Not her personally, of course. Just the stupidity and close-mindedness that she so ably personifies.

Via Sullivan.

71 replies on “The Enemy”

  1. “even if it (a vote for McCain) is a vote against your husbands livelihood as a machinist?

    -the lord will take care of us.”

    Precisely the infallibility at which point the argument ends.

    blargh

  6. That’s my sister.
    And my mother.
    And my grandmother.
    And my Aunt.
    Need I go on?

    I was brave enough to come out of the closet to these people, but none of them know I’m an athiest.

    Yeah, I’m a pussy.

    So many people think these people are “crazy.” They’re just simple and religous. Everything is God’s will and that’s that. As long as they get to heaven when they die, why should anything or anyone else concern them?

    There’s no logic, no reason, and anyone who thinks otherwise is “elitist” and un-American.

    My family refuses to talk politics with me, and that hurts.

  7. Yes, her personally. She is an enemy to me. Not because she support McCain, but because she disrespects and attempts to devalue my religious views (atheism).

  13. Hate to break the Bad News to this ignorant, deluded religious fanatic, but “the Lord” doesn’t exist, so she can pray to her heart’s content; but, there ain’t NOBODY out there sitting on a golden throne in Heavenland listening intently for her supplications.

  14. I can’t even pick a representative quote, but how about the fact that she latches onto Obama’s “atheist mother,” for starters. Shouldn’t Christodouchebags be celebrating people who manage to throw off the shackles of rationality and embrace their mythology?

    What 7 said. She is indeed my enemy and the enemy of any rational person, as she states pretty clearly.

  15. Her subtext is screaming that she knows she’s wrong, that she knows other people think she’s stupid, that she knows her beliefs haven’t saved her time and time again — but she doesn’t know and doesn’t have anything else.

    This is a woman that the progressive agenda has forgotten and failed. A woman the right-wing has courted and cajoled. It can’t be a surprise that she is in their camp.

    The answer isn’t to attack. The answer is to give her a reason to be on the right side. Until then, she’ll go with the only thing she knows.

  18. And apparently The Lord would never let one of his flock be named in anything other than a good Amurken (read “white”) name. The name Obama proves he’s a filthy infidel.

    This is the evil of religion: the fact that it allows idiots and bigots to drape themselves in “religion” to justify their lack of understanding and hatred.

  19. Ok, guys, the appropriate response to this is not “she’s full of shit, her god doesn’t exist” (which may well be true), but rather “how dare she impose her values on everyone else?” I’m perfectly happy with her going to heaven and all that, and if her religion gives her comfort, I’m not about to turn her into an atheist.

    You see, that’s the difference between us and them. We’re just fine with letting them be, so long as they keep to themselves. But we don’t tolerate them fucking shit up for the rest of us. That’s where we need to draw the line, and comments about how stupid her religion is and how her god doesn’t exist are missing the point.

  22. @15 –I’d say her subtext is that she’s wide-eyed bat-shit terrified.

    To watch that video is to stare into the deep blood-red abyss of Muddle America. I know, I grew up in Idaho.

    This is what we’re up against, kiddies. And imagine how much crazier these folks are going to get if Obama gets into office.

  23. Thanks, David – well put.
    I guess my point was that it’s not always “us” and “them”

    In my case, and the case of countless others, “them” are the people we love and care about, and it hurts that “them” refuse to listen to the opinion of “us” – their friends and family.

    It’s not going to be easier after the election, either.

  24. That sad irony is that McCain is practically an atheist while Obama is deeply spiritual and religious. Fortunately for all Americans (including those of us who are not at all religious), Obama’s faith is more of the “helping the less fortunate” stripe than the “condemn the infidels” variety.

  25. What this sack of stupid doesn’t realize is that up until he secured the nomination, McCain was pretty apathetic about religion. He is using this woman and she’s too blind to see that.

    The racist and religiously intolerant subtext of her comments made my blood boil though. There is simply no reasoning with ignorance as potent as hers. She’s become so corrupted by FoxNews and religiously-based hate-speech that she is no longer capable of thinking for herself. People like her can’t die off quickly enough.

  29. It doesn’t bother me that she lives her life according to her faith. What bothers me is her assumption that John McCain is more of a man of faith than Barack Obama. McCain evidences zero religious conviction (a la his hero Reagan) and is a known adulterer. Which one is the man of faith here?

    If she can accept Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, she can believe that a man born from an atheist and a Muslim can find Christianity. The *only* excuse is racism.

  31. i wonder how her husband can bear to sit next to her let alone listen to her. it must be her cooking.
    .. wait i just remembered. according to her ‘faith’, she’s supposed to be submissive to him. so if he told her to vote obama, she’d have to and then pray that the lord will work things out. in fact if he just slugged her, then…

  32. Next thing I’d ask this woman is, when has McCain proven himself in any way a fervent, fundamentalist Christian? Up until a few years ago, he made plenty of sly comments about the far right, only to finally sidle up to them when it was politically convenient; compare that to Obama’s years of membership in a church. A church that you choose to disagree with because you prefer looking at its one fiery quote from cable news versus decades of service, community support, and fellowship.

    That sort of ignorance and unwillingness to accept your Christian brothers and sisters? That’s not the Christianity I know. That’s not the Christianity that’s in the Bible.

  33. Whatevernevermind @15,

    Not gonna happen. There is nothing that progressives can do to reach this woman (and others like her). Some people are simply not reachable.

    Her entire belief structure is based on her interpretation of a fictitious sky grandpa to the exclusion of all else. My entire belief structure is based on rational thought and science (as much as I am able), and an appreciation of diversity in many things. There is almost no middle ground between us. No way to reach across that isle.

    And we shouldn’t try. We only need to convince 51%. If enough people like her husband cross over, then it won’t matter if she votes for McCain.

  39. Fun pop-quiz to spring on types like this woman: ask them to name the church that Ronald Reagan attended as president?

    After a few moments of stunned silence quietly and slowly inform them “he didn’t attend one.”

    Ask them now what church McCain attends, see what they say…

  40. @23 – Oh, I know. I’ve recently been in an intense e-mail back-and-forth with my mom, who lives in small-town eastern Kentucky with her fundamentalist values, listens to Rush Limbaugh every day, and watches exclusively Fox News. I’ve been largely silent and distant these last eight years, especially after a pre-Iraq War fight that ended in a shouting match.

    I’ve learned a few things since then, one of which is to NOT be silent with loved ones who think this way. They get their information from a small handful of carefully controlled sources and seldom encounter opposing arguments for their opinions. Firmly and respectfully making your case is the way to go. Draw a line that lets them know it’s OK to be conservative or Christian (because these are not battles you’re going to win), but gently points out how un-Christian and un-conservative these ideas really are. Fight the battle on their turf. Quote the Bible: Mark 10:21 and Matthew 22:16-21 really sting. And stare them down: listening to Rush Limbaugh is NOT acceptable. Watching Fox News is NOT acceptable. You can agree to disagree, but you cannot allow them entertaining the idea that liberals are terrorists, or that Obama wants to let Louis Farrkhan rewrite the constitution. The choice is between you and that hate-filled right-wing propaganda. Ultimately, even these people have a shred of humanity buried deep down there. Dig it out and pit it against the hate, and let them try and reconcile that.

  41. She wants to live in a religious nation. She doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state.

    I think that position is idiotic, but. . . fine. She just reminds me that it is very, very important that I and my friends VOTE.

  42. and as my comment @ #31
    ..i’m not advocating violence against anybody, but i do wonder how people in her faith based system handle the abuse that occurs when you blindly submit to someone.

  43. her religion is fine. her faith is fine. her god is fine. her stubborn stupidity, and hell, even her big fat ass: all fine. FINE! BUT DOES SHE KNOW THAT ALL OF THAT FINE STUFF IS BEING EXPLOITED BY EVIL POLITICAL FORCES THAT DON’T GIVE A FLYING FRIED SHIT ABOUT HER? forget brainwashing by religion–SHE HAS BEEN BRAINWASHED BY REPUBLICANS. and it will be the end of us all.

  46. @3 FTW

    David – thank you, that’s wonderful advice.

    @43, No, actually we’re winning. There’s not much they can do about the way this country is shifting.

  47. Behold the face of the Taliban in America. Not the Taliban in Iraq, Not the Taliban in Afghanistan, Not the Taliban in Pakistan, but the Taliban in America.

    You just happen to speak the same language as she does.

  48. @33 But why does she have that belief structure? And why does she think it’s okay to want to force it on the entire country? She wasn’t born thinking like that. She learned that.

    How did she learn it? She learned it because she’s spent her life only getting that one message. And that happened because the good guys didn’t get their message to her in time, if ever.

    The only reason you believe what you believe is because it works for you. What you believe could work for that woman, too, but she has no reason to believe it. Maybe she, specifically, is too far gone now, I don’t know, but, again, whose fault is that?

    I do know that if we treat her as if she was a worthwhile human being — giving her the care and opportunities and freedom and equality we say we want everybody to have — that would make it a hell of a lot harder for her to hate us.

    Personally, I’m finished with this living in a 51% country thing. That’s playing the corporate masters game. I want to ruin it for the corporate masters by refusing to hate those they’ve trained to hate us.

  49. @48 – Amen. It’s time to stop being silent with the well-meaning right-wingers we know and talk to them, without preconditions. Just get them to the table, show them that, as a liberal, you don’t eat babies for breakfast, and slowly but surely, they may just warm up to you.

  50. @25:

    I’m not at all convinced people like this have EVER been “capable of thinking for [themselves]”. It’s always seemed to me that many of the people I’ve encountered who exhibit this sort of religious-mania have in fact, never been given the necessary critical-thinking skills required to question the assertions, motives, or goals of those whom they allow to exercise authority over them. And frankly, I’m not certain they’d have become critical thinkers even if they HAD been given the means to do so.

    They’re sheep, plain-and-simple, with no inclination or even desire to engage in independent thought; they want to be told what to do, how to think; they NEED the surety of someone taking the difficult decisions about morality and ethics out of their hands, and turning all the muddied gray complexity of life into neatly understandable black-and-white.

    And they fucking scare the bejeebuz out of me sometimes.

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