Didn’t sweet, sweet Jebus also have a bit about the guy without sin casting the first stone, suggesting maybe stonings aren’t….. good?

On, the plus side, Brad, the Middle Eastern themed sequel writes itself.

“First rule of Fight Club: Tehran? There is no Fight Club. Second rule, death to America.”

Also, if violence is good when used to teach morals, this is only an upside! Thing of the potential! Jesus and the Twelve Stooges!

Jesus: “And I say unto you, my followers, that a wealthy man had him two servants, and he gave them each… DAMMIT, Simon, I’ll teach you to nap during my sermons!”
Simon: “WHOOP, whoopwhoopwhoopwhoopwhoop!”
*Simon runs from the hut, knocking over the ladder Andrew and James were on. They fall down and get covered in paint.”

Children’s Bible Study classes can re-enact the betrayal and eye-poke of Jesus by Judas. Offertories would be followed by beating smacked on the head with a mallet. Confession booths stacked to the ceiling with seltzer bottles. I like it!

From the NY Press article:

Perle (who snagglepussed from the Vietnam War, exit stage left) and Frum (who, as a Canadian, was born a draft-dodger)

A healthy snicker was had. And The Lords of Chaos is a great read.

To be fair, Paul’s Second Epistle to Shirley Jackson is quite powerful.

You tried your best, Jesus, and you got nailed to the cross in front of everyone. The lesson is, never try.

really its only more proof that wingnuts don’t go out into the world, and spend their days locked into popular media, not reality.

Apparently, “Morally Serious” is the same as “Serious Foreign Policy”, in which it’s ok to kill a whole bunch of people to make a point.

This is, as the kids say, teh funny.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html

Check the comments. Third one down.

Yes. That’s right. Even though the article lambastes Congress and the FCC for setting up a poor system and doing nothing to enforce anything upon them, this guy STILL reads it as an attack against Bush.

Guilty people always get so darn defensive.

“…note that violence should only be used on the teaching of serious moral lessons.”

Beating the crap out of right-wing bloggers is now morally acceptable! Just ask them!

If there were only one of him, I could cope, but he has fans.

No wonder waterboarding and other forms of torture don’t bother them. If they had their way, the US would use Old Testament methods on prisoners of war.

Whoo-doggie – there’s some mighty deep, serious thinking going on over at redstate.com. Those boys got erudition oozing out of every pore in their bodies. Not being able to spell all them big words does kinda detract a little, though.

violence should only be used on the teaching of serious moral lessons.

I liked that line, too. If you want to get serious about imparting moral truth, baseball bats are definitely the way to go.

Also, this:

There is even a moral lesson in the scene in which Tyler and the Narrator force the convenience store clerk to the back of his store and threaten him with death if he does not return to dental school – as Tyler reveals, the purpose of this exercise was not to make the fellow return to college, it was to give him an appreciation of the preciousness of life by making him face the possibility of losing it …

IIRC, that’s the scene where they wave a gun in the clerk’s face. I mean, that’s a “moral lesson” for the viewer, I guess … that it’s totally fucked up to play God with other people’s lives.

It must seriously suck to be this guy’s kids, if he has any. Imagine all the dunking under water and being thrown out into traffic and shit. Somebody should call Child Protective Services, now that I think about it …

The eternal quest to get revenge on daddy…

“Beating the crap out of right-wing bloggers…”

I retract that. We could beat these people all day long, and they would never, ever, run out of crap.

It’s called sadism. USA runs on it.

“Recall that in the Old Testament, stonings (a particularly violent form of execution) were to be performed in front of the entire community, so as to encourage the rest of the community would learn to have the proper fear.”

i wonder what would be required so as to encourage the rest of the community would learn to have the proper grammar.

Domus takes the locative. Which is domum.
The “Or I’ll cut your balls off” form of encouragement evidently worked for me.

Holy crap. So,in summary,to these people,violence is the solution to pretty much every problem.

Ya know,we should really start investing in ending generational cycles of domestic violence and child abuse. I can’t think of where else this sort of demented thinking comes from. Normal,happy,well adjusted people just don’t think and behave like this.

Someone(s)needs to be looking out for the kids of these folks too,seriously.

My thoughts on FIGHT CLUB, for whatever microscopic fragment of your time and attention they may be worth.

Please remember that it isn’t the nature, type, or essential character of an action that defines it as good or bad, it is the religiosocial context/reality tunnel in which that action takes place. Throwing rocks at people you don’t like is one thing when it’s Islamics doing it to good, decent folks(probably Christian, or, at least, potential Christian converts) for no sane reason anyone can understand, and it is something entirely different when good, decent Christians are heaving paving stones at evil folk for offending against Jehovah.

After all, Jehovah is a real god, while that mess the Muslims worship is just silly.

People often point out that to a devoted Muslim, there is little difference in the religious fervor they feel for Allah, than that a devoted Christian feels for Jebus. They do this smugly, as if they have made some kind of telling point. But the simple objective fact is, Jehovah and his sonny boy are objectively real, while Allah and the rest of those celestial wannabes are objectively delusion.

I hope I’ve managed to clarify a few things for you.

Recall that in the Old Testament, stonings (a particularly violent form of execution) were to be performed in front of the entire community…
I thought it was the entire community that performed the stonings.

Violence qua violence is not objectionable…
I’m not sure what he means by that (yes, I know what “qua” means) especially when he qualifies it in the rest of the sentence.
But we don’t want any filthy nasty s-e-x on our tee vee!! That is objectionable.

In general, the nut-o-sphere seems to be getting (who’d’ve thought it possible?) nuttier & nuttier, as their fantasy world seems to be collapsing around them. Maybe the departure of Rove will send a few more around the bend.

i wonder what would be required so as to encourage the rest of the community would learn to have the proper grammar.

Attacked with a pointed stick, its the only language they understand.

Pointed stick they haven’t learned yet. They’re all set with fruit attacks, however.
Whether by Glock or by $20 suck, they will NOT become a statistic.

i wonder what would be required so as to encourage the rest of the community would learn to have the proper grammar.

No idea. What would work on you?

Would someone please build a KKKristian KKKonservative Reichstag in, say, flood-ravaged, coastal Miss’ipi. That way the Reichwing dysintelligentsia will have someplace to make their final stand. Please.

I’m beginning to think that a lot of these guys are like authoritarian versions of G.G. Allin.

One might point out to them in that case what a dismal end he came to for all that vitriol he spit while alive:

After arriving at his friend’s apartment, some party-goers posed for photos with the unconscious Allin, not knowing that he was already dead. The next morning, some noticed that Allin still lay motionless in the same place where they had left him, and called for an ambulance, but Allin was pronounced dead at the scene.

Well, in their defense, my “Pottery Barn Ruby Ridge” neighbors have yet to cast that first stone. I’m still alive. Perhaps though I should start blasting GG Allin as well as the mix CD I have already burned for use outside to annoy them. I rather like blasting the Cramps’ “Garbage Man” though, “Double Dare” by Bauhaus, “Personal Jesus”….ahhh, goes on and on.

If you read about a stoning anytime soon back in the Midwest, it’ll probably be me, though. Especially once I put up my rainbow flag.

I’m beginning to think that a lot of these guys are like authoritarian versions of G.G. Allin.

Yep. Been saying it for years, a lot of modern Wingnutism is nothing more than an inversion of the Punk ethic. In the same way that many punks (like the 70s Freaks before them) got our jollys by intentionally pissing off the uptight Reaganite squares, lots ‘o Wingnuts think they are “fightin’ the power” by getting liberals into a lather by fucking with their taboos.

Wingnuts think the eliminationist, pro-torture schtick advanced by Limbaugh, Coulter, etc. are Teh Funny– not because it crackles with wit or tells a hard truth in an amusing way, but because every “joke” is measured by its potential to piss off some imaginary RNC stereotype of an uptight Liberal.

You hippies got it all wrong. Jesus said “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone”, but that was BEFORE he was brutally tortured to death to save us from our sins and make us white as snow.

Why would have have gone through all the trouble of being crucified if he didn’t want us to stone people? And why would the Bible use the phrase “white as snow” if he didn’t want us to stone brown people?

It’s called LAH-JUK, libtards, it can get you whatever you want.

I rather like blasting the Cramps’ “Garbage Man” though

You got good taste in music, there, PG, though personally I prefer “Mojo Man From Mars” and “Mad Daddy”.

So, there is NO difference between hitting someone with rocks until they die, and two men willingly boxing with each other until one of them taps out? Exactly how stupid are these people????

“the proper fear” WTF!?! At least it wasn’t given the sinister capitailisation. Thats something, I guess.

btw, we deffo need a new “WTF”, this ones worn out..

So, there is NO difference between hitting someone with rocks until they die, and two men willingly boxing with each other until one of them taps out?

You missed a subtle but important implication:

I think he’s saying that there is no difference between
A) two priviliged men choosing to box with each other to allay their fears of “not being manly enough” and calm their anxious masculinity

and

B) a group of priviliged men choosing to brutally torture and murder some demonized sub-human (female, brown, gay, what have you) to allay their fears of “not being manly enough” and calm their anxious masculinity

Of course, the first example is only “legal correct”, while the second one is “morally correct”–so obviously the second one is superior.

Also, the manly-men don’t actually suffer any personal harm or damage in the second example, so it’s pretty much a slam dunk.

You guys haven’t heard about the Dominionists, who want to have public stonings of homosexuals and adulterers in America?

the purpose of this exercise was not to make the fellow return to college, it was to give him an appreciation of the preciousness of life by making him face the possibility of losing it

Just like “Saw!” Anyhoo, at least they’re not pretending to get all up in arms about moral relativism anymore.

I thought that we as a people had moved beyond public stonings as a tool of moral enforcement.

Oh, we have, we have. Now we just drop bombs on people we don’t like. MUCH more civilized, and nobody even has to get their hands dirty.

Well, except the people who have to clean up the bodies.

From the article:

However, I believe it goes too far to say that Fight Club does not have serious moral teachings, or lessons that may be gleamed from it.

Gleamed? Someone who is tossing about Burkean and Rousseauian getting that wrong? Words fail me…

Fight Club was one of the stupidest fucking movies I’ve ever seen. When they get tired of squeezing their zits, clueless young boys go to IMdB to pump its score into the stratosphere – which is how I unfortunately got suckered into seeing it.

Everyone says Alien 4 killed the franchise, but Fincher’s Alien 3 killed it for me. (4 wasn’t that bad, really, and if you enjoy SF the director’s cut of 2 is a work of art.) Fincher can do no right in my book. Panic Room sucked. Se7en sucked (ooh, but has that cool number in the title!). And Fight Club sucked about as much as a movie can suck.

MoB

Their entire goal is to violate, sodomize and defile every single form of human progress and knowledge ever established,

My Mom will be glad to read this, she always said I don’t have a plan for my life, or a purpose. (Hmm, I think I’ll start with a porpoise)
Anyway, the difference is, I’ll be doing it just for the hell of it.

BTW, can I use the IMdB database to look up the exact movie any given historical example or strategic suggestion made by wingnuts comes from?
Cause we need a handy way to do that.

I thought that we as a people had moved beyond public stonings as a tool of moral enforcement.

I thought the phrase Turn the Other Cheek was a pretty unambiguous exhortation to pacifism, go figure.

I have never understood the ‘FightClub is a BAD movie’ thing?

‘two priviliged men choosing to box with each other to allay their fears of “not being manly enough” and calm their anxious masculinity’

Most of the men weren’t ‘privileged’. I would go further and say that while ‘class’ was one of themes involved in the movie (tyler selling women back their own fat in the form of soap), the broader theme was the idea of men who had become disillusioned with their lives (and the system in which they lived it), and the FightClub being the outlet for that frustration.

Nor was it really about being ‘manly enough’, as bad as Dorothy attempted to make it sound. (If I’m mistaken in how you meant it, I apologize in advance).

Not to attempt to over romanticize the issue, but I interpreted the act of fighting to be one of ‘mutual respect’ between two individuals. It’s not even about who wins. (if you notice the clubs reaction when the narrator savagely beats Angel Face out of jealousy – the viewer not knowing he’s schizo at that point in the movie) They aren’t cheering him on. They recognize the point at which the fight has become ‘personal’ and the violence in effect ‘wrong’.

I don’t get the ‘FightClub is veiled fascism’ either. (I ‘get’ the argument, I simply disagree)

But at the end of the day, it’s just a movie.

**I’ve never read the novel, and have no idea what the author’s ‘real’ meaning is, so maybe I’m totally off anywayz**

Not to attempt to over romanticize the issue, but I interpreted the act of fighting to be one of ‘mutual respect’ between two individuals.

I liked Fight Club too and haven’t read the novel, and I interpreted the fighting as an act of mutual stupidity. The guy who starts it is nuts and the people in fight club are dumb and wind up doing awful things.

Part of the ‘moral lesson’ of Fight Club is “Groups of Humans can be talked into doing the STUPIDEST shit.”

Winger starter DVD collection:
1. Red Dawn
2. Fight Club

Fight Club was merely stupid until the “big surprise twisty ending” blew (as in blow) huge plot holes in everything that came before it.
I was like ZZzzzzzz… up until that point, and then I was like Whaaa??? The moran messiah is some freakin’ idiot who beats himself up??? The average guy is pretty stupid, but not nearly that stupid, right? Right?!? Gaaa!!!

I’ve seen crap, but that was a whole new level. No way that was anything but complete, steaming, fly larvae riddled crap.

MoB

No way that was anything but complete, steaming, fly larvae riddled crap.

I thought it was like rock and roll: retarded fist-pumping at some easy targets, with the recognition that the fist-pumping was retarded. Thoroughly enjoyable. The DVD has some entertaining commentary, like when Pitt or Norton talks about how much he likes the Volkswagen redesign but how right it felt to smash one.

“I thought that we as a people had moved beyond public stonings as a tool of moral enforcement.”

As, indeed had many of the Jews by Christ’s time, by and large. Few of the wingnuts seem to realize how reflective of many strains of hellenistic and pharasaic Judaism Christ’s preachings really were.

Um, didn’t Fight Club come out in, like, 1999? Are people really still arguing about it eight years later? And if so, are those people permitted to use metal tableware?

Righteous Bubba, didn’t your brain hurt when you found out the central character, unbeknownst to you through the entire first 9/10 of the movie, was running around conversing, and fist fighting no less, with to his invisible pal, in full view of his followers, and that they sprung this crap on you as some kind of kewl twist? In what universe does someone that moronically disturbed acquire any kind of following, much less some kind of all-powerful underground movement? I was dumbfounded by the gall that took.

Also, as I watched it post 9/11, I was struck by how 9/11’ish it all was, with all those skyscrapers blowing up real good. Kind of hard to believe any winger could embrace that, what with the OKC domestic terrorism on their permanent record and all.

Some actors I just don’t need to see anymore. Kevin Spacey, Nick Nolte, Jeff Bridges, and now Edward Norton. I get so tired of his tough guy shtick, particularly coming from some shrimpy little guy with a pipe cleaner physique. No, I’ve officially sworn off EN.

Saw 50 First Dates the other night. What was I thinking? The trailer was cute, but anything with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore is, by definition, beyond redemption – doesn’t matter who the writers / directors / co-stars / best boys / caterers / dog wrangers are.

Danke Pere. I have now loaded up some more Bauhaus on my blog, mainly due to the fact that the fundie hag I had to call the cops on destroyed two of my Bauhaus CDs. I have plenty of Cramps though, love it all. Early Butthole Surfers. X. TSOL. Classics that I was too young to ever see live back then. Met Hunter Thompson at a Pere Ubu show once, actually.

Oh well, I think I’ll put up my new rainbow flag today, so if I don’t return, know that the rocks were huge…lol…..wow, talk about a good lesson in intolerance of others, I’ve been instructed well by the fundie faction of my street. But lest I seem here intolerant of the fundies, this is only intolerance of their actions, that and I am a real trouble-maker I guess.

Oh well, old punks never die, they just sometimes move to the wrong street….LOL.

Righteous Bubba, didn’t your brain hurt when you found out the central character, unbeknownst to you through the entire first 9/10 of the movie, was running around conversing, and fist fighting no less, with to his invisible pal, in full view of his followers, and that they sprung this crap on you as some kind of kewl twist?

I know the kind of frustration you’re talking about because I remember being disgusted at the end of Wild at Heart, and I think it’s the same kind of thing. In the case of Fight Club I was much more willing to accept the “twist” because the guy was a loon, his followers were as well, and the movie was loose and funny enough to feel like a fantasy in the first place. At some point or other there was going to be some kind of resolution to what was going on inside Norton’s head, and that it turned out to be broken in two wasn’t a deal-breaker for me.

Mind you, I like JG Ballard, and the relatively faithful Crash was hilarious on screen whereas I took it seriously when reading it, so I’m some kind of dope.

PIM, sounds like you moved to the RIGHT street.

Way to keep the punk alive. Always a thorn in the side of the Man.

I have been stoned in public on numerous occasions. What’s the big deal?