littleboxes
Dunderbonks
Taibbi (our new favorite person) writes about religion and politics in the good ol' US of A.
There is a feeling among the pointy-headed secular set that the evangelicals are a doomed anachronism who will die out with increased exposure to the open air, and that hitching a political wagon to their causes must result in failure.
--snip--
This is a common belief among the overeducated east coast set. It is also exactly what H.L. Mencken believed 80 years ago, when he filed what he thought was the obituary of American yahoo-ism from Dayton, Tennessee. He concluded from the Scopes trial: "On the one side was bigotry, ignorance, hatred, superstition, every sort of blackness that the human mind is capable of. And on the other side was sense. And sense achieved a great victory."
Little did Mencken know that 80 years after Dayton, the supporters of William Jennings Bryan's point of view would still outnumber the supporters of Clarence Darrow's opinion by a ratio of about five to one; not just in Tennessee, but in the country at large. Polls on the issue have been remarkably consistent for decades. A New York Times survey last year showed that 55 percent of Americans believed that "God created us in our present form," while only 13 percent believed that "we evolved from less-advanced life-forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process." A similar Gallup poll in 1997 placed those numbers at 44-10; in 1991, the numbers were 47-9.
--snip--
A large statistical majority of Americans would rather live their whole lives in perpetual fear of the devil than listen to ten minutes of common sense. When you consider where these people live intellectually, the idea that the Democratic Party can somehow succeed in Middle America by making small tactical changes, by waving a few more flags, seems absurd. You either believe in the devil or you don't; and if you don't, you're never going to fool these people.
--snip--
They [Republican Strategists] know that most political trends are fleeting. Liberalism vanished at the first sign of trouble; pacifism disappeared one generation after Vietnam; even fiscal conservatism is easily forgotten. The one thing that never disappears in this country is stupidity, and if you court it, you'll always have votes down the line. Especially when it lives on unopposed.
[see entire article in NYpress]
Update:
Much chatter in the office from a rather vocal minority. This rather vocal minority has as its leader a man who, like the president's brother, likes to be referred to by his initials. As in, J.E.B. for John Ellis Bush. We (most of us) always thought it was a bit weird that saying Jeb Bush was like saying John Ellis Bush Bush, kind of like those people who get upset when someone says PIN number (again, because you're saying personal identification number number). Note that although we do find it odd that our fellow staff member uses his initials as his first name, he has remained employmed here (although he was almost fired after that incident with the floor mop).
Anyway, our fellow staff member, GEN (who is man, GEN stands for Gerald Elias NXXx, we don't share last names) believes that creationism should be taught in college level biology courses.
[Sidebar: GEN is a pretty courageous guy. First off, he goes by a woman's name and second, his viewpoint is not really popular in our office but he sticks to his guns. It was not Gen's parents intention that he be known by his initials, they, to this day, still prefer Gerald. We wonder if Jeb Bush was ment to be Jeb?]
Gen believes that colleges and universities just serve to indoctrinate people against religious thought. He really hates this. It makes him very angry. He doesn't think that people who believe in the devil are stupid or live in some intellectual wasteland. He is a very intelligent guy, at least in terms of test scores and attending a well respected college and having a well paying job.
Looks like Gen is satified at least somewhat by our efforts to inform you, are loyal reader(s) of his opinion. Although he is starting to question the set up of having a narrator who expresses all of our opinions to the world. He is asking us "what would be so bad about having me type something from time to time?" Hold on there, Gen, it is that kind of talk, as opposed to religious talk, that gets people fired around here.
There is a feeling among the pointy-headed secular set that the evangelicals are a doomed anachronism who will die out with increased exposure to the open air, and that hitching a political wagon to their causes must result in failure.
--snip--
This is a common belief among the overeducated east coast set. It is also exactly what H.L. Mencken believed 80 years ago, when he filed what he thought was the obituary of American yahoo-ism from Dayton, Tennessee. He concluded from the Scopes trial: "On the one side was bigotry, ignorance, hatred, superstition, every sort of blackness that the human mind is capable of. And on the other side was sense. And sense achieved a great victory."
Little did Mencken know that 80 years after Dayton, the supporters of William Jennings Bryan's point of view would still outnumber the supporters of Clarence Darrow's opinion by a ratio of about five to one; not just in Tennessee, but in the country at large. Polls on the issue have been remarkably consistent for decades. A New York Times survey last year showed that 55 percent of Americans believed that "God created us in our present form," while only 13 percent believed that "we evolved from less-advanced life-forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process." A similar Gallup poll in 1997 placed those numbers at 44-10; in 1991, the numbers were 47-9.
--snip--
A large statistical majority of Americans would rather live their whole lives in perpetual fear of the devil than listen to ten minutes of common sense. When you consider where these people live intellectually, the idea that the Democratic Party can somehow succeed in Middle America by making small tactical changes, by waving a few more flags, seems absurd. You either believe in the devil or you don't; and if you don't, you're never going to fool these people.
--snip--
They [Republican Strategists] know that most political trends are fleeting. Liberalism vanished at the first sign of trouble; pacifism disappeared one generation after Vietnam; even fiscal conservatism is easily forgotten. The one thing that never disappears in this country is stupidity, and if you court it, you'll always have votes down the line. Especially when it lives on unopposed.
[see entire article in NYpress]
Update:
Much chatter in the office from a rather vocal minority. This rather vocal minority has as its leader a man who, like the president's brother, likes to be referred to by his initials. As in, J.E.B. for John Ellis Bush. We (most of us) always thought it was a bit weird that saying Jeb Bush was like saying John Ellis Bush Bush, kind of like those people who get upset when someone says PIN number (again, because you're saying personal identification number number). Note that although we do find it odd that our fellow staff member uses his initials as his first name, he has remained employmed here (although he was almost fired after that incident with the floor mop).
Anyway, our fellow staff member, GEN (who is man, GEN stands for Gerald Elias NXXx, we don't share last names) believes that creationism should be taught in college level biology courses.
[Sidebar: GEN is a pretty courageous guy. First off, he goes by a woman's name and second, his viewpoint is not really popular in our office but he sticks to his guns. It was not Gen's parents intention that he be known by his initials, they, to this day, still prefer Gerald. We wonder if Jeb Bush was ment to be Jeb?]
Gen believes that colleges and universities just serve to indoctrinate people against religious thought. He really hates this. It makes him very angry. He doesn't think that people who believe in the devil are stupid or live in some intellectual wasteland. He is a very intelligent guy, at least in terms of test scores and attending a well respected college and having a well paying job.
Looks like Gen is satified at least somewhat by our efforts to inform you, are loyal reader(s) of his opinion. Although he is starting to question the set up of having a narrator who expresses all of our opinions to the world. He is asking us "what would be so bad about having me type something from time to time?" Hold on there, Gen, it is that kind of talk, as opposed to religious talk, that gets people fired around here.
posted by littleboxes at 3:21 PM
5 Comments:
All I know is that there has been an increase in Dunderbonk activity since the reelection of GWB. It's becoming more and more perilous to go out at night with the rise in Dunderbonk sightings.
It's very rare that we get people talking and writing to themselves at littleboxes. Bravo, Roy, bravo.
That is it folks. It is unanimous. We love Roy. Why? Well, mainly because we get so few visitors around here and Roy actually came back twice! And not only did Roy come back twice but he also left rather odd comments twice.
For example, we have no idea what POMO means. Not one of us, and boy are there alot of us here. Second, the "juvenile insults" not meriting a response part is quite brilliant. Unfortunately we are not so brilliant as we have responded twice and are still confused.
We cannot control our laughter.
Roy, we hope you'll visit us again. But we realize that in this vast blogland you will likely find at the very least several other blogs that are more wonderful, less poorly written, and giving away more free prizes than this one.
But, we appreciate your business.
as thoroughly amused as i am by the comments before me, i must say that even though it's summer, the liberal staff at littleboxes should post something, anything. after all, to not do so would be lazy, antithetical to the protestant work ethic upon which this country was founded, and ultimately, UN-AMERICAN.
i, too, have no clue what roy is talking about. my colleagues and i have a running joke - whenever one of us tells another "your ___ (fill in your favorite adjective", another responds "your ass is ___." so roy, your ass is stupid...this banter has provided us w/endless hours of amusement. when i was a kid, i had a troll named roy that had flowy, orange hair, and he had a hole in his butt, into which i often stuck a pencil. i like to imagine that these comments from roy are coming from the troll i had as a child.
JDo, we will stand by our earlier statement that we kinda like this Roy character. He can come back anytime.
Post a Comment
<< Home