Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Oops! Democrats can count backwards

The line this a.m. on the talk shows was that Sen. Joni Ernst had avoided the curse of the State of the Union response speech and, while she did not ignite her tinder-dry base, at least avoided embarrassing herself.

The pundits spoke too soon. In fact, Ernst's lie about wearing breadbags over her one pair of shoes was subjected to merciless mockery by the leisured Democrats class, who noted that during Ernst's girlhood the president was not Franklin Roosevelt but -- wait for it! -- R. Reagan.

Few, if any of the mockers, though, had any experience of either living on a farm or living in Iowa during the Reagan paradise. So, as sometimes happens, instead of restating the obvious, I will have to reveal it, de novo as it were.

In fact, the Reagan years were terrible for Iowa farmers and the much more numerous members of the UAW, who were losing their jobs, homes, farms and, too often, their lives (by suicide) during those golden years. (It was a bad time, too, for slaughterhouse workers and residents of small towns generally. But it was a golden opportunity for the gaudier class of con artists. My favorite was the one who claimed to represent a Saudi shiekh who wished to give struggling Iowa farmers loans of a million dollars each -- which did not have to be repaid! -- and the con artist could arrange to deliver this loan for an upfront fee of only $30,000. A good many of those struggling farmers found the money even if they did not love their little girls enough to buy them shoes.)

So, I can believe that the Ernst family could have been under financial stress when she was a schoolgirl. But I cannot simultaneously believe she was also castrating pigs in her one pair of shoes, unless she was wearing bread bags then, too.

Ernst really did step in it. As one commenter said, everywhere she goes from now on, protesters in bread bags will follow.

68 comments:

  1. In fact, Ernst's lie about wearing breadbags over her one pair of shoes ...

    Once again, I made the mistake of following a link to Herr Doktor Zoom.

    I can't find anywhere in that cesspool of progressive a$$holery that amounts to even a scintilla of evidence she was lying.

    Perhaps you can point out to me where I missed it.

    Or you can revel in guilt by association.

    Your choice.

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  2. The best-known Iowa newspaper columnist, Chuck Offenburger (who I used to work with), debunked it on his FB page. He was joined by numerous other native Iowans. I know about it because a FB friend commented and so Chuck's statement showed up on my feed. I am not FB friends with him, but if you want to go to his page and befriend him, you can find it.

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  3. So, in other words, Herr Zoom, Doktor of A&&holery, had absolutely no evidence, yet you slavishly treat his word as gospel truth.

    And I'm sure you could cut and paste Offenburger's "debunking".

    Presuming, of course, it exists.

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  4. His FB page is public. See for yourself:

    'Truth: I've worn bread bags on my feet, inside my boots, while riding my bicycle on Perry IA's "BRR" ride over the years.' and comments.

    Ernst lied. Never happened.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. So, I can take it as read that Zoombag published something completely fact free, and you jumped right on it.

    I saw that FB thread, and I read the comments. Clearly you have no idea what she was talking about, nor do at least a third of the people commenting. Just as with Doctor D-bag, there is exactly zero evidence that Ernst lied -- go ahead, pull a quote that constitutes evidence. I've read them all.

    (Now you might have some trouble recognizing this, because it is something you almost never use, but here is some actual evidence: I have worn bags inside my shoes while riding a bike in cold weather. Does that mean Ernst did? Heck no, but it does mean that at least some people do. So exactly how do you conclude she didn't?)

    Just like all other progressives, the urge to defame is strong in you. (Clint Eastwood is a fascist?)

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  7. Outside. She said she wore them outside. Chuck and many of his Iowa friends could relate to wearing them insode, but not one believes she wore them outside.

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  8. So their lack of belief makes her a liar? That's what you call evidence?

    I remember your lack of belief made Phil Robertson a liar.

    And you make fun of the religious.

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  9. Well, you don't believe millions of black kids were bused past their neighborhood school to g to white-free schools.

    They don't just disbelieve Ernst, they know what it's like in Iowa on a school bus in the winter.

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  10. They don't just disbelieve Ernst, they know what it's like in Iowa on a school bus [NB: Ernst's claim was getting to and from the bus] in the winter.

    As evidence, their disbelief is worthless. Their incomprehension has absolutely no bearing on her experience: they weren't there, they don't know. They, like you, are calling her a liar not because they have anything remotely approximating an actual reason to, but rather because they are perfectly happy to let their own nasty impulses substitute for someone else's lived experience.

    Which brings back to that fountain of fecal spew, Doktor Zoom. It was he you cited, and it was he who had nothing upon which to base his retch-worthy rant. If you want to lie (sic) with someone that disgusting, go right ahead. But don't be surprised if others wonder where the stench is coming from.

    Women are vain about their shoes, among many other things. Young women are very vulnerable to bullying. (Yes, I know #WarOnWymyn!) She's poor. She has one nice pair of shoes. So to preserve their appearance, she is going to wear bread bags over them to get from her house to the bus stop, and back, so she can try to fit in with the cool girls.

    What is so hard to believe about that? It's certainly not physically impossible; it is right in the teenage girl wheelhouse, and it isn't the kind of story one makes up out of whole cloth.

    So absent actual evidence, as opposed to the vituperative emanations so typical of progressives, your calling her a liar carries exactly the same foul stench that came along with "chanting 'let him die'", or Eastwood being a fascist, or Phil Robertson being a liar (among many examples).

    What is it with progressives? Maybe you need to change the name of your blog to more accurately describe the progressive tic: Ranting the Odious.

    (Well, you don't believe millions of black kids were bused past their neighborhood school to g to white-free schools.

    I don't believe it because, given typical residential patterns, it is an extraordinary claim for which you have provided, just as with Ernst, zero proof . Well, other than a myopic, and unsubstantiated claim.)

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  11. Her family was not poor. It was given $37,000 (welfare queen Joni!) from the gummint, which she hates. In 1978, I bought a four-bedroom house in Iowa for $36,000. I paid for it myself, thank you very much.

    The whole story was a lie, and everybody in Iowa gets it even if you don't. Why did she tell a lie like that that everyine would recognize as a lie?

    Dunno. Maybe she really is the successor to Michelle Bachmann.

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  12. Her family was not poor. It was given $37,000 ...

    It takes an even more than usual degree of progressive innumeracy and logic abuse to get from the antecedent to the consequent. Absent way more information than you have, there is no IF ... THEN to be had there.

    And then you follow it up with first hand experience -- a total non-sequitur, but given the pattern here that is no surprise -- which I am supposed to take on faith, while you are calling someone who is expressing first hand experience a liar.

    Innumeracy, fallacy upon fallacy, and hypocrisy all in the space of two sentences. That must be some kind of record.

    Neither you, nor your similarly hubristic Iowa comrades have anything like enough information to call her a liar. If you can't figure that out, you are a fool, and if you have, then you are once again scratching the defamatory itch that is one of the plagues of progressivism.

    If the latter then, btw, you yourself are a liar.

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  13. Well, let's put it this way: Her family was sucking on the gummint teat, and nobody in Iowa believes her story. Is that good enough?

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  14. Her family was sucking on the gummint teat ...

    What was the money for? Oh, wait, I bet I know -- agricultural policy payments that would have put their farm under had they not taken them.

    ... nobody in Iowa believes her story.

    Nobody? Oh, wait, you have extrapolated a half dozen progressives with a powerful penchant for defamation -- in other words, liars -- into all Iowans. Either that is some evidence of innumeracy and illogic beyond the reach of merely fundamentalist progressives, or you, yourself, are a liar.

    So, no. Way not good enough. Doktor Zoom had nothing, and you have provided not a scintilla more since.

    From the WSJ:

    Leftism too has its class tropes, only they come from the opposite angle. Response on the left to Ernst and the bread bags was snobbish, superior and dumb to the point of embarrassing.

    Yep, that pretty much pegged it.

    Interestingly, you defamatory skills don't extend to others:

    "harry eagar" "Restating the Obvious" "Elizabeth Warren"

    A bona fide liar: zero results

    "harry eagar" "Restating the Obvious" "Hillary Clinton" bosnia

    Another bona fide liar.

    Yet from Ranting the Odious?

    Crickets.

    Instead, from precisely zero evidence, you fling monkey poo.

    Way to stay classy.

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  15. What makes you think Chuck's FB friends are 'progressive'?

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  16. Because like you, they are happy to defame others without any evidence whatsoever. So, I assume that, like you, they are progressives.

    To wit: You said Clint Eastwood is a fascist.

    Why?

    BTW, here is another bona fide liar.

    Maybe you will soon be able do discern the difference between actual liars, progressive monkey-poo slinging.

    I'm still waiting for you to defend your innumeracy, illogic, and hypocrisy.

    Or to provide anything remotely approximating evidence that Ernst lied about her own experiences.

    Anything. Even one thing.

    Until then, I can only conclude you are a liar.

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  17. That's a whopper of an assumption and made without any evidence whatever. Tu quoque?

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  18. No -- equal parts accurate observation and prediction.

    Accurate observation: just like Herr Zoom, and you, in the complete absence of anything remotely they accused Ernst of lying about her own life. No assumption there.

    Prediction: like Herr Zoom, and you, and the crowd at Crooked Timber, et al, whenever there is some spiteful defamation to be done, progressives are the ones to do it.

    (Unless, of course, you are referring to my accusation you are a liar -- your ambiguous reference makes it hard to tell -- in which case you have indicted yourself. You called Ernst a liar without evidence: that is defamation, which, by definition, is a lie. Therefore, particularly since you persist, despite being laughably incapable of coming up with anything at all so substantiate your vile accusation, that makes you a liar.)

    Is Clint Eastwood a fascist, or are you lying about that, too?

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  19. Really, progressives are making all those claims about Obama being a secret Muslim? To take one example.

    You did not use to be like this, Skipper, jumping to conclusions and attributing strange positions to other people. I let most of them directed at me pass, like my comment that I wouldn't miss fraternities if they disappeared.

    I wouldn't, but you decided that meant that I wanted to eliminate them.

    You need to stop watching The Blaze or wherever you are being infected by this stuff.

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  20. And here we have some more spiteful defamation. 5000 posts and increasing rapidly, most of them full of spite and defamation and few from progressives. Plus, as well, Marcus's on-point original column that inspired the flood of spiteful defamation.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-rights-crusade-against-obama/2015/02/06/a36f8202-ae5b-11e4-9c91-e9d2f9fde644_story.html?tid=pm_pop

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  21. That's a whopper of an assumption and made without any evidence whatever. Tu quoque?

    Okay, reset. What, exactly, did you mean by "that's a whopper of an assumption"? Here is yet another perfect example of why direct quotes are so important.

    You did not use to be like this, Skipper, jumping to conclusions and attributing strange positions to other people.

    And in the space of a sentence, yet another example. Please directly quote what I said that constituted a jumped assumption.

    I wouldn't [mind if fraternities disappeared], but you decided that meant that I wanted to eliminate them.

    BTW, standing as a third example of why direct quotes, of yourself as well as others, are so important, here is what you actually wrote:

    If all the frats and sororities were extinguished tomorrow I would not count that as a loss.

    My response: Well, of course not. As a progressive, you hate all independent civil organizations.

    So, through the magic of direct quotes, it is easy to see that you are completely wrong on both counts.

    And here we have some more spiteful defamation.

    I have utterly no idea what this has to do with your baseless defamations (but I repeat myself), but I'll run with it.

    Secret Muslim stuff aside (as if nodding to Wright's racist sermons for a couple decades wasn't already bad enough) Obama managed to completely miss the point: beliefs have consequences. There are many Islamic beliefs that are odious in ways that other religions are not, that Islam's theological requirements insist that those beliefs are straight from Allah, and that Islam allows no space between the sacred and the profane.

    And that is why, in the here and now, that Islamic violence is so widespread, and that there is no way to deal with it except to point a spotlight on those beliefs that are so foul they give Mein Kampf a run for its money.

    So, yes, Pres Obama, by all means the monotheisms have created a great deal of havoc. But Christianity pretty much got over that a couple centuries ago. In the here and now, Lutherans putting buildings to the torch at the slightest provocation, or Baptists gunning down Jews aren't really at the top of the worry list.

    Islam, on the other hand, demands our fealty, and murders when it doesn't get it.

    Why?

    Perhaps it has to do with Islam itself?

    You need to stop watching The Blaze or wherever you are being infected by this stuff.

    I'll make a bargain with you: I'll stop watching the Blaze, which is easy, since I've never seen it, whatever it is, and in return you never again attribute to me something I've said without quoting it directly.

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  22. P.S.: With regard to Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has far more insight than Obama.

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  23. 'Islam allows no space between the sacred and the profane.'

    Neither do Roman Catholicism or many evangelicals. So Obama's comparison was exactly on target.

    As for jumping to conclusions, you seem to imagine that because I considered a hypothetical situation in which Greeks were extinguished, that is something I advocate. Now you are just being silly.

    There are, in fact, a few people in academia who have for years advocated extinguishing the Greek system but they are not widely supported by anybody, certainly not be progressives.

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  24. Neither do Roman Catholicism or many evangelicals.

    "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; render unto God that which is God's." Mark 12:17

    So Obama's comparison was precisely not on point: beliefs matter; Islamic beliefs are particularly odious. As just a second's thought on Islam and apostasy should reveal -- that is a core belief of Islam, and is utterly incompatible with a modern pluralistic society.

    ... you seem to imagine that because I considered a hypothetical situation in which Greeks were extinguished, that is something I advocate.

    Once again, you failed to directly quote. So, to reiterate, this is what you said upthread:

    I wouldn't [mind if fraternities disappeared], but you decided that meant that I wanted to eliminate them.

    Two problems here -- your assertion that I decided you wanted to eliminate them is nonsense, as a simple search and a direct quote would have demonstrated for you had you taken the 30 seconds to do so.

    Second, and as a journalist you should presumably know this, but "extinguished" and "disappeared" are two entirely different things. You used the former term, which meant you wouldn't be bothered if they didn't merely disappear through disinterest, but rather were actively eliminated.

    The line between not counting something as a loss, and actively advocating something is vanishingly small, particularly in your case where you had already demonstrated your prejudice against fraternities.

    Like I have asked probably a hundred times, stop it with deciding what I think or mean, or say: quote directly.

    Really, it isn't that hard. Select the text, copy, paste, and surround with ital tags.

    That will save you the embarrassment of gross misrepresentation.

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  25. Meet Judge John Moore.

    I recommend you don't joust with me about Catholicism. Did you know that until recently all Catholic priests were required to take an oath abjuring 'Amercanism.' The papal message condemning Americanism has never been withdrawn.

    Americanism includes tolerance, freedom of conscience, democracy and stuff like that.

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  26. Prejudice against fraternities? Maybe my opinion is based on, you know, evidence. Like hazing.

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  27. Starting from the top:

    Without anything as close to a fact as a kitten is to a bulldozer, you called Senator Ernst a liar about her own life experiences. That is libel. Your uncritical linking to that serial fool Zoom at first might be nothing more than a particular weakness for confirmation bias. However, having since abundantly confirmed what a fact-vacuum your accusation is, you have tarred yourself with the brush you were aiming at her. See also Clint Eastwood.

    Why is this defamation itch so rampant among progressives?

    You can't defend your assertion that millions of black kids were bused past their neighborhood schools. Well, until you provided a link that showed exactly the opposite. Followed by … crickets.

    And SQUIRREL!

    I recommend you don't joust with me about Catholicism.

    I've done pretty well so far jousting with you about Ernst, busing, and who said what.

    So I'm going to go out on a limb here and joust with you about Catholicism, because I'm betting your opinions are based upon a soda straw's view of both Catholicism in particular and Christianity in general.

    Islam has nothing to compare with Mark 12:17. Or St. Augustine. Nor does Christianity insist on the straight-from-the-mouth of God literal truth of the Bible; indeed, unlike Islam, Christianity doesn't even agree on what constitutes the Bible.

    Islam is, at heart, irrevocably totalitarian. I'm sure that aspect appeals to progressives. But when it comes to Islamist violence, Obama's moral equivalence is historically wrong, and, far worse, vacuous in the here and now.

    Did you know that until recently all Catholic priests were required to take an oath abjuring 'Amercanism.' .

    You are right. I didn't know it. And I'll going to bet it is at some remote remove true, but worthless nonetheless.

    Prejudice against fraternities? Maybe my opinion is based on, you know, evidence. Like hazing.

    I see you are no longer contesting the charge I never made that you want fraternities extinguished.

    That's progress, of a sorts.

    By extension, then, you want to see college marching bands extinguished.

    And the military.

    And pretty much all male group bonding, about which you appear to know precisely nothing.

    And freedom of association.

    All while you engage in anti-human moral preening while simultaneously also proving my real assertion: that progressives hate independent civil organizations.

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  28. Well, you're right about male group bonding as regards hazing. I rushed a frat in my freshman year, but when I found out what thaet involved I stopped. I am not thaet stupid.

    'Nor does Christianity insist on the straight-from-the-mouth of God literal truth of the Bible'

    Really? Really? Do you want to think about that again?

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  29. There was quite a bit about American Christians burning people alive on some parts of the Internet after Obama's speech. I guess you need to get out more:

    http://www.salon.com/2015/02/10/when_america_behaved_like_isis_jesse_washington_and_the_bible_belts_dark_history_of_public_lynchings_partner/

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  30. For sure, no Christian anybody ever heard of insists on the literal truth of the Bible. And even if some obscure zealot did so, nobody would ever give him millions of dollars. Right?

    http://wonkette.com/575746/creationists-darwin-was-wrong-and-unicorns-are-real

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  31. Well, you're right about male group bonding as regards hazing. I rushed a frat in my freshman year, but when I found out what that involved I stopped. I am not that stupid.

    No, you are precisely, exactly that stupid: progressive stupid.

    Your preening, and worse, your implied insult — people who didn't stop are stupid — embodies in a sentence progressive anti-humanity. Men are humans; they are the consequence of evolution (you do believe in that, right?). Like it or not, male bonding in groups involves excluding those who aren't willing to show desire, and ability, to be part of the group.

    Only progressives would be so stupid as to think that can, or even should, be extinguished.

    Fine, you didn't like it. That doesn't make you smart. Other young men don't think any group that is easy to get into is worth joining. That doesn't make them stupid.

    What does make you stupid, though, is your presumptuous, anti-human arrogance.

    Oh, remember that thing you said I said that I didn't say and didn't need to because the thing you actually said proved what you said I said but didn't? When what I actually said is that what you actually said proved once again, as if further proof wouldn't be an exercise in the blindingly obvious, that progressives hate independent civil society.

    Well, you've proved it again. Merely fluffing your moral and intellectual superiority isn't nearly enough. Not for a progressive. Leave others to their own devices? Hell no. Time to extinguish!

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  32. [Hey Skipper:] Nor does Christianity insist on the straight-from-the-mouth of God literal truth of the Bible'

    [Harry:] Really? Really? Do you want to think about that again?


    No. I do want you to work on your reading comprehension, though. Within the spectrum of belief that constitutes (I know you have problems with tense, but try your best) Christianity, which one asserts that the Bible is literal, straight-from-the-mouth of God, truth?

    It gets worse for you. Sure, wind back the clock a hundred years, and some forms of Christianity made that claim. But which translation of which version of the Bible? Where in the Bible is that claim? Does Jesus say it anywhere? Any of the Bible's authors? Read this. And this. Or, from believers, this. Clearly you need to learn about Biblical inerrancy and literalism. (Of course, as a progressive, you already know everything, and you especially now more about what believers believe than they do, so you won't look at those links, just like you won't read your own.) And what else you miss, is that even granting the most fervent claims to Biblical literalism doesn't get anywhere close to providing a blueprint for law or government.

    Compare and contrast with the Quran: how many revered versions and translations are there? Does the Quran contain any claims as to its completeness and inerrancy? Does Islam? Does Christianity have anything remotely resembling Sharia?

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  33. I guess you need to get out more:

    I guess you need to learn about time, numbers, and cause.

    There was an article in the NYT today about an organization wanting to place memorials at the sites of nearly 4,000 lynchings.

    That is a truly awful number; I have no doubt that most of those 4,000 were, any sense of the term, innocent.

    However, you would have to look long and hard to find any where some element of Christianity was the pretext.

    Compare and contrast with Islam in any year in the here and now.

    Your trotting out that Salon article clearly demonstrates your inability to apply even basic reasoning to this issue.

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  34. For sure, no Christian anybody ever heard of insists on the literal truth of the Bible.

    Upthread you said this: You need to stop watching The Blaze or wherever you are being infected by this stuff.

    Yet you continue to refer Dr. Zoom, despite having been already found a vile fact-vacuum.

    Amazing.

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  35. It would be easy to find Christianity being used as the justification for the lynchings. And let's note that 4,000 is 4,000 times the number of people burned alive by ISIL.

    But let's find an example of a much, much greater (in scope) atrocity, not ancient history, that was 100% Christian and Catholic. I quote a few lines from a longer section of Gerald Posner's 'God's Bankers':

    "Even if Pius had decided to give the Germans leeway because of their fight against Stalin, there was no reason why he could not intervene to stop the bloodletting when it involved only Catholic Croatians. Pavelic started the first widescale killings in July (1941), only two months after meeting with the Pope. . . . Many Jews, Serbs, Gypsies and communists were burned alive. Roving fascist gangs went on mutilation frenzies, cutting off the breasts of women and the genitals of men, and in some cases collecting the eyes of victims as gruesome trophies.. The killers put thousands of others onto hanging meat hooks or chopped them up with butcher knives and axes."

    Etc. etc.

    The Croatian Catholics, led by a cardinal, killed around 300,000, proportiobately greater than the Germans did in the Shoah.

    'which one asserts that the Bible is literal, straight-from-the-mouth of God, truth? '

    Many, but Calvary Chapel, the fastest growing Christian sect in America, does explicitly. Right now, today, not a century ago.

    Others include Bush's good prayer buddy John Hagee. I could go on, literally, for hundreds of paragraphs.

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  36. It would be easy to find Christianity being used as the justification for the lynchings.

    Then do it. Otherwise, I suspect that is about as fanciful as Tea Partiers chanting "Let him die."

    And let's note that 4,000 is 4,000 times the number of people burned alive by ISIL.

    How many of those 4,000 were burned alive?

    [Hey Skipper:] which one asserts that the Bible is literal, straight-from-the-mouth of God, truth?

    [Harry:] Many, but Calvary Chapel, the fastest growing Christian sect in America, does explicitly. Right now, today, not a century ago.


    Clearly, you didn't read either of those links, because you are just as ignorant now as you were before of what, in this context, "inerrancy" and "literalness" mean.

    So save your hundreds of paragraphs until there's a reasonable chance you won't be blowing it out your hat.

    And stop acting as if Holocaust horrors are a revelation. Of course that was all horrible.

    Quiz time. From which book demanding absolute fealty does this come: The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’”

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  37. 'Lynching was also shaped by the traditions of evangelical Christianity. Public executions, evangelical Christianity, and lynching expressed similar concerns about crime, sin, and race in increasingly urbanized environments. Moreover, the practice of lynching incorporated elements of Protestant ritual—confession and testimonials—to find divine justification for their violence and religious affirmation of their racist views'

    That took less than10 seconds.

    Apprently you think you are making some kind of point about fundie beliefs. Having lived among them, I can say the point is illusory. When challenged, some of them (not Ken Ham, tough) retreat to claptrap about original autographs, but what they mean and what they say they live and definitely what they want to impose is 'Bible rules.'

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  38. Franklin Graham on my FB page just now:

    'The U.S., Supreme Court ruled Monday that the state of Alabama must recognize same-sex marriages--in spite of that state’s overwhelming vote to prohibit same-sex unions. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is defying that order, asking state probate judges not to issue licenses to gay couples. I applaud Justice Moore and the many Alabama judges who are upholding the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. No earthly court has jurisdiction over the infallible Word of God.'

    Are you sure you want to keep insisting that fundamentalist Islam is different from fundamentalist Christianity?

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  39. Who knew Schlussel was a progressive?
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/conservatives-kayla-mueller-israel

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  40. That took less than10 seconds.

    Considering the amount of thought you gave it, 10 seconds is at least two orders of magnitude too long.

    (Would it kill you to provide the link? After all, you had at least 9.99 seconds left over after thinking. Fortunately, this time I had already seen Bouie's article, so I didn't have to spend time rooting around, because your credibility rather requires that.)

    Lynching was also shaped by the traditions of evangelical Christianity.

    Why is it that progressives are such crappy writers?

    In order for Christianity to be used as the justification for lynchings, Christianity —- not Christians —- has to justify lynchings. In order for that to be true, then there must be some element of canonical Christian belief that does so. Like, say, God's imprimatur. Which, of course, you would be able t find in the Bible, or the Nicene Creed, etc, that justifies lynchings.

    And your response will be crickets, because such a thing does not exist.

    So what you are left with is that some people who were Christians capitalized on religious fervor to the end of lynching some blacks to keep the rest in line. Whoop de dooo, you sussed the obvious.

    Except you didn't.

    Because there is nothing in Christianity that explicitly, or even glancingly directs such a thing, you are making a gross category error.

    No surprise there.

    You will not find anywhere in the sources of Christian belief this: The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’. (Obama, in a puff-ball Vox interview, called part of the Paris atrocities "random killings at a deli". The man is either willfully ignorant, or a drooling moron. Tough call.)

    But that, and many more Mein Kampfesque emanations are in the Quran. One of the pillars of Islamic belief is in the complete and perfect inerrancy of the Quran.

    Which is where your second quote is the exception that proves the rule: Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is defying that order, asking state probate judges not to issue licenses to gay couples. I applaud Justice Moore and the many Alabama judges who are upholding the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. No earthly court has jurisdiction over the infallible Word of God.

    OK. Let's see if you can figure out why.

    I'm going with not. Just as you couldn't figure out that 4,000 lynchings isn't 4,000 people burned to death. Or that your link about busing shot you in the foot. And that you still have utterly no idea what inerrancy and literalness means to fundamentalists, and even less idea, as if that is possible, how that completely distinguishes Christianity from Islam.

    Don't feel alone, Obama couldn't figure it out either, even though the answer is staring him in the face.

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  41. So, you believe there is something called 'Christianity' that exists whether there are any 'Christians' who believe it or not. How very platonic of you.

    But the truth is religion is what religious people do. Like burn black people to death.

    If you want to split hairs about how many of the 4,000 lynchees were burnt (and we should have two categories, before death and after), then your status as a moral arbiter is shaky.

    It is not up to me to decide which aspects of 'Christianity' are 'real' and which are 'not real.' In any sane sense, they are all 'not real.' But what Christians do (or don't do) is subject to real-world inspection. So, yeah, Christians were at the center of the lynching bees and the Shoah.

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  42. The point here, if you could stop moving the goal posts quite so quickly here, is that the nature of Islam is different than Christianity. Obama was a fool to practice some form of moral equivalence, and so are you.

    When Obama says that those ISISholes are perverting Islam, he is wrong. ISIS, or the Iranians hanging gays, Saudis lopping off hands and heads, the not at all peculiar arrangement of those countries that punish apostasy all have one thing in common: they are doing exactly what their religion tells them to do.

    Religion isn't what religious people do, otherwise all Christians would be lynching blacks. But that didn't happen did it?

    Never mind that though: what makes Christianity different is the nature and basis of belief. You cannot, despite being a self-avowed expert on all things religious, find one passage anywhere in the Bible, or in the teachings of any Christian sect that advocates lynchings.

    But you can quite easily find all manner of vile stuff in the Quran. There is nothing like Sharia in the Bible or anywhere in Christianity.

    If you think that somehow there is any equivalency between the two, or that bringing Islam out of its inherent savagery is going to happen with the whinging of some moderates, you are even more confused than Obama.

    Take the simplest possible example: apostasy.

    Christianity, Islam. Compare and contrast.

    Oh, and when Obama said this in a Vox interview It is entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned when you’ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris, he proved the unplumbable depths of his ignorance.

    It is not up to me to decide which aspects of 'Christianity' are 'real' and which are 'not real.' In any sane sense, they are all 'not real.'

    Do you ever think before you write?

    Or do you not think the Bible exists?

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  43. 'Exists' how? It is a work of fiction, there are numerous versions, it is not self-coherent, and you want to start thinking about your claims about the Koran and how those would apply to the Torah.

    In any case, I am not interested in hunting Christian heretics and would not be qualified anyhow. It is undeniable that some Christians have and still do use their faith to justify behavior indistinguishable from the behavior of some Muslims.

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  44. 'Exists' how?

    You can buy one. People believe in it. Both those things are real, in any sane sense of the term. Now you might not like it, but with regard to reality, that is just too darn bad.

    It is undeniable that some Christians have and still do use their faith to justify behavior indistinguishable from the behavior of some Muslims.

    So far in this thread, you have engaged in libel, hypocrisy, innumeracy, illogic, mischaracterization, self-defeating links, and gross distortion of historical facts.

    And now you add to that a sentence that is means absolutely nothing.

    ... you want to start thinking about your claims about the Koran and how those would apply to the Torah.

    Why? I take it you don't dispute my assertions about Islam.

    When Jews start using explicit divine imprimatur to hang gays from cranes, issue murderous fatwahs (whatever the Jewish version of that might be -- oh, wait, there isn't one), behead people, etc, then you might have something resembling a point.

    But you don't. And Obama didn't, either.

    Take a simple case: apostasy. Islam, Judaism, Christianity.

    Compare and contrast.

    You won't, of course. Instead, as always, it will be hypersonic goal posts and SQUIRREL!

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  45. Wait, I thought we were talking about the Bible (which includes the Torah) and how real Christians (and by implication real Jews) take its directions seriously, the way real Muslims do the Koran. Do you begin go see how your argument sounds sort of -- Nazi?

    It does.

    So Croat Catholics use their Bible to justify killing Serbs (and Serbs used theirs to justify killing Croats) but that is not at all like what Muslims use their Koran for.

    Did you ever watch Sesame Street, where they had a game called 'this thing is not like the other.'

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  47. Do you begin go see how your argument sounds sort of -- Nazi?

    No. What I have seen throughout this thread is that when challenged, your responses are vague, contradictory, off point, illogical, innumerate, hypocritical, explore new frontiers of meaninglessness, and now you re-prove Godwin's Law.*

    I'm happy to agree that Christians, Jews, and Muslims take their scriptures equally seriously. Now it's down to content.

    Start with apostasy. That's a simple one; there are plenty more. Compare and contrast.



    * Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often referred to as "playing the Hitler card".

    Although falling foul of Godwin's law tends to cause the individual making the comparison to lose his argument or credibility, Godwin's law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.

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  48. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/opinion/sunday/the-first-victims-of-the-first-crusade.html?smid=tw-nytimes

    Especially this:

    In Mosul, the Iraqi city conquered by the Islamic State last June, Christians had coexisted for centuries with Muslims who did not share whatever medieval beliefs the terrorists claim to represent. The city was also home to the Yazidis, whose theology includes elements of Zoroastrianism as well as Islam and Christianity.

    If you were ever to read Henry Kamen's 'The Spanish Inquisition' you would perhaps discover that your remarks about apostasy apply equally to Christianity.

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  49. In Mosul, the Iraqi city conquered by the Islamic State last June, Christians had coexisted for centuries with Muslims who did not share whatever medieval beliefs the terrorists claim to represent.

    How do you miss that which is staring you right in the face? The medieval beliefs the terrorists claim to represent are the Quran, chapter and verse, directed by Allah.

    So perhaps the real mystery is why the Muslims had waited so long to do what they were clearly divinely directed to do.

    But there is no doubting the explicit divine direction exists, in the real sense of the word, instead of the one you made up.

    I can cite from the Quran the explicit, specific, penalty for Apostasy.

    I am sure you can do the same for Christianity, right?

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  50. You can quit citing holy scriptures. I don't give a damn about any of them. only what believers do.

    There is no reason that you should know what Christians did about apostates, but it happens I do know. You should find out.

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  51. I don't give a damn about any of them. only what believers do.

    Which makes what believers do an uncaused effect. And also means you can't account why believers in different religions do different things.

    And also further reproves there's nothing so incurious as a progressive.

    There is no reason that you should know what Christians did about apostates ...

    What does the Bible say should be done? What does the Quran say? What must Muslims believe about the Quran? Who is the truest Muslim, one who kills apostates, or one who doesn't? Who is the truest Christian, one who kills apostates, or one who doesn't?

    Beliefs matter, regardless of your willful ignorance.

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  52. 'different religions do different things.'

    Not true of Christians and Muslims when it comes to apostasy. You cannot bother to learn about apostasy, just vent.

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  53. What does the Bible say should be done? What does the Quran say?

    Also: What do Christian countries do about apostasy? Islamic countries?

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  54. I'm betting on more exhausted crickets.

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  55. 'What do Christian countries do about apostasy?'

    Burn them alive. Read Kamen.

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  56. Provide me the link, then I'll read it.

    Really, it isn't that hard. It will take me a heck of a lot longer to track down what you mean by "Kamen" then for you to just cough it up.

    And I'm willing to bet tense matters.

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  57. It's a book. A hjstory book. It tells how conversos (apostates) were hunted down and burned alive, by the thousands.

    'Who is the truest Muslim, one who kills apostates, or one who doesn't? Who is the truest Christian, one who kills apostates, or one who doesn't?'

    Who is the most dangerous person, the heresy hunter or the heretic?

    It is true, as even you in your Fox fantasy will have to admit, that practically all of the people fighting against ISIS are Muslims. I am sure that must puzzle you.

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  58. It's a book. A hjstory book. It tells how conversos (apostates) were hunted down and burned alive, by the thousands.

    'Who is the truest Muslim, one who kills apostates, or one who doesn't? Who is the truest Christian, one who kills apostates, or one who doesn't?'

    Who is the most dangerous person, the heresy hunter or the heretic?

    It is true, as even you in your Fox fantasy will have to admit, that practically all of the people fighting against ISIS are Muslims. I am sure that must puzzle you.

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  59. A history book. It tells how conversos (apostates) were hunted down and burned alive ...

    Exactly as I thought. Your exercise in moral relativism relies upon comparing atrocities of 500 years ago with those happening today, along with committing yet another of your atrocities against vocabulary: converso is NOT a synonym for apostate.

    Who is the most dangerous person, the heresy hunter or the heretic?

    Find for me the Biblical command to kill apostates.

    You can't.

    Which is why you can't explain why Christianity hasn't killed apostates for centuries, but all Islamic countries punish apostasy.

    I am sure that must puzzle you.

    To the extent I find non sequiturs puzzling, sure.

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  60. Well, I need not go back 500 years, but those Christians were are Christian as any Christians ever were. (If you want something more recent, I recommend chapters 7 & 8 of Posner's "God's Bankers")

    You really should read Kamen, and you will discover that they conversos were convicted as apostates. You won't, because you are afraid to.

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  61. This Kamen?

    The one that asserts:

    [Kamen] reaffirms his contention that an all-powerful, torture-mad Inquisition is largely a 19th-century myth. In its place he portrays a poor, understaffed institution whose scattered tribunals had only a limited reach and whose methods were more humane than those of most secular courts. Death by fire, he asserts, was the exception, not the rule. He further argues that, beyond a few well-publicized autos de fe staged in 1559, the Inquisition was not the principal reason the Reformation did not take hold in Spain. Kamen believes the failure of Lutheran ideas in Spain had less to do with the Inquisition than with the populace's indifference to Protestantism. As for the Inquisition's much-vaunted role as Big Brother and its responsibility for intellectual decline, Kamen rejects this hypothesis out of hand, arguing that it was ineffective as a censor and that it failed even to prevent the importation of items listed on its own Index of Prohibited Books. The Inquisition, more interested in religion than science, did little to prevent the circulation of works by Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler.

    Or this:

    More controversial is Kamen's interpretation of its handling of converted Jews, especially during the 1480's, when, as a ''crisis instrument'' created especially to deal with apostasy among conversos, the Inquisition was, by Kamen's own admission, out of control. ''There is,'' he writes, ''no systematic evidence that conversos as a group were secret Jews,'' although the evidence for that assertion is ambiguous. Nor does he believe these conversos were persecuted solely out of racial enmity. He admits conversos suffered from a rising tide of anti-Semitism during the 1480's that eventually led to the expulsion of Spain's much diminished Jewish community in 1492. The conversos' troubles, he asserts, were partly self-inflicted: the result of claims to be a ''nation'' apart, neither Christian nor Jewish, a reluctance to assimilate (a similar attitude, he claims, contributed to the expulsion of the remnants of Spain's Muslims in 1609), and also from personal enmities among the converso community, a situation that led to thousands of unwarranted denunciations and trials. Despite this fury, Kamen believes that most conversos escaped unharmed and led a ''relatively undisturbed'' life by the close of the 16th century.

    And, yes, you do need to go nearly five hundred years.

    By the way, where is that Biblical command to kill apostates?

    What do Christian countries do to apostates? What about Islamic countries?

    (Tense is important -- 400+ years ago is, for most of your better writers, past tense. Very past.)

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  62. How about answering the relevant question: Were they Christians?

    I see you overlooked the part about apostasy. But you keep asking, 'What do Christian countries do to apostates?' and I keep answering, burn them.

    The snippets you found confirm I am right. Don't they?

    Then there's this, not nearly 400 years ago:

    http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article10894910.html

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  63. But you keep asking, 'What do Christian countries do to apostates?' and I keep answering, burn them.

    Christian countries do not burn apostates. Christians have not killed apostates for hundreds of years.

    Tense matters. And I thought you called yourself a newspaperman.

    The snippets you found confirm I am right.

    No, they confirm that "hunted down and burned alive by the thousands" is a product of your fevered imagination.

    And they also prove you can't distinguish now and a distant then.

    By the way, where is that Biblical command to kill apostates, heretics, and blasphemers?

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  64. Who cares? As a former Christian, who knows more about the religion than you do, obviously, I do know where the justification comes from. But who cares?

    The facts speak for themselves.

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  65. As a former Christian, who knows more about the religion than you do, obviously, I do know where the justification comes from.

    You have stated unequivocally that you have detailed knowledge of things about which you are completely ignorant: Ernst's personal life, Eastwood's politics, what Tea Partiers say at debates, and the contents of your own links.

    So without some references, I remain skeptical that you know where the justification comes from, nor how, whatever it may be, it compares with Islam.

    The facts do speak for themselves.

    Christians stopped killing apostates, heretics, and blasphemers centuries ago. Every Islamic country today punishes apostasy, heresy and blasphemy.

    Do a little googling to see what proportion of Muslims favor punishment for that unholy trinity.

    Funny thing is, if you search on similarly inclined Christians, all the results are for Islam.

    Facts speak for themselves.

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  66. 'Christians have not killed apostates for hundreds of years.'

    So Christianity gets a pass then?

    Since the scriptures have not changed, something else must have. (Clock ticks) What could that possibly have been?

    Oh yeah, secular governments happened. It would be a bold gambler who bet that, given civil power again, the Christians would not again start adhering to doctrine, especially with the examples of several Christian-influenced governments that exist today.

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  67. So Christianity gets a pass then?

    Christianity gets a complete pass for all the killing of apostates and heretics over the last, oh, 400 years.


    Since the scriptures have not changed ...

    Exactly to which parts of the Scripture do you refer?


    Oh yeah, secular governments happened.

    In Christian countries, but not anywhere else. Obviously another uncaused effect.

    Both Mohammed and Jesus are held up as absolute role models to their respective believers.

    How many unbelievers did Jesus kill? Mohammed?

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  68. I hope the crickets are getting at least union scale.

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