07/30/12

Muslim or Mormon, What’s the Difference?

Large and increasing numbers of Republicans, particularly conservative Republicans, believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. This fiction has been helped along by goobs conflating Islam with terrorism, or in Michele Bachmann’s fevered imagination, traitorous unamericanism. Many Christian zealots believe Muslims, and by extension the “Master Muslim” Obama, are filthy devils incarnate chiefly because they aren’t Christian. But aside from Atheists, they inexplicably don’t make such a big deal over Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, or any number of other non-Christian beliefs. Even child-abusing priests are somewhat OK as long as they are conservative child-abusing priests.

Among a group of people who wouldn’t believe Obama was born in Hawaii if the delivery doctor showed up and took a polygraph to the contrary, falsely believing Obama is a Muslim isn’t much of a stretch. ‘I want to see the long-form baptismal certificate, dammit!’

By comparison, everyone correctly believes Romney is Mormon. However, despite believing Mormonism is an unchristian cult and those clean-cut fellows on bicycles wearing black tie and white shirts are vaguely evil because voters know zip about them (including that their church is called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and not The Church of Mormon), they don’t seem much bothered.

Despite all that, the larger and more interesting question here is, “why does it matter”?

Except for the fringiest of the fringy, no one accuses Obama of terrorism against Americans. Hating the commie bastard for Obamacare and the fact he can’t create jobs isn’t a Muslim thing it’s a Republican thing and no one, even the Muslim conspiracies, suggest otherwise. Conversely, cult member Mittens is the good, though not particularly well-liked, guy. Perhaps Romneylans believe the angel Moroni or God can both create jobs and repeal Obamacare equally well and Mitts is just the vessel for creating burger-flipping serfs. Who knows? We are not talking rational logic here.

Come on conservatives, hate him because you hate him, and don’t cower behind a false belief like some Democrat wuss. You’re supposed to be the party of hard-edge authoritarianism, not some gaggle of bleeding heart socialists. You are the self-professed, iron-willed masters of the universe. Hating him for being a Muslim is like you bowing to the Queen despite that special Anglo-Saxon relationship. Hate him for something real like being black or singing Motown passably well or being a taxing taxer of the over taxed taxpayer. Be genuine. Be real. Fess up and admit Obama being a Muslim and Mitt being a Mormon are about the same thing.

The answer to the question, “why does it matter” is this. It doesn’t. Not by a Muslim longshot.

Romney’s Mormon Faith Unlikely to Impact Race: Poll (newsy.com)
Religion has little impact in U.S. race: poll (news.yahoo.com)
Many Americans still believe Obama is Muslim (bikyamasr.com)
Romney’s Mormonism Not An Issue With Voters: Poll (ibtimes.com)
Mormon teens wowed, energized (triblive.com)
The Mormon Problem That Never Was (thedailybeast.com)
Poll: Romney’s Mormonism Won’t Sway Too Many Voters (boiseweekly.com)
Romney’s Mormon Church is Masonic Front (henrymakow.com)
So Far, Obama, The MUSLIM From Kenya SUCKS In The Debate. He Is Angry& NOT Likable At All! (themadjewess.com)

03/9/12

I Smell Crapweasles

Proving the Poobah’s posts are prescient, it’s seems the threat to smite the Mormons over posthumous baptisms caused them to collapse into mint jelly and quash the practice.

Maybe.

Continue reading →

11/26/10

Ready Left, Ready Right, Ready on the Christmas Firing Line

Don't Fire 'Till You See The Mark of the Devil in Their Eyes!

It’s that time of year when fundamentalist Christians exercise their stupid muscles by declaring there’s a War on Christmas, Commanding Generalissimo Bill O’Reilly presiding.

For a group of people who regularly brag about their strength and moral superiority, these people are some of the most self-righteous, creme brulee-spined I’ve ever seen. In their headlong rush to see imagined slights behind every scotch pine, they – as they quite often do – forget several pertinent facts.

Christians make up 70-80% of the American population, yet they are so offended by people saying Happy Holidays they boycott any business bold enough to challenge their God’s alleged right to drive everyone else from the manger on the public square.

This seems a bit odd since their claim to rightness rests on their Big Kahuna, a force so powerful He can smite those who quibble with him like squashing a bug or a Muslim underfoot. If He’s so offended, why don’t Christians celebrate the annual cleansing of heathens by hell-fire, brimstone, and 50% off sales at Macy’s instead of Christmas? Where the hell is the perpetual lightning storm they keep predicting will come?

Their position on this is that Christmas is their holiday and that since they are the predominate religion – let’s call this the “American is a Christian Nation” gambit – no one has the right to say Happy Holidays, even if by ‘holidays’ they mean multiple Christian holidays.

More Christian Holidays Than You Can Swing Incense At

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

But here’s the thing. The American calendar allocates more days to Christians than any other religion. Of course, you have the Big 3 religious holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. You also have – depending on the year – roughly 52 Sundays a year, and if you’re Catholic a similar number of Long John Silver’s Fridays. When you throw in minor Christiancentric days, like Ash Wednesday, Fat Tuesday, Palm Sunday, and all the lesser Saint, crab feed, and spaghetti dinner days , most of the days already belong to Christians. They get 364 days a year to hog all the food and fellowship and have crab boils, spaghetti dinners, bean dinners, and bingo.

If they had their way, Jews, Muslims, Wiccans and all the other religious and irreligious would get bupkis, including having Christmas and Thanksgiving as a plain old day off , “NO TIME OFF FOR YOU! Make a hole, manger coming through! Stop stealing my tax money you heathen!”

I guess someone has to work the Black Friday, 3 am doorbuster shift at Walmart, because Christian Conspicuous Consumption day seems to be popular – some might even say holy – with the Jesus sect.

Commandment 11 – thou shalt buy a 51-inch plasma HD-TV marked down 50%.

Even if the common fundamentalist complaint that there is unwarranted government interference in their lives, the rest of us could make the same argument.

Christians are free to pray, celebrate, sing hymns, and have as many cheesy midnight Christmas Eve pageants as they like. Besides, BONUS, it keeps the little Christian whelps off the street where they may run across a stray socialist bully who will beat them like a rug.

Christians Already Rule the Roost
Christians already rule the roost. They are the predominate faith of the country, as they point out with the frequency of parrots on truth serum. All the rest of use ask is that we can call a holiday a holiday.

Look my fine biblical friends, if being able to squat on the taxpayer-funded public square is so evil, why don’t the majority Christian legislators rise up against the Goliath atheists and Ramadan-celebrating Muslims and smite the Constitutional law – that document to which these Americans pledge fealty only second than they do to the Bible.

Even as an atheist I could care less whether Christians return an innocent pleasantry like “Happy Holidays” with a rude punch in the pickle and a reminder that, “It’s Christmas dammit you scummy heathen” – so long as the pickle they’re punching isn’t mine.

I don’t begrudge them “In God we Trust”, because a buck is a buck…and when you throw into the collection plate it’s prelabeled so God can tell it’s his.

I don’t even care if you pray in school. All I ask is that you do it quietly on your own time because tuition is getting too damned expensive and, as you like to remind me, it’s time to root out fraud and inefficiency from America’s educational system – sort of a no deity left behind thing.

So go ahead and grumble about your persecution. Say Merry Christmas, even on Independence Day if you want. Truthfully, I don’t care. I’m more secure in my atheism than you appear to be in your Christianity. I love you as I would my brother, even though I don’t subscribe to the book advising so therein. But sometimes brothers need a little cuff behind the ear and some tough love. So here it is:

For Christ’s sake, er, goodness sake, stop you incessant whining about an imagined etymological affront. It’s peanuts beside a guy dragging a cross around, wearing rose bush thorns on his head, and telling the nitwits pounding 10-pennies into his palms, “Here, let me help you with that.”

Merry Christmas!

War on Christmas (psychologytoday.com)
Who’s Winning The War On Christmas? (firedoglake.com)
a new not-Christmas song by Paul Simon (from his forthcoming album “So Beautiful Or So What”) (MP3) (brooklynvegan.com)
C*****mas! (dickiebo.wordpress.com)
Chilliwack trustees ice ‘winter vacation,’ opt for Christmas holidays (globaltvbc.com)
How long have you really got to create a memorable Christmas this year? [Richard Mr Productivity Maybury] (ecademy.com)
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol is Coming! (blogcritics.org)
No truce in ‘war on Christmas’ (dispatch.com)

10/5/10

How Many J-Words Can Dance on the Tip of a Tongue?

HEY RICK! FOX MIGHT HAVE AN OPENING FOR YOU! - Rick Sanchez is clearly not the sharpest pundit in the shed and going up against Jon Stewart was a monumental error. But an error worth canning him for?

CNN’s Rick Sanchez decided to go toe-to-toe with faux newser Jon Stewart and suffered the same fate as the last CNNer to do so – Tucker Carlson. However in the aftermath, we have a sort of “how many J-Words can dance on the tip of the tongue” argument brewing.

Stewart had been doing to Sanchez what he’s done to so many others for weeks – made fun of him. It’s the penalty one pays when one is famous and says dumb things. It’s all too easy for Stewart’s crack staff to find double-speak video and other public statements to hold crapweasels up to ridicule. I think Stewart’s brand of ridicule, despite its definite bite, is far less passionate than Keith Olbermann‘s skewers of the famous and inane. One gets the sense that Jon knows it’s a joke while Olbermann actually believes his targets are the Worst Persons in the World.

But then, I ain’t famous so what do I know?

Punking Yourself
If you live under the glare of studio lights and talk for a living – incessantly – you’ll punk yourself occasionally. It happens. And when it does, you have to either have a great sense of humor or develop tough skin, because the dumber you are, the more you’ll be held up to ridicule. Exhibits A-D, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Christine O’Donnell, and Sharron Angle, et al.

Sanchez’s skin is apparently as thin as John McTheusela’s, as is the skin of Sanchez’s CNN overlords. Sanchez let the J-Bombs fly, CNN fired him, he apologized to Stewart soon after and Jon and Rick rode into the sunset, at least if not BFFs, OK with things. And, Christopher Hitchens takes up Sanchez’s cause.

Hitchens? Really? Famous crusading atheist? Has cancer?

One in the same.

Hitchens argues that Sanchez’s anti-Jewish statements are literally true. Despite the anti-semitic overtones, he says Jews (along with white Christians) actually are disproportionately represented in media and entertainment boardrooms. To Hitchens, Sanchez simply stated a fact no more problematic than saying African Americans are under-represented. And as boneheaded as Hitchens often is, he has a point. But, it was never about THAT point and it isn’t a necessarily a socially polite thing to say.

It all boils down to a “who can safely say the N-word, or in this case, the J-word”. Sure, Sanchez was unbelievably stupid, but if we’re going to fire every TV personality who’s stupid, TV would consist of lots of HD snow and annoying test pattern buzz.

But, you could make an argument that would be an improvement.

Not a White Supremacist Candidate
I personally find Sanchez annoying and I suspect his assumed anti-semitism may be real to some degree, although, barring any information to the contrary, I’m not so sure he’d be a good candidate for your neighborly white supremacist enclave.

I don’t condone what he said. In fact, I don’t think it is as literally true as Hitchens does either. But, I’m not sure if it’s a firing offense when put in context.

Sanchez did the right thing in calling Stewart to apologize – though he wimped out by letting his wife announce it to the public on Facebook. Everyone might have been better served if the apology was both personal and public. A true mea culpa with some teeth – perhaps a show or series of shows devoted to anti-semitism coupled with some work with Jewish charities and up close and personal exposure to Jewish people. The Jewish religion believes in atonement, and this would be an earthly one to be sure, but atonement nonetheless.

If Sanchez refused to do these things, if his superiors had to co-opt him to do them – in a very public way – they, and those calling for his resignation, would have every right to say, “don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.” Or, if he did it again, ala Mel Gibson, away with him. No one has to cut the man some slack and some believe no one should.

But we might all learn a little about ourselves and each other if we did.