MICHAEL DAVIS WORLD

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The New Jew Hoodoo, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #298 | @MDWorld

October 29, 2012 Mike Gold 6 Comments

Among those who rank highest on my list of impossible cretins are people who use the phrase “that is not funny.” Really? Who made you the arbitrator of humor?

I have no problem with those who say “I do not find that funny,” even if I’m rolling around the floor wailing in a frenzy and choking on my tongue in an unstoppable fit of laughter. Humor is personal, and they are expressing an informed opinion.

And then there is Orthodox Rabbi Yaakov Rosenblatt. He defines humor in parochial terms, taking issue with popular comedian/writer/actor Sarah Silverman… as many do. But Yaakov wasn’t taking up the pen because of her often startling stand-up act, he was taking issue with her political work – in specific, her “Let My People Vote” campaign. A few weeks ago he published an open letter to Silverman in The Jewish Press. Since the word “rabbi” means “teacher,” let us take a look at what this reactionary is trying to teach us.

I believe I have your number. You will soon turn 42 and your destiny, as you stated, will not include children… You have made a career making public that which is private, making crude that which is intimate, making sensual that which is spiritual. You have experienced what traditional Judaism taught long ago: when you make sex a public thing it loses its potency. When the whisper is replaced with a shout there is no magic to speak about. And, in my opinion, Sarah, that is why you have had trouble forging a permanent relationship – the most basic desire of the feminine soul…

Nothing you say or stand for, Sarah, from your sickening sexual proposal to a Republican donor to your equally vulgar tweet to Mitt Romney, has the slightest thing to do with the most basic of tenets which Judaism has taught the world – that the monogamous relationship is the most meaningful one and that a happy marriage is the key to wholesomeness.

You are driven. You are passionate. I pray that you channel your drive and direct your passion to something positive, something that will make you a better and more positive person, something that will allow you to touch eternity and truly impact the world forever. I pray that you pursue marriage and, if you are so blessed, raise children.

I skipped over a few paragraphs here and there, and if you’re concerned I’m misquoting this person, please click on the Jewish Press link above.

Many of Sarah’s fans and co-workers have risen to her defense, as have the usual suspects: feminists, liberals, Democrats, non-fundamentalist Jews and similar abominations. As the father of a daughter who also speaks her mind, I am very proud to say the most interesting comments come from Sarah’s dad, David, on the aforementioned Jewish Press blog. David brought red meat into the lion’s den.

Hey Rabbi Idiot: Is your wife allowed to go to a minion or sit at the front of a bus or choose between abortion or birth. Take your false god and shove god up your judgmental ass. Check your wonderful bible and learn about your cruel god from a book you believe in literally.

In response to Rosenblatt’s defender, David elaborated:

Hey asshole: (My) Daughter #1 is a rabbi. Not by your standards. She’s reform. How dare she, a lowly woman, think god wants her to be a rabbi, created from a mere rib. Her hubby, three times nominated for a Nobel peace prize, was listed by the Jerusalem Post as the 49th most influential Jew in the world (. He) built the world’s largest solar field in Israel. By the way, Sarah was also on the list. I missed (seeing) your name. Oldest granddaughter is serving in the Israel Defense Forces. I’m sure you also served. Oh I forgot – the Orthodox don’t do that. You don’t fuck with my family.

Jaakov, you seek to bring Judaism back to roots held firmly in the soil of 57 centuries ago. I’ll bet you just can’t understand why the Jewish intermarriage rate is so high, and why the Jewish growth rate has been so slow since the Holocaust.

Oh, damn. I’m sorry. I used the word “Holocaust.” I should have realized my use would offend you. I regret to say I’m not well versed in Talmudic trademark law.

Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com , every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week (check the website above for times) and available On Demand at the same place. That same venue offers us the weekly Great American Popcast, co-hosted with Mike Raub. Gold also joins Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.

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Comments

  1. Martha Thomases
    October 29, 2012 - 6:30 am

    Fundamentalism is a horrible perspective through which to view the world. It especially embarrasses me when it is my people who are so ridiculous.

  2. Neil C.
    October 29, 2012 - 7:03 am

    Fundamentalists in any religion are crazy. Her political videos have made me like Sarah Silverman more.

  3. Rick Oliver
    October 29, 2012 - 8:55 am

    I loved Silverman’s vote video. I somehow missed the part about it being a Jewish thing.

  4. Mike Gold
    October 29, 2012 - 10:39 am

    Some Jews think there’s a trademark on “Let my people go.” If I’m not mistaken, though, that phrase, if uttered at all, was not uttered in English.

    I’m a big Sarah Silverman fan, but I realize she’s not exactly Lou Costello. Her vote video is very good: it can mobilize the seniors in Florida for Obama. Which, I suspect, is Rosenblatt’s real motivation.

    But he’s still a condescending sexist motherfucker, a shanda fur die goyim. Come to think of it, he fits into the Republican philosophy perfectly…

    … until Russia invades Israel.

  5. Rene
    October 29, 2012 - 10:42 am

    You know, whenever I get into a discussion about gay rights in the Internet, one of the arguments anti-gay bigots make about against homosexuality is that “every major religion in the world is against it, so it must be really evil.”

    I have more or less the opposite viewpoint. If the greatest assholes all over the world are against it, then gay rights must be a good thing.

    The same applies to feminism. One more point against the old viewpoint that a woman’s life must end and begin with marriage and kids is that fanatics of all major religions agree about it.

    I more or less derive my own morality from them. Whatever these guys are against, I am in favor. So they’re useful to me, in a way.

    I am proud that my wife has a professional career, that she has an identity, apart from being my wife. I’m proud that she doesn’t define herself by her supposed desire to have kids. I am proud that monogamy for us is 100% a choice, devoid of responsibilities and duties to a bossy, angry god watching us like Big Brother. I’m proud that she is as much of a citizen as I am.

    But the scary thought is what will happen if someday the fanatic Christians, Jews, and Muslims all realize that they have more or less the same views about everything? What if they put their differences aside and turn against their true enemy, the secularists that don’t want magic books to define everything about how to live one’s life?

  6. Rick Oliver
    October 29, 2012 - 10:55 am

    For the most part, Christianity derives its traditions of treating women as second-class citizens from the Old Testament, which is the Torah plus some assorted other Jewish texts. Ironically, some historians attribute the rapid early adoption of Christianity to its appeal to women, because it theoretically did not treat women as second-class citizens. Of course, that was before the men compiled the official bible.

  7. Mike Gold
    October 29, 2012 - 11:01 am

    Rene: So it follows — every major religion in the world is in favor of fighting to the death to ram its belief structure down other people’s throats, so it must be really good. I firmly believe that religion that justifies prejudice is not faith at all — it’s just a rationalization for violence.

  8. Reg
    October 29, 2012 - 11:04 am

    Hmmmm…well…I guess it’s my turn to bring red meat (and with me being a veggie!) into the pit.

    Root of the word fundamentalism aligns to the following defintions: adj.: Serving as, or being an essential part of, a foundation or basis; basic; underlying: fundamental principles; the fundamental structure.

    noun: A basic principle, rule, law, or the like, that serves as the groundwork of a system; essential part: to master the fundamentals of a trade.

    A belief in the fundamental tenets of any faith, discipline, or system of belief does not automatically equate to extremism or intolerance.

    I wholeheartedly embrace the fundamental tenets of Christianity and do my best to represent same with dignity, respect, intelligence and grace. If that makes me crazy in some folks eyes, then so be it. But having said that, I’d be more than willing to match psych profiles. 😛

  9. Mike Gold
    October 29, 2012 - 11:40 am

    Reg, language is a fluid thing. You certainly can use the term as an adjective the way you did (“the fundamental tenets of Christianity”) without suggesting anything negative, but today use of the term as a noun, as in “that person is a fundamentalist,” is going to suggest to a growing number of English-babblers a high degree of extremism and intolerance. That’s just the way language works.

  10. Rene
    October 29, 2012 - 11:47 am

    Well, I didn’t use the word “fundamentalism” in my post, just “fanatics.”

    But whatever the technical meaning of the word, it came to mean in everyday parlance those who believe all of their religion’s scriptures to be “accurate and totally free of error”.

  11. R. Maheras
    October 29, 2012 - 11:48 am

    Mike — Here’s my problem with the whole anti-religion schtick:

    Good or bad, most of the morality-based laws in the United States evolved from Judeo-Christian-(and yes) Islam tenets of morality.

    So let’s say that tomorrow, magically, all morality-based laws on the books were wiped away and we started from scratch, and we created laws that were homogenized to the point that no one, regardless of their personal views of morality, would be discriminated against.

    It would, quite literally, be f**king anarchy.

    So what’s the answer? Heck if I know. But I do know that demonizing or advocating the banishment/elimination of any religion that “discriminates” (which, according to critics of religion, is every single one) isn’t going to work.

  12. Rick Oliver
    October 29, 2012 - 12:22 pm

    Morality-based laws pre-date all the major religions and probably pre-date written history. Social animals have rules of conduct that discourage behavior that is not in the best interest of the group. Indiscriminately stealing from or killing other members of your group is generally frowned upon since it’s not good for the group’s survival.

  13. Mike Gold
    October 29, 2012 - 12:43 pm

    Murder and theft were frowned upon long before the great hoary thunderer told the old Jew to kill his kid. The whole idea that without the Jews and/or the Christians and/or the Muslims we’d be living in fucking anarchy is not only historically inaccurate, it is remarkably elitist, highly egotistical, total hypocrisy (those three religions alone are responsible for untold millions and millions of murders in the name of their holy hector), and astonishingly offensive.

  14. Rene
    October 29, 2012 - 1:00 pm

    Russ, I rather think it’s the other way around. I don’t think organized religion invented morality and imposed it on everybody else, I think they simply appropriated already existing (but disputed) morality and added a “divine stamp of approval” to it.

    I say this because very little in religion is really arbitrary. They’re rules that actually make rational sense. Don’t kill, don’t steal, all part of the Golden Rule. And the rules against homosexuality and women’s freedoms also make rational sense if you’re a male tribal leader worried that adultery, abortion, free sex, and homosexuality will restrict your people’s populational growth and make a mess of sucession. We no longer live in small desert tribes, though.

    There are also rules there that help in self-control. Exaggerated indulgence in food, drink, gambling, drugs, all the “worldly pleasures”, all can wear down a person. You don’t need religion to tell you that. Just enlightened self-interest.

    But abolishing religion isn’t something I advocate. And I would protest the label of “anti-religion”, the same way you don’t like being called a conservative. Religion, to many people, is good. There are many, many people in the world that really need religion, that need the huge community/support group/police action that religion represents.

    But there are also many people that really don’t need it. So I’m not anti-religion, if anything, I’m “anti-crusading”. I’m opposed to the people who need religion trying to impose it to the people who don’t need it. I’m of the opinion that people should be allowed to do anything with their own lives, even living by some ultra-strict medieval code. It’s only when the boundaries are violated and they interfere with other people’s lives that I’m against it.

  15. Rick Oliver
    October 29, 2012 - 1:04 pm

    Claiming that there would be no morality without religion is like claiming that there would be no gravity without Isaac Newton.

  16. Mike Gold
    October 29, 2012 - 1:15 pm

    Lenny Bruce told us the origin of law: you sleep over there, you eat over here, and you shit way over there. That’s the original law.

    But, of course, some day somebody is going to take a crap where you’re eating. Human nature. But you’re not going to want to do anything about it yourself because you do business with that asshole. So you hire somebody to smack him over the head and drag him away to the shithouse. “Don’t worry about that police brutality crap, you just smack him over the head and drag him away to the shithouse.”

    I just got a note from Martha Thomases asking “What has happened to civilization as we know it?” Whereas I think she was referring to Hurricane Sandy and the toppling of a crane near the Carnegie Deli, I think her comment applies to Lenny’s original law as well.

  17. R. Maheras
    October 29, 2012 - 1:46 pm

    Mike — We’ve been down this road before. Aethistic societies have killed, brutalized, subjugated and imprisoned far more people in the past 100 years than any religion-based society.

    And as far as the United States goes, dismissing the influence of (especially) Judeo-Christian morality in the birth and growth of our Republic, and its Constitution, is just plain revisionism.

    For example, Lincoln’s quest to free the slaves was based on his view that it slavery contrary to both the Constitution and his religion.

    He wrote:

    “This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.”

    Samuel P. Chase, one of Lincoln’s cabinet, wrote in his diary that during the Sept. 22, 1862 cabinet meeting, Lincoln said: “When the rebel army was at Frederick, I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation such as I thought most likely to be useful. I said nothing to any one; but I made the promise to myself, and (hesitating a little)–to my Maker.”

    Lincoln, in fact, reportedly made a covenant with God regarding the war.

    So, ironies of ironies, one of the greatest acts of humanity this country has ever seen was the result of a religion-based war for Lincoln’s “holy hector.” I just wonder what this country would look like if Lincoln had been a devout aethist.

    Ditto for Roosevelt and World War II. In an earlier thread here, someone said something to the effect, “Oh, the Nazis were Christians.” I argued then that Hitler had no use for organized religion, and both he and some of his key advisers said so. It appears that President Roosevelt backs up my assertion in his ninth state of the union address when he said:

    “They know that victory for us means victory for religion. And they could not tolerate that. The world is too small to provide adequate “living room” for both Hitler and God. In proof of that, the Nazis have now announced their plan for enforcing their new German, pagan religion all over the world—a plan by which the Holy Bible and the Cross of Mercy would be displaced by Mein Kampf and the swastika and the naked sword.”

    Again we have a president citing his religious morality in justifying his decision to fight a brutal war to free people from an evil despot.

    I’m not the one re-writing history here.

  18. R. Maheras
    October 29, 2012 - 2:07 pm

    Even more ironic about this whole discussion is the fact that I haven’t belonged to a church in 20 years.

    But I just can’t stand revisionism. Despite its flaws and hypocrites, religion is the 800-pound gorilla that has made this country what it is.

  19. Vinnie Bartilucci
    October 29, 2012 - 4:25 pm

    I would weep for the threat of danger to the Carnegie Deli, but they don’t put sandwiches on club rolls, so they can get crushed by a passing spaceship, I should care so much.

    Now, tell me Fine and Schapiro’s up on 72nd is at risk, and I’ll throw sandbags in my car and block the storm with my body if needs be.

    As for the topic of the column, I’ve noticed that the actions of “fundamentalist” (using the colloquial term until a better one presents itself) religious people get more extreme as time passes, but only in comparison. They’re not getting more extreme, it’s the rest of us that are moving away from them, while they remain rooted to the spot they were created upon. As we more realize that gay people are not hell-spawn, the idea that they are sounds progressively more outlying.

    But of course, even the fundamentalists have factions, depending on their respective interpretations. Emo Phillips has a great bit about trying to talk a (horse-faced) guy down from a bridge. Turns out they’re both Baptists, and as he asks more ans more precise questions, he grows more and more emotionally attached to the guy.

    Southern baptist? Me too.
    Conservative or reform? Me too.
    Council of 1958 or council of 1972? 1972? “DIE, HERETIC”, and he pushes him off.

  20. MOTU
    October 29, 2012 - 4:27 pm

    Look, let’s not lose sight of what’s important here and that is Sarah Silverman attends my annual comic con party.

    Heh!

  21. Rick Oliver
    October 29, 2012 - 7:29 pm

    Aside from cherry-picking Lincoln’s biographers, most of whom contend that he was not particularly religious, the evidence cited is largely not relevant to the contention that our moral values are derived from religion. The fact that some of the moral choices made by great leaders at significant points in history are consistent with some moral values espoused by various religions does not refute the premise that both merely stem from the same source, which is independent of Judeo-Christian tradition.

  22. Doug Abramson
    October 29, 2012 - 7:30 pm

    Forget Sarah, I’m now a fan of her father. He’s got the “Rabbi’s” bullshit nailed and called him out on it! I won’t go off on a tangent, but from what I heard, assholes like the “Rabbi” and his ilk, are a big part of the reason that the Abramsons haven’t gone to Temple in several decades. Unfortunately, this jerk is too thick headed to realize that he last the argument, badly.

  23. Neil C.
    October 29, 2012 - 8:54 pm

    MOTU,

    I would love to attend that party. Sarah Silverman has become my third favorite Jewish brunette behind the wife and Susanna Hoffs. 🙂

  24. MOTU
    October 29, 2012 - 10:47 pm

    Neil C,

    If you come to Comic Con consider yourself invited. 😉

  25. Rene
    October 30, 2012 - 2:34 am

    Russ – The true revisionism is claiming that the Founding Fathers (most of whom were rationalists) were actually all Evangelical Christians.

    So, it’s 20 years since you stepped inside a church? But you still remember what they say, about God being omnipresent? They’re absolutely right about that! God is everywhere, he is in every speech public men have ever made.

    God is there to justify the arguments of the slave-holders. He is there to justify abolitionism too. Hitler claimed God to his side. And so did Roosevelt. Republicans say God is theirs, religious Liberals counterargument that God is really on their side. Capitalists claim God as inspiration, while Hugo Chaves says the red of his socialism is the red of God’s blood. Opposite sports team both claim God to their side. Marvel says God likes Spider-Man, DC counters that God is actually more of a Batman kind of guy.

    God is that swinging guy that is in every party. Jeez, even the Soviet Union and the old-style Marxists had God on their side too, only they called it “the historical inevitability of revolution,” but what they really mean is that God was rooting for them.

    In any case, my argument is better than yours, because I’m divinely inspired as I write this, you aren’t. So shut up. God is with me.

    Heh. Do you know that Hitler is probably the human being most close to God? Like God, Hitler is everywhere, except that in his case everybody claims Hitler for the other side. Germans say Hitler is Austrian, Austrians say Hitler is German. Christians insist Hitler was pagan, everybody else claims Hitler was Christian. The Right says Hitler was a socialist, the Left says he was a right-wing fascist with socialism-in-name-only. His sign? “Taurus”, say those that are Aries. “Aries”, say those that are Taurus. Anti-gay bigots say Hitler was gay. Non-bigots claim he had something good going on with Eva Braun.

    No one wants poor Hitler! The poor guy will get a complex or something.

    Vinnie – Interesting perspective, but not completely correct. In some areas, religious conservatives really are becoming more extreme. Probably more people believed in evolution in Vitorian England than in modern-day USA.

  26. George Haberberger
    October 30, 2012 - 9:29 am

    “Christians insist Hitler was pagan, everybody else claims Hitler was Christian.”

    Rene, I know your point is that today everyone disavows Hitler. I get that. But still the truth of Hitler’s religion is not a ping pong ball to batted back and forth as if the side that misses is stuck with him on their side.

    Read Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.Bonhoeffer was Lutheran minister in Germany who was involved in a plot to kill Hitler. Here is a quote from the book:

    “It’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with it’s meekness and flabbiness?”— Adolf Hilter.

    For the record, the quote comes from “‘Inside the Third Reich’” Memoirs from Albert Speer”, translated by Richard Winston and Clara Winston published in 1970 by Macmillan, pages 114-115. This is according to the copious notes in Eric Metaxas’ New York Times bestseller, Bonhoeffer published by Thomas Nelson, publishers since 1798.

    Also from Metaxas’ book, “Hitler’s attitude toward Christianity was that it was a great heap of mystical out-of-date nonsense.”

    So yes, I understand that no one wants to have anything in common with one of the most evil men of the 20th century, but he was not a Christian in any sense except if pretending to be one would aid in his quest for power.

  27. Mike Gold
    October 30, 2012 - 9:34 am

    MOTU — Dude, hook me up with her. Damn.

    We survived Sandy intact, with only about 14 hours without power. So I’m slowly reorganizing life. But I will make one comment:

    “Mystical out-of-date nonsense” is, to me, one HELL of a straight line.

  28. Rene
    October 30, 2012 - 10:07 am

    George –

    Personally, I don’t think Hitler was a Christian. Everything I’ve read of him and of Nazism reminds me of Nietzche’s view of Christianity as “slave morality”, so this book is probably on the money. Hitler probably recognized only himself and Germany (or both) as “God”.

    Nonetheless, it’s also unfair to classify Nazi Germany as an “atheist society”, like Russ appears to be doing. At the very least, Nazi Germany also despised liberalism, materialism, and secularism as “decadent”.

    But I will accept Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot as examples of materialistic atheism gone wrong.

  29. Mike Gold
    October 30, 2012 - 10:48 am

    “Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot” – the Three Stooges of Communism.

    There are lots of reasons why Shanghai Express is one of my favorite movies — the top two being Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong. But the villain in the movie was closely based upon Mao, except Warner Oland (yep, Charlie Chan was once Chairman Mao) actually was known to bathe.

    Oh, and Oland also played Fu Manchu. Fu, Chan, and Mao. That’s one Swede with strong acting chops.

  30. Rene
    October 30, 2012 - 12:54 pm

    I’m a big movie fan, but I haven’t watched that one. Hell, I didn’t even watch THE BLUE ANGEL yet.

    So many great movies from the past to see, so little time. I think that is one of the reasons why I gave up on TV shows.

  31. Mike Gold
    October 30, 2012 - 1:09 pm

    Marlene’s always a hoot, and Anna Mae Wong was the most alluring woman ever on film (in my opinion, and of course when it comes to good taste I’m never wrong). Shanghai Express is also first-rate melodrama. I swear it must have overwhelmed Milton Caniff; it’s a great take on Caniff’s storytelling — and vice versa.

  32. MOTU
    October 30, 2012 - 2:25 pm

    Mike,

    You can hook yourself up my friend. Just come to my next party!

  33. R. Maheras
    October 31, 2012 - 8:53 am

    Rene wrote: “The true revisionism is claiming that the Founding Fathers (most of whom were rationalists) were actually all Evangelical Christians.”

    Where the heck did I ever say that???!!! Please don’t mischaracterize my statements.

    Do you think Lincoln was an evangelical Christian? I don’t, and I never said so. That doesn’t mean he was not a man of deep faith, as were most of his contemporaries.

    I don’t think you understand American history from that period very well — especially your statement that most of the Founding Fathers were rationalists. A few arguably were, but “most”? No way. That’s revisionism.

  34. Rene
    October 31, 2012 - 1:21 pm

    Perhaps not most, but the more important. This is from wikipedia’s Founding Fathers of the United States.

    “Historian Gregg L. Frazer argues that the leading Founders (Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington) were neither Christians nor Deists, but rather supporters of a hybrid “theistic rationalism”.[23]”

    You didn’t say that they were Evangelical Christians, but you always attack those who seek to diminish the perceived impact that Christianity had as “revisionist”, but you never attack the far more extensive revisionism from the Right, that tries to re-paint the Founding Fathers as similar to modern day Evangelicals.

    I have read enough American literature from many periods to understand what most American Conservatives today don’t seem to understand: that the past was a radically different zeitgeist, and that trying to “claim” historical figures to make them fit their own modern political mold is foolish.

    To me, the combativeness of today’s Christian militants is a 20th-century phenomenon that developed to fight a perceived communist influence. When you read American Christian authors from the 18th and 19th centuries, they just don’t have the same feel from today. They were deeply religions, but in a quite different way from, say, Sarah Palin or Rick Santorum.

    Those were men of letters, of questing intellect, of appreciation for the natural world, not vomiters of easy dogma. There were great men able to admit to corruptions in the Earthly institution of Church, while still being believers. They didn’t use their religion as a badge, perhaps because they didn’t need to. In a society where religion is far more prominent and you didn’t need to constantly “prove” you were not with the dirty communist/liberal/muslim/insert-current-demonized-enemy, then you were more free to disagree and question and have a more personalized approach to Christianity, while still being basically a Christian.

    I believe we have to go far back to find a historical echo for today’s Militant Christianity: 17th century New England. The Founding Fathers were vastly different animals.

  35. R. Maheras
    October 31, 2012 - 6:34 pm

    Rene wrote: “You didn’t say that they were Evangelical Christians, but you always attack those who seek to diminish the perceived impact that Christianity had as “revisionist”, but you never attack the far more extensive revisionism from the Right, that tries to re-paint the Founding Fathers as similar to modern day Evangelicals.”

    None of the columnists here have ever written a column “far more extensively” exorting the tenets right-wing revisionism, so exactly how could I possibly attack such a stance here?

    It simply can’t be done.

    My big sin amongst the majority of my comics-loving brethren is I don’t slavishly bash Republicans. The fact is, I don’t trust either party, becase both sides support far too many politicians who are either stupid, ignorant, thuggish, dishonest, or all of the above.

  36. Mike Gold
    November 1, 2012 - 8:08 am

    Russ, Republican-bashing is enormous fun, and quite a stress-reliever. Democrat-bashing simply is not as much fun; it’s sort of like punishing a basset hound who already feels bad about shitting the carpet.

    As for “politicians who are either stupid, ignorant, thuggish, dishonest, or all of the above,” dude, that’s just a given. Sort of like telling people that big yellow thing in the sky is called “the sun.” When it comes to negative euphemisms for politicians, you can play the Monty Python cheese shop game for hours and hours on end.

  37. R. Maheras
    November 1, 2012 - 11:42 am

    Mike wrote: “Democrat-bashing simply is not as much fun; it’s sort of like punishing a basset hound who already feels bad about shitting the carpet.”

    Heh, heh! There’s some truth in them thar words… except in the case of Chicago aldermen and pols like Blagojevich. Even if you saw or recorded them doing it, they’d be like, “Hey, it wasn’t me!”

  38. Reg
    November 1, 2012 - 2:43 pm

    That’s not me!

    😉

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