Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Goodbye to a worthless and degenerate person. Schools will be open on his birthday.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at May 15, 2007 11:53 AM

While I have no great respect for fundamentalist religion, I have to say that you just suck, Mr. Swiderski.

Posted by Paul Dietz at May 15, 2007 12:00 PM

Gee, Paul, like that's news.

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 15, 2007 12:06 PM

While I have no great respect for fundamentalist religion, I have to say that you just suck, Mr. Swiderski.

Then you have perverted priorities. Falwell was a vile hatemonger, and a relentlessly caustic influence on the decency and rationality of American society. Whatever else he was to those who cared for him personally is none of my business, nor yours, so I restrict my comments to the sphere in which his actions affected me.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at May 15, 2007 12:10 PM

Goodbye to a worthless and degenerate person.

This kind of classless comment speaks more about your worth than Falwell's.

Posted by Stephen Kohls at May 15, 2007 12:18 PM

I am sorry for his family and those who loved him.

The latter did not include me and he did harm not good To The American Republic.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at May 15, 2007 12:18 PM

Falwell was a vile hatemonger

There's smoke coming out of my irony meter.

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 15, 2007 12:19 PM

This is a hoot. First, Brian says Goodbye to a worthless and degenerate person. Schools will be open on his birthday.

When called upon it, he responds, Falwell was a vile hatemonger.

Funny, I don't hear a lot of love in your voice. Project much?

Posted by at May 15, 2007 12:23 PM

Schools will be open on his birthday.

When is yours?

Posted by D Anghelone at May 15, 2007 12:36 PM

BS,
I'm curious which of your spheres he affected. You aren't one of the hundreds of single mothers he helped in homes he founded for them as an alternative to abortion. You aren't one of the starving Africans his organizations has sent millions in aid to so what how did he affect you? How was he a degenerate? I like a little explanation when reading ad hominem attacks on recently dead people. I didn't like his politics or the stupid things he said but he did charitble work for a lot of people, more than me and I'm sure more than you.

Posted by Bill Maron at May 15, 2007 12:41 PM

Stephen: This kind of classless comment speaks more about your worth than Falwell's.

And this mindless response implies you value arbitrary cultural mores over truth and honesty. It's unlikely you or any of Rand's readers was personally close enough to Falwell to be disturbed by his death, so spare me the "dearly departed" sanctity of a right-wing PR clown you only knew from television.

Rand: There's smoke coming out of my irony meter.

Uh, that's a toaster--you really should read the manual before trying untested applications.

Funny, I don't hear a lot of love in your voice.

I don't hear a lot of love in yours either. Does that make us both hatemongers like Falwell was?

Posted by Brian Swiderski at May 15, 2007 12:59 PM

Posted by Bill Maron at May 15, 2007 12:41 PM

Those are all great things. Had Mr. Falwell limited himself to that "venue" then his death would be a moment of honoring the life well lived of a man who served his faith to his death and was a great humanitarian.

That is however not the defining moment of his life. The "moment" of his life that defines it was his bitter injection of his religious viewpoints, which he is entitlted to, into the body politic of The Republic.

What he did might be in magnitude different but in direction not at all different then the Imans in the middle east who explain that if a certian political view is not the view accepted by the state, then not only are those people going to hell, but also the state is as well.

that is not only wrong from a religious standpoint, but it is certianly wrong from a poltiical one.

Our issues in the body politic should be decided on The Constitution not the Ten Commandments.

This is what Mr. Falwell is reported to have said in a recent news article, the one where he says God would keep the Republicans in power in 06...

" But two in attendance, including a Falwell staff member, confirmed that Falwell said that even Lucifer, the fallen angel synonymous with Satan in Christian theology, would not mobilize his followers as much as the New York senator and former first lady."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003272973_jerry24.html

there is no place for that in the body politic of The Republic.

None

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at May 15, 2007 01:07 PM

Gee Robert, so you would have done what to prevent him from voicing his consitutionally protected speech? The GOVERNMENT is obligated to keep the two apart, not the citizens.

Posted by Bill Maron at May 15, 2007 01:31 PM

Brian, I'm not laughing with you. I'm laughing at you. That you took classless joy in another's death because you disagreed with his politics shows that you have a lot of hatred inside. Perhaps you should look to your own hatred before denouncing perceived hatred in others.

I disagree with a lot of liberals' political views. I don't hate them (more like pity them for their utter ignorance than hate) nor do I rejoice at the news that one of them has died. I reserve that for the likes of mass murderers like Pol Pot, Saddam, Mao, etc. Their deaths were cause for celebration.

Posted by Larry J at May 15, 2007 03:05 PM

Gee Robert, so you would have done what to prevent him from voicing his consitutionally protected speech? The GOVERNMENT is obligated to keep the two apart, not the citizens.

Posted by Bill Maron at May 15, 2007 01:31 PM

Bill

That is a strange statement on your part, on so many levels...at least two which I will address.

I have never not once in my internet existance nor in my public persona wheather in government or in faith argued that anyones "voice" not be heard. I have never argued in an internet forum for "banning" someone and in my "brief" appearance in the public elected areana I am well known for letting almost everyone at the CLCCA meetings drone on for as long as they want to.

Unlike many on the net, I am adept at ignoring people who I want to ignore, engaging with sarcasim people who are driven by ideology and engaging with facts people who are interested in full debate. Unlike most I know how to use the scroll button and control my temper.

Jerry F, chose to excersize his free speech to advocate things which are consistent with a government by Bible and not a government by Constitution. My post made it clear. He is/was quite within his rights to call HRC the equivlent of Luicifer. My point was and is that this was inappropriate.

On to your second sentence (requoted here) "The GOVERNMENT is obligated to keep the two apart, not the citizens. "

I assume you are referring to religion and government. Ah the concepts of basic civics are so hard to grasp for many.

There is no problem with individuals involving their moral code and their political beliefs in the teachings of The Bible. I do that. But it is incumbent on those citizens to recognize that if they want to "run" government as a leader or as a political figure then trying to imply that government should incorporate religious values into the government is violating the concept of seperation of church and state.

There is no doctrine of "seperation of church and state" in The Constitution. It is in fact from the writtings of a former President (I leave that to the student as an excersize) and the entire concept of it, was as I briefly ennunciate.

The government has no such "mandate" as you seem to think. It does not exist anywhere in The Constitution or Federal Law. It should exist in our civics. I suggest you do some basic research on the topic and then we can continue this discussion.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at May 15, 2007 03:51 PM

D Anghelone: When is your [birthday]?

Which one? I've had quite a few.

Larry: Brian, I'm not laughing with you. I'm laughing at you.

And I'm observing your reaction with disinterested equipoise.

Bill: I'm curious which of your spheres he affected.

American, humanist, rationalist, scientific, moralist, aesthete, democrat, Democrat, liberal, ethical, etc.

Bill: You aren't one of the hundreds of single mothers he helped in homes he founded for them as an alternative to abortion.

I'm also not one of the starving children "helped" by Islamic madrasas, but I understand the motives of the "charities" behind them. Are you now going to defend the humanitarian credentials of the taliban?

Bill: You aren't one of the starving Africans his organizations has sent millions in aid to

They send aid to religious missions that distribute food quid pro quo for listening to sermons, and in the case of orphanages, running madrasa-like environments with mandatory Bible instruction. They target the most vulnerable people they can find, and hold material salvation over their heads as a bribe and a threat to win converts. Falwell and people like him don't care about other human beings, only about spreading their religion.

how did he affect you?

He was a tireless opponent of basic Constitutional liberties and principles, of Enlightenment principles in general, of science, of humanism, of reason, of basically everything that makes civilization a service to mankind. He routinely singled out and dehumanized entire religious, political, and biological categories of people, which included me as an atheist, and his organization was so intimately tied to the Republican Party during the '80s and early '90s that it would have been meaningless to distinguish them.

he did charitble work for a lot of people, more than me and I'm sure more than you.

You have an overly broad definition of charity. It's good that people are helped, but if those doing it only do so as a strategem for serving ideology, they are no worthier as people for having helped others. To be charitable is to help and only to help, not to exploit another's vulnerability for ulterior purposes. Otherwise it's nothing more than politics.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at May 15, 2007 04:18 PM

"You have an overly broad definition of charity. It's good that people are helped, but if those doing it only do so as a strategem for serving ideology, they are no worthier as people for having helped others. To be charitable is to help and only to help, not to exploit another's vulnerability for ulterior purposes. Otherwise it's nothing more than politics.
Posted by Brian Swiderski at May 15, 2007 04:18 PM"

Like when the ultra-leftists moonbats like you are charitable with other peoples money for political purposes to advance your vile, bigoted, hypocritical, intolerant and hate filled agenda.

Gotcha, along with everyone else in this thread. The only person you are fooling, apparently, is yourself.

Posted by Mike Puckett at May 15, 2007 05:09 PM

On my birthday they light bonfires in Britain. (I was born on Guy Fawkes Night.)

Falwell was born on August 11, so the schools won't be open after all (except second session of summer school.

Posted by Alan K. Henderson at May 15, 2007 06:02 PM

BS
So he never did anything to you, personally.

I'll compare Falwell with the Taliban when you can show me the bodies he piled up like the Taliban. Since I know you can't, your comparison is a ridiculous attempt to demonize him.

Yes, it's a shame I have a charitable definition of charity.

So tell me again how helping those people was a bad thing again? Lots of aid has strings. Government welfare is alot more intusive than anything churches do. If listening to a sermon gets your children fed and clothed, it's probably worth it because that's better than being naked and hungry.
You may be an athiest but you sure have that old time religious fervor. Converts make the worst zealots.

Posted by Bill Maron at May 15, 2007 06:38 PM

Brian,

This is probably a quixotic gesture but perhaps you'd accept a wee bit of advice from a fellow atheist who was also no admirer of Mr. Falwell.

Gravedancing is not, generally, speaking, an activity inclined to engender feelings of warmth toward you by random passersby. It is sometimes warranted, to be sure, but I, personally, am getting too creaky to indulge myself except for those genuinely exceptional in their deserving depravity. My own minimum standard is multiple homicide. I'll admit to a buck and wing or two the night Tookie Williams got the needle and the mornings after Saddam Hussein danced the Danny Deever and Abu Musab al Zarqawi got blowed up real good. I expect I'll do the same when Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe finally cork off - it's the romantic in me. If you feel the need to waste energy on every high-profile necro-American who ever voiced an uncongenial word while alive you'll probably be all danced out when the genuinely deserving shuffle off. I expect to stay firmly seated when the obituaries of Michael Moore, Rosie O'Donnell and Alec Baldwin scroll up my browser window.

Unless one of them kills a bunch of people on the way out, of course. Michael and Rosie don't strike me as likely prospects, but I would be willing to put a few bucks down if anyone out there is running a pool on Alec.

Posted by Dick Eagleson at May 16, 2007 01:20 AM

"Not as big an idiot as Pat Robertson" is as good a euology for Falwell as I can think of. "Liberals" hated Falwell because they thought he and his Moral Majority sought political dominance so they could use the coervice powers of the State to force the rest of us to submit to their beliefs. Savor the irony.

Posted by Bilwick at May 16, 2007 06:35 AM

Brian, I think the simplist way to put it, is this...The man is dead, all of his political dreams for himself died with him. Let it go. Now he's gone and the family has lost a loved one. Spitting on a corpse because you didn't like his thoughts is nothing close to honorable. And even though he didn't live an honorable life in your perception, perhaps you can further your cause and point of view by being honorable now after he's gone.

Posted by Mac at May 16, 2007 07:27 AM

The main reason, IMO, that Falwell was so hated/liked was that he participated and organized actively in the political realm, while vocally taking his motivations from his religious convictions, and also encouraging others to do the same.

I sometimes mull over whether it makes sense for a sincere Christian to be involved in politics at all. Should "Render to Ceasar..." and "Live a quiet life" be taken to mean "deal with the government exactly as much as you need to, and don't make a ruckus, least of all a political ruckus?"

I think the thing, though, is that everything you do eventually becomes political, especially if government power grows without check. At some point the government could decide things like "if the child is born with disability X, you should bring it in for government euthanization" or "we're now going to teach your children Y (where Y is directly opposed to my beliefs), and it is now illegal for you to teach something different." In other words, simply following my religious beliefs becomes a political act in defiance of the government. Think Daniel in Babylon.

Thus, it makes perfect sense to have your religious beliefs inform your political activities, because they will anyway at some level. "Rendering to Ceasar" becomes "participate in the political process as a citizen is expected to," and "Live a quiet life" becomes "don't be combative" which is not the same as "don't be willing to defend your values."

I think Falwell took it too far at times, imputing evil and evil intent to anyone who disagreed with him. I think he sometimes failed the "Live a quiet life" command, in the sense that he was combative in ways he didn't need to be. Even the name the "Moral Majority" implies that if you disagree with any part of the agenda, you must be immoral. There definitely is evil intent out there--many people would be happy to kill me simply because I am Christian and because I am American. But at least in this body politic, I generally find that most of the people on the other side of the political fence from me are not evil--they usually have different initial assumptions, reasoned differently, and reached different conclusions than me. Sometimes they have their opinions simply because someone they respect told them those were good opinions. The same can be said of people on my side of the political spectrum. Ultimately I hope more people will end up where I am, and more people will change their assumptions and reasoning. Hopefully I will too where I'm wrong.

(As an aside, the biggest initial assumptions I seem to differ with people about are (1) if there's a problem, government needs to do more about it and it will get better, and (2) all people are inherently good.)

Posted by Jeff Mauldin at May 16, 2007 03:34 PM

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