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Who is Christine O’Donnell? I knew next to nothing about this woman but if the statist right and left attack someone as hard as they have her, I get a strong suspicion I might like her a lot.
Listen to this interview of her on Pajamas TV before the primary which she has handily won. Make up your own mind. She certainly hits the Austrian economics and small government buttons in my soul. Libertarians need to get behind this woman in November. If you are in Delaware, volunteer. You can make a really big difference for a small amount of effort.
The media are going to attack her mercilessly. In no time at all the MSM will be telling us horror stories about the loathsome habits of her pet fish (if she has any). Consider this your inoculation against them.
If I can forgive her for belonging to a clan that warred with one side of my family (the O’Neill’s) centuries ago, so can you!
I just have to add this Firefly clip noted by Glenn Reynold:
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Legislating convicts to never masturbate, and destroy Halloween.
Yeah, nothing can go wrong with that, right?
ruling class rules yo dhimmis
I’d rather listen to what she has to say. I have known a lot of people who had strange beliefs, particularly when they were younger, who I would take over virtually any of our current ruling class.
So take your choice. Go along with emphasis on something silly or enjoy your cap and trade.
While i’d like to believe that all the hype is accurate, I can’t help but see her and think Palin 2.0.
As such I am not encouraged.
Plus, who’s to say she’ll actually go anywhere…
They already do.
Me too, and I like it.
Just listen to the interview. This woman knows more about real economics than most of the morons in Congress put together. The people running this country are total idiots. They need a nurse to show them how to tie their shoe laces. O’Donnell would be a giant amongst mental midgets.
And yes, I really do have that level of disgust and that low an opinion of the people in Congress. They are people who ran for public office because they weren’t capable of doing anything useful.
Read that link – she has the audacity (heh) to run for an office while being poor. The people writing for the NYT are real lowlifes.
Well I don’t know about you guys, but I think in a choice between the extant US, and some hypothetical amerikaner-run US where abortion is illegal, and evolution has to be taught alongside creationism in a science classroom, but has no medicare or medicaid, lighter regulation for insurance companies, defaultable student loans, if not a metallic standard then at least signorage heavily restricted, no fannie mae or freddie mac, no FDIC, no fed, no SEC… it really wouldn’t be a hard choice.
Sconsey, you forgot: no “public” schools, so the evolution vs creationism point is moot.
Dale,
The problem with congress is not that they don’t understand economics. The problem is they are tools of entrenched interests. They will spout anything to protect those interests.
Ms O’Donnell has done us all a valuable service in showing us the craven poltroonery that is the mainstream Republican party. They’re all running like squealing schoolgirls from the horror that the NYT might write bad things about them. Well, f*ck ’em.
To watch that blustering blowhard Karl Rove damning her with faint praise on the weekend talking-head shows tells me all I need to know about his wing of the GOP. To try and cut the legs out from a Republican primary winner because she does not kow-tow to the what he thinks should be current direction of the party – words failed me. That useless pr*ck.
So take heed, Republican voters, if you did not already see it – the GOP(as currently operating) is NOT the party of limited government, reduced taxes, controlling spending and individual liberties – or not with the current crop of chuckleheads in charge. And they will throw you and your principles under the bus in an instant if it suits them. So feel free to vote your conscience. You won’t be leaving the party – the party already left you. But now you actually have a viable choice. Viva la Reagan Revolucion!
Incidentally, am I the only one who finds it amusing that all of the people who seem to be tweaking the nose of the Republican establishment the most-effectively – are women? Good for them. If I could vote for Ms McDonell, I would. I hope she wins convincingly in November, and uses her new-found position to kick Rove and his RINO toadies into touch. He’s never been so much as elected dog-catcher of East Podunk, OH, and it’s absolutely intolerable that he gets to pontificate on what the voters should be allowed to choose.
llater,
llamas
I don’t welcome her emergence into public awareness.
People like this make is just effortless for the MSM to associate ‘Austrian’ economics with creationism, puritanism, and, from today, witchcraft: in other words, with stupidity.
I am tempted to believe that we, as votaries of intelligent economics, are willing to support types like Palin and O’Donnell despite their social and cultural bigotry. On the other hand, most of their votes are coming from social and cultural bigots who are willing to support them, regardless of their economics. Those voters tend to be swayed by trade protectionism, for example.
Ham, can you expand on ‘cultural bigotry’ point?
It seems to me that the following opinion (which I share) has now become extremely widespread in the USA:
It would be better to pick someone with a pin from a phone book than re-elect these thieving, incompetent (except at thieving) bastards.
A few crackpot opinions and off-message moves is hence rather reassuring to the voters, in their current mood. It is clear evidence of political inexperience, and that’s a feature, not a bug. It is proof that said “blunderer”, said “crackpot”, is not a Regular Politician wanting only to carry on with Business As Usual (i.e. bankrupting the USA beyond all hope of recovery).
One Party Media highlighting of such opinions and moves could backfire spectacularly, serving as further positive advertising for the anti-incumbent. As well as driving more nails into the coffin of the One Party Media. (Talk about win win!)
Faced with a choice between (a) the Devil (who really is a Devil) you know, only too well, and (b) someone who merely might be better, it is rational to pick the unknown quantity rather than the known quantity. At least with a UQ, you can’t be certain that you’ll be shafted. You might get lucky.
It would be very nice to certain that whatever weirdo from the phone book you pick instead of a Regular Politician would definitely be better, but with voting you generally have to make do with the least worst.
So, faced with at least a chance versus no damn chance at all, you go with at least a chance.
Aka: Christine O’Donnell.
I also hope she wins.
The fascinating thing about the “witchcraft” charge is they’re talking about something she did in HIGH SCHOOL!
Simply incredible. Did anyone bother to check before they decided to make absolute asses of themselves by trumpeting some of Maher’s stupidity?
Reagrding ‘cultural bigotry’ – let’s be clear that we are speaking about the moral opinions expressed by, inter alia, Governor Palin and candidate O’Donnell in matters such as abortion and other personal and lifestyle choices.
I don’t have any issues with their expressing their opinions in these matters (although I don’t agree with any of them) because
a) if elected, they will have no power to inflict their opinions on the rest of us (because of the form of US government) and
b) their opinions are primarily driven by their religious belief, and I always prefer a candidate who will not publicly deny the tenets of their professed religious belief, just to get elected (the correct pronunciation is Kenn_Uh_Dee.)
They cannot be expressing these opinions to gather votes. Contrary to popular belief, the numbers of people who will actually vote for a candidate simply and solely because of their position on eg abortion, is actually quite small – else no Democrat could ever get elected south of the M-D line, and they surely do.
I do NOT agree with Ham’s assertion that ‘most’ of the support for these candidates is coming from persons who identify with what he/she identifies as their ‘bigotry’, rather than their economics. My on-the-ground observation is that the great majority of the support for these candidates is a result of their positions on a) taxation and b) spending, with their opinions on moral/social matters as a very distant also-ran. All of the signs at Tea Party rallies are about taxes and spending – you’d have to look long and hard to find anything about abortion or gay marriage, for example.
llater,
llamas
LOL!
Well, I wouldn’t vote for her personally. She’s a conservative, not a libertarian, and she’s an american conservative at that, which is particularly scary. True to form, that means she’s a religious maniac.
American conservatives drag out some libertarian-ish arguments when it suits them. Then they ditch them when it doesn’t. They make make some economically liberal noises, but needless to say they are antithetical to everyday liberalism. O’Donnel for instance has a pedigree in the anti-pr0n, anti-abortion movements. She wants the State in there with its guns blazing against whatever she doesn’t like.
This comes back to history again. The modern “left” and the modern “right” are just the two main wings that the Victorian statist/social reform movment split into. They are both addicted to the use of the State as a moral force with all its violence and coercion. They are just bitterly divided about what specifically it should do with all that force, who it should persecute. The Tea Party movement is just a wave of reaction against Obama, who has this crazy reputation for being a marxist, a muslim, possibly the eldest child of Satan himself and so on. They didn’t raise a peep about small government when their guy was in the White House spending all that money and passing new laws and expanding the State, not a murmur.
The two sides are pretty much as bad as each other, so far as I can see.
Can you back this assertion?
Who are these ‘they’? Are they the same people who thought W was the second coming, or are they the people who were so disenchanted with both left and right that they tuned out of politics altogether, and are now finally paying attention again?
Well, she’s running for Joe Biden’s old seat, so I suppose as long as she at least matches his intelligence, integrity and wisdom, she’s qualified enough. For those of you not familiar with American politicians, that’s not a high barrier.
And I agree that even raising the ‘witchcraft’ issue simply shows her opponents to be desperate. What’s next, accusations of bad breath?
PersonfromPorlock wrote:
“Well, she’s running for Joe Biden’s old seat, so I suppose as long as she at least matches his intelligence, integrity and wisdom, she’s qualified enough. For those of you not familiar with American politicians, that’s not a high barrier.
And I agree that even raising the ‘witchcraft’ issue simply shows her opponents to be desperate. What’s next, accusations of bad breath?”
What would you prefer in your politician – a liar, fabulist and a plagiarist with Great Hair, or a person who gaily admists that she hung-around with people in high school who called themselves “witches?”
I hung around in high school with a guy who thought he was a better guitar player than Clapton. He wasn’t, as it happens. Because nothing that you believe in high school turns out to be real – except for Avogadro’s Number and the Stefan-Boltzmann Constant, that is.
Complete threadjack – PFP, I have long been an admirer of your handle (In Xanadu, did Kubla Khan – A stately Pleasure-dome decree, yes they made me learn it by heart in high school) and would be much obliged if you would share how you came to choose it.
llater,
llamas
I don’t know if any of you have actually met this woman, but I have. I sat next to her at a conference on Missile Defense and EMP last year. She was eager to learn the basics on these issues.
To me she seems like a very nice young lady who is a committed conservative on military issues. At the time I didn’t think she had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the primary, let alone the general election. He attitude on drug legalization (Let the individual states decide, is a interesting one and far from the puritan stereotype.
She is also very pro Israel.
I already did, by pointing out her activism career. It’s also simply true that american conservatism favours moral prohibitionism.
“They” being all these folks who suddenly found their Constitutional principles when the other side’s guy won the election.
***
I think the other thing that is being overlooked regarding this “witchcraft” thing is that witches don’t worship Satan. They don’t have “satanic altars” nor perform blood sacrifices. The only people who believe in the existence of a satanic witch conspiracy are Christian fundamentalists and gender feminists. But the actual fact of the matter is that it does not exist. Ergo, one cannot experience it.
So anyone who claims to have experienced it is either deluded or lying. It is like if she claimed to have been aboard a UFO. UFO’s (at least in the alien spacecraft sense) do not exist. So a person who claims they’ve been on one is either deluded or lying. Which is Christine O’Donnell?
The fact that she’s a christian activist who either is lying or has a false memory of Satanic Witchery tells us all on its own that’s she a dangerous nutjob.
Ian B. wrote:
‘So anyone who claims to have experienced it is either deluded or lying.”
– or is truthfully describing what she did in high school when she hung around with a bunch of wannabes who played at being witches and wizards, using the best data they had gathered from the media and the Oprah Winfrey Show.
You have to remember that she is describing faintly-ridiculous behaviour by high-school students. It’s kind-of silly to criticize this using a doctrinally-pure description of the Wiccan religion and then claim that she is presently either deluded or lying about what she did 20 years ago. It’s not like she joined the Witchcraft Club, where a faculty adviser would ensure that the students played at being ‘proper’ witches. This was silly-ass teenagers horsing around and needs to be seen in that light.
If she works to cut my taxes and reduce government spending by a large amount, I don’t care where or how she worships, be it at an ‘established’ Wiccan coven or at some imaginary altar to an imaginary Satan on a moonlit hilltop. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg.
llater,
llamas
Except she described it as a “satanic altar”, didn’t she? Not as a “stupid bunch of goths mucking around altar”.
Well, I think I get it Ian: she’s an American conservative, a religious maniac and a Satan worshiper, and I am sure this bizarre convergence can be somehow explained by Victorian Puritanism. It all fits now.
Yep.
Yep.
Nope, it appears she’s a Satan believer.
Yes it can.
I can’t for the life of me understand why libertarians, let alone anarchists, would support conservatism. It’s antithetical.
Oh, right, maybe a bit lower taxes, yeah, okay, screw the rest of it.
I should point out that Delaware is a VERY liberal state — e.g. Joe Biden, ’nuff said — and O’Donnell is unlikely to win (although if I’m proved wrong, I’ll be the first to cheer). More to the point, her erstwhile “Republican” opponent is, in addition to being more liberal than most Democrats in any Southern state you care to name, a rabid, and I mean rabid anti-gun demagogue. Little-known among the cognoscenti was a mass email sent to gun owners in DE just before the election, pointing out this position of Castle’s. It may not have been the sole reason for the upset, but it certainly contributed.
But even Castle had only an outside chance of moving the Delaware senate seart from D to R — like I said, DE is a liberal state to begin with.
But hoo-boy… if O’Donnell wins or even comes close to winning, the message will be unmistakable, and will make the Republican establishment tremble in their expensive shoes.
Because personal conservatism shouldn’t bother libertarians, just as any other personal preference should not.
Have you actually listened to what she had to say, or is what a person has to say of no importance, as long as they can be pigeonholed as American-conservative-religious-maniac-Satan-believers? (A mighty big pigeon, that one…)
“Personal” doesn’t count when a person is in political office. Next you’ll be saying we shouldn’t mind people who are “personally” socialist or “personally” fascist or what have you. Other people’s opinions become our business when they seek political power. By definition, they cease to be private citizens.
If somebody believes in fairies at the bottom of their garden, and are connected to movements that want to impose fairy-belief on the populace at large, that’s a big issue for electors. Because when in office, they’re very likely to push the government in a pro-fairy direction, with big ramifications for those of us who don’t believe in fairies.
Believing in Satan is pretty deranged in this day and age, especially considering the immense upheaval in adult/child relations that has already occurred, driven by networks of satanic cult believers across the Western World. Very big issue.
Alisa,
Personal conservatism is a private matter. I would indeed vote for a candidate who was, while privately Puritanical, explicitly committed to upholding legal tolerance for individual freedoms.
So, O’Donnell’s success may well be good news in that respect.
My frustration is more general: the really successful free-market candidates are so easily attached by the MSM to these forms of private stupidity. All I’m asking for is someone who both accepts the principle of individual action in economics and also understands the Theory of Evolution. I take it personally that so few seem to exist!
Of course, Palin and O’Donnell’s foolishness is exaggerated by biases in the MSM. But, still, on so many issues of principle and character, they are miles away from a libertarian position. Yet, with the dearth of better figureheads, they are celebrated as liberal heroes.
Am I inappropriately letting the best be the enemy of the good? Or is it right to hold out for something a little better out of politics?
Ian, so in that vein you would oppose a gay president, or a vegetarian one, or a Britney Spears admirer? (OK, I would certainly give that last one another thought…)
Best of luck with that 🙂
The irony for me, or frustration, or what have you, is that free market economics and Evolution work on the same principle. If you believe in one, you ought to be forced to believe in the other by logic. I’ve found it astonishing arguing with rabid “liberals” who are fanatical about evolution, or the right’s rejection thereof who, when faced with libertarian economics, start sneering down their noses about market forces in the same way- using the precise same arguments– as religious conservatives do about natural selection.
That is not the end of it either, Ham, as the real problem is that we don’t really know how much it is exaggerated: we simply don’t know the truth, unless we have a chance to listen to the candidates themselves (yes, they can lie), or judge them by their actions (she’s a newcomer, so that’s mostly out). So yes, your last paragraph seems to have answered itself.
I don’t know any significant part of the gay rights movement who want to force everyone to be gay, so that one doesn’t apply. A vegetarian, yes, I’d avoid voting for them. They tend to believe it is superior to omnivory and want to force it upon everybody else; indeed the public health movement are engaged in that activist attack right now. (Meat gives you cancer, meat causes global warming, et cet ra).
A fine British example of why veggies should never be allowed near public office is the puritan maniac Hilary Benn. (Not just a veggie but even worse a teetotaller).
How so, Ian?
Well Ian, you are a living proof (or at least one of them) of my frequent assertion that democracy is hugely overrated:-)
Er, selection.
I shouldn’t be allowed to vote? I should vote for gay vegetarians who believe in Satan?
I think I can get behind her religious views(Link) …
As an American, I am ready to vote them all out of office. I could care less about any “wiccan” crap in her past. Besides, if she was a Dem, they would be defending her for such. Methinks this is a lame ass attempt by the left to get us to damage ourselves. Best course here , IMO is to ridicule those making a big deal of this.
But, surely, Alisa, Palin has had more than enough time and space to be absolutely clear about herself.
She isn’t as maniacal as sometimes suggested, but it’s obvious that she’s neither a libertarian nor intellectually curious enough for me to believe that to her ‘lower taxes’ is a substantial position, rather than a gimmick. If you reply, ‘well…y’know…all of them,’ to the question, ‘who is your favourite of our founding fathers?’ then you are not a serious politician.
I am not saying that people ‘on the other side’ are any better. What I’m saying is: I don’t want ‘lower taxes’ to become associated with stupidity and ignorance. That is exactly what she allows the MSM to do.
For a some young women, being wiccan in High School and even into college, was a ‘cool thing’. I’ve known a few. They grew up. I would laugh in the face of anyone who takes this any more seriously than they would for the fact that when I was 14 I read all the extant UFO cover up things (Keyhoe and co) and thought there must be UFO’s everywhere and that the USAF was definitely covering them up. That belief did not even make it into Freshman year at CMU.
I would like each of you to try an experiment. Think back over your life and imagine you are an MSM reporter who is out to make a story of you that ‘fits the narrative’. Think of things you have written which can be taken out of context, misquoted or twisted to say something else. Think of things you did when you were younger which they can dredge up and use as if you had never grown and learned.
I think you will be so terrified at the thoughts that you will never wish to be a serious political candidate for anything unless you are one of the anointed left, in which case the opposite effort will be made, and non matter what a schmuck you have been all your life you will be made to appear a knight in white on a shining steed. Or something like that 😉
No, to the contrary: no one is good enough for you to vote for.
Free market is about selection? I thought it’s about, well, being free?
Frankly, I don’t care about her religious beliefs* or the peccadillos in her past. Working for abstinence advocacy groups, etc., does not necessarily imply that she wants to see greater governmental intrusion into those personal choices, merely that she is using her powers of persuasion to convince people to voluntarily adopt her viewpoint. If she is truly a constitutionalist (which she claims, and I haven’t seen anything to contradict that) she won’t be doing anything to expand the federal government’s continuing intrusion into our private lives. (Remember, this is a federal office she’s running for.) Smaller federal government, lower taxes, working to repeal the Obama agenda; that’s good enough for me. I’d take my chances with the rest. As Brian says, better the possibility of success than the certainty of failure.
Anyway, IanB, if you were voting in Delaware what would your alternative be?
One more good thing about her candidacy: Had Castle won the nomination the Democrats would have written off Delaware (and why not, since he’s a reliable Obama vote). With O’Donnell as the candidate they believe they have a good shot at winning, so they will divert resources (mostly money) into Delaware which would not otherwise have been the case. This takes cash away from other states where the contests are close, and so helps the Republicans in those states. So even if the Republicans do lose Delaware they may pick up three or more other states which are now toss-ups, and which could easily be lost. That’s a pretty fair trade.
* As far as I can see she has never said she believes in Satan, merely that in high school she hung around with some kids who thought they did. So what? And even if she does believe that Satan exists, so what again? Lots of mainstream Christians do, too.
Dale, it’s nothing to do with whether or not she was “Wiccan”. It’s the “satanic altar” bit. Coming from an evangelical, that’s a canary with a bad cough.
Ham: what Dale just said. I can only add that the media seem to have convinced you of Palin’s stupidity – whether they (and you) are right, still remains to be seen.
I find the ‘evil evangelicals’ attack silly as well. A whole lot of my relatives are southern Baptist and believe in a literal bible. They also believe in limited government and in at least one case where I had a chance to spend some hours walking around a reservoir talking about life the universe and everything, that the drug war was causing more harm than good.
So lets not give these folk a bad rep because they have different beliefs. Most of them want to live their lives by their beliefs, raise their kids to be good people and work hard and make the world a better place for them selves and their neighbors.
Don’t be so afraid of them. You’re buying the MSM story hook line and sinker.
But mainstream Christians are evil, evil, I tell you! Especially the American ones, with their Victorian puritanism! (sorry Ian, could not resist…:-))
I’m not trying to be nasty about her. I don’t think she is any more stupid than half the politicians in office. But she does not articulate a substantial libertarian position, either because she’s not intellectually curious on the matter or because ‘low taxes’ has for her as much content as ‘Change!’ did for Obama. She can at least speak without a filter of bias on Fox News or over the internet, so she’s had the chance.
Details aside, don’t you agree that a politician using ‘low taxes’ as a superficial slogan is no better for us than one using ‘fairness and equality’ in the same way?
I, therefore, support her no more than I support Obama.
(Well, as much as someone who’s never even been to the USA can support any of them :-P)
I know you are not trying to be nasty. No, ‘lower taxes’ is not as empty as ‘hope and change’, although I do agree that it calls for elaboration, and IIRC she provided it both in her comment (not only on Fox), and by her actions as governor.
I think that we have established long ago that neither she, nor O’Donnell, nor anyone else I know of in the current race is a libertarian. Neither am I, for that matter, so I suggest we put labels aside and focus on particular points of substance (and I apologize if that was your intention anyway).
Smited.
“. . . because ‘low taxes’ has for her as much content as ‘Change!’ did for Obama.”
Neither fair nor accuracte. “Change” was an empty vessel into which the gullible could (and did) pour anything they wanted to be there. It’s devoid of meaning, unquantifiable, but in 2008 it was good politics. In contrast, “low taxes” is measurable and meaningful, and has the added virtue of being good economics (in any year). I won’t argue that Palin is a libertarian (clearly, she is not), but she’s moving in the right direction when compared to the leftists (of both parties) who been in power for decades. Is there really any question that she would be a superior President than Obama? Or Biden? Or Pelosi? Or that moron Reid? (Or, for that matter, McCain?)
Glenn has some interesting links:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/106489/(Link)
Our own Paul Marks passed on this quote from Christine:
“If I really was a witch, Karl Rove would be a supporter”.
As to High School wiccans, how do you think they learn their religion? Why, the watch Buffy and listen to what adults think it is and then they make up rituals!
There is indeed a real religion by that name but very few of those who call themselves part of it actually are or have ever met anyone who was. So her description of rites is just what I would expect of a bunch of kid’s making things up as they go.
The link needs fixing, Dale.
Dale, have you actually watched the damned clip? The whole point I’m addressing here isn’t whether or not she was a teenage witch. It is that she is characterising witchcraft as real
“this is what they do”
with a “satanic altar” and “blood” as an explanation for evangelical nutjob opposition to Halloween; because evangelical nutjobs believe that Halloween leads kids to Satan, because witches are Satanists. It’s a conspiracy theory.
Now I appreciate that you haven’t spent years following the satanic panic like I have, but if you had done so you’d be aware of the beliefs inherent to the Satanic Panic.
She is characterising witchcraft as real. If she were joking about kids copying Buffy, I wouldn’t be making these points. But she isn’t.
As to your family being trapped in the fifteenth century, you have my commiserations.
Also, you seriously need to add a </i> tag up there somewhere Dale.
Look, you’re all running off into the weeds trying to parse the exact and perfect import of her throwaway remarks about Satanism or whatever-the-hell-else the MSM is ladling out to you as their definition of who she is.
She didn’t run on these issues – she never mentioned them, these things were all brought up by her opponents (both Democratic and GOP, I might add).
She ran on a platform (basically) of cutting spending and reducing taxes. And apparently that spoke to the 50K or so registered Republican voters who made her the candidate – over Mike Castle, who (as others have observed) was basically a squishy-left RINO who essentially caucussed with Democrats anyway.
The Democrats are all wittering on about these trivial issues from her past because it’s all they have. They can’t counter her policy positions, and they know that if she gets to simply talk about her platform, they be doomed.
That’s why all this nonsese and smokescreening. I’m frankly surprised that so many people here are falling for it.
So she thinks witchcraft is real? Guess what? I don’t care. Because the US form of government ensures that her personal beliefs can’t really have any impact on her public acts. This concept may be foreign to some readers. Millions of Americans identify as evangelicals who believe (among other irrational things) that witchcraft is real, and they’ve held these beliefs for many generations. Guess what? The Federal government still takes no notice of such beliefs, and they have no impact on public policy. Quit fussing about these trivial distractions and concentrate on those things that she can influence by her public acts.
llater,
llamas
Hmm, well I dunno. Take a look at the career of this “outsider” and you see a career lobbyist on behalf of the evangelical movement. Here’s her synopsis from Wikipedia (not a great source, but it’s reasonable to presume this is factually correct)-
Hell of an outsider, shaking up the system, isn’t she? Long standing links with the political establishment, media personality, lobbyist, and she’s already stood for Senate in 2006 and 2008. Looks to me like a career political operator hoping to ride into office on the Tea Party’s wave of enthusiasm.
What’s noticable is a complete lack of any professional lobbying for low taxes and small government. But a shitload pushing the beliefs of the cult she’s a member of.
Well we have been discussing the lady over at CCIZ.
http://www.countingcats.com/?p=7721#comments
And Nick and I still firmly believe the woman is a nutjob.
Now I will admit that in Dale’s clip, she appears not only sane but inspirational. But that’s not the story the MSM is going to tell, is it?
The wanking thing was weird. But lot’s of people have funny ideas about sex that are never going to bother the rest of us, I can handle that.
The Witchcraft thing was weirder, but not much. It is blatently clear that she hasn’t a clue what she is talking about. She didn’t dabble in satanism because the people she hung out with wouldn’t know witchcraft from basket weaving, but it’s the fact that she believes in the shit about Satanic altars etc, is what worries me, just like Ian B.
But the hurdle I cant get over is the Supermice.
Now anyone who believes that American scientists have crossed human and mice genes to produce mice with human brains, is just not too tightly wrapped.
I would not vote for her if she was the ONLY candidate.
And I dont want her going near dangerous machinery like cutlery either.
Sheesh folks, let’s get a grip, the Tea Party surely can do better than this?
She is a gift to the trendy leftie Progressive MSM and the dead on their feet, Democrats. Script writers couldn’t have invented a wackier character.
There will be no need to discuss Tea Party small government or any of their other ideas for gettin the Government off our backs, all they have to do is to wheel out Wanking Witchcraft and Supermice, to peels of derisory laughter.
The Tea Party deserve a better hearing than this. O’Donnell is doing them no favours.
All academic of course, because as Kim says, she wont win. But it is indicative. Get a grip Tea Party. The World needs you. Dont go down in the first round. Politics is a dirty business. You have to be ruthless sometimes.
Gawd! I’m smited again too.
I really could smack your Bots, Bot, Perry.
I’ll grant you a point there, Ian – although, ‘a cult‘?
Not perfect, but substantially better than the alternative. What’s the point of this discussion?
Is this how Asians see normal text? Someone close the tag please!
Ian B and RAB
Keep up the good work on this thread.
For me all her ideas on economics are undone by her nut jobbery on science and social authoritarianism.
I’d rather live in a socially liberal society than an economically liberal one if I had to choose. I seem to be unusual in wanting both. Which is odd, because really; you can’t have one without the other.
Alisa, in my opinion (and of course it is only my opinion) there are some churches and groups within the Christian umbrella which are worthy of the “cult” designation; indeed the distinction between the two is more a matter of taste than anything.
The fact that according to her biog she went from being not very religious to born again and a driven promoter of her church’s beliefs- effectively taking over her life- strongly implies to me a cult experience.
While I’m analysing, her indentification of this “satanic” experience reads to me like a post-hoc identification of it within her church environment and the context of their belief in Satanism. I honestly doubt she did more than hang with some goths; a satanic re-interpretation was overlaid on this trivial experience within the satanic panic mindset. Note how she says she didn’t know what this satanic altar was at the time. She probably “found out” when her church handlers were dissecting her former life. It may have been nothing more than some student room decked in a “new age”/vaguely pagan stylee.
You and me, we need to form a movement.
RAB could join too, as the OAP wing.
😉
But not both ways: economic freedom eventually brings with it the “social’ one, but not necessarily the other way around. Furthermore, in the West in general, and in the US in particular, you already have the latter (for the most part), after many years of steady increase (with some notable recent setbacks), while the former (economic freedom) has been steadily eroding over roughly the same long period of time. So while I understand Ian’s concern, I am very far from sharing in it.
Alisa, I don’t entirely agree. The lack of social freedom is because of social control; social control requires economic control. You can’t get economic freedom under a social control regime.
For instance, if the state wants to control alcohol drinking, it has to control alcohol vendors and manufacturers, decide who can sell it and under what circumstances, levy special taxes, control transportation of alcohol, and so on. This is why vanilla conservatism (economic freedom, social control) never achieves economic freedom; the conservatives find they can’t give up the economic control without giving up the social control too.
That’s part of why I think it’s so important to understand how we went from famously socially liberal Britain to famously socially controlled Britain in Victorian times. It is amazing to think now that ENgland was the envy of continental Europe for being such a free place; now we’re the least socially free country. It was the loss of that social freedom that led to the loss of our economic freedom, and I do not believe we will get either back until we get both back.
I don’t see the point of disagreement.
Alisa, what I was trying to disagree with was that economic freedom will bring social freedom; I think that you’lll never get the economic freedom first, so the point is moot.
But, don’t you find it annoying that all the prominent free-market advocates are like this? This is my point. She may make a decent representative, but she’s contributing to the ease with which lazy people assume that small government is equivalent to stupidity and Puritanism. It’s frustrating.
Ham, are you complaining that good politicians (did I just write that?) are not perfect? Because I got news for you: nobody is. It’s just that politicians’ imperfections are food for the media and for their political opponents (but I repeat myself). If, however, you are complaining about the specific imperfections of the free-market politicians, then two things: one is that Christianity and the free-market principle may be related (yes, Ian). Second, why do you care exactly what kind of crazy shit she is accused of? It seems to me that all I need to know is that she’s not perfect, and that her opponents will do anything to blow her imperfections out of all proportion, making them look like crazy shit, and that in most cases, following a cautious examination, these accusations can be pretty much ignored. I am not saying that as far as I’m concerned she had passed such an examination quite yet, just making a general point.
My admittedly limited understanding of libertarianism leads me to believe that a libertarian would never attempt to outlaw masturbation. If this is her goal, Christine O’Donnell is no libertarian. Of course, she is free to advocate for this view without any intent to legislate. That said, without a clear statement to the contrary, any view advocated by a candidate for a legislator might be reasonably expected to lead to legislation.
I like that she dabbled it witchcraft. In any case, I don’t think Bill Maher did anything wrong re-airing this clip. Ms. O’Donnell is a candidate for high office, and if like Sarah Palin she declines to engage the media, it seems not only fair but necessary that the media replay what little they have of her.
DR, you may be shocked to hear that the media have been known to make what little they have into much more (i.e. making stuff up), and also to make what much they have into much less (i.e. editing out the parts of interviews that did not suit their narrative, as they have indeed done with Palin). ‘Engage with the media’? Ha.
All that said, for now I have been convinced to withhold judgment on O’Donnell, pending further developments.
I think just about everyone in this thread has escaped standard orbit on the topic, although, to be fair, the query begs escape velocity.
Lets recap: the question is, who is O’Donnell? We know she is a) a tea party candidate, touting the tea party objectives, b) a christian conservative, c) a religious activist, d) appeared multiple times on Bill Maher’s show, and e) easy on the eyes.
What she isn’t, is an outsider. And it remains to be seen whether she is committed to smaller govt and lower taxes, but, I see no evidence to the contrary.
She won her election because the Republicans in Delaware decided that she was a better alternative to Rubberstamp Castle, and not for religious reasons, but primarily for economic ones.
We’ll see if she can win. Out of the gate, she is indeed looking a lot like Palin 2.0, and the MSM are already piling wood under her feet for that inevitable witch burning. Gosh if that isnt ironic.
As far as witchcraft goes, she is or was ignorant on the topic; she also admits she was trying to get ratings for Bill Maher. Nobody seems to be too angry at Bill, who is threatening to release more video of her every week until she agrees to appear on his show. That might be a joke, but I think Bill lost his sense of humor a decade ago, so probably not.
I for one find it refreshing to hear of a candidate who admits to a midnight picnic snack on a satanic alter bedecked with blood… can you think of a better Secretary of Defense?
Ian B frothed:
I object to the concepts ‘american’, ‘conservative’, ‘religious’, and ‘maniac’ all tied together in such a tight bow. Its a big country, and we have quite a bit to disagree about with each other, without maniacal motives being attributed. Later on, Ian uses ‘cult’ to describe some christian sects, and again, while that may have a few molecules of truth, I am starting to wonder if the canary in the anti-religious maniac cage is Tango Uniform for a reason…
What about that mice thing?
Bryan Price – and other such.
Could you please cite the O’Donnell campaign literature (or campaign speech) where O’Donnell supports the opinions you cite?
“But she believed in this stuff as a kid”.
Actually she did not – there is a big difference between stating the (textbook correct) opinion that X, Y, Z, is a sin (although it is misake to reply to such questions at all – and the mature O’Donnell has learned to ignore trap questions) and holding it to be a CRIME.
The difference between sins and crimes used to be well understood – but in the modern age, where “if something is not forbidden it is complusory” the understanding has been partly lost.
Ian B.
Your opinions on theology and the role of Christainity in history are not TOTALLY wrong – but they are lot more right than wrong.
Far from religious people being phony in their support of freedom.
All the most important defenders of freedom in American history (before modern times) were religious – and their religion was that of the “Fundementalist” (in the original sense of that word – it need not have anything to do with biological evolution) kind.
What about the mice thing.
O.K. show me the full quote and the context and I will comment. If Christine O’Donnell really believes that a “fully functioning human brain” can be fitted into the skull of a mouse – then she is wrong, and I will say so.
Otherwise I am just could it in the trash can marked “mainstream media propaganda”.
I have always thought well of the original PFP for nailing Coleridge to the floor in mid-roll. Not that he deserved it, but there’s lots of artsy-fartsy types that do. And so I took on the name and donned the Brown Cape – PersonFromPorlock! Defender of the Mundane! Snide Terror of the Lumpen-Intelligentsia! Party-pooper to the Go….
Drat, somebody at the door. I’ll get back to you.
Consumate PFP . 😉
Paul-
You’ve read the thread. You must therefore have realised that this is nothing to do with whether she did something embarrassing at college, or her personal opinions. It is about the fact that this strange woman, under the influence of her religion—
BELIEVES IN WITCHCRAFT
—not “a few kids dabble around copying Buffy”, or “I hung around with a few cod-pagans as a kid”. It is about the fact that she is a believer in Satan, and that whatever trivial foolishness she indulged in at college was proof to her of the existence of satanic witchcraft. That is why she spoke about it on Maher’s programme.
Additionally, you are deliberately ignoring the fact that, rather than “let slip” some minor indiscretion, she has spent most of her professional life promoting these insane views
(let’s repeat that, she BELIEVES IN WITCHCRAFT)
and was on Maher’s programme as part of that campaigning. She actually had A JOB telling people that wanking is evil.
So this isn’t muckraking to embarrass her over being “a witch” or whatnot. It is about her fundamental driving beliefs, and the fact that her career has been based on actively lobbying for them at the government level. She’s not just a nutter, she’s a professional nutter.
You see, this is the problem you get stuck with when you’re a conservative. You end up having to defend ghastly, indefensible people because you perceive them to be on the same team, like a sports fan who won’t brook any criticism of his own side. And this extends to the requirement, as conservative dogma, to have to defend historical personages, movements and actions, just because they’re part of the old dispensation.
You’re very good at pulling the Left apart, Paul. But that gets ruined by having to continually defend the Right, and ignore their role in the growth of State and collapse of liberty. That default blind spot means you’re never going to understand properly how we got into this mess we’re in, because you’ll only ever have half the picture.
You got carried away, Ian. Just sayin’.
My last comment? Too strident?
No, just off-mark.
In what way specifically?
Well, Paul certainly has his blind spots, as we all do. I doubt his is any larger than anyone else’s.
I think having to defend this loony woman is indicative of a pretty big blind spot. My comment looked more personally against Paul than it was meant to be. It was a general criticism of the inherent- and widespread problems- faced by libertarians who wish to cleave to conservatism simultaneously. The two things are different and incompatible.
The central problem is that conservatism by its nature has to declare some kind of year zero when everything was fine- it might be 1950, it might be 1850, depending on whatever is being argued about- and it then becomes an exercise in apologetics for the “traditional”, however ridiculous this “traditional” may be. As with the appeal to a “traditional” morality; which Mad Christine has spent her professional career promoting; which did not pertain for most of western history and was- I know you’re expecting me to say this, so I will- a Victorian Era invention.
Taking something specific from her belief system; the Bible doesn’t mention masturbation. Not once. The religious objection to it had to be cobbled together from the story of Onan, which everyone knows was about him breaking the Judaic law by not doing his impregnatory duty to his widowed sister, and nothing whatsoever to do with having a hand shandy. The “traditional” morality of fundamentalism is a modern construction which they like to believe was the norm until after the Year Zero- in this case, 1950 or so- in the same way as modern Islamic fundamentalism is a modern construction that doesn’t actually represent some truth about historic Islam. The appeal to tradition is almost invariably an appeal to an imagined history.
So you end up defending the indefensible, the ahistoric, and the absurd. Which is why, to quote Hayek, “I am not a conservative”.
***
“widowed sister-in-law”
Ian B., fulfilling my expectations on SI since 200…?:-)
I said above that I reserve judgment on whether this woman is loony or not, ignoring my biases (AKA ‘blind spots’) the best I can (several others, Paul among them, seem to have done the same). You seem to have made your judgment quite a bit early on, and it doesn’t seem to be based on sufficient evidence. Is it possible that your own biases are getting in the way?
I forgot to add that reserving judgment usually comes with giving a person the benefit of the doubt.
I’ve stated the evidence several times, Alisa. What seems to be the case is that her defenders are determined to ignore her quite clear convictions- expressed in her activist career and deliberate public statements- just because she’s currently making a few small government noises.
Alisa:
If you think Ian’s too strident, be thankful I’ve avoided commenting. Frankly, I find Paul to be insufferably full of himself.
His writing style (insert idiotically long parenthetical phrase here) doesn’t do him any favors either.
“But Ted, surely you realize that making up a strawman interlocutor and having it ask begging questions is a brilliant debate tactic?”
If you want to see just how tedious Paul can be, I suggest you read Paul’s comment to this post.
There’s two worthy threads in this commentary, IMO. The first is that O’Donnell really does appear to be a Palin 2.0 phenomenon, in terms of everyone’s reactions to her, only the length of the drama is much compressed, because we’ve already been through it with Sarah. These are very polarizing women, and everyone seems to know within 10 seconds of media exposure how they feel about each of them.
The second thread is the barely unspoken assumption embedded in Ian B’s commentary that anyone who believes in any sort of religion is by definition a nutcase. If you really believe this, Ian, then you are invited to commit buggery with an over sized siege engine, and the invitation is extended to anyone who shares that dogma. It is impossible to have an effective debate with a person who has come to that conclusion.
Witchcraft is what witches practice. Witches exist, they practice, therefore, witchcraft exists. Christine doesnt believe in something that doesnt exist, its just that her ignorant assumption that all witchcraft is bad, is wrong. Ian, I agree with you on some of your points, but this argument doesnt convince me that O’Donnell is only mouthing ‘small govt, small govt’ until she has a grasp on the reins of power.
You are being obtuse, Darryl. Nobody disputes that there are people who call themselves witches and who practise divers rituals. But that is not the issue.
O’Donnell believes that those silly rituals actually work and invoke satanic magic, and that there are networks of these satanic witches across the USA. She believes that Halloween- rather than being some silly traditional fun- draws kids to Satan. That’s the context of the clip, and it is well known to be a common belief in the kind of nut-church she was recruited into as a young woman. She is not “ignorant”. She is a believer in a mediaeval conspiracy theory which is prevalent among evangelicals and whose most famous recent consequence was the infamous Satanic Ritual Abuse panic.
That’s what makes her a dangerous nutcase who is entirely unfit for public office.
Actually, Ted, I have already explained to Ian that I did not find his comment on Paul strident at all – I did find it to be off the mark. As to your feelings about Paul, I am glad you took that off your chest, and I hope that you are feeling much better now.
To answer the original question, Who is Christine O’Donnell?, the only answer that matters (to me) is this:
‘She is the only candidate for the pending US Senate election in Delaware (past or present) who actively campaigns on a platform of lower taxes, reduced public spending and smaller government.’
Past US Senate and Presidential candidates have expressed some pretty strange beliefs. President Carter allowed as how he was attached by a giant talking rabbit. The Kennedys publicly, aggressively adhered to a faith which requires them to believe that a piece of unleavened dough becomes human flesh, and that adultery is a mortal sin. Senator John Kerry believes that his multi-million doallar net worth is the result of his own skill and hard work. And so on.
In a sense, I actually have more respect for Ms O’Donnell for sticking to her moral principles (however much I may believe that she is irrational in holding them) precisely because she does not selectively abandon them in order to either advance her personal agendas or improve her electability. She believes that w*nking is a sin, and says so – President Clinton claims to be a born-again Christian, but claims that a BJ is not s*x. Who is more consistent with their expressed religious belief, would you say?
llater,
llamas
Depends what you mean by ‘is’…
Llamas, I don’t think there’s inherent merit in a person sticking to their beliefs, if those beliefs are dumb or dangerous. Osama Bin Liner sticks to his beliefs, Adolf H. stuck to his, etc.
“Crazy and proud of it!” doesn’t cut much ice with me, I’m afraid.
IanB – your opinion that her beliefs are ‘crazy’ has no more validity than her opinion that her beliefs are entirely rational. You can’t argue about the validity or otherwise of religious belief.
That being so, I have more respect for a person who says ‘these are my beliefs and I express them to whoever wants to know, and I hold to them in my won life’ than a person who says ‘these are my beliefs, and I express them to whoever wants to know, but I’m quite prepared to deny or ignore them whenever it suits me.’ Courage and consistency of convictions has some value to me. Since many of the positions which she has expressed (many, but not all) are questions of moral judgement and therefore not open to objective analysis, the only thing one can learn about her as it relates to such things is ‘does she express and live by her beliefs consistently?’. If she does, then she is honest – if she does not, then she is a hypocrite. That’s a useful thing to know, in a politician.
I don’t sneer at President Clinton because of his expressed evangelical Christian beliefs – it’s not my place to sneer at another man’s religion, and in any event, it neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg. I sneer at him because of his hypocrisy in bypassing his expressed beliefs when it suits him – moral character on the cafeteria plan, as it were.
llater,
llamas
Some of these positions exemplify one which is guaranteed to keep libertarian ideas a marginalized ideology of a minority. I look for fellow travelers where ever I can find them. It’s the vector direction we wish to influence. We will never have full control of that direction, but if we make enough friends and have enough different sorts of people allied to us on enough different issues, we will grow in strength and influence and get at least some, although never all, of what we want. There is about as much chance of the whole world being libertarian as the whole world being part of the ‘Ummah’. Ain’t gonna happen because people don’t always do things for what some may consider rational reasons.
Did you know that buildings in Hong Kong are sited and designed to maximize the influence of good forces? And that two banks ‘duelled’ with their buildings? One set up their building to deflect the bad luck on to the other one! So are Chinese nutcases such that you would not vote for one?
I’ve at least one FB friend who used to be wiccan and might still be for all I know, although I doubt it; I have friends who are devout Catholic, devout Conservative Jews, fundamentalist southern Baptist relatives, and just about everything else you can imagine. If you concentrate on making friends rather than on limiting yourself, you can search for common ground and show all those different sorts of people how liberty will let them be free to live their lives and raise their families their way.
I really do get annoyed at libertarians who are focused on purity. I sometimes think that the recent success of our ideas in the mainstream is scaring the hell out of the sorts of libertarians who simply enjoy being radical outsiders and are frightened to death of finding themselves part of the normal tussle of politics.
Coming back to O’Donnell, can anyone say that her candidacy in Delaware is a bad thing? How can it possibly be worse than the candidate she defeated already and the one she is going up against? She isn’t liberatarian… at least not yet, but she has some of the ideas. Perhaps if libertarians in Delaware work with her she can learn a bit more and journey farther with us.
Yes you can. Of course you can. There is an objective universe out there beyond our fleshly carriages, and some statements about it are true and some are untrue, and the statement “Satan exists” is objectively untrue. She is entitled to believe that the sky is a solid roof with windows to let in the rain, which her Holy Book also tells her, and that isn’t true either, and it wouldn’t become true if every person on Earth believed it.
For a bronze age sheep farmer mooching around the hills of Palestine, these kind of beliefs are forgivable. In this day and age, they’re objectively batshit.
Good grief Dale. There is forming alliance and making friends and so on, but this is nothing to do with that. Next you’ll be saying we ought to make friends with the BNP because they’re anti-bolshevik.
The woman’s part of the loony far-right, trapped in a ridiculous mediaeval belief system- let’s remind ourselves again, she BELIEVES IN WITCHCRAFT- and being associated with people like her just makes libertarians look ridiculous. Libertarians have enough trouble being labelled “extremist” without actively associating ourselves with people who actually are.
If O’Donnell actually believes in witchcraft (in the efficacy of the rituals, that is), personally that offends me no more (and no less) that those who believe in any sort of “invisible guy in the sky”, whatever brand they choose. I don’t share their beliefs, but those beliefs don’t automatically disqualify them from receiving my vote. I’m more concerned with their theory of government than their theory of the afterlife.
But what I’m having trouble with here is Ian B’s insistence (strident insistence!) that O’Donnell actually believes in witchcraft and satanism. What’s the evidence for that? It’s entirely possible that I’ve missed it, but so far all I’m aware of is that sillly old clip from Maher’s program in which she said that 20 years ago, in high school, she hung out with a few kids who claimed to be witches. I haven’t yet seen anything which indicates that she either seriously shared those beliefs then or that she holds those beliefs today. Indeed, they would be conpletely contradictory to her demonstrable evangelical christianity. So please, Ian, what is the evidence for your statements? I’m prepared to be convinced if you can produce something substantive.
Laird, before I type another novel-length post which everyone will then treat as if it were never typed, answer me one question.
Are you aware of the history of the belief in Satanic Cults on the American religious right from the 1980s onwards?
“the statement ‘Satan exists’ is objectively untrue”
Whoa, that’s a bold statement. I don’t believe in either God or Satan, but how can anyone claim such belief is “objectively untrue”?
Of course it’s untrue Laird. This isn’t the fucking fifteenth century.
“Fairies exist”. True or false? It’s false, isn’t it?
IanB wrote:
“the statement “Satan exists” is objectively untrue.”
Your objective evidence for this statement, if you please.
“She is entitled to believe that the sky is a solid roof with windows to let in the rain, which her Holy Book also tells her . . ”
Where, exactly, does her ‘Holy Book’ tell her this, or anything like it? And, indeed, how do you know what her ‘Holy Book’ actually is? It seems to me that you are very quick to make absolute judgements based on very little actual data . . . . . . . I particularly like the way you set yourself up as empowered to offer ‘forgiveness’ about the beliefs of others. Kind of like absolution, I guess . . . .
The very definition of religious belief is the ‘conviction of . . . things not seen’ and so by definition it is incapable of objective analysis. The mere fact that you think these beliefs are batsh*t crazy, does not (objectively) make them so.
llater,
llamas
So now, let’s get this straight, you’re saying that despite her being not only Christian, but a lifelong campaigner on behalf of Christianity, it is unreasonably presumptious of me to associate her with the Bible?!!!
Ian, no, I have not followed satanic cults. And please, no book-length post. Just a link or something that shows me where you get the notion that she’s a satanist.
Oh, please. This is intellectually insulting. Markets are products of the intelligent design of multiple intelligences. Intelligent selection and natural selection do not work on the same principle. Furthermore, no economic system works on the same principle as any biological process.
*weeps*
Laird, I’m not saying she’s a Satanist. I mean, I haven’t said that anywhere, so I’m really sitting here wondering whether you’re yanking my chain with that statement.
It is the question of whether she believes in Satanic cults, because of her evangelical background. Nobody is suggesting that she is a Satanist, a witch, or ever was. Let’s at least please get that clear.
Satanic Ritual Abuse.
Many Catholics I know believe in satanic possessions and exorcisms. Belief in ghosts and evil spirits abound. I know many, many people who believe such things. Reagan, or at least his wife Nancy, (not to mention many other public figures over the years) believed in Astrology. Would you have forgone the Reagan presidency for that? Would a second Carter term have been better?
People have lots of strange beliefs. I had to tell you Ian, but you are probably in a minority in your total rationalism in virtually any place outside this discussion group. If you want a free society you are simply going to have to accept that there indeed are people who believe in Satan, Faeries, Demons, LGM’s, Faces on Mars, any one of a thousand conspiracy theories… by the time you work out the set of these subsets, there ain’t a lot of us left.
So lets just move on and make friends for Liberty where we can find them.
IanB wrote:
‘
Where, exactly, does her ‘Holy Book’ tell her this, or anything like it? And, indeed, how do you know what her ‘Holy Book’ actually is?
So now, let’s get this straight, you’re saying that despite her being not only Christian, but a lifelong campaigner on behalf of Christianity, it is unreasonably presumptious of me to associate her with the Bible?!!!
1) Which Bible? King James, RSV, ESV, the Douai transcription? You don’t even know, so how can you say what she does or does not believ? Objectively, that is?
2) I don’t think that any version of the Bible teaches that ‘ . . . the sky is a solid roof with windows to let in the rain . . .” and so your criticism is – objectively – without foundation.
3) I still don’t see your objective evdience for the assertion that “the statement “Satan exists” is objectively untrue.”
As a sometime police officer, I am in fact somewhat aware of the Great Satanic Cult Craze of the ’80s and ’90s. If you knew much about it from the coal face, you would know that it actually had very little to do with what you call the ‘religious right’, although many religious Americans certainly believe in Satan. Much of this delusion was fostered by an unfortunate confluence of gullible police officers and ambitious prosecutors, strung along by a combination of fabulists and ‘therapists’ who wanted to believe in all this crap, not because they believed in Satan and all his works, but because it gave them a convenient hook to hang their own peculiar beliefs on. All of the conventional rules of objective evidence were tossed out of the window, and then, of course, the media jumped on it with both feet and made it 100 times worse. But (apart from some very early players) it actually had very little to do with religious people in the conventional sense, most of whom are as practical in real-world matters as the next person.
It’s often overlooked that the ‘seminal’ SRA case (the McMartin debacle) completely fell apart at trial, since all of the hysteria failed to produce any actual objective evidence. Cold comfort for those whose lives were ruined, I agree, but that case actually had very little religiously-motivated content.
Geraldo Rivera and Oprah Winfrey did more to spread the SRA delusion than any American ‘religious right’ believer ever did.
llater,
llamas
I tend to think of this kind of thing as “terrier argument”. This is where you keep yapping around somebody’s heels in a thread to bring them down; not by any decisive bite but by wearing them out. The arguments terriers employ tend to drive a debate off into ridiculous levels of nitpicking. I mean, take this-
Is that actually a serious argument, llamas? What the hell difference does that make? You want to argue about the correct translation of “ouranos” as used by Saint Paul? Let’s get serious here!
Dearie me. Book of Genesis. God makes a “firmament” (lterally, a “firm thing”) which forms the sky, with the heavens above and the Earth below. Later, when he makes it rain, the “windows of heaven” are opened. The Ancient Jews believed that the sky was solid and God opened windows to let the rain in. At their level of understanding, not a bad guess. Not much use these days though.
This is an old and silly argument. The statement “God exists” is an assertion about objective reality. To support it, one must provide objective evidence. Since there is none forthcoming, we must logically conclude that the statement is unsupported. The strongest statement compatible with the evidence (none) is “God might exist”, but that is not the claim of Christians (it is closer to Deism). We can thus objectively conclude that the statement “Satan exists” is evidentially unsupported; until some evidence is forthcoming, it is logically untrue.
Also, interesting diversionary stuff about SRA. Yes, I know the history of it. I know that it was promoted by a coalition of the religious right, feminist left, therapists and child savers of all kinds. But the initial promotion began among evangelicals, and it had to, because it required a literal belief in Satan- the famous Michelle Remembers has her actually meeting Satan, Jesus and the Virgin Mary in the (supernatural) flesh.
It’s not overlooked that the McMartin trial eventually fell apart. Lives were ruined. And the descendant of it all, the Paedophile Panic, rumbles on ever more furiously to this day.
Trying to exhonerate the evangelicals at the core of it is kind of laughable.
—keep yapping and snapping. I’m not tired yet.
1) yes, it matters very much which version of the Bible is being referred to, since they vary very widely in interpretation and meanings.
2) Despite your dictionary definitions of individual words, themselves the subject of multiple prior translations, I’m not aware that Ms McDonnell literally believes that ‘ . . . the sky is a solid roof with windows to let in the rain . . .’, using the literal meaning of those words, as you suggested.
You make the common mistake of assuming that any person professing any sort of Christian beliefs must necessarily accept every single word of the Bible as being a literal description of objective truth. That simplistic approach may satisfy you.
3) So let me see if I have this right – if there is no ‘objective evidence’ for something, then it is, by default, ‘logically untrue?’ Hmmm.
You made the assertion. You must back it up with objective evidence, otherwise your assertion is nothing more than ‘well, there’s no proof, so it can’t be true’. In others words, a statement of your opinion. Absence of evidence, as you should know, is not evidence of absence.
4) ‘Diversionary?’ Well, you brought it up, not me. Forgive me for responding to your challenge – it won’t happen again, I assure you.
but that case actually had very little religiously-motivated content.
Well I cant say about that specific case Llamas, but the way I remember Satanic Ritual Abuse turning up in Britain was directly from American Evangelical Christian Seminars and teach ins, for British Social workers.
The Social workers bought it hook line and sinker, and believed every word of it, and as per usual, in the face of any facts to the contrary, continued to believe it and steal innocent people’s children from them.
I was a Court Clerk in those days. I know too much about Social Workers to think they are benign or even sane. They are one of main reasons I resigned.
Gawd, are y’all still at it?
Look, it’s this simple. O’Donnell is a busted flush, a one legged Tarzan. It doesn’t matter how many sound small government ideas she comes up with (her good leg) all you are going to hear from the MSM is the loony tunes stuff, however exaggerated it may be. And she gifted them the loony tunes stuff!
It’s all very well to say “Youthful indiscressions” but she was an adult sentient being when she said what she said.
You could dig up all kinds of questionable stuff about me, I have forgotten more about Mysticism and drugs than she is ever going to know, but nothing I couldn’t justify in a TV interview with ease.
Look she gave the leftie MSM the gun, and then bought the ammunition for them too!
She really aught to think, are her personal ambitions more important than the overall Tea Party message?
Because whatever she says now, she will be laughed at. It happened to Palin with much less to work on than this. The MSM is lazy not subtle or holding a mirror to the truth. It will go for the cheap shot every time.
The woman does us all, who are various shades of Libertarian and small government advocates no favours at all. For the greater good, she should quietly fade into the background.
Yes even sorta Libertarians can identify a “Greater Good” 😉
This may get the prize for the most desperate argument I’ve ever encountered on the internets.
I never did assert that she believes that, did I? I used it as an example of something she is entitled to believe, which would nonetheless not be true. Here’s what I said-
See? So, you can drop that diversion now.
Yes. Consider the following assertion; “Laird is at his sister’s house”. Now, Laird may or may not be at his sister’s house, right?
However, if you assert that Laird is at his sister’s house, you are saying “it is certain that Laird is at his sister’s house”. Since you have no evidence of where Laird is, that certainty itself is an untruth. You’re free to assert that Laird might be at his sister’s house. But you can’t say he definitely is.
The statement “Laird is at his sister’s house” is thus rendered untrue by the implicit certainty. I do not need to offer contrary evidence to demonstrate its untruth.
QED, and all that.
And,
if we step back from this profound logician stuff, we come to the simple truth that believing that some pointy-tailed evil red guy who can do magic actually exists is just plain retarded.
OK, Ian, I think I’ve caught up with you now. You had me confused with all these sorts of statements:
I took all that to mean that you were saying that she is (or believes she is) a witch, just as if you said somebody believes in the divinity of Christ he is a Christian. But, if I now understand you correctly, what you’re actually saying is not that O’Donnell is or was a practicing witch, or that she did or does practice Satanism, but rather that she believes in both things, that she believes in the existence of Satan, in the efficacy of the rituals of witchcraft, and that those rituals are evil and of satanic origin. And, presumably, that she is opposed to them. Do I have it right now?
OK, assuming that I do, again I come back to “so what?” Why should I care, any more than I care if someone professes to be a Presbyterian? If you’re going to believe in a supernatural deity, why should I care which one it is unless your doctrines affect me (which explains my antipathy toward Islam; that poses an existential threat to western culture). Do you really think that a few Satan-fearers poses any more threat than a few Satan-worshippers? Even if one happens to find her way into the US Senate? Does that pose more threat to my way of life than her opponent, a big-government advocate and profligate spender who has nearly driven Delaware’s largest county into bankruptcy? To me, that question answers itself.
Laird, yes, your first paragraph sums up my position. Welcome aboard.
In answer to your second, as I’ve pointed out several times, this isn’t just some benign crankery like believing in UFOs. The evangelical belief in satanic networks has had enormous social and political impacts, particularly in the area of child policy. It’s a very dangerous ideological movement that needs keeping away from government, in these statist times, as much as possible. Ignoring it is like saying, “what harm can a few Marxists do?” when the answer in fact is, “a great deal of harm”.
Do you really want somebody who believes that harmless Halloween, Harry Potter novels and rock music are dangerous threats to the souls of the populace wielding government power? You think if she gets to the Senate she’s going to sit on her hands, or is she going to use that position of power to push the ideology to which she has devoted her entire adult life as a political campaigner? Is it worth the risk?
It comes down to the question posed much further up the thread by others- why the hell can’t the Tea Party or whoever find somebody more normal to vote for? To get lower taxes you have to vote for a loon? What kind of choice is that?
He saw Laird at his sister’s house, but he has no evidence to support this assertion (he didn’t take a picture, and Laird is unavailable for comment). He may have actually seen him there, or he may have imagined it. However, neither you nor I have no evidence to the contrary. We may think it highly unlikely for a myriad of reasons, but these reasons are still not evidence to the contrary.
Ian B wrote:
‘Yes. Consider the following assertion; “Laird is at his sister’s house”. Now, Laird may or may not be at his sister’s house, right?
However, if you assert that Laird is at his sister’s house, you are saying “it is certain that Laird is at his sister’s house”. Since you have no evidence of where Laird is, that certainty itself is an untruth. You’re free to assert that Laird might be at his sister’s house. But you can’t say he definitely is.
The statement “Laird is at his sister’s house” is thus rendered untrue by the implicit certainty. I do not need to offer contrary evidence to demonstrate its untruth.’
Defective comparison.
Let’s try it my way.
You conflate uncertainty with untruth. This is fair enough for some matters which are susceptible to objective proof – like whether Laird actually is, or is not, at his sister’s house, right now. Your logical failing is in believing that all matters of truth or untruth are thus always susceptible of objective proof, and if not, they must by definition be untrue.
If I say that, yesterday morning, at 5.23 am EDT by the clock in my Chevy, I saw a white-tailed deer walking down 8-Mile Road (I will provide GPS coordinates if you desire), is that an untrue statement? Nobody else saw it. It’s not there now. There is no pile of possible deer poop in the median that we can test for proof. The deer did not fill out a movement report. No passing satellite captured an image of the street. In short, there is not a single scintilla of objective proof that the deer was there.
By your logical processes, my statement is untrue because there is no objective proof for its veracity, and therefore I am a liar.
And yet, the deer was there.
QED, and all that.
There is a world between ‘true and ‘untrue’ that we must, perforce, be content to accept as ‘unproven’. But ‘unproven’ does not invariably equate to ‘untrue’, no matter how much you want it to.
It matters very much which Bible you use. There is a famous printing of the Bible that omits the word ‘not’ from the Seventh Commandment – that must be the one that President Clinton uses. But seriously, there are many versions with widely-varying content and all sorts of different interpretations.
However, all of this is really rendered moot by your last statement, that belief in the Devil is ‘just plain retarded’. Now we come to the real meat of your argument – you don’t share this belief, so anyone who does is ‘retarded’. The power of your logic just overwhelms me . . .
How pleasant it must be to be so certain of one’s knowledge that one can so easily pass judgement on others. I prefer to reserve judgement on the retardation of others until I have seen some sort of proof of it – something, that is, that goes beyond ‘he believes something that I don’t.’
FWIW, I have no religious belief, and I don’t believe in God, or the Devil, or any other form of religious construct. But that doesn’t make me so arrogant as to assert, a priori, that all such belief is ‘retarded’. There are a zillion things in this world that I am wrong about, and I’m self-aware enough to realize that this may be just one more.
Laird, you’ve not quite got the point of the argument. In the example you give, there is evidence that you saw the deer; your own memory. It’s not conclusive evidence, but it is some evidence. That is, while I am uncertain, you are not. I may be able to (with a little more advanced technology) use a scanner to see the pattern of brain cells recording the incident, even, or at least have you take a lie detector test, or use my knowledge of your trustworthiness.
The problem for “Satan exists” is that nobody has any evidence, even personal evidence, of Satan. Nobody has ever seen him. Any effects they may attribute to his demoic presence can be explained by mundane physics. If Christine asserts that Satan exists, and we ask her for the evidence, we see that she has none either, of any kind.
It is the difference between you knowing that Laird is at his sister’s house; in which case you can assert him to be there, even if you can’t prove it, and you not knowing where he is, in which case the assertion that he is there is an untruth.
***
I’m sorry that you think it’s arrogant to be apply a rational understanding of the universe. Are the Greek and Egyptian myths equally likely to be true, and is it equally possible that the forgotten spirits and gods of numerous extinct tribes also haunt us, or is it just the Canaanite shepherd god and his evil adversary who get to gad about in the realm of uncertainty?
Hold on a moment
The Satanic Ritual Abuse fraud of the 1980s was hardly a ‘Right Wing” thing. It was driven by an alliance of lying prosecutors, most of whom were Democrats, and a Child Abuse’ industry that was a branch of the social work bureaucracy.
The Amirault case in Massachusetts was driven by liberals in the state government who wanted to prove how much they were protecting the Children from a small privately run day care center. Shamefully Jane Swift a ‘moderate’ Republican governor lacked the guts to commute the sentence even after it was proven that the whole thing was a fraud.
Taylor, SRA was pushed at the start by evangelicals, who produced educational materials, ran seminars, etc etc. It developed into an alliance of the Religious Right and the Child Saver Left, the media and so on. I recommend the link I provided some posts above.
It would have gone nowhere without the massive support of the media and the left, who were out to get state run child care.
A very few religious types may have been involved at the start but in Massachusetts it was a a wholly left liberal enterprise.
To blame it on the evangelicals is absurd. They certainly played a small part, but the bulk of the blame goes to the left wing legal and “Social Services” establishment whoch saw a chance to massively increase their funding and their power.
I think this thread needs rechristening “The Christian Apologetics Thread”.
Believe what you like people, really. Believe whatever you want. The truth, as they say, will still be out there.
OK, Ian, let’s accept arguendo every point you’ve made here: that O’Donnell believes fervently in the existence (and consummate evil) of witchcraft and satanism; that satanic ritual abuse is at its core a right-wing Christian fundamentalist phenomenon; that the Tea Party zealots should have chosen a more sane candidate to carry their standard; even that the belief in Satan is prima facie evidence of mental retardation. You can have it all. Now, fast forward to November 2 (election day) and place yourself in a voting booth in Delaware: What would you have us do? Vote for the Democrat (knowing full well that his election would help cement the disastrous Obama agenda)? Write in Mike Castle (which would have the same effect)? Abstain from voting (ditto)? Write in Mickey Mouse? If we were having this discussion prior to the primary election last week it might have made sense, but what’s the point now? What’s your alternative to holding your nose and voting for O’Donnell?
Vote for her. The overwhelming message of this thread is that you deserve her.
Oh, there’s no doubt about that! 🙂
Not once in this entire thread has it been mentioned that Ms. O’Donnell’s opponent, Chris Coons, refers to HIMSELF as a “bearded Marxist.”
Satanic panics have destroyed hundreds of lives. Marxism has destroyed hundreds of millions of lives. Take your pick.
@ IanB:
” . . .or at least have you take a lie detector test . . . ”
I laughed so hard I almost hurt myself. You’re rattling on about ‘objective evidence’ and then you propose the use of a lie detector, perhaps the most-subjective piece of crap every to be abused in the search for evidence? It is to laugh. The only thing that I trust, or anyone else should trust, about a “lie detector” is the power-on light.
llater,
llamas
Oh my this has been fun to watch.
First off: Mastiff, yes yes, your point is well taken that her opponent is a self-described Marxist. However … A choice of the lesser of two evils is still a fundamentally evil choice isn’t it? (I poke fun here because of much of the Right wargarbble that goes on over morals, not to target you specifically.)
Second: I think that this woman’s advocacy career kind of speaks for her on what she thinks and believes, unless she’s a total political mercenary, which would make her no different than the majority of the asshats we have in congress right now. So we are then drawn to one of three possible conclusions:
1.) She’s a typical politician spouting a small gov’t line.
2.) She’s a religious authoritarian spouting a small government line.
3.) She’s had some sort of conversion between her advocacy time and now to turn her into a reasonable advocate for smaller gov’t and authoritarianism.
I must say that the first two are NOT good outcomes, the third seems unlikely as she hasn’t said anything about changing those views.
I think Ian raises some very important questions as to this woman’s belief system.
Oh and as for the social vs. economic liberty:
Economic liberty breeds social liberty, what we have seen is legislated social liberty … which is kind of like saying authoritarian libertarianism… it’s a misnomer.
Thank you all and have a pleasant day,
The_Chef
The_Chef,
“A choice of the lesser of two evils is still a fundamentally evil choice isn’t it?”
No, it is not; at least, not if those are truly the only choices on offer. Choosing the lesser of two evils is choosing against the greater evil.
This ridiculous belief that the lesser of two evils is an “evil” choice rather than an “unfortunate” choice smacks of moral solipsism. One is so concerned not to sully his own hands, and to preserve the pristine virtue of his own untarnished political soul, that he is willing to allow great suffering through inaction.
Now it is true that there are some evils so extreme that one should never choose them, even to avoid something worse. But the list of such evils is quite short, and voting for a merely unappetizing politician is not on it.
Well that depends on the subject matter now doesn’t it?
For example:
You have two politicians.
Politician A says I believe in lower taxes so instead of putting a gun to your head and taking half of what you make, I think we should only take a third.
Politician B says I believe in the current tax policy.
Now A may want to tax you less than B, but the fact remains that they are both engaging in theft. So you’re quibbling over the amount they thieve from you rather then the fact that they are allowed to thieve from you at all.
That smacks of moral relativism.
There is also a distinct difference between what someone says they want and what they do once they are in power. Public Choice theory leads me to doubt any candidate’s dedication to anything beyond getting votes.
Llamas,
your failure to understand the crux of my argument is your problem, not mine.
Have a nice day,
*pointlessly signs name*
Now Ian, be civil.
We’re not going to get more people into the AnCap fold by being pricks to everyone that disagrees with us.
“Now A may want to tax you less than B, but the fact remains that they are both engaging in theft. So you’re quibbling over the amount they thieve from you rather then the fact that they are allowed to thieve from you at all.”
If you truly cannot stop some level of theft, then it is rational to work for the bare minimum. To abdicate all responsibility is to lock in higher levels of theft, making it that much less likely that true reform will occur in the future. Stop thinking about politics as a one-period game.
“Public Choice theory leads me to doubt any candidate’s dedication to anything beyond getting votes.”
Public Choice theory should be distinguished from the mathematical abstractions used to investigate said theory. These abstractions simplify away from the messy task of actually running elections, which requires a campaign infrastructure.
The most effective way to influence politicians once they are in office is to control said infrastructure: GOTV workers, door-knockers, staffers, especially donors, etc. This is why the unions have outsized influence on the Democratic Party, and the evangelicals on the Republican Party. This is also why the Tea Partiers have been explicitly trying to bypass the existing infrastructure and build their own: to hold elected politicians’ feet to the fire, once they are in office.
You can coerce politicians even after they win, precisely because they must soon run again.
This is really the essence of Ian B’s argument against O’Donnell, that she actually believes the stories from an ancient world religion, and she is therefore unfit to hold office.
Fair enough. I hasten to point out that you will find precious few individuals in Congress who would admit to being absolute atheists, and none in the Presidency so far. All of those must be unworthy of their offices, or…
… its an imperfect world, and we are back to picking the person(s) who best get the ball of Small Government across the goal line. I am making the assumption that the regular readers and commentators here believe that is a primary goal?
I have very mixed impressions about Ms. O’Donnell. The only exposure I have had of her has been recent MSM assassination attempts, and that one PJ TV interview (provided here, ty!) I think it was Bill Maher who threw out the whole satanic alter thing into the mix, not Christine, so, I suspect she is not as media-stupid as is being assumed.
We havent really discussed how effective she would be, should she win her election, or indeed, how any of these tea party candidates will do. Washington has a way of grinding down even the most vocal personalities. For an example of this, remember how Hillary came out swinging when she won her election in New York, and Shumer schooled her on the fact that she is merely the ‘junior senator’ of the state, and to STFU already.
As was previously mentioned in this thread, abating the rush towards Big government will take a generation. How good will o’Donnell and our other candidates be at laying on the barb wire, for the rest of the troops?
Jonathan Swift
O’Donnell was on the Sean Hannity show last night, and I think she acquitted herself quite well (granted, it was a very friendly forum). Here’s a link to it.
No, it’s not that, though I find the degree of apologetics in general depressing.
My objection is that she believes a particularly extreme and dangerous form of Christianity. Most of the Christian world in the west gave up witch hunting and fearing the literal personified Devil a long time ago, and adopted a much more moderate approach. That is not the case with O’Donnel’s sect of that faith, which is why she came out with what she did on Maher; she was quoting personal experience as proof of the existence of a witch conspiracy.
You may like to bear in mind that I am British. Here, Christianity is a mild, traditional thing. When we look across the Atlantic and look at the form it takes in America; virulent, literalist, ranting pastors yelling from pulpits indistinguishable in tone from jihadist Imams, it is like looking back 300 years.
America is a strange place. Half the population dream of a handsome, hunky benign dictator; the other half don’t paint their houses because they’re expecting the Rapture any time now. It started off with a liberal, enlightenment constitution, then waves of religious fundamentalism pushed much of the population back into the Dark Ages, where they remain. If the deranged, primitive beliefs characterised by this woman are the best America can come up with, that is a crushing indictment.
That sounds like the voice of expertise and absolutely not an impression garnered from the UK mass media.
Why didn’t you email me the last time you were over? We could have gone and had a few beers if you’d told me you’d be here.
Huh?
‘Beers’? When was the last time you painted your house, Sunfish?
Yes, we do tend to take our Christianity neat over here. Still, from the perspective of someone deep inside the Bible Belt O’Donnell seems fairly benign. Ian, you shouldn’t worry about us too much until you see a Palin-O’Donnell presidential ticket in 2012.
Hey, I have an idea for you: How about a 21st century update to de Tocqueville, in graphic novel form? (I want a share of the royalties!)
Is that a Simpsons quote?
deranged, primitive beliefs characterised by this woman
Wait until you see the beliefs of the President, whose spiritual pastor for 20 years was Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and closest friend the Marxist Ayers. And who believes in “spreading the wealth”.
If forced to chose between the two nut-jobs I’m choosing O’Donnel. She wins by a mile.
She’s better looking too.
She’s better looking too.
I was afraid that Palin’s good looks are clouding my judgment but there is no such worry with O’Donnel.
Heh, I missed Chef’s comments…
SQotD, if there ever was one. Oh, and Chef: I think Ian will be willing to testify that he is anything but an AnCap.
So why are you arguing against this particular one, rather than against the entire system (which admittedly is not the topic of this thread)?
Jacob: as laymen say, ‘it is all relative’:-)
Politician A says I believe in lower taxes so instead of putting a gun to your head and taking half of what you make, I think we should only take a third.
Politician B says I believe in the current tax policy.
Chef, the correct answer, of course, is that you need two lamp posts, not one.