberal beliefs are they too must be held for base reasons, fear and greed.
I'm reminded of a line from The Crown, when the queen is talking to her tutor about Eden and Churchill having concealed their health issues from her:
Because they're English, male and upperclass. A good dressing down from Nanny is what they most want in life.
Two things came to mind (and setting aside Trump completely):
(1) "Not Perfect, Just Forgiven"
(2) the public data showing that many of the sins they condemn, are far more prevalent amongst the mouth-breathing evangelicals, than amongst liberals (out-of-wedlock births, divorces, etc etc)
This conservative believes they're expunged of sin, b/c they judge themselves to be [no fucking Great Sky Father]; they believe liberals are sinful, b/c they judge them to be. It's got nothing to do with acts -- neither "private sins" nor genocide -- acts don't matter.
It's all just fucking in-group signaling.
This is fascinating because it takes the same form of what I (privately) believe to be true about climate denialists: no one's stupid enough to dispute the entire worldwide scientific community, no one's that dumb. They just don't give a shit if Tuvalu disappears. But they know that's monstrous. So they dress their moral monstrosity up as skepticism.
re: 74
I often think, watching the British political scene, too, that for a certain class demographic, antinomianism is deep in their bones. They are the chosen ones -- rich, mostly white -- and so what they actually do matters not a shit. Morality is for the little people.
A child does things only for base reasons, fear and greed
I didn't know that.
I might remember it better than you do.
78: That children are evil, sounds like doctrine in some religion, but I'm too senile to remember which one.
Not evil. Just selfish and stupid.
I've long thought that an important element of the conservative mindset is a sincere inability to understand the difference between allowing something and requiring it.
Reminds me of Rush ranting last year, in almost exactly these words: "These liberals think it all comes down to one magic word: 'consent'. With consent, anything goes, but without consent, the rape police come after you."
The reply, of course, is that the "rape police" are just "police".
81: Rush isn't actually wrong, and it is a very different from traditional sexual morality. In traditional sexual morality there are certain sex acts that are prohibited and certain acts that are permissible and consent is rarely a factor.
You aren't supposed to say that part out loud though.
I'm trying to put together a test for this now.
A & B are two adult humans. They had sex. What do you need to know to determine if their sex act was morally ok?
And if it consented enthusiastically.
A child does things only for base reasons, fear and greed
Sometimes there's a third reason: to see what they can get away with.
ALL MEN BY NATURE DESIRE TO KNOW.
ALSO I'M PRETTY SURE IT WAS XERXES AND DARIUS WHO HAD ISSUES WITH DEMOCRACY IN GREECE.
AND HONESTLY WHO COULD BLAME THEM. THE ATHENIANS ARE JUST TOTAL PRICKS. AND THE LACEDAEMONIANS? LESS SAID THE BETTER.
76: Morality is for the little people.
Yes, or as that pithy comment from Crooked Timber had it:
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition ...There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Also, from the Evangelical* point of view, everyone is fallen. We're all evil sinners, and nothing we do is done from a pure heart, or from good motives.
This means it doesn't matter if Trump lies, or commits adultery -- or if THEY do, either. You've seen the bumper stickers, I'm sure? "I'm not perfect, Just forgiven"?
Everyone is a sinner, and everything they do is evil. God takes that evil and shapes it into good. It doesn't really matter whether they ACT good or not (in fact, they *can't* act good -- because they're wicked sinners, and any action they take is corrupted by their corrupt soul): all that matters is that they trust God, and commit their souls to his hands.
How do they reconcile this with their venomous hatred for Hillary, you wonder? Easily, from what I can tell.
*Mind you, this is just what I have deduced, from living among the Evangelicals for 20+ years, like an Anthropologist on Mars. Actual Evangelicals should feel free to supply corrections.
84: That one is easy. Sex, like every human act, is always immoral. You wicked sinner you!
Even prayer? I asked my Evangelical source once. Is prayer immoral?
Of course it is! You're praying *selfishly*, with your "sin nature." What else would it be?
That's the thing about Aristotle. He adjusted to typing on a computer amazingly well, but he never could figure out the "Caps Lock" button.
That one is easy. Sex, like every human act, is always immoral. You wicked sinner you!
I don't think this captures the typical Evangelical mindset. Don't they make a huge distinction between sex in a Christian marriage and sex outside of marriage?
97: I'm almost as big an expert on Evangelicals, as I am on Aristotle.
IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING JUST FINE.
A & B are two adult humans. They had sex. What do you need to know to determine if their sex act was morally ok?
If we're working on a consent-based ethic, in addition to enthusiastic mutual consent:
Did their sexual activity contravene boundaries agreed in any other intimate relationships?
Did they each fully disclose all matters that might reasonably affect the other's decision to have sex with them at that point?
Was there a power relationship of any sort involved?
Put another way: as well as consenting enthusiastically, were they both considerate, honest, and fair to each other and everyone else concerned?
100: This is very good, but you forgot the crucial organic whipped cream question.
Full disclosure of lactose intolerance and veganism is of course assumed.
"A & B are two adult humans. They had sex. What do you need to know to determine if their sex act was morally ok?"
Was either of them an air traffic controller on duty at the time?
95: You see why I got a little over the top after a while.
This means it doesn't matter if Trump lies, or commits adultery -- or if THEY do, either. You've seen the bumper stickers, I'm sure? "I'm not perfect, Just forgiven"?
Trump of course fails pretty bigly by that standard too. You have to express faith and ask to be forgiven. He's done neither that I'm aware of.
Obviously the way to engage Trump voters is over a lengthy discussion of Faith vs. Works, starting with St. Paul, continuing to Martin Luther, and concluding with The Onion article titled "If I Hadn't Found Jesus, I'd Feel Pretty Shitty About My Crimes."
"He's done neither that I'm aware of."
Doesn't matter! He's a tool of God!
Or, you know, just a tool.
Clark's Left Behind deepdive presaged this long before Trump ever showed up - the regular assertions, implicit or explicit, that all that made the protagonists heroes was their acceptance of a Christianist magic spell and worldview, and with that out of the way, it was godly for them to look on passively as the world burned.
Lots of people have looked at Calvinism and said, "How can use this as a loophole."
Also, I don't see why Cyrus should have to change pseuds just because some assholes are being sophistic. His pseud is excellent, and sometimes allows me to make history jokes.
Pubescent Frog of Silent War is available.
Mobes, if you're around, I was in Nebraska yesterday and today, and it was exceedingly nice (though the weather left a lot to be desired).
110: Thanks for the concern, but Cyrus isn't my pseud. It's my real name. I'm not sure I'm going by this new thing forever, but it seems appropriate here, at least.
113: Can your real name also be a pseud? An interesting philosophical question!
Why should you have to be the one to change your name? He's the one who sucks!
113 I would never have guessed that if you hadn't told us. Fortunately Wry Cooter is still available.
Delagar has classical Calvinism right. Whatever good we do is done by God in us; left to ourselves we are worthless and wicked. I've been reading Donne's sermons and they are very on message about authority here
"Certainly those men prepare a way of speaking negligently or irreverently of thee that give themselves that liberty in speaking of thy vicegerents kings for thou who gavest Augustus the empire gavest it to Nero too and as Vespasian had it from thee so had Julian ... But thou knowest O God that if I should be slack in celebrating thy mercies to me exhibited by that royal instrument my sovereign to many other faults that touch upon allegiance I should add the worst of all ingratitude "
But this is, I think, utterly distinct from white American charismatic evangelicalism right now, the religion of huge flag-draped suburban barns, of Paula White and Joel Osteen. Self-empowerment is a monstrous, literally Satanic heresy to a 17th century Calvinist.
Someone needs to teach that man some punctuation.
Also, what is self-empowerment and why is it a heresy?
8. "The ridiculous mind-reading on display from the conservative here is all too typical..."
Which is followed by post after post of ridiculous mind-reading by liberals and progressives. Mote? Beam?
I don't understand conservatives or liberals, and can't read minds. I do remember reading somewhere that the Victorians did not believe it was hypocritical to fail to live up to their professed morality. You could believe in chastity but fail to observe it, as long as you felt properly guilty about it.
113. Never would have guessed. I always thought "what a cool base on which to give wife and kid pseuds! History FTW!"
20 et seq are backed by lots of quantitative research.
120: I assume by "mind reading" you mean "believing actual statements they make".
That's what gets about this. "You keep getting both sides have problems" and one side it's "Something the highest elected official said over his own phone" and hte other side it's "Something Infowars about the third guy from the left in a protest."
120 Do you think any statement in this thread is made in bad faith? I think examples would be useful.
This claims that the protest at Tucker's house was greatly exaggerated:
It's Think Progress, so who knows how reliable the source is.
That way he doesn't have to do any mind-reading, so LMA won't insinuate at him.
119 - it's the whole "blab it and grab it" Oprah-ish "You can be whoever you want to be"/"Overcome the lies which are holding you back"/"If you really want it, the universe will provide it" schtick. See the Joel Dongsteen twitter feed, which simply substitutes "Your Dick" for "Your God" in the sayings of Joel Osteen. It is extremely childish and skewers Christianity-as-wish-fulfilment.
It seems to underlie an enormous amount of American popular culture. The dream is of the triumph of the will -- and if your will is not the one that triumphs, then there must be something wrong with you.
The difference is that Donne says illness is terrible, and God is chastising me in his justice for all my manifest sins: I should try to learn what he wants to teach me, and be grateful for the hope that one day I will see him in complete joy".
Osteen says "Sure, illness is terrible, expecially if you haven't got insurance and really need a miracle, but God wants you to be cured (and rich) and if you only ask Him the right way he'll fix it all for you like he fixed it for me, and you can learn more of my story in all the inspiring materials available for a very reasonable price in my church/web shop/mail order business."
And whence the heresy? In presuming to know the will of God?
That's part of it. Also, immanentizing the eschaton. There's nothing in the New Testament about Christians should be happy, healthy, and successful in this life and maybe parts about how they shouldn't.
I don't know how much of that is John Calvin and how much is Joel Osteen.
The heresy is thinking of god as a powerful magician who can be controlled to your own purposes.
Of course that's what He started off as, or what he was supposed to do. But the interest of the Bible comes from successive attempts to deal with the repeated disproof of this hypothesis. Where, asks the psalmist , is God when you need him?
God gets more and more abstract and inscrutable, but at the same time more valuable and desirable. Which prides culminates, for one Jewish sect in the idea that He is this crazy bastard who got squashed like a bug by the Romans. As if the guy who stood on front of the tanks in tiananmen square were to have been resurrected to the satisfaction of his friends.
Another doxing - the guy who found the Baraboo High School Seig Heil picture
It is hard to overstate how racist white Wisconsinites are, but it's usually much more lowkey than that. Maybe they try to channel their inner Putin by staring into the eyes of the Siberian cranes?
(Trigger warning: sad animal extinction story. They try to spin it as a hopeful story and THEY FAIL.)
Virtue seig heiling is the new virtue signaling.
Oh wait! I somehow missed this but it's amazing.
Barnes, 31, a former state representative from Milwaukee, is the first African-American elected as lieutenant governor in Wisconsin and only the second to win statewide election, after Vel Phillips became secretary of state in 1978.
Does the lieutenant governor have any power? Is it okay if I exhort this guy to burn shit down? BURN SHIT DOWN, NEW LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR.
The caps lock and I are now done for tonight.