Saturday, January 29, 2011

Presidential Humor

What can I add to this?

The one person in the world who can order the death of thousands of innocent people through the mediation of Predator drones jokes about killing his own subjects if they step out of line.

President Obama jokes about killing the Jonas Brothers

This man has indeed ordered the killing of American citizens without trial. But now we can joke about it. Ha, ha, ha.

And now this knee-slapper about airport patdowns during the State of the Union address:

President Obama jokes about airport patdowns

If this man were the president of any country where the inner power circle was people of color or speakers of a language unrelated to English, he would be called a monster. But because his backdrop is Old Glory, only the lunatic fringe howls at his barbarism.

I work in an office populated by two dozen people as hostile to evangelical Christianity as any two dozen randomly chosen people in our nation (though I should hasten to add that they treat Christians and all persons with respect), yet the first comment I heard the first time the subject of airport patdowns was raised was, "What will this do to people who have been abused?" But the conversation died soon thereafter. Hey, if the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize can joke about patdowns, they must be funny, right? People who have been abused be damned!

Have Christians in the US gotten offended at the idea of women and children being "felt up" (as stated in my office) before they can fly? If they have, I haven't heard anything. I know at least one of the guys who started WeWontFly.com, and they're not evangelicals, but they do stand "for basic human dignity" and back up that stance with their time, their money, and their willingness to have Whoopi Goldberg castigate them on worldwide TV. But the evangelical church stands by President Obama, whom they had a boatload of biblical reasons to deny their vote, and, I would say, against the basic dignity of those they say are created in the image of the God they worship.

Worse, they merrily send their children off to kill and die for this monster. If my church is typical, their prayers are, "Dear Lord, bless your missionaries, many of whom serve under difficult circumstances. And for those who have answered your call to serve in the armed forces, we ask that you will bring them home safely. May they serve with honor. We pray that you would put a hedge of protection around Abel Baker, Charlie Daniels, Edward Foss, and George Hardy." Do you see the difference? The prayers for the missionaries are cryptic and general; for the soldiers they are lengthy and specific. "Where your treasure [including time] is, there will your heart be also."

Yet no matter whom I mention this to, the reaction is that I am attacking those who do the praying. "How dare you criticize the prayers of a brother?" But it seems to me that when this has been an almost-weekly occurrence (well, many weeks there are no prayers for the missionaries at all) for almost eight years, we're not talking about personal foibles here; we're talking about the official policy of the church: an official, unverbalized claim that Jesus stands behind or goes ahead of Uncle Sam's army and that the death of innocent people by the thousands is simply collateral damage—in the words of Madeleine Albright, "a tough choice, but . . . worth it."

So Jesus is saying through his church that it's OK to kill innocent people and let God sort them out. (As one with more than my share of foibles, I have to note that it seems that perverts go skinny dipping with women and children; good Christians drop bombs on them.)

Jesus, we hardly knew ye.

9 comments:

  1. From a Catholic, Amen! Personally I am disgusted that instead of the Pope speaking out against the radioactive nudie scans and the molestagropes he came out in favor of gays using condoms and GMO foods! I asked an Orthodox Christian group, "Who in the Orthodox Church is speaking out against these sinful assaults by the TSA?" Last word was they were checking and would get back to me. It actually makes me weep.

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  2. Brother Whitney,

    The Body of Christ today, is too involved in "activities, and more activities". Pleasing themselves with "doing, doing, doing", and is very unaware of the reality around them.

    In our FB pages, my wife and I constantly
    talk about how the secular world is VERY CONSCIOUS of events like the NEW WORLD ORDER, ILLUMINATI CONTROL, the FEMA DETENTION CAMPS, and important things
    like that.

    The Christian world is too busy teaching FALSE DOCTRINE, MAKING EVANGELICAL PIMPS RICHER, and not paying attention to the needs of the people around them. There's no conscience of anything but "self", it's ME, ME, ME, like Satan does.

    Yet, when we talk about these things, FALSE TEACHERS, DOCTRINES, WORLD EVENTS AND OTHER, it is the Christian population who attack us, not the secular mass. I wonder why?

    Pastor EfraĆ­n Rosario

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  3. The church is slow to react sometimes, but I think you will see more and more Christians coming out against this. Probably at first individually (as is happening right now) and then more and more as a group. It is too obviously against scripture's prohibition about being viewed and viewing people naked to not be condemned eventually. But like your blog posts Christians are starting to come to coherent statements about this.

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  4. Dear Brother Whitney,

    Just another comment concerning what "anonymous"
    said about the Pope. Here is what he said on PEDOPHILIA:

    “In the 1970s, pedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.

    “It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than’ and a ‘worse than’. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”

    Here is the link to the whole article:

    http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/popersquos-child-porn-normal-claim-sparks-outrage-among-victims-15035449.html#ixzz192n3v9AK

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  5. My thanks to you all! I've never had such a diverse group of people comment on one of my posts before.
    I have a tendency to forget that we are to do all things for the glory of God in Jesus Christ, not for "human decency," "liberty," and the like. But we are to be Christ's ambassadors calling people to repentance. I fail to see how supporting Uncle Sam's predations opens the door for witness, except to his sheep, who seem to me convinced they can have eternal life without the blood of Christ.

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  6. Nice, such Christian love. We have the most civil, peace loving and family oriented president in 3 decades and you call him a "monster" because he slips in a couple jokes that you don't find tasteful.
    Come on fess up, your problem with the President of the United States is a little bit more primal that his jokes.
    I wish you all the strength and character in the world to get over your prejudices and bigotry.
    Regards,
    SH

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  7. How can SagaciousHillbilly claim that Obama is "family oriented" when he is the unarguably most pro-abortion president we have ever had? How is that family-oriented?
    And, no, Obama's jokes are NOT funny.
    Once again, anyone who disagrees with Obama is called a "bigot." Disagreeing with someone doesn't make you a bigot, so stop tossing out that term. Obama may be half-black, but we are still free to disagree with him, regardless of race.

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  8. Well said. We all use humor to try to make the unbearable bearable. The problem here is President Obama is one of the few people in a position to really change these things. His daughters are not being felt up at the airport because they travel with him on air force 1. That he would (jokingly) threaten the Jonas Brothers with death if they touched his daughters while every day on Obama's authority thousands of men's daughters are sexually assaulted is ironic beyond words.

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  9. @Sagacious Hillbilly: Thank you for writing. What follows is no denial that I am honored that you read and commented. I hope you will return.
    Within 72 hours of being inaugurated, our peace-loving president used Predator drones to kill women and children in Pakistan, a nation we are supposedly allied with, and ran a million other people out of their homes. He has presided over the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of the world. He puts people in jail for involvement with marijuana, something he used and has never gone to jail for. During his campaign, he said he would end the war in Afghanistan ("You can take it to the bank."), but the fat lady hasn't sung yet. Murder, theft, lies, and hypocrisy: the essence of government, and Mr. Obama personifies it.
    His mother was as white as mine; she learned to type at Mercer Island High School in the same room where I met my first girlfriend. If you read my post http://quillpigchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/06/venita.html, you'll see just how much I hate black people.
    Mr. Obama is probably a nice guy. You don't get where he got by being a total jerk. It is his policies I don't like, and the purpose of this blog is to awaken my fellow evangelical Christians to their complicity with those evil policies.
    Again, thank you for writing. I'll try to give off more light and less heat next time.

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