Sunday, April 05, 2009

When Sharks Attack: Reign of the Pettifogging Purdyfugger

A reworked post from last year that may shed some darkness on the Current Occupant.

*****

--Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, is that it?

--Why not? I'm here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began. I've nurtured every sensation man's been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I'm a fan of man! I'm a humanist. Maybe the last humanist.
--Dialogue from The Devil's Advocate

Satan. What can one say about the archfiend that hasn't already been better said by Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, or Al Pacino?

Now first of all, the Serpent is a genial fellow who is always willing to "work with us." After all, he is the prince of this world -- a man of wealth and taste, a cultured man, an aesthete and silver-tongued littérateur. He never forces the issue, but meets us where we are and presents us with what he calls "options," but we call supreme "temptations." He is a seducer and flatterer, always.

--Is this a test?

--Isn't everything?


His Satanic Majesty would probably even request that we not call him "evil." Rather, he would turn the tables and say that humans are evil -- just like the ACLU, he would argue that every cop is a criminal and all the Sunnis saints. So please, have some sympathy for the ACLU, or they will be pleased to meet you in court and lay your solvency to waste. After all, our courts are governed by the Adversarial system, in that they are the one place where the Adversary can have the most influence. This is why it is so vital that the Adversary pack the Sssupreme Court in hisss image.

--Cut the shit, Dad! Why lawyers? Why the law?

--Because the law, my boy, puts us into everything. It's the ultimate backstage pass. It's the new priesthood, baby. Did you know there are more students in law school than lawyers walking the Earth? We're coming out, guns blazing!


Old Scratch is never more pleased than when one of his deep darklings argues that he is just a figment of your imagination. Like alcohol, he doesn't make you do anything you don't secretly want to do anyway. When prancing around on stage like a Kansas City you-know-what, he has been known to shout out the rhetorical question, "Who killed Kopechne?," when after all, it was Ted Kennedy and the voters of Massachussetts.

According to Tomberg, the "day aspect" of history represents our collective coming to terms with the three temptations in the wilderness. If you will recall, there is the temptation to worldly power, the temptation to abandoning oneself to the lower vertical -- to an unconscious life of instinctual gratification ("cast yourself down from the pinnacle") -- and the temptation of materialism and horizontality ("change stones into bread").

Yesterday I mentioned that all forms of leftism were satanic, but in a way that no leftist would understand or even be capable of understanding. But looked at in terms of the three temptations, we can see that in each instance, the secular leftist has been seduced, but then turns the seduction into a virtue -- which is a great source of satisfaction to the Father of Lies.

--Who in their right mind, Kevin, could possibly deny the twentieth century was entirely mine?

The leftist yields to the temptation of secular power as a result of the rejection of transcendent truth. That is, truth is the most important societal value. It is the non-coercive glue that binds humanity together and draws it "upward" toward the prior unity that dissolves our differences.

But if truth is undermined or relativized in any way, then we have lost our ability to appeal to something outside human whim, which therefore leaves us open to the usurpation of barbitrary power. Thus, the only way for the leftist to succeed in his will to power is to first confuse us with pseudo-sophisticated intellectual temptations such as deconstruction, moral relativism, multiculturalism, "diversity," "the living constitution," "critical race theory," earth worship, etc. Once these are embraced, there is a "bait and switch," for there is then no way to stand up for Absolute truth. If you do so, then you are branded an "absolutist" or "authoritarian" or "eliminationist."

--What are you?

--Oh, I have so many names...


For the secular left, truth is "multiple" -- if such an intrinsically diabolocal notion may be conceived -- and no truth is privileged. This creates the massive void into which the leftist asserts his power. This is why the most intellectually unfree places in all of America are leftist university campi.

Step one: all truth is relative. Step two: my relativism is absolute. Step three: I control what is permissible to think. "Political correctness" is the Wicked One's Swiss Pacifist Knife. He even loves the name -- "political correctness" -- because it sounds so petty, so trivial, so benign.

But it is as benign as a stage IV brain tumor, for it is the end of the soul's intellectual life and its replacement with the will to power. Ultimately it is a wedge between man and God that with time only increases the distance between them -- which, of course, is the ontological opposite of Christianity, in which God descends in order to bridge that very gap.

It follows that the secular leftist fails the second test by yielding to the temptation to cast himself -- and humanity as such -- from the pinnacle of creation into the pit of the animal unconscious. There is no higher or lower, no absolute good or evil, just authentic depravity or genuine hypocrisy.

But man is not a mere animal -- or, to be precise, he is the only animal proportioned to the Absolute. As a result, his summa vocation is to perpetually transcend himself in light of the Permanent Real. All other animals merely are what they are, but a man who fails to transcend himself isn't a man at all, but only a beast among beasts -- a monster even, for the monstrous is any perversion of the Cosmic Plan.

--You know, I'll tell you, boy... Guilt... it's like a bag of fucking bricks. All you got to do is set it down.

The secular leftist fails the third test by vainly trying to turn stones into bread, or quantites into qualities, the horizontal into the vertical. As such, the "good life" is replaced with "more life," which is to say, more death, because the world of stones is the realm of death.

To tyrannize man with the reign of quantity is to efface man as such, to remove from existence the very arena where man may become man -- which can only occur in the vertical realm that runs perpendicular to the flatland void of secular fundamentalism. It is the ontologically real world of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, which lay at the One end of our being, vs. the dark world of "sub-matter" slaying at the other's end.

In ether worlds, if the vertical hierarchy of the human world results from the Sovereign Good radiating from the cosmic center to the existential periphery, mankind stands exactly halfway between the Everything above and the Nothing below. We are pulled in both directions -- or let us say that there is a sort of gravity that operates on the human soul. We may humbly "surrender" to the higher, or be "seduced" by the lowyer in high places.

--I'm peaking, Kevin. It's my time now. It's our time!

71 comments:

julie said...

Wow - just when you think Deepak can't can't any further divorced from reality...

walt said...

"Satan is losing the battle for people's minds."

Hmmmm ...

Didn't Guru Dee just evoke the Law of Famous Last Words?

JWM said...

OT, but way too funny. It seems a certain reptilian Darwinist had to close his reptile chat room because *GASP* Disgruntled people were using it to trash him and his weblog. Dang, but people are mean!

JWM.

JWM said...

You know, Walt, I read part of that Deepak article, and I sort of liked it. Just think- if we keep making these new scientifical discoveries we may just see a day when there is NO MORE EVIL! Just stuff we heretofore didn't understand well enough.

Imagine there's no evil.
It isn't hard to do.
Just understand that killers
are groovy just like you.
Imagine all the peopluuuuuul
Just like that Chapman duu hoo hoo hooooode...

JWM

Van Harvey said...

(A pre-post reading side note, on the FNS show this morning, Newt Gingrich confirmed that in the last week or so, he completed a long process of converting from being a Baptist to Catholocism. Not particularly significant of anything, just an 'Oh. Ah..huh' moment. Wonder if that was the same timing as Mrs. G's? Anyway... on to reading.)

Gagdad Bob said...

Must be. This morning is the last day for Mrs. G too, before baptism.

Van Harvey said...

"But if truth is undermined or relativized in any way, then we have lost our ability to appeal to something outside human whim, which therefore leaves us open to the usurpation of barbitrary power."

Oh, excellently put.

""Political correctness" is the Wicked One's Swiss Pacifist Knife. He even loves the name -- "political correctness" -- because it sounds so petty, so trivial, so benign.

But it is as benign as a stage IV brain tumor, for it is the end of the soul's intellectual life and its replacement with the will to power."

Thundering it today. And it would be so politically incorrect to call it what it is cultural Marxism.

Van Harvey said...

“To tyrannize man with the reign of quantity is to efface man as such, to remove from existence the very arena where man may become man -- which can only occur in the vertical realm that runs perpendicular to the flatland void of secular fundamentalism.”

And it is the veritable doorway to temptation… it pulls the unwary in with more… excitement… having it all!, but the truth is, in abandoning Quality for quantity, you can’t have more, only particulars, you get more less, only through Quality, can you comprehend mOre. And the initial burst of sensations in excitement, immediately gives way to repetitiously mundane… the roller coaster almost immediately begins to lose it’s thrill and becomes more and more boring. The only true excitement that can ever be found, is through the higher and deeper quality of Above… the path of quantities leads inevitably to deadly boredom. And of course, ‘Having it all’ is exactly what the pursuit of quantities immediately excludes you from ever attaining, as you reach through the door for the many, and step through and into them, you can only ‘have’ what you physically reach and touch, everything else is forever beyond your grasp. Only the pinnacle of the pyramid can contain all below it… but once you step through the door into quantities, you no longer have any way of gnoing it.

(btw... my quick take on the earlier question of 'is one life enough to experience all of life'... seems to me to be a lure across that threshold towards quantities over Quality.)

mtraven said...

I never understood why the ACLU should be anathema to alleged "classical liberals". That organization has done more for the rights of the individual against the state than any group on the right.

As a spiritual and intellectual exercise, see if you can respond to this without resorting to personal insult. I'm trying to do the same.

Petey said...

Speak of the devil!

The Committee said...

Mtraven is correct. The ACLU does as much for the cause of liberty as the UN does for the betterment of the world.

Cousin Dupree said...

Top 10 Myths About the ACLU.

Anonymous said...

Bob,

Just wanted to drop by and say thanks for helping me untangle this mess inside of mySelf. Wonderful medicine producer, that mind-machine of yours. An uppity Friend, a right-night dropped bye last night and sung me to sleep. It went something like this:

Hermit Blessing, by a Poem Someone

Be my guest, fella
Go for the door
Keep reaching round sideways
And you'll be back for more

Say, you got time to play?
We'll go to Raccoon school
Where the verbiage is top-notch
And the fingers are full of Grace

Should I empty this space?
Make you full of what is Real
Then ask the warden
If it's ok to steal the prison library?

I know, I know
We can't go through all that
It's a trap anyway
No reason to be upset

When the eagle has landed
And the frog is over the fire
The wisdom is found
Upside down in a vent of materialism

Shake free, lover-boy
Enjoy your ticker while you got one
Daddy said it's ok if you're in denial
The fountain found his pen

Now let the real Reason begin!
Show 'em what you got in the jive-talk
It's a Mystery anyhow
Nobody's got their camera completely undone

They're just faking
Relax and have some juice of the Son
It's pimply but proper
And right-full of guts

Cousin Dupree said...

Top 10 Reasons to Stop the ACLU.

JWM said...

You know, empty raven, you've got more nerve than a goddamn government mule. You come over here, unwilling, and apparently unable to hide your contempt; you make your condescending snotty assed comment "As a spiritual exercise..." etc.
How about this: Go the fuck away. Go back over to Huffington, Kos, or wherever you hang out, and declare victory over the neocons, or wingnuts, or whatever you and your pernicious ilk choose to call us. You win. We can't convince you of anything. Your invincible logic, and well crafted arguments have us all flumoxed. You're just the smartest troll EVAR, and we can't keep up.
In a word, dude:
Go piss up a fucking rope.
Can I be any more clear?

JWM

Van Harvey said...

Mtcraven said “I never understood why the ACLU should be anathema to alleged "classical liberals".”

Duh.

Lets see, you say that the aclu has done more for the “rights of the individual against the state than any group on the right”… and yet you have not once defined what Rights or Individual Rights are, let alone morality, all the while defending policies which are antithetical to the Classical Liberal understanding of Rights in general and Property Rights in particular.

We’ve already given you the benefit of the doubt, already played your game, and you’ve shown yourself to be full of nihil but doubt.

I'll challenge you again, how do you define Rights, Property Rights and Morality? If you won’t define your terms, you having nothing to argue… and without that, nothing can be explained to you either - which is pretty much the starting and ending point of all skeptics and cynics… you have nothing to say.

Prove me wrong.

Van Harvey said...

(Mental note: refresh the page first, and see if JWM has said something first.)

Gagdad Bob said...

As an illustration of what an abject moron I was in my moonbat days, I remember listening to a Noam Chomsky interview on our local Pacifica station -- actually, listening to Pacifica Radio should be illustration enough -- but Chomsky said something to the effect that conservatives were such evil hypocrites because there was no organization more conservative than the ACLU, being that they only wanted to conserve the Constitution. Suffice it to say, I agreed with Chomsky.

Ron said...

OT...

On the Notion of the Leftist as a Drunken, Russian Pervert:

Heh.

Cousin Dupree said...

It's not the first time.

Don't ask.

Ron said...

oops... NOW I see the date. You guys probably already saw. Already laughed. Sorry.

lame duck said...

Great re post today. And nice weaving of Devil's Advocate and Sympathy in there. ; )

"This morning is the last day for Mrs. G too, before baptism." So, uh...when are you going to take the plunge, Dr. G? C'mon, you cane dooooo it.

Anonymous said...

Bob,

I wrote a post this day to yesterday's Friend of Theofila below. I actualy want to hear from you if it's ok with you for me to share my silly stories. If not so much . . . I'll move on.

Theofilia

Gagdad Bob said...

I haven't banned anyone yet.

Anonymous said...

And, on that Bob-note, I shall procede with my Dreaded Yamantaka hisssssss-moment.
(Take note one who said I do "histericks" and should be a "Lawyer". You'll love this:)

After my twin babies were born, the workplace would from time to time call me in, when short on ppl.-force.
So, there I was, just Jack and moi working at the same table-station. Hands busy gabbin' the day away. First time he and I got to work together since he worked in a dif. department. We have exachanged greeting and word or two in the past, but that was full day of chatting. I never forgot seeing him - in the middle of Christmas-sharing drink mirth - sitting hunched over in silence.

At the end of the day, just minutes before end-of-day bell ring, J. said somt. to the effect that he had to make a very serious decision. I sensed the 'weight' of that decision in his voice, the look in his eyes. . .Just then rrrring! and, all I manged to say was, "Whatever it is,I hope it all works out for you."

Not long after that Jack anounced that he is "Joan". Joan's breasts began growing, she wore pink t-shirts.
I was called in to help-out at work for 2 or so weeks and chatted with her.

On Monday morn' shift I heard that on the weekend Joan got her teeth nocked out by one whose name I don't recal. I'll call him Bruce, the muscle man.
Heart pounding and pissed, I asked to point who Bruce is. . .

As if it wasn't sick enough that people made fun of her - including women. It's sooo much fun to concentrate on someone else while one's inner-demons are a-lurking.

I said nothing of my intentions of what I'm about to do and co-worker lady she took me to their departmend to finger-point out Bruce.

I wanted to have witnesses, so at lunch I walked in to their little, porn lined walls office in the middle of the plant where they ate. . . I walked in and voice- hissssed "Bruce, You're creep and scum, if you want to punch me out come out there!

"What?"

Word for word, I hisss-repeated same.

"No" his shaking head indicating.

The place was abuzzz punctuated by loud laugh-burts. Were they thinking, "She? the soft spoken one, with wild hair and slim built wanting to take Bruce, the muscle man / the body builder on?"

At the end of the shift, the punch clock line folk all kinda smile-eyeing me...One woman from the afternoon shift yelled out, "Way to go Theofilia:)"

The following morn' at the front door entrance, a huge banner "SCUM AND CREAP IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU QUIT!"

Inside, by the punch clock, same size, same words banner.

Bruce quit that morning.

Some weeks later I was back for a week or so. Boss - man from Bruce's depatment came up to me and asked if my name is so and so. Next, he thanked me "for doing what you did. So much more peacful now."

Joan wrote many page open letter after the incident expressing her gratitude for all who supported her on her shrinks advice.

Gut wrenching life story of her inner struggles. Her dread of hurting wife and children. Disclosing her twice suicide attempts. . .

I was handed my own copy of the letter, which at some point shared with a teacher to be - a young bright woman - who was most grateful to learn about what's it like to be in J. shoes. (She worked there as summer student)

J. was going to go through the sex-change surgery. Not very long after that the word was she moved to BC.

Isn't there a saying that if the good do nothing, evil grows?

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

And, on a blog-scriptum note. The day Bruce quite, Big John came up to me and said with a huge grin "Must be the Irish blood in you":)

Another, very shy guy who never said a word to me before, came up and said "It's not her fault she was born in a man's body."

Theofilia

Cory said...

Committed "lefists" never hear or understand anything outside the narrow confines of their homemade worlds. Thus a posting about the essential differences between Truth and utter mendacity is taken as a political position paper. And as is common in political discourse anything perceived as an opening to discredit or weaken the agrument of a supposed opponent is taken out of context, twisted to advantage, and thrown back as if it were the whole point.

How petty. How foolish. How futile.

mtraven said...

me: As a spiritual and intellectual exercise, see if you can respond to this without resorting to personal insult.

jwm: Go piss up a fucking rope.

Guess that settles that question.

jwm: You're just the smartest troll EVAR, and we can't keep up.

You said it, not me.

That stoptheaclu site seems to be written by hysterics who are either ignorant or willfully distorting their material. For instance, they say that "The ACLU was founded by a Communist" Oh Noes! But they neglect to mention that the same founder purged the communists from the organization in th 1940s. Pretty much everything else on there is equally reliable.

Van: for the purposes of this discussion, a right has its ordinary legal meaning, namely a guarantee of certain privledges, and in particular a guarantee against state coercion. Whether these rights are declared by God or invented by man is not material; it is man that has to do the work of maintaining them against the forces that would abuse them. The ACLU does this work. What have you done?

julie said...

Cory,

Thus a posting about the essential differences between Truth and utter mendacity is taken as a political position paper.

This goes hand-in-hand with a thought I was having yesterday, on how (if one must) to talk to an atheist or agnostic who has questions about matters of faith. It occurred to me that, most of the time, instead of being a discussion about meaning such talks become adversarial arguments where one person is trying to "win," regardless of whether what they're winning is the truth. Different political perspectives, as it were, or as meaningful ultimately as an argument over whether red or blue is a better color.

Of course, for this not to be the case, there has to be an agreement at the outset that the person asking questions accept, for the duration of the conversation at least, the position that the person whom they're asking about matters of faith does have some idea of and interest in what is true. And again, it seems that rarely is that the case.

Cousin Dupree said...

MT makes a good point. Reminds me of when David Duke purged his group of old school racist KKK members in favor of the philosophy "racial realism."

Van Harvey said...

"for the purposes of this discussion, a right has its ordinary legal meaning, namely a guarantee of certain privledges, and in particular a guarantee against state coercion. "

That’s it? A guarantee of certain privileges? What privileges?

"Whether these rights are declared by God or invented by man is not material"

Really. The understanding of rights in the English tradition which ranged between Locke and Burke, led to America, in the French tradition, exemplified by Rousseau and Condorcet, they led to the Terror, fascism, dictatorship, war and multiple revolutions. Not material? People such as yourself who believe such things to be ‘not material’, are a danger to us all, you are fascist fodder, and somewhere down the road a Napoleon awaits you with his grapeshot at the ready.

Even if you are skittish about references to ‘God’, that’s not an excuse to dodge behind, the argument can still be derived from whether they are determinable from the nature of man, or from the legislator; the effect, meaning and liberty which will be derived from either, is as different as whether men are to be left free to pursue their lives as they see fit, with their property and rights secured and defended through their politically roots in an understanding of a written constitution; or they can be determined by legislators who hold their meaning to be ‘flexible’ and ‘evolving’, they can even be put in contradiction and direct opposition to each other through that ‘evolving flexibility’, as are our original Bill of Rights with FDR’s ‘economic bill of rights’, which render the original meaningless, and fall fully under Rousseau’s "This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free".

" it is man that has to do the work of maintaining them against the forces that would abuse them."

Man can’t maintain or defend anything he doesn’t understand. Without understanding what he is ‘defending’, his every ‘good intention’ is more likely to end up abusing the very thing the intended to defend – probably by joining the aclu.

You want to make much sound and fury, posturing as a ‘liberal’, but you don’t even understand what that term means, IOW, you are a leftist, a progressive, and a threat to all that the Liberal tradition understood and means.

"The ACLU does this work."

It certainly does. Do some research; learn what you are ‘defending’, before you do it any more harm.

"What have you done?"

Believing that ‘First, do no harm’ is far more important that ‘strike a pose!’, I’ve taken the time to study and understand what it is I’m trying to defend, and why it is important. Next, I do what I can and am confident that what little I am able to do is helpful, rather than self flattering and self defeating.

I’d be thrilled to argue the issues with anyone, but first they need to have some understanding of what their own positions are and why, otherwise it’s like thrusting at windmills spinning in a breeze of equivocations, and that I’ve no interest in.

Cory said...

"Whether these rights are declared by God or invented by man is not material...".

Man, talk about missing the point ENTIRELY! I actually laughed out loud.

Julie,

Yes, the whole point of virtually all such arguments is to score points against your adversary. I have read that in ancient times the schools that taught rhetoric instilled the idea that it mattered not what side you were on but that all that mattered was out-scoring your opponent in the eyes of your audience.

This is not unlike what is apparently taught in law schools today. I have known many lawyers and I can honestly say that the truth definitely takes a back seat to simply winning. Of course if one decided to actually believe what one was arguing so much the better. But it really isn't all that important.

And given that our governments at virtually every level are dominated by lawyers it is small wonder that first principles or truth are jetisoned for the sake of simply winning. Thus we end up with the government and law we have today.

James said...

Jwm,

Peace man. Mr. Raven isn't worth it. He doesn't see the work the same way we do.
On a better note. I'm doing fine. Going to Italy on Thursday. Drop me a line sometime.

Peace
Jim

mtraven said...

Cory said: Thus a posting about the essential differences between Truth and utter mendacity is taken as a political position paper.
I assume this was addressed to me (or about me). It's true I tend to ignore the large-scale metaphysical thrust of these posts and attack the real-world particulars. But that's because I see no useful way to respond to an assertion like "all forms of leftism are satanic". It's ridiculously broad, slanderous, and unsupported by evidence (and it's hard to see what sort of evidence could apply). What am I supposed to say? "I know a bunch of leftists, and none of them are given to chanting over pentagrams?" But of course, leftism is satanic "in a way that no leftist would understand or even be capable of understanding". That seems to just be further insulation from argument.

So you folks seem to have constructed a closed world where leftism is "satanic" (for some inscrutable meaning of the term) tautologically, by definition; Truth is whatever you feel it to be; and anybody who disagrees with you must be doing the devil's work. If you want to live in closed world of meaning, feel free. But you keep on intruding into the real world, and that's where I feel it might be possible to have an actual reasoned argument, not to mention that it results in you supporting political policies that are grossly immoral.

Or put it another way: I don't expect that metaphysical assertions can be supported or attacked through normal rules of evidential reasoning. How to judge them, then? By their fruits. If the people who promote metaphysical schema S also seem to support odious politics P, and can't separate out the two, then there is probably something wrong with S.

Petey said...

"If the people who promote metaphysical schema S also seem to support odious politics P, and can't separate out the two, then there is probably something wrong with S."

Congratulations -- a perfect tautology!

Gagdad Bob said...

Folks--

Please don't go off on Raven. Rather, you just have to chuckle. After all, everything he says, and the way he says it, is a kind of warped but Absolute confirmation of everything we hold to be good, true, and sacred. Really, it's fascinating if you stop to ponder it. There is proof of God.

But I can also assure you with 100% certainty that "getting angry," or arguing with him, is a waste of your time and your essence.

walt said...

I'm still trying to figure out how Bob is "intruding into the real world" ...

Maybe it's one of those Ko'on things?

I will continue to ponder it ...

Gagdad Bob said...

Meanwhile, back in the real world: The very people who feared that George Bush would turn this country into a fascist state are the very ones who are trying to create it right now.

Gagdad Bob said...

And Walt, I didn't see your crack about the real world before I posted that...

Rick said...

“Colonel Beaglehole, sir?”

“Yes, soldier.”

“Request permission to not make fun of The Empty, sir.”

“On what grounds.”

“Well, sir…he’s just not that funny.”

“As you were.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Petey said...

Good call, Colonel. It's difficult to imagine that anyone as malevolently clueless as Raven has ever made anything approaching a witty comment in his life. That's probably one of the most crippling things about paranoia. There are no funny paranoiacs!

Anonymous said...

Theofilia:


Thank you for sharing your story about confronting the violent man. There is a need for action in this world where evil is identified in one's immediate environs.

In the case of a more diffused threat like leftists, the question on the table is "what should be done about them?"

I suppose aggression could be justified, but I'd have to run that one by Bob.

So, the question is, is leftist evil a threat that requires physical countermeasures, or is talking about it going to be enough?

Weigh in, weigh in. I'm of two minds about it.

Friend of Theofilia

Rick said...

Friend of Theo,
Now you must be joking.

Gagdad Bob said...

Friend of Theo:

To be a Christian is to identify with lost causes of all kinds. However, to be a Raccoon is to be a lost cause. So at least there's nothing to worry about.

Van Harvey said...

Ooh... thanks for the "Return of Scipio" blog... I like it.

Van Harvey said...

Ok, can't postpone it further... I've got to face facts, freedom is gone, come the a.m., I'm a working stiff again.

g'night all.

wv: upwante
ya think?

mtraven said...

Petey: you might want to take a look at the definition of "tautology".

Walt said: I'm still trying to figure out how Bob is "intruding into the real world" ...

Perhaps "real world" was the wrong term to use, at least in this company. Maybe "material world" would have been better. Let's say that any proposition that is amenable to proof or disproof by science or other empirical technique belongs to this world. Metaphysical propositions are something else. It is more or less futile to argue with metaphysical propositions; they seem more like poetry than anything else, and either they resonate or they don't. But material-world proposition can at least be evaluated as to their truthfulness, their evidentiary support, etc.

It's difficult to imagine that anyone as malevolently clueless as Raven has ever made anything approaching a witty comment in his life.

Some people find me quite amusing; sorry if you aren't among them. I would find you guys pretty entertaining if not for the real-world consequences of the kind of rhetoric you and that Scipio dude are helping keep in circulation.

Cousin Dupree said...

Sounds like a pretty typical leftist with BDS. I've heard Chomsky say as much: "he appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews secretly ran the country."

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hmm, so this guy gets married and has two kids then he suddenly comes to the conclusion he is actually was born a woman and is trapped in a mans body.

Gee, I wonder where he gort that idea from. Of course it couldn't possibly be a sexual fantasy of his that has taken over his life, now could it?

I wonder how the wife and kids took it. I mean, losing a father to death is one thing, but to lose a father because he chooses to abandon can be quite traumatic for children and a wife abandoned by her husband ain't no easty thing to get over either.

But hey, "I was born that way" is the perfect excuse. He, or she, or whatever...let's call him scumbag, or at least I will, whatever his physiological condition, loves himself more than anyone else. The scumbag is a selfish jerk.

But wait, how do I know that? Because the scumbag could've decided to put his wife and kids first, before himself, like a father ought to do. He could've chosen to forgo his fantasy, or whatever you wanna call it for his family rather than abandoning them and likely leaving longlasting psychological wounds to his children.

But no, he was "born" that way, and thus he had no choice, right?
Like I said, scumbag.

Petey said...

What a strange position for a liberal to be in: not defending a cop killer.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Just remember folks, the ACLU is hard at work protecting NAMBLA!
Because if NAMBLA falls we will become a police state.
The government will grow exponentially as will our spending and debt, and big sister guvmint will take over our banks, big businesses and auto industry.

Big Guv will even tell them how much money they deserve!
So it's imperative that the ACLU holds the line and protects those poor, defenseless pedophiles at NAMBLA.

Because licentiousnous is much more vital that decency, nobility, justice and liberty (with all those icky responsibilities attached).

It all makes so much sense now. Thanks Mtraven!

Skully said...

Petey-

Aye! Afterall, to diss all those negroes in Oakland who know that cop killers are heroes(and really, how can a rape possibly tarnish that image?), is racist!

hoarhey said...

M-T-Raven said,

"But you keep on intruding into the real world, and that's where I feel it might be possible to have an actual reasoned argument, not to mention that it results in you supporting political policies that are grossly immoral."

You're speaking of Marxists now calling themselves "Progressives", correct?

Van Harvey said...

Empty and raving.

...hi ho, hi ho, it's off to w[ah shaddup!]

Susannah said...

I just dropped by with this little gem for you all. It cheered me up considerably this morning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_pzd_w1sS4 I thought Pacino was great in Devil's Advocate.

The Committee said...

Bob:

In defense of Raven, he actually is defending the cop killer. His point is that Poplawski only did it because of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News or something, not because he was evil and/or sick.

Susannah said...

Well...I hadn't seen JWM's comment yet, either. ;) "Imagine," my loving the song Imagine. Never woulda thunk it.

The Committee said...

The point is, poverty causes crime, unless the crime is committed by someone who is not a privileged member of a liberal-designated victim group. Clear?

Rick said...

Shoudn’t Miss Cleo, (I’m sorry) Ms Theo be absorbing The Empty’s vomit?
Or maybe she is …in which case, mo’ powuh to ya, pls.

Anonymous said...

Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe

Cousin Dupree said...

Those were some powerful termites.

julie said...

Susannah, that's a good one :D

In other news, Steyn asks Feel like getting nasty?

Anonymous said...

Friend of Theofilia,

The following quote from Flame Of Love, penned by Clark Pinnock, says thus:

Because the Spirit works to shed light on us, the truth is not something merely external: it is also internal. God is working the mind of Christ into us (Cor 2:16) The meaning of the Word of God is being worked on within the entire community, not just among the leaders.

Theofilia

mtraven said...

The Commitee said: His point is that Poplawski only did it because of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News or something, not because he was evil and/or sick.
Is it really too hard for you people to get your heads around the idea that events can have multiple causes? In this case, that the hatemongering rhetoric of the right encourages mentally unstable individuals to act out on their violent fantasies? Here is an even clearer example. Deny your complicity all you like. You aren't fooling anyone, not even yourselves.

Cousin Dupree said...

Does the racial hatred and grievance mongering of the left cause so many blacks to murder? After all, they have a much higher murder rate than do conservatives.

I don't. People have free will and are morally responsible for their own actions.

Cousin Dupree said...

To put it another way, the murder rate only began going through the roof in the 1960s, once liberals began excusing criminal behavior with the kind of buffoonish armchair sociology put forth by Raven. The number of murdered souls and ruined lives resulting from leftist policies is in the millions. But liberals are never guilty, because their intentions are always beautiful, no matter how many die in the process.

Cousin Dupree said...

Consider what happened today: after years of attempts by the left to prevent a vicious cop killer from receiving justice, it looks like Mumia is finally going to get his.

Anonymous said...

Ben, your "scumbag" post is oh my.......

If you could Ben, would you spit in my face?

Theofilia

Van Harvey said...

"...would you spit in my face?"

Can't you just feel the love?

Good comment Ben.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Theofilia-

Why don't you address what I said instead of playing a faux martyr.
I simply pointed out the truth and those who suffered the most, the wife and children of the scumbag who was more concerned about his own selfish desires than he was his family.

Truth hurts, like a sword, but I assure you there was no spitting involved.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Van-
Thanks. Aye. Vomited "love" is very...stifling. :^)

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