Special Note Right Up Front:
A few of the references in this post do not employ circumlocutions or asterisks. The need of the hour is generational repentance, and repentance names the sin. The biblical word for confess is homologeo, which means to “speak the same thing.” It means that we do not get to sugar glaze our sins, asking God to “forgive them” by means of glancing at them obliquely.
Introduction:
We are not dealing with a scandal here or there, or even with a minor cluster of scandals. What this appears to be is a full-scale reckoning.
Consider Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Glenn Thrush, Kevin Spacey, Bill O’Reilly, Bill Clinton, Charlie Rose, Anthony Weiner, James Toback, Ben Affleck, Chris Savino, Roy Price, Mark Halperin, Michael Oreskes, and Lockhart Steele. The Office of Compliance on Capitol Hill has to date paid out $17 million dollars, much of it settling sexual harassment complaints.
Roy Moore flatly denies wrongdoing but is among the accused and, depending upon how the election and further investigations go, may possibly join the list above.
Whatever else you might say, this is not part of a normal news cycle. Something more significant is happening.
But it is necessary for us to insist upon this—a reckoning like this cannot be accommodated or managed by means of legislative reforms, or tougher standards handed down to the HR department. There is a generational complicity involved that can only be addressed with repentance. And by repentance, I mean the kind of thing that followed hard after preaching by John the Baptist.
“And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins” (Mark 1:5, ESV).
We live in a corrupt and evil generation, but the good news is that Scripture does describe true repentance as a gift that has at various times been given by God to cities, nations, generations, and times. The city of Nineveh repented (Matt. 12:41). The men of Judah and Benjamin repented (Ezra 10:9). The people repented under the leadership of Hezekiah (2 Chron. 29:36). Repentance is a message that must be preached to all the nations, including our own. We are not exempted from this duty by our distorted understanding of the First Amendment, and we are most certainly not exempted by our upright way of life. “And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).
But if America can repent, as other wicked nations in history have done, someone must tell them of their obligation to do so. How will they hear without a preacher (Rom. 10:14)?
What We Did:
In a nutshell, we decided that God could in fact be mocked (Gal. 6:7), and that we could sow one crop and reap a different one. We could sow thistles and harvest barley; we could sow morning glory and harvest bumper crops of our much acclaimed amber waves of grain. We could sow the wind, and reap little pleasant zephyrs that would cool us off in the evening.
But now, right on schedule, just like the Scriptures teach, we are reaping the whirlwind (Hos. 8:7).
Bill Clinton was plausibly accused of multiple sexual offenses, up to and including forcible rape. Running interference for him, the media smothered that story—the account of Juanita Broadrick. Ken Starr was vilified for investigating a story that was “just about sex,” and the reckoning for that grand lie has now come due. The Democratic nominee in just this last presidential election was the Queen Bee of complicit enabling, attacking the victims of her husband’s predations as “bimbo eruptions,” and all in the name of feminism.
She did all this with official permission from the feminist establishment to behave in this way. All the creeps that have since been uncovered, from that day down to this one, were given a pass, provided their politics were in order. Others, whose politics were not in order, took up that permission anyway and ran off with it. When the morals are generally corrupted, it is hard to police the boundaries of your double standards.
Feminist writer Nina Burleigh said this, back in the day:
“I would be happy to give [Bill Clinton] a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.”
Leftist bloodlust, in other words, trumps a culture’s responsibility to treat women with respect. Gloria Steinem famously said that if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. Well, men still can’t get pregnant, but abortion has become a sacrament anyhow.
Burleigh argued in effect that she would be willing to do evil, that evil might come of it. The religious right, more understandably, and therefore more hypocritically, decided to do evil that good might come of it. In reaction, a phalanx of evangelical leaders made a deal with Mephistopheles, agreeing to put up with a pussy-grabber, so long as he delivered on the kind of judges they wanted. I understand their temptation in a way that I do not understand Burleigh’s, but either way, when repentance comes, it will encompass us all.
And when I say it will encompass us all, I mean all. Of course, Al Franken needs to repent of his wicked and loutish behavior toward women. But Leeann Tweeden, his first accuser, was not simply “a model.” She was a woman who would take her clothes off for the camera, working for a one-handed magazine—one that catechized young men everywhere, teaching them how to behave like aspiring Al Frankens. And so she needs to repent of that. All who are guilty need to repent, and all who are complicit need to repent.
A special note for the reading-impaired: The previous paragraph does not mean that Tweeden “deserved” whatever Franken did. We as a people are now being confronted by the avenging angel of lust, and he appears to be dealing with a lot more than we counted on. In that picture up top, take away his sword and give him a gigantic weed-whacker. He is headed over to the cluster of weeds at your place of employment next. Anyone who thinks that we are anywhere near done with this is kidding himself. If the guilty flee when no man pursues (Prov. 28:1), what will they do now that the pursuit is joined? A lot of guilty men have to be sweating bullets right about now.
A Hypocritical Frenzy or Something More?
Feminists made the deal with the devil they did in order to protect abortion. And by this I mean that they thought that their faction on the Supreme Court was in great danger, and they would do anything to defend Roe. But listen. Here, in the midst of this sex abuse frenzy, we are possibly just weeks away from another battle over a Supreme Court nominee. What if Kennedy retires? If Trump appoints another Gorsuch, it could easily swing the balance of the Court. Have the feminists repented of their willingness to tolerate all manner of abuse in order to protect their right to continue to abuse their own offspring? I think the clear answer is not yet, although when God efficaciously grants repentance it will be a gift that cannot be refused.
And evangelical leaders made a deal with the devil to overthrow abortion. Repentance is necessary there as well. This is why statements like “the end does not justify the means” were first coined. So while I reject that strategy, and lament the fact that it was adopted, I nevertheless admire what I believe God is doing in and through all this. We have ourselves a presidential wrecking ball, and God is accomplishing His work.
“O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets” (Isaiah 10:5–6).
God is bringing us low, all of us. He laughs at the pride of man.
“And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent” (Acts 17:30).
Amen.
And now, cue all the feminists who troll this here blog to mischaracterize and take Doug out of context because of their reading impairment.
And predictably, you were right again…even some who vowed to never comment here again chimed in.
I still don’t understand your virtue signalling against Trump. You act like we had a decent choice. We had no choice. We didn’t pick Trump until we had no other choice. We either voted Trump or absconded and got far worse. I have no need to repent of voting for Trump. He has a need of repenting for his paganism and sexual immorality, but my choice and those other Evangelicals who voted for him and advocated that others vote for him have nothing to repent of. If someone is kidnapped and told by the thugs to pick which gun they… Read more »
Somebody snipped out your write-in block?
That is called absconding.
All voting is naive.
There is no possible meaning you could have for this statement that causes it to make sense. Voting is an action, not a motivation for the action. Only the cerebral intent can be naive, not the physical action itself. “Crossing the street is always naive” for example is gibberish because we haven’t discussed *why* the person is crossing the street. It might be entirely compatible with whatever view you’re trying to get across.
Voting is idolatry.
Same problem. Specific internal intent is required for idolatry, which we haven’t established. We haven’t even established voting context. I voted for apple pie for Thanksgiving dessert yesterday. Was that idolatry too?
Trolling is naive idolatry.
Voting is a waste of paper. On election day, your efforts are better served helping an old lady carry her groceries. If you think your vote has magical powers to control the statesmen, you are a fool and you have fallen for the devil’s trick. Reality is exactly the opposite: voting is the statesman’s sorcery to convince people like you of magic. —- Doug is 100% right when he identifies “a pesidential wrecking ball” because every president is a wrecking ball. Your vote makes no difference. It never did and it never will. The RedTeam and the BlueTeam work for… Read more »
What exactly are “people like me”? I never expressed any idea in my posts similar to what you place forth in my name.
I think Charles, Doug, and Justin are completely misunderstanding one another using different definitions for things.
Indeed. We are not homologeo-ing properly which is a result of a difference in faith.
We all see the same things but believe different things are happening.
All of the world is a stage.
I’m not sure I can make quite the same statement, but I’m 90% closer to Charles than Kigore on this. Republicans and Democrats in power are equally working against the Kingdom of God on more issues than either one are advancing it. And even in areas where they supposedly align with the interests of the God of Jesus Christ, it has become more than apparent that their motives are more often corrupt rather than righteous even there. And campaigns to get Christians to vote, whether for the right or the left, have appeared to me to do far more to… Read more »
The decision has always been which one will do the least damage. In the case of the SCOTUS, Trump was clearly the better of the two. Trump was also closer to my thinking on economics. I don’t like unfettered global capitalism, and Trump was at least talking about prioritizing American interests over those of the multinational corporations. The other issue is that not voting seem to be an attempt at Christians trying to be above it all. They think that by intentionally not voting, they have clean hands. But they don’t. Not voting is a moral act, because it has… Read more »
“The decision has always been which one will do the least damage.” I don’t think you realize how narrow that thinking is from a long-term perspective. If the candidates know that you think that way, then the ONLY thing they need to do to get your vote is be 1% better on your issue than the other candidate. Meanwhile, he will be bending over backwards to get the votes of whoever’s standards are higher than “better of two evils.” Your strategy gives Trump or anyone like him exactly 0% incentive to improve in your direction on any issue, because he… Read more »
This is why I do not like democracy. It degenerates into this quagmire. Placing sinful men in charge of making law brings us to this.
I do have a long term perspective, but it is not about correcting this unbiblical form of government. It is about bringing the spread of the gospel to all men.
I have strong opinions on politics, but rest assured my confidence is not in politics. My main concern with this post was the Reverend Wilson’s condemnation of those of us who made the choice to vote for Trump.
You are unduly harsh, and, as it happens, wrong. “Voting is naive” is a perfectly comprehensible sentiment: naivete is properly predicated of an action when that action necessarily implies a particular attitude. It would have been more precise to say something like “voting makes it obvious that you are naive” or “voting betrays a naive understanding of How Things Really Work”, but the statement was sufficiently clear that a reasonable person could understand it .
Whether the sentiment is correct or not is, of course, a separate question.
“Abdicating,” maybe you meant?
Jane called me out on this. I guess that’s what happens when an uneducated plumber starts trying to act all smart.
Kilgore, don’t sell yourself short. Far worse things happen when someone who isn’t a plumber tries to act all smart and hook up his own toilet.
Lol!
Boy, you got that right. Much of my business was from people who knew just enough to be dangerous.
Eric,
There are 9 states that do not allow write-in voting. The states do indeed have differences.
” We didn’t pick Trump until we had no other choice. ” That depends on who “we” is. Trump had many supporters before he was the only choice remaining. ” We either voted Trump or absconded and got far worse. ” You could decide that ethical choices are more important than success.If you sacrifice morality for success you end up with neither morality, nor success. ” but my choice and those other Evangelicals who voted for him and advocated that others vote for him have nothing to repent of.” You acknowledge the nature of your choice, and cite it as… Read more »
You could decide that ethical choices are more important than success.If you sacrifice morality for success you end up with neither morality, nor success. When we vote, we are making a moral choice. When we abscond, we are making a moral choice. We don’t get to sit on the sidelines. If someone invades my house, and I have to kill them for the safety of my family, then I am making a moral choice. It is one I don’t like, but I have to make it. To decide that “ethical choices are more important than success” and therefore choose to… Read more »
“When we vote, we are making a moral choice. When we abscond, we are making a moral choice. ” Both Trump voters and Never Trumpers agree on this. It’s the ramifications of this truth that are in debate. “We don’t get to sit on the sidelines.” Not voting for Trump is not sitting on the sidelines. Here is where I don’t think many Trump supporters really get where Never Trumpers are coming from. It isn’t that we’re holding up our noses and saying “we’re above all this” and pretending that makes us immune to the outcomes of the election. It’s… Read more »
If your assessment was that Trump being president was worse than Hillary being president, then stand behind the courage of your conviction and vote for Hillary. Otherwise, you really are trying to be “above all this.”
That’s not what that statement says though. He didn’t say Never Trump foresee’s Trump’s presidency being worse than Hillary’s than the benefits of his success. He just said Trump’s presidency is going to have more damage to the country long term than the benefit of “saving the country” from the perceived worseness of a Hillary presidency – and it is a benefit.
You are splitting hairs.
We had two choices. Which was the better of the two? Then stand up for that choice. Voting for someone says nothing about supporting everything that candidate says or believes.
Neither was the better of the two. We got one kind of bad as opposed to another kind of bad is all.
Welcome to our form of government. Hopefully I can now get you to join me in advocating for theonomy.
Unfortunately for your idea here, this country is still supposed to have religions freedom, so you can’t really have a theo anything
The world is a theocracy under Jesus Christ whether one admits it or not.
All I am suggesting is that the world would be a better place if we according to that reality.
Suppose everyone agreed in principle that the USA should be a theocracy under Christ. Which person would be responsible for implementing Christ’s will? It seems that granting the principle of following Christ doesn’t do anything to resolve the monarchy/aristocracy/democracy question.
The king would be responsible.
I’m not merely granting the principle of following Christ. I am arguing for the supremacy of God’s Law.
I don’t see where God’s Law lays out a system of government for the USA. That’s why I’m curious what you envision. I know you don’t care much for the system we have, but there must be some system.
Who picks the king?
The OT lays out a nice system of monarchy. We would have some decisions to make, but the legislative foundation is set.
Each area of authority is already laid out. Father’s head families. Elders head churches. Kings head nation’s.
Kings restrain evil. Churches preach grace and offer sacraments. Father’s catechize the next generation.
I know that doesn’t answer every question, but it lays the proper foundation.
Kilgore, Can you elaborate on “The OT lays out a nice system of monarchy”. If you are referring to the OT monarchy, I would put it that the OT *describes* a monarchy, but doesn’t exactly prescribe monarchy. We read in the OT that a king was something the people shouldn’t have wanted in the first place, and under the monarchy both the government and culture of Israel/Judah was frequently as bad or worse than our own.
But maybe you were referring to something else?
More precisely, they shouldn’t have wanted a king before God, in his own time, gave them one. In desiring a carnal king they failed to set their hearts on God’s kingdom. There is a parallel here for us. Nothing we do will transmogrify the USA into that city whose foundations are laid by God.
But why a monarchy in particular? Why would that necessarily fit theonomy better than a republic?
Republics aren’t precluded by any means. But each independent state would have to work out it’s own details.
The realities of geography and resources and culture would dictate how each of them proceeded.
Monarchy is just the most efficient and most biblical.
America has a president, because the Bible calls Jesus the President of Presidents.
https://arkansasreactionary.wordpress.com/2015/11/22/the-solemnity-of-christ-the-president/
Okay, I agree with that. I thought that you were saying a theocracy would be realistically good for America right now.
Kilgore, We had two choices. Which was the better of the two? Then stand up for that choice. Can we agree that this logic does not extend indefinitely? To take a far more extreme example, suppose we were in a society which was holding a vote as to which idol would be the official society god. The only two options on the ballot are Apollo and Dagon. In such a situation, ought we to try and figure out which of Dagon or Apollo would be better for society? I would rather contend that in such a situation we ought to… Read more »
Thank you, that was a better example than the one I used.
Your analogy is invalid, and carries no weight. We are not voting for whom we should worship, we are voting for who will govern us. Absconding from the responsibility to vote is still participating in some way. Refusing to worship a false god is not the same thing at all.
“We had two choices. Which was the better of the two? Then stand up for that choice. ” You can keep repeating this. That won’t make it true. There were a wide variety of alternatives. What we had are two choices with a strategic possibility of winning the election. The assumption that a Christian *must* choose a strategically viable in the short term, though catastrophically unwise choice excludes the possibility that God and consequently morality, doesn’t much care about strategic viability. He certainly didn’t seem very interested in Gideon taking the strategically convenient option. Even taking this aside and running… Read more »
The assumption that a Christian *must* choose a strategically viable in the short term, though catastrophically unwise choice excludes the possibility that God and consequently morality, doesn’t much care about strategic viability. This is just stupid. many Never Trumpers hold that what they’re doing *is* the most strategically viable option. So then a Trump loss, in their thinking, was the best option, to avoid, as you argue, destroying the right wing. Then vote and advocate for Hillary to ensure that Trump loss. Voting for the least of two bad options doesn’t mean we have lost our right to find something… Read more »
Kilgore, You clearly model politics and political action differently than some other here do. For many people voting is an act of representation. You are voting for someone to represent you and your concerns in governance. It is important that someone you vote for meets a minimum bar. For some of us important to not consent to being governed by pagans. You are also captured by a strong identification with a false choice. In your mind there were two choices offered, and you had to choose between them. However, in most states there were more than two choices offered, and… Read more »
Lol! Yep, you got me. I am just a helpless little one. What can I say?
Kilgore, Either you, A. Believe Trump meets your definition of minimum virtue for ruler and are happy to support him, Or, B. Believe that you were presented with a binary choice, you chose the lessor of two evils and picked the pagan who wasn’t AS hostile to your people/beliefs/future. I read you as saying B. (or something very similar). This is absolutely learned helplessness. You have to accept one of the two choices the system gives you, and there is nothing you can do about it. Worse you spread the disease by telling people that if Trump losing is a… Read more »
I do say B, but I reject that it is learned helplessness. First of all, you lack the evidence to make that determination. You aren’t a mind reader to know the motivations of each voter. Secondly, there is nothing preventing someone, like me in this case, from admitting that things are such that we basically have two choices, picking one of those choices for pragmatic reasons, and then working in other arenas to change things. Face reality and try to change it. Don’t see reality and run from it because it is scary. No amount of flipancy or mockery changes… Read more »
Kilgore, Not trying to read minds, just noting that you said: “We had two choices. Which was the better of the two? Then stand up for that choice.” This is a false choice, and it is the sort of false choice that is only revealed when people defect. Buying into this logic is he learned helplessness in referring to. Also: “If your assessment was that Trump being president was worse than Hillary being president, then stand behind the courage of your conviction and vote for Hillary. Otherwise, you really are trying to be “above all this.” This is argumentum ad… Read more »
I am sorry you think I have learned helplessness.
But if you can convince me that there was another viable candidate for the 2016 election, I am all ears. Otherwise, not voting for one means you electing to give their opponent an edge.
You had at least three choices if not more. Not voting IS a choice.
If you were asked by a sadistic ruler to pick which community’s children would be tortured, would you pick because you only had two choices, or would you refuse to play their game?
Totally invalid analogy.
If by not picking a child, the ruler would make it worse for the children somehow, then not choosing is the morally wrong choice.
An active decision not to vote is not a decision to “do nothing”. It can be a strong statement on your view of the system, a call to action to whoever has a chance of earning your vote, or a strategy to focus your energies on something more important than voting. Imagine the total # of hour spent per person every year in the Red v. Blue wars, and look at how little benefit it has produced, and can you imagine what the Christian Church could do if all that activity had instead been diverted into something that was actually… Read more »
I don’t disagree with this.
But then by doing this, you lose the right to look down your nose at us Trump voters. You lose the right call us supporters of the pussy-grabber. You lose the right to call us to repentance.
Play the game of politics or take your ball and go home. But by refusing to play, you still have to live with the results.
“There are many evangelicals though, who can’t separate supporting a candidate from defending everything he does. ” Indeed, there has been both psychological and political research that suggests that this will always remain the case for many people. Once you choose to publicly “pick” a person or “approve” of them, more often than not your positions on issues will align with theirs over time, even when the issue in question is one that originally had nothing to do with picking them. I don’t have the numbers with me right now, but Trump-supporting Republicans went from something like 70% anti-Putin a… Read more »
Very well said! Morality is much more important than success. For this reason ik many people who did not vote in the election. And your gun piece here is spot on.
I take it as a reference to men like the leader of Liberty U who gave Trump this whole-hearted endorsement, not those who merely voted against Hillary.
I think you misunderstand Doug. I don’t necessarily think he’s saying the general Evangelical community voting for Trump is the sin we need to repent of. He understands and sympathizes with the Evangelicals that felt they had no other choice. And he understands and sympathizes with the anger that Evangelicals have for the contempt that the DC swamp and the Clinton’s have had for not only religion broadly, but Christianity specifically. It’s the Evangelicals who went all in for Trump ignoring his paganism when Cruz, Paul, Rubio, and others were still actual better options, more consistent with biblical virtue and… Read more »
You are giving the good reverend way too much here. He said, “a phalanx of evangelical leaders made a deal with Mephistopheles, agreeing to put up with a pussy-grabber, so long as he delivered on the kind of judges they wanted.” Reverend Wilson is taking the Left’s line here. His accusation is that we should repent for voting Trump, because we were willing to put up with Trump’s paganism in order to avoid Hillary. And I say loud and proud, Yes. We did. And there is no sin in it. Therefore, we need not repent. It is also a very… Read more »
Abstained or abdicated, not absconded. Abscond does not fit the context.
As a poor plumber, I don’t do grammar well.
But I have to confess to not seeing the difference here, but I will take your word for it.
Take Jane’s word for it. On the other hand, ‘abscond’ does give me the pleasing picture of you fleeing the polling booth with a plate of scones.
Lol!
Will do on taking Jan’e sword for it. I think I read somewhere that she is a Brit, perhaps I am wrong, but if she is, then I have no other choice. There is something about Brits and their grammar.
You might also want to know that I hate scones, for what it is worth.
Abscond has the connotation of physically leaving as a result of having committed some unlawful act. When you raid the petty cash drawer, suddenly quit your job, and flee the state, you have absconded. When you quietly continue to go about your business having omitted to do something that perhaps you ought to have done, that’s completely different.
But I’m not a Brit! American born and bred going back ~300 years, with mostly German roots.
Apologies.
But your lexical skills are as sharp a Brit.
Thanks for the explanation.
I’m the one whose British ancestors go back with tiresome predictability to the beginnings of recorded time, with one generation of lowly swineherds succeeding another. Unlike people who find cousins related to the Duke of Marlborough, I have found one murderess and a bunch of wreckers. These were people who used lanterns to lure ships onto the rocks on the Dorset coast. After dispatching the sailors, my illustrious forebears stole the kegs of liquor, thereby evading the excise tax. Somewhere along the line they turned respectable and started to make money, which is bad for my working class street cred.… Read more »
I don’t care for scones. They are too dry and crumbly, and need to be cemented together with lavish amounts of jam and whipped cream.
Then you’re making them wrong.
Plenty of butter in the flour, liquid to leave a moist surface and just enough flour added back to make it workable. Hot out of the oven with butter soaking through to the base.
Nothing wrong with jam and whipped cream! But what’s a crumpet?
The proper topping for a crumpet is butter and golden syrup.
Indighost, I knew you were my longlost sister, The best way to eat golden syrup is standing guiltily in the kitchen with a large spoon. And a napkin.
In Canada a crumpet is a flattish round thing with lots of holes on the top to soak up the butter, You toast it. It’s also a particularly toothsome girl. If you know what I mean.
Jill,
Thanks for bringing to mind fond memories of my years in New Zealand.
It’s similar to what we call an English muffin. It might be exactly the same thing; I’m not quite sure.
@Jane
Crumpet: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_u54gMZx6Ql8/TNWCsou-u_I/AAAAAAAABOU/TMg6C8ZH3tM/s1600/Crumpet4.JPG
English muffins: http://momsneedtoknow.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/How-To-Make-Homemade-English-Muffins.jpg
The former is a liquid consistency cooked on a griddle (though often purchased cooked and toasted). Sweet toppings.
The latter is savory or sweet. Eggs Benedict works on English muffins, but not crumpets.
For me God is sovereign. He did not need my vote to accomplish His purposes for our Nation. I could in good conscience vote for a third party candidate.
-OR- they’ll just flip to the right page in the playbook and start to describe their condition as being “afflicted” with an “orientation” towards sexual powerful differentials, and then voila – they’re now victims too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/roy-moore-is-not-a-pedophile/2017/11/19/1a9ae238-cb21-11e7-aa96-54417592cf72_story.html
Who made the deal securing an early end to WWII by means of incinerating thousands of Japanese children?
It didn’t even “secure an early end to WWII”. The Japanese leaders did not care how many Japanese children were incinerated. Wars are fought and won on military and political objectives, and blowing up population centers didn’t affect either in 1945 (they had already been doing just as bad to Japanese cities before the nukes). Japan’s primary reason for surrender was because Russia had entered the war on midnight of August 8th, was routing their armies, and was on the verge of invasion. Japan’s leaders made a strategic decision that surrendering to America was better than surrendering to Russia. Truman… Read more »
To be fair Jonathan, I think you’re overlooking just how economically crippling those bombs were. Japan couldn’t really have continued into a prolonged war if it wanted to.
I agree that Japan couldn’t have continued the war. In 1945 the United States’ own Strategic Bombing Survey, given deep access to US and Japanese records, determined that even if the atomic bombs had never been dropped, no US or Russian invasion had even been planned, and the US never changed the demand for unconditional surrender, Japan would have capitulated by October. They didn’t have the resources to maintain the fight. But that was material resources (weapons, ammunition, and food to supply the army), not civilian casualties. The atomic bombs did not affect that calculation. In that sense, there was… Read more »
Justin, to be even more fair, Jonathan is full of it. Check out this snippet from an article written by Robert James Maddox, Professor of History Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University entitled “The Greatest Hoax In American History: Japan’s Alleged Willingness to Surrender During the Final Months of World War II”: A staple of Hiroshima Revisionism has been the contention that the government of Japan was prepared to surrender during the summer of 1945, with the sole proviso that its sacred emperor be retained. President Harry S. Truman and those around him knew this through intercepted Japanese diplomatic messages, the… Read more »
The idea that my account is “revisionist”, or that it’s based on one telegram, is simply ridiculous. You quote a single Penn State professor speaking far later, who has obvious motives to launch a revisionist account that justifies the American action. (And is also nonsensical – for example, the idea that Japan would be able to hold onto an imperial empire beyond Japan they had only held for a few years and already lost via force is ridiculous. By the time the bombs were dropped that wasn’t even a possible bargaining chip anymore.) On the other hand, I can quote… Read more »
If you prefer the report of historians to that of the military and government leaders who were actually there, here are those. Note that this includes two official studies prepared by the US government itself, and much more robust accounts than the narrow claim you posted, referring to a CONSENSUS among historians and official reports, not one man’s claim. “First, intelligence and other advice to President Truman, in significant part based on intercepted and secretly decoded Japanese cable traffic, indicated that from at least May 1945 on, Japan wished to end the war and seemed likely to do so if… Read more »
December 7, 1941: Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, which prompted the United States to enter the war. August 6, 1945: Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. August 9, 1945: Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. August 15, 1945: Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender, bringing an end to WWII. Japan’s announcement of surrender less than a week after the second bomb was dropped would highly suggest that the bombs were effective. In order to win a war, you must break the enemy’s will to fight. Your personal stance on war does not change this basic fact. The fact that Japan kept fighting,… Read more »
FP, if you completely ignore everything Eisenhower, MacArthur, Leahy, and all the other military leaders, political leaders, and historians said, in favor of a simplistic “If they happened close together then one caused the other!” view, then you aren’t even trying to engage with the reality of what occurred. Russia declared war against Japan and began routing its armies on August 8th. Japan surrendered on August 15th. Therefore, by the exact same logic you used, Russia’s declaration of war is what caused Japan’s surrender. In fact, there’s a much stronger argument for that than for the atomic bombs causing surrender,… Read more »
In fact, there’s a much stronger argument for that than for the atomic bombs causing surrender… A much stronger argument, huh? Much stronger than Hirohito, the emperor of Japan himself, explicitly referring to “a new and most cruel bomb” dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the reason for the surrender? Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation,… Read more »
FP, I’m still trying to figure out what you would say to Nimitz, MacArthur, Eisenhower, LeMay, Arnold, Halsey, Eaker, Clarke, Chennault, Bonesteel, Anderson, Spaatz and the rest. You can mock me while ignoring them, but what do you say to them? How do you keep ignoring that virtually all the relevant military leaders of the time, the official US investigation at the time, a great number of state and intelligence officials at the time, and the consensus of historians today all come to the same conclusion? But your only comeback is, “But Hirohito made a speech to the people!” Yes,… Read more »
Compelling reply, Jonathan.
In the context of the justifications sold to Americans, what was the driving reason for killing those noncombatents?
If it was to save untold lives by means of securing an early surrender, and Christians bought this – was it not a deal with the devil?
Yes, that’s something that’s painful to me about the decision. Even if you accept the claims sold to the American public about why the bomb was dropped, it wouldn’t pass muster in any serious Christian Just War Theory formulation that I’ve ever seen. It is tossing any moral or Christian version of ethics out the window for an ultra-selfish utilitarian case. You can’t just target enormous numbers of civilians in order to accomplish a military objective. That opens a horrific can of worms. Sadly, the nuclear bombs were more of a pinnacle in that respect during WW2 than an aberration.… Read more »
The Church always leads. It started out with people who called themselves by His name (II Chron 7:14). The Bakkers, Swaggarts, priests, etc were not excommunicated, so political leaders were not punished, so then sports celebrities got a pass, then all sorts of “powerful” men thought they were immune to punishment. Now, everybody deserves a ‘pass’, so it is obvious and widespread throughout our culture.
It starts with the Church, and so must repentance.
SHORT VERSION: The deep state is running out of people to rob, rape and pillage. World peace is becoming a reality and the arms dealers are getting squirrelly.
“Whatever else you might say, this is not part of a normal news cycle. Something more significant is happening.”
It is psychological operation.
Wait until the demonic horrors of international organ harvesting and child trafficking become common knowledge.
Frankly, I do not understand the attention being paid to the suffering of poor old letcherous adults. The concern is displaced.
“World peace is becoming a reality and the arms dealers are getting squirrelly.” Cute. but NOT! Are you an arms dealer?
I reject your assertion that evangelicals must repent for “putting up with a pussy grabber” (what proof do you have that Trump is guilty of sexual assault anyway?) When you’re fighting a war, you don’t care if your leader is a saint. All that matters is winning, Do you want faggots and pedophiles running your country (or at least the culture)? Do you want a brown America where your children and grandchildren are hated for being white? Do you want Christianity expelled from all public discourse? If not, then you and all the other boomer evangelicals really need to reconsider… Read more »
It is worth losing your nation to obey God.
What exactly is disobedient about anything I said?
Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.
Would you violate people’s rights in order to achieve your dream of a lily white America where “degenerates” are unknown and women are forced out of public life? If so, you are willing to disobey the part about doing justice. Would you cause pain to people because you detest their race or their religion? Then, not so good on mercy. And, as for walking humbly, are you sure that you haven’t transmogrified God into some kind of Richard Spencer?
1) Did I say I wanted a lily white country? No, I implied that I don’t want an increasingly brown country where whites are hated for being white.
2) Yes, I want degenerates back in the closet. Whatever they do in that closet is of no concern to me from a political standpoint.
3) I never said I detested anyone’s race. Where did you get that from?
4) Richard Spencer’s a little too fey to inspire rabid loyalty in me.
Some months ago you wrote a post suggesting that, in fairness to blacks, they should not be part of our society because you believe they are genetically unable to compete with white people. I assumed you meant that they needed to go somewhere. It is hard for me to read your views about blacks having moronic IQs and no impulse control without inferring that you have no respect for them as a race. The law of the land recognizes the right of gay people to live openly as long as they obey the same laws as everyone else. You would… Read more »
The issues of lower IQ and impulse control shouldn’t even be controversial. They’re tested and proven facts. Do you think that I have no respect for people who are less intelligent than me? That would sort of violate the golden rule, as there are plenty of people I know who are more intelligent than me who I hope would respect me nonetheless. In general, however, I don’t tend to make friends with 85 IQ people because there’s just not a whole lot we’re going to have in common. In fact, such people need intelligent people to lead them, and perhaps… Read more »
There is a race based IQ gap. The data though doesn’t support a causative relationship. During WW2, jews were below the mean IQ. Two generations later, they’re at the top of the curve. Peace time vs war time has a heavy effect on IQ statistics. There are a wide variety of reasons to conclude the most likely causative relationship is overall hardship. People whose lives don’t lend themselves to putting much time to thought when they’re young tend to have a lower IQ as an adult. This can happen for a wide variety of reasons. In black neighborhoods in the… Read more »
Thank you for that. Timothy and I used to get into quite long discussions on race-based IQ differences on these boards, where I showed that the # of non-genetic factors which have been shown to affect IQ test performance are myriad (and a large number are clearly present in the Black community), while any genetic factors demonstrating lower natural intelligence among black people are still completely absent. As I believe Demo has noted before, the Flynn effect which Sowell refers to in your link is especially telling. Many of the same people who claim that it is “proven” that Black… Read more »
I would refer, again, to Ron Unz’s Race, IQ, and Wealth to anyone interested in the problems with assigning nations current development to phenotypic IQ. It is extra helpful because Unz is certainly not an obscurantist SJW.
I do believe that this is a topic worth studying and discussing and the the pillorying of Murray and associates has been shameful.
It took me a minute to place him. He ran for governor of California and pushed through limits on bilingual education. He also reportedly claimed to have an IQ in excess of 200 which I didn’t think was even possible. I will look up the article.
Demo, this article addressed something I had been puzzling over after reading a previous link you sent me: the very wide gap between the mean Israeli and North American Jewish IQ. Reading this, I learned that my tentative hypothesis–that the Israeli testing group included Sephardic Jews and Arabs–was false. The Israeli group was made up of Jews of Ashkenazic descent.. Relative poverty is one explanation, but couldn’t factors such as a country being perpetually at war (or on the brink of war) be another? Do children in that situation have the same kind of early nurturing that promotes brain development?… Read more »
I believe it was in the preface of Father Gregory Boyle’s book that I read that in several studies of children in American inner cities (I believe Los Angeles and Chicago), something like 25% of children raised in the inner city show symptoms of PTSD. The idea that such children would be in the midst of experiences like that and then show demonstrate typically proficient test scores strikes me as unlikely. It’s not just their overall intellectual development, but what had happened in their lives in the days before the test? Day of the test? etc. In addition, there are… Read more »
Other factors I have observed are child-rearing practices. Most middle class white moms encourage their children to talk a lot. Many stressed out moms encourage silence so they can have a few minutes of peace. I ride the bus with a lot of black and Hispanic mothers and children, and there is much greater emphasis placed on being quiet. Middle class white moms take it as a sacred duty to answer their children’s questions; they are not likely to be too tired or too distracted to want to engage. My child’s first playmates were Hispanic. Their parents were appalled at… Read more »
Yes. Judge Clarence Thomas and Dr. Ben Carson should come to you, hat in hand. “Mr. Ben, Sir,” they will say, “We have come to acknowledge our mental inferiority and to ask you to assume control over our lives because of your obvious brilliance.”
Ben, do you seriously believe all this stuff?
Without weighing in on the larger argument, you do realize that a population with a lower average IQ can still produce high-IQ individuals. That isn’t a contradiction any more than some lady being taller than me refutes the mean height differential between men and women.
I do realize that, Farinata. But Ben sounds as if he would like to shape social policy on the basis of perceived differences between racial groups. If the discussion is, “How does a humane society take care of people who, due to intellectual defect, are unable to care for themselves,” I am totally on board with it. The group of people to be cared for would include members of all races and would not assume that an accident of birth confers permanent inferiority. Ben is arguing that–according to his beliefs–blacks being so much more stupid than whites, they need white… Read more »
if Black people were just as intelligent why are their countries such a mess?
Why did they allow themselves to be taken over.
“Why did they allow themselves to be taken over.”
In short, because they had less convenient animals.
A great deal of the growth of a civilization has a lot to do with the domestication of animals allowing people to spend less time producing food, and more time on construction, academics, art, etc. Europeans with cows, chickens, sheep, horses, had a colossal advantage with the easiest to domesticate and most efficient producing animals on the planet through sheer luck of geography.
they could not domesticate their own animals
they were behind the times
the animals excuse is long gone now
nations like Korea and China who used to be the same level as Africa has left them far behind.
Find me a single developed African nation
why are the African suburbs in the states worse?
bdash, your response is confusing. What you call “the animals excuse” is often used to EXPLAIN how China got civilization so early. You have it exactly backwards. You’re also submarined Ben’s argument. If genetic intelligence is supposed to explain civilization, then how is it that Korea and China were so recently on “the same level as Africa” in your claim? Were Chinese intellects lower during those years? You do not have to go back very far to see a time when north African civilizations, and in some cases West African and East African civilizations, were well ahead of most Northern/Western… Read more »
NO higher
always higher
Africans are the lowest intellect
they Egyptian rulers had caucasian blood
name me one African country in the OECD
name me one wealthy African suburb
name me one social development metric where Africans out do any other race
they are a stupid people
60 years of charity has yielded nothing
South Africa and Zimbabwe are perfect examples
as soon as the whites got kicked out of power
they flopped
bdash, you are talking like someone who has done very little research on this subject. Name one wealthy Black suburb? Easy, I used to live just a stone’s throw from Ladera Heights, California. Very wealthy and predominately Black. Just next to it was Baldwin Hills, another well-off Black suburb. Now, what does that prove? Now, have you read the article I linked or not? That does quite a good job of explaining why wealthy Black suburbs are hard to come by. As far as civilizations go, I wasn’t primarily talking about Egyptian rulers (and it is borderline hilarious to attribute… Read more »
Find me a single developed African nation
Botswana is doing not too badly.
you are kidding me right?
Give them time.
Justin-
Don’t forget, though, European peoples also had to deal with the harshest and most inconvenient climates. How did Scandanavian folk amount to anything?
Outside of the race factor, none of us should underestimate the Christian factor. Europe is Christian, or was, and those values enabled the societies to do things others could not.
You should look a little more closely at these Jared Diamond sorts of arguments. He makes some good points about the transfer of technology and disease along ecological gradients, etc. But he is engaged in a giant game of question begging on the domesticated animals and metallurgy stuff.
Agreed – I find his explanation of east-west continental lines allowing easier transfer of agriculture more convincing then his arguments regarding grain sizes and domestication ease.
Not that I can completely dismiss those arguments, just not convinced yet.
Why did the Anglo-Saxons get taken over by the Vikings and the Normans? Were they less intelligent? Is every military defeat the result of lower comparative intelligence?
Yes…
that is kinda obvious
SURVIVAL of the fittest
Ben and bdash came to mind quickly when I read this line in a recent Atlantic article, “The Nationalist’s Delusion.” “Americans tend to portray defenders of Jim Crow in cartoonish, Disney-villain terms. This creates a certain amount of distance, obscuring the reality that segregation enjoyed broad support among white people. As the historian Jason Sokol recounts in his book There Goes My Everything, white Southerners fighting integration imagined themselves not as adhering to an oppressive ideology, but as resisting one. “A certain notion of freedom crystallized among white southerners—and it had little to do with fascism overseas or equal rights.… Read more »
You already lost the war. Neither minorities or the vast majority of whites will fight for your ideals. Your enemy owns government, business, education, arts, and culture.
Your ideal America sounds so nightmarish that I can’t imagine why anyone would support it.
Having a white country run by non-degenerates sounds like a nightmare to you? I really don’t think we’re playing for the same team.
I have no interest in living in a white country. None. I believe there is a need to restrict immigration as we clearly cannot take in everyone who wants to come. But my reason for believing in enforcing immigration law has nothing to do with a preference for being surrounded by whites. Your way of thinking would demand that I hold a white meth cook in Appalachia in higher esteem than a black surgeon or a Hispanic Supreme Court judge. On what possible grounds would you assume that I have more in common with the meth cook than with the… Read more »
I never said I thought non-whites were less human or imago dei. Just because I don’t think they should be here doesn’t mean I hate them. Imagine you had house guests whom you invited in because you felt sorry for them, and they constantly stole from you, trashed your things, and verbally abused you. At some point, wouldn’t asking them to leave be the right thing to do? It wouldn’t be because you hated them, but rather, precisely because you didn’t want to hate them. Sometimes going our separate ways is the best way to maintain peace. Now perhaps it’s… Read more »
Ah, the old house guest analogy. Let’s apply that to the black experience in America. Our ancestors, yours and mine, felt very sorry for all the black people living in godforsaken jungles, dying from snakebites and ghastly tropical diseases. Purely in a spirit of altruism, we raised money to bring them to the Americas. We treated them like family, waited on them hand and foot, and never expected them to so much as take a plate out to the kitchen. And now we’re getting bored with taking care of their descendants. Is this how it happened? No? No. My own… Read more »
The house guest analogy applies to all non-whites, even blacks, who have had 150 years to leave if they so wished. At the very least they could have asked whites to give them a territory in the U.S. where they could all move in order to be out from under our oppressive hand (all they’d have to do is call us racists if we didn’t do it, and we’d work frantically to make it happen). But no, they want to stay. They want to enjoy everything they have here while simultaneously complaining about how bad they have it. It’s having… Read more »
But, Ben, you are actually in the minority. Most people don’t have an ardent desire to live where they never have to interact with other races. Wouldn’t it be more sensible for you and your like-minded friends to find some uninhabited territory and live together as white as the driven snow?
“Wouldn’t it be more sensible for you and your like-minded friends to find some uninhabited territory and live together as white as the driven snow?”
The anti-racists would never stand for that.
“Six brothers in my family including myself fought in World War II for our rights and freedom,” a veteran from Charlotte, North Carolina, wrote to his representative. “Then why … am I being forced to use the same wash-room and restrooms with negro[e]s. I highly resent this … I’d be willing to fight and die for my rights, but can’t say this anymore for this country.”
From “There Goes My Everything”, by Jason Sokol
Unfortunately this is what happens when curiosity about what our cultural minders are hiding from us becomes an obsession, and then an ideology.
Race realism is a great thing if that mean understanding the works as it really is and not accepting happy sounding lies. It is a noxious thing if it means believing an absurd constructed history in order to stoke your narcissism.
Unfortunately young men often have no role models who can pilot them and keep them from foundering on these shoals. it becomes easy to veer wildly from AnCap idealism, to ethnonationalism, and beyond.
red pill is just as bad as gay sex?
can you please tell that to all the Godly men of the bible including Jesus who were extremely red pill.
Please tell them that their actions are no different to gays having sex…
this is hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!
I forgot that you asked me about the Jews. The Jewish Question to me is not fundamentally that different from the Black Question. In both cases you have a parasitic non-white ethnic group working in a tribalistic way to gain power and resources from its host white population. Of course, the 115 IQ manifestation of this will look different from the 85 IQ one, but the goal isn’t really different. I have no personal hard feelings toward the Jews, it’s just that, as non-whites, they have no part in what makes up America’s core identity as a nation, and therefore… Read more »
Do tell me how my half-Jewish daughter is parasitic and explain to me what she is stealing from you or from society in general. Did her father and I not pay our share of taxes for her education? Were her grandfather and uncles merely houseguests when they fought in America;s wars? Are her cousins who work as medical professionals, teachers, and scientists siphoning off wealth that properly belongs to the meth cook in Appalachia? Please tell me more about these behavioral expectations. She has no wealth to flash so it can’t be that. She doesn’t slurp her soup or yell… Read more »
Jewish identity is rapidly being leveled into generic whiteness. Some of the Jewish groups are trying to maintain their minority status and reminding everyone how oppressed they have been, but it’s not working any more. See the recent sex abuse stuff. A number of these guys are Jewish and yet their names are tossed right in there as white privledged cis-gendered men. Their ethnicity isn’t even mentioned, for this conversation they are white. Also, see how the narrative around Ramapo, NY has changed. There is still some kid glove stuff, but it is mostly a story about white oppression of… Read more »
You’re right, Demo. The reason Adelson and others are willing to finance programs like Birthright is the growing concern that young Jews and half-Jews do not see themselves as anything other than ordinary Americans. My daughter was concerned before going on her trip that she would be embarrassed by her lack of familiarity with Jewish prayers and customs. She needn’t have worried. I’ve noted before that most of my daughter’s closest friends are the children of intermarriage where dad is Jewish and mom is Catholic. I have not yet seen a devoutly Jewish adult emerge from such a marriage. (I… Read more »
I need to get my eyes checked. Almost every Jewish person I’ve ever met looked white to me. Even going on the rather fanciful and outdated three-race division, they’re Caucasian. The idea of Jews as non-white is simply absurd.
If a white country run by degenerates sounds any better to you then no, we are not playing for the same team.
Can we get a multi-ethnic country run by virtuous people?
In the eschaton.
Is that something Catholics have? I have to go look it up!
No the Catholics are left outside in purgatory, only the Protestants get in.
:)
Good one, Bethyada!
MAJOR SJW flag
They are all fakes Ben
fake christians who’s entire goal in life is to manipulate God’s word so as to fit in with the culture
I registered just to comment on this post. Wilson, and conservatives in general, are gigantic hypocrites. Most of this post is taken up with the many-millionth complaint about Bill and Hillary Clinton, but somehow neglects to mention Newr Gingrich, who cheated on both of his previous wives and kept trading up until he found one pretty enough to be named ambassador to the Vatican. (The fact that she didn’t spontaneously combust when presenting her credentials is strong evidence against the existence of God.) Let’s add to the list: Giuliani, Dennis Hastert, David “diapers Vitter, Roger Ailes, Mark Sanford, Larry Craig,… Read more »
Preach it sister! :)
Wait, you promised to stop commenting here. And I quote: “Pastor Wilson, I’m going to throw in the towel and let go of my hope that I can ever have a fruitful discussion with you or any of your red pill followers. I really don’t want to join the critics who have simply written you off as half a brick short of a full load, but I admit defeat. From now on I’ll post my complaints about your harmful and damaging theology on my own blog and facebook. As a courtesy, here is a link. Link removed since you lied… Read more »
John Piper just can’t resist the joke.
Karen, You are defending the rape culture on the left. You are an advocate for rape. Everything else you say is invalid.
He was only listing those in the news. It would’ve been an eternally long blog post to list all the Democrats and all the Republicans ever accused of or proven of sexual harassment or assault.
And your ignorance of Doug’s position on male/female roles is astoundingly arrogant. You must read MeMe to get your mischaracterizations and talking points.
His position on femal roles is that we have one – inside the house scrubbing floors, preferably constantly pregnant.
Karen,
You would be happier there than as an angry feminist screaming at the “Patriarchy.”
No, I absolutely would be miserable.
Of course you would whine about it. You are a feminist after all.
But eventually you would find your stride.
Women are miserable being men. Being a proper woman in the kitchen would make you much happier.
Karen, it is obvious from Doug’s writing and the accomplishments of his female relatives that this claim is plain untrue.
The Pence rule is an attempt of being rightly behaved and not open oneself up for false accusation in an environment where accusations fly easily. You need not agree with it but it is an approach that has been common over centuries: one that tries to behave is a righteous way. The fact that you treat it contemptuously, and you make blatantly false statements about Doug to justify your dislike of him does not speak well to your character.
Thank you, bethyada, for saying what I wanted to.
Are you too proud to scrub floors and have babies?
Piggy backing on Doug’s disclaimer, of course none of the victims deserved what was done to them, but I have never been propositioned or subjected to unwelcome advances (much less sexually assaulted) in the twelve years I have been homeschooling my 8 children….. And I’m not a bad looking lady. My days are stimulating, challenging, exciting and rewarding as I fulfill the role that you disdain – except I never scrub floors!
Karen, you are mischaracterizing what Doug actually says. Are you looking at specific writings that lead you to believe he advocates this?
Karen –
How many of the conservatives on the list were vilified by the press and / or lost or resigned their jobs? How many Republicans are calling on Judge Moore to withdraw?
Is there a similar track record with media and the liberals who have done these things? Mostly crickets, if I remember correctly.
Wilson’s point with the Clintons is that the media knowingly and approvingly gave Bill Clinton a pass on his behavior. They were enablers.
You have a very selective media diet if you think liberals got away with this. Clinton was impeached. I note also that he paid a settlement to Paula Jones even though he actually won at the trial court level. That is hardly skating. David Vitter was re-elected. Trump was elected President and almost everyone who comments here thinks that his behavior was, if not commendable at least not disqualifying. (And please note that he admits sexual assault in the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape.) In response to all this the only thing conservatives have to say is that it’s too dangerous to… Read more »
“As this list shows, conservatives are every bit as likely to be creeps as liberals,” Karen, theology and hyperbole aside, work on your math. Your above list of “right side” lounge lizards has 12. The below list of “left side lounge” lizards has 80+ The math is not “every bit as likely”. Hollywood’s Accused Harassers, Molesters, Rapists – The Rap Sheet, 89 So Far http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/10/25/hollywood-accused-harassers-molesters-rapists-rap-sheet-far/ Finally Karen, where ever you are on the left / right spectrum, what is, or would be your most “disqualifying behavior”? What ever my own may be, it would not be, “being a lounge lizard.”… Read more »
Karen, no hypocrisy at all. I was just listing the names in the current scandals, and have no problem adding to the list. Being from Idaho, I had something to say about Larry Craig at the time, and years before that I had personally confronted Sen. Steve Symms, also from Idaho. No double standard here.
Politics is not a woman’s realm. You don’t know of what you speak. This is painful for you because it’s not FOR you. Let us men, at least the ones capable of thinking clearly, handle this issue so that you don’t have to.
Go on, Ben, show us more of that translucent quality of thought. Show us some truly breath-taking ratiocination. It’s always nice for the ladies to have something to aspire to.
But my point is that you SHOULDN’T aspire to it! Also, I have shown you good logical thinking in several of my comments on this blog. You certainly didn’t refute any of them, other than to tell me how mean I was.
Ben, I think you need to get out more. Have you interacted with highly intelligent women ? Have you met women whose powers of reason, and whose control of their emotions, are just as great as you believe your own to be? What should those women aspire to? If you think the women around you are dumb, how do you know they are not simply humoring you? Playing you for laughs?
Jill, the claim that “women are less rational than men” does not necessarily imply “all women are morons”, any more than the claim “men are less nuturing” implies “men are all jerks”. It’s a statement about averages and tendencies, and an accurate one so far as it goes. So what’s your objection?
Farinata, I understand about outliers and the limits of global assertions. Ben, however, wants to use such an assertion as a reason why women should have no political voice, He sees women as incapable of the clear thought required to participate in the political process. I am curious about the basis for this assertion. It is not raw IQ data. There is nothing like the gap one would require to establish that men by and large excel women at critical thinking, problem solving, and capacity for abstract thought. The areas where men seem to have a clear advantage (for example,,… Read more »
The issue of gender and IQ is interesting. Overall, the IQ averages are that men are about 5 points higher than women. But that is a very un-nuanced point of view. Men have a huge disparity. We have most of the brilliant geniuses and most of the mentally retarded. The number of males with very high IQs is large and the number males with very low IQs is large. The middle range is quite low. The women’s IQ chart is more stable. They have slightly more low IQ women than high IQ women, but it is pretty close to a… Read more »
Grab a random man and a random woman and the odds are higher that the woman is smarter, because more women have higher IQs than men in terms of raw numbers.
Your first 3 paragraphs were reasonable, but this is not true. If the mean for men is 5 points higher than women and they are roughly normally distributed but with men having larger standard deviations then your example will have odds that the man has a higher IQ.
But they are not roughly normally distributed. The men are distributed towards the extremes.
I might be wrong, I am not a statistician, but my understanding is that the average works out where the raw number of men who have a lower IQ than a women is low than the opposite.
Higher, I meant higher in the last sentence.
I told you I am not a statistician.
The men are distributed towards the extremes.
This means that they have thicker tails than a “normal distribution”. But the distribution is still roughly normal, not bimodal.
Bimodal?
Alright, you win. I am officially out of my league. ????
It’s not as fancy as it sounds. Take a whole bunch of numbers, for example, women’s height in inches for 20 women. If you list all the numbers, the one that occurs most often (e.g. 63 inches) is the mode. When you put this on a graph, it will look like a mountain and the mode will be at the top. But if you added in the heights for 20 men, you might find that there are two numbers that occur an equal number of times. 63 might be the most commonly occurring number for women, while 68 might be… Read more »
correct
It is interesting that Ben disapeared as soon as Jill and you gentlemen started to have a logical and rational discussion.
“Wilson advocates for patriarchy, a system which gives women no automony or freedom and at the same time blames us for everything wrong with the world. ”
If you’re just going to lie about people, it’s hard to engage with you.
What autonomy does patriarchy allow women? Wilson believes that wives are to submit to their husbands and that husbands have the power to enforce submission; that daughters should stay at home until Pop decides who she marries and then sells her to his choice. ( Yes, I’m aware that Wilson uses different words to describe the transfer of property from one male to another. His euphemisms don’t change the substance of the transaction.). Tell me, what are women allowed to do?
women are free to do as they wish
no woman is obligated to do anything.
Anything she does is not out of duty but out of a thankfulness that God dies for us and saved us terrible people from our past and future sins.
Doug is not setting up a cult, do not falsely accuse
Karen, I’m currently editing a book of Pastor Wilson’s wedding homilies. Over and over and over again, he makes it clear that submission is not browbeaten, slavish servility. Over and over and over, he makes it crystal clear that husbands do not have the right to enforce submission. His daughters did not stay home till they were married. He did not pick out their husbands for them (though they delighted in his guidance and protection). What are women allowed to do? In his wife’s and daughters’ cases, they’ve written books, owned businesses, taught school, taught and counseled other women, hosted… Read more »
What you describe is an egalitarian marriage. If the wife gets to decide when she will submit to an order, that is not real submission. Either admit you are egalitarians and stop telling others to follow rules you don’t apply to yourselves or start actually enforcing the rules you apply to others to yourselves.
No, it’s not egalitarianism. These women don’t decide on a case by case basis whether they’ll submit; they committed to submission once for all when they vowed to obey their husbands. Their husbands, quite unequally, made no such vow and keep no such practice.
If that is indeed the case, then those women who exercise public roles are deceiving others. Most husbands are brutes who would beat their wives if they could get a2ay with it. Either you have no public life at all or you are a feminist and should admit it. You lie to when you suggest otherwise.
I could say that most women would spout slanderous stereotypes and willfully deny clear evidence if they could get away with it, but I wouldn’t want to judge all women by the sort of bigotry you are exhibiting.
A few commenters will remember Chris Witmer’s award-winning haiku, which was written more than a decade ago (!!!):
You don’t resemble
My caricature of you
Because you’re lying.
“Most husbands are brutes who would beat their wives if they could get a2ay with it.”
MeMe, is that you?
Even if a father made his daughters stay home until they were married
he has the authority to do so
you seem to have a problem with God.
Sort that out
everything will fall into place
Karen, if you take time to explore the actual position of Pastor Doug and other Christians of his sort, you will find what Kyriosity described very common. It is very widespread for conservative Christians to make a distinction between a role of submission and enforcement of that submission. With the exception of some stories I have heard about fringe weirdos, I have never known a Christian church to teach men should enforce submission somehow. Not only is this position (submission without enforcement) possible, but among healthy Christian marriages it is the norm. In this same vein, since I assume you… Read more »
Give it up, Valerie. Karen will badger you until you admit what every single one of us knows to be the truth.. I can’t remember the names of Doug’s daughters (perhaps they are so unimportant that they don’t even have names), but I remember perfectly well that he sold the last one for a herd of camels and a Turkish rug.
Don’t be silly, Jill. It was a Persian rug.
Can you not tell the difference between being under authority and having no autonomy?
There is no difference. Autonomy means having the ability to make one’s own decisions; being under authority denies that ability. You put women in a position of great responsibility with zero ability to actually perform the tasks necessary to fulfill that responsibility.
Christ had no autonomy?
General reply to all, although I clicked reply to bethyada: First, Karen is obviously an intellectually dishonest troll. Some have observed this, but whatever, that’s what she is. Second, please people, just give it up. Complementarians of the baby boomer stripe (after all, baby boomers invented the term) have been desperately trying to explain to women like Karen what they mean by submission. Yet, they are still misunderstood. Let me rephrase that, they are still “misunderstood.” Do you people really think Karen has never heard that explanation before? I heard it as a kid 25 years ago. Why am I… Read more »
Philippians 2:5+ “ Let Christ himself be your example as to what your attitude should be. For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God’s equal, but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man. And, having become man, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal. That is why God has now lifted him so high, and has given him… Read more »
Then nobody in the world has autonomy, including all the men, except a handful of absolute dictators. Because EVERYONE is under authority.
Even the pope has to go to confession and be assigned a penance like any ordinary Catholic.. That reminds me that Judge Scalia’s son is a priest. When asked if he went to his son for confession, he said something like “Are you crazy?”
Pastor Doug, I agree with most everything here, but the condemnation of conservatives who voted for Trump seems a little broad-brush. If you are referring to the Falwell crowd who were actually excited about Trump, point taken. But I don’t believe I made a deal with the devil in voting for Trump, to put it mildly. I believe our government is an abomination and anything that slows down it’s seemingly inevitable career toward the abyss is a good thing. If I had done nothing (and I’m sorry to have to point out voting third party is hardly more than doing… Read more »
It may be prudent for Doug to clarify. Voting for the lesser of two evils is not the same and advocating for Trump in the primaries.
That said, I would not have held my nose and voted for Trump, I would’ve voted another option.
I wrote in a Giant Meteor to end us all in fiery conflagration. My wife voted for Darkwing Duck. Though, being conservatives Washington state, the lesser of two evils argument doesn’t carry us very far since our presidential votes are largely metaphorical constructs.
Justin,
The idea of “conservatives Washington state” brought a smile to my face.
Yes, some in my church also refused to vote for Trump even at the end; I have no problem with that, as I think this was a difficult choice to make. As for holding my nose, the blatant wickedness of our political system and surrounding culture leads me to a different picture of the situation. I don’t hold my nose any more. I just walk around a field of stinking, rotting corpses, nose wide open, having acclimated to the smell of death and Hell. I expect horrendously wicked options for president. If some righteous person actually made it to the… Read more »
Dave, I was talking about the leaders who broke for him when there were still other options.
Ok. My mistake. Thanks for clarification.
That is not what you said. Just be honest.
not a single candidate but trump promised to protect America from evil immigrants.
The first job of a man is to protect his family
not voting for trump was the SATANIC option
everyone else was fine with our families getting raped by mexicans and muslims
We need a new culture. I believe God is giving us an unprecedented opportunity to make one. First comes repentance. Then we get to work.
Yesterday, I was informed by one of MeMe’s blog followers that her “blog is excellent”. He followed that up soon afterward with this: “A general fault would be to refuse to consider criticism. IB does not do that. Another general fault would be unkind criticism. IB does not do that either.” I laughed heartily when I read that! It would be hard to find better evidence that, as someone has said, “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time.” For anyone interested and willing to go there, MeMe… Read more »
I fell for the clickbait just to glance at the comments. I saw this: “Of all the things I think about when I read your posts, IB, it is never that you are a proud person who needs to be rebuked. I think you are consistently transparent about the hard things in your life and the things you’ve struggled against. I think you have a Biblical view that you weave in all your posts, regardless of the subject. ”
Either that’s sarcasm or we have a real case of Dr. Jekyl and Mrs. Heidi, as Jill once said.
JP,
The same commenter also said “Keep on, IB. You bring clarity and balance where it is much needed.”
Perhaps “IB” and “MeMe” are pseudonyms of “Dr. Jekyll” and “Mrs. Heidi”. :)
I also saw her blog on confirmation bias, though I just briefly scanned it. But really? Anything DW says about women (as a whole or individually) that’s short of “they’re perfect angels!” is proof of the tyrannical, red pill, misogynous patriarchy that’s completely taken over the church.
Not entirely, JP. Her particular outrage seems to be directed against the women on this board, none of whom are willing to uphold the narrative of women’s perpetual victimhood. I have often found it interesting that MeMe has zero compassion for the women with whom she interacts on this board.
Some of whom are (previous) victims.
OK, I find this incredibly offensive on her part. She left here voluntarily; she was not forced out. If she wants to tangle with you, she should do it here. Naming you on an entirely different blog and criticizing you to people who know nothing of the the history and who will take her comments as gospel is simply wrong. So far as I know, you are not a public figure. If she slanders you, she does not have the defense of fair comment. MeMe needs to be careful what she is doing.
JS – It is offensive, at least to normal thinking people. But the polite approach is slowly going by the wayside with the new protocols in social media, which are not real communication, they are bits of commentary without the face and voice. Within the blogoshpere decorum is soon tossed aside, people tend to shed their concern for politeness…it’s a slow creep that eventually becomes the new modus operandi. Most people commenting do not know each other yet that barrier is torn down under the auspices of “being right” or correcting by reading into their comment and inferring mindset. The… Read more »
It is all very difficult. But it still seems to me that, unless I make a comment on MeMe’s blog, she should not write about anything I have written in response to someone else’s blog. If I had my own blog, it would be fair comment. (I am speaking hypothetically as she has not written about me.) It just doesn’t strike me as either ethical or charitable. A person could be vilified by name and never even know about it. And it is calling for the support of people who have heard only one side of the dispute. It offends… Read more »
Jill,
Rather than being offended, I hope that the Spirit will move in her to recognize the truth. Perhaps her post reflects that.
MeMe doesn’t want to tangle with me (or anyone else who disagrees with her). This is a case in point. In doing this on her blog, she can control the narrative (she recently put me on moderation there). I think her blog and followers is a mutual admiration society, thus it is a safe place for her.
“Perhaps her post reflects that.” Let’s hope, but playing nice grandmother on her site while being the wicked witch here only makes things worse. It allows her to rationalize her sins and be in a “no lose” situation (in her eyes).
I believe that some people really do need safe spaces, and for that reason I have never spoken any words of disagreement on the few times I’ve posted on MeMe’s blog. Even if I got past moderation, it wouldn’t feel right to invade her space with words she would consider hostile and abusive. I don’t believe you need a safe space. Nonetheless, it is wrong to criticize you by name and encourage her readers to join in abusing you when they know nothing about what she has said to you on this blog. To me it seems like playing dirty… Read more »
Jill,
MeMe disagrees on the safe space, having added another comment saying “I do not need a safe place”, although I’m not certain how that is consistent with the idea that some things are “simply too painful for me to deal with”.
Having seen over time what MeMe has said about various people on her blog, I do not share your thinking about invading her space.
Deal with the devil? Prett you sure unless you are advocating we stand against every sheriff does am deathly soldier without a practicing Christians sexuality ethic, You might want to back down. Or at least condemn this edit Christians who made a deal with Satan becuase some of rhe Most qualified people to enforce the law arent believers. Oddly though in spite of this massively deal with Satan just to keep people From getting raped , robed and murdered and the rule of law maintained , Christian leader and stay silent. Woe on the church for supporubf non Christians in… Read more »
Luken, if you use your Facebook, WordPress, or Google account to post here, you will be able to edit your comments. I’m afraid I can’t get past your typos and autocorrects to even decipher what you are saying, much less respond to it.
Sorry, somehow my wordpress is not working overseas. I assumed it had spell checked from my phone and just posted. Here is what I said. Deal with the devil? Unless you are advocating we stand against every sheriff or soldier without a practicing Christian sexual ethic, you might want to back down. Or at least condemn these squishy Christians who made a deal with Satan because some of the most qualified people to enforce the law aren’t believers. Oddly though in spite of this massive deal with Satan just to keep people from getting raped, robbed and murdered and the… Read more »
Lukan, I offered the same objection to Doug above and he clarified that he was referring to Christian leaders who supported Trump even when there were other options.
Thanks for the repost, Luken. I’m sure it was a nuisance to do so, but I really couldn’t make heads nor tails of the first one! ????
Run Donald Trump against John Piper 10 times and I’ll vote for Trump every time. Trump understands that the purpose of a statesman is to provide against preventable evils, not invite them. He exhibits concentric vs telescopic loyalty. He understands that actions have consequences that outweigh virtue signaling. He also tends to tell uncomfortable truths in a way that enrages our enemies. We’d be happy to vote for a Christian when we find one that isn’t working against us as a useful idiot or cynical opportunist for the coalition of the fringes.
Trump understands nothing apart from self-aggrandizement. Statesmanship and loyalty are among the things he understands least. I didn’t know John Piper was running for political office.
“Trump understands nothing apart from self-aggrandizement. Statesmanship and loyalty are among the things he understands least” How could you possibly say that? Because his style is less polished than you’d like? Or because he has been right many more times than not (he was wire-tapped, Hillary is crooked…the list goes on. ) All I know is [for recent examples] the China/Asian trip went extremely well (especially when considering his letting those powers know America will not be messed with and the adults are running the show), the economy is up, and Congress is being shown for what it is (R… Read more »
Is “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” relevant here? I can understand the dilemma for evangelicals as to whether they should have voted for Trump or not, but if they were living out their faith day by day, then this is chiefly want the NT requires of them – these are the things that are God’s. That is not in and of itself affected by a more ‘secular’ political decision, the things of Caesar. On a differing note, one thing I do like about DW is his exposure (as… Read more »
I think you are implying a misinterpretation of “render unto Caesar.” To claim that ANYTHING belongs to Caesar and not God would have been nonsensical from the perspective of Jesus or any other faithful Jew. Jesus draws attention to the blasphemous inscription on the coin (claiming Caesar as the “Son of the Divine Augustus”), and the blasphemous image on the coin (strictly observing Jews saw such images as idolatrous, especially in union with the inscription), to point out the compromises the Pharisees are already making. That shows exactly where loyalty to Caesar should stand for any loyal Jew. Jesus then… Read more »
I’m thinking of the left kíngdom and right kingdom idea. The right kingdom is the kingdom of God manifested in the church, whereas the left kingdom is government as instituted by God for the benefit of all. What goes on in the church is laid down by the NT writers, but government and politics belong more to the individual conscience of believers, though hopefully informed by the NT. The NT is not strictly speaking a political document, certainly not party political. There does seem to be some blurring of this distinction. Speaking from across the Pond, the association of, for… Read more »
My initial comment was only meant to focus on the thrust of “render unto Caesar what he deserves”, which I believe is a critique, not an endorsement, of support for Caesar. Two Kingdoms theory is a much more complicated matter. I think there is some root of truth within it but it so often seems to go in a problematic direction. I will simply say that I don’t believe that anything, including a political vote, can ever be outside of “the things that are God’s”, and the spread of the Kingdom of God should be the primary factor in any… Read more »
Whether or not you believe that Roy Moore had unwanted sexual interactions with teenage girls, the fact that he has been lying about whether he targeted teenage girls for relationships is almost impossible to deny at this point. A Gadsden police officer has now come forward, by name and interviewed on air, to state that the police department knew of the rumors that Moore liked young girls. Though there was never a formal complaint, officers were advised that the situation at the mall had reached a harassment level and he was not welcome there, and that they were also asked… Read more »
Yet Moore emphatically denies the assertions and was also elected to multiple terms. If the police knew of his [supposed] predilections then why didn’t anyone say anything until two weeks ago? Serious holes in all this late in the game maneuvering.
I couldn’t get past the hair of that former police officer. I thought I was watching an SNL skit.
I wish someone could round up a bunch of vetted people who knew and worked around Moore in the late 70s/early 80s, put them in a room, get their stories, see what matches up…and not let anyone get their 15 minutes of fame on CNN or their favorite left-leaning site. It’s really hard to know who wants attention, who has an agenda and who’s telling the truth.
This has been answered over and over. The vast majority of people don’t go running to the press to spread dirt about a candidate. This is almost certainly even more true among Alabamans over 55. Especially when a large majority are very conservative, and have either personal reasons or community reasons for not being “that guy”. And for the girls who were specifically assaulted, such sexual assault was virtually never reported in the 1970s. The term “date rape” wouldn’t even have been known to the people in question yet at that time. And of course a teenager reporting against the… Read more »
“When a Deputy D.A. goes on television and says it was common knowledge in the courthouse that Roy Moore liked high school girls rather than girls his own age, shouldn’t she have coworkers coming out of the woodwork to contradict her?” I don’t know. I do know most people don’t like public speaking, and are even more terrified of getting behind a TV camera or having their name broadcast all over newspapers and the interwebz. I’ve been places where TV reporters are looking to interview people. At the most, about 1 in 20 (at the most) willingly walk up to… Read more »
“In the end, the squeaky wheels always get the grease.”
…and the desperate sell their souls for cash. I suspect there are enough people who dislike Moore who would do anything to keep him out of office, even if that means a nut gets the seat.
“I don’t know. I do know most people don’t like public speaking, and are even more terrified of getting behind a TV camera or having their name broadcast all over newspapers and the interwebz. I’ve been places where TV reporters are looking to interview people. At the most, about 1 in 20 (at the most) willingly walk up to the camera. I imagine people are even less likely to get in the spotlight when it’s decades later–and they’re trying to quietly enjoy their retirement.” I absolutely agree with that, and believe it is a large factor behind why it took… Read more »
“Someone called in and said he knew Beverly Nelson. He thought she was a decent woman, but said she had serious financial problems. He couldn’t prove she was paid off, but thought she was desperate enough if someone offered her money. Did he have solid proof? No. Was he any less reliable than most others coming out of the woodwork? I don’t think so. I mean is anyone vetting these mall employees–making them show pay stubs from 1980 or something?” That isn’t even an accusation though. He just said that Beverly Nelson had financial problems. Even if he is reliable,… Read more »
J – Still begs the question, “Why now?”…not last year, not 20 years ago, not before any of his other election runs, not ever. But exactly at this point in time directly before an important election. Coincidence? There are no coincidences. Smells rotten to me.
Paul, I think you can see that MANY victims are coming out with accusations right now, and not 20 years ago. It’s a clear societal trend that it is okay to say certain things in public now that were not being said before, especially concerning men in positions of power who take advantage of women. Do you believe the accusations against Franken or the Hollywood figures? Why now? Specifically, the Washington Post reporter who initially began bringing this issue to light had to do real investigative journalism in Moore’s hometown. That kind of attention, where competent national journalists go away… Read more »
Jonathan,
” I don’t care what the standard is, I just don’t see any possible explanation ….”
You’re going to believe what you want to believe.
So forget about me, explain why so many other people believe the women as well. Explain why even conservatives and Trump voters from Roy Moore’s hometown have come out with accusations against him.
If you want me to believe something else, come up with a believable narrative and provide evidence for it. I’m asking you to stop the insults and focus on the issue.
Jonathan, Forget about you? Not a chance. You are a prime example of the problem. Why do so many people believe that Moore is guilty? The most believable explanation is that they are ignorant of the weakness of the evidence. But you consider the evidence to be practically unassailable, so you will discard that possibility. I and others have provided narratives that we think are believable. You continue to provide reasons you think all of these alternatives are unbelievable. I have seen no evidence that your opinion, intelligence, or knowledge is better than ours. Instead, the evidence of your statements… Read more »
You start by saying that the fact that so many people disagree with you is because they are ignorant of the evidence that you are right, and then you accuse me of being arrogant because I think I’m right. And then you state that it’s insulting for me to think my knowledge is better than yours. You do realize the irony, right? And I’m still waiting for this supposed narrative that explains the available evidence better than the obvious explanation. You say, “it’s a conspiracy”, but I’m still waiting to hear who is orchestrating this conspiracy, how they roped in… Read more »
This is a great way to kill intelligent discourse, OKR
“And for the girls who were specifically assaulted, such sexual assault was virtually never reported in the 1970s. The term “date rape” wouldn’t even have been known to the people in question yet at that time. ” Where are the stats on rape and sexual assault reports in the 1970s? Rapes were reported then, and I’m sure some occurred in the context of a date or other encounter that began consensually. I first heard “date rape” in the early 1990s. As soon as it became a popular term, a girl I knew with an out-of-wedlock child said she “might” have… Read more »
You say that “you are sure some occurred in the context of a date or other encounter that began consensually”, but I’m not sure why you think that number is significant. Here’s a good test case. Find another person of power (Moore was the D.A. at the time) who was prosecuted for date rape in the 1970s in a case not involving forceful penetrative sex. Do you believe cases like this were widely reported? Why would Hollywood figures be able to get away with such things, but not the people who actually ran the enforcement of the law? At that… Read more »
Jonathan,
“Moore was the D.A. at the time”
“And of course a teenager reporting against the actual D.A. would be even more unlikely.”
No, he was not “the D.A.” or “the actual D.A.” of Etowah County. He was either an Assistant D.A. or a Deputy D.A.
‘The term “date rape” wouldn’t even have been known to the people in question yet at that time.’
I see you are now conflating the sexual assault alleged against Moore with “date rape”.
Do these items matter? Absolutely. Your credibility goes down every time you are inaccurate.
Yes, assistant district attorney is correct, thank you for that. However, I wasn’t conflating sexual assault with date rape, I was pointing out that in an era when even date rape was largely not considered “rape”, anything less than penetrative rape by force typically went unreported. Maybe in every single comment I I could list the exact allegation or come up with some new term like “unwanted sexual attention given to a young teenager in the context of a date”, but I really don’t think that’s necessary. I’m not worried about confusing anyone because everyone participating in this conversation is… Read more »
“The previous paragraph does not mean that Tweeden “deserved” whatever Franken did.” So in light of: “But Leeann Tweeden, his first accuser, was not simply “a model.” She was a woman who would take her clothes off for the camera, working for a one-handed magazine—one that catechized young men everywhere, teaching them how to behave like aspiring Al Frankens.” Did those “young men everywhere” deserve whatever Tweeden did? Not exactly sure how to phrase this with moral equivalency.
So if the young women do not “deserve” whatever someone did, do the young men “deserve” it?
This post is fantastic, and though it draw a partison line he is not super biased or just blindly attacking things for being leftist.
One thing I might point out in relation to Roy Moore: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a1586e8e4b025f8e932c45f
its huffpo
that website is leftist and anti male
only castrated males read that trash
Hahahaha, well I’m very not castrated, it’s a very reliable source.
Really insightful points about the cultural moment. Huge problem with one point, however. Whether a candidate is evil is distinct from whether they serve your interests. Many Christians don’t think they did wrong by electing an evil man, and so they cannot be accurately accused of “intending to do evil so that good may come,” like democrats lying about sexual harassment to keep abortion. Now Doug may think that it is objectively wrong to elect evil people regardless of whose interests they serve, and hence that, regardless of their intention, Christians, in fact, did evil so that good would come.… Read more »
Re my previous comment. That is not to say that Trump has ended up serving the right interests. But, nevertheless, it is probably false to accuse his Christian supporters of “making a deal with the devil” in a way that is parallel to doing evil acts in order to serve the interests of a party defined by its opposition to those very acts (which makes it the very exemplar of “doing evil so that good may come”). The success of the accusation relies on the assumption that “I vote for candidate X with character trait Y” entails “I endorse/am willing… Read more »
In Iraq, Christians depended on Saddam Hussein to protect them from genocide. In Syria, they are protected by Bashar al-Assad. Vladimir Putin outlawed the propagandizing of children to accept homosexuality. From any broader historical or cultural view, the “deal with the devil” bit is pretty silly.
I’m afraid your examples invalidate your point. No brutal dictatorship lasts forever, and the people’s memories always outlive them. Trusting in an evil man rather than in God is one of the things which ensures that your witness will have difficulty spreading beyond your own community (if it even manages to survive there once worldly aims become the priority). And collaborating with a dictator is the kind of move that helps to ensure the destruction of your community when that dictator falls. That dictator will fall, and you who sought help in him will fall, and you will perish together.… Read more »
Jonathan, you bring up two distinct points. One is a great one to make; another not as much. (1) You claim that electing evil men always defeats the purpose it is intended to serve. This is a great point because it argues with Christian Trump supporters on their own terms. Basically, you’re saying the following: “Look, you Christian Trump supporters. You want to vote for Trump because X will come about as a result. However, successfully electing Trump will bring about not-X.” I’m not sure this has been the case, however, since for many Christians electing Trump was to serve… Read more »
Jonathan will only ever tell the truth if its in the service of a greater lie. If you are white, Christian, male and conservative he will always present the moral option as that which reduces your social solidarity, political power and material well-being. When the conversation turn to black Americans he will present as the moral solution that which increases their social solidarity and shifts political power and material goods from you to them. People are catching on to this game and that’s why you are seeing people instinctively rallying around Roy Moore when he is attacked by a Christian… Read more »
+1
Barnie, instead of ignoring my entire argument in order to insult me instead, can you come up with an example of your claim that we can discuss? I don’t see myself in your comment. I do not believe that increased “material well-being” is what the Black community needs, I don’t desire for any community to increase their race-based “social solidarity”, and I don’t think that shifting political power from one faction governing on tribal terms to another would solve anything. However, I can imagine that you don’t read my posts carefully and got confused by something I said somewhere, so… Read more »
Jonathan, (i) Re (1) A SCOTUS with the right “political tilt” is the virtue to which the right “moral direction of America” corresponds. I don’t see how this is relevant. (ii) Re (1) DT’s Trump supporters don’t need to think they are making compromises if by compromise you mean “do something evil that good may come.” This, again, is to beg the question against his supporters. (iii) Re (2) I interpreted your point in the only way I could think that would be relevant to Christian support for DT. I don’t know what your gloss is supposed to say about… Read more »
Sorry for the mistaken enumeration.
Thanks Dan, I think you statement helps us get deeper into the roots. Regarding (1), I don’t believe that any Christian really has as their ultimate goal “electing Trump was to serve a single purpose: to keep SCOTUS from shifting left.” It is not holy or good simply for SCOTUS to have a certain political tilt, the only reason any Christian would do that wold be to serve some other goal, such as influencing the moral direction of America, working towards true justice, or having mercy on the vulnerable. I would suggest that the compromises that are being in order… Read more »
Jonathan, (i) Re (1) A SCOTUS with the right “political tilt” is the virtue to which the right “moral direction of America” corresponds. I don’t see how this is relevant. (ii) Re (1) DT’s Trump supporters don’t need to think they are making compromises if by compromise you mean “do something evil that good may come.” This, again, is to beg the question against his supporters. (iii) Re (2) I interpreted your point in the only way I could think that would be relevant to Christian support for DT. I don’t know what your gloss is supposed to say about… Read more »
Jonathan, In fairness, not all the Trump supporters *suddenly* became Putin fans. Some of the already were, and that had and continues to have something to do with their support for Trump.
Do you think our deposing Saddam Hussein, on a false pretext at that, served anyone’s best interest? Or that bombing Assad’s forces does? Or that U.S. is in much of a position to serve as Putin’s moral critic? I don’t. I realize all that may be beside the point you were making.
You are correct -there were a certain % of Trump supporters who already supported Putin. But there was a strong swing in support for Putin that occurred over such a short time period, and was so closely tied to Trump supporters specifically, that I think it’s hard to say that Trump didn’t influence a large number of people towards considering one of our enemies our “ally”. I believe that deposing Hussein and bombing Assad are certainly both a net negative. I don’t think that any “nation” can be a moral critic, so it’s useless to ask that question – we… Read more »