While I appreciate her motives, I think a better move would have been to add, not subtract. Put a copy of the Qu'ran, the Book of Mormon, and several other "holy books" with the bibles. Change the display from the Republican "pee on everything" mentality to a statement about inclusion.
I guarantee you the Book of Mormon is already there. AZ's Mormon population is the second largest of the Christian populations behind Catholics. But I suspect among "those in charge" that percentage is much higher.
Conservative Christians are always ready to play the victim at the drop of a hat. Poor me! Poor, poor me! Someone moved the magic book I've never actually read, but poor me, none the less. I suspect the people trying to manufacture outrage over this would go out of their tiny little minds at the mere thought of someone placing a copy of the Koran in their lounge. Republicans are conditioned to respond like toddlers over every little thing that upsets their narrow, backward-facing world view.
Okay, I’m also concerned about the trend that I know I’m not the only one noticing with the republicans jumping straight to expelling Democratic legislators that push back on their antics. The Tennessee three used bullhorns, well that was the trigger, the thing they were able to use, but the real reason was the Justins were pointing out the corruption of the republicans. Corruption that has caused at least one to step down since. There are a couple other cases of Republican legislators seeking to expel democratic legislators in other states for not falling in line with the white Christian nationalism, but I can’t remember details about it right this second. But this, nothing about moving bibles around a room seems like it would rise to the level of expelling someone from their duly elected position. This is retribution for pushing back on the morally and probably criminally corrupt actions of the Republicans.
Sure there are Democratic politicians pushing to expel Republicans, but the reasons for those cases are criminal corruption. Santos is a bald faced criminal liar who wouldn’t stand up to a single ethics investigation. But he’s still running our country. MTG was removed from her committees, not expelled from congress and she’s done some awful and dangerous crap in her position. She’s even leaking private, confidential and state secrets on her podcast. But she’s still in congress. There are sexual abusers and thieves and folks caught in fraud still in their positions of power that ought to be, not just expelled but incarcerated for them, that are still in halls of power making life worse for vulnerable people and everyone in general in the name of their so called moral superiority.
The GOP has moved another step toward fascism and theological dictatorship. We really need to do something to stop them. Vote, beat their gerrymandering and cheating tactics by turning out to vote them away. Don’t listen to them when they claim they don’t need oversight (I’m looking at you Gorsuch and Thomas) and ensure no one is above the law.
Gah! If I were in charge these criminal assholes would be making the privatized prisons very happy.
The NSGOP is using tactics from the 1930s German playbook to try and achieve the single party authoritarian theocracy of their wet dreams. The only thing missing is a Reichstag fire.
Montana censuring or expelling Zooey Zephyr over her pointing out their responsibility in the deaths of transgender people while passing laws that are clear steps in genocide (censuring her is another step) is a clear indication of their intentions.
By the time the average U.S. citizen realizes what's happening (yes, it really could happen here) I don't see there will be any other way out than bloodshed.
If anything, she was downright gentle with them. There are far harsher things she could've said about the GQP and their deadly agenda without uttering a single untrue word- and that's exactly what they're afraid of. Not Rep. Zephyr breaking "decorum," not protestors shouting from the gallery, but the truth. They're afraid of the truth. They're afraid of it in Tennessee, they're afraid of it in Montana, and they're afraid of it in Washington, DC.
Don't give them ideas. They are too stupid to actually read history books. Or civics books. Or any books more complicated than coloring books. Maybe even those are too complicated for these fascists.
The GQP wants to rule, not to govern- they don't have a plan for the latter, and they don't believe they need one for the former. Their only remaining core values are hate and fear, neither of which they can justify on the facts, but they have no compunctions about simply lying where they can't produce any evidence to support a position. They will shout down and slander opponents using the most hateful and abusive language, then turn right around and whine about "civility" and "decorum" when they're called out on their atrocious conduct.
There is no bottom of the barrel. They'll just keep digging deeper. The more power they're handed, the more they'll abuse it- they can't be reasoned with. Compromise with such people will only embolden them. They won't stop until they're 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 to stop, and we are running out of chances to do that 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 the system. Voting isn't a matter of policy, or even of conscience anymore- it's about survival.
But can we get the complacent masses to see that? No one in the media is paying attention and it doesn't affect their lives yet, so they go on about how both parties are the same and it doesn't matter. Yes the Democrat leadership would be better at leading a conservative party, but all we have is hateful fascists and not-hateful-fascists parties, not progressive and conservative.
I'm in agreement. This along with voting restrictions shows how the GOP is increasingly embracing nondemocratic notions that it's easier to restrict the people who get represented than it is to try and represent the will of all the people.
"I don’t quite understand the issue of having a Bible available for members to read."
Mr Grantham:
Do you have a phone? I have a bible app that gives me access to hundreds of english translations. If you don't want that, there is bible gateway. If you must have a physical copy, 𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙤𝙬𝙣. It's not rocket science.
Might want to read up on Stalin, Gillette. He grew up a Christian like you. He got top marks in his religious studies and was on his way to becoming a priest.
When he seized power, he promoted religion, opening religious schools. Churches flourished under him. He even reopened the Moscow Theological Academy Seminary that had been shuttered since the Revolution. He was also part of a committee to help elect a new church Patriarch (their equivalent of the Pope).
Stalin believed Jesus was real and said so to his own daughter Svetlana. He had books on Jesus in his personal library. And in all his writings, speeches and interviews, he never once called himself an atheist).
Try picking a different example, Johnny. How about a GQP favorite like Hitler? Oh wait...
That would require he crack a book about Stalin. *Everyone* knows the Soviets were godless atheists (DORD), no need to actually read about the history, or realize how little has really changed. Russia maybe had a couple of good decades there, but Putin is no better than Stalin (and maybe a worse military strategist)
And contrary to the popular American myth, the Soviets never banned religion. The Soviet constitution merely banned proselytizing to people under 21. The inevitable result was that over the decades young people---who had never been groomed for religious belief--simply refused to take it seriously. This has always struck me as being eminently sensible, but Americans will have their tribal myths, won't they? I have clear memories of one nun after the other telling us that Communist = atheist (and they always said "atheist" in a way that made it sound filthy and loathsome), and the Marianists who taught at my Catholic high school (when they weren't raping us) did the same. Grooming is as grooming does.
The Sisters of St. Joseph, the order that ran my grade school, had their "mother house" in Germany. I've always thought they only went into the Catholic school racket when the bottom fell out of the market for Hitler Youth camps.
The minute Putin does the conservative Christians in this country will insist he’s an atheist too. To them it isn’t about your actual beliefs it’s about whether they agree with your politics or not. And they’ll be the same conservative Christians that are not so subtly praising and supporting Putin right now, MTG, Trump, Carlson etc.
Whenever I'm at the VA and I see religious material (and it is always Christian. Never any other religion), I round file it. It has no place in a government facility.
Even if Christian material was allowed, you'd have to have "literature" from every other religion, as well as nonbelief. Either everyone gets representation or you remain strictly neutral and allow NO religion at all.
And really neutrality ought to be the goal. The US isn’t a theocracy (yet) and I just thought of something. What denomination are they going to push for? I expect the infighting will be biblical. Pun very much intended.
They obviously didn’t read the part in the Bible about lying. The tweets from the republicans misrepresented what happened. They all claimed she stole the Bible’s, when in fact they never left the room. She wasn’t stealing them, she only moved them to a less obvious place.
From the screenshots, it doesn’t look like there are bookshelves in the lounge, meaning there is not much of an expectation that folks would be there to find reading material, or will be sitting there to read, so pretty much any book would be out of place. If any book would be out of place in that room, then the presence of the Bible was an intentional message. These republicans complaining are mad their dog whistle was heard by the wrong person.
Also, at first I thought this was pretty petty to shove them under cushions and such. But noticing that there aren’t bookshelves, where else would they go? Putting them on tables and prominently displaying them by themselves is intended as a middle finger to any who don’t appreciate the Christian nationalist message. The Bible’s did need to be better placed for a secular government facility. She did not intend to steal them or throw them away, but only send her own clear message. Still a little petty, but republicans don’t understand tactful anyway. It’s not nearly as petty or harmful as the intent of those who placed them there in the first place, nor the legislation they pass.
They can put mine on display there if they want. It has a big gold sticker on the front (added by the seller, not me) that says "Slightly Imperfect, 15% off." Now that's truth in advertising!
"I don't know why you would buy a bible. They give them away for free, like those umbrellas you see in the stand by the restaurant door." - George Constanza (paraphrase, maybe : )
I stood on mine for MTailor to measure me for pants. At the angle they need the phone at, my phone's camera didn't intersect the floor so they couldn't see my feet.
As we've seen in the recorded history of Christianity, it is the Christians who are adept at cracking spines...of nonbelievers. Or the spines of anyone who actually wants to think.
"An egregious violation of decorum?" Maybe the idiots who make such statements should first READ their bibles. They might actually get a proper example of what "egregious" means!
Would have loved to seen the explosion if she'd placed copies of the Qur'an and/or the Bhagavad Gita alongside those bibles intead. It would've taken the roof out.
They're the "Religion of Love." They say so themselves. :S
In addition to vicious, bloodthirsty and demanding, they're pig-ignorant. They follow a guy they call "the Prince of Peace," even though the guy in question said he DIDN'T come to bring peace. He came to divide people against each other.
Holy crap, I didn’t even think of that. The drama that would have caused would be priceless, it’s always fun to watch R’s try to be racist without being obvious.
While I appreciate her motives, I think a better move would have been to add, not subtract. Put a copy of the Qu'ran, the Book of Mormon, and several other "holy books" with the bibles. Change the display from the Republican "pee on everything" mentality to a statement about inclusion.
The Qu'ran alone would make asplody heads.
Also, a copy of the Humanist Manifesto, if you're going to take the "inclusion" approach.
And let me put in a good word for two of my faves:
• Atheism: The Case against God, by George H. Smith
• The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer
That latter is thin enough even for a conservative to read.
Bets on how fast those "other books" would disappear?
I guarantee you the Book of Mormon is already there. AZ's Mormon population is the second largest of the Christian populations behind Catholics. But I suspect among "those in charge" that percentage is much higher.
Christian makes point about separation of church and state, other Christians freak out with cries of "persecution". Yeah, that tracks.
Conservative Christians are always ready to play the victim at the drop of a hat. Poor me! Poor, poor me! Someone moved the magic book I've never actually read, but poor me, none the less. I suspect the people trying to manufacture outrage over this would go out of their tiny little minds at the mere thought of someone placing a copy of the Koran in their lounge. Republicans are conditioned to respond like toddlers over every little thing that upsets their narrow, backward-facing world view.
She's the wrong type of Christian to them. You know, the type that cares about other people and the Constitution.
Okay, I’m also concerned about the trend that I know I’m not the only one noticing with the republicans jumping straight to expelling Democratic legislators that push back on their antics. The Tennessee three used bullhorns, well that was the trigger, the thing they were able to use, but the real reason was the Justins were pointing out the corruption of the republicans. Corruption that has caused at least one to step down since. There are a couple other cases of Republican legislators seeking to expel democratic legislators in other states for not falling in line with the white Christian nationalism, but I can’t remember details about it right this second. But this, nothing about moving bibles around a room seems like it would rise to the level of expelling someone from their duly elected position. This is retribution for pushing back on the morally and probably criminally corrupt actions of the Republicans.
Sure there are Democratic politicians pushing to expel Republicans, but the reasons for those cases are criminal corruption. Santos is a bald faced criminal liar who wouldn’t stand up to a single ethics investigation. But he’s still running our country. MTG was removed from her committees, not expelled from congress and she’s done some awful and dangerous crap in her position. She’s even leaking private, confidential and state secrets on her podcast. But she’s still in congress. There are sexual abusers and thieves and folks caught in fraud still in their positions of power that ought to be, not just expelled but incarcerated for them, that are still in halls of power making life worse for vulnerable people and everyone in general in the name of their so called moral superiority.
The GOP has moved another step toward fascism and theological dictatorship. We really need to do something to stop them. Vote, beat their gerrymandering and cheating tactics by turning out to vote them away. Don’t listen to them when they claim they don’t need oversight (I’m looking at you Gorsuch and Thomas) and ensure no one is above the law.
Gah! If I were in charge these criminal assholes would be making the privatized prisons very happy.
The NSGOP is using tactics from the 1930s German playbook to try and achieve the single party authoritarian theocracy of their wet dreams. The only thing missing is a Reichstag fire.
6th. January, 2021?
Well they tried.
Montana censuring or expelling Zooey Zephyr over her pointing out their responsibility in the deaths of transgender people while passing laws that are clear steps in genocide (censuring her is another step) is a clear indication of their intentions.
We’re already on stage eight.
https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/what-is-genocide/the-ten-stages-of-genocide/
By the time the average U.S. citizen realizes what's happening (yes, it really could happen here) I don't see there will be any other way out than bloodshed.
They've likely been looking for any excuse they could find to get rid of her ever since she was elected. It's not as though anything she said was outside the bounds of ordinary political discourse: https://apnews.com/article/montana-transgender-lawmaker-zooey-zephyr-e44017dee7bb3a86cc06eb407533cf4f
If anything, she was downright gentle with them. There are far harsher things she could've said about the GQP and their deadly agenda without uttering a single untrue word- and that's exactly what they're afraid of. Not Rep. Zephyr breaking "decorum," not protestors shouting from the gallery, but the truth. They're afraid of the truth. They're afraid of it in Tennessee, they're afraid of it in Montana, and they're afraid of it in Washington, DC.
And most of their constituents cheered. Just as they're cheering these murderous bills.
Don't give them ideas. They are too stupid to actually read history books. Or civics books. Or any books more complicated than coloring books. Maybe even those are too complicated for these fascists.
Stage a coup? Gotta keep him in.
Move a book? Kick her out!!!
Indicted in New York? Vote him back into office.
Oh, sure, boil it down to the essential facts. Look, you’ll never confuse the sheeple that way.
Here's one of the other cases: https://apnews.com/article/zooey-zephyr-montana-transgender-discipline-8dfb10590a26575b6ce6509cdc84fd23
The GQP wants to rule, not to govern- they don't have a plan for the latter, and they don't believe they need one for the former. Their only remaining core values are hate and fear, neither of which they can justify on the facts, but they have no compunctions about simply lying where they can't produce any evidence to support a position. They will shout down and slander opponents using the most hateful and abusive language, then turn right around and whine about "civility" and "decorum" when they're called out on their atrocious conduct.
There is no bottom of the barrel. They'll just keep digging deeper. The more power they're handed, the more they'll abuse it- they can't be reasoned with. Compromise with such people will only embolden them. They won't stop until they're 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 to stop, and we are running out of chances to do that 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 the system. Voting isn't a matter of policy, or even of conscience anymore- it's about survival.
But can we get the complacent masses to see that? No one in the media is paying attention and it doesn't affect their lives yet, so they go on about how both parties are the same and it doesn't matter. Yes the Democrat leadership would be better at leading a conservative party, but all we have is hateful fascists and not-hateful-fascists parties, not progressive and conservative.
Thank you, I just made a comment below regarding this case while you were writing this one. Great minds and all that.
I'm in agreement. This along with voting restrictions shows how the GOP is increasingly embracing nondemocratic notions that it's easier to restrict the people who get represented than it is to try and represent the will of all the people.
"I don’t quite understand the issue of having a Bible available for members to read."
Mr Grantham:
Do you have a phone? I have a bible app that gives me access to hundreds of english translations. If you don't want that, there is bible gateway. If you must have a physical copy, 𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙤𝙬𝙣. It's not rocket science.
It's all about marking their territory.
It's ALWAYS about marking their territory!
They have to crap out all the cherries they pick.
They should do it like non human mammals do, it's less dirty.
https://images.app.goo.gl/k6f7B3pXvyavKjp98
I know that, you know that, but they will deny it.
"Stalin would be proud."
Might want to read up on Stalin, Gillette. He grew up a Christian like you. He got top marks in his religious studies and was on his way to becoming a priest.
When he seized power, he promoted religion, opening religious schools. Churches flourished under him. He even reopened the Moscow Theological Academy Seminary that had been shuttered since the Revolution. He was also part of a committee to help elect a new church Patriarch (their equivalent of the Pope).
Stalin believed Jesus was real and said so to his own daughter Svetlana. He had books on Jesus in his personal library. And in all his writings, speeches and interviews, he never once called himself an atheist).
Try picking a different example, Johnny. How about a GQP favorite like Hitler? Oh wait...
That would require he crack a book about Stalin. *Everyone* knows the Soviets were godless atheists (DORD), no need to actually read about the history, or realize how little has really changed. Russia maybe had a couple of good decades there, but Putin is no better than Stalin (and maybe a worse military strategist)
And contrary to the popular American myth, the Soviets never banned religion. The Soviet constitution merely banned proselytizing to people under 21. The inevitable result was that over the decades young people---who had never been groomed for religious belief--simply refused to take it seriously. This has always struck me as being eminently sensible, but Americans will have their tribal myths, won't they? I have clear memories of one nun after the other telling us that Communist = atheist (and they always said "atheist" in a way that made it sound filthy and loathsome), and the Marianists who taught at my Catholic high school (when they weren't raping us) did the same. Grooming is as grooming does.
Communism = atheism was more a French thing.
The Sisters of St. Joseph, the order that ran my grade school, had their "mother house" in Germany. I've always thought they only went into the Catholic school racket when the bottom fell out of the market for Hitler Youth camps.
You just said it: Not being able to proselytize to literal babies is the EXACT SAME as banning religion, in the tiny minds of Real True 'Murikans!
And Pooty-Poot is a believer. Can't say this comes as a shock.
The Church backed the bloody Tsars (who were also Christian) and had Stalin's ear as well.
The minute Putin does the conservative Christians in this country will insist he’s an atheist too. To them it isn’t about your actual beliefs it’s about whether they agree with your politics or not. And they’ll be the same conservative Christians that are not so subtly praising and supporting Putin right now, MTG, Trump, Carlson etc.
I'm a little surprised no one asked what DORD meant. (Department of Redundancy Department)
Whenever I'm at the VA and I see religious material (and it is always Christian. Never any other religion), I round file it. It has no place in a government facility.
Even if Christian material was allowed, you'd have to have "literature" from every other religion, as well as nonbelief. Either everyone gets representation or you remain strictly neutral and allow NO religion at all.
And really neutrality ought to be the goal. The US isn’t a theocracy (yet) and I just thought of something. What denomination are they going to push for? I expect the infighting will be biblical. Pun very much intended.
Well that's what you get for going to Virginia in the first place. 😛
Go to Virginia? Not even at gunpoint. :)
They obviously didn’t read the part in the Bible about lying. The tweets from the republicans misrepresented what happened. They all claimed she stole the Bible’s, when in fact they never left the room. She wasn’t stealing them, she only moved them to a less obvious place.
From the screenshots, it doesn’t look like there are bookshelves in the lounge, meaning there is not much of an expectation that folks would be there to find reading material, or will be sitting there to read, so pretty much any book would be out of place. If any book would be out of place in that room, then the presence of the Bible was an intentional message. These republicans complaining are mad their dog whistle was heard by the wrong person.
Also, at first I thought this was pretty petty to shove them under cushions and such. But noticing that there aren’t bookshelves, where else would they go? Putting them on tables and prominently displaying them by themselves is intended as a middle finger to any who don’t appreciate the Christian nationalist message. The Bible’s did need to be better placed for a secular government facility. She did not intend to steal them or throw them away, but only send her own clear message. Still a little petty, but republicans don’t understand tactful anyway. It’s not nearly as petty or harmful as the intent of those who placed them there in the first place, nor the legislation they pass.
Republicans misrepresenting what happened to generate outrage and a totally over-the-top response.
I swear to God, this is my shocked face.
I have a hunch that Hamilton is the first person to ever pick up those bibles. I bet they are in mint, fresh out of the box condition.
They can put mine on display there if they want. It has a big gold sticker on the front (added by the seller, not me) that says "Slightly Imperfect, 15% off." Now that's truth in advertising!
"I don't know why you would buy a bible. They give them away for free, like those umbrellas you see in the stand by the restaurant door." - George Constanza (paraphrase, maybe : )
Too bad it's not the case here. Sometimes I just need a couple of inches instead of climbing on a stool to fetch something too high.
https://www.amazon.com/Grabber-FitPlus-Premium-Reacher-Warranty/dp/B06XH4ZZL9/ref=asc_df_B06XH4ZZL9/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167132090312&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16253951028686363087&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9004166&hvtargid=pla-307404760226&psc=1
I stood on mine for MTailor to measure me for pants. At the angle they need the phone at, my phone's camera didn't intersect the floor so they couldn't see my feet.
Possibly with spines not cracked yet, either!
As we've seen in the recorded history of Christianity, it is the Christians who are adept at cracking spines...of nonbelievers. Or the spines of anyone who actually wants to think.
Or if they’re the “wrong” brand of Christian or their parents were born in the wrong place or…
The only person who should be punished is the one that was responsible for decorating that place.
"An egregious violation of decorum?" Maybe the idiots who make such statements should first READ their bibles. They might actually get a proper example of what "egregious" means!
Would have loved to seen the explosion if she'd placed copies of the Qur'an and/or the Bhagavad Gita alongside those bibles intead. It would've taken the roof out.
Any non christian myth book would do the trick. I especially love the one where Isis tricked Ra to have her way.
sure that would make baby jesus cry.
Seems fair enough, as he and the religion built around him have been making people cry (and scream) for 1700 years.
They were/are a vicious, bloodthirsty and demanding lot of assholes.
They're the "Religion of Love." They say so themselves. :S
In addition to vicious, bloodthirsty and demanding, they're pig-ignorant. They follow a guy they call "the Prince of Peace," even though the guy in question said he DIDN'T come to bring peace. He came to divide people against each other.
The sheep from the goats.
In the case of xtians, they're both sheep AND goats.
Was this around Easter? Maybe she has a family tradition of hiding bibles rather than eggs.
Whatever the case, all the food in the fridge needs thrown out.
She has an interesting sense of humour. Lucky for her she is not a PoC.
Especially if she were in Tennessee.
Holy crap, I didn’t even think of that. The drama that would have caused would be priceless, it’s always fun to watch R’s try to be racist without being obvious.