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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/11/2011 12:27 PM (GMT -6) |   | |
Unbelievable. Westboro Baptist Church is going to Tucson to picket the funeral of nine year old Christina Greene, killed in the shooting, [i]because she was Catholic[/i].
“Westboro Baptist Church, founded by its spiritual leader, Fred Phelps, and run mostly by family members, did not respond to a request for an interview in time for this article. But a flier released by the church about the picket targets the Roman Catholic Church because Christina and her family were members. ‘God hates Catholics!’ the flier, posted on the church’s ‘God Hates Fags’ website, says.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/01/11/arizona.funeral.westboro/
This makes it really hard to continue to use even the word “Christian” to identify myself when there are people in the world like these Baptists who employ the word as well.
Only slightly less disgusting is Keith Olbermann’s comment on MSNBC (Saturday) that attributed the guman’s “death fantasies and dreams of blood lust” to the Tea Party and the Republican Party in general.
Tom
PS A thought passed through my mind this week. I condemned it as judging God, but the thought keeps knocking on my door: "If Jesus doesn't return to the Earth within the week, God will owe the world an apology. Can we please wrap this mess up and settle accounts?"
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 1/11/2011 11:32:48 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel M
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2009
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 1/12/2011 6:27 PM (GMT -6) | | In an act of procrastination in terms of responding to the post-modernism debate...
Tom: Only slightly less disgusting is Keith Olbermann’s comment on MSNBC (Saturday) that attributed the guman’s “death fantasies and dreams of blood lust” to the Tea Party and the Republican Party in general.
Daniel: I'm not sure it's "slightly" less disgusting. In fact, I'm not sure it's disgusting at all...given the obvious mental derrangement of the shooter, and the incredibly violent rhetoric used by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party (I haven't seen anyone critique the republican base generally, just the tea party and Palin, as they are considered outriggers).
This image is one of the images that people are calling into question:
Along with her twitter post of: "Don’t retreat. Instead — RELOAD!"
Both the image and tweet were made on the same day, March 23.
Of course, the spin is now something along the lines of "that image was never meant to invoke the metaphor of guns or violence". Because we all know that cross-hairs are supposed to be associated with crossbows, and RELOAD is obviously a metaphor for cannons. Who would ever think that the metaphor was about guns? And, of course, its just coincidence that some of the targets are blood-red. I mean there's nothing that remotely invokes the metaphor of guns or violence in either the image or tweet.
Does this mean they are responsible for the shooter? Of course not. Is their violent rhetoric and imagery dangerous and possibly affecting the actions of some mentally deranged individuals? Perhaps.
The Huffington Post has an article up, and the brilliance of Palins PR continues to shine through:
said...
"It was simply crosshairs like you'd see on maps." Bruce suggested that they could, in fact, be seen as "surveyor's symbols." Mansour added that "it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent"
Palin and co. are certainly NOT responsible. But their rhetoric and language is questionable at best. And there is certainly a chance that the rhetoric and imagery were connected to the shooters motives. | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel M
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2009
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 1/12/2011 6:33 PM (GMT -6) | | And apparently someone wrote this on Palin's Facebook page:
""It's ok. Christina Taylor Green was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly."" | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/13/2011 8:52 AM (GMT -6) | | Thoughts:
1) Let's see how many Christians "love their enemy" during this time, meaning actively, sorrowfully praying for Jared Loughner...along with everyone else caught up in this tragegy. Let's see if that testimony pans out.
2) Anyone who knows the Great Commandments...and how Jesus talked about the Great Commandment...will not consider Westboro a genuine church to begin with. Any "church" that blatently disregards the Great Commandments is to be ignored/disregarded. 3) I thought that Ken Olbermann's special piece on the tragedy was pretty spot on...in so far as this: Violent rhetoric should no longer be allowed (indulged) by politically active people and to the degree that they fit that category, they disqualify themselves from being taken seriously in political discourse. That just makes common sense to me. Screw all the gun talk! 4) I don't know what's worse. Ms. Palin using the map in the first place, or her aide attempting to BACKTRACK saying that they were "surveyor symbols" instead of "bullseyes"! Either they are very stupid...or they think that the world population are total dunces (which, I suppose, is a form of stupidity.)
An aide to Sarah Palin said images of cross-hairs were never meant to evoke violence, in the Palin camp's first extended comment on yesterday's attack.
" We have nothing whatsoever to do with this," Palin aide. Rebecca Mansour told the talk radio host Tammy Bruce in an interview. "We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights. It was simply cross-hairs like you'd see on maps," she said, suggesting that it is a "surveyor's symbol."
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 1/13/2011 8:00:40 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/13/2011 9:05 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
We're in trouble if we now have to police metaphorical language.
From here...
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I was just emailing with a conservative friend (yes, I have a couple!), and the following idea arose, and I thought it would make for an interesting thought experiment, in light of current events. Take the following two examples of nasty rhetoric: 1. Mike Tomasky is a world-class idiot and a---hole and should go f--- himself. 2. Mike Tomasky doesn't have any problems that a Glock couldn't solve. Which of these is worse? To me, hands down no contest number 2 is worse. Number 1 is just words. Big deal. But number 2 suggests endorsement of violent action. Even though note that number 1 is full of dirty words while number 2 can appear in full in a family newspaper. To the extent that any liberals have talked like number 2 about conservatives, that is beyond the pale and unacceptable. I don't think I've done it. I use big words and I snarl and I sneer and I call people idiots and liars and so forth, but I don't say things like let's have open season on right-wingers, or don't retreat, reload. I don't use that kind of imagery. If I have, I am sorry. But I don't think I have. Guns aren't part of my life, so it's just not the imagery that comes to mind for me. But if guns are part of your life, it may be the imagery that comes to mind, and it's far worse than calling someone a dirty name or a war criminal. And sure it's happened among liberals, but it's worse among conservatives. Check this out, which another friend assembled: *On October 9, 2009, House candidate Robert Lowry of Florida held an event at a Broward County gun range during which he fired at a series of symbolic political targets, including a silhouette with his opponent Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's initials on it.
*On January 10, 2010, Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle spoke of the need for "Second Amendment remedies" to congressional policies, and hinted that such remedies might be needed to address "the Harry Reid problems."
*On May 10, 2010, House candidate Brad Goerhing from California's 11th District wrote on his Facebook page: "If I could issue hunting permits, I would officially declare today opening day for liberals. The season would extend through November 2 and have no limits on how many taken as we desperately need to 'thin' the herd."
*On June 12, 2010, Rep. Giffords' very own Republican opponent Jesse Kelly held an event advertised locally as follows: "Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 With Jesse Kelly." Get that again. Remove Giffords. Shoot an M16.
*On October 21, 2010, Dallas pastor and House candidate Stephen Broden, said the violent overthrow of the U.S. government in 2010 should not be "the first option," but citizens ought to use "any means necessary" and that violence should remain an option "on the table."
These weren't 22-year-old loners or even local talk-radio hosts. These were candidates for Congress! Find me five Democrats from this past election who talked like that about their opponents or their government. Find me one. UPDATE: I can now reveal that said friend is University of Maryland-Baltimore County professor Tom Schaller, who used the list in his Baltimore Sun column that just went up. I got the list from him.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 1/13/2011 9:33:31 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/13/2011 10:31 AM (GMT -6) | | I'm pleading for common sense, that's all. Firing a round through a cardboard sillhouette of a political opponent is beyond common-sense, acceptable, metaphorical speech. I find it offensive apart from any possible third-party misconstrual. But it would be unreasonable to expect us to purge all combative metaphors from competitive contexts like political campaings: "Go get 'em," "Forward march!" "Zero in on the target," "No retreat," and similar talk can't be policed out without near Soviet-like control. Most of the border-line rhetoric if understood through a responsible attention to context would show that it's not implicated in wack-job violent actions--certainly NOTHING we need Congress to begin ammending the Constitution over. Public discourse has to assume and aim at responsible attention to context and sanity, not how mentally deranged or deeply troubled individuals might be prone to misconstrue what nobody intends. There is no obvious limit to how deranged minds can misconstrue language. If that's where the bar is to be, then plainly and obviously non-violent competitive rhetoric is liable and no speech is safe. I might say "Let's all love one another," and a mind deranged through repeated sexual abuse be led to misconstrue my request as an endorsement of the abuse that her personal history taught her "love" was and thus be motivated to take some violent action against me. And whose to say "Oh, Tom, that's a silly example; that's not what we're talking about." Really? Isn't it?
Congress should NOT seek to pass legislation policing this stuff. There are already legal means by which a person could challenge firing rounds through a silhouette of some policital opponent. But to try to DEFINE particular metaphors as INHERENTLY unacceptable won't work. Language doesn't work that way.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 1/13/2011 9:35:27 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/13/2011 10:36 AM (GMT -6) | | 
Common sense. Yeeeeeeeah.
------------------------------
Nice screen grab from @StopBeck on Twitter, highlighting the hypocrisy of the self-styled heir to MLK. Not a photoshop job — he has a random image generator on his site, featuring various photos of himself. This one of course has since been scrubbed, as have so many of Sarah Palin’s Tweets and Facebook postings. Which is weird since they keep telling us they have nothing to be embarrassed or defensive about.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/13/2011 10:49 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Today is Christina's funeral.
D, don't you ever just think, "Come on God! Get this over with. What's the point of dragging the sadness out?"
Not trying to sound cynical or uncaring...but children are murdered, shot, beaten, raped, and violated every day...all over the world. I know of kids gettin' shot and killed in my hood with nothing like this fanfare. Not like this is any less tragic...but it's not any MORE tragic either. Just being honest.
And as far as the Second Coming...I think we'd be better off if Christians would just be Christians. The Kingdom of God is inside of us, after all. Why do we keep waiting for Jesus to "crack the sky" when his very Presence and Power is supposedly ALREADY in all Christians?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/13/2011 11:20 AM (GMT -6) | | When the pain and evil of the world gets a bit much...I go back to helpful words from Corey about EUR...
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Here's how it's working out practically for me. After all, "you'll know a tree by its fruit" and the fruit I'm looking for, and hopefully am beginning to know from the inside, is this:
Love. Since I'm convinced that I'll inevitably and ultimately be spending eternity in the closest of intimacy with these people who have sinned (and continue to sin) against me, I'm determined to live in such a way that looks through and past the sin to see what's most real: this person is captivatingly beautiful to God. This isn't a person that God is ever giving up on. Then, in humble imitation, I do what I see the Father doing. But if I believed (as I did before) that there's a high chance that even God would "give up" on this person, then who am I to think that I could do any better? I don't know how to "endure all things" without assuming UR. No hyperbole. I literally cannot comprehend how to "do" this otherwise.
Joy. I'm drawn here to SK's discourse on "The Road". I'm able to reframe all this present suffering as light and momentary, as an indicator that I'm on the right path toward an eternal weight of glory. For the Joy set before me, I take up my cross. UR helps me here like this: I will spend eternity in the closest of intimacy with this person. Together we'll be able to glorify God that he overcame all sin and misrelation between us!
Peace. Basically, UR removes ultimate fear of loss. There is NOTHING that can happen in this life that separates me -- or the one who sins against me -- from the love of God. God is going to fully fix ALL of this! I can relax in that.
Patience. UR enables me to "zoom out" to see that whatever misrelation or sin is presently going on cannot endure. Only Love endures. Again, I see the Father patiently enduring, and so I humbly imitate him.
Goodness. UR helps me see that God is in the process of refining all of us. There's Good to be found in everyone, for everyone bears God's image, and God is burning away all the other junk. And in myself, too.
Kindness. I can afford to be kind. There is nothing that can happen in this world to leave me ultimately depleted. UR helps me to be assured that God is going to make EVERYTHING right.
Faithfulness. UR help put it all in perspective for me. It's not hard to endure when I'm assured with specificity that this relationship, and this relationship, and this relationship will be made whole. If UR is not true, then it follows that most of my relationships on this planet will NEVER be made whole.
Gentleness. UR alleviates that natural panic and instinct to rise up and fight back. I can know by faith that EVERY misrelation will be healed.
Self Control. Since I can't ultimately be at risk of loss in any sense I don't have to panic, I don't have to protect myself, I don't have to fear.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 1/16/2011 3:08 AM (GMT -6) | | | Tommy: PS A thought passed through my mind this week. I condemned it as judging God, but the thought keeps knocking on my door: "If Jesus doesn't return to the Earth within the week, God will owe the world an apology. Can we please wrap this mess up and settle accounts?"
I use to have a pastor who would say in response to that, "God doesn't need to apologize to anyone."
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/16/2011 10:53 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/16/2011 10:55 AM (GMT -6) | | | I think we have a positive explanation if UR is true. The longer things go on, the more people there will be. The more the merrier ULTIMATELY.
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