Culture Warriors category archive
Twits on Twitter 0
As Elon James White is fond of pointing out, sometimes the best thing to say is nothing.
Plus Ca Change 0
China Hand points out an uncomfortable truth. A snippet:
T’aint so, unfortunately. It’s more like “this was us and, apparently, still is at least some of us and maybe a lot of us.”
And maybe “us” isn’t just anxious blue-collar xenophobes. Maybe “us” includes a big chunk of the political elite and the strategists who guide them.
Trump seizes upon the implicit and makes it explicit; that’s his offense. And his strength.
A history of the synergy between popular bigotry, political calculation, and institutionalized discrimination is enlightening.
The storyline isn’t “It Can’t Happen Here”; try “It Does Happen Here, and with Depressing Frequency”.
Follow the link for some of the real Murican history, the bits you won’t get taught in school.
They ain’t purty.
The Ammosexual Impulse 0
Chauncey Devega, in a typically long and tightly reasoned post, traces the thread of ammosexuality through American history. Here’s a bit; follow the link for the rest.
There are many examples of this at present. Armed white people, mostly men, have been brandishing weapons to intimidate Muslims in Texas. White, mostly male, open carry advocates, march in public with guns, intimidating the general public and those who disagree with them. After mass shooting incidents, Republican politicians suggest that gun violence is somehow the price for the “freedom” and “liberty” of gun ownership in America. For them, a country awash with guns and gun violence is inseparable from American Exceptionalism. This is a macabre and sick understanding of what makes America “great.” That gun violence apologists on the American Right-wing cannot think of some greater motivation for their worship of “American Exceptionalism” is a devastating indictment of the country’s civic health.
Profiles in Courage 0
Now ain’t these forces just special?
None Dare Call It Terrorism 0
Dennis Chinoy dares to ask the question:
Consider this: The mass shootings in Colorado by Christian fanatic Robert Lewis Dear followed his Internet proclamation, “Turn to JESUS or burn in hell […] WAKE UP SINNERS U CANT SAVE YOURSELF U WILL DIE AN WORMS SHALL EAT YOUR FLESH” (emphasis his). His terrorist act is the most recent of a series of assassinations and mass killings perpetrated in Christianity’s name, heinous crimes that should repulse us all.
(snip)
If Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and their ilk crying “Radical Islamic Terrorism” at the top of their lungs object to this substitution of Christian for Muslim, Bible for Koran, Old Testament injunctions for Sharia Law, then they are obliged to tell us how Muslim, Christian or Jewish zealots are any different from each other.
Follow the link for more.
Stray Thought 0
You do not have to look into someone’s heart to know what he or she is like.
If a person’s actions are full of hate, so too is that person’s heart, regardless of what that person may say about his or her motives.
V-Mail 0
Chez Pazienda catalogs reports from the front in the War on Christmas.
“The Government Cannot Exalt Itself as . . . a God over the Soul” 0
In my local rag, an evangelical Christian speaks out eloquently against religious bigotry, in particular the current right-wing vendetta against Muslims and Islam.
Given the hatred issuing from so many persons who, as the old man back home used to say, “calls themselves Christians,” I think his article worth noting, even though his theology may differ from my own. Here’s a bit.
(snip)
Make no mistake; a government that can shut down mosques simply because they are mosques can shut down Bible studies because they are Bible studies. A government that can close the borders to all Muslims simply on the basis of their religious belief can do the same thing for evangelical Christians.
“No Religious Test . . . .” 0
Reg Henry envisions customs in a time of religious screenings:
Poor border officials. It is hard enough for them to find Cuban cigars in luggage, now they will have to ask, “Do you have anything to declare, you know, like a religion?”
Absurd conversations are likely to abound. “I am a Sufi,” a visitor will say. And the border guard, not trained in comparative religions, will reply: “You’re a softie? Come right in and welcome to the United States!”
A woman in a head covering will be rejected and will protest the injustice: “But I am a traditional Roman Catholic nun.” To which the official will ask his pal, “Hey Joe! Are roaming Catholics on the list?”
Follow the link for more, in which he goes for a Cruz.
Droning On 2
Say “Hi!” to the eye in the sky.
. . . and you can bet it’s just going to get worse.
Afterthought:
If I ever become a Peeping Tom, I think I’ll call myself an “anti-prostitution activist.” It sounds ever so much more civilized.
“Heads I Win, Tails You Lose” 0
Judge Richard Posner points out that there appears to be a thumb weighing down the Scalias of justice.
