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Ned
May 23, 2002

by Hand Knit
I'm a sucker for reading my hometown newspaper and they print a bunch of crap to appeal to redneck conservative types. I found this nice example today:

Cal Thomas posted:

DUBLIN, Ireland — Observing the start of Lord and Lady Obamaʼs (aka president and Michelle) grand European tour and the fawning press coverage, one might conclude they were imbued with royal blood.

The normally reserved and thoughtful columnist for the London Times, William Rees-Mogg, gushed about the presidentʼs speech before members of Parliament, comparing him to Winston Churchill. Obama is to Winston Churchill as Lady Gaga is to Ella Fitzgerald. Both are singers, but thatʼs where the comparison ends.

In his parliamentary speech, which began with herald trumpets announcing his arrival (appropriate since Obama frequently toots his own horn by overdoing the personal pronouns “I” and “me”) the president spoke favorably of Adam Smith, the patron saint of economic conservatives. Smithʼs philosophy is the antithesis of President Obamaʼs “spread the wealth around” socialist philosophy. Smith is to Obama as Ronald Reagan is to Karl Marx.

Daily Telegraph columnist Bryony Gordon claimed to have had a conversation with an unnamed Secret Service agent. She quoted the agent as saying about Michelle Obama, “She has this glamour that I havenʼt seen before. She isnʼt just a first lady. She is Hollywood.” Gush.

During the Obamasʼ brief visit to Dublin, I lined up with thousands of people waiting to get in to hear the presidentʼs speech in College Green. I was especially interested in what young people think of the president now, since it was American youth who fueled much of the enthusiasm behind his 2008 election.

A girl of high school age said she “loves” Obama and added without prompting, “I hate President Bush.”

“Why?” I asked.

She stumbled, as if entering unexplored cerebral territory. “I hate all American presidents,” she said (but obviously not Obama).

“Even George Washington?” “Yes.”

If this girl represents what is taught here, it would appear the state of Irish education is worse than American public education.

I interviewed a middle-age man, who was only slightly less enthusiastic than the high school girl. “What about his policies?” I asked. “He promised to close Guantanamo and quickly end wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

That bothered him, but Obamaʼs image clearly had gotten the best of his political judgment.

It was only after the Obamas had left for the G-8 meeting in France that a few in the British press began to recover from their fainting spell. Writing in The Telegraph, Andrew Gimson said, “Barack Obamaʼs speech (to Parliament) failed to live up to his own high standards.”

There were several factual errors in the presidentʼs speech, including his contention that since the War of 1812, when the British burned down the White House, “itʼs been smooth sailing” between the U.S. and Britain. Not exactly. Gimson cited one example: “Suez did not seem like plain sailing.”

The president claimed, “...young men and women in the streets of Damascus and Cairo still reach for the rights our citizens enjoy.” That is debatable, especially since the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood will be active, perhaps decisive, in the coming Egyptian election. And who knows what government will follow in Syria, should Bashar al-Assad stop killing protesters, or Libya with or without Gadhafi, or anywhere else in the Islamic world?

There were some emotional high points in the presidentʼs address, especially his reference to “the grandson of a Kenyan who served as a cook in the British Army to stand before you as president of the United States.”

That brought applause, as it should have, but this is biography over which the president has no control, not policy, which he sets.

The Irish and British press put their skepticism on hold during the Obamasʼ visit, much as the American media regularly do with most Democratic presidents. In America, the big media have a political agenda, which is that of the Democratic Party. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, it was style over substance.

Forget Scotty McCreery, winner of TVʼs “American Idol.” As host Ryan Seacrest might put it if he were announcing the arrival of President Obama in Ireland and England: “This is our ʻAmerican Idol.ʼ”

Is Adam Smith really the patron saint of economic Conservatives? Also dropping in Karl Marx and Reagan right after is classy. I also like the fact that Cal Thomas gets to go to Ireland and be an rear end in a top hat to people who like Obama.

They cut down the size of the opinion section on Sundays but we used to have some great, angry local writers.

Melanie Wilson Daniel - probably uses air quotes in real life. Not a very good writer.

Jerry Haas - a local preacher.

I love reading terrible editorials so please share them here.

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Fkin
Apr 19, 2003

by Y Kant Ozma Post
Just saying that if an english person wants to hate an American, George Washington is not a bad person to hate if you have to....

laughterhouse five
Feb 17, 2011

by elpintogrande

Fkin posted:

Just saying that if an english person wants to hate an American, George Washington is not a bad person to hate if you have to....

Ireland isn't England.

Alkabob
May 31, 2011
I would like to speak to the manager about the socialists, please
This comes from the Washington Times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/5/air-force-witchcraft/

quote:

The U.S. military’s success in Pakistan this week proved the importance of maintaining a team focused on accomplishing dangerous missions. Others on the left prefer to look upon the armed forces as a playground to experiment with fringe ideas. Take the Air Force Academy which reportedly held a ceremony on Tuesday to dedicate a pile of rocks in the academy’s “worship area for followers of Earth-centered religions.”

This is a space cadets can use to perform rituals if they happen to be witches, warlocks and tree-worshipers. Overlooking the visitor center, the stone circle is designed for the benefit of a handful of those claiming to be Wiccans or Druids.

In a February 2010 article published on the academy’s website, the superintendent explained the pagan altar was required by regulations. “The United States Air Force remains neutral regarding religious beliefs and will not officially endorse nor disapprove any faith belief or absence of belief,” wrote Lt. Gen. Mike C. Gould. “The Earth-centered spirituality group that meets at the Air Force Academy falls within the definition of religion as defined in the United States Air Force Instruction 36-2706.”

All of the actual Wiccans and Druids died out hundreds of years ago. The religions of the barbaric tribes of Europe faded away as the Roman conquest brought civilization to the region. Teachings once handed down by oral tradition were entirely forgotten over time. Around the 1950s, fringe leftists enamored by the concept of worshipping the Earth adopted the ancient labels and pretended to follow the old ways. They just left out the inconvenient bits, like human sacrifice. “They have likenesses of immense size, the limbs of which are composed of wicker, that they fill with living men,” wrote Julius Caesar, describing a Druid ceremony. “After these are set on fire, the men inside perish in the flames.”

To ensure no modern-day Druid misses out on important ceremonies, the Air Force maintains a multifaith calendar. Last year, “Lammas” fell on August 8. “This is one of the eight major High Days of the Druid and Wiccan calendar,” the document noted. “High Day observances include evening prayer vigils and ritual dances. Wiccans and Druids (any Neo Pagans) on evening work shifts may request time off for High Day observances.”

The Air Force is not alone in pandering. At Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland on Wednesday, the Army hosted a live-fire demonstration of its new M855A1 ammunition which boasts an “environmentally-friendly projectile.” The new copper-tipped round gives military brass the opportunity to brag to members of Congress that they are “doing something” to heal the planet while waging war. This opens an interesting question: Did SEAL Team Six use “green bullets” to take down Osama bin Laden, or will the Navy have to offset the carbon footprint of its highly successful mission?

Such questions can only be raised in a politically correct military that may actually contain more Earth worshippers than imagined. Though cloaked in scientific terms, the tenets of global warming are essentially pagan. This belief system, which cannot be questioned, holds that material sacrifice - turn down your thermostat and trade in your light bulbs - will result in a change in the weather. It is the modern equivalent of a rain dance. These neo-Pagan worshippers now have a federally supplied space they can call their own in the hills of Colorado Springs, Colo.

At first you think its going to be some major Christian finger waging at those silly pagans. But then this gem really shines when the author uses paganism to discredit global warming.

The author demonstrates his mastery of ancient history in ignoring the use of Roman games to honor their gods, in which some games involved the death of its participants to honor them. The Romans also had the balls to declare one of their own god for a day as apart of a Roman general earning a triumph. My favorite is when the Roman's would capture a hated enemy and keep them imprisoned for a year so on the anniversary of their great victory they would bring out the prison to be publicly strangled as part of the celebration. Of course there is the standard, gluttony, bizarre sex romps, treachery that was part and parcel of upper class Roman society. (My sources for comparison against the author on the point of historical fact: History minor, the collected Discourses and speeches of Cicero, a famous lawyer whose cases gave insights into the scandals of leading Roman families.)

Septimius
Aug 23, 2006

laughterhouse five posted:

Ireland isn't England.

It's a British person from a British paper who is reporting it from Ireland. That's the impression that I got anyway.

Slaan
Mar 16, 2009



ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH
How did Cal Thomas first get published, again? I could write better analysis when I was in English 101. :psyboom:

shotgunbadger
Nov 18, 2008

WEEK 4 - RETIRED
The REAL wizards and druids are gone, you know, the ones with...real magic? Like, did he seriously just say the guys Rome killed were somehow 'real' wizards?

edit: haha the picture is of a dude using sage to consecrate an area. Yea, those crazy pagans and their burning incenses to make an area holy, what kinda fuckin savage does tha-oh poo poo right, Catholics.

Gadaffi Duck
Jan 1, 2011

by Ozmaugh
Silly shotgunbadger, Catholics aren't real Christians.

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

shotgunbadger posted:

The REAL wizards and druids are gone, you know, the ones with...real magic? Like, did he seriously just say the guys Rome killed were somehow 'real' wizards?

edit: haha the picture is of a dude using sage to consecrate an area. Yea, those crazy pagans and their burning incenses to make an area holy, what kinda fuckin savage does tha-oh poo poo right, Catholics.

And how is what Jews, Christians, or Muslims believe somehow less absurd or stupid than what Wiccans or Neopagans believe?

Christians worship a guy who was the son of God, was born of virgin birth, and performed miracles like literally bringing people back from the dead. They believe that priests are literally turning bread and wine into the guy's body and blood and then consume them. Yeah, that's not at all silly or absurd.

The climate change denial is just his way of trying to discredit science by associating it with religion, which is a classic dick move.

It's also extremely telling that this retard mocks the use of "green bullets," as there actually are "green bullets," which are frangibles made from non-lead materials. Lead contamination is actually a practical concern, especially in outdoor firing ranges.

The author is a loving moron who doesn't even have the veneer of being informed and intelligent, he's just spouting off bullshit without actually doing any research.

Nathilus
Apr 4, 2002

I alone can see through the media bias.

I'm also stupid on a scale that can only be measured in Reddits.
He's right, it's absurd that the Air Force should be forced to pay to set up areas and time off on holidays for everyone's bullshit religions. Religion should be practiced on your own time.

I vote for no more pagan altars. Of course that also means no chapel as well.

shotgunbadger
Nov 18, 2008

WEEK 4 - RETIRED

Nathilus posted:

He's right, it's absurd that the Air Force should be forced to pay to set up areas and time off on holidays for everyone's bullshit religions. Religion should be practiced on your own time.

I vote for no more pagan altars. Of course that also means no chapel as well.

Aren't these people living there?

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

shotgunbadger posted:

Aren't these people living there?

Yeah, they are cadets at the Air Force Academy who live there the whole time they attend the school, so it's somewhat unrealistic to expect them to go off-base every time they want to attend their respective services.

But don't forget that the Air Force Academy has problems in recent years over aggressive proselytizing by Evangelical Christians, including forcing cadets to attend screening of "The Passion of the Christ" and trying to coerce them to attend religious services.

Cal Thomas and other Evangelicals are probably just butt hurt that other religions are given equal standing, which likely hurts their recruiting.

shotgunbadger
Nov 18, 2008

WEEK 4 - RETIRED
So if anything the case should be made that places like the...I really have no idea the proper term for 'holy pagan rock circle', are needed on the base to counter the evangelical crap.

Yea though, if they're living there they absolutely should have access to any venue of faith they want.

30.5 Days
Nov 19, 2006

Bruce Leroy posted:

Yeah, they are cadets at the Air Force Academy who live there the whole time they attend the school, so it's somewhat unrealistic to expect them to go off-base every time they want to attend their respective services.

But don't forget that the Air Force Academy has problems in recent years over aggressive proselytizing by Evangelical Christians, including forcing cadets to attend screening of "The Passion of the Christ" and trying to coerce them to attend religious services.

Cal Thomas and other Evangelicals are probably just butt hurt that other religions are given equal standing, which likely hurts their recruiting.

This isn't just the Air Force, and it's not recent. If you're in Marine boot camp, you are given additional chores during services if you do not attend (christian) religious services and are referred to by instructors as a "heathen". This isn't an insult or whatever, it's basically your designation and instructors will give you extra poo poo at every available opportunity, in order to wheedle you into going to church.

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

30.5 Days posted:

This isn't just the Air Force, and it's not recent. If you're in Marine boot camp, you are given additional chores during services if you do not attend (christian) religious services and are referred to by instructors as a "heathen". This isn't an insult or whatever, it's basically your designation and instructors will give you extra poo poo at every available opportunity, in order to wheedle you into going to church.

They basically punish non-religious or non-Christian Marines with more work while the Christians just veg out in the chapel pews?

How is that legal at all?

AKA Pseudonym
May 16, 2004

A dashing and sophisticated young man
Doctor Rope

Scooter_McCabe posted:

This comes from the Washington Times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/5/air-force-witchcraft/


At first you think its going to be some major Christian finger waging at those silly pagans. But then this gem really shines when the author uses paganism to discredit global warming.

The author demonstrates his mastery of ancient history in ignoring the use of Roman games to honor their gods, in which some games involved the death of its participants to honor them. The Romans also had the balls to declare one of their own god for a day as apart of a Roman general earning a triumph. My favorite is when the Roman's would capture a hated enemy and keep them imprisoned for a year so on the anniversary of their great victory they would bring out the prison to be publicly strangled as part of the celebration. Of course there is the standard, gluttony, bizarre sex romps, treachery that was part and parcel of upper class Roman society. (My sources for comparison against the author on the point of historical fact: History minor, the collected Discourses and speeches of Cicero, a famous lawyer whose cases gave insights into the scandals of leading Roman families.)

Everything is "pandering" or "giving in" or "appeasing" with these people.

30.5 Days
Nov 19, 2006

Bruce Leroy posted:

They basically punish non-religious or non-Christian Marines with more work while the Christians just veg out in the chapel pews?

How is that legal at all?

NO ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

30.5 Days posted:

NO ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES

Yeah, except that's not an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes.

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

AKA Pseudonym posted:

Everything is "pandering" or "giving in" or "appeasing" with these people.

That's because allowing or even accepting any faiths other than the one true lord Jesus Christ Superstar is basically the same as appeasing Satan-Hitler.

RC and Moon Pie
May 5, 2011

I'm beginning to think Kyle Wingfield of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is some kind of experiment. The AJC publishes him to either make the rest of their staff look good or if they're joking non-liberals.

If you go to the right sources, finding crazy letters to the editor is like shooting fish in a barrel. Like this example out of the Valdosta Daily Times.

Granted, this fellow is a minister, but this is very par for the course in a land that is insanely Republican and right smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt.

quote:

The Church can save America

We in America, for the most part, have placed our hope for the salvation and preservation of America in some political party. We are humanist for the most part, whether we admit it or not, and are looking to man for solutions to our nation’s problems, instead of God. But there is no political party that can save America. Only the Church can save America.

The Church has been given specific promises by God that when the conditions to these promises are met, God will fulfill His promise and heal and save our land (2 Chr. 7:14, et al). It is in meeting the conditions that the Church is revived and able to bring about a change in our nation. The Church is part of the problem in America. She has lost her distinction and peculiarity, her holiness. She has bad moral and spiritual health (Is. 1:5; Jms. 4), and God cannot heal a sick nation through a sick Church.

God can save America, but only through a revived Church. What we need is a Revive the Church Save America campaign. God operates through a holy and humble people, a revived Church. The Church is the human agency through which revival and the healing of American is possible.

If the Church refuses to be revived, when America falls her blood will be on the doorstep of every church and the hands of every pastor that wasn’t true to God and His word, and wouldn’t be revived.

Or, this from the Albany Herald, a paper that is its own little bundle of weird. Albany is the news source for a bunch of counties as they're all poor and pretty pathetic. Albany itself is a Democratic land. Everything surrounding it isn't. There are still several segregation academies in these here parts.

quote:

It seems only yesterday that our government was rolling out the FEMA trucks, temporary living trailers, food services and free hotel stays, some for more than a year. I remember the media was franticly reporting mass looting of flat screen TVs, brand-name sneakers and cases of beer; rescuers were being shot at, raped and murdered.

They were asking tough questions, demanding to know why the government hadn’t solved the problem in New Orleans. I remember Ray Nagin proclaiming he was going to rebuild a chocolate New Orleans, and Spike Lee accusing the federal government of blowing up the levees. Hollywood and the rock music heroes were out in force to raise money for those who couldn’t — or wouldn’t — evacuate New Orleans, a large segment of those being young adult males. Jesse, Al and the NAACP were up in arms regarding the injustice of it all.

Fast forward to May of 2011. Iowa and North Dakota are underwater; Cedar Rapids, 24,000 evacuated; Iowa City, 5,000 evacuated, and many others underwater. This has been going on for weeks and still no end in sight. Now, add devastating tornados killing hundreds and severely damaging property. Where is the outrage? Coverage by the media regarding human suffering, government support? Outcries for justice and of racism are rather sparse. Where are the rock and Hollywood stars? Where is FEMA? What is the difference here? No looting, no raping. No demands for government to save them. Hmm.

Just Midwestern rural country folk in desperate situations taking care of themselves.

Perhaps we should take a lesson here and demand smaller government instead of demanding a larger government to provide everything for us. Now, for the first time in American history, government is paid for through taxes from less than half of American households to take care of the rest of Americans, and about 20 million illegal aliens who are sucking the life out of this country.

Get a job, get off welfare, come here legally or go back to your own country. And for goodness sake, take care of yourself.

Ned
May 23, 2002

by Hand Knit

quote:

Get a job, get off welfare, come here legally or go back to your own country. And for goodness sake, take care of yourself.

This person is mad at everyone but the poor white folk that lost their homes in the midwest. And those folks in the midwest know they live on a flood plain and will get flooded every once in a while. But those stupid morons in New Orleans had no idea that the levees wouldn't hold.

Modest Mao
Feb 11, 2011

by Cyrano4747
If anything Reagan really reinforced Marx's point.

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Ned posted:

This person is mad at everyone but the poor white folk that lost their homes in the midwest. And those folks in the midwest know they live on a flood plain and will get flooded every once in a while. But those stupid morons in New Orleans had no idea that the levees wouldn't hold.

No they knew, but the young adult males in New Orleans refused to leave. Probably criminally.

I mostly like how he compared an evacuation of 5,000 people with an evacuation of 500,000.

SmugDogMillionaire
Oct 27, 2009

by T. Fine

30.5 Days posted:

This isn't just the Air Force, and it's not recent. If you're in Marine boot camp, you are given additional chores during services if you do not attend (christian) religious services and are referred to by instructors as a "heathen". This isn't an insult or whatever, it's basically your designation and instructors will give you extra poo poo at every available opportunity, in order to wheedle you into going to church.

Pretty much not true.

There's services for a variety of religions. There might be minor poo poo to do if you don't go anywhere, but I would usually use the time to write letters or read the newspaper.

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

SmugDogMillionaire posted:

Pretty much not true.

There's services for a variety of religions. There might be minor poo poo to do if you don't go anywhere, but I would usually use the time to write letters or read the newspaper.

See, that sounds much more reasonable.

Kaal posted:

No they knew, but the young adult males in New Orleans refused to leave. Probably criminally.

I mostly like how he compared an evacuation of 5,000 people with an evacuation of 500,000.

Even worse, it seems he's implying that blacks rape, murder, and loot while leeching off the government, while good, Christian, white people pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This completely ignores all the crimes perpetrated against black people by white NOLA police officers and how white people across the bridges in the communities surrounding NOLA used violence against black refugees fleeing the city to keep them out of their communities.

The "small government" bullshit from that guy is priceless, as the whole reason the levees broke during Katrina is because the government didn't do its job in repairing them despite ample notice before the storm. What does he expect people to do, build their own levees?

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010
To contribute, here's an old one from notorious moron and piece of poo poo Dinesh D'Souza that I only recently encountered from a different lovely editorial that cited D'Souza's editorial as a source for historical facts.

Dinesh D'Souza in 2006 posted:

Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as "End of Faith" author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present."

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries."

In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse.

The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials. How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination.

It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years ago. The number sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition appears to be about 10,000. Some historians contend that an additional 100,000 died in jail due to malnutrition or illness.

These figures are tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time. But even so, they are minuscule compared with the death tolls produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.

Moreover, many of the conflicts that are counted as "religious wars" were not fought over religion. They were mainly fought over rival claims to territory and power. Can the wars between England and France be called religious wars because the English were Protestants and the French were Catholics? Hardly.

The same is true today. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not, at its core, a religious one. It arises out of a dispute over self-determination and land. Hamas and the extreme orthodox parties in Israel may advance theological claims – "God gave us this land" and so forth – but the conflict would remain essentially the same even without these religious motives. Ethnic rivalry, not religion, is the source of the tension in Northern Ireland and the Balkans.

Blindly blaming religion for conflict

Yet today's atheists insist on making religion the culprit. Consider Mr. Harris's analysis of the conflict in Sri Lanka. "While the motivations of the Tamil Tigers are not explicitly religious," he informs us, "they are Hindus who undoubtedly believe many improbable things about the nature of life and death." In other words, while the Tigers see themselves as combatants in a secular political struggle, Harris detects a religious motive because these people happen to be Hindu and surely there must be some underlying religious craziness that explains their fanaticism.

Harris can go on forever in this vein. Seeking to exonerate secularism and atheism from the horrors perpetrated in their name, he argues that Stalinism and Maoism were in reality "little more than a political religion." As for Nazism, "while the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, it was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity." Indeed, "The holocaust marked the culmination of ... two thousand years of Christian fulminating against the Jews."

One finds the same inanities in Mr. Dawkins's work. Don't be fooled by this rhetorical legerdemain. Dawkins and Harris cannot explain why, if Nazism was directly descended from medieval Christianity, medieval Christianity did not produce a Hitler. How can a self-proclaimed atheist ideology, advanced by Hitler as a repudiation of Christianity, be a "culmination" of 2,000 years of Christianity? Dawkins and Harris are employing a transparent sleight of hand that holds Christianity responsible for the crimes committed in its name, while exonerating secularism and atheism for the greater crimes committed in their name.

Religious fanatics have done things that are impossible to defend, and some of them, mostly in the Muslim world, are still performing horrors in the name of their creed. But if religion sometimes disposes people to self-righteousness and absolutism, it also provides a moral code that condemns the slaughter of innocents. In particular, the moral teachings of Jesus provide no support for – indeed they stand as a stern rebuke to – the historical injustices perpetrated in the name of Christianity.
Atheist hubris

The crimes of atheism have generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man, not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular utopia here on earth. Of course if some people – the Jews, the landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped – have to be eliminated in order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dictum, "If God is not, everything is permitted."

Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades.

It's time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.

• Dinesh D'Souza is the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His new book, "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11," will be published in January.


Anyone with even cursory knowledge of 20th Century history might become apoplectic from even just the parts I bolded.

He spends so much time pointing out that crimes committed by Christians aren't necessarily crimes of Christianity, but he won't even broach the idea that the same could be true of atheists and atheism. Also, it's almost cute that he's so dumb and misinformed to think that Hitler was a "self-proclaimed atheist" and that Nazism was a "repudiation of Christianity."

shotgunbadger
Nov 18, 2008

WEEK 4 - RETIRED
Balkans and Ireland: no religious component at all to the strife.

Like, yea saying 'no without religion there would be literally no problems' is stupid as poo poo, but how on earth do you use two famous examples of religious infighting to try to argue that?

De Nomolos
Jan 17, 2007

TV rots your brain like it's crack cocaine
I already know that when I look at my hometown newspaper, I will likely find at least 2 letters in the current edition to post here...let me go check...

http://www.theherald-nc.com/2011/05/01/18394/your-letters-america-in-decline.html

quote:

Unlike in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan's common-sense leadership was enough to revive our fortunes, America is now beset by policies instigated by an effete elite. Globalization, the nanny state, open immigration and the diminishing of American exceptionalism have all come together to put off, at best temporarily, the American Dream for an entire generation of Americans. These are no abstract theories, just cold hard reality for North Carolinians. In the east, the former tobacco baronies see people simply hoping for a job at Walmart. In the west, we see the bastions of textiles and furniture hollowed out. Why did we allow this to happen?

Simply put, we turned a blind eye as the political leadership of both national parties fell under the same spell with the same agenda. The same Obama who promised to renegotiate NAFTA is now poised to promote new free-trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Columbia, with John Boehner and most of the Republicans on Capitol Hill screaming "Amen."

Ok, no more.

:psyboom:

downout
Jul 6, 2009

SmugDogMillionaire posted:

Pretty much not true.

There's services for a variety of religions. There might be minor poo poo to do if you don't go anywhere, but I would usually use the time to write letters or read the newspaper.

Bit of a derail, but for USAF basic I had a similar experience. We could go to one of the various services offered (2 mile hike at 7 am) or stay at the barracks and clean up. The first week our instructor stayed around to make sure we got stuff done, but since there were only two of us, he mostly ignored us. By week two we had figured out where we could nap up for half an hour without getting caught since as long as we got plenty done we were left alone for 3 hours. Of course, I should mention that my instructor wasn't a complete rear end in a top hat, and I'm sure there are plenty of power-tripping religious zealot instructors that would make your life a living hell or make some references during their daily screaming events. Just need to find out which one you've got.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

shotgunbadger posted:

Balkans and Ireland: no religious component at all to the strife.

Like, yea saying 'no without religion there would be literally no problems' is stupid as poo poo, but how on earth do you use two famous examples of religious infighting to try to argue that?
I was kind of with D'Souza at first at the "In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse" part, because describing any of those conflicts as being religious in basis is an over-simplification at best--while there is a religious component to each of them, characterizing these conflicts as "hurrrr kill the infidel" is disingenuous.

But then he kept talking and :psyboom:

For content, I live just outside Dallas, which is a pretty liberal, multicultural, generally awesome place to live despite everyone thinking Texas is some kind of :bahgawd: hellhole, in my suburb particularly, so the political opinion pieces are generally okay. Then, I read this:

Some fuckstick from Highland Village posted:

Her penalty is too severe
Re: "28-year term set in boy's death -- Grandmother abandoned blind and deaf child known as 'Wylie's Angel' in brush," Thursday news story.
Have we lost our senses? It appears that his grandmother was the only person who really cared for Gerren Isgrigg.
He was 6 years old, blind, speechless and helpless. I can't imagine what it would be like to care for him for years. But I expect Darlene Phillips simply went bankrupt emotionally and made a bad decision. Of course, she is defenseless and broken, and she pleaded guilty.
Did nobody in Wylie know about this awful living situation before it happened? The courtroom was full. The lawyers and judge agreed to 28 years in prison.
I have worked in prison. This lady does not belong there. She is a victim, as well. She needs some type of supervised existence for less expense than prison. Yet our lawmakers in Austin are cutting the budget for helping helpless people.
Being a Christian, I can't help but think: "What would Jesus have done for Darlene Phillips before the tragedy and now?"
For everyone not from the area, "Wylie's Angel" is Gerren Isgrigg, a little disabled boy that was left to die in the woods by his grandmother. And apparently she was the only one who cared for him? gently caress this guy. There's a difference between "making a bad decision" and leaving your disabled grandson to die alone.

edit: I should add that pleading for a reduced sentence because she wasn't in a right state of mind is okay, it's the "was the only person who cared for him" and suggesting that because she's being sentenced to prison for allowing her helpless blind grandchild to die alone we've "lost our minds" that bothers me.

Punished Chuck fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Jun 3, 2011

The Brown Menace
Dec 24, 2010

Now comes in all colors.


A good article on religion in the US military:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488

Hardcore Phonography
Apr 28, 2004

I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street.

30.5 Days posted:

This isn't just the Air Force, and it's not recent. If you're in Marine boot camp, you are given additional chores during services if you do not attend (christian) religious services and are referred to by instructors as a "heathen". This isn't an insult or whatever, it's basically your designation and instructors will give you extra poo poo at every available opportunity, in order to wheedle you into going to church.

When I was in recruit training, they put up a list of "approved" religions and started going around asking people what religion they were. That was hosed up, because I had just met all these guys. When it was my turn I didn't know what to say, so I just blurted out "Well none of THAT bullshit, sir."

Later I came to regret this and went to the LDS place because they always brought donuts and cookies and chocolate milk. Tell you what, after the first four weeks I would bullshit with any religion to get something that didn't taste like rear end.

CaptBushido
Mar 24, 2004

SmugDogMillionaire posted:

Pretty much not true.

There's services for a variety of religions. There might be minor poo poo to do if you don't go anywhere, but I would usually use the time to write letters or read the newspaper.

See, my experience in AF basic more than 4 years ago was that this is true... you aren't really "punished" for not going to church with poo poo details (at least not TOO poo poo, other than 'make sure your stuff is squared away so tight that it shows you were doing something for 2-3 hours) but at the same time the instructor specifically encouraged the rumor that you'd be screwed doing bullcrap if you didn't go. Like I remember him outright threatening it once... and then once I had decided not to go anywhere (and I was the only one), he didn't really do or say anything about it and I did have the time to myself.

But maybe that was influenced by the fact that I decided to quit going after more than halfway through basic and had earned some modicum of respect and leeway by that point, but who can tell?

I actually think it may be drill/training instructor specific, like most things in basic. If they want to be a dick for a dick reason, they can... or not, it's all up to the NCO. Which isn't really a good thing.

EDIT: Man, this is kind of becoming a derail. I'm going to dig through my local paper's website to find some OP conducive editorials.

CaptBushido
Mar 24, 2004

quote:

Re: Letter to the Editor - Code names dumb, but offense unnecessary (May 19)

I read with some confusion this letter about our airborne troops yelling "Geronimo" as they jumped into battle and how this would possibly offend someone. I personally would consider it a great honor if they yelled "Jim Taylor" as they leap into battle.

The other one - "Eagle has landed" - offending the naturalists, does the writer not know that the eagle is the national symbol of our nation. Political correctness has run amok in our Great Republic and is the cause of many of our woes.

I wonder what has happened to the self reliance that built this great nation when I see that more than 25 percent of our taxes go to giveaway programs and even our own community donating land and giving away tents to people who prey on the compassionate by finding any excuse necessary to avoid finding a job and making their own way in life. Repugnant as it might seem to some they might take a lesson from the Native Americans, who were a very nomadic people, that being when you could no longer pull your weight in the tribe and they moved on, you didn't

I have no clue what story/letter he's referring to originally, but I want to find it.

But anyway, after a lukewarm "waah political correctness" pouting, the true moral of the story is revealed: out of work people should gently caress off and die.

These are from Lubbock, TX: the heart of what may well be one of the top 3 most conservative areas in the entire US... but I was honestly kind of heartened at how many liberal and (especially encouraging) dissenting conservative opinions, with comments like "the current wave of Republicans are being too draconian and extreme for our tastes", are represented in the Letters to the Editor section... :unsmith:

CaptBushido fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Jun 3, 2011

SmugDogMillionaire
Oct 27, 2009

by T. Fine

CaptBushido posted:

I actually think it may be drill/training instructor specific, like most things in basic. If they want to be a dick for a dick reason, they can... or not, it's all up to the NCO. Which isn't really a good thing.

Mainly this. DI's in the Marine Corp basically run their platoon as private little fiefdoms and the rules, as they are, are pretty much universally violated in a variety of different ways depending on the DI (lol at the no physical violence rule for my platoon). The thing is that theres a whole system for fixing the abuses and it's only the code of silence that lets it run that way. If you push back and call them on their overstepping of boundaries, poo poo gets fixed in a hurry usually and if you request mast with a valid complaint, the DI will often disappeared ASAP. Religious accommodations were something that always struck me as very by-the-book and well-run, probably because recruits are more willing to fight back about that whereas getting hit is something thats just accepted as part of training by the enlistees.

The marine corp was probably the least religious service in what I encountered. There's too strong a streak of mild sociopathy, wanna-be badass, and outright weird dudes to really foster a religious environment.

Edit: In my experience, the air force was the most religious service, by far. Though Navy chaplains were run by an evangelical mafia as well.

SmugDogMillionaire fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jun 3, 2011

MaxxBot
Oct 6, 2003

you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!
I live in Minnesota which is a pretty blue state but we still have our fair share of complete nutcases which have all come out of the woodwork with the debate over the marriage amendment that's going to be on the ballot here in 2012. A local newspaper actually decided to publish the following letter which looks like a copy/paste from Freep. Luckily I have the number of the person who put this in the paper and I'm going to make sure that she gets an earful from hordes of militant homofascists.

quote:

I Now Pronounce You…

Dear Editor:

Homosexuals being in love and in a committed same-sex relationship is a theme of recent letters written to sway the legislature from banning homosexual marriage. Love and commitment were mentioned as though they were the norm in homosexual relationships.

As https://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality_Statistics demonstrates, there are dozens of things wrong with the gay life, one being that homosexuals don’t usually have committed relationships with one another. Theirs are more quick-timish, and that rather than relationships between one another, it’s more like between one and all the others.

Dr. Maria Xiridou of the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service published a study of young male Dutch homosexuals in the May 2003 issue of the journal AIDS that showed that homosexual partnerships last on average only eighteen months. Additionally, they have an average of eight partners a year outside of their main partnership.

Love and commitment are terms being co-opted by homosexuals to serve their agenda. It is necessary to soften up America with propaganda in order to accomplish their desire, which is an unlimited supply of raw material to satisfy consumption.

Prominent homosexual advocate Daniel Villarreal, lamenting that gay activists usually deny that they want to indoctrinate children, said: “Let’s face it—that’s a lie. Why would we push anti-bullying programs or social studies classes that teach kids about the historical contributions of famous queers unless we wanted to deliberately educate children to accept queer sexuality as normal? Recruiting children? You bet we are. We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality. In fact, our very future depends on it”.

Why does their future depend on indoctrination? Because they can’t reproduce. They can only recruit.And our schools are the best source of the raw material needed to satisfy their expansive appetites.

Rod Bergengren
Cambridge

Bruce Leroy
Jun 10, 2010

WeaponGradeSadness posted:

I was kind of with D'Souza at first at the "In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts – in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka – show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse" part, because describing any of those conflicts as being religious in basis is an over-simplification at best--while there is a religious component to each of them, characterizing these conflicts as "hurrrr kill the infidel" is disingenuous.

I totally agree with you, but isn't it kind of a "chicken and the egg" thing with these conflicts over what their true "bases" are?

E.g. how do we determine whether it was ethnic tensions or religious conflict that came first in engendering the hatred that led to violence in the Balkans? We know that both are important causes for the conflict, but how do we know which came first and which is more influential and fundamental to the hatred and conflict?

Was the sentiment among the Serbians that committed genocide against Muslim Bosnians (A) "We hate those filthy Bosnians and they're evil Muslims, too" or (B) "We hate those loving Muslims and they're even worse because they're Bosnian, too"?

RC and Moon Pie
May 5, 2011

There was a letter in a later edition against this notion, but here's a beaut from the Gainesville (GA) Times, printed on May 13:

quote:

Kudos to the Delta pilot who refused to fly with the two Muslims aboard for a Memphis to Charlotte flight May 6. One of the Muslims removed from the flight, Masudur Rahman, claimed "It's racism and bias because of our religion" rather than a concern for the safety of the American travelers on board. He further stated, "If they understood Islam, they wouldn't do this."

If "they" understood Islam and acted appropriately, there would be no Muslims in this country. It is ridiculous for Americans to have to be fearful of flying with members of the Islamic religion whose most militant sect, al-Qaida, is responsible for most of the terroristic acts against the U.S. partly in response to our continued endowment of Israeli aggression against the P.L.O.

Had the original pilots of the planes used in the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon refused to fly with armed Muslims aboard, there would have been no Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. There are apparently many faces of the Muslims who are anti-American, from those who carried out 9/11 to the fire breathing members of al-Qaida who oppose us in the Mideast.

It is impossible to distinguish between Muslims who are anti-American and just waiting for a chance to do us harm, and those who are merely pursuing their religious beliefs in this country. The only way to be sure and safe is to exclude them all. Such action would not constitute bias or racism against a particular nationality just because they may be different from us, or the condemnation of a specific religion because it differs from our beliefs but the action is necessary to create conditions in which it is safe to live without a constant fear of terrorism.

The enemy is within us or waiting to come in, not in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan where we have squandered trillions of dollars (which make up a sizable percentage of our 14 trillions of dollar-plus federal deficit) and thousands of American lives.

To sum it up, we have to get out of the Mideast and get the Muslims out of the U.S.

Fish in a barrel in my state. Fish in a barrel.

Borneo Jimmy
Feb 27, 2007

by Smythe
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/anthony-weiners-odd-reality/2011/06/02/AGCEBEHH_blog.html

quote:

Some time ago, I moved to Xanadu. This is my name for the place I now live. Most things look more or less familiar, but I understand little of what is happening or being said. For instance, in my Xanadu, there is a college student who follows a congressman named Anthony Weiner on Twitter. Why? There are things about this culture I do not understand.

I have seen this Weiner. He is a homely fellow, certainly not handsome and not what you would call a hunk. Yet this college student all the way on the other side of America follows him on Twitter? Why? What does it mean to follow someone on Twitter? Xanaduns (Xanadunians?) apparently do it, but I don’t know why. A quaint folk custom, apparently.

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downout
Jul 6, 2009

MaxxBot posted:

I live in Minnesota which is a pretty blue state but we still have our fair share of complete nutcases which have all come out of the woodwork with the debate over the marriage amendment that's going to be on the ballot here in 2012. A local newspaper actually decided to publish the following letter which looks like a copy/paste from Freep. Luckily I have the number of the person who put this in the paper and I'm going to make sure that she gets an earful from hordes of militant homofascists.

You should write a letter back with plenty of quality quotes of what is actually posted in conservapedia. As soon as anyone with two neurons to rub together reads that link, their eyes should immediately roll back into their head as they move on to the next editorial.

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