Badtux the Snarky Penguin

In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin.

Religious fundamentalists are motivated by the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere, is having fun -- and that this must be stopped.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Random nonsense

Reminder: People are people. Good or evil doesn't depend on race, nationality, hair color, or economic status. On average, the typical backwoods aborigine in the furthest depths of the Amazon is no more or less noble than any other human being on the planet. Except neo-cons. But neo-cons, like the Sith, chose to go to the dark side. That free will thing.

Some Bible kiddy came around here and spit out a buncha verses that "prove" that Man is inherently evil. I pointed out that his verses weren't even 1/10th of 1% of the Bible and that a handful of verses out of context didn't mean diddly, but I'm not quite sure of that. Anyhow, it's not true. I've travelled all over this country and in a variety of places in the world, and people is people. Mostly apathetic, mostly self-absorbed and concerned only with whatever is happening in their own lives, true. But evil? No. To me, "evil" means that you actually go out of your way to do bad things. And I just have not met many people like that. And I've met a fair number of people who you probably would not want to invite home for dinner, given the fact that I taught in ghetto schools in two different locations. I've met misguided people. I've met stupid people. I've met people who will come to no good end. But I've met precious few people who actually go out of their way to do harm to others simply to do evil, and the one that I remember best is a neo-con "Christian" from Houston who was always ranting and railing about how he didn't want any of his tax money going to pay for schools for "niggers". (Yes, he used that word, at his own private dinner parties, one of which I attended in hopes of getting donations for the school I was teaching at). If the Bible appears to contradict reality, well, either the Bible is wrong or you are reading the Bible wrong. Pick your poison. If you're a Christian who believes the Bible is Truth, the only conclusion you can come to at that point is that your feeble human reading skills simply aren't capable of fetching God's truth out of text written in human language. If you're not a Christian, feel free to consider the Bible just another bunch of snake oil bunkum intended to seperate sheeple from their money.

Who the hell is Mike Gravel? Some cranky 77 year old who is running for President, apparently. He apparently had to take a city bus merely to get to the Washington Press Club to announce his candidacy. A Democrat of the old populist podium-pounding type. While I agree with some of his stuff, I'm not voting for him -- he's just too goddamned old. But he had some good quotes at the "debate" last week:

I got to tell you, we should just plain get out. Just plain get out. [... ] It’s [Iraq] their country. They’re asking us to leave, and we insist on staying there.
You know what’s worse than a soldier dying in vain? More soldiers dying in vain.
... this war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis.
George Bush communicated over a year ago that he would not get out of Iraq until he left office. Do we not believe him? ... How do you get out? You pass the law, not a resolution, a law making it a felony to stay there.
This invasion brought about more terrorism. Osama bin Laden must have been rolling in his blankets, how happy he was, our invading Iraq.

And oh -- it's the Fourth Annual Mission Accomplished Day, where we declared victory in Iraq... and then didn't go home. Given that we won on May 1, 2003 -- why, The Decider even said we did -- why are we still in Iraq? Mike Gravel is right. We should just plain get out.

-- Badtux the Random Penguin

Labels: iraq, politics, religion, war on brown people, war on terror

Posted by: BadTux / 5/01/2007 10:56:00 AM

Comments:

I'm sure I've probably broken out this quote before, because it's one of my favorites. However, it never gets old, so here goes:

The philosopher Carlin's three major types of public nuisances -- the stupid, the crazy and those just plain full of shit -- have changed proportions in my mind as I grow older. I used to attribute almost everything awful to stupidity and looniness, but now I more and more suspect the major problem is that so many people are full of shit. In fact, every time I see a man on TV wearing a suit and tie, I suspect he is full of shit, and if he has a flag hanging beside him I am almost sure of it.

-Robert Anton Wilson
# posted by Gerald Fnord : 1/5/07 3:18 PM

Truer words never spoken Mr. Penguin! You are Badtux the truthful Penguin.
# posted by sumo : 1/5/07 5:57 PM

Gerald Fnord is correct.

Those with suits and a flag beside them are full of shit.

Monkey shit.

Not that any of this matters because we don't have that many readers of our blogs compared to the fact that there is almost seven billion monkeys now on this planet.

Meaning that we are mere specks of dust and waisting our time.
# posted by BBC : 1/5/07 6:18 PM

Umm.

I just took a quick look at his blog, I see that he is a fucking idiot.

But at least he likes beer.
# posted by BBC : 1/5/07 6:22 PM

Sheesh! That Bible kiddy came over and actually talked to a penguin? Oh, wait. You do have several movies out, don't you. I guess that's alright then.

Good post! Yup, we won back in 2003. Why are we still there?

I'm not going to enter my webpage. I don't want bbc stopping by and then coming back and saying I'm a fucking idiot. Heh:) I like beer, too!
# posted by oldwhitelady : 1/5/07 9:59 PM

Hello, Mr Penguin.
The Bible also states that man was created in God's image, although it is woefully lacking in elaboration on this point.
Regardless, it could be deduced that man's basic nature is holiness, not evil.
Too much of the dialogue on religion nowadays is dominated by positions taken by fringe groups (some of these fringe groups are rather large, admittedly).
We need more Bishop Spong, et al.
# posted by Progressive Traditionalist : 1/5/07 11:00 PM

Evil is as evil does. Reciting Bible verses while discriminating against gays, women, minorities and the poor doesn't sit well with me: I wonder what God thinks about it? (If He actually exists, that is.)

Mixter
# posted by Mixter : 2/5/07 5:51 AM

There are times when it looks like "Christians" are purposely evil under the guise of "morality".
# posted by niCk (Mem Beth) : 2/5/07 7:29 AM

Huh.

Since you brought it up, BT, I have to say that I have never met a truly evil person in my entire life. I've met trainloads of people who lent their own definitions to the word dipshit. But evil? Nope. Not a one.

I've never met anyone hell-bent on ruling the world, either. I wonder if there's a correlation here...
# posted by Mimus Pauly : 2/5/07 9:44 PM

Honor Roll

Technorati embed?

Liberated Iraqis

Children celebrate liberation of parents
More pics of children celebrating
Liberated baby
Liberated women and children
More liberation, yessiree
More to follow, after I finish cursing SOB chickenhawks and get my breath back...

"Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce." -- Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."

-- Plato

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