Insanity Overload: Why Can't We Just Sit Back And Enjoy It?

I haven't watched a TV sitcom in the last five years. RSS feeds from blogs and news services constantly decorate my home page with more inanity than all the networks could come up with. But there are times when I suffer from a kind of "insanity overload." And the last several weeks made it seem as if we were living on the front pages of the old Weekly World News:

• According to World Net Daily, Gay parents are going to abort their straight babies
• Michele Bachmann insists that America was founded by people from all over the world and Thomas Jefferson plagiarized the Declaration of Independence from the Mayflower Pilgrims.
• Rick Joyner reports from a portal to heaven that the foundation of America is on fire.
• Wiley "Imprecatory Prayers" Drake wants to be President of the Southern Baptist Convention
• Jared Laughner pleads "Not Guilty." Who knew?
• Michele Bachmann pre-records a "rebuttal" to Obama's State of the Union speech even though she doesn't know what he's going to say.
• Some evangelists can't wait for the End Times - Definitely Happening on May 21st 
• And Cindy Jacobs still insists that God speaks through her when she says "gliddy glop gloopy nibby nobby nooby le-le lo-lo-lo"

"Insanity overload" leads to a kind of bizarre form of writers' block: it freezes the brain, like cryoablation, before attempting to  remove any sense of reality. Fortunately, IO doesn't last very long because one's reason usually takes all of the really stupid and insane things that have happened and organizes them into IO files safely in the back of the brain, to be used at a later time when dealing with the idiots who created the IO in the first place.

I know this last sounded smug, but have pity, please. I'm dealing with the likes of Cindy Jacobs, Rick Joyner and Michele Bachmann and other assorted, ah... people (he says, discreetly).

So in the last weeks we had:

DADT CAUSED BIRDS TO FALL FROM THE SKIES

Cindy Jacobs declaring that the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is (probably) the reason why we had dead birds falling from the sky in Arkansas. She did it in that inevitable Cindy Jacobs way, peppering her speech with unintelligable words just to point out that she is better than the Oracle of Delphi (who didn't know what she was talking about either).

And speaking of people who don't know what they're talking about, The Huffington Post Reports:

BACHMANN TO GIVE HER OWN STATE OF THE UNION REBUTTAL

The Minnesota Republican's office confirmed to The Huffington Post that she [Michele Bachmann] intends to broadcast a prerecorded message through the Tea Party Express website once Obama is done speaking.

A pre-recorded "rebuttal." Is there an oxymoron somewhere in that? Anyway, to ponder that sublime piece of idiocy can turn one's brain green.

RICK JOYNER SEES THE END OF AMERICA - LITERALLY

Pastor Rick Joyner of Leading Way Ministries chimed in with his worldview on a Christian news station that he journeyed to Moravian Falls, NC where, as everyone knows, there is an actual portal to Heaven, then had a dream where he was shown the destruction of America. Remember, this is the same man who was taken up to heaven, had discussions with saints (whom he couldn't name) and saw William Branham (the man who preached the total subjugation of women through a doctrine called the "demon seed") sitting in the highest throne in heaven. He also said some of the saints were placed in wierd positions. Joyner is also a major investor in Heritage U.S.A. where you may still be batized while whizzing down a waterslide.

SBC IN TOTAL CHAOS

 

During the last week, we saw the Southern Baptist Convention, like alligators, eat their own: former president, Richard Land, was forced to resign from the Anti-Defamation League's Interfaith Coalition on Mosques because he stated that Muslims had a right to build mosques in this country and therefore "promoted Islam." Then we had Wiley Drake consider a run for Land's old job even though the Southern Baptist Convention practically disowned him for calling for prayers to end the lives of Obama and members of Congress:

In my opinion we have left our traditional BIBLICAL positions, and become a large group being led by a small group of leaders who are out of touch with what the average Southern Baptist desires for our ministry under the leadership of The Holy Ghost.

In other words, the SBC is living in the 21st century while it's members are really stuck back in the 14th century  - and want to stay there.

WORLD NET DAILY WARNS ABOUT GAYS USING ADVANCED GENOMIC DEVICES

 

If two homosexual men want to use in vitro fertilization to conceive a baby and then use genetics technology to ensure the baby is also "gay," while disposing of any "straight" embryos, would the law have any ethical problems with that? John A. Robertson of the University of Texas Law School is the chair of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and an advocate of what his book "Children of Choice" calls "procreative liberty."

This man doesn't believe that the world will come to an end May 21st.: his "example" comes in the form of a story set in the year 2025. Forward thinker. 

IF WE ELIMINATE LIBERAL VOTERS, WE'LL RESCUE AMERICA!

And last, but not least, on the Insanity Overload list, there's the tortured reasoning of Michael Voris, S.T.B., (see video below) who posits the theory that democracy is a failure and only the virtuous should have a right to vote since they're ...ah ...smarter? Since he's a devout Sedevacantist Catholic, he can never be attracted to Michele Bachmann. Pity.

Insanity Overload: watching the parade of the pompous and pious can be numbing enough without being assaulted to this degree. A TV sitcom is mighty tempting right now. After all, I have to have some grip on reality.

We Need a Christian Dictator

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God Never Apologizes. ... But Don't You Think It's About Time He Did?

Keith Olbermann gave an insightful special commentary concerning the Rotten Rhetoric that has engulfed politics. I think everyone should view it: he raises some good points and he even apologizes to viewers for using the same kind of militaristic, gun-related rhetoric. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that Olbermann included both Left and Right in his speech and transcended the image of crosshaired gun sights by condemning all violent political rhetoric. It seemed quite inclusive. However, it did not include a vital component of today's American society.

It did not include God.

No, I'm not going all batsh*t-crazy, at least not in a theological sense: with a God who has been the instigator of all things good and bad, apologies are not on the table. Explanations aren't even considered. "He works in mysterious ways" has been the ubiquitous reason why bad things happen to good people. It's lame, but God gets away with doing things simply because He's ...God.

And He's done some pretty horrendous things: drowned innocent animals in the Great Flood, commanded genocide (slaying of the Moabites), condoned slavery, toyed sadistically with Jonah on a bet with Satan, and created the Texas Board of Education. But perhaps the worst thing God has ever done to humanity is to create hypocritical and corrupt apostles, prophets and preachers who will never apologize either: as "representative" "anointed"  even "beloved" shepherds of God, they and their chosen feel they are exempt from guilt, hence, without consciences and are to able to do most anything as long as they rationalize it as "God's will." 

The sins that have been committed against humanity and in the name of God are, like Satan's followers, Legion. History looks a lot like the infinite expanse of dead and dying soldiers in Gone With The Wind: religious strife litters humanity's past and "Peace On Earth, Good Will Towards Men" seems like a bad joke. And it will stay that way as long as there are "men of God" campaigning for the sake of righteousness.

BEYOND WESTBORO

The instance of Jared Lee Laughner's horrendous assassination attempt of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has prompted the MSM to analyze just how much politicians and pundits exacerbate violence with their speech and actions. Notice, however, that not one commentator mentioned anyone within the Religious Right communities: Giffords has weighed in as a pro-choice, pro-ENDA and pro-Health Care Reform. There are over 500 churches in the Tucson metropolitan area, with Baptist (approx. 80), Mormon (90+) and Catholic (100+) churches. What are the chances that none of them campaigned vitriolically against Giffords? Have any of those churches apologized?

Hardly. Not a peep out of any of them. Religious demonizers, like God, never apologize.

And how many of those churches supported Giffords opponent Jesse Kelly who, BTW, sponsored a campaign fundraiser* wherein people could shoot an M-16 for sport? Those churches and the rest of the Religious Right, if called on the carpet, will probably refocus the debate by pointing to entities like Westboro Baptist Church (who have announced that they will picket the funerals of those killed in the shooting). They will use stark contrast to deflect criticism or they will simply take an how-DARE-you stance, like when Tony Perkins ludicrously told the nation that the Religious Right had absolutely no culpability in the suicides of gay teens:

There is an abundance of evidence that homosexuals experience higher rates of mental health problems in general, including depression. However, there is no empirical evidence to link this with society's general disapproval of homosexual conduct.

Perhaps the most insipid lack of remorse for extremely violent message content lies in everything done by a group named Repent Amarillo. I've written about it before, but its last publicity-grabbing escapade deserves to be reiterated: the execution of Santa Claus. "Santa" was really a pinata (to placate critics, of course), but the guns and ammo used were real...in front of a group of children ...who will  probably develop psychoses larger than that of Jared Lee Laughner. No one rushed forward to accuse them of emotional child abuse because they were, of course, acting in the "name of the Lord." 

Rampages like Laughner's help develop a serious time of reflection as to their causes. Violent rhetoric, militaristic terms, virulent attack modes can come from pulpits as well as politicians. We live amidst a slew of God's self-appointed emissaries who have never apologized for their organized religion's crimes and never expect to apologize for their Rotten Rhetoric now or in the future. They may indulge themselves in vicious platitudes of the worst kind while thinking themselves totally unaccountable.

After all, righteous arrogance has its privileges. Just ask God.

 

 * Flier blurb: "Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly."