Who's the man who WILL cop out - Isaac Hayes? George W Bush?
Let me tell you a story:
All of the 76 planets he controlled were overpopulated. Each planet had on average 178 billion people. He wanted to get rid of all the overpopulation so he had a plan.
[He] took over complete control with the help of renegades to defeat the good people and the Loyal Officers. Then with the help of psychiatrists he called in billions of people for income tax inspections where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyse them. Then they were put into space planes that looked exactly like DC8s (except they had rocket motors instead of propellers).
These DC8 space planes then flew to planet Earth where the paralysed people were stacked around the bases of volcanoes in their hundreds of billions. When they had finished stacking them around then H-bombs were lowered into the volcanoes. [He] then detonated all the H-bombs at the same time and everyone was killed.
Some more detail from a slightly different source:
The psychiatrists select motion picture producers, editors, writers, and newscasters, all blacks, ..., religious leaders, ..., the Ninth Terrestial Army, all actors, all unemployed...
Convoys of trucks carry the drugged victims to space freighters, enroute to Earth. Renegades dressed in white coveralls move the bodies into the ships.
The Psychiatrist assures a Renegade that he has selected all the undesirables for execution. "...medical science never makes mistakes."
The secret police carry the bodies to various volcanoes on Earth: Mount Shasta, Mount Aetna, Mount Fuji, Mount Washington, Mauna Loa in Hawaii. They lower the bombs labeled "ATOMIC BOMB. Danger. Radioactive." into the craters.
The Renegade Chief, after a go-ahead...pushes the central button on an electronic control box. The bombs explode.
Scenes of carnage on Earth.
Well, I must be evil, because the fact that you read this story has sentenced you to a death by pneumonia. If it's any comfort to you, the viewers of "South Park" will probably die also. Why? Because:
Stan takes a personality test that is being offered....After answering a lot of questions the results of Stan’s test show that he is one messed up kid who is “completely miserable and totally depressed.” Something that Stan wasn’t aware of. Fortunately...for only $240 they will help him out. Back at home, Stan asks his parents for the money to help him with his total depression. His father suggests that he use the money for his bike money, it’s his choice, does he want the bike or does he not want to be depressed. Stan takes the plunge and spends his money....Stan...goes into auditing room where his “Thetan Levels” are read. Stan grabs hold of the device and his levels are off the chart. After trying four different E-Meters, the results are the same....Stan has registered an OT9....[Back at home] John Travolta has arrived on the scene. Randy sends his son to his room. In his room Stan finds that Tom Cruise is there waiting for him. When Stan tells him what he thinks of his acting, Tom goes into the closet, believing he has failed in the eyes of the prophet. Stan calls for his father’s help and Randy tries to get Tom Cruise to “come out of the closet.”
Four hours later Tom is still in the closet. Everyone wants him to “come out of the closet.” R. Kelly is on the scene and sings about Tom Cruise being in the closet. The...president tries to convince Stan’s parents to let them have their son. They want to reveal the great secret of life behind their church to Stan. Randy asks his son if he would like to know this information and Stan responds with a “sure.” Usually it takes several years before a member can hear this information, but Stan is on the fast track. The president tells him what [they] actually believe, involving aliens from about 75 millions years ago coming to Earth....Meanwhile, upstairs Nicole Kidman is trying to get Tom to “come out of the closet.” Tom continues to deny that he is in the closet....
John Travolta also tries to get Tom to “come out of the closet,” but instead he finds himself joining him. Out on the street R. Kelly sings about this latest development....R. Kelly goes upstairs to try to get Tom and John to “come out of the closet.” R. Kelly gets angry, pulls out his gun, and when the closet door opens, he finds himself going inside....
So you can see that South Park is making fun of a few things here. They've made fun of a lot of things over the years:
During the run of the show, it has aired episodes making fun of brisses, the Stations of the Cross, Jewish youth camps, TV evangelists, millenial theology, the fear of going to hell (a hillarious two-parter), Islamic fundamentalism, Christian Rock, Mormons (however, one should note that in the South Park universe, the Mormons are the only ones who get into heaven...as a result, heaven is really, really lame and hell isn't so bad), and sightings of the Virgin Mary, not to mention an episode in which Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad (yes, they actually depicted the Prophet and no one seemed to mind), Lao-Tzu, Krishna, and Joseph Smith team up Superfriends-style to fight a cult started by David Blaine. It's also worth pointing out that they've given atheists a pretty hard time, too.
For my semi-related views on newsgroup naming, see this 1999 post. Translation of my comment - the common form for newsgroups in the alt.religion hierarchy is to follow alt.religion with the name of the religion; thus, alt.religion.intolerance implies, as I noted, that there is a religion called "Intolerance." Of course, some argue that Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all fit the bill.
But how about this religion, cited in Daily Kos? It presents the following quote:
A world made secular, populated and completely run by Godless atheists who are morally corrupt, dangerously immature, often violent, sexually deviant, completely selfish... convinced Christ's servants are either stupid, evil, or dangerous, and trying for all they're worth to destroy our faith.
Ah, but the Daily Kos writer altered the quote. Here's the original:
A world gone bonkers, populated and completely run by a majority of people who are frankly clinically insane, dangerously immature, often violent, historically monstrous, completely irrational... convinced you're either stupid, evil, or dangerous, and hoping for all they're worth to infect you with the same mimetic virus.
The real quote is taken from here:
Imagine that you live in a world where 90% of the people around you sincerely believe in something that appears to you to be downright whacky, if perhaps relatively pleasant on the surface in many respects. Say they believe in Santa Claus; beard, the big red suit, the flying reindeer, the sled loaded with a billion gifts, the North Pole Workshop, Mrs. Claus and the elves; all of it.
But in this fantasy world, they're not content merely to believe in Santa Claus, they want you to publicly agree all the time that you also believe in Santa, in their specific version of same, and they pressure everyone else in numerous ways to pretend that they're not strange or childish for believing in this. They don't just limit it at that even, they insist everyone kiss their ass about their Santa belief every damn day of their lives and if you don't humor them at the drop of hat under any circumstances, you're being disrespectful, you're out of line. No matter how much you humor them, they always demand more.
Imagine, seriously imagine for a moment now, that these people, the vast majority of the electorate, vote for politicians based in large part on what they think Santa wants, campaign speeches all end with "Be good or Santa won't come to visit". And most of these voters won't even consider voting for someone who doesn't believe in Santa Claus and his factory at the North Pole. Yet they routinely congratulate themselves as belonging to the most graciously tolerant and open minded people in all of history....
You suddenly feel a little bit lonely at age sixteen as you come to realize that you may surrounded by fully grown adults who are delusional incompetents that cannot distinguish fiction from fact and are enthralled by some kind of massive group hysteria! They're most of them all like that! And they all think you're nuts for not buying into their delusion!....
Imagine, as you puzzle your way through this temporal menagerie called life, full to the brim with more of the functionally insane humanoids that make the fabric of experience; bosses, girlfriends, pals, enemies, and role models, that Santa reminders are on every coin, every paper dollar, on every street corner, on every news show, on every cable network, that there are radio and TV stations that are dedicated 24 hours a day to extolling the virtues of Santa and the power of his mighty Sled....
Well, if you can imagine all that, you know for just a few moments how it feels everyday to be a grown adult surrounded by wishful childish thinkers clinging to nonsensical myths as if they were real and insisting, in fact force feeding, that mythology to you; people who sometimes turn quite violent, get downright nasty if you express the slightest disagreement with their specific version of the Jolly Old Guy....
And before you believe that all Daily Kos posters think that I'm immature, delusional, and irrational, I searched Daily Kos for Christian progressive posts. I found one. From 2003.
When Markos invited me to join the guest post team, I made a conscious decision to bring up religion. I'm not here to be a Christian apologist, but religion is my profession, it's what I've chosen to pay attention to. The other reason is that it is news. The intersection of religion and public affairs can work out well: Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services are among the largest social service agencies in the world, they do things and go places no one else will ever go. In the Islamic world, the Red Crescent Society is the help of last resort in countries which, for the most part, provide next to no social safety net.
Americans, whether they claim a faith tradition or not, are frighteningly illiterate about religion. This has public policy implications as our society becomes ever more diverse, ethnically, linguistically and religiously....
[I]t's worth noting that it isn't just the secular, Jewish and Christian progressives who won't be voting for W next year. The "uniter not a divider" has become the most polarizing president in modern times.
Actually, it turns out that this isn't the only pro-Christian post in Daily Kos. You just have to look for Christian left:
From a Christian perspective, the proposed budget cuts are about as sinful as it gets. How else do you explain cutting funds for the poor and needy, the children who need educating, and vital services for the meek, at Christmas to boot, while simultaneously negotiating a cut in the capital gains tax, a.k.a. Wall Street tax cut.
So, it's only natural that churches, even normally neutral churches that believe the mixing of religion and politics threatens both religion and politics, would get up in arms about a direct assault to those we as Christians are charged to protect.
This raises the question - what is the budget that we're in the process of considering? The Reupblican Senate's S Con Res 83 (not Bush's original proposal) lists the following outlays by category for FY 2007 (see section 103 of the resolution, plus Section 102 for most of the Social Security outlays):
$550,497,000,000 for National Defense
$459,297,000,000 for Social Security (under Sections 102 and 103)
$387,541,000,000 for Medicare
$362,689,000,000 for Income Security
$354,318,000,000 for Net Interest
$275,319,000,000 for Health
$89,291,000,000 for Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services
$75,774,000,000 for Transportation
$73,054,000,000 for Veterans Benefits and Services
$46,296,000,000 for Administration of Justice
$34,266,000,000 for International Affairs
$33,026,000,000 for Natural Resources and Environment
$31,182,000,000 for Community and Regional Development
$26,788,000,000 for Agriculture
$25,159,000,000 for General Science, Space, and Technology
$19,252,000,000 for General Government
$8,025,000,000 for Commerce and Housing Credit
$905,000,000 for Energy
Sounds big. And some of them are really big when compared with previous outlays. rdavis has posted a chart listing outlays in current dollars, beginning in 2000. Based on the chart, here are some comparisons of 2000 vs. 2003 outlays (the last year for which Davis had actual numbers:
National Defense: 294.50 billion in 2000, 404.92 billion in 2003
Social Security: 409.42 billion in 2000, 474.68 billion in 2003
Medicare: 197.11 billion in 2000, 249.43 billion in 2003
Health: 154.53 billion in 2000, 219.58 billion in 2003
Net Interest: 222.95 billion in 2000, 153.08 billion in 2003
Income Security: 253.58 billion in 2000, 334.43 billion in 2003
If anyone can find a comparison of Clinton's 2000 actuals with the Republican 2007 proposed for these big ticket categories, please let me know.
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