My Jackie Robinson Story

Jackie Robinson.  It's good that we have a day set aside to honor the man. It's even better that we have a new movie coming out about him. We are right to regard him as a hero. He broke down racial barriers and helped pave the way towards a better America. Half a century after his breakthrough into the major leagues, an African American is now President of the United States, and the era of racial equality is that much closer.

But it isn't here yet. Racism is still alive and kicking. Oh, I'm not referring to the racism exhibited by the sad, tattered remnants of the Ku Klux Klan, or the racist attitudes subconsciously, and obviously to all but themselves, adhered to by Tea Party activists (much to their frustrated confusion). No, I'm referring to the racist attitudes held by the African American Community, and how difficult it will be to get it to let them go.

You see, as blasphemous as it is for me to say this on the day set aside for the first great black baseball player, racism is now primarily a black phenomenon rather than a white one.  But, after all, blasphemy is what we do here at the Sacred Cow Wursthaus. There is a prevailing inner-city mentality which seems to say that the sins against one's forebears are somehow legitimate reason to receive a free ride today, and that the innocent children of the perpetrators of past crimes should be made to pay restitution. In other words, two wrongs make a right. Or, the fallacy of children being responsible for a parents' crime (a mistake upon which all of Christianity is based) somehow holds true.

For once, complaints made by the right-wing establishment are correct. Hiring a sub-standard worker or accepting a sub-standard college student application based upon skin color is racist. Period. Afrro-centric racism is just as evil as Euro-centric racism. (Or Asian or Hispanic-centered, for that matter.) And Afro-centric racism is arguably even more evil because it is committed by the children of those who suffered under racial oppression. How utterly bizarre it is that the descendants of those who suffered under the lash of the slave-driver in the cotton fields are so quick to take up the whip themselves!

How even more bizarre that more don't take advantage of receiving undue privilege! A young, black male could write his own ticket with a crappy resume simply by donning a business suit. Why in hell are black youth bothering to not even pull up their pants, much less themselves?

You see, Jackie Robinson didn't ask that the bar be lowered. He raised the bar, and set it higher for himself than for his white teammates. He didn't ask for affirmative action. He didn't NEED affirmative action. To prove the point that he was equal, he excelled. He didn't just hold his own, he dominated. And in so doing, he proved that skin color was poor criteria for rejecting a ball player who could take you to the World Series.

And that's the secret: If a person can prove that the team is better with him or her on their side, that person will be accepted onto the team. Period.

But what Jackie Robinson did led to the death of the negro leagues. With black players able to play Major League baseball, there was simply no more need. Why even have a "black" drinking fountain when everyone can drink from the "white" one? And that scares some people. Integration means the end of black culture, and that leads some to defend black culture against incursions, even if that form of discrimination holds black people in perpetual chains. This, my friends, is why a young black man will refuse to pull up his pants, even in a political era when simply donning a suit will get him hired on the spot, crappy resume notwithstanding. Also, privilege makes us blind. We will do anything not to see the truth when the truth means having to give up a privileged position. For an example, just look at the blatant hypocrisy of the CEO's who decry the evils of welfare while playing golf with a handicap. (Think about it: How is a handicap NOT golf-welfare?)

I get to say these things as a white man because none of my ancestors owned a black slave. My lineage is not tainted with past sins, so I can simply speak my mind guilt-free. But I can understand the pressure some might feel. We need to overcome this and recognize that there is no us/them anymore. There's just us.

Whatever happened to the Great American Melting Pot? Wasn't there this great idea that all races would meld together inside the borders of the U.S. to make one, great society of people? I suppose that was only meant for Europeans. Americans were meant to be a mix of German, Irish, Welsh or French, but not Haitian, Mexican, or West African. I say we revitalize the Melting Pot idea, and call it the "copper kettle." After all, when we're all done intermingling, intermarrying, and interbreeding, Americans will have a kind of copper-colored skin tone, beautiful to behold. Penn Jilette said it best: The best way to end racism is to fuck white people. And fuck black people. And fuck Asian people, Hispanic people, Jewish people... pretty soon there will be no racism because - no more races!

INTEGRATION. It's not a dirty word, damn it!

Not that I agree with the word "race" in the first place. The human race is the only race. It's beyond obvious that continental ancestry or skin tone does not constitute a separate species, much less an entirely separate race. Dog and rabbit. Now, there's a difference in races. A black human and a white human are no more different races than are a black cat and a white cat.

When racial equality arrives, it will not have much fanfare. No parades, no bands playing, no confetti. And the reason for this will be because it came upon us so gradually, so stealthfully, that we won't have noticed that it did so. Eventually, someone will make an observation that goes something like, "Hey, isn't that weird segregated era back in the early 21st century an oddity?" And somebody else will say, "Yeah, that was kind of strange. I wonder when exactly it happened that we got over it?"

Well, we will get over it after we integrate. And not just integrate, but integrated to the point where we no longer are even conscious of skin tone anymore.


Eric

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SCOTUS And Gay Marriage

Call me old fashioned, but I believe that America is supposed to be the Land of the Free.

Maybe that's a rather conservative value to be held by someone as admittedly non-traditional as myself, but these United States were founded upon the idea that individuals may pursue happiness in their own way, without government intervention.

So you'll forgive me if I'm just plain sick and tired of same-sex marriage even being an issue anymore. Yes, I appreciate everyone on Facebook putting up pink pictures with equal-signs on them as a show of solidarity, but it shouldn't be necessary by now.

So you think it's against God's law?  Fine.  So then it's against the law - IN YOUR CHURCH. There's just plain nothing that necessitates that it be made the government's business, except some idiotic religious imperative which insists that those outside of said religion must conform to that creed's moral edicts. And if this isn't enough to make a sane person vomit, the aforementioned religion serves up an ipecac cocktail by dragging the government into it, as if what goes on in a person's private life is ever the government's damned business. You want to prevent gays from getting married? Here's how you do it Mr. or Mrs. Christian: You go out and  preach the gospel to the gay people. And when they've been brought to the Lord, they can repent. That's your job! How DARE you ask Uncle Sam to do your evangelizing for you!

Look, I know that our government loves assholes. That's no reason for it to get so jealous when certain assholes get fucked by someone other than the usual politician. Okay, maybe you happen to be someone who thinks that homosexuality is icky. Okay, fine. But then so are nose piercings. So are Speedos worn by fat people. So are those ridiculous pants which hang three feet down off the asses of inner city ghetto punks. But these gross and disgusting things are perfectly legal, and none of the government's business. And that's the way it should be.

Let me illustrate something about gay behavior, because there is a genetic component. Oh, not always, and not each time to the same degree, but most gay people are born, not made. I could go into detail here about what science says about homosexuality and genetics, but that would take too long. Just be informed that genes play a role in our sexual tastes, and that being the case, nearly all animals show occasional homosexual tendencies. Go look it up. A volume titled, "Biological Exuberance" is an excellent resource.

The puzzling thing comes with how homosexuality manifests itself with humans. A much larger percentage engages in this behavior in our species than in other animals. Why might that be? Part of the answer might lie in the occasional straight person who turns to homosexuality as a means of escaping the foibles of the other gender. More than one lesbian has told me that she prefers men, but can't stand male shit. But this is a minority within the gay community. The real answer comes from evolution.

If a person is born in a society where homosexuality is repressed, perhaps to the point where gays are killed on sight, a person born gay has a real dilemma. How do they survive in a world where they are outlawed? The answer is obvious: pretend to be straight! For centuries, this is exactly what took place. Gay men married and fathered children because that's what they were expected to do. Gay women didn't get a vote in the process. But that meant that the gay genetic code survived, multiplied and thrived! Today, the result is that this genetic tendency has reached a kind of critical mass, where there are too many to be kept silent any longer.

In other words, if the religious right wishes to condemn the homosexual rights movement, it has only itself to blame for creating that movement in the first place!

Oh, religion could have done the smart thing by not condemning homosexuality.  You see, gays do not breed naturally, meaning that gay people born with that tendency would have, in ages past, simply died childless. But that age has passed, and the Internet and medical science has made certain that gay people can propagate. In a world ridiculously overpopulated, having a percentage of people who don't breed naturally isn't such a bad thing.

But for the religious, it's too late. They went and took a huge dump right where they eat. Too bad. The debate is over. It's only the die-hards who will continue to fight over it. But rest assured...

...the day is soon coming when it will be the Christians who must stay inside the closet for fear of being ridiculed!


Eric

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The 2nd Amendment

Well, I've been away from this blog during the eight or so weeks it's taken me to complete a machinist training program, and I'm glad to be back. Hello, people! I've missed you! And a few things have taken place over that stretch of time, not least of which is the slow strangulation of the outrage over the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.  New gun control legislation has gone from a near certainty to an almost certain impossibility, demonstrating the principle that if it wasn't headlined in the news yesterday, it won't get legislation passed today. Outrage, it seems, only lasts until the next episode of How I Met Your Mother goes on the air, and the empathy of the general public dries up almost as soon as the blood on the pavement does.

It also demonstrates the overwhelming power of gerrymandering - oh, excuse me, I meant to say vote stealing. Enough members of congress are more scared of what their illegitimately twisted districts will think than of what the people in their state think overall. Thus, something with overwhelming public support, such as the regulating of gun show sales, gets much less support than it deserves because the buckshot-redneck minority gets a disproportionately loud voice. Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I really don't think the founding fathers of this great nation intended to give veto powers to the NASCAR crowd.  It's time the hicks took their thumbs off the scales.

Let me clarify what the 2nd amendment truly means, because as usual, most people miss the point. Yes, it's true, the 2nd amendment does protect a citizens' right to buy and own firearms. The intention at the time was to make sure states had well-regulated militias comprised of volunteer fighters, but that's both ancient history, and beside the point. The right to own guns is ours, period. That much is settled.

How-EVER! The second amendment also says nothing, nothing regarding the re-sale of said gun to another party. In other words, while the second amendment may protect your right to buy and own a firearm, it does not protect your right to turn around and sell that gun to someone else! So, if the government insists on all re-sales being brokered through it's own, little bureaucracy, can it do so?

The answer is, hell yeah! Not only is the government entirely within its bounds, but I argue it has an obligation to do so!

The NRA can claim many things about regulating re-sales at gun shows, but it cannot claim protection of 2nd amendment rights. The right to re-sale just plain not in there! It can claim that it's a bad idea on moral principle, or it can argue that regulating gun sales in an infringement on free trade, or it can argue any number of other angles - but it cannot argue 2nd amendment!

The regulation of gun re-sales is absolutely Constitutional!

So back off, NRA! Stand down, Sarah Palin! And Ted Nugent? Fuck off, will ya buddy? You're just a musician, after all!

So, you want to own a gun? Fine. You want to sell that gun? Go get a license!

Either that, or wait until your local municipality's next gun buyback program.


Eric

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Okay, YOU Balance The Budget! (Part II)

Two years ago, I outlined what it's like to be the one to balance the nation's budget.  Back then, the government was threatening shutdown over increasing the debt ceiling.  It was overwhelmingly clear then that it was impossible to balance the national checkbook without cutting spending AND raising taxes both.  Now, with the sequester underway, and with various areas of government all feeling the pinch, it seems relevant for me to re-visit the idea.  Republicans have drawn a line in the sand regarding spending cuts rather than tax increases.  Is this even possible?  Or is the current situation similar to the one of two years ago?

Indeed, the situation is exactly the same.  Here are the projected numbers for 2013, courtesy of the Congressional Budget Office:

2,902 billion in revenues (that's incoming taxes).
3,803 billion in outlays (that's government spending).
901 billion in deficit (that's the amount we're spending too much of and putting on the nation's credit card).

That means that balancing the budget would involve raising our current tax revenue by one-third of today's levels (31%), or else slashing about one-quarter (23.7%) of national spending.


2,293 billion is mandatory spending, while 1,510 billion is discretionary.  In other words, one would have to jettison two-thirds of our discretionary spending in order to balance the budget.


That's not as bad as two years ago, when balancing the budget meant dealing with a deficit which was half the nation's income, and nearly all discretionary spending.  The numbers are moving in the right direction.  Obama kept his promise of cutting the nation's deficit in half by the start of his second term (it just happened after the election was over, that's all).  But we're still in dire straits.

And it's still impossible to balance the budget without cutting spending and increasing revenues both!

The one number which is worse is the national debt.  It now stands projected at $17.5 trillion for 2013, up from $14.8 trillion in 2011.  The debt increase is leveling off, which is good, but is still increasing and that's bad.  Plus we're paying interest on all that, and that's even worse.  This, more than anything else, makes the need for increasing revenues of paramount importance.

What part of "no choice" do Republicans not understand?

Any lines in the sand which have been drawn over not increasing revenues are just that - lines in the sand; the transient, shifting, impermanent, wind-blown dust. Increasing revenue is not off the table, as Republicans will insist, but is rather welded to the table!  Any chin-boogie to the contrary is nothing but monkey-chatter.

Now here's where it really gets interesting: The entire 2012 presidential campaign was predicated on balancing the budget through closing loopholes in the tax code. Over and over again, Mitt Romney insisted that the budget could be balanced through tax reform, and this became the official Republican stance: closing loopholes did not constitute increasing taxes.

So why are they even bothering to fight over this now?  All Obama wants to do is close the tax loopholes that Mitt Romney wanted to close!

Ah, but the nation doesn't have a tax problem, say the so-called conservatives, it has a spending problem.  Bullshit! It has a spending AND a tax problem!

So, let's recap: Republicans are fighting over an issue they themselves campaigned in favor of in their attempt to unseat Barack Obama, one in which they have no choice but to capitulate upon, and they're willing to throw the entire nation under the sequestration bus in order to accomplish this.

Fucking really?

Peter Segal of NPR's news-quiz show, 'Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!' said it best: "Barack Obama set up the sequestration agreement on the premise that Congress would have to be crazy to allow it to happen.  Well, right there, you can see the flaw in the logic."

Indeed. Congress is bat-shit crazy!

Now, here's where my rant reaches a fever pitch: Why in frakkin' Hades did Newt Gingrich get to sit his smug fat-ass in front of David Gregory for twenty fucking minutes without having to confront ANY of this?!


Eric

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In Praise Of Mark Kelley

In recent testimony on Capitol Hill, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords drew praise and applause for the speech she gave in support of Obama’s proposed gun legislation.

“We must do something,” she said in her halting, child-like voice. “You must act. Be bold, be courageous, Americans are counting on you. Thank you.”

Couldn’t have said it better, Gabby. You’re a true American hero. But I’m giving the loudest applause for your husband. You got lucky in him, babe!

Check this out: This man, Mark Kelly, is an astronaut! He has an M.S. in aeronautical engineering. This guy flew jets during Gulf War I! He’s exactly the guy all us boys wanted to be when we grew up. And to top all that off, he got to go to the International Space Station! He flew four shuttle missions, including the final launch of Space Shuttle Endeavor.

He was married once before. His former wife apparently wanted more of a stay-at-home dad who would spend more time with his two daughters instead of a guy who was almost never home because he had to constantly be moving beyond the speed of sound.

When he met Gabby, he must have known that he’d found in her the type of woman who was a perfect match. He could continue his light-speed career, while she could pursue her fast-paced career in politics. The two could both live the amazing lives they both craved, see each other occasionally for intense moments of intimacy, and then go back to full throttle again. It was the kind of relationship where you didn’t have to sweat the small stuff. When they were married, former labor secretary Robert Reich, who attended, offered them a toast: “To a bride who moves at a velocity that exceeds that of anyone else in Washington, and a groom who moves at a velocity that exceeds 17,000 miles per hour.”

All that changed on January 8, 2011, when Gabby Giffords was shot in an assassination attempt by Jared Loughner. The dummkopf botched the job, but successfully shot and killed several other ancillary targets, including a little girl.

The focus here is on the fact that Mark Kelly, a man who never wanted to sweat the small stuff, now had nothing but small stuff ahead of him to sweat out. He wasn’t home enough while his two daughters were little. Now he has what is essentially a baby girl to look after forever. He married a beautiful woman for her brain, and now that brain is damaged goods.

Yet amidst all that, he hasn’t yet missed a stride, nor has he complained. If anything, he’s more determined than ever. Instead of getting bogged down, and instead of letting Gabby fade into obscurity, he’s picked her up, carried her, and the two have rejoined the marathon. The only difference is that this time, her career is now also his.

Now that’s MY definition of a “real man!”

So there they are, testifying in front of Senators in Washington, D.C., making sure that gun laws are responsible. Mark Kelly and Gabby are what’s known as Blue Dog Democrats – people who have conservative values but joined the Democratic Party anyway because they’re sick of the Republican Party’s extremist bullshit. Mark is a soldier, and a gun owner. He respects citizens’ rights to own firearms. He’s fired them in battle. Hell, if the shooting of his wife proves anything, it’s that ordinary people should be able to carry defensive weaponry in case of just such a situation. But Mark and Gabby want us to be responsible about it. They know what they’re talking about.

"We are simply two reasonable Americans who realize we have a problem with gun violence, and we need Congress to act,” says Mark. “Our rights are paramount, but our responsibilities are serious and as a nation we are not taking responsibility for the gun rights our founding fathers conferred upon us."

File that one under “D” for ‘damn straight!’

Mark goes on to say: "Closing the gun show loophole and requiring private sellers to require a background check before they transfer a gun…I can't think of something that would make our country safer than doing just that,"

Maybe NASA stands for, ‘Not Another Shooting Again!’

Yes, if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. But, according to Mark, that’s no excuse for us going out of our way to make sure as many criminals have as many guns as possible.

And if you actually disagree with that one, I’ll join Mark Kelly in shoving a NASA rocket up your ass.


Eric

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Christian Mingle

ChristianMingle.com. What a concept!

Here, Christians can find other Christians for matrimony, mating, and more. But why? Why on earth is this at all a successful online business? Why isn't Match.com or e-Harmony enough? I have some thoughts on this, and you Christians out there are not likely to appreciate them.

First, there has always been a traditional method for meeting Christian singles. It’s called “church.” A person would go to church, join a singles group, and meet other single people. Or, if his/her church doesn't have a singles group, that person could give a discreet word to the Pastor about hoping that The Lord would provide a spouse, at which point said minister might occasionally drop hints about someone being single at the next Bible study or church picnic. Isn't this enough?

Well, no. Bottom line is, a lot of congregation members just plain don’t attend church anymore. In a world where Christian ministers constantly say how their religion is under attack, their armies are not even bothering to show up. Even serious Christians find services difficult to endure sometimes. What does it say about a religion’s following if even die-hard members find it difficult to endure one more sermon, just one more week, even on the promise of potentially finding a sexy single person? And, if you happen to be Catholic, Lutheran, or Episcopalian, then it’s even worse. The old-fashioned format serves only to offend the senses. All the non-elderly don’t bother being there, and so going to church means hobnobbing with the little old biddies running this year’s bake sale, and that’s not exactly a place that’s likely to kindle romance.

Enter the Evangelical Megachurch! Here, they bring in some decently modern music, complete with electric guitars, drum-sets and synthesizers, and project the lyrics to sing on a giant projection-screen (because they at least realize that people typically can’t read the music charts in the hymnal anyway). Plenty of single-and-looking people here!

But apparently, this isn't enough. I once attended a singles group at Elmbrook Church many years ago (before I realized I was an atheist, you see). Elmbrook is the largest church in Wisconsin, so you can’t get much more of a Megachurch than that. Sunday services require dozens of police cars just to direct traffic! But when I went there and attended the singles group, I found… Well, let’s just say there’s a reason those people are single. Good looking people take on lovers and file for divorce in order to marry them. The ugly and/or ones with significant baggage get dumped and join groups.

Still, that shouldn't prevent nice, attractive Christian singles from meeting each other, should it? I mean, there are plenty of other avenues, aren't there? Indeed, there are. There are Christian conferences, festivals, galas and shindigs of all sorts. There are Christian bookstores to hang out in, Christian rock concerts to go to, and Christian Bible Colleges to attend. (In fact, the joke at any Bible College is, “A ring by spring, or your money back!”) Isn't all this enough?

The answer is, no. The reason for this is because these things are just fine if you want to meet someone who is really serious about his/her religion. And let’s face it, if you’re male and serious about your religion, you’re a hot commodity. Single fundamentalist women outnumber single fundamentalist men by a significant margin. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but the number might be as high as a 5 to 4 female to male ratio. For Christian women, that’s bad news. For atheist men, that’s a statement in itself – we unbelieving males are turning down an awful lot of potential hoochie by rejecting your silly, little creed! (You’d think people would realize that we’re damned serious about it.) But for Christian men, that might be good news. Can’t a man name his own ticket in such a target-rich environment?

Well, no, that’s a problem, too. You see, the main problem with church dating is that it leads to inter-congregational politics and gossiping. If a Christian man wants to date a particular Christian woman, he’d better pick right the first time, or else all her Christian friends at that church are going to write him off. And if he dares date more than one, he gets pegged as “that type of guy.” If he dates only one different Christian woman per year, and it doesn't involve sex, that might seem to be prudish, but the gossip-mill among the Christian women is, “He dated three different women in three years! Don’t go out with him.” That’s totally unfair to the poor guy, but that’s the reality of it. And if it’s a big church, the effect is even more devastating – all those extra women are now denied to him. Bigger isn't necessarily better.

For the single Christian women, a reverse effect takes hold. The other single women notice a newly single guy attending the service. He immediately tries to date the cutest of the single ones available. The date is a dud, and the guy is politically out of luck. But when the other women see the pretty one getting rejected, they say to themselves, “Well, geez, if even SHE can’t get a husband, what chance have I got?” Despair settles in for both sexes.

As such, Christian men often decide not to bother dating women who go to their own church, especially after they've been burned by the experience once or twice. They turn to other outlets, and there are many. The women, in turn, decide to turn to other outlets, too. This causes more men to do the same, which causes more women to do the same, and before you know it, none of the single people in church are dating each other. For them, that’s just as well. When they’re at church, they’d just as soon concentrate on The Lord. It seems inappropriate to go to church and be constantly thinking about the woman or man over in the next aisle. That’s not just sinful, it’s distracting!

So, it seems that if a seriously Christian woman wants to get married, she’s better off meeting a guy who belongs to another church. Either that, or one who is Christian, but isn't quite so rabid a fan club member. Certainly, there are a few women out there who try (literally!) to be “sluts for Jesus,” using her, um attributes to bring men to The Lord. (They call it “gal-vation.”) For other women, they might decide to trade their sexual favors for religious influence only after the fact, and only for a more moderately religious male. (More on that, later.) For many Christian women, aiming for a moderately Christian male makes more sense. He’s serious enough to appreciate her faith, but not serious enough to cause her any inter-congregational headaches. Also, there are a LOT more men available to her that way! But where can she find such a man? For that matter, where can the men who have been burned by church-dating go to find other women outside their particular clique?

Enter online dating! It’s been around for decades, and seems to work fairly well as a solution. Christians select “Christian” as their religious preference, and manage to weed out all the prospective mates who don’t meet that criteria.

Or do they? The Internet is a treacherous place, and with women outnumbering men in the fundamentalist department, many “players” find themselves in a plentiful harvest field. They put up their profile, pretend at religion, then lure some nice, Christian lady into a few dates, and then into bed. For a Christian woman, finding herself in a situation where the man wants sex before marriage when she does not is disturbing. But she’s caught between a rock and a hard erection. If she stands by her principles, she saves her honor but dies a spinster. If she compromises, she’s a secret slut, but finally gets herself a husband. For most such women, the secret slut option is the better of two evils, plus it finally has the benefit of letting her get her rocks off. His too. Every once in a long while, this tactic works. But typically, the man finds some excuse to leave, and then she’s been screwed twice. It’s understandable that she might be frustrated.

For men, the experience is somewhat different. They go online hoping to find a nice, Christian woman, and inevitably get at least one “hit” from a remarkably pretty girl who is (I so hate this term) “spiritual but non-religious,” whatever the hell that means. He’s smitten by her, and they might even end up getting into bed, but when he proves to be much more serious about religion than she is, or argue about politics, planned parenthood, or some other such difference of opinion, she dumps him, and he is devastated, knowing that he’ll likely never score that high on the girlfriend scale again.

The semi-solution? Christian Mingle! Because it loudly advertises a “Christians only” type of message, it wards off the casual people on the faith-scale. It also is more serious about dumping the “players” from the roster list. One complaint from a Christian woman, and the guy’s membership is canceled. For the guys, it means that every pretty woman they see is his type, and that means the world to him.

So! Happily Ever After? Not a chance! Oh, this solution will have a benefit, and it will help bring more Christian babies into the world (which is the most effective method of evangelizing – always has been), but even this will eventually fail. It doesn't ward off the serious fake Christians who are players - it attracts them!

All this is only half the point. You see, Christianity is dying. Part of the reason why Christian Mingle is such a successful business is because the number of available single Christians is getting smaller and smaller all the time. In our grandfathers’ era, one did not dare even marry a Lutheran if one were Catholic, or a Presbyterian if one were Baptist, etc., etc. But today, Christians are blissfully grateful just to find another Christian to marry, and to hell with denominational affiliation! The endorsed evangelicalism of the Christian Media Empire is pretty much becoming the de facto denomination of all America anyway.  Today, evangelicals have fallen to less than 50% of the nation’s populace. Not coincidentally, conservatives lost with a vote of 47%. This downward trend will continue. That’s good news for Christian Mingle, as more people will be willing to pay more for their services in seeking a commodity which is becoming rarer and rarer. But it’s bad news for Christianity as a whole.

I have a unique perspective in all this. As an ex-Christian, I have observed much of this first hand. The rest I have been able to glean from Christian magazine articles and blog entries. As an atheist, I am able to observe all this without bias. For the same reason, I am also able to laugh my ass off at the whole thing. But I stop laughing when I remember that there is yet one more reason for Christian Mingle to exist. Namely, the intense desire of the Christian community do wall itself off from anything secular. Any online dating service will have a feature which lets Christians match only with other Christians, but even this isn't enough. Today’s Jesus Freaks don’t even want to encounter the same electrons as non-religious people. Thus, to avoid “secular cooties,” they set up their own singles website, and thus thicken the plastic bubble they dwell in.

As an example, I need only point to any Christian bookstore where mountains of products are sold to insulate the Faithful from Satan’s temptations. There are Christian games, Christian movies, Christian rock artists, Christian action figures, Christian children’s shows… the list goes on and on. My head hangs in utter disgust when I see something like “Bibleman” hanging on such a store’s display hook. I simply cannot fathom how someone can actually spend money on something like that.

Christian Mingle is not as silly as "Bibleman," but it's done for exactly the same purpose. And as any Christian bookstore owner will tell you, fundies will buy anything!


Eric

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REVOLUTIOOOOON!!!!

The number one reason we hear from the National Rifle Association about why we need assault rifles is that, should the government become oppressive, and take away our rights, we need the ability to revolt against said government, and remove it from power.

Now's  your chance! NOW!

Yes, now's the time when the revolution you've been hoarding your gun for has arrived! Now is the time when you must aim your gun at every Republican who wants to take the majority vote away, and SHOOT TO KILL!

No, no! PLEASE don't kill anyone based on what I'm saying! I only espouse defensive weapons. But my logical point is sound. If an oppressive government is the reason for assault rifles, then there should not be a single assault rifle not fired at this point! Hey, YOUR standard, not mine!

Oh, you think I'm KIDDING? Well, I'm only using YOUR OWN rhetoric - the one you've been using for YEARS, where you have said, over and over again, that if the government attempts to thwart the people's voting rights, that it's time for the people to rise up and strike back at the oppressors.

Well, the Republican Party is now saying that it wants to extend gerrymandering - a form of (what goddamned SHOULD be) illegal vote-tampering that has been inexplicably in existence for 200 years - to permanently affect the election of our next President of the United States.

Yeah? Well, some of us believe that the majority vote matters!

HERE! NOW! THIS IS YOUR CHANCE FOR YOU NRA MEMBERS TO DEMONSTRATE WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN!  This is your opportunity to show that you mean what you say - that you want guns, not just for the sake of shooting people you don't like, but for the sake of PROTECTING AMERICA!!!!

Do you? Do you  care about America? Then you have NO CHOICE, if you are an NRA member, but to point your gun at EVERY REPUBLICAN WHO ESPOUSES THE MAD DOCTRINE OF GERRYMANDERING THE PRESIDENCY and, IF, they don't reform, PULLING THE TRIGGER!!!

No, I don't want you to actually pull the trigger. But I DO want you to aim the barrel at their heads! If you fought for the right to have a barrel to aim with, that was the whole point of why you wanted it, RIGHT?!

And if you don't back up your words WITH YOUR OWN STANDARDS, then everything you say is nothing more than piss in the wind!

No, this is not the same, mad hypocrisy of stupid fuckers like Ted Nugent. Ted's (oddly uncharacteristic) stupidity rests only on a hatred of Socialism, assuming that Barack Obama espoused such, which he clearly does not. (What, you Republicans want him to change parties? He's practically a Republican already!) But this time, the Republican party has openly, and brazenly, said that they intend to take away the majority vote and hand it to their own minority, just so that they don't have to deal with the realities of a secular, insured, more realistic world.

This is not just naked evil. This is naked evil, with a long, strong hard-on, shouting to the world, "We intend to RAPE democracy until she screams for mercy!"

Fucking really?! Well, FUCK YOU TOO! AND FUCK THE IMAGINARY UNICORN YOU RODE IN  ON!!!

IF YOU ARE AN NRA MEMBER, NOW IS YOUR TIME!!! SHOOT NOW, OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE!!!!


(Excuse me while I catch my breath!)


Eric

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