Another prominent Christian Right leader has been Vittered. The amusingly named Coy Privette, described as a "conservative lawmaker and outspoken advocate for Christian groups," has been caught with his privettes where they shouldn't be. The 74-year-old — and that alone is enough to kick the eewwww! factor into overdrive, kids — has been paying a disturbingly mannish looking prostitute for sex, and apparently lacking the sense not to give her a blank check. For those of you who think your battle-hardened stomachs can take anything, just be glad we can't show you photos of the happy couple. There was a link here originally, but it's since expired.
Like most sexual hypocrites among the fanatically religious, Privette had racked up an impressive history of passing laws punishing others for their misbehaviors, presumably as a way of assuaging feelings of guilt over his own. Or maybe, as with Vitter, God was always on hand for that helpful brand of insta-forgiveness right-wing Christian politicians seem to get so easily. In any case, even God can't spare this holy fool from the harsh spotlight of embarrassment in the media. How many of these cretins are going to have to go down before people see through their righteous lies?
This may be a huge "DUH!" on my part--but I just clued into something:
ReplyDelete>Privette had racked up an impressive history of passing laws punishing others for their misbehaviors, presumably as a way of assuaging feelings of guilt over his own.
I once had a friend who said something like: People who behave the most self-righteously are the worst hypocrites.
I used to think that people who had the fire and brimstone view--punish everyone harshly for every misstep--might have a holier-than-thou attitude because they didn't understand others. In other words, if I'm not an alcoholic, it's easy for me to be hard on an alcoholic and say he just doesn't excercise adequate will power. Whereas, someone who has dealt with alcoholism might be more sympathetic to the struggle.
However, there is another perspective as well--where a person maybe alters something about themselves, and they despises the thing they altered. For example, you have a drug addict who gets out of drugs and then launches a rampage against drug use--thinking that anyone who uses drugs will fall into the same problems as they did; basically, they lack the capacity to view others as different. They have a narrow view of everyone as having the same weaknesses and perspectives as they do.
When this happens, they don't really hear others. When X says "I sometimes do drugs, but I don't think I have a problem," (and X truly doesn't have a problem), the person with the past addiction who can't perceive that others might be different, will only hear "excuses"; to this person, X has the same problems they did with drugs--but X won't admit it.
I think this is where all the excuses come from with apologists: You're an atheist because you hate god; you're an atheist because you want to be wicked and pretend there's no price to pay for it...etc. It doesn't really occur to them that it's possible we don't interpret the "evidence" as reliable or convincing.
Anyway, with regard to this man--and others like him. I am finally, finally, finally cluing into the reality that they are paranoid about the motivations/behaviors of others, _because_ of--not in spite of--the motivations/behaviors in themselves. They think we have to keep a tight reign on society because if we let them loose, it will be chaos--because he's driven to do all manner of things he believes are "bad"--but has compulsions toward.
It's just like a theif who is paranoid that everyone is out to steal his stuff--because he believes everyone is like him--a thief at heart.
Sorry if that's obvious to everyone else. I'd understood the component parts before--but only just put them together.
If I can't control X, and I assume everyone is just like me--then X becomes socially dangerous in my opinion. It's just a fallacy of limited perspective (limited to oneself).
Ewww! Is an understatement. He's been paying for jollies with a neanderthal...evolution in full effect. =)
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Tracieh -- this is what scares me most about them. These fundie hypocrytes are the ones who keep screaming "if you remove God, people will go out and steal and commit murder and rape kids and dogs!" etc. Which means that they have these urges to do these horrible things and the thought of God spying on them is the only thing keeping them from murdering and stealing and raping kids and dogs.
ReplyDeleteAs many people on this board have said before, then GOOD they believe in God, if that's the only thing keeping them from acting on their sociopathic desires!
I think you have it backwards. I think religion facilitates that kind of behavior. It can provide ready made forgiveness, even justification, and cunning people have often used it for concealment, power grubbing, money grubbing, shelter from the law, etc. (for example Jerry Falwell).
ReplyDeleteI also tend to disbelieve people when they say that if they were suddenly to realize that there is no god that they would begin raping and pillaging whenever they felt like it. I think the percentage of people who would behave like that is extremely small. I agree with tracieh and her friend, "People who behave the most self-righteously are the worst hypocrites." This has been shown to be the case many times with religious fundies. So, their god has not prevented them from behaving atrociously, so what use is their god belief?
For the record, I just rejected a lengthy comment from a Christian which offered up about a zillion Bible verses to make the usual "this guy wasn't a True Christian" argument. Which is fundamentally irrelevant. It's a common ploy among many fundamentalists to think that the bad behavior of Christians can be magically made not to exist by simply declaring the person in question a "false convert" or "not a True Christian".
ReplyDeleteThis is classic goalpost-moving. If it were that easy, then sure, you could paint a world in which there were in fact no Christians anywhere who ever did a bad thing at any time. But then, it would be a world in which all of the "True" Christians could be counted on one hand, with enough fingers left over for a piano solo.
The other reason I rejected the comment (which was anonymous) is that the whole "false convert" argument is exactly the kind of thing we used to hear all the time from a certain troll who's been banned. He must think we're asleep at the wheel here. Of course, it may not have been him, but I prefer to err on the side of common sense.
I think it was because you are afraid of the truth getting out and your blog unraveling before your eyes.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you so afraid of Martin?
Because some guy out there disagrees with you you call him "a certain troll who's been banned."
Isn't that some sort of fallacy anyways? I disagree with you so now you are censoring me also. Where does it end when all of you are drones to the thoughts of the great Martin. Come on are you for real? Anyway it truly was for your eyes to help YOU in your search that maybe you could relate to some of those false convert examples because even though your acting irrational I still care about your soul.
I think it was because you are afraid of the truth getting out and your blog unraveling before your eyes.
ReplyDeleteThat slurping sound you hear are my eyeballs rolling. I had a feeling ol' Anon here was Dan trying to weasel his weaselly his way back in. If it isn't, then it's truly depressing to learn that there's someone else in the world as stupid as Dan.
If our blog unravels, it will be because God's existence is proved by a preponderance of powerful evidence, and not by the ravings of a 4-F certifiable loon who just wants to post 50 Bible verses. Since you've already admitted you don't think you have to provide such evidence (a fairly solid admission that you ain't got any), feel free to get lost.
And that isn't censorship, by the way. Even if this was the kind of blog where anyone who disagreed with us was automatically censored (which, considering I've approved a whole host of your idiotic remarks today, pretty much proves isn't the case), for you to be censored, you have to have something to say first. Wouldn't you?