Today’s scuba-dive to Townhall.com scooped up Ms. Katie Kieffer, a "conservative multimedia personality, writer and public speaker." In today's feature she offers her cogent and deeply-moving opinions on theology and its symbiosis with late capitalism.
I contend that if you profess to believe in gravity, you must also embrace practical, comfortable foot-wear (reasonably priced, of course).
I contend that if you profess to believe in God, you must also embrace capitalism.
Lately, many religious shepherds are abandoning reason in favor of sentiment. Catholic nuns are joining Occupy Wall Street revelers, like zombies witnessing to rapturous fans. Meanwhile, Jewish activist and commentator Jake Goodman is hailing the Manhattan demonstration (which includes numerous blatantly anti-Semitic protesters) as a group of people ‘philanthropizing [sic.] with their feet.
Hello, we are Sisters from the Scared Order of the Immaculate Brains. In order to fulfill our philanthropic mission, do consider donating to our sensible, reasonably-priced footwear fund. Also, kindly consider donating your brains for lunch, as we are very hungry.
If you believe that God created the universe, then you must assume that he wanted man to live differently from animals. Otherwise, man would not have reason. Upon realizing that reason both defines and differentiates man, wouldn’t you set logic―not sensation―as the moral compass for human activity? Or would you “shepherd the flock” by encouraging young people to bully job creators, embrace sloth, strut topless in Manhattan and openly mate in parks?[I thought the strutting, topless sloths were were driven out of New York when Giuliani cleaned up Times Square, and shut down all the Xenarthran peep shows.--ed.]
"Yeah? You like that? Is that what you want? You can see more baby, but it's gonna cost you..."
Squirrels scamper about and get frisky in public parks. Squirrels are also feral; they will never cultivate the land, own property, develop iPhones or create a monetary system. I think humans who reject reason by acting like squirrels have no business preaching about God.
Hate to break the news but there are no more squirrels in Zuccotti Park (B'way & Liberty St.) The topless, licentious zombie nun convocations have slaughtered the entire squirrel population of the financial district, tossing the once-scampering, frisky and now brainless squirrel corpses onto the trash-heap where they shall burn in Hell for eternity. (And just as they were on the cusp of figuring out a fiat currency based on acorns.)
I find that atheists admit the metaphysical more than progressives who claim to believe in God. For, atheists revere reason while progressive “believers” adore emotion: They shop around until they find a church that washes them mindless with foolishly sentimental and entertaining services. They make themselves feel charitable by marching two-by-two past wealthy residences in midtown Manhattan with signs like “No Billionaire Left Behind.” They interpret the eighth commandment that God gave to Moses as: ‘Thou shalt share.’ ”
Thank you, Ms. Kieffer; as an atheist I like the occasional acknowledgment that I'm on the side of reason. And no better method to be “washed mindless” than by topless zombie nuns who mate in public with the sentimentally-inclined, whilst playing whack-a-mole for squirrel brains. (Actually, Ms. Kieffer, those are “Manhattan” squirrels, i.e., rats. But they’re every bit as frisky and feral, as well as cute.)
Now, dear readers, before continuing take a deep breath. Don’t hyperventilate, mind, but do get some extra oxygen.
Aristotelian philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas contends that all men are governed by a natural law that is rooted in reason, not emotion. He argues thus in his Treatise on Law [ed. Summa Theologica]: ‘As, in man, reason rules and commands the other powers, so all the natural inclinations belonging to the other powers must needs be directed according to reason. Wherefore it is universally right for all men, that all their inclinations should be directed according to reason.’
Capitalism acknowledges reason and natural law whereas socialism denies natural law. By reason, we know that we have the right to own private property and the fruits of our labor. Capitalism is rational because it allows you to keep the fruits of your labor.
As John Locke points out, reason tells you that you own your body. No one else owns your body―not your neighbors, your family or the government. If you use your body to till the land and make it useful by growing wheat, then logic tells you that you own the land and any profits from the wheat, not the hungry passerby who comes across the land and steals the wheat that you grew.
Mr. Locke also implies by reason that you own your brains. No derelict undead nun may demand you surrender them. Your brains are your property. (Shotgun to the head is all that works in this scenario.)
But, Ms. K, you and your ancestors didn’t exactly use your own bodies to till the land and make it useful, did you? You used other people’s bodies ... either from the workhouse of indentured servitude or outright slavery ... to till that land. In the rare instance where you tried to till it you ended up like Ty Ty Walden in God’s Little Acre, digging ditches all over the place to grab grandpa’s buried treasure.
Rational men glorify God just as glowing candles glorify a candlestick maker; men must behave rationally in order to completely function and prosper―just as candles must hold a flame in order to fulfill their purpose of brightening a room. Said differently, a man that acts like an animal must be as disappointing to his maker as a candle that cannot hold a flame.
So, as you have stated, Atheists: 1; Believers: nill. Ms. Kieffer, what on earth are you smoking?
37 comments:
Squirrels are also feral; they will never cultivate the land, own property, develop iPhones or create a monetary system. I think humans who reject reason by acting like squirrels have no business preaching about God.
Squirrels are also rodents and they come in many colors such as gray and brown. They forage by day and sleep at night. Their favorite foods are nuts and berries. Last summer, I saw a squirrel and it was cute but my mother said it was probably rabid.
By Katie
For Mrs. Kotter's Grade 3 Science Class
I see that Katie has a blog. It's all the usual Randian, College Republican, rabid Coulter-wannabee stuff. But this line in her bio takes dirty-word asteriskism to a whole new level:
Katie graduated Summa *** Laude from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy.
Mirabile ***tu, in flagrante de***to.
atheists revere reason while progressive “believers” adore emotion: They shop around until they find a church that washes them mindless with foolishly sentimental and entertaining services.
I fail to see the difference. I'm an atheist who never missed weekly services at the local baptist church in my college days for the simple reason that the Hammond B3 player they had backing the choir had the best chops of any I'd seen. Stole his licks I did!
There, see, reasonable and entertaining.
Incidentally, I'm an atheist, and a liberal, and just because Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich managed, in the nineties, to convince America it was a bad thing to be, I didn't feel compelled to wimp out and start calling myself a "progressive." FEH!
Would I encourage "young people to ... strut topless in Manhattan and openly mate in parks?"
That depends Katie. What do they look like? I do have some standards after all.
"No one else owns your body―not your neighbors, your family or the government."
Unless you are pregnant - then all your body are belong to us
Ahhh, so THAT'S what becomes of "philosophy" majors who can't parlay that accrued "wisdom" into a teaching gig, even at a community college!!! Well, you'd prolly have to have more than a correspondence-course bachelor's to get a teaching gig, unless you become a perennial grad student who may or may not ever actually get a master's. Methinks that Katie-Bell would NEVER pass the boards required to get INTO grad school... do they even have L-SATs or M-CATs for philosophy flakes?
Yeah, I'm a Liberal Arts "Art Fag" ma damned self, and proud of it, but fer fuck's sake, *I* was trying to GET A ***JOB***, not AVOID one!!! Would you like fries with that?
Kudos as per the usual to Stacia for an astute and divinely-sharp encapsulation of the entirety of Katie-Bell's idiocy.
Porofatto: If we threw a book-burning, do you think that Katie-Bell would CUM???
Vosburg, punkin', I just hadda go vote @ The New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary where my grandfather graduated after college @ the original Centenary, waaaayyyy back when, and I gotta tellya, for a hall-full of older black ladies, there was the typical baptists' lack of rhythm, UNIVERSALLY. Not even so much as a glory effusement when I lamented the fact that NOBODY, not even James The Skeletor Terminator Carville, had bothered to find us an ACTUAL Democratic challenger to defeat the lizard-king-wannabe dickwad, Piyush Bobby-Brady-wannabe Jindal. Methinks that your much-appreciated organ-meister might've been smoking a little ecumenical-plus incense up there in the loft.
(TRUNCATED YET AGAIN, THE FUCKS!!!)
(Continued, with a Super-Secret Derek Flint Code Word of "capollis" --- any interpretations?)
Yeah, yeah, even the faintest whiff of cathlick affectations such as incense would've incited a baptist lynch-mob, especially if they were stuck-up-bigot-Dixiecrat motherfuckers from The Southern Baptist Convention, and even MORESO if they were FIRST Baptists... but mebbe ya boy had a proto-Dirt Devil handy-vac to suck-up the fumes...
Mozart: Where in the hell is YOUR sense of adventure?!?! Sounds like your aesthetics are awfully snotty there, son...
And Scripto, dear heart, PUH-HUH-HUH-LEEEASE forward that comment to the head of the SBC, the Crystal Cathedral, that freak Ted Haggard's cult in Colorado, his "sister"-church in Baton Rouge, LA, the BETHANY Empire owned & run by the creepiest-closet-case-aspiring-to-reptilian freak this side of Swaggart hisself, Larry Stockstill. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!! Fuck, if you can carve it into Rick Sanctorum's forehead with a very dull chisel, I'll buy the gas money!!!!!!
Good job, Keith, nothing to criticize or add except that you must have the intestinal fortitude of a billygoat, to have survived ingesting THIS much shrapnel, horseshit and utter GARBAGE from a 12-year-old trust-fund bitch who loses her panties in every club on the upper East Side. Sorry, didn't mean to incite Olsen-Twins-style pedophilic imagery there, but face it, any stupid skank who tries THIS hard to be taken "seriously" when she's a light bulb short of her Easy-Bake Oven has GOT to be snorting lines of only the BEST cocaine off of the pert and rock-hard asses of half the gay guys in Manhattan, whilst being passed-around amongst the allegedly-hetero frat boys who'll never marry her nasty little bottle-blonde brazilianed ass.
Secret word? Some sprunt-type products that Katie-Bell* obviously needs after every C-PAC convention in her bedroom: "masingis."
(*Katie-Bell is the BIRTH name of the world's snottiest, meanest, most-uppity hillbilly bitch who ever lived, my Nannie's much-elder sister whose 1970s face lift didn't last as long as Carter's presidency. Being the proto-social-climber from hell, she had it printed on her college degrees as "Katherine," when we all knew damned well that her real-live First Depression dirt-farmer name was KATIE-BELL!!!!!! When she'd drive my poor, saintly Papa batshit with her daily abuse {how DARE he "steal" HER little sister from her!}, he'd just smile that slow, wide, devious smile, eyes all crinkly, and say, "Yessss, Katie-Bell, darlin'..." Sent her flying back to her belfry on fumes of pure rage and followed by Papa's infectious and loud laughter.)
Light bulb not bright enough for an Easy Bake Oven!
You read it first here, Folks. Or at least, I did.
A BA in Philosophy! Very hard to believe after reading her turgid cow-plop of an essay. Being able to quote other (great) philosophers. I tried to study philosophy in early college... it literally put me to sleep. Could not read more than a few pages before dozing off.
-er, left the end of my 3rd sentence: Being able to quote other philosophers does not make one a philosopher, or smart. She's now in my private contest for most "Otto-like" commenter on the internet.
As John Locke points out, reason tells you that you own your body. No one else owns your body―not your neighbors, your family or the government.
She's pro-choice then?
KW, honey --- it comforts me greatly that I am not the only person who dropped sophomore-level prerequisite-ONLY "philosophy." Mine was 'taught,' to use the word VERY kindly, by a woman, I shit you not, named, legally and literally, "DOCTOR *LOVE*"!!!!!! Bitch needed a HOBBY.
Talk about a light-bulb shy of an Easy-Bake oven... sheeesh.
Fuckin' tags, gawdlessdamned fucking sandbag me every fucking time.
And is the super-secret decoder-ring word "bowness" anything like Loch Ness?
you own the land and any profits from the wheat, not the hungry passerby who comes across the land and steals the wheat that you grew.
Sure, Leviticus specifically says that part of your harvest should be left for the poor and the passerby but God probably changed his mind about that. After all, the only person in the New Testament who took grain from a field as he passed by was crucified soon after. You can't get a clearer lesson than that.
@ Mojo: dammit! Beat me to it.
@R. Porrofatto: Gawdammit, that is some stupid shit right there. And let me add, that I HATE THAT USAGE! "Cum" is, as we all here know, Latin of the highest pedigree. The word that people need to use is "come", dammit! As in "come to orgasm". The usage of "cum" leads to such gibberish as "I cummed so hard" which, if I had MY way, would result in an immediate 6-month orgasm penalty. (Whether that means "6 months with no orgasms" or a "6 month long orgasm" would be left to judicial discretion).
Come on, Mojo!
Since when has a ^Christian^ ever paid attention to any of Leviticus except for the anti-gay bits?
http://tinyurl.com/3ctru37
And no better method to be “washed mindless” than by topless zombie nuns who mate in public with the sentimentally-inclined, whilst playing whack-a-mole for squirrel brains.
I would watch that movie.
Also, given that a squirrel tried to eat my house, I would cheer the nuns.
Your brains are your property.
And I am here to repossess them.
Well, readers, these are some serious comments.
I might have gone on about Thomas Aquinas and his theory of "Just War," which wouldn't really jibe with a war prosecuted on false evidence, against a country which did us no harm. That would have taken another paragraph or two. Nor did I bring up John Locke's trade in slavery (though alluded), because he wasn't alone in this occupation. (I've read Locke but prefer David Hume). Again, this is the weekend and we want zippy copy here. Easy to digest.
Thank you for your comments:
Stacia -- you were the first to comment and nailed it pronto. So succinct. It boggles the mind.
Thank you, R. Porrofatto, for pointing me in the direction of Katie's blog, and also revealing she has some sort of degree in Philosophy. I refused to believe they would actually asterisk-out the offending word.
Chris Vosburg: Yes, those Hammond B3s were the terrific. We'll forgive you for going to church to rock that shit! I did the same thing (Southern Baptist).
Comment Deleted: Sorry I missed it. Scott deleted it, not me. I've been working this afternoon.
LOL Anntichrist: one bulb short of Easy-Bake will become part of my vocabulary. (And do get in touch with me if you wish).
To Mojo & Lancelot Link: your comments re: Leviticus were very insightful. Thank you.
zombie rotten mcdonald: my brains have already been repo'ed. That is why I am writing for WOC.
Again, thank you all for expressing interest. Being included in the roster of "World O' Crap" contributors is a bit like receiving an honorary degree in ... er? ... "Craptology." It's almost like eating shit, but we pretend it's peanut butter. Goes down a lot easier.
Regards,
Keith
I want to thank all the readers who were so moved to leave comments. I wrote a special dedication to each commenter but somehow it has vanished in comment-land.
It's the weekend so we want zippy copy, easy to digest. I might have gone on a bit about Thomas, his theory of "Just War" and how it doesn't jibe with the Iraq 9-year cluster-fuck prosecuted under false pretenses against an enemy that did our country no harm. But that would have taken another two paragraphs. Or another paragraph to delve into John Locke's personal involvement in the slave trade, but it's implied.
Being included in the roster of "World O'Crap" contributors is a bit like receiving an honorary degree in ... mmm ... "Craptology." Somewhat like eating shit, but if you pretend it's peanut butter then it goes down a lot easier.
Regards,
Keith
Well,Keith, what I admire about your triumphant swan-dive into and return from the Katie sump is the way you not only navigated through her tumultuous silliness without going nuts, but managed to enter into the spirit of deranged argument and at the same time be funny and pointed.
I guess she drags Aquinas into it because she thinks she's being logical. Reason tells you this and reason tells you that. Too bad about the sizeable non-rational part of human behavior; how cum, excusetheexpressionBrianSchlosserandactuallyIagreewithyou, God doesn't do something about that obvious flaw in His original blueprints? How about juicing up the evolutionary engine and introducing a few improvements, o Almighty One? Sooner would be better than later.
Annti, a very belated Happy Birthday, hon, and you'll be glad to know that Bowness is a real place somewhere in Great Britain. It's a promontory of some kind, bravely fronting the spume of the North Sea, IIRC. Just like you, except for the geography.
Keith writes: I've read Locke but prefer David Hume
Like several of those above, I'm not a big fan of philosophers' prose works-- just too freaking dense and introspective.
And therein lies a tale: (sorry for the length, but I tell ya, there's a great punchline).
Back in the days before the internet rose to take over the earth, there were local BBSs to phone into at 1200baud with forums to post and comment to, and in one political forum in '94, a conservative numbskull kept trying to get me to "put aside my prejudices" and read a ridiculous book by a fella who claimed insider knowledge of all the coke Clinton was flying in and out of Arkansas, or something.
That'd be "Clinton, Bush, and the CIA" by Terry Reed, and the numbskull finally told me he'd make a deal: he'd agree to read any book of my choosing if I'd read the Terry Reed book, and I saw a chance to hurt him, Bad.
I scored the book through the interlibrary loan program (they had to haul it into L.A. from Riverside, I think), and endured the scorning look of the librarian as i checked it out, and then actually read the silly thing. According to Terry, he was on the lam from a possession with intent to sell bust because Clinton set him up, etc., etc., it went on and on. Finally I finished the mess, and got what I'd come for:
I told numbskull he had to read The Collected Essays of David Hume. It was like six hundred pages I think.
He tried to beg off, airily saying he couldn't find it at "the bookstore" (no surprise there, it'd been out of print for decades), but I wouldn't let him off, giving him full instruction on the the purpose and use of the Public Library System.
Finally he had it, and a couple days later posted to the BBS that he "was about three-quarters of the way through it and really liked it," like philosophy essays are light summer beach reading you can blow through in an hour or two.
Everyone on the BBS laughed for weeks.
Chuckle! I'm laughing now!
He must have profoundly misjudged you, Chris, if he actually thought you'd buy that.
You might like to look at this: http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=31
I enjoy philosophy when I'm able to actually get to the meat of whatever the philosopher is saying.
But the ones I was assigned spent page after page after pag jabbering on about semantics, redefining words (I recall in particular the words "deduce" & "induce" were given different meanings than the dictionary ones.) So I realized that if I skipped the deadly dull lead-in or forward explanations, I would quite possibly get the exact notion of what the philosopher was trying to say.
So I guess I'll stick with clever quotes from Star Treck, useful for all occasions, including arguing with conservatards.
... exact OPPOSITE notion of what the philosopher was saying.
The only philosopher I find a breeze to read is Bertrand Russel, whom I highly recommend as an antidote to all that post-modern and extra-heavy stuff.YMMV
Suezboo
I wonder if anybody told Jerusalem Slim that he got it all wrong with that socialistic-ky crap....
"If you use your body to till the land and make it useful by growing wheat, then logic tells you that you own the land and any profits from the wheat"
What in the hell has this to do with modern capitalism? Does Kattie believes that the "land is for those who labor it"?? Then she should ask for an Agrarian Reform NOW! (and don't mind the factories, etc)
Thomas Aquinas? Huh. I have heard that name. Where was it...oh! Now I remember how I found out all of what I know about Thomas Aquinas. It was on Buffy, Season 4, "Beer Bad":
***
Guy#4: Well, Thomas Aquinas and (all the other guys stop him saying "NO!")
Guy #2: There will be no Thomas Aquinas at this table.
Guy#3: Keep your theology of providence to yourself, frat boy.
Guy#4: I was just drawing a parallel between...
***
(See, they were drunk and expounding on the beingness or whatever of beer. Which is good and foamy.)
Slightly translated-for-accuracy Katie Kieffer: Capitalism is rational because it allows you^W the capitalists to keep the fruits of your labor.
So whaddaya think Katie gets in return for writing essays and never, ever admitting that little fact? A couple of bucks? Promises of wingnut welfare yet to come? A pat on the head and the assurance that if she keeps it up she could be something really special - the next Jonah Goldberg?
Keith writes: We'll forgive you for going to church to rock that shit! I did the same thing (Southern Baptist).
A last add on the role of the church in the formative years of future musicians and my regard for religion in general:
Back when I was a yoot, in the handful of garage bands I played in I never sang; I simply couldn't, and admired the guys that could.
The guys that could, our leadsingers, as the Dutch call them, I imagined it was something they were born with, an innate ability. Ah, I wish I had been born with a voice like that, I'd say.
Finally, I noticed a simple correlation: turned out that every one of the guys (and girls-- I'm looking at you, Janis Joplin) I admired for singing talent had developed their chops through long years in a church choir at a very early age. Every single one.
Dunce though I am, I finally got it: singing is a skill. The pipes themselves, well, you may have a pennywhistle or you may have a french horn, or both, buried in your vocal cords, but it is an instrument like any other, and playing it benefits from training and long practice.
And so I say, speaking as an atheist, God bless the church for that training. Pretty good at art and architecture too. I guess, pollyanna that I am, I just wanted to cheerfully say that amid the dogmatic extermination of infidels perpetrated from time to time by these various religions, the church is good for something (you'll notice I don't bother to specify denomination-- I just don't know enough about it). See, I don't hate religion; indeed, much good can be found in it.
And a last, last add, from "V for Vendetta":
Evey Hammond: What is that?
Gordon Deitrich: It's a copy of the Koran, 14th century.
Evey Hammond: Are you a muslim?
Gordon Deitrich: No, I'm in television.
Evey Hammond: [laughs] But why would you keep it?
Gordon Deitrich: I don't have to be muslim to find the images beautiful or its poetry moving.
And yes, I finally learned to sing (to the extent that I do not cringe to hear it on playback, anyway).
Last, last last add:
Ladies and gentlemen, Ann Coulter, with an alternative view:
I'm a Christian first, and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it.
Yes, she did say it, shooting for self-deprecating humor perhaps, but inadvertently, as is so often the case with Ann, hitting the nail soundly on the head.
What is the word that describes deafness with regard to or lack of awareness of self?
Ms. Kieffer's a cute little thing (blonde, of course--what Republican woman isn't? Oh--sorry about that, Kathryn Jean Lopez...) Too bad there isn't any sense in her pretty little head--oh, well, par for the course in Wingnut-land.....
She forgot to complete the sentence:
“If you use your body to till the land and make it useful by growing wheat, then logic tells you that you own the land and any profits from the wheat, not the hungry passerby who comes across the land and steals the wheat that you grew [on the land your predecessors stole by gunpoint or treaty violation from the Native Americans]."
But then by her logic, the sharecroppers and tenant farmers (who used their bodies to till the land and make it useful by growing wheat) actually own the land, not the landlord ! Another round of reparations for African-Americans !
True, Anonymous, but before the reparations for 400 years of slavery, what about the ongoing-to-this-day genocide of the Indians? (Most I know prefer it to "Native Americans" since they were here BEFORE Amerigo Vespucci, Columbus or even Leif Ericson!)
Not just talking about the smallpox-infested blankets, the slavery of alcoholism, the batshit-crazy proto-Hitlers like Sherman & Andrew Jackson who vowed to "rid ths xian land" from the "scourge" of the "uncivilized ANIMALS" known as Injuns... From day fucking one, 'round about Massapequa & Plymouth Rock, the damned Indians were too fucking TOURIST & CONVENTIONERS' BUREAU, and FED the imminent-domain motherfuckers, and THEY NEVER FUCKING LEFT!!!!!!
Calculate the rent on THAT, as well as the horrendous desecration of the Black Hills to carve graven images of them thar "gawd-fearing" fellers who obviously didn't read the Old Testament when the blasting caps destroyed centuries of Indian culture.
And just like women in slavery were raped (even if they "loved" their two-family masters, it'll NEVER be "CONSENSUAL" when she's a PRISONER OF WAR!!!) and forced to raise the unclaimed spawn of the dirty old white men, imagine how many Indian girls, pre-pubescent and younger, who were raped by "good whaaaaat xian soldiers" who were "civilizing the West" during "The Indian Wars."
I could go on and on, but y'all already know all of this shit. Since I was kinda splattered in a horrendous wreck today, I'ma shaddup for now. VOSBURG, you insolent sheeeet, I shall deal with YOU later.
"As John Locke points out, reason tells you that you own your body. No one else owns your body―not your neighbors, your family or the government."
Um...actually, the people she hangs out with don't believe this at all - especially with respect to women and their bodies. Just sayin'
(Actually, Ms. Kieffer, those are “Manhattan” squirrels, i.e., rats. But they’re every bit as frisky and feral, as well as cute.)
I must object. Manhattan has two types of squirrels: Day Squirrels, who are squirrels, and who are also cute and like to beg for food from tourists while standing in the tourists' laps and holding their hands; and Night Squirrels, who are rats.
Ah, the sqvirrels of the night...what music they make!
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