Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Anchoress

Home
Catholic
“So, Loser, where’s Part III?”

“So, Loser, where’s Part III?”

Last updated on: March 17, 2017 at 6:48 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

“So, Loser, where’s Part III?” 2017-03-17T18:48:13+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Part III is partially written (go here and here if you don’t know what I mean) – I got jammed up yesterday and couldn’t finish it, and with the death of the immigration bill I’ll necessarily have to re-think where I wanted to go with it. Some appointments this morning will delay that.

But I can make a quick observation…

Remember when the Democrats won in November, and some of us said, “well, okay, maybe now that they’ve gotten control of the Houses the Left will stop feeling so put-upon and they’ll pull back from that edge of rank, bitter and soul-suffocating hate they’ve been clinging to…maybe they’ll become human again and stop the spitting.”

And remember how surprised and disappointed we were to discover that no, victory not only brought no relief to them in their BDS and their ideological hate, it also brought with it no magnanimity toward the perceived “losers” on the right?

Well…I have to be honest with you: perhaps because some on the BBS Far-Right are quickly evolving into caricatures (or mirror images, I can’t decide) of the BDS Left, – I’m not actually that surprised to see the so-called “winners” in this particular battle acting quite a lot like the Victorious Left of November ’06, with the same classless, infantile (“kiss my white American ass“) and ungracious weirdness.

I hate to use terms like “winners” and “losers” in discussing this – it was a piece of legislation over which there was a difference of opinion – since when have differences of opinion become “take no prisoners” warfare with identified “villains?” We’re all Americans; this splintering off into “us,” “them” and “those guys over there” never sits right with me, but it is useful language, I guess.

“…you just spent three days marginalizing yourself Anchoress, with your Bushbot bleeding heart!”

Have I? I don’t feel marginalized. I feel pretty much the same as I did yesterday and last year, perhaps because I am the same person I was both yesterday and last year (and was never much of a joiner, to start with) so “marginalized” doesn’t sting. If “the majority who actually care about what’s right for this country” are the folks filling my email with victor-bile, then I think I’m doing just fine over here, away from the central broth of boiling rage in which those folks have decided they like to swim. I’ll just stay here on the edge and keep splashing with my toes while I watch the bubbling. Maybe I’ll chew some gum.

“…bet you feel like a fool now…”

Well, no, I don’t. Part of me is proud of what I’ve written in the past few days, and of how the folks from “both sides” (the “America-loving Conservatives” vs the “RINO cowards and crybabies”) managed to comport themselves in the comments section. I think when all is said and done, we elevated the discussion – moved it beyond the bitchfest, beyond the grousing-and-name-calling sort of mental masturbation that heaves and jerks but never goes anywhere and can be found in all too many places on the internets. We actually talked real ideas, real possibilities, real complications and we did it respectfully and maturely and sometimes we even managed to smile at one another in the midst of it. No, I don’t feel foolish. I think we won’t know for a while, yet, who is foolish on this issue and who is not. Roads always turn and zigzag in unexpected ways.

“A pox on you and your children! A pox on the villain el Presidente Jorge and on all the RINO Senators who will be gone next election!“

You know…when I read that I gasped…then I laughed. We’ve corresponded, that writer and I, although not lately, not since she moved into the camp of “better Americans.” Once upon a time her standards precluded that sort of language, and she thought that even a president she disliked, like Bill Clinton, deserved the respect due the Office of the American President, not name-calling. Now she wishes ill on me, my kids and the president.

You do know, don’t you, that wishing my kids ill means you never post here again, right? I don’t flatter myself that it’s any loss to you, but you do know it? I just want to make sure.

Like I said, I’m the same person I was a year ago. Are you? Ask yourself if you’re the same person you were last year, or if you’ve allowed the mob-thinking that spreads so easily (as I can sadly attest – I have not been immune to the lure of jumping on an idea and haranguing others with it) through forum echo chambers to infect you with something powerful and ugly and so hateful and unthinking that it cannot possibly serve a “higher” good? Do you recognize yourself, any more, or is this who you have always been, simply revealed?

I read through some of this pathetic crap and thought: what if it’s all an illusion?

It’s been nagging at me for a while, how this issue – ignored by so many, for so long – not even discussed in ’96, ’98, ’00, ’02 and ’04 – suddenly became a searing flashpoint needing a solution “yesterday” and pulling so many into positions of shrill absolutism, incapable of compromise.

What if it’s all an illusion, just like the Cinco de Mayo “nationwide protests” by Hispanics was an ’06 (election year) illusion that had nothing behind it in ’07 (no elections). What if everyone is being played a little bit, here, being prompted to emotional reactionaryism as a means of reaching into and infecting those Americans of good-will who until the “flashpoint” and the sudden hue-and-cry couldn’t be moved to hate? Moved to grousing, yes, but never before moved to real, unadulterated hate?

Illusionists are clever sorts – they are specialists at making us look at one thing, and convincing us that we know what we are seeing, while they are actually doing something else, entirely. It’s called “misdirection.”

What if the illegal immigration flashpoint was never about immigration at all, but about getting people stirred to “hate.” Who would do that, you ask? Think about it. Who and what does hate serve? What happens to the soul of a nation, when “hate” is the overpowering force driving a majority of people – it doesn’t matter which “side.”

I wrote last year:

Prayer is a force and it is real. I came away from Adoration convinced that we will not defeat the enemy (and on the most fundamental level, the enemy – both within and without – is hate) unless we are willing to use the weapon of real and loving prayer – faithfully, humbly, daily…and did I say humbly…we will not win.

And what is humble prayer? It is not the one that all-too-often tempts us, which runs along the lines of: “Destroy them O Lord, they maketh a blight…” Rather it is the one that seeks mercy and trusts God to handle the justice part – it is, “help us Lord, help us all, begin with me who am so broken and full of fault…”

I read a forum last night wherein a poster made a prayer of thanksgiving offered to God with a sneer toward all those who didn’t have the same opinion as the writer. An awful prayer, offered with such an undertone of disdain and superiority, and I thought…well…Bush did say he was worried about how this was affecting the soul of the nation.

Oh, I forgot, that was “offensive.” How dare the president presume to think he needs to worry about the nation’s soul, when it’s full of Godly men and women who know they’re Right before the Lord? (Do any of us ever really know that? Are any of us so scrupulous in our behavior and in examining our consciences that we know that?) Why, if Bush would just fall in line, they wouldn’t hate anyone! It’s Bush’s fault that they hate.

Some on the Right have been “offended” a lot, lately; they’ve embraced the politics of “hurt feelings and insult” that usually characterizes the Left, and with breathtaking ease. Maybe you’re reading this right now and saying, “damn straight I was; offended and insulted!”

But when you got offended because some charged a racial component to all of this, did you think you’d end up writing the words “kiss my white American ass,” just a few days later, as though your ass being a white American one made it an innately superior sort of ass? Did you think you’d be referring to the president as “Jorge” as though having such a name is a bad thing? When you got offended because the president worried about our national soul, did you think you’d be wishing “a pox” on me and my kids and the American President? Did you think you’d be calling Bush a “villain?”

Think about it, that’s all I’m saying. If a year ago you weren’t hating and now you are, think about it.

As I said, roads can make surprising turns. Things have a way of working out in ways we don’t always anticipate. Already some are looking at this uncontrolled hate and feeling surprising sympathy for Bush, even if they don’t much like him.

In one of the comments sections, igout says:

I don’t know who “us” is anymore. I’d vote for the Dem Dorgan 1000-times before I’d vote for any Republican who aided and abetted this latest attempt to con the people.

Yes…in very short order the force of hate has left us unsure of who we are – and a house divided cannot long stand. My fear is that the fracturing of the center-Right and Right, coupled with the wayward far-left is going to destroy America faster than any desert-running alien ever could.

Who would that serve? Hmmmm….lemmee think.

The next year is going to be interesting as hell.

See also: Sister Toldjah who gives the right an even-handed (far-right and center-right) rebuke, and well done, too!

America

Bush Bad?

Don't try me too high

Election 2008

Illegal Immigration

Why can't weeee be ...

Previous Post

June 7, 2007

Corpus Christi; The Body of Christ, Amen

Next Post

June 9, 2007 A lovely sort of gift

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Revelation say about anyone who adds to the words of the prophecy?

Select your answer to see how you score.

They will be judged God will add to them the plagues described in this scroll They will be cursed They will lose their salvation