Some ::MIGHTY FIST SHAKING:: stories for you all

[trinityvixen]

I'd rather go to any and every Hell than go to Mormon heaven. (h/t newredshoes)

Seriously, Mormons: knock that shit off. You're officially on notice that if you try to baptize any more people posthumously, against their will, I will dig up Joseph Smith's corpse and stomp it into little bits, which I will then feed to a pig, whose shit I will then press into communion wafers and sell to you. You want to eat your ancestors, go ahead. Leave everyone else's the fuck alone.

Note to Judeo-Christianity: All your religions are as stupid as this one.

If you don't want your park littered with religiosity, DON'T START BY PUTTING THAT SHIT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. They can't have a leg to stand on, right? Even Evil!SCOTUS as we currently have must recognize that this is bullshit...right?

Goodbye Southern Strategy?

I doubt it. These things go in cycles, and we'll have maybe forty years of progressive policies if the trends are to be believed, and then the South will have a resurgence. (It always rises again, as we know.) It won't be white, though it will probably still be conservative. However, if we are so blessed as to have even four years of not having to listen to Suh-thuh-ners dictate how the rest of us are going to hell for not hating people and loving Jeebus enough, that's a welcome relief.

Comments

[newredshoes]

Aw, but isn't the second article made all worth it by this sentence?

Summum’s founder, Corky Ra, says he learned the aphorisms during a series of telepathic encounters with divine beings he called Summa Individuals.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Well, if you gotta form a cult, make sure you do it in true batshit style. No word on why this one is less popular than Scientology, though.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Until it mentioned that Summum was founded in 1975, I figured it was a new varient of Pastafarianism or the like. If I had a mini-cult handy, I'd totally do something like this just to force a SCOTUS ruling that would, presumably, get rid of the Ten Commandments monolith.

I think the continued viability of the Southern Strategy will be determined by Obama's effectiveness and popularity over the next three years. His winning a second term with similar margins would be the confirmation of the trend, but I wouldn't call it before that.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Nothing is certain yet re: the South, absolutely. I love trying to extrapolate upon the future after one election that hasn't even seen any of the winners go to power yet.

I wonder if Scientology could be tricked into challenging Ten Commandments statues? I mean, surely, we could use a statute of their alien overlords or something...

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

The guy's right. Everything does vibrate.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I offer you outrage and you give me sarcasm!

[shell524.livejournal.com]

As a southerner (sort of... I don't know how much Texas really counts as The South) I feel personally maligned by your demonizing the south. Not all of us are like that.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You're welcome to feel maligned, though I would hope you know that it doesn't apply to you because you think. The unfortunate piece is that the South has made its voice heard and it is mostly the voice of regression. To paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan, individually, I happen to like a lot of Southerners (Texans included); but collectively, I look upon them with the utmost detestation.

(Not really that severe, even, but I'd lose the Pirates of Penzance quote otherwise!)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Ok, two things -

whose shit I will then press into communion wafers and sell to you

Do Mormons even do communion? With wafers?

Note to Judeo-Christianity: All your religions are as stupid as this one.

While I agree that the Ten Commandments do not belong in a secular park, I also think this is a fairly offensive statement, especially given that you do actually have a number of friends who are either Christian or Jewish. None of whom, as far as I know, have in any way infringed on your rights or called you stupid or evil for not believing in their religion. Don't lump all believers with the crazies, thanks.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

As someone who's still nominally Christian-ish: I think she's saying that ALL religions have ridiculous aspects when looked at completely objectively, and you don't get to turn down crazyass wacky religion X's petition to have their monument up just because your crazyass wacky religion is thousands of years old.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Heh, I love that threat against the Mormons. Not that I particularly mind what they're doing, myself -- they can recite all the magic spells they want when I'm dead -- but I appreciate the invective.

Note that the Old South voted more or less like the rest of the country, just more to the Red side; in most of the region Obama improved on Kerry's numbers. The exceptions were in the border states and Appalachia, which used to be Democratic strongholds (think of guys like Robert Byrd). It's hillbilly country, not the old Confederacy, that really seemed to recoil from the scary black man.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I sort of agree: I mean, it's offending LIVING relatives of the dead people, so it should stop, but eh. I cannot imagine giving a flying fuck who does what to me after I'm dead. Converting me to Buddhism after I'm dead isn't going to magically rip me out of heaven and reincarnate me as a monkey. (Disclaimer: I'm exaggerating for effect, I have no idea what actual Buddhists believe re: the afterlife.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The part that bothers me about the LDS bullshit is that they are trying to claim for their own an entire people who were murdered precisely because of their religion (which is NOT LDS). If I had the misfortune to die for my beliefs, I would be one fucking pissed-off ghost if these shit-lickers tried to say I was one of them. Me? I don't believe in anything happening especially after I die, so whatever, what they say won't change that. The only thing that bothers me about me, personally, being claimed would be that it is part of the Mormon takeover of the world, which, after the Prop 8 horseshit, I'm a little more afraid of.

*

It doesn't surprise me that the Confederacy isn't the problem--after all, as the Confederacy learned, they're vastly outnumbered by the people they actively sought to repress. By exposure alone, they have to get used to the idea of, hey, black people are people!? Whereas those that self-select for isolation can stew in out-dated ideology because they haven't the resources or inclination to make such interactions commonplace.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Re: link #2: LOLLLLL WHAT. I got to the words MUMMIFIED DOBERMAN and my head exploded.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You know you want in. Call them. Promise to help their pyramiding or whatever.

Rise again?

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

Things to consider:

• By 2050, over 40% of the US population will be of hispanic descent, and almost 10% will be of asian descent. Given that baptists (especially southern baptists) are overwhelmingly white, I find it unlikely that the south will be as conservative in 40 years as it is now.
  
• Global warming is going to *kill* the south. While the economy of the northeast is largely industrial and farms in the midwest will enjoy longer growing seasons, the south is already hot and will face desertification. Furthermore, the coast will get eroded by rising sea levels, destroying many major southern cities (N.O., Houston, Savannah). These effects are going to kill the southern economy.
  
• I think this election has shown two important things that should be relevant:
  
  
  
  • Racism isn't as entrenched in many places as we thought. North Carolina and Virginia (both confederate states) and Indiana (home of the Ku Klux Klan) all went blue this time around, and Georgia and Missouri were seriously in play.
    
  • Evidently, people vote their pocketbooks. Obama's win chances were good before Oct. 2nd, but they became a virtual certainty after that.
    
  
  
• Barack Obama is unlikely to screw up the economy any worse than it is already. Personally, I think he's smart enough to figure out how to fix it and make it stay for at least a while.
  

Even if economic collapse doesn't make people leave the south entirely, I think a combination of a changed population, reduced baptist influence, reduced racism among the remaining white population and people being more inclined to vote with their wallets than their bibles will make the south less conservative overall. A history of THREE Democratic presidents pulling the country out of economic depression (FDR, Clinton, Obama) will give the left an image as being better able to deal with economic crises. I just hope whoever is in charge on the left at that point will be smart, savvy and charismatic enough to point that out.

Re: Rise again?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that hispanics tend to be conservative on a lot of the Bush-era hot topics like abortion, and that, generally speaking, there is more entrenched and antiquated gender-role stigmas in that community. (This is also true of African-Americans, too; look at how they split on Prop 8, for example.) That's why I said the South might still be conservative, it just wouldn't be white. Killing the cities might add to the problem since rioting in cities led to the reactionary fear that propelled Nixon into office on a law-and-order kick. Cities are bastions of liberalism, we know this, and their outlying suburbs have become more Democratic/liberal as a result of migration from the city and back again. Kill the city, you risk those suburbs.

But you do have a point with the economic crisis. Because Democrats are, generally speaking, more willing to have government do the help-along when the country is in a recession/depression, they're often better able to lead the country out of the problem by stabilizing various industries and creating jobs. However, while Clinton did do a good job, FDR can't be entirely credited with fixing the Depression since what really pulled us out of the Depression was WWII. I guess you could make the argument that since FDR almost certainly knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked and he let it, he gets credit for drafting us into WWII and thereby solving the Depression. The last thing we need now, though, is another war.

[avram]

Ever read Philip Graham's 2003 piece for The Morning News about using ghost baptism as a weapon against al Qaeda?
"The Mormons: Our Secret Weapon in the War on Terror"

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Awesome :)

[lizzatherussian.livejournal.com]

Wow, the Summum people are interesting. among other things (meditation, mummification, etc) they they brew special nectars called "publications" (because they're imbued with information!!!). They're all different recipes, but I particularly liked the one meant for "Sexual Ecstasy". It sounded like something I'd try.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It sounds sort of like a 1960s love-in there, but hey, Egyptian stuff! Cool!

[sols-light.livejournal.com]

I think the real problem with being able to erect memorials to the Ten Commandments and so on, is that it's so difficult to erect one to Atheism. Although, I'm all for a memorial dedicated to the Flying Spaghetti Monster somewhere in Utah, that'd be great.

As for the Mormon thing, merinnan just made a very nice post about what they're actually doing. To sum it up, the Mormons are going through a special ceremony to give this person a last chance to repent and become a Mormon. The stuff about getting them taken off the roll of Holocaust Jews or put onto the role of baptised Mormons should not even be up for discussion, since no one knows if they accepted the chance to repent or not, it's between them and their God.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

So...they're not Mormons?

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

Re: the monuments issue. The city loses even if it wins, because they're arguing that any monument placed in the park/approved by the city is an expression of the city's opinion, backed by the city, etc. So, even if they win the case to ban the monument by the Summum, it then runs smack into the middle of another Supreme Court case, probably brought again by the Summum with the help of the ACLU. That is, the government cannot promote any one religion over the other. They have a monument of the Ten Commandments in that park. They really walked into it this time...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I thought that was the lawsuit they were bringing?

It wasn't very clear, though, how the city was justifying it. First it was, well, this is a donation and we don't have to accept donations that don't reflect our character. But when that means promoting one religion over another, they're like, "Nuh-uh, this is just promoting city history because the donation came from this civic group that's been here forever." Except they hadn't...

It's like Sarah Palin trying to weasel her way out of anything. "No, it never happened. If it happened, it didn't happen like you think it did. Well, parts of it happened like you think it did, but I had a really good reason for what I did to make it happen. It's not my fault, this thing that absolutely didn't happen."