Empowering lunacy

The whole "they're weird" thing seems to be getting under the Republicans' skin.

J. D. Vance took the opportunity in an interview with Dana Bash a couple of days ago to object to the characterization, saying the whole thing is happening only because Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are "uncomfortable with their policy positions."

"They’re name-calling instead of actually telling the American people how they’re going to make their lives better," said Vance, whose running mate didn't comment because he was too busy shaking his fist and shouting at Crazy Kambala, Sleepy Joe, Cryin' Chuck Schumer, Gavin Newscum, Shifty Adam Schiff, Deranged Jack Smith, Crooked Hillary, and Pocahontas.

The thing is, a great many of the most fervent Trump supporters are weird.  Dangerously so.  Take two just from the past week, which are good examples but hardly the only ones. The first is from the program Flashpoint on wildly popular evangelical Christian Kenneth Copeland's Victory Channel.  Copeland has been a consistent and vocal supporter of Donald Trump, which still strikes me as bizarre given that Trump's main claim to fame is embodying all Seven Deadly Sins in a single person.  But if you think that's strange, the pronouncement made by "Prophet Joseph Z" on Flashpoint a few days ago is more peculiar still.

In fact, Joseph Z seems to be so far from reality that he would not be able to see it even if you handed him a powerful telescope.

Here's what Joseph Z said about vice presidential nominee Tim Walz:

I believe very clearly the spirit of the Lord is making a way for the body of Christ to go through in this time.  And you know even when we bring up guys like Tim Walz and look at what’s going on, people say he’s you know midwestern folksy, I have another word for him, being from Minnesota myself, and it’s weird.  The guy’s just weird.  You see the way he hugs his wife.  You see the way he does everything.  I believe the Spirit of the Lord is letting them overextend their reach.  I believe he’s giving them a sense of confidence that’s actually going to be a surprise silver lining turnaround in this whole narrative.  I believe the spirit of the Lord is going to bring victory and breakthrough.  And you know it’s interesting how the spirit of Antichrist just loves to pick these people that fit right in with the wicked overlord lizard mafia that is really driven by their goblin masters, and when you’re looking at this, I believe that’s exactly what we’re facing right now—a spirit of Antichrist that wants to have its way.

Sure!  Of course!  Goblin masters and the lizard mafia!  But Tim Walz is the weird one, we promise!

You would think that after something like that, the moderator would have realized that it sounded like lunacy ('cuz it is), and would have been at least a little embarrassed, or inclined to backpedal on what had just been said in order to reassure listeners.

You would be wrong.

Instead, the moderator, Gene Bailey, vouched for Joseph Z's credibility, and said "we take what we put on the air very seriously."  Not a hint of "... but this dude is nuttier than squirrel shit."

The second one revolves around Kevin Roberts, architect of Project 2025 and author of Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, both of which should scare the absolute hell out of everyone who's not to the right of Attila the Hun.  The Trump campaign has finally acknowledged that Roberts and Project 2025 are dangerously extreme ('cuz they are), and have tried to distance themselves from it -- with Trump saying publicly that he had no idea who put the plan together, despite the fact that 140 of the collaborators on the project worked for his administration, and six were Cabinet members. 

Of course, he also swore that he had never met Roberts in his life:

So maybe trusting anything Trump says is not such a hot idea.

To say the content of Dawn's Early Light is one long paean to paranoid fascism is, if anything, an understatement.  America is in peril, Roberts says, because of "pantsuited girlboss advertising executives, Skittle-haired they/them activists, soy-faced pajama-clad work-from-home HR apparatchiks, Adderall-addicted dog mom diversity consultants, nasally-voiced Ivy League regulatory lawyers, obese George Soros-funded police abolitionist district attorneys, [and] hipster trust fund socialists."  He decries what he perceives as the loss of Christian hegemony in the United States (despite the fact that around seventy percent of Americans still self-identify as Christian, and in some parts of the country it's damn near impossible to get elected unless you do).  Mankind, he says, "is made to worship, and our republic depends on the moral strength and habits of heart brought about by piety."  Before you get your hopes up that he might be including other religions in this assessment, it's explicitly stated that he's not talking about just any kind of piety, but a specific one.  "American society is rooted in the Christian faith," he writes.  "Certainly public institutions should not establish anything offensive to Christian morals under the guise of 'religious freedom' or 'diversity, equity, and inclusion.'"

You're free to worship as you choose, apparently, but you damn well better choose right.

How will he and his cronies accomplish all of this?  Well, he's going to start with destroying "every Ivy League college, the FBI, the New York Times, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Department of Education, 80 percent of ‘Catholic’ higher education, BlackRock, the Loudoun County Public School System, the Boy Scouts of America, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum, the Chinese Communist Party, and the National Endowment for Democracy."

This stuff is so extreme that I feel obliged to state for the record that I didn't make up any of these quotes.  (If you're curious, he apparently singled out the Loudoun County Public Schools because of a rape case that he says was committed by a male student dressing like a female to access a girl's bathroom -- a claim that was not substantiated at the hearing.)

Now, don't @ me about how you're a Republican and you don't agree with this stuff.  I'm sure that's true.  I have conservative-leaning friends who probably would say the same.  However, in this election, you need to realize that if you vote Republican you are empowering and legitimizing the people who do believe all of this, and who if elected will do their damndest to make sure it's all set in place.  

The fact that there are people who have a conservative approach to governance doesn't bother me in the slightest; we may disagree, but we can discuss it civilly.  But there is no discussion with people like Kenneth Copeland, Gene Bailey, and Kevin Roberts.  They don't want to work with the opposition and come to consensus.

They want the opposition eradicated -- violently, if necessary.

I usually don't frame things so starkly, but this November we have a choice.  One side of the ticket has inextricably allied itself with the extreme right-wing lunatic fringe, which is comfortable talking about the Antichrist's lizard mafia and Adderall-addicted dog mom diversity consultants, and act as if what they're saying is completely rational.  The fact that "some members of the GOP don't believe this" is actually irrelevant, because they're not the ones who are going to come out on top if Donald Trump wins.

This fall we have a choice between sense and nonsense, between empowering reasonable policy and empowering lunacy.  Whatever party you belong to, whatever your political leanings, there's nothing more to it than that.

I know which way I'm voting.

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Private jets and deliberate contradictions

Two stories in the last couple of days highlight for me what is one of the most mystifying things about the extremely devout.

Note, however, that I am not talking about the majority of the religious, who are (I am convinced) perfectly fine with living their lives as they see fit, and letting the rest of us live ours.  But among the minority who are of the more rigid variety, there is a deep streak of irrationality that doesn't so much leave me frustrated as it does puzzled.

My puzzlement surrounds the undying support some religious leaders have, even though they say things that demonstrate conclusively that they are at best ripoff artists, and at worst, batshit insane.

Let's start with Reverend Ken Copeland, the Texas pastor who evidently thinks that Jesus's command to give away all of your belongings and follow him was more of a strongly-worded suggestion than it was an outright order.  Copeland has become filthy rich from his ministries, and owns 33 acres outside of Fort Worth that contains the Eagle Mountain International Church, television production and audio recording facilities, warehouse and distribution facilities, residences for the Copeland family...

... and the "Kenneth Copeland Airport."

It's this last that brought him to my attention yesterday, after he went on record as saying that god wants Copeland to have several private jets, because you apparently can't talk to god in coach.  Here's a transcript of his interview with Jesse Duplantis, on the television show Believers Voice of Victory:

Duplantis:  Brother Copeland, I was flying home from a meeting, I had come out of a glorious meeting, me and Creflo Dollar were preaching, it was a glorious meeting.  I was, for lack of a better way to say it, I was spiritually high.  People were saved, touched, and blessed.  I was on the plane that god so graciously gave us, and I was flying home.  As I was going home, the lord, he said quickly to me, "Jesse?  Do you like your plane?"  Now, I thought that was an odd statement.  I said, "Well, certainly, lord."  He said, "Do you really like it?"  And I thought, "Well, yes, lord."  Then he said this: "So, that's it?"  I didn't know how to handle that, so I went, "What?"  And he said, "Are you gonna let your faith stagnate?"  And when he said that, it shocked me.  I went, "Oh, wait."  I literally unbuckled the seatbelt on the plane and I stood up.  The pilot said, "You need something?"  I said, "No, I'm talking to god right now."  So he went back to flying.  And I said, "Lord, I don't think I was letting my faith stagnate."  He said, "So this is all I could ever do."  I said, "You're trying to tell me something."  He said, "Go to the Book of Amos."  So, if you have the Book of Amos, I want to read to you from the scriptures. 

Copeland:  Can I interrupt you?  You couldn't have done that on an airliner. 

Duplantis:  Nope.  No way. 

Copeland:  Stand up and say, "What did you say, lord?"  Some guy would say, "What the hell does he think he's doing?"  This is so important.  And for those of you who are just not coming into these things, in the first place, Jesse and I and others, Creflo and Keith Moore...  The world is in such a shape that we can't get there without this.  The mess that the airlines are in today -- I would have to stop -- I'm being very conservative -- I would have to stop 75 to 80, maybe 90 percent of what I'm doing.  Because you can't get there from here. 

Duplantis:  It's impossible. 

Copeland:  And this was such a good illustration... That's why we're on that airplane, we can talk to god.  When I was flying for Oral Roberts, Brother DeWeese, he said to me, "Now, Brother Copeland, this is sanctuary.  It protects the anointed of Brother Roberts.  Now, you keep your mouth shut, you wait until he talks, because when he's on a meeting he doesn't talk to anybody but god."  Now Oral used to fly airlines, but even back then, it got to the place that it was agitating his spirit, he had people coming up to him because he'd become famous, and they wanted him to pray for them and all.  You can't manage that today, with this dope-filled world, you're getting into a large tube with a bunch of demons.  It's deadly. 

Duplantis:  It works on your heart. 

Copeland:  So I wanted to make that clear, so that the devil can't say to you, "See that preacher spending all that money..."  No, that's not what this is about.  I'm in the soul business.  We got a dying world here, a dying world.

Now, I'm not puzzled by Copeland and Duplantis themselves.  Their motivations are pretty crystal-clear.  What amazes me is that they have thousands of followers who still give them cash -- lots of cash.  Then, apparently, the donors sit back and watch the preachers spend it on lavish living and private jets, and they don't once say, "Wait.  Maybe this isn't what my religion should be about."

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Then we had evangelist Kent Hovind once again commenting on the literal truth of the bible, and how we evolutionary types are evil emissaries of the devil.  You know, the usual stuff.  But then he said something that caught my attention:

If I was God, I would write the [bible] in such a way that those who don’t want to believe in me anyway would think they found something. ‘Aha, here’s why I don’t believe.'  And then they could go on with their own life because they don’t want to believe God anyways.  I would put things in there that would appear without digging to be contradictions. I don’t think that’s deceptive, I think that’s wise for the Heavenly Father to weed out those who are really serious. 

Long again I made a choice to believe the Bible until it’s proven wrong. 

I know others who have decided, ‘I’m not going to believe it until you prove everything is right,.  Okay, you do whatever you want to do, but I made the opposite decision.

So, let me get this straight: the bible is the inerrant word of god, 100% literally true from beginning to end, except that there are some untrue or contradictory parts deliberately thrown in by god to trip up people who have weak faith, and those people get sent to hell to burn in horrible agony for eternity?

Which only brings up two questions: (1) What kind of person would worship a vindictive and spiteful god who would do such a thing?  And (2) If that's true, how do you tell the wrong parts in the bible from the right ones?

Oh, and there's a third question: (3)  Are you insane?

Like I said: I know plenty of reasonable, thoughtful religious folks, in whose lives religion provides context and comfort.  But I find it hard to believe that anyone can listen to the words of people like Duplantis, Copeland, and Hovind, and not immediately say, "Okay, this is bullshit."

But judging from their bank accounts, apparently there are lots of them.

The new weapon of the "elite:" vaccinations

This week we had two news stories that are mostly noteworthy in juxtaposition.

First, we had an interview that took place between Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and political pundit, erstwhile presidential candidate, and noted wingnut Alan Keyes, regarding the plan by liberals to reduce the world's population using vaccines.

Gohmert asked Keyes about the claim by "some liberals" that the world was overpopulated.  Keyes responded:

A lot of people who fancy themselves elites, right, because they’ve made a lot of money, their names are all over the media and so forth, they’ve really signed on to an agenda that requires the depopulation of the globe.  And in the name of fighting global climatological change, called global warming — that’s proven to be something that’s wrong — they are saying that we’ve got to cut back the population of the world.

Bill Gates gave a famous talk back in 2009, which he was talking about actually abusing vaccinations, which are supposed to keep people healthy and alive, and saying how this could lead to a 15 percent reduction in the population of the globe as a way to achieve this result.

They’re preaching that doctrine because they actually believe we’re a blight on the face of the planet, we human beings.  And we should, therefore, be put on a path toward our own semi-extinction. I often try to get people to see that if you think about it, if we actually get back to the levels they’re talking about, it would just be these elitists and the people needed to service them. That’s all that will be left in the world.

And instead of doing what I would have done, which is to guffaw directly into Mr. Keyes' face and then get up and walk away, Gohmert responded as if he had just said something sensible.

"Scary thought," Representative Gohmert responded.

Yes, it is a scary thought, and doubly scary because there are presumably people who believe this.  We're all being duped by the elite liberal scientists.  Vaccines, as we all know from watching the historical documentary The X Files, are just the government's way of tagging the entire citizenry, i.e., marking us for "culling."

Oh, and global climate change is "wrong."  How do we know?  Because elitism, that's how.  Stop asking questions.

But I must interject a question of my own here, and it's one that I've asked before: why in the hell is the word "elite" used as a compliment in sports and an insult in intellectual pursuits?  Isn't it a good thing to be really smart?  Given Mr. Keyes' grasp of the facts, it's understandable that he doesn't think so, but in general?

The whole thing is interesting especially given our second story, which occurred only a little west of Representative Gohmert's home of Texas' First Congressional District, in the town of Newark -- where an evangelical megachurch has has an outbreak of measles after its pastor, Terri Copeland Pearsons, promoted faith healing as an alternative to vaccination.

Pearsons' father, televangelist Kenneth Copeland, has publicly stated his anti-vaxxer sympathies in a broadcast called "God's Health and Wellness Plan."  (The relevant bit comes about twenty minutes into the broadcast, if you decide to watch it.)  He talks about the whole topic of vaccination becoming "personal" when his first great-grandchild was born, and the doctors advised the parents to have the baby vaccinated "with all of these shots, and all of this stuff."  Some of what they wanted to vaccinate the baby with, Copeland said, "is criminal."

"You don't take the word of the guy that is trying to give the shot about what's good and what isn't!" Copeland said.

Nope.  Those damned doctors, with their advanced degrees.  What do they know, anyway?

But then Copeland's daughter's church was visited by someone who had just come from overseas, and had been exposed to measles -- and before you can say "liberal elite," twenty church members had contracted the disease.

This left Pastor Pearsons to deliver the news to the faithful, which she did, albeit a little awkwardly:

There has been a ... confirmed case of the measles from the Tarrant County Public Health Department. And that is a really big deal in that America, the United States has been essentially measles free for I think it's ten years. And so when measles pops up anywhere else in the United States, the health department -- well, you know, it excites them. You know what I mean... I don't mean... I don't mean they're happy about it, but they get very excited and respond to it because it doesn't take much for things like that to spread.

Sure.  The Health Department just loves outbreaks.  It's some excitement to distract them from their otherwise humdrum job of figuring out ways to cull the human population.

So it was wryly amusing when last week, Pastor Pearsons announced that there would be free measles vaccination clinics held in the church, in spite of the fact that the bible should be enough:

There are a lot of people that think the Bible -- we talk about walking by faith -- it leaves out things such as, I don't know, people just get strange. But when you read the Old Testament, you find that it is full of precautionary measures, and it is full of the law.

Why did the Jewish people, why did they not die out during the plague? Because the Bible told them how to be clean, told them how to disinfect, told them there was something contagious. And the interesting thing of it, it wasn't a medical doctor per se who took care of those things, it was the priesthood. It was the ministers, it was those who knew how to take the promises of God as well as the commandments of God to take care of things like disinfection and so forth....

Many of the things that we have in medical practice now actually are things you can trace back into scripture. It's when we find out what's in the scripture that we have wisdom.

Yup.  Because priests have such a better track record for curing disease than medical doctors do.  Oh, but by all means, Pastor Pearsons, don't let little things like facts get in your way.  Do carry on.

And in neat contrast to all of this, we have two new peer-reviewed papers this summer showing that vaccinations save lives.  As if we should need more evidence.

Well, we might not, if it weren't for anti-science whackjobs like Keyes, Pearsons, and Copeland babbling their bizarre, fact-free opinions on the air.  All of which just goes to show, as I've said before -- if you want to learn how the world really works, don't listen to politicians and pastors.

Ask an "elite scientist."  They're the ones who actually know what they're talking about.