FURIOUS nads! by The One True b!X

Just in case Lars plans any further attempts at erecting crosses in Pioneer Courthouse Square, he might want to consider the latest study on methods of crucifixion.

The cross could be erected “in any one of a range of orientations”, with the victim sometimes head-up, sometimes head-down or in different postures.

Sometimes he was nailed to the cross by his genitals, sometimes the hands and feet were attached to the side of the cross and not the front, or affixed with cords rather than nails.

Emphasis added to highlight the part that would really draw some press attention this December.

Meanwhile, I’m still awaiting word on whether Lars will plan a special display especially for Easter.

This is the last in the little mini-series on being conservative. All of the traits covered in this and the previous three lessons are really expansions of simple core non-values like being hypocritical, bigoted, narrow-minded, authoritarian, pro-hate, continued oppression of the poor, disregard for facts, anti-freedom, no courage, few values, little morals, etc.

Fear

Fear is a motivational tactic conservatives love to use and if you want to be a better conservative than you will need to practice this technique. Learn from past and current conservative masters, especially how they direct their statements to induce that motivating fear in order to manipulate the population. For example, the many times over the past five years the administration has suddenly raised the terror alert level at the same time your president was in political trouble, or when an election was near. Or sending out conservative pundits to warn that if homosexuals were permitted to receive a civil marriage license, they next would be molesting children and marrying dogs. Or using the FBI to spy on peaceful protesters and activist groups to chill their First Amendment activities. Or, the biggest one of all, suggesting that Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and that Saddam Hussein might unleash nuclear weapons on American soil, despite the fact that he didn’t actually have any weapons of mass destruction. (No, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks about it. All that matters is being conservative.) Use fear to slash funding for schools too. Fear that taxes are communistic. Use fear to promote union-busting. Fear that unions are communistic. Use fear to crush dissent. Fear that criticizing your president is the same as helping the terrorists.

Hide

Be very careful when interacting with liberals since they will often counter what you stand for with truth and reality and facts. This is one powerful reason why the government insists on “free speech zones” which keep the American people away from the president unless they agree with him. Even with personal blogs be careful to not disclose your identity. Stay anonymous as much as possible.

Voting

The position a good conservative has on voting is simple. If a liberal is likely to win an election then send conservative operatives from Washington to riot and rush the room where votes are being counted. Before elections find as many people as you can to prevent from voting liberal. Harass voters, purge registration rolls, put voting locations in remote areas or close them altogether. The priority is not what is legal or right but to promote the conservative candidate. If despite all of this the liberal candidate is still going to win, make sure the Supreme Court is conservative and will vote for the conservative, even as it confesses it’s doing something wrong by claiming their ruling cannot be used as a precedent. Conservative candidates can not get into office without our special tactics.

Responsibility

The conservative way is not to be responsible. Always blame liberals for everything. If something bad turns up ignore it, then blame liberals for trying to undermine the country. If something like a natural disaster happens pass the buck to other officials, preferably at the overwhelmed local level and remember the previous lesson to repeat, repeat, repeat. Criminals are responsible for their crimes unless they are conservatives, in which case they are being persecuted for being conservative or for being Christian. Especially if they are conservative politicians. People are not responsible to each other under the social contract enunciated by the Preamble to the Constitution. It’s every man, woman, and child for themselves. As long as we get more than our fair share, of course, which we should get by any means necessary.

Your Final Test

For a conservative student there is no test. It doesn’t matter if you have learned anything or not since part of being conservative is not to be accountable. If someone tries to test you then charge that they are being un-American, unpatriotic, or friendly to terrorists. Just complain that they are traitors. Blame any deficiency on Hollywood culture or the influence of Satan, on that liberal teacher trying to get you to understand your world, or anyone. Just never blame yourself.

Jeff Jarvis calls bullshit on the Federal Communications Commission’s outlawing (pdf) of the word bullshit.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d be perfectly happy if the self-obsessed, delusional, bigoted, narcissistic, and fear-ridden righteous wing in fact was under real seige by a country rising up in a storm of fierce rationality, defending truth, justice, and the American way. I’m just not holding my breath for the day when their persecution complex becomes a reality.

For as long as I’ve been aware of American politics, the righteous wing has been enamored of charging that liberals engender what they term a Culture of Victimization, a code phrase of sorts for any philosophy which might lean towards the notion of there being a social contract under which we might possibly have a responsibility to one another.

Over at Preemptive Karma, Becky points to some evidence that the the righteous wing of the 21st century appears to have decided that if they can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Yes, it appears that the alleged War on Christmas wasn’t enough for them. Now, apparently, there is an outright War on Christians to contend with, wherein the believers in the single largest faith in the United States also somehow are a frightened minority under seige from all sides.

It’s both amusing and terrifying, this ability of the righteous wing to transmute the social contract into merely a culture of victimization while at the same time proclaiming for themselves, despite the dominance of their religion, the right to an entirely invented and completely false sense of victimhood.

You’ll note that so fervent is their cognitive dissonance that, to them, being a Christian automatically absolves and immunizes you from having to take responsibility for yourself (another supreme irony, given their penchant for repeating “personal responsibility” like a mantra).

This is, after all, a group of people who, in the face of the copious evidence which exists out here in reality-based reality that he is a scoundrel and a crook, can claim with a straight face that Tom Delay actually is being persecuted only for being a Christian.

The righteous wing simply is not happy unless it feels it is constantly under assault, its followers operating under an almost-constant state of fear for their identities. I would assume that in the realm, say, of interpersonal relationships, there must be a psychological condition, complete with its own name, to describe this peculiar and particular affliction.

In this context, suffice it to say that this is not actually about faith. This is about an entire spectrum of people suffering a rather debilitating mental disorder, and trying to inflict their hallucinatory persecution complex upon the rest of us by any means necessary.

Update: Over in the Washington Post, they report that “moral relativism, hedonism and Christophobia, or fear of Christ [were] just a few terms offered by various speakers referring to the enemy.”

“This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position,” said the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a minister in the Church of God in Christ and professor of social ethics at Emory University.

White evangelicals make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population, and 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. But three-quarters of evangelicals believe they are a minority under siege and nearly half believe they are looked down upon by most of their fellow citizens, according to a 2004 poll.

Much of what the article reports as going on at this conference is really rather ugly.