Patterns

Well, I’d finally have a reason to watch ESPN.

I’m a big believer in Intent Is Not Magic, I can only go by what you actually say and do, and if it walks, talks, and quacks like a racist using racist dogwhistle word, it’s racist.

Somewhat off-topic. Everytime you think they’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel in the “It’s like X but Christian!” media they hit a new low. I give you the Christian version of a Judd Apatow movie, look upon it and despair, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx-kg2xYznw&feature=player_embedded

 
Also, just out of curiosity, why do some people use “Democrat” as an adjective rather than “Democratic”?  Is it a regional thing or is it meant to me some kind of insult?  

 
It’s Fox News-speak and yes, it’s an insult. It’s a way of denying Democrats all legitimacy, including the ability to name themselves. It’s a fairly recent extension of the demonization of the words “liberal” and “progressive”. 

It’s incredibly stupid and childish and intentionally annoying as hell and I admit that I dismiss pretty much everything said by people who use it. IMO anyone who is so Right Wing-brainwashed that they use “Democrat” that way isn’t worth talking to. 

To expound further upon the Ted Haggard cameo in this terribad Christian imitation of a Judd Apatow movie…

I’m intrigued by the fact that his role is to pop in and warn the protagonist against “just doing what he wants”. The protagonist, after all, is an ordinary unmarried young heterosexual man contemplating the possibility of having premarital sex with some ordinary unmarried young heterosexual woman, while Ted Haggard famously had drug-fueled sex with a male prostitute while married to a woman and employed as a gay-bashing pastor. Is is the belief of the filmmakers that both situations are equally shameful? Are they implying that the protagonist, if released from all of his church’s rules about sex, would do something sufficiently scandalous to make the news? Or do they subscribe to the notion that premarital sex is the first step down a slippery slope that inevitably ends with rampant cheating and public shame?

Next on Fox: Dog bites man

@TooManyJens
 

I can’t speak for people of color, but I find the constant “othering” of
women far more exhausting and disheartening than the occasional
instances of people openly stating their belief in our inferiority. For
one thing, the latter is much less socially acceptable, and it feels
like we’re making progress against it. The former — not so much.

The overt sexism may be less exhausting and disheartening precisely because it happens less often, not because it’s truly less pernicious. As a woman I’ve necessarily spent time in various subcultural contexts that purport to be egalitarian but actually “other” women, but I’ve also had experience in a subculture that overtly regards women as not as capable of men and not counted in the word “anyone” (as in “if anyone has any thoughts on this, we’d like to hear them”). I’ll take the soft bigotry. If they know they’re not supposed to be doing it, you can at least call them on it.

Regarding the use of “Democrat” instead of the adjective “Democratic,” it has a long and dishonorable history. I believe it may go back to McKinley. It was certainly in use in Joseph McCarthy’s time, and it had as its specific purpose to insult Democrats. You can see the difference between the noun and the adjective as a modifier if you compare the sentence, “This building houses the Swedish community center” with “This building houses the Swede community center.” And if you still don’t get it, try it with “Jewish” and “Jew”–I think the difference will become pretty obvious.

I’m old enough to remember the rumors when Kennedy ran for president. They involved things like forced conversions as well as him taking orders from the Pope. (That was before we found out what John XXIII was like – if there’s a modern pope who deserves to be a saint, he’s at the top of my list.)

Maybe they think Kennedy was a trick to get us off our guard, so that when the next Catholic president started the forced conversions we wouldn’t see it coming?

Do you even read what you type?  ”Hey, you are so wrong to assume he is anti-black.  He might just be anti-Muslim”.

And that’s quite different, since race is about how you look, while religion is about how you think. Conversion to a religion typically results in at least _some_ amount of behavioral modification. This very blog often discusses what kind of behavior Christian faith requires from its adherents.

Now, I’m not going to get into a discussion about what Islam requires of its adherents – I don’t know, and I don’t know anyone who would but wouldn’t have an agenda. Thus, I can’t say if fearing someone because they’re a muslim makes sense or not – I suspect not, but I can’t say for sure. However, based on above, I say it’s notwhere near the same level of stupid as fearing someone because of the amount of melanin in their skin, or the shape of their eyelids.

You may, of course, categorically declare that all religions are equally harmless; but then why criticize Premillenial Dispensionalism, or Anti-Antichristism, as this blog does? And you can certainly say that the fears about Islam have become somewhat hysterical as of late, which is precisely why I don’t think you can draw conclusions simply because no previous president’s lack of official Easter declaration drew no notice.

Not saying that this isn’t completely stupid, but still.

‘Now, I’m not going to get into a discussion about what Islam requires of its adherents…’
Submission to God – being the primary definition of the term Islam, though ‘peace’ and ‘way to peace’ are other meanings. What the term requires from those who consider themselves Muslims seems pretty clear, actually.

I’m old enough to remember the rumors when Kennedy ran for president. They involved things like forced conversions as well as him taking orders from the Pope.

Which of course would be unconsitutional and any Supreme Court would be legally mandated to prevent that from becoming law under the Non-Establishment clause.  Not that it seems to stop the persecuted hedgemons Fred has discussed before, who think that the U.S. should be based on religious laws, but only their religious laws and any president who gives the appearance of not being one of their spiritual kin can easily be painted as a threat.  Which brings us back to Obama.  Despite, you know, being a Christian, his willingness to show outreach to other faiths and make claims that America is not a Christian nation tend to get those persecuted hedgemons to paint him as a threat.  Only they cannot address that directly, so they use “Muslim” as a short hand for “someone dark skinned who is not One of Us.”  Some of these people even think he will try to enshrine Sharia law, which as mentioned, would be illegal and shotdown anyway. 

On that, I cannot speak authoritatively, as it was well over a decade prior to my birth.  Though what I can infer is that the Republician party back then did not have the same kind of aggressive epistemic closure as it does now, nor did it have the same kind of media clout that it does now with things like Fox News.  I would not be surprised if that died a little faster back then than it did now.  However, JFK was assassinated, and I cannot help but feel like that tended to overwrite earlier media impressions of him. 

Nice Strawman you got there. Shame if something were to, ah, happen to it. No one has even remotely said anything of the sort.

Good thing I haven’t claimed they have, now isn’t it? I’ve simply speculated on possible answers to my post, and tried to answer them. A “FAQ” if you will.

But nice Mafia reference anyway.

Anyways,
consider this. Whether Islam is a terrorist religion is immaterial on
this point.

Indeed it is. Whether the concept of a “terrorist religion” makes more sense than “terrorist race”, however, is _very_ relevant.

If Faux News and all the rest had tried to claim a white
president was a Muslim., they’d lose what little credibility they still
retain.

Making claims based on alternative Earths or possible futures certainly is a convenient way of being undisprovable, now isn’t it?

Because most people just simply would not BELIEVE that a white
person could be a Muslim. Muslims are “dark-skinned people” after all,
people of Arabic or African heritage (I doubt most of them really
comprehend that, say, Indonesia is heavily Muslim, but they’re still
darker skinned). The only reason that the claim of him being a Muslim is
given ANY credibility whatsoever is because of his skin color.

Said claim _isn’t_ being given any credibility outside the lunatic fringe. The guy _was_ elected as a president, after all.

If
Hillary Clinton had won the election over Obama, no one would even
remotely take seriously the claim that she was a secret Muslim.

Again, making claims based on how things went on alternative timelines is a sure way of not being proven wrong, ever.

Communists, Catholics, atheists…all charges that have been leveled at
white people, but they only had any success because that’s what those
groups were perceived to be: white.

The problem here is that you Americans consider these “charges”. I’m red till I’m dead.

If your attack on someone only works
because of their skin color, your attack is still based upon their skin
color. If your attack on someone is based upon their skin color, what
do we tend to call it?

And if you fail to prove said “attack” was based on skin color, besides just speculating that it might be, what have you demonstrated? Besides your own reflex action of shouting “racist!” at every opportunity?