Friday, May 29, 2020

Take a Left Turn at Crazy Town


I don’t have much to do with the bloggernacle. During the short time I blogged with Wheat and Tares I had a miserable time as I found posts that were politically conservative or orthodox in defending the church made me heavily outnumbered.  Of course, the defining moment was being told to f**k you by a poster and called an a**hole by one of my fellow permabloggers in the same week. (My crime was suggesting that far left lunatic Gina Colvin deserved her excommunication and liberals were hyperventilating by calling it an act of spiritual violence. She really seems traumatized by the ordeal so I stand corrected.)

I still visit the bloggernacle occasionally as it’s a source of fairly good entertainment. The academic stuff at Faith Promoting Rumor is interesting, though they spend most of their time being anonymous cowards and apostates lobbing grenades at faithful members and scholars. Two of the most recent posts involve a radical left turn even for the very progressive community.

This was from a walking stereotype about her left-wing vision for the church. I’m always a bit skeptical when people’s complaints about the church dovetail with their political ideology. It reminds of D&C 1:16 when they create a God in their own image. Only the poster never mentioned God.

The other post is even more radical. Probably my favorite part is after a radical, racist rant against white people, Nate in the comments tells everybody that if you disagree with the post it proves that you are in fact racist.  

Overall it seems like this mirrors the trend nationally. The old school liberals seem sane compared to the new brand of leftists coming out. The Steve Evans and Hawk Girls of the world are giving guest posts to younger and even more looney writers.

Lest you think there is only left-wing lunacy, Geoff B at the Millennial Star is consistently rude and whacky from the right. Here is my facebook commentary on a post from not too long ago:

Well I think we can reasonably discuss Mitt Romney and Tr----oh wait, Geoff B wrote an article on Romney and Trump over at M*? Well I'm sure it was done with tact and sensitivity...naw I'm joking it was awesomely bad.

I had to write this down because it was so ridiculous so often:

His first point was claiming his opponents have “cognitive dissonance.”  Its always a good start when you accuse your opponents of some mental deficiency.

But don't worry, all the other posts are “childish” while Geoff is the grown up in the room. I skimmed his article but it’s always the comments that rock because Geoff drops whatever thin pretense of objectivity, charity, and rationality he had in the OP:

Gerald Smith doesn’t know how to read. This is a favorite tactic of Geoff. It can’t be that his opponents read his piece and disagree, or gasp, know more than him- because after all, he is a history major- they simply don't understand Geoff's definitive take on the matter. 

He calls Michael a “hopeless bigot.”

Old Man is so clueless that Geoff has a “bridge to sell them.”

He says that Jetboy directly contradicts the churches position. Jetboy is widely known around the bloggernacle as the super orthodox right-wing writer, so let the irony sink in.

He dismisses Sute as somebody that will reflexively ignore him. That was the third time he complained that people are narrowminded because they don’t change their opinions to his. Remember, he is the grown up in the room and everybody else has cartoonish points.

Romney, and anybody who doesn’t support his libertarian talking points (anti massive government spending, huge military budget, entitlement spending with a narrow constitutional interpretation) or sides with the amorphous “establishment” is on the side of “evil” and the “Gadianton Robbers.” 

Geoff B then says his arguments are correct because he majored in American history. Well la de freakin dah, looks like we have a Stephen Ambrose here, let me stop the presses on my next history book to listen.



He then relies on argument by question which I find an especially weak way of argumentative writing. 

So pretty much this was an even bigger dumpster fire than I thought it was going to be.

The conclusion of my journey through this lunacy is that I’m glad I’m not a part of the bloggernacle, and extremely grateful to focus on my academic research. I'm hoping to present more of that research to you soon. Thanks for reading.